Ancient Mesopotamian Divinatory Series from the British Museum: New Texts and Joins

Abstract

This paper contains editions of three previously unpublished omen texts and one commentary text from the collections of the British Museum. BM 36165 and BM 34999 are Late Babylonian manuscripts of Šumma ālu tablet 1 while K 6260 is a join to Šumma izbu tablet 4. BM 47684+ is part of a large Late Babylonian four-column tablet containing a new commentary on physiognomic omens. The edition of these tablets is accompanied by an extensive commentary that discusses the placement of the tablets within the divinatory series, as well as orthographic and interpretative issues.