Babyloniaca, études de philologie assyro-babylonienne.

SUMERIAN GLOSSES IN ASTROLOGICAL LETTERS

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this added? In order to answer this query it is necessary to consider
the three explanatory remarks found on the reverse of the text. Rev. 1
we read:
qar-nu imitti-gul An-u Di-Rat
which is explained:
9a iq-bu-u-ni ina ga-me-e i-hal-lu-up-ma la in-na-mir i.e. the expression that ( the right horn is An-u Di-Rat n means a in the heavens covered and invisible n. The purpose of the explanatory remark is to make
it clear that the entire clause means that a the right horn (sc. of the
moon) is covered in the heavens,.
Evidently the ideographic writing An-(u) is explained as ina sa-me-e,
and Di-Rat as ihallup from haldpu. The conclusion is, therefore, to be
drawn that Di-Rat represents an ideographic or c" sumerian i, writing
precisely like An-u.
Since -TTTY occurs nowhere in the text itself and since both this
sign and Di-Rat are explained as equivalents to haldpu, it is furthermore clear that DIR with the gloss Di-ir, which represents precisely
the common value of DIR (Briinnow Nr. 3719), refers to Di-Rat.
However we are to explain this a sumerian,) form, there seems so be
no escape from the conclusion that in the mind of the scribe DIR
and Di-Rat are equivalents, both meaning hatdpu. The purpose of the
gloss )i-ir in this case would therefore seem to be in order to explain
the somewhat strange Di-Rat. Have we perhaps in the case of Dir a
i" sumerian,, word which through association with addru I, dark,,2 and
for which the ideograph is likewise tVt was taken over into Babylonian-Assyrian? Di-rat would then be a feminine verbal form to correspond to its subject qarnu which is a feminine noun.3 This would explain
1. Cf. also the gloss to obv. 5 qar-nu i-mit-ti-su sa-mu-u.
2. Cf. BRUNNOW Nr. 3723 and the synonym sdmu ' dark ' (BRUNNOW Nr. 3745);
and note e. g. the name for Mars Lu-Bat Dir i.e. the darkly colored planetregarded as the ' unlucky ' planet par excellence in Babylonian astrology.
3. See THOMPSON'S remark, Reports, vol. II, p. XL. M. VIROLLEAUD also calls
my attention to a-ku-ku-tum.... di-rat in a hymn to Ishtar (K 2001), published
by CRAIG, Assyr. and Babyl. Religious Texts I, P1. 15, col. I, 8. See JASTROW,
Religion Babyl. und Assyriens I, p. 535, where I translated the term ' verwustend?.