volume 2

TRANSLATIONS.
I. When the Moon Appears on the First Day of the
Month.
No. 1. When the Moon appears' on the first day, there will be
silence, the land will be satisfied. When the day is long according
to its calculation, there will be a long reign. From BuUutu.
Obv. I. The appearance of the Moon on the first day
indicated that the calendar month began coincident with the
lunar month, and that the day was its proper length.^
Obv. 2. KA.Gi.NA = satidku sa pi (Brunnow, List, No. 6i8).
It is glossed /?/-z^ i-kan in No. 42, Obv. 5.
Obv. 4. The day is calculated to last as long
as the Sun
remains above the horizon. Cf. 81-2-4, 63, Obv. 15, 'the
day is the Sun,' and No. 173, Obv. 2, 'the Suns are days.'
The use of i?nnati is closely paralleled by the Syriac menyana in
hihion d'me?iydna d' sahra m^nen, 'those who measure the
duration of the moon.' (6". Ephraemi Syri, Opera Selecta, Ed.
Overbeck, Oxotiii, 1865, 72, 3.) Nos. 2-6 are very similar.
No. 5, Obv. 3, contains the note ininat arhi jlmii XXX usallavi,
i.e., in consequence of the Moon's appearance on the first
day, the thirtieth day of the month will be completed. See
Introduction, p. xxi.
' K, 960, a large tablet beginning this way, has been omitted, the remainder
teing almost illegible. Of other so-called astrological reports, K 115, consisting
of quotations from prayers similar to those of the Raising of the Hand, and sent
by IStar-suma-in's, and such tablets as 83-1-18, 206, Bu. 91-5-9, 156 ('lucky
days '), etc., and the large unsigned tablets, which probably are not included in
fhis Series, have been omitted.
- It will be noticed that the preterite is rarely used by the astrologers to
•express past time (except in the protases of omens) when speaking of astrological
phenomena ; the present with -ma attached is far more common. The general
rules for the tenses in these texts are :— Omen-protasis, preterite ; Omen-apodosis,
present. Outside the omens, the present does duty for the future or present,
while past time is expressed by the present with -ma appended.
3