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Assyrian Lexicographical Notes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

S. Langdon
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Extract

The Babylonians divided the night into three watches, to which they gave the names maṣṣartu bararîtu, evening watch, maṣṣartu ḳablîtu, midnight watch, maṣṣarti šat urri, morning watch. Bararîtu and kablîtu are adjectives in this construction. The full forms occur rarely as in Ebeling, Religiöse Keilschrifttexte aus Assur, No. 58, Rev. 7 ; No. 91, Rev. 21–2. Ordinarily maṣṣartu is omiṭted in the Semitic texts and bararîtu, ḳablîtu are treated as nouns. So in the syllabars, where the Sumerian equivalents contain the word ennun = maṣṣartu, the noun for “ watch ” is invariably omitted.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , July 1920 , pp. 325 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1920

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References

page 325 note 1 The going up watch, literally maṣṣartu elîtu.

page 325 note 2 So II R. 39, 13, but Rm. 345 obv. 24 šat urri.

page 325 note 3 It is erroneous to regard an as the determinative dingir. The word really means “ darkness in the sky ”.

page 326 note 1 The value lid for this sign is Semitic and improbable here.

page 326 note 2 For early examples of this new regard for the kaunakes, see the figures Nos. 24, 25, 28, and 89 in Leon Heuzey's Antiquités Chaldéennes.

page 327 note 1 The writer has in press in Archœologia a lecture read before the Society of Antiquaries concerning the archæology of the early Sumerian dress. After my paper was read I came upon Dr. Albright's very opportune note in the Revue d'Assyriologie, xvi, 177, where he shows that tú gú-UD-DU is rendered by aṣit kišadi, “ garment of the protruding of the shoulder.”

page 328 note 1 Var. e-ti-zu-dé, Meek, Cuneiform Bilingual Hymns, No. 1, 11.

page 328 note 2 Langdon, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, 312, 20–1.

page 331 note 1 The passage reads, “ If the sting of the Scorpion did not lie in the Milky Way, then no one who was bitten by a scorpion would recover.” Canon G. A. Cooke, Regius Professor of Hebrew, called my attention to this passage, which now receives explanation from the Babylonian.

page 331 note 2 The first half of the verse refers to the Babylonian Epic of Creation, iv, 98, where Marduk caused the “ Evil wind ” to enter into the belly of Tiamat. The text is hopeless.

page 331 note 3 The identification of Tiamat or the dragon of the salt sea with the Milky Way leads to another important conclusion. In the astronomical texts an-tir-an-na, the forest of heaven, has been conjectured to mean Milky Way. an-tir-an-na is explained in these texts by marratu, i.e. nûru marratu, bitter river, Virolleaud, Astrologie, Sin, iii, 122 ; C.T. 26, 40, iv, 6. Note also the ideogram for an-tir-an-na in II Raw. 47, 36, [ ]-šeš and šeš is the ordinary word for marru, bitter.