page 804 note 3 BAL.GI.HA, a well-known “fish”, occurring with ŠA.KA + IM (= ILLAMMA).NA. ḪA (e.g. Bavian, , Pognon, 63, 1. 28)Google Scholar. For literature on this latter cf. Dennefeld, , Geburts., 28, 55Google Scholar; Hunger, , Tieromina, 160Google Scholar, SAI. 9236; MA. and HWB., s.v. KAR. 91, r. 11, BAR BAL.GI.ḪA BAR ŠA.KA + IM.NA shows at once that these are water animals with a shell or carapace, BAR being ḳuliptu (“bark” of tamarisk, JRAS. 1924, 454, “rind” of pomegranate, , PRSM. 1926, 44, n. 1Google Scholar).
Additional evidence is LA ŠA. KA + IM. NA. ḪA for the latter (AM. 94, 2, r. 9), LA being used of the shell of an ostrich-egg (AH. 279), as well as for pomegranate- “rind”.
Equally interesting is KAR. 61, r. 15: “Incantation. From one bêru of IM TUM (= ṭit tabali, mud of the dry land, i.e. the dry bank) of the Tigris, two bêru of the dry mud of the Euphrates, BAL.GI.ḪApl-ša ditto (‘its BAL.GI-fish, ditto’), KA + II (?). ḪApl-ša ditto (‘its KA + II(?)-fish, ditto’).” In other words the BAL.GI (and KA + II (?)) “fishes” are water-beasts which inhabit dry land.
We have therefore only to settle which is the tortoise (turtle) and which the crab, which are the only two freshwater animals of Mesopotamia known to me proper to these identifications. They are both common in the rivers. It was Boissier who first suggested “tortoise” for BAL.GI.ḪA (Doc. Ass., ii, p. v, 4, noted by Hunger, , MDVG. 1909, 161)Google Scholar, but Meissner (Bab. Ass., ii, 308, and Arch. Keils., ii, 24) considers the tortoise ŠA.KA + IM.NA.ḪA. But besides the “shell”, the BAL.GI.ḪA has “feet” and “hands” (if a newborn babe has feet and hands like those of a BAL.GI.ḪA, iii, R. 65, 42, 43a; cf. CT. xxvii, 17, 42, 43), and, what is still more indicative, a penis (KAR. 186 r. 18), which at once gives it almost a certain preference for “turtle” (the tail contains the “large copulatory organ”, EB. xxvii, 66).
We find ŠA.IM + KA.NA.ḪA thus in vocabularies, after ṣuriru and anduḪallatu (lizards):—
[IḪ ?].ḪA = še-li-bu-u
[ŠA.KA + IM.NA].ḪA = ditto
[…].ḪA = pi-lu ditto
. . . . = a-par ditto
(Scheil, , Rec. de Trav., xxxvi, 186)Google Scholar.
IḪ = še-lib-bu-u
ŠA.KA + IM.NA. [HA] = ditto
(Weidner, , Rev. d'Assyr., xi, 120–1, iv, 9–10)Google Scholar.
Šeli(b)bû is doubtless connected with šelibu “fox”. In the above pilu = “egg”, and apar (possibly connected with apâru “cover”, Meissner) may perhaps be read ṣa-par in Scheil's copy, connected with ṣupru “nail”, i.e. the crab's claw. It is possible that pilu “egg” refers not to the actual egg of the crab, but to the shell-like body. In our present text in AM. we have also the “flesh” mentioned. It may be added that a usual value for IḪ is “louse”, in which case šelibbû with its probable value “crab” would also have the meaning “crab-louse” (i.e. Phthirius inguinalis).
The fact that [ra]ḳ-ḳu (“tortoise,” Meissner, l.c., probably rightly) continues the text in R.A. xiii, after the last ditto of šelibû, surely indicates the beginning of a fresh animal, for which we may perhaps supply BAL.GI.ḪA in the Sumerian column.
We may thus accept BAL.GI. ḪA = “tortoise” or “turtle” (almost certainly Trionyx euphratica) and SA.KA + IM.NA.ḪA = “crab”, the former being suggested by Boissier.
Out of this arises (a) the similarity of the name BAL.GI.ḪA (“tortoise”) to p(b)ulukhu, the Cancer of the Babylonian astronomers, who, it must be remembered, represent this sign of the Zodiac on their boundary stones as a tortoise or turtle, the crab not being included; (b) the interesting sign KA + IM “breath in mouth” shows the great capacity of the Assyrians for observation; “as a rule, crabs breathe by gills, which are lodged in a pair of cavities at the side of the carapace, but in the true land-crabs the cavities become enlarged and modified so as to act as lungs for breathing air” (EB. vii, 356); (c) 
“tortoise” cannot be accepted as a philological equivalent for šelibbû “crab” nor “tortoise” (as Holma, , ZA. xxviii, 156Google Scholar).
“tortoise” cannot be accepted as a philological equivalent for šelibbû “crab” nor 
“tortoise” (as 
is not the equivalent 
and ḫulmittu, but perhaps of amittu, but very doubtful.
“bread baked in ashes”, the metathesis being similar to dišpu = 
Samâdu is unknown to me; cf. 
(said to be σɛμςαλις) “fine meal”.
(in spite of ḫiršu ?) “engrave”, and consequently the “antimony” here will be plumbago, as Dr. B. Lambert, F.R.S., has suggested to me, to make the characters stand out in the stone. It is the same idea as in Job xix, 24, where his wish is that his words “were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever”; probably not the usual interpretation that the characters are filled with molten lead, but brightened with plumbago.
“crush”); (d) taktu-uš-ka-[a] with arsenic, etc., for painful eyes (AM. 15, 4, 5).
compressit: cf. nurmâ saḫ-ma (AM. 69, 12, 4) “squeezed pomegranate”. Cf. also AM. 98, 3, 2.
(Efpa.) deflorata est.
“tread, march”, occurs in dirkatu, darkatu similar to ahrâtu “posterity” (coming afterwards). Darku must have the meaning of “step”, i.e. “promotion” or “advancement” here. It would be too fanciful to see in this the dariku “Daric” of a later period.
