In Mesopotamia the occurrence of any event was significant in itself, but the month of the year or the day of the month on which it happened could change its significance. These omens that emphasise the instant were brought together in a series called Iqqur Īpuš, "he destroys, he builds" (a house).
Unusually, the title of the series does not correspond to the first line (incipit) of the series. Rather, both verbs are mentioned in three consecutive paragraphs that do not even start the series, and are the other way round in the first-millennium versions (5-6 īpuš and 7 iqqur). This situation signals the existence of an older tradition. Indeed, the series is known in mid-second millennium manuscripts from several cities peripheral to Mesopotamia, in versions very close to the first millennium ones.
Most of the series is organised month by month (a menology) but some paragraphs are grouped day by day (a hemerology). Each paragraph considers a different activity, repeated every month, performed by the king or by any man; the apodoses then state whether the month is favourable or not for this activity.
As one can see, many of the activities mentioned in Iqqur Īpuš also occur in other divinatory series, particularly Šumma Ālu, Enūma Anu Ellil and Sakikkû. It is most often impossible to tell which one has borrowed from the other, but this situation at least illustrates the close links between divinatory series.
In some cases (e.g., SpTU 4, 164), the ritual to perform to counteract the sign is added to the list of omens. By contrast, many apodoses of Iqqur Īpuš are shorter or less detailed than in the other series. For instance, the expression "he will be satisfied" or "he will not be satisfied" occurs a lot more frequently, or sometimes only "favourable" or "unfavourable" (e.g., STT 2, 301).
This brevity may be related to, and perhaps influenced by, the fact that Mesopotamian hemerologies and menologies could also be presented in tabular format. Such tables are organised on the model of the following example:
| 1st- 30th days of the month | I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building of a house | III | IV | V | VII | XI | XII | Favourable | ||||||
| Destruction of a house | I | III | V | VI | IX | XI | XII | Not favourable |
CTN 4, 55 from Kalhu, without being tabular, follows the principles of this format. Some other hemerological texts simply provide a list favourable or unfavourable days month by month (e.g., CTN 4, 57). Likewise, BagM Beih. 2, 95, a Seleucid manuscript from Uruk, simply recalls the unfavourable days of the year.
In all, there are 20 manuscripts of Iqqur Īpuš in the CAMS/GKAB corpus: 5 from Huzirina, 10 from Kalhu and 5 from Seleucid Uruk. Most of them are quite fragmentary and lack colophons. Only one manuscript from Huzirina has a preserved colophon: STT 2, 305 was copied by a scribal apprentice, Mušallim-Baba PGP .
The best preserved hemerological manuscript in the corpus is of the so-called Tašrītu hemerology. It is named after month VII of the Babylonian calendar, corresponding to September-October, and lists a series of prohibitions for the first 7 days of the month, while the 8th one a day of rejoicing. CTN 4, 58 is complete and has a colophon which says it was written by Ištaran-mudammiq PGP , senior exorcist of king Aššurnaṣirpal II (883-859 BC). This manuscript is thus one of the oldest of the Kalhu 'library'. The same hemerology is known in Assur, but the manuscript from Kalhu is better preserved.
The other peculiarity of this tablet lies in its "amulet shaped" format. It has a pierced handle at the top where a cord could be passed through so that it could be hung up. There are other examples of "amulet-shaped" tablets from first-millennium sites, including STT 2, 300 from Huzirina. It is possible that they were regarded as "votive objects", perhaps displayed on walls of temples.
Marie-Françoise Besnier
Marie-Françoise Besnier, 'Signs of time: Iqqur īpuš', The Geography of Knowledge, The GKAB Project, 2019 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cams/gkab/theworldoftheipu/divinatoryseries/signsoftime/]