Source C has a mixture of forms, using syllabic spelling 13 times against five occur-
rences of the logogram ZAL.
The mixed spelling for this particular word seems to some degree to be distributed ac-
cording to textual provenience. That is, the later Neo-Babylonian texts from southern
Mesopotamia have a proclivity to use the logographic spelling more often than the syl-
labic spelling. The two sources that have been identified as Neo-Babylonian documents
from Babylonia, F+H+J and N, show an almost exclusive use of the logogram ZAL. Fur-
ther, in all cases where either of these sources preserve the logographic spelling, a paral-
lel source of northern provenance preserves the syllabic spelling. The tendency in the tab-
lets from the Neo-Assyrian period seems to be towards the longer syllabic form, as is
predominantly the case in the Nineveh and Kish texts.^197 Similarly the composite logo-
gram IGI.DU 8 , read as innamir, “is seen,” appears in F+H+J frequently abbreviated to
IGI.^198
(^197) Tablet B, copied at Kish during the reign of Sargon II, preserves the syllabic spelling in all eight occur-
rences. This is always in disagreement with the Neo-Babylonian sources F+H+J and N. Of the Nineveh
texts written in Neo-Assyrian script, C has 13 syllabic spellings against five logographic spellings, and D
has syllabic spellings in both preserved instances. L does not preserve any instance of this word. The varia-
tion in C between long and short spellings does not seem to reflect issues of writing space on the tablet. In
fact the short spelling appears in places where the longer syllabic spelling would have certainly been ac-
ceptable, such as line 17 of the obverse. The opposite is also true in line 9 of the obverse, where the short
form would have been better suited to the available writing space, but the long form is used instead and
runs well over the right margin. Note the use of the short form in the same context two lines below. 198
A+M has the spelling IGI.DU 8 on the obverse, but has IGI-ir consistently on the reverse. The scribe who
wrote tablet C seems to have tired of writing the full composite logogram half way through his work, man-
aging only two full spellings on the reverse of the tablet against nine abbreviated spellings. The mixed evi-
dence in these more fully preserved tablets shows quite clearly that a text’s orthography can change from
line to line. This is also evident in the use of the plural marker, which differs significantly across the
sources. For example, A+M and B differ in two out of five parallel occurrences of the plural marker, even
though they are consistent in other areas. Both of these sources show their own internal inconsistencies.
A+M marks the plural with MEŠ ten times and seven times with ME, while B has ME four times against
nine instances of MEŠ. Care should therefore be taken not to overstate the significance of the orthographic
peculiarities in the sources.