M227 A iii 47 KUR OV – A lacks the phonetic comple-
J ii 19 KUR- ḫa ment.
M228 A iii 47 UD meš OV – K has a phonetic complement for ūmū, written with the plural
marker MEŠ in A and FF.
K iii 4 m]u
FF ii 11 UD meš (^)
M229 A iii 48 KUR OV – A lacks the phonetic comple-
J ii 20 KUR- ḫa ment.
M230 A iii 48 UD meš OV – K has a phonetic complement for ūmū, written with the plural
(^) FF ii 12 UD K iii 5 m]u meš marker MEŠ in A and FF.
(^) M231 K iii 5 (^) múl BAN (^) OV – The preposition determinative
JJ ii 1 mu]l BAN is written as MÚL in K, against MUL in JJ.
(^) M232 A iii 49 (^) šèr-t[i (^) OV(l) – Possible difference in pro-
K iii 6 š]èr-tú nunciation or grammatical form.^308
(^) M233 A iii 50 li-la-a-t[i (^) OV(l) – Possible difference in pro-
K iii 7 li-la-a-tú nunciation. 309
(^308) The form of the noun šērtu, “dawn,” is genitive in A, nominative in K. The text describes the annual
motion of the earth around the sun, whereby the earth’s changing position relative to the sun brings about a
changing in the backdrop of stars visible in the night sky as the year progresses. The effect is that an ob-
server who takes regular sightings of the night sky at a fixed time and place will see the stars appear to ad-
vance across the sky from east to west along the plain of the ecliptic. The description in the text is: ūmu 1
UŠ.TA.ÀM kakkabū ina šērti ana mūši irrubūni; ūmu 1 UŠ.TA.ÀM kakkabū ina līlâti ana ūmi uṣṣûni,
“Daily, in the morning, the stars enter towards the night 1 UŠ; daily, at evening, the stars exit towards the
daytime 1 UŠ.” In this context “š]er-tú” might reflect an understanding of the phrase kakkabū ina šerti as
the subject proper, according to which the scribe has marked the whole phrase as nominative. Even though
this would technically be grammatically incorrect, as the genitive case should mark a noun following a
preposition and should also mark the nomens rectum in a construct chain, this variant could indicate that
the scribe of K understood the clause to state that “(by) 1 UŠ daily the stars of the morning enter towards
the night.” Of course, a much simpler and likely explanation is that K has a variant case vowel that reflects
no change in the meaning of the text, but rather relates to the diminished use of case vowels and a different
preference for their representation on the part of the scribe. 309
The same considerations apply to this variant as to the variant immediately preceding this one. See the
previous note for a discussion of the issues surrounding the categorisation OV(l) here.