One fragment, J, preserves a colophon, but unfortunately this is broken and provides
rather inconclusive evidence. Importantly, though, it preserves a statement that the tablet
was incomplete.^151 The tablet series name and tablet number are not preserved in the
colophon, so it is in fact impossible to ascertain whether or not this was a copy of the en-
tire Venus tablet or an excerpted section. It will be considered here as a sixth century
copy from central Babylonia, with reservations.
G, Rm 2, 531; L, K12344+12758
According to C.B.F. Walker these fragments should be joined to K7072, K7090 and Sm
174 to form a Late Assyrian text.^152 The tablet is written in Neo-Assyrian script, usually
in evenly sized and spaced cuneiform, but with some exceptions.^153 The layout of the text
follows the convention of one omen per ruled section.
It seems reasonable to assume that these fragments were originally uncovered in Nine-
veh, though it is difficult to be any more specific.^154 Fragments K12344+12758, K7072
and K7090 show vitrification that suggests that the unbaked tablet was burnt in a fire.
The absence of firing holes in any of the fragments lends weight to this hypothesis. To
become vitrified the tablet must have been exposed to very high temperatures (ca. 1000°
(^151) Line 13 of the reverse ends with the Sumerian “NU AL.TIL” – “not complete.” The following lines have
only broken parts of the incipit of the omens relating to the New Year (akītu) festival, not the omens con-
cerning Jupiter as is the case with the colophons of fragments A and B. The broken colophon in fragment J
also preserves an incomplete personal name. 152
153 C.B.F. Walker, "Notes on the Venus Tablet," 64.
For example, some of the signs are crowded and difficult to read in line 5 of K7090, and in lines 5 and 7
of K7072. 154
This is based on the catalogue numbers. K, as noted above, typically refers to tablets found at Kuyunjik
in general, while the Rm, 2 and Sm collections are mostly from the North and Southwest Palaces at Nine-
veh respectively. On this see D. Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology, 18-19. The tablet
was either broken in antiquity and its parts distributed to both locations, or the apparent trends in the cata-
logue numbers do not hold for these entries. In support of the latter, the vitrification of the fragments ap-
pears to have occurred towards what would have been the centre of the complete tablet – a very unlikely
coincidence if the fragments were separated before vitrification occurred.