A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
Fragment of an Emesal Prayer. An Emesal prayer fragment; one word of it can be rendered honestly, and the file says which and why.
Published as a reading. No first-translation claim is made for this piece. The checks that would settle such a claim are named in the notes below and are still open; the wording on this page claims nothing they have not settled.
Label (standing): FROM-VOLUME PROVISIONAL. What CTMMA II prints for this piece (Text No. 17, Plate 29) is sign traces, not a transliteration in the full sense, and the edition states outright: "This text is too fragmentary for translation." The traces are reproduced here in repaired form from this desk's OCR extraction; OCR-debris is marked ⟦OCR⟧. No reading in this file is new. The one-word English rendering below covers the single word the editor himself read in his introduction.
The object. A small fragment, 34 × 24 × 21 mm, Seleucid or Arsacid period, Babylon. The editor's introduction: it "belongs to an Emesal prayer. There are only a few traces of signs left. On the reverse, in addition to the Akkadian word mi]t-ḫa-ris (l. 4'), we recognize a small remnant of a glossenkeil, which was used to indicate variants or to delimit the Akkadian version from the Sumerian in these texts." (The local OCR renders the word "mi]t-ba-ris"; mitḫāriš, "in equal measure," is the word the context requires — the b/ḫ difference is an OCR artefact, flagged here, not a new reading.)
Surfaces examined (this session). The Met photograph (obverse): a small worn fragment carrying about four ruled bands of large cursive signs, most of the surface lost. Spar's Plate 29 copy shows the obverse in eight numbered lines (1′–8′) — the bands carry interlinear material, as expected in an Emesal bilingual — and the reverse with traces only in one lower corner. Copy and edition agree: there is almost nothing here, and what there is does not connect.
1'. …] x x […
2'. …] x […
3'. …] x-zi-ib ki-b[a(?) … ⟦line head OCR-degraded⟧
4'. … n]u(?)-ma-a[l …
5'. …] IGI KU L[U(?) …
6'. …] x am-ta-la x […
7'. (nothing read)
8'. …] am-ta-la […
(traces of six lines; the edition prints no sign-by-sign transliteration)
4'. … mi]t-ḫa-ris … — read in the editor's introduction, not in the text block;
a glossenkeil remnant stands in the same area
Notes: - 6′ and 8′ carry the same sequence, am-ta-la, twice — a repetition the editor printed but did not interpret. In a liturgical fragment a repeated word is plausibly refrain material; that is an observation about structure, not a translation, and the word is not rendered. - 5′ IGI and KU are printed as logograms without context; no rendering is offered. - 3′–4′ sequences are printed with the editor's own queries and OCR damage on top; nothing in them can be rendered honestly.
rev. 4'. … in equal measure …
That is the whole yield. mitḫāriš is the editor's own reading of the reverse's one legible Akkadian word; rendering it is this program's only honest English for the piece.
None. No ušumgal, muš, mušḫuššu, bašmu, or serpent-god name is printed by the editor or legible in the photograph or copy. The text is unread beyond traces, so the flag is recorded as not raised, not cleared.
CTMMA II No. 17 is the only edition; the editor expressly declined translation, and no transliteration beyond traces exists. The one-word rendering above is labelled for exactly what it is: one word, rendered from traces. Post-2005 web re-check this session: no later treatment surfaced. CDLI unreachable (503) — caveat stands. Full statement in OVERNIGHT-D3-REPORT.md.
Nuvira Technologies conducts this research with AI assistance, cross-verified against the primary sources to scholarly integrity standards. Uncertain readings are marked; broken lines are left broken.
— Richard Vigslist, Founder, Nuvira Technologies
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