My dear Sir

The notice of your paper on Bel and the [cuneiform] leads me to offer you a suggestion about the word. We have certainly here the story which we have hitherto had from Berossus, and this name seems to me to be the Θαλατ[illegible] (B. expressing ש by Θ ) which he gave as the Chaldζan equivalent, or synonym of Omoroka. This then is the word of which I expressed the want, when I compared the myth of Bel & Omoroka with that of Odin & Ymer.

I think if you take into account the frequency in Hebrew poetry of interlocutions, without anything but the sense to make them as such, you may modify your translations, of some of these legends. I may remind you of the Song of Solomon, and of several Psalms, such as XXIV & XCI. Sometimes, as in the latter, the Targum expresses the names of those who were understood to be the speakers. In your translation of the rebellion tablet you have noticed one, likuna &c, and if you admit the idea of either you will not need to seek a [participiol?] sense for the precative form. Is not, then, the line likbu &c a speech of the King of the rebels? And is not what follows the rejoinder of the faithful? I suggest the translation “Let the god of the bright crown in might spread his wings, the lord of divine song making dead to live.” הש contains the sense of “extensive”, “might” Bil sibti would be more correct, but we have many instances of the incorrect – u where we should expect – i. Mubrillit miti refers to the new creation, giving life to what was dead (through the destruction of Omoroka), and this new creation was to ban the return of the rebels. Then the narrative tells new the God banishes them, and created mankind in their room, and then another interlocution by the faithful, likuna &c.

The god had four wings, and the idea conveyed in my translation is the same as in Gen. I. 2

I see no indication of a serpentine form for the sallat.

Yours very truly
D H Haigh

31/3/76