It is unfortunate that this tablet, whose text can be followed almost in its entirety from the beginning until the end, lacks some informative portions at the beginning and the end of the composition. The first paragraph (§1) likely contained a one-line introduction to the text (I 1), possibly a short question or statement which would have informed on the reason for this long and detailed report of bird flights. The last two lines (§45´) contained the final report of the augurs, likely with their names, and the information that the report/tablet was “finished” (IV 26´). We can reconstruct this content thanks to the partially readable title ‘the augurs’, indicating that the authors of the report were two or more augurs, and the word [QA-T]I – unless the report was “unfinished” [Ú-UL QA-T]I, which is also possible, at least in principle.

Haas V. 2008a, 42 considered the lack of a substantial introduction as a sign that the report consisted of at least two tablets. However, it is not necessarily the case that obv. 1 already contained flight descriptions, as he suggested. Even if the 1PL verb to be restored was ušgawen, “we observed”, the sentence could refer to the location or introduce the following observation. Although the option of a multi-tablet report remains possible, there are no surviving parallels.

Other than these sections, the rest of the tablet is a long sequence of observations of bird flights, without major interruptions or with secondary questions. Characteristic of this text is the setting of the observations, which happened in the vicinities of a river. The movements of the birds are almost always indicated in connection with the river, sometimes moving “across” it. Observations by “the river” are not unique to this text and appear in other early reports (report/letter CTH 581.30; CTH 573.44, .46, 48, all MS), but not in Empire period texts. Although the fragments CTH 573.43 and 573.86 have been catalogued as NS, their late date is probably to be revised, not only for their paleography, but also in consideration of their content (see the respective editions). Rivers are mentioned as locations for observations also in the MS letters CTH 195, CTH 188.22.

Among the aspects of interest of this tablet are its early date and the content, with several elements that differentiate the composition from the later Empire period oracle reports. The particularly detailed account of the movements of the birds is striking, with descriptions not only of multiple subsequent movements of one bird, but also the description of several flights of separate birds at once, and the resumption of descriptions previously interrupted. In this respect, this document has hardly any parallel in the corpus, which also explains the presence of some unique formulary and phraseology.

Sakuma Y. 2009b, II, 548-592. The content of the unpublished fragment Bo 7772 (Frg. 4), discovered by Sakuma (7.9.2006), is included in this edition following his previous treatment. Sakuma’s edition did not include the join with KBo 66.70 (Frg. 1), published in 2015 and also identified by him (14.7.2019). A partial translation with the best preserved sections of the text in Haas V. 2008a, 42-45.

Autography: A. Walther (KUB 18), C. Corti (KBo 66).

Two-columned, large tablet of archival/library type, with a carefully written script. The writing is relatively dense but with clear word breaks and some larger spacing out in lines with shorter text, especially at the end of the paragraph.

MS (mh.); diagnostic signs AL, DA, EK, ḪAR, IT, KAT, KI, LI, TAR, UN (E, TA) (early forms; no late forms)

Note the ‘ligature’ KAT+TA (e.g. obv. I 17), frequent in older script (Rüster C. – Neu E. 1989a, 174)

In the descriptions of the movements of the birds, the sentences referring to “the river”, as well as several other descriptions, have few parallels in other documents.

- The sentence EGIR ÍD ‘behind the river’, and ÍD-az šarā ‘up from the river’ might refer to the two opposite banks of the river, but this reconstruction remains tentative. It can be noted that there is a clear correlation between movements in ‘the front’ and ‘up from the river’ and movements ‘in the back’ and ‘behind the river’, thus the areas seem to overlap with the standard sectors of the observation field, suggesting that the river ideally separated in two parts the observation areas (see e.g. the position of the ‘river’ as an ideal line in the scheme in Beal R.H. 2002f, 73).

- In the suggested plan for the viewing field of Hittibe bird oracles, Beal R.H. 2002f, 73 identified ‘the river’ with a virtual line separating two sides of the field. However, in my view, this is instead a ‘true’ river in the texts where it is present. Since ‘the river’ is the reference point of the observations only in a limited number of oracle reports of early date, its presence should note be extended to the general model of the observation field.

- An unusual formulation in reference to the river is ÍD-an āppa wet, with the likely meaning ‘(it) returned behind the river; came back to the river’ (i.e. to the other side of the river). That the movement refers to crossing the river after a previous crossing is quite clear from the sequence of obv. II 36-38.

- This text clearly distinguishes pariyan ‘across’ from pariyawan, ‘diagonally’ (tentative, after Sakuma Y. 2009b). pariyan is only used in the sentence ‘across the river”, while pariyawan refers to a specific movement of the birds and is one of the standard technical terms of bird oracles. The consistent usage of the two as distinct concepts (see esp. obv. I 33-34) allows us to conclude that their meaning was not the same, although their roots are potentially connected etymologically. Like other lexical items in the bird oracles, pariyawan might be a Luwian form (e.g. Brosch C. 2014e, 387). For the (rare) usage of pariyan in other oracles, all of early date, see KBo 41.186+ (MS), DAAM 1.31 (MS), KBo 63.59+ (MS; in this text, likewise with ‘the river’).

- The actions of the birds described asaraḫza ep- (obv. II, 4) and a[ndur]za ep- (obv. II, 18) have only one parallel (see the text notes). It is dubious whether the ‘seizing, catching’ in these contexts is literal or is idiomatic, with a meaning such as ‘to catch (up in flight)’, vel sim.

- Several other movements and actions found in this report are rare in other oracles, such as ‘to disappear’ (munnae-) (obv. I 27, 38, [59], II 47, rev. III [1´]).

- As is the case in other early reports, several technical terms are spelled out syllabically rather than logographically. Notably: aššuwaz for SIG₅-az; takšan for 2-an; and similarly aumen in place of NI-MUR.

- This long oracle report is one of the most informative documents for an interpretation of the term warā(i)- ‘(bird) mate, companion’ > ‘pair (of birds)’, providing several attestations in different syntactic environments (previously Sakuma Y. 2009b, II, 256-258; re-discussed in Trameri A. 2023a).