The handcopy shows two vertical wedges but on the basis of the 3D scan -ma is more likely.
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Possibly, the augur is Zapalli, author of the only two entries where the augur’s name is preserved. However, we cannot exclude other augurs also contributed to this text (see also the discussion in Introductio).
This sentence is unusual, as the subject is not expressed. The bird’s name might be expected in the following break, but the word order would be uncommon in the standard formulary. The sentence cannot be referring to the previous bird, since this “flew away …”, a movement that typically concludes the description of a bird’s flight.
Unless this is talliya- ‘to call upon (a god), beseech’ (thus Sakuma Y. 2009b, II, 436). The distribution of the text in this and the previous line is peculiar. The formula arḫa=wa pe[ššer] is indented in rev. 20´, and the small residual space in the gap cannot fit the augur’s name (Zapalli?); possibly, there was no text at all. Instead, UM-[MA …] was apparently already written in rev. 19´ close to the beginning of this line, thus it is difficult to reconcile the (presumably) large portion of missing text in the rest of this line with a short formula containing just the name of the augur. Thus, the passage remains difficult to restore.
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