rapādu

Definition

Rapādu is the Akkadian verb "to run around" — glossed by Hunger and Pingree as "planless running," the opposite of any "ordered course" — that supplies the technical lexicographical anchor used to control structural readings of Late-Babylonian stellar-catalogue captions. The same root surfaces in the BPO 4 Jupiter-omen apodoses as the noun rapādu-disease, a recurring affliction-outcome whose precise medical referent Reiner and Pingree leave untranslated; the two senses (verbal "to run around" and nominal disease-name) are kept distinct.

In Tradition

Hunger and Pingree invoke rapādu in two distinct registers. As an Akkadian motion-verb it is "planless running, the opposite of 'ordered course'" (Astral Sciences p. 122) — the lexicographical control used to reject Koch's reading of the Dalbanna text's phrase 3 MULmes tak si as "3 stars: ordered course" (which would require DAG = rapādu, only attested in the compound logogram SU-DAG). Reiner and Pingree preserve the homophonous rapādu-disease untranslated as an apodosis-name in the BPO 4 Group I-J Jupiter omens.

In Practice

For the student of how Hunger and Pingree control structural readings of cuneiform stellar catalogues, rapādu is the lexicographical anchor. In Astral Sciences (p. 122) they cite the verbal sense — "planless running, the opposite of 'ordered course'" — to reject Koch's reading of the Dalbanna-text Section I phrase 3 MULmes tak si as "3 stars: ordered course," noting that only the compound logogram SU-DAG (not DAG alone) is attested as the equivalent of rapādu, and even if DAG alone were attested the planless-running sense would contradict Koch. The separate nominal sense — rapādu-disease — recurs as the apodosis-outcome of the schematic sirhu and sheen Jupiter-omen series in BPO 4 Groups I-J: Reiner and Pingree render the apodoses as "rapādu-disease will seize the head / middle / foundation" of Akkad, Elam, Amurru, or Subartu, distributed by night-watch and compass direction. Recognizing the verbal and nominal senses as homophones is the basic discipline for reading rapādu citations.

Historical Origin

Verbal sense attested in Akkadian lexical texts as the meaning of the compound logogram SU-DAG; nominal sense (rapādu-disease) attested in the BPO 4 Group I-J Jupiter-omen apodoses preserved on Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian tablets. Modern critical treatments: Hunger & Pingree, *Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia* (1999), p. 122; Reiner & Pingree, *Babylonian Planetary Omens Part Four* (Brill 2005), Groups I-J pp. 135-147.

Further Reading

• Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia
• Erica Reiner & David Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens Part Four