CTH 544.1 are two fragments of a Hittite omen text about animals seen in the house.

CTH 544.1 consists of two short fragments, KUB 34.22 and KUB 43.14, with Hittite animal omens, published by H. Ehelolf (KUB 34) and K. K. Riemschneider (KUB 43). The pieces were edited individually in (Riemschneider K.K. 2004a: 125–126.154) and §2′′–3′′ also in Haas V. 1992a: 99–100; Haas V. 2008a: 36–37. An indirect join of the two pieces was proposed by Y. Sakuma and “checked on the photograph” by S. Košak (Sakuma Y. 2009b: 383), but the preserved writing on both pieces does not look particularly similar (cf. especially KU, ŠA, and DAG). It is more likely that both fragments contained the same text, as we find the same words in three consecutive lines.

A: A roughly triangular piece from the upper right corner of a tablet, likely originally with two columns. The left and upper margins are partially preserved. It contains nine lines of spacious, slightly cursive cuneiform script on the obverse and seven on the reverse.

B: A small, oblong, and curved fragment from the middle of an at least two-columned tablet with a narrow column divider (~4–5 mm). The remains of ten lines of script are visible on one side; the other side’s surface is lost.

A: New Script: New AG, new LI; the first vertical of E has the same height as the second one.

B: New Script: New AG; other diagnostics are missing, and only about 15 signs are wholly preserved.

There are several syllabic spellings of per/parn-, ‘house’, which is uncommon in the Hittite omens. Together with the initial plene-spelling in a-aš-ku-e-eš (A obv. I, 5′.7′) and the missing glide in wa-at-ku-an-zi (A obv. I, 3′), this could be a remnant of older language (cf. Neu E. 1970a: 51; Otten H. – Souček V. 1969a: 54). However, the rest of the tablet spells out the glides, and not enough is preserved to make a particularly strong case for this to be a copy of a much older text.

In §3, protasis and apodosis are connected with simple nu, a practice that is exceptionally rare in Hittite omens. This may be because the throne in the protasis is the same as in the apodosis, so nu marks the logical connection between the two parts.

The particle =ašta appears in all three instances in which the verb describes a movement from somewhere, in two cases with an ablative (cf. HG §28.65–66).

The text deals with two animals, the ašku- and the ḫalliya-. It is still unclear what exactly an ašku-animal is. Only two Hittite texts provide information on its nature, this tablet and KUB 53.50: It can jump (watku-) from the roof (KUB 53.30) or from one place to another inside the house (KUB 53.50 obv. I, 10-11), it can move quickly and suddenly (also watku-, cf. Hoffner H.A. 1974a: 92) when disturbed by a person, and it can be found under chairs and in storage containers, and it can appear in groups (cf. the omens in this text). This limited textual evidence has led to a number of other identification proposals: mole (Puhvel J. 1981b: 242), mouse (Friedrich J. 1945-1951b: 106 n. 23), small rodent, frog or toad or grasshopper (Hoffner H.A. 1974a: 92), ‘smaller animal (likely insect)’ (HW2/a s. v.), and termite (Collins B.J. 1989a: 262). The jumping from place to place may speak for cricket or grasshopper (šumma ālu 38, 32′-37′.54′–64′), the presence in storage containers and beneath chairs for a saurian like a gecko, cf. CT 40.28 K 3731+, 7′–8′ (= šumma ālu 33, 72′-73′) and Riemschneider K.K. 2004a: 235, but there is no way to be certain.

The translation ‘lizard’ for ḫalliya- was already cautiously proposed by Riemschneider in his manuscript form the 70s (Riemschneider K.K. 2004a: 203, see also Christiansen B. 2006a: 296; Collins B.J. 1989a: 262–263), but there have been multiple identifications, reaching from earthworm over different kind of rodents to gecko (see HW2/ḫ s. v. and the discussion of the proposals and literature in Sakuma Y. 2009b: 383–390). The ḫalliya- is also found among the Hittite oracle birds, leading Haas V. 2008a: 36–37 and Sakuma Y. 2009b: 384.389 to a meaning ‘bat’. According to Sakuma, the animal is either a bat or a rodent whose name means ‘bat’ in ornithomancy. Sakuma’s opposition to ‘lizard’ rests mainly on his argument that, except for the snake, only mammals are used for bird names, and that ‘lizard’ was therefore unlikely. But if there is a snake bird, there is no reason why there can’t be a lizard bird. More importantly, the apodosis of the first and the entire second omen with the animal in question are paralleled by šumma ālu 32, 43′–45′ (Nineveh-tradition), which is about lizards. It should be stressed that what is visible is not mere similarity but an almost literal translation, cf. especially parnaš šakuriyawar in the first apodosis, which imitates the Akkadian infinitive construction sapāḫ bīti in šumma ālu 32, 43′.

The text deals with the unidentified ašku-animal and, as the parallel in šumma ālu 32, 43′–45′ shows, with lizards (haliya-). The apodoses are restricted in their meaning to the fate of the household in which the animal was seen, as is common in the animal omens of šumma ālu.