If a woman gives birth to a child with six toes on the right foot, through distress (?), the house of the man will perish.
If a woman gives birth to a child with six very small toes on the left foot, distress (?) will come to pass.
If a woman gives birth to a child with six toes on the right foot, some disaster is portending.
Altogether no less than ninety kinds of human deformities in the various parts of the body are enumerated and interpreted.
The significance of the portents is naturally increased if the woman who gives birth to a monstrosity happens to belong to the royal house. In such a case, the omen has direct bearings on national affairs. The good or evil sign affects the country exclusively. From a tablet of this nature,[642] belonging to a different series than the one we have been considering, we learn that six toes on the right foot or six on the left foot mean defeat, whereas six toes on both feet mean victory. Royal twins were a good omen, and so also a royal child born with teeth or with hair on its face or with unusually developed features.
The same desire to find some meaning in deviations from normal types led to the careful observation of deformities or peculiarities in the case of the young of domestic animals. In the fifth tablet of the series that we have chosen as an illustration, the compiler passes from babes to the offspring of domestic animals. From the opening line, which is all that has been published as yet,[643] and which reads:
If in the flock[644] a dog is born, weapons will destroy life and the king will not be triumphant
it would appear that the first subject taken up was the anomalous unions among animals, which naturally aroused attention when they occurred.
A number of tablets—at least seven—follow in which monstrosities occurring among the young of sheep are noted.
The series passes on to signs to be observed among colts. From this point on, the series is too defective (so far as published) to warrant any further deductions; but it is safe to suppose that, as the young of ewes and mares were considered in special sections, so the young of swine and of cows were taken up in succession. The whole series would thus aim to cover that section of the animal kingdom that concerned man most,—his own offspring, and the young of those animals by which he was surrounded.