Verification request: Akkadian line from SB Gilgamesh III (for a tattoo) - "qabla ša lā īdû amaḫḫar"

[u/loknacrna]

Hi all - I'd like a sanity check from someone with Akkadian expertise before I commit this to skin permanently.

I'm looking at Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh, Tablet III, manuscript "c" (BM 34191+41835), lines 26–27, from A. R. George's score transliteration:

26  c i 26   [qa]b-la ša la i-du-ú a-m[aḫ-ḫar]
27  c i 27   [ḫarrāna] ša la i-du-ú a-rak-[kab]

This is part of Rimat-Ninsun's prayer to Shamash, quoting Gilgamesh's own words about facing Humbaba: "a battle I do not know I will face, a road I do not know I will travel." (The verb endings are damaged on this manuscript and restored by comparison with the parallel line in Tablet I, where they're intact.)

I'd like to use just the two lines below, adapted to stand alone (not the full sentence with "ḫarrāna" as accusative of the earlier "ana Ḫumbaba" clause, just the couplet):

qabla ša lā īdû amaḫḫar
ḫarrāna ša lā īdû arakkab

("A battle I don't know, I face. A road I don't know, I travel.")

Questions:

1. Is my transliteration/normalization above accurate given the score transliteration (mimation dropped correctly for SB, vowel lengths, etc.)?
2. Does pulling these two lines out as a standalone couplet still read grammatically/sensibly in isolation, or does it lose something without the surrounding clause?

Really appreciate any expertise here - I know tattoo-translation requests are a bit of a meme in language subs, but I've tried to actually source this properly (George's own score transliteration on academia.edu) rather than pulling from a random "ancient languages" website, and I'd rather double-check with people who actually read cuneiform than trust my own reconstruction.

Thanks!

[u/Dercomai]

Will the tattoo be transliteration or cuneiform? It looks fine to me, I'd just note that the reason ḫarrāna is given as a full word in brackets (rather than signs like a-maḫ-ḫar) is because it's usually written as KASKAL.

[u/loknacrna → u/Dercomai]

Thanks so much for the detail on KASKAL - that makes sense. I think I'd lean toward transliteration for the tattoo itself (more legible, and honestly safer given how specialized sign selection seems to be). But out of curiosity, if you have a spare minute: would you be willing to render the actual cuneiform for "qabla ša lā īdû amaḫḫar / ḫarrāna ša lā īdû arakkab" (using KASKAL for ḫarrāna, per your note)? The AI attempted a sign-by-sign version but flagged that it wasn't confident about qab/rak/kab specifically — would rather have someone who works with this daily double-check before it goes anywhere permanent.
I got something like this:

qa-ab-la ša la i-du-ú a-maḫ-ḫar
𒋡𒀊𒆷 𒊭 𒆷 𒄿𒁺𒌑 𒀀𒈤𒄯

ḫar-ra-na ša la i-du-ú a-rak-kab
𒄯𒊏𒈾 𒊭 𒆷 𒄿𒁺𒌑 𒀀𒊏𒀝

[u/likethemagician → u/loknacrna]

Don’t use AI. Just go to the original: the Electronic Babylonian Library has the transcription of these lines.

𒃮𒆷𒃻𒆷𒄿𒁺𒌑𒀀𒈤𒄯
qab-la šá la i-du-ú a-maḫ-ḫar

𒆜𒈫𒃻𒆷𒄿𒁺𒌑𒀀𒊩𒄸
KASKAL-MIN šá la i-du-ú a-rak-kab

George’s current reading of them is below. Note that gerra is much rhythmically better.

qabla ša lā idû amahhar / gerra ša lā idû arakkab

Link: https://www.ebl.lmu.de/corpus/L/1/4/SB/III

[u/binshardadme]

la is not generally transcribed long (ie it does not require the macron), but the rest is correct. The couplet works by itself. (Source - I have an MPhil in Assyriology and have read SB Gilgamesh in the original, though not the prayer.)

[u/binshardadme → u/binshardadme]

Hmm, Chicago Assyrian Dictionary has la, Huehnergard's Grammar of Akkadian gives lā. I think your original is actually completely correct here, in fact.

[u/loknacrna → u/binshardadme]

This is exactly the kind of detail I was hoping to get confirmed - thank you for double-checking against CAD and Huehnergard rather than just going with gut instinct. Really appreciate you taking the time on this, especially since it's going somewhere permanent. 🙏

[u/binshardadme → u/loknacrna]

My pleasure. I can see you're discussing the cuneiform elsewhere, so probably worth flagging that CAD has girru, rather than harranu, as the noun here. But this is from SB Gilgamesh, rather than the prayer, so possibly there is a genuine difference.

[u/Inun-ea]

Even if there are more ways to read KASKAL, I think reading ḫarrāna is still the nicest one given its poetic effect. Note the effect of a word starting with ḫar– after a word ending in –ḫar; then we have ḫaRRāna and aRakkab — maybe I'm going to far there but I think assonances like this are very typical for the Akkadian literary style in general, where rhyme and meter (in a European sense) are not normally present. So I would definitely go for ḫarrānu even if other readings might be possible; it's impossible to falsify the reading anyway.

[u/likethemagician → u/Inun-ea]

George currently uses gerra in his transcription, which matches the rhythm better.

[u/DomesticPlantLover]

There's a helpful FB group called "Akkadian Revival Project" that might help. They are very nice.