An enlarged scale drawing (shown here, compare with photo of tablet from Ugarit) clarifies the details of the disputed text in line 14 of the cuneiform tablet. The top line depicts the cuneiform signs as they actually appear to the eye, displaying damage and uncertainty. The bottom line shows the cuneiform signs as reconstructed or restored by Ratner and Zuckerman.
From left to right, the signs are: g, word-divider, t, b, restored word-divider, disputed g and d. The diagonal hatch-marks on the top line represent damage on the surface area of the tablet; the hatch-marks inside wedges (as in the letter b) indicate filled-in letters. Note that between the b and the g is an area with hatchmarks that indicate a crack on the surface of the tablet. In the reconstructed reading on the bottom line a word-divider—a small vertical wedge—has been restored in the area where the crack is. The letter below the restored word-divider, seen as three vertical wedges, is a hÉ (guttural “ha”), drawn to scale. This “ha” is the letter that would need to “fit” in the position indicated by the arrow if the proposed interpretation, “cook a kid in milk,” were correct. This sign is far too big to be completely covered by the crack shown in the drawing. Had the letter “ha” been written where the crack is, some part would still show on the right side of the crack. However, the surface there is clean—showing no sign of a wedge. Epigraphically speaking, the conclusion must be that no hÉ was ever present in the text. Thus, the “kid in milk” interpretation cannot be supported by the epigraphic evidence.
The drawing is based on high-magnification, high-contrast photographs made of the text from the original tablet now in the Louvre in Paris by Bruce Zuckerman on behalf the West Semitic Research Project.
