W 22712/1a is a fragment from Seleucid period Uruk that was found in the third level of the House of the āšipu and preserves 12 lines of text. The beginnings of these lines are lost and it is unclear if the preserved lines comprise one column in a multi-column text. Nonetheless, enough is retained from each line to observe that the genre of the text is likely a commentary of the “cola type,” i.e. dividing the lines into terms and their accompanying explanations using cola. It must be noted, however, that the cola are more confusing than clarifying, used seemingly arbitrarily where one would not be expected or omitted where one would be (for an example of the former see line 2′ and, for the latter, line 5′). Line 1′ uses the technical term aššu (mu) “because.”
The base text for this commentary is unknown; a very likely candidate is a lexical god list, in the same category as the Weidner God List and its associated commentaries (for a list, see here), but this is not definitive. The most probable contenders are An = Anum and An = Anu ša amēli, which have been linked with the revival of Anu’s cult in Seleucid period Uruk. While Anu (Sumerian An) had historically been the head of the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon, he had declined in popularity throughout the 1st millennium until he was virtually absent even in his patron city of Uruk. The primary city deity was Ištar until reforms by the educated elite families in Uruk unseated Ištar and restored Anu and his consort Antu to their former prominence, a development that had taken place by the end of the 5th century BCE. In support of the lexical lists as inspiring the present text, there were three exemplars of the An = Anum god list found in an Urukean family archive, along with other Anu theology texts such as one that names the children and officials of Anu and one that identifies the resident gods of Uruk. Even the scribes’ names preserved in colophons seem to have been inspired by coded or cryptographic writings of the divine name that are attested in An = Anum. Another possibility is a hymnic or praise text, since it seems clear that the base text concerns Anu veneration.
In this text, and consistent with other Anu theology texts from Uruk, Anu’s role is that of the ultimate creator god, holding this supreme power over both the divine and mortal spheres as he creates gods and mankind alike and rules over the heavens. Late Babylonian texts from Uruk emphasize this identity. Other texts support Anu’s high status, such as the Uruk version of the mīs pî (BaghM Beih 2, no. 1), a ritual mentioned in the present text. By the Seleucid period, the predominance of Anu in Uruk is indisputable, and he also takes on the epithets and characteristics of the patron gods of other politically or theologically important cities in Babylonia; namely, Marduk of Babylon and Enlil of Nippur.
The preserved lines deconstruct, for the most part, individual words or signs, explaining them in the context of Anu’s supremacy and divine character as the head of the pantheon. It is often challenging to determine what is being explained, however, as the left half of the tablet is missing, as is the beginning of the text.
Line 1′ begins with the diš sign, which is also used to write 60, Anu’s divine number. Although line 2′ has the syllabic spelling of the god’s name, there is also a hint in line 3′ of the shift from the syllabic writings that were used in preceding periods back to the traditional rendering of the name as d60, which becomes characteristic in Seleucid/Parthian period Uruk and denotes totality. That the writing of the divine name with the "god number" is a traditional one that had fallen out of use in Uruk fits nicely with the antiquarianism of the scribes while its relative newness to the Urukean population at the time may explain why there is a commentary explicating it, especially since it is not used in the god lists upon which Anu theology was built. The mention of amēlūtu “humanity” in line 5′ establishes Anu’s hegemony over the mortal world and may additionally be a nod to the eponymous first line of An = Anu ša amēli. Lines 6′ and 9′ seem to contain epithets of Anu that are not found in the lexical list tradition and may hint at a different base text. Lines 5′-8′ may all directly speak to Anu’s role as creator god, since there are references to statue-creation and animation alongside more explicit descriptions of the god as bānû “creator” of gods and men. The reference in line 8′ to the mīs pî ritual, used to animate divine cult images (and other objects, including kings’ statues), is here specifically the “washing of the mouth of the gods,” emphasizing the divine element. Another return to antiquarianism is expressed in line 10′, where Uraš is mentioned. Uraš was An’s original consort (before An became Anu and was given the consort Antu) and means “earth” and secondarily “heaven” (see RlA 14: 401-404). The use of šamû may also connect Uraš with the meaning of An’s name. An and Uraš are the ancestors of all the gods but, most importantly, the progenitors of Enlil and Ištar, so the invocation of Uraš emphasizes the return to an ancient tradition that gives primacy to Anu over his Nippurean and Urukean rivals. Uraš eventually becomes a male god and may also be a form of Anu himself in An = Anum as well as in this text (RlA 14: 403-404).
