© Yale Babylonian Collection
Mesopotamian commentaries represent the world’s oldest cohesive group of hermeneutic texts. Numbering nearly 900, the earliest date to the eighth century and the latest to ca. 100 BCE. The purpose of this website is to make the corpus available both to the scholarly community and a more general audience by providing background information on the genre, a searchable catalog, as well as photos, drawings, annotated editions, and translations of individual commentary tablets. For the first time the cuneiform commentaries, currently scattered over 21 museums around the globe, will be accessible on one platform.
The Cuneiform Commentaries Project is funded by Yale University (2013-2016) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (Division of Research Programs “Scholarly Editions and Translations,” 2015-2018).
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Recent additions to the corpus
CCP 3.8.1.E - Iqqur īpuš, série génerale E Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
This “hemerological compilation”1 consists of a series of calendrical divination texts. |
CCP 3.1.24.D - Enūma Anu Enlil 24(25) D Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
Only five of the original thirteen entries are preserved on this uʾiltu-tablet that comments on Enūma Anu Enlil 24(25). |
CCP 3.4.5.Q - Bārûtu 5 Pān tākalti 8 Q Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
This previously unidentified fragment belongs to the British Museum’s “Sippar Collection,” and contains a commentary on Padān šumēl marti, the 8th tablet of the 5th chapt |
CCP 3.1.u94.b - Astrological © Vorderasiatisches Museum
The fragment VAT 9434 has received scant attention since it was published in copy in the early 1940s. |
CCP 4.1.7.C.b - Sagig 7 C Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
This small and badly damaged fragment contains meager remains of a previously unidentified commentary on the seventh tablet of the diagnostic series Sagig. |
CCP 7.2.u171 - Uncertain Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
There is no proof that this small, nondescript fragment belongs to a commentary. Although some cola are visible (ll. 2 and 3), the fragment may well belong to an incantation (as suggested by l. 4) or a bilingual text (as suggested by l. 3). |
CCP 7.2.u175 - Uncertain Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
This small fragment, which probably stems from Babylon, shares its consignment number (81-11-3) with around 40 other tablets and fragments (see a list here). |
CCP 4.1.7.C.c - Sagig 7 (?) C Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
This small fragment from the lower left corner of a tablet contains what appears to be a commentary on a medical text. Since one of the entries (l. 10′), “he has been sick during the 31st day, hand of DN,” is only known in Sagig (e.g. |
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