Cuneiform Commentaries Project Newsletter (May 2017)

Dear subscribers,

 

After a three month hiatus in our work, several new texts have recently been added to the corpus of the Cuneiform Commentaries Project (http://ccp.yale.edu). Please find a list below.

 

Thanks are expressed to the following scholars, who have contributed their editions and feedback since the last newsletter: Mathieu Ossendrijver, Matthew Rutz, and Luis Sáenz. We would like to renew our invitation for Assyriologists around the world to contribute their editions of commentary tablets, for which they will receive full credit.

 

Best wishes,

 

Mary Frazer

Senior Editor of the Cuneiform Commentaries Project

 

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CCP 3.5.59 (Ālu 59): NBC 7696, housed in the Yale Babylonian Collection, is a fairly well preserved one-column tablet, probably from Nippur, with a commentary on the 59th Tablet (called malsûtu) of the terrestrial omen series Šumma ālu. The commentary has been previously unpublished, but based on a transliteration provided by the present author, most of its entries are quoted in the notes of Sally Freedman’s PDF edition of Šumma ālu, Tablet 59, posted at this link (accessed 11/16/2016). (Read more)

 

CCP 3.5.103 (Ālu 103, 104 alt, and […]): The fragment edited below represents the lower half of a commentary tablet on the series of “terrestrial” omens Šumma Ālu. It contains glosses on several chapters of the series, which deal with prognoses derived from sexual behavior. In this respect, it is interesting that the exegete repeatedly recognizes his inability to explain some sexual terms (see e.g. ll. 2′, 4′, 15′, 21′), a display of candor that is rarely found in other commentaries. (Read more)

 

CCP 3.6.1.A.l (Izbu (gurru maḫīru) A): This school tablet was found at Assur, in the House N2. As such, it very likely belonged to the archive of Nabû-aḫa-iddina and Šumma-balāṭ.1 It preserves excerpts from 9 different works, separated by rulings. The excerpted works are the following: (Read more)

 

 

CCP 3.8.1.D (Iqqur īpuš, série génerale D): This small and badly broken tablet from Assur contains, on its obverse, a series of protases from the menological series Iqqur īpuš. Several explanations are appended to the protases in a second column. (Read more)

 

CCP 3.8.1.E (Iqqur īpuš, série génerale E): This “hemerological compilation”1 consists of a series of calendrical divination texts. According to its rubric, the tablet lists “favorable days for the entire year, consisting of 15 mont[hs (…), that is, 12 months] with 3 intercalary months” (ix 22-23). (Read more)

 

CCP 4.2.R (Therapeutic (ana antašubba nasāḫi u [pašāri]) R): This tablet contains a commentary in Late Babylonian script whose subscript describes itself as “Lemmata and oral explanations relating to (the work) ana antašubbâ nasāhi u pašāri, ‘In order to tear out and disperse antašubbû(-disease).’”1 The base text of this commentary has several points in common with a passage in a compilation of medical texts from Assur that begins ana antašubbâ nasāhi, ‘In order to tear out antašubbû(-disease)’ (BAM 311 ll. 59′-76′ = KAR 186 = VAT 8914). (Read more)

 

CCP 6.1.12 (Aa II/4): This small fragment preserves meager remains of a previously unidentified commentary on Aa II/4. This originally two- or three-column tablet belong to the British Museum’s “Babylon Collection”, and shares its consignment number (80-11-12) as two other Aa commentaries: (Read more)

 

CCP 6.1.u4 (Aa VI): This small fragments contains the first known commentary on tablet VI of Aa and is of some interest for the reconstruction of Ea VI. As discussed by Civil in MSL 14 p. 431, Ea VI is poorly known. (Read more)