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).

Recent additions to the corpus

CCP 3.5.49 - Ālu 49 Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum This tablet preserves one of the latest datable commentaries. According to its colophon, the tablet was copied by Nabû-šumu-līšir son of Nabû-balāssu-iqbi, grandson of Marduk-zēru-ibni, of the Egibatila family.	CCP 2.1.D - Maqlû 1-3, Šurpu 3 D The tablet Ass. 13955dq (VAT 8928), copied as KAR 94, comments on Maqlû I-III (lines 1’-45’) and Šurpu III (lines 46’-61’).	CCP 3.1.41 - Enūma Anu Enlil 41-43 (?) Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum The one-column tablet 81-2-4,206 preserves commentaries on three tablets of the meteorological part of Enūma Anu Enlil.	CCP 3.7.2.J - Alamdimmû 9-12 J Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum This hitherto unpublished tablet from Babylon contains a short but complete commentary on the last four chapters of the physiognomic divinatory series Alamdimmû.
CCP 7.1.6.A.b - Divine names A Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum This previously unpublished tablet contains a highly interesting commentary on a ritual that seems to have taken place during the month of Simānu. The commentary is preserved in two duplicating manuscripts.	CCP 7.2.u103 - Ritual Text Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum The present text contains what appears to be a commentary on a ritual, which seems to have taken place during the month of Simānu. The tablet consists of two pieces, joined by I.L.	CCP 4.2.Q - Therapeutic (šumma amēlu qāt eṭemmi iṣbassū-ma), bulṭu bīt Dābibi Q Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum A one-column tablet containing a commentary on If the hand of a ghost has seized a man, part of the poorly known therapeutic series Cures from the House of Dābibī.	CCP 4.2.R - Therapeutic (ana antašubba nasāḫi u [pašāri]) R Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum 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(-diseas

• ‹ previous
• 2 of 23
• next ›