The tablet MLC 2627 probably stems from the city of Uruk, in Babylonia. It represents the only published commentary on a tablet with a projection (a so-called amulet-shaped tablet) discovered to date. The tablet contains a “hemerological compilation,” a type of hemerological treatise that is created by combining material from various sources. The sources of the present compilation are (1) on the obverse, Iqqur īpuš (a series that specifies which months are favourable for a given activity), with some lines from a commentary, and (2) on the reverse, a list of lucky days. Only favourable prognoses from Iqqur īpuš are excerpted – a frequent practice in hemerological compilations. The entries preserved on the tablet deal with house construction.
This type of hemerological compilation, i.e. a digest of Iqqur īpuš together with a commentary and a list of lucky days, are attested elsewhere. The tablet CCP 3.8.1.A, for example, contains, according to its colophon, “lucky days for doing what one wants, and favourable for anyone to achieve his desire, together with 25 lines from its mukallimtu-commentary, extract (nisḫu) from Iqqur īpuš, (copied) from many tablets of Šumma Ālu (i.e., the canonical series of terrestrial omens), Iqqur īpuš, and Abšegida (i.e., the Babylonian Almanach), whose original was from Babylon.” CCP 3.8.1.A was written by the Assyrian scholar Nabû-zuqup-kēnu, who lived in the 8th and 7th centuries.
The commentarial entries on the obverse of the present tablet are identical with the “25 lines from its mukallimtu-commentary” of Nabû-zuqup-kēnu’s tablet. The series Iqqur īpuš consists of a series of paragraphs of 12 lines each, which all begin by stating an action in the form of a protasis (e.g., “if he lays the foundations of a house”). This protasis is followed by an apodosis, which contains a prognosis for each of the twelve months of the year. The mukallimtu-commentary on Iqqur īpuš is concerned only with protases: its purpose is to provide specifications for the actions of each paragraph. Thus the protasis “if he builds a house” (= Iqqur īpuš §5) is explained in the commentary as “(referring to a man) who erects a door.” Similarly, the entry “If a person enters his house” (=Iqqur īpuš §16) is explained as “(referring to a man) who had leprosy, but then was healed and entered his house.” The only technical term used in the commentary is ša, which appears at the beginning of every commentarial entry.
Mesopotamian divinatory calendars on tablets with a projection are attested since the last half of the second millennium BC. Such artefacts, pierced and unpierced, are fundamentally different from divinatory calendars on quadrangular tablets, since the tablets with a projection were designed for display, presumably like modern calendars and almanacs. Quadrangular tablets containing calendars, on the other hand, were probably stored in libraries.
MLC 2627 has an unpierced projection, a format similar to other Iqqur īpuš texts (e.g. T 1927). If the artefact is displayed in a way so that the projection is at the top of the tablet, then the script on the obverse has an archaic orientation (from top to bottom), similar to other magic calendars, such as STT 300. If the artefact is displayed in a way so that the projection is on the left side, the script on the obverse has the regular orientation of first millennium tablets (from left to right), and the script on the reverse has a table format. This suggests that the artefact was, indeed, viewed with the projection on its left side. However, the fact that the projection is unpierced suggests that the tablet was not hung up, and that the magic calendar could be turned around while being consulted.
Who used this commentary text on a calendar (Iqqur īpuš) with rather vague advice for house construction? While someone might have consulted it in order to determine the optimal month for maintaining a house, the rather vague commentarial explanations and the unpierced projection suggest rather that the tablet was used as a model for teaching purposes. Through MLC 2627 a Babylonian professor (ummânu) could have demonstrated to his students what a magic calendar on a tablet with a projection looks like, and how the script might have been orientated. In addition, the professor or his disciple might have written down the highly abstract explanations, which were then discussed in class.
Collation of the tablet in January 2016 has yielded a few new readings: they are marked with an asterisk in the edition below.
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