CCP 3.5.u3 - Ālu aḫû (43rd nisḫu)

Catalogue information
Vorderasiatisches Museum
VAT 8282
Ass 13955bp
AššurAššur, House of the Exorcist
CDLI: 
P369034
Publication
Copy: 
KAR 52
Photo: 
Ph. Ass. S 3935
Editions: 

Farber, 1989bW. Farber, Vorzeichen aus der Waschschüssel: Zu den akkadischen Bade-Omina, Orientalia Nova Series, vol. 58, pp. 86-101, 1989.: 91-92

Commentary
DivinationTerrestrial omens (Šumma Ālu)

Broken

Base text: 
Ālu aḫû (43rd nisḫu)
Tablet information
Assyrian
Fragment
Columns: 
1
Lines: 
9
7th cent (Assurbanipal libraries and other Assyrian cities)
Bibliography

Farber, 1989bW. Farber, Vorzeichen aus der Waschschüssel: Zu den akkadischen Bade-Omina, Orientalia Nova Series, vol. 58, pp. 86-101, 1989.
[Edition and discussion]
: 91-92

Frahm, 2011E. Frahm, Babylonian and Assyrian Text Commentaries. Origins of Interpretation. Ugarit-Verlag, 2011.
[Comm. on SpTU 2 34]
: 80, 193, 201, 269, 319

Gabbay, 2016U. Gabbay, The Exegetical Terminology of Akkadian Commentaries. Brill, 2016.: 108 (2), 145, 150 (6)

Jeyes, 1991U. Jeyes, Divination as a Science in Ancient Mesopotamia, Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux, vol. 32, pp. 23-41, 1991.: 30 and fn. 33

Pedersén, 1986O. Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur. A Survey of the Material from the German Excavations. Almqvist & Wiksell, 1986.
[(59) Ass. 13955 bp; Ph. Ass. S 3935; VAT 8282; omens with commentary; KAR 52; cf. F. M. Th. Böhl, JEOL 5, 353; Meier, AfO 12, 240.]
: 60b

Record
Frahm, 05/2014 (Introduction)
Jiménez, 05/2014 (Introduction (correction))
Jiménez, 05/2014 (ATF Transliteration)
Jiménez, 05/2014 (Translation)
Jiménez, 05/2014 (Lemmatization)
Jiménez, 06/2016 (Collation)
Jiménez, 08/2016 (Commentary markup)
By Enrique Jiménez | Make a correction or suggestion
How to cite
Jiménez, E., 2014, “Commentary on Ālu aḫû (43rd nisḫu) (CCP 3.5.u3),” Cuneiform Commentaries Project (E. Frahm, E. Jiménez, M. Frazer, and K. Wagensonner), 2013–2024; accessed October 4, 2024, at https://ccp.yale.edu/P369034. DOI: 10079/n2z356j
© Cuneiform Commentaries Project (Citation Guidelines)
Introduction

This tablet, found at the “house of the exorcists” in Assur, represents the only commentary on Šumma Ālu from that city. It explains omens related to bathing. The omens are taken from an Ālu tablet that is known to us from SpTU 2, 34, an Uruk tablet labeled as the 43rd excerpt (nisḫu) of Šumma Ālu. As the Uruk text explains, the omens in question were “extraneous” (aḫû), i.e., they did not belong to a canonical Ālu tablet. Both SpTU 2, 34 and the Assur commentary have been edited by Farber.1

The commentary, of which only the beginning is preserved, has the indentation format typical of commentaries from the “house of the exorcists” in Assur. Some of its explanations are couched in sentence form. In obv. 1-2, for instance, we read: šumma amēlu ina tallakte mê irmuk ul ultabbar / ša ina muḫḫi askuppati mê irammuk “‘If a man washes himself with water in the walkway, he will not grow old’ - (This refers to someone) who washes himself with water on the threshold slab.” In obv. 7, the negation ul has been secondarily added to the apodosis of the omen quoted in this line (ul i-pa-šaḫ “he will (not) become calm”), an obvious manipulation of the base text, which does not have a negation here (see SpTU 2, 34, obv. 7). This tablet can be dated to the seventh century BCE.

The commentary is concerned exclusively with philological matters, and it uses the termini technici aššu and ša (introducing the explanation).

 

[Adapted from E. Frahm, Babylonian and Assyrian Text Commentaries. Origins of Interpretation. Ugarit-Verlag, 2011. P. 201]

 

The tablet was collated in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in June 2016.

Edition

Powered by Oracc
(Base textCommentaryQuotations from other texts)

ccpo

KAR 052[via ccpo]

Obverse
o 1o 1

[*] NA ina tál-lak-te A-MEŠ TU₅ ul ul-tab-bar

(o 1) “If a man takes a bath in an access way, he will not grow old” (= Ālu aḫû 43 l. 1) (refers to the man) who takes a bath on a threshold.

o 22

    šá ina UGU as-kup-pa-ti A-MEŠ i-ra-muk

o 33

* ina li-la-a-te MIN<(A-MEŠ)> TU₅ ul i-šár-

(o 3) In “If ditto in the evening, he will not become rich” (= Ālu aḫû 43 l. 2), “evening” means cool of the day.

o 44

    li-la-a-te ka-ṣe u₄-me

o 55

* ina EN.NUN.AN.ÚSAN MIN<(A-MEŠ)> TU₅ ŠU-MIN-šú GÌR-MIN-šú i-qal-li-la1

(o 5) In “If ditto at dusk, his hands and feet will become weak” (= Ālu aḫû 43 l. 4), “his hands and feet will become weak” is said in reference to “becoming poor.”

o 66

    ŠU-MIN-šú GÌR-MIN-šú i-qal-li-[la] áš-šú ÚKU šú-u2

o 77

* ina Á..ZI.GA MIN<(A-MEŠ)> TU₅ uli-pa-šaḫ ina še-ri3

(o 7) In “If ditto in the morning, he will (gloss: ‘not’) become tranquil” (= Ālu aḫû 43 l. 7), (ina Á.GÚ.ZI.GA) means “in the morning.”

o 88

* ina É ŠEN* MIN<(A-MEŠ)> TU₅ ina* MU BI ÚŠ4

(o 8) In “If ditto in the ‘house of the cauldron,’ he will die within that year” (= Ālu aḫû 43 l. 25) ("in house of the cauldron") means (the building) at the side of the storehouses.

o 99

    ina šid-di qa-ra-a-te [(x)]

Reverse
r 10r 10

* x x li? x x x x [x]

(r 10) ...

(rest of reverse missing)

1GÌR-MIN-šú is inadvertently omitted in Farber’s edition.

2Ebeling’s collation apud Farber OrNS 58 (1989) pp. 91 fn. 13 shows a LA preserved after LI, which is missing in his copy. Collation of the original reveals that the la has been erased.

3A small gloss beneath the line inserts ul, "not," thus reversing the prognosis. Since the gloss is written right under the MIN, the commentator implies perhaps that the repetition marked by MIN includes also the ul of the first line.

4The reading of the sign copied as URU×A as ŠEN, suggested in CAD R 420a, is now confirmed by collaction. The base text contains É KUN₄, “staircase” (cf. Farber OrNS 58 (1989) pp. 98 ad 25).

Photos by Enrique Jiménez

© Vorderasiatisches Museum