This tablet contains a well-preserved commentary of twenty-seven lines that was found during the eleventh campaign of excavations of the Oriental Institute at Nippur (1972/1973). More specifically, it was found in a trash pit dating to the Persian period, in area WA. The tablet was subsequently published by M. Civil.
The colophon of the tablet states that it belonged to Enlil-kâṣir, a kalû-priest of Enlil. This Enlil-kâṣir is the same man who owned the commentary CCP 4.2.A.a, on a ritual for childbirth.
The tablet’s first rubric classifies the text as a commentary on the twenty-fourth section (pirsu) of the series “Prescription(s) of the house of Dābibu” (Bulṭu/ū bīt Dābibi ). This is a poorly known series that seems to have consisted of various therapeutic texts. Another commentary, CCP 4.2.P, comments on the twenty-second section of the series; CCP 4.2.P was probably also written by a Nippurean scribe, but unlike the present tablet it was found in Sippar.
The second rubric of the tablet classifies the text as a type 7c ṣâtu-commentary on two tablets of the series. The two tablets in question are (1) that which begins with the words “If a man’s middle hurts him” (šumma amēlu qablāšu ikkalšu) and (2) what is probably the next tablet in the series, “If a man pours out blood in his urine” (šumma amēlu ina šīnātīšu dāma utabbakam).
The exegete notes that the Vorlage contains a “recent break” (ḫepi eššu) in three consecutive lines (ll. 2-4), which indicates that this tablet contains a copy of an earlier commentary, not an original composition.
As is typical for commentaries on therapeutic texts, several of the entries in the present commentary identify obscure names of plants with one or two other plants (or names of the same plants): see lines 19, 21 and 27 (and possibly line 2). Another straight-forward hermeneutical technique present in this commentary is the syllabic rendering of logographic writings, which occurs e.g. in lines 2 and 8.
In addition to philological explanations, the commentary also contains non-philological explanations, such as paraphrase: thus in l. 24 the word “urethra” is explained as “the perforation of the penis” (pilšu ša ušari). More interestingly, the commentator occasionally attempts to establish the inner coherence of the base text by showing how the prescription in the base text is relevant to the patient’s symptom (also mentioned in the base text). In line six, for example, the commentator explains the following line of the base text, “if a man’s spleen hurts him, he should visit the temple of Marduk assiduously ...,” as deriving from a connection between the spleen and Marduk’s celestial avatar, the planet Jupiter. This connection is established by means of homonyms, namely the unusual writing of spleen, šà.gig, which is – according to the commentator – also an unusual writing for Jupiter. A similar attempt to establish the coherence of the base text occurs in line 20, which explains the connection between pain in the kidney and the “hand of Nergal” on account of the fact that the constellation “Kidney” is related to the Nergal’s planet, Mars.
Three technical terms appear in the text: in line 6, the term ina libbi (here: “is because”) introduces the explanation; in line 23, a more common form of the same term, libbû (“as in”), clarifies the first explanation of the signs bar u₄-mu. In the same line, šanîš (“alternatively”) introduces a second interpretation of the same signs. The technical term ša iqbû (“what is said”) is often used to cite the base text. In addition, line 12 contains a quotation from “Marduk’s Address to the Demons,” which is used to contextualize an equation.
Civil’s edition has been collated on a basis of a low-resolution photo published in The Oriental Institute News & Notes 10 p. 2. Several inaccuracies have been discovered, most importantly in line 20.
