This portrait-oriented tablet, FLP unn72, contains the only attested commentary on the Neo-Babylonian Grammatical Texts (henceforth NBGT). NBGT, which was edited by R. Hallock and B. Landsberger in MSL 4 pp. 129-202, and studied by J. Black, is the modern title given to several lists in which morphemes of the Sumerian prefix and suffix chains are equated with Akkadian words. The apparent aim of these equations is to explain different elements of Sumerian grammar to a non-Sumerian speaking audience. In antiquity, the work seems to have been divided up into 9 tablets, but only the incipit of the first tablet, ù = anâku, is preserved. These lists are attested on tablets from Assyria and Babylonia that date mostly to the first millennium BCE.
As Leichty observes in his editio princeps of FLP unn72, several of the grammatical terms or components that it explains are attested in NBGT Tablet 9, and so the commentary seems to be at least partially concerned with this tablet. Other grammatical terms and components that appear in the commentary are attested in Tablets 1 and 2 of the work, but since there seems to a certain degree of repetition from Tablet to Tablet, it cannot be excluded that these terms and components were also originally in NBGT 9. Indeed, one of the greatest challenges this commentary poses to modern attempts to understand it is that NBGT is itself in a very fragmentary state of reconstruction, as well as being difficult to understand.
Enough of the colophon survives to indicate that the manuscript was produced at Nippur: the name of the tablet’s owner seems to begin with the theonym Ninurta, which is a frequent theophoric element in names of Nippureans in the Late Babylonian period; furthermore, the colophon concludes with an imprecation that invokes Enlil, the patron deity of Nippur. Although a Nippur origin for the tablet seems very likely, it is possible that it was found at Uruk. The transfer of other Nippurean manuscripts of text commentaries to Uruk at some point after their production is well attested.
Although FLP unn72 was probably produced at Nippur, it cannot be dated precisely. It may well date to the Achaemenid period, since other commentaries have been excavated at Nippur in Achaemenid-period contexts. In view of the lack of evidence for FLP unn72’s precise date of production, it is worth noting that a manuscript of NBGT that was produced at Nippur (AO 17602, the only known source for Tablet 1 of NBGT) is dated to Year 17 of Darius (i.e., in either 505 or 407 BCE, depending on whether Darius I or II is meant), as we know from its surviving colophon (BAK no. 121).
Beyond FLP unn72 indicating that NBGT was a focus of commentators in first millennium Babylonia, the importance of this commentary lies in the fact that it is one indicator of the level to which Sumerian was studied at Nippur in the Achaemenid period, and the fact that it is another piece of evidence for the importance of Sumerian as a facet of Nippurean identity. In this respect, it is highly interesting that the text features a previously unidentified quotation from a Sumerian literary text, Enlil and Sud, which is used to illustrate the commentator’s contention that the Sumerian verb ĝen can sometimes be used to introduce direct speech (l. o 13).
A final interesting feature of the commentary is the fact that it contains the paratextual remark ul ašme, “I did not hear it/ have not heard of it” (o 10 and 17), which is sometimes encountered in cuneiform text commentaries. This remark is intriguing for two reasons. First, it may indicate that the commentary was initially written down by means of dictation. Second, since the text contains no references to an earlier manuscript of the commentary (i.e., there are no ḫepi-glosses in the commentary or reference to a Vorlage in the colophon), the presence of the remark ul ašme may suggest that FLP unn72 is an autograph, i.e., the original manuscript of the commentary.
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