Neither rubric nor colophon are preserved on this cola-type commentary from the British Museum’s Sippar Collection. The fragment is rather thick. The text preserved on it comments on entries belonging to the beginning of a well-attested list of divine names better known as Weidner God List (henceforth WGL). In his publication of school texts from the Nabû-ša-Harê temple at Babylon Antoine Cavigneaux included an edition of the manuscripts of WGL. The preserved part of our commentary deals with entries 15–25; the original commentary was at least double the height of what is still preserved and might have contained comments to the first 30–40 entries of the list. The fragment’s profile suggests that only a few signs are missing at the beginning of each line, but at least a quarter of the tablet is broken off on the right-hand side. Entries with divine names quoted from the base text usually start in a new line. This is best seen, in particular, before the entries on Ninšubur (l. 8’) and Lā-tarāk (l. r,8), since the preceding lines remained partially empty in each case.
While CCP 6.7.B already known by Ernst Weidner juxtaposes divine names and synonyms/identifications (e.g., “Lulal is Latarak” in l. 23) or short descriptions (e.g., “Amara-azu is the daughter of Sîn” in l. 16), the present commentary goes beyond and offers a whole range of explanations, some of which are of philological nature. These comments predominantly attempt to provide literal Akkadian translations of divine names included in WGL and also explain the divine names etymographically. The latter is achieved by analysing the elements of each divine name and consequently establish a link between the divine name and a respective deity’s characteristics. The goddess Bizila (conventionally written bí.zil.lá) in extant manuscripts of WGL, for instance, is translated qā’idat nūri rubê, “who set afire the princely light” (l. r,1). The comments attached to this name follow the sequence of the Akkadian translation: lá, zil, and bí or izi.
The commentary contains a few literary quotations, one of which clearly comes from Enūma elîš, tablet IV, 82. This line was probably chosen because of its reference to ēnūtu, “En-ship,” and its significance for la.ba.ar = sukkallu, “minister” (l. 11’).
On two occasions the commentary uses the technical term šanîš, “alternatively” (ll. 10’ and 12’), and once also šalšiš, “thirdly” (l. r,6). Gleaned from the contemporary lexical tradition and grammatical texts, in particular, is the technical term šaplû in l. 12’, which corresponds to ki.ta, a term that specifies the position of a given grammatical element (in this case the use of -ši as suffix).
Particularly intriguing is the etymography of the divine name Tišpak in r,12. This divine name is written with the sign múš, i.e., a sign mùš to which gunû-strokes are added. Late syllabaries provide an analytical sign name muš-la-an gu-nu-u (or similar). The commentator disassembles both elements of the grapheme and explains them. The base sign mùš is equated with Akkadian zīmu, “appearance,” and the gunû-strokes separated out (indicated by the sign zib in the transliteration below) are equated with Akkadian banû, “beautiful.”
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