This small fragment, whose museum number was kindly provided by Christopher B. F. Walker, contains probably a commentary on Šumma Ālu. This is suggested by the expression kīma unnīni, “like an unnīnu,” which appears in line 6′, and which elsewhere is only attested in tablets of that divinatory series.1 The tablet seems to be concerned with explaining different terms for “weeping.”

In this respect, the most arresting feature of the fragment is that it contains what appears to be a quotation from the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer: ūmu šutānuḫu mūšu gerrānu, “The day was sighing, the night lamentation” (Ludlul I 105). The purpose of the quotation could have been to explain the word šutānuḫu, “sighing” (a verb attested in medical and physiognomic omens, but apparently not in Šumma Ālu, see CAD A/2 105a), or else gerrānu, “lamentation,” a word attested in Šumma Ālu XI alt 10.2

Two other Šumma Ālu commentaries from the 81-11-3 collection have been identified in the course of the Cuneiform Commentaries Project: CCP 3.5.1.B (on Šumma Ālu 1) and CCP 3.5.6 (on Šumma Ālu 6-7). The present fragment may belong to the same tablet as the latter commentary.

• 1. See N. P. Heeßel, Divinatorische Texte I. Terrestrische, teratologische, physiognomische und oneiromantische Omina. Harrassowitz, 2007. P. 103 l. 14′ and the Kuyunjik parallels cited there (K.6229 o 9, K.6417+ l. 5, and K.7075+ l. 5).
• 2. S. M. Freedman, If a City is set on a Height. The Akkadian omen series šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin. Volume 1: Tablets 1-21. The University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1998. P. 186 l. 10.