Cuneiform Commentaries Project Newsletter (November 2016)

November 17, 2016
Dear subscribers,
 
Several new texts have been recently added to the corpus of the Cuneiform Commentaries Project (http://ccp.yale.edu). Please find a list below.
 
Thanks are expressed to the following scholars, who have contributed their editions and feedback since the last newsletter: Matthew T. Rutz and H. Stadhouders. We would like to renew our invitation for Assyriologists around the world to contribute their editions of as yet unedited commentary tablets, for which they will receive full credit.
 
Best wishes,
 
Enrique Jiménez (Senior Editor of CCP)
 
 
CCP 3.1.5.E (Enūma Anu Enlil 5 and 16 E): This well-preserved portrait-oriented tablet, now in the Yale Babylonian Collection, contains a previously unpublished cola-type commentary on Tablet 5 of the celestial omen manual, Enūma Anu Enlil. The text begins by quoting the entire protasis that is partially preserved in the opening line of a manuscript of EAE from Nineveh, edited as source a of Tablet 5 by Verderame. (Read more)
 
CCP 3.1.24.D (Enūma Anu Enlil 24(25) D): Only five of the original thirteen entries are preserved on this uʾiltu-tablet that comments on Enūma Anu Enlil 24(25). Like Nabû-zuqup-kēnu’s imgiddû commentary on Enūma Anu Enlil 56 (CCP 3.1.56.A), the colophon of K.8510 uses the deceptively simple subscript ša libbi followed by the incipit of the source text. (Read more)
 
CCP 3.1.u7 (Enūma Anu Enlil (?)): This fragment preserves the lower part of a four-column tablet with an unusual commentary text. The base text, which is hitherto unrecovered, is an astrological treatise containing cryptographically written omens. Many of the omens of the base text appear to have been written numerically, i.e., the logograms typical of divinatory texts were replaced by numbers. (Read more)
 
CCP 4.1.3.C (Sagig 3): This small tablet consists of two rejoined fragments, BM 43854 and BM 43938, both of which belong to the 81-7-1 consignment of the British Museum’s “Babylon Collection.” It contains the lower part of a commentary on the third chapter of the diagnosis series (Sagig). The fact that only nine lines of the base text are commented upon in the 16 preserved lines of the commentary, and that the lower edge of the tablet is profusely inscribed, suggests that the commentary was originally very long. (Read more)
 
CCP 4.1.7.C.c (Sagig 7 (?)): This small fragment from the lower left corner of a tablet contains what appears to be a commentary on a medical text. Since one of the entries (l. 10′), “he has been sick during the 31st day, hand of DN,” is only known in Sagig (e.g. Sagig XIII 13, 44, 67, 79, 108, 130, XVII 26, XVIII 38′), this fragment is here tentatively identified as part of a commentary on the diagnostic series. Line 11′ seems to justify the association between the “31st day” and the “hand of Sîn.” (Read more)
 
CCP 6.6 (Neo-Babylonian Grammatical Text): This portrait-oriented tablet, FLP unn72, contains the only attested commentary on the Neo-Babylonian Grammatical Texts (henceforth NBGT).1 NBGT, which was edited by R. Hallock and B. Landsberger in MSL 4 pp. 129-202, and studied by J. Black,2 is the modern title given to several lists in which morphemes of the Sumerian prefix and suffix chains are equated with Akkadian words. (Read more)
 
CCP 7.1.6.A.a (Divine names A): This small fragment preserves a few lines of a commentary that is better known from the tablet BM 47458 (= CCP 7.1.6.A.b). The few preserved signs of the present fragment duplicate sign by sign BM 47458. (Read more)
 
CCP 7.1.6.A.b (Divine names A): This previously unpublished tablet contains a highly interesting commentary on a ritual that seems to have taken place during the month of Simānu. The commentary is preserved in two duplicating manuscripts. The best preserved one, BM 47458 (81-11-3,163), is an almost complete tablet from the British Museum’s 81-11-3 consignment. (Read more)
 
CCP 7.2.u93 (Cento of literary texts): This previously unedited tablet contains a series of etymographies of divine, celestial, and personal names. Thus, Marduk’s name Asaralimnunna is explained as “light of Anu, Enlil, and Ea” in l. o 2; the name of his celestial counterpart, the planet Jupiter (dSAG.ME.GAR), is explained by means of a notarikon analysis as the “provider of (ominous) signs for the lands” (ll. o 7-8). (Read more)
 
CCP 7.2.u166 (Plants, materia medica): This poorly preserved tablet contains a commentary on plant names. It consists of two fragments joined by Irving L. Finkel, both of them from the British Museum’s 81-11-3 consignment. It probably stems from Achaemenid or Hellenistic Babylon. Most entries in the present commentary seem to deal with rare plant names, which are explained by means of other plant names. (Read more)
 
CCP 7.2.u175 (Uncertain): This small fragment, which probably stems from Babylon, shares its consignment number (81-11-3) with around 40 other tablets and fragments (see a list here). The tablet is written in a small and neat script, which differs considerably from the script typical of tablets by Iprāʾya (formerly read as Šemāya or Šebāya), many of which belong to the same 81-11-3 consignment as the present fragment. (Read more)