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.1

Two other commentaries are known to explain Sagig 3: SpTU 1 29 (CCP 4.1.3.A) and BM 55491 (82-7-4,65, CCP 4.1.3.B). The former is a small fragment from Uruk that contains explanations on Sagig III 89-123, whereas the latter is a tablet from the British Museum’s “Babylon Collection” that explains the first ten lines of Sagig 3. The present commentary and BM 55491 are probably not part of the same tablet, since their script is quite different in both tablets.

The main goal of the commentary is to explain entries that are ambiguous in the base text. Thus, the infrequent verb neperkû, “to cease,” is explained by means of its nearly synonymous, but far more frequent, baṭālu (l. 12′). The second entry of the commentary explains the difficult word a-lagab from the main text. According to the commentary, the word has to be parsed as a-rì, and understood as aru, “twig.” The exegete then explains that, in this case at least, “twig” (aru) means “weapon” (kakku), since both Akkadian words can be rendered by means of the same Sumerian logogram, pa. To illustrate his contention, he cites a passage from an unknown literary text (perhaps a love lyric) that mentions a flute, and describes it as “the twig of the hands of the goddess Aḫlamītu”: the quotation proves that the word aru, “twig,” can also be used to describe a tool or implement.

The line numeration of Sagig offered below follows the reconstruction of E. Schmidtchen. Mark J. Geller kindly consented to the reproduction of his unpublished copy of the text here. He and E. Schmidtchen are responsible for the transliteration of the text. Several readings stem from E. Jiménez, who is also responsible for the translation and introduction

• 1. The ratio of 16 lines of commentary for 9 lines of text, when extrapolated, results in around 200 lines of commentary for the 109 entries of Sagig 3.