Kassite School Texts

School exercises from the Kassite period are usually pillow-shaped or round tablets with a brief (1 or 2-line) literary extract on the obverse and a slightly longer extract from a lexical text on the reverse.

UM 29-15-594 Kassite-period pillow-shaped exercise with text on obverse and reverse in different directions.

A typical pillow-shaped exercise tablet measures approximately 7 x 4 cm. Obverse and reverse are inscribed in different directions: the obverse in landscape format, with writing parallel to the long side and the reverse (the lexical side) in portrait format. This format is known in numerous exemplars from Nippur and Babylon, as well as from Kiš, Ur, and perhaps Sippar. In addition a number of unprovenanced exemplars have been identified in various museums.

N 3783+ Kassite-period lentil-shaped exercise with proverb on obverse and sign list (Sb) on reverse.

A related tablet type is the Kassite lentil (round exercise). Obverse and reverse contain approximately the same types of extracts as the pillow-shaped type. The text on the reverse is at an irregular angle to that on the obverse. Kassite round exercises are known from Nippur; in addition a number of unprovenanced exemplars have been identified.

The extracts on Kassite exercise tablets come from a surprising variety of sources. The literary extracts are in Sumerian (sometimes with interlinear translation) or in Akkadian. The Sumerian extracts include traditional Sumerian literature (Ninurta's Return; Ninurta's Exploits; Inana's Descent; Enlil and Sud), newly composed literary texts (a hymn to Nippur), proverbs, an omen, and unidentified texts (some of these in Emesal). The Akkadian texts include extracts from Gilgameš, from the Code of Hammurabi, proverbs(?) and unidentified texts.

Among the lexical texts we find the sign lists Sb (always on lentils) and Diri, the thematic list Ura, the Weidner God List, the god list An = Anum, the list of professions Lu, and the group vocabulary Erimhuš.

CBS 4595 Kassite-period elongated exercise with Ura 2 (business expressions).

A small group of tablets from Nippur contains longer extracts from the thematic list Ura. These tablets are elongated and were cut in half in antiquity. Traces at the cutting edge suggest that the right half of these tablets originally contained a copy of the same text.

Further reading

• Oelsner, Joachim 2006 Zu N. Veldhuis/H. Hilprecht, AfO 50 (2003/04), 28-49. Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2006/61.
• Peterson, Jeremiah 2007 The MB Nippur Combination Extract N 3783 + N 5031 Obverse. Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2007/34.
• Peterson, Jeremiah 2007 A Middle Babylonian Nippur Extract of An = Anum 1. Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2007/66: 79-80.
• Peterson, Jeremiah 2007 Another Middle Babylonian Nippur Extract of the Code of Hammurabi. Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2007/81: 96-97.
• Veldhuis, Niek C. 2000 Kassite Exercises: Literary and Lexical Extracts. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 52: 67-94. Download [http://www.jstor.org/stable/1359687] from JSTOR (subscription required).

Niek Veldhuis

Niek Veldhuis, 'Kassite School Texts', Corpus of Kassite Sumerian Texts, The ckst Project, 2019 [http://oracc.org/introduction/schooltexts/]