H2 LH ia 16 KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI HV – Different proper nouns given
B i 12 DUR.AN.KI in the sources. 355
H3 B i 14 LH ia 19 ù-ša-te-ru-šu ˹ú˺-š[a-t]i-ru-šu nunciation.OV(l) – Possible difference in pro- (^356)
(^) H4 LH ia 20 (^) i-na (^) OV(l) – Possible difference in pro-
B i in nunciation.^357
(^) H5 LH ia 21 šar-ru-tam (^) OV(l) – B has the wrong case
B i 15 ˹šar˺[ ]tim vowel for the accusative singu-lar. (^358)
(^) H6 LH ia 21 (^) da-rí-tam (^) OV(l) – B has the wrong case
B i 15 da-rí-ti vowel for the accusative singular.
(^) H7 LH ia 23 (^) ù (^) OV – The conjunction is written
B i 17 u with the sign U in B.
(^355) The stele reads: Bābilam šumšu (^) ṣīram ibbiū, “they gave Babylon its excellent name,” but the city men-
tioned in B is Nippur. This variant, when taken into account with variant H132, might suggest that B was a
copy of a textual tradition that was centred in Nippur, as has already been observed by M.E.J. Richardson,
Hammurabi's Laws, 17. It should also be mentioned that the list of city names beginning at line 50 of the
stele has Nippur preceding Eridu and Babylon. According to R. Borger, Babylonisch-Assyrische Le-
sestücke, 7, this may be an indication that B represents a tradition of the text that stems from a period in
which Nippur was considered to be the centre of the empire – a situation that is known to have developed
after Hammuabi’s 20 356 th year.
The difference between the sources is the writing of the medial vowel in the 3mpl perfect III/1 of
√ataru, “make increase, surpass.” On the apparent free variation of /i/ and /e/ see M. Luukko, Grammatical
Variation in Neo-Assyrian (SAAS 16 Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2004) 86-87, and the
discussion in notes and. Given the non-uniform distribution of the spellings with /i/ and /e/ it is likely that
the various spellings reflect the actual pronunciation, or at least the orthographic preference, of the individ-
ual scribe. 357
The stele has the archaic and poetical form of the preposition in, found in Old Akkadian, Old Babylo-
nian royal inscriptions and Old Babylonian and Standard Babylonian literary texts (see CAD I 141b, and
the comments in G.R. Driver and J.C. Miles, 358 Babylonian Laws, 116). See also H268.
The spelling of the case vowel in B may reflect a similar phenomenon to that described in A.R. George,
Gilgamesh, 439, “-i or -e for nominative or accusative singular.”