tensibly copied at Kuyunjik are in disagreement with most of the parallel sources and also
with each other (J and W).
Mīs Pî
All of the tablets from Nineveh for this text agree in almost all respects. While the nature
of the preserved fragments means that less parallel text is preserved in these sources as
compared to some of the other texts examined here, it remains significant that there are
no variations in hermeneutic between the sources, and very few major stylistic variants.
The small number of differences between the sources relates to orthographic or linguistic
style, and occasionally to minor stylistic adaptations. Tablet A agrees with tablets G and
O in their entirety, and with H, M and N in all aspects except orthography. Tablet A also
agrees with tablet I in almost all respects except for one abbreviation to the text of A (and
K) where a dittography is indicated by two vertical marks in place of the full text as given
in I.
The majority of the variations between the sources, and indeed all of the major stylistic
variants, that do exist are to be found in the three Late Babylonian school texts (S, T and
U) that preserve only small excerpts of the ritual. These differences are primarily con-
nected with pronunciation, which is a phenomenon probably to be expected in sources
written by apprentice scribes in later centuries. One tablet from Kuyunjik (I) shows dif-
ferences from other Kuyunjik texts (such as A and H), which indicates that not all copies
of this ritual text that were geographically proximate were necessarily in total agreement
with each other. However, it is of particular significance that almost all of the sources