408 Christine proust
of 2.5 are called ‘extrapolations’. Since Tablet A is limited to twenty dou-
blings, these sections do not appear there.
Tables 12.6 and 12.7 show that a strong relation exists between Tablet A
and the school texts. Nearly all the direct parallels ( Table 12.6 ) or indirect
parallels ( Table 12.7 ) are Type iv school tablets. Each concerns a single
reciprocal calculation. Th e tablets that are not of Type iv contain lists of
reciprocals, all like Tablet A. Th ese tablets are UM 29–13–021 and CBS
10201, from Nippur, as well as BM 80150, of unknown origin.
Th e majority of school exercises use the data found in Tablet A. Two
exercises from Nippur are reproductions identical to Sections 9 and 10 of
Tablet A, including the reverse sequence. When the factorization method is
employed in the exercises, it uses the factors chosen in Tablet A, except in
one case. 39 Th e tablets in Table 12.7 that do not use the geometric progres-
sion with a common ratio of 2 and an initial number 2.5 still have links with
Tablet A. Specifi cally, they use a geometric progression with a common
ratio of 2, but with an initial term of 1.4 (and in one case 4.3), as found for
example in the tablet UM 29–13–021 from Nippur.
Th ese observations could indicate that the tablets such as Tablet A and
the other tablets which are not Type iv school exercises (CBS 10201, UM
29–13–021, BM 80150) were the work of schoolmasters and that one of the
purposes of their authors was the collection of exercises for the education
of scribes. Th e link between Tablet A and teaching is incontestable, but does
this signify that Tablet A is a ‘teacher’s textbook’ from which the exercises
were drawn? Several arguments fi t with this hypothesis, but it also raises
serious objections. Beginning with what is now known about the school
context and proceeding more specifi cally to Tablet A and its parallels I will
present arguments for and against this text‘s being a ‘teacher’s textbook’.
Th e structure of school documents of an elementary level speaks in favour
of the hypothesis. Lists of exercises can be considered a ‘teacher’s textbook’
if we consider them only on this level. Exercises from the elementary level
are extracts of texts written on tablets of a particular type, called Type i by
Assyriologists. 40 Th is relationship between a ‘teacher’s textbook’ and peda-
gogical extracts appears both for the mathematical texts and also for the
lexical texts. However, as far as the advanced school texts are concerned,39 In tablet CBS 1020, the factorization of 16.40 uses the factor 40 in place of 6.40. It is not,
however, a Type iv school text, but a tablet containing a list of eight reciprocals, the function of
which is closer to the function of Tablet A.
40 Some authors think that the Type i tablets from Nippur are perhaps the product of students
who have fi nished their elementary education, undergoing some type of examination (Veldhuis
1997 : 29–31).