Tablet AA affords a special opportunity to compare the form of a copy of MUL.APIN in
a private library against sources from the Kuyunjik collections and Babylonian temple
contexts. As noted immediately above, the particular taxonomy, common to most sources
including the private text AA, varies in tablet T, a temple affiliated text. The close
agreement between AA and X, Y and DD (from Nimrud ca. eighth century B.C.E.) in
other respects shows that the privately owned text, AA, is closer to earlier Neo-
Babylonian sources than it is to Neo-Assyrian Kuyunjik and later Neo-Babylonian
sources. By extension, the close agreement between AA and C may therefore indicate
that C is also based on an earlier southern source.
It is important to note that agreement between two sources where they overlap does not
imply that these sources would be in complete agreement were they more fully preserved.
For example, the agreement between C and A, and C and AA, may be considered to im-
ply that A and AA would necessarily agree with each other. However, the truth is that A
and AA are significantly different, and so it is a fact that at some point, no longer pre-
served in the fragments, C must have significantly differed from either A, or AA, or per-
haps both.
The Laws of Hammurabi
Only tablet W, and to a lesser extent tablet Z (both Late Babylonian texts of unknown
provenience), can be said to agree closely with the stele in the places in which they are
preserved. The colophon of tablet W suggests it was one tablet in a series that contained
the full text of the stele. Among the other sources, tablets T and b exhibit a text also close