1This tablet is, according to De Graef 2018: 196 who edited the dossier, a “list of barley expenditures” which resumes the information contained in four little dockets (BM 97939, BM 97809, BM 97938, BM 98045) — except lines 17-24 — in the same order. De Graef (2018: 196) indicates that lines 17-22 could have been part of another docket that is now lost but not lines 23-24, which take the total of all that is above. The fact that lines 25-29 were copied on two dockets (BM 97938 and BM 98045) but that they are not part of the total could be explained because these wages would not correspond to the period quoted just before, from Month VIII/November to Month V/August the following year.

1. Palaeographical and philological commentary

• Line 1: For the talpittum-work, see Stol (1995: 200) and De Graef (2018: 198).
• Line 5: The line is damaged, but we probably have to look for a qualifier for goats. Perhaps ṣeḫrum for tur? However, one would wait for the ideogrammatic form.
• Line 7: According to De Graef, the line’s last word is an illegible verb. One might wonder if it is not again (me-e) iṣ-bu-u, like in lines 12 and 16; in this case, the hired worker for this task would have done it with the help of oxen.
• Line 8: kirrum designates, according to Stol (1995: 200), a “ceremonial happening of legal importance.” Kraus 1959-62 had rightly considered it a special ceremony, and then Stol studied the context of the letter AbB 2 157, which allowed him to put forward this hypothesis. In the document context, the ceremony kirrum intervened when ox teams (iriātum) started the work of “deep ploughing” in the fields and, by extension, marked the beginning of the season. For the expression kirram šapākum, “to pour out the kirrum,” see AbB 02 157 quoted by Stol, and also the letters, which are actually school learning exercises, AbB 05 205 and AbB 08 118.
• Line 20: Traces of signs in this line elude comprehension.
• Line 22: Unfortunately, for our purposes, the line is partially illegible. The last word is apparently a verb designating a particular operation on sesame.

2. Historical commentary

2This summary tablet, as well as the four dockets, are not dated. However, given that all of the texts in the agricultural dossier of Old Babylonian Sippar edited and studied by De Graef are dated to the reign of Ḫammurāpi, we consider that it dates from the same period.

3For sesame cultivation practices in Babylonia, see Dossier A.1.1.15.

4Parallels: For sesame cultivation in Sippar, see AOAT 440 191 2.1.