K 4657+ (Comm. 3)

“[……] … was raised …, he saw the goddess of the windows, Bēlet-ṣēri, and approached her (with sexual intentions). Later, Bēlet-ilī heard (it) and became jealous: because of the regular rites /offerings (kinayyātu ) (or: “jealousy-related issues ”(qīnayātu )) - this is what it means.”

(Remainder of Z reverse uninscribed)

The catchline at the end of MS Z seems to provide the incipit of a commentary on another text. Frahm and Jiménez (2015: 328) think that the Enūma eliš commentary was “part of a commentary series that used the same hermeneutic terms (note kī qabû at the end of the line) and methods throughout.” The text commented is no other than the DLL: Da Riva/Frahm 1999/200: 181–182 already noted similarities between the catchline of K 4657 and the DLL. They suggested to identify Ninayītu of BM 40090+ with Bēlet-Ninua, and considered that this goddess played some part in the DLL.

On Ninayītu see Reynolds 2019: 324: word play ki-na-a-a-i-tú and ^dna-na-a-i-ti.

Evidence for the identification of the DLL as quoted in K 4657 comes from an entry in OECT 11 69+70, an expository text on the cultic calendar of Nippur:
i 40′–41′: ina simāni( iti sig 4 ) ultu(ta) u4.⸢15.kám⸣ adi(en) [u4.n.kám] x x na a x x x (perhaps ⸢ki⸣-na-a-⸢a-ti⸣ (…)?) Bēlet-ilī(dingir.maḫ) a-na d šu!(KU)-zi-an-na mārat(dumu munus ) d+ en-me-šár-ra ⸢iq-ni⸣, “In Simanu (III), from the 15th day to [the n-th day] … kinayyātu/qīnayātu-rites(?)… (it is because) Bēlet-ilī was jealous of Šuzianna, daughter of Enmešarra.”

Frahm/Jiménez 2015, 238f. think the “ myth-and-ritual complex” referred to here “represents an early Nippur version” of the DLL. “An unpublished esoteric calendar text exploring myths and rituals associated with Babylon includes a section about an enactment of the “Love Lyrics” in the month of Abu (V) that states explicitly that these rites went back to similar ones performed in Nippur.” [They cite in footnote 93 Reynold’s unpl. Diss: “F. Reynolds, Esoteric Babylonian Learning: A First Millennium Calendar Text (PhD Diss.: Birmingham, 1994), 22–25 (IV 21′–23′) and 266–271. Reynolds’s study has become available to us only recently. There is no reference to DLL in Abu; this is probably a mistake in Frahm/Jiménez: it is not
Abu (V), but Ululu (VI). (For Nippur Love Lyrics see Reynolds 2019, 9, 23, 30, 58, 320. See also see Reynolds 2019, 319-20, 323-25.)

Frahm/Jiménez 2015, 329: “In sum, then, it seems that the mythological text referenced in our catchline deals with the erotic tensions that existed between Bēlet-ilī, Bēlet-ṣēri/Šuzianna, and Enlil. Later, in the “Love Lyrics,” these three were transformed into the main deities of Babylon. Enlil became Marduk, Bēlet-ilī Zarpanītu, and Šuzianna Ištar of Babylon. That some Mesopotamian theologians considered the two last goddesses as one and the same is demonstrated by the explanatory god-list K 1451: 1 (CT 25, 49), which identifies Šuzianna as Bēlet-Bābili, “the mistress of Babylon,” who is identical with Ištar of Babylon, the dea meretrix of the “Love Lyrics.”

Interpretation of the sign sequence dingir a-pa-tu₄ in the catchline preceding Bēlet-ṣēri’s name:
- Reynolds, in her unpublished dissertation (Esoteric Babylonian Learning, 278–279) read it as dingir a-ḫat-tu₄ and translated “and Aḫattum looked at Bēlet-ṣēri and approached her.” Aḫattum, according to Reynolds, is Enlil’s divine sister (aḫātu) Bēlet-ilī.
- Frahm/Jiménez 2015, 329 think this unlikely. They refer to Da Riva/Frahm 1999/2000, 181 and the reference made there to BM 40090+ iv 34 [x x x] ana?  ilāni(dingir.meš ) a-pa-a-tú . . . And they think it is the same lemma as the dingir a-pa-tu₄ in K 4657+ (the way it is written in BM 40090+ precludes a reading aḫāttu). Windows are connected with divine prostitutes.
- Later, Reynolds 2019, 320 corrects herself and also reads a-pa-tu₄. See fn. 376, where she reads “the deity of the windows”.