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This small tablet contains an oracular question concerning the royal couple’s wintering in Ankuwa. As the question occupies both sides of the tablet, the answer was likely recorded elsewhere or omitted. The tablet has been catalogued as a letter, although it lacks the fundamental characteristics of a letter, such as an address formula and an epistolary frame to the content of the message. Thus, it is rather a brief individual oracle report.
The tablet ends with the isolated numeral “two” written in the centre of the last line. According to Hout Th.P.J. van den 2001c, 434, similar numbers could be meant as aids for those who would later compile individual oracular reports into larger tablets, compendia of a set of questions on the same matter – in this case, the wintering of the king and queen at a certain location (see e.g. the well preserved KUB 5.4, CTH 563).
A notable parallel is the small tablet HKM 115, likewise of oracular content (KIN), and concluded with a numeral “two” in its last line. For a similar usage, see possibly also the tiny tablet KuT 39 (KuSa I/1.29), where the numeral “22” is found – although this is no oracle report. An alternative explanation is that the number ‘2’ (and possibly ‘22’?) should be understood as an abbreviation for KI.MIN (‘the same’, ‘ditto’), used here as a concise confirmation of the result anticipated in the oracle question (suggestion S. Görke; see Trameri A. 2025a, 324 with n. 103).
For the possibility that similar short oracle reports could be “attached” to formal correspondence, see the edition of a comparable text, KBo 18.142 (CTH 581.12).
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