National Museums Scotland: 3 (2023-04-17)

Created by: Wagensonner, Klaus

Old Babylonian Sumerian song of praise; National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; NMS A.1909.405.3.

The Old Babylonian period (ca. 1900-1600 BC) is the major period for the compilation of Sumerian literature. Its transmission is owed to a great extent to the school education, where literary extracts were copied by apprentice scribes. This nice example in the collection of the National Museums Scotland is a square tablet containing a short song of praise. The text was published by Stephen Langdon in his Babylonian Liturgies (1913) as text no. VIIIter. However, Langdon’s hand copy suggests that the beginnings of the lines are completely destroyed and that there are signs missing. In fact, most of the tablet is well preserved. The lines on the tablet are quite slanted. This is, in particular, apparent on the reverse, which contains text only in its upper third. In the blank space in the lower part of the reverse are quite a few erased signs. These two aspects suggest that the tablet’s origin can indeed be traced in the school milieu. The text ends in the doxology “Nisaba be praised.” Langdon published this text in his Babylonian Liturgies as a hymn to the goddess Nisaba. A similar song of praise is HS 1526 in the Hilprecht collection in Jena. The goddess Nisaba frequently occurs in doxologies of Sumerian literary compositions. It appears that the text is addressed to the goddess Baba (mentioned in line 8). She is described as ga-ša-an-gu10, “my lady,” in the Emesal-dialect. This is also substantiated by the first line, which mentions e2-gi4-a-eri[du?ki-ga], “daughter-in-law of Eridu” (the end of the line is too fragmentary to read). This epithet of the goddess Baba is already attested in the Early Dynastic period (ca. 2500-2350 BC) in an inscription of Urukagina. The second line mentions a covering (Akk. kutummu): KID-ma2-šu2-a. The first sentence with a finite verb occurs in line 4, which states: “What is made?” (a-na-am3 ib2-ak). The remaining text contains the sequence ze2-eg3 several times, which is the Emesal-form for the Sumerian verb šum2, “to give.” The last line of the obverse and the first line of the reverse seem to be identical. All in all, this text appears to be an ad hoc compilation. CDLI entry: P414096

credit: Wagensonner, Klaus