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The method of editing Sumerian literary texts has been the subject of heated debate in recent years. It used to be that Sumerian text editions followed the practice of classical philologists, giving the text with an apparatus criticus of manuscript variants, but this method has an inherent flaw: the editor must either choose to use as his main text an ‘eclectic text’ combining the best readings of all the manuscripts, or select one manuscript as the best version. Moreover, although the apparatus may reveal manuscript variants, it often does not inform the reader of how much of any one line is preserved in any one text. Since Sumerian literary texts may show a considerable number of variants between duplicates, the Partitur format has been proposed and utilized, in which every line of every manuscript is given in full, although the system has been opposed on grounds of waste of space.
2 Powell, M. A., ZA, 68, 1978, 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar f., following the suggestion of Edzard, D. O. in Or., 43, 1974, 105–7.Google Scholar
3 Black, J. A., Afo, 27, 1980, 156.Google Scholar
4 Although van Dijk did not read the last two signs, the reading ⌌nir-gál⌍ seems clear on the copy, and fits well with the context.
5 The final sign (read NI by van Dijk) has the shape of a Middle Assyrian sa sign, although only two verticals are clearly visible within the horizontal wedges.
6 The author wishes to thank W. G. Lambert, R. Borger, and I. L. Finkel for numbers of these fragments, and the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to publish them here.
