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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
CT XXXVI was published in 1921, more than fifty years ago. At that time relatively little was known about the nature and scope of the Sumerian literary documents, and one cannot help but admire Gadd's clear, careful, accurate copies of the ten Sumerian literary pieces included in the volume, and his lucid, succinct, unpretentious summation of their contents. Needless to say some misreadings and miscopies were inevitable at the time, and in any case, it is always much easier for a collator, perched on the shoulders of the original copyist, and profiting from the latter's pioneering effort, to recognize, and now and then identify, a sign missed by his predecessor, especially if it is poorly preserved. As will be evident from the following pages, the corrigenda to Gadd's copies are quite small in number. Nevertheless, in not a few cases they help to clarify the meaning of a phrase or a line and, now and then, even of an entire passage. It is a pleasure and privilege to present these collations on which I spent several recent summer months in the British Museum, in a volume dedicated to Max Mallowan, who in a lifetime of creative archaeological and scholarly activity, has done so much to clarify and interpret the history and culture of Ancient Mesopotamia by both the spade and the pen, and who moreover, like the present writer, was Cyril Gadd's warm friend and admirer.
BM 96706 (Plates 26–27): Šulgi, Provider of the Ekur: His Divine Birth and Investiture (See Plate XV)
1 For làl-gar-(ra), cf. especially Lambert, W. G., AfO 17 (1954–1956), 313, C 11Google Scholar; ḫa-iṭ làl-gar ba-ši-mu giš-ḫu-ru, where làl-gar is clearly a parallel to giš-ḫur (cf. ibid., 319 for additional references), and note that Lambert's rendering of ḫa-iṭ làl-gar by “who scans the hidden wisdom,” comes closer to the meaning of the phrase than “who penetrated the Apsu” (cf. CAD, s.v. gišḫuru), while on the other hand, the CAD's rendering of ba-ši-mu giš-ḫu-ru by “who forms the archetype,” is preferable to Lambert's “who creates the concepts.”
2 If the interpretation of lines 10–14 is correct, one would expect the birth of Ur-Nammu to be mentioned here as well as the birth of Šulgi, and indeed lú-zi, a term that refers to Ur-Nammu in line 13, is found in line 18, but here it seems to refer to Šulgi, not Ur-Nammu (cf. also note 4).
3 For a tentative transliteration and translation of lines 12–20, cf. p. 130 of the forthcoming Proceedings of the 196 Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale.
4 This seems to refer to Šulgi's human birth, as the son of Ur-Nammu.
5 For Falkenstein's excellent edition of the composition, cf. ZA 49 (1950), 106 ff.Google Scholar; cf. also Kramer, , Bi Or 11 (1954), 174sub 21Google Scholar.
6 Three of these, the second, third, and seventh, for no apparent reason, are followed by an antiphon designated as a giš-ki-IG-bi-im. Following the last kirugu and its antiphon, there are several fragmentary lines at the very bottom of the tablet, whose relation to the composition as a whole are uncertain.
7 My suggestion in Bi Or (cf. note 5) that it was Ninisinna rather than Inanna who is referred to in this kirugu was erroneous.
8 An's presence in Enlil's Ekur is not as surprising as it may seem at first glance; in the literary texts of our period An and Enlil are sometimes fused and treated as a single deity (for references, cf. WJZ 1/2 p. 251, note 3).
9 Cf. note 20.
10 The line can therefore probably be restored to read: inim-dug4-ga-ni an-gim-maḫ-am den-líl-gim-zi-dam, “Her (Inanna's) commanded word is as lofty as (that of) An, as authoritative as (that of) Enlil”.
11 (F) indicates corrections surmised by Falkenstein in his edition of the composition (cf. note 5).
12 This single correction helps to clarify the entire passage, lines 9–12, that gave Falkenstein no little unnecessary trouble, for it can now be rendered as follows:
9. She (Inanna) called Ur-Ninurta (from) among all the people to the shepherdship of the living beings,
10. Into the house that decrees the fates, that divides up the enduring(?) me among all the great gods,
11. Into the Ekur, the holy place of An and Enlil, that is garbed in flesh-raising fear,
12. She made the king whom she took by the hand, enter.
In connection with this rendering note following:
(1) In line 10, the first sign is to be restored as É (not NIN); (2) lines 10 and 11, as indicated by the final -šè in both lines, are parallel and the initial é-kur of line 11 specifies the é f line 10; (3) the GIŠTENÛ preceding -šè at the end of line 11 is to be read guru 9, (a reading that Falkenstein rejected because of the misleading copy of the last sign as LU).
13 This line therefore reads: in-nin e-ne-da-nu an-ki-a nam nu-tar-re-dè, “The innin—without her fates are not decreed on heaven and earth.”
14 F's reading of the sign as galga is rather uncertain.
15 F's rendering is therefore to be corrected accordingly.
16 The rendering of the line is therefore “May Ur-Ninurta shine gloriously like Utu over the people unto distant years.” Note that F's note to this line that begins with “dalla ḫé-ni-in ist ungewöhnliche Orthographie fur dalla ḫé-ni-é-en” is therefore to be corrected accordingly.
17 F's rendering is therefore to be corrected accordingly.
18 The rendering of the complex is therefore “dining hall.”
19 F's rendering is therefore to be corrected accordingly.
20 Very tentatively, therefore, the line may be rendered: “In the palace, the honey-sweet dwelling of the land, they took (their) places.”
21 F's reading and rendering should therefore be corrected accordingly.
22 That is, it is An, not Inanna, who made Ninurta great to the end of the world, and F's rendering should be corrected accordingly.
23 The subject of lines 36–37 is therefore Enlil (not An and Enlil), and the meaning is that Enlil gave instructions in the Ekur for Ur-Ninurta to spend long days on the life-giving lap of Inanna.
24 For Falkenstein's edition of the text, cf. ZA 49 (1950), 112–117Google Scholar; also my comment in Bi Or 11 (1954), 174sub 22Google Scholar.
25 See corrigenda to rev 2.
26 Line 9 remains difficult and obscure.
27 Rather strangely, the text has a rubric sa-gar-ra-àm separating the first line of the prayer from the others.
28 The rendering of the line, therefore, is: “The planting of orchards (and) gardens (producing) honey (and) wine, making them forest-like in extent.”
29 It is not ŠU as suggested by F.
30 The rendering of the line is therefore: “Enki, you have gathered all the existing me, have placed them in the abzu.”
31 It does not look like GUB as suggested by F.
32 Since, as is well-known, the king of Sumer, as the husband of Inanna, was identified with Amaušum-galanna, it may be, to judge from this hymn, that there was current in Sumer, a theological tenet that the king upon his death was turned into a heavenly star situated close to the Venus-star Inanna.
33 Cf. also SAHG, no. 10 (pp. 73–76) where he introduced several minor changes in the translation; cf. also my comment in Bi Or 11, 172–3, sub 10.
34 Including the reading of the poorly-written sa-gar-ra-àm at the end of the composition that the scribe failed to erase, when he wrote it properly in the line following (cf. ibid., 107, note 1).
35 Line 13 (and similarly line 15, except for the initial substantive) therefore reads: lugal-kalam-ma gi 6-zal-a bara(so, rather than ra)-dutu TE (probably to be read múl, “stars”) ša-mu-ra-súg-ge-es; the meaning, however, remains obscure since it is not clear how to relate the various complexes to each other and to the verb.
36 The original tablet, to judge from the shape of the extant fragment, probably had eight columns, four to a side, each with about sixty lines of text, except the last that must have had only about forty lines; all in all therefore the composition must originally have had in the neighbourhood of 450 lines.
37 Among the more interesting items in this passage is the goddess's assertion that she has seven faces and seven chests (cf. Pl. 37, line 6).
38 A reference to the suffering that Inanna under-went because of Enlil is also found in kirugu 26 (cf. Pl. 37, lines 10–12).
39 This is true of the ŠÈ-sign throughout this text.
40 For a translation of the text see SAHG, 70–73; cf. also my comment in Bi Or 11, 172, sub 9.
41 Cf. especially Bi Or 11, 172, note 19.
42 For writing purposes, however, the scribe spread his four-line strophes over five lines (cf. the strophe contained in obv. 1–5) or more often, over six lines (cf. the strophes contained in obv. 6–11, 12–17, obv. 24—rev. 3).
43 For writing purposes, however, the scribe spread his two-line strophes over four lines (cf. obv. 18–21, rev. 9–12, 13–16, 17–20, 21–24, 25–28), although there are two instances where he wrote them over two lines only (obv. 22–23, rev. 29–30).
51 Cf. ibid., 124.
52 Cf. ibid., note 368.
53 If so, la-ad would seem to be a variant writing for aš-te, cf. ibid., 131 and note 392.
54 So, if the approximately twenty kirugu-stanzas that make up this composition had approximately the same length as the fifteenth kirugu (49 lines) and the eighteenth kirugu (43 lines), from the extant fragment with its minutely inscribed text, it is difficult to conjecture the number of columns originally on the tablet, or the number of lines on each column.