On the Location of Dilmun

Abstract

. Arrived in Istanbul the seventh of August, and was met by Kraus. After depositing the baggage in my hotel room we went to museum where everything was ready for me to start work. A special room with excellent light has been assigned to me and there I study and copy the literary tablets and fragments which I ask for. Kraus had ready for me the large twelve column tablet inscribed with the Enmerkar poem. In addition he had prepared for me some twenty smaller fragments which he had himself been able to identify as epic. Moreover he placed at my disposal some three hundred still uncatalogued literary fragments. Out of these, after a brief survey of several days, I was able tQ add some additional pieces to the epic material, as well as some well preserved pertinent mythological texts. With this material at my disposal, I began working on the Enmerkar tablet, which will undoubtedly make cuneiform history for the next several decades. It is a practically square tablet (nine inches by nine). But on this relatively limited surface the scribe has succeeded in inscribing some six hundred and twenty-five lines of text, which makes this, from the point of view of content, by all odds the largest literary tablet yet brought to light. (I am not certain however whether this tablet in spite of its size contains the entire Enmerkar poem; I shall perhaps be able to be more definite on this point in my coming report.) Moreover, it enables us to place in their proper positions all the material belonging to this Enmerkar tale which has already been published (cf. Sumerian Mythology, p. 106, note 1). As a result, close to five hundred lines of this poem can now be completely restored. Needless to say that in spite of this relatively excellent condition of the text, its translationl will prove to be no simple matter; it will give cuneiformists something to chew on for many a year. I have now completed transcribing the entire tablet, and have already pencilled in the first five columns. It will take a minimum of three additional weeks to complete the final copy of the entire tablet .