The Second Tablet of "Išum and Erra"

Abstract

The Babylonian poem sar gimir dadmē (perhaps best entitled in English “Isum and Erra”) has been available to scholars in its hitherto most complete form since 1969 in the admirable edition of L. Cagni. Now excavations conducted by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage at Me-Turnat (modern Tell Haddad) have produced a first-millennium tablet in Babylonian script from the Neo-Assyrian Period occupation of the site, giving the text of tablet II of the composition. Previously the second tablet could be reconstructed as three separate broken passages (totalling 112 lines) with two lacunae. The new tablet, IM 121299 (TH 319), restores the first lacuna (four lines in length), completes some broken lines and restores part of the second lacuna (at least 29 lines), establishing altogether about 45 new lines of the text, some admittedly only to a very fragmentary degree. The whole tablet must be at least 159 lines long. Unfortunately the Me-Turnat tablet is damaged, and is rather poorly written by an apprentice scribe who has made a number of evident mistakes and incorrectly formed signs. Nonetheless the text of the poem is substantially increased by it. For a photograph, see Plate XX.