Sumerian Literary Texts Research Articles

Memorization and Hittite Ritual: New Perspectives on the Transmission of Hittite Ritual Texts

Scholarly discussion of Hittite ritual texts in recent years has centered around scribal context and textual transmission. Using the method already demonstrated by Paul Delnero for Sumerian literary texts, the authors show that certain Hittite rituals were memorized, and that the variations among some exemplars resulted from errors in memory. The influence of conscious redaction on these texts must therefore be reassessed, and the questions of textual purpose, authorship, and context cast into new light.

Cuneiform Inscriptions in the Collections of the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester

The collection of the cuneiform documents in the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, was mainly acquired between 1903 and 1923 by Professors H. W. Hogg and Canon C. H. W. Johns; these texts form the nucleus of the collection. In addition, most of the six hundred tablets in the Rev. C. L. Bedale's private collection were presented to the Library by his wife in 1919, and six more by his son, Mr Paul Bedale, and daughter in 1979. Bedale described a number of his Umma tablets for a Library publication between 1901 and 1905. A selection of these texts was published by him in 1915.Many of the Sumerian texts, in all 884 tablets, were catalogued and published by T. Fish in 1932. Further tablets, letters of Old Babylonian date, were studied and published by him in 1936. Other tablets were also published by Fish, in Manchester Cuneiform Studies and elsewhere. More Old Babylonian tablets were studied by the late Douglas Kennedy, some of which were given numbers following on from those published by Fish. F. R. Kraus's edition of the Library's Old Babylonian letters, which appeared in 1985, included these as well as Fish's letters, and a few more unpublished letters that had not been assigned numbers in the Library's running sequence. In 1973 Claus Wilcke published most of the Sumerian literary texts, and J. N. Postgate published three of the Assyrian tablets. At that time these were also without JRL numbers.

Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Part 58: Sumerian Literary Texts

Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Part 58: Sumerian Literary Texts

On the Early History of the Ershahunga Prayer

The limitations of Mesopotamian literary corpora are becoming increasingly apparent as more and more collections of ancient texts are discovered and published. Although occasionally we are faced with an unexpected surprise in the form of a completely new literary composition, the more common experience is described by Erica Reiner in a well-known statement on the first millennium library from Sultantepe, in which she acknowledged the disappointing fact that hardly anything new had been found there.' There are good reasons to believe that new literary compositions may indeed await discovery in collections from ancient sites that have not been extensively excavated, in museums or in the ground, such as first millennium Der or Old Babylonian Babylon. The standard corpora from known sites, however, appear to have been more limited than could have been imagined a few decades ago. Temporal and geographical discontinuities must, of necessity, be taken into account in the analysis of Mesopotamian literary history. The vagaries of preservation, coupled with the aleatoric nature of archaeological discovery, have had an important effect on our perceptions of ancient literature. Thus even our reconstructions of the first millennium canon are still far from complete, although we have a good idea of the range of literary texts that comprised it.2 The Nineveh libraries3 and the earlier texts from Assur are the main source of materials for late second and first millennium literary compositions. The tablets from Sultantepe and Nimrud serve as a good measure of the range of texts and the later tablets from Uruk and Babylon provide evidence of the survival of cuneiform literature into the last centuries before the Common Era. The major earlier corpus, consisting of the Sumerian literary texts from the second millennium, is

Notes on Lugale

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.

アッカド語文献に見られる神の婚礼

Divine wedding ceremonies, well known in the Sumerian literary texts, are also attested in some Akkadian documents, particularly that of the 1st millennium B. C. We have previously studied on the marriage rite of the god Nabu and his spouse, Tasmetu or Nanaja. In this paper, we are trying to present further examples of the same sort of cermonies in Babylonia and in Assyria.A wedding ceremony of Marduk and Zarpanitu in the temple Esagil in Babylon is now well attested by some of the inscriptions of Assurbanipal in Assyria. A couple of evidences concerning the marriage rite of Anu and Antu at Uruk are found in texts written in Late Babylonian period. We can also cite a few examples which describe the wedding of Samas and Aja at Sippar of that later period. Some other materials which may be related to the ceremony in question are also known to us.With these evidences, we may have to reconsider the nature and the object of these divine wedding ceremonies in ancient Mesopotamia, which have been considered until now by many specialists to call for fertility or fecundity from the land.

The Death of Dumuzi: a New Sumerian Version

As of today there are several variant versions of the myth relating to the death of Dumuzi, the more important of which are: “Inanna's Descent to the Nether World”, “Dumuzi's Dream”, “Dumuzi and the galla.” The text here edited, inscribed on a hitherto unpublished tablet, BM 100046, consists of an account of Dumuzi's death that parallels to some extent the hitherto known versions, but includes a number of rather unusual themes and intriguing motifs not found in any of them. It is a pleasure and a privilege to dedicate this study to Oliver Gurney with whom I collaborated in preparing a volume of Sumerian literary texts in the Ashmolean Museum (OECT V), and who moreover published in the year 1962 an exemplary summary of what was then known about Dumuzi and his tragic death.

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access O. R. GURNEY, S. N. KRAMER, Sumerian Literary Texts in the Asbmolean Museum (Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts, Volume v). 1976. Pp. vii +113 (including 58 plates in line)+2 plates. (Oxford, Clarendon Press. Price: £10.) W. G. LAMBERT W. G. LAMBERT Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Semitic Studies, Volume 22, Issue 2, AUTUMN 1977, Page 217, https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/22.2.217 Published: 01 October 1977

Observations on Grammatical Variation in Sumerian Literary Texts

Standing in the way of a grammatical investigation of Sumerian based on the literary texts from the OB period is the problem of the myriads of variants involving grammatical elements, particularly -nand -b-, in pre-verb-stem position. This article attempts to determine whether there are any patterns or regularities involved in these variants, and whether criteria can be evolved for evaluating attested variants. To this end a measure of the relative stability of grammatical elements in the OB Sumerian texts is developed (I), a general picture is given of variation in the sample corpus (II), and a number of factors possibly influencing variation are discussed (III). The existence of a relatively stable, grammatically informed tradition is concluded.

Death and Nether World According to the Sumerian Literary Texts

From the point of view of Sumerian cultural behaviour, the royal tombs excavated at Ur with such care and skill by Sir Leonard Woolley, were of epoch-making significance; they indicate with reasonable certainty that customarily the early rulers of Sumer were accompanied to the grave not only by some of their most precious personal possessions, but by a considerable human retinue as well. Needless to say, immediately upon this rather startling discovery the cuneiformists, and particularly the Sumerologists, began searching the documents for inscriptional verification of one sort or another, but without success. Moreover, in the past two decades, quite a number of Sumerian myths, epic tales, hymns, lamentations, and “historiographic” documents have become available, and it seemed not unreasonable to hope that one or another of these might shed light on the Sumerian burial customs relating to the royal tombs. But this hope, too, failed to materialise to any significant extent, which is not too surprising in view of the fact that the royal tombs date from about 2500 B.C., while the majority of our available literary documents were probably first composed about 2000 B.C. However, a number of the Sumerian literary works are concerned in one way or another with death and the Nether World, and the invitation to participate in the Woolley Festschrift offered an opportune moment to sift, collect, analyse and present the Sumerian ideas about death and “immortality,” in honour of the archaeologist who has done so much to make the long dead Sumerians “immortal.”

Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul

Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul

Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul. S. N. Kramer

<i>Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul</i>. S. N. Kramer

Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul. S. N. Kramer

Previous articleNext article No AccessCritical ReviewsSumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul. S. N. Kramer Alexander HeidelAlexander Heidel Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 25, Number 4Oct., 1945 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/483386 Views: 9Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

SUMERIAN LITERARY TEXTS FROM NIPPUR IN THE MUSEUM OF THE ANCIENT ORIENT AT ISTANBUL. By S. N. Kramer Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Vol. XXIII (1943–4). New Haven, 1944.

SUMERIAN LITERARY TEXTS FROM NIPPUR IN THE MUSEUM OF THE ANCIENT ORIENT AT ISTANBUL. By S. N. Kramer Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Vol. XXIII (1943–4). New Haven, 1944. - Volume 19 Issue 75

BOOK NOTICES

Journal Article BOOK NOTICES Get access Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul. By S. N. KRAMER. (Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Vol. XXIII) New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research. 1944. viii + 47 pages, 94 plates, $2.50. J. P. HYATT J. P. HYATT Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XIII, Issue 3, August 1945, Pages 175–176, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/XIII.3.175 Published: 01 August 1945