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Cuneiform Tablets in the Collection of Lord Binning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

C. B. F. Walker  and
S. N. Kramer
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Summary

The following summary is necessarily somewhat speculative and glosses over many problems of interpretation.

The Broken beginning of the text (1′–3′) seems to describe a state of turmoil in southern Babylonia for which the king (Merodach-baladan) seems to be held responsible; Marduk and the gods in anger decide on the removal of the king (4′–5′) and the appointment of his successor (?, 6′). The new king, Bel-ibni (or rather, as the historical records show, his Assyrian patron Sennacherib), in the course of the campaign to remove Merodach-baladan, destroys and plunders the Babylonian shrines and removes the statues of the gods (7′). Among others this affects the goddess Ba-KUR and her temple Etenten in the town of Ša-Uṣur-Adad. Ninurta sends the king a vision concerning Ba-KUR (8′–9′) and the town of Šapija also sees Ba-KUR (10′). Alarmed by this Bel-ibni restores the statues of the gods plundered from Ša-Uṣur-Adad to Nabu-belšu (the local chief?) and grants the town freedom from certain state services (11′–13′). The statue of Ba-KUR is then brought back to her temple in Ša-Uṣur-Adad by Nabu-gamil, an official of the temple of Ba-KUR and Ninurta (14′–17′). Subsequently the king Bel-ibni wrote the official tablet exempting the town from state services and presented it to Nabu-gamil and gave the town free of claims to Nabu-belšu (18′–20′). The text continues with curses on any future person who harms Ša-Uṣur-Adad and its gods or alters the town's privileged status (21′–34′). The text of the king's decree ends with line 34′. There is a slight gap on the tablet before lines 35′–40′ which apparently form the colophon of the copy of the decree actually presented to Nabu-gamil, invoking curses on anyone who tampers with that copy. After a wider gap there follows a second colophon (41′–43′) identifying the scribe who copied the present tablet.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , Spring 1982 , pp. 71 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1982

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References

1 The edition of text no. 3 is by S. N. Kramer, the remainder of the article and the cuneiform copies are by C. B. F. Walker. Thanks are due to R. Borger, I. L. Finkel, D. A. Kennedy, W. G. Lambert and E. Leichty for their comments on some of the problems of text no. 1.

2 For a detailed account see Brinkman, J. A., A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia (Chicago, 1968), 235–245Google Scholar, and “Merodach-Baladan II” in Studies presented to A. Leo Oppenheim (Chicago, 1964), 6–53Google Scholar.

3 See Brinkman, , PHPKB 238, n. 1529Google Scholar, on the survival of Mukin-zeri and the continued independence of Šapija.

4 Smith, S., The First Campaign of Sennacherib, pp. 66–67Google Scholar.

5 For functionally similar but briefer colophons see King, L. W., BBSt 24, 42Google Scholar; 25, 39–40; 28, rev. 27.

6 On the Ahlamû, a group possibly related to the Aramaeans, see Brinkman, J. A., PHPKB, 397Google Scholar “General Index” s.v. Ahlamû, and 227–228 n. 1799.

7 For extant examples of the letter-prayer genre, cf. Ali, Sumerian Letters: B 6, 7, 8, 16, 17; and Hallo, , JAOS 88 (1966), 75 ffGoogle Scholar.

8 dnin-šubur, grammatically dnin-šubur(-ak), “Lord/Lady of Šubur,” is not the original Subarean name of the deity, but that given to him by the Sumerians when he was taken over into their pantheon.

9 For the essential references, cf. Sjöberg, , TH III, p. 97, comment to line 226Google Scholar.

10 Ninšubur also plays an important role in the myth “Inanna's Descent to the Nether World,” and in the Sacred Marriage text CT 42, no. 14 (cf. PAPS 107 (1963), 501 ff.Google Scholar). There is also a brief hymn to Ninšubur's temple, cf. TH III, p. 30Google Scholar. A new hymn to the deity has also been identified in the University Museum by Sjöberg, who has provided me with a transliteration of the document; its contents, however, are repetitive and obscure and it was of little help for the translation and interpretation of our text.

11 BL 195A; cf. Van Dijk, , SGl II, pp. 53–4Google Scholar.

12 UET VI, no. 74.

13 In the transliteration, two dots stand for one missing sign, three dots for two missing signs, four dots for three or more missing signs.

14 In the translation, two dots stand for one missing word, three dots for two missing words, four dots for three or more missing words.

15 This word is also probably to be restored at the beginning of line 3 of UET VI, no. 74.

16 Note, however, that there may be a sign following dug4-ga-ni, and this makes the rendering uncertain.

17 That is, the translation assumes that the -bi of gišgal-bi refers back to igi-dàra-abzu and that the literal translation of the complex is: “Of the front of the ibex-boat of the abzu (he is) its emblem.”

18 This is, however, far from certain, especially since the en-geštug-dagal may refer to Enki whose boat was mentioned in the preceding complex.

19 For the meaning of ad-hal cf. the CAD, s.v. bārû.

20 Perhaps, however, the line contains a parenthe tical sentence addressed directly to the god, and should be translated “Oh honoured one, learned diviner of heaven, no god can compare with you.”

21 The same epithet is found in line 14 of UET VI, no. 74.

22 The reading utah-he (not utah-sár) is assured by the variant utah-hé in UET VI, no. 101 line 19 (cf. Steible's, Horst dissertation Ein Lied an dem Gott Haia, pp. 89–90Google Scholar). For utah/šamû, “heaven,” “sky,” cf. SL 443, 7, and note that Utu is depicted as en-utah-he-ta-è-a, “the Lord coming forth out of the sky,” in UET VI, no. 182, line 4; and Nanna is depicted as en-an-na-utah-a-gub-ba, “the Lord of heaven who stands in the sky”, in TH, line 164.

23 The broken signs between šeš and mu may have represented a complex qualifying šeš.

24 The literal meaning of igi-tur-mu ba-an-dù may perhaps be “he directed my contemptuous eye” (that is, “he directed a contemptuous eye against me”); cf. Gordon, , SP, 2. 15, 16Google Scholar; and especially Ali, Sumerian Letters, B: 7 lines 16–17 and B 8 line 22.