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A Prayer to Ea, Shamash, and Marduk, From Hama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

J. Læssøe
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Extract

The Tablet 6 A 343, which is now in the possession of the Danish National Museum at Copenhagen, was excavated in the year 1936 by the Danish Expedition to Hama in Syria. For permission to publish the text, I am indebted to the Carlsberg Foundation, which sponsored the excavations; to Professor Harald Ingholt, Yale University, who directed the Expedition; and to Mr. Niels Breitenstein, Keeper of the Department of Classical Antiquities at the Danish National Museum. I take the opportunity to thank Mr. Breitenstein for his interest in my work with the Hama tablets in general. For very generous and valuable assistance with the reading and interpretation of difficult signs and passages especially in the latter part of the text, I am much indebted to Professor Benno Landsberger of the University of Chicago.

The tablet 6 A 343 was found in the remains of the ancient city of Hama, in Building III of Level E, which provides us with the year 720 B.C. as a lower date: the year in which Hama was conquered by the armies of Sargon II of Assyria. It is, however, possible that at least some of the tablets found in Building III should be dated to the ninth century B.C., inasmuch as a letter (6 A 334) found in the same archaeological context may with some probability be dated to the reign of one Marduk-apil-uṣur, a local ruler of Suḫi and a contemporary of Shalmaneser III of Assyria.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Spring 1956 , pp. 60 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1956

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References

page 60 note 1 Ingholt, H., Rapport préliminaire sur sept campagnes de femilles à Hama en Syrie (Det kgl. danske videnskabernes selskab. Archæologiek-kunsthistoriske meddelelser. III, 1, 1940), 115Google Scholar.

page 60 note 2 H. Ingholt, op. cit., 118.

page 60 note 3 The identity of Marduk-apil-uṣur, author of the letter 6 A 334, with the ruler of Suḫi, of that name (see L.A.R., 1 [1926], § 592Google Scholar), was proposed by O. B. Ravn; see Ingholt, op. cit., 115, note 10.

page 61 note 1 See H. Ingholt, op. cit., 115, note 9.

page 61 note 2 K. 2784+ edited by Weir, C. J. Mullo, J.R.A.S., 1929, 285 ff.Google Scholar; Sm. 290 published in Læssøe, J., Studies on the Assyrian Ritual and Series bīit rimki (1955), pl. III, No. X, with remarks in note 54Google Scholar.

page 61 note 3 Kunstmann, W. G., Die babylonische Gebetsbescbwörung (Leipziger Semitistische Studien (N.F.), 2 [1986], 86fGoogle Scholar.

page 61 note 4 op. cit., 80.

page 61 note 5 Obv. 5′: KA.LUḪ.Ù.DA tak-pir-tum u[…] “mouthwashing, purification, and [ ]” For the series nam-búr-bi ḫil-dà-a-bi, see Zimmern, H., Z.A., XXX, 219Google Scholar.

page 61 note 6 Lines 1 ff. restored from the duplicates K. 2784+ (A) and Sm. 290 (?). In the Hama copy, the divider (§) occurs in several cases where, in fact, a new verse begins: in A, a new line. The circumstance that several verses begin in the midst of a line perhaps suggests that the Hama version was taken down from dictation and was not copied from a written source. The first part of line 6, as far as the divider (6a), would seem to belong with line 5 as one verse. mubbibū šuluḪḪi mūdū tēlilti (6b+7a), because of the parallelismus membrorum, obviously constitute one verse; then, in the following part of the prayer, separate verses are represented by lines 7b+8a (= A, line 4); 8b+9a (=A, 5); 9b+10a; 10b+11a (taparrasā); 14+15a; 15b+16a; 16b+17a; 17b+18a.

The duplicates A and B show the following variant readings:—

Line 2. A: da-i-nu di-en KURI.

B: da-a-a-an AN-e u KI-ti[m …]” judges! of heavens and earth, […].”

3. A: omitted.

B: KUD-su EŠ.BAR mu-šar[-bu-ú …].

4 ff. Following entries all from A.

4: omitted.

5. After isqēti, A adds: šdAN-e uKI-tim at-tu-nu-ma.

6. 7a: omitted.

8: ŠU-ku-nu-ma.

NAM.MEŠ TI.LA.

9. 10: at-tu-nu-ma.

9. 10: TI.LA.

11b: omitted.

12. 13: omitted.

14: KA × LI-ku-nu TI.LA.

ṣi-it INlM-ku-nu.

15: e-piš INIM-ku-nu.

After balāṭumma, A adds: da-i-nu di-en

KUR ka-bi-su KI-ti DAGAL-ti, e-ma

AN-ú x -pu; for the latter passage, cf.

commentary to line 15.

ka-bi-su.

16: SUD.ME£.

lum-ni.

17: dum-qt.

For mupašširū, A has: mu-pa-si-su.

18. After pardāti, A adds: ḪUL.MEŠ.

lum-ni.

19–31: absent from A.

32: ana-ku BUL+BUL A BUL+BUL šd DINGIR-šú BUL+BUL dIŠ8,.TÁR-šú BUL+BUL-tum “I, N.N., son of N.N., whose god is N.N., (whose) goddess is N.N.”

A adds: šd ID.MEŠ ISKIM.MEŠ ḪUL.MEŠ it-ta-nab-šd-nim-ma “upon whom evil forces and omens come continuously.”

pal-ḫa-ku-ma.

33. For the litany which follows šutādur āku, in A, see Weir, Mullo, J.R.A.S., 1929, 286 f.Google Scholar, and cf. Kunstmann, op. tit., 86 f. with references.

1 Written over erasure.

2 Written over erasure.

3 Written over erasure.

page 63 note 1 i.e., “solemnly.”

page 66 note 1 The phrase palḫdku, etc., could have been naturally Included after line 18, where it would have serred at a brief complaint (lamentation). For the changing position of the attalū-formula in the Babylonian prayers, see Kunstmaan, op. cit., 21.

page 66 note 2 Professor M. E. L. Mallowan calls my attention to instances in modern times of exorcism by a in a case of snake poisoning as described by Cockill, N. L., Iraq, VI, Pt. 1, p. 50Google Scholar.

page 66 note 3 Illness it one result of being unclean; note the following entry in the commentary text K. 3191 (5 R 47), 48:

page 66 note 4 , lit., “handwashing”; see commentary to line 6.

page 66 note 5 See A. Falkenstein, (Leigziger Semitistische Studien (N.F.), 1 (193l), 44 ff.

page 66 note 6 quoted from the edition by H. Zimmern, Beitrdge zur der babylonischen Religion (A.B. 12 [1901], 1 ff.

page 66 note 7 Shamash can be called, therefore, the god of purification (); see K. 4549 (2 R 54, No. 1), 30 b.

page 66 note 8 Cf. Jacobsen, T. in Before Philosophy (ed. Frankfort, H., 1949), 221 fGoogle Scholar.