Papers by Jeremiah Peterson
This paper offers the editio princeps of an Old Babylonian Sumerian cultic song which describes a... more This paper offers the editio princeps of an Old Babylonian Sumerian cultic song which describes a previously unknown myth that features the sun god Utu in his mythical journey at sunrise, crossing the sea, his encounter with his sister Inana, and the merchant trade of luxury goods. The myth featuring Utu encountering his sister Inana at the eastern horizon was otherwise attested only in scattered texts, like Utu F. This composition offers also a rare literary description of the far-flung trade of precious metal, stone, and above all aromatics that went through the trading hub of Sippar. This resembles Utu's role as the city god of Sippar, as patron of travelling merchants and also as protector of the weak.
The following is a composite text and translation of the Old Babylonian version of the Instructio... more The following is a composite text and translation of the Old Babylonian version of the Instructions of Šuruppak, with cursory notes. I made it in conjunction with my physical rendition of the text in a series of four tablets in order to have a workable text for inscription. 1 As with all composite texts generated from a plethora of sources in various states of preservation, selection is arbitrary, and I do not consider most textual variants here. Uncertain or missing signs are marked with ellipsis (…). Without monolithic effect, I have attempted to favor an impersonal third person over the second person in general (except for explicit commands) for posited advice when the sources preserve it. A small amount of newly recovered text in lines 83-86, which involve the risks of drunken behavior, was facilitated by two recent joins I have made, UET 6/3 +747 and Ni 4543 + 9781, along with subsequently informed collation of MS 2291. The largest gap in recovered text is found in what are classified as lines 238-250 in Alster's 2005 edition, the fragmentary content of which I do not treat here. The Instructions of Šuruppak were treated in 1974 and 2005 editions by Alster, along with his numerous other ancillary studies. The extensive notes of Civil 1984 are of fundamental importance to the understanding of the Early Dynastic version and some of the most challenging lexical puzzles presented by the text, as is the extensive analysis of Wilcke 1978. Recently, the extensive evolution of the text between its extant ED and OB version has been analyzed in detail by Sallaberger 2018. See also the recent detailed overview by Samet 2023. I treated the Ur sources of this text that led to some of the text and translation advanced below in conjunction with my comprehensive treatment of Old Babylonian Sumerian literary texts from Ur in Peterson 2019. Further bibliography for this text can be found, for example, in Sallaberger ibid. and Attinger 2021.
22. diš lugal.gin ⸢nun⸣ za-nin-šú 23. ⸢liš-ru⸣ tin gim te-me-en 24. [tin].⸢tir ki ⸣ li-ku-[un] 25... more 22. diš lugal.gin ⸢nun⸣ za-nin-šú 23. ⸢liš-ru⸣ tin gim te-me-en 24. [tin].⸢tir ki ⸣ li-ku-[un] 25. [bala.meš-šú] Fig. 1: BLMJ 2960 seal (height: 28.5 mm, diameter: 12.8 mm) and its modern impression. Courtesy of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem. The present study focuses only on the seal legend (fig. 2) the first line of which mentions Nabû-šezib, the owner of the object. In the case of the second line of the inscription, Oshima tentatively suggests some
The Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) team has achieved several milestones in 2022. First, t... more The Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) team has achieved several milestones in 2022. First, the Fragmentarium has now reached the size of 21,200 cuneiform tablets, totalling over 300,000 lines of text. Secondly, the Corpus has been greatly enlarged with editions of several texts, such as the Hymn to Ninurta as Savior, the Great Prayer to Nabû, and particularly the Epic of Gilgameš. Thirdly, a sophisticated string-alignment algorithm, based on the python-alignment library, has been fine-tuned for cuneiform script and implemented. The algorithm has been run several times, and has found several matchings that had escaped the attention of humans, such as a new fragment of the latest datable manuscript of Gilgameš edited in no. 27, text no. 2. The growth of the manuscript base of texts is important in its own right, but it also has a larger significance for the understanding of Mesopotamian literature, since it contributes decisively to its contextualization. The importance of recovering the context in a tradition in which the authors of most texts are still unknown, and indeed in which the date of composition of almost all works of literature is impossible to establish, can hardly be overstated. In this respect, the pièce de résistance of this collection is constituted by T. Mitto's new edition of the Catalogue of Texts and Authors (no. 26). The edition is informed by several new fragments and includes two pieces of a hitherto unsuspected 106 Enrique Jiménez et al. Babylonian version of it, which shows that the Catalogue, or a composition akin to it, circulated in Babylonia in the last few centuries before the turn of the eras. Even more important for the recovery of the context of Babylonian literature are the newly established identifications of several of the incipits given in the Catalogue: the progress made since the last critical edition of the text (Lambert 1962) is considerable. New authors can now be recovered from oblivion, and their oeuvre studied in some detail. Three compositions, all of them identifiable, can now be credited to the scholar Rīmūt-Gula (Mitto, no. 25), a fact that allows us, perhaps for the first time, to study the style of a Babylonian author across several of his works. The new sections of the Catalogue, together with several new textual discoveries, afford us a context also for the Great Hymn to Ištar: it was probably authored, according to the Babylonian tradition, by the elusive scholar Aba-Ninnu-dari (Jiménez-Rozzi, no. 32), homonymous or perhaps identical with the scholar called AΒiqar in the Uruk List of Kings and Sages. New readings of old manuscripts also provide evidence for a possible serialization of Bullussa-rabi's Hymn to Gula in first-millennium Babylonia (Földi, no. 31). *** More fragments are identified almost daily, so inevitably some of the notes edited in previous instalments of this series need be supplemented. A. Hätinen adds several new fragments of Ludlul (no. 28) to the already published ones in Hätinen 2020 and in the introduction to the third instalment. G. Rozzi edits additional fragments of the Great Šamaš Hymn (no. 29), to be added to those that appeared in the preceding collection (Rozzi 2021b). Zs. J. Földi furthers the textual basis of Bullussarabi's Gula Hymn (no. 30), thus continuing the labor started in Földi 2019b. *** The present collection also includes notes by three external collaborators: J. Peterson edits an important new manuscript of the Emesal Vocabulary (no. 33); B. Baragli supplements her recent edition of the Kiutu prayers (no. 34) and edits, together with D. Shibata, another tablet that may well belong to the same genre. Moreover, D. Schwemer edits in two important contributions (pp. 203-294 of the present issue) many new fragments and manuscripts of Maqlû and other anti-witchcraft texts, some of them identified by the eBL team. All articles have been read by all team members. It is a pleasure to acknowledge our gratitude to the editorial team of KASKAL, in particular to L. Milano, P. Corò, and S. Ermidoro, for their patience, support, and technical assistance. New tablets are published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum and of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Jiménez, no. 27, no. 1).
This communication is an edition of a Sumerian literary fragment now in the University Museum in ... more This communication is an edition of a Sumerian literary fragment now in the University Museum in Philadelphia that features Enlil devastating the mountainous lands to the east of the alluvial plain. When the text resumes, the goddess Nisaba, a member of Enlil's court with a plethora of attested roles, praises the Ekur on behalf of the Anuna gods with the opening lines of what is described as a šud 3 prayer, a rare instance of the matching of explicit text with this cultic song designation. This fragment also seems to furnish another instance of the rare designation dur 2 kur-ra, the place on the edges of the netherworld where Gilgameš famously loses his ball and stick in Gilgameš, Enkidu, and the Netherworld. Here, it is used in merism to describe the whole of the mountain.
Journal of Near Eastern Studies , 2022
A reconstructed single column imgida tablet in the University Museum in Philadelphia furnishes th... more A reconstructed single column imgida tablet in the University Museum in Philadelphia furnishes the partial recovery of another širgida composition of Ninurta that features extensive self-praise of the deity. The preserved
text appears to furnish a short version of Enlil’s union with Ninḫursaĝa leading to the flourishing of plant growth in the mountains beyond the borders of the Mesopotamian alluvium. This is invoked as background
to Ninurta’s own exploits in the mountains.
Orientalia, 2022
The following is an edition of the coronation ritual PBS 5, 76, which is currently known from onl... more The following is an edition of the coronation ritual PBS 5, 76, which is currently known from only one copy found at Old Babylonian Nippur, an unlikely point of origin. Occurring at the Eana temple in Uruk, the ritual also involves a tree chopping ceremony in a sacred grove referred to as the kiriĝi’edena. An enigmatic line in the ritual articulating the king’s relationship to the sun god Utu seems to serve as a type of memento mori for the
ascending king. As was noted more than fifty years ago by van Dijk, numerous similarities can be observed between this ritual and the actions of Gilgameš prior to his excursion to the mountain of the eren tree in Gilgameš and Ḫuwawa, to the extent that it is a distinct possibility that they involve the same underlying ritual. Perhaps it was enacted both at coronation and at other key points in the king’s reign such as military expeditions.
This communcation presents an edition of the personal name list Ur-ab-ba, which is attested at Ol... more This communcation presents an edition of the personal name list Ur-ab-ba, which is attested at Old Babylonian Nippur and in one unprovenienced exemplar published by Durand (1987). It seems to have been the companion text to the theophoric personal name list Ur-ki. Although it is not definitively attested prior to the Old Babylonian period, the list has an obvious connection to the Sumerian onomasticon of the third millennium BCE as attested in central and Southern Mesopotamia. As such, the list was not a functional inventory of the current onomasticon, but rather a link to defunct traditions.
has the dimensions 6.5 × 3.5 × 2.8 cm. The preserved surface approaches but does not reach the le... more has the dimensions 6.5 × 3.5 × 2.8 cm. The preserved surface approaches but does not reach the left edge. From the curvature, the preserved side may be the obverse, although that is hardly certain. This manuscript appears to lack line rulings, a common practice in manuscripts from the so-called "liturgist's archive" outlined by Tinney, although the hand is not overtly reminiscent of the more pervasive hand(s) within that corpus. The preserved contents of this fragment reflect what is most likely a cultic song where either a deity or a king is addressed in the second person. The former may be more likely given the apparent generic reference to a temple (e₂) in line 13ʹ. Wealth and productivity are described in conjunction with various institutions or buildings, continuing into what was likely a description of the productivity of the flock and the orchard before the break. Two of these entities, the e₂-muhaldim and e₂-ŠIM×NIG₂, are well attested. Their close connection with each other along with the e₂-kikken₂ is well evidenced at Ur III Garšana (Allred 2011: 11-12). A similar assortment of buildings is found in a few extant literary contexts. This includes the fragmentary composition Šulgi Y 23ʹ-30ʹ (Falkenstein 1960, ETCSL 2.4.2.25, see also Sallaberger 2012: 277), which is currently known from two fragmentary manuscripts (BM 16919 (CT 42 40), Ni 4043 (SLTN 52)), where Šulgi is described as erecting his statue and furnishing animals and crops for the preparation of food and beverage for a evening cultic meal for Ninlil at the dining hall (unu₂ gal). Such-Gutiérrez (2003: 134-135) understands these locations to be part of the Ki'ur. Another context with similar entities is to be found in Lamentation over Sumer and Ur 304-314 (Michalowski 1989: 54-55, Attinger 2013: 14), where the decimation of various production areas in the city of Ur including the e₂-ŠIM×NIG₂, ĝa₂-nun mah, and bur-saĝ are described at the violent end of the reign of Ibbi-Sîn, resulting in the starvation (ša₃-ka-tab) of the people, the diminution of the king's diet, and the cessation of divine meals in the unu₂ gal digir-re-ene.k. The occurrence of the ĝa₂-nun mah in the current fragmentary passage probably indicates that the city of Ur is also featured here, and thus an Ur III king, most likely Šulgi, was probably featured in this passage. However, since a ĝa₂-nun mah is attested within the Ekur complex (George 1993: 87) it is also possible that Nippur is featured here, as it is in Šulgi Y.
The compilation of the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL)'s Corpus and its Fragmentarium has ... more The compilation of the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL)'s Corpus and its Fragmentarium has continued at a good pace since the publication of the previous installment of the series. The Fragmentarium contains, as of February 2021, transliterations of ca. 17,500 fragments, totaling over 215,000 lines of text. The electronic critical editions of several major texts, such as Enūma eliš, Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, the Counsels of Wisdom, and the Catalogue of Texts and Authors are now finished or nearly so. New pieces of all these texts have been identified and will be gradually published in this series. The present installment contains new fragments of Gilgameš (n. 10), Ludlul bēl nēmeqi (n. 11), the Hymn to the Queen of Nippur (n. 12), and a literary hymn to a god (n. 13). Beginning in this installment, articles stemming from work in the Fragmentarium, but not directly related to the core corpus of the eBL project, will be included. The first such article, by J. Peterson and T. Mitto, deals with the text Enlil and Sud (n. 14). The second, by U. Gabbay, presents a new reconstruction of a ritual prescribing the recitation of sundry Balaĝs and Erša~uĝas (n. 15). The articles have been read by all team members, an exercise that has resulted in many suggestions and corrections. New tablets are published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum. *** Almost every non-administrative document in the range BM 30000 to BM 36696 has been transliterated in the eBL's Fragmentarium, enabling hundreds of identifications and dozens of joins 232 Enrique Jiménez et al. to be discovered. Some of the discoveries originating from these works are published here, in notes nn. 10 (Gilgameš) and 14 (Enlil and Sud). As originally planned, a list of fragments identified and/or joined in the framework of the eBL project would have been published in this installment. The list, numbering over 4,000 identified fragments and ca. 650 proposed joins, has been compiled, but the impossibility of checking most of the joins in the museum due to the pandemic has recommended that the publication be delayed until such tests are again possible. It is a pleasure to acknowledge here our debt to two colleagues who, in the last year, have granted us access to their collections of transliterations, the fruits of many years of painstaking work: U. Gabbay and A.R. George. We would also like to express our gratitude to the editor of this journal for his continuous support throughout the last year.
This communication presents an edition of the Sumerian personal name list with the incipit Ur-ki,... more This communication presents an edition of the Sumerian personal name list with the incipit Ur-ki, which seems to have been occasionally utilized as a relatively advanced curricular text at Old Babylonian Nippur. It was also quoted extensively in the non-standardized personal name list Lu 2-d En-lil 2 , which was featured at an earlier point of the curriculum. Consisting primarily of theophoric names, it is an important compilation of theonyms as well.
Several fragmentary Sumerian cultic songs from Old Babylonian Nippur, including one that seems to... more Several fragmentary Sumerian cultic songs from Old Babylonian Nippur, including one that seems to be for Ninurta (Ninurta H), contain enumerations of major cultic centers in southern Mesopotamia that are
unmistakably reminiscent of the Sumerian Temple Hymns. The following
communication considers the potential parameters of intertextuality that may be involved with these texts. Such proximity to the corpus of cultic songs qualifies the Sitz im Leben of the Temple Hymns at Old
Babylonian Nippur.
This article provides an edition of the previously unpublished Old Babylonian tablet fragment tha... more This article provides an edition of the previously unpublished Old Babylonian tablet fragment that may be part of an explanatory god list. With all due caution, it is possible to suggest that it provides a rare example of a god list with extended commentary from the Old Babylonian period with each preserved entry seemingly eliciting an explanation.The format is unique in that it occurs as running text without columned entry or any other topical demarcation, arranged according to divine name and its respective explanation or equivalent. Likewise, although the fragmentary state of this piece rules out any defnitive interpretation, it is possible that it may refer to certain lines in the Ninurta poem Lugale.
Area TA, House F -3N-T 916, 326 (SLFN 77, CDLI P356381) is a largely intact small landscape table... more Area TA, House F -3N-T 916, 326 (SLFN 77, CDLI P356381) is a largely intact small landscape tablet. It appears to belong to the corpus of incantations against digestive disorders that has been recently assembled and discussed in an excellent study by . As such, it is a relatively exceptional example of an incantation from Area TA, House F at Nippur. The final line, which occurs on the reverse, could reflect the label <tu 6 > en 2 -e 2nu-ru, which is sometimes advanced at the end of Old Babylonian Sumerian incantations prior to a subscript, or it may reflect a negated sentence or phrase that I cannot further recover.
Uploads
Papers by Jeremiah Peterson
text appears to furnish a short version of Enlil’s union with Ninḫursaĝa leading to the flourishing of plant growth in the mountains beyond the borders of the Mesopotamian alluvium. This is invoked as background
to Ninurta’s own exploits in the mountains.
ascending king. As was noted more than fifty years ago by van Dijk, numerous similarities can be observed between this ritual and the actions of Gilgameš prior to his excursion to the mountain of the eren tree in Gilgameš and Ḫuwawa, to the extent that it is a distinct possibility that they involve the same underlying ritual. Perhaps it was enacted both at coronation and at other key points in the king’s reign such as military expeditions.
unmistakably reminiscent of the Sumerian Temple Hymns. The following
communication considers the potential parameters of intertextuality that may be involved with these texts. Such proximity to the corpus of cultic songs qualifies the Sitz im Leben of the Temple Hymns at Old
Babylonian Nippur.
text appears to furnish a short version of Enlil’s union with Ninḫursaĝa leading to the flourishing of plant growth in the mountains beyond the borders of the Mesopotamian alluvium. This is invoked as background
to Ninurta’s own exploits in the mountains.
ascending king. As was noted more than fifty years ago by van Dijk, numerous similarities can be observed between this ritual and the actions of Gilgameš prior to his excursion to the mountain of the eren tree in Gilgameš and Ḫuwawa, to the extent that it is a distinct possibility that they involve the same underlying ritual. Perhaps it was enacted both at coronation and at other key points in the king’s reign such as military expeditions.
unmistakably reminiscent of the Sumerian Temple Hymns. The following
communication considers the potential parameters of intertextuality that may be involved with these texts. Such proximity to the corpus of cultic songs qualifies the Sitz im Leben of the Temple Hymns at Old
Babylonian Nippur.