The World's Oldest Literature (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East)

By William W. Hallo

Literature starts at Sumer, we may possibly say. on condition that this historical crossroads of tin and copper produced not just bronze and the whole Bronze Age, but additionally by means of necessity, the 1st process of record-keeping and the means of writing. Scribal colleges served to propagate the hot approach and their curriculum grew to create, protect and transmit all demeanour of artistic poetry. In a life of learn, the writer has studied a number of elements of this such a lot historical literary oeuvre, together with such questions as chronology and bilingualism, in addition to contributing basic insights into particular genres akin to proverbs, letter-prayers and lamentations. moreover, he has drawn conclusions for the comparative or contextual method of biblical literature. His reviews, extensively scattered in varied courses for almost fifty years, are the following assembled in handy one-volume layout, made extra easy through wide cross-references and indices.

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There's a double dividing-line after line 10. three considering that those dividing traces don't appear to mirror any normal grouping (see presently), the wager should be ventured that they have been drawn, automatically after each 10th access. the next identifications can be prompt. “OBVERSE? ” Line 10: ga-ˇsa-an-mu dè-gu[r] = access nine in Rm. 2, 220 (RA 22: 123). Line thirteen: dUtu è-ma = erˇsemma for Utu, indexed in Cat. eleven (IV R2 fifty three) ii 26 ˇ (cf. ibid, i five and iii sixteen) and edited by way of Schollmeyer, Samaˇ s (1912) as No. 34. Line 14: x é -gi4, -a x é -[ta nam-ta-é] = balag of Inanna indexed in Cat. eleven i forty four. “REVERSE? ” Line 2: an nam-[ . . . ]: cf. an-ne(var. : -né) nam-nir-ra (var. : gál) = “Summer and Winter,” catalogued in Cats. three, 6, and seven (RA 55:169 ff. ; BASOR 88:12; and TCL 15: 28 respectively) as Entries 22, 29 and 31 respectively. Line three: a-ba-a mu-un-ba-a[l-e] = “The Coronation of Ur-Nammu” as reconstructed in my version) JCS 20 (1966) 139, right here: III. 2. three one other, now erased, could have as soon as been mistakenly inserted after line nine. ii. 2. one other sumerian literary catalogue? 153 Line four; me-a lu! = balbale-song of Suen, edited by means of Sjöberg, Nanna-Suen, No. 1, with the corrections of M. Lambert, Or. 30 (1961) 89 f. and van Dijk, OLZ 60 (1965) 27; indexed in Cat. five (TMH n. F. three: fifty four) as access 2. Line five: me am-xra: cf. the following access within the similar catalogue (me-a am). Line 7: [ˇsi]m-zi-da dar -ra: cf. access 1 within the Yale catalogue. I take this chance to right the examining and translation in JAOS eighty three (1963) one hundred seventy to dingir ˇsim-zi-da DAR-a, “goddes coloured with eye-paint (kohl). ” Admittedly, the interpreting gùn(-na) will be anticipated. Line 10: [dHend]ur? -sag xˇsul gi6-a du-du: cf. ISET 1: seventy one Ni. 9501:1, a hymn to Nergal starting (if the column marked “ii” is actually the 1st) [ . . . ˇsu]l gi6-a du-du kur-kur tuku4-tuku4 (tutki). ˇ F (HeimLine eleven: [... ]-x gu4 -gim: cf. maybe the outlet line of Sulgi pel, Tierbilder, No. five. 68). Granted the above identifications, the order of entries in STVC forty-one will be: (“obverse? ”) person lament, congregational laments; (“reverse? ”) disputation, royal hymn, divine hymns. it is going to appear, in addition, variety of entries are shared in universal by way of previous Babylonian and neo-Assyrian catalogues, although those are separated from one another by means of greater than a millennium. ii. three HAPLOGRAPHIC MARGINALIA Scribal errors demand scribal corrections. within the sizeable style of archival texts, scribes frequently erred of their mathematics after which corrected themselves by way of the usual machine of an (intentional) compensating errors to reach at a formal overall. 1 In literary texts, a typical lapsus calami consisted of omitting a whole poetic line. In this kind of case, most likely detected while the scribe counted his traces and entered their overall within the colophon, an easy corrective was once on hand; the left fringe of the pill. This used to be often clean other than the place the scribe had used up the obverse, opposite, and backside fringe of the capsule and nonetheless wanted extra space for added strains. 2 in a different way he may possibly use it to go into the lacking line, quite often (as some distance as will be noticeable from the broadcast copies) in a downward path relative to the purpose of insertion.

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