Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms

Excerpt: ... p. 19. pg 314 Another tablet, also from a single column tablet redaction at Nippur, has been recovered in Philadelphia, Ni. 8384. 422 This text utilized here in transcription contains a section marked number 4 on that tablet but all the other sources omit it. Hence this redaction probably contained nine melodies. The new melody has been inserted between melodies three and four of the standard text. If evidence did not point otherwise the editor would have supposed that Ni. 8384 and 11876 belonged to the same tablet. But Ni. 8384 has melodies four, five and six of its redaction with the catch-line of the next or its seventh melody which partly duplicates the Radau tablet. Moreover, these two tablets have not the same handwriting and differ in color and texture of the clay. Finally a small fragment, Ni. 14031, contains the end of the second melody and the beginning of the third on its obverse. The reverse contains the end of the sixth melody. This small tablet undoubtedly belongs to the four column tablet in Constantinople. The two fragments became separated by chance when the Nippur Collection was divided between Philadelphia and the Musée Imperial of Turkey. Ni. 14031 will be found in my Sumerian Liturgical Texts , No. 22. Under ordinary circumstances a text for which so many duplicates exist should have yielded better results than I have been able to produce. But the contents are still obscure owing largely to the bad condition of the prism. My first rendering of the interesting refrain in which I saw a reference to the creation of man and woman was apparently erroneous. The refrain refers rather to the creation of the mother goddess of KeS and to her giving birth to her son Negun. 423 pg 315 Col. I (Lines 1-22 defaced) . 23. é keS-(ki)-dug-ga du-a 23. Temple in holy KeS builded. 24. é(?) ÉN-¿AR-(ki)-dug-gu du-a 24. Temple(?) in holy EN-¿AR builded. 25. é . nun-gim an-na dirig-ga 25. Temple like . nun , like heaven exceeding all. 424...