The Lamentation Over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur

260 Pages·1989·5.613 MB·English

by  Piotr Michalowski

The Lamentation over the Destruction
of Sumer and Ur
McsoPOTAMIAN
QVILIZATIONS
General Editor
Jerrold S. Cooper, Johns Hopkins University
Editorial Board
Walter Farber, University of Chicago
Jean-Pierre Gregoire, C.N.R.S.
Piotr Michalowski, University of Michigan
Simo Parpola, University of Helsinki
Marvin Powell, Northern Illinois University
Jack Sasson, University of North Carolina
Piotr Steinkeller, Harvard University
Marten Stal, Free University of Amsterdam
Irene Winter, Harvard University
l. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur
Piotr Michalowski
2. Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf! Mesopotamische Baby-Beschworungen
und -Rituale
Walter Farber
The Lamentation over the
Destruction of Sumer and Ur
Piotr Michalowski
Eisenbrauns
Winona Lake
1989
c 1989 by Eisenbrauns, all rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Lamentation over the destruction of Sumer and Ur.
English and Sumerian.
The lamentation over the destruction of Sumer and Ur.
(Mesopotamian civilizations; 1)
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
Sumerian text; parallel translation and prefatory matter
in English.
1. Elegiac poetry, Sumerian. 2. Sumerian language
Texts. I. Michalowski, Piotr. II. Title. III. Series.
PJ4065.L3 1988 899'.95 88-33386
ISBN 0-931464-43-9
Dia Miry i Jerzego

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
1. Introduction 1
2. Manuscripts 16
3. Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4. Composite Text and Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5. Philological Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6. Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Indexes
Lexical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Divine and Royal Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Geographical and Topographical Names ......................... 202
Introduction to the Figures and Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Figures ...................................................... 204
Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . following p. 220

Preface
I began work on the Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur
in 1980 when Ake W. Sjoberg assigned the text to me as part of the Pennsyl
vania Sumerian Dictionary project, but it was only in 198.5,a fter a generous
Research Fellowship from the Rackham Fund of the University of Michigan
allowed me to collate texts in Istanbul and in London, that I was able to
proceed to finish the text edition. Throughout the time that I have worked on
this text I have had much assistance from many friends and colleagues
without whose help and advice this project could never have been finished.
Work with cuneiform tablets requires access to museum holdings through
out the world and it is my pleasure to thank the following scholars and
institutions for allowing me access to the materials in their care and for
permission to publish or collate original manuscripts. I am particularly in
debted to Veysel Donbaz and Fatma Ydd1z of the Museum of the Ancient
Orient in Istanbul for their help and hospitality when I collated the tablets in
Istanbul, to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to study the Ur
material, to William W. Hallo for permission to publish his copy of the text
from the Yale Babylonian collection, to Ake W. Sjoberg for allowing me to
study published and unpublished tablets from the University Museum of the
University of Pennsylvania, as well as to Daniel Arnaud (epigrapher of the
Larsa expedition) for sending me, and allowing me to publish here, a photo
graph of the Larsa tablet.
Others have helped me along the way with text identifications, advice,
and hospitality: Herman Behrens, Miguel Civil, Irving Finkel, Markham J.
Geller, Pamela Gerardi, Ulla Kasten, P. R. S. Moorey, Aaron Shaffer, and
Christopher Walker. Brian Keck helped me to check all references. I owe
special thanks to Samuel N. Kramer, who relinquished his interest in this text
and permitted me to utilize his preliminary edition of the composition, and
generously allowed the publication of his hand copies of some of the Nippur
tablets. Jerrold S. Cooper and Peter Machinist offered valuable advice on an
earlier version of the book.
I am particularly indebted to Miguel Civil, who read the final draft and
provided many invaluable insights. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the support
of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical
Society, and the Rackham Fund of the University of Michigan for financial
assistance that allowed me to collate and copy texts on two continents.
A word should be said on the preparation of this book. The major part of
the manuscript was written on a personal computer using the FinalWord II
ix
Preface
X
word processing program. Stephen Tinney wrote a series of macros that
converted the text into files that could be read directly by the typesetting
equipment used by Eisenbrauns. He then converted the "score" into TEX and
printed it on the APS-5 typesetter at the University of Michigan. This was a
new experience for both of us, as well as for Jim Eisenbraun and his staff, and
I am grateful to all of them for their help and their patience.