A Lipšur Litany from Nimrud

The interest shown by Professor Gadd in all aspects of Babylonian literature is sufficiently well-known to justify the publication in his honour of two pieces from a Šurpu-type litany which now completes one of a series of texts hitherto known only from other fragments (Plates XXXVIII–XL).Among the tablets found in the Nabû temple at Nimrud in 1958 were two fragments (ND4389; 4405/77 = A) which, though physically touching are regrettably too broken at the juncture to provide a continuous text. This loss is, however, not serious since the intervening text (ll. 11′–30′; 80′–93′) is provided by a Šurpu-type text (AO 6775 = B) already published by Nougayrol. A further small fragment giving the left side of ten lines (K. 7164 = C), published by Reiner, was classified as Type I.2 and identified with that published by Nougayrol. To the 3 8 lines thus previously known can be added a further 56 lines from which it is clear that the deities with their entourages and shrines were first invoked to remove any curse (lipšur). These were followed by the months of the year and by the days of the month. The catchline on the reverse of ND 4405/77 (KUREnlil) indicates that at Kalḫu this text preceded that on which the mountains and rivers were invoked for the same purpose. Since ‘Mt. Sābu, the home of Enlil’ begins the latter tablet (Reiner Type I.1) it is probable that our present text (Reiner Type I.2) should be placed before it and that the Litany type numbers be re-arranged accordingly.

Archaeology · Biology · Curse · Honour · Litany · Theology · Type (biology) · Ancient Near East History · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Paleontology · Philosophy

• Failed Coup

  Christopher Jones, Christopher W Jones•Journal of Ancient Near Eastern…•2023

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