Syllabus - Sumerian and Akkadian Lements (42709)

Required Reading:
Sumerian and Akkadian Laments/ Uri Gabbay (2021/22, Semester I)

I. Introduction
Reading:
W.W. Hallo, “Lamentations and Prayers in Sumer and Akkad,” in: J. Sasson (ed.) Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York 1995), pp. 1871-881
J.S. Cooper, “Genre, Gender and the Sumerian Lamentation,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 58 (2006), pp. 39–47.

Lesson 1: Introduction to laments: texts, genres, performance

II. Personal laments
Reading: W.W. Hallo, “Individual Prayer in Sumerian: The Continuity of a Tradition,” JAOS 88 (1968), pp. 71-89.

Lesson 2: Akkadian personal laments
Text: A Man and His God (ll. 1-16). Editions: W. G. Lambert, “A Further Attempt at the Babylonian ‘Man and His God’,” in: F. Rochberg-Halton (ed.), Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner (New Haven 1987), pp. 187–202; N. Wasserman, SEAL (Sources of Early Akkadian Literature) no. 1808 (https://seal.huji.ac.il/node/1808); A. Lenzi, Akkpm (Akkadian Prayers Miscellany (http://akkpm.org/P492288.html).

Lesson 3: Sumerian personal laments
Text: Bilingual Eršaḫuĝa to Madānu. Edition: S.M. Maul, Herzberuhigungsklagen: Die sumerisch-akkadischen Erschahunga-Gebete (Wiesbaden 1988), pp. 206-213 (SBH 30 // Ešḫ. no. 37).

III. City laments
Reading:
N. Samet, The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur (Winona Lake 2014), pp. 1-31 (Chapter 1: Introduction).

Lesson 4: The Ur lament
Text: Ur Lament, part of Kirugu 7 (ll. 299-330). Edition: N. Samet, The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur (Winona Lake 2014), pp. 68-73.

IV. Cultic laments (Emesal prayers: Balaĝs)
Reading:
J.A. Black, “Eme-sal Cult Songs and Prayers,” Aula Orientalis 9 (1991), pp. 23–36.
P. Delnero, “Texts and Performance: The Materiality and Function of the Sumerian Liturgical Corpus,” in: P. Delnero and J. Lauinger (eds.), Texts and Contexts: The Circulation and Transmission of Cuneiform Texts in Social Space (Berlin 2015), pp. 87-118.
A. Löhnert, “Manipulating the gods. Lamenting in context,” in: K. Radner and E. Robson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture (Oxford 2011), pp. 402–417.

Lesson 5-6: Enlil Balaĝs
Text: Balaĝ section dam-gàr-ra ba-da-kúr (Balaĝ dutu-gin7 è-ta and other Enlil Balaĝs). Editions: M.E. Cohen, The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia (Bethesda 1988), pp.102-105, 112-113 (// 132-133, 140-141, 163-164, 170-171); S.M. Maul, “Bilingual (Sumero-Akkadian) Hymns from the Seleucid-Arsacid Period,” in: I. Spar and W. G. Lambert, Literary and Scholastic Texts of the First Millennium B.C., Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2 (New York 2005), pp. 26-30 (no. 3); A. Löhnert, “Wie die Sonne tritt heraus!”: Eine Klage zum Auszug Enlils mit einer Untersuchung zu Komposition und Tradition sumerischer Klagelieder in altbabylonischer Zeit, AOAT 365 (Münster 2009), pp. 322-345.

Lesson 7-8: Inana Balaĝs
Text: Balaĝ section im-ma-al-la gù bí-dé (Balaĝ a-še-er ĝi6-ta). Editions: J.A. Black, J. A. 1985. “A-še-er Gi6-ta, a Balag of Inana,” ASJ 7, pp. 12–87; M.E. Cohen, The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia (Bethesda 1988), pp. 711-714, 721-722 (ll. b+129-185).

Lesson 9: Syllabic Old Babylonian Emesal prayer
Text: Eršema or Balaĝ section to Inana. Copies: VS 2, 40 and PRAK C 54 (new copy: A. Cavigneaux, “Notes sumérologiques,” ASJ 9 (1987), p. 61.

V. Akkadian city laments
Reading:
P. Machinist, “Rest and Violence in the Poem of Erra,” JAOS 103 (1983), pp. 221-226.

Lesson 10: Late Babylonian Akkadian city lament
Text: Erra and Išum Tablet IV. Edition: L. Cagni, L’epopea di Erra (Rome 1969), pp. 104-121.

VI. Ritual texts
Reading:
S. Mirelman, “Lament, Spectacle, and Emotion in a Ritual for Ištar,” in: D. Stein et al (eds), Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World (forthcoming)

Lesson 11: The Mari ritual
Text: Ritual text from Mari, A.3165. Editions: J.-M. Durand and M. Guichard, “Les Rituels de Mari,” Recueil d’études à la mémoire de Marie-Thérèse Barrelet, Mémoires de N.A.B.U. 4, Florilegium marianum 3 (Paris 1997), pp. 52–58, no. 2; N. Ziegler, Les musiciens et la musique d’apres les archives de Mari, Mémoires de N.A.B.U 10, Florilegium marianum 9 (Paris 2007), pp. 55-64.

Lesson 12: First millennium BCE calendrical rituals
Text: Assur spring rituals. Edition: S.M. Maul, “Die Frühjahrsfeierlichkeiten in Aššur,” in: A. R. George and I. L. Finkel (eds.), Wisdom, Gods and Literature: Studies in Assyriology in Honour of W. G. Lambert (Winona Lake 2000), pp. 389–420.

Lesson 13: First millennium BCE non-calendrical rituals
Text: Restoration of divine image. Editions: Ch. Walker and M. Dick, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia, SAA Literary Texts 1 (Helsinki 2001), pp. 230-233:1-22; W. Farber, “Singing an eršemma for the Damaged Statue of a God,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 93 (2003), pp. 208–213.

VI. Conclusion
Reading:
S.M. Maul, “Küchensumerisch oder hohe Kunst der Exegese? Überlegungen zur Bewertung akka¬discher Interlinearübersetzungen von Emesal-Texten,” in: B. Pongratz-Leisten, H. Kühne and P. Xella (eds.), Ana šadi Labnani lu allik. Beiträge zu Altorientalischen und Mittelmeerischen Kulturen: Festschrift für Wolfgang Röllig, AOAT 247 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1997), pp. 253–267.

Lesson 14: Conclusion: Emesal texts in scholarship and performance
Text: Late Babylonian Izbu VII commentary (ll. 1-19). Editions: I.L. Finkel, “On an Izbu VII commentary,” in: A.K. Guinan et al (eds), If a Man Builds a Joyful House: Assyriological Studies in Honor of Erle Verdun Leichty (Leiden 2006), pp. 139-148; M. Frazer, “Commentary on Izbu 7 (CCP 3.6.3.A),” Cuneiform Commentaries Project (2016) (E. Frahm, E. Jiménez, M. Frazer, and K. Wagensonner) (https://ccp.yale.edu/P415763).