A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
A broken Nippur lament in two pieces. Two fragments of one lament.
Published as a reading. No first-translation claim is made for this piece. The checks that would settle such a claim are named in the notes below and are still open; the wording on this page claims nothing they have not settled.
Museum numbers: N 3338 + N 3380 — two joined fragments, University of Pennsylvania Museum, from Nippur. Old Babylonian. Corpus ID: CDLI P278417; served to OBEL (Old Babylonian Emesal Liturgies), genre "Inana-Dumuzi." No composition is identified: no incipit, deity's name, or rubric survives in what is preserved — a bird simile, a galla-demon comparison, a forsaking, a bundle, a shield, and water, in lines broken at both ends. Source: OBEL's served interlinear text, fetched and saved by Wave C (). OBEL serves no translation. the witness, doors on the face below. Counting rule used here: a line counts part if a complete verb form or a glossed phrase survives; fragment if only isolated words or traces survive; whole only if a complete clause survives intact. No line counts whole.
Publication check (C3, Oct 22): no edition, translation, or discussion of N 3338 or N 3380 found in the program's tree or in open search under either number or CDLI P278417. Nippur's OB literary tablets in this number range are largely unpublished museum pieces; that is the standing fact of the N-collection, stated here as the door it is. Doors left on the face: (1) Delnero, SANER 26 (catalogue eyeball outstanding, print-check wave). (2) CDLI's record (P278417) — unread; CDLI is still down. (3) Peterson's unpublished Nippur work — the standing unknown for all OBEL N-material; a drawer rendering would be credited, not a bar.
Dragon/serpent flag: none. The only animal on the tablet is a bird (mušen, o 5′) — a simile, not a serpent word. The galla of o 7′ is the "policeman"-demon of the gloss, named as the gloss names it.
o 1′: [... ] x [... ] [...] (a trace) [...]
o 2′: [... ] ki [... ] [...] the place [...]
o 3′: [... ]-⸢ne⸣-eš₂ ⸢mu⸣ [... ] x [... ] [...] (traces) [...]
o 4′: [... ] a / min [x] ba-an-⸢ta⸣-[... ] [...] water, two(?) [...]
o 5′: [... ] igi-ŋu₁₀-⸢ta?⸣ x mušen-gin₇ a₂ ba-[...-dub₂ / sud?] [...] from my face [...] like a bird, the arm [...]
o 6′: [... ] x šu-še₃ [x]-⸢ba?⸣ me-a ba-ni-⸢in?⸣-[... ] [...] to the hand [...] where? [...]
o 7′: [... ] ⸢gal₅⸣-la₂-gin₇ [x] mu-un-gi[...] / a-ba [mu]-un-na-⸢ab⸣-[... ] [...] like a galla-demon [...] he turned [...] who [...]
o 8′: [... ] ⸢ma?⸣-al-e [x]-ri-ŋa₂? maš₂-e [... ] [...] the goat [...]
o 9′: [... ] ⸢ba?-da?-bu⸣-bu-⸢re⸣ [... ] [...] tearing away [...]
o 10′: [... ] ⸢na⸣-me-a lu₂? x [... ] [...] anyone(?) — a person [...]
o 11′: [... ] x-⸢da?⸣-[... ] [...] (traces) [...]
r 1′: [... ] x [... ] [...] (a trace) [...]
r 2′: [... ] ma₂ um-⸢bur₂?⸣-e x [... ] [...] the ship [...] loosens(?) [...]
r 3′: [... ] ba-an?-ga! / ŋal₂! guru₂₁ [... ] [...] the shield [...]
r 4′: [... ] a? na-am₂-ge₁₆-le-ŋa₂ x [... ] [...] water(?) [...] he forsakes [...]
r 5′: [... ] ma₂-da-la₂-ŋu₁₀ ba-[... ] [...] my bundle [...]
r 6′: [... ] KU bar-⸢ŋa₂?⸣ a ba-an-[... ] [...] outside [...] water [...]
r 7′: [... ] x ZI mu x x [... ] [...] (unglossed traces) [...]
r 8′: [... ] ⸢ki?⸣-ru ŋal₂ [x]-x [...] it is [...]
r 9′: [... ] x [... ] [...] (a trace) [...]
20 served line-units: 0 whole · 5 part · 15 fragment · 0 invented. The part-lines are the bird simile (o 5′), the "where?" line (o 6′), the galla comparison (o 7′), the tearing line (o 9′), and the forsaking line (r 4′).
Twenty line-ends of a lament whose middle is gone. A face, a bird, a hand, a demon to be compared against, a ship, a shield, a bundle — the props of a Dumuzi-circle lament, filed by the corpus under Inana-Dumuzi, with the one complete gesture the fragment keeps: he forsakes. Whose face, whose bundle, the broken lines held. The reading holds no more than the clay does.
Nuvira Technologies conducts this research with AI assistance, cross-verified against the primary sources to scholarly integrity standards. Uncertain readings are marked; broken lines are left broken.
— Richard Vigslist, Founder, Nuvira Technologies
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