A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
A Middle Assyrian psalm of similes (KAR 138). A psalm built of similes.
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.
A Vigslist translation — witness reading. Status: published reading, claim withheld. Built 2026-10-22 from the live eBL record; the checks named on this page are still open.
WITHHELD. The live eBL record serves a transliteration and lists three references, none of them an edition: the KAR hand copy; Borger's Handbuch note, which can only guess the genre — "Busspsalm?" ("penitential psalm?"); and Pedersén's archive catalogue, which calls it a "psalm." It carries zero EDITION references and zero #tr.en translation lines. One further citation stands in the record's uncurated references and is printed here as a door, not hidden: Christina Hess's 2013 Heidelberg dissertation (p. 417) cites this tablet — a linguistic dissertation citing a Middle Assyrian text for its language is a discussion, not an edition, but the page is owed a formal eyeball in the print-check wave. The desk print check (2026-10-22) located no edition and no translation of this text in any language.
What survives is the skeleton of a psalm. One face runs on a drumbeat of similes — kīma, "like…," opening line after line (2′–6′, 9′) — the comparison machinery of the penitential psalms, where the sufferer measures himself against thing after thing. Then the imagery turns public: a drink "fitting for the people," "the festival of the people," and an address to "my lord" — adī šuāte bēlī, "until then, my lord." The other face opens on the flood (abūbu), cries "crush me!", turns on "you" — turīḫamma atta, "you turned back" — and keeps returning to the speaker against the crowd: "the people — as for me…", "as for me, the days…", "show me!", "when…?", "damage…" A single voice, wronged or stricken, speaking to a god who has turned away. Borger's question mark stands: a penitential psalm is the best name the record has, and it is a guess.
The transliteration is the eBL record's, reproduced as served. The record itself marks both faces with a question mark (@obverse?, @reverse?) — which face is which is not certain on this fragment, and the uncertainty is kept on the page. Brackets [ ] are breaks in the clay; # a damaged sign. The English renders what is actually on the clay and nothing else. Lines too broken to carry sense are given as traces and say so.
Counts: 31 line-units — 0 whole, 8 part, 23 fragments, 0 invented.
1′. bil-[…] (fragments — a word's beginning; the rest is gone)
2′. ki-ma […] "Like […]" (fragments — the simile's frame alone survives; what he was like is broken away)
3′. ki-ma x […] "Like […]" (fragments — same frame, same loss)
4′. ki-ma x […] "Like […]" (fragments)
5′. ki-ma x […] "Like […]" (fragments)
6′. ki-ma qut-[ri …] "Like smo[ke …]" (fragments — qutru, "smoke," begins the comparison; its completion is lost. The psalmist as smoke is a known penitential image, but this page does not restore it — the clay gives the word's head only)
7′. UGU mar-[…] (fragments — "upon… bit[ter?…" — marru can be "bitter" or "spade"; the line cannot choose, so this page does not)
8′. eš-ru la+a […] (fragments — traces; ešru is "tenth" or "tithe," and the line will not carry more)
9′. ki-ma li#-[…] "Like […]" (fragments — the frame again, the compared thing broken at its second sign)
10′. ul i-di […] "He did not know […]" / "I do not know […]" (fragments — ul īdi, "does/did not know"; the subject is lost with the line's end)
11′. a-pa-ta-an i#-[…] (fragments — apātān, "late (pl.)…"? the reading is too damaged to render a sense; given as trace)
12′. ku-ru-nu DUG₃.GA […] "…kurunnu-drink, fine […]" (part — kurunnu, a fine drink; ṭābu (DUG₃.GA), "good/fine." A banquet word in a psalm of similes; the sentence around it is broken)
13′. si-mat UN-MEŠ […] "…fitting for the people […]" (fragments — simat nišī, "what befits the people"; one phrase, honestly kept as a phrase. The record notes a parallel: cf. LKA 1, I.11)
14′. i-si-na ša₂ UN#-[MEŠ …] "The festival of the peo[ple …]" (part — isinnu ša nišī, "the festival of the people" — the psalm's gaze lifts from the sufferer to the city's feast)
15′. a-di šu-a-te be-li₂ […] "Until then, my lord […]" (part — adī šuāte, "until then"; bēlī, "my lord." The prayer turns and speaks to the god directly)
16′. tu-kal-la šu-ni-x […] "You hold back his […]" (part — tukalla, "you hold back / you restrain"; the thing held back is broken at the line's end)
17′. ša u₄-me ši-ni-[…] "…of the day of […]" (fragments — ūme, "day," with a qualifier beginning šinī-; no more survives)
18′. [U₄? I]TI id-x […] (fragments — a month/day notation, traces only)
19′. [x] x-te x x […] (fragments — traces only)
1. [a?]-bu-bu# an-x […] "[…] the flood […]" (fragments — abūbu, "the flood," the storm-flood of divine anger; the line around it is lost)
2. [x]-i-tu u₃ ḫu?#/ri?#-ki?#-[…] (fragments — "…and…" and damaged signs; no sense can honestly be drawn)
3. [x]-ḫaṣ-an-ni a-a-ši […] "[…] crush me — me!" (part — ḫaṣanni, "crush me!"; ayyaši, "me" — the emphatic pronoun. The sufferer's cry, two words and intact in sense)
4. tu-ri-ḫa-ma at-ta x […] "You turned back, you […]" (part — turīḫamma atta: "you turned away — you." The god addressed in reproach)
5. ni-ši a-di ia-e […] "The people — as for me […]" (part — nišī, "the people"; adī ia'e, "as for me." The crowd on one side, the speaker alone on the other)
6. a-di a-ia-e u₄-me […] "As for me — the days […]" (part — the same turn again: adī aya'e, "as for me"; ūme, "the days." His days, against theirs)
7. x-si-ma si-[…] (fragments — traces only)
8. [x]-šu GIŠ.ḪUR x […] (fragments — GIŠ.ḪUR is uṣurtu, "plan/drawing"; too little survives to say whose)
9. [k]ul₂-li-ma-ni […] "Show me […]!" (fragments — kullimanni, "show me," a single imperative; kept as the single word it is)
10. [i]m-ma-te […] "When […]?" (fragments — immāte, "when?" — one interrogative word, the psalm's question hanging)
11. [x] ḫi-bil-[te? …] "[…] damage […]" (fragments — ḫibilte, "damage, loss" — the sufferer's ledger-word, broken at its end)
12. x […] (fragments — one sign; the rest of the face is broken away)
None. No ušumgal, no muš, no mušḫuššu, no bašmu, no ṣerru appears anywhere in the served text.
Copy: Erich Ebeling, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts I (WVDOG 28, 1919), no. 138. Genre note: Rykle Borger, Handbuch der Keilschriftliteratur I (1967), p. 103 — "Busspsalm?" Catalogue: Olof Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur I (1985), p. 22 — "psalm," archive N 1: 50. Transliteration: the eBL Fragmentarium record for VAT 9959 (CC BY-SA 4.0), pulled live 2026-10-22; no editor named on the record. Door left open on the face: Hess, Die mittelbabylonische Standardformel… (Heidelberg dissertation, 2013), p. 417. This reading: the program's, built from the served transliteration only.
Vigslist translations — AI-assisted, cross-checked against the record. Working reading; not yet published.
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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