A witness reading. A Vigslist translation.
A witness to the Debate between the Hoe and the Plough — a documented partial: a Nippur fragment identified in ETCSL’s own source list for the composition, printed as a documented account of the object, with no sign value certified from the witnesses as delivered.
A witness reading. Tier W — witness reading only, documented partial. No composition claim is made for this tablet, and no first-English posture is taken. The composition is The debate between the Hoe and the Plough, ETCSL c.5.3.1 — a composition of 196 lines in ETCSL’s composite — and it stands in English in ETCSL’s translation and in Vanstiphout’s translation in The Context of Scripture I (1997), pp. 578–581. The identification of this fragment as a witness to that composition is documentary, not interpretive: ETCSL’s bibliography for c.5.3.1 lists its cuneiform sources, and the list includes, verbatim, “CBS 7820 (STVC 128)” — this tablet, cited by its copy number. No line of this fragment reached a certifiable sign-by-sign reading, so no line is placed against the composite, and no sign value is printed for this tablet.
One fragment: CBS 07820b, University Museum, Philadelphia — Nippur, Old Babylonian. CDLI number: P262827. The museum ink on the tablet’s edge reads “7820 b,” matching the accession and Chiera’s no. 128, whose index entry in OIP 16 reads “128 — 7820.” Obverse 9 lines, reverse 7 lines, as photographed and as copied by Chiera. The fragment is broken on all sides: the lower-right of the obverse and the upper part of the reverse are gone.
The obverse carries 9 lines in a small, dense Old Babylonian hand, ruled across the surviving width; the surface is worn and encrusted, most heavily at the top lines and the right ends, and while sign forms separate in the middle lines, their interiors — the wedges that decide values — are what the wear has taken. The reverse carries 7 lines written low on the face, the upper reverse blank where the tablet has broken and scaled away; its signs are deeply impressed and individually bold, but abraded across their faces. Chiera’s copy agrees with the photograph on the shape of the fragment, the 9 × 7 line distribution, and the damaged zones; at the resolution of the available scan its cleaner sign forms still did not certify sign-by-sign, and readings resting on the copy alone are not printed either. The text of this fragment is readable — by a collator with the tablet, or with the printed plate at full size; it was not certifiable from the witnesses as delivered, and nothing that could not be certified is printed.
ETCSL’s translation of the composition — the standing English this witness stands under, credited, not re-translated; none of it is claimed as this fragment’s text. The Hoe opens the quarrel, taunting the Plough with everything it cannot do — dam water, fill baskets, make bricks, lay foundations, roof a house, straighten the town squares. The Plough answers with its festival, the king at its handles, the harvest. The Hoe replies at length — ditches, embankments, bricks, gardens, wells. The Storm speaks; Enlil rules for the Hoe, and Nisaba’s scribe registers its work. The close: “The Hoe triumphed over the Plough — praise be to Nisaba!”
Counts: 16 line positions — 0 whole, 0 part, 16 fragments, 0 invented (obverse 9, reverse 7 — the same count on the photograph and on Chiera’s copy). Dragon scan: not decidable from this witness, on the same terms as the two Crane and Raven witnesses — no dragon or serpent reading is certified in any line, and absence is not claimed either; a scan requires a transliteration, and none exists for this witness.
Obverse 1–9: ruled registers with dense sign forms across the surviving width; line 5 confirmed by Chiera’s printed “5” at the left of the fifth register in both witnesses. (Fragments — no line is transliterated and no line is assigned a number in the ETCSL composite.) Reverse 1′–7′: seven registers low on the reverse face, deeply impressed, surface-abraded; line 5′ confirmed by Chiera’s printed “5”. (Fragments — no line is transliterated and no line is assigned a number in the ETCSL composite.) End of the inscribed area as photographed. The edges carry no cuneiform text; one edge carries the ink registration read above.
Witness reading only, documented partial, CBS 07820b. No sign value is printed for this tablet, because none was certified. Published 2026-10-23. A Vigslist translation.
Built 2026-10-23 from the Second Collection of the Vigslist translations program (October 23, 2026).
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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