A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
Barrel cylinder with unidentified hymn. “…may he stand […] at my right and at my left.” From Lambert's copy-transliteration, which he gave “with reserve” and never translated.
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.
Label (standing): FROM-COPY PROVISIONAL. The transliteration below is W. G. Lambert's own (CTMMA II, Text No. 19, Plate 31), given by him "with reserve" and never translated. It is reproduced here in repaired form from this desk's OCR extraction of the volume — Lambert's queries are his and are preserved; where the local OCR is corrupt beyond repair, the spot is marked ⟦OCR⟧ rather than silently emended. No reading in this file is new, and none is claimed as verified against the original. The English rendering is this program's, word-level only, and covers only what Lambert's transliteration securely carries.
The object. Fragments of a solid clay barrel cylinder, mid-1st millennium BCE. The type is rare: complete examples carried two columns of text written tête-bêche, framed by rows of one repeated sign that spell out mu-sa-ru-u, "inscription." The eight BM parallels carry hymns to Nabû; three more a hymn to Ninurta. The Met cylinder's hymn is unidentified — Lambert: "Too little of the text is preserved to merit translation."
Copy cross-check (this session). Spar's Plate 31 copy, served among the Met's object images and examined here, confirms the frame: a vertical row of identical signs runs along the right edge of the main fragment (the RU row, per Lambert's note), and a RU row stands between the columns on 86.11.538. The 538 photograph shows the same two-column layout. The copy does not permit independent verification or extension of Lambert's line readings at the resolution served; none is offered.
(beginning of cylinder broken)
1'. …] ru-du(?)
2'. …] (x) ina lib-bi-šú za(?) - …
3'. …] da(?) : na(?)-za-zu(?) li-ta-mu-ú KUR(?)
4'. …] : li-iz-ziz [… ina] imitti(15)-ia ina šumēli(150)-ia
5'. …] (x) ṣu/bur(?)-di-šá(?) : […] (x) si (x) [(x)]
6'. …] (x) ur […] (x) (x) bi(?)
7'. …] (x) bi (x) (x) lem-ni : …] (x)-šar-gu(?) ⟦second half OCR-damaged⟧
8'. …] (nothing read)
9'. …] dEn-líl u dNin-urta(?) ⟦tail of the divine name OCR-corrupt in the local scan;
"Ninurta(?)" is the Wave D dossier's query, not settled⟧
10'. …] li-šag(?)-giš(?)
11'. …] (x) ud(?) (x) (x)
12'. …] lu(?) ku(?)
13'. …] (x) (x)-ka
14'. …] (x)
15'. …] (x) (x)
(A row of RU signs is written vertically along the ends of the lines.)
Column A
1'. …] (x) (x) (x)
2'. …] ad(?) šeš(?)
Column B
1'. (traces)
2'. …] (x)-tu
3'. …] (x) kit-tu
4'. …] É-sag-gíl ⟦first sign OCR-garbled in the local scan; the identification
rests on the -sag-gíl sequence — the temple Esagil⟧
5'. …] (x)-ta-nam-da(?)
6'. …] (x) a(?) (x) tin(?)
(A row of RU signs is written vertically between the columns.)
Lambert's closing line, verbatim: "Translation: This text is too fragmentary for translation."
2'. … in his heart …
4'. … may he stand […] at my right and at my left.
7'. … evil …
9'. … Enlil and Ninurta(?) …
538 B 3'. … truth …
538 B 4'. … Esagil …
Notes on the rendering: - 4′ is the one connected phrase. li-iz-ziz is the precative of izuzzu, "to stand"; imittu "right (side)," šumēlu "left (side)," each with the 1st-person suffix "-my." "May he stand at my right and at my left" is the standard plea for a god to take up a protective station beside the speaker — formula identification, not restoration; the god is not named in what survives of the line. - 9′: Enlil is secure in Lambert's reading. The second name begins dNin-; Ninurta is queried, not established. If it is Ninurta, the line pairs him with his father Enlil — and Ninurta is one of the two gods (with Nabû) whose hymns the BM cylinders of this type carry. That is a pointer, not an identification of the hymn. - 538 B 4′: Esagil is Marduk's temple in Babylon. Its appearance widens the hymn's world to Babylon's cult without naming its god.
None. No ušumgal, muš, mušḫuššu, bašmu, or serpent-god name is legible in Lambert's scraps or visible in the copy. Divine names legible: Enlil; Ninurta(?). Context only, not content: Nabû — whose emblem is the mušḫuššu — is the god of eight of the eleven BM parallels of this cylinder type.
CTMMA II No. 19 is the only edition; Lambert expressly declined translation. Post-2005 web re-check this session surfaced no later treatment (Met object records and the volume itself only). CDLI unreachable (503) — caveat stands. The composition remains unidentified; no first-translation claim is made for it beyond this provisional rendering of Lambert's scraps.
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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