A witness reading. A Vigslist translation.
The close of a širgida to Nergal. The song’s own closing lines stand whole: “Lugal-erra — the pestle of the Land, made perfect; Huški, son of Enlil”… “Meslamtaea, lord Lugal-erra — their praise is sublime,” sealed by the rubric “It is a širgida of Nergal.”
A witness reading. Tier W — witness reading, fragments class. No claim of any kind is made as a first. The composition — a širgida (long song) to Nergal under his twin names Meslamtaea and Lugal-erra — was edited by Anna Glenn, Praise of Kingship: Širgida-Hymns in the Old Babylonian Liturgical Tradition (doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2019), Appendix II.10, pp. 577–579, from this tablet among its witnesses (her source N1). The dissertation itself has been read in full for this program and the attribution stands confirmed, her edition head stating that no edition of the text had been published before hers. What is printed here is a reading of what this one tablet preserves: the song’s close — two whole lines, a rubric, and a name.
Status: WITNESS READING, fragments class. Claim: none as a first. Transliteration on the record: J. Peterson (entered 2023-04-20, revised 2025-07-18), served on the eBL record for N.1491. Edition of record: Anna Glenn (2019), Appendix II.10, pp. 577–579, as above. No copy is cited on the record. This piece’s only door is closed: the dissertation has been read in full and the attribution is confirmed. Nothing else is owed from this desk.
One tablet: N 1491, University of Pennsylvania Museum (Nippur collection), Old Babylonian. CDLI number on the record: P276628. The record carries 22 preserved lines (obverse 17, reverse 5) and no English translation lines for the text. The obverse is tails and sign-scraps; the reverse preserves the song’s close. The closing lines’ distinctive strings occur nowhere in the open CDLI text corpus — the composition’s text circulates through Glenn’s edition, not through the open composite corpus.
The end of a long song to Nergal in his twin form. Meslamtaea and Lugal-erra — the twin gods who guard the gates of the netherworld — are praised together at the close: Lugal-erra as the Land’s pestle, made perfect; Huški named as Enlil’s son; and then the scribe’s rubric folds the twins back into the one god: a širgida of Nergal. The obverse, where the song’s body stood, preserves almost nothing but the twin’s name surfacing once among the scraps. What the song asked of Nergal, this tablet no longer says; how it ended, it still does.
Transliteration exactly as the record serves it. Counts: 4 line-units rendered of 22 preserved — 2 whole, 1 part, 1 fragment, 0 invented. The other 18 lines are tails and sign-scraps and are not rendered; they are counted here so the arithmetic is whole: 22 = 4 rendered + 18 unrendered. Dragon scan: none — no ušumgal, muš, mušḫuššu, bašmu, or serpent-god name in the 22 lines.
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rev. 3′. {d}lugal-er₉-ra {ĝeš}naga₃ kalam-ma šu du₇ | {d}huš-ki-a dumu {d}en-lil₂-la
“Lugal-erra — the pestle of the Land, made perfect; Huški, son of Enlil.” (Whole. {ĝeš}naga₃, the (wooden) pestle; šu du₇, "made fitting, made perfect.")
rev. 4′. {d}mes-lam-ta-e₃-a en {d}lugal-er₉-ra | za₃-mi₂-bi mah-am₃
“Meslamtaea, lord Lugal-erra — their praise is sublime.” (Whole. The twin named together: Meslamtaea, "the one who comes forth from the Meslam," and Lugal-erra, "king of the waste"; za₃-mi₂-bi mah-am₃, "their praise is exalted.")
rev. 5′. [ši]r₃-gid₂-da {d}ne₃-irigal-kam
“It is a širgida — a long song — of Nergal.” (Part — the first sign is restored. The rubric, written after a ruling and four blank lines: the scribe's own label for the whole song — a širgida of Ne-erigal, Nergal.)
obv. 11′. {d}mes-lam-ta-e₃-a?# […]
“… Meslamtaea …” (Fragment — the twin's name in the obverse's broken praise; the rest of the line is gone.)
At rev. 3′ the edition reads the sign-group differently — Glenn reads ĝeš?rab₃, "neckstock?" — where Peterson's transliteration, which this rendering follows, reads {ĝeš}naga₃, "pestle." The divergence is printed so it stands on the face; the reading follows Peterson.
Edition of record: Anna Glenn, Praise of Kingship (2019), Appendix II.10, pp. 577–579. Published 2026-10-22; refreshed 2026-10-23 to the Second Collection. A Vigslist translation.
Refreshed 2026-10-23 from the newest-source copy of this page and Piece 1 of the Second Collection.
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.
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