A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
The opening of “Oh Angry Sea” — Balaĝ 18, the Marduk version. Three units of the Marduk version's opening.
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 number: K.16961 (British Museum, Kuyunjik/Nineveh); Neo-Assyrian script. Composition: the balaĝ a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha, "Oh angry sea" — here in its Marduk version: eISL (Gabbay's Emesal catalogue) Balaĝ 18, Q009505, Babylon in the catalogue tradition. The famous version of this incipit is the Enlil one — the composition Kutscher published as Oh Angry Sea (1975), edited again in Cohen, CLAM (1988), pp. 374–400, whose litany runs "father Mullil (Enlil)…". This fragment's litany runs to a different house: Amanki (Enki) and Asalluḫi — Marduk's circle. The eBL editor's note on the record asks the question and answers it: "Why not the beginning of A'abba ḫuluḫḫa? Yes, but ša Marduk" — yes, it is the beginning of "Oh Angry Sea" — but the one of Marduk. Source: eBL Fragmentarium's served transliteration of K.16961 (fetched live, Wave C6). eBL serves no translation (0 #tr.en lines). Photograph on the record. The fragment was copied in Gabbay, HES 2 (2015), pl. 26, and listed at p. 274, no. 108, among "Fragments of Emesal prayers that are possibly Eršemas" — a copy and a listing, typed COPY on the record, not an edition. scoped to the witness: the three opening lines of the Marduk a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha. The Enlil composition is Englished (Kutscher 1975; Cohen 1988) and is credited here so the two are never confused; it is a different composition — same incipit, different god, different litany, the exact trap C5's Balaĝ 27 dossier was written to disarm. Counting rule: 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. Counts: 3 units — 0 whole / 3 part / 0 fragment / 0 invented.
Publication check (C6, Oct 22): the record carries no EDITION reference; its print traces are Borger's catalogue (which files it against Black, BiOr 44, no. 16 — the Enlil composition's catalogue number; the discrepancy is printed here, not smoothed) and the HES 2 copy/listing above. Doors left on the face: (1) HES 2, p. 274 eyeball (print-check wave): if Gabbay's fragments chapter translates these three lines in its notes, the claim narrows to exclude them — the chapter's genre (copies of unidentified fragments) makes a translation unlikely, but the eyeball is owed, not assumed. (2) The eISL text page (Q009505) has never served (both ORACC routes refused all night); the composition's score is the decider for the Marduk version's full extent. (3) The tablet's CDLI record is unread — CDLI is still down. (4) Black, BiOr 44 (1987), p. 44 eyeball — whether the catalogue's no. 16 entry registers the Marduk recension separately.
Dragon/serpent flag: none in these three lines. The sea here is a metaphor for the god's raging heart — a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha, "oh angry sea" — weather and water, stated as such.
Three lines survive: the incipit, and the litany's first two steps. In the Enlil version the same steps praise Enlil under his names; here the names are Enki's and Marduk's own.
1′. [a-ab-ba hu-l]uh-ha […] "Oh angry sea […]" (the incipit, its head restored — the words that name the composition)
2′. [umun {d}am-an-ki a-ab-b]a hu-luh-ha […] "Lord Amanki — oh angry sea […]" (Amanki is Enki under his Emesal name)
3′. [ur?-sag? {d}a]sal-lu₂-hi a-[ab-ba hu-luh-ha …] "Hero Asalluḫi — oh [angry sea …]" (Asalluḫi is Marduk's oldest name; the hero-word's reading is damaged and is marked as served)
light, per program law.*
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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