Babyloniaca, études de philologie assyro-babylonienne.

A SUMERIAN LEGEND
CONCERNING Dul-Azag
BY ST. LANGDON.
The Bodleian Library has recently purchased a considerable number
of tablets mostly business documents dating from the earliest to the
latest periods. Their provenience is unknown: some of the tablets are
dated in the reigns of the Dungi dynasty of Ur, others in the period
of the first Semitic dynasty chiefly from the reign of Ammizaduga and
a large number are Neo-Babylonian and Persian contracts. There is,
however, one exceptionally interesting fragment in Sumerian which
belongs to the same class of literature as the Sumerian religious texts
published in Cuneiform Texts from the British Museum vol. XV. The
tablet is broken at the middle, so that only the upper half of the
obverse and the end of the reverse remains. The left edge is inscribed
evidently in more cursive characters that the text, so that it can not
belong to the poem but is more likely a library mark. The text is so
difficult and so much of it is lacking that I can not venture to give
more than a transcription. Reference is made to the gods in Dulazaga,
their chamber of council, and to their construction of a store house for
grain (cf. obv. 8, where the verb mu-un-sMg-e~ in the plural must have
for subject dingir-ri-e-ne). Line 9 seems to refer to offerings to the
gods'. On the reverse the sign for ebaru and Sibirru occurs followed
by ra. The Sumterian word for ebuiru was gel v.. Babyloniaca II 284.
If,ibir be the Sumerian word for Sibirru then of course gibirruw
a staff, is a loan-word. It may well be that I should have transliterat1. dg-gar-kmu, cf. ds-gar == offerings, Gudea St. B 8, 25 and TH.-DANGIN'S note
in VAB I p. 72.