Position in chronology
SAA 03 008. Hymn to the city of Arbela (LKA 032)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Arbela, O Arbela, (2) Heaven without equal, Arbela! (3) City of merry-making, Arbela, (4) City of festivals, Arbela! (5) City of the temple of jubilation, Arbela! (6) Shrine of Arbela, lofty hostel, (7) broad temple, sanctuary of delights! (8) Gate of Arbela, the pinnacle (of) holy to[wns]! (9) City of likenesses, Arbela! (10) Abode of jubilation, Arbela! (11) Arbela, temple of reason and counsel! (12) Bond of the lands, Arbela! (13) Establisher of profound rites, Arbela! (14) Arbela is as lofty as heaven. (15) Its foundations are as firm as the heavens. (16) The pinnacles of Arbela are…
Source: Livingstone, A. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa03/P336243/
Why it matters
Transliteration
URU.arba-ìl URU.arba-⸢ìl⸣ / AN-e šá la* šá*-na*-ni URU.arba-⸢ìl⸣ / URU ni-gu-ti URU.arba-⸢ìl⸣ / URU i-si-na-ti URU.arba-⸢ìl⸣ / URU É ḫi-da-a-ti-e URU.arba-⸢ìl⸣ / e-a-ak URU.arba-ìl ⸢aš⸣-ta-mu ṣi-i-⸢ru⸣ / É.KUR.RA šu-un-du-lu BARAG ṣi-ḫa-a-⸢ti⸣ / ba-áb URU.arba-ìl šá-qu-u ma-ḫa-⸢zu?⸣ / URU tam-ši-la-a-ti URU.arba-ìl / mu-šab ḫi-da-a-ti URU.arba-ìl / URU.arba-ìl É ṭè-e-me u mil-ki / ri-kis…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian court poetry or literary text, edited by Alasdair Livingstone (SAA 3, 1989). ORACC text P336243.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Alasdair Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea (State Archives of Assyria, 3), 1989. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2019-20, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P336243/..
Translation excerpted from Livingstone, A. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa03/P336243/.
Related tablets
Related sources
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.