Position in chronology
A prayer for Hammu-rabi (Hammu-rabi D)
Translation · reference
High confidence1 line damaged ...... the reverent one, who takes care ......, 1 line damaged (The gods are addressed:) "Give him the sceptre ......! ...... the name of Babylon, the city of lordship! Make the king pre-eminent in the world ......!" O Asarluhi, ...... destiny for my Hammu-rabi! An, Enlil and Enki ...... with him. When they had decided ......, all the great gods together ...... joyfully to Marduk. (Marduk speaks to the great gods:) "You have ...... the shepherd of your hearts to exercise the lordship in the Land. Determine his destiny grandly, ...... with your holy mouths. Appoint ...... your word ...... for him, the indefatigable shepherd."
Source: ETCSL c.2.8.2.4: A prayer for Hammu-rabi (Hammu-rabi D). Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.8.2.4
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Composition c.2.8.2.4 in the ETCSL catalogue. Sumerian literary text reconstructed from multiple cuneiform manuscripts, the great majority Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1600 BCE). Translation reproduced from the ETCSL edition.
Attribution
Image: .
Translation excerpted from ETCSL c.2.8.2.4: A prayer for Hammu-rabi (Hammu-rabi D). Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.8.2.4.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
The single most influential Mesopotamian king list — the model for every later attempt to chronicle the deep history of the region. It transmits the political theology of divinely granted kingship, an idea that would echo through Babylon, Assyria, and into the Hebrew Bible. The Weld-Blundell prism (WB 444) at the Ashmolean is the most complete surviving copy.