Hymn to the E-kur

Translation · reference

High confidence

The great house is as great as a mountain. The house of Enlil is as great as a mountain. The house of Ninlil is as great as a mountain. The bedchamber is as great as a mountain. The house which knows no daylight is as great as a mountain. The house at the Lofty Gate is as great as a mountain. The house at the Gate of Well-being is as great as a mountain. The courtyard of Enlil is as great as a mountain. The Hursaj-galama is as great as a mountain. The holy Renowned Gate is as great as a mountain. The Gate From Which Grain Is Never Diverted is as great as a mountain. The Ubcu-unkena is as great as a mountain. The Ja-jic-cua is as great as a mountain.

Source: ETCSL c.4.80.4: Hymn to the E-kur. 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.4.80.4

Why it matters

Transliteration

Scholarly note

Composition c.4.80.4 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.4.80.4: Hymn to the E-kur. 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.4.80.4.

Related tablets

Related sources

~650 BCE

Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI (the Flood)

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.

~2300 BCE

Disk of Enheduanna

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.

~1808 BCE

Sumerian King List (Weld-Blundell Prism)

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.