Lament for Nippur

The Lament for Nippur, or the Lament for Nibru, is a Sumerian lament, also known by its incipit tur3 me nun-e ("After the cattle pen...").[2] It is dated to the Old Babylonian Empire (c. 1900–1600 BCE).[3] It is preserved in Penn Museum on tablet CBS13856.[4]

Remains of the Ekur (mountain temple) in Nippur: the Lament reads, The brickwork of E-kur gave you only tears and lamentation -- it sings a bitter song of the proper cleansing-rites that are forgotten! It weeps bitter tears over the splendid rites and most precious plans which are desecrated -- its most sacred food rations neglected and ...... into funeral offerings, it cries "Alas!". The temple despairs of its divine powers, utterly cleansed, pure, hallowed, which are now defiled![1]

It is one of five known Mesopotamian "city laments"—dirges for ruined cities in the voice of the city's tutelary goddess.[5]

Statuette of the storm god Enlil from Nippur, c. 1800–1600 BCE.
Map of Mesopotamia around the time of the writing of the Lament for Nippur

Text

The Lament is composed of 9 kirugu (sections, songs) and 8 gišgigal (antiphons) followed by 3 more kirugu.

Numbered by kirugu, the lament is structured as follows:

  1. storm of Enlil; Enlil destroys Nippur
  2. weeping goddess; Nippur addresses Enlil
  3. storm of Enlil; Enlil destroys Nippur
  4. weeping goddess; the poet addresses Nippur
  5. storm of Enlil; Ishme-Dagan recreates Nippur
  6. weeping goddess; the poet addresses Nippur
  7. storm of Enlil; Ishme-Dagan recreates Nippur
  8. storm of Enlil; Enlil recreates Nippur
  9. storm of Enlil; Ishme-Dagan recreates Nippur
  10. storm of Enlil; Enlil recreates Nippur
  11. storm of Enlil; Ishme-Dagan recreates Nippur
  12. storm of Enlil; Enlil recreates Nippur[6]

It includes passages in the emesal, a sociolect used by high-status women, showing the importance of women's voices in city laments; emesal is also found in the Lament for Ur.[7]

See also

References
  1. "Lamentation for Nippur". www.gatewaystobabylon.com.
  2. Jacobs, John (January 1, 2016). "The city lament genre in the ancient Near East (in The fall of cities in the Mediterranean: Commemoration in literature, folk-song, and liturgy, ed. Mary Bachvarova, Dorota Dutsch, and Ann Suter, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 13–35)" – via www.academia.edu. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. "CDLI-Archival View". cdli.ucla.edu.
  4. "Tablet - CBS13856 | Collections - Penn Museum". www.penn.museum.
  5. Hirsch, Edward (April 4, 2017). The Essential Poet's Glossary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780544932098 – via Google Books.
  6. Jacobs, John (September 20, 2016). Suter, Ann; Dutsch, Dorota; Bachvarova, Mary R. (eds.). The Fall of Cities in the Mediterranean: Commemoration in Literature, Folk-Song, and Liturgy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 13–35.
  7. Boyadjian, Tamar M. (December 15, 2018). The City Lament: Jerusalem across the Medieval Mediterranean. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501730863 – via Google Books.
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