Sargonic Catalogue and Incantations [Sticky]

[us4-he2-gal2]

Thread Orientation: This thread is concerned with the very small corpus of Sargonic incantations. Cunningham catalogue's just four Sargonic incantations, two Sumerian, two Akkadian. Although such a small sampling of incantations is not enough to draw conclusions from, its suggested that they evidence a decline in the role of Enlil and an increase in the role of Enki within the incantations. Because its such a small corpus Ive added the catalogue and obtained incantations to one thread for this period.

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Key and explanation:

TEXT # = Numbers according to G. Cunningham 1997, "Deliver Me From Evil: Mesopotamian Incantations 2500-1500 B.C."
[1] - PPub = Primary Publication reference, author/year, accompanied by explanation of the relevant abbreviations from the B48-Blue.pdf (AfO)
[2] - MUS # = Museum Number (tablet number) accompanied with Cdli reference number where available (http://cdli.ucla.edu/)
To access the 'search cdlicore' feature you need the Opera, safari or netscape web browsers, cdli also adds a zero to museum numbers example Ni 2177 becomes Ni 02177
[3] - Alternate edition/s = Recent treatments of the given Incantation text. If the tablet has not been re-examined, this will likely be identical with Primary Publication or "N/A." IMPORTANT - as many of these alternate publications have yet to be obtained, it will be difficult to say with authority whether an english/german/french translation included in these.
[4] - Enenuru = Where a given incantation may be found on this board, who posted it, and alternatively who might have the incantation at their disposal if it has not been posted/brief notes about incantation/tablet.


Explanation of Museum Number Abbreviations:
Kish - tablets excavated at Kish, in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford)

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Sargonic Incantations

Sumerian:

TEXT 47 -
[1] PPub: MDP 14, 91, Scheil, Vincent, et al., 1913 (Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse (Paris 1900 ff.)
[2] MUS # [?], Cdli: P112930 (photo/transliteration currently unavailable)
[3] Other Edition: A middle Assyrian Tablet of Utukkū Lemnūtu: Tablet 12, Iraq 42, p23ff (M. Geller)
[4] Enenuru: See Below, in part.

TEXT 48 -
[1] PPub: BiMes 1 6 (Aage Westonholz. "Literary and Lexical Texts and the Earliest Administrative Documents from Nippur")
[2] MUS # [N 1235+], Cdli: P216083 (line art available
[3] Other Edition: B Alster, 'Early Patterns in Mesopotamian Literature', Eichler et al 1976, p13ff
[4] Enenuru: Pending.

TEXT 59 - ***** Erroneously listed as UR III text in YOS XI
[1] PPub:YOS 11 73, van Dijk, J. 1985 [YOS = Yale Oriental Series (New Haven)]
[2] MUS # [NBC 11106], Cdli: P142390 (line art available
[3] I. Finkel, in S. Maul, ed., Fs. Borger, 1998, 76-78 (cited as 6 NT)
[4] Enenuru: Obtained






Akkadian:

TEXT 49 -
[1] PPub: BiMes 1 7 (Aage Westonholz. "Literary and Lexical Texts and the Earliest Administrative Documents from Nippur")
[2] MUS # [N 288], Cdli: P216084 (line art available)
[3] Other Edition: N/A
[4] Enenuru: see Below.

TEXT 50 -
[1] PPub: MAD 5, 008, Gelb, Ignace J., (Materials for the Assyrian Dictionary)
[2] MUS # [Kish 1930, 143 + 175 h], Cdli: P285640 (line art/transliteration available)
[3] Other Edition: Westenholz and Westenholz, 'Help for Rejected Suitors, Orientalia 46, p198ff (copy, edition) [1977]; B. Foster 1993 no I.4
[4] Enenuru: see Below, as is.

[us4-he2-gal2]

TEXT 50-
MUS # [Kish 1930, 143 + 175 h]
Cdli: P285640 (line art/transliteration available)

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In Gwendolyn Leicks "Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamia Literature" (2003) the auther has a section dealing with love magic and potency incantations. Among others is the Sargonic incantation in Akkadian from "Westenholz and Westenholz 1977:202-3". Its remarked the incantation consists of direct speech but its not entirely clear who speaks to whom.



Ea loves irêmum, **
Ir'emum, offspring of Ištar,
Dwelling in you/her lap, in the 'spittle' of the kanaktu tree.
You ..., beautiful maidens,
Blooming you are, to the garden you go down,
To the garden you go down, you scraped off the gum of the kanaktu truu.
I have seized your spittle-laden mouth,
I have seized your colorful eyes
I have seized your urine-yeilding vulva,
I have vaulted into the garden of Sin,
I cut off branches for her day(?).
You (fem.) shall go around me among the boxwoods (?)
As the shepherd walks around his flock,
The goat around her kid,
The ewe around her lamb,
The jenny around her foal.
Arrayed with jewels are his arms,
Oil and tibbuttum-plants are his lips;
A cruse of oil is in his hand,
A cruse of oil is on his shoulder.
The ir'êmu have confounded her **
And even made her love-sick.
I have seized your mouth, so fit for love-
By Ištar and Išhara, I conjure you:
So long as his neck and your neck are not entwined
You shall not find peace.


** ê has been discovered, see below.

[amarsin]

Re the e and circumflex, I think is can be done using the ampersand (&) plus #234; to give ê, or you can use the ampersand (&) and the ecirc; which also gives ê character.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Ahh ok awesome Amarsin - I'll need to add that to the fingers to forks thread! Glad you like LH. One has to wonder if that incantation might improve one's Friday nights..

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TEXT 49-
MUS # [N 288]
Cdli: P216084 (line art available)

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Against all odds my Humanities library does have Westonholz BiMES 1 (1975), and after reviewing the entry for BiMES 1 6 (TEXT 48) it is a bit disappointing and simply reads:

"Unbaked. Incantation. The handwriting is sufficiently similar to that of MBI no.2 to make it probable that they were written by the same scribe."

A translation would need to be found elsewhere. However there is a little more to Westenholz entry for BiMES 1 7 (TEXT 49), a Sargonic incantation in Akkadian:

col. i
(break)
[in] da-me-im
da-ni-al
SAG.KI
ki DUG
5' da-sa-bi-ir
KA
[k]i^? gú na [x] ti[m]

col. ii
(break)
da-áš-pu-ra-[am]
^dNAN$E.[x]
UM/MES/DUB-šum
ni-ib-sa-tim
5' [....]-za
(break)

col. iii
(break)
tu-uš-d[a-x (x) ]
a-la-ga-si-ma
na-ba-li
SUM x
5' [a]-na ba-[.....]
(break)

col. iv
ú -dam-[me-ki^?]
^dNAN$E.[x]
la da-tu-r[i-im]^?
da-ri-iš
5 si-ip-da-an
la i-a-da-an
si-ip-da
^dNin-^gigilim-ma
AN-t[im]^?
(break)


Translation:

Col. i
"You shall lie in your blood, your forehead you shall smash like a pot, your mouth..."
Col. ii
"You have // she has sent me..". (remainder ununderstandable).
Col. iii
"She ..., I seize her and ... flames (?) ... "
Col. iv
"I conjure you by Nanše-[x] that you shall never return. The two incantations are not mine, they are incantations of Nin-gilima (and) Antum (?) ..."

(Westenholz notes that lines 1 and 3 of col.iv are given "with all reserve, as readings with the corresponding masculine forms ú-dam-[me-ga] and da-tu-r[a-am] cannot be excluded." Also:
"Note that whereas col.i and possibly ii are phrased in the second person masculine, cols. iii and iv mention, and possibly address, a malevolent female being. This may explain the somewhat unusual formulation in the dual of the šiptu ul jattu formula."






Mein Kopf ist schwer

[us4-he2-gal2]

Text 47
Mus # [?]
Cdli: P112930 (photo/transliteration currently unavailable.)

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I have been able obtain part of the translation of this early Sumerian incantation from the work listed below, via electronic referenceing. However, Gellers remote work listed in the catalogue above would no doubt give a more complete accounting:

"In the shelter of Elyon: essays on Ancient Palestinian Life and Literature...by W. B Boyd Barrick and John R. Spencer, p.220 ("An Old Akkadian incantation text from Susa (MDP, 14, no. 91 ob 2f.)")

**For discussion on the fascinating and mysterious ĝiškin-tree, check out the "Akkad, Sumer, assyriology" facebook group**


Partial Translation:

The [lord] has grown in a pure place like the ĝiškin-tree (ĝiš-kin2-gin7),
Enki has grown in a pure place like the ĝiškin-tree,
His flood fills the earth with abundance,
His place of walking is its shade which
like the appearance of lapis lazuli,
stretches across the midst of the sea,
Like the lord grown in a pure place like the ĝiškin-tree,
Like Enki grown in a pure place like the ĝiškin-tree.

Cunningham 1997 mentions this tablet as being broken - he does provide the closing of this incantation (p.51)

rev. 6 (This is an incantation-speech)
of Ningirim
in the name of Nanše
which is spoken
rev. 10 in the chamber of Enki

[us4-he2-gal2]

TEXT 59- *** Erroneously listed as Ur III in date in YOS XI
MUS # [NBC 11106]
Cdli: P142390 (line art/transliteration available)

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The incantation text discussed below is one that has been the cause of some confusion in the scholarly world - intially, it was treated by van Dijk, who took the text to be of an Ur III date based on the script; thus, in Cunningham's 1996 guide to Sumerian incantations, he included the text in his Ur III incantation list and, following that list, we have called it Text 70 on this board (see the Ur III Incantations thread (reply #2).

More recently, however, the text was reexamined by Irving Finkel in his chapter in Rykle Borger Festschrift (CM 10, 1998). Finkel states that in his opinion, the text should be understood as coming from the Sargonic period, based on his re-examination of the script - and given the fact that Finkel is able to translate so much more of the text, I would suspect his opinion should be held. Henceforward, I will reproduce the Finkel translation of NBC 11106 below, now to be understood as a Sargonic incantation - for the sake of comparison, here is the older van Dijk treatment of the text:

6. ...from the [moun]tain, the pure place, it came,
from the [netherworld], it rose,
falling on the breast of the virgin,
falling on the neck of the lad,
10. falling on the yoke of the donkey,
[falling] on the thick shoulders of the oxen:
[as] it came from the [mountain,]
[as it rose from the netherworld,]
[the samānu-demon]

Below is Finkel's 1998 translation, which was improved and facilitated by the author's study of similar incantations against Samana from the Ur III period. The author has noted the text's lack of ritual instruction to the prescribed problem, something usually present; the text concludes with an statement of divine authorship, something that is well attested in the Ur III period and later.




Translation:


1. Coming from the mountain
2. <Coming down> from the mountain.
3. Samana,
4. Coming from the mountain,
5. Coming down from the mountain,
6. Coming down from the [foothil]ls, the pure place,
7. Coming down from the mountain,
8. Falling on the breast of the virigin(!),
9. Falling on the neck of the young man,
10. Falling on the yoke of the donkey,
11. <Falling on> the thick shoulders of the ox,
12. Coming from the mountain,
13. Because you are come down from the mountain,
14. Because you are fallen on the breast of the virgin,
15. Because you are fallen on the neck of the young man,
16. Because you are fallen on the yoke of the young ass,
17. Because you are fallen on the thick shoulders of the donkey.
18. Spell of
19. Ningirimma;
20. Incantation of Eridu;
21. My spell is the spell of
22. Asalluḫi
23. Son of Enki;
24. Let it not come out from(?) the Apsû!