Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

A hymn to Sadarnuna (Sadarnuna A)

~1800 BCE·Old Babylonian

Written in modern English

Sadarnuna is the just woman who dwells among the great divine powers, unmatched in ladyship and the beloved of An. Her counsel reaches far, and she has set up her majestic dais in the courtyard of Enlil; standing in the holy storehouse Ec-mah — a place whose name is damaged on the tablet — she radiates terrifying awe. She is An's worthy offspring, and her husband is Nuska, the leader of the divine assembly, who serves the great gods of heaven and earth in his temple E-melem-huc. The hymn then breaks down: four lines are too fragmentary to read, and an unknown number of further lines are lost entirely.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — scholar edition

ETCSL
High confidence
The just woman dwelling among the great divine powers is the lady unsurpassed in ladyship! Sadarnuna, the just woman of far-reaching and just counsel, is the beloved of An! The great authority (?), the majestic quay, made fitting for the Ec-mah by Enul and Ninul, the just woman has erected her majestic dais in the courtyard of Enlil. As she stands in the holy storehouse Ec-mah, the ...... place, she conveys terrifying awesomeness. The beloved offspring of An the king, as she is worthy of the Pada-nunus (?), ...... the Ec-mah (?). In his E-melem-huc conveying great awesomeness, ...... fear, serving the great gods of heaven and earth, her spouse, the assembly leader Nuska, ....... 4 lines fragmentary unknown no. of lines missing

Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).

Scholarly note

Composition c.4.33.1 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.4.33.1: A hymn to Sadarnuna (Sadarnuna A). 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.4.33.1.

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