Position in chronology
A praise poem of Ur-Namma (Ur-Namma C)
Written in modern English
Ur is a city of supreme divine power, its royal throne-dais towering high, built on pure ground and beautiful as the sky — richly decorated, radiant. Its great wall rises from the abzu, the cosmic underground waters, and the jipar shrine at its heart is the dwelling place of An and Enlil. The palace called E-kish-nugal is where destinies are decided; its pilasters blaze with light visible across every land. The great terrace floats like a white cloud in the midst of the sky, and something else — the surface is damaged here — flashes like lightning inside a shrine.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSLCity of the finest divine powers, lofty royal throne-dais! Shrine Urim, pre-eminent in Sumer, built in a pure place! City, your well-founded great wall has grown out of the abzu! City, beautiful as the sky, endowed with beauty, colourfully decorated in a great place! Shrine Urim, well-founded jipar, dwelling of An and Enlil! Your lofty palace is the E-kic-nujal, in which the fates are determined! Your pilasters heavy with radiance tower over all the countries! Its terrace like a white cloud is a spectacle in the midst of heaven. Its ...... like flashing lightning shines (?) inside a shrine.…
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.2.4.1.3 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.2.4.1.3: A praise poem of Ur-Namma (Ur-Namma C). 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.2.4.1.3.
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