Position in chronology
A song of Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inana T)
Written in modern English
A man cools Inana, uproots grass for her, and gathers dates from the date palm — all for holy Inana. He brings her water and black emmer seeds, then more water and white emmer seeds, piling them up as offerings. He also carries a heap of stones for her to pick through, and from the top of that heap he selects lapis lazuli — for Inana. The opening lines are damaged and only partial phrases survive before the text becomes legible.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSL...... he who cools, who cools ....... He who uproots the grass for holy Inana, who uproots ....... He who gathers the dates, ...... the date palm. He who gathers the dates for holy Inana, ...... the date palm. Let him bring her water, let him bring her water, and black emmer seeds. With the water let him bring Inana a heap, and white emmer seeds. The man brings, the man brings, he brings a heap of stones to choose from. The man brings to the maiden Inana, he brings a heap of stones to choose from. He gathers the lapis lazuli from the top of the heap. He gathers the lapis lazuli for Inana from the top of the heap.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.4.08.20 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.4.08.20: A song of Inana and Dumuzid (Dumuzid-Inana T). 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.4.08.20.
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
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.
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.