A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
A Nippur lament fragment. Every line broken at both ends. A trace of the sign UŠUM stands at obv. 10′ — flagged on the build's face, no claim made from it.
Published as a reading. No first-translation claim is made for this piece. The checks that would settle such a claim are named in the notes below and are still open; the wording on this page claims nothing they have not settled.
Museum number: CBS 08772 (Penn Museum, Babylonian Section), Nippur (per the OBEL inventory). Corpus ID: CDLI P263593; ORACC OBEL (Old Babylonian Emesal Liturgies). Composition: Unidentified. A Sumerian lament in the Emesal register, Old Babylonian. What survives is line-beginnings and line-ends only — the middle of every line is gone — so no incipit, no deity's name, and no rubric survive to name the piece. OBEL's inventory gives it no genre and no edition. Source: OBEL's served interlinear text (transliteration with a partial English gloss row), fetched and saved by Wave C (). OBEL serves no translation for this tablet — it is one of the 23 zero-translation items of Wave C's screen. scoped to the witness and to what the glosses carry. Whether the composition (once it can be identified) has a published edition anywhere is a door left open on the face below. Counting rule used here: a line counts part if a complete verb form or a glossed phrase survives; fragment if only isolated words or sign traces survive; whole only if a complete clause survives intact. No line of this tablet counts whole.
Publication check (C2, Oct 22): no edition, translation, or discussion of CBS 08772 was found in any source reachable from this desk — not in the program's own tree (the number occurs only in Wave C's report), not in open web search under the museum number or the CDLI number. Doors left on the face: (1) Delnero's catalogue of the Emesal compositions (SANER 26, How to Do Things with Tears) has not been eyeballed for this tablet — Wave C named that eyeball as outstanding for every OBEL zero, and it stays outstanding; the catalogue sits in the print-check wave. (2) CDLI's own record (P263593) could not be read — CDLI is still down (503 at the last probes; its Berlin mirror redirects to the same dead front). (3) Langdon-era Penn Museum publications of Nippur liturgies (PBS / Museum Journal era) have not been systematically checked for this tablet; the old Nippur liturgy editions are the standing risk for any N-number or CBS-number liturgy fragment, and no claim beyond the witness should be made until that shelf is eyeballed.
Dragon/serpent flag — a trace, not a claim: at obv. 10′ the sign UŠUM stands in the transliteration, marked doubtful by the corpus itself (UŠUM?) and carrying no gloss. UŠUM is the dragon word, but a single doubtfully read sign with no gloss and no context cannot carry a dragon claim, and none is made. It is recorded here so the flag is on the record: if this tablet is ever read from a photograph, obv. 10′ is the line to look at first. (Rev. 10′ shows a doubtful UŠ — a different sign — and is not part of this flag.)
Every line is broken at both ends. What is rendered is only what OBEL's gloss row and plainly readable verb forms carry; the rest is left as the transliteration shows it.
o? 1′: [... ] x x [... ] [...]
o? 2′: [... ] x AB x [... ] [...]
o? 3′: [... ] LAGAB x bur-ra? TUR KUR? x [... ] [...] a bowl(?) [...]
o? 4′: [... ] x x MIN x x x-a-ni-še₃ ku₄-ra ⸢en?⸣ [... ] [...] entering, to his [...]; the lord(?) [...]
o? 5′: [... ] x AN x x-a-ni e₂?-še₃ tukum-a-ni-še₃ x [... ] [...] to his [...] — to the house — toward his [...]
o? 6′: [... ] ⸢teš₂?⸣ nu-tuku saŋ ULU₃-a-ni-am₃ ni₂? im?-mi?-[... ] [...] shame he has not acquired; it is his very self [...]
o? 7′: [... ] x-ab-la₂-e ma-al ta ma ni [... ] [...] what is there? [...]
o? 8′: [... ] x nu-mu-un-da-⸢re⸣-eš DU!? x x [... ] [...] they have not [...] with him [...] (the verb is unread)
o? 9′: [... ] x x du-bu-ul? nu-mu-un-x A x [... ] [...] paralyze(?) — he has not [...] (the verb is unread)
o? 10′: [... ] x UŠUM?-e NIM šu nu-mu-un-⸢da?⸣-gar? [... ] [...] UŠUM(?) [...] — a hand he has not set(?) [...] The UŠUM sign is OBEL's own doubtful reading, unglossed. See the flag above.
o? 11′: [... ] ⸢mu⸣-un-da-gur?-gur? niŋ₂-zi-zi al-[... ] [...] he keeps turning back(?); the true things(?) are rising(?) [...] (unglossed in the corpus; rendered from the forms alone, and marked so)
o? 12′: [... ] x-⸢gin₇?⸣ mu-lu x e-ne da DI [... ] [...] like [...] — the man — he [...] with [...]
o? 13′: [... ] bir-bir-re ⸢ama₅?⸣-a-ni šu bir-⸢re⸣ x [... ] [...] scattering — his chamber; the hand scatters [...]
o? 14′: [... ] x-⸢e?⸣ al-ma-ma-al A MU x x [... ] [...] it is indeed there [...]
o? 15′: [... ] x BURU₁₄? nu-⸢ub?⸣-dub [... ] [...] (the sign) BURU₁₄(?) — he did not heap up(?) [...]
o? 16′: [... ] x x x [... ] [...]
o? 17′: [... ] x [... ] [...]
r? 1′: [... ] x x x [... ] [...]
r? 2′: [... ] x x nu-x [... ] [...] not [...] (the verb is unread)
r? 3′: [... ] x x lu₂? x x [... ] [...] the man(?) [...]
r? 4′: [... ] x A? ur₂? bal? [... ] [...] (signs unread) [...]
r? 5′: [... ] kun? x x x [... ] [...] a tail(?) [...]
r? 6′: [... ] x x x x [... ] [...]
r? 7′: [... ] x x gu? mu-x [... ] [...] (traces) [...]
r? 8′: [... ] x x x ⸢la?⸣ x [... ] [...] (traces) [...]
r? 9′: [... ] ⸢GUL?⸣ mu-un-x-[... ] [...] destroyed(?) — he [...] (the verb is unread)
r? 10′: [... ] x UŠ? TAR? [... ] [...] (signs doubtful) [...]
r? 11′: [... ] x x x [... ] [...]
28 served line-units (obv. 17 + rev. 11): 0 whole · 4 part · 24 fragment · 0 invented. The four part-lines are o? 6′ (shame he has not acquired), o? 7′ (what is there?), o? 13′ (scattering in his chamber), and o? 14′ (it is indeed there). Everything else is isolated words and traces, and the reading says so rather than dressing them up.
A scrap of a Nippur lament whose words for shame, scattering, and a chamber survive at the edges of a broken tablet. It will not carry a story on its own; its value is that it is now on the program's map with its doors named, and its one live thread — the doubtful UŠUM at obv. 10′ — is flagged for the day a photograph of the tablet can be read.
Nuvira Technologies conducts this research with AI assistance, cross-verified against the primary sources to scholarly integrity standards. Uncertain readings are marked; broken lines are left broken.
— Richard Vigslist, Founder, Nuvira Technologies
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