A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
A supplication fragment. A fragment of supplication from Uruk.
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.
Publication number: AUWE 23, 138 — copy no. 138 in Egbert von Weiher, Spätbabylonische Texte aus Uruk V (SpTU V = AUWE 23, 1998), from Uruk. Corpus ID: CDLI P349141; served to OBEL (Old Babylonian Emesal Liturgies) from the Uruk material. First-millennium Uruk tablet (SpTU series); the corpus files it with the Emesal liturgies. Composition: Unidentified. A lament or prayer fragment whose surviving words run: turn back — shame — your god — the mother — the womb — a heart that turns back — a supplication — bound. The word ša₃-ne-ša₄, "supplication," at line 8′ is the piece's centre of gravity: this is somebody begging to be turned back from something. No deity is named in what survives; no incipit and no rubric are preserved. 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 — one of the 23 zero-translation items of Wave C's screen. witness, with the SpTU V door standing 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): the copy was published by von Weiher in SpTU V (AUWE 23, 1998); the volume is not openly digitized and its treatment of no. 138 could not be eyeballed from this desk. If the volume gives a German rendering of this piece, the position is the program's standing one — a German-only edition is a door on the face, not a bar — and the claim above is an English claim only. No English translation of this text, and no discussion of the piece under its AUWE number, its SpTU V number, or its CDLI number P349141, was found in any source reachable from this desk. Doors left on the face: (1) von Weiher, SpTU V (AUWE 23, 1998), no. 138 — the volume itself, in the print-check wave. (2) Gabbay's catalogues of the Uruk Emesal manuscripts — not eyeballed; an identification there would name the composition. (3) CDLI's record (P349141) — unread; CDLI is still down (its Berlin mirror only redirects to the dead front).
Dragon/serpent flag: none. Nothing of the kind is preserved in what is served.
o 1′: [... ] -x-NI? gib-ba x x ti x [... ] [...] crossed(?) [...] (one glossed word: gilim, "cross")
o 2′: [... ] -ma šu?-⸢ŋu₁₀⸣ nu-mu-⸢un?⸣-[... ] [...] my hand(?) — he has not [...] (the verb is lost)
o 3′: [... ] ga-an-gi₄ teš₂ nu-x-[... ] let me turn back — shame is not [...] (the line breaks off)
o 4′: [... ] -⸢ra⸣ ga-an-gi₄ še im-⸢me⸣-[... ] let me turn back to (him) [...] — (she) speaks [...]
o 5′: [... ] diŋir-zu? ama? arḫuš? [... ] your god(?) — the mother — the womb [...] (all three words are marked doubtful in the corpus's own reading)
o 6′: [... ] x mu-un-zi-zi ⸢te⸣ kas₄ x-[... ] he rises and rises [...] the runner(?) [...]
o 7′: [... ] ša₃ gur-ru-⸢zu? al⸣-[... ] the heart that turns back(?) [...]
o 8′: [... ] -⸢ga?⸣ ri a ša₃-ne-ša₄ mu-dib? [... ] [...] a supplication [...] he took up(?) [...]
o 9′: [... ] -x-ra [... ]-ru-bi IM diŋir šu-mu?-[x]-⸢ba?⸣-ab-[... ] gu-ul-lu-⸢de₃?⸣ [... ] [...] the god — my hand(?) [...] — to destroy(?) [...] (the longest line of the fragment and the most broken; only "god" and "destroy" are glossed)
o 10′: [... ] dur-bi ib₂-kud ŋa₂?-ta x [... ] its bond(?) is cut off [...]
o 11′: [... ] ⸢ŋa₂?⸣-e mu-un-keš₂-da [... ] I [...] am bound [...]
o 12′: [... ] x ⸢mu?-un?⸣-x-⸢šum₂? šu?⸣ [... ] [...] he gave(?) — a hand(?) [...] (both readings doubtful)
12 served line-units: 0 whole · 5 part · 7 fragment · 0 invented. The part-lines are the two "let me turn back" lines (3′, 4′), the rising line (6′), the cut bond (10′), and the bound speaker (11′).
A voice asking to turn back, bound, with its bond cut, holding a supplication — and, in the middle of it, three doubtful words standing in a row: your god, the mother, the womb. If those three readings hold, this is a birth-goddess prayer like its Nippur cousin in this wave; but the corpus itself marks all three with question marks, and this reading leaves them marked. What is certain is the posture of the piece: somebody bound, begging. That much the clay carries on its own.
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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