A reading, published with its checks still open. A Vigslist translation.
Like a Boat Tied at the Quay — a diĝir-šà-dab-ba prayer (manuscript G). “Like water, I do not know where I go… My god, I have fallen — take hold of my hand.”
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.
diĝir-šà-dab-ba, a "heart-appeasing" prayer to a man's personal god. Its edition of record is Jaques, Mon dieu qu'ai-je fait? (2022), pp. 53–60, where this tablet is manuscript G — a French edition, in scope, and credited here in full. One door stands open on the record's face: the BorgerKat note and an uncurated reference point to Lambert, "Dingir.ša.dib.ba Incantations," JNES 33 (1974), pp. 288ff. (p. 318) — an English article on this very cycle. Until what Lambert prints there is reconciled against Jaques's manuscript G, no first-English claim is made for the composition. The witness reading stands on its own either way.**
Built 2026-10-22 from Wave A1's live eBL fetch (saved in ).
One fragment: K.5104, Kuyunjik collection, British Museum — "bilingual, 9 lines of inscription," Neo-Assyrian script. Genre on the record: Literature → Lamentations. Photograph on the record. The record's external CDLI number is P395881. (Wave A1's dossier scan carried a second number, P230597, for this piece; the rendered record itself gives P395881, and the discrepancy is printed, not smoothed.)
A man is coming apart, and he says it in similes. His house has become a stranger's house. He does not know where he is going — "like water, I do not know where I go; like a boat moored at the quay, I do not know where I go." He has fallen, and the prayer ends with the oldest request in the cycle: take hold of my hand. The Sumerian and Akkadian run in alternating lines, each pair saying it twice, once in each language — the bilingual liturgy of a man asking his own god to pick him up.
Transliteration exactly as the record serves it. Counts: 12 line-units — 0 whole, 5 part, 7 fragments, 0 invented. "Part" here grades lines whose wording is substantially recoverable through the record's parallel-based restoration; the brackets are the record's and are kept.
Dragon scan (standing order): no ušumgal, muš-serpent, mušḫuššu or bašmu stands on this witness.
0′. [e₂-gu₁₀ e₂ sis-a-ka mu-ni-in-ku₄ x x (x x)]
"My house — [...] he entered the house of my brother(?) [...]" (Fragment — the opening line survives only in the record's restoration.)
1′. "[My house] became a house of dimmāti [...]" (Fragment — the Akkadian of the pair above; the word dimmāti is itself uncertain on the record.)
2′–3′. [digir-gu₁₀ me-e lu₂-ša₃-a-bi-gen ša₃-b]a ma-ra-[ti-le-en] · [i-li ana-ku ka-ma-ak-šu ina Š]A₃-šu₂ tu-še-ši-b[a-an-ni]
"My god — I am a man bound to his heart; you have seated me in his heart." (Parts — the confessional opening of the pair: the speaker defines himself by his god's heart, in both languages.)
4′–5′. [a-gin₇ ki al-gen-na-mu n]u-un-[zu] · [ki-ma me-e a-šar al-la]-ku# ul i-[di]
"Like water, I do not know where I go." (Parts — the Akkadian is nearly whole in restoration: kīma mê ašar allaku ul īdi.)
6′–7′. [{giš}ma₂-gin₇ kar ab-us₂ g]en-na-gu₁₀ nu-un-[zu] · [ki-ma e-lep-pi i-na ka-a]r in-nem-mi-du ul i-[di]
"Like a boat moored at the quay, I do not know where I go." (Parts — the prayer's picture: tied up at the harbour, going nowhere.)
8′–9′. [digir-gu₁₀ la-ba-an-šub] zi-mu-[ub] · [i-li am-ta-qu-ut] šu-ut-ba-an-[ni]
"My god, I have fallen — raise me up." (Parts.)
10′–11′. [ba-an-ze₂-er-ze₂-re-en] šu-gu₁₀ gid₂-b[a-ni-ib₂] · [et-ti-hi-il-ṣu qa-a-t]i [ṣa-bat]
"It has slipped away(?) — take hold of my hand." (Parts — the close: ettiḫilṣu, "it slipped," then the imperative ṣabat, "grasp!")
Doors on the face as stated in the header (Jaques 2022 credited as edition of record; Lambert, JNES 33 (1974) stands as the open English door, and the claim is withheld behind it). Release holds behind the triple-check and Richard's read. Branding on any future publication: a Vigslist translation.
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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