Enlil gives the Dukug to the forefather gods — a witness reading
This page is a witness reading, not a first translation. The text survives on two Old Babylonian tablets from Nippur that join: Ni 09490 and Ni 04408, both held today by the Istanbul Archaeology Museums. The join is recorded on both tablets' database records, verified by Jana Matuszak in August 2026. The Assyriologist Jeremiah Peterson transliterated the joined text inside the eBL database, and his unpublished English renderings stand on the record for 30 of its 58 lines. The renderings printed below are ours, made from his transliteration of the joined text; they were compared with his only afterward, and the divergences are recorded in the working dossier.
The scene is primeval. Enlil, addressed as lord and king, gives the Dukug — the Holy Hill, the place where fates are decreed — to the Enki and Ninki gods as their dwelling. The Enki-and-Ninki pair are the forefathers and foremothers: they head the ancestor lists of Enlil himself, the gods of the generation before his own. Enlil establishes the hill as their dwelling, puts the decreeing of fates in its place, and the central block of the text then repeats nearly word for word, as the record's own note flags. The reverse of the joined text preserves line-ends only; a few of them still construe — Ninlil weeping, the Ekur, the great dais.
The composition has no name and no published edition, in any language. CDLI, the cuneiform catalogue, tentatively tagged one of the two tablets as a witness of "ETCSL 4.05.02, Enlil Hymn(?)." That tag does not hold. The number 4.05.2 stands in ETCSL's catalogue against another hymn, Enlil B, for which the corpus serves no text; the only text served under 4.05 is 4.05.1, the hymn modern editions call Enlil A — and no line of the joined text matches any line of Enlil A. What these two tablets carry is a theogony, not an Enlil hymn. The tag is an unverified catalogue guess, marked with a question mark and a check flag by CDLI itself, and the same record states that no translation of the tablet exists. The text remains unidentified.
Brackets and gaps are exactly what they look like: places where the tablet is broken. Nothing has been filled in. The obverse first, then the reverse.
[…] your awe(?) […]
The fate of Enlil […]
the fate of kingship […] shall […]
To the Enki and Ninki gods, the forefathers and foremothers
The Holy Hill (Dukug) — you gave it to them as a dwelling
You shall always put the decreeing of fates in its place
In heaven and earth, your foundation was made firm
You are lord! My king, you shall always establish a dwelling
When the laving rites had been duly performed through the princely me
Father Enlil, you […]
[…] shall not build the true(?) […] in the Land; […] raised […] as king
[…] to the Enki and Ninki gods, the forefathers and foremothers
The Holy Hill (Dukug) — you gave it to them as a dwelling
You shall always put the decreeing of fates in its place
In heaven and earth, your foundation was made firm
You are lord! My king, you shall always establish a dwelling
When the laving rites had been duly performed through the princely me
Father Enlil, you shall […]
[…] shall not build the true(?) […] — he raised (you?) as king in the Land
[…] clouds are present in your heaven(?)
[…] is truly set on the ground
[…] the place where you decree fate
[…] he raised […]
[…] An […]
[…] the gods stand in attendance
Ninlil […] weeps(?) […]
Enlil […] in the heart, in heaven and earth […]
The Ekur […]
On the great dais […]
Enlil […]
Foremost one […]
One divergence is worth naming here. The third line of the reverse block — "the gods stand in attendance" — follows the verb on the tablet, su₈, "to stand." Peterson's rendering has "the gods serve." Both are printed in the dossier, with the difference stated.
The joined text carries 58 line-units. Thirty-one of them render here in the part that survives; none renders in whole. The remaining 27 are fragments — line-ends and sign-tails that carry no construable phrase — and are not rendered. Nothing has been invented. If a duplicate ever identifies this composition as a known, translated text, this page's standing changes to match, and the record will say so.
The tablets are held by the Istanbul Archaeology Museums (Ni 09490 and Ni 04408). Hand copies: ISET 1, plates 110 and 57. Transliteration of the joined text: Jeremiah Peterson (eBL project, 2023–26), unpublished, with his working English renderings on the record for 30 of the 58 lines. This witness reading was made from that transliteration; it has not been collated against the original tablets, and no photographs of them are available. The full working dossier — the identification check, the transliteration, and every divergence from Peterson's renderings with its reason — accompanies this article and is available to any scholar who wants to check the work.
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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