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“When the Temple Is Finished and the God Is Brought to His Seat”

Never translated in any language before this page. A Vigslist translation.

October 22, 2026 · 1881-02-04,295

“When the temple is finished and the god is brought to his seat”. A temple ritual: the god brought in procession and seated.

Never translated before — in any language. No edition and no translation of this text stands in print or on the records checked. The reading below is the first rendering of this text anywhere.

lines and directions for ceremonies, in Akkadian — whose served text keeps one complete ritual sentence: the moment a finished temple receives its god. No edition and no published copy stand on the record; Geers copied the tablet in his notebooks (Heft D 31), and the record notes that a photograph taken after conservation shows far more than Geers could see. Two parallels stand on the face, below.**

Built 2026-10-22 from a fresh live eBL fetch (saved in ). This tablet is one of the dated accessions whose live record answers only under the comma form of its number (1881,0204.295); the hyphen form returns no record.

Credits

The witness

One fragment: 1881-02-04,295, Neo-Assyrian script, British Museum (Kuyunjik) — "part of a text containing incantations and directions of ceremonies," twelve lines on the obverse per the catalogue description. CDLI number on the live record: P452175. Photograph on the record.

What it says

The obverse opens inside an incantation spoken to someone in the steppe: "you keep coming… in the steppe, where the road is barred, you are buried." Then a ruling, and the ritual direction that gives the fragment its weight: "when the temple is completed and the god is brought in procession to his seat" — the consecration moment, the god entering his finished house. Around it, pieces of the rite: a place where a red garment is worn, something carried in and recited "thus," and on the reverse burial words again — "in the steppe… you shall be buried" — before the catchline and a colophon tail. Whose rite this is, the fragment does not say; the parallels named on the face are the road to finding out, and they are printed as doors, not answers.

How to read this document

Transliteration exactly as the record serves it. Obv. 8′ is restored in the record's brackets from the parallel BM.98580 (its line 12′) — the restoration is the record's, and the unit is graded accordingly. Counts: 19 line-units — 0 whole, 3 part, 16 fragments, 0 invented.

The reading

Obverse

1′. […] tu?#-[x (x)] (traces only)

2′. […] tu-x [x (x)] (traces only)

3′. [… a]-šar gab-[x] "[…] where all […]" (traces)

4′. […] gab KUD-i[s?] "[…] all is cut of[f(?) …]" (traces)

5′. […] ta-at-tal-la-kam@v# "[…] you keep coming" (a verb stands; its address is lost)

6′. [… EDI]N a-šar GIR₃ par₂-sat te-te-mir "[… in the step]pe, where the road is barred, you are buried"

7′. […] ta-at-tal-la-kam@v "[…] you keep coming"

$ single ruling

8′. [e-nu-ma E₂ DINGIR šu-uk-lu-lu-ma DINGIR a]-na šub-ti-šu₂ uṭ-ṭah-hu-u₂ "[When the temple is completed and the god] is brought in procession to his seat" — restored from the parallel BM.98580, line 12′, as the record prints it.

9′. […] a#-šar TUG₂ SA₅ MU₄.MU₄-aš "[… the place] where he is clothed in a red garment"

10′. [… BA.A]N.DU₈.DU₈ IL₂-šu₂-ma "[…] he carries him in […]" (traces)

11′. […] x tuš#-za-su#-ma# UR₅.GIM ŠID-nu "[…] you seat him(?) and recite thus" (traces; UR₅.GIM ŠID-nu, "recite thus," is the ritual's own direction)

$ single ruling

12′. […] x TUK-a (traces only)

13′. […] x i#-tu#-u₂ (traces only)

14′. […]-bu?#-bu# (traces only)

$ rest of side broken

Reverse

1′. […] x x x x (traces only)

2′. […]-ma ina EDIN "[…] and in the steppe" (traces)

3′. […] te-qe₂-bir "[…] you shall be buried"

$ single ruling

Catchline

4′. […] x-a#-ab (traces only)

Colophon

5′. […] x AB.SAR.AM₃# BA#.AN#.E₃# "[…] it was written and brought out […]" (the colophon verbs stand: AB.SAR.AM₃ BA.AN.E₃, "written and checked out")

$ rest of side broken

Doors and flags

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


More antiquities research: Antiquities Research

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