Nabonidus 32
| Obverse | ||
| Column i | ||
| i 1i 1 | (i 1) Nabonidus, king of Babylon, the one who provides for Esagil and Ezida, the one who reveres the great gods, am I. | |
| i 22 | ||
| i 33 | ||
| i 44 | ||
| i 55 | (i 5) (With regard to) Elugalgalgasisa, the ziggurat of Ekišnugal, which is inside Ur, which Ur-Namma, a king of former times, had built, but had not completed, Šulgi, his son, completed its construction. | |
| i 66 | ||
| i 77 | ||
| i 88 | ||
| i 99 | ||
| i 1010 | ||
| i 1111 | (i 11) I read in the inscriptions of Ur-Namma and Šulgi, his son, that Ur-Namma had built that ziggurat, but had not completed it, (and that) Šulgi, his son, completed its (Elugalgalgasisa’s) construction. | |
| i 1212 | ||
| i 1313 | ||
| i 1414 | ||
| i 1515 | ||
| i 1616 | (i 16) Now, that ziggurat had become old so, on top of the original foundation(s) that Ur-Namma and Šulgi, his son, had built, I repaired the damage of that ziggurat with bitumen and baked bricks, as (it had been) in ancient times. | |
| i 1717 | ||
| i 1818 | ||
| i 1919 | ||
| i 2020 | ||
| i 2121 | ||
| i 2222 | ||
| i 2323 | (i 23b) For the god Sîn, lord of the gods of heaven and earth, king of the gods, god of the gods, the one who resides in the great heavens, lord of Ekišnugal — which is inside Ur — my lord, I renovated and (re)built (it). | |
| i 2424 | ||
| i 2525 | ||
| i 2626 | ||
| Column ii | ||
| ii 1ii 1 | ||
| ii 22 | ||
| ii 33 | (ii 3) O Sîn, lord of the gods, king of the gods of heaven and earth, god of the gods, the one who resides in the great heavens, when you joyfully enter this temple, may good things about Esagil, Ezida, (and) Ekišnugal, the temples of your great divinity, be set upon your lips. Moreover, have the fear of your great divinity placed in the heart(s) of his people so that they do not sin against your great divinity. | |
| ii 44 | ||
| ii 55 | ||
| ii 66 | ||
| ii 77 | ||
| ii 88 | ||
| ii 99 | ||
| ii 1010 | ||
| ii 1111 | ||
| ii 1212 | ||
| ii 1313 | ||
| ii 1414 | ||
| ii 1515 | ||
| ii 1616 | ||
| ii 1717 | (ii 17) May their (the temples’) foundations be as firm as (those of) the heavens. | |
| ii 1818 | (ii 18) (As for) me, Nabonidus, king of Babylon, save me from sinning against your great divinity and grant me a long life (lit. “a life of long days”). | |
| ii 1919 | ||
| ii 2020 | ||
| ii 2121 | ||
| ii 2222 | ||
| ii 2323 | (ii 23) Moreover, with regard to Belshazzar, (my) first-born son, my own offspring, have the fear of your great divinity placed in his heart so that he does not commit a(ny) sin. May he be sated with happiness in life. | |
| ii 2424 | ||
| ii 2525 | ||
| ii 2626 |
1DINGIR.MEŠ šá DINGIR.MEŠ “god of the gods”: Literally “gods of the gods.” Because this epithet refers only to the moon-god Sîn, one expects here DINGIR šá DINGIR.MEŠ, as it is in text no. 33 (variant of the Elugalgalgasisa Cylinder) ii 8. For other examples of redundant, plural forms used in lieu of a singular form, see Schaudig, Inschriften Nabonids pp. 158–159 §IV.2.1.j. M. Worthington (Textual Criticism pp. 284–285 §5.4.7), however, suggests that the MEŠ sign “sometimes appears in cases where grammar or idiom suggests that a sumerogram conceals a singular word” and that “the unexpected MEŠ should probably be understood as an aid to reading: it indicates to the reader that the preceding sign or group of signs is to be read sumerographically.” This passage might be one of those instances.
2é-giš-nu₁₁-gal “Ekišnugal”: Ex. 3 writes the ceremonial name of the temple as é-giš-nu-gál.
3a-ši-ib AN-e GAL.MEŠ “the one who resides in the great heavens”: Ex. 11 has a-ši-ib é-giš-nu₁₁-gal “the one who resides in Ekišnugal.”
4UN.MEŠ-šú “his people”: As H. Schaudig (Inschriften Nabonids p. 353 n. 362) has already pointed out, this appears to have been a scribal error for UN.MEŠ-ka (“your people”); Nabonidus is directly addressing the god Sîn in this passage, so one expects a second person, not third person, possessive suffix.
Created by Frauke Weiershäuser and Jamie Novotny, 2015-20, for the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative (MOCCI), a corpus-building initiative funded by LMU Munich, the Henkel Foundation, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (through the establishment of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East), and and based at the Historisches Seminar - Abteilung Alte Geschichte of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/ribo/Q005429/.