Cuthean Legend of Narām-Sîn
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The Cuthean Legend of Narām-Sîn is a poem that narrates the war between Narām-Sîn, a king of the Old Akkadian dynasty, and the nomadic people called Umma-mānda. The text was known to the ancient Mesopotamians as ṭupšenna pītēma ("Open the Tablet Box"), as evidenced by the colophon of the Old Babylonian edition. The text is preserved in two Old Babylonian manuscripts; two manuscripts from Boghazköy; a late version in six copies from Nineveh, one from Sultantepe, and one from Kiš. Furthermore, there are four possible Hittite versions from Boghazköy. A broken name "ṭup-šin-na pi-[. . .]" appears in a catalogue of the library of Ashurbanipal's library in Nineveh, probably referring to this text. The length of the text is not fixed. Some manuscripts have as many as 600 lines, while others approximately 180 lines. The composition is divided into six sections; the first of which refers to the introduction of Narām-Sîn; the second to a divination commissioned by Enmerkar, the king of Uruk; the third to the creation of Narām-Sîn's opponents by the great gods in the mountains and their subsequent attack against numerous countries, as well as Narām-Sîn's dispatch of a scout to check whether they were human; the fourth to a divination commissioned by Narām-Sîn regarding whether to go to war with the enemy and his loss of soldiers because of his ignorance of the omen; the fifth to a second divination commissioned by Narām-Sîn regarding whether to punish the enemies he captured and Ištar's promise of the future destruction of the enemy; finally, the sixth and final section contains Narām-Sîn's admonition to future rulers.
Author: Jinyan Wang
Institution: University of Toronto
Language: English
Topic: Ancient Near East History
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7079596567
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