Grammar - In this lesson, we will discuss and go over some presumably “pre-Sumerian” terms and how they can be identified (or how they are usually identified and differentiated from standard Sumerian vocabulary). This will be our final day for reading Old Sumerian texts. While the Old Sumerian texts have their issues and represent a somewhat less-developed version of the Sumerian writing system (which eventually evolved and changed during the period of the reign of Gudea of Lagash and the kings of Ur III), it is an incredibly important phase of the language, since it does cover a long period of time and a lot of the important developments in text genres and writing do occur during the reigns of the Sumerian city-state rulers.
Reading: Foxvog p. 83-89, Hayes Lesson 4
Cuneiform Text: Gudea E3/1.1.7.64
Sumerian Normalized Text: Urukagina E1.9.9.5 (Urukagina’s Lament, “The Sin of Lugalzagesi”), Lugalzagesi E1.14.20
These texts will be the dramatic conclusion of our coverage of Old Sumerian texts. These are some of the final texts from the so-called Old Sumerian period, as they come from the last kings of that time prior to the conquest of Sargon of Akkad. Urukagina’s Lament, also known as “The Sin of Lugalzagesi”, is a very interesting text that documents the sacking of Lagash by the invading Lugalzagesi. It is a very important text, since it is one of the rare examples of a text left behind by a defeated ruler - something quite rare indeed. The second text is Lugalzagesi’s vase text about his newly-created Mesopotamian empire - it is a critical text in terms of understanding the royal ideology of the pre-Sargonic Sumerian rulers.
Vocabulary
|
kur |
Mountain, foreign land, land |
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lil2 |
Air, wind, atmosphere |
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nidba |
offering |
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bal |
To dig up, restore (a canal) |
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Enlil |
King of the gods |
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id2 |
River, canal |
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du3 |
To build |