Cuneiform Texts from the Folios of W. G. Lambert, Part One General Editor Jerrold S. Cooper, Johns Hopkins University Editorial Board Walter Farber, University of Chicago Jack Sasson, Vanderbilt University Piotr Michalowski, University of Michigan Piotr Steinkeller, Harvard University Simo Parpola, University of Helsinki Marten Stol, Free University of Amsterdam Karen Radner, University College, London Irene Winter, Harvard University 1. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur, 13. Babylonian Oracle Questions, by W. G. Lambert by Piotr Michalowski 14. Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, by Gianni 2. Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf! Mesopotamische Baby-Beschwörungen Marchesi and Nicolò Marchetti und -Rituale, by Walter Farber 15. The Correspondence of the Kings of Ur: An Epistolary History 3. Adoption in Old Babylonian Nippur and the Archive of an Ancient Mesopotamian Kingdom, by Piotr Michalowski of Mannum-mešu-liṣṣur, by Elizabeth C. Stone and 16. Babylonian Creation Myths, by W. G. Lambert David I. Owen 17. Lamaštu: An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu 4. Third-Millennium Legal and Administrative Texts in the Iraq Incantations and Rituals and Related Texts from the Second and Museum, Baghdad, by Piotr Steinkeller and J. N. Postgate First Millennia b.c., by Walter Farber 5. House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia, 18. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur, by Nili Samet by A. R. George 19. The babilili-Ritual from Hattusa (CTH 718), by Gary M. 6. Textes culinaires Mésopotamiens / Mesopotamian Culinary Beckman Texts, by Jean Bottéro 20. Babylonia, the Gulf Region, and the Indus: Archaeological and 7. Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts, by Joan Goodnick Textual Evidence for Contact in the Third and Early Second Westenholz Millennium B.C., by Steffen Laursen and Piotr Steinkeller 8. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, by Wayne Horowitz 21. Assyria: The Imperial Mission, by Mario Liverani 9. The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of 22. The Monumental Reliefs of the Elamite Highlands: A Complete Late Assyrian Palace Reliefs, by John M. Russell Inventory and Analysis (from the Seventeenth to the Sixth 10. Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Century BC), by Javier Álvarez- Mon Death, by Shlomo Izre’el 23. Administrative Law in Late Babylonian Legal Texts, by F. Rachel 11. Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Magdalene, Cornelia Wunsch, and Bruce Wells Diviner’s Archive, by Daniel E. Fleming 24. Cuneiform Texts from the Folios of W. G. Lambert, Part One, 12. Letters to the King of Mari: A New Translation, with Historical prepared for publication and edited by A. R. George and Junko Taniguchi Introduction, Notes, and Commentary, by Wolfgang Heimpel Cuneiform Texts from the Folios of W. G. Lambert, Part One Prepared for Publication and Edited by A. R. George and Junko Taniguchi Eisenbrauns | University Park, Pennsylvania Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Copyright © 2019 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Names: George, A. R., editor. | Taniguchi, Junko, 1971– Printed in the United States of America editor. | Lambert, W. G. (Wilfred G.) Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, Title: Cuneiform texts from the folios of W.G. Lambert / University Park, PA 16802–1003 prepared for publication and edited by A.R. George and Junko Taniguchi. The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Other titles: Mesopotamian civilizations ; 24. Association of University Presses. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : Eisenbrauns, [2019]– | Series: Mesopotamian civilizations ; 24 | Includes It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to bibliographical references and index. use acid- free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy Summary: “A collection of drawings of 330 cuneiform tablet, the minimum requirements of American National Standard found in the academic papers of W. G. Lambert, one of for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed the foremost Assyriologists of the twentieth century. Texts Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992. range from historical inscriptions to literary and scholarly texts, written by Babylonian and Assyrian scribes”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019026883 | ISBN 9781575067339 (v. 1 ; hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Akkadian language—Texts—Catalogs. | Cuneiform inscriptions, Akkadian—Catalogs. | Sumerian language—Texts—Catalogs. | Cuneiform inscriptions, Sumerian—Catalogs. Classification: LCC PJ3711 .C864 2019 | DDC 892 / .1—dc23 LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2019026883 Contents Preface and Acknowledgments vii List of Abbreviations xi Catalogue of Texts . .1 Index of Museum Numbers . .19 Index of Texts . .26 References . .27 Cuneiform Texts . 29 Preface and Acknowledgments The late W. G. Lambert taught himself to copy cunei- form. He drew the whole at two, three or four times form texts in the British Museum in the early 1950s and lifesize, having learned that publishers of illustrated became a master of the art. He continued to make his dis- books required artwork in magnified form, so as to tinctive pencil drawings until 2011, the year of his death. give a neater effect when reduced in publication. Many were published in his books, Babylonian Wisdom In this way he produced beautifully clear cunei- Literature, Babylonian Literary Texts (CT 46), Atra-ḫasīs, form copies which made the text easier to read than Babylonian Oracle Questions, and Babylonian Creation the clay tablet from which it was taken, replicated Myths, and in his very many journal articles, book the distinctive character of the ductus, and retained chapters, and minor works. Lambert’s achievement as a the exact proportions of the signs and any breaks copyist is summed up in a biographical memoir commis- in the surface. This latter point was essential, for sioned by the British Academy (George 2015b: 338–39): Lambert insisted that a good Assyriologist should try to read what was damaged as well as what was [In 1951] he became a regular visitor to the Students’ clear, and to that end reproduction of the line of text Room in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian in exact proportion, signs, damage and breaks, was Antiquities at the British Museum. Here, under the paramount. What he did not do, in common with initial guidance of the assistant keeper D. J. Wise- many others of that time, was attempt to represent man (1918–2010), he taught himself to draw cunei- a clay tablet as an archaeological object. Though he form texts from the original clay tablets. He had a was certainly alive to the information that could be very good eye for cuneiform signs but was not a born obtained from examining the physical object, espe- draughtsman and found it difficult at first to produce cially the curvature of its surfaces and the place of its drawings with which he was satisfied. Quite soon, edges in relation to the inscription, he did not deem however, he had developed his own distinctive style. it necessary to include in his copies large expanses It was a compromise between the exact drawings of of broken clay. For him, a clay tablet was foremost a the kind produced by natural artists like Arno Poebel vehicle for cuneiform text, and it was the inscribed (which he admired enormously) and the freehand surface alone that he reproduced in drawing. “copies” of prolific cuneiformists like R. Campbell Thompson (which he did not). In pursuit of clarity, So prolific was Lambert’s production of copies of he straightened slanting lines of text and introduced cuneiform texts that he left on his death a very large space between them. In pursuit of accuracy, he mea- number of sheets of drawings (folios), sorted by genre sured the horizontal distances between the vertical into folders and stored in a filing cabinet in his bedroom wedges of all the cuneiform signs on a given line of in Birmingham. In the months following the removal text and mapped them on to ruled paper, reproduc- of Lambert’s academic Nachlass to Buckhurst Hill, ing the signs as they were written, not in standardized the sheets were numbered and indexed by the present viii Preface and Acknowledgments editors. The individual sheets of cuneiform copies bear Very few of the pencil copies had been inked in at the the folio numbers 1–92, 225, 405–91, 762–1031, 1064– time of their creator’s death, but they were all intended 2046, 4117, 4307, 4596, 6141–297, 6304, 6690–92, 6704, for eventual publication, because Lambert did not usu- 7302–8, 8211–25, 29202. Many copies occupy several ally make rough copies and did not go to the trouble of folios. Some drawings are copies that had been published making a drawing unless he intended to publish it. It is and then returned to their maker (220+), and others are equally certain that Lambert would have collated each copies by other scholars (49+ ), but by far the majority drawing against the original tablet before inking it. This of them are copies that Lambert made but did not see exercise has probably been carried out for very few of published. Three hundred and twenty-nine of these pre- the drawings, so that inevitably some corrections and viously unpublished copies fill the present volume. The alterations that he would have made have not been made. remaining portion will fill a second. We did not think it appropriate as editors to tamper with The texts collected in this volume are organized by the drawings ourselves and for that reason have not col- genre: commemorative and votive inscriptions (nos. 1–8), lated them, except in a handful of cases where we were late copies of royal inscriptions (nos. 9–18), other histori- in no doubt that Lambert would himself have made an cal and historical-literary compositions (nos. 19–24), late alteration. copies of royal correspondence (nos.