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Rim-Sin Approaches the Grand Entrance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

C. J. Gadd
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Extract

The following text, in form a Sumerian incantation, is written upon a tablet (11 by 7 cm., lower left corner broken off and some surface damage) excavated at Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley in the season 1926–1927, and given the excavation-number U.7734. It was found with several other tablets belonging to the same period in a burnt level over the upper (2nd period) floor of rooms 5–6 in the private house called “No. 7 Quiet Street.”

Its contents are a prayer recited, no doubt by attendant priests and followers, on one occasion or more when Rim-Sin, king of Larsa, 1822–1763 B.C., made a state entry into the “great exalted gate” of Ur. This was the building found by the excavator in the third season of his work, which was either identical with or incorporated d u b - l á - m a ḫ, the seat of justice and, presumably, of court-records, a function which accords with the usual oriental practice of sitting at judgement in the city-gate. This grand entrance led, in fact, to the whole of the “temenos” or sacred area as it existed in the Larsa period, and whether or not this included the king's own residence it certainly included also the main sanctuary itself É - k i š -Nu-g á l (line 15), where dwelt the divine couple Nanna and Ningal, waiting to receive (11 f., 44 f.) and to send out (15) messages carried by servant-deities.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 22 , Issue 1-2: Ur in Retrospect. In Memory of Sir C. Leonard Woolley , Spring-Autumn 1960 , pp. 157 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1960 

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References

1 SirWoolley, Leonard, in A.J. VII, 1927, p. 398, Pl. XLVII, 2Google Scholar.

2 Dates according to a chronological table drawn up by Mr. M. B. Rowton for use in the revised Cambridge Ancient History.

3 SirWoolley, Leonard in A.J. V, 1925, pp. 385 ff., 396 f.Google Scholar, and in U.B. V, p. 28 Google Scholar. For ká-gal-maḫ in the building inscriptions see U.E.T. I, no. 159 (a later repair) and no. 265, formula of the 20th year of Gungunum (1932–1906 B.C.). This being not much more than a century before the time of Rim-Sin, the gateway and its accessories may still have been in good repair, as is suggested by the list of janitor-deities invoked by this prayer.

4 As it included, under the III Dynasty of Ur, é-ḫur-sag the palace of Šul-gi, A.J. VI, 1926, pp. 382 f., Pl. LVIIGoogle Scholar.

5 Once positively denied ( Z.A. N.F. III, pp. 218 f.Google Scholar), but the discovery at Kültepe of an Old Assyrian inscription of Irišum I which made direct references to such gateway-figures has led to some modification of this disbelief ( Landsberger, B. in Belleten XIV (1950), pp. 250 ff.Google Scholar). For a discussion of the archaeological evidence, but limited to twin-figures only, see Buren, E. D. Van in Or. 1947, pp. 312 ff. and 477 ffGoogle Scholar. Nothing in the Rim-Sin text indicates whether the gods were of human, animal, or monstrous form.

6 The use of this incantation to obtain a favourable reception suggests naturally that the gateway-gods could be correspondingly hostile when the occasion required. This dual nature is indifferently attested for the Assyrian šēdu.

7 Ungnad, A. in A.f.O. XIV, p. 253 Google Scholar.

8 See Z.A. N.F. XVI, p. 62 Google Scholar. The one example noted there has been translated by Jestin, R. in R.A. XXXIX, pp. 91 ffGoogle Scholar. All that this has in common with the present text is the invocation in obv. 6 (d) r i - i m - (d) s i n l u g a l - m u.