Nippur-12501 is a Sumerian tablet from the 2400s BC with mythological content. It was found and its facsimile published, sort-of... as a pretty image for the cover of some book somewhere. It was not, however, edited much less translated. Until now.
The myth concerns Ishkur, the storm god.
If that name seems obscure, that's because Sumer didn't care about the rains - as Jana Matuszak points out. Their waters came from the highlands - as in Egypt. The big stormgod-lovers were out among the Semites (famously): Baal-Hadad; or the Indo-Hittites, as Tarhunta. The Hurrians had a stormgod too and I assume so did the Elamites. Just everyone else but in Sumer and Egypt.
Nippur's myth of Ishkur didn't spread much. Even in Nippur they didn't much copy this tablet; their main god was Enlil. Which is all making me wonder if this was someone else's myth which got carried over here, maybe because someone found entertainment in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment