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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
A Babylonian text from Sultantepe published by Professor Gurney in 1964 noted that the age of seventy marked a “long life” though it goes on to list eighty as “old age” (šībūtu) and ninety as “extreme old age” (littūtum). In congratulating my teacher and colleague on his long life of scholarship this contribution carries with it best wishes for his continuing work as ana labīrūti illak. Having been with Professor Seton Lloyd at Sultantepe on the day in 1951 when the site was first surveyed and chosen as full of promise it would seem appropriate to offer here a text which virtually completes the first tablet of the poem of the Righteous Sufferer (ludlul bēl nēmeqi). In 1954 Professor Gurney made available, in conjunction with W. G. Lambert, a new text from Sultantepe which marked a notable advance on our hitherto scanty knowledge of that tablet. Subsequently Professor Lambert published the first part of the hymn of praise to the god Marduk (ll. 1–12) with which this classical poem opens.
1 Gurney, O. E. and Hulin, P., The Sultantepe Tablets II (1964), 400, 46, pl. CCLXXIGoogle Scholar.
2 An. St. IV (1954), 64–80Google Scholar; cf. VI (1956), 163.
3 Lambert, W. G., Babylonian Wisdom Literature (1960), 343–4Google Scholar, first identified by Leichty, E., Or. 28 (1959), 361–3Google Scholar.
4 Mallowan, M. E. L., Nimrud and its Remains I (1966), 271Google Scholar.
5 To be included in D. J. Wiseman, The Nabū Temple Texts (Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud).
6 Wiseman, D. J., JNES 27 (1968), 249Google Scholar.
7 I am grateful to Mr. A. R. Millard, Professor W. G. Lambert and Mr. J. N. Postgate for various collations made at my request. They are, of course, not responsible for the readings and interpretations finally adopted here.
8 The broken section of this tablet shows signs of glueing, as if a join, now lost, had been made at some time.
