Sumerian Hymns from Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum

Frederick Augustus Vanderburgh
The so-called “Sumerian Question” as to the genuine linguistic character of the ancient Non-Semitic Babylonian texts has agitated the Assyriological world for more than twenty years. The new Sumerian matter from the monuments which is constantly coming to hand demands, in the interest of all those who can look upon this discussion with impartial eyes, a most rigid and unprejudiced examination. Dr. Vanderburgh in the following monograph has adhered to the views expounded in my “Materials for a Sumerian Lexicon” (J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1905-1907), that the so-called Sumerian was originally a Non-Semitic agglutinative language which, in the course of many centuries of Semitic influences, became so incrusted with Semiticisms, most of them the result of a very gradual development of the earlier foreign sacred speech of the priests, that it is really not surprising to find the theory that Sumerian was merely a Semitic cryptography set forth and vigorously upheld by so eminent a scholar as Professor Halévy (MSL., pp. VIII, IX).
The study of the more ancient Non-Semitic texts, more particularly of the Sumerian unilingual hymns, cannot fail to shed additional light on the nature of this peculiar idiom, besides furnishing a valuable addition to the study of the Babylonian religious system.
The texts of the hymns in Vol. XV. of the Brit. Mus. Cun. Texts are not always in good condition and present many difficulties, a solution of some of which, it is hoped, has been suggested in this work with at least approximate correctness.
John Dyneley Prince
Columbia University
October 1st, 1907
To the Rev. Edward Judson, D. D., in recognition of his friendship to the author and of his interest in Oriental studies
Vol. XV. of the “Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, printed by order of the Trustees”, was published in 1902. Plates 7-30 of this valuable volume contain hymns addressed to Bêl, Nergal, Adad, Sin, Tammuz, Bau and Ningirgilu. Of these, besides the translations given in the present work, the following have been translated and commented on; viz., J. Dyneley Prince, Jour. Amer. Or. Soc., xxviii, pp. 168-182, a hymn to Nergal (Pl. 14); and a hymn to Sin (also rendered and explained in this thesis) by E. Guthrie Perry, in Hymnen und Gebete an Sin (Pl. 17). In press at present are also translations by J. D. Prince, a hymn to Bau, Vol. XV. Pl. 22 in the Harper Memorial Volume (Chicago); and, by the same author, a hymn to Ningirgilu, Vol. XV. Pl. 23, in the Paul Haupt Collection to appear in 1908.