l and
Religious Texts_. Since the edition of these two sources, the Nippur
Collection in Philadelphia has been found to contain several fragments of
the same liturgy. A portion of the redaction on several single column
tablets had been already published by RADAU in his _Miscellaneous Sumerian
Texts_, No. 8 (=Ni. 11876), last tablet of the series containing melodies
six, seven, and eight. I failed to detect the connection of RADAU's tablet
at the time of the first edition but referred to it with a rendering in my
_Epic of Paradise_, p. 19. Another tablet, also from a single column
tablet redaction at Nippur, has been recovered in Philadelphia, Ni.
8384.(422) This text utilized here in transcription contains a section
marked number 4 on that tablet but all the other sources omit it. Hence
this redaction probably contained nine melodies. The new melody has been
inserted between melodies three and four of the standard text. If evidence
did not point otherwise the editor would have supposed that Ni. 8384 and
11876 belonged to the same tablet. But Ni. 8384 has melodies four, five
and six of its redaction with the catch-line of the next or its seventh
melody which partly duplicates the Radau tablet. Moreover, these two
tablets have not the same handwriting and differ in color and texture of
the clay. Finally a small fragment, Ni. 14031, contains the end of the
second melody and the beginning of the third on its obverse. The reverse
contains the end of the sixth melody. This small tablet undoubtedly
belongs to the four column tablet in Constantinople. The two fragments
became separated by chance when the Nippur Collection was divided between
Philadelphia and the Musee Imperial of Turkey. Ni. 14031 will be found in
my _Sumerian Liturgical Texts_, No. 22.

Under ordinary circumstances a text for which so many duplicates exist
should have yielded better results than I have been able to produce. But
the contents are still obscure owing largely to the bad condition of the
prism. My first rendering of the interesting refrain in which I saw a
reference to the creation of man and woman was apparently erroneous. The
refrain refers rather to the creation of the mother goddess of Kes and to
her giving birth to her son Negun.(423)

COL. I (Lines 1-22 defaced)

...

23. _[e ke]s-(ki)-dug-ga du-a_
23. [Temple] in holy Kes builded.

24. _[e(?)] EN-HAR-(ki)-dug-gu du-a_
24. [Temple(?)] in holy _EN-HAR_ builded.

25. _[e ...] nun-gim