Ebook: Sumerian Liturgical Texts

Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1917. 161 pages.Under the title Sumerian Liturgical Texts the author has collected the material of the Nippur collection which belonged to the various public song services of the Sumerian and Babylonian temples. In this category he has included the epical and theological poems called lag-sal. These long epical compositions are the work of a group of scholars at Nippur who ambitiously planned to write a series of poems concerning cosmological, ethical and religious problems. They were read or sung in the temples and formed part of the corpus of sacred literature in Sumerian times, like the liturgies and hymns, but unfortunately these fine compositions composed in narrative and heroic style were eventually banished from the public readings. For such reason the scribes ceased to propagate this the best and most important branch of all their literature.