LIBRARY CATALOGUE WITH INCIPITS OF 30 LOVE SONGS

MS 3391
MS Short Title LIBRARY CATALOGUE WITH INCIPITS OF 30 LOVE SONGS
Text LIBRARY CATALOGUE WITH INCIPITS OF 30 LOVE SONGS, EROTIC LITERATURE, PROVERBS AND OTHER POEMS, STARTING WITH: IN THE LIGHT OF THE WINDOW
Description MS in Old Babylonian on clay, probably Larsa, Babylonia, 2000-1600 BC, 1 tablet, 10,5x6,4x2,2 cm, single column, 22+15 lines in a clumsy cuneiform script.
Commentary The first 9 lines are love poetry, partly in the male voice, partly in the female. The following lines are using sexual or erotic language. From line 24 onwards, the texts are not love-related, but perhaps proverbs, riddles or other sayings. Some library cataloagues are known, but tablets that collect incipits of poems, including love poetry, are only known from later periods. In most cases literature is identified by its first line of text in Babylonian library catalogues.
Published Andrew George: Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 10, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts IV. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2009, text 12, pp. 71-75.
Place of origin Babylonia
Dates 2000-1600 BC