This exuberant praise song describes a historical event, a festival which took place during king Sulgi’s reign (in c.2143 bce) and which is commemorated by the official name of his eighth year: ‘Year the barge of Ninlil was caulked’. We can assume that the song was publicly performed at some ceremonial occasion associated with the festival. Just as the gods lived in houses (‘temples’) and were fed and provided with furniture and clothes, so some of them also had ceremonial barges on which their statues were transported for festivals. In this case, Sulgi has a barge built for the goddess Ninlil, and has her and other deities transported on an overnight trip to a location near Nibru where a banquet is held. Such splendid ceremonial progresses were a feature of the cultic life of the Third Dynasty of Urim and, to a lesser extent, of its successor dynasties. They helped to aestheticize and ritualize the public lives of the ruler and the elites.
The song is divided into two musical sections, marked sa-gida and sa-gara. The sa-gida comprises an initial paragraph addressing the barge which Sulgi is going to have built. Precious cedar logs from distant forests will be used in its construction. This is followed (10—39) by an elaborate description of the different parts of the vessel, delighting in the technical nautical terms and using a whole series of vivid and extravagant metaphors.
The sa-gara section falls into four episodes. First (41—63), the gods’ statues are brought out from their shrines and embarked onto the barge, and the vessel is launched. It is rowed and punted to the Tummal, a cultic site associated with Ninlil downstream from Nibru. Then a celebratory banquet takes place, which lasts into the night (64—70); the gods decree a good destiny for the king. In the third episode (71-81), the barge returns next morning to Nibru, escorted by river fish, and is moored at the quay. Finally (82-90), Ninlil herself blesses the king, bestowing on him a long life and assured kingship, and implying the close personal relationship with the gods which rulers of this epoch claimed for themselves.
Unfortunately the text is preserved only in a slightly damaged form.
World History
