Self-praise of Shulgi (Shulgi D)

Did You Know?

• In the story, Shulgi is compared to all manner of animals and wondrous things such as a tree.
• The hymn describes Shulgi's interactions with a large number of Sumerian gods.
• The text mentions victories in foreign lands and a description of the royal barge.

Compilation

The clay tablet containing this hymn, catalogued as CBS 11065 in the Babylonian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, was unearthed from the temple library at Nippur. George Aaron Barton translated it in 1918, publishing it as number three in "Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions" under the title "Hymn to Dungi," a name later changed to Shulgi. The tablet itself measures 7 inches by 5.4 inches, with a maximum thickness of 1.6 inches. Barton observed that similar hymns, introduced into Sumerian religion from the Third Dynasty of Ur onward, had been published by Stephen Herbert Langdon. He assigned the tablet to Shulgi’s reign, noting that while the script indicates this copy was made during the First Dynasty of Babylon, the original composition could be older. In 1981, Jacob Klein expanded and retranslated the myth using additional sources: CBS 8289 from the University Museum, tablet 4571 from the Nippur collection at the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul, and tablet 5379 from the Louvre in Paris.