Poetry Codex

Ancient Near East

Anonymous Babylonian Poets

c. 1800–1000 BC

The Babylonian poets are unnamed scribes and singers who composed in Akkadian and wrote in cuneiform on clay tablets. Their works, among them the Epic of Gilgamish, survive in Old Babylonian, Hittite and Assyrian copies, the fullest being the seventh-century BC tablets from the royal library at Nineveh.

The Epic of Gilgamish is given here in R. Campbell Thompson's verse translation of 1928.

Major Works (3)

  1. The Seven Tablets of Creation — translated by L. W. King (1902)
  2. An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic — translated by Morris Jastrow Jr. and Albert T. Clay (1920)
  3. The Epic of Gilgamish — translated by R. Campbell Thompson (1928)

Poems (30)

  1. Babylonian Exorcisms
  2. Accadian Hymn to Istar
  3. A Prayer for the King
  4. Short Prayer for the Soul of a Dying Man
  5. The Death of a Righteous Man
  6. Penitential Psalms
  7. Elsewhere We Find
  8. An Address to Some Deity
  9. Elsewhere (Assyrian Sacred Poetry)
  10. A Prayer (Assyrian Sacred Poetry)
  11. Ode to Fire
  12. Demoniacal Possession and Exorcism
  13. Inherited or Imputed Sins
  14. Magic Knots
  15. Talismans
  16. The Song of the Seven Spirits
  17. Ancient Babylonian Charms
  18. The Revolt in Heaven
  19. An Accadian Penitential Psalm
  20. Accadian Poem on the Seven Evil Spirits
  21. Charm for Averting the Seven Evil Spirits
  22. Chaldean Hymns to the Sun: First Hymn
  23. Chaldean Hymns to the Sun: Second Hymn
  24. Chaldean Hymns to the Sun: Third Hymn
  25. Chaldean Hymns to the Sun: Fourth Hymn
  26. Chaldean Hymns to the Sun: Fifth Hymn
  27. Two Accadian Hymns: I
  28. Two Accadian Hymns: II
  29. Accadian Songs
  30. Adapa and the Food of Life

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