Babylonian hymn found in Iraq that disappeared over a thousand years ago

The discovery is reported in the scientific journal Iraq.

According to one of the project leaders, Professor of Assyriology Enrique Jimenez, the hymn, written in cuneiform on a clay tablet, "describes Babylon in all its splendour and gives an insight into the lives of its inhabitants, both men and women". The archaeologist emphasised that this literary work is unusually valuable in that it provides a better understanding of the daily life of the ancient city.

Babylon was founded around 2000 B.C. and was once considered the largest city on the planet. It was here that works that form part of the global literary heritage emerged. Babylonian texts were written in cuneiform on clay tablets, many of which have survived only partially and fragmentarily. One of the main goals of the joint project of German and Iraqi scientists is to decipher and digitally archive hundreds of such tablets from the famous Sippar Library, where, according to legend, the tablets were hidden by the biblical Noah before the Flood.

Professor Jimenez, with the help of artificial intelligence and the Electronic Babylonian Library platform, was able to combine 30 fragments of the hymn text scattered around the world, making it possible to reconstruct a complete version of the ancient work.

"Using our AI platform, we were able to quickly identify and connect parts of the hymn," Jimenez notes. - Previously, such work would have taken decades."

The authors believe the hymn was written at the beginning of the first millennium B.C., about 2,500 years before present. Its full text consists of 250 lines and was clearly widely popular, as a large number of copies have been found.

"This hymn was even copied by schoolchildren," says Jimenez. - It is surprising that a text so popular at the time was still unknown to us."

The hymn praises the city's greatness, describing its grandiose buildings and natural beauty. Special attention is paid to the Euphrates River, which irrigates the lands of Babylon, ensuring fertile fields and abundant pastures.

"This is particularly valuable because Mesopotamian literature very rarely depicts nature in such detail," explains the professor.

The hymn also reveals for the first time details of the social life of the inhabitants of Babylon. According to the authors, unique was the description of the role of women priestesses and their tasks in society, which has not been seen before in similar ancient texts. In addition, the inhabitants of Babylon are presented as respectful of foreigners, providing important cultural and historical insights into urban life at the time.

Here are lines from a recently discovered hymn describing the Euphrates River, on whose banks the ancient city was located:

"The Euphrates is her river, established by the wise lord Nudimmud,
"quenches the thirst of the earth, nourishes the reeds,
"Pours its waters into the lagoon and the sea,
Its fields abound with herbs and flowers,
The meadows blossom and sprout barley,
The sheaves are harvested and stacked,
Herds and flocks rest in green pastures,
Wealth and splendour are all that is worthy of man,
Are given, multiplied and lavished."

The ruins of ancient Babylon are located 85 kilometres south of Baghdad and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The study was published in the scientific journal Iraq under the title "Literary Texts from the Library of Sippar V: A Hymn in Praise of Babylon and the Babylonians." The authors of the article are Enrique Jiménez and Anmar A. Fadil(DOI: 10.1017/irq.2024.23).