Why did Babylonian scholars copy and treasure a poem, even though it describes how their supreme god condemns his land to ruin? The Erra Epic, a masterpiece of Babylonian literature, tells how Erra, the god of war, brings devastation upon Babylonia at the command of Marduk, the patron deity of Babylon, until Erra’s counsellor Ishum persuades him to stop. The poem ends with a blessing: the house in which a tablet bearing this poem is kept will be spared from all evil; and readers in ancient times took this literally, hanging copies of the last tablet on their walls as amulets. Erra is one of the very few Babylonian poems to name its author, Kabti-ili-Marduk, one of the most original stylists of the cuneiform tradition, to whom, as the poem claims, Erra himself revealed the work in a single night.
This volume is the first complete critical edition of the Erra Epic in over half a century. Reconstructed from 53 manuscripts, several of them previously unpublished, from eight ancient cities in Iraq and Turkey, the poem is now many lines longer than before. The text is accompanied by English and Arabic translations, a thorough commentary, and a detailed introduction to its style, language, and date. Additionally, long-disputed passages receive new interpretations.