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205:. The world is turned upside down: righteous and unrighteous are killed alike. Erra orders Išum to complete the work by defeating Babylon's enemies. Then the god withdraws to his own seat in Emeslam with the terrifying Seven, and mankind is saved. A propitiatory prayer ends the work.
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The text appears to some readers to be a mythologisation of historic turmoil in
Mesopotamia, though scholars disagree as to the historic events that inspired the poem: the poet exclaims (tablet IV:3) "You changed out of your divinity and made yourself like a man."
181:(1983) call them "personified weapons". The Sibitti call on Erra to lead the destruction of mankind. Išum tries to mollify Erra's wakened violence, to no avail. Foreign peoples invade Babylonia, but are struck down by plague. Even
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The five tablets containing the Erra epos were first published in 1956, with an improved text, based on additional finds, appearing in 1969. Perhaps 70% of the poem has been recovered.
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plague god known from an 'epos' of the eighth century BCE. Erra is the god of mayhem and pestilence who is responsible for periods of political confusion. He was assimilated to
189:, relinquishes his throne to Erra for a time. Tablets II and III are occupied with a debate between Erra and Išum. Erra goes to battle in Babylon,
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The poem opens with an invocation. The god Erra is sleeping fitfully with his consort (identified with Mamītum and not with the mother goddess
320:.1 (January 1983, pp. 221-226) p. 221, prefer to withhold the expectations raised by "'myth', or worse, 'epic'" and simply call it "poem".
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173:), who are the sons of heaven and earth—"champions without peer" is the repeated formula—and are each assigned a destructive destiny by
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The poem must have been central to
Babylonian culture: at least thirty-six copies have been recovered from five first-millennium sites—
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The
Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influences on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age
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Kabti-ilani-Marduk’s name has also surfaced in the “Catalogue of Texts and
Authors” from the
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following the text as simply the transcriber of a visionary dream in which Erra himself
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Amulet to ward off plague inscribed with a quotation from the
Akkadian Erra Epic.
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critical edition and translation of the text (electronic
Babylonian Library).
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text soon assumed magical functions Parts of the text were inscribed on
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tablets is not securely known. (Machinist and Sasson 1983:221 note 2).
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Rafael Jiménez
Zamudio, '"El Poema de Erra" Ediciones Clásicas(1999).
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noted the consonance of the purely mythic seven led by Erra with the
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against the plague. The Seven are known from a range of
Akkadian
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Nergal and
Ereshkigal: Re-enchanting the Mesopotamian Underworld
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names vary, but their number, seven, is invariable.
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Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses: Erra (god)
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142:In the epic that is given the modern title
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463:The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra
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494:P. Felix Gössmann, editor.
466:. Saint-Paul. p. 104.
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18:Epic of the plague-god Erra
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394:Among the Greeks the
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546:Burkert 1992:108ff.
517:Cagni, L. editor.
442:, 1992, p. 109-10.
122:(sometimes called
585:Mesopotamian gods
498:(WĂĽrzburg) 1956.
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231:Epic of Gilgamesh
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453:Daniel Bodi
259:incantation
71:800–612 BCE
33:Erra amulet
574:Categories
427:.3 (1977).
280:Hellenists
222:Sultantepe
253:and as a
99:Room 55,
460:(1991).
364:V, 42-61
286:See also
251:exorcism
148:colophon
128:Akkadian
126:) is an
103:, London
50:Material
590:Amulets
479:18 July
263:demonic
247:amulets
218:Nineveh
214:Babylon
187:Babylon
171:Sebetti
167:Sibitti
112:118998
68:Created
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396:Titans
191:Sippar
183:Marduk
179:Sasson
132:Nergal
298:Notes
210:Assur
90:Ashur
86:Place
481:2012
468:ISBN
422:SANE
409:Erra
362:Erra
243:Erra
241:The
224:and
201:and
195:Uruk
163:Išum
159:Mami
144:Erra
124:Irra
120:Erra
58:Size
521:in
347:JCS
318:103
203:DÄ“r
175:Anu
169:or
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350:16
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226:Ur
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