Enki loves the love-charm
Artifact: Clay tablet
Provenience: Kish
Period: Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)
Current location: The Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford (Ashm 1930-143 + Ashm 1930-175h)
Text genre, language: Incantation; Akkadian
CDLI page
Description: This tablet in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and written in a fine Old Akkadian ductus, contains the earliest known love incantation. In terms of grammar it can be also considered one of the most important texts written in the Old Akkadian dialect. In the beginning of this unique composition Enki loves the love-charm. The text plays with the topos of the fertile garden, an oft-found feature of love-songs. (Klaus Wagensonner, University of Oxford)
Editions: Westenholz, A. & J. G. Westenholz. 1977. "Help for rejected suitors. The Old Akkadian Love Incantation MAD V 8," Orientalia NS 46, 198 - 219; see further SEAL no. 5.0.5.1.
