Ninurta-paqidat's Dog Bite
Artifact: Clay tablet
Provenience:
Period: Neo-Babylonian (ca. 626-539 BC)
Current location:
Text genre, language: Literary ; Akkadian
CDLI page
Description: This short text is one of the few texts that can be considered humoristic literature. It tells the story of a Nippurean, who was bitten by a dog and henceforth went to Isin to be healed by the high-priest of the goddess Gula. He invites the priest to Nippur to pay him properly. Despite Ninurta-paqidat's description of the way to his house, the high-priest has problems finding it, and upon arrival in Nippur he asks a gardener where to find the house of Ninurta-paqidat. As a Nippurean she answers in Sumerian, but the priest feels threatened and fears she will curse him. In order to make her answer clear, she repeats it in Akkadian. In the end, she is appalled by the inability of a high-priest to speak or understand Sumerian. (Klaus Wagensonner, University of Oxford)
Lineart: BaghMitt 10, no. 1
Edition: Cavigneaux, A. 1979. "Texte und Fragmente aus Warka (32. Kampagne)," BaM 10, 111 - 117; George, A.R. 1993. "Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite, and Notes on Other Comic Tales," Iraq 55, 63 - 75.
