Quantitative patterns in the poetic structure of The Temple Hymns by Enkheduanna-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Quantitative patterns in the poetic structure of The Temple Hymns by Enkheduanna

Published:2021-11-29 Issue:4 Volume:4 Page:1063-1083
ISSN:2687-0738
Container-title:Orientalistica
language:
Short-container-title:Orientalistica

Author:

Bonch-Osmolovskaya Tatiana¹^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. WEA Sydney

Abstract

The Temple Hymns by Enheduanna, high priestess of Sumer Moon god Nanna in Ur and daughter of king Sargon of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE), consist of 42 hymns that praise the significant temples of the Mesopotamian cities and their deities. By their writing the goal of uniting the Sumer-Akkad pantheon was set as a part of the wider political task of uniting the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples set by Sargon of Akkad. Numerical patterns in the structure of the hymns are studied in the present paper, with special attention to the number of the lines in each hymns as stated in the colophons. It is demonstrated that the sum of the lines of all hymns is an exact multiple of 100 whereas the sums of the number of lines in both first and second halves of the hymns and several of their subsets make exact multiples of 50 and 10 respectively. A hypothesis is proposed for the deliberate choice of these exact numbers by the author of the hymns and their considerable achievement in the poetic structure of the hymns, as well as achieving the set goal, among other means, by the means of quantitative poetic structure of the hymns.

Publisher

Institute of Oriental Studies Russian Academy of Sciences

Subject

General Medicine

Reference19 articles.

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