Archaeologists rediscover long-lost 'Babylonian Hymns', clay tablets copied by school children
The history of the ancient Mesopotamian city of
LITERARY TEXTS FROM THE SIPPAR LIBRARY V: A HYMN IN PRAISE OF BABYLON AND THE BABYLONIANS | IRAQ | Cambridge Core
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/iraq/article/literary-texts-from-the-sippar-library-va-hymn-in-praise-of-babylon-and-the-babylonians/B477D54E6554CA35718880339B3736CD
Hymn to Babylon discovered - LMU Munich
https://www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/news-overview/news/hymn-to-babylon-discovered.html
Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-hymn-babylon-millennium.html
'Classic' Hymn Deciphered From Ancient Babylonian Library : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/classic-hymn-deciphered-from-ancient-babylonian-library
Thousands of clay tablets have been excavated from the ruins of the ancient city of Sippar, near Babylon, and many of them contain information about Babylon, but many of the tablets with cuneiform writing are fragmented, making it difficult to decipher their contents.
Professor Enrique Jimenez , an archaeologist at Ludwig Maximilian University Munich in Germany, is working on a project called the Electronic Babylonian Library Platform , in which he is digitizing all the cuneiform fragments found and using AI to find and decipher related fragments.
A joint study by Jimenez and Assistant Professor Ammar Fadil of the University of Baghdad in Iraq has rediscovered the Babylonian Hymn, which is believed to have been written around 1000 BC. The hymn praises the god Marduk , who was worshiped in Babylon, and the splendor of Babylon, and also includes references to the blessings and women brought by the Euphrates River .
'It was written by the Babylonians to praise their city,' Jimenez said. 'The author describes not only the city's buildings, but also the waters of the Euphrates River bringing spring waters and greening the fields. This description is all the more fascinating because surviving Mesopotamian literature is rather sparing in its depictions of natural phenomena.'
The photo below shows one of the clay tablets on which the Babylonian hymn is inscribed.
The Babylonian hymn also contains information about the priestly roles and duties of women in Babylon, which surprised experts because no documents have been found that document these things, and describes the respect that Babylonians had for foreigners.
Additionally, analysis using the Electronic Babylonian Library platform identified more than 30 clay tablets containing transcriptions of Babylonian hymns, helping to fill in gaps in the original clay tablets, a task that would have traditionally taken decades, Jimenez said.
The discovery of so many copies is believed to be due to the fact that the Babylonian hymn was copied by children in schools. 'This hymn was copied by children in schools. It is unusual that such a popular hymn at the time has remained unknown to us until today,' Jimenez said.
Below is an excerpt from the Babylonian hymn:
'The Euphrates is her river, created by the wise lord Nudimud (Enki)
It waters the grasslands and fills the reed beds,
The water flows into ponds and the sea,
The fields are full of grass and flowers,
The meadows are full of bright flowers, the barley sprouts,
The harvested grain was bundled and piled up,
The cattle lie in green pastures,
Wealth and prosperity befitting mankind,
It is bestowed, it is multiplied, it is given to us like royalty and nobility.”
in Science, Posted by log1h_ik