The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
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ETCSL catalogue of Sumerian literary compositions

This catalogue shows all the compositions which will be included in the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. It is based closely on the catalogue devised by Miguel Civil, with his co-operation.

For practical reasons, certain categories of composition will not be included in this phase of development of the ETCSL. These are, principally, the various genres of cult songs and prayers in Emesal which were the preserve of the gala singers, and the extensive literature of magical incantations; possibly, also, the royal and literary letters. The catalogue is thematically arranged and each composition has a number of which the first element reflects the broad area of the literature to which it belongs. These are as follows:

0 = ancient literary catalogues
1 = narrative and mythological compositions
2 = mainly royal praise poetry and hymns to deities with prayers for rulers
4 = hymns and cult songs (mostly hymns addressed to deities)
5 = scribal training literature
6 = proverbs, fables and riddles.

The ancient lists of literary compositions (Group 0) are of considerable interest because of the selection of compositions they include and the orders in which they are grouped. Group 1 (narrative and mythological compositions) is organised into subgroups according to who the protagonist of the narrative is. Group 2 (mainly royal praise poetry and hymns to deities with prayers for rulers) is organised chonologically according to the rulers. Group 4 (hymns and cult songs (mostly hymns addressed to deities)) is organised alphabetically according to the deity's name.

Sumerian literary compositions have been edited and translated in modern studies under a range of sometimes confusing titles. The ancient practice was to refer to them by their incipits (first lines), but this is clearly less useful for a modern readership, especially when working in translation. Therefore for the purposes of this catalogue, each composition has been assigned a standardised title which will be the working title for that composition throughout the ETCSL project. (It may prove necessary to revise some of these in due course.)

The unavoidable result of this has been that the standardised title for some compositions may not be that by which it has been most commonly known hitherto. In many cases an ancient genre description (e.g. adab, tigi) has been retained in the standardised title. However, all the various English titles in use for a given composition are collected together in the bibliographical database, and when this Web site becomes fully interactive, it will be possible to search for a composition under any of the (English) titles by which it has been known in modern times, or by any key word in any of the titles.