Amarna Recensions of poems “Myth of Adapa” and “Nergal and Ereshkigal” as Sources on Akkadian Metrics

Student: Arsenii Litvin

Supervisor: Rim Nurullin

Educational Programme: Assyriology (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2024

This paper is dedicated to the study of the Akkadian formal poetics based on the Amarna manuscripts of the “Myth of Adapa” and the “Nergal and Ereshkigal”. The significance of these manuscripts lies within the possible existence of a metrical notation which the scribe used to mark phonetic words (so-called “red dot notation”). The paper aims to prove the true metrical nature of this notation. Other principles of versification, such as parallelismus membrorum, are also discussed in the paper. Special attention is paid to the stanzaic organization of the “Myth of Adapa” and the “Nergal and Ereshkigal”. Thus, a complete metrical description of these compositions is proposed.

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