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Anonymous

"An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic"

Since on seal cylinders
depicting Enkidu killing lions and other animals the hero is armed
with a dagger, this is presumably the weapon _sibbaru_.
Line 113. Langdon's translation is again out of the question and
purely fanciful. The traces favor the restoration _na-ki-[di-e]_,
"shepherds," and since the line appears to be a parallel to line 110,
I venture to suggest at the beginning _[it-ti]-lu_ from _na'?lu_, "lie
down"--a synonym, therefore, to _sak?pu_ in line 110. The shepherds can
sleep quietly after Enkidu has become the "guardian" of the flocks. In
the Assyrian version (tablet II, 3a, 4) Enkidu is called a _na-kid_,
"shepherd," and in the preceding line we likewise have l?Na-Kid with
the plural sign, i.e., "shepherds." This would point to _nakidu_
being a Sumerian loan-word, unless it is _vice versa_, a word that has
gone over into the Sumerian from Akkadian. Is perhaps the fragment
in question (K 8574) in the Assyrian version (Haupt's ed. No. 25)
the _parallel_ to our passage? If in line 4 of this fragment we could
read _s?_ for _sa_, i.e., _na-kid-s?-nu_, "their shepherd, we would
have a parallel to line 114 of the Pennsylvania tablet, with _na-kid_
as a synonym to _massaru_, "protector.


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