Hymn of the Righteous Sufferer

Context

The second millennium in Mesopotamia was a profoundly militaristic period that saw the decline of Sumer and the rise and fall of Babylon. The first laws were codified under Hammurabi, and the first great stories, such as Atrahasis (also known as the Mesopotamian Flood Story) were committed to writing. This period also saw the rise of the Akkadians, a Semitic group whose control of the area began with Sargon of Akkad in 2371 BCE and eventually included the creation of the first empire that the West had ever seen. It was during this time that the Hymn of the Righteous Sufferer was written.

Clues to the context of Hymn of the Righteous Sufferer can be gleaned by looking to the locations where it was found and the language in which it was written. The technique used was cuneiform, which involves the impression of wedge shapes into clay; many different dialects and languages have been written in cuneiform, providing clues to dates. The first tablets featuring the hymn were found in Assur, capital of the Assyrian Empire, where King Ashurbanipal maintained a great library. Other tablets were found later in Sultantepe, the site of an Assyrian city that was located at the western reaches of the empire in Asia Minor in the seventh and eighth centuries BCE. Archaeologists also found a cache of tablets in what is believed to have been a priestly family house.

Priests, being literate, were often the keepers of literary works, as were astronomers and healers. The culture was polytheistic, so maintaining tablets that elevated Babylonian deities such as Marduk was not inconsistent with their beliefs. Moreover, the Assyrians often found it politically expedient to recognize the local gods of areas they conquered. Other tablets in the priestly cache include medical texts and fragments of astronomy texts as well as an abundance of wisdom literature of the type that was common throughout Egypt and the Middle East. This wisdom literature includes religious texts, literary poems, prayers, incantations, and rituals. The inclusion of medical and astronomy works reflects the priest’s dual role as healer and astronomer. Not surprisingly, the dates associated with these tablets end sharply with the fall of the nearby city of Haran to the Babylonians in approximately 608 BCE as the Assyrian Empire crumbled.

The Hymn of the Righteous Sufferer was written in Akkadian, a language that had largely replaced Sumerian by approximately 2000 BCE. The use of Akkadian flourished with several variants until approximately 1000 BCE, when Aramaic began to dominate. Clay tablets continued to be written in Akkadian, but new writings on papyrus and leather were inscribed in Aramaic.