Dr. Jana Matuszak (University of Tübingen)
Sumerian Mock Hymns – Parodying Songs of Praise

Working at the Cuneiform Tablet Archive of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums in August 2021. Photo: Jana Matuszak.

Dr. Jana Matuszak is a research fellow (akademische Rätin) at University of Tübingen and is conducting research for her habilitation project in Istanbul with a Feldman Fellowship from the Max Weber Foundation.

The project “Parodying Songs of Praise” is dedicated to the first comprehensive treatment of the previously unknown corpus of Sumerian mock hymns, which were composed in Southern Iraq around 4,000 years ago. Of the ca. four mock hymns known to date, only two are available in critical editions and translations. Based on principal or revised editions of all texts, I provide the first systematic investigation of this unique corpus.

The mock hymns are characterized by the fact that they emulate the form and style of hymns but fill it with exclusively derogatory content. Songs of praise hence turn into songs of abuse, containing abundant insult against evil and incompetent characters. As a result, they also develop an apotropaic effect. Apart from parallels with incantations, intertextual allusions to nearly all genres of Sumerian literature can be found: they range from proverbs to ritual lamentations, prayers, epics and love songs. The mocking hymns thus provide important new insights not only into the reception of traditional Sumerian literary works from the 3rd millennium BCE, but also into the practices of text production in the intellectual milieus of Babylonia in the early 2nd millennium BCE.

Four of the 15 relevant manuscripts are kept in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. During the research in Istanbul, supported by the Max Weber Foundation’s Gerald D. Feldman Travel Grant, Dr. Jana Matuszak will draw, transliterate and translate these cuneiform tablets.