Just as modern-day artists and religious practitioners write hymns of worship for gods, ancient scribes also wrote hymns for gods. The most significant difference between hymns of today and hymns of 2700 years ago is the culture and society in which hymns were written and composed. In other words, hymns presume the reader has a different type of knowledge. For example, when one reads Amazing Grace, the hymn assumes a certain degree of knowledge about Christian religious traditions. The same is true with ancient Mesopotamian hymns. In order demonstrate this, I will briefly examine a hymn of Sargon II to Nanay [1].
Generally speaking, this text is a prayer to Nanay by Sargon II. Because the tablet on which the text was written is broken, though, it is difficult to identify the flow of the text. It roughly consists of a description of cultic performers, a blessing for Sargon…
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James' Ramblings 