Ulai River, c.1120 BC

[Sharur]

I suggest this, as from the opening part of Duncan's quotation (line 15 of the original), the "he launched an attack 30 leagues (deep)" is translated by King as "he marched for thirty double hours", while Roux (p.277) gave "he (the King of Babylon) made a leap of thirty double-leagues". This suggests there's some uncertainty in how the text should be translated in this part, and (given I've not made a thorough check, and Roux doesn't give a full translation) there may be more.

The difference may lie in the reading KAS-GID (he marched ana 30 KAS-GID): one translator evidently read this as a Sumerian ideogram while the other may have attempted to see an Akkadian equivalent.  My Akkadian and Sumerian are very rudimentary and I do not know enough to do more than guess here.

I've done a little more digging on this, as the "double-hour" Akkadian term I was familiar with is beru. It turns out beru was the Akkadian pronunciation of the Sumerian dana, which was written with the Sumerogram KAS-GID, whose meaning is indeed commonly interpreted as "double-hour", but as a term of distance, not time. However, it's sometimes used simply as an unspecified unit of distance, so can appear more vaguely as "a long way" in modern English interpretations. The Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (ePSD; search for "dana [UNIT]") also gives "double-mile", but this is confusing given that beru also means "league" (distance again). The beru seems to have been around 21,600 cubits, roughly 10.7 km or 6.7 miles when converted to modern units. So 30 KAS-GID would have been about 320 km or 200 miles. This suggests Roux's translation was the least accurate, and King's the most useful (because "league" is such a vaguely-defined measure otherwise; the commoner English land league of 3 miles would reduce the 30 beru to just 90 miles from Cooley's version).

For example, I also note that King (lines 25-26) translated Ritti/Shitti-Marduk as being "the captain of his chariots" (plural; "his" being Nebuchadnezzar's).

Academics do go to great lengths to avoid even the hint of scatology in nomenclature.   Strangely enough, in line 34 'chariot' is rendered 'narkabti', a term familiar from the Amarna letters, but in lines 26, 27, 36 and 37 '(isu) ma-gar-ra-shu' is translated as 'chariots', 'chariot', 'chariots' and 'chariot' respectively.  At a guess 'sha[r] (isu) ma-gar-ra-shu' is meant as 'chariot commander' so can be understood as 'commander of chariots' (lines 26 and 36; the double mention incidentally allowed the translator to note that a syllable had been repeated by mistake in line 36).

Narkabti/narkabtu makes sense, as it's the normal Akkadian word for "chariot", but the other version is puzzling, given the Sumerian term is typically gigir (often written ^geshgigir, although "gesh" simply means an object made of wood, so is generally left out of translations). Alternatives for "chariot" include ningshu and subur from the ePSD list, which don't seem much closer. It's possible the reading of the cuneiform is no longer transliterated this way. For instance, King gives pa-te-si in line 3, which would now be read ensi, = "ruler" or "governor" (shakkanak in the same line also means "governor" or "governor-general", in Akkadian "military governor").

I suspect however that Duncan may prefer the level of detail to be found in the classical period.

Though judging by some of the discussions here and in Slingshot, they don't seem a whole lot more useful 

[Duncan Head]

Thanks for this further investigation. I see that Cooley, although translating "launched an attack 30 leagues (deep)", says in his own notes that "He claims to have traveled 30 double-hours (the equivalent to ca. 201 miles / 324 kilometers) from Der" - converting the double-hour into a distance. Sticking to double-hours might well have been a better translation.

I suspect however that Duncan may prefer the level of detail to be found in the classical period.

Though judging by some of the discussions here and in Slingshot, they don't seem a whole lot more useful.

No, I just feel more familiar with the kinds of ambiguity, uncertainty, and lack of evidence that I come across in the Classical sources.

The battle-account that I am looking at at the moment is also not Classical, so presents a whole new assortment of ambiguity, uncertainty, and lack of evidence.

[Patrick Waterson]

Excellent work sorting out KAS-GID as the Sumerogram for beru.   It may incidentally be worth noting that a 200-mile march would normally take about ten days, give or take a day or two.

Narkabti/narkabtu makes sense, as it's the normal Akkadian word for "chariot", but the other version is puzzling, given the Sumerian term is typically gigir (often written ^geshgigir, although "gesh" simply means an object made of wood, so is generally left out of translations). Alternatives for "chariot" include ningshu and subur from the ePSD list, which don't seem much closer.

Checking in the Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (a handy item once one works out how it - er - clicks), 'magarru' is given as the Akkadian for wheel, so there seems to be a connection there, perhaps idiomatic, maybe like the use of 'wheels' to indicate a vehicle in certain slang usage in English, albeit at a somewhat different social level.  One might see this as 'commander of wheeled troops', although why he has to ride in his own personal 'magarrashu' instead of a 'narkabtu' is still puzzling, unless the term specifically denoted a different kind of chariot, e.g. the massively-wheeled vehicle of late Assyrian times.

It's possible the reading of the cuneiform is no longer transliterated this way. For instance, King gives pa-te-si in line 3, which would now be read ensi, = "ruler" or "governor" (shakkanak in the same line also means "governor" or "governor-general", in Akkadian "military governor").

Having seen (among other things) Shamshi-Vul become Shamshi-Adad, this is indeed another possibility.

[Sharur]

Checking in the Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (a handy item once one works out how it - er - clicks), 'magarru' is given as the Akkadian for wheel, so there seems to be a connection there, perhaps idiomatic, maybe like the use of 'wheels' to indicate a vehicle in certain slang usage in English, albeit at a somewhat different social level.  One might see this as 'commander of wheeled troops', although why he has to ride in his own personal 'magarrashu' instead of a 'narkabtu' is still puzzling, unless the term specifically denoted a different kind of chariot, e.g. the massively-wheeled vehicle of late Assyrian times.

I'd forgotten this. Magarru/magarrum was originally "revolving tool", later "wheel", and this, with another Akkadian word for wheel, sumbum both came by synedoche to also mean both "wagon" and "chariot". The Sumerian umbin meant the wheel of a wagon or chariot, and also a fingernail, claw, paw or hoof (the ePSD has finger or toe, a type of cutting implement, the base of a table, and part of a boat too, I see). It's the Sumerogram for umbin which is read magurru in Akkadian, though the Akkadians no longer used this for nails or claws, etc. There's a delightful paper by Claus Wilcke ("A Riding Tooth: Metaphor, Metonymy and Synedoche, Quick and Frozen in Everyday Language", pp. 77-93 of "Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East", eds. Mindlin, Geller & Wansbrough, London, 1987), which covers things such as this. The monstrous Sumerian "clawed chariot" he described - illustrated by one of the Standard of Ur's battle-cars - has long stuck in my mind.

The problem of Sumerograms no longer being transliterated as they once were is a significant difficulty when having to rely on older modern texts, plus as the languages that used them are still being explored to some extent, terms are subject to change in both transliterated spellings and meanings from time to time. Patesi/ensi is easy, because I've run across it so often, but if you don't know the trick for a specific term, it's a mystery.

[Patrick Waterson]

We nevertheless seem to get there with a synthesis of my intuition and your erudition, the latter being definitely more dependable. 

It would seem that the root meaning of umbin/magurru is something that makes contact with the ground, and also supports or is attached to something else.  One could conceivably see it being used to designate an elephant's foot as synedoche for the elephant, thus creating marvellous confusion between chariot and elephant corps in (e.g.) Akkadian descriptions of a Seleucid army, although we would probably suspect something was wrong when texts started rendering up scythed elephants!

[Dangun]

I have wondered before whether any of these battle accounts might be the basis of a Slingshot article, but the thing that's put me off has always been that they are all based on large chunks of other peoples' translations. I don't want to be breaching anyone's copyright in print, and even if it doesn't do that, presenting swathes of translated source material feels a bit like cheating.

I think this is a good idea.
I have only just discovered this part of the website (it took me a while to notice "child boards") and I am really enjoying it.
One thing to consider regarding translations, is that these battles are often only excerpts from far longer translations, so with due credit given, there are no copyright issues. Some of the translations are also no longer in print and very difficult to find in the secondary market.