The series _elum didara_ is entered in the Assyrian liturgical catalogue,
IV Raw. 53_a_ 8, and the first tablet of this Enlil liturgy has been found
in the Berlin collection and published by REISNER, SBH. No. 25.(477) The
Berlin tablet belongs to a great Babylonian temple library of the Greek
period redacted by a family of liturgists descendants of Sin-ibni. A
fragment of the same first tablet of another Babylonian copy has been
found, BM. 81-7-27, 203.(478) The catch line of tablet two is lost on SBH.
25 and no part of tablet two has been identified. In 1914 I copied BM.
78239 (=88-5-12, 94) the upper half of a large tablet carrying according
to the colophon ninety-six Sumerian lines. The number of lines provided
with an interlinear translation on this fragment is only two, which
increases the actual number of lines to ninety-eight. Probably a few more
should be added for Semitic lines on the lost portion. This tablet, also
from a Babylonian redaction, belongs to an edition made by another school
of liturgists and contains tablet three of _elum didara_.

The third tablet of _elum didara_ began with a melody _nin-ri nin-ri
gu-am-me_ to the mother goddess Bau (I. 2), who in line 7 is identified
with Nana. Lines 3-6 introduce by interpolation other local forms of the
mother goddess, as a concession to cities whose liturgists succeeded in
inserting these lines before the canon of sacred songs were closed in the
Isin period. Hence Babylon is favored by a reference to Zarpanit in line
3; Barsippa by a reference to Tasmet in lines 4-6. Bau or Gula wails for
Nippur whose destruction is here attributed to the moon-god, Sin. The
introduction of a long passage to the moon-god in the weeping mother
melody of an Enlil liturgy is unusual. The entire passage reflects the
phraseology and ideas of the well-known Sumerian hymn to the moon-god
_magur azag anna_.(479) The composer desiring to utilize these fine lines
makes a setting for them by describing Sin as the god who visited Nippur
with wrath, regardless of the inconsistency of placing such a passage in
an Enlil song service which attributed the sorrows of Nippur to Enlil
himself.

According to the catch line of tablet two of the Ninurta liturgy _gud-nim
kurra_ the third tablet of that series began by the same melody as tablet
three of the _elum didara_.(480) It is probable that the first melody of
tablet three of both series was identical. Melodies are always identified
by t