OF CAPTIVE STORM GODS AND CUNNING FOXES: NEW INSIGHTS INTO EARLY SUMERIAN MYTHOLOGY, WITH AN EDITION OF NI 12501

This paper publishes the editio princeps of an Early Dynastic IIIb tablet from Nippur, which contains a unique yet fragmentary Sumerian narrative about the storm god Iškur’s captivity in the netherworld, from which he appears to be rescued by Fox. While the incomplete state of preservation prevents a reconstruction of the plot, individual motifs can be traced across the entire cuneiform corpus, allowing for a preliminary case study of continuity and change over more than two millennia of Mesopotamian mythological literature.