Oil, Swallows, and Sumerian Wordplay Another Look at Ninisina B

Abstract

This article is a reevaluation of the Old Babylonian Sumerian hymn Ninisina B, which praises the healing goddess Ninisina. Distinct from other literary portrayals of the goddess, Ninisina B features unusual imagery including anointing oils, beer, and swallows. I propose a new approach to this enigmatic composition that interprets Ninisina B not as a straightforward hymn or praise poem of the goddess, but as an example of a literary text built upon scribal wordplays. Drawing on lexical, literary, and ritual sources, I argue that the peculiarities of Ninisina B reflect deliberate phonetic and semantic play involving Ninisina’s name, attributes, and associations with other goddesses. This reading situates Ninisina B within broader scribal traditions of analogical hermeneutics, revealing it as an exercise in linguistic creativity. Ultimately, I demonstrate how even superficially opaque Sumerian literary compositions may encode complex meanings beneath their surfaces.