"Inanna's Descent to the Nether World" Continued and Revised (Kramer's 1950a translation) is a translation of "Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld" by Samuel N. Kramer in 1950. It was published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies (vol. 4, no. 4). This translation is a milestone one for Sumerian afterlife mythology because it featured the publication of two new previously untranslated clay tablet artifacts: the YPM BC 018686 (formerly YBC 4621 and known as the "Yale tablet") and Ni 9685. The Yale tablet provided almost ninety lines of new text, allowing the author to compile almost two-thirds of the myth's translation.

The publication provides sketches, a translation, transliteration, and collation of "Inanna's Descent."

The importance of the Yale tablet

Artifact YPM BC 018686 was an extremely important component of Kramer's 1950 publication. In commenting on the new material the artifact provided, Kramer noted how critical the line additions were for lines 329-374 of the 412 line myth.

"The new material published here for the first time consists of an excellently preserved tablet in the Yale Babylonian Collection, and of a fragment in the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul. Of these two new pieces, the tablet is by far the more important; it contains 91 lines of text in well-nigh perfect condition. Of these, the last 31 lines, which are practically entirely new, restore a large part of the gap be- tween lines 329-374 of the reconstructed text." ^[1]

Indeed, Kramer's 1950 translation, as well as his subsequent 1951 one, would serve as the gold standard until William R. Sladek published his own translation of "Inanna's Descent" in 1974.