The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia 9004415378, 9789004415379

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The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia

Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Founding Editor M.H.E. Weippert Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Stökl Editors Eckart Frahm W. Randall Garr B. Halpern Theo P.J. van den Hout Leslie Anne Warden Irene J. Winter

volume 104

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/chan

The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia By

Shiyanthi Thavapalan

leiden | boston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Thavapalan, Shiyanthi, author. Title: The meaning of color in ancient Mesopotamia / Shiyanthi Thavapalan. Other titles: Culture and history of the ancient Near East ; v.104. 1566-2055 Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2020. | Series: Culture and history of the ancient Near East, 1566-2055 ; volume 104 | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “In The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia, Shiyanthi Thavapalan offers the first in-depth study of the words and expressions for colors in the Akkadian language (c. 2500-500 BCE). By combining philological analysis with the technical investigation of materials, she debunks the misconception that people in Mesopotamia had a limited sense of color and convincingly positions the development of Akkadian color language as a corollary of the history of materials and techniques in the ancient Near East”-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019030662 (print) | LCCN 2019030663 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004415379 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004415416 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Colors, Words for. | Color--Terminology. | Akkadian language--Semantics. | Akkadian philology. | Material culture--Iraq. Classification: LCC PJ3189 .T43 2020 (print) | LCC PJ3189 (ebook) | DDC 892/.1--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030662 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030663 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1566-2055 ISBN 978-90-04-41537-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-41541-6 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements  ix Color Metalanguage, Signs and Convention Used  x List of Figures and Plates  xi 1 Color Semantics  1 1 What is Color?  1 2 Color Vision and Language: Gladstone, Magnus, Allen and the Puzzle of Color Vocabularies  7 3 Color Categories and Names: Relativity and Universalism  12 4 Scope and Nature of the Present Study  17 2 Abstract Colors  20 1 Talking about Color in Akkadian  20 2 Abstract Color Words  27 3 Aspects of Color  36 4 Terminology for the Process of Coloring and the State of Being Colored  42 4.1 Bašālu  42 4.2 Šamātu  47 4.3 Ṣarāpu  55 4.4 Tarāpu  63 5 Terminology for Abstract Color Terms  65 5.1 Arqu  65 5.2 Barmu  79 5.3 Da ʾmu  89 5.4 Ebbu, namru (with ellu)  96 5.5 Eklu, eṭû (with adru)  107 5.6 Ḫelû  118 5.7 Ḫ/ruššû  122 5.8 Pelû  128 5.9 Peṣû  133 5.10 Sāmu  141 5.11 Ṣalmu  154 5.12 Tarku  162 3 Material Colors  167 1 What are Material Colors?  167

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Materials and Colors in Parts of Speech and in the Archaeological Record  169 3 Abstraction  172 4 Colored Materials  175 4.1 Wool and Leather  175 4.2 Pigments  194 4.3 Glass  199 4.4 Metals  221 5 Terminology for Fabrics, Stones and Glass  224 5.1 Argamannu and takiltu  224 5.2 Duḫšu  244 5.3 Ḫaṣartu  264 5.4 Ḫašḫūru/ḫatḫūru  266 5.5 Ḫašmānu  269 5.6 Kinaḫḫu  284 5.7 Makrû  289 5.8 Šuratḫu  291 5.9 Tabarru and nabāsu  294 5.10 Tamk/qarḫu  308 5.11 Uqnû  310 6 Terminology for Dyes, Pigments and Colorants  326 6.1 Ḫi/enzūru, ḫi/enzurību, inzurātu  326 6.2 Ḫurātu  331 6.3 Ḫurḫurātu  338 6.4 Kalgukku  342 6.5 Kalû  346 6.6 Kasû  350 6.7 Šaršarru  352 6.8 Urṭû/uriṭû  355 6.9 Zagindurû  355 7 Terminology for Metals  367 7.1 Ḫurāṣu  367 4 Colorful Matter  374 1 History of Scholarship on the North-West Palace  375 1.1 Excavations at Nimrud  375 2 The Polychromy Then and Now  381 3 Museology  387 3.1 Acquisition and Display of the Assyrian Reliefs at Yale University  388 3.2 Conservation  392

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Egyptian Blue on the Assyrian Reliefs at Yale University: a Study by Visible-induced Luminescence Imaging  403 4.1 Egyptian Blue and VIL-imaging  403 4.2 VIL-imaging on the Yale Reliefs: Analysis and Discussion  404 The ‘Colorful Matter’ of Assyrian Architecture  412

Epilogue: Making Sense of Color  415 Bibliography  419 Appendix A  463 Appendix B  472 Plates  475 Indices  504 General Index   507

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Acknowledgements The present book grew out of the doctoral thesis I submitted to the ­Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University in 2017. I warmly thank my teacher and mentor Benjamin Foster, without whom I could not have brought this project to fruition. Eckart Frahm encouraged me to combine my intellectual strengths with my interests and supplied the necessary nudges to get the manuscript to Brill. Over the years, I have received help and guidance from many people and it is a pleasure to record my gratitude to them. Jens Stenger and Carol Snow from the Yale University Art Gallery joined me on the search for Egyptian blue on the Nimrud reliefs and I thank them for their energetic optimism. For permission to work in the gallery I gratefully acknowledge Susan Matheson, Aniko Bezur and Lisa Brody. Betsy Ruppa granted me access to the mineral collection at the Rhode Island School of Design Nature Lab and the beautiful photographs of rocks and gems are owed to the skill of Stefan Baumann. The happy years I spent at the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Tübingen lent new direction to my research. I express my heartfelt gratitude to Konrad Volk for his careful reading of my thesis and for encouraging me to trust my instincts to ask the right questions. By drawing my attention to the significance of colors for the history of science and the senses, John Steele, Matthew Rutz and Yannis Hamilakis at Brown University helped me define the broader context for this work. For his original studies on color and for his generosity with ideas, time and criticism, I am indebted David Warburton. I am fortunate to have marvelous friends near and far who have encouraged and supported me during my years of graduate study. Thorsten Carstensen and I spent many hours in the woods of Connecticut and the streets of Berlin talking about colors. Mary Frazer, Shana Zaia, Nicholas Kraus, Elizabeth Payne, Raphaël Chevrier and Stefan Baumann provided valuable help as I pieced this work together. Finally, I owe my greatest thanks to my family: my mother Jayanthi, my father Thavapalan and my brother Varoon. In Colombo, Markham, New Haven and Tübingen, you have supported my every endeavor. Shiyanthi Thavapalan Providence, April 2019

Color Metalanguage, Signs and Convention Used Adapted from Biggam 2007, 183; 2012. Hue Saturation Tone

E.g. red, yellow and blue, refers to chromatic primaries. vivid—mild—pale Achromatic: white—pale grey—medium grey—dark grey—black Chromatic: dull—medium—dark Brightness Light-emission: dazzling—shining—glowing Reflectivity: shiny—lustrous—matt Surface illumination: well-lit—poorly lit Space illumination: brilliant—dim—unlit Transparency: transparent—translucent BOLD CAPITALS E.g. RED, indicates the concept, as opposed to the form of a color word used in a particular society. Italics E.g. sāmu, indicates color words in languages other than English and Sumerian. -(hyphen) E.g. yellow-green, indicates an equal mixture of both hues. /(slash) E.g. yellow/green, indicates the range of colors that may be denoted by either hues (in this case, shades of yellows, greens as well as a mixture of both). +(plus) E.g. red + shiny, indicates a color category in which both features are combined and inseparable, but that do not form a macro-category.

Figures and Plates Figures 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 4.1

Typology of Akkadian color terminology  40 Fragment of ivory plaque with remnants of paint. Neo-Assyrian, 8th–7th centuries BCE (MET 58.31.11)  45 Ivory furniture element with remnants of gold foil. Probably from Acemhöyük, 18th century BCE (MET 36.152.3)  46 List of temple dedications, The Hall of the Annals Relief, Karnak  218 Baskets of lapis lazuli, turquoise and colored glass. List of temple dedications, The Hall of the Annals Relief, Karnak  219 North-West Palace, plan of the state apartments with locations of the Yale reliefs  379

Plates 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b 4a 4b 5a 5b 6a 6b

Carnelian (Private collection). Source: unknown. H. 1.8 cm; W. 2.4 cm  475 Red jasper (Private collection). Source: unknown. H. 5.4 cm; W. 13.3 cm  475 Baltic amber (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 3C). Source: unknown. H. 3 cm; W. 4.5 cm  476 Amber (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 3A). Source: unknown. H. 4.2 cm; W. 7.6 cm  476 Wulfenite and mimetite in barite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 145I). Source: Rawley mine, Arizona. H. 3.2 cm; W. 4.5 cm  477 Pyrite (Nature Lab RISD). Source: unknown. H. 3 cm; W. 5 cm  477 Cinnabar (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 37C). Source: Almaden (Spain). H. 6.2 cm; W. 8.3 cm  478 Hematite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 73E). Source: unknown. H. 6 cm; W. 11 cm  478 Copper pellets (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 39D). Source: unknown. H. 2 cm; W. 1.5 cm  479 Antimony (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 9A). Source: Chihuzhuz (Mexico). H. 1.3 cm; W. 2 cm  479 Shell with blueish cosmetic pigment from Ur, c. 2600–2400 BCE (B17186)  480 Shell with greenish cosmetic pigment from Ur, c. 2600–2400 BCE (31-17-93.1)  480

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Figures and Plates

7a

Erythrite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 56A). Source: Bou Azzer (Anti Atlas, Morocco). H. 5.2 cm; W. 5.9 cm  481 Gypsum (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 68G). Source: unknown. H. 6.5 cm; W. 12.5 cm  481 Cobaltean calcite (Nature Lab RISD). Source: unknown. H. 3.1 cm; W. 5.5 cm  482 Cobaltean calcite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 38D). Source: unknown. H. 4.9 cm; W. 5 cm  482 Calcite, yellow with white striations (Nature Lab RISD). Source: unknown. H. 6.5 cm; W. 9.3 cm  483 Calcite, pink and green (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 26N). Source: unknown. H. 5 cm; W. 6.9 cm  483 Cylindrical jar from Ur, yellow calcite with white striations (B17128)  484 Vase from Ur, yellow calcite with white striations (B17111)  484 Calcite jar from Ur with reddish-pink striations (B17104)  485 Oval calcite bowl from Ur, translucent green (B17166)  485 Quartz amethyst, purple with notes of orange and red (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 118B5). Source: unknown. H. 6.4 cm; W. 6.5 cm  486 Quartz amethyst, purple (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 114A). Source: unknown. H. 7.4 cm; W. 14.5 cm  486 Lapis lazuli with pyrite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 85.A). Source: unknown. H. 1.9 cm; W. 5 cm  487 Lapis lazuli (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 85.A). Source: unknown. H. 1.9 cm; W. 5 cm  487 Stibnite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 130A). Source: unknown. H. 14 cm; W. 4.4 cm  488 Fluorite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 59K). Source: unknown. H. 7.2 cm; W. 8 cm  489 Sulfur (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 133A). Source: Beja, California. H. 3.9 cm; W. 4.2 cm  489 Azurite (Nature Lab RISD). Source: Silver City mine (Pima County, Arizona). H. 4.3 cm; W. 4.5 cm  490 Azurite with malachite (Nature Lab RISD). Source: unknown. H. 6.2 cm; W. 6.5 cm  490 Chrysocolla (Nature Lab RISD). Source: Grandview Mine (Coconino Co., Arizona). H. 2.5 cm; W. 3.2 cm  491 Turquoise: one greenish, one blueish (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 7.31). Source: unknown. H. 2.2 cm; W. 4.7 cm, H. 2 cm; W. 3.8 cm  491 Sodalite (Nature Lab RISD). Source: unknown. H. 8.8 cm; W. 12 cm  492 Galena (Nature Lab RISD). Source: unknown. H. 9.5 cm; W. 16.3 cm  492

7b 8a 8b 9a 9b 10a 10b 11a 11b 12a 12b 13a 13b 14 15a 15b 16a 16b 17A 17b 18a 18b

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xiii

19a Malachite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 94H). Source: unknown. H. 5.4 cm; W. 8.2 cm  493 19b Malachite with azurite (Nature Lab RISD: Geo 94F). Source: unknown. H. 7.2 cm; W. 10.2 cm  493 20 Paint box containing pigment cakes (yellow ochre, Egyptian blue, calcium carbonate, hematite, hematite mixed with calcium carbonate), c. 1302–1070 BCE (RISD 1997.82A)  494 21a Visible light image of controls  494 21b Visible-induced luminescence image of controls  495 22 Image locations, YUAG 1854.1  496 23 Image locations, YUAG 1854.2.1  497 24 Image locations, YUAG 1854.4+5  498 25a YUAG 1854.1 L1  499 25b YUAG 1854.2.1 L1  499 26a YUAG 1854.1 L3  500 26b YUAG 1854.1 L14  500 27a YUAG 1854.1 L15  501 27b YUAG 1854.2.1 L7  501 28a YUAG 1854.2.1 L6  502 28b YUAG 1854.4+5 L11  502 29 YUAG 1854.2.1 L4  503 30 YUAG 1854.2.1 L5  503

Chapter 1

Color Semantics I sense a scream passing through nature. I painted…the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked. edvard munch (about The Scream)

Color is a part of the natural world. Everyone perceives it, experiences it. All languages have words to describe it. As such, it is an ideal window into the relationship between human biology, cognition, language and culture—­between mental experiences of the world and representation of it. For the historian of ancient Mesopotamia, studying color offers a chance to understand how people lived and thought and expressed themselves though physical and semantic codes. Although we may not realize it, surprisingly few colors lie behind our dayto-day visual experiences. Electronic technologies such as television, computers, video and digital cameras that use the RGB-model produce hundreds of color stimuli by mixing only three—red, green and blue—lights. Standard CMYK-printing can likewise achieve images of multiple hues and shades by combing only four types of ink: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (called key). One might be tempted to think that such efficiency is modern, and yet, the idea that a few colors combined in various proportions could produce many others has a history that can be traced back to the ancient world. In many cultures, as in ancient Mesopotamia, color was not a conceptual isolate but was rather linked to materials, the environment and cosmological principles, which in turn, affected how it was categorized, denominated and valued. 1

What is Color?

1.1 Color and the Elements Since Newtonian physics, it seems impossible to think of color as anything other than a property of light. Yet the essential nature of color has been subject to theorizing by many, in the ancient world and in recent history. Early Greek philosophers, beginning with the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004415416_002

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in the sixth century bce, and especially Aristotle in the fourth century bce, whose arrangement of colors in tonal sequence had an impact on human color systems for centuries, attempted to explain color from a physical standpoint. In his poem On Nature, Empedocles (c. 490–430 bce) elaborates on how all perception, thought, activity and processes in the world are linked to the four classical elements: air, water, earth and fire. Heavily influenced by Pythagorean ideas of harmonic ratios governing natural phenomena, Empedocles also subscribed to the idea that colors were produced by the juxtaposition of fire and water, embodied by the sun and sea respectively. Love and Strife cause the elements to unite and separate during various stages of the cosmic cycle. The two “simple” (hapla) colors were white (leukón), from the brightness of fire and black (mélan), from the darkness of water.1 As Ierodiakonou put it: Empedocles holds that, when human beings perceive the world with their eyes, they primarily see colours, because colours are effluences from the objects commensurate with the pores of the eyes. And we see the colour white because an overwhelming proportion of fiery particles are emitted from a white object and are commensurate with the pores of fire in our eyes; and we see the colour black because an overwhelming proportion of watery particles are emitted form a black object and are commensurate with the pores of water in our eyes. Finally, the way we see all other colours depends on the proportions of watery and fiery particles emitted from the objects around us.2 The significance of Empedocles’ undertaking is that he was among the first philosophers who attempted to explain both why objects in the world are colored as well as why they appeared colored to us.3 Democritus (c. 460–370 bce) understood color as the visual experience produced in us by the atomic surface structure of objects.4 The four (not two)5 simple colors are perceived as they are, according to him, because of the shape and geometric arrangement of an object’s atoms: “white is what is smooth. For whatever is not rough or shadowy or difficult to penetrate, anything like that is 1 2 3 4 5

Ierodiakonou 2005a. Ierodiakonou 2005a, 34. Ierodiakonou 2005a, 2. Ierodiakonou 2005b. For the relationship between the writings of Empedocles and Democritus, see Ierodiakonou 2005a, 10–11 and n. 15.

Color Semantics

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bright.”6 White objects also allow light to pass through and have “spherical ­atoms positioned obliquely in pairs, in an arrangement which is practically uniform overall.” Black things, conversely, are rough, uneven and do not allow light to penetrate them. Black things cast shadows. Connecting it to the element of fire, Democritus characterized red (eruthrón) objects as being composed of large, hot atoms. Greenish-yellow (khlōrón) materials contained a combination of “solid and void” particles; thus, the hue may vary according to their position and arrangement. All other colors are produced by a mixture of these elemental properties. Democritus’ observations in medicine and painting may have influenced his theory of colors.7 Like those of the Presocratic philosophers, Plato’s (c. 428–348 bce) and Aristotle’s (384–322 bce) conceptions of color have Pythagorean underpinnings. Plato spoke of “the law of proportion” through which colors are formed, although he concluded his Rational Theory of Colors8 by stating that any attempt to discover this principle was beyond human capacity. In addition to black, white and red, Plato considered bright (lamprón) or brilliant (stílbon) to be a fourth basic color.9 By contrast to Democritus, for whom color was a convention, Plato defined color as something that was objectively real.10 In On Sense and Sensibilia, Aristotle explains that black(dark) and white(light) mixed in harmonic ratios alone generate chromatic colors.11 It is unclear which exact colors he considered unmixed and how these corresponded to the elements. Based on his observations of rainbows and halos, he wrote that the rainbow is three-colored and these three—red (phoinikoûn), green (prasinón) and purple (alourgón)—are the chromatic medians between light and dark.12 In other works, however, he seems to consider yellow (or golden) as the only simple color apart from white and black.13 The spectrum, in which he arranged colors 6

Most of what is known of Democritus’ ideas is owed to Theophrastus, who was Aristotle’s successor at the Lyceum. Theophrastus commented on Democritus’ theory of colors in his work On Senses (Taylor 1999, 73–76). 7 Gage 1993, 12. 8 In his poem on creation Timaeus 67c4–68d7, quoted in Gage 1993, 12; Ierodiakonou 2005b. 9 Plato, Timaeus 67e6–68b1, see Ierodiakonou 2009, 125. As we shall see, terms for brightness (lightness and darkness) constitute an important part of the color vocabulary of many ancient languages (see Chapter 2). 10 Ierodiakonou 2005b, 230. 11 On Sense and Sensibilia 439b 18ff., see Ierodiakonou 2009, 121; Kuehni and Schwarz 2008, 31. 12 Aristotle Meteorology, 374b 10–14, 28. 13 In On Colors, for instance. The author of this work, either Aristotle or Theophrastus, elaborates on the relationship between only three simple colors (white, yellow and black) and

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in a linear, tonal sequence from white (brightness) to black (darkness), remains the most influential aspect of Aristotle’s theories on colors:14 leukón xanthón phoinikoûn alourgón prasinón (white) (roughly (roughly (roughly (roughly orange) crimson) violet) leekgreen)

kyanoûn mélan (roughly (black) deep blue)

This system of modeling color based on brightness remained fundamental until Isaac Newton’s discoveries about light, and was adopted by all others who theorized about the nature of color. For example, the Persian physician, mathematician and philosopher Avicenna (c. 1015) whose treatise on the soul in the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ includes a chapter on color and light, comments on the Aristotelean seven-color scale.15 De colore, by the English natural scientist and philosopher Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170–1253), was also clearly influenced by Aristotle. Grosseteste translated Aristotle’s works into Latin. The same may be said of De iride and Tractatus de coloribus by Theodoric of Freiberg (c. 1250–after 1310), Robert Fludd’s (1574–1637) Utriusque cosmi and Medicina catholica and many other fundamental works on color until the 17th century.16 The association between color and the elements of the universe is by no means unique to early Greek thought. By the late Shang period (c. 1300–1046 bce), a system of five colors (wu se) with cosmological, phenomenological and geo-political links was in place in China:17

14 15

16 17

the elements: “Simple colors are those which belong to the elements, i.e., to fire, air, water and earth. Air and water in themselves are by nature white, fire (and the sun) yellow, and earth is naturally white. The variety of hues which earth assumes is due to dyeing, as is shown by the fact that ashes turn white when the moisture that tinged them is burned out…Black is the proper color of elements in the process of transmutation. The remaining colors, it may easily be seen arise from blending by mixture of these…” (Quoted in Kuehni and Schwarz 2008, 32). Kuehni and Schwarz 2008, 31–33. Although he did not dispute the seven-color spectrum, Avicenna’s empirical observations of light and fire led him to conclude that the path from white to black has more trajectories than what the Aristotelian model permitted (Kuehni and Schwarz 2008, 34 and references therein). See Kuehni and Schwarz 2008, 32–42. Gradually, the five elements (wood, fire, soil, metal, water) and their colors were correlated with every category of things in the universe, including human psycho-physical functions, sources of happiness, tastes, smells, planets, weather, animals, internal organs and affective states (Bogushevskaya 2016, 229 Table 1).

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Water Black (hei) North Winter Metal White (bai) West Autumn

Soil Yellow (huang) Middle End of summer, period of ripening grain

Wood Green+blue (qing) East Spring

Fire Red (chi) South Summer Victoria Bogushevskaya has posited that the origin of this theory is actually much older and should perhaps be attributed to Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor (c. 2698–2598 bce).18 In her view, the links between seasons, elements, cardinal points and color may have empirical underpinnings. For instance, the association of metal with the west might be related to memories of the metal weapon-bearing barbarian hoards from the west and the color associations might stem from the ceremonial clothes worn during particular seasons. Similar systems, with colors correlating to the seasons, cardinal directions and geopolitical realities, were in place among the Maya,19 the Navajo Indians20 and in ancient Hindu21 thought. 1.2 Light and Paint In the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton’s experiments demonstrated to the world that the human eye perceives color when white light is refracted. A prism, for instance, could produce an array of colors, which Newton called a “spectrum.” Color was a matter of the wavelength of light or energy and depended on our perceptual interpretation of this phenomenon.22 The German poet and 18 19 20 21 22

Bogushevskaya 2016. Hopkings and Josserand 2011 apud Bogushevskaya 2016, 230. Dubois 2007, 622–623 apud Bogushevskaya 2016, 230. Hausman 2001, 27 apud Bogushevskaya 2016, 230. Newton expressed his ideas about vision and light in a brief address to the Royal Society entitled New Theory and Light and Colors (1672) and then in greater detail in

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i­ ntellectual Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) developed an alternative to the Newtonian model by characterizing color as arising from the interplay between darkness and light. Not distinguishing color from pigment, Goethe’s experiments attempted to show that additive mixing (mixing light) and subtractive mixing (mixing paint) produced color in comparable ways.23 While defining the nature of color and determining how to order it was indeed a vital agenda for many early thinkers, other conversations, about the beauty and changeability of color, its relationship to music and numbers, the use of color in art as decorative or life-giving, the ideal palette of the painter, the effect of color in stimulating sensual delight, to cite just a few, were taking place as well.24 1.3 Color Sense in Mesopotamia Not only does this brief overview highlight some common trends in the history of human ideas about color, such as the link between individual colors and elements in the universe, but it draws attention to a particular methodological complication faced in the present study: there are no Akkadian treatises that articulate in abstract terms how ancient Mesopotamians understood the nature of color. And yet, the written sources make it abundantly clear that they viewed it as an essential quality of natural and artificial substances. Color was considered an important aspect of the outward appearance (šiknu) of things, which explains its presence as a descriptive category in the handbooks for herbs (Šammu šikinšu), stones (Abnu šikinšu) and snakes (Ṣēru šikinšu) as well as in word lists.25 The substances recorded in the šikinšu texts are also found in

23 24 25

Opticks. Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light (1704). Goethe (1810) 1957. See Gage 1993, 14–15; Kuehni and Schwarz 2008, 8–10. cad Š ii, 436–439. Reiner thought šiknu was better understood as the “nature” of an object because, she argued, the medium itself was essential to its identity and the values associated with it. In the case of stones, for instance, “it is the material, the substance, the nature of the stone—its šiknu—that gives its power…” (1995, 119–120. Italics mine). Medieval European handbooks of the same type similarly describe the natura (if in Latin, or its equivalent if in translation) of substances, she pointed out. Postgate also took šiknu to mean “nature” because upon comparing the archaeological and textual record, he found that the Mesopotamians were aware of the conceptual distinction between the natural properties of a substance (to which color belongs), its function and its class (1997). Rochberg observed that Babylonians made a distinction between the characteristics or properties of things endowed by divine decree (šimtu) and those acquired by virtue of its having been put there (šiknu): “The Akkadian šikinšu texts selected and described stones and plants that had medicinal use. The focus there seems, however, to be less in terms of how properties come to inhere in a body and more to do with how to recognize them by their appearance.” (Rochberg 2016, 90–92).

Color Semantics

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the encyclopedic list of words known as UR 5-RA: ḫubullu, but are those that have been selected because they are relevant for Babylonian medicine; these texts constitute the knowledge of the exorcist (āšipu) and the physician (asû).26 Color had function (in medicine, ritual, architecture, design, etc.) as well as value. The Mesopotamians consciously procured polychrome gemstones, pigments and dyes, often from distant lands and at great cost, in order to beautify their bodies and enliven their surroundings (see Chapters 3 and 4). Spectrums not unlike Aristotle’s and Newton’s, in which individual colors are organized into linear sequences, are articulated in the omen compendia (see Chapter 2). Color was recognized as an abstract quality that could be transferred onto media through dyeing, painting and various pyrotechnologies, for instance. As the production of colored substances flourished in the second millennium bce, Akkadian developed a highly-nuanced vocabulary to characterize these processes (see Chapter 3). Finally, as in ancient Greece and China, color was a part of various systems of thought and categorization, although its meanings were less regular and dependent on context. For example, the four colors black, white, red and yellow/green were linked to certain planets as well as to the cardinal points.27 Despite its ubiquitous presence in the archaeological record, which testifies to the obvious fascination color held for the Mesopotamians, it has been observed that cuneiform languages are woefully inadequate in encoding this sensory experience: that there is a dissonance between the use of colors and the expressions for them in written documents.28 For this reason, scholarly attention on color in ancient Near Eastern cultures has fixated on language and the issue of whether or not perception and color naming in ancient times differs from today. As we shall see, linguists have taken an especially keen interest in the meaning of color words because they believed them to hold the key to understanding the structure and development of languages. 2

Color Vision and Language: Gladstone, Magnus, Allen and the Puzzle of Color Vocabularies

Classical and contemporary debates about color can be said to revolve around four major topics: 26 27 28

Tablet sixteen lists plants, seventeen stones and fourteen reptiles, including snakes (Rochberg 2016, 87–88). Rochberg-Halton 1998, 57; Verderame 1999; Sallaberger 2000, 248–251; Brown 2001, 143– 144 and n. 363. E.g. Landsberger 1967, 139.

8

Chapter 1

Biology: what is the ‘organ of color’? Perception: how do our minds understand color as a sensory experience? Language: how do we talk about color? Culture: what is the context of color?29 As the research traditions generated around these topics form the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the present study, it is worth briefly outlining their trajectory and impact. Modern inquiry into color semantics began with William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898). Gladstone is best known for having served as Prime Minister of Great Britain under Queen Victoria but he was also a scholar of Classical literature. The crowning achievement of his academic career is a three-volume work entitled Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, which he published in 1858. In the first section of this book, “Achais,” Gladstone discusses the relationship between the various “races”—the Arcadians, Graians, Ionians, etc.—who take part in the action of the Iliad and the Odyssey. “Olympus,” the second part, is a study of Greek religion and its parallels with the religion of the Hebrew Bible. Gladstone’s aim for the last of the three tomes, “Aoidos,” was to reconstruct the culture and mentality of the Greeks based on Homer’s lexicon, and in this sense, his work is a pioneering study of ethnolinguistics. A sense of beauty, number and color were the three aspects he chose as the building blocks for his characterization of the Homeric world-view and it is his conclusions about this final element, color, that received the most attention. Gladstone began his study with the assumption that color terms in the English language, based on Sir Isaac Newton’s spectrum, may serve as a point of comparison with which to evaluate another culture’s color system. As he tried to correlate Greek color terms with English ones and with the objects or phenomena they referred to in poetry, he found Homer’s use of color extremely puzzling. For one, he recognized that ancient Greek color words may describe a quality other than hue (prismatic color), such as red or yellow. Porphureos, which he translated as “violet,” was used to describe blood, dark clouds, turbulent waters and textiles, but also death and a brooding mind.30 This led him to conclude that the color vocabulary of the ancient Greeks was imprecise: So again with wine-colored oxen, smutty thunderbolts, violet-colored sheep, and many more, it is surely conclusive against taking them for 29 30

Dedrick 2015, 272. Gladstone 1858 iii, 461–462; Hickerson 1983, 33.

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d­ escriptions of prismatic colors or their compounds, that they would be bad descriptions in their several kinds.31 For another, Gladstone observed that although Homer made use of a large repertoire of descriptive words that seemed to imply color, very few of these could be translated unambiguously into definite English color terms. This suggested to him that the ancient Greeks did not see the hues for which they had no name, perhaps due to the state of development of color vision among ancient peoples. In other words, he postulated that the ancient Greeks had an inferior sense of color than modern Europeans: “I conclude, then, that the organ of color and its impressions were but partially developed among the Greeks of the heroic age.”32 Published only a year before Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), Gladstone’s thesis provoked the first great debate in the new field of Color Studies: what was the relationship between color cognition and color naming and did evolution play a role in determining either? A German professor of ophthalmology by the name of Hugo Friedrich Magnus (1842–1907) and a Darwinian writer with an interest in science and psychology, Grant Allen (1848–1899), were stimulated by Gladstone’s thesis to ­respond to it in different ways.33 Magnus’s experiments on vision persuaded him to agree with the proposal that the human color sense evolved over centuries. According to his Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes (1877), this process of development may be modeled in four stages. First, highly intense or luminous colors (lichtstarke Farben) were recognized. This is followed by the ability to distinguish between red and yellow. Subsequently, mediumintensity colors (Farben mittlerer Lichtstärke) such as shades of green, and then finally, low-intensity colors (Farben geringer Lichtstärke) like blues and violets, were perceived.34 Galvanized by this support within the scientific community, Gladstone wrote “The Colour-Sense” in 1877. There, he applied Magnus’ typology to his researches on the ancient Greek color lexicon to arrive at the 31 32 33

34

Gladstone 1858 iii, 487. Gladstone 1858 iii, 488. Magnus and Allen were by no means the only scholars Gladstone’s pioneering study interested. Others followed with similar investigations based on different languages. See, for instance, Furrell 1885; Gatschett 1879 (color terminology in Indian languages); Hopkins 1883 (in the Vedas); Kirschoff 1879 (among Nubians) and Mead 1899 (in Old English poetry). By the end of the century, various theories—biological, psychological, cultural— had been offered to explain the development of color terminology. For an overview of these early ideas, see Woodworth 1910, 92. Magnus 1877; Biggam 2012, 12–13.

10

Chapter 1

c­ onclusions that Homer only recognized light, dark, red and perhaps orange as color categories.35 Gladstone’s theory of ethnolinguistics in this second paper was attacked on many fronts, but no one group repudiated his claims as strongly as the Darwinists, who criticized him for ignoring the theory of natural selection in his study. Grant Allen, a leading figure in this debate, pointed out that natural selection favors species with a high level of color perception and that this faculty would have been developed early in the evolutionary process. The ability to see colors, he argued following the leading naturalists of his time, was common to humans and animals alike. In addition to biological evidence, Allen made his case utilizing extensive cultural and linguistic evidence gathered through the study of ancient and modern civilizations. He wrote: A visit to the Ethnological Room at the British Museum will show that the Polynesians, North American Indians, Mexicans, and Peruvians, have or had the power to distinguish red, yellow, green, and blue. Furthermore, to go back in time, the Egyptian wall-paintings, papyri, mummy-cases, &c., are decorated with an infinite number of shades and mixed colors, which reach their highest development under the xviiith and xixth Dynasties (surely quite early enough for Mr. Gladstone), and become less intense and varied at a later date…I think nobody can look at the Egyptian remains in the British Museum—still less at the great collections of ­fac-similes—without recognizing not only color-perception in a high degree, but also remarkable taste in blending and delicacy of hue.36 He even consulted Assyriologists of his time so that he could consider the recently excavated polychrome materials from the ancient Assyrian city Nimrud and Akkadian color terminology: Of the enammelled bricks dug up in this city Sir A.H. Layard says, “The colors (sic) have faded, but were probably once as bright as the enamels of Khorsabad. The outlines are white, and the ground a pale blue and olive green. The only other color used is a dull yellow.” In many of these cases blue figures occur on a green ground, which clearly shows that the two colours were accurately discriminated. The pigments consist of an antimoniate of lead for the yellow; and oxide of tin for the white; a copper for the blue; a sub-oxide of copper for the red. Of Babylonian bricks 35 36

Gladstone 1877; Biggam 2012, 13. Allen 1878, 130–131.

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the same authority observes, “The principle colours are a brilliant blue, red, a deep yellow, white and black.” The Rev. A.H. Sayce, the distinguished Assyriologist, writes to me as follows:—“The Assyrian language seems to have had no word for ‘green.’ Sometimes ‘green’ is represented by arku, ‘yellow,’ but more commonly by ʾsamu or ʾsihmu ‘blue’ (like the Welsh glas). But the enamelled bricks show that both the colours blue and green were known and used.” An inspection of the existing remains in the Louvre and the British Museum will sufficiently prove to the most sceptical that the colour-sense of the Assyrians was essentially identical with our own.37 Allen’s The Color-Sense marks the first real attempt to delineate clearly between color perception and color naming. Allen also drew attention to the fact that many of the vagaries in the Greek color vocabulary that to Gladstone had seemed inaccurate or odd were cases of the poet’s figurative use of language: “Has Mr. Gladstone never heard of red blood, red skies, red bricks and red Indians? Do Englishmen never talk of a green old age?”, he questioned.38 Differences in context and not differences in physiology, he proposed, explained the differences in color language. These criticisms led Magnus to revisit and eventually revise his ideas. In Untersuchungen über den Farbsinn der Naturvölker (1880), which presented data on the color vocabularies of several peoples from European colonies, Magnus concluded that after all, an absence of certain color terms in a language does not indicate the inability of the speakers of that language to see those colors.39 The notion that human color sense follows a biological and social evolutionary trajectory resurfaced in the Assyriologist Benno Landsberger’s essay on Sumerian and Akkadian color terminology, which remains the only in-depth study about this topic to date.40 Landsberger’s focus was on the ancient written sources and he seems to have been unaware of the debates about color vision, perception and naming that were taking place in other fields. Finding no abstract word for blue in either Akkadian or Sumerian, for instance, he concluded that the speakers of these languages must have been blind to the color.41

37 38 39 40 41

Allen 1879, 213–214. Allen 1879, 267. Magnus 1880. Landsberger 1967. He speaks of “Blaublindheit” and “Gelbblindheit” among speakers of Akkadian and ancient Hebrew in the very first page of his essay (1967, 139).

12 3

Chapter 1

Color Categories and Names: Relativity and Universalism

In the first decades of the 20th century, color semantics faded as a research agenda. It was not until anthropologists began using stimulus materials like colored paper or wool to test native speakers that this interest was renewed. Ethnolinguists were now desirous to know the process by which languages acquired color terms. In the case of the present study, this line of inquiry could answer such questions as: did the way Akkadian-speakers talked about color affect the way they thought about it? Are some Akkadian color words more important than others? And if so, why? Historically, the debate surrounding this issue has been divided into the relativist and the universalist positions. Proponents of the former emphasize the influence of culture in shaping cognition and language, while in the view of the universalists, color categories are based on human vision and certain prototypical features of the environment. Initially, anthropologists carried out their field research testing subjects by asking them to identify, match, recall and discriminate between colors, presupposing cultural and linguistic relativity. Known as the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” after its two namesakes, Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941), the theory of linguistic relativity proposes that different languages classify, structure and express reality in different ways.42 Sapir was an anthropologist-linguist and a student of Franz Boas, whose work on Native American languages during his tenure at Columbia University earned him the reputation of being the father of American anthropology. Whorf worked as a fire prevention engineer at an insurance company, but he studied linguistics under Sapir’s tutelage at Yale University. According to the theory these two developed by studying North American languages, words in two languages are not merely different labels expressing the same reality, but may communicate two altogether different world-views. A mild reading of the Sapir-Whorf ­Hypothesis would imply that language influences thought, while a more extreme reading would suggest that language determines thought. By the latter notion, a speaker of a language with no word for the hue blue, for instance, would have no cognition of the concept of blueness in her or his world-view.43 Summarizing the research conducted in linguistics between the 1920s and 42 43

In fact, the idea that languages play a role in shaping the way their speakers think was articulated much earlier in Germany, by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). See Sapir’s essay on “The Status of Linguistics as a Science” (in Sapir 1961) and Whorf’s re-formulation of the theory in “Science and Linguistics” (in Whorf 1956); Biggam 2012, 18; Dedrick 2015, 274–275.

Color Semantics

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1960s, Robert E. MacLaury wrote, “The relativity of language had become a crusade with color as its banner.”44 The first substantial challenge to relativism came with the publication of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay’s Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969). On the basis of data gathered from numerous languages, these University of California anthropologists suggested that, “color words translate too easily among various pairs of unrelated languages for the extreme linguistic relativity thesis to be valid.”45 In their view, a definite number of universal color categories are to be found in all human cultures and the terms for these ­develop in a fixed seven-stage progression. They also contended that the number of color terms in a language correlates to the social and technological development of that society: “All the languages of highly industrialized European and Asian peoples are Stage vii, while all representatives of early Stages (i, ii, and iii) are spoken by people with small populations and limited technology, located in isolated areas.”46 The key to understanding the implications of these conclusions is Berlin and Kay’s research procedure. First, native speakers of ninety-eight languages were questioned with the view of eliciting the so-called Basic Color Terms (hereafter BCTs) in their language. Colors that reoccur often and in different contexts, which are not restricted in application and which form the core color terminology of a language are BCTs.47 Specialized and technical vocabulary, metaphorical color terms (e.g. English “navy” from the color of a uniform) and words borrowed from other languages are non-BCTs. Following their identification of the BCTs in a particular language, the informants were asked to map them out on standardized “stimuli boards,” which were made up of 329 colored chips arranged according to the Munsell System (i.e. by hue, value (lightness or tone) and chroma (saturation)). After repeating the procedure with speakers of all the languages included in their study, Berlin and Kay compiled their data to show that color categorization and naming are far from random. In fact, there were only eleven Basic Color Categories (hereafter BCCs) universal to all 44 45 46 47

MacLaury 1997, 20. Berlin and Kay 1969, 2. Berlin and Kay 1969, 16; Kay and Maffi 1999, 746. Berlin and Kay established four abstract criteria to establish the BCTs of any languages. First, a BCT is monolexemic: the color may not be predicted from the parts of the word (e.g. red is monolexemic but lemon-colored is not). Second, the meaning of a BCT may be not included in another word (e.g. blond is contained within the meaning of yellow). Third, its application must not be restricted (e.g. blond chiefly refers to the color of hair, wood and beer). Fourth, it must be psychologically salient. BCTs are often mentioned first when speakers are asked to list color words (Berlin and Kay 1969, 5–6).

14

Chapter 1

Table 1.1  The sequence of color category acquisition (after Berlin and Kay 1969)

Stage I

Stage ii Stage III

Stage IV

Stage V

Stage VI

Stage VII

BLACK and WHITE

+ RED

+ YELLOW or GREEN

+ BLUE

+ BROWN

+ PURPLE and/or PINK and/or ORANGE and/or GREY

+ GREEN or YELLOW

cultures and these were named with BCTs. Moreover, they perceived that although the number of BCTs a language has may vary, the sequence in which these terms accumulate is universal. When there are fewer than eleven BCTs present in a language, it means that the speakers map the entire color space with these fewer terms. The conventions used by Berlin and Kay in this table require some explanation: words in bold capitals represent concepts (i.e. BCCs) and not the form of the color word adopted in a language (i.e. BCTs). Thus, a language at Stage i of the evolutionary sequence, where only WHITE and BLACK are recognized, will have the BCT white, representing all light hues, and black, representing all dark hues. RED includes English reds, oranges, yellows, browns, pinks, purples and violet. At Stage iii either YELLOW or GREEN emerges as a new category. GREEN includes yellow-greens, greens, blue-greens, blues, blue-purples and sometimes tans and light-browns. YELLOW indicates light greens, tans and light browns. Depending on which category developed in the previous, either YELLOW or GREEN is further distinguished in Stage iv. RED, by this time, signifies reds, yellow-reds, purple and purple-reds. Blues, purples and violets emerge from the GREEN at Stage v, while the latter is circumscribed to only green. At this point, BLACK and WHITE are reduced to achromatic values. At Stage vi brown breaks off from the scope of RED and YELLOW, and finally, at Stage vii, there is what Berlin and Kay called a “rapid expansion” to incorporate the remaining BCCs.48 As anthropological linguists pursued further research into the color vocabularies, the 1969 evolutionary sequence was revised several times. Kay presented another version in 1975, introducing the category GRUE at Stage iii, which included blues and greens. In this s­ equence, 48

Berlin 1969, 17–20.

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the values of Stage i were also reconsidered. Thus, WHITE now covered white, very light shades of all colors and all warm colors, whereas BLACK allowed for black, some dark browns and purples, and all cool colors except their lightest shades.49 In 1999, Kay and Maffi published yet another sequenced based on the immense body of data gathered by the World Color Survey project, directed by Kay, Berlin and Merrifield. Simplifying the process of color category acquisition to five stages, this sequence allowed for different paths or trajectories in which languages move from one stage to another.50 The work of Eleanor Rosch conducted among the Durgum Dani people of Indonesian New Guinea explained the linguistic universality of color terms by citing psychological universalities. Certain natural prototypes—objects or experiences that best represents a color category—serve as cognitive anchors for the BCTs, which according to her explains their cross-cultural regularity:51 There are perceptually salient colors which more readily attract attention and are more easily remembered than other colors. When category names are learned, they tend to become attached first to the salient stimuli, only later generalizing to other, physically similar, instances. By this means these natural prototype colors become the foci of organization for categories.52 Given the attributes of focal colors—their occurrence as exemplars of basic color names, their linguistic codability across language, and their superior retention in short- and long-term memory—it would seem most economical to suppose that these attributes are derived from the same underlying factors, most likely having to do with physiology of primate color vision. In short, far from being a domain well suited to the study of the effects of language on thought, the color space would seem to be a prime example of the influence of underlying perceptual cognitive factors on the formation and reference of linguistic categories.53 Rosch’s research on prototypes combined with Berlin and Kay’s idea about basic color terms had widespread implications for theories on cognition and on the relationship between thought and language, also in ancient civilizations.54 49 50 51 52 53 54

Kay 1975. Kay and Maffi 1999. Rosch Heider 1972; Rosch Heider and Olivier 1972; Rosch 1975. Rosch 1975, 184. Rosch Heider and Olivier 1972, 20. E.g. Brenner 1982 (Hebrew); Baines 1985 (Egyptian); Foulger 2006 (Sumerian).

16

Chapter 1

Accordingly, the colors that appear in fixed number and sequence in Mesopotamian lexical lists—peṣû, ṣalmu, sāmu, arqu and barmu—have been interpreted as the basic color terms in Akkadian. Having a single word to signify both YELLOW and GREEN positions Akkadian at Stage iii in the Berlin and Kay scheme, a point at which an abstract word for BLUE, for instance, is not yet conceivable. Only recently has this view been challenged and alternative models for understanding Akkadian color terminology been forwarded.55 Since 1969, many aspects of Berlin and Kay’s research methods and conclusions have fallen prey to criticism. Anna Wierzbicka defends the position that COLOR itself is not a universal concept, which would situate any investigation that seeks to find universal color categories upon a false premise.56 Besides this, many researchers considered aspects of the Berlin and Kay methodology and model Anglocentric because they are based “on the assumption that all languages can be legitimately described and compared in terms of such English words [that is, the names of BCTs in the Berlin and Kay sequence].”57 The Munsell array, used by field researchers to interview native speakers, is the prime subject for this criticism. These color chips can only display limited features of color—namely hue, saturation and brightness. Saunders and van Brakel challenged the assumption that these features are universally understood and prioritized as the most important qualities of color, pointing to the Dani people of New Guinea, for example, whose idea of color includes properties of softness, glossiness and fluctuation.58 English color terms tend to be hue-based. The difference between green and blue, for instance, is greater than dark blue and light blue, which both fall into the semantic range of “blueness.” The speakers of Hanunóo language in the Philippines, on the other hand, emphasize categories of lightness and darkness over hue. Consequently, the word mabīru may be translated into English black, dark green, indigo, violet and blue. Another dimension of Hanunóo color terms is the distinction made between wetness or succulence (malatuy) and dryness or desiccation (marara’).59 Surface texture, whether an object is smooth or lumpy, transparency and even aspects of non-appearance such as edibility, symbolism and emotion are all qualities that may be considered a part of a language’s color system.60 Anthropologists have developed several alternatives to the fieldwork methodology adopted by Berlin and Kay and a selection of these projects have been d­ iscussed 55 56 57 58 59 60

Warburton 2010 and 2016; Thavapalan, Stenger and Snow 2016, 199–201. Wierzbicka 1990 and 2008. Wierzbicka 2006, 2. Saunders and van Brakel 1988, 364; Biggam 2012, 86–87. Conklin 1955, 339–344, especially 341; Biggam 2012, 52–55. Biggam 2012, 3–6 and references therein.

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by Biggam.61 As these methodologies involve the participation of native speakers, and as such are not relevant to this study of Akkadian colors, they will not be dealt with here. 4

Scope and Nature of the Present Study

The existing body of scholarship in the fields of cognitive science, linguistics and anthropology serves to highlight a number of complications as regards the topic of color, of which the present study is mindful. Color is a cultural construct as well as a natural phenomenon. Although it adopts methodologies used in anthropology to reconcile these two truths, this book is not concerned with the biological underpinnings of color categorization or naming in human societies. This study cannot draw on “live” data gathered from native speakers through interviews or by observing them in their own environment; this adds greatly to the danger of misunderstanding the “dead” data entirely or misinterpreting it in an anglocentric way. Linguistic anthropologists have shown that LIGHT and DARK are important dimensions of color in several languages. This being the case in Akkadian as well, the expressions for these concepts are considered as proper colors (see Chapter 2). Unlike in the fields of Classics,62 Egyptology,63 Aegean64 and Hebrew Bible studies,65 Assyriology has no comprehensive work devoted to the subject of color. The essays by Benno Landsberger66 and Maria Bulakh67 collect and discuss individual color words, but do not venture far beyond lexical analysis. Other studies touch on the appearance of color terms in specialized text genres, such as in omens or within certain craft industries, but again, they offer

61 62 63 64 65 66

67

Biggam 2012, 86–108. E.g. Lyons 1999; Villard 2002; Beta and Sassi 2003; Cleland, Stears and Davies 2004; Rouveret, Dubel and Naas 2006; Bradley 2009; Carastro 2009; Grand-Clément 2011. E.g. Schenkel 1963 and 2007; Baines 1985; Ragai 1986; Warburton 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2016. A collection of essays on The Value of Colour: Material and Economic Aspects in the Ancient World is in preparation by Warburton and Thavapalan. Blakolmer 2000. E.g. Brenner 1982 and 1999; Aster 2006; Bulakh 2006. Landsberger simply collected all the words that appear to be have been used as color terms in Sumerian and Akkadian written sources and tried to translate them with modern German equivalents (1967). See also Foulger 2006 (unpublished M.A. thesis) for a very brief overview of the BCTs in Sumerian and Warburton 2007, which contextualizes Akkadian terminology with Egyptian color words. Bulakh 2003.

18

Chapter 1

no interpretation of what color meant as a cultural signifier.68 An exception to this is Elena Cassin’s La Splendeur divine (1969),69 which examined the ­symbolic meaning of certain Akkadian color terms indicating luminosity and brightness. The present study seeks to address this deficit. For the sake of coherence and precision, the linguistic analysis is restricted to Akkadian. It is hoped that the issues and agendas presented here will serve as a springboard for future discussions about colors in Sumerian and other cuneiform languages. As its title purports, this book is about the “meaning of color” and it thus attempts to understand how people used and talked about color in ancient times. To this end, it provides the first systematic and comprehensive investigation of the words and expressions for colors in the Akkadian language. Possible cognates in Hurrian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Mycenaean and Classical Greek are discussed and historical and archaeological sources from Egypt, the Aegean, the Biblical world and the Talmud are consulted, to cover gaps in the Mesopotamian evidence. The semantics of Sumerian color terminology deserves a separate study and lies beyond the scope of this book. Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of how the idea of “(to be) colored” is expressed in Akkadian and follows with a study of abstract color terms. Colors that take their names from materials, namely precious stones and metals, as well as colorful substances like dyes and pigments are studied in Chapter 3. References from various types of text genres—lexical lists, administrative documents, historical and literary texts—are offered for the individual words discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, so as to give the reader as complete a lexical history of each entry as possible. Translations of the texts are my own, unless otherwise indicated. Given how extensive the Akkadian textual corpus is, every single attestation of each color term, is of course, not quoted. However, the selected citations are meant to represent the frequency of use and semantic range of the term under investigation.70 Finally, a note about data analysis and presentation. Even though this investigation avails itself of approaches used by linguistic anthropologists, I have ­chosen 68

69 70

E.g. Verderame 1999; Hirvonen 2016; Oppenheim 1943 and 1949; Noonan 2012. For the names for colored fabrics in various periods of Mesopotamian history, see the articles by Waetzoldt (Ur-iii), Lassen (Old Assyrian), Vigo (Hittite), Villard (Neo-Assyrian) and Joannès (Neo-­Babylonian) in Michel and Nosch 2010. For color in the Akkadian glass texts, see Oppenheim et al. 1970 and Thavapalan forthcoming. See also the essays by Winter (1999), which examines the aesthetic and symbolic values of lapis lazuli, and by Durand (2015), which contends that color was less important than form and materials for conveying social meaning. Dates follow those given in Oelsner 2007a-b and Quack 2007. Second millennium dates are based on the Middle Chronology.

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not to provide statistical analysis, owing to the incomplete nature of the archaeological and textual record. At this point in the life of Assyriological scholarship, such forms quantifiable data would only lead to a misreading of the evidence. Chapter 4 turns to material culture, which anchors the preceding philological study in the real world and offers yet another window into the mentalité or situation as a whole that lay behind Mesopotamian color sense. Many people today are unaware that Babylonian and Assyrian statues and reliefs were once brightly painted, to the extent that modern treatments of such artifacts normally illustrate and discuss them as colorless—a serious distortion of ancient reality.71 Chapter 4 traces the history of modern “chromophobia” with respect to ancient Near Eastern art and demonstrates how the treatment of these artifacts as decontextualized, isolated museum pieces in European and North American Collections have affected the image of “oriental art” fixed in the public consciousness. It advocates the importance of collaborating with conservators and museum scientists to help change how modern viewers perceive ­Mesopotamian art and built spaces. In its approach and content, the present book is best described as a historical anthropology of Mesopotamian color sense. It focuses on culture and is interested in the existential and experiential aspects of life in this ancient ­civilization. It considers the material foundations of culture—architecture, art, clothing and jewelry—as keys to the way people lived and thought. It seeks to understand the collective mentalities in a culture and sees language as the mirror reflecting these mentalities. 71

Recent studies that have sought to rectify this include Nunn 2010; Nunn, Jändl and Gebhard 2015; Thomas 2015 and 2016; Thavapalan, Stenger and Snow 2016.

Chapter 2

Abstract Colors When we deal with color names, we do not know what chromatic effects these names refer to, and thus we deal with a cultural puzzle, filtered through a linguistic system. umberto eco (‘How Culture Conditions the Colours We See’)

The Akkadian language has color words, words that are essentially materials but sometimes refer to colors (e.g. stones) and also words that relate to colors but are strictly speaking not colors (e.g. pigments, dyes). Predictably, each category of terminology functions differently and is therefore distinguishable on the level of language. The terminology studied in this chapter are the abstract words for colors. They belong to the oldest layers of the Akkadian language and have a wide semantic range. Concrete or material colors that are related to substances are examined in Chapter 3. Of chief concern here are the following questions: (I) What was COLOR for the ancient Mesopotamians? How did Akkadian speakers conceptualize, categorize and denominate this sensory experience? (II) What are abstract color terms and which criteria can we use to distinguish them from the material-based concrete color terms, discussed in Chapter 3? What is the relationship between the abstractness and basicness (in the Berlin and Kay tradition) of colors? (III) Which aspects of color (e.g. hue, brightness, saturation, variability, surface patterns) do the abstract color terms in Akkadian focus on and/or delineate? Is it possible to establish a typology for them? 1

Talking about Color in Akkadian

Many languages do not have an equivalent for the English word “color.”72 It is nonetheless possible to talk about and even invoke colors in these same 72

For example, in the languages spoken in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Asia (see Goddard and Wierzbicka 2014 for further references). As discussed in Chapter 1, linguistic anthropologists divide among those who consider color to be a universal concept in human societies and those who do not. By the word “color” in English, I mean “the property

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��20 | doi:10.1163/9789004415416_003

Abstract Colors

21

l­ anguages. The near similarity73 of human sensory experiences, which are manifestations of biological responses, may be one reason for this. Another may be certain common human encounters in the environment, such as the sun, the sky or the earth. Informed by research in the cognitive sciences,74 some linguists have come to recognize links between visually salient prototypes in the ­environment—objects or experiences that best represent a color category— and the color concepts developed by people who live there. While the prototypes vary cross-culturally, certain trends may still be observed: the category WHITE is frequently connected to the idea DAY/LIGHT, BLACK to NIGHT/ DARK, RED to FIRE or BLOOD and YELLOW/GREEN to GROW.75 Sometimes, this connection between the prototypical referent and color is “forgotten” as the language evolves, while, at other times, it remains synchronically alive. Russian goluboj “sky-blue,” for example, is etymologically related to the word for pigeon, although this association is no longer conscious in present-day Russian. On the other hand, in the Australian language Warlpiri, most color words—e.g. yalu-yalu “red” but literally “blood-blood,” yukuri-yukuri “grassgrass” and kunjuru-kunjuru “smoke-smoke”76—explicitly name their prototypes. The assumption that a direct and close link exists between perception and language is not universally accepted:77 even if human beings perceive color in the same manner and even if the referents of color words are cross-­ linguistically stable, how they manifest in each language need not be exactly the same since the same referent may be conceptualized differently.

73

74

75 76 77

of physical entities and substances which is describable in terms of hue, luminosity (or brightness) and saturation and which makes it possible for human beings to differentiate between otherwise perceptually identical entities and substances, and more especially between entities and substances that are perceptually identical in respect of size, shape and texture” (Lyons 1999, 42). Humans and most other primates are generally thought to have trichromatic vision, as they possess three cone cells in the retina of the eye to mediate daylight color vision. It should be noted, however, that approximately ten percent of the human population, mostly males, are said to have impaired trichromatic vision, while some females have four or even five cone cells (Kuehni and Schwarz 2008, 2). Especially the work of psychologist Eleanor Rosch on prototypicality (Rosch Heider and Olivier 1972; Rosch Heider 1972; Rosch 1974 and 1975). Rosch argued that conceptual categories (including color categories) form in relation to the psychological salience of certain natural prototypes. For instance, the Durgum Dani people had only two focal colors and two BCTs; however, Rosch’s experiments demonstrated that the Dani were nonetheless able to identify and remember colors for which they had no names based on these prototypes. Goddard and Wierzbicka 2014, 85. Wierzbicka 1990, 139; 2014, 86. Wierzbicka 1990 and Goddard and Wierzbicka 2014, 80–101.

22

Chapter 2

In Akkadian, as in many living and dead languages, it is not possible to ask “what color is X-object or Y-material?”78 Nor is there a silent grapheme in the form of a determinative that classifies COLOR and distinguishes it linguistically from other cognitive categories. In the absence of a word or structural mark for “color,” it is not demonstrable that Akkadian speakers thought in terms of COLOR. Rather, the written sources suggest that the experience of color is denoted in terms of visually conspicuous characteristics that are observed on the exterior or surface of things. The neutral anchors SEE + SURFACE are useful for modeling this concept.79 This is why, for instance, “variegated” and “dazzling” are important abstract colors.80 The closest one can come to talking about “color” in Akkadian is by describing a person or thing’s appearance (zīmu, šiknu) or else by referring to a particular coloring process such as dyeing, staining or painting. Like English “appearance” or “look,” zīmu (Sum. MÚŠ) is multivalent and can encompass both literal (e.g. hue, luster, brightness) and figurative (e.g. high or low spirits) impressions.81 In the following examples, color is the subject: [DIŠ ina ITI].KIN d30 a-dir IGI.MEŠ-šú zi-im KÙ.SI 22 GAR-nu… (K 3563+: rev. 1; Rochberg 2010, 101) ‘[If in the month] of Ulūlu (August-September), the moon is dark (or eclipsed), its features assume the appearance of gold…’ [ÉN ina] ˹e˺-ri-du kiš-ka-nu-ú ṣal-mu ir-bi ina áš-ri el-lu ib-ba-ni [zi]-mu-šu uq-nu-ú eb-bi šá a-na ap-si-i tar-ṣu (Utukkû lemnūtu XIII–XV ­95–96; Geller 2016, 460–461) ‘[Incantation: In] Eridu, a black kiškanû-tree grew, it was created in a pure place; its appearance was lustrous lapis lazuli, which was stretched across to the Apsu.’ a-na 1 MA.NA 3 GÍN zu-ku-ú ša SU KÙ.SI 22 ša-ak-nu 3 GÍN AN.ZAḪ [NÍTA/MUNUS] 3 GÍN ka-al-gu-ga ma-an-[…] (Oppenheim et al. 1970, 51; Tablet D §L: 22´-25´) 78

79 80

How information about COLOR is elicited in individual speech communities can help us model variant conceptualizations of this idea. For instance, in Austronesian language Mbula spoked in Papua New Guinea, one must ask “what eye is object-X?” (instead of “what color is X?”). Warlpiri-speakers of Australia ask, “what is it like?” (For further examples see Wierzbicka 1990 and 2008). Adapted from the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (nsms) model developed by Wierzbicka, which attempts to pursue cross-linguistic comparisons in an un-biased way (Wierzbicka 1990). Many languages have a word describing this mixed aspect of what they see (Wierzbicka 2008, 414). Barmu in Akkadian means a combination of different hues; it does not refer to a particular pattern like “flecked” or “striped” (see 2.5.2).

Abstract Colors

23

‘For one mina three shekels of zukû(-glass), which has the appearance of gold, three shekels of [male/ female] anzaḫḫu(-glass), three shekels of kalgukku(-mineral)…’ Šiknu (Sum. GAR) refers to the outward appearance of an object or substance. Its semantic range includes physiognomic aspects, such as color, shape and structure, as well as abstract qualities like beauty or dullness.82 The entries in the lists of stones (Abnu šikinšu), herbs (Šammu šikinšu) and snakes (Ṣēru šikinšu) imply that the ancient Mesopotamians considered brightness, saturation (i.e. chromatic purity), patterns and hue to be important qualities for describing and perhaps also classifying phenomena in the natural world. Whereas statements about color made with zīmu are primarily adjectival, those made with šiknu may be adjectival or verbal: NA 4 GAR-šú GIM AN-e za-ku-ti na4aš-pu-u MU.NI (Abnu šikinšu 76; Schuster-Brandis 2008, 30) ‘The stone whose appearance is like a clear sky, its name is ašpû.’ DIŠ ši-kìn ši-ri-šú BABBAR GE 6 ŠUB-u (amt 15 3: i 16) ‘If the appearance of his flesh is unevenly colored83 (with) white and black (spots)…’ i-ki-lu ši-ki-in-šu-un šal-pu-ut-ta-šú-nu lu-mu-un-tú ud-diš zi-me-šú-nu uk-ku-lu-tu ú-šá-an-biṭ (Esarhaddon 681–669 BCE; rinap 4 104: iv 12–15) ‘(The gods and goddesses of the Esagil), whose appearance had become dark, I repaired their ruined, woeful (state). I brightened their darkened looks…’ This is comparable to the way the term iwn “color, skin” is used in ancient Egyptian:84 ỉwn dšr ‘red color’ (said of a mountain where gold is found) ỉwn=f m nb(.w) ‘its color consists of gold’ ỉwn=f m ḥrs.t ‘its color consists of carnelian’ ỉwn n(.i) nšm(.t) ‘its color is like green feldspar’ 81 82 83 84

cad Z 119–121; AHw iii 1528. cad Š iii 436–438. For this technical meaning of nadû, see Scurlock and Anderson 2005, 217. See Schenkel 2007, 215–216 for text citations.

24

Chapter 2

1.1 Terms that Describe a Process of Coloring or a State of Being Colored While there is no unique abstract word equivalent to “color,” there are several ways to refer to the process of coloring in Akkadian, most of which are tied to activities in specific craft industries (see 2.4). It is possible “to mark/paint” (šamātu) something and thereby make the colors of a form stand out against the background or else to decorate the surface of wooden or leather objects. A specific color is not signified by the noun šimtu. Akkadian has several words for “to dye/stain.” Ṣarāpu, bašālu and ṣab/pû each describe a method of manipulating the external appearance of materials, generally cloth or leather, in order to make them more visually appealing—colorful, brighter, more vivid. With the verb tarāpu it was possible to talk about patterned coloration on an object’s exterior. Ebēru indicates inking or darkening facial features by going over them with pigment. Barāmu describes the appearance of an object with a combination of visual markers on its surface. Etymological analysis suggests that the color-related meanings are generally secondary to the semantic development of these terms. Originally meaning “to heat/burn,” the verb ṣarāpu was adopted to characterize vat dyeing because this process required heat. In the case of ṣarāpu, a further development in meaning occurred: outside the textile industry, it took on the meaning “to be colored” or “to be suffused with color” (see 2.4.3). Explicit statements about colors can be made verbally and non-verbally in the Akkadian language. 1.2 Verbal Colors Occurring in different tenses and stems, verbal color terms are more versatile than concrete ones. The Gt-stem shows no discernable difference in meaning from the basic stem. Color verbs in the D-stem describe the action brought about by an agent (factitive) or is derived from a noun (denominative). G- and D-stem stative forms of color verbs appear to be more or less semantically equivalent.85 Traditionally, it was held that the doubling of the second radical in the D-stem symbolized an intensification of the action expressed by the ­G-stem and that the “causative” function of the D-stem derived from this basic character.86 More precisely, the so-called “intensifying” function of gemination has to do with an increase in number (plurality of subject and/or object), in 85

86

As Kouwenberg noted, the D-stative is preferred when: 1) the D-stem is lexicalized and has a meaning that is unpredictable from the corresponding G-stem; 2) the subject is plural and/or is highly salient. Both are used interchangeably if the D-stem is a factitive of the G-stem; in such cases, the D-stative expresses the result of an action (1997, 352–357). See Kouwenberg 1997, 4–15 for a summary of these views.

25

Abstract Colors

duration (habituality, permanence) or in salience.87 The causative Š-stem and the N-stem, which has an ingressive meaning, are rarely attested. Kouwenberg’s proposal that a strong association exists between the D-stem and adjectives may explain why color verbs so infrequently occur in the Š-stem.88 An overview of the verbal character of each color term discussed in this chapter is given here: Table 2.1  Verbal character of Akkadian color terms G-stem

GT-stem

GTN-stem

D-stem

DT-stem

Š-stem

ŠD-stem

N-stem

(w)arāqu barāmu

X X

– X

X –

X X

– –

X –

– –

X –

da ʾāmu ebēbu ekēlu eṭû ḫelû ḫ/rašāšu namāru pelû peṣû sâmu ṣalāmu tarāku

X X X X X X X X X X X X

– – – – X – X – X X – –

– – X X – – – – – – X –

X – X X X X(?) X – X X X –

– – X X – – X – X – X –

– – – – X – X – – – X –

– – – – – – X – – – – –

X(?) – – – – – X X – – X(?) X

Adjectival use of color verbs is typical and attested in all periods (e.g. urpatu ṣalimtu “black cloud,” šurānu arqu “yellow cat”). The adverbs magal and mādiš indicate degrees of coloration, especially in omens. Thus, the diviner may describe the colors of a planet as magal sām “very/considerably red,” mādiš sām “intensely red” or mādiš ekil “intensely dark.” A careful study of objects and the color adjectives attributed to them indicates that not all color adjectives are informative about perceptual reality. Like English “Red Indian” or “white coffee,” Akkadian color adjectives may be used to classify as well as to describe and so their meaning may be figurative and literal.

87 88

Kouwenberg 1997, 16. See Chapter 11 in Kouwenberg 1997.

26

Chapter 2

1.3 Non-verbal Colors The afformative -ān- generally imparts a particularizing force to verbal nouns (e.g. nādin-ān “the particular seller”), pronouns (e.g. ayy-ān “in which (place), where”) and invariables (e.g. warkī-ān-ūm “at a particular point behind, i.e. later on”). With primary nouns, -ān- generally forms personal names (e.g. qaqqād-ān “someone with a particular head”).89 In the bilingual lexical list UR5-RA: ḫubullu, varieties of lapis lazuli are distinguished by color with this affix: karānānû “wine-colored” (from karānu “wine”)90 laptānu “turnip-colored” (from laptu “turnip”)91 sirrimānu “wild-ass-colored” (from sirrimu “wild-ass”)92 This manner of referring to color, however, is not typical in day-to-day speech; the only other terms that fit this pattern are epirānu “earth-colored,”93 aw/ murriqānu “jaundice-colored,” samānu “red-colored disease” and perhaps ḫašmānu “amethyst-­colored” (from Egyptian ḥsmn + -ānu). More commonly, color is evoked by ­referring to an object or substance of the relevant color with similes and metaphors: NA 4 GAR-šú GIM IGI TU.GUR 4mušen NA 4 KI.ÁG.GÁ MU.NI (Abnu šikinšu 40; Schuster-Brandis 2008, 28) ‘The stone whose appearance is like the eye of a turtledove, aban râme is its name.’ DIŠ TA UGU-nu MUL.MAR.GÍD.DA! MUL SUR-ma GIM ZA.GÌN.DURU 5 ana 15 NA DIB-iq NA BI TI-la ur-rak (Bab. 7 pl. 17: ii 20; Langdon 1922/1923) 89

Buccellati 1996, 140; von Soden observed further functions of the afformative: “…dient zur Hervorhebung bestimmter, oft individueller Vertreter der durch das Grundwort bezeichneten Art oder Gattung…In anderen Fällen löst sich das Wort mit -ān bedeutungsmässig weitgehend vom Grundwort (z.B. šulmānum „(Begrüßungs-)Geschenk“ von šulmum „Heil, Gruß“). Bisweilen hat -ān auch hypokoristisch-diminutiven Sin angenommen (z.B. mīrānum „kleines Tierchen; junger Hund“)…” (gag § 56 r). 90 Ḫḫ xvi 62 [msl 10 6]: NA 4.ZA.GÌN.GEŠ.TIN: ka-ra--nu-ú. Ḫḫ xvi Ras Shamra 47 [msl 10 39]: NA 4.ZA.GÌN.GEŠ.˹TIN˺.NA: ka-ra-na-nu. 91 Ḫḫ xvi 61 [msl 10 6]: NA 4.ZA.GÌN.LU.ÚB: lap-ta-nu-ú. 92 Ḫḫ xvi 63 [msl 10 6]: NA 4.ZA.GÌN.ANŠE.EDIN.NA: sír-ri-ma-nu. Abnu šikinšu 3; Schuster-Brandis 2008, 24: na4ZA.GÌN BABBAR [tukk]-up [na4]ZA.GÌN. [AN]ŠE ?.EDIN.NA MU.NI. 93 A relatively late attestation, dating to reign of Darius; epirānu is said to be the color of donkeys, cows and two other unidentified animals (Dar. 232; Weszeli 1996, 466–468).

Abstract Colors

27

‘If from above Ursa Major a star flares and passes to the right of a man (looking) like turquoise-blue glass, that man will have a long life.’ DIŠ KÀŠ-šú GIM kuš/na4duḫ-ši-e NA BI NA 4 G[IG] (bam 114: 8 with parallel in 161: iv 2′-3′) ‘If his urine is like duḫšu-leather/stone (in color), he is s[ick] with stones.’ si-ḫi-ir-ti É.GAL šá-a-tu né-bé-ḫu pa-áš-qu ša na4ZÚ na4ZA.GÌN ú-še-piš-ma ú-šal-ma ki-li-liš (Esarhaddon 681-669 BCE; rinap 4 1: vi 23–25) ‘All around the perimeter of that palace, I had the cornice and coping made of obsidian and lapis lazuli(-colored brick) and I encircled (them) around (it), like a wreath.’ Material-based or concrete color terms such as the ones in the examples above are studied in Chapter 3. 2

Abstract Color Words

Several scholars have attempted to provide methodological frameworks to distinguish the primary color words in ancient Near Eastern languages and what meanings they encode. Landsberger came to the conclusion that Akkadian had only five primary color words (Grundfarben) based on his interpretation of the lexical literature, in which white (BABBAR, peṣû), black (GE 6, ṣalmu), red/ brown (SA 5, sāmu), variegated (GÙN, barmu) and yellow/green (SIG 7(.SIG 7), (w)arqu) are listed together and qualify various types of objects.94 These five terms, frequently in the same sequence, also appear in other types of texts ­organized by the same list-principle, such as omens.95 This suggested to Landsberger that they were the most important color words in Sumerian and Akkadian and that they somehow belonged to a special conceptual and semantic category. The conclusion of his seminal study was that Mesopotamian languages had a poor and indefinite color vocabulary, in which single words often refer to multiple colors. Akkadian sāmu, for instance, is both red and brown, 94 95

In the canonical bilingual lexical list UR 5-RA: ḫubullu and several other lists such as the list of domestic animals (msl 8/1) and the list of stones (msl 10) (Landsberger 1967). Hirvonen 2016, 97–98. The “paradigmatic set” for color was very likely adapted from the older Sumerian word lists to the Akkadian word lists and other genres of texts organized in the same manner (Thavapalan, Stenger and Snow 2016, 200 and n. 11).

28

Chapter 2

arqu is yellow, green and, for the Sumerians, SIG 7.(SIG 7) could also be the color of the sky.96 Writing about ancient Egyptian, Schenkel argued that abstract colors must have a verbal form.97 This left Egyptian with four abstract terms for specific colors: white (ḥḏ), black (km(m)), red/yellow/brown (dšr) and green/blue (wȝḏ). Warburton, on the other hand, observed that it made little sense to exclude adjectival and nominal forms since they obviously play an important role as linguistic expressions of color in Egyptian.98 When anthropologists Berlin and Kay proposed that BCTs evolved in a standard sequence in all languages and that WHITE and BLACK + RED + GRUE (green/blue) were the first colors to evolve in the spectrum, the ancient evidence studied by Schenkel and Landsberger seemed to corroborate their theory. By Berlin and Kay’s definition, BCTs were abstract, not related to materials, not restricted in use and the most psychologically salient colors in a particular society.99 Hence, it has been taken for granted that peṣû, ṣalmu, sāmu and arqu are the Akkadian BCTs. How they relate to other abstract terms, such as those designating shaded or tonal variations of color, and words that describe luster, brightness or other aspects of the interplay of light on objects, is an issue that has not been addressed. The status of barmu “multihued/versicolored,” which appears with these four terms as a set in the lexical literature but does not fit with the Berlin and Kay theoretical scheme, has likewise been ignored.100 2.1 Basic Versus Abstract Colors That Sumerian and Akkadian have a limited number of BCTs is an idea that has become accepted in scholarly literature of the ancient Near East.101 Moorey, for instance, wrote: Both Sumerian and Akkadian (like ancient Egyptian) possessed four basic colour terms: black, white, red, grue (green/blue), with a term for ‘­variegated’…They are given in the canonical bilingual lexical lists in this order with ‘variegated’ between red and grue, possibly pointing to the later inclusion of the latter.102

96 97 98 99 100 101

Landsberger 1967, 145; Foulger 2006, 53. Schenkel 1963 and 2007. Warburton 2008, 216. Berlin and Kay 1969; Kay and Maffi 1999. E.g. Baines’ 1985 discussion reprinted in 2007; Foulger 2006. E.g. Baines 1985, 283–284; Foulger 2006. Warburton rejected the Berlin and Kay paradigm and has stressed the importance materiality for understanding the meaning of ancient color terminology (2012, 2016). 102 Moorey 1994, 322.

29

Abstract Colors

The cad speaks of sāmu “as one of the four basic colors.”103 And yet, while certain colors are sometimes called basic and at other times abstract, no clear methodology has been forwarded for determining whether an Akkadian color term is basic or abstract or both. For her study of Biblical Hebrew color terminology, Brenner defined BCTs in Semitic languages by their: 1) morphological simplicity, i.e. lexemes that consist only of a consonantal-vocalic root (primary nouns) or else of a consonantal root and vocalic transfix; 2) hyperonymity, i.e. the meaning of a BCT cannot be contained within the meaning of another word (e.g. since crimson and scarlet are contained within the meaning of red, they are hyponyms, whereas red is a hyperonym); 3) unrestricted applicability. Accordingly, she established the following BCTs in the Hebrew Bible:104 Table 2.2  Basic Color Terms in the Hebrew Bible (after Brenner 1979)

Period

BCTs

Pre-exilic

ʾādōm “red” lābān “white” ʾādōm “red” lābān “white” šāḥōr “black” yārōq “green” ṣāhōb “yellow”

Exilic and post-exilic

Bulakh added the morphological pattern of the lexeme (C1āC2ōC3, in the case of Biblical Hebrew) as an additional criterion for regarding a given term as a BCT.105 Schenkel argued that BCTs and non-BCTs in ancient Egyptian and Coptic may be distinguished on the basis of their role in parts of speech: BCTs are abstract and therefore verbal, whereas concrete color terms (e.g. colors that take their names from stones) are non-verbal. The present study proposes that most important, abstract color words in Akkadian are monolexemic hyperonyms (with the exception of pelû, whose meaning is tied to sāmu). Morphology is not a suitable criterion for distinguishing a color’s abstractness in Akkadian because color terms follow the 103 cad S 131. 104 Brenner 1979, 55–77. Yārōq and ṣāhōb are attested less frequently but were nonetheless considered BCTs by Brenner. 105 Bulakh 2006, n. 1. The only Hebrew BCT that does not follow this morphological pattern is lābān.

30

Chapter 2

Table 2.3a

Beer Celestial bodies Divine and demonic body parts Earth Fabrics Fauna Figurative meaning Fire Flora Glass Glassmaking process Human body parts Man-made spaces Metallurgical process Metals Painted surfaces Rainbow Sky (and clouds) Stones Textile industry Water, oil Wine

Semantic range of the verbal color terms in Akkadian

(w)arāqu

barāmu

da ʾāmu

ebēbu

ekēlu

eṭû

ḫelû

ḫ/rašāšu

– X X

– X X

– X –

– – –

– X X

– X X

– – –

X – –

– X X X

– X X X

X X – X

– – X X

– – – X

– – – X

– – – X

– X X X

– X X X

– X – –

X – – –

– – X –

– – – –

– – – –

– – – –

– X – X

X

X

X

–

X

X

X

–

–

–

–

–

–

X

X

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

X X X X X – X –

– X X X X X – –

– X X X – – X –

X – – – X – – –

X – – X – – – –

– – – X – – – –

X – – – – – – –

X – – – – – – –

g­ eneral pattern for verb-based adjectives: C1a/eC2VC3 + case ending. The second short vowel, generally an /i/, disappears because of the case endings in the masculine forms but is retained in the feminine (ṣalmu/ṣalimtu, pelû/pelītu, daʾmu, raššu, ʾebbu). As in ancient Egyptian, non-metonymic color terms in ­Akkadian are verbal. However, the number of verbal color terms in Akkadian is much higher than what Schenkel reckoned for Egyptian or Coptic. According

31

Abstract Colors

to Berlin and Kay’s definition, a BCT should come to the fore of a person’s mind when the subject of color is mentioned. I have used the following criteria for evaluating this “psychological salience” of the Akkadian color terms discussed in this chapter: 1) derivational morphology, i.e. suffixes/prefixes (e.g. daʾummiš “brownish”) and nominal forms (e.g. pūṣāya “launderer”); 2) frequency; 3) ­occurrence in literary texts; and 4) in embedded expressions (color similes, ­metaphors, idioms). Tables 2.3a–2.3b provide an overview of the referents a­ ssociated with each abstract term, which speaks to the context and salience of the color in the extant corpus of Akkadian texts. Table 2.3b

Semantic range of the verbal color terms in Akkadian

Beer Celestial bodies Divine body parts Earth Fabrics Fauna Figurative meaning Fire Flora Glass Glassmaking process Human body parts Man-made spaces Metallurgical process Metals Painted surfaces Rainbow Sky (and clouds) Stones Textile industry Water, oil Wine

namāru

pelû

peṣû

sâmu

ṣalāmu

tarāku

– X X – – X X

– X X – – X –

X X – X X X X

X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X

– X – – X – –

X X X –

X X – –

X X – X

X X X –

– X – –

– – – –

X

X

X

X

X

X

X –

– –

– –

– –

– X

– –

X – X X X – ? –

– – X – X – X –

X X X X X X X X

X X X X X – X X

– X – X X – – –

– – – – – X X –

32

Chapter 2

While the semantic range of the four colors peṣû, ṣalmu, sāmu and arqu is notably broader, it is nonetheless clear that all the color terms included in this chapter may be applied in unrestricted contexts. They do not describe a narrow class of objects in the way that the material-based color terms do. Some linguists argue that it should be possible to apply a BCT to both natural and human artifacts (“combinability”).106 This function too is fulfilled by the Akkadian terms examined in this chapter. Finally, it should be noted that while the present study distinguishes abstract color terms from concrete ones, it does not argue that a select number of these abstract terms are also BCTs since material-based terms are vital to the language of color in Akkadian. 2.2 Analytic Method in Present Study Color words are used in three essential ways in the Akkadian language: 1) to characterize; 2) to designate; 3) figuratively or symbolically. For the purpose of this study, a distinction is made between characterizations, which are statements about the visual qualities of an object, and designations, which define an object in terms of a particular visual category but do not necessarily communicate information about what colors people actually saw.107 Expressions such as egg white, black coffee, Red Indian or red, white and green wine are examples of English terms being used to designate color. In such cases, the color words do not relate empirical information; rather, each object is classified within a color system that is referent-specific. Red Indian, to elaborate on one example, derives from the 18th century Color-Race Model developed by the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), who classified the human species based on geography and skin tone. In Linnaeus’ scheme, white, yellow, red and black are associated with Europeans, Asians, Americans and Africans, respectively. These and other color models, both ancient and modern, cannot be taken as comprehensive or decisive statements about color. The bilingual lexical list UR 5-RA: ḫubullu makes use of a five-color system to classify objects, beings and materials from the real world. As Veldhuis and others have demonstrated, however, this does not reflect an early form of scientific classification of the perceived world as whole. Nor does the classification system used in word lists speak to a collective cultural world-view. The lexical lists are organized by linguistic principles and therefore must be

106 Rakhilina and Paramei 2011. 107 This distinction is also made by Schenkel for Egyptian color terms (2007, 221).

Abstract Colors

33

­ nderstood within the context of what Veldhuis called the “Science of Writu ing,” not as an early form of Natural Science: Lists such as Plants or Vessels are hardly inventories (or classifications) of all plants and vessels—they are both less and more…The kinds of things that are treated in the lexical corpus do not describe a universe in any accepted sense of the word.108 In other words, the five reoccurring colors function as color categories in ­U R 5-RA: ḫubullu. The vocabulary in the list cannot be used as evidence to understand perception and many more words were used to describe color experiences in regular speech. Color designations are also found in texts concerning diverse craft industries and medicine, wherein they often function as technical terms. In terms of morphology, two trends are observable: either regular verbal and adjectival forms of color terms take on extended meanings or nominal forms are generated for use within the particular technical corpora. The phrases “red blood cell” and “white blood cell” in English illustrate the first phenomenon. Rather than operating as color adjectives, red and white carry meanings that only apply to the field of medicine here: “red” refers to the fact that these cells carry the hemoglobin molecules responsible for giving blood its characteristic color whereas “white” alludes to the coagulated appearance of these cells after blood undergoes centrifugation. Peṣû, meaning “unnaturally blanched” when it appears as a diagnostic color of human skin, is an example of when an Akkadian color term takes on a technical significance. An English language example to illustrate the second trend would be the term albino. Deriving from Latin albus, this refers to a congenital absence of pigmentation in the skin, eyes and hair. In the same way, Akkadian sūmu, meaning “red spot,” is a noun that only appears in medical and divinatory texts. Not all references to color in the medical corpus operate as technical terms. Color was a vital diagnostic tool in Babylonian and Assyrian medical practice. Like modern doctors, the āšipu carefully noted abnormal discoloration in his patients’ bodies and observed the appearance of swellings, blisters, scars, the color of blood, urine and other bodily discharges. The main source of information for the color-related medical symptoms that are discussed in this chapter is the Babylonian Diagnostic-Prognostic Series (dps), sakkikû, which contains some three thousand entries in the format, “If symptom X is present, then 108 Veldhuis 2014, 55. See also Rochberg 2016, 93–94.

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d­ iagnosis Y and/or prognosis Z.”109 Of special interest is the second subseries of the dps, entitled ana marṣi ina ṭeḫêka,110 where observations of symptoms on individual body parts, organized from head to toe, are recorded. Color is the first symptom that is registered here and it plays a decisive role in the āšipu’s subsequent diagnosis and prognosis. The main colors cited in the dps are sāmu, arqu, ṣalmu, tarku and daʾmu, generally in the same fixed order. Heeßel noted that variation in the color spectrum in the second subseries is rare. Color words also appear in the first subseries of the dps (tablets 1–2), in which observations made by the exorcist on his way to the patient’s house are recorded. Four colors, peṣû, ṣalmu, sāmu and pelû, are cited there in connection with various domestic animals. Curiously, arqu and barmu, two abstract color words routinely associated with animals in lexical lists and omens, do not appear there. Many scholars of Babylonian medicine take the view that the diagnostic omens have empirical underpinnings.111 Consequently, they may be useful for determining the specific focus of certain color terms. The slight variations in the color spectrums associated with each type of referent observed by Heeßel support the view that such medical observations were indeed made on the basis of perceptual evidence. Lastly, it should be mentioned that the symbolic meanings associated with colors in the apodoses of divinatory texts are not straightforward and it is difficult to determine general patterns of significance.112 This reveals perhaps that in Mesopotamian thought, for colors to be imbued with certain intrinsic or characteristic values, they had to have a cultural context. Characterizations, as defined in this book, are statements about color that describe perceptual experiences. These then are useful for understanding what meaning the color word had within a particular textual tradition. Similes that take images from daily life are of particular value, as they tell us about a color term’s focus. Based on statements such as “his skin was ṣalmu like pitch” or “the river water is peṣû like milk,” it is possible to say that ṣalmu was ideally akin to the black color of pitch and peṣû to white milk.113 By considering the different 109 The forty-tablet series was redacted and compiled in the 11th century bce by the Babylonian scholar Esagil-kīn-apli. The first attempt at a full edition of the work was by Labat (1951 = tdp). Heeßel’s re-analysis of the tablets and their arrangmenet into subseries in 2000 led to a new labelling system, which explains the incongruences between tdp and dps numbers. In the same work, Heeßel edited tablets 15–33 of the series. Tablets 1, 4, 9, 13, 16, 26, 33 and 40 were edited in Heeßel 2010b. Editions of dps tables 3–40 are given in Scurlock 2014. 110 dps 3–14 (corresponds to tdp tablets 7–17). 111 E.g. Fincke 2000; Scurlock and Anderson 2005. 112 Vederame 2004; Koch 2015, 235, 276, 284; Hirvonen 2016, 99–105. 113 This is not to be confused with the statement about the river’s color itself, which is from a terrestrial omen; in that context, peṣû is a designation.

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realities expressed in such comparative statements as a whole, it is possible to arrive at a definition of the Akkadian color word. Understanding the semantic boundaries of color words is just as important as knowing their foci. In a hypothetical situation, given a Munsell color array and asked to circle the region corresponding to the word sāmu, an Akkadian-speaker would probably place the word in about the same part of the array as an English-speaker would red or Polish-speaker would czerwony. However, if the semantic boundaries114 of each word were compared, sāmu might include hues, shades and perhaps other (non-)visual qualities that neither red nor czerwony are capable of connoting. Finally, color is also a part of figurative language in Akkadian and can signify abstract ideas and had symbolic meanings. English is a language that is rich with color idioms. Frozen expressions like “white-knuckle ride,” “blackmail,” “red tape,” “green room” and “in the black,” whose culturally specific meanings are not evident from the individual words, cannot be translated literally into other languages. Akkadian, conversely, seems to have very few such idioms. Two examples are ṣalmāt qaqqadi “black-headed ones” meaning “humankind,” borrowed from Sumerian, and šiṭir burūmê “writing of the versicolored thing (i.e. starry sky)” meaning “constellation.” Colors nevertheless constitute a very important part of the poetics of Akkadian literature. A preliminary investigation indicates that colors are used: 1. Functionally: to covey something essential to the narrative 2. Decoratively: to express striking detail and to allude 3. Formulaically: in repeated phrases and clichés (e.g. kīma ūmi nummuru “to brighten like daylight” or kīma qitmi/ittî ṣalim “black like pitch”) 4. Cumulatively: several colors appear in a cluster, often signaling crucial psychological or emotional moments (e.g. the “light-and-dark portraits” constructed through the antagonistic use of namru/ḫelû and eklu/eṭû, see 2.5.4 and 2.5.5)115 The aspect of brightness was especially significant for Mesopotamian religious thought, in which the gods were conceptualized as numinous beings imbued with an active radiance that elicited a sensation of awe in their human subjects. This image found varied expression in written and visual culture.116 ­Akkadian religious poetry, for example, is richly laden with language that 114 As discussed in Chapter 1 (see 1.3), that Berlin and Kay’s methodology relied too heavily on Munsell charts was a criticism leveled at them early on: “… whole level of analysis is missing from the basic color term tradition, namely, no attention whatsoever is paid to what the various terms actually mean in the sense of what they typically refer to, their characteristic referential range” (Lucy 1997, 335. Italics mine). 115 Categories adapted from those developed by Edgeworth 1992. 116 Thavapalan 2018b.

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e­ mphasizes both the visual (namrirrū) and psychological (melammu, puluḫtu) aspects of this divine brilliance.117 In their cosmic forms—as the sun, moon, stars and planets—the gods communicated with human beings by illuminating or obscuring themselves. Lightness and darkness, especially in the form of eclipses, were thus important portends that revealed the gods’ intentions. When they featured as anthropomorphic beings in mythological compositions, the splendor of the gods was articulated through elements in the physical world. Thus, for instance, dramatic weather described using similes and metaphors replete with vocabulary of contrasting brightness often set the stage for cosmic battles. Lastly, in everyday practice of religious worship, the concept of godly radiance found visual expression through the bright and colorful metals, gemstones and dyed fabrics with which cult statues and spaces were fashioned. Links between the language of color and emotions are found in almost every language. In Akkadian, colors express human emotions, moods and mental states, often without an overt tie as in English “green with envy.” Brightness and saturation, not hue, are what lend meaning to the metaphors, yet another indicator of the semantic primacy of these aspects. Anger and fear are expressed in terms of a person’s face turning ṣalmu- or arqu-colored, for example, because anger was imagined as kind of darkness that casts a shadow upon a person and the image of a blood-drained face was thought to embody the sensation of alarm. Table 2.4 provides a summary of the psycho-emotional values associated with the color terms discussed in this chapter (specific examples supporting these claims are discussed under the individual entries). 3

Aspects of Color

The extensive linguistic data gathered by anthropologists have demonstrated that speakers of many languages distinguish between colors using aspects other than hue. Brightness was recognized as a key feature of color in certain languages in the earliest research into color semantics. In his 1899 study of Old English color terms, Mead drew attention to “the great variety of terms expressing light and darkness” that existed in Anglo-Saxon poetry. Mead’s separation of such terms, which according to him are “in the strictest sense colorless,” from what he calls “genuine color words,” provoked discussions on how “color” should be defined in Old English, what exactly he meant by “brightness” and if he was justified in semantically distinguishing the two terms.118 117 Oppenheim 1943; von Soden 1960; Cassin 1968; Winter 1994; Foster 2005, 31–32. 118 Mead 1899, 174–176.

37

Abstract Colors Table 2.4  Colors and emotions in Akkadian

Color Tag (w)arqu Pale Yellow Green barmu da ʾmu ebbu

Multihued Versicolored Dark Maroon/brown Shining Lustrous Polished

Positive

Neutral

Negative

Fresh Growing Peaceful Secure Beautiful (of eyes)

–

Sickly (jaundiced) Putrid Fear Shock –

–

–

Trustworthy Proper Pure Clean –

–

–

eklu

Dark Dull

eṭû

Dim

–

–

ḫelû

Translucent Shiny Glowing orange

Cheerful

–

Death Despair Foreboding Doom Gloom Misery Confusion –

Numinous Divine Royal Dynamic Clear Fair (just) Life-affirming –

–

–

–

–

–

–

Fair (beautiful) Warm

Empty Bleached

Healthy (flushed) Aroused Luxurious Powerful Fear-inspiring Fertile

–

Abnormal Barren Old Feverish

–

Death Apprehension

–

–

–

ḫ/ruššû namru

Dazzling Brilliant

pelû

Light orange/red Copper red White Blanched

peṣû sāmu

Vivid Red

ṣalmu

Black Bruised

tarku

Bruised

–

Gloom Obscured –

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Lerner continued Mead’s line of inquiry to conclude that, “a study of AngloSaxon color words in their contexts will show, I think, that the authors were much more interested in brightness than we are.”119 Subsequent investigations have revealed that color terms gradually shifted from brightness to almost exclusively hue concepts between the Old (c. 600–1150) and Middle English periods (c. 1150–1500).120 In the opinion of MacLaury and other anthropologists, this trend, in which the importance of brightness gradually gives way to that of hue, may be observed in the development of most languages’ color systems.121 Support for MacLaury’s idea may be found in ancient languages as well. It has been established that in Mycenaean Greek, color is bound up with notions of luminosity and movement. The word kosuto in Linear B texts (Greek xouthós), for instance, communicates the idea of quickness and agility as well as blondness.122 “Faster” colors were lighter than “slower” ones in Archaic and Classical Greek. Thus, Homer’s description of a “silver-pawed” (pódas argos) dog refers to the fact that it is a hunting hound.123 The goddess Thetis is swift not silver-footed (argyrópeza) and Apollo is quick to draw his bow (argyrótoxos).124 Brightness, saturation and hue are the key aspects of the Akkadian color system.125 Because modern English uses a hue-based color vocabulary, one-toone translations from the Akkadian are neither possible nor useful. MacLaury and Casson126 have established a typological framework that describes the relationship between brightness and hue in color language. Although it was conceived to describe the nuances in English terminology and how they have changed over time, this typology may be adapted to model how the Akkadian color system functions as a whole.127 Because it does not entirely explain the meaning of Akkadian color words, for which the category saturation is also a 119 Lerner 1951, 247. 120 According to Casson, “[h]ue was only minimally conceptualized in Old English, and did not become salient in conceptualizations of color until the Middle English period (c. 1150– 1500). The set of Old English terms that evolved into English basic color terms followed the same pattern: they were predominantly brightness terms in the Old English period and almost entirely hue terms in the Middle English period.” (Casson 1997, 224). 121 MacLaury et al. 1992. 122 Manzelli 1994, 44. 123 Iliad xviii: 578; Schwarzenberg 2000, 22. 124 Schwarzenberg 2000, 22 and n. 40. 125 Hinted at by Durand, although he offered no systematic analysis of the terminology (2015, 25). 126 Casson 1992, 1997. 127 Their models and definitions of “brightness,” however, are sightly different. MacLaury’s typology (brightness—brightness with hue—hue with brightness—hue) and conception of brightness was tied to the Munsell color chart and consequently, to the surface

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39

defining aspect, it was necessary to supplement MacLaury and Casson’s typology with two additional categories (Types 5 and 6): Type 1: pure brightness terms denote light-emission, light-reflection, illumination and transparency (e.g. namru, eklu, eṭû). Type 2: brightness-dominated terms focus on specific hues, but primarily indicate a level of brightness. Like English “gold” and “silver,” ­Akkadian color words that belong to this category do not always distinguish sharply between brightness and hue (e.g. peṣû, ṣalmu, ḫurāṣu and r/ḫuššû). ­Although it is technically inappropriate to include achromatic colors like peṣû and ṣalmû within a category that covers hue, I nonetheless classify them as brightness-dominated terms since they specify “white” and “black” in addition to “light” and “dark.” When material-based terms (studied in Chapter 3) allude to color, they focus on brightness and hue. Type 3: hue-dominated terms focus on specific hues and secondarily indicate a level of brightness and/or saturation (e.g. barmu, pelû). It is difficult to distinguish these from Type 2 color words in Akkadian. Type 4: pure hue terms focus exclusively on chroma. I have not detected such terms in the Akkadian color vocabulary. Type 5: saturation-dominated terms focus on the level of purity of the hue and secondarily indicate the nature of the hue and/or the level of brightness (e.g. sāmu, arqu). Type 6: pure saturation terms focus only on the purity of the hue. I have not detected such terms in the Akkadian color vocabulary. Modern English has relatively few words to describe brightness and so translating the Akkadian terms that prioritize this aspect presents difficulties. In order to minimize ambiguity, the definition of brightness/lightness developed by Carole P. Biggam as well as her standardized terminology is used in the ­present study. According to Biggam and my own analyses of the Akkadian

appearance of colors. Casson’s definition of brightness included light-emission and reflection: pure-brightness terms, he wrote, “…ranging from light to dark and including quantity of luminescence (from light sources) and degree of reflectivity (from reflecting surfaces)” (Casson 1992, 325).

40

Chapter 2 barmu “multihued, versicoloured”

3

pelû “light orange/red”

adru “dark”

e û “dim”

elû “shining, translucent”

ellu “shining” tarpu “mottled”

eklu “dark”

1

ebbu “lustrous”

namru “dazzling” sāmtu “carnelian”

stones uqnû “lapis lazuli”

4

pe û “light+white” almu “dark+black”

2

urā u “gold”

ašmānu “amethyst”

sāmu “vivid+red”

du šu “calcite”

textiles arqu “pale+ yellow/green”

type 1: pure brightness type 2: brightness-dominated type 3: hue-dominated type 4: saturation-dominated type 5: pure hue type 6: pure saturation

metals tarku “bruised”

da’mu “maroon/brown”

/ruššû “glowing+orange”

6 5

Figure 2.1 Typology of Akkadian color terminology

­ aterial, the category “brightness” describes one or more of the following m qualities: Light-emission: dazzling—shining—glowing—dark Reflectivity: shiny—lustrous—matt Surface illumination: well-lit—poorly lit Space illumination: brilliant—dim—unlit Transparency: transparent—translucent128 128 Biggam 2007, 183.

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What do the linguistic peculiarities of Akkadian color language say about what the Mesopotamians thought about this phenomenon? Some linguists consider the issue of whether or not a language has the ability to encode the abstract concept COLOR, which distinguishes this quality from others such as SHAPE, SIZE, PATTERN etc., culturally significant because it speaks to a certain classification of knowledge.129 As we have seen, while it is possible to describe, evoke and allude to colors in various ways in Akkadian, the speakers of this language chose not to have a separate word for it. Zīmu and šiknu refer to various aspects of an object’s appearance, color being one among them. Given the fascination technologies of color held for the Mesopotamians, this lexical gap in Akkadian is especially curious. As one anthropologist observed, societies interested in producing and manipulating colored materials usually also have a special word for “color”: The concept of ‘colour’ emerges in a language when people become interested (often, because of new technologies) in distinguishing purely ‘chromatic’ aspects of appearance from other aspects, such as, for example, darkness, shininess, vividness, or brightness, which may have more to do with visibility or visual conspicuousness than with specific prototypes. It is not an accident that languages which have no word for ‘colour’ have no specific ‘colour words’ either. They may of course have words which, from the point of view of English, are ‘words for colours,’ but these words do not include the concept of ‘colour’ in their meaning. When ‘colour words’ emerge in a language a word for ‘colour’ emerges too (often by borrowing).130 The effect technologies of color like dyeing and glassmaking had on the Akkadian language is explored further in Chapter 3. Finally, it is the thesis of this study that Akkadian has a rich and varied color vocabulary with much more than just five abstract words, as it has generally been assumed. Because colors in this language tend to have brightness- and saturation-oriented color foci, they may have a fuzzy hue-focus. Hence arqu is both yellow and green and sāmu both red and reddish orange. Realizing that the origins of colors in Mesopotamia are found in the idea of brightness is essential for appreciating color as an aesthetic feature of art and architecture. For instance, pure-brightness terms feature prominently in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian records about royal building projects (see namru, eklu, 129 Wierzbicka 2008, 419–421. 130 Wierzbicka 2008, 410.

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eṭû). The significance of this linguistic reality can only be grasped in light of the archaeological evidence for palaces and temples from this period, which reveal that these spaces were luminously colored with shimmering glaze, translucent stone and inlays of metal and glass (see Chapter 4). Through linguistic (e.g. etymology, loanwords) and cultural (e.g. the impact of new technologies) analysis, this chapter also inquires if this idea of brightness is ­abstract as some scholars contend131 or if it stems from the perception and ­interpretation of certain natural prototypes, such as precious materials.132 Knowing this is highly relevant for appreciating the symbolic meanings constructed around the concept of brightness and more generally around color. 4

Terminology for the Process of Coloring and the State of Being Colored

4.1 Bašālu With respect to color, the verb bašālu can mean “to dye” (fabrics and leather), “to glaze” (primarily bricks) and “to stain” (ivory). 4.1.1 Etymology & History of Attestation The root bšl is attested in several Semitic languages with a primary meaning “to cook/boil.”133 This is also the case in Akkadian, in which bšl is attested in the G- and Š-stems, the latter being transitive.134 The adjective bašlu also has the sense “ripe” or “mature” (said of fruit, legumes, animals and wine), “fused” (glass) and “melted” (metals, wax, bitumen), which is not related to color. Šu/ abšulu “to dye, glaze” is attested from the Middle Babylonian period onwards. 4.1.2 Characterization 4.1.2.1 To Glaze The idea of glazing bricks a particular color may be conveyed in several ways, including with the Š-stem of the verb bašālu. The more common verb for it is šaḫāt/ṭu, which basically means “to smear/wash.”135 In his study of brickwork

131 E.g. Bulakh 2007. 132 E.g. Warburton 2012. 133 E.g. Hebrew (“to boil”), Aramaic (D-stem: “to ripen, boil”), Arabic (“to ferment, grow sour, stink”; A-stem: “to cook”), Tigré (“to ripen, boil, grow up”), Mehri (preserved as bhl: “to (be) cooked, baked”; H-stem: “to cook, prepare”), Geʿez (bsl: “ripened, cooked”), see Murtonen 1989, 122–123 and Leslau 1987, 109. 134 cad B 135–137 and 140–141; AHw I 111–112. 135 cad Š i 84–85 (šaḫātu A). Here are two examples from the Neo-Assyrian period:

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in Mesopotamia, Salonen demonstrated that when na4agurru136 is followed by a metal or color word, the expression signifies “glazed X(-colored) brick.” For example, na4agurri kaspi ebbi means “shining, silver(-colored) glazed brick.”137 In accounts of royal building projects in Neo-Assyrian inscriptions, glazing is described in this manner, i.e. with metonymic color words rather than with a specific verb: i-na a-gúr-ri na4ZÚ na4ZA.GÌN us-si-ma si-il-lu né-bé-ḫi ù gi-mir pa-as-qí-šiin (Sennacherbin 705-681 bce; rinap 3/1 16: vi 66–68) ‘With baked brick (glazed the color of) obsidian and lapis lazuli did I fittingly adorn the arches, friezes and all the copings (of the rooms).’ Salonen further observed that the verb šubšulu means “to glaze” when it is associated with baked bricks.138 In the first example quoted below, the G-stem stative is used: 30 a-gur-re-tù ša bá-aš-lu (Nuzi, hss 14 548: 1–2) ‘Thirty baked bricks that were glazed’ a-gúr-ri ina na4ZA.GÌN ú-šab-šil a-na e-le-na KÁ.MEŠ-ši-na ú-ki-ni (A.0.101.30: 32 [rima 2 290]) ‘I (Ashurnasirpal ii) glazed the baked bricks with lapis lazuli(-colored glaze) and laid (them) above their doorways.’ na4

4.1.2.2 To Dye It is only in the written sources from Nuzi that the verb bašālu signifies the process of dyeing wool. Either the G-stem adjective bašlu or the Š-stem verb ša/ubšulu is employed for the purpose within this corpus:139

136 137 138 139

saa 10 368: rev. 6–7: ù LÚ uruak-kad-u-a e-bir-˹tú˺ i-šàḫ-ḫu-˹ṭu˺ i-sa-ak-ki-[ru] “(They are transporting bitumen from the land of I[tuʾu] to the city of ˹Akkad˺.) Moreover, the citizens of Akkad are glazing and firing baked bricks.” saa 13 168: rev. 13–15 (a report concerning restoration work at the Esagil): re-˹eḫ˺-[ti] lú ­ú-ra-si e-bir-[tú] ša TÙR.MEŠ ša É.SAG.[ÍL] li-iš-ḫu-ṭu “(The king of Babylon has told us the following: ‘You should work on the permanent enclosure wall of the Esagil. You should also work on the temple of Bēlet-Bābili.) Let the remain[ning] masons glaze the baked bricks for the enclosures of the Esagg[il].’” Šaḫātu can also mean “to apply” or “to paint,” as in: tam-šil ma-šak […] ma-šak KÙ.SI 22.ḪUŠ.A iš-ḫu-ut-ma (Esarhaddon r. 681–669 bce; rinap 4 33: obv. ii 21). “In the likeness of (real) skin, he applied a skin of reddish-gold (on the statue).” Agurru is a kiln-fired brick, paving stone, slab or tile (cad A i 160). Salonen 1972, 147–158. Salonen 1972, 179–180. Lewy 1959, 9–11 and n. 2.

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1 TÚG ba-aš-lu ša ta-bar-ri-a-an-[ni] (hss 13 225: 2) ‘One shirt, dyed tabarru(-color).’ 3 ku-du4-uk-tu4 SÍG a-na tu-uḫ-ši-we a-na ša-ab-šu-li a-na Ia-mu-ur-qa-assà na-ad-nu ù la i-din-na 3 ku-du4-uk-tu4 SÍG a-na tu-uḫ-ši-we a-na ša-ab-šu-li a-na Iti-ir-wi-ni-el-li na-ad-nu ù la i-din-na NA 4 Iti-ir-wi-ni-el-