Time and History in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona 26-30 July 2010 9781575068565

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Time and History in the Ancient Near East

Time and History in the Ancient Near East Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona 26–30 July 2010

edited by

L. Feliu, J. Llop, A. Millet Albà, and J. Sanmartín

Winona Lake, Indiana Eisenbrauns 2013

© 2013 by Eisenbrauns Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America www.eisenbrauns.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rencontre assyriologique internationale (56th : 2010 : Barcelona, Spain) Time and history in the ancient Near East : proceedings of the 56th Rencontre assyriologique internationale at Barcelona 26–30 July 2010 / edited by L. Feliu, J. Llop, A. Millet Alba, and J. Sanmartín.     pages cm Conference proceedings in English, French, and German. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-57506-255-6 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Assyria—Civilization—Congresses.  2. Beginning—Congresses.  3.  Cosmology—Congresses.  I.  Feliu, Lluís, 1965– editor.  II.  Title. DS71.R47 2013 299′.21—dc23 2013020959

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ♾ ™

Contents 56th World Congress for Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, Barcelona 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Address (July 26, 2010) Prof. Joaquín Sanmartín, Chairman Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Opening Lectures Time before Time: Primeval Narratives in Early Mesopotamian Literature . . .  3 Gonzalo Rubio The Extent of Literacy in Syria and Palestine during the Second Millennium b.c.e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19 Wilfred H. van Soldt

Time and History in Ancient Near East

the

Time “Pulled up” in Ashurnasirpal’s Reliefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laura Battini Akkadian and Aramaic Terms for a ‘Favorable Time’ (ḫidānu, adānu, and ʿiddān): Semitic Precursors of Greek kairos? . . . Daniel Bodi Masters of Time: Old Babylonian Kings and Calendars . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dominique Charpin and Nele Ziegler Notes on the Neo-Assyrian Siege-Shield and Chariot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fabrice De Backer Changing Space, Time, and Meaning: The Seal of Yaqaru from Ugarit— A Reconversion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silvana Di Paolo Time in Neo-Assyrian Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frederick Mario Fales The Historical Preamble of the Talmi-Šarruma Treaty (CTH 75) and Some Chronological Problems of the History of Halap . . . . . . . . . Daria Gromova Magie et Histoire: les rituels en temps de guerre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cynthia Jean v

 35

 47  57  69

 79  91

101 107

vi

Contents

Time and Again: Marduk’s Travels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Erika D. Johnson Time in Death and Afterlife: The Concept of Time and the Belief in Afterlife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dina Katz Concepts and Perception of Time in Mesopotamian Divination . . . . . . . . . Ulla Susanne Koch Temps, mémoire et évolution des cultures aux époques archaïques: écriture du passé et listes lexicales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Camille Lecompte Time in Ancient Israel: Hebrew ʿôlām, Past and Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baruch A. Levine “Lange Jahre” und Lebenszeit bei den Hethitern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jürgen Lorenz The Heuristic Value of E. de Martino’s Concept of Metahistory and Related Topics in Research into Mesopotamian Cultural History . . . . Alessandro Di Ludovico “I Read the Inscriptions from before the Flood . . .” Neo-Sumerian Influences in Ashurbanipal’s Royal Self-Image . . . . . Natalie Naomi May Mesopotamian Idea of Time through Modern Eyes (Disruption and Continuity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Àngel Menargues Rajadell Temporalité et spatialité dans les rites de passage de l’Anatolie hittite . . . . . Alice Mouton Reconsidering the Categories of Time in Ancient Iraq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Susana B. Murphy “Internal” and “External” Evidence for a Reconstruction of Nuzi Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. Negri Scafa The Other Face of the Moon: Some Hints on the Visual Representation of the Moon on Third-Millennium b.c.e. Mesopotamian Glyptic . . . . . Sara Pizzimenti The Tuleilat al-Ghassul Star Painting: A Hypothesis Regarding a Solar Calendar from the Fourth Millennium b.c. . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Polcaro The Monster’s Gaze: Vision as Mediator between Time and Space in the Art of Mesopotamia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K. Sonik A Time to Rejoice: The Egalkura Rituals and the Mirth of Iyyar . . . . . . . . Henry Stadhouders Der Kalendar von Adab im 3. Jahrtausend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M. Such-Gutiérrez

113

117 127

143 159 169

181

199

211 229 245

253

265

273

285 301 325

Contents

vii

Divine or Human Creation of Time? The Issue of Time as a Factor Determining the Relationship of Man to God . . . . . . . . . . 341 Krzysztof Ulanowski

Workshops Architecture and Archaeology Modern Architecture and Archaeology: The Case of the Hypothetical Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian Palace at Tell Massaïkh (Syria), 2007–2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jordi Abadal, Pedro Azara, David Capellas, Albert Imperial, and Miguel Orellana Idea and Image: How What We Know Determines What We Want to Know . . Fernando Escribano Martín Architecture and Ancient Near East in Drawings, Buildings, and Virtual Reality: Issues in Imagining and Designing Ancient and Modern Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maria Gabriella Micale Invented Space: Discovering Near Eastern Architecture through Imaginary Representations and Constructions . . . . . . . . . Davide Nadali Fragments d’arts mésopotamiens: aux origines des empires . . . . . . . . . . . Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault Reception of Ancient Near Eastern Architecture in Europe and North America in the 20th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brigitte Pedde Assyrian Wall Paintings and Modern Reconstructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paola Poli

357

369

379

391 405

413 423

Early Akkadian and Its Semitic Context Form und Datierung früher semitischer Lehnwörter im Sumerischen . . . . . 445 J. Keetman Stativität und Perfektivität in den Ost- und Westsemitischen Sprachen . . . . 455 Eulàlia Vernet i Pons

Hurrian Language A Hurro-Akkadian Expression for Changing One’s Testimony Attested in Nuzi Trial Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 Jeanette C. Fincke Hurrian Personal Names in the Kingdom of Ḫatti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481 Stefano de Martino Gedanken zu den Textstellen I:90 und III:30 in dem Mittanni-Brief  . . . . . . 487 J. Oliva

viii

Contents

Law in the Ancient Near East Historical Context and Social Theories: Its Influence on the Study of Mesopotamian Juridical Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495 Eleonora Ravenna The Importance of Time in Old Babylonian Juridical Texts . . . . . . . . . . . 503 Cristina Simonetti

Middle Assyrian Texts and Studies Sag mir quando, sag mir wann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stefan Jakob Contractual Formalism and Zukunftsbewältigung in Middle Assyrian Agricultural Accounting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Cale Johnson The Eponym Bēr-nādin-apli and the Documents Referring to the Expeditions to the City of Tille in the Reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 b.c.e.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jaume Llop Die tägliche Speisung des Assur (gināʾu) und deren politische Bedeutung . . . Stefan M. Maul Imperial Culture: Some Reflections on Middle Assyrian Settlements . . . . . . Aline Tenu

509

525

549 561 575

Varia Tugdamme and the Cimmerians: A Test of Piety in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Selim F. Adalı The Changing Approaches to History in the Neo-Assyrian Palace Reliefs . . . Mehmet-Ali Ataç Genres Meet: Assurbanipal’s Prayer in the Inscription L4 and the Bilingual Communal Lamentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amitai Baruchi-Unna L’incorruptible et l’éphémère: le miel et la glace, composants sacrés des boissons royales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Bonneterre Three Kings of the Orient in Archaic Ur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Petr Charvát Ilum-išar et Apil-kīn: deux nouvelles inscriptions de Mari . . . . . . . . . . . . Laurent Colonna d’Istria and Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel A Few Thoughts about Late Chalcolithic Architecture and the Uruk Expansion in the Middle Euphrates Area . . . . . . . . . . . Jesús Gil Fuensanta and Juan Manuel Gonzalez Salazar Further Considerations on the Ankara Silver Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Federico Giusfredi

587 595

611

625 635 645

657 665

Contents The Evolution of the Side Court House in Late MB Central and Southwestern Anatolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fabrizio Giovannetti The Role of the Saĝĝa in Ur III Based on the Puzriš-Dagān Texts . . . . . . . Jorge Hernández Life Extension: Secondary Burial and the Making and Unmaking of Self in EB IA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rick Hauser The Offering for the Ritual of King Seleucus III and His Offspring . . . . . . . Yasuyuki Mitsuma Some New Light on Pre-Sargonic Umma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Salvatore F. Monaco Settlement Patterns and Interactions in theWest Bank Highlands in the Iron Age I Period: A New Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alessio Palmisano Computational and Spatial Approaches to the Commercial Landscapes and Political Geography of the Old Assyrian Colony Period . . . . . . . Alessio Palmisano Eunuchs in Hatti and Assyria: A Reassessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ilan Peled Eridu Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giovanni Pettinato† Les particularités d’emploi des signes cunéiformes à différentes périodes de la langue hittite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Olga Popova Recent Researches in the Erbil Region: 2010 Excavations in Kilik Mishik (Iraqi Kurdistan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Olivier Rouault Wer war Großkönig I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS der KARAHÖYÜK-Inschrift? . . . . Zsolt Simon Identification of an Unfinished Statue Found in a Quarry at Karakiz, Yozgat, Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. İlknur Taş, Ömer Yılmaz, and Özlem Sir Gavaz

ix 681 689

705 739 745

751

767 785 799

803

809 823

833

56e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Barcelone 2010 56th World Congress for Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, Barcelona 2010

Director

Address (July 26, 2010) Prof. Joaquín Sanmartín Chairman of the

IPOA, U n i v e r s i t y

of

Barcelona

Magnífic Senyor Rector, Professor Michalowski, Professor Civil, Professor Del Olmo; Ladies and gentlemen, Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs: It is for us a privilege to have the Rector of the University of Barcelona chairing our first meeting. And it is with real great pleasure that I welcome you all to Barcelona on the occasion of the Rencontre. On my own behalf and on behalf of you all, I would like to thank most especially the Rector of the University of Barcelona, Prof. Ramírez, and his Rectoral Team for their help in organizing this Rencontre. Also the Dean of the Faculty of Philology, Prof. Sotelo, deserves our gratitude for advice and support. I wish to thank likewise the colleagues and students that have made possible the Rencontre: Cristina Bentué, Dr Lluís Feliu, Agnès Garcia, Rodrigo Hernáiz, Alexandra Lladó, Dr Jaume Llop, Erika Marsal, Prof. Dr Adelina Millet, Ivana Panzeca, Susana Soler, Dr Eulàlia Vernet, Dr Mariona Vernet, Constatino Vidal, Dr Jordi Vidal and many others, whose names I cannot list here. Special thanks are due to Dr Lluís Feliu, Dr Adelina Millet, and Dr Jaume Llop for the editing of these Proceedings. As you all know, these are schlechte Zeiten für Lyrik. Nevertheless, the University of Barcelona has spared no effort to make this meeting possible, and we are very grateful to you, Prof. Ramírez, Professor Sotelo, for all you have done for us. Gestiegene Einschreibungsgebühren—wofür uns entschuldigen—und die Hitze des Monats Juli—wofür uns nicht entschuldigen können—haben Sie, liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen, nicht abgehalten, Barcelona anläßlich der Rencontre zu besuchen. Ich freue mich sehr, dass Sie unsere Einladung in so großer Zahl angenommen haben. xi

xii

Sanmartín: Address

Ich freue mich ganz besonders, weil Sie mit Ihrer Anwesenheit und Ihrer Teilnahme an der Rencontre ein Zeugnis ablegen für die Lebendigkeit und Unerläßlichkeit des akademischen Humanismus. Ja, es sind wirklich ‚schlechte Zeiten für Lyrik‘, und ganz besonders für diese Lyrik, die—wie die unsere—ihre Kraft aus der Tiefe der Geschichte schöpft. Es mag im Grunde sein, dass unsere tagtägliche Beschäftigung mit Tontafeln und Spaten uns eine ganze Portion poetisches Gemüt abverlangt. Poesie: Schon lange vor Aristoteles wußte man in Sumer und Akkad, in Babylon und Assur, in Syrien und Anatolien, dass Dichtung sowohl Tragödie als auch Komödie und vor allem Epos sein kann. Aber wir sind an einen Punkt angekommen, in dem Geschichte, Dichtung und Kunst ‚politisch relevant‘ und ‚wirtschaftlich vertretbar‘ werden müssen, um in der Akademie und außerhalb überleben zu können. Man verlangt von uns, endlich mal ‚nützlich‘ zu sein, unsere Tätigkeit sei nämlich reiner Luxus. Uns wird lediglich zugestanden einen billigen Luxus zu betreiben, weil wir praktisch für unsere Arbeit wenig mehr als Papier und Bleistift benötigen. Sind wir also Experten fürs Überflüssige? Sommes-nous des cultivateurs d’une science ‘glorieusement inutile’? Je n’oserais ni l’affirmer ni le nier. Ceux qui nous critiquent ont raison en un point. C’est vrai: Nous Assyriologues, Orientalistes, Historiens ne voulons pas changer le monde, nous n’aspirons pas à construire ‘un monde meilleur’. Nous ne voulons rien changer; nous voulons seulement comprendre: Comprendre ce monde et son devenir, et, en faisant ainsi, nous rendre plus humains, c’est-à-dire plus libres. Votre présence ici, aujourd’hui, prouve que c’est plutôt le concept même de science, plus précisément de science historique qui a besoin d’être révisé. Il nous faut repenser la parenté entre la littérature et l’historiographie, d’une part, et entre l’historiographie et la philosophie de l’histoire, de l’autre. Parce que la vraie reconstitution du passé ne relève pas seulement d’une approche purement épistémologique de l’histoire: Cette reconstitution rend nécessaire également une analyse ontologique de la condition historique. “Time and History in the Ancient Near East” c’est le thème général de la Rencontre. ‘Histoire’ et ‘Temps’ sont des concepts très délicats à manier. Plusieurs matières comme l’Archéologie, l’Historiographie, la Chronologie, la Linguistique et les Sciences cognitives ont toutes beaucoup de choses à dire sur le Temps et sa digestion dans l’Histoire. Chaque discipline fait cela d’après sa perspective particulière, en reflétant une certaine dimension de notre ‘condition historique’ personnelle. En conséquence, le programme de la Rencontre a prévu plusieurs sessions réservées aux ateliers spécifiques ou ‘workshops’: Middle Assyrian Texts and Studies, Hurrian Language, Architecture and Archaeology, Early Akkadian et Law in the Ancient Near East. Writing History, reading History, hearing History are to be seen not as individual acts, but as approaching an agreed interpretation within a particular social and cultural context. Certainly: We cannot do without either Philology or Archaeology. But: we cannot do without Anthropology and Sociology either. In the house of Assyriology there are many mansions. Assyriology is still a home for many children. Fortunately, some children have created their own families, which in turn have grown to powerful clans: examples are the International Congress for the Archaeology of

Sanmartín: Address

xiii

the Near East, the International Congress of Hittitology, and the Symposium on Ur Three that was held in Madrid last week. This is a sign of vitality, and that is good. The areas of knowledge behave like continents: they move and collide, to merge and split once more, changing their profiles over time. And, yes: Assyriology has become a big tree. But all its leafy and luxuriant branches have common roots. These roots are the women and men who saw the secret, who discovered what was hidden and brought back a tale of before the Deluge.

The Instituto de Estudios del Próximo Oriente Antiguo of the University of Barcelona is very pleased to bring to your attention two men, who, like Gilgameš, “laid our foundations” “saw the Deep and were wise in all matters,” and “set all their labours on tablets of stone”

Estas personas son el Profesor Miguel Civil Desveus y el Profesor Gregorio del Olmo Lete, a quienes queremos dedicar el Congreso. Porque si la Asiriología se ha convertido también en una ciencia hispana, ello se debe al ejemplo y esfuerzo de hombres como ellos. La presencia entre nosotros de una cincuentena de congresistas españoles e hispanoamericanos—en su mayoría estudiantes jóvenes—y el hecho mismo de celebrar esta Rencontre en Barcelona—la primera Rencontre española—es fruto de su laboriosa siembra y prueba del vigor de nuestra común vocación académica. Todos ellos han bebido del magisterio de Miguel Civil y de Gregorio del Olmo Lete. Quam

Prof. Dr. Michaeli Civil Desveus, Dr. h. c., et Prof. Dr. GreOlmo Lete, nostri Instituti quod de Oriente Proximo Antiquo dicitur conditori, hunc Congressum Internationalem de Assyriologia LVI et dare dono uolumus et dicare. ob rem et

gorio del

Ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for your attention, and welcome to Barcelona. Meine Damen und Herren: Ich danke Ihnen für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit; Willkommen in Barcelona. Mesdames et Messieurs: Je vous remercie de votre attention; soyez bienvenus à Barcelone.

Program 1

Monday, July 26, 2010 Paranimf

10:00–10:45 10:45

Welcoming Session Prof. Dídac Ramírez (Rector of the UB) Prof. Piotr Michalowski (President of the IAA) Prof. Joaquín Sanmartín (Organization of the RAI 2010)* Opening Session

Chair: Miquel Civil 10:45–11:15 Gonzalo Rubio: Time before Time: Primeval Narratives in Mesopotamian Literature* 11:15–11:45 Brigitte Groneberg: Creating Time in Narrative Discourse 11:45–12:15 Wilfred Van Soldt: The Extent of Literacy in Syria and Palestine during the Second Millennium b.c.* Gallery of the Paranimf 12:45 Art Exhibition – Opening and refreshments Aula Magna Chair: Regine Pruzsinszky 16:00–16:30 Jana Mynarova: “Those Were the Days”: Time and History in the Amarna Letters 16:30–17:00 Hanadah Tarawneh: Recalling the past in the Amarna Letters 17:00–17:30 Fabrizio Giovannetti: The evolution of the Side Court House in Late MBA Central and Southwestern Anatolia* 17:30–18:00 Katrien De Graef: Historias difíciles, tiempos complicados! Chronological Implications of the Kûyâ Archive (Šimaškean Dynasty – Early Sukkamahat, Susa) Aula Capella Chair: Jerrold Cooper 16:00–16:30 Salvatore Monaco: Some New Light on Pre-Sargonic Umma* 16:30–17:00 Marcos Such-Gutiérrez: Der Kalender von Adab im 3. Jahrtausend* 17:00–17:30 Magnus Widell: Time and History in the Ur III Period 17:30–18:00 Jorge Hernández: The Role of the sanga in Ur III Based on the Drehem Texts* 1. Asterisk: Lectures are published in this volume.

xv

xvi

Program

Aula 0.1 Chair: Alfonso Archi Daria Gromova: The Historical Preamble of the Talmi-Sharruma Treaty (CTH 75) and Some Chronological Problems of the History of Halap* 16:30–17:00 Alice Mouton: Time and Space in the Hittite Rites of Passage* 17:00–17:30 Juergen Lorenz: “Lange Jahre“ in hethitischen Texten* 17:30–18:00 Alessandro Di Ludovico: The Heuristic Value of Metahistory and Related Concepts as Theoretical Instruments in the Research on Mesopotamian Cultural History*

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Aula Magna Chair: Johannes C. de Moor 9:00–9:30 Mikko Luukko: The Language of Power: Neo-Assyrian Royal Letters under Scrutiny 9:30–10:00 Sergey Loesov: Time in Language: The Ways Akkadian Expresses the Present-Time Sense 10:00–10:30 Anson F. Rainey: Akkadian and the Hebrew Tenses 10:30–11:00 Jonathan Taylor: New fragments of Babylonian Yesteryear Chair: Peter Machinist 11:30–12:00 Tom Boiy: Late Babylonian Time Management: Counting Years or Facts and Fiction in the Babylon King List 12:00–12:30 Daniel Bodi: Akkadian and Aramaic Terms for a ‘Favorable Time‘ (ḫidannu and ʿiddān): Semitic Precursors of Greek kairos?* 12:30–13:00 Fabrice De Backer: Notes on the Neo-Assyrian Siege-Shield and Chariot* 13:00–13:30 Giovanni Pettinato: Eridu Texts* 16:00–16:30 Federico Giusfredi: Further Considerations on the Ankara Silver Bowl* 16:30–17:00 Baruch Levine: From the ʿolam of the Past to the ʿolam of the Future: Time in Ancient Israel* 17:00–17:30 Herbert Niehr: The Phoenician Inscription on the Sarcophagus of King Eshmunazor (KAI 14): Redaction History and Historical Implications 17:30–18:00 Pierre Bordreuil: Autour du 80e anniversaire du déchiffrement de l’alphabet cunéiforme d’Ougarit (1930–2010) 18:00–18:30 Marta Rivaroli: Time out of Time: The Temporal Sequence of a Mesopotamian Festival Aula Capella Chair: Frederik M. Fales 8:50–18:30 Workshop: Middle Assyrian Texts and Studies 8:50–9:00 Jaume Llop: Presentation

Program

xvii

9:00–9:30

Stefan M. Maul: Gemeinsam den Gott ernähren. Überlegungen zur politischen Bedeutung des Opfers vor Assur in mittelassyrischer Zeit* 9:30–10:00 Sören Minx: Außenansichten: Harran in mittelassyrischen Texten 10:00–10:30 Cinzia Pappi and Wilfred van Soldt: New Archaeological Research at Tell Satu Qala (Iraqi-Kurdistan) 10:30–11:00 Aline Tenu: Imperial Culture: Some Reflections on Middle Assyrian Settlements* Chair: Cinzia Pappi 11:30–12:00 Frederik M. Fales: The Rural Landscape of Middle Assyrian Dur-Katlimmu* 12:00–12:30 J. Cale Johnson (read by C.W: Hess): Comparative Agronomies: How do the Bookkeeping Practices of the Ur III and Middle Assyrian Agricultural Regimes Measure Up?* 12:30–13:00 John Nicholas Postgate: Measuring Grain (read by A. Stone) 13:00–13:30 Hervé Reculeau: Good Times, Bad Times: Environmental Issues of Middle Assyrian State Agriculture Chair: Stefan M. Maul 16:00–16:30 Yigal Bloch: Middle Assyrian Lunar Calendar and Chronology 16:30–17:00 Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum: Middle Assyrian Eponyms of the 13th and 12th Cent. and the Eponym-List from Ashur (read by E. Frahm) 17:00–17:30 Stefan Jakob: Sag mir quando, sag mir wann* 17:30–18:00 Jaume Llop: The Eponym Bēr-nādin-apli* 18:00–18:30 Daisuke Shibata: The Chronology and Genealogy of the Local Middle Assyrian Dynasty of Ṭābetu* Aula 0.1 Chair: Walter Farber 9:00–9:30 Joshua Jeffers: The Palace Reliefs of Sennacherib’s Fifth Campaign 9:30–10:00 Mehmet-Ali Ataç: The Changing Approaches to History in the Neo-Assyrian Palace Reliefs* 10:00–10:30 Selim Ferruh Adali: Tugdamme and the Cimmerians: A Test of Piety in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions* 10:30–11:00 Dominique Charpin: ARCHIBAB, a new databank on-line Chair: Piotr Michalowski 11:30–12:00 Eckart Frahm: Contemporizing Tendencies in Text Commentaries from 7th Century Assur 12:00–12:30 Geert De Breucker: Berossos and Babylonian History 12:30–13:00 Kamran Vincent Zand: Observation on the UD.GAL. NUN-orthography 13:00–13:30 Laurent Colonna D’istria: Les noms de mois durant l’époque des šakkanakū de Mari*

xviii

Program

Chair: Karlheinz Kessler 16:00–16:30 Natalie Naomi May: “I read the inscriptions from before the flood...” Neo-Sumerian Influences in Ashurbanipal’s Royal Self Image* 16:30–17:00 Violetta Cordani: One-year or Five-year War? A Reappraisal of Shuppiluliuma’s First Syrian Campaign 17:00–17:30 Karen Sonik: The Monster’s Gaze: Vision as Mediator between Time and Space in the Art of Mesopotamia* 17:30–18:00 Steven Lundström: Some Thoughts on Assyrian Stone Palaeography 18:00–18:30 Sara Tricoli: Ritual Time: The Ceremony of Nam-Tar in Mesopotamia and the Renewal of the Cosmic and Social Order

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Aula Magna Chair: Fumi Karahashi 9:00 - 9:30 Laura Battini: Time in Assurnasirpal’s Reliefs* 9:30 - 10:00 Yi Chen: The Primeval Time of Origins in Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions 10:00–10:30 Elizabeth Stone: Mesopotamian Settlement Structure: The View from Space 10:30–11:00 Dominique Charpin and Nele Ziegler: Masters of Time: Old Babylonian Kings and Calendars* Chair: Claudia Suter 11:30–12:00 Joan Westenholz: The Once and Future King, The Paradigmatic Nature of History 12:00–12:30 Rick Hauser: Life Extension. Secondary Burial and the Making and Unmaking of Self in EB IA* 12:30–13:00 Marc Lebeau: Recent Discoveries at Tell Beydar (Syria) 13:00–13:30 Marc Lebeau and Walther Sallaberger: The ARCANE Project on the Chronology of the Third Millennium Chair: Karen Nemet-Nejat 16:00–16:30 Pawel Kociszewski: Time as Antivalue: Mesopotamian Historiosophy and Everyday Life 16:30–17:00 Eran Cohen: On the Nature of the Conditional Structures in the OB Law Collections 17:00–17:30 Paul Zimansky: Who Lived in an Urartian City? 17:30–18:00 Ilona Zsolnay: Unjustly Condemned: A Re-investigation of Sennacherib’s Sacrilege Aula Capella Chair: Wilfred G. E. Watson 9:00 - 9:30 Marie-Françoise Besnier: The Series Shumma izbu: Between “Stream of Tradition” and Local Particularities 9:30 - 10:00 JoAnn Scurlock: Ancient Roots for the Sefirothic Tree?

Program

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10:00–10:30 Matthew Rutz: A thread for Esagil-kin-apli: on the early history of the medical diagnostic handbook 10:30–11:00 Daniel Bonneterre: L‘incorruptible et l‘éphémère: le miel et la glace, composants sacrés des boissons royales* Chair: Manuel Molina 11:30–12:00 Eleanor Robson: The stream of tradition 50 years on 12:00–12:30 Ilan Peled: Eunuchs throughout the History of the Ancient Near East: A Reassessment* 12:30–13:00 Reinhard Pirngruber: History and divination. The ominous references in the Astronomical Diaries 13:00–13:30 Aaron Tugendhaft: Politics and Time in the Baal Cycle Chair: Robert Biggs 16:00–16:30 Petr Charvat: Three kings of the Orient (in Archaic Ur)* 16:30–17:00 Giuseppe Visicato: The weavers in Middle Sargonic Adab 17:00–17:30 Cristina Di Bennardis and Jorge Silva Castillo: La conduite des gouvernants et le sort des états mésopotamiens, à la lumière d’un document des Archives Royales de Mari (ARM 1,3) 17:30–18:00 Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel and Laurent Colonna d’Istria: Ilum-ishar et Apil-kin, deux nouvelles inscriptions de Mari-Tell Hariri* Aula 0.1 Chair: Guy Bunnens 9:00 - 9:30 Jesús Gil Fuensanta and Juan Manuel González Salazar: Some thoughts about the Late Chalcolithic Architecture and Uruk Expansion in the Middle Euphrates Area* 9:30 - 10:00 Javier Álvarez-Mon: Metal Wares and Pottery Assemblages of the Late Neo-Elamite Period 10:30–11:00 Sara Pizzimenti: The Other Face of the Moon. Some Hints on the Visual Representation of the Moon as Temporal Element in the III Millenium b.c. Mesopotamian Glyptic* 10:30–11:00 Olivier Rouault: Recent Researches in the Erbil region: 2010 excavations in Kilik Mishik (Iraqi Kurdistan)* Chair: Steve Tinney 11:30–12:00 Amitai Baruchi-Unna: Genres Meet: Assurbanipal’s Prayer in the Inscription L4 and the Bilingual Communal Lamentations* 12:00–12:30 Heather D. Baker: The Real Meaning of ṭuppi 12:30–13:00 Cynthia Jean: Magie et Histoire: les rituels en temps de guerre* 13:00–13:30 Alessio Palmisano: Computational and Spatial Approaches to the Commercial Landscapes and Political Geography of the Old Assyrian Colony Period* Chair: David Owen 16:00–18:00 Workshop: Hurrian Language 16:00–16:30 Jeanette C. Fincke: The Value of the Nuzi-Texts for the Hurrian Dictionary* 16:30–17:00 Mauro Giorgieri: Die hurritische Grammatik heute: ein Überblick*

Program

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17:00–17:30 Juan Oliva: Gedanken zu den Textstellen I:90 und III:30 in dem Mittani-Brief 17:30–18:00 Stefano de Martino: The Use of Hurrian Personal Names in the Kingdom of Hatti*

Thursday, July 29, 2010 Aula Magna Chair: Konrad Volk 9:00–9:30 Caroline Waerzeggers: The Babylonian Chronicles Reconsidered 9:30–10:00 Bonnie Nilhamn: The Ring a Symbol for Eternity? (aka “The Beaded Ring Part II”) 10:00–10:30 Anne Goddeeris: The History of a Family Estate: Five Generations Inheriting 10:30–11:00 Saana Svärd: Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire Chair: Theo J. H. Krispijn 11:30–12:00 Camille Lecompte: Temps et évolution des cultures aux époques archaïques: le cas des listes lexicales* 12:00–12:30 Paola Negri Scafa: “Internal” and “External” Evidence for a Reconstruction of Nuzi Chronologies* 12:30–13:00 Frederick M. Fales: Time in Neo-Assyrian Letters* 13:00–13:30 Jacob Klein: “In Those Distant Days”: Time Unit Expressions in Mesopotamian Literature Aula Capella Chair: Marco Bonechi 9:00–13:00 Workshop: Early Akkadian and Its Semitic Context 9:00–9:30 Leonid Kogan: On Some Orthographic Oppositions in the Old Babylonian Copies of Sargonic Royal Inscriptions 9:30–10:00 Walter Sommerfeld: Continuity and Discontinuity in Early Akkadian 10:00–10:30 Ekaterina Markina: Economic Documents of the Sargonic Period as Linguistic Evidence 10:30–11:00 Jan Keetman: Zur Herkunft, Form und Datierung semitischer Lehnworte im Sumerischen* Chair: Walter Sommerfeld 11:30–12:00 Bert Kouwenberg: Presentative Particles in Older Akkadian 12:00–12:30 Marco Bonechi: The Suffix -an in the Semitic Lexicon of the Ebla Texts 12:30–13:00 Eulàlia Vernet Pons: Stativität und Perfektivität im Ost- und Westsemitischen Sprachen* Aula 0.1 Chair: Maria Gabriella Micale 9:00–13:00 Workshop: Architecture and Archaeology 9:00–9:30 Pedro Azara and Jordi Abadal et al.: Virtual Reconstruction of a Neo-Assyrian Palace at Tell Massaïkh*

Program

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9:30–10:00

Davide Nadali: The Invented Space: Building Near Eastern Architecture with Imagery Representations and Constructions* 10:00–10:30 Paola Poli: Assyrian Wall Paintings and Modern Reconstructions* 10:30–11:00 Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault: Fragments d’arts mésopotamiens: aux origines des empires* Chair: Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault 11:30–12:00 Brigitte Pedde: Reception of Ancient Near Eastern Architecture in Europe and North America in the 20th Century* 12:00–12:30 Fernando Escribano: Idea and Image. How What We Know Determines What We Want to Know* 12:30–13:00 Maria Gabriella Micale: Architecture and Ancient Near East in Drawings, Buildings and Virtual Reality: Issues in Imagining and Designing Ancient and Modern Space*

Friday, July 30, 2010 Aula Magna Chair: Antoine Cavigneaux 9:00–9:30 Mark Geller: Time for Babylonian Medicine 9:30–10:00 Krzysztof Ulanowski: Divine or Human Creation of Time? The Issue of Time as a Factor Determining the Role of Man to God* 10:00–10:30 Wilfred G. Lambert: Time as a Cosmological Principle in Sumerian and Babylonian Thought 10:30–11:00 Erika Johnson: Time and Again: Marduk’s Travels* Chair: Dominique Charpin 11:30–12:00 Peter Dubovsky: Angry Gods Intervene into Human History 12:00–12:30 Dina Katz: Time in Death and Afterlife: The Concept of Time and the Belief in Afterlife* 12:30–13:00 Ulla Koch: Perception of Time in Babylonian Divination 13:00–13:30 Yasuyuki Mitsuma: A Ritual Offering of the Tribute from King Seleucus* Chair: Joaquín Sanmartín 16:00–16:30 Àngel Menargues Rajadell: The Mesopotamian Idea of Time through Modern Eyes (Disruption and Continuity)* 16:30–17:00 Silvana Di Paolo: Dislocation in Space, Time and Meaning? The Seal of Yaqarum from a Mesopotamian Perspective* 17:00–17:30 Kathleen McCaffrey: From Sumerian Vase to Assyrian Tree: The Evolution of the Sacred Marriage Rite 17:30–18:00 Artak Movsisyan: The Sumerian Aratta and the Biblical Ararat (From Prehistoric Times to the Historical Events of 1st Mill. b.c.) Aula Capella Chair: Eva Von Dassow 9:00–13:30 Workshop: Law in the Ancient Near East

xxii

Program

9:00–9:30

Cornelia Wunsch: Legal Narrative in Neo-Babylonian Practice Texts 9:30–10:00 Martha Roth: Acts and Actors in the Laws of Hammurabi: The Bodily Injury Provisions 10:00–10:30 Rachel Magdalene: Legal Science Then and Now: Theory and Method in the Work of Raymond Westbrook 10:00–10:30 Eleonora Ravenna: Cultural Foundations of Law: Contributions of the Anthropological Theory to the Interpretation of the Old Babylonian Juridical Phenomena* Chair: Martha Roth 11:30–12:00 Eva Von Dassow: Labor and Liberty in the Late Bronze Age 12:00–12:30 Lena Fijalkowska: Private Ownership in Late Bronze Age Syria: The Case of Emar and Ekalte 12:30–13:00 Malgorzata Sandowicz: Time and Place. Circumstances of Swearing Assertory Oaths in Neo- and Late-Babylonian Periods 13:00–13:30 Cristina Simonetti: The Importance of Time in Old Babylonian Juridical Texts* 13:30 Round Table (Josué J. Justel; Daniele Federico Rosa) Chair: Martin Worthington 16:00–16:30 Ilknur Taş: Unfinished Sculpture from a Quarry Karakiz Yozgat* 16:30–17:00 Zsolt Simon: Wer war Grosskönig I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS der KARAHÖYÜK-Inschrift?* 17:00–17:30 Anna Meskhi: Kartvelian and Sumerian Language Similarities: UGULO-UGULA 17:30–18:00 Andrea Polcaro: The Tuleilat al-Ghassul Star Painting: an Hypothesis of a Solar Calendar in the IV Millenium b.c.* Aula 0.1 Chair: Karel van Lerberghe 9:00–9:30 Munther Abdul Malik: The Unpublished Cuneiform Texts from Namrud (Kalih) 9:30–10:00 Alexander Andrason: Old Babylonian Iparras: A Cognitively Based Explanation of Its Temporal, Aspectual and Modal Meaning 10:00–10:30 Natia Phiphia: Historical Memory about Migration of the Kaskians in the Western Georgia 10:00–10:30 Alessio Palmisano: Settlement Patterns and Interactions in the West Bank Highlands in the Iron Age I Period: A New Approach* Chair: Steven Garfinkle 11:30–12:00 Takayoshi Oshima: “Do not let me return to clay!” 12:00–12:30 Henry Stadhouders: A Time to Rejoice* 12:30–13:00 Susana B. Murphy: Reconsidering the Categories of Time in Ancient Iraq* 13:00–13:30 Olga Popova: Les particularités d’emploi des signes cunéiformes à différentes périodes de la langue hittite* 13:30–14:00 Fayssal Abdallah: Yamhad Halab / Alepm une histoire du temps de Mari

Time before Time: Primeval Narratives in Early Mesopotamian Literature

Gonzalo Rubio

P e n n s y l va n i a S tat e U n i v e r s i t y Érem el record que tenim ara. Gabriel Ferrater.

A preoccupation with the origins of the universe is a common human concern. Different cultures have produced their own creation stories, which often try to address an essential question: what was there before there was something? It is usual to refer to creation ex nihilo, out of nothing, as if this were a distinctive feature of the creation story in the Hebrew Bible. However, as Lambert (2008: 15–16) reminded us, the idea that the beginning of the Book of Genesis refers to creation ex nihilo is a matter of theological speculation, since the text itself does not state such a thing. The Mesopotamian cosmological traditions are more explicit in regard to what existed before creation. The same way that the biblical deity had first to create “heaven and earth,” the first verses of the Babylonian Enūma eliš tell us that neither heaven nor earth had yet been named, that is, they had not come into existence. Nevertheless, the Babylonian poem expressly mentions the deities that did exist before anything else was created, Apsû and Tiamat: 1 enūma eliš lā nabû šamāmū šapliš ammatu šuma lā zakrat apsûmma rēštû zārûšun mummu ti’amat mu’allidat gimrīšun When above heaven had not yet been named, And below earth had not yet been called by name, Primeval Apsû was their progenitor, Mummu Tiamat, the begetter of all of them.

The idea of creation ex nihilo is alien to most narratives of origins, from Ancient India to Mesopotamia. 2 This aversion to emptiness, or horror vacui, found intellectual 1. The Enūma eliš is quoted according to Talon’s 2005 edition. 2.  For example, Ṛgveda 10.90, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, Mahābhārata (1.15.4–1.17.30; 3.100.19), and Manu’s Code 1; see Olivelle 1998: 22, 36–51; 2005: 87–92, 383–99.

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currency in the famous principle that stems from Parmenides and finds its most felicitous wording in one of his fifth-century disciples, Melissus of Samos: “nothing comes out of nothing,” οὐδαμα` ἄν γένοιτο οὺδὲν ἐκ μηδενός, ex nihilo nihil fit (Diels-Kranz frag. B1). In fact, a properly articulated Jewish or Christian theory of creation ex nihilo is a late development. It seems first stated in the second book of Maccabees (7:28), but this is still a far cry from an actual theology of creation (Goldstein 1983: 307–15; Schwartz 2008: 312–13). Even the philosophical exegesis of Philo of Alexandria fell short of interpreting the Genesis account as creation ex nihilo (Runia 2001: 152–55, 171–73). It is only in the second century c.e., with early Christian thinkers such as Irenaeus, that the theory of creatio ex nihilo became fully developed (May 1994). In contrast, earlier creation narratives always assumed some preexisting entity. Any supposition of original nothingness is absent from Mesopotamian cosmological thinking and, for that matter, from most ancient cosmologies. Then and now, the proposition there was nothing is an obvious oxymoron, because nothing cannot be. It is true that the theologically inclined may find rather uncouth this incapacity to think of nothing before something came into being. Nevertheless, on this point, Mesopotamians may appear to foreshadow the concerns of modern philosophers. For instance, Heidegger even wonders whether, if the deity creates out of nothing, the deity must be related to that very nothing. 3 Mesopotamian cosmology solves this conundrum by positing the existence of beings, such as Apsû and Tiamat, who both predate and cause creation, particularly in the form of the generations of gods of the Babylonian theogony. The presence of deities and entities prior to the act of creation implies that they existed in a particular kind of time which we can call time before time. The first verses of the Enūma eliš provide the best known description: neither heaven nor earth had yet been named; no vegetation existed yet; gods had not come into being; and destinies were still to be determined. Only Tiamat and Apsû inhabited that primeval realm. Nonetheless, long before the Enūma eliš, some Sumerian compositions grappled with the same matter, particularly two intriguing tablets, one from the Early Dynastic period and the other one from Ur III. These two compositions have been dealt with in contributions by van Dijk (1964: 39–44; 1976: 128–33) and Sjöberg (2002: 229–47). 4 The interpretations offered here, however, will depart from these earlier efforts on a number of points. The earliest of these two compositions appears on a small Early Dynastic tablet found at Girsu, now housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris (AO 4153). It is often labeled as if it contained a royal inscription (Urukagina 15), when in actuality it constitutes a cosmogonic narrative: 5 3.  See Heidegger in Was ist Metaphysik? (1976 [1929]: 119): “Daher bekümmert auch gar nicht die Schwierigkeit, daß, wenn Gott aus dem Nichts schafft, gerade er sich zum Nichts muß verhalten können. Wenn aber Gott Gott ist, kann er das Nichts nicht kennen, wenn anders das ‘Absolute’ alle Nichtigkeit von sich ausschließt.” 4.  See also Alster 1976: 122; Jacobsen 1978: 19–21; Hallo 1996: 13–14. Van Dijk (1964, 1976) and Sjöberg (2004) presented detailed discussions of various possible interpretations of these two compositions, so they will not be systematically revisited here. The focus, in contrast, will be on offering a new and contextualizing approach. 5. Although already in 1911 Thureau-Dangin stated that it seemed to be a hymn (apud Cros, NFT p. 179), Sollberger included it in his 1956 volume of ED royal inscriptions as Urukagina 15 (CIRPL p. 57). However, Sollberger (1952: 174) himself had referred to this composition as being of “caractère hymnique.” This ED tablet has been read on the basis of the copy in NFT.

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i. [an-e . . . ] [Heaven . . . ] ⸢KA?⸣-muš ⸢ha⸣-mu-ni-sig-sig  . . . would come down. ki-e SAL.KAB-na dalla ha-mu-ak-e Earth would dazzle . . .  6 mu2-a an TE.ME-nam She, growing, was fit for Heaven. ki buru3 a še3-ma-si Earth’s holes were filled with water. 7 ii. ⸢an⸣ en nam-šul-le-eš2 al-gub an ki teš2-ba sig4 an-gi4-gi4 u4-ba en-ki nun-ki nu-sig7 d en-lil2 nu-ti d nin-lil2 nu-ti

Lord Heaven was serving in a manly way. Heaven and Earth were screaming together. Then, Enki and Nunki were not living. Enlil was not living. Ninlil was not living.

iii. u4-⸢da⸣ im-ma ul-[la] im-m[a] u4 nu-zal i3-ti nu-e3-e3

At that time, in earlier times — 8 At that distant time, in earlier times — Daylight did not shine. Moonlight did not come forth.

The second line in the second column refers to Heaven (An) and Earth (Ki) making noise together: an ki teš2-ba sig4 an-gi4-gi4 “Heaven and Earth were screaming together” (sig4 can also be read šeg12). This is the same relation between creation and noise that we find in the fourth line of the Enūma eliš (see above). There, the epithet Mummu, assigned to Tiamat, opens a chain of lexical connections. Michalowski (1990: 386) argued that Mummu evokes the term for “mother,” ummu, a link reinforced by the second half of the verse, mu’allidat gimrīšun, “begetter of all of them,” which refers to the yet unnamed heavens and earth. Moreover, the term gimru (“all”) is an anagram of rigmu (“noise”), which closes the circle of phonetic and semantic associations behind Mummu (Michalowski, loc.cit.). 9 In this Early Dynastic work, sig4 foreshadows the rigmu implied in that verse of the Enūma eliš, as well as its synonym, ḫubūru “noise,” from ḫabāru “to be noisy” (CAD Ḫ: 7, 220–21). As Michalowski (1990: 385–86) pointed out, ḫubūru occurs in the Babylonian poem always in the sequence ummu ḫubūr “mother Hubur,” most likely meaning “mother Noise” (Ee I 133; II 19; III 23, 81). This interpretation of ḫubūr seems preferable to the somewhat puzzling reference to a river in the Netherworld or even to the Ḫābūr river (Wiggermann 1996: 212). 10 Note that ḫubūru is the word used in Atraḫasīs for the obnoxious noise produced by humankind: it is the noise that prevents sleep. 11 Thus, both this Early Dynastic composition and the Enūma eliš would echo the primordial noise of creation, the literal big bang of Heaven and Earth. 6.  The modal prefix ha- marks the subjunctive in both lines, the same way that English would can mark past tense in narration, from habitual past (he would run a mile every day) to after-past (he said that he would do it). As Civil (2000: 31–36) has shown, the opposition between the epistemic and the deontic functions of the prefix ha- is often contextually determined and not simply the result of its occurrence with ḫamṭu vs. marû verbal forms. 7.  The translation cannot reflect the polysemy of Sumerian a, meaning both “water” and semen”; compare the initial verses of The Tree and the Reed below. 8. On im-ma, see Selz in FAOS 15/1, p. 419; CAD Š/1: 38; AHw 1123. 9.  Oshima (2011: 101) implies that the two aspects of Mummu, noise and creation, are somehow mutually exclusive, a reading that simplifies the poetic texture of the Enūma eliš. 10.  On Hubur as a river in the Netherworld, see Röllig, RlA 4: 478; CAD Ḫ: 219; Conti 1988: 128–29; George 2003: 130–32; Abusch and Schwemer 2011: 350 (61′). 11. See Atraḫasīs II i 4, 8; S (K 3399+) iv 3, 8, 41; x (BE 39099) rev. i 3 (Lambert and Millard 1969: 72, 106–8, 116).

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Another kind of scribal pun may lie behind Nunki in the third line of the second column: u4-ba en-ki nun-ki nu-sig7 “then, Enki and Nunki were not living.” Nunki (or Ninki) is attested in texts dating from the Early Dynastic to the Old Babylonian periods, mostly in incantations mentioning the couple Enki and Nunki/Ninki. 12 Both names, Enki and Nunki, occur with plural endings, den-ki-ne-še3 dnun-kine-še3 in an incantation (CT 44: 26 obv. 6) whose duplicates all have dnin-ki instead (Alster 1970). Likewise, a Meturan incantation has den-ki-ke4-ne nun den-ki-ne in one manuscript, but en-ki-ni nun-ki-ni in another (Cavigneaux and al-Rawi 1993: 178, 188–89). Nevertheless, as Alster (loc.cit.) argued, this is unlikely to refer to “the lords of the earth” (en-ki) and “the ladies of the earth” (nin-ki, nun-ki). In the case of our Early Dynastic composition from Girsu, this is probably a direct reference to Enki and Nunki/Ninki. Plural verbal stems of intransitive verbs, such as sig7 (or se12), can occur with a double subject or a plural subject of two. 13 Nevertheless, it would also be possible to take this line to refer to Enkis and Nunkis as entire categories of deities, or, less likely, as an allusion of sorts to the invocations of Enki and Nunki in early incantations. 14 The pun in AO 4153 ii 3 would be predicated on the very writing of Nunki. In fact, the name Nunki may stem from a play on the sign sequence, as the two signs, NUN.KI, could be read eriduki instead. The graphic pun would be grounded in semantic connections: Eridu played an essential role in Sumerian creation narratives, in which it is mentioned alongside Enki, and Enki himself is the lord of Eridu, where his famous temple, the e2-abzu, lay (Green 1975: 151–53; George 1993: 65). Our second composition is inscribed on a tablet from Ur III Nippur (6N-T650), now housed at Yale (NBC 11108): 15

12. Nunki is clearly a variant of Ninki. Concerning Ninki/Nunki in general, see van Dijk 1964: fig. 1, 7, 12; Alster 1970; Krebernik 1984: 228–29; Wiggermann 1992: passim; Selz 1995: 118; Sjöberg 2002: 235 n. 14; Cavigneaux and Krebernik, RlA 9: 445–47; Wang 2011: 7, 84–86, 142–43, 152. Regarding Ninki at Ebla, see Pettinato 1983: 76; Pomponio and Xella 1997: 295; ARET 13: 9 obv. iv 8 (discussion on p. 106); and ARET 16: 27 obv. viii 9, x 5. On a possible relation of Enki and Ninki/Nunki with den-an(‑na) and dnin-an(-na), see Mander 1986: 64; Espak 2010: 170. To the attestations mentioned in these references, one must add the Ur III Nippur fragment 6N-T545 (A 33647), which may be a literary text or an incantation and has en-ki and nin-ki in consecutive lines (obv. 3′–4′). Moreover, note the theory that there were two original deities eventually merged into a single Enki (Enki and Enkig); see Jacobsen 1976: 264; Lambert 1976: 432; 1981: 84; Alster 1982: 6 n. 1; Cavigneaux and al-Rawi 1993: 189–90; Espak 2006: 19; 2010: 164–65. 13.  See examples in Steinkeller 1979: 58–59, 62. For the reading se12 of SIG7 as the plural stem of ti “to live,” see Steinkeller 1979: 55; 1985: 195. 14.  Enki and Ninki appear together already in incantations from Ebla (Krebernik 1984: 96, 102, 228–29) and in sequence in the god list from Abū Ṣalābīḫ (OIP 99: 82 rev. i 1–2; Mander 1986: 9, 29). Later on, they occur at the very beginning of the Old Babylonian god list known as the “Genouillac List” (TCL 15: 10), in AN : Anum (I 96–97; Litke 1998: 30–31), and perhaps in a fragment of another Old Babylonian god list (Peterson 2009: 83–84, pl. XX). Note also the Old Babylonian literary fragment from Nippur Ni 4408 (ISET 1: 57, p. 115) obv. 12′–13′: den-ki dnin-ki ama a-a-ke4-n[e] / [x(x)]ki-ma ša-mune-sum (Peterson 2009: 83 n. 53). 15.  This Ur III tablet has been collated at Yale, and the author must thank William W. Hallo and Benjamin R. Foster for granting him access to the original and providing in-house photographs as well. Moreover, this collation has also taken into account several personal inspections of the casts of 6N-T650 housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and in the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Obv. 1. a[n e]n-ne2 an mu-zal[ag]-⸢ge?⸣ Lord Heaven illuminated heaven.    ⸢ki mu⸣-[gur]um?-me2 kur-še3 igi     Earth bent over and looked at the    mu-[gal2?]    Netherworld. 16 2. buru3 a nu-bal nig2 nu-gar ki dagal No water was drawn from the deep, nothing      was    ⸢x x⸣ RI nu-ak     produced, broad Earth did not do . . .  3. [i]šib mah den-⸢lil2⸣-la2 nu-u3-gal2 Enlil’s great išib-priest did not yet exist,    [š]u-⸢luh⸣ ku3-ge šu nu-⸢u3-ma-ni⸣-du7     the sacred purification rites were not    performed. 4. [er]in2? an-na-ke4 šu nu-⸢u3-tag⸣ The host? of Heaven was not adorned.    ⸢x x x x⸣ DI    . . . 5. [ . . . ] teš2-bi-a mu-lu  . . . were mixed together. 6. [ . . .  nu]-⸢u3-TUKU⸣-TUKU  . . . had not taken . . .  7. ⸢u4 nu-zalag gi6⸣ am3-mu-la2 Daylight did not yet shine, night spread, 8. an-ne2 ⸢da⸣-ga-an-na-ka-ni mu-ni-ib2-kar2 But Heaven had lit up his heavenly abode. Rev. 1. ki-du u2-šim-ma    ni2 nu-⸢mu⸣-gid2-gid2-e 2. me den-⸢lil2-la2-ke4⸣ kur-kur-ra    ⸢šu nu-u3-du7⸣ 3. ⸢x x x x an⸣-na-ke4    ⸢x (x) x x⸣ x 4. [x (x)] ⸢a-x⸣-[x] ⸢x x x⸣-um-sa2-sa2 5. [ding]ir an-⸢na dingir ki-a⸣    nu-u3-⸢ma-su8-su8⸣-ge-eš2

The ground could not by itself     make vegetation grow long. Enlil’s mes had not (yet) been     constituted in all the lands.  . . .  of Heaven . . .     . . . . . . 17 The gods of Heaven and the gods of Earth     were not (yet) performing their duties.

This Ur III composition conveys the cosmic chaos and lack of divine agency that characterized this primordial time, by stating both that Enlil’s mes had not yet been constituted (rev.  2) and that the heavenly and earthly gods were not performing their duties (rev. 5). Likewise, the Enūma eliš describes the time before the gods came into existence as the period prior to the determination of destinies (Ee I 7–8): enūma ilū lā šūpû manāma šuma lā zukkurū šīmātu lā šīmū When none of the gods had been created Or had been called by name, and destinies had not been ordained . . . 

Both compositions point to the lack of divine agency as a descriptive strategy to evoke the primordial chaos preceding the initial act of creation. What closely links these two third-millennium compositions is their description of the primeval time in terms of denial of existence. Both construct a fabric of absences by threading a string of negations. The Early Dynastic tablet from Girsu tells us of a time when Enki and Nunki (or “the Enkis and the Nunkis”) were not yet living, when neither Enlil nor Ninlil existed, and when daylight did not shine 16. The first two forms in -e are imperfective, marû, so they indicate ongoing actions preceding the third verbal form, an aoristic perfective; this could be translated as “Lord Heaven was illuminating heaven and Earth was bending over, when she looked at the Netherworld.” The sign gurum (GAM) is the most likely reading in this line, since the preceding MU would be too long for the Winkelhacken before MI to be the end of MU. 17.  This line might have referred to something or someone being, or not being, equal (sa2-sa2).

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and moonlight did not come forth. Nothing embodies a negative ontology better than darkness. The Ur III composition from Nippur mentions how An (Heaven) had illuminated heaven itself, the sky, while everything else remained dark: daylight did not yet shine and darkness spread. Likewise, this time before time is defined by what was not: no water was drawn from the deep; nothing was produced; priests and sacred rites did not yet exist; Earth was not causing vegetation to grow; Enlil’s mes were not at work; and neither the gods of Heaven nor those of Earth had yet come into existence. Theologians and philosophers often talk about apophatic or negative theology, that is, an endeavor to understand the nature of divinity by producing negative predicates stating what cannot be said of her or him. Negative theology plays an important role in some traditions, especially in mysticism, within Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. 18 In the case of our two thirdmillennium Mesopotamian compositions, one could speak of negative cosmology. In an article on negation as description and the metaphor of every day life in early Mesopotamian literature, Michalowski (1991: 134) argued that “negative devices in creation stories accentuate that the world is not static, that it is capable of change.” Sumerian incantations, laments, and mythological narratives often list items —buildings, cities, objects of cult and regalia—that once did not exist but that exist now. Likewise, Mesopotamian cosmogonies deployed negation to mirror the nature of inherent absence that reigned in the moment prior to creation. This negative discourse blurs the boundaries between propositional and non-propositional poetics. This is the dichotomy exemplified by two extremes: the strongly affirmative poetic texture that shapes didactic and philosophical poetry—such as the Sumerian Farmer’s Instructions, or Lucretius’ De rerum naturae—and, at the other end, the hardly referential or non-propositional work of many modern poets (Mallarmé being by now the classic example). Our instances of Mesopotamian negative cosmology materialize in a propositional poetry that is actually not referential, as what is stated is that whose existence is being negated. Thus, absence in the real world turns out to be a presence in the poem. In fact, absence can be an affirmative and defining force in all sorts of discourses. In his book The Sublime Object of Ideology, Slavoj Žižek (1989: 178–79) retells a well-known joke from the Soviet era, which circulated in several versions. In this joke, a Russian artist is commissioned by Stalin to paint a portrait of Lenin in Warsaw to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Soviet occupation of Poland. The artist requests a photograph of Lenin in Warsaw, but Stalin explains that, in actuality, Lenin had never been to Warsaw. When the painting is finally unveiled, the public is standing in front of a canvas depicting Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, in bed with a young member of the Komsomol (the Youth of the Communist Party). Other, more subversive versions, have Stalin himself in bed with Lenin’s wife. At the unveiling of the painting, people are shocked and the painter is immediately asked, “but where is Lenin?” To which the artist replies, “Lenin is in Warsaw.” As Žižek (loc.cit.) argues, the title of the painting in this joke “names the object which is lacking in the field of what is depicted.” The question addressed to the most certainly ill-fated painter makes the mistake of establishing the same distance between the picture and the title as it lies between a sign and its denoted object. How18.  See, for instance, Miernowski 1998, Williams 2000, and Boesel and Keller 2010. Outside properly theological and religious thinking, contemporary philosophers have also resorted to the discourse of apophatic theology, e.g., Derrida (Coward and Foshay 1992).

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ever, in this case, title and object are on the same surface: the title is a continuation, an appendix of the painting. As in the fictional painting “Lenin in Warsaw,” whose subject is an absence that becomes part of the very fabric of the work of art, these Sumerian compositions weave a tapestry of mythical reality by incorporating a repertoire of negations that signify a cosmological absence. The contrast between Mesopotamian negative cosmologies and accounts of actual creation is obvious. For instance, the initial lines of the disputation between The Tree and the Reed, consist of a series of affirmative sentences: Heaven is in all his splendor and Earth is in blossom and teeming with precious metals and lapis; Heaven inseminates Earth and unleashes abundance and a cascade of creations, from sweet beer (kurun2) and honey (lal2) to the tree and the reed that are the main characters of this disputation: 19 ki-ur3 gal-e ni2 pa bi2-ib-e3 bar dul-le-eš nam-sig7 [k]i bar dagal-e ku3 na4za-gin3-bi bar-bi am3-mi-ib-si ki kal-kal na4nir7 na4gug su3-du-ag2-ga2 šu-tag ba-ni-in-dug4 [ki] u2-šim-e hi-li gu2 bi2-ib-e3 nam-nun-ba mu-un-gub   5 ki ku3 ki sikil-la an ku3-ra ni2-bi mu-un-na-ab-sig7 an dingir mah-e ki dagal-la dug3 im-ma-ni-ib-nir a ur-sag giš gi-bi-da-ke4 ša3-ga mu-ni-in-ri ki-šar ab2 zi-de3 a dug3-ga an-na da bi2-ib-ri ki u2 nam-ti-la-ke4 ša3 im-hul2 u3-tu-ba mu-un-gub 10 ki kir4-zal-e he2-gal im-il2 kurun2 lal3 ir su3-ud The vast ground appeared by itself; the surface was ready to be covered. 20 In the broad Earth precious metals and lapis lazuli were filling the surface. The loftiest ground became adorned with hulālu-stones and shining carnelian. 21 The Earth was lushly covered with green grass and stood majestically. 19.  See van Dijk 1964: 45–47; Jacobsen 1978: 20–21; Kramer 1981: 303–304; Sjöberg 2002: 244–47. For a preliminary list of mss., see Alster 1991: 25–26 n. 10; Attinger 1993: 37. The composite text given above is partly based on M. Civil’s unpublished score. The initial lines are better attested in Civil’s mss. A (AO 6715 [TCL 16: 53 pl. CXV], Civil’s collation), B (UM 29–16–217 + Ni 4591 [Kramer, FTS fig. 58] + Ni 9684 [ISET 1: 19]), C (N 3552 + Ni 4463 [ISET 2: 73] + Ni 9655 [ISET 2: 73]), and L (Ni 4598 [ISET 1: 108]). Concerning the first four lines (particularly the repetition of bar in line 2), there is an unpublished fragment (N 295 + N 306 + N 307; read from CDLI photo P275540): [ki-u]r3 gal-e n[i2 bi2]-⸢ib-e3⸣ / bar dul-le-eš nam-sig7 [k]i bar dagal-e ku3 na4nir7 na4za-gin2-bi / bar-ba am3-mi-ib-si ⸢ki⸣ kal-kal na4nir7 na4gug s[u3-du] / šu-tag ba-ni-⸢in⸣-du[g4] [x] ⸢u2⸣ šim-e hi-li g[u2  . . . ] / ⸢nam⸣-nun-ba [ . . . ] 20. Here sig7 is unlikely to be the verb meaning “to uproot plants, to cut off (or trim) vegetation”; see Molina and Such-Gutiérrez 2003: 3–7. This sig7 probably corresponds to either Akkadian arāqu “to be(come) green, yellow, pale” (CAD A/2: 231–32) or banû “to grow; be pleasant, friendly” (CAD B: 90–94); see Pettinato 1971: 51–53; Sjöberg 2002: 246. The sequence of events described in this line seems to suggest an easy semantic association such as this: “to be pleasant, friendly” > “to be amicable (to)” > “to be amenable (to)” > “to be ready.” 21.  The beginning of this line has been read as na4esi, but the first sign is missing or quite damaged in all mss. The aforementioned fragment (N 295 + N 306 + N 307) has ⸢ki⸣ kal-kal (esi = KAL); see, for instance, Nanna hymn I 11 (Sjöberg 1973: 36, 55) and Lugalbanda I 94, 128 (Wilcke’s unpublished ed.; see also Wilcke 1969: 55–56). At least in some instances, ki kal-kal seems to be an epithet for Eridu, as in Enki and the World Order 138 and 172 (Benito 1969: 93–95); see also Sjöberg 1960: 59. On the nir7 or ḫulālu stone, see CAD Ḫ: 226–27; Veldhuis 2004: 137; Schuster-Brandis 2008: 436–37. On gug or sāmtu “carnelian,” see Schuster-Brandis 2008: 413–14.

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 5 Holy Earth, pure Earth, arrayed herself for holy Heaven. Heaven, the great god, ejaculated into the vast Earth. 22 He impregnated her with the heroic seed of Tree and Reed. The whole of Earth, a good cow, became impregnated with Heaven’s fine semen. 23 Earth rejoiced in the life-giving plants; she devoted herself to giving birth to  them. 10 Earth happily bore abundance —exuding sweet beer and honey.

Other debates exhibit similar initial passages, all preoccupied with creation itself: Summer and Winter; Ewe and Grain (Lahar and Ašnan); and The Bird and the Fish. Creation elicits an affirmative cosmology, whereas the primeval time preceding creation belongs to the realm of negative cosmology. There are a number of compositions dwelling on events stemming from various aspects of creation, or which are so remote that they appear close to that very moment. Such compositions have incipits and longer initial passages placing and framing their mythical narratives (in illo tempore). This can be seen in the incipit of some Early Dynastic compositions. The so-called Barton Cylinder (or Enlil Cylinder; CBS 8383 [MBI 1]), dating to the end of the Early Dynastic period or perhaps to the beginning of the Sargonic period, presents an opening (i 1–6) that has parallels in an UD.GAL.NUN text from Fāra (TSŠ 79 i [+ TSŠ 80]) and in a composition attested at Abū Ṣalābīḫ and known as Ašnan and her Seven Children (OIP 99: 280 ii 1–5; 283 i 1′–3′): 24 Barton Fāra AbṢ 280 AbṢ 283 u4 ri2-a u4 ri2-še3 u4 ri u4 ri-še3 u4 ri(HU) u4 ri(HU)-⸢ši?⸣ ⸢u4 ri⸣ u4 ⸢ri⸣ na-nam na-nam na-nam gi6 ri2-a gi6 ri2-še3 gi6 ri gi6 ri-še3 gi6 ri-ši gi6 ri-ši gi6 ri gi6 ri na-nam na5-nam2 na-nam na-nam mu ri2-a mu ri2-še3 mu ri mu ri-še3 ⸢mu⸣ ri-ši [m]u ri-[ši] mu ri mu ri na-nam na5-nam2 [na-nam] na-nam In those days, it was indeed in those days; in those nights, it was indeed in those nights; in those years, it was indeed in those years . . . 

Similar beginnings occur in later compositions. In Ur III, The Fields of Ninurta begins u4 ri2-[a] u4 sud r[i2-a] “in those days, in those faraway days” (6N-T547 i 1). Moreover, a number of Old Babylonian works exhibit the same sort of incipit. For

22. On dug3 – nir (rakābu), see Karahashi 2000: 81. 23.  The occurrence of da with the verb ri can have different connotations, depending on the context. As Sjöberg (2002: 247) notes, it occurs in Ur III literary compositions from Nippur: lu2 sipa-de3 maš2 si4 da bi2-ri “the shepherd leaned on (protected) the brown goat” (6N-T637 rev. vi 11–13; Enenusi Hymn); and dgilgameš en kul-ab[a(ki)] da mu-ni-HU, in which HU probably stands for ri, “Gilgameš, the Lord of Kullaba, leaned on her” (6N-T450 obv. 8; fragment of a Gilgameš narrative). Whereas the latter has a clear sexual connotation —in fact, Gilgameš then proceeds to have sex with the woman in question— in the case of the shepherd and his goat this seems rather unlikely. 24.  See van Dijk 1964: 34; Black 1992: 93; Alster and Westenholz 1994: 18, 32; Krebernik 1998: 322–23. The composition Ašnan and Her Seven Children is attested in several manuscripts from Abū Ṣalābīḫ (OIP 99: 283–87, 288–296); see Alster 1976: 124–26; Krebernik 1998: 365. As in the Ur III text mentioned above (6N-T450), in OIP 99: 280, ri is written with HU. This phenomenon is not infrequent before the Old Babylonian period due to resemblance between LAK-64 (HU) and LAK-75 (RI). A more detailed commentary of these passages will be published elsewhere.

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instance, Gilgameš, Enkidu, and the Netherworld (1–3) begins with the formula attested in these Early Dynastic texts (Gadotti 2005: 327): u4 ri-a u4 su3-du ri-a gi6 ri-a gi6 bad-ra2 ri-a mu ri-a mu su3-ra2 ri-a In those days, in those distant days, In those nights, in those far-away nights, In those years, in those distant years . . . 

The Meturan version of the Death of Gilgamesh (69–71, 159–61) repeats the passage almost verbatim (Cavigneaux and al-Rawi 2000: 28, 31): u4 ri-ta sud su3-da ri-ta gi6 ri-ta gi6 su3-da ri-ta mu ri-ta mu su3-da ri-ta In those days, in those distant days, In those nights, in those distant nights, In those years, in those distant years.

The inchoative nature of the time in which such narratives are framed is made explicit in the first verses of the debate between The Bird and the Fish (PBS 10/2: 21 // UET 6/1: 38): 25 [u4 ul-e ri-t]a nam dug3 tar-ra-a-ba [x x x x]-ni an-ne2 an-ki giš-hur-bi mu-un-gar-re-eš-a-ba [At that distant time], when the good fates were decreed, When they (sc. An & Enlil) established the plans of heaven and earth . . . 

These last compositions dealing with creation, or its immediate corollaries, consist of affirmative propositions framed within a time whose mythical nature does not subtract from its actuality. On the other hand, the two third-millennium tablets discussed earlier, which concern the moments prior to creation, are grounded in absence: the absence of creation and the absence of time itself. The Early Dynastic tablet (AO 4153 iii 3–4) concludes by telling us that then “daylight did not shine” (u4 nu-zal) and “moonlight did not come forth” (i3-ti nu-e3-e3). Likewise, the Ur III composition (6N-T650 obv. 7–8) seems to negate the possibility of time as well, as there would be no contrast between day and night: “daylight did not shine” (u4 nuzalag) and “night spread” (gi6 am3-mu-la2); only “heaven had lighted up his heavenly abode” (an-ne2 da-ga-an-na-ka-ni mu-ni-ib2-kar2). In this regard, this time before time, the primeval time, would not be time at all. In view of the multiplicity of accounts dealing with primeval time or, much more often, with creation and its immediate consequences, some could argue that the Mesopotamians were particularly obsessed with a mythical past. And this would appear to be in consonance with an often repeated theory that the Mesopotamians had a counterintuitive way of expressing past and future. The Akkadian word for 25.  The reconstruction of the first line depends on whether the incipits included in Old Babylonian catalogues correspond to this composition: Nippur (u4 ul ri-ta; UM 29–15–155 obv. ii 9; Kramer 1942: 12, 15), Ur (u4 ul-e ri-da; UET 6/1: 123 obv. 19; Charpin 1986: 456), and Louvre (u4 ul ri-ta; TCL 15: 28 [AO 5393] obv. i 19, pl. LXVII; Kramer 1942: 18).

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“future” (warkītu) derives from the same root of the noun meaning “back, behind” (warkatu). The future would be what is behind, as in warkiāt ūmī “the days that are behind,” meaning the future. On the other hand, the noun meaning “past” (pānītu) originates in the word for “front” (pānu). 26 Thus, the Mesopotamians would have been facing the past and turning their backs to the future. If this were the case, it would be no wonder they were obsessed with the past, as distant as possible. This analysis, however, involves a misunderstanding. In English we say that the past took place before the present, and the preposition before clearly contains the Germanic term for front. Likewise, we say that the future comes after the present, and the preposition after is a cognate of Gothic aftra “back, behind.” 27 Thus, in English, as in Akkadian and many other languages, one could say that the past lies before us and the future comes after us, that is, behind us. Temporal expressions, however, are more commonly predicated on everyday spacial metaphors, of which languages make choices that bear little or no cognitive implication. In these instances, there is an inherent confusion between future (time and tense) and posteriority (sequentiality), as well as between past and anteriority (Núñez and Sweetser 2006: 404). 28 Moreover, this kind of literalist inference resembles the peculiar idea that many ancient cultures did not experience time in a linear way but only as a cyclical impression, as if somehow ancient men and women were alien to the finite sequence of birth, growth, aging, and death to which we are all doomed. Rather than any sort of everyday metaphor, the reason for the relative abundance of Mesopotamian creation narratives —standing alone or embedded in other compositions— should be sought in the ideological and cultic structures that shaped the scribal world and forged intertextual kinships between different cosmological, religious, and narrative genres. In this regard, the two third-millennium compositions studied above share a narrative trope that consists in constructing a negative discourse to match a cosmological moment dominated by the absence of creation. The works are set in a primeval time, which frames them by negation as well, since such a primordial era is placed outside time itself, by establishing the impossibility of experiencing the sequence of days and nights. These compositions, nevertheless, do have a temporal element, for they are objects of mythical memory, a memory that exists inasmuch as it is textualized in a literary form. It is not the past itself that primarily concerned the Mesopotamian cosmogonical discourse, but rather the crafted memory of a time before time, the artful creation of a myth of absence through the poetics of negation. 26.  See, for instance, Diakonoff (1975: 129) and Woods (2009: 210). 27.  The same happens in Hebrew: pānîm means “face, front” and l epanay means both “in front of me” and “before me, before my time”; ʾaḥar means “back, behind,” and ʾaḥăray means both “behind me” and “after me, after my time.” In Arabic, ḫalf means “back, rear” and also “after” referring to the future; and qubl/qubul means “front” and qablu/qablan “before, earlier.” For a study of the Greek use of ὀπίσσω “backward, behind” for future events, and πρό and πρόσσω “forward, in front” for the past, in its IndoEuropean (Hittite and Sanskrit) context, see Dunkel 1983. In contrast to all these literal assumptions, time-reference point metaphors do not necessarily involve a speaker- or ego-reference point, or even the specification of the speaker’s present (see Núñez, Motz, and Teuscher 2006). 28.  In his learned contribution, Woods (2009: 210) mentions particularly Aymara. As Núñez and Sweetser (2006) have noted, Aymara constitutes a very unique case, since in that language these counterintuitive spacial metaphors for time are expressed by the speakers with physical gestures, so they go beyond strictly linguistic phenomena and into the realm of the pragmatics of verbal and, especially, non-verbal communication.

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AO 4153 (NFT p. 180)

6N-T650 (NBC 11108), obv.

6N-T650 (NBC 11108), rev.

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Gadotti, Alhena 2005 “Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Nertherworld” and the Sumerian Gilgameš Cycle. Ph.D. diss. The Johns Hopkins University. George, Andrew R. 1993 House Most High: The Temple in Ancient Mesopotamia. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. 2003 The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, I–II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldstein, Jonathan A. 1983 II Maccabees. Anchor Bible 41A. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Green, Margaret W. 1975 Eridu in Sumerian Literature. Ph.D. dissertation. Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Hallo, William W. 1996 Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions. Leiden: Brill. Heidegger, Martin 1976 Gesamtausgabe, 9: Wegmarken. Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann. Jacobsen, Thorkild 1976 The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1978 Mesotamiski Uertidsssagn. Copenhagen: Gad. Karahashi, Fumi 2000 Sumerian Compound Verbs with Body-Part Terms. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Chicago. Kramer, Samuel N. 1942 The Oldest Literary Catalogue: A Sumerian List of Literary Compositions Compiled about 2000 b.c. BASOR 88: 10–19. 1981 History Begins at Sumer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Krebernik, Manfred 1984 Die Beschwörungen aus Fara und Ebla. TSO 2. Hildesheim: Olms. 1998 Die Texte aus Fāra und Tell Abū Ṣalābīḫ. Pp. 235–427 in Mesopotamien, 1: SpäturukZeit und Frühdynastische Zeit. OBO 160/1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Lambert, Wilfred G. 1976 Review of R. D. Biggs, OIP 99. BSOAS 39: 428–432. 1981 Studies in UD.GAL.NUN. OrAn 20: 81–97, 305. 2008 Mesopotamian Creation Stories. Pp. 15–59 in Imagining Creation, ed. M. J. Geller and M. Schipper. Leiden: Brill. Lambert, Wilfred G., and Alan R. Millard 1969 Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Litke, Richard L. 1998 A Reconstruction of the Assyro-Babylonian God-Lists, AN: dA-nu-um and AN: Anu šá amēli. TBC 3. New Haven: Yale Babylonian Collection. Mander, Pietro 1986 Il pantheon di Abu-Ṣālabīkh [sic]. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale. May, Gerhard. 1994 Creatio ex nihilo: The Doctrine of “Creation out of Nothing” in Early Christian Thought. Edinburgh: T & T Clark (translation of Schöpfung aus dem Nichts, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1978). Michalowski, Piotr 1990 Presence at Creation. Pp.  381–96 in Lingering over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, ed. T. Abusch, J. Huehnergard, and P. Steinkeller. HSS 37. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholar Press. 1991 Negation as Description: The Metaphor of Everyday Life in Early Mesopotamian Literature. AuOr 9 (Fs. Civil): 131–36.

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Miernowski, Jan 1998 Le dieu néant: Théologies négatives à l’aube des temps modernes. Leiden: Brill. Molina, Manuel, and Marcos Such-Gutiérrez 2004 On Terms for Cutting Plants and Noses in Ancient Sumer. JNES 63: 1–16. Núñez, Rafael E, Benjamin A. Motz, and Ursina Teuscher 2006 Time after Time: The Psychological Reality of the Ego- and Time-Reference-Point Distinction in Metaphorical Construals of Time. Metaphor and Symbol 21: 133–46. Núñez, Rafael E., and Eve Sweetser 2006 With the Future Behind Them: Convergent Evidence from Aymara Language and Gesture in the Crosslinguistic Comparison of Spatial Construals of Time. Cognitive Science 30: 401–50. Olivelle, Patrick 1998 The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Texts and Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005 Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Mānava-Dharmásāstra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oshima, Takayoshi 2011 Babylonian Prayers to Marduk. ORA 7. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Peterson, Jeremiah 2009 Godlists from Old Babylonian Nippur in the University Museum, Philadelphia. AOAT 362. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Pettinato, Giovanni 1971 Das altorientalische Menschenbild und die sumerischen und akkadischen Schöpfungsmythen. Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos.hist. Klasse. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. 1983 Dilmun nella documentazione epigrafica di Ebla. Pp. 75–82 in Dilmun: New Studies in the Archaeology and Early History of Bahrain. BBVO 2. Berlin: Reimer. Pomponio, Francesco, and Paolo Xella 1997 Les dieux d’Ebla. AOAT 245. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Runia, David. T. 2001 Philo of Alexandria: On the Creation of the Cosmos According to Moses. Leiden: Brill. Schuster-Brandis, Anais 2008 Steine als Schutz- und Heilmittel: Untersuchung zu ihrer Verwendung in der Beschwörungskunst Mesopotamiens im 1. Jt. v. Chr. AOAT 46. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Schwartz, Daniel R. 2008 2 Maccabees. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature. Berlin: De Gruyter. Selz, Gebhard J. 1995 Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Lagaš. OPSNKF 13. Philadelphia: University Museum. Sjöberg, Åke W. 1960 Der Mondgott Nanna-Suen in der sumerischen Überlieferung. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. 1973 Miscellanneous Sumerian Hymns. ZA 63: 1–55. 2002 In the Beginning. Pp.  229–46 in Riches Hidden in Secret Places: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobsen, ed. Tzvi Abusch. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Sollberger, Edmond 1952 Le système verbal dans les inscriptions “royales” présargoniques de Lagaš. Geneva: Droz. Steinkeller, Piotr 1979 Notes on Sumerian Verbal Plurals. Or. n.s. 48: 54–67. 1985 Three Assyriological Notes. ASJ 7: 195–96. Talon, Philippe 2005 The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth: Enūma eliš. SAACT 4. Helsinki: NeoAssyrian Text Corpus Project.

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Veldhuis, Niek 2004 Religion, Literature, and Scholarship: The Sumerian Composition “Nanše and the Birds.” CM 22. Leiden: Brill/Styx. Wang, Xianhua. 2011 The Metamorphosis of Enlil in Early Mesopotamia. AOAT 385. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Wiggermann, Frans 1992 Natural Phenomena: Their Meaning, Depiction and Description in the Ancient Near East. Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen Verhandelingen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, 152. 1996 Scenes from the Shadow Side. Pp. 207–30 in Mesopotamian Poetic Language: Sumerian and Akkadian, ed. M. E. Vogelzang and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. CM 6. Groningen: Styx. Wilcke, Claus. 1969 Das Lugalbandaepos.Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Williams, J.P. 2000 Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woods, Christopher 2009 At the Edge of the World: Cosmological Conceptions of the Eastern Horizon in Mesopotamia. JANER 9: 183–239. Žižek, Slavoj 1989 The Sublime Object of Ideology. New York: Verso.

The Extent of Literacy in Syria and Palestine during the Second Millennium b.c.e. Wilfred H. van Soldt L e i d e n  1

1. Introduction Perhaps a few words are in order to explain the choice of my subject. My original idea was to study time in the western peripheral texts, but I realized that those who wrote the texts in the western periphery were apparently less interested in time than their Mesopotamian colleagues. Instead of providing accurate dates for their records, they were quite content with a document that only mentioned the king’s name and his filiation. Therefore, I decided to turn to another subject, one that describes the historical development of a phenomenon that was central to Mesopotamian culture: literacy. In this article, I shall examine the historical apects of literacy in the western periphery, in particular in Syria west of the Euphrates and in Palestine. During its tumultuous history, both Syria and Palestine tended to be repeatedly overrun by empires that lay to the east, north, or south, and it will be interesting to determine if the dependency on a central power ever influenced the use and the level of literacy in these areas. It must be noted that the sources that are presently at our disposal certainly do not constitute all the written material that was produced here during the second millennium b.c.e. Time and again new archives have been discovered that add to the picture, and the results of this examination can only be called preliminary at best. I limit myself to the second millennium because including material from the third and first millennia would make the scope of the topic too large. Much has been written about the invention and development of writing in Mesopotamia by Assyriologists as well as by scholars studying literacy in a more general context. 2 Mesopotamia is then usually presented as one of the cradles of literacy in the world, but at the same time there is a strong tendency to make a difference between alphabetic records and others, mainly written with logographic, syllabic, or logo-syllabic scripts. Eric Havelock especially stressed the unique value of the Author’s note:  This is a shortened version of the first chapter of my forthcoming book on The Transfer of Knowledge in a Cuneiform Culture. 1. Leiden University, Department of Languages and Cultures of Mesopotamia and Anatolia. E-mail: [email protected]. 2.  For assyriological studies, see, for example, Jacobsen 1982; Alster 1992; Larsen 1987; Michalowski 1992; Veldhuis 1997: 139f.; van der Toorn 2007: 52f. For more general studies, see, for example, Goody 1977: 74ff.; 1986: 79f.; 1987: 27ff.; Ong 1982: 83f.

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alphabet. 3 He regarded it as the only script that could inspire abstract thinking and, therefore, the development of science and philosophy, but subsequently a more cautious approach was adopted. Brian Street, for example, on the basis of his fieldwork in Iran, showed that local circumstances, especially the reasons that people started writing, should always be taken into account and that very general and sweeping conclusions on the basis of the available material should be avoided. 4 The overall picture that now emerges is much more complex than had previously been thought.

2.  The Middle Bronze Age (figs. 1 and 2) The sources that we have for the second millennium can be divided into texts from the Middle Bronze Age and texts from the Late Bronze Age. In this article I will separate the different genres as much as possible. The first category is locally produced juridical and administrative texts. The second involves school texts that could have been written locally, although it cannot be excluded that some of them were imported. Letters which provide their place of origin, but which were found elsewhere constitute the third category. For the Middle Bronze Age I included inscribed objects that were found locally but mostly originated elsewehere, but I exclude these from my final evaluation. First the juridical and administrative texts. A relatively large number of sites, seven altogether, have produced such texts but at only three was what we would call an archive discovered. These are Alalaḫ, 5 Hazor, 6 and Tuttul. 7 From the other four sites we have very few such texts. Siyannu, 8 Qatna, 9 and Hebron 10 have produced a single administrative text each, but the date of the Qatna text is uncertain. The treaties between Abban and Yarim-Lim found at Alalaḫ and perhaps part of the juridical documents that were found there and in which it is stated that the case was held in front of the king of Aleppo, were probably written at Aleppo. 11 All these texts point to local administrative activity in the capital of Yamḫad. School texts were found at four sites, Byblos, Hazor, Qatna and Tuttul. From Hazor we have a lexical text and two livers, 12 from Qatna three lexical texts, 13 and from Tuttul lexical, mathematical and astrological material and an incantation 14. 3.  Havelock 1982: 77f. 4.  Street 1984. 5.  Such as the treaties AlT 1 and 456 and the juridical text AlT 56. To these should be added the seal impressions AlT 442b and 444. The dates of the juridical documents AlT 119 and 120 are uncertain. 6.  For the texts, see Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 65f.; 2007; 2010; Horowitz, Oshima, and Winitzer 2010. For the dates of most of these texts, see Durand 2006. Texts 7, 11, 14 and 16 are administrative documents; text 5 is a court order. Two fragments of a law code were found in 2010, see below. 7.  See Krebernik 2001. The texts date to the šakkanakku period and the early second millennium. Most of the texts are to be dated to the time of Yasmaḫ-Addu and his father Samsi-Addu; see Krebernik 2001: 7f. 8.  Charpin in Galliano and Calvet 2004: 11. 9.  According to Richter (2002a: 249f.; 2003: 183) two administrative texts found at Qatna belong to the Old Babylonian period. 10.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 88f. 11.  See n. 5. 12.  Oshima and Horowitz 2006: 65ff., nos. 2, 3 (livers), 6 (Hh II) and 9 (multiplication table). Durand (2006) dates no. 6 to the Middle Bronze Age, but according to Horowitz and Oshima no. 6 can also be a Late Bronze document. For no. 17, another liver model, see Horowitz, Oshima, and Winitzer 2010. 13.  Richter 2002a: 247f.; 2003: 182f. 14.  Krebernik 2001: nos. KTT 56–58, 67–68 (elementary exercises), 59–66, 69–71 (mathematical texts), 379 (incantation). Compare also the list of offerings to astral dieties (KTT 379).

The Extent of Literacy in Syria and Palestine

Fig. 1.  The Middle Bronze Age in the 18th century b.c.e. Squares indicate regional centers.

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Fig. 2.  The Middle Bronze Age in the 17th century b.c.e. Squares indicate regional centers.

Byblos has produced only one lexical text, which should probably be dated to the Ur III period. 15 Whether the two fragments of the Code of Hammurabi that have recently been found at Hazor are to be dated to this period is unclear. 16 Inscribed seals, pottery, etc. were retrieved from ten sites but, as I have said before, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from this material. Therefore I will further ignore it. 17 Finally, we have a substantial amount of letters that were sent from sites in Syria and Palestine, but almost all of them were found at their destination. A number of letters that were found at Mari came from Aleppo, 18 Karkamiš, 19 and Qatna. 20 One Old Babylonian came from Alalaḫ, 21 and another was probably sent from Emar. 22 Occasionally, letters have been discovered at Hazor, 23 Shechem, 24 and Tuttul, 25 but the towns from which they were sent are usually unknown. 15.  Dossin 1969: 245 . 16.  Ben-Tor and Zuckerman 2010: 247f. 17.  For the sites, see fig. 4. 18.  Kupper 1998: 19f.; Dossin, Syria 33, 63; cf. Charpin 2004: 351f. Compare also Kupper 1998: 20f., nos. 16 and 17, and Durand, MARI 6, 63. 19.  Kupper 1998: 23f., nos. 18–25; Lafont 1988: nos. 530–550. 20.  Kupper 1998, nos. 14–15; Durand, MARI 6, 40 = LAPO 16, 298. 21.  Kraus 1977: no. 1. 22.  Van Soldt 1990: no. 51. 23.  Oshima and Horowitz 2006: 77f., nos. 8, 12 and 15. For no. 12, see Charpin and Ziegler, NABU 2004/84. 24.  Oshima and Horowitz 2006: 121. 25.  Krebernik 2001, nos. 55a–b, 364(?), 372–78.

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Summing up, we can say that at least twelve towns have produced written material. Six or possibly seven of them can be regarded as regional centers, here defined as a town that controlled the administration of a relatively large area. At Alalaḫ, Hazor, Qatna and Tuttul archives were unearthed that contained locally written texts confirming their status as regional centers. On the basis of information known from elsewhere, Aleppo and Emar are also known to have been such centers, and the same may be true for Karkamiš. The data from Siyannu, Byblos, Shechem, and Hebron is equivocal for determining their status.

3.  The Late Bronze Age The texts dated to the Late Bronze Age can be divided into two historical groups. The first one covers the period from ca. 1500 b.c.e. to the end of the Amarna period, ca. 1340 (fig. 3). The second group covers the period of Hittite domination in Syria, from ca. 1340 till ca. 1180 b.c.e. (fig. 4). I will discuss the two groups separately and classify the texts according to genre. But the large amount of inscribed material that was probably not written at the site itself (seals, pottery, and the like) will not be taken into account. I will thus concentrate on the locally written legal and administrative texts, the probably locally produced school texts and the letters that were found at other locations but that contain indications as to their place of origin. 3.1. The first half of the Late Bronze Age shows 13 sites with legal and administrative texts, hardly more than the Middle Bronze Age. Most archives are located in Syria, the most important ones being Azû, 26 Ekalte, 27 and Emar 28 on the Euphrates, Alalaḫ 29 in the west, and Qatna 30 and Taanach 31 more to the south. 32 A treaty found in Alalaḫ was probably drafted in Tunip, 33 an envelope fragment from Gezer 34 may actually be a letter, and a three-line administrative text from Hazor may have been written in Ṣumur. 35 Two texts were found in the citadel of Tell Bazi (ancient Baṣīru), but both had been written in Mittani. 36 There is some doubt about whether Ugarit belongs here, because unless a number of legal texts are dated to ʿAmmiṯtamru I in the 14th century there are no texts from this category that can be dated prior to the Hittite era. 37

26.  Dornemann 1979: 145f.; 1981: 31; see Mayer 2001: 11f. For the texts, see http://www.helsinki. fi/~whiting/hadidcat.html. 27.  See Mayer 2001. The legal texts are nos. 1–33, 35–40, 42–43, 45–48, 50–52, 54–58 (55 is uncertain), 61–63, 65–67, 69–71, 73–80, 81B, C, 83–85, 87–96; Tsukimoto 1991: 296f.; cf. Yamada 1994. For the administrative texts, see nos. 34, 41, 53, 59–60 and 82. 28.  The earliest dates of the texts from Emar are debated, see Cohen and d’Alfonso 2008: 19f., and Pruzsinszky 2008: 70f. 29.  See most recently von Dassow 2005 and 2008, and Fink 2007. 30. Bottéro 1949; 1950: 112f.; Richter 2005 and 2006. For the legal texts, see Virolleaud apud Du Mesnil du Buisson 1927: 293f.; Richter 2002b: 608f.; 2003: 171. 31.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 127f., nos. 3, 4, 4a, 7, 12, 14, and possibly 15 (edited by S. Sanders). 32.  The texts from Hazor that can be dated to this period are nos. 10 (a letter) and 13 (a dedicatory inscription) in Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 80f. and 85f. 33.  AlT 2. 34.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 51f. (no. 1). 35.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 82, no. 11; Goren et al. 2004: 230. 36.  Sallaberger, Einwag and Otto 2006: 77f. 37.  Freu 2000: 11f.; 2006: 31. See my discussion in van Soldt, forthcoming.

The Extent of Literacy in Syria and Palestine

Fig. 3.  The Late Bronze Age till ca. 1340 b.c.e. Squares indicate regional centers.

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Fig. 4.  The Late Bronze Age after ca. 1340 b.c.e. Squares indicate regional centers.

At two sites, school texts were found, the same number in both periods. One lexical text was found at Ekalte, 38 and an astrological text at Qatna. 39 The school text from Hazor has recently been dated to the Middle Bronze Age by J.-M. Durand (2006). 40 The number of letters found for this period is high and most of these letters were found in Amarna. 41 If this archive would not have been discovered, the picture would have been radically different. According to the addresses of the letters, they were sent from over fifty towns and, except for the letters from Alalaḫ, Ekalte, and Azû, they were all sent to the pharaoh. However, as has been shown by Goren et al. 2006, we have to be careful in taking the addresses given in the letters themselves seriously. According to petrographic analysis, many of these letters were actually written in other towns (see below). If we look at the total picture we see that the number of towns that can be called regional centers is larger than during the Middle Bronze Age. On the basis of the archival texts that have been found, nine towns could have been regional centers, but if one includes the letters, this number could be significantly higher. We know that Nuḫašše, Niya, Tunip, Ṣumur, Beth Shean, and Gaza can be counted in, but by including Amurru, the Phoenician cities and a number of Palestinian towns, such as Shechem, Jerusalem, Gezer, and Lakhish, the number is raised even more. I will 38.  Mayer 2001: 145, no. 81. 39.  Bottéro 1950: 105. 40.  See above, n. 12. 41.  See in general Moran’s edition of the letters (1992).

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come back to this later. Note however, that no archival texts have so far been discovered at any of these sites. 3.2. The second half of the Late Bronze Age shows a picture that is different from the first half because of the rise of a number of large regional centers with extensive bureaucracies. If we look at the juridical and administrative texts, the most important findspots are undoubtedly Ugarit, Emar, and Alalaḫ. The other places marked on the map have either produced very few documents or the documents written in these towns were excavated somewhere else. Only a handful of texts was found at Till-Abni, 42 Siyannu, 43 Aphek, 44 and possibly Jericho. 45 Texts have also been found at Tell Afis; they will be published soon. 46 Documents that were unearthed at other sites had been written at Karkamiš, the seat of the Hittite viceroy, and at Amurru. 47 Juridical texts from Karkamiš were found at Ugarit and Emar. 48 A similar division can be observed for the school texts. There are very rich archives at Ugarit, Emar, and Alalaḫ, but only isolated texts were found at sites in the south, including Mount Tabor 49 and Beth Shemesh, 50 which produced one alphabet each. The school text from Hazor has recently been dated to the Middle Bronze Age by J.-M. Durand (2006). 51 The number of letters attested for this period is not significantly less than that for the previous one, but the attested number of places from which they were sent certainly is. Unlike the Amarna period, when almost every town seems to have sent letters to the king of Egypt, in this period it is only the main centers that have dispatched letters to their neighbors and their overlords. This, however, can only be ascertained for the area that was under the control of the Hittite empire. Letters written in cuneiform have not been found in Egypt for this period, and the correspondence between the kings of Egypt and Hatti is only known from the Hittite capital Hattusha. It is the chance find of the Amarna archive that has helped us to reconstruct the way Egypt dealt with its vassals, and it gives us the only information we have for this subject. For this later period, the towns from which letters were sent include Karkamiš, Emar, Parga, and Ugarit in the north of Syria and Siyannu, Ušnatu, Amurru, Qatna, and Qadeš more to the south. 52 42.  Snell 1983–84; Archi 1993. 43.  RS 17.123 (PRU, 123) and RS 18.01 (PRU 4, 230). 44.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 33f., no. 6, can also be a fragment of a letter. Nos. 2 (ibid., 31) and 8 (38) are administrative texts. 45.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 96, no. 1. 46.  I would like to thank Prof. Alfonso Archi for showing me photos of the tablets and discussing their contents with me. 47.  Juridical texts written in Amurru but found in Ugarit are: RS 16.146+161 (PRU 3, 182; PRU 4, 280); RS 17.318+349A (PRU 4, 144); RS 17.360A+372A (PRU 4, 139); RS 17.450A (PRU 4, 144). 48.  Compare the many juridical texts and copies of treaties found at Ugarit and published in PRU 4 by J. Nougayrol. For juridical texts found at Emar, see Arnaud 1986: nos. 18, 19, 201, 101; 1991, nos. 30(?) and 95; Beckman 1996: 54, 55, 85; Westenholz 2000: 1 and 32; Tsukimoto 1984: 65–74. 49.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 163f., no. 1. 50.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 157f., no. 1. 51.  See above, n. 12. 52.  It would take too much room to list every individual letter here. I refer the reader to my forthcoming study on literacy in the western periphery. The letter from Parga (RS 15.19) was published in PRU 3, 13. RS 22.419 is an unpublished letter from the sākinu of Siyannu, and letters from Ušnatu are RS 17.83 (PRU 4, 216), 17.143 (PRU 4, 215), 17.288 (PRU 4, 215), 17.425 (PRU 4, 218), 20.17 (Ugaritica 5, 43), 34.158 (RSOu. 7, 16); 23.81 is unpublished. A letter from Qatna probably to be dated to this period is

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From Phoenicia we have letters from the important cities Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, and Tyre. 53 Finally, there is one letter that may have been sent from Damascus but which was found in Hattusha. 54 A possible letter found in Aphek, but the origin of which is unknown, should also be included. Horowitz and Oshima interpret this text as a school text. 55 Synthesizing this information on a map for this period shows that the Syrian towns that have produced sufficient evidence for a local bureaucracy are also the ones that played an important role on the political scene (fig. 4). These are Karkamiš, Emar, Alalaḫ, Ugarit, Siyannu, and Amurru. Each one of these is known to be the capital of a vassal state, but the name Amurru probably refers to the country rather than to the capital. The only town in Palestine that could claim the status of regional center on the basis of the documents found there is Aphek. Archaeological remains, in particular those of the Late Bronze palace, support this claim. 56 As for the Phoenician cities, no textual finds from the Late Bronze Age have been reported for any of them, which means that our only textual witnesses are the letters that were sent from there. How do we interpret these data with regard to the introduction of literacy in the western periphery? First of all, I must reiterate that the textual material that is presently available is certainly not everything that has ever been written. In fact, it is likely that more relevant material will turn up in the future. The new text from Jerusalem is a good example. As I said at the beginning, the following observations must be regarded as preliminary. Nevertheless, I have reason to hope that they will give us sufficient insight to come up with a likely scenario. First, I want to discuss an observation that was made some time ago by the well-known anthropologist Jack Goody. In his book The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society, published in 1986, Goody points out that illiterate societies sometimes borrow a script and a language from a literate society, but only for the purpose of external contacts. 57 No bureaucracy was put in place, because people still relied on oral traditions and mnemonic techniques. He refers to this phenomenon as “external administration” to be contrasted with “internal administration,” where writing had been adopted for internal purposes, usually for a local bureaucracy. If we look at the texts that were found in the western periphery, we can observe a similar pattern. It has become clear from the data that have been presented that the writing of letters was a much more common activity than the keeping of an administration. Why, for example, do we find so many letters from the towns in Palestine, whereas the number of towns that have produced other text genres seems to be quite limited. I believe that the answer to this question probably lies in the political situation at the time that these texts were written. RS 17.315 (PRU 4, 111), see Freu 2006: 78f. Letters from Qadeš are RS 20.16 (Ugaritica 5, no. 38), 20.172 (ibid., 39); 20.200B (ibid. 40), 34.146 (RSOu. 7, 15). 53. Most letters were found at Ugarit. For Byblos, see KTU 2.44 (PRU 5, 159) and perhaps RS 34.167+175 (RSOu. 7, 25) and RS 20.431 (unpublished). For Beirut, see RS 11.730 (PRU 3, 12), for which see Goren et  al. 2006: 164; 34.137 (RSOu. 7, 37); RS 86.2212+ (RSOu. 14, 11), and Arnaud 2000. For Sidon, see RS 11.723 (PRU 3, 9); RS 34.149 (RSOu.) 7, 38); 86.2221+ (RSOu. 14, 13); 86.2208 (ibid., 14); 18.54 (PRU 4, 228; RSOu. 14, 15), and 86.2234 (RSOu. 14, 16). For Tyre, see RS 17.397B+ (PRU 4, 219); 86.2211 (RSOu. 14, 17), and KTU 2.38 (PRU 5, 59). 54.  Kbo 28, 77, see CTH 188 and Hagenbuchner 1989: 322. 55.  Horowitz and Oshima 2006: 29f. 56.  See the overview in Stern et al. 1993–2008: 62–72. 57.  Goody 1986: 100f.

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But before I discuss this further, I would like to point out that it has been shown that letters sent by Egyptian vassals in Palestine were not always written in their home town. Through the work of Goren, Finkelstein, and Na’aman (2006), it has become clear that a number of letters were actually written in other towns and that these towns usually tended do be more important than the place where the vassal resided. For example, Amarna letters 126, 129, 137, and 362 were all written by the same scribe and all of them were sent by King Rib-Addi of Byblos. 58 However, EA 126 appears to have been sent from Ṣumur, EA 129 and 362 from Byblos, and EA 137 from Beirut. It would seem that this scribe traveled around with his king—in this case, Rib-Addi. A second example is the three letters said to come from Akko (EA 232, 234, 235) and that were sent by Surata (232, 235) and his son Šatatna (234). Petrographic analysis carried out by Goren and others showed that all three letters were written in the Egyptian center of Beth-shean, ca. 65 km to the southeast of Akko. 59 An even better example is the Egyptian garrison city of Gaza, from which letters were sent that were dispatched by vassals in Amurru, Ashkelon, Gezer, Ginti-ašna, and Lachish. 60 Finally, one scribe wrote the multiple copies of the same letter for six different kinglets of six different towns in the Bashan area (EA 201–206). According to their petrographic analysis, they must all have been written in the southern Bashan or the Yarmuk Valley. 61 Thus, it seems clear that letters sent by vassal kings could be sent from quite different places, usually important centers, such as Beth-Shean and Gaza. Perhaps these vassals could not keep a scribe at their own disposal and had to rely on the bureaucracy of a regional center. The second point I would like to make concerns the influence of the political situation on the introduction of literacy in the western periphery. This means that the time-line must be examined more meticulously. For example, the Middle Bronze Age covers at least the 18th and the 17th centuries and the political situation in the first half of the 18th century was quite different from that in the second half of the 17th century. During the first half of the 18th century, the most important political entities were the Upper Mesopotamian kingdom of Šamši-Adad to which Tuttul belonged, the kingdom Yamḫad with the capital Aleppo, and the kingdom of Qaṭna (fig. 1). Only Tuttul has so far produced texts that clearly show its function as a regional center with its own bureaucracy and school. As for the other centers, letters from Aleppo and Qaṭna were found at Mari, and some of the texts found at Qaṭna may belong to this period. Texts attesting to the power of Aleppo are known from Alalakh, which was also part of the kingdom of Yamḫad. Literacy was introduced at Alalakh only after a scion of the royal house of Aleppo had been installed as king of the city. Emar also belonged to the kingdom of Yamḫad, but so far no texts from this period have been found there. Nevertheless, the status of the town is clear from Old 58.  Goren et al. 2004: 154f., EA 126. 59.  Goren et al. 2004: 238f. 60.  For Amurru, see Goren et al. 2004: 112f. (EA 168); for Ashkelon, ibid. 295 (EA 321, but possibly also EA 307–310, 312); for Gezer, ibid. 275 (EA 378); for Ginti-ašna, ibid. 302 (EA 319), and for Lachish, ibid. 289 (EA 329). 61.  Goren et al. 2004: 216f.

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Babylonian, Old Assyrian and Mari texts. As for Hazor, most of the Old Babylonian texts belong to this period and one is even older. 62 During the second half of the 17th century, the kingdom of Aleppo remained the dominant power in northern Syria, as is clear from the texts from Alalaḫ. Emar probably continued as a regional center within the kingdom of Yamḫad; Tuttul had been destroyed (fig. 2). If indeed a number of texts found at Qatna and Hazor belong to this period, it would mean that in both towns a bureaucracy and a school were in place. The isolated finds at Siyannu, Shechem, and Hebron do not allow any conclusions. Summing up, we can distinguish three—possibly four—power centers with satellite towns during the 18th and 17th centuries: the kingdom of Šamši-Adad with Tuttul, Aleppo-Yamḫad (with Alalaḫ and Emar), Qatna, and possibly Hazor. For the Late Bronze Age, I have already made a break around 1340, when Mittani was succeeded by the Hittite empire as the most important power in the north (fig. 3). During the first half of this period, we see a few regional centers on the Euphrates: Azû, Ekalte, and Emar. According to Walter Mayer, Azû and Ekalte were both originally on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, 63 although they are now on opposite banks. The records show that contacts between the two cities were close, and they were probably both dependent on the kingdom of Emar. 64 All three belonged to the Mittanian empire, as did the western cities Alalaḫ and Qaṭna. Note, however, that at Alalaḫ a bureaucracy was probably in place only after it had been taken over by Idrimi of Aleppo and even more so when it had become part of the Mittani empire. Niya and Nuḫašše were political entities that Šuppiluliuma had to reckon with, as is clear from the texts from Ugarit. As far as the Egyptian province in Western Asia is concerned, we know a number of seats of Egyptian governors that served as regional centers, such as Gaza, Beth Shean, Ṣumur, and Kumidi, but none of these has produced archival records. The only cities where such records were found for this period are Hazor, Taanach, Gezer, and, possibly, Ugarit. Gezer has only produced a fragment of an envelope. Tunip is included because of the treaty found in Alalaḫ. At the time the treaty was concluded, it may have been part of Mittani. 65 The other towns attested in the texts all sent messages to the pharaoh, but in none of them have we yet found evidence of a local bureaucracy, at least as far as we can tell. As noted earlier, quite a few letters were written by scribes from one of the regional centers. Finally, the second half of the Late Bronze Age shows the rise of regional centers with their own bureaucracy, as already mentioned (fig. 4). However, this applies more to the Hittite part of the area than to the Egyptian part. Karkamiš was the seat of the Hittite viceroy over Syria. Ugarit, Alalaḫ, and Emar were the most important centers; less important were Till-abni, which probably belonged to Emar, and Siyannu south of Ugarit. Texts from Amurru show that there must have been a bureaucracy. From cities such as Qaṭna or Qadeš, we have only the occasional letter. In the Egyptian south, only Aphek can be called a regional center (see above). The other towns have produced too little material. In conclusion, I will briefly summarize the points that have been discussed. 62.  Durand 2006. 63.  Mayer 2001: 11–12. 64.  Mayer 2001: 12. 65.  Von Dassow 2008: 53, 365.

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First, we can point to the difference in the spread of literacy during the Middle and the Late Bronze Age. Although we have to be careful with our conclusions, it seems more or less certain that the level of literacy was higher during the Late Bronze Age than during the Middle Bronze Age. Second, we have seen that there is a difference between the number of sites where juridical and administrative documents and sometimes also school-texts have been found and of sites from which only letters were sent. The number of sites where only letters were written turned out to be higher than the number of those that produced a larger variety of genres. In most cases, sites that produced documents which must have been part of a local bureaucracy were also important regional centers, but sites where only letters were witten had apparently adopted what has become known as an “external administration,” an administration in which writing was only used for external contacts. These sites are usually smaller towns that often belonged to a region controlled by an important center. Third, it has become clear from petrographic analysis that letters were not always written in the town from which they were allegedly sent. As I have tried to show, quite a few of the smaller towns relied on scribes of a regional center to write their letters for them. Fourth, the political situation can influence the spread of literacy. During the Middle Bronze Age, Syria and the Levant were politically fragmented and it was only from the 15th century onward that both were part of large empires. Capitals of vassal states and other large towns served as regional centers, and they normally had local bureaucracies that were meant for administering their territory and for the payment of taxes to the empire. Thus, it seems that, although literacy did occur in independent city-states, it could be inspired by an empire of which these citystates had become a part.

Bibliography Alster, B. 1992 Interaction of Oral and Written Poetry in Early Mesopotamian Literature. Pp. 23–69 in Mesopotamian Epic Literature: Oral or Aural?, ed. M. E. Vogelzang and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. Lewiston, NY: Mellen. Archi, A. 1993 A Seal Impression from El-Qiṭār/Til-Abnu (Syria). Anatolian Studies 43: 203–6. Arnaud, D. 1986 Arnaud, D. 1986, Recherches au pays d’Aštata. Emar VI/3: Textes sumériens et accadiens. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations. 2000 Une lettre du roi de Beyrouth au roi d’Ougarit de l’époque dite «d’El-Amarna». SMEA 42: 5–17. Beckman, G. 1996 Texts from the Vicinity of Emar in the Collection of Jonathan Rosen. Padova: Sargon srl. Ben-Tor, A., and Zuckerman, S. 2010 Notes and News. Israel Exploration Journal 60: 245–48. Bottéro, J. 1949 Les inventaires de Qatna. RA 43: 1–40, 137–215. 1950 Autres textes de Qatna. RA 44: 105–46. Charpin, D. 2004 Histoire politique du Proche-Orient amorrite. Pp. 25–480 in Mesopotamien: Die altbaby­ lonische Zeit. Annäherungen 4, ed. P. Attinger, W. Sallaberger, and M. Wäfler. Fribourg: Academic Press / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Charpin, D., and Ziegler, N. 2004 Une lettre de Samsî-Addu découverte à Hazor? NABU 2004: no. 84. Cohen, Y., and d’Alfonso, L. 2008 The Duration of the Emar Archives and the Relative and Absolute Chronology of the City. Pp. 3–25 in The City of Emar among the Late Bronze Age Empires. History, Landscape, and Society, ed. L. d’Alfonzo, Y.  Cohen, and D.  Sürenhagen. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 349. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Dornemann, R. H. 1979 Tell Hadidi: A Millenium of Bronze City Occupation. Pp. 113–51 in Excavation Reports from the Tabqa Dam Project – Euphrates Syria, ed. D.  N. Freedman. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 44. Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research. 1981 The Late Bronze Age Pottery Tradition at Tell Hadidi, Syria. BASOR 241: 29–47. Dossin, G. 1956 Une lettre de Iarîm-Lim, roi d’Alep, à Iašûb-Iaḫad, roi de Dîr. Syria 33: 63–69. 1969 Trois inscriptions cunéiformes de Byblos, Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 45: 245–48. Du Mesnil du Buisson, R. 1927 l’Ancienne Qaṭna ou les ruïnes d’El-Mishrifé au N.-E. de Ḥomṣ (Émèse). Deuxième campagne de fouilles, 1927. Syria 8: 277–301. Durand, J.-M. 1990 La cité-état d’Imâr à l’époque des rois de Mari, MARI 6: 39–92. 2006 La date des textes de Hazor, NABU 2006: no. 86. Fink, A. 2007 Where was the Statue of Idrimi Actually Found? The Later Temples of Tell Atchana (Alalakh) Revisited. UF 39: 161–245. Freu, J. 2000 Ugarit et les puissance à l’époque amarnienne (c. 1350–1310 av.  J.-C.). Semitica 50: 9–39. 2006 Histoire politique du royaume d’Ugarit. Paris: l’Harmattan. Galliano, G., and Calvet, Y. 2004 Le royaume d’Ougarit: Aux origines d’alphabet. Paris: Somogy éditions d’art. Goody, J. 1977 The Domestification of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. 1986 The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. 1987 The Interface between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Goren, Y; Finkelstein, I.; Na’aman, N. 2004 Inscribed in Clay: Provenance Study of the Amarna Letters and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Tel Aviv: E. and C. Yass Publications in Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. Hagenbuchner, A. 1989 Die Korrepondenz der Hethiter. Texte der Hethiter 16. Heidelberg. Havelock, E.A. 1982 The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Horowitz, W.; and T. Oshima 2006 Cuneiform in Canaan: Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient times. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and The Hebrew University. 2007 Hazor 15: Letter Fragment from Hazor. Israel Exploration Journal 57: 34–41. 2010 Hazor 16: Another Administrative Docket from Hazor. Israel Exploration Journal 60: 129–32. Horowitz, W.; Oshima, T.; Winitzer, A. 2010 Hazor 17: Another Clay Liver Model, Israel Exploration Journal 60: 133–45.

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Jacobsen, T. 1982 Oral to Written. Pp. 129–37 in Societies and Languages of the Ancient Near East: Studies in Honour of I.  M.  Diakonoff, ed. M.  A.  Dandamayev, I.  Gershevitch, H.  Klengel, et al. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Kraus, F. R. 1977 Briefe aus dem British Museum. Altbabylonische Briefe in Umschrift und Übersetzung 7. Leiden: Brill. Krebernik, M. 2001 Die altorientalischen Schriftfunde. Ausgrabungen in Tall Biʿa, Tuttul, Band 2. Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag. Kupper, J.-R. 1998 Lettres royales du temps de Zimri-Lim. Archives royales de Mari 28. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Lafont, B. 1988 La correspondance de Ṣidqum-Lanasi. Pp.  509–41 in Archives épistolaires de Mari I/2. Archives royales de Mari 26, ed. D. Charpin, S. Lackenbacher. Paris: Éditions Re­ cherche sur les Civilisations. Larsen, M. T. 1987 The Mesopotamian lukewarm mind: Reflections on science, divination and literacy. Pp. 203–25 in Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, American Oriental Series 67, ed. F. Rochberg-Halton. New Haven, Conn: American Oriental Society. Mayer, Walter 2001 Tall Munbāqa – Ekalte II:  Die Texte. Ausgrabungen in Tall Munbāqa–Ekalte, ed. D. Machule. Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag. Michalowski, P. 1992 Orality and Literacy and Early Mesopotamian Literature. Pp. 227–45 in Mesopotamian Epic Literature: Oral or Aural?, ed. M. E. Vogelzang and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press. Moran, W. L. 1992 The Amarna Letters. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ong, W. J. 1982 Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge. Pruzsinszky, R. 2008 Bemerkungen zu institutionellen Veränderungen in Emar in der Spätbronzezeit. Pp. 65–77 in The City of Emar among the Late Bronze Age Empires: History, Landscape, and Society, ed. L. d’Alfonzo, Y. Cohen, and D. Sürenhagen. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 349. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Richter, T. 2002a Bericht über 2001 in Qaṭna gemachte Inschriftenfunde. MDOG 134: 247–55. 2202b Der “Einjährige Feldzug” Šuppiluliuma I. von Ḫatti in Syrien nach Textfunden des Jahres 2002 in Mišrife/Qaṭna. UF 34: 603–18. 2003 Das “Archiv de Idanda”. Bericht über Inschriftenfunde der Grabungs­kampagne 2002 in Mišrife/Qaṭna. MDOG 135: 167–88. 2005 Qaṭna in the Late Bronze Age. Preliminary Remarks. SCCNH 15: 109–26. 2006 Qaṭna. A. Nach schriftlichen Quellen. RlA 11: 159–61. Sallaberger, W., Einwag, B., Otto, A. 2006 Schenkungen von Mittani­Königen an die Ein­wohner von Baṣīru. Die zwei Urkunden aus Tall Bazi am Mittleren Euphrat. ZA 96: 69−104. Snell, D. C. 1983–84 The Cuneiform Tablet from El-Qiṭār. Abr-Nahrain 22: 159–70. Soldt, W. H. van 1990 Letters in the British Museum. Altbabylonische Briefe in Umschrift und Übersetzung 12. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

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    forthcoming  The Transfer of Knowledge in a Cuneiform Culture. Stern, E. et al. 1993–2008  The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. 5 volumes. Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society. Street, B. V. 1984 Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 9. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Tsukimoto, A. 1984 Eine neue Urkunde des Tili-Šarruma, Sohn des königs von Karkamiš. ASJ 6: 65–74. 1991 Akkadian Tablets in the Hiyarama Collection (II). ASJ 13: 275–333. Toorn, K. van der 2007 Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Veldhuis, N. 1997 Elementary Education at Nippur: The Lists of Trees and Wooden Objects. Groningen. Von Dassow, E. 2005 Archives of Alalaḫ IV in Archaeological Context. BASOR 338: 1–69. 2008 State and Society in the Late Bronze Age: Alalaḫ under the Mittani Empire. Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 17. Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press. Westenholz, J. G. 2000 Cuneiform Inscriptions in the Collection of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem. The Emar Tablets. Cuneiform Monographs 13. Groningen: Styx. Yamada, M. 1994 Preliminary Remarks on the Ekalte Texts, NABU 1994, no. 1.

Time “Pulled up” in Ashurnasirpal’s Reliefs Laura Battini

CNRS (UMR 5133 A r c h é o r i e n t )- U n i v e r s i t y

of

Lyon

Neo-Assyrian reliefs have received many studies: from reconstruction of the localization of reliefs 1 to publication of museums less known. 2 Specific subjects have been already considered: iconographical items, 3 decor of a single room, 4 historical development, 5 architectural context, 6 regional reliefs, 7 and comparisons with other artistic manners or with Syro-Anatolian sculptures. 8 Thus, a new paper about Ashurnasirpal’s reliefs could be considered redundant. To change the perspective, I am choosing a new point of view, partially carrying on Reade’s analysis. I study the typology of history in reliefs, the manner in which it is represented, the architectural context, and the point of view of occasional visitors and of regular presences in the palace. 9 One limit to my approach comes from the reconstruction of the reliefs’ disposition. I accepted Meuszinsky, Paley, and Sobolewski’s reconstruction because I have no better proposal to make and because it seems reasonable. But, as with any reconstruction, the real disposition can be different, and this can have consequences in the results presented here.

I.  Types of History In Ashurnasirpal’s reliefs, there are many ways of depicting time. The two main methods are what can be called “time pulled up” (fig. 1) and “time set off ” (fig. 2). 1.  NB. The following references (nn. 1–8) are certainly incomplete. The bibliography is very long and oversights are inevitable. Meuszesky 1981; Paley and Sobolewsky 1987–88, 1992; Barnett 1960; Barnett and Forman 1960; Barnett and Lorenzini 1975; Barnett, Bleibtreu, and Turner 1998; Barnett 1976; Smith, 1938; Curtis and Reade 1995. 2. For example: Meissner 1927, 1934; Weidner 1932–33, 1967; Weidner 1 Furlani 1939; Boson, 1935; Porada 1945; Porada and Hare 1945; Goossens 1952; Falkner 1952–53; Pohl 1959; Reade 1965; Dolce and Santi eds. 1995; Könige am Tigris, 2004. 3.  Parker and Mallowan 1983; Winter 1983, 1997; Albenda 1972, 1992; Englund 2003; Micale and Nadali 2004; Deszö 2006; Nadali 2010. 4.  Brandes 1970; Roaf 2008; Winter 1983; Nadali 2008. 5.  Madhloom, 1970; Reade 1979, 1980a, 1980b; Winter 1981, 1997; Matthiae 1988, 1994 . 6.  Reade 1980b; Meuszesky 1981; Paley and Sobolewski 1987–88, 1992; Barnett, Bleibtreu, and Turner 1998. 7.  Winter 1982; Mazzoni 1997, 2005. 8.  Winter 1982 ; Tunca 1996. 9.  Attendants, slaves, women, courtiers, eunuchs, ministers, and astrologers are regularly present in the palace, even if it is difficult to say who really inhabited the palace and who only came frequently. Also for royal women, the question is the same because of the existence of different palaces.

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Fig. 1.  Paley and Sobolewski 1987–88: pl. 2.

The majority of Ashurnasirpal’s reliefs conserved in the palace concern time set off. Twenty-one spaces are decorated with reliefs of time set off, and two only of time pulled up (fig. 1). By the label “time set off,” I refer to reliefs in which there is no indication of movement, no action, and no history but only special figures (genius, sacred tree, king, sometimes courtier). They are fixed in a gesture, outside real time, suspended in a dimension without a definite location in space (the background is empty). By “time pulled up,” I intend historical time: real, present time with action, movement, and real human, mortal figures. This kind of time appears in the reliefs preserved in room B and in the West Wing. In no other preserved room do we have reliefs of this kind. Both spaces have in common the presence also of “time set off ” reliefs. Thus, time pulled up always appears with time set off in this palace, which means that it is inserted in timeless time. Only time set off is present everywhere

Time “Pulled up” in Ashurnasirpal’s Reliefs

Fig. 2.  Paley and Sobolewski 1987–88: pl. 17.

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Fig. 3.  Detail from Paley and Sobolewski 1987–88: pl. 2.

in the palace and alone can decorate space. This is the preferred version of time on the basis of which we must understand the messages given by the sculpture in its architectural context. 10

II.  “Time Pulled up’’ In the reliefs depicting “time pulled up,” artists try to represent historical events probably following the main royal lines. And the representation is very different from that of “time set off.” Now a row of figures fills up the scene (fig. 3): the king, a very high officer to be identified perhaps with the crown prince, high officers, courtiers, musicians, ritual dancers, perhaps priests, Assyrian soldiers, enemies, captives, goods from foreign countries, and animals. Among animals, horses are the most frequently represented because of their use in the army. But there are also lions, bulls, cattle, and birds of prey intervening in the battle, with dead bodies (B 11, B 9, B 8, B 5, B 3). All of the figures represented in “time pulled up” are real, living, mortal beings, each with its history, its identity, its social and sexual status, different from others. So, for example, among captives one can distinguish men, women, and children but also sometimes the defeated king, his high officers, simple soldiers (as in B 17 and B 6+ 5). Also, among Assyrians, the social status is represented by garments, attitude, jewels, and weapons: one can distinguish the king, his heir, his officers, and his soldiers. Captives can be recognized by strange garments, by attitude, and by gestures (on the height of the town wall, the people are praising and lamenting), by objects transported, and the manner of their carriage. The main subjects concern victories: in military campaigns but sometimes also in hunts or in crossing new or difficult countries. Using the bow to fight is the most common action repeated in almost every slab, sometimes by the king, sometimes by soldiers, sometimes by both. Enemies also fight, but they are represented as defeated: they have a smaller size, are always on foot and never on horse, sometimes represented by dead bodies being eaten by birds of prey. This representation is a moral one: enemies are bad, different from Assyrians, so their only possible redemption is to integrate into Assyria. The king is represented very often, more often than in reliefs of “time set off ”: due to the division of each slab into two registers, sometimes he appears twice in the same slab, for a total of 12 times in room B, a number that must be added to that of 10.  Cf. Kolbe 1981; Parker and Mallowan 1983.

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Fig. 4.  Detail from Paley and Sobolewski 1987–88: pl. 2.

the reliefs “time set off ” (6 times, plus once outside room B, front wall of the throne room): so the total number of representations of the king in room B is 18. The king appears very active, killing animals (the most symbolic animals: bulls and lions) or enemies, attacking cities, receiving his high officers, prisoners, booty, coming back from battle to the military camp in majesty, and even crossing a river (fig. 4) with his chariot on a boat. This scene is very rare and also very beautiful, the only one showing a king crossing a river on a boat. Furthermore, the crown prince and high officers are more frequently represented in “time pulled up” than in “time set off ”—four times for the crown prince. From the point of view chosen by Ashurnasirpal, the presence of the heir is more necessary in historical time than in cosmic time (= “time set off ”). Because in historical time it is more important to demonstrate the necessity and rightness of this succession as the continuation so invincible and so powerful of this kind of time pulled up. Actions represented here are only powerful activities: hunts, battles, sieges, difficult crossings (of a river: B11–8; of mountains: WFL 19), pointing to all the benefits that are derived from these activities. The king is never carrying on construction, another action that had to be very important during his reign, because this action in the general economy of the royal message is not necessary. 11 But reliefs of “time pulled up” concern only the throne room and some of the rooms situated in the West Wing. And in both spaces, they are accompanied by reliefs of “time set off,” which are present everywhere in the palace. Thus, it seems that “time set off ”—that is, cosmic time—encompasses “time pulled up”—that is, 11.  In the contrary to other periods (Matthiae 1994b) and in the contrary of the written sources (Lachenbacher, 1982, 1990).

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Fig. 5.  Porada and Hare 1945: pl. 3.

historical and real time, and the first becomes the most important time: it constitutes the most important point of view of historical interpretation. The inclusion of historical time in cosmic time means that at the end only cosmic time survives and gives sense to historical events. This is the specific point of view of the king Ashurnasirpal II.

III.  Manner of Representation The manner of representation follows the different kinds of time represented. If for “time set off ” the artists provided a static impression (fig. 5), in the reliefs concerning “time pulled up” (fig. 6), the artists tried to represent different types of movement and of action, changing completely the perspective from reliefs of “time set off.” First, they fill each slab with a great number of people and animals. Second, they choose different actions and different gestures, which also serve to distinguish people by status and ethnic membership or sexual status. Thus, figures are not always standing, as in “time set off ”; sometimes, parallel to the level of the first figures, they lay other bodies perpendicular to the bodies of the first figures. Sometimes, bodies of animal or men are diagonal or upside-down; in a word, artists choose also to enlarge the possibilities of lines on which the scenes are constructed: they use not only straight lines but diagonal, crossed, and perpendicular axes, on

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Fig. 6.  Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, pl.14.

different levels (enemies’ dead bodies abandoned to birds of prey, animals between the legs of the horses). This reinforces the idea of movement, and the scenes appear literally crowded with figures, actions, and gestures. Another way to increase movement is the location of each scene against different backgrounds, which are real and historical—that is, the backgrounds really existed somewhere. When situated in unknown countries, backgrounds are new, and they increase interest and the impression of movement, which makes the time represented here historical, something of which everyone has experience. Scenes of siege and of fighting are the most crowded and full of details. One example can help to explain these artistic methods to provide a sense of movement: horses are represented most often with the two front legs raised. And the representation changes according to the type of movement suggested: if the horses are represented in battle or during hunts—galloping, therefore representing rapid movement—their bodies are oblique in comparison with the line of representation of the scene. On the other hand, if they are represented simply as walking, their bodies are parallel to this line. Once, horses are represented fixed (B 8, 7), during the submission of new prisoners. The scene of horses swimming in the river is very special: they are represented as galloping in water, encircled by water in a very realistic and expressive manner.

IV. Architectural Context When one considers the architectural context, the principal problem is the difficulty of knowing how many rooms were originally decorated. Some reliefs were

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moved from their original position by later kings, taking Ashurnasirpal’s reliefs for their own palaces. 12 And excavation at Nimrud is far from finished. So, it’s impossible to say if all the space available in the palace was decorated. It seems possible to suggest that the king had the time to decorate his entire palace, because he started to build it in 879 b.c.e. All of the West Wing was decorated at one time but has been too severely looted to be reconstructed with any certainty. What is clear when looking at the location of sculpture in each room as well as the doors, doorways, and recesses is that the sculpture was not chosen at random but specifically for each room and door with a view to the function of the space. Paley and Sobolewski have noted that there are principles at work in the planning of the palace. According to one of these principles, near doorways, bull and lion lamassu alternate in order to avoid repetition of the same motif. Paley and Sobolewski also recognized that “protection of recess and doorways seems a more important idea than maintaining alternating directions.” 13 I think that the choice of kind of geniuses and trees is also not at random but depended on architectural specificities (passages between rooms, recess, doorjambs). 14 Each room had decoration very different from the every other room. This is true for the throne room (fig. 7), but also elsewhere. Throne room B is in fact very important: it is the only one that presents a balanced number of “time set off ” and “time pulled up” reliefs; the only one that shows the king 18 times; and the only one that shows almost all of the kinds of geniuses. The sculptural representation of room WG is also very official. 15 It had to contain “time set off ” and “time pulled up,” just like the throne room. Doors often had different subjects in comparison with the rest of the decoration of the room. In the throne room, each door has special motif, often geniuses seldom seen elsewhere (such as four-winged, human-headed, bearded geniuses): at Door a. 2 winged-eagle geniuses; at Door b, 2 human bearded geniuses wearing a tiara decorated with rosettes and carrying bucket (left hand down) and flower branch (right one raised); at Door “c,” 2 four-winged, human-headed, bearded geniuses carrying maces and greeting, each oriented with their back to the door (not looking it); at Door “d,” 2 human-headed, bearded geniuses wearing a tiara decorated with rosettes and carrying a goat (one left and one right hand down) and flower branch (one right hand raised, the other left), (the decoration of Door “e” is not known). Almost every doorway is distinguished from the others, especially the nearer doorways. The throne room is the only room decorated with lamassu of different kinds at each doorway. The other very official rooms (such as WG) have them only in the principal doorways (on the courtyard B, for all these rooms, but also on the way to the throne room for Room F). But this is true also for courtyard B, where entrances to rooms G and WG (lion-lamassu) alternate with entrances decorated by bull-lamassu (to rooms F and S, on the same axis).

V. Point of View Two large categories can be distinguished: occasional visitors and regular presences. 16 The first category has entree only to the official part of the palace, even 12.  Paley and Sobolewski 1987–88. 13.  Paley and Sobolewski 1987–98. 14.  Battini, forthcoming. 15.  As in the case of rooms F, G, and S (Battini, forthcoming). 16.  Cf. Matthiae 1988.

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if—as a new analysis of reliefs (cf. section I) has demonstrated 17—official parts are perhaps larger than generally admitted. But the problem of the actual public getting into specific rooms of the palace has at the moment no clear answer. The only possibility is to examine the texts to see if special sections are frequented by specific people. But the translations of architectural terms are not certain, not definitive, because of the difficulty of understanding them. The problem arises also from an architectural point of view, because no single complete palace plan is known and the definitions used by archaeologists are sometimes misleading, such as those proposed for babanu and bitanu. 18

VI. Some Conclusions At the end of this brief investigation of Ashurnasirpal’s sculpture in its historical context, some conclusions can be cited. There is a strong link between the architectural context and the sculptures in round or in bas-reliefs. Each room’s decoration is very different, and one might think that the differences are due to the function of the room. Thus, it is not by chance that room B, where the king appears 18 times in ritual (bowl in the hand or taking the place of the sacred tree) or in narrative reliefs, and which has a front exterior representing tributaries, is the throne room. The focus on the figure of the king shows that he is the most powerful and important person of all represented or present in the room. Door and doorways have specific subjects and represent alternate themes without repeating the same motifs when two doors are near: they are carefully decorated because they give entrance to everyone, Good as well as Evil. Thus, they must be well guarded by protective spirits, assuring human safety. Time represented in Ashurnasirpal’s sculpture is not real time; it is “invented and cerebral” time. It is a construction for justifying royal power and for celebrating its magnificence. When on the basis of the annals or of the standard inscription we try to identify single military victories, real hunts, actual occasions for rituals represented, we take a point of view that ancient people never took. What was represented is the affirmation of power in its multiplicity of functions: as a destroyer of enemies, as victorious against the wild world, as a pious executor of divine power, and especially as a victor over evil, any kind of evil. But Ashurnasirpal’s message and his vision of historical time goes further: historical time (what we labeled here “time pulled up”) is completely inserted in “time set off ”—that is, in “absolute time.” It is fantastic to see this interpretation of personal events by the king responsible for them. Thus, he behaves as if he is the divine power that distinguishes what is important and what is not, forever. This dimension of an absolute and eternal time makes it possible to give special significance to the reign of the king and to elevate him for eternity. It is possible that only the inner court was able to understand this and that common people saw only the power and splendor of the king. The principal message had to be understood by everyone, but the special meaning of this reign, of this king appeared only to someone more cultivated who was able to read. 17.  Battini, forthcoming. 18.  Battini, forthcoming.

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Bibliography Albenda, P. 1972 “Ashurnasirpal II Lion Hunt Relief BM 124534.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 31: 167–78. 1992 “Symmetry in the Art of the Assyrian Empire.” Pp. 297–309 in D. Charpin and F. Joannès (éds.), La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancien. Actes de la XXXVIIIe RAI, Paris. Barnett, R. D. 1976 Sculptures from The North Palace of Assurbanipal. London. Barnett, R. D., Bleibtreu, E., and Turner, G. 1998 Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh. London. Barnett, R. D., and Forman, W. Barnett, R. D., and Falkner, M. 1962 The Sculptures of Aššur-nasir-apli II (883–859 b.c.), Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 b.c.), Esarhaddon (681–669 b.c.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud. London. 1960 Assyrian Palace Reliefs. London. Barnett, R. D., and Lorenzini, A. 1975 Assyrian Sculpture. Toronto. Battini L. forthcoming  “Time Set Off in Assurnasirpal’s Reliefs.” Boson G. 1935 “Rilievi nel museo Barraco, Roma.” Analecta Orientalia 12: 24–33. Brandes 1970 “La salle dite ‘G’ du palais d’Assurnasirpal II à Kalakh, lieu de cérémonie rituelle.” CRRAI 17 (ed. A. Finet): 147–54. Budge, E. A. W. 1914 Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum. London. Curtis, J. E., and Reade J. E., eds. 1995 Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum. London. Dezsö, T. 2006 “The Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian Army as Depicted on the Assyrian Palace Reliefs, 745–612 bc.” Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 57: 87–113. Dolce, R., and Santi, N., eds. 1995 Dai palazzi assiri.Immagini di potere da Assurnasirpal II ad Assurbanipal (IX–VII sec. a.C.). Rome. Englund, K. 2003 Nimrud und seine Funde der Weg der Reliefs in die Museen und Sammlungen. Rahden. Falkner, M. 1952–53 “Die Reliefs der assyrischen Könige: Zehn assyrische Reliefs in Venedig.” AfO 16: 25–34. Goossens G. 1952 “Reliefs d’Assurbanipal.” Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire 24: 50–54. Kolbe D. 1981 Die Reliefprogramme religiös-mythologischen Charakters in neu-assyrian Palästen. Die Figurentypen, ihre Benennung und Bedeutung. Frankfurt am Main/Berne. Könige am Tigris, 2004: Könige am Tigris: Assyrische Palastreliefs in Dresden. Mainz am Rhein. Lackenbacher, S. 1982 Le roi bâtisseur. Paris. 1990 Le palais sans rival. Paris. Madhloom, T. A. 1970 The Chronology of Neo-Assyrian Art. London. Matthiae P. 1988 “Realtà storica e livelli di lettura nei rilevi narrativi di Assurnasirpal II a Nimrud.” Scienze dell’Antichità 2: 347–76.

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1994a L’arte degli Assiri: Cultura e forma del rilievo storico. Rome. 1994b Il sovrano e l’opera: Arte e potere nella Mesopotamia antica. Rome: Bari. Mazzoni S. 1997 “The Gate and the City: Change and Continuity in Syro-Hittite Urban Ideology.” Pp.  307–38 in G.  Wilhelm (ed.), Die Orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität-Wandel-Bruch, CDOG 1997, Halle, 1997: Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druck und Verlag. 2005 Narrare il trionfo nell’arte siro-ittita, Pp. 233–43 in F.  Pecchioli-Daddi and M.-C. Guidotti (eds.), Narrare gli eventi. Atti del Convegno degli egittologi e degli orienta­ listi italiani in margine alla mostra “La battaglia di Qadesh.” Studia Asiana 3. Rome: Herder. Meissner B. 1927 “Zwei Reliefs Assurbanipals mit Darstellungen von Arabern.” Islamica 2: 291–97. 1934 “Ein Relief Assurbanipals mit einer Darstellung aus dem elamischen Feldzuge.” Mitteilungen der Altorientalischen Gesellschafti 8: 31–34. Meuszynsky J. 1981 Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung in NW-Palast von Kalhu (Nimrud). BaF 2. Mainz. Micale, M. G., and Nadali, D. 2004 “The Shape of Sennacherib’s Camps: Strategic Functions and Ideological Space.” Pp. 163–75 in D. Collon and A. R. George (eds.), Nineveh: Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale London, 7–11 July 2003, Part One (Iraq 66). London. Nadali D. 2004 “La campagna di Assurbanipal contro gli Arabi: proposta di lettura delle dinamiche di una battaglia in campo aperto.” SMEA 46/1: 59–78. 2008 “The Role of the Image of the King in the Organizational and Compositional Principles of Sennacherib’s Throneroom: A Guide to Historical Narrative and Meaning of a Specified Message.” Pp. 473–93 in H. Kühne, R. M. Czichon, and F. J. Kreppner (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th ICAANE, 29 March–3 April 2004, Freie Universität Berlin. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 2010 Assyrian Open Field Battle.” Pp. 117–52 in J. Vidal (ed.), Studies on War in the Ancient Near East. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 372. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Paley, S. M. 1976 Assurnasirpal: King of the World. New York. Paley, S. M., and Sobolewski, R. 1987–88 The Reconstruction of the Relief-Representations and Their Positions in the NW-Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud) II. BaF 10. Mainz am Rhein. 1992 The Reconstruction of the Relief-Representations and Their Positions in the NW-Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud) III: The Principal Entrances and Courtyards. BaF 14. Mainz am Rhein. Parker-Mallowan, B. 1983 “Magic and Ritual in the Northwest Palace Reliefs.” Pp. 33–39 in P. O.  Harper and H.  Pittman (eds.), Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Ch. K. Wilkinson. New York. Pohl, A. 1959 “Eine neuassyrisches Reliefbruchstück aus dem Vatikan.” Studia Biblica et Orientalia III, 302–3. Porada E. 1945 “Reliefs from the Palace of Sennacherib.” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 3: 152–60. Porada, E., and Hare, S. 1945 The Great King, King of Assyria, New York. Reade J. 1965 “Twelve Ashurnasirpal Reliefs.” Iraq 27: 119–34. 1979 “Narrative Composition in Assyrian Sculpture.” BaM 10: 52–110. 1980a “Space, Scale and Significance in Assyrian Art.” BaM 11: 71–74.

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L aura B attini “The Architectural Context of Assyrian Sculpture.” BaM 11: 75–87. Assyrian Sculptures. London. The Decor of the Throne Room of the Palace of Ashurnasirpal.” Pp. 209–13 in J. E. Curtis et al., eds., New Light on Nimrud: Proceedings of the Nimrud Conference 11th–13th March 2002. Exeter.

Smith, S. 1938 Assyrian Sculptures in the British Musen from Salmanasar III to Sennacherib. London. Tunca O. 1996 “À propos de la genèse des orthostates néo-assyriens.” Pp. 223–26 in O. Tunca and O. Deheselle (eds.), Tablettes et images aux pays de Sumer et Akkad: Mélanges offertes à Monsieur H. Limet. APHAO Mémoire no. 1. Liège: Université de Liège. Wäfler, M. 1975 Nicht-Assyrer neuassyrischer Darstellungen. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Weidner, E. F. 1932–33 “Assyrische Beschreibungen der Kriegsreliefs Assurbânaplis.” AfO8: 175–203. 1967 Die Reliefs der assyrischen Könige. Erste Teil: Die Reliefs in England, in der VatikanStadt une in Italien. AfO Beiheft 4. Osnabrück. Weidner, E. F., and Furlani, G. 1939 Die Reliefs der assyrischen Könige. AfO Beiheft. Graz. Winter, I. J. 1981 “Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs.” Studies in Visual Communication 7/2: 2–38. 1982 “Art as Evidence for Interaction: Relations between the Assyrian Empire and North Syria as Seen from Their Art.” Pp. 355–71 in H. Nissen and J.  Renger (eds.), Mesopotamien und seine Nachbarn: Politische und kulturelle Wechselbeziehungen im alten Vorderasien vom 4. bis 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. Berlin. 1983 “The Program of the Throneroom of Ashurnasirpal II.” Pp. 15–31 in P. O.  Harper and H. Pittman (eds.), Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Ch. K. Wilkinson. New York. 1997 “Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Visual Dimensions of Assyrian Ideology.” Pp. 359–81 in Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the NeoAssyrian Text Corpus Project. Helsinki.

Akkadian and Aramaic Terms for a ‘Favorable Time’ (ḫidānu, adānu, and ʿiddān): Semitic Precursors of Greek kairos?

University

Daniel Bodi

of

P a r i s 8, V i n c e n n e s S a i n t -D e n i s There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar IV.3.216–222)

The topos of the arrival of the divinely appointed time is present in Akkadian literature from NB times and has found echoes in the Aramaic parts of Daniel. The Akkadian term is variously transcribed with adānu, adiānu, edannu, idānu, ḫadannu, ḫadiānu, ḫidānu. 1 Here I will analyze in particular some references where it means “appointed, fateful time” and occasionally “favorable time.”

1.  The Term in Neo-Babylonian Texts a.  The Inscription of Marduk-apla-idinna II The King Marduk-apla-idinna II (Merodach-baladan of the Bible) of the Chaldean tribe of Bīt-Yakīn, who ruled as king of Babylon from 721–710 b.c.e. and again in 703, states in his inscriptions, “[At that] time, the great lord, the god Marduk, had turned away in divine wrath from the land of Akkad, and the evil enemy, the Subarian, exercised the rule over Akkad for [seve]n [years [unt]il the days had elapsed, the appointed time arrived [ad]i ūmē imlû ikšuda adannu, (and) the great [lord], the god Marduk, became reconciled with the land of Akkad, with which he had become angry.” 2 1.  CAD A/1, 96. 2. G. Frame, Rulers of Babylonia from the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (1167–612 bc) (RIMB 2; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 137 (B.6.21.1. ll. 8–11, esp. l. 11).

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Owing to Marduk’s support, Marduk-apla-idinna II recovered the rule over Babylonia from the Subarian (Assyrian) ruler after the death of Shalmaneser V and reigned for twelve years. As in the case of Zimrī-Līm, in OB times, any recovery of lost rule is intimately bound to divine decision, approval and indication of the favorable time for power retrieval.

b.  The Nabonidus Harran Inscriptions In the Harran Inscriptions of Nabonidus (555–539 b.c.e.), the Neo-Babylonian king describes how he spent ten years in Teima, an oasis in Saudi Arabia, where he fled from the advance of the Persian troops. When the god Nannar finally revealed to him that the time appointed by the gods had arrived, he was permitted to go back to Babylon. Col. II,11 “10 mu.an.nameš ik-šu-dam a-dan-nu (12) im-lu-u u4-mu šá iq-bu-u (lug a l d ing ir meš dšeš. ki-r i) šar ilī Nannari (13) ina itid u6 u4-1 7 -ká m u4-mu d 30 im-ma-ag-gàr (14) pi-šìr-šú (After) ten years the appointed time arrived, fulfilled were the days which Nannar, the king of the gods, had said. On the seventeenth day of Tašrītu, ‘a day (upon which) Sîn is propitious,’ is its (ominous) meaning. 3 Col. II, 1 “(1) [. . . . . . . . . . . .] it-ti lúḫal (2) [lú]en.m e.li a-lak-tú ul par-sat a[t-t] il-[ma] (3) [ina š]at mu-ši máš.ge6 pár-da-at a-di a-mat [. . . . .] (4) im-li mu ikšu-du a-dan-nu šá [. . . . . . . . . . . .] (5) u-ltu uruTe-ma-a ú[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . I did not stop going to the diviner and the dream interpreter I l[ay do]wn [and in a] frightening night dream, with? The order [. . . . . . . . .]. Fulfilled was the year, the appointed time arrived, of [. . . . . .] From Teima I [proceeded? to] (Babylon). 4

Nabonidus stayed ten years away from Babylon and returned on Tašrītu 17 of an unspecified year. To make sure that this day was the divinely appointed one, he consulted diviners, and apparently a frightening dream induced him to leave Teima. This day was favorable according to the omens.

c.  Esarhaddon’s Inscriptions The term is used in Esarhaddon’s NA inscriptions, ūmē[-ka imlû šanat]-ka ikšud-am-ma ukkiba a-dan-ka “the days of your life are over, the year of your (death) has come, the time appointed to you is here” (Borger, Esarh. 105 ii 32). In this context, adānu refers to a fateful time of death. It occurs in conjunction with ūmu in a SB extispicy where it means “the predetermined day,” adi ūm a-dan-ni iballuṭ arki a-dan-ni-šú imât “he (the sick man for whom the extispicy is performed) will live until the predetermined day, after his time is up, he will die” (CT 31 36 r. 9). 5 The Akkadian expression ḫadāna kašādu “to reach the appointed time,” in relation to the end of the human life can have a positive meaning as expressed in 3.  H 2 col. II:11–12; translation from P.-A.  Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus King of Babylon 556–539 b.c. (YNER 10; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 151. C. J. Gadd, “The Harran Inscription of Nabonidus,” AnSt 8 (1958), 35–92 (60–61); H. Schaudig, Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros’ des Grossen (AOAT 256; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2001), 23: “Diesem Ausdruck liegt die Vorstellung zu Grunde, für jedes Geschehen gebe es einen von den Göttern bestimmten Zeitpunkt.” 4.  H 2 col. III: 3–5 in Beaulieu p. 152, and see the discussion on why that day was favorable. Gadd, “The Harran Inscription of Nabonidus,” 62–63. 5.  CAD A/1, 98.

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an OB personal name Ḫa-da-an-šu-li-ik-šu-ud “May-He (the child)-Attain-the-FullTime-Appointed-for-Him.” 6 Here, in naming their child in this manner, the parents expressed a positive wish that the child may not die before its appointed time.

2.  The Term in Old Babylonian Mari Texts Mari texts attest to several different ways of using the term ḫidannu, ḫadānu:

a.  Used with šakānum It is used with šakānum “to establish, to fix” (a term, a date): ARMT I 43,10: [ṭú]-ur-dam ḫi-da-nam ana alāk ṣābim šāti [u]l ašakkan-ak-kum “I do not establish for you a term for the arrival of those troops”; I 96,5: ana ḫi-da-[n]im ša aškun-akkum PN u PN2, pan ṣābim liṣbatū-nim-ma ana [GN] littalkū-nim “let PN and PN2 take command of the troops on the date which I established for you and let them leave for [GN].”

b.  Used with kašādum It is used with kašādum “to reach, arrive” as in The Zimrī-Līm Epic l. 112 adi ša ikšudu ḫadan-šu šarri(lugal), “until the king’s appointed time arrived.” Another OB example of adannu “the appointed time” used with kašādum ‘to arrive’ is found in CT 4 27a:7: a-da-a-an kaspim šaqālim iktašdannī-ma tamkrārum esranni “the appointed time to pay the money has arrived and the merchant is pressing me.” 7 For the sake of comparison, one may point out that both usages quoted above under (a) and (b) are found in Gilg. XI 87 and 90: a-dan-na Šamaš iškunamma . . . a-dannu šû iktalda “�������������������������������������������������������������������� Šamaš��������������������������������������������������������������� set me a fixed date, that time had arrived,” meaning the fateful, appointed time for the Deluge.

c.  Used Independently It is used independently in ARMT I 127,10; II 48,5: iš[t]u UD.5.KAM ina ḫa-danim Ḫanê uqaʾa “since 5 days that I had been waiting in respect to the time fixed with the Ḫaneans”; ARMT II 78,12: zunnū u rusû iṣbatū-šu-ma ina ūm ḫa-da-nim ša ana ṣēr bēl[īy]a [aš]pur-a[m] ul uṣêm “Rains and mud retained him. He did not leave on the appointed day of which I wrote to my lord.”

d.  The Possible Occurrence of the Term in the Epic of Zimrī-Līm In the course of their work on the Mari tablets, establishing large thematic dossiers as well as cleaning and baking some tablets, J.-M. Durand and D. Charpin have identified several fragments which had been neglected by previous editors on account of their poor state of conservation. 8 These fragments seem to have been part of a larger work now known as The Zimrī-Līm Epic. 9 After Zimrī-Līm suc6.  L. Waterman, “Business Documents of the Hammurabi Period,” AJSL 29 (1913), 145–204 (182 r. 11). While reediting these documents, L. Waterman (Business Documents of the Hammurabi Period [London: Luzac, 1916], 15) transcribes the name differently in a way that makes less sense, Ḫa-da-ilušu-li-ik-šu-ud(?) and places a question mark. 7.  CAD A/1, 99, d) 2′. I thank D. E. Fleming for pointing out this reference to me. 8.  D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand, “La prise du pouvoir par Zimri-Lim,” MARI 4 (1985), 293–343 (325). 9. For a list of a series of lines from The Zimrī-Līm Epic quoted in various publications, see D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand (eds.), Recueil d’études à la mémoire de M.-T. Barrelet (Mémoires de Nabu 4; Florilegium marianum 3; Paris: SEPOA, 1997), 21 n. 16.

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ceeded in breaking the power of the opposing Addu dynasty and reconquering the throne of his ancestors in Mari, this feat must have prompted his contemporaries to compose an epic poem celebrating his various military exploits. The poetry contained in this Epic is more an expression of lyrical enthusiasm, occasionally bordering on “Bedouin braggadocio.” Nevertheless, it is not devoid of historical interest on account of the various toponyms mentioned in the description of Zimrī-Līm’s successful campaigns. Moreover, the Epic expresses the Amorite warlord ideology of the intrepid tribal chieftain. One fragment in particular is pertinent in the present context since it contains the expression discussed in our study: The Epic of Zimrī-Līm lines 112–23: 10 112  a-di ša ik-šu-du ḫa-da-an-šu šarri(luga l) 113  ù i-da-ma-ra-aṣ ú-ka-an-ni-iš aš-še-pi-šu 114  me-e na-da-tim iš-ta-na-at-ti 115  e-si-ik it-ti re-di-i ka-lum-ma iš-šu-uš 116  ra-ab-bu ba!(MA)-ia-ru wa-ṣú-šu-⟨nu⟩ 117  ki-ma sí-ir-ra-m[i]-im pé-e ṣe-ru-um 118  ši-ra-am i-ku-lu mu-tu-šu 119  li-ib-ba-am ir-šu-ú da-na-na-am uṣ-bu 120  zi-im-ri-lim ki-ma šu-ri-nim ip-pa-na i-la-ak 121  is-ḫu-ur a-na la li-bi-im i-na-ad-di-in li-ib-ba-am 122  di-in-na-am i-te-ru-ba 123  iš-de-ku-nu i-im-ma-ar na-ak-rum 112  Until the king’s appointed time arrived 113  and he subdued Ida-Maraṣ at his feet, 11 114  he drank water from water-skins; 115  ranked with the privates, he knows all the hardships, 116  his/their sallying forth is like great hunters’. 117  Like a wild ass (eating) straw in the steppe, 118  his men ate raw meat; 119  They took heart, trusting in strength. 120  Zimrī-Līm goes before like a banner; 121  turning around, he gives courage to the one lacking courage. 122  Be strong! Penetrate (the enemy country)! 123  The adversary will see your discipline.

This fragment from The Zimrī-Līm Epic provides the Sitz im Leben of the Amorite warlord ideology; it comes from their heroic age when the exploits of a famous warlord were praised in poetic form. The text extols the hardships of the military campaign and outdoor life of the warriors, shared by their tribal chieftain, ZimrīLīm. One finds the motif of drinking water from water-skins as found in the “Warriors’ Manifesto” in the NB Babylonian Poem of Erra (I, 58), šikar našpi duššupi ul ubbalu mê nādi. “However sweet fine beer, it cannot compare with water from a water-skin.” There is also the mention of a paradigmatic feature of the Amorite rough and wild life, already epitomized in the Sumerian Myth of the god Mardu, 10. Transliterated Akkadian text in P.  Marello, “La vie nomade,” in J.-M.  Durand (ed.) Recueil d’études en l’honneur de Michel Fleury (Mémoires de Nabu 1; Florilegium Marianum 1; Paris: SEPOA, 1922), 115–25 (122 n. 9). The whole text of the Zimrī-Līm Epic awaits publication by Michaël Guichard. 11.  Ida-Maraṣ means ‘the difficult side’. It is a chain of mountains that bar access to the plain and are difficult to penetrate, located in the NW Jezireh region.

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where these nomads are depicted as eating uncooked meat. This passage praises Zimrī-Līm as a true tribal chief who is providing an example to his troops, sharing the difficult life of his soldiers (l. 115), leading them in their battles and marching ahead of them like a trailblazing banner (l. 120). Elsewhere, it is stated that ZimrīLīm is continually exposing himself in the first ranks, climbing up the battering rams, and attacking the cities (ARMT XXVI 238). 12 Zimrī-Līm’s behavior conforms to the Amorite warlord ideology. He is constantly risking his life for his people and is therefore worthy to be their legitimate leader. The expression in l. 112, adi ša ikšudu ḫadan-šu šarri(lugal), “until the king’s appointed time arrived,” is a stock phrase in Akkadian literature which expresses another feature of the ancient Near Eastern ideology. 13 In the case of Zimrī-Līm, in order to be assured of success in his military campaign, he had to wait for the divinely appointed time. Moreover, the syntax of the phrase is typical of one of the ways the status constructus is expressed in Akkadian. For example, the phrase ša wardim uzun-šu, literally “of the slave, his ear,” meaning, “the slave’s ear,” offers the same syntactical pattern. 14 The expression ḫadanam kašādum appears a second time in the Zimrī-Līm Epic, l. 164: 15 164 [i]š-tu šarri(lu g al) ik-šu-du ḫa-da-an-šu 16 165 [i-r]u-ub ma-ḫa-ar nu-na-am-ni-ir 166 [i-n]a e-ki-si-iq-qa siskur2-re-šu iq-qí 167 [qé]-re-eb ter-qaki na-ra-ma-at dda-gan 168  ba-la-ṭà-am ḫé-gál-la-am ù da-na-na-am 169  it-ti dda-gan zi-im-ri-li-im i-ri-iš As soon as the king’s appointed time arrived, he entered before Nanammir. In the temple E-kisika, he offered his sacrifice, In the midst of Terqa, the beloved of Dagan, life, abundance and strength, from Dagan he requested.

In principle, every military campaign presupposed divine approval, since no expedition could have been launched without preliminary oracular interrogation, 12.  M. Guichard, “Les aspects religieux de la guerre à Mari,” RA 93 (1999), 27–48 (29 n. 27). 13. Marello, “Vie nomade,” p.  121 (l. 112) “Jusqu’à ce que le roi eût atteint son objectif,” and J.‑M. Durand, Archives épistolaires de Mari I/1 (ARM XXVI; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988), p. 475 (l. 164) “Une fois que le roi eut atteint son but.” Having discussed ll. 164–65 of this text with Martha Roth, it is clear that she understands this phrase’s syntax differently. Cf. CAD A/1, 99, quoting YOS 1 45 I 28 a-da-an-nu ikšud-am-ma uptattâti bābāti “(until) the right moment occurred and doors opened themselves in front of me” (Nbn.); VAB 4 270 No. 8 I 27 (Nbn): rubû Marduk 21 šanāti qereb Aššur irtame šubassu imlû ūmê ikšuda adannu inūḫma uzzašu ša šar ilāni “(when) prince Marduk had made his abode in Assyria for 21 years, the time was up, the fixed day arrived, and the anger of the king of the gods became appeased.” 14.  For other examples of status constructus in Akkadian, see D. Bodi, Petite grammaire d’akkadien (Paris: Geuthner, 2001), §28 p.  79 n. 5. G.  Buccellati, “On the Use of Akkadian Infinitive after ‘ša’ or Construct State,” JSS 17 (1972), 1–29. 15. Durand, Archives épistolaires de Mari I/1, ARM XXVI, p. 475. 16.  For the preposition ištu meaning “since, after, as soon as” see CAD I–J, 284–88. After a preposition, the following word is usually placed in the genitive case ištu ṣeḫrim ana rab[îm] ‘(All the Benjaminites) from the smallest to the greatest’ in G. Dossin, “Les Benjaminites dans les texts de Mari,” in Mélanges syriens offerts à M. René Dussaud (Paris: Geuthner,1939), vol. 2, 281–96 (993:10) (Mari). The Sumerian logogram l u g a l in l. 164  could, therefore, be read šarri “king’s, of the king.”

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consultation, and divine authorization. In ARMT XXVI, 197, 22–24, Inib-šina reminds her father Zimrī-Līm, ba-lum te-er-tim, a-na li-ib-bi a-lim[ki], la te-er-ru-u[b] “without oracular (consultation and authorization) do not enter into the city.” To do otherwise might be perilous and spell defeat. The god Addu of Aleppo gives the following specific instruction to Zimrī-Līm in A. 1968, 12′–17′: “When you (are about to) sally forth to a military campaign, do not sally forth without oracular consultation. (Only) when I am favorable in my oracle you may sally forth, if it is not so, do not go out of the gate.” 17 As pointed out by M. Guichard, the tribal god Dagan, king of the gods and of the Middle Euphrates region, takes sides for Mari against Tišpak, the god of the enemy forces from Ešnunna. Dagan announces Tišpak’s demise, telling him that his day is over: ARMT XXVI, 196  5′ a-na dtišpak dda-gan ki-a-am  6′ iq-bi um-ma-mi iš-tu ŠI-na x-dí?  7′ ma-a-tam te-bi-il i-na-an-n[a]  8′ ú-ut-ka it-ta-al-kam  9′ ú-ut-ka ki-ma é-kál-la-timki 10′  ta-ma-ḫa-ar

Dagan to Tišpak thus, he said the following: “Since twice x-dí  ? you governed the country, now your day has arrived your day like Ekallātum’s you will encounter.” 18

Here, the motif of the fateful day is used, where ut-ka ittalk-am may be parsed as a G-stem or a Gt-stem perfect 3m.s. ‘it has gone’, which, with -am ventive, means “it has arrived.” In Ezekiel 7:10, the day of judgment on Jerusalem is announced in a similar way: hinnēh hayyôm hinnēh bāʾâ “The day is here! It has come!” 19 In the 1400 b.c.e. Inscription of Idrimi, the latter spends seven years with the ʿapiru warriors from Alalaḫ. Having made oracular consultations of bird’s flight and sheep’s exta, he discovers that after seven years of adversity, the god Addu has finally become favorable toward him. With the help of his warriors and other ʿapiru, mercenaries, he succeeds in conquering the city of Alalaḫ. 20

3.  The Term in Biblical Aramaic In the Aramaic section of the Book of Daniel, the statement in 2:21 strikes the keynote of the whole book, saying that Israel’s God exercises sovereign rule over human history by setting in motion the events and establishing favorable times: “(God) causes the changes of the times and of the seasons ʿiddānayyāʾ w ezimnayyāʾ The 17. J.-M. Durand, Le culte d’Addu d’Alep et l’affaire d’Alahtum (Mémoires de Nabu 8; Florilegium marianum 7; Paris: SEPOA, 2002), p.  135, no 38: 12′–17′: i-nu-ma gi-ir-ra-am tu-u[ṣ-ṣú-ú] [b]a-lum te-er-tim la t[u]-u[ṣ-ṣí] [i]-nu-ma a-na-ku i-na te-[e]r-ti-i[a] [a]z-za-[z]u gi-ir-ra-am ta-ṣí [š]um-ma [la k]i-a-am-ma ba-ba-am [la] tu-[u]ṣ-ṣí. 18. Durand, Archives épistolaires de Mari I/1, 1988, p. 394; K. van der Toorn, “A Prophetic RolePlay Mistaken for an Apocalyptic Vision (ARM XXVI, no. 196),” NABU 1 (1998), 3–4, no. 2. 19.  D. Bodi, “Ezekiel Commentary,” in J. H. Walton (ed.), Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 419 and 470. 20.  E. Greenstein and D. Marcus, “The Akkadian Inscription of Idrimi,” JANES 8 (1976), 59–96; G.  Buccellati, “La ‘carriera’ di David a quelle di Idrimi re di Alalac,” Bibia e Oriente 4 (1962), 95–99; M. Dietrich and O. Loretz, “Die Inschrift der Statue des Königs Idrimi von Alalah,” UF 13 (1981), 201–78; M. L. Greenstein, “Autobiographies in Ancient Western Asia,” in J. M. Sasson (ed.) Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York: Scribner 1995), vol. 4, 2421–32 (2425); E. von Dassow, State and Society in the Late Bronze Age Alalaḫ under the Mittani Empire (Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 17; D. I. Owen and G. Wilhelm, eds.; Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2008), 31.

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Septuagint rendered these terms in Greek with kairous kai chronous. The terms ʿiddānayyāʾ w ezimnayyāʾ are emphatic plurals of ʿiddān and z eman. The Aramaic expression “seven (divinely fixed) periods” šib eʿāh ʿiddānîn (Greek in LXX reads hepta etē “seven years,” while Theodotion reads hepta kairoi) is used in Daniel 4:13 to designate the divinely appointed time for the duration of Nabuchadnezzar’s mental illness. It corresponds to the Akkadian ḫadānu, adannu which appears twice in the Harran Inscriptions of Nabonidus (H 2 col. II,11, III,4). In his time, G. R. Driver 21 thought that the Akkadian adannu itself might have been borrowed from the Aramaic term ʿiddān. The situation, however, might be the opposite; the Akkadian adannu is already attested in Old Babylonian and in SumeroAkkadian lexical lists.

4.  The Term in Aramaic Qumran Fragments According to the concordance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Aramaic term ʿiddan occurs 19 times in Qumran texts. However, the context is so damaged and fragmentary that it is not always possible to see in what sense the term is used. Here are references where it can be established with great probability that the term is used in the sense of “appointed or favorable time.” The Aramaic Qumran fragment of of the Book of Tobit (4QTobitc ar), ll. 8–9, one reads the following statement, “(8) [I]srael (will become arid); Samar[ia and Jerusalem until] (9) the time when [God] will bring [them] back in [mercy]” ([‫עדנא די יטיב‬ ]‫)ב[רחמין אלהא אנון‬. 22 (10) [but] not as it was befo[re, until] the time ‫[ עדנא‬that     ] (11) [they rebuild] Jerusalem with hon[our ]. The corresponding Greek text of Tobit uses the term kairos to render Aramaic ʾiddanaʾ in l. 8 and the term chronos in l. 10 and adds in the continuation of the same line, “until is fulfilled the time of the favorable moment” (chronos tōn kairon). Here the use of the Aramaic term ʾiddanaʾ corresponds to the meaning “appointed or propitious time.” Another Qumran fragment, 4Q545 9,5 contains the statement “and he fixed their time” (‫)ומני עדניהון‬. 23 The Concordance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 24 quotes an as yet unpublished fragment where the Aramaic ʿiddan is followed by qeṣ. The term qeṣ can have a meaning similar to ʿiddan. Finally, there are two more occurrences of the term ʿiddan in the Aramaic Targum on the Book of Job 11Q10, col. XXXI,1 “Wh[ich I have reserved for] the time of dis[tress,] for the day of war and battle” (‫)[ ד[י מנעת ל]עדן ע[קת]א ליום קרב ואשתדר‬. Here, one could suggest the translation, “for the appointed time of distress, for the day of war and battle.” The Targum Job 39:1–11 11Q10 col. XXXI,2, states, (1) “the mountain goats, and [the birth-pan[g]s [ Do you coun]t their [m]onths (2) in full, 21.  G. R. Driver, “Hebrew Roots and Words,” WdO 1 (1947–52), 406–15 (412 n. 51), and see CAD A/1, 99. 22. J.  Fitzmyer, “Tobit,” in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XIX Qumran Cave 4, Parabiblical Texts, Part 2, ed. M. Broshi, et al. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 57. Five fragmentary texts of Tobit have been discovered from Qumran, four in Aramaic and one in Hebrew. 23. E. Puech, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXI: Qumrân grotte 4, textes araméens (4Q529– 549) (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), 347. 24.  M. G. Abegg Jr., J. E. Bowley, and E. Cook (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance (Leiden: Brill, 2003), vol. 1, 894.

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and do you know the time they give birth?” (‫)ותנדע עדן מולדהין‬. 25 Here again, one could suggest that the term refers to the appointed time of birth.

5.  The Term kairos in Classical Greek literature An entire Ph.D. dissertation at the Sorbonne, Paris, was written dealing with the Greek concept of kairos. 26 Monique Trédé has analyzed the occurrences of the term kairos in the earliest Greek literature since Hesiod and Homer from the 8th down to the 3rd century b.c.e., though she also occasionally includes NT usage as well as the occurrences of the term in the writings of the Church fathers. She established that the earliest usage of the Greek term kairos is not temporal but spatial and has nothing to do with time. This is why one should beware of Gerhard Delling’s article on kairos in Kittel’s dictionary, which makes an erroneous statement, saying, “In the spatial sense the word is rare.” 27 Between the 8th and 6th centuries b.c.e., in Homer’s Iliad (IV vv. 183–187; VIII vv.80–85; VIII v. 326; XI v. 339) and the Odyssey and Hesiod, the term kairos stands for a particular spot on the enemy’s body where one can strike and inflict a mortal wound. Different passages in the Iliad describing battles mention particular spots on the warrior’s body where protective armor does not completely cover the torso. The term kairos stands for that critical spot where the warrior can be mortally wounded. In the 8th song, the Achaeans are being beaten by the Trojans. Nestor, the champion of the Achaeans is still standing, but Alexander, Helen’s companion, strikes Nestor’s horse at a precise spot where the horse’s mane emerges from the head. It is considered the weakest spot on the horse’s body and the horse falls down. The father of history writing, Thucydides, in the 5th century b.c.e. is among the first Greek classical authors to use the term kairos in a new way. For him, kairos becomes the critical moment in time and politics where all kinds of political reversals are possible, when former allies can become enemies (Thuc. I 43,2; VI 85,1). In Plato’s Politics 270 A 6, one finds the same usage, where kairos stands for the critical moment in time when the universe can change and adopt a course inverse to the previous one. From the 5th century onward, the term kairos developed the usual meaning we give to this term: Know the critical situation in your life, know that it demands a decision, and what decision, train yourself to recognize as such the decisive point in your life, and to act accordingly. One finds this meaning in (Aristotle, Eth. Nic., I,4) and later among Stoic philosophers.

6.  The Term kairos in Rabbinic Literature The Babylonian Talmud uses the notion of favorable time. In the tractate Taanit 29a–b, it states that the month of Ab is not propitious because in this month both the First and the Second Temple were destroyed. 25.  F. García Martínez, E. J. C. Tigchelar, A. S. van der Woude (eds.), Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXIII, Qumran Cave 11, 2, 11Q2–18, 11Q20–31 (Leiden: Brill 1998), 151 and 155. 26. M. Trédé, Kairos: L’à-propos et l’occasion (Le mot et la notion d’Homère à la fin du IVe siècle avant J.-C.) (Paris: Klincksieck, 1992), 41: “Ainsi, dans tous les cas évoqués jusqu’ici, qu’il s’agisse du tir de l’archer, de la stratégie, de politique ou de médecine, kairios, kairos, epikairos se disent d’un point ‘critique,’ ‘décisif ’ qui fut défini spatialement avant de l’être temporellement.” Jacqueline de Romilly, Time in Greek Tragedy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968). 27. G.  Delling, “Kairos,” in G.  Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1966), vol. 3, 455–64 (455). J. Barr, Biblical Words for Time (London: SCM Press, 1969), 35, on the terms kairos and chronos. S. Kraus and I. Loew, Griechische und leteinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum (reprinted, Hildesheim: Olms, 1964).

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Whence do we know this? For it has been taught: Good things come to pass on an auspicious day (ywm zkʾy), and bad things on an unlucky day ( ywm ḥyyb). It is reported that the day on which the First Temple was destroyed was the eve of the ninth of Ab, a Sunday, and in a year following the Sabbatical year, and the Mishmar of the family of Jehoiarib were on duty and the Levites were chanting the Psalms standing on the Duchan (the platform in the Temple). And what Psalm did they recite?—(The Psalm) containing the verse, “And He hath brought upon them their own iniquity; and will cut them off in their own evil” (Ps. 94:23). And hardly had they time to say, “The Lord our God will cut them off ” (ibid.) when the heathens came and captured them. The same thing too happened in the Second Temple. 28

The month of Adar, however, is considered to be favorable. The bad things happen the same day in the same month. In the book of Esther, Haman the minister of the Persian king states that the month of Adar is particularly nefarious and will therefore be the perfect time to launch the extermination of the Jews. Owing to Esther’s intervention, however, the nefarious month was transformed into a favorable one. The rabbinic expression for “favorable day” uses the term zakkaʾy, meaning “clear, guiltless, righteous, deserving, worthy,” related to Akk. zakû, zakiu “clear, clean, cleansed, free of claims.” By contrast, ḥayyāb means “bound, guilty, wicked, debtor,” and is related to ḥûb “debt” (cf. Akk. ḫubullu “debt”). There is another point which merits to be included in this discussion on account of a curious phenomenon which still awaits a correct answer. The Rabbis, mainly beginning with the 6th century c.e. and later in the midrashim, use the Greek term kairos transcribed in Hebrew characters kêras (‫)קירס‬. 29 For example, Qoheleth Rabbah at XI, 3, commenting on the famous biblical sequence found in Qoheleth 3:2–9, “a time ‫ עת‬to be born and a time to die. . .a time ‫ עת‬to love and a time to hate,” by offering the following comment, “when the proper time comes for the scholar to teach” (‫)אם הגיע קירסו של תלמיד‬. The midrash in Esther Rabbah to I, 13 comments with reference to ‫ לעתים‬in 1 Chronicles 12:32 ‫“ שהיו יודעין לרפאות את הקירוס‬they knew how to mend/heal the time/destiny.” This means that the appearance of the term kêras (‫ )קירס‬is late and is unattested in the Talmudim. Moreover, Delling’s opinion saying that the Rabbis in the later Rabbinic literature did not feel that any of the Hebrew terms like ‫עת‬, ‫עדן‬, ‫ זמן‬gave the true sense of kairos and that therefore they adopted the rare loanword ‫ קירוס‬is probably erroneous. 30 The Aramaic term ‫ עדן‬perfectly fulfills this function and designates the special, favorable time as confirmed by the Septuagint translation of this term by Greek kairos. The Rabbis of the 6th century c.e. and onward who were multilingual, using Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, in their commentary on the Hebrew biblical usage simply referred to a well-known term and concept of Greek culture. One cannot even say that they were displaying their erudition since the Greek concept of kairos was a well-known reality in the society dominated by the Greek culture. 28.  The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Moʿed, ed. I. Epstein, Taʿanith, Eng. tr. by J. Rabbinowitz (London: Soncino, 1938), 154. 29.  M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (New York: Judaica, 1975), 1369. The reference Jastrow gives to the Jerusalem Talmud 33d ‫קירסים‬, a supposed plural form of ‫קירס‬, has nothing to do with our term but refers to plucking the ears in the Sabbatical year. M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (Bar Ilan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002), 492. 30.  Delling, “Kairos,” 458.

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7. Conclusion We cannot say whether the Greeks borrowed the concept of favorable time from the Semites and in what manner this supposed influence if any was exerted. The above discussion simply shows that the concept of favorable time is well attested in the Semitic world since the 8th century b.c.e. The notion of favorable time is abundantly attested in texts from NB times and is a key term in extispicy, as shown by U. Koch. 31 Moreover, if my demonstration of the presence of this expression in the Mari Zimrī Līm Epic is correct, the concept would be present in the Northwest Semitic domain since OB times. The two Mari examples, however, hinge on the issue of syntax and some additional OB examples of this type of status constructus are needed in order to clinch the issue. 31. For an edition of texts relating to the determination of the adannu, “favorable time,” see U. Koch, Secrets of Extispicy: The Chapter “Multābiltu” of the Babylonian Extispicy Series and “Niṣirtu bārûti” Mainly from Aššrubanipal’s Library (AOAT 326; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2005).

Masters of Time: Old Babylonian Kings and Calendars Dominique Charpin and Nele Ziegler

C h a r p i n : EPHE; Z i e g l e r : CNRS — UMR 7192, P a r i s In Western civilization, the regulation of time is one of the touchstones of power, where religion and politics meet—or else confront each other. Only few among the most powerful could decide changes in the calendar. We can mention the reform of Julius Caesar, which was followed for centuries. The so-called Gregorian Reform took place in 1582 but was not accepted everywhere and with all its ramifications. Principally because it was promoted by Pope Gregory XIII, Protestant and Orthodox countries were reluctant to adopt it. Even today, it is still not used in some countries—for example, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan. The decision to reform the regulation of time was one of the ambitions of the French Revolution. This reform was motivated by an anticlerical ideology, with the wish to eliminate all Christian aspects of the calendar: Sunday, the saints, and Christian feasts were all abolished in the name of reason, science, nature, and poetry. The months were given new names, but above all a new division of months into three periods of ten days (décades) was introduced. The year began with the autumn equinox. The reform took place in 1793: September 22nd 1792 was chosen retrospectively as the beginning of the new era and became “1er vendémiaire an 1.” However, in 1805, Napoleon chose to abandon this system and revert to the Gregorian calendar. These examples show just how crucial the division of time was felt to be over the last two thousand years. Therefore, we have good reason to investigate this aspect of Mesopotamian civilization. Time was given by the gods, with the moon-god Sin regulating the months: by growing, becoming full, waning and disappearing, his crescent determined the length of the month. 1 The new moon was awaited by the populace and the administration, and with it the new month began. Solar years, which last some twelve lunar months and 11 days, are the result of the stars and the sun rising in the same place every year. 2 Although time was given by the gods, the Author’s note:  Our thanks to Michaela Puntigam for her help regarding our English. The abbreviations used in this contribution can be found in http://www.archibab.fr. 1.  See in this regard En. el. V 12–22. See in general J. M. Steele (ed.), Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Oxbow, 2007), as well as J. M. Steele, “Making Sense of Time: Observational and Theoretical Calendars,” in The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture (ed. K. Radner and E. Robson; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 470–85. 2.  See H. Reculeau, “Lever d’astres et calendrier agricole à Mari,” in Florilegium marianum VI, Recueil d’études à la mémoire d’André Parrot (Mémoires de NABU 7; ed. D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 2002) 517–38.

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reckoning of time was a very important tool and it was clearly in the hands of kings. They decided which names to give to the new year, the intercalation of supplementary months, etc. Occasionally, they decided at which moment a year should start, which month-names should be used in newly conquered cities, and so on. In our paper, we will concentrate on the situation during the Old Babylonian period. Our aim is to show that, of course, kings were not the masters of time itself (the moment to work on the fields, to irrigate, and to gather in the harvest) but they were masters of the control of time and thus of the regulation and record of every human activity. First of all, we will describe the normal situation of royal influence on the reckoning of time, then study some exceptional cases and finish by stressing the limits of royal power in this field.

1.  Normal Situations To begin with, let us have a look at the way names were normally given to years and months and then see what happened when a king conquered a city.

1.1.  How Was the Name of a Year Chosen? As is well known, years normally acquired their name from an important event of the previous year. So far, two letters from the Mari archives, sent by the minister of finance (šandabakkum) Yasim-Sumu, represent our only explicit evidence for the process which led to the creation of a year-name. The first letter was written to king Zimri-Lim: 3 The year which has begun / will begin 4 must be named as follows: “Year ZimriLim went to the help of Babylon, a second time, to the land of Larsa.”

If we had only this letter, we might have concluded that the šandabakkum had enough authority to fix year-names. Except that at the same time Yasim-Sumu wrote a more detailed letter to Šunuhra-Halu, the king’s secretary, which leads to a very different conclusion: 5 Concerning the name of the year (nîb šattim), which you wrote to me as follows: “Year Zimri-Lim offered a great throne to Dagan.” This throne has not yet been offered. I have just sent a tablet to the king. The name (should be): “Year Zimri-Lim went to help Babylon, a second time, to the land of Larsa.” Attract the attention of the king to this tablet and write to me whatever the decision is.

We now understand the process better. The king had chosen a formula for the year and his secretary communicated this name to the finance minister. Yasim-Sumu 3.  ARM 13 27 (= LAPO 16 no. 157): (11) (. . .) mu 1 - k a m ša i-[r]u-[b]a-[a]m (12) ki-a-am li-inna-bi (13) um-ma-mi mu zi-im-ri-li-im (14) til-lu-ut ká - d i n g i r- raki il-li-ku (15) a - rá 2- ka m- ma a-na ma-at la-ar-sa. 4.  Basing himself on VAT 1200, M. Horsnell understood ša irrubam and translated “the next year which is approaching” (M. J. A. Horsnell, The Year Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon, Volume 1: Chronological Matters, the Year Name System and the Date-Lists [Hamilton: McMaster University Press, 1999], 170). But see the objection by D. Charpin, RA 95 (2001) 91a. 5.  ARM 13 47 (= LAPO 16 no. 90): (4) aš-šum ni-ib m u ša ta-aš-pu-ra-am (5) um-ma at-ta-a-ma m u zi-im-ri-li-im (6) gišg u- za g al a-na dda-gan ú-še-lu-ú (7) gišg u - z a ši-i a-di-ni (8) ú-ul šu-la-at (9) a-nu-umma a-na ṣe-er / lug a l (10) ṭup-pa-am uš-ta-bi-lam (11) ni-ib mu zi-im-ri-li-im (12) til-lu-ut ká - d i n g i rr aki (13) il-li-ku a- r á 2- k am (14) a-na ma-at la-ar-sa (15) ṭup-pa-am ša-a-tu l u g a l (16) šu-qí-il-ma an-ni-tam la an-nitam (17) šu-up-ra-am.

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objected that it was not possible to name a year commemorating an event which had not yet happened and proposed an alternative name. The end of his letter is clear: the final decision lies with the king. 6 And we know that Zimri-Lim did not take Yasim-Sumu’s objection into account: in fact, the name of that year was “Year Zimri-Lim offered a great throne to Dagan.” Zimri-Lim’s choice shows that a religious offering could be celebrated in a yearname even if an important political event had taken place the year before: 7 the historian cannot hope to write a significant political history of a reign or of a dynasty only on the basis of year-names. 8 Why was the šandabakkum Yasim-Sumu involved in the process of choosing a year-name? The answer is quite simple: 9 all the scribes of the palace administration were under his authority, not only in Mari, but also in the provincial palaces. 10 He was in charge of communicating the formula chosen for the new year, in due course, so that everybody could immediately use the new year-name when writing a tablet. Indeed, the name “Year Zimri-Lim offered a great throne to Dagan” is attested from the second day of the first month on.

1.2.  Calendars and the Intercalation of Months Normally, the months were named according to a local calendar, with traditional designations mixing agricultural and other types of task, divine names and festivals. 11 Each kingdom had its own calendar: 12 Isin inherited the Sumerian calendar of the Ur III period current in Nippur, which was also used later in the kingdoms of Larsa and Babylon. Samsi-Addu’s kingdom had a calendar very similar to that of Ešnunna, 13 etc. The king’s main responsibility was to decide when to add an intercalary month. The use of a lunar calendar meant that, every year, there was a discrepancy of eleven days between the official calendar and the solar year. Approximately every third year, an intercalary month had to be added to make the two calendars co­incide again. Generally, the addition was made either after the sixth month 6.  We must add that we have no example where such a choice was decided by recourse to divination. 7.  We could interpret Zimri-Lim’s choice as having political significance: we know he was upset by the fact that Hammu-rabi refused to send back to him the troops he had sent as auxiliaries for the siege of Larsa (D. Charpin and N. Ziegler, Florilegium marianum V. Mari et le Proche-Orient à l’époque amorrite: essai d’histoire politique [Mémoires de NABU 6; Paris: SEPOA, 2003] 231 and n. 565 [quoted hereafter as FM 5]). The fact that Zimri-Lim refused to follow the suggestion of Yasim-Sumu (and therefore the commemoration of the military help sent to Babylon) could be seen as indicating a deterioration in his relations with Hammu-rabi. 8.  A. L. Oppenheim’s (cautious) attempt to write Hammu-rabi’s history on the basis of his yearnames in his famous Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964) 156–57 is not the best part of that book, regardless of its other qualities. 9.  D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand, “Yasîm-Sûmû et les noms d’années de Zimrî-Lîm,” NABU 2004/76. 10.  For the authority of the šandabakkum over all the superintendents (abu bîtim), see D. Charpin, “Un nouveau ‘protocole de serment’ de Mari,” in Opening the Tablet Box: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster (ed. S. C. Melville and A. L. Slotsky; Leiden: Brill, 2010) 51–77 (68–69). 11.  For Mari, see A. Jacquet, “Tell Hariri / Mari: textes VI. La vie religieuse. IX. Calendrier et culte à Mari,” in Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible 14 (Paris: Letouzay & Âné, 2008) 405–24. 12. Unfortunately, M.  E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1993), is not reliable for the Old Babylonian period. 13.  See D. Lacambre, “Niggallum, lecture akkadienne du mois ŠE.KIN.KU5 dans le calendrier dit ‘de Samsî-Addu’,” in Florilegium marianum VI. Recueil d’études à la mémoire d’André Parrot (Mémoires de NABU 7; ed. D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 2002) 505–12 and n. 21 below.

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(itikin-dinanna) or after the twelfth month (itiše-kin-ku5). This decision was in the hands of the kings. Most of our information on this subject comes from the NeoAssyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. Kings decided on the moment of intercalation of the supplementary month and on the other matters related to this decision. 14 We possess a letter of Hammurabi of Babylon which is very clear: 15 [Say to Sin-iddinam]: thus (speaks) Hammurabi. The year must have an intercalary month (dirigûm). The coming month must be written as kin-dina nna 2-kam-ma (= month vi-bis). And instead of the order to make the igissûm-tax reach Babylon on the 25th of the month du6-kù (= month vii), it must reach Babylon on the 25th of the month kin-di na nna 2 -ka m -m a (= month vi-bis).

The decision on intercalation was clearly made by the king. And the purpose of the letter was to say that, despite the intercalary month, taxes had to be paid at the same moment as previously fixed, and not a month later. Significantly, the most ancient text we have about intercalation is devoted to a fiscal problem: this is a very classical situation in the world history of calendars.

1.3.  Conquest of a City When a city was conquered by a foreign king, the local population had to adopt a new dating system: the texts had to be dated by the year-names of the new king. Indeed, this obligation is an opportunity for modern historians, because the political expansion of a given kingdom may often be traced thanks to the mapping of yearnames featuring in tablets found in various places. Military events could even introduce changes in year-names in the land of the victors: after his greatest victories, Zimri-Lim could decide to change the name of a year for the remaining months of that year. 16 Eventually, the local calendar had to be changed in favor of the calendar of the kingdom to which the city now belonged. The discoveries made at Harradum pre­ sent a double example of such changes. After the Babylonian conquest, the victor’s calendar was used. 17 The city went back to the “Mari calendar” when it was part of the Middle Euphrates kingdom created after the large-scale rebellion against 14.  The Mari archives give us no information on that subject and indeed intercalation at Mari was quite an irregular process. 15.  AbB 2 14: (1) [a-na dEN.ZU-i-dí-nam] (2) [qí-bí]-ma (3) [um-m]a h[a]-am-mu-ra-bi-ma (4) [š]a-attum di-ri-ga-am i-šu (5) wa-ar-hu-um ša i-ir-ru-ba-am (6) i ti k i n-di n a n n a 2 - ka m- m[a] l[i]-iš-ša-ṭe4-er (7) ù a-šar i gi-sá i-na it i [du6- k]ù u4 25- k am (8) a-na k á - d i n g i r-[raki] (9) sà-na-qum iq-[qá-bu]-ú (10) i-na it i ki n-din[an]na 2- k am -[m]a u4 2 5 - k a m (11) a-na ká - d i n g i r- raki (12) li-is-ni-[q]á-a[m]. 16.  The year ZL 1: mu zi-im-ri-li-im alam an-nu-ni-tim ša še-eh-ri-imki i-pu-šu “Year Zimri-Lim made a statue of Annunitum from Šehrum” is doubled from month vi on by m u zi-im-ri-li-im ka-ha-atki iṣ-ba-tu “Year Zimri-Lim conquered Kahat” (FM 5, 174). Year ZL 13: m u zi-im-ri-li-im áš-la-ka-aki šani-iš iṣ-ba-tu “Year Zimri-Lim conquered Ašlakka a second time” is doubled from month vii on by m u zi-im-ri-li-im da-am7-da-am ša e-lu-uh-timki i-du-ku “Year Zimri-Lim vanquished Eluhut” (FM 5 258 and n. 735). 17. We do not possess texts dating to the end of Hammurabi’s reign, but there is one dated to Samsu-iluna 6: Haradum 2 23 has the year-name preserved on the envelope, although the tablet only gives the month (l. 28: ITI AB.È.A). See D. Charpin, “Harrâdum, entre Babylone et le ‘pays de Mari’,” in Normierung und Emanzipation: Bausteine für eine Kulturgeschichte des 2. Jts. v. Chr. im Alten Orient. Internationales Symposium zu Ehren von Gernot Wilhelm (ed. E.  Cancik-Kirschbaum, J.  Klinger, and G. G. W. Müller; Berlin, in press) §1.1.2. No texts prior to the conquest of Hammu-rabi, when Harradum was part of the kingdom of Mari, have been found but it is certain that the “Mari calendar” was in use at the time.

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Samsu-iluna. 18 When Samsu-iluna retook Harradum, the calendar changed once more to the month-names used in the Babylonian kingdom. 19 Nevertheless, such changes were not always immediate. Sippar had been independent but was annexed to the kingdom of Babylon by Sumu-la-El. Yet, several months of the local calendar were still in use in Sippar texts until the reign of Hammurabi. 20 In the same way, after Mari was annexed by Samsi-Addu, we can see the coexistence of two calendars: the official one, often called “Samsi-Addu’s calendar” or the “Ekallatum calendar,” 21 and the local one. Do we have to interpret this as the manifestation of a spirit of resistance by the local population? This is certainly not the case, because the official administration of Mari went on using the local calendar. It is true that the local administration was headed by people like Uṣur-awassu, who were already in office during the reigns of Yahdun-Lim and Sumu-Yamam, but Samsi-Addu himself considered Uṣur-awassu to be one of the most reliable administrators of Mari. The acceptance and survival of the Mari calendar alongside the official one after the conquest by Samsi-Addu was perhaps a privilege due to the religious importance of Mari. 22

2.  Exceptional Situations Having described the normal situation during the Old Babylonian period, we would like to analyze some exceptional cases, linked with the annexation of a kingdom or the conquest of a city. We will first consider the “era-reckoning system” and then the situation in Mari after its conquest by Zimri-Lim.

2.1.  The “Era-Reckoning System” After a particularly striking victory, some kings chose to commemorate the event beyond the following year. One example belongs to the reign of Sumu-la-El of Babylon. The name of his 13th year was: mu kiški ba-hul “Year when Kiš was destroyed,” and then we have mu ús-sa kiški ba-hul (= year 14), mu ús-sa ús-sa-bi kiški ba-hul (= year 15), mu 4-kam kiški ba-hul (= year 16) and mu 5-kam kiški ba-hul (= year 17). 23 After that, the traditional way of naming years was resumed once again. This could mean that the victory had a special significance for Sumu-la-El; but we should not give too much importance to this feature, since Ur-Ninurta, the king of 18.  The text Haradum 2 16 is dated by a year-name of king Iṣi-Sumu-abum and the month is Lilliyatum (see D. Charpin, “Harrâdum, entre Babylone et le ‘pays de Mari’,” §1.2). 19.  The oldest preserved text is Haradum 2 26, dated 20/v(NE.NE.GAR)/Samsu-iluna 26. 20.  A. Goddeeris, “The local calendar of Sippar,” NABU 2000/63; and, independently, S. Greengus, “New Evidence on the Old Babylonian Calendar and Real Estate Documents from Sippar,” JAOS 121 (2001) 257–67. 21.  This calendar is commonly attributed to Samsi-Addu and interpreted as linked to Ekallatum, so we use this terminology for convenience. The reconstruction of this calendar by D. Charpin in MARI 4 has been confirmed by discoveries made later at Tell Leilan; see the bibliography in FM 5, 155–56. 22.  See the way Samsi-Addu makes a comparison between the respective religious importance of Mari and of Aššur in FM 8 1. For the question of maintaining a local calendar in Mari and a comparison with the situation in Aššur and its commercial dependencies under Samsi-Addu’s reign, see also FM 5, 79 n. 21. But note that at the same time other cult-centers adopted completely the calendar of their conquerors: in Tuttul, for instance, only the Ekallatum months were used during Samsi-Addu’s reign; but after Zimri-Lim’s conquest, the town immediately switched to the Mari calendar, cf. below, §2.2. 23.  M. J. A. Horsnell, The Year Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon, Volume 2 (Hamilton: McMaster University Press, 1999), 52–53.

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Isin, did exactly the same thing with his year-name by commemorating the building of the wall named “Imgur-Enlil,” until mu 4-kam bàd im-gur-den-líl mu-dù. 24 After Rim-Sin, the king of Larsa, had conquered the kingdom of Isin, a double transformation occurred in reckoning time. First, the year-names followed a new system of era: they were counted as “second, third, etc., year after Isin had been conquered” (mu ki-2 ì-si-inki in-dib-ba, till mu ki-31 ì-si-inki in-dib-ba). This happened during the last thirty years of Rim-Sin’s reign (= years 31 to 60): this is a clear difference from the examples quoted above. Second, changes also affected the naming of the months when a new system was introduced. Despite the efforts of F. R. Kraus, J. F. Robertson, and others, 25 this dating system is still not yet fully understood, although clearly it was introduced after an official decision. When Hammu-rabi conquered the kingdom of Larsa, he immediately imposed his year-names on the newly captured cities. The presence of the Babylonians is thus visible at Nippur as early as 26/iv/Ha 30, at Isin as early as 14/v, 26 and finally at Larsa from 28/xii of the same year. 27 As explained by S. J. Lieberman, “Clearly, the propagandistic value of imposing a year-name on a newly-captive city dictated its adoption in rather short order, as did the new ruler’s ego.” 28 Sometimes, the scribes only indicated “Year when Hammurabi (was) king.” 29 This kind of year-name has been considered as denoting the first year of a reign and is usually understood as “Year when Hammurabi (became) king.” When such a formula is found on contracts in Nippur or Larsa, it cannot refer to the first year of Hammu-rabi as king of Babylon; so Assyriologists assumed that Hammu-rabi considered he had begun a new reign in the former kingdom of Larsa, presenting himself as the successor of Rim-Sin. 30 This view must now be abandoned: quite recently, a text has been published comprising a tablet, with the formula “Year when Hammurabi (was) king,” and a case with a more complete year-name. This is not Hammu-rabi 31, as expected, but Hammu-rabi 32. 31 For M. Anbar, this means that the first “official” year of Hammu-rabi at Larsa was not year 31 but year 32. 32 In fact, we now know that the formula “mu (king’s name) lugal” can be an abbrevia24.  M. Sigrist, Isin Year Names (IAPAS 2; Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1988) 29. 25.  See F. R. Kraus, “Ungewöhnliche Datierungen aus der Zeit des Königs Rīm-Sin von Larsa,” ZA 53 (1959) 138–67; J. F. Robertson, “An Unusual Dating System from Isin-Larsa Period Nippur: New Evidence,” ASJ 5 (1983) 147–61; K. Hüttner and J. Oelsner, “Verwaltungsurkunden aus der Zeit Rīm-Sins von Larsa in der Hilprechtsammlung Vorderasiatischer Altertümer der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena,” AoF 17 (1990) 355–59 and most recently, M. van de Mieroop, “The Reign of Rim-Sin,” RA 87 (1993) 47–69, esp. 64–66. 26.  D. Charpin, “Histoire politique du Proche-Orient amorrite (2002–1595),” OBO 160/4 (Fribourg: Academic Press / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004) 25–480 (319). 27.  This is shown by the Larsa tablet L. 74.214, which is dated to the 28th day of the 12th month of year Ha 30; cf. D. Arnaud, “Larsa: Catalogue des textes et des objets inscrits trouvés au cours de la sixième campagne,” Syria 53 (1976) 47–81 (62). 28.  S. J. Lieberman, “The Years of Damiqilishu, King of Isin,” RA 76 (1982) 97–119 (111). 29.  For mu ha-am-mu-ra-bi l u g a l,  see the references in F.  R. Kraus, Nippur und Isin nach altbabylonischen Rechtsurkunden, JCS 3 (1951) 41–42, complemented by M.  Anbar, “Textes de l’époque babylonienne ancienne II: les archives de Šēp-Sîn,” RA 72 (1978) 113–38 (117). Add, for instance, OECT 15 38 and 46; see D. Charpin, “Économie, société et institutions paléo-babyloniennes: nouvelles sources, nouvelles approches,” RA 101 (2007) 147–82, esp. 154 n. 25. 30.  See F. R. Kraus, JCS 3 (1951) 42, quoted below (n. 39). 31.  BM 14190: (8) mu ha-am-mu-ra-bi // BM 14190A: (8) mu ha-am-mu-ra-b[i] / l u g a l u r- s a g (9) ugni m èš -nun- naki (10) gišt uk ul ba- an- sìg (M. Anbar, RA 72, 129–30, no. 17). 32. M. Anbar, RA 72 (1978) 117.

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tion for any year-name. 33 So this is no proof that Hammu-rabi considered he had begun a new reign, succeeding Rim-Sin in the former kingdom of Larsa. Another feature has been misinterpreted. In some Larsa texts after the Babylonian conquest, we find a new dating system: mu ki-N Hammu-rabi, the highest number being 6 (mu ki-6). There are only abbreviated formulas, and none is complete. From comparison with the “Isin-era” of Rim-Sin, it has been explained as linked with the conquest of Larsa by supposing that it meant “First year after Larsa had been taken.” 34 But this is not the case: BM 14089A gives the formula mu ki-4 ha-am-mu-ra-bi / lugal ur-sag, 35 which clearly alludes to the year-name Hammu-rabi 32, celebrating his victory over Ešnunna. M.  Anbar saw the chronological consequence of this fact but did not realize that we must also change its political interpretation. 36 This victory over Ešnunna was certainly very important for Hammu-rabi: in most cases, the scribes wrote mu Hammu-rabi lugal ur-sag on the first line, the addition of the title ur-sag after lugal being an exceptional feature. 37 The “ki-N system” seems then to have begun in the year Hammurabi 32. 38 This “era” reckoning has been seen as having a political meaning: the kingdom of Larsa was not annexed, but Hammu-rabi became a new king there, effecting a kind of “personal union” between the two kingdoms. 39 This interpretation must now be abandoned for two reasons: first because the ki-N formulas appear exclusively in 33.  Despite M. J. A. Horsnell, The Year Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Volume 1, 43–44, who was wrong in his refutation of Finkelstein’s theory; see D.  Charpin, RA 95 (2001) 91a. See now OECT 15 38 (with the formula mu ha-am-mu-ra-bi [l u g a l - e]), which could be considered as dated 1/xi/ Hammu-rabi 30 (cf. D. Charpin, RA 101, 150). 34.  See F. R. Kraus, JCS 3 (1951), 42 and recently the comment of M. Horsnell: “What significant event would have coincided with the use of the first year-name (mu ḫammurapi) of the series mu ki-N ḫammurapi? It evidently was considered to have been as decisive in the reign of Hammurapi as the capture of Isin had been in the reign of Rimsin and the destruction of Kish in the reign of Sumulael. The obvious event in the reign of Hammurapi was the inauguration of his rule over Larsa which would have coincided with his capture of Larsa in the year 30, commemorated in the year-name of Ha 31” (The Year Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon, Volume 1, 43). 35.  Text published by M. Anbar, “Textes de l’époque babylonienne ancienne II: les archives de ŠēpSîn,” RA 72 (1978) 113–38 (118–19). 36.  “En outre, la tablette no 5 porte une date qui continue la tradition larséenne du temps de RīmSîn, qui consiste à numéroter les années à partir d’un certain événement (cf. F. R. Kraus, loc. cit.). Elle est datée de la 4e année après la 32e année de Ḫammurapi, d’où il s’avère qu’on a considéré la 32e année comme la véritable première année de Ḫammurapi à Larsa” (RA 72, 117). 37.  See, for instance, M. Birot, Tablettes économiques et administratives d’époque babylonienne ancienne conservées au musée d’art et d’histoire de Genève (Paris: Geuther, 1969), nos 1–11, as well as M.  deJ.  Ellis, “An Agricultural Administrative Archive in the Free Library of Philadelphia,” JCS 29 (1977) 127–50, nos. 1–7, and OECT 15 106 and 107. 38.  See D. Charpin, review of M. J. A. Horsnell, The Year Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon in RA 95 (2001) 90, following M. Anbar, RA 72 (1978) 117. 39.  D. Charpin, “Histoire politique du Proche-Orient amorrite (2002–1595),” OBO 160/4 (Fribourg: Academic Press / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004) 323, following F.  R. Kraus: “Nach dem Vorbilde der sogenannten Isin-Ära haben manche Schreiber in ehemals zu Larsa gehörigen Städten eine „Ḫammu-rabi—Ära“ mit Zählung statt Benennung der Jahre einzuführen versucht und nach Ausweis von TCL 11 Nr. 142, 143 auch mindestens sechs Jahre lang beibehalten. Da Ḫammu-rabi nach dieser Auffassung, ungeachtet seiner früheren Regierung in Babylon, für Larsa der neue König und Nachfolger des Rīm-Sin ist, kann meines Erachtens das „Jahr, wo Ḫ. König wurde“ wie bei anderen neuen Könige nur dem ersten vollen Kalenderjahr seiner Herrschaft, also seinem 31., entsprechen. Die „Ḫammu-rabi— Ära“ beginnt also mit dem Jahre 31 und wird in Larsa bis mindestens 36 wenigstens gelegentlich benutzt” (F. R. Kraus, JCS 3 [1951] 42).

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a few texts from Larsa 40 and, above all, the fact that it alludes to the victory over Ešnunna and not to the defeat of Larsa. In any case, this situation did not last: after six years, the same year-names as in the rest of the kingdom of Babylon were used in the former kingdom of Larsa without exception.

2.2.  Zimri-Lim Enters Mari When Zimri-Lim conquered Mari, after more than fifteen years of domination by Samsi-Addu and his son Yasmah-Addu, there was another kind of problem concerning the regulation of time. During the reign of Samsi-Addu, the eponym dating system was used, the months followed the calendar of Ekallatum (see above, n. 21), but the former Mari calendar was also used in Mari, as we have already noted (§1.3). The year started in autumn. When Zimri-Lim conquered Tuttul and then Mari, the eponym system was abandoned immediately and Zimri-Lim year-names were used: “Year Zimri-Lim entered Tuttul,” 41 “Year Zimri-Lim entered the throne of the house of his father,” 42 and so on. But the Mari months and the question of the beginning of the year still remained to be adjusted. In fact, the problem seems to have been that Zimri-Lim and his people used the Mari calendar for cultic purposes during their exile, but they did not activate intercalation at the same moments as Samsi-Addu and so, when ZimriLim ascended the throne of Mari, there was a discrepancy of perhaps two months between the cultic calendar of Mari in Mari and the calendar he had used in exile. The šangûm Iddin-Sin was obliged to write a letter to king Zimri-Lim, which provides evidence for this complicated situation: 43 When my lord left for a campaign, I spoke to my lord as follows: “Which month is this month?” My lord answered me: “This month is Ebûrum.” So we are now in Urahum. On the 18th, the land has been purified. On the 22nd, the god . . . must enter . . . must leave. (Lacuna). On the. . . , the goddess Eštar must leave 40.  For the time being (as far as we know): •  in one text of the archives of Šep-Sin: m u k i - 4 ha-am-mu-ra-­[bi] / lugal ur-sag: BM 14089 = Anbar RA 72, 118–119) •  and three of the archives of Šamaš-hazir: •  ⸢mu⸣ ki-3 ha-am-mu-r[a-bi] / l u g a l: OECT 15 142; •  m u ki-6 ha-am-mu-ra-bi: TCL 11 142 and 143. Clearly, more research on this subject is needed: for the time being, we do not know why some scribes used the ki-N system while their contemporaries in the same location used “normal” year-names. It is not a question of archives: within the archives of Šamaš-hazir, TCL 11 152 is dated by the 35th year-name of Hammu-rabi, whereas TCL 11 143 is dated by the formula m u k i - 6 ha-am-mu-ra-[bi] (= Hammu-rabi 36 [according to M. Horsnell] or 37 [following M. Anbar]). For a different example of the use of ki-2, see OECT 15 87, clearly dated Hammu-rabi 39 (see the remarks of D. Charpin in RA 101, 150): this has no political significance but is simply because at the beginning of a new year the scribe did not know the name of that year. 41. mu zi-im-ri-li-im a-na tu-ut-tu-ulki i-ru-bu “Year: Zimri-Lim entered Tuttul.” Formula attested in 4 Tuttul texts: KTT 179–82. 42.  FM 5, 172. 43. A.3735, quoted in translation by J.-M.  Durand, “La religion à l’époque amorrite d’après les archives de Mari,” in Mythologie et Religion des Sémites Occidentaux, Volume I. Ebla et Mari (ed. G. del Olmo Lete; OLA 162/I; Louvain: Peeters, 2008) 161–716 (594–95; correct the reference there as A.373 to A.3735; see already FM 3, 30 n. 65 where lines 5–12 are quoted in transliteration); D. Charpin and N. Ziegler, FM 5, 174 n. 32. D. Charpin, “Mois intercalaire et fêtes religieuses: de Mari à Babylone, du deuxième au premier millénaire,” NABU 2005/35.

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the bît mâhirim. On the 28th, the chariot of Dagan must go to Haddatum. 44 Let my lord write to me what must be done.

This letter of the cult-administrator shows hesitation about the moment when cultic actions had to be performed: on the date of the previous calendar or of the new one? The decision was made by the king: he held the mastery over time by deciding to cut two months out of the old Mari-year. Perhaps at this very moment, Zimri-Lim had not yet decided when the year should start: in autumn, like the eponym years, or in spring? There was great confusion over year-names at the beginning of his reign, obliging modern Assyriologists for some twenty years to speak about “Year Zimri-Lim 1′, 2′, etc.” and we have only recently understood that these “prime-years” were preceded by 15 months. When Zimri-Lim was fighting successfully, first in Kahat and then against the Benjaminite nomads, he was powerful enough to abolish completely every link to the eponym years, and from that moment on, the calendar used in Mari was a purely Mariotic one: the year began in spring and year-names were decided by the king.

2.3. Conclusion In such cases, we must not interpret the deeds of kings as marks of despotism. Their intention was to put things in order. This is especially clear in the case of Zimri-Lim, who did no more than answer the question posed by the šangûm.

3.  The Limits of Royal Authority The king’s management of time had limitations: a king knew perfectly well that he had no control over what happened after his death. He was dependent on religious constraints, and private archives show that time could also be computed privately.

3.1.  A “Private” Computation of Time? Let us now examine some examples of the private computation of time. First of all, we should not have a standardised idea of year-names. Kings decided the name to be given to a year, but texts give them in an abbreviated form and sometimes events that occurred during a year could be added. Perhaps there never was one single way to name a year. 45 In Mari, we see that people could refer to a year by a non-official year-name. This what the minister of finance (šandabakkum) Yasim-Sumu did, using at home the year-name formula he had unsuccessfully proposed to the king. 46 There are other cases of non-official year-names in private archives, especially in the archive of Iddiyatum, the head of the merchants in Mari. 47 44.  As to whether or not haddatum is a toponym, cf. A. Jacquet, Florilegium Marianum XII. Documents relatifs aux dépenses pour le culte (Mémoires de NABU 13; Paris: SEPOA, 2010) 31. 45.  This is against the unifying view of e.g. M. Horsnell, who is looking for the one ideal formula for each year-name. 46.  Texts concerning the administration of his domain are dated by the rejected year-name “Year: Zimri-Lim went to the help of Babylon, a second time, to the land of Larsa”: ARM 9 25 (3/iv), 26 (3/iv) and 27 (24/iv). See N. Ziegler, Florilegium marianum IV. Le Harem de Zimrî-Lîm. La population féminine des palais d’après les archives royales de Mari (Mémoires de NABU 5; Paris: SEPOA, 1999) 19–20. 47.  For instance: “Year: Zimri-Lim offered his daughter to the god Addu of Appan.” This year-name is only attested in the unpublished contract A.4666, a loan of silver by the palace to the head of the

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This leads us to the question as to whether there were two parallel dating systems: one for the use of the administration and another for private use. This could explain why there are so many “extra-canonical” dates in private contracts from Mari. 48 The exceptional use of some year-names in the kingdom of Samsi-Addu can be explained in the same way. 49 But this question has to remain open until more private archives in Mari are found.

3.2.  The Constraints of Hemerologies Hemerologies—lists of favorable and unfavorable days for performing various actions—are not attested during the Old Babylonian period in the form of texts as was the case later. 50 However, it is possible to show that attention was already being paid to the calendar. A letter from the king of Ešnunna, Ibal-pi-El II, alludes to a “favorable day” (umum damqum) as the day when the god Adad would go out to the hamrum. 51 According to another example from Babylon, Hammu-rabi, made objections when asked to make an alliance with Zimri-Lim of Mari. The envoys of Zimri-Lim report: 52 On the 25th, he did not commit himself, saying: “Were the god Sin not mentioned in the tablet of alliance, I would commit myself on the 25th. But since the god Sin is mentioned, I cannot commit myself on the 25th. Your lord should swear in the same conditions. Anyway, who would make another man swear?” So, I poured water over his hands on the 27th, and on the 28th, during the . . . of his palace, Hammurabi swore by the gods for my lord.

Apparently, Sin was mentioned in the list of gods in the opening section of the treaty (dEN.ZU tama “swear by Sin!”). This shows that attention had to be paid to the list of favorable or unfavorable days. The Old Babylonian situation is according merchants, Iddiyatum. See D.  Charpin, “Archives et comptabilité en Mésopotamie au deuxième millénaire av. J.C. ,” in The Knowledge Economy and Technological Capabilities: Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterranean 2nd millennium b.c.e. – 1st millennium c.e. Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Maison de la Chimie Paris, France 9–10 December 2005 (ed. M. Wissa; Aula Orientalis Supplementa 26; Sabadell: Editorial AUSA, 2009) 47–51 (49 n. 12). And add the evidence of the contract A.4671, where the rejected formula for ZL 11 is also used: (8′) m u 2 - k a m ša zi-im-ri-li-im (9′) til-lu-ut ša k á - d i n g i r- raki (10′) [i]l-li-ku (J.-M. Durand, “La Cité-État d’Imâr à l’époque des rois de Mari,” MARI 6 (1990) 39–92, esp. 81 n. 208); the document concerns a miksum-tax, which certainly involves Iddiyatum, whose name must have been mentioned in the missing lines of the tablet. This is corroborated by the location where the tablet was found (Room 24 of the palace). 48.  See the references in FM 5, 259–60. 49.  See the bibliography quoted in FM 5, 161 §2.11.3. 50.  For the time being, see A. Livingstone, “The Case of the Hemerologies: Official Cult, Learned Formulation and Popular Practice,” in Official Cult and Popular Religion in the Ancient Near East (ed. E. Matsushima; Heidelberg, 1993) 97–113; A. Livingstone, “The Magic of Time,” in Mesopotamian Magic. Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives (ed. T. Abusch and K. van der Toorn; AMD 1; Styx: Groningen, 1999) 131–38. 51.  A. Goetze, “Fifty Old Babylonian Letters from Harmal,” Sumer 14 (1958) 1–76 and pl. 1–24 (46 and pl. 11 no. 22: 4). 52.  ARM 26/2 469: (12) šum-ma-an dEN.ZU i-na ṭup-pí li-pí-it na-pí-iš-tim (13) la ku-⸢up-pu-ud⸣ i-na u4 25-ka m-ma na-pí-iš-ti (14) lu-ul-pu-ut ⸢i-na⸣-an-na dEN.ZU uk-ta-ap-pí-id (15) i-na u4 2 5 - k a m na-pí-iš-ti ú-ul a-la-ap-pa-at ù be-el-ka (16) qa-tam-ma li-ìz-ku-ra-am a-yú-tum mu-ša-⸢az-ki⸣-[ru] i-na u4 2 7-kam (17) me-e a-na qa-ti-šu ad-di-in (18) ⸢i⸣-na u4 2 8 - ka m i-na wu-ur é-kál-li-šu (19) Iha-ammu-ra-bi (20) a-na be-lí-ia ni-iš dingir-meš (21) ìz-ku-ur. See K. Reiter, “Altbabylonische Verträge unter Beachtung günstiger Tage,” MARI 7 (1993) 359–63; M. Streck, NABU 1993/108; J.-M. Durand, LAPO 16 no. 287.

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to that of later times. In a first-millennium text, one finds the following indication concerning Sin and Šamaš for the 27th: 53 [Both gods] are present and make the decisions for the land. 

The king was not free to conclude an alliance by contracting an oath at any moment; he had to observe the hemerological prescriptions imposed by religious belief.

3.3.  Agreements Limited to the King’s Lifetime Because death was decided by gods, the end of a king’s reign was an unavoidable moment. A new era began with a new king, a new master of time. We would like to describe two consequences that this belief had for the population and the political lives of their contemporaries. First, the death of a king was the end of his era, and so it was the end of all concluded alliances. We must again stress that, in the Old Babylonian period, alliances were only concluded between men. They committed themselves and only themselves. In such a context, ana darêtim must not be understood as “forever,” but only as “for the rest of our lives.” 54 We have very clear examples of this in diplomatic affairs. For instance, when Yarim-Lim of Aleppo died, the emperor of Elam immediately sent an ambassador to Yamhad, in the hope that the new king would not renew the alliance that his father had concluded with the kings of Mari and Babylon but would join his camp instead. 55 Kings were aware that they could not tie the hands of their successors: each king should freely choose his own allies during his lifetime. The situation only changed from the Amarna period onward. The dead king was buried. 56 At the end of the period of mourning, his successor, the new king, promulgated an edict of release, called a mîšarum. The main measure included in such an act was an andurârum, which led to the remission of debts and the return of slaves to their original status. Here again, we must stress that in Sumerian ama-ar-gi4 means literally “return to the mother,” i.e., to the original status. 57 In Akkadian, andurârum is etymologically connected to darârum, which describes the activity of an insect spinning its cocoon, in a circular movement. 58 In promulgating an andurârum, the king had mastery over time: he could redress unjust situations by going back to the original situation, before a loan was made or an enslavement took place. He did not influence time itself but the actions during the last years of his predecessor. The enthronement of a king was not the only occasion for promulgating an act of mîšarum, but it was the only fixed date for the promulgation of a new edict. When 53. A.  Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986) 24 : K 2164+2195+3510 (22): [d i n g i r - m e š ki-lal-la-an] g u b - mezuma eš -ba r kur bà- m e š = ilâni killalân izzazzû-ma purussê mâti iparrasû. 54.  D.  Charpin, “Guerre et paix dans le monde amorrite et post-amorrite,” in Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien (ed. H. Neumann, R. Dittmann, A. Schuster Brandis and C. Eder; Wiesbaden, in press). 55. See most recently D.  Charpin, “ ‘Ainsi parle l’empereur.’ À propos de la correspondance des sukkal-mah,” in Susa and Elam (ed. K. De Graef and J. Tavernier, Leiden: Brill, 2013) 341–53. 56.  D. Charpin, “ ‘Le roi est mort, vive le roi!’ Les funérailles des souverains amorrites et l’avènement de leur successeur,” in Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society Presented to Marten Stol on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (ed. R. van der Spek; Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2008) 69–95. 57.  D. Charpin, “Les décrets royaux à l’époque paléo-babylonienne, à propos d’un ouvrage récent,” AfO 34 (1987) 36–44 (38b–39a). 58.  D. Charpin, “dirru(m) ‘(mois) bis’,” NABU 1990/64.

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Kraus discovered the existence of a mîšarum in year 8 of Samsu-iluna, Landsberger wrote to him: “Please write me at once a sensational note about the š emiṭṭā (every 7th year) in OB!” 59 But in the following years, it appeared that the other mîšarum were in the 17th and 28th years of Samsu-iluna. 60 So the pattern was 1 / 8 / 17 / 28, with a time span of 7, 9, and 11 years between two mîšarum. Clearly, the promulgation was irregular and completely, different from the biblical prescriptions of Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15, where the interval of 7 years is fixed. In Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, it was the king who decided the right moment, and a surprise effect was necessary so that the remission of debts could function properly.

Conclusion To conclude, it seems clear to us that kings were masters of their regnal time. Their reign ( palûm) was different from the eras of their successor and their predecessor. Kings were on earth to put order into time, so as to observe cultic obligations. They were directly responsible for this. For the time being, we do not have any proof of any oracular interrogation asking the gods how to decide; the kings decided. We have a number of legends about inventions in Mesopotamia: for instance, the invention of writing has been attributed to Enmerkar, king of Uruk. But, contrary to the situation in China, for instance, there was no Mesopotamian legend concerning the invention of the calendar, as far as we know. In the Old Babylonian period, at least, it was easier for a king to interfere with the reckoning of time than, for instance, with the measurement of capacities. 61 For example, at Harradum, the Mari calendar was abandoned immediately after the Babylonian conquest. But the Mari system of A.GÀR (= 10 GUR) continued to be used until the reign of Ammi-ditana. 62 We have here a situation diametrically opposite to that of the French Revolution, which succeeded in imposing the metric system but failed to reform the calendar. Finally, we would like to stress the importance of the difference between the two dating systems used during the Old Babylonian period. Besides year-names, we also have dating by eponym. Use of the eponym system did not imply recognition of the political authority of Assur, as is proved by the texts discovered at Tell Rimah (Qaṭṭara) or Tell Leilan (Šehna / Šubat-Enlil). 63 Eponym-dating was a sort of politically “neutral” system, which did not mean submission to any one power but had the advantage of being widely used, allowing a common reference system: this is clearly what merchants required, disregarding borders while traveling on business. 59.  F. R. Kraus, “Ein Edikt des Königs Samsu-iluna von Babylon,” in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, April 21, 1965 (ed. H. G. Güterbock and T. Jacobsen; AS 16; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965) 225–31 (229a). 60.  D. Charpin, “Les prêteurs et le palais: les édits de mîšarum des rois de Babylone et leurs traces dans les archives privées,” in Interdependency of Institutions and Private Entrepreneurs (MOS Studies 2). Proceedings of the Second MOS Symposium (Leiden 1998) (ed. A. C. V. M. Bongenaar; NINO: Leiden, 2000) 185–211. 61. When the writing reform took place at Mari under the reign of Yahdun-Lim, the system of Ešnunna was adopted: but the local GUR of 120 qa was still in use, not the GUR of 300 qa as in Ešnunna; cf. G. Chambon, “Écritures et pratiques métrologiques: la grande mesure à Mari,” RA 100 (2006) 101–6. 62.  D. Charpin, “Harrâdum, entre Babylone et le ‘pays de Mari’,” op. cit., n. 17. 63.  And we must add that neither at Tell Rimah nor at Tell Leilan does the calendar use Assyrian month-names.

Notes on the Neo-Assyrian Siege-Shield and Chariot Fabrice De Backer

U n i v e r s i t é d e S t r as b o u r g , S t r as b o u r g (F r a n c e ), U n i v e r s i t é C at h o l i q u e d e L o u va i n , L o u va i n -L a -N e u v e (B e l g i u m )

Introduction For many years, the Neo-Assyrian army has been the topic of numerous studies and research. Surprisingly, one of the basic components of the Neo-Assyrian depictions of battle, the siege-shield bearer and archer team, has scarcely been investigated. This paper deals with part of these siege-teams, the heavier ones according to the armor level, and with the way the siege-shields were carried to the battlefront during the sieges and the pitched battles. The textual and visual evidence will be explored and combined to propose the identification of some heavy siege-teams as charioteers dismounted during the siege, throughout the reigns of the Neo-Assyrian period. Thus, this paper will review the essential data for the study of the tactics involving chariots and shields and then endeavor to propose possible combinations of both, according to the sources available.

I. The Shield a. Evolution From the Early Dynastic data on, one can see that the shield had two main uses during combat situations: either as light armor for moving formations of infantry or as heavy armor for more static groups. 1.  Light Fighting Armor As it appears on the visual evidence at hand, the shield was already used as light fighting armor for the some of the Early Dynastic soldiers, such as pikemen, in order to protect them while handling their weapon (fig. 1). Somehow, in the meantime, the shield concept was realized without handles, thus giving way to the armor corselet, with variations such as is depicted on the Standard of Ur or the decorative inlay fragments from Mari, for example (figs. 2–3). 2.  Heavy Fighting / Shooting Armor In addition, the huge siege-shield was also employed by Early Dynastic warriors when besieging cities in order to protect archers when shooting at the defenders 69

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Fig. 1.  The pikemen of Lagash advance to attack, with their shields suspended in front of them to protect their torso. Drawing by the author.

(fig. 3). Whether accompanied by a decorative pattern or not, this implement and its use at least had to be conceived and employed before it was represented. Eventually, the composition, equipment, and depictions of the siege-teams and of the chariot crews are essentially the same, on the base of equipment and weaponry comparison (figs. 3–4). This can, perhaps, be discussed for the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, which do not provide much evidence in favor of or against this similarity, in contrast to the Early Dynastic and Neo-Assyrian periods. 1 At any rate, I once again do not try to draw any kind of heritage on this point from one era to the other but instead highlight common aspects.

b.  Basic Tactics of the Shield-Bearers According to the visual data, the siege-shield must have been at least wide enough to protect two soldiers and light enough to be held by a single man. The Neo-Assyrian kings’ reliefs and the bronze bands of Imgur-Enlil show tens of depictions of such siege-teams, with the archer protected by one, two, or even three shields, rectangular or circular, large or small. 2 In this way, the archers could cover 1.  With some differences for the visual evidence during the reigns of Assurnasirpal II, TiglathPileser III, and Sargon II, the siege-teams of Shalmanezer III, Sennacherib, and Assurbanipal are exactly the same—at least, without the colors. For further references, see F. de Backer, “The Neo-Assyrian Siege-Archers: Some Remarks,” Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg, 20–25 July 2008 (ed. G. Wilhelm; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012) 429–48. 2.  Further discussion on that topic will be available in my book, L’art du siège néo-assyrien (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

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Fig. 2.  Early Dynastic pikemen advance into combat with their shoulders and torso covered by an armor corselet. Drawing by the author.

Fig. 3.  Siege-redoubt archer and shield-bearer wearing armor corselet during the Early Dynastic Period. Drawing by the author.

the approach of their men, attract the missiles of the enemy, and kill defenders at the same time. 1.  The Infantry Support Redoubts As it already appears on some decorative elements from Mari, the siege shieldbearer and archer teams were also in use during the Early Bronze Age for attack

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Fig. 4.  Chariot depicted charging enemy infantry on the War panel of the Standard of Ur. Drawing by the author.

on towns. 3 These attacks could use different methods, such as the use of sappers, the siege-scales, or even siege-engines (fig. 3). 4 Archers could shoot at the peak of the battlements to prevent the defenders from shooting at the besiegers. The siege shield-bearers created a kind of small redoubt, a group of which might have been set in a loose order, so as to allow the assault teams to run to the walls and/or against the enemy without disturbing their battle array. Nowadays, these principles are still taught in the basic tactics of infantry, even at the lowest level: set at least one base of fire providing support and send other elements along the sides, progressing under the cover of the support, in order to outflank the enemy. 5 2.  The Infantry Support Rampart A variant of the previously mentioned tactic, the Infantry Support Rampart would consist in the formation of a rather continuous line of redoubts, in order to prevent the enemy from penetrating the battle order and to harass them with a barrage of missiles. 6 Nowadays, again, these principles are still taught in the basic tactics of infantry at the lowest level: prepare the enemy lines with a heavy and continuous bombardment, then launch an infantry attack while the foe is still recovering. 7 Until now, Shalmanezer III’s visual evidence alone represent both Infantry Support Redoubts and the Infantry Support Rampart in a pitched battle, which is another argument in support of the final proposition below. 8 3.  E. Rhem, Waffengräben im Alten Orient. Zum Problem der Wertung von Waffen im Gräben des 3. und Frühen 2. Jahrtausends v.Chr. in Mesopotamien und Syrien (British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 1191; Oxford: Archeopress, 2003) 8, Kat. Nr. 4. 4.  For further discussion, concerning the Neo-Assyrian period, see F. de Backer, “Some Basic Tactics of Neo-Assyrian Warfare, 2: Siege Battles,” States Archives of Assyria Bulletin 8 (2009–2011) 266–86. 5.  S. Bull, World War II Infantry Tactics. Squad and Platoon (Oxford: Osprey, 2004; Elite, 105) 31; p. 61, pl. E ; Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 7-7 The Mechanized Infantry Platoon and Squad (APC) (Washington, D.C.: 15 March 1985. 4) Movement, fig. 4-30. Base-of-Fire Element. 6.  For further discussion, see F. De Backer, “Neo-Assyrian Siege-Redoubts: Some Issues,” Historiae 7 (2010) 1–25. 7.  Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 3–90.2 The Tank and Mechanized Infantry Battalion Task Force. Washington D.C.: 11 June 2003. 5) Attack, 5–41 ; S. Bull, World War II Infantry Tactics. Squad and Platoon. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004 (Elite, 105) 31. 8.  L. King, Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmaneser King of Assyria b.c.e. 860–825 (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1915), pl. XL, Bd. VII, 4; IX, Bd. II, 3.

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Fig. 5.  The shield was sometimes suspended on the back of the vehicle to provide some protection to the charioteers, during the reign of Assurnasirpal II. Drawing by the author.

c.  Transport of the Siege-Shield 1.  Pitched Battles As previously mentioned, the reliefs of Assurnasirpal II and the bronze bands of Salmanazar III present depictions of chariots having a shield suspended on the back of the vehicle, surely to protect the crewmen inside from enemy missiles (fig.  5). This circular shield, bearing spikes or a lion head on its front, is the same as shields wielded by the siege shield-bearers during these times. 2. Sieges No depiction or citations of the means employed to transport siege-shields during the sieges can be found in the data accessible thus far. Yet, some might say this is a result of the fact that the shields might have been created on location each time they were needed; but can this be so? If the charioteers of Shalmanezer III use the same shield as the siege-teams depicted during the same period, we might have a clue to another possible solution. From the reliefs of Tiglath-Pileser III onward, no shield can be observed on the back of the chariots, but the depictions of the siege-teams look increasingly like the chariot teams. 9 According to this analysis, and bearing in mind the depictions of siege tactics being employed in pitched battle under Shalmanezer III, one might think that the huge siege-shields were transported on the back of the chariots. They were perhaps not represented because to do so would disturb the clarity and order of the scenes depicted, or perhaps for other iconographical reasons. In the meantime, when the chariot was on the move, the siege-shield would have provided protection to the back of the vehicle, thus allowing the archer to shoot without too much risk (figs. 6–7). 10 Because many Neo-Assyrian siege-teams show the archer shooting through the shield, it is possible that these shields had some kind of aperture or that the sides of the screen were less wide on the top, so as to allow the archer to shoot from the side (fig. 3). 11 9.  With some differences during the reigns of Assurnasirpal II, Tiglath-Pileser III, and Sargon II. For further references, see F. de Backer, “The Neo-Assyrian Siege-Archers,” 427–46. 10.  F. de Backer, “Evolution of War Chariot Tactics in the Ancient Near East,” Ugarit Forschungen (2010) (forthoming). 11.  Further discussion on this topic is in my book, L’art du siège néo-assyrien (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

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Fig. 6.  The siege-shield suspended on the back of the chariot provides extra-protection against the possible threat from the rear when the vehicle is charging forward. Drawing by the author.

Fig. 7.  The siege-shield suspended on the back of the chariot provide extra-protection against the threat coming from the rear when the vehicle was retreating. Drawing by the author.

The chariot would have in the ancient world appeared as armored as a german Panzerkampf­wagen from WWII: it had massive firepower and armor and was used to support allied infantry or to destroy the enemy lines (fig. 8).

II. The Siege-Shield and the Chariot: Combined Tactics during Sieges On the visual sources actually accessible, one can see that infantry and chariotry were employed together or separately, at least from the 3rd millennium b.c.e. on (fig. 9). When combined with infantry, it appears that the chariot was associated with foot spearmen or foot archers, at least on some of the numerous Neo-Assyrian depictions. 12 Thus, because the chariot-mounted warrior is either a spearman, an axeman, a javeline-thrower, or an archer, the combined tactics relied on two aspects: close-combat, such as thrusting or slashing, and distance-combat, such as throwing or shooting (figs. 4–5; 8–9 / figs. 10–11). From the Late Hittite period on, at least according to Ramses II’s depictions, it seems that the charioteer sometimes could be protected by a spare soldier, bearing a shield and, undoubtedly, a sword, an axe, or any close-combat weapon. This man could protect the archer while he was shooting the bow on the chariot and surely also when the archer was dismounted, for any reason, in the context of combat involving close contact with the enemy. This is where the siege-redoubts depicted from the Early Dynastic Period and during the Neo-Assyrian Period are useful. The chariot and its crew were surely not left aside during sieges, because of the cost of maintenance and their tactical advantages in such a context. At the same time, the chariot would hardly have been confined to the role of fast mobile shooting platform during pitched battle, as seems to be widely thought. 13 In any case, one can wonder what the other possible roles of the siege-shield were, such as its appearance in the siege-redoubt tactic, combined with the tactical abilities of chariotry. 12.  For further discussion, see F. de Backer, “Some Basic Tactics of Neo-Assyrian Warfare,” UgaritForschungen 39 (2009) 69–115. 13.  J. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 b.c.e. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) 119.

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Fig. 8 (left).  A Neo-Assyrian chariot charges the fleeing enemy, during the reign of Sargon II. Drawing by the author. Fig. 9 (below).  Chariot depicted charging and being followed by accompanying infantry on the Stele of the Vultures. Drawing by the author.

Fig. 10.  Amenhotep III pursues maryannu charitoteers fleeing in their chariot and engages in hand-to-hand combat in the back of their vehicle. Drawing by the author.

Fig. 11.  The Hittite chariot crew and the third man handling a shield, based on the reliefs of Ramses II. Drawing by the author.

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Fig. 12.  The archer can cover the shieldbearers while they dismount from the chariot. Drawing by the author.

Fig. 13.  The siege-redoubts can go anywhere they are needed when mounted on a chariot in combat situations. Drawing by the author.

a.  Flanks and Rear Guard During sieges, chariots, mostly in Neo-Assyrian armies, were surely employed to patrol and protect the flanks and the rear of the besieger’s lines and camp. 14 In this situation, shields found their effectiveness by allowing the crews to build, if and when necessary, a kind of field-fortification against any incoming threat, providing time for their reinforcements to arrive.

b.  Fire-Support Redoubts Chariot-archers were confirmed marksmen, a fact that can be deduced from the costs and training required to shoot from mobile shooting-platforms, and they surely were not idle during sieges. Although some kind of rotation of the units on the front and for patrols would have existed, along with an army reserve, the main group of chariot archers were perhaps disembarked and employed to support assaul groups during battle. 15 If the siege-shields were transported on the back of the chariots, the redoubtand / or siege-teams would be fast enough to be on the spot where they were required, able to disembark or to re-embark quite quickly as well (figs. 12–13). 16 From the chariot, the archer would provide covering fire for the shield-bearers while they handled the screen (fig. 12). When it is necessary, special intervention units also employ this tactic and materials in contemporary times: the fire-teams and their ballistic shields (fig. 14). 17

Conclusion Shield-archers and chariot-archers, chariot-fighters and shield-fighters were the four main groups and tactics employed in chiasmus, together, or separately in ancient Near Eastern military doctrine, for both pitched battles and siege. Even with some lacks in the data at hand, it would be too simple, too easy and too lazy from scholars to think the Ancients would have been restrictive with the use of such an expensive weapon as the chariot and the charioteers. 14.  Further discussion on this topic is available in my book, L’art du siège néo-assyrien (Leiden: Brill, 2012) 165, 275. 15.  For further discussion, see de Backer, “Neo-Assyrian Siege-Redoubts,” 1–25. 16.  F. Malbran–Labat, L’armée et l’organisation militaire de l’Assyrie d’après les lettres des Sargonides trouvées à Ninive (Hautes Études Orientales, 2, 19; Paris:Droz, 1982) 56. 17.  E. Micheletti, “Le GIPN de Lyon,” RAIDS 148 (September 1998) 8–19.

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Fig. 14.  Special Intervention units also use a big ballistic shield nowadays, either in open places, as in crowded tourist areas or during hostages situations. Drawing by the author.

Bibliography Albenda, P. Le palais de Sargon d’Assyrie, « Synthèse » n° 22, Recherche sur les civilisations. Paris: P.U.F., 1986. Augusta, P. Encyclopédie de l’art militaire. Prague: Ars Mundi, 1991. Barnett, R. Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668–627 b.c.). London: British Museum Press, 1976. Barnett, R., and Bleibtreu, E., et al. The Sculptures from the South-West Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh. London: British Museum Press, 1998. Barnett, R., and Falkner, M. The Sculptures of Aššur–Nasir–Apli II (883–859 b.c.), Tiglath–Pileser III (745–727 b.c.), Esaraddon (682–669 b.c.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1962. Bull, S. World War II Infantry Tactics. Squad and Platoon. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004 (Elite, 105). http://www.chars-francais.net/new/index.php. Col. Fuller, J. F. Tanks in the Great War 1914–1918 (1920). Whitefish MT: Kessinger Publishing Company, 2009. De Backer, F. “Notes sur les machines de siège néo-assyriennes,” in Proceedings of the 52th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Münster, 18–21 July 2006. Edited by H. Neumann (forthcoming). ______ .  “The Neo-Assyrian Siege-Archers:Some Remarks.” Pp. 429–48 in Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg, 20–25 July 2008 (ed. G. Wilhelm; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012).

______ .  “Notes sur certains sapeurs néo-assyriens.” Res Antiquae 4 (2007) 45–64. ______ .  “Note sur les lanceurs de pavés.” Ugarit Forschungen 38 (2008) 63–86. ______ .  “Some Basic Tactics of Neo-Assyrian Warfare.” Ugarit Forschungen 39 (2009) 69–115. ______ .  “Neo-Assyrian Siege-Redoubts : Some Issues.” Historiae 7 (2010) 1–25. ______ .  “Some Basic Tactics of Neo-Assyrian Warfare: 2) Siege Battles.” States Archives of Assyria Bulletin 8 (2009–2011) 266–86. ______ .  “Evolution of the Scale Armour in the Ancient Near East, Aegean and Egypt: An Overview from the Origins to the Pre-Sargonids.” Res Antiquae 8 (2011) 63–104. ______ .  L’art due siège néo-assyrien. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

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Drews, J. The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 b.c. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Fields, N. Bronze Age War Chariots. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2006 (New Vanguard, 119). Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 7–7 The Mechanized Infantry Platoon and Squad (APC). Washington, D.C.: 15 March 1985. Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 71–123 Tactics and Techniques for Combined Arms Heavy Forces : Armoured Brigade, Battalion Task Force, and Company Team. Washington D.C.: 30 September 1992. Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 71–1 Tank and Mechanized Infantry Company Team. Washington D.C.: 26 January 1998. Headquarters, Department of the Army. Field Manual 3–90, Tactic. Washington D.C.: 4 July 2001. Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 3–23.25 Light Anti-Armour Weapons. Washington D.C.: 30 August 2001. Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 3–21.21 The Stryker Brigade Combat Team Infantry Battalion. Washington D.C.: 8 April 2003. Headquarters, Department of the Army. FM 3–90.2 The Tank and Mechanized Infantry Battalion Task Force. Washington D.C.: 11 June 2003. Healy, M. Armies of the Pharaohs. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1999 (Osprey Military). Jones, A. The Art of War in Western World. Chicago: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 1987. King, L. Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmaneser King of Assyria b.c. 860–825. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1915. Malbran–Labat, F. L’armée et l’organisation militaire de l’Assyrie d’après les lettres des Sargonides trouvées à Ninive. Paris:Drooz, 1982 (Hautes Études Orientales, 2, 19). Micheletti, E. “Le GIPN de Lyon.” RAIDS 148 (September 1998) 8–19. Pritchard, J. Ancient Near East Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Reade, J. “The Neo–Assyrian Court and Army:Evidence from the Sculptures.” Iraq 34 (1972) 87–112. Rhem, E. Waffengräben im Alten Orient. Zum Problem der Wertung von Waffen im Gräben des 3. und Frühen 2. Jahrtausends v.Chr. in Mesopotamien und Syrien. British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 1191. Oxford: Archeopress, 2003. Schneider, W. Panzer Tactics: German Small-Unit Armor Tactics in World War II. Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books, 2005. Scurlock, J. A. “Neo-Assyrian Battle Tactics.” Pp. 491–517 in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honour of Michael C. Astour on his 80th Birthday. Edited by R. Averbeck et al. Bethesda, Maryland: CDL, 1997. Stillman, N., and Tallis, N. Armies of the Ancient Near East 3,000 b.c. to 539 b.c. Goring by Sea: Worthing, 1984 (Wargames Research Group). Wallis-Budge, E. Reign of Ashur-Nasir-Pal, 885–860 b.c. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1914. http://www.wio.ru/tank/ww1ba.htm. Yadin, Y. The Art of Warfare in the Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discovery. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963.

Changing Space, Time, and Meaning: The Seal of Yaqaru from Ugarit—A Reconversion?

Silvana Di Paolo

CNR-ISMA, R o m e

The Biography Perspective Many studies on material culture have addressed the multiple meanings that objects play in our lives. The objects are performative—that is, they are able to change human identities as well as social relationships. In exploring the different meanings that objects help to construct, we may understand the individuals and societies through which the objects circulate. Objects are not only acted upon and used by humans; some scholars also have stressed their social use and value. So, the cultural biography perspective seems appropriate for considering specific objects as they move through different hands, contexts, and uses. Objects can move in and out of the commodity state, and such movements can be slow or fast, reversible or terminal, normative or deviant. In particular, goods whose principal use is rethorical and social have a special register of consumption that requires us to regard them as a special class of things. The specific signs of this register are: (1) restriction to elites; (2) complexity of acquisition (not necessarily linked to “scarcity” of the goods); (3) capacity to signal complex social messages; (4) a high degree of linkage of their consumption to body, person, and personality; (5) highly specialized knowledge as a prerequisite for their “appropriate” consumption (Appadurai 1986: 3–63). Thus, things represent a very complex distribution of knowledge: knowledge that goes into the production of the object and the knowledge that goes into appropriately consuming the object. A special case is represented by objects reused in another region, in another time. In the Ancient Near East, survivals are well known. They are earlier works of art that are also in use or visible in later periods; sometimes, they are in use long after they were made. 1 Examples of ancient cylinder seals reused in later times have 1. The most famous example is represented by Mesopotamian monuments discovered at Susa (royal sculptures, victory monuments, and official records). In some cases (for example, the “Head of Hammurabi”), in the absence of inscriptions and a meaningful archaeological context, it is not always possible to assign Mesopotamian works found at Susa with certainty to one of following categories: booty, local production, gift, exchange. A few of these Mesopotamian pieces show signs of repair and recarving but also of mutilation, indicating a history of restoration as well as of destruction (Harper 1992: 159–60). A different case is discussed by P.-A. Beaulieu (1994): the antiquarianism of the Neo-Babylonian period is linked to a particular conception of history that denotes a new idea of progress and evolution previously unknown. So, this new linear perception of time transformed antiquities into objects of historical

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been studied and small lists of this class of objects have been made (Collon 1987: 120–22; Roaf 2000: 1450–51). But, the explanation of this phenomenon is, I think, not always clear. The traditional view explains it in two ways. (1) The rarity of some stones (for example, lapis lazuli) combined with their attractive qualities (color, shine, exclusive use, etc.) made these small objects special articles that were reused by later generations as talismans (Collon 1987: 122). (2) Another explanation is that a strong association with the past, with the tradition, may convey legitimacy: a belief that control of the past may ensure control of the future. Thus, the possession of a valuable ancient object mediated the acquisition, legitimization, and maintenance of an identity (Auerbach 1991; Roaf 2000: 1456). But, in this context, it is necessary to distinguish between earlier objects that are preserved but not “consumed” (that is, simply collected) 2 and objects that are actually reused, that is, collected and then inserted into a renovated life-cycle. The latter category is formed by objects that must be chosen, well preserved, and readapted for a new use, because they must support a new identity, the personality of new owner. Each object is the bearer of specialized knowledge that is the fundamental requirement for a new, right use. So, the possibility of mapping out, completely or partially, the Travel Itinerary of an object from a region/period to another region/ period can explain if and how it is subjected to abstracting operations. As an example, I present here some remarks on a cylinder seal that is known only from its many impressions on legal tablets at Ugarit (fig. 1). 3 It is a dynastic seal, because it bears the name of a local ruler. The Akkadian inscription identifies the original seal owner as “Yaqarum, son of Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit.” On the basis of iconography and ductus of the cuneiform signs, Jean Nougayrol dated this dynastic seal to the early 2nd millenium b.c.e. (1955: xli–xlii). Since Nougayrol made his proposal, this dynastic seal has not been the object of any additional arthistorical analysis, 4 while a lively discussion has focused almost exclusively on the dating of the reign of Yaqaru. Even if we known that Ugarit played a preminent role in the Mari correspondance, local documents of the Amorite Age have not been discovered there as yet 5 and there are no references to early history of Ugarit in the Late Bronze Age texts. curiosity. Historians of collecting give a different interpretation. For A. K. Thomason, the Elamite collecting of Babylonian objects (called Babylomania) is analogous to Bonaparte’s transport of Egyptian obelisks to Paris in 1799. This iconic symbol of victory over the Ottomans becomes a symbol of rightful inheritance to the Babylonian culture (2005: 105–6). For a recent discussion of these issues, see Garrison 2012: 27–47. 2.  Now, historians of museums and/or collecting have acknowledged the existence of an “archaic prologue” in the history of collecting. Its genesis can be located in the European prehistoric communities, ancient Greece and the Near East (Pearce 1995: 55). Two studies have aimed at addressing this gap and offer a contribution to the history of collecting: Bounia 2004; Thomason 2005. The nature of collecting in the Ancient Near East has yet to be discussed. It seems to me that one example, such as the Schlossmuseum at Babylon, cannot be associated with the cabinets of curiosities of the 15th–18th centuries, simply defined by the objects assembled in the room (Beaulieu 1994: 38). 3.  These tablets, belonging to the Central Archives of the Royal Palace, were found in 1954 inside Courts IV and VI as well as in the passage between them (Schaeffer 1955: pl. X). On the seal: ibid.: XXIV– XXV, fig. 14 (on left); Nougayrol 1955: XL–XLIII, pls. XVI–XVII; Schaeffer 1956: 66–83. 4.  A few comments have concerned the seal’s function and value as part of the collection of Near Eastern royal seals (Millard 1981: 135–40). 5.  There are no independent sources from Ugarit on the history of the city in the first half of the 2nd millenium b.c.e. However, the excavations have revealed, in some areas of the ancient city, Middle

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Fig. 1.  Seal of Yaqaru (from Schaeffer 1956: 70, fig. 93).

An exception is represented by the Ugaritic King List (KTU 1.113 = RS 24.257). Interpretation of the king list is supported by similar lists of deified kings in the Ancient Near East such as, for instance, the King List from Ebla (TM 75.G.2628), which has the names of ten kings preceded by the divine marker dingir. 6 A further parallel with the Eblaite list is the “retrograde” order of the royal names, the last name on the right-hand column being that of the founder of the dynasty (Yaqaru), 7 an interpretation that substantially confirmed the dating of the seal proposed by J. Nougayrol and C. F. A. Schaeffer in the 1950s. But, different reconstructions of the text leave a wide margin for hypotheses. It has also been suggested that this list should be read in “descending” order. Thus, Yaqaru, the last name of the sequence, may be applied to the ruling sovereign (ʿAmmurapi) under whose rule this list would have been composed. As a result, every king is a Yaqaru: the “name” becomes a sort of dynastic title borne by the kings of Ugarit. 8 But all this is rather hypothetical: it is a controversial point, even if many scholars follow the traditional view based on the King List and the seal. 9 It has also been suggested that Yaqaru is a sort of dynastic title borne by the kings of Ugarit. Bronze levels that also have provided a chronological table, even if these data need to be organized in a coherent way. On the Middle Bronze phase, see now the recent contributions of C. Castel, J. Mallet, M. al-Maqdissi published in Ougarit 2008. MB levels are concentrated on the northeastern area of the city, with the exception of the North Palace, which is in the northwestern sector. In terms of absolute chronology, these new data give the following prospect: Ugarit moyen 1 (Schaeffer’s periodization) = EB IV/MB 1 (ca. 2100–1900 b.c.e.); Ugarit moyen 2 = MB II A (ca. 1900–1750 b.c.e.); Ugarit moyen 3 = MB IIB/ MB IIC (ca. 1750–1600 b.c.e.). 6.  In spite of the widely accepted position that this text records rites directed to dead deified kings (a list of studies that support this view is given by Del Olmo Lete 1999: 314 n. 14), there is no unequivocal datum that proves such a hypothesis. An interpretation opposed to the divinization of kings is defended by B. B. Schmidt, following an earlier proposal of M. Liverani (ibid.: 314 n. 15). 7.  The interpretation of this text as a “retrograde” list of Ugaritic kings was proposed, for the first time, by K. A. Kitchen (1977). 8.  Del Olmo Lete 1999: 315 nn. 16–17 (with earlier bibliography) follows an earlier proposal of J. Nougayrol (1955: xxxviii). 9.  See the discussion in Singer 1999: 610–12.

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Another explanation could be that the name of Yaqaru, which also appears on a few texts, was copied from the dynastic seal in the King List and quoted as a source of authority (Pardee 1988: 175 n. 37; van Soldt 1991: 14 n. 130). Thus, the attempt to calculate the time-span of the Ugaritic King List is highly speculative. According to the “ascending” order proposal and considering a number of 30 or 50 listed kings (Schmidt 1996; Pardee 1988: 173), the dating of Yaqaru’s reign oscillates between the end of the 3rd millenium and ca. 1800 b.c.e. However, Daniel Arnaud questioned this dating and suggested a mid-15th century date instead, comparing historical and iconographical data (1998: 163; he was followed by Pardee 2002: 196–97 n. 21). But many scholars accepted the first hypothesis (see Singer 1999: 608–14). Here, however, I do not intend to deal with this issue, which is well known to scholars—that is, the dating of Yaqaru’s reign. The question must be posed in a different way. The date of Yaqaru is not necessarily linked to the chronology of the seal (especially if his reign is placed at the Late Bronze Age). It is evident that there is no sure chronological relationship between Yaqaru and the seal—that is, between image and inscription. Only the text with the name Yaqaru can certainly be related to his reign: seal legends have a high degree of linkage to person, to the personality of seal owner. The material object with his visual message may be older and reinscribed after a longer or shorter time: the absence of the original stone cylinder does not allow us to verify this hypothesis. A dating of the seal to the early 2nd millenium can also support a mid-15th century date for Yaqaru.

Is the Ugaritic Seal an Incarnated Sign? A double written-visual message was created in order to renew the use of a seal. Highly specialized knowledge of the object seems to be the main requirement for this “appropriate” consumption. This form of consumption was also practiced during the Late Bronze Age, producing a duplicate seal that was used, like the original, on juridical texts at Ugarit (Nougayrol 1955: pls. XVI–XVII; Schaeffer 1956: 73, fig. 96) 10. Seals were altered when they passed to new owners, sometimes many years after they were made or shortly after manufacture. But a third hypothesis must also be considered: that seals were altered more than once. This practices seems to have been rather common in the Ancient Near East. Seals may have been routinely altered to meet the taste or needs of new owners or due to excessive wear over time or to accommodate a new reign (Mayr 2001). The reuse of ancient dynastic seals is a practice well-known in Late Bronze Age Syria. Rulers chose local royal seals belonging to kings who had ruled or who were thought to have ruled in their own cities a long time previously. 11 Whether a seal was reused depends on the material, design, and execution of the object (Collon 1975: 165), as well as on the nature of kingship of the original seal’s owner (Auerbach 1991: 22). 10.  Sociologists who have studied the meaning of works of art in the age of mechanical reproduction have stressed that only in our own time are copies considered illegitimate and inauthentic; before the 19th century, a copy of an original had its own value and did not threaten the aura of the original but sought to partake in it (Baudrillard 1981: 103). 11.  See the examples listed by Auerbach 1991.

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However, in this context, the seal of Yaqaru represents an anomaly, a strange item. It depicts a typical Mesopotamian presentation scene portraying a seated king worshiped by a standing male figure, followed by a suppliant goddess. It is very probably a foreign seal that comes from a distant land, used or reused for dynastic purposes at Ugarit. Why? When did this occur? How many people used it? Only Yaqaru, or others before him? The function and meaning of this seal are strictly linked to the concept of authority and identity. The attempt to formulate relationships between the owners of cylinder seals and the scenes depicted on them has proved to be one of the most stimulating aspects of the study of cylinder seals. Our topic here is the correlation between presentation scenes, seal ownership, and the inscriptions on the seal. Presentation scenes involving a royal figure are a typical visual code of Ur III glyptic. 12 In the Ur III period, the figure that sits in the position usually filled by a deity is a king: he wears a round cap instead of a horned crown and sits on a fleececovered stool or chair instead of the more elaborate throne of the gods, which is a representation of a temple façade. In Ur III glyptic, presentation scenes with a male figure directly in front of seated king and a suppliant goddess behind him identify the seals of high-ranking officials (named in the seal inscriptions), often (but not always) directly in the service of the king. 13 This fact perhaps explains why this visual-written code is preserved on a large number of seal impressions and on few stone cylinders themselves: the phenomenon is due, probably, to the high responsibility of these officials for administration activity. The visual message represented by presentation scenes is associated with inscriptions that end with the formula ìr‑zu “his servant,” or in-na-ba “he has presented,” or both of them. The “in-naba” seals are presented by a king to his servant (official). The inscriptions are rather long (five–six lines of writing) and consist of two different texts. A first cartouche contains the king’s name and his titles; a second part has the personal data of the seal owner: name, office, patronymic, and the final statement (for example, ìr-zu “his servant”). What happens during the Old Babylonian period? 14 Many scholars in the past have suggested that the seal from Ugarit dates to this period. But, in many cases, this proposal was a self-evident concept, simply based on the generic arrangement of the presentation scene. 15 12.  This scene seems to satisfy better than others a specific political and ideological program of Ur III sovereigns. It was conceived not as a simple variation of divine audience but as a kind of figurative manifesto of the strictly hierarchical Ur III administration. This operation is very simple to perform but extremely effective from the ideological point of view. It also serves the intention of achieving a royal propaganda program with the aim, on the one hand, of safeguarding the old citizen élites incorporated and therefore subjected to the new Ur III state, and, on the other, of promoting the creation of a class of high-level officials recruited directly by the sovereign in various ways, inside the royal family but also from the “external” provinces, etc. The existence of small visual markers on Ur III seals that seem to identify the rank of state officials was proposed by Di Paolo, in press a. 13.  Winter 1987 remains a landmark study on this topic. 14. For chronology and synchronisms between Babylonian dynasties, I follow D. Charpin (2004: 384–87). See now also Pruzsinszky 2009. 15.  For the OB period, I have taken into account more than 500 stone cylinder seals and sealings. It must first be stated, however, that a part of this material has not been used for my research for three reasons: (1) inscriptions are lacking or not meaningful for dating; (2) preservation is not always good (sealings, in particular, are problematic); (3) publications are incomplete or not very useful (with useless photos or old drawings). Generally, my data are taken directly from photos and not from drawings, which may be the result of subjective interpretation.

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Fig. 2.  Ur. Seal impression on envelope (from Legrain 1951: pl. 29: 440).

Fig. 3.  YBC. Seal impression (from Mayr 1992: fig. 1).

In the Old Babylonian period, four different schemata are attested. The most interesting of these is the exact replica of the Ur III presentation scenes that we briefly described above. As in the preceding period, the exclusive relationship between the Babylonian king and his official is expressed by visual and conceptual markers, including the layout and the phraseology of seal inscriptions. The spatial arrangement of the legends, by vertical juxtaposition of two different cartouches—the first one, fig. 3, on the right, containing the name and the royal titles—corresponds to the hierarchical visual sequence according to which the king is always at the right side of the scene (a position reserved for the most important figures). Thus, based on the mix of visual and textual 16 evidences, we can distinguish a first group of seals (Group A). Group A follows the usual arrangement of Ur III seals and must be dated between the 20th and beginning of 19th centuries b.c.e. The presentation scene, as in the preceding period, is accompanied by five or six lines of writing. A first cartouche contains the name of the king and his titles; a second includes personal data of the seal owner: name, office, patronymic, and the final statement: “his servant” or “he has presented” (“he” must be identified with the king). A good example of this traditional practice is a seal impression on an envelope from Ur (fig. 2). It is dated to the reign of Lipit-Ištar of Isin (last quarter of 20th century b.c.e.); 17 the sealowner is Adugga, a priest of Nanna. Another seal impression is dated to the same period: it is both an “in-na-ba” and “ ìr-zu” seal, according to a formula unknown prior. The seal-owner is Šu-Adad, šakkanakku of Uruk and Durum (fig. 3). 18 In a third example, the owner of a jasper seal now in the Vorderasiatichen Museum of 16.  Old Babylonian seals are, often, uninscribed. In 40% of the cases, legends are replaced by subordinate themes that consist of: (a) contest scenes; (b) religious or ritual scenes; (c) military scenes. Contest scenes (where mythological and animals are fighting) appear very frequently on seals from the Diyala region. The area of the inscription can be also occupied by gods (Šamaš, Ištar, Adad), divine symbols (double lion-mace, moon standard, naked hero), or military scenes: a triumphant king or, alternatively, soldiers armed with axe, lance, or scimitar. 17.  Legrain 1951: 33, pl. 29:440 (U 6974): RN + T (first cartouche) + PN1 + P + d u m u PN2 + ì r- z u (second cartouche). 18.  Mayr 1992: 125–33, fig. 1 (NBC 8673): RN + T + in - n a - b a (first cartouche) + PN + P + ì r zu (second cartouche). Ancient Durum, near Uruk, is actually identified with Umm al-Wawiya. In

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Fig. 4.  Larsa. Seal impression on tablet (from Blöcher 1992a, pl. 2: 15).

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Fig. 5.  Larsa. Seal impression on tablet (from Blöcher 1992a, pl. 3: 23).

Berlin is Lu-Enlil-la, a scribe during the rule of Bur-Sin of Isin (beginning of the 19th century b.c.e.). 19 In the same period, a new arrangement of presentation scenes begins to appear. The scene is identical, but the inscription radically changes. In this second group of seals (B), the text, composed of no more than two or three lines of writing, is simplified: owner’s name, patronymic, office, and the final statement “servant of,” followed by the name of the king. This arrangement is limited to the first two centuries of the Old Babylonian period. Seals belonging to this second group start decreasing in frequency by the end of 19th century. Six seal impressions, all from Larsa, are dated to the reigns of Gungunum and Abi-sare: ca. 1936–1895 b.c.e. The seal-owners are called scribes, very probably in the service of the king: 20 Lugal-šuba (perhaps with two different seals), 21 Nannaʾursagkalama (fig. 4), Warad-išum (fig. 5), and two others whose names are not preserved. Another seal impression is dated to the reign of Sumu-El of Larsa (1894–1866 b.c.e.): the seal belongs to Nur-Sin but his office is not named (fig. 6). 22 Tutuʿilišu is under the reign of Sabium of Babylon (ca. 1834 b.c.e.). 23 In this short list, we also include three cylinder seals now in the British Museum. The first one is a lapis lazuli cylinder belonging to Sin-išmeani, an official in the service of Sumu-Yamutbal, king of the city of Damrum (HI.GARki), near Kiš (fig. 7). 24 A red jasper seal has an inscription with the name of Uqqa-Eštar, scribe during the reign of Adad-qarrad, a king of an unknown city in southern Babylonia (fig.  8). 25 The last one, a hematite seal, is related to the age of Šamši-Adad. The this period, Durum (as well as Uruk) was under the rule of the Isin kings, with the crown princes as šakkanakku (Michalowski 1977). 19.  Moortgat 1940: 28, pl. 34:255 (VA 2720): RN + T (first cartouche) + PN1 + P + d u m u PN2 + ì r- z u (second cartouche). 20.  (1) Blöcher 1992a: 26, tav. 2: 14 (YOS 14, Seal 82): PN1 + P + d u m u PN2 + ìr RN; (2) ibid.: 27, tav. 2: 16 (YOS 14, Seal ?): PN1 + T + d u m u PN2 + ìr RN; (3) ibid.: 26–27, tav. 2: 15 (YOS 14, Seal 87): PN1 + T + dumu PN2 + ìr RN; (4) ibid.: 27, tav. 2: 17 (YOS 14, Seal 92): PN1 + T + d u m u PN2 + ìr RN; (5) ibid.: 29, pl. 3:23 (YOS 14, Seal 23): PN1+T+d u m u PN2+TI+ìr RN. 21.  Besides YOS 14, Seal 82 (see n. 20 above), there is another seal impression on a tablet (YOS 14, Seal 80) with a different legend. It is difficult to ascertain whether this is a new seal or if the old seal inscription has been reincised: Blöcher 1992a: 30, pl. 2:27 (PN1+T+d u m u PN2+ ìr RN). 22.  Buchanan 1981: 279, no. 753 a–b (YBC 13113): PN1+d u m u PN2+ì r RN. 23.  Blöcher 1992b: pl. 47:109 (BM 82449): PN1+d u m u PN2+ ìr RN. 24.  Collon 1986: 73, pl. 8:56; Frayne 1990: 666 (BM 134757): PN1 + d u m u PN2 + ìr RN. SumuYamutbal reigned before the 32nd year of Sumu-la-El of Babylon (Charpin 2004: 89–91). 25.  Collon 1986: 70, pl. 7:42; Frayne 1990: 818 (BM 102524): PN1 + T + d u m u PN2 + ìr RN.

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Fig. 6.  YBC. Seal impression on tag (from Buchanan 1981: no. 753a).

Fig. 7.  BM 134757. Lapis lazuli seal (from Collon 1986: pl. 8:56).

Fig. 8.  BM 102524. Red jasper seal (from Collon 1986: pl. 7:42).

owner is Muqaddinum, a man (his office is not cited) in the service of Aminum, 26 brother of Šamši-Adad and perhaps king of Ekallatum. 27 From the beginning of the 18th century onward, presentation scenes in administrative contexts are abandoned and replaced by new iconographic themes. 28 Outside of Babylonia, the constant association between presentation scenes and seal inscriptions mentioning royal officials seems not limited to Babylonia and Assyria. There is also some evidence in Northern Mesopotamia and in Syria. 29 Few examples have been bound along the Euphrates Valley in Late Bronze Age contexts. 30 The only other example that I known comes from Mari and is a seal impression on envelope (fig. 9). The seal belongs to Baninum, a man or a king from Mulhan who declares himself “servant of Yahdum-Lim” (Charpin and Durand 1985: 324, fig. 11). During the reign of Zimri-Lim, this inscription was partially restored with the following sentence: “who restored the descendants of Yahdum-Lim” (according to the proposal of two scholars). Baninum has been identified with Bannum, a tribal leader from Mulhan (Suhum) who, after a period under the rule of Yahdum-Lim, conquered Mari and entered the city probably before Zimri-Lim (Charpin and Ziegler 2003: 176 n. 41).

26. ��������������������������������������������������� Collon 1986: 69, pl. 7:38 (BM 89034): NP1 ������������� + ì r NR. 27.  Charpin and Ziegler 2003: 43, 268 n. 121. This name is mentioned in a letter from Mari (A. 3006:8) drawn up during the reign of Zimri-Lim (Charpin and Durand 1985: 297 n. 22). 28. �������������������������������������������� For a discussion of this, see Di Paolo 2010. 29.  Three seal impressions with presentation scenes were found in the Middle Bronze Age Palace A (Rooms F, Q, M) at Tell Biʿa (ancient Tuttul). Iconography shows local variations with respect to the Babylonian tradition. M 8 (two clay sealings used to seal cloth bags) has a cuneiform legend. The seal owner has a Sumerian name: “Annebabdu, servant of dNergal.” M 9 is known by 19 fragmentary clay sealings. The legend (as M 11) has been replaced by a contest scene (as in M 11): Otto 2004: 31–33, pls. 39–41, 1a–d. 30.  The same seal is impressed on two cuneiform tablets from Emar. It belongs to “Hunabu, son of Madi-Dagan”: Beyer 2001: 192 (D 39). A dating to the Middle Bronze Age (because of comparisons with the seal of Yaqaru) is, it seems to me, very unlikely. See also a similar scene on another seal impression from Tell Hadidi: Dornemann 1980: pl. II, fig. 2.

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Fig. 9.  Seal impression from Mari (from Charpin and Durand 1985: fig. 11).

The original seal inscription and the adoption of a presentation scene seem to confirm the hypothesis that in the Amorite age there was a particular class of seals given to royal officials or subordinate rulers. It is noteworthy that Baninum/Bannum modified the legend of his seal to describe his exploits that permitted the ascent to the throne of Zimri-Lim.

Shaping a New Reality Many scholars agree that the Ugaritic kings of the 14th–13th centuries traced the origins of their royal house back to the onset of the second millenium b.c.e. Thus, the foundations of the kingdom of Ugarit seem to be set within the context of the Amorite expansion in Mesopotamia and Syria. In a liturgical text of the 13th century, there is probably a reference to the ancestors of the dynasty, an Amorite tribal group inhabiting northeastern Syria from the late 3rd millenium onward (Levine and de Tarragon 1984: 654–55). And now, my analysis of the seal of Yaqaru adds some new elements. Perhaps it belongs to a particular class of seals that, during the Amorite age, were used to identify royal officials or local rulers. But now the question arises: is it possible that the seal of a royal official was reincised and used for dynastic purposes? And for whom? When? Whoever used this renewed object had to understand the implicit message or the encoded information that was inserted in the visual and written message. A royal official who became king, for example, introduces new biographical data but preserves part of his personal history: signs and symbols that help to identify him and his world. The seal impressed on legal tablets at Ugarit provides additional evidence: that there is insufficient space to write five or six lines of text. Thus, a seal inscription comprised of three lines of writing seems more likely. So, a date in the 19th century b.c.e. is probable. Moreover, the structure of the legend—with name, filiation, and final assertion—put the Ugaritic dynastic seal into the same class as the Group B Babylonian seals. Yaqaru + dumu PN2 + king of Ugarit (seal from Ugarit) PN1 + (T) + dumu PN2 + ìr RN (Babylonian seals)

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So, I conclude that the Ugaritic seal originally belonged to an official/ruler subject of some Amorite kings, but it is impossible to say whether the seal was indigenous or not. We known that, by the 18th century b.c.e., Ugarit was an important commercial center, with connections in one direction with Mesopotamia (Mari) and in the other with the Aegean area. The information about the visit of the king of Mari provides good evidence for this claim (Villard 1986). In addition, it is asserted that Ugarit belonged to the sphere of influence of the kings of Yamhad (Klengel 1997: 365), who ruled over twenty local rulers, including the ruler of Ugarit (Charpin and Ziegler 2003: 206 n. 330). It remains unclear whether this hypothetical official who became king in the 19th century b.c.e. is really Yaqaru or not. The author of the new inscription could also be an unknown king preceding Yaqaru on the throne of Ugarit. In this case, Yaqaru could have reincised anew the seal inscription with his name and patronymic at a later time. Many other explanations are possible. This small contribution may reopen the discussion on this almost forgotten seal.

List of References Appadurai, A. 1986 Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value. Pp.  3–63 in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. A. Appadurai. New York. Arnaud, D. 1997 Prolégomènes à la rédaction d’une histoire d’Ougarit II. Les bordereaux de rois divinisés. SMEA 41: 153–73. Auerbach, E. 1991 Heirlooms, Seals, and Political Legitimacy in Late Bronze Age Syria. Akkadica 75–76: 19–36. Baudrillard, J. 1981 Simulacres et simulation. Paris. Beaulieu, P.-A. 1994 Antiquarianism and the Concern for the Past in the Neo-Babylonian Period. Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 28: 37–42. Beyer, D. 2001 Emar IV. Les sceaux. OBO 20. Fribourg / Göttingen. Blöcher, F. 1992a Siegelabrollungen auf frühaltbabylonischen Tontafeln in der Yale Babylonian Collection. Ein Katalog. MVS 9. Munich. 1992b Siegelabrollungen auf frühaltbabylonischen Tontafeln im British Museum. Ein Katalog. MVS 10. Munich. Bounia, A. 2004 The Nature of Classical Collecting. Collectors and Collections, 100 b.c.e.–100 c.e. Aldershot. Buchanan, B. 1981 Early Near Eastern Seals in the Yale Babylonian Collection. New Haven. Castel, C. 2008 Nouvelles perspectives sur le Bronze Moyen. Travaux en Ville Basse orientale (1994– 1997) et au Centre de la Ville (2000). Pp. 79–95 in Ougarit. Charpin, D. 2004 Histoire politique du Proche-Orient amorrite (2002–1595). Pp.  25–480 in Mesopotamien. Die altbabylonische Zeit ed. D. Charpin, D. O. Edzard and M. Stol. OBO 160/4. Fribourg-Göttingen.

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Charpin, D., and Durand, J.- M. 1985 La prise du pouvoir par Zimri-Lim. MARI 4: 293–343. Charpin, D. and Ziegler, N. 2003 Florilegium Marianum V. Mari et le Proche-Orient à l’époque amorrite. Essai d’histoire politique. Mémoires de NABU 6. Paris. Collon, D. 1975 The Seal Impression from Tell Atchana-Alalakh. AOAT 27. Neukirchen-Vluyn. 1986 Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Cylinder Seals III: IsinLarsa and Old Babylonian Periods. London. 1987 First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East. London. Del Olmo Lete, G. 1999 The Offering Lists and the God Lists. Pp. 305–52 in Ugaritic Studies. Di Paolo, S. 2010 Continuità e discontinuità tra Ur III e paleobabilonese iniziale: un contributo sulla cronologia dallo studio delle Udienze Reali sui sigilli dei “servi del re.” Pp. 252–79 in Quale Oriente? Omaggio a un Maestro. Studi di arte di archeologia del Vicino Oriente in memoria di Anton Moortgat a 30 anni dalla sua scomparsa, ed. R. Dolce. Palermo. in press Bowl or Beaker?: A Preliminary Classification of “Royal” Vessels in Audience Scenes in the Glyptic of Ur III in Proceedings of the 3rd International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Paris, April 15–19 2002, ed. J.-C. Margueron, J.-P. Thalmann and P. de Miroschediji. Dornemann, R. H. 1980 Tell Hadidi: An Important Center of the Mitannian Period and Earlier. Pp. 113–51 in Le Moyen Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg 10–12 mars 1977, ed. J.-C. Margueron. Leiden. Frayne, D. R. 1990 Old Babylonian Period, 2003–1595 b.c.e. The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Early Periods. Toronto. Garrison, M. B. 2012 Antiquarianism, Copying, Collecting. Pp. 27–47 in Archaeology of the Ancient Near Esat, vol. 1, ed. D. T. Potts. Oxford. Harper, P. O. 1992 Mesopotamian Monuments Found at Susa. Pp. 159–62 in The Royal City of Susa. Ancient Near Eastern Treasures in the Louvre. Catalogue of the Exhibition, New York, November 17, 1992, to March 7, 1993, ed. P.O. Harper et al. New York. Kitchen, K. A. 1977 The King List of Ugarit. UF 9: 130–42. Klengel, H. 1997 Die historische Rolle der Stadt Aleppo im vorantiken Syrien. Pp. 359–74 in Die orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität. 1.Internationales Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 9.–10. Mai 1996, ed. G. Wilhelm. Halle / Saale. Legrain, E. 1951 Seal Cylinders. Ur Excavations 10. Cambridge. Levine, B. A., and de Tarragon, J.-M. 1984 Dead Kings and Rephaim: the patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty. JAOS 104: 649–59. Mallet, J. 2008 Chronologie et peuplement de l’Ougarit du Bronze Moyen (fin du IIIe millénaire av. J.‑C. et première moitié du IIe). Pp. 73–77 in Ougarit. Maqdissi, M. al2008 Ras Shamra au Bronze Moyen. Travaux 1929–1974 (Ire–XXXVe campagnes de fouilles). Pp. 51–71 in Ougarit. Mayr, R. 1992 An IN-NA-BA Seal Impression of Lipit-Ishtar. ASJ 14: 125–33. 2001 Intermittent Recarving of Seals in the Neo-Sumerian Period. Pp. 49–58 in RAI 45. Michalowski, P. 1977 Dūrum and Uruk During the Ur III Period. Mesopotamia 12: 83–96.

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Millard, A.R. 1981 Königssiegel. Pp. 135–140 in RlA 6 (Klagegesang-Libanon). Berlin. Moortgat, A. 1940 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Vorderasiatische Rollsiegel. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Steinschneidkunst. Berlin. Nougayrol, J., 1955 Introduction. Pp. xxxiii–xliii in PRU III. Otto, A. 2004 Tell Bi’a/Tuttul IV. Siegel and Siegelabrollungen. Saarbrücken. Ougarit 2008 Ougarit au Bronze Moyen at au Bronze Récent. Actes du Colloque International tenu à Lyon en novembre 2001 “Ougarit au IIe millénaire av. J.-C. Etat des recherches,” ed. Y. Calvet and M. Yon. Lyon. Pardee, D. 1988 Les textes paramythologiques de la 24s campagne (1961). Paris. 2002 Ritual and Cult at Ugarit. Atlanta. Pearce S. M. 1995 On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition. London. Pruzsinszky, R. 2009 Mesopotamian Chronology of the 2nd Millenium b.c. An Introduction to the Textual Evidence and Related Chronological Issues.Vienna. PRU III 1955 Le Palais Royal d’Ugarit III. Textes accadiens et hourrites des archives est, ouest et centrales. Paris. RAI 45 2001 Seals and Seal Impressions. Proceedings of the 45th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Harvard and Yale Universities, Cambridge and New Haven, July 5–10, 1998, Part II, ed. W. W. Hallo and I. J. Winter. Bethesda, MD. Roaf, M. 2000 Survivals and Revivals in the Art of Ancient Mesopotamia. Pp. 1447–62 in Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Rome, May 18th-23rd 1998, vol. II, ed. P. Matthiae et al. Rome. Schaeffer, C. F. A. 1955 Exposé préliminaire. Pp. ix–xxx in PRU III. 1956 Ugaritica III. Paris. Schmidt, B. B. 1996 A Re-Evaluation of the Ugaritic King List (KTU I.113). Pp. 289–304 in Ugarit, Religion and Culture. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Ugarit, Religion and Culture, Edinburgh, July 1994. Essays Presented in Honour of Prof. J. C. L. Gibson, ed. N. Wyatt, W. G. E. Watson, and J. B. Lloyd. Münster. Singer, I. 1999 A Political History of Ugarit. Pp. 603–733 in Ugaritic Studies. Soldt, W. H. van 1991 Studies in the Akkadian of Ugarit. Dating and Grammar. AOAT 40. Neukirchen-Vluyn. Thomason, A. K. 2005 Luxury and Legitimation. Royal Collecting in Ancient Mesopotamia. Ashgate. Ugaritic Studies 1999 Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, ed. W. G. E. Watson and N. Wyatt. HdO 1/39. Leiden. Villard, P. 1986 Un rois de Mari à Ugarit. UF 18: 387–412. Winter, I. J. 1987 Legitimation of Authority Through Images and Legend: Seals Belonging to Officials in the Administrative Bureaucracy of the Ur III State. Pp. 69–116 in The Organization of Power. Aspects of Bureaucracy in the Ancient Near East, ed. M. Gibson and R. D. Biggs. SAOC 46. Chicago. 2001 Introduction: Glyptic, History, and Historiography. Pp. 1–13 in RAI 45.

Time in Neo-Assyrian Letters Frederick Mario Fales Udine

A.  Time in NA Letters: The Many Facets of a Term and Problem This contribution is aimed at providing a bird’s-eye view of the various aspects and notions of time in the epistolary corpus of the Assyrian empire through a range of chosen textual examples. As I will attempt to show, Neo-Assyrian (NA) letters present in parallel diverse perceptions of time, of more vague or more accurate character, relevant to the present or to the past. Thus, an investigation into this variety of aspects promises to be decidedly enriching for the historian, because time is of course universal, and through the way it was measured and perceived some strands of intellectual “dialogue” with past textual realities may be attempted. As is well known, the Assyrian letter corpus comprises almost 3,000 texts in the NA and NB dialects, most of which which were retrieved through excavations in the political capitals and religious seats of the Assyrian empire during the past 160 years. Chronologically, the letters are especially concentrated between the middle of the 8th century and the last quarter of the 7th century b.c.e. The corpus is well accessible to scholars nowadays, since the texts have been republished in updated form with reliable translations by an international team directed by Simo Parpola (Helsinki) in the series State Archives of Assyria—a series which is now also available on the web. 1 The NA letters that have come down to us were, with a few precious exceptions, “incoming” messages. They represent communications forwarded to the Assyrian rulers from all over the empire by individuals from many walks of life and dealing with a great variety of subjects. But they all have one feature in common—which moreover represents the essential semiotic “key” for separating this NA textual genre from all others—the so-called salutatio or initial greeting formula, 2 which runs basically as follows: 1.  For the published volumes of the State Archives of Assyria (henceforth SAA), cf. the Helsinki web site http://www.helsinki.fi/science/saa/publicat.html. An updated bibliography of NA studies, with reference to previous compilations of the same type, has been prepared by M. Luukko and S. Gaspa, “A Bibliography of Neo-Assyrian Studies (1998–2006),” SAAB 17 (2008), 187–256. For the volumes digitized at present on the Web, cf. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/history2/sargon/royalcorrespondence (last accessed: 3/24/2013). 2. The salutatio in letters of the second and first millennium b.c.e. formed the object of E. Salonen, Die Gruß- und Höflichkeitsformeln in babylonisch-assyrischen Briefen, Helsinki, 1967. For NA greeting

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F rederick M ario F ales To the king my lord, from your servant PN. Good health (šulmu) to the king my lord.

Viewing this formula, the first question is: how can the identity of the particular “king my lord” to whom this or that letter was addressed be discerned by the modern scholar? The best possible answer, in my opinion, is: by looking beyond the greeting itself and reconstructing the inner chronology of the letters by other means. 3 This statement may be accepted as far as it goes; it should not be, however, taken to imply that the remaining parts of NA letters necessarily bore explicit chronological indications of absolute character—or, at least, absolute in relation to the standards of their age, that is, based on the sequence of yearly eponyms within a sequence of reigns. To the contrary, these letters were almost all devoid of yearly dating, as is also the case in other epistolary materials from the Ancient Near East (e.g., the Mari letters). In sum, NA letters were conceived and sent forth in 95% of cases with no “time-stamp,” as our modern computer jargon has it. And it may be noted that for this aspect, the practice regarding letters was totally opposite that employed for contemporaneous legal documents, which in 95 % of the cases were dated to the day, month, and eponym year. Why was any form of dating omitted from NA correspondence, even of the most official character and even when the most pressing circumstances were at stake? We may attempt an answer by looking backward in time, starting from our temporallyobsessed civilization. In all of Modernity, and certainly in an increased manner since the late 18th century, the dating of the letter by day, month, and year, added by the sender to messages dispatched by some form of mail service (or nowadays automatically input by the system itself on e-mail), has been considered and used, by all parties concerned, as a means or a criterion to order epistolary material for any future real/possible archival intention, from private housekeeping to Affairs of State. 4 Now, quite to the opposite, we may note that the NA period has not left us any real evidence of full-fledged (i.e., well-assembled and well-delimited) archives of correspondence, specifically of the deliberate filing of such texts for long-term deposit and of their ranging/ordering for future perusal and information retrieval. 5 In formulae, cf. S.  Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, II: Commentary and Appendixes (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983, 437 ff.); F. M. Fales, Cento lettere neo-assire (Venezia 1983, 8 ff..); idem, L’impero assiro: storia e amministrazione (IX–VII sec. a.C.) (Bari-Rome, 2001), 129–30, 318. For bibliography and contextual remarks on the greeting formulae in letter corpuses of other periods, a good starting point is W. Sallaberger, “Wenn du mein Bruder bist . . .”: Interaktion und Textgestaltung in altbabylonischen Alltagsbriefen (Groningen, 1999), 22 and passim. 3. This point is discussed in detail in my article, “Idiolects and Identities in the Neo-Assyrian Epistolary Corpus,” in M. Jursa, L. Reinfandt, K. Wagensonner (eds.), Official Epistolography and the Languages of Power (Vienna, in press). It may be recalled, however, that in Babylonian letters to Sargon II the king is occasionally addressed by name (cf. S. Parpola, “Assyrian Royal Inscriptions and NeoAssyrian Letters,” in F. M. Fales [ed.], Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons [Rome, 1981], 117–42, and esp. 125 n. 10). 4.  Of course, the addressee may also utilize the date of the letter to gauge the time elapsed from the forwarding of the message to its arrival for any further purpose of his own devising (e.g., to judge the efficiency of the postal service). 5.  This point, which formed the object of some debate upon the oral presentation of this text at the Barcelona Rencontre, may be supported by discussion of the wider bracket of all “archival”—i.e., nonliterary—texts from the Kuyunjik Collection in the BM by S. Parpola, “The Royal Archives of Nineveh,” in K. R. Veenhof (ed.), Cuneiform Archives and Libraries (Leiden, 1986), 223–36. Parpola states (ibid.,

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particular, from the pioneering digs of the 19th century to the well-executed excavations of the present, the find-spots of NA letters prove to have been haphazardly shared by all sorts of other “everyday” texts, from business deeds to administrative lists, within the halls of palaces and official residences. 6 What is remarkable, on the other hand, is that NA letters were in some cases retrieved in clusters characterized by a certain coherence in themes and thus also in time-frame. 7 These clusters (or deposits) of letters cannot be merely due to the element of chance in archaeological discoveries; it is, to the contrary, quite likely that they had originally been grouped together and then presumably set aside and/or explicitly disposed of together. What does this fact suggest? It suggests that letters were made out and sent in order to be read by the recipient and maybe to be kept at hand for as long as their specific content was of importance, but they were not necessarily meant to be ranged in long-term archives; in fact, it was rather expected that they should be eventually discarded, either buried in pits or reused to pave new floors. 8 They had a “life-span” 224): “There is no evidence, other than a certain likelihood, that any of them (= the extant “archival” texts) were ever kept in any sort of separate archives. By contrast, it is unequivocally clear from the excavation reports that a very considerable number of “archival” texts of all types were found mixed up with masses of “library” texts in what appeared to be their original place of deposition.” Parpola then goes on (p. 225) to recall further cases, of letters found in temple, and not palatial, contexts; or of letters retrieved in the throne-room of the SW palace of Nineveh, which “are unlikely to have ever become ‘archival’ in the proper sense of the word.” The comprehensive theme of “archival” preservation of texts in the NA empire, in itself and especially vis-à-vis the vast unifying “label” of State Archives of Assyria, was thereupon taken up in some detail in my L’impero assiro:storia e amministrazione (IX–VII sec. a.C.), 92–96. 6.  This point is not completely evident from the available information on the major 19th-century excavations, such as Nineveh (cf., e.g., J. Reade, “Archaeology and the Kuyunjik Archives,” in Cuneiform Archives and Libraries, 213–22, and esp. 218: “In the South-West Palace different categories of tablets were frequently found jumbled together, though we need not imagine that this was how the Assyrians themselves kept them”), but it may be corroborated by the evidence of the find-spots in Assyrian public buildings excavated along modern scientific guidelines. For example, the “Governor’s Palace” at Kalḫu/ Nimrud comprised one room (S), adjacent to the audience chamber, which included “all the correspondence and most of the administrative texts” pertaining to the archive of the local governor (J. N. Postgate, The Governor’s Palace Archive [London 1973], 6). 7.  The most prominent of these clusters is the almost 400 letters to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal from scribes and scholars of the Nineveh court, first published by S. Parpola in Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal and now republished by the same scholar in SAA X. 8.  The latter seems to have been the case with the vast collection of letters discovered in Room 4 of the Ziggurat Terrace (ZT) at Kalḫu/Nimrud, as may be made out from the description of the excavator: “It was, however, ZT 4 which proved to be the most interesting room in this complex. . . . This large chamber measured 9.5 by 4.2 metres. . . . From immediately below the surface down to the level of the floor, over a depth of rather more than 1.2 metres the soil was in many parts of the room, and particularly on its north side and in the doorways, heavily packed with inscribed tablets in sun-dried clay. The tablets lay in complete disorder; some were lying on edge, others flat; they faced in every direction. There were practically no potsherds or other small antiquities. The collection amounted to about 350 documents in all, many of them in poor condition and there had been a larger number still, but many of them had disintegrated. . . . Most of these documents appear to be letters written to the king by his governors in various parts of the Assyrian Empire, and their contents are likely to be of great interest. . . . It would thus seem that these documents are, as it were, the equivalent of foreign office files; but the files did not lie in their proper order; they were merely a part of the accumulated rubbish which raised the level of the site. Indeed, we may look on this collection as the contents of a large number of ancient Assyrian waste-paper baskets which served a convenient purpose as a builders’ dump. But . . . we may with some confidence assume that it was in this very room that they had been housed at the time when they were written. For when we came to the level of the floor, we discovered a long brick bench and against it two rows of brick boxes with the bricks set on edge, which can hardly have been used for any other purpose than as filing cabinets. Clearly this was a scribal quarter and here the king’s high officials must have

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tied to specific contingencies and events of the present and were considered of little or no practical use once the contingencies had passed—and certainly of no literary worth, unlike the letters of Pliny the Younger or of Abelard and Heloïse. It may be thus concluded that, in contrast to the royal “authors” of the Assyrian official inscriptions, with their constant obsession about a rubû arkû discovering their texts and altering them for one purpose or the other, the writers of NA letters did not foresee or wish that anyone should retrieve them and read them again in the future.

*   *   * In a nutshell, the evidence indicates that a specific conception of time governed NA letters: such texts were written now, they were sent now, and they were received and read now. In other words, they existed in an atemporal sphere of contemporaneity; and this explains why neither sender nor addressee were interested in providing or, respectively, knowing the absolute date of writing. This approach is less bizarre than it sounds, because it reminds us vaguely of how we nowadays conceive a telephone call: as a communication which can only take place in “real time” and pertains exclusively to the here and now. Not by chance, the various terms meaning “now, just now, at this time,” and especially umâ and annurig, are among the most attested in the corpus. Some examples are the following: The king, my lord, will hear very much (on this earthquake) tomorrow and the day after, and say: ‘Why is it that you heard but did not write?’—that is why I am writing right now (annurig) to the king my lord (SAA I, 125). I am right now (annurig) sending Giri-Dadi and his cousin Se’-lukidi, who told us these things, to the Palace. What are the king my lord’s instructions? (SAA I, 190). At this very time (umâ annurig) they are bringing [woven material] of good quality and are standing in the presence of my lord. May my lord settle their case! (SAA XVI, 55).

Of course, both sender and addressee were fully aware of the fact that, even trading letters by immediate return of post, a certain number of days would necessarily elapse before their communications arrived from one to the other. In other words, they knew that the envoy entrusted with the messages could only cover so many miles a day on a chariot driven by a mule team, despite the good working order of the Imperial Postal system, based on a network of integrated throughfares known altogether as the Royal Road (harrān šarri), dotted at fixed intervals by garrisoned relay stations (bēt mardiāte) where fresh teams were kept waiting. 9 To further clarify this point: if we reckon the distance between Nineveh and Damascus on the road system of the Assyrian Empire (i.e., due west from the Tigris to the Euphrates dealt with the correspondence affecting his foreign affairs” (M. E. L. Mallowan, “The Excavations at Nimrud (Kalḫu), 1952,” Iraq 15 [1953], 1–42, and esp. p. 33). Half a century later, these letters attained a comprehensive edition by H. W. F. Saggs, The Nimrud Letters, 1952 (London, 2001), thus finally opening the way for further research.   9.  On the NA mule service, cf. my “Idiolects and Identities in the Neo-Assyrian epistolary Corpus,” n. 8; on the personnel at the relay stations, cf. F. M. Fales, “On ‫רכש‬, rakkasu, and raksu,” in A. F. Botta (ed.), In the Shadow of Bezalel: Aramaic, Biblical, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten (Leiden, 2013). 71–88.

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through the steppe of the present-day Jezirah, then due south roughly on the same track as the modern Aleppo-Damascus thoroughfare) to have been some 900 km, the messenger bearing an urgent message from the ruler would have taken around a week to negotiate this stretch by riding day and night with no real interruption— that is, by merely changing his mounts at the different relay stations. 10 But this latent, “dead” period of days and days—which to us would be absolutely intolerable—was considered a non-time, an interlude: and however long it may have been, it seems to have represented no particular hindrance for the Assyrians’ psychological perception that epistolary communication took place in “real time.” Thus, the Treasurer Ṭāb-šar-Aššur, operating on the Assyrian-Urartian border, had no qualms about detaining an envoy from Kumme who had passed on important information for as long as it took until a return letter from the capital arrived, bearing king Sargon’s reaction to this information: When I heard these words, I detained the messenger until the king my lord would hear the contents of this letter and send me instructions (SAA I 41).

From all that has been said, it is reasonable to suggest that letters in the Assyrian Empire were considered no more and no less than an extension of direct oral communication—and we may thus apply to them the same definition as the modern telephone, “a point-to-point communication system whose function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to one another.” Contradicting Marshall McLuhan’s well-known tenet that in the modern world “the medium is the message,” in Assyria the “message”—and in particular the oral message—was at the center of the communication process and thus quite independent from the “medium” used to convey it out of earshot, whether a clay tablet written in cuneiform or a scroll written in Aramaic.

B.  Timekeeping (Astrological Events, Relative Dates) But to say that NA letters bore no time-stamp cannot be taken to imply that notions of absolute and relative time were absent from the corpus: quite the opposite. Albeit functioning within the overarching framework of contemporaneity, scores of NA letters deal with temporal issues along quite precise parameters. This is especially true for the letters from the court astrologers, who had an extremely detailed perception of the calendar in its monthly and daily segments, derived from the movement of astral bodies within an ideal 360-day cycle of 12 regular months. In its turn, the exact measurement of time, or timekeeping, was a major factor in evaluating the positivity or negativity of specific astral phenomena on the basis of the vast and authoritative omen series Enūma Anu Enlil. A good example of the central role of timekeeping within the overall divinatory process is attested in a letter by Bel-ušezib, a versatile specialist at Esarhaddon’s court: 10.  This type of “express service” is the one described by the adjective kalliu in its specific NA usage (some sources in CAD K, 84a). Less urgent transfers of messages were performed by the relay of the letters from one envoy to another at the bēt mardiāte, as indicated, e.g., by the letter SAA X, 361, by MarIssar of Babylon: “Along the roadside the (personnel) of the post-stations pass my letters along from one to the other, (and thus) bring them to the king my lord. (Yet) for two or three times (already) my letter has been returned from the towns of GN1, GN2, and GN3! Let a sealed order be sent to them that they should pass my letter (along) from one to the other, and bring it to the king my lord!” (rev. 3–11).

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F rederick M ario F ales I saw the crescent of the moon but the sun was rising (at the same time): he may have cleansed it, but this was not to be seen. (In any case,) whether it was a crescent, and whether it appeared (already) on the 15th day, or whether it will appear on the 16th day, it is an evil portent, and it concerns the Manneans. . . .   Last year, when the moon was seen with the sun on the 15th day, did Sidon not bear (the evil portent)? Did the city not fall, were its people not chased away?! (SAA X, 112)

The daily process of observation of the heavens on the part of the astrologers was organized in a series of “vigils” or “watches” (maṣṣarāti), lasting from dusk to dawn. Thus, the night (mūšu) was segmented in three watches, respectively called barārītu, “dusk/twilight watch,” qablītu, “middle watch, (mid)night watch,” and nāmārītu, “dawn watch.” 11 As an astrological report of this period states, “the evil consequences of an eclipse (depend) on the month, on the day, (even) on the watch,” 12 and in the light of this tenet, one astrologer could specify to the king that An eclipse (of the moon) occurred on the 14th of Sivan (the 3rd month), during the morning watch (SAA X, 137).

Other specialists at the Nineveh court were entrusted with the observance and organization of cultic ceremonies or festivities in which the king was expected to participate. This entire range of activities was in general connected to the determination of the propitiousness, or lack of it, of specific days within the year and month, on the basis of hemerological or menological omen series. For example, it is ascertained 13 that the writer of the following letter, the chief scribe Issar-šumu-ereš, had consulted the menological text iqqur īpus, which specifies the favorable months “for restoring a shrine,” in view of his answer to king Esarhaddon: Concerning the cella of Nusku, about which the king, my lord, wrote to me thus: ‘Look up a favorable day, and also write down and send to me how it should be erected’ — Simanu (= III) would have been an auspicious month and the 17th a good day, However, now the month is completely over, so when could they do it? Ululu (= VI) is a good month; it is really the month for this. Within this month they could make it; within this month it could be erected (SAA X, 13: obv. 8–rev. 10).

To sum up, the scribes and scholars of Esarhaddon’s and Ashurbanipal’s court were professionally endowed with a keen sense of the “fixed time” or “right time” (simānu), whether for astral bodies to make their appearance or for specific cultic actions to be performed. As long ago established by B. Landsberger, 14 the term simānu, already attested at Mari, finds a number of specialized applications in the NA letters: it denotes the “proper time” for stars to appear and for performing specific rituals but also as the “season” or “right season” for agricultural work, such as simēn nasāhi ša ziqpi ša erēni šurmēni, “the season for extracting cedar and cypress sprouts” (SAA 11.  It may be recalled in passing that in the opening lines of the incantation series Maqlû (G. Meier, Die Assyrische Beschwörungssammlung Maqlû (AfO Bh 2 Berlin, 1936), the three segmentations of the night (“the veiled bride”) are invoked in a clear, but rare, sequence (I:3, al-si ba-ra-ri-tum qab-li-tum u na-ma-ri-tum, “I have called upon twilight, midnight, and dawn”). 12.  SAA VIII, 316:3. 13. Cf. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, II, 10–12. 14.  B. Landsberger, “Jahreszeiten im sumerisch-Akkadischen,” JNES 8 (1949), 256–57.

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I, 227). But an often-quoted passage in the Annals of Sennacherib draws upon this use of simānu as “natural season” for a truly gruesome parallel, I made their blood flow like a huge flood (caused by) seasonal rains” (šamūtu simani) (OIP 2, 45: VI 3) 15

C.  Urgency and Delay If the Assyrians were ready, or forced, to reckon with a long waiting time between the sending of a letter and the arrival of the answer, this does not mean that their acceptance of this reality was always passive—or, more specifically, that no sense of urgency was felt in connection with epistolary communication. To the contrary: if we look at the relatively small number of “outgoing” letters written by the king (which might have been drafts), 16 or at the much larger body of quotations of the king’s letters within the replies by his subordinates, we may notice that a desire for rapid execution consistently accompanied royal orders, 17 through the use of adverbs of time such as arḫiš or ḫanṭiš, “quickly, rapidly,” bis or basi, “at once, forthwith,” or ana kallê, which literally means “by express courier,” but was used in the sense of “post haste, on the double.” To give just two examples, from Sargon’s correspondence: Get together your prefects plus the horses of your cavalry collection-points immediately (arḫiš)! Whoever is late will be impaled in the middle of his house (SAA I, 22).

That this peremptory and menacing tone was a frequently used device (albeit perhaps only with rhetorical aims) may be seen from another letter by the same king, in which the deadline for a delivery is fixed to the day: The king’s word to the governor of Kalḫu. 700 bales of straw and 700 bundles of reeds, each bundle (weighing) more than a donkey can carry, must be at hand in Dur-Šarruken by the 1st of Kislimu (= IX). Should even one day pass by, you will die (SAA I, 26)

Other cases demonstrate further that the king believed that time was of the essence not only in the preparation for war or major public works but also in diplomatic and political dealings: As for him, one of your ‘third men’ should pick him up on the double (ana kallê) and have him come here; I will speak kindly with him and encourage him (SAA I, 1).

In sum, the Assyrian kings seem to have tended to convey to their subordinates a sense of haste in the execution of their orders or in replying to their injunctions. But the need for urgent communication characterized, time and again, the entire organization of the Palace; and even astrologers felt the need to inform the king as soon as possible regarding possible eclipses, with their negative portents: 15.  Translation after Landsberger (ibid.) and CAD S, 269b, correcting that of the original edition. 16. The NA abat šarri were studied by K.  Watanabe, “Die Briefe der neuassyrischen Könige,” AcSum 7 (1985), 139–56. 17.  A sampler of these quotations is represented by the 89 royal utterances to the scribes and scholars, assembled by Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, II, 478–82.

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F rederick M ario F ales There were clouds. We did not see the moon, probably because of the clouds. May the king my lord send messengers to Assur and Arba’il; may they find out how things stand, and quickly (arḫiš) inform the king my lord (SAA X 151)

And, as a rhetorical device, the notion of urgency could even be used to convey the concept of quantity, as in the following blessing of a courtier to Esarhaddon: May they (= the gods) keep you in good health and give you happiness and physical well-being! May the appoint a guardian of health and vigor to be with you. Whatever you have prayed to these gods for, may they bestow it upon you very, very quickly (adanniš adanniš ḫanṭiš)! (SAA XVI, 52)

And yet, despite the call to urgent action stemming from the king and resounding here and there through the Assyrian administration, quite the opposite scenario is not infrequently attested—that of a subordinate explaining to the king that he is forced to postpone the date of his arrival and/or delay his delivery due to adverse circumstances. In one well-known case employing the verb karāmu, 18 the writer, who is in charge of a contingent of horses for the royal muster of the army, provides a detailed time-schedule, justifying his delay of at least a month due to the weather: As concerns the horses for the muster about which you have written, . . . we shall send (them) during the month Addāru (= XII). Since the . . . -official was ready (ikrimūni), we could have hastened to send them during the month Šabāṭu (= XI), at the height of the winter season: (but) because of the cold they would (certainly) have died during the winter. (Therefore,) we sent (for them) in midŠabāṭu: subsequently, within the month Addāru, they shall bring them here and they will depart. It will be all right: during the month Nisannu (=I) they will reach you (ABL 302)

D.  References to Temporal Notions (Actuality and History) A bird’s-eye view of NA letters reveals a certain variety of terms concerning temporal divisions and aspects employed in the reports or requests of the subordinates, both military and civilians, when writing to the rulers. Reminders of events of the recent past are carefully accompanied by the relevant adverbial indications, such as šaddaqdiš or šaddaqad, “last year,” šalušša/eni, “the year before last (i.e., the 3rd year),” or rabušeni, “three years ago.” See, for example, the following letter, relating the fate of a Ninevite scribe sought in vain by king Sargon: He came two years ago (ina šaluššeni), got a position with Ilaʾi-Bel, and worked punctually on his behalf. Last year (šaddaqdiš), while Ilaʾi-Bel was still alive, an army scout came and took him away. They deported him to the Transeuphratene (ebir nāri) (SAA I, 204).

On the other hand, if we take as a further sampler the political correspondence of Esarhaddon (SAA XVI), we also find the names of the seasons, such as ḫarpūtu, “spring,” and takrimātu, “autumn.” But especially the letters of the court scribes and scholars prove to be replete with terms connected to the much shorter-spaced phases and occurrences of astral movements, such as arḫišam, “monthly” and ūmišam or 18. Which, according to some, means “to be delayed,” but which I believe means “to be ready” (F. M. Fales, “Neo-Assyrian karāmu: A Unitary Interpretation,” in S. Graziani [ed.], Studi sul Vicino Oriente antico dedicati alla memoria di Luigi Cagni [Naples, 2000], I, 261–81).

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ūmussu, “daily,” and to the various subdivisions of the day, ṣiprātu, “early morning,” bādu, “evening,” muṣlalu, “noontime,” nubattu, “evening,” and finally bēru, “double hour.” 19 The latter term was a standard term for the measurement of time intervals during the day with reference to the movement of the sun across the sky: specifically, the calculation of the bēru was a relevant factor in the fixing of cultic time, as is explained in the following letter regarding a royal funeral: As to what the king my lord wote to me: ‘Ask Bel-naṣir, Bel-ipuš, and other Babylonians that you know’, —I asked them, and they said to me as follows, ‘an hour (lit., 1⁄2 of a bēru) after sunrise, the display takes place; an hour an a half (lit., 2⁄3 of a bēru) after sunrise, the display takes place again’ (SAA X, 9)

In brief, there was no lack of attention in this epistolary corpus to the overall sphere of current time in all its particularities and subdivisions. But, memories of the historical past also could be sometimes evoked by old and experienced courtiers for the benefit of still-young rulers, with the use of the terms palû, “year of reign,” and tarṣu or tirṣu, “extent of time, duration,” with reference to previous kings. Thus, Bel-ušezib tells Esarhaddon how the scholars of his father Sennacherib had attempted to hide evil portents from the king, but their trickery was discovered and they were reptimanded, so that thereupon The scribes and haruspices took heed of these words, and, by the gods of the king, they reported every portent that occurred during the reign (ana tarṣi) of your royal father (SAA X, 169).

E.  Conclusion: Coping with Temporal Issues in NA Letters In sum, the aspects of time in NA letters give rise to a variety of historical information, which may be analyzed by modern scholars along two essential lines. The first is of historical-anthropological significance: in this corpus, the dimension of the immediate present is the prevailing one, with detailed segmentations of this temporal bracket from a variety of points of view (weather conditions, astral movements, work activities). Rare but interesting excursions into the historical past are also attested, whereas no references to the future are apparent—perhaps as a reflex of the ephemeral character of this documentation, which was not expected to have future readers. The second line along which the indications of time may be studied is of course that of histoire événémentielle: the correspondence of the astrologers under Esarhaddon is especially precious (e.g., through the eclipses) for reconstructing the absolute dates of the letters. 20 Starting from here, we may manage to set in chronological sequence the day-to-day activities at the Nineveh court, thus recreating a detailed microhistory of this environment: who was present (prosopography), what tasks and duties were required (cultic calendar, references to extant literary, religious and scientific works), and how the policies concerning the outlying empire 19.  All these terms are drawn from the combined glossary sections of the SAA volumes dealing with epistolary texts. 20. Cf. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, II, 411–13, and passim, for the chronological determination of 63% of the letters from scribes and scholars, mainly on the basis of the astronomical phenomena therein quoted; whereas H. Hunger, in SAA VIII, xxii, fixed the dates of 21% of the contemporaneous astrological reports. However, D. Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology (Groningen, 2000), 25–27, proposed a much reduced number of certainly datable cases from these two textual corpuses.

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were conceived and carried out by the Palace (omen queries on military campaigns, nominations of high officials, possible acts of insubordination). If we are to follow the Irish proverb that “Time is a great storyteller” (Is maith an scéalaí an aimsir), then there is much work to be done on this aspect of NA studies in the future.

The Historical Preamble of the Talmi-Šarruma Treaty (CTH 75) and Some Chronological Problems of the History of Halap Daria Gromova M o sc o w

In accord with the traditional structure of Hittite vassal treaties, the historical preamble to the Talmi-Šarruma treaty recalls all the history of relations between Halap and Hatti from the very beginning to the moment of concluding the treaty— that is, the time of Muwatalli II (or at least to the moment of concluding the treaty between Muršili II and Talmi-Šarruma, the one which the extant treaty of Muwatalli was to replace). I am not going to stop to disucss the figures of Hattušili I and Muršili I, whose relations with Halap are widely discussed in the literature, 1 so I shall directly pass to a later time, to the so-called Middle Hittite period and the beginning of the New Hittite Kingdom. 1.  Description of the defeat and submission of Halap by Muršili I is followed in the text of the treaty by a report about Tudhaliya’s campaign. Thus, it is clear that, in between, Halap was separated from Hatti. However, in the time of Idrimi, there was no sign of dependence on the Hittites of either Alalakh or Halap, which means that Halap had already become detached from Hatti. It is difficult to find out when exactly this took place, but it must have preceded the transition of Piliya of Kizzuwatna to the side of Parattarna of Mitanni, because, as was noted by R. H. Beal, 2 it seems improbable that at the time of concluding the treaty between Mitanni and Kizzuwatna the latter could be separated from the new suzerain by a corridor of states vassal to Hatti. From the inscription of Idrimi, we know that during his reign Halap became a vassal of Mitanni. So, it could well be this event that is meant by the words “the king of Halap turned around and settled with the king of Hanigalbat” (KBo I 6 obv. 16–17). Thus, Halap could have been separated from the Hittites not at the moment when “Tudhaliya, the Great King, ascended to the throne” (KBo I 6 obv. 15)—that is, during his reign, as it seems from a first look at the text of the treaty—but much earlier, except that Tudhaliya turned out to be strong enough to lay claim to the former vassal of Hatti. To this moment, Tudhaliya had already concluded a treaty with Kizzuwatna, which opened a way further into Syria. It could well be that the Hittites did not themselves know when exactly Halap ceased to be their vassal and turned to Mitanni. If they did know, this would have been cited in 1.  A. Archi, “Hattusili I and the treaty with Talmi-Šarruma of Aleppo again,” NABU (1999) 39–40. 2.  R. H. Beal, “The History of Kizzuwatna and the Date of Šunaššura Treaty,” Or. 55 (1986) 441.

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the text of the treaty. It seems that during the “dark age” of the Middle Hittite period, between the reigns of Muršili I and Tudhaliya I/II, the Hittites had very poor knowledge of what was going on in Syria. And only Tudhaliya I/II resumed an active foreign policy in this region, beginning by concluding a treaty with Kizzuwatna. One can even suppose that Tudhaliya found out that Halap had detached itself from Hatti only in situ, after conclusion of the Kizzuwatna treaty. The devastation of Halap by the troops of Tudhaliya is firmly associated in our understanding of this era with the end of Alalakh IV. However, this association can work only if we accept the idea of Michael Astour that Alalakh became a new capital of Halap 3—an idea that was once quite popular among the scholars but has been completely rejected by N. Naʾaman already in 1980. 4 Otherwise, there is no ground for this hypothesis. In any case, it is clearly stated in the treaty that it was the devastation of Halap, not of Alalakh, that took place, so we know nothing about the simultaneous destruction of Alalakh. It is important that, in all of the Hittite treaties, Halap is clearly distinguished from Alalakh, which was then called Mukiš, another state, which is not at all mentioned in the treaty. Even when referring to Hattušili I at the very beginning of the preamble, the treaty skips his defeat of Alalakh-Mukiš, for it has nothing to do with the main topic, which is relations between Hatti and Halap. Besides, association of the end of Alalakh IV with Tudhaliya seems doubtful from the archaeological point of view. The next level, Alalakh III, is notable for homogeneity, absence of signs of external invasions, and increasing proximity to Hittite culture. K. A. Yener notes the special similarity between the monumental buildings of this level and Temples 6 and 7 in Bogazköy, Hittite buildings in Tarsus, Ortaköy-Sapinuwa, Kushaklı-Sarissa, and Maşat Höyük. 5 Among special Hittite architectural features typical of Alalakh III are buttresses facing the courtyard, towers, cellar storage compartments, and column entrances similar to those of bit hilani building E in Bogazköy and the 14th-century palace in Emar. K. A. Yener also proposed that a pair of basalt lions found in a secondary deposit in the temple of Level Ia comes originally from the Level III as well, which would also tie this level to the Hittites, in whose core land the lion statues were a typical feature of sacred architecture. All of this peaceful pro-Hittite building activity would be impossible if this level corresponded to the period of the Syrian wars of Šuppiluliuma I, as would be the case if the end of Alalakh IV is ascribed to Tudhaliya I/II. Thus, it is more reasonable to associate the end of Alalakh IV with Suppiluliuma. I would also doubt the identification of Tudhaliya’s campaign with the destruction of the Alalakh IV palace, as proposed by E. von Dassow. 6 The time between the reigns of Tudhaliya I/II and Šuppiluliuma I definitely exceeds the amount of time—few decades—that, according to the calculations of the archaeologists, divides the destruction of the 3.  M. C. Astour, “The Partition of Confederacy of Mukiš-Nuhašše-Nii by Šuppiluliuma. A Study in Political Geography of the Amarna Age,” Or. 38 (1969) 384–89. 4.  N. Na’aman, “The Historical Introduction of the Aleppo Treaty Reconsidered,” JCS 32 (1980) 34–42. 5.  K. A. Yener, “Alalakh Spatial Organization,” in The Amuq Valley Regional Projects, Vol. 1. Surveys in the Plain of Antioch and Orontes Delta, Turkey, 1995–2002 (ed. K. A. Yener; Oriental Institute Publications 131; Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2005) 110–11. 6.  E. von Dassow, State and Society in the Late Bronze Age: Alalah under Mitanni Empire (Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 17; Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2008) 61–62.

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Alalakh IV palace from the end of the main Level IV. Thus, there is no ground to identify it with the capture of Halap by Tudhaliya I/II. 2.  The last event in the relations between Hatti and Halap preceding the reign of Šuppiluliuma that is mentioned in the Talmi-Šarruma treaty refers to the period of the reign of Hattušili. It now seems certain that the Hattušili mentioned here is Hattušili II, so I will not argue that point further here, but proceed with the discussion. The passage referring to the reign of Hattušili is one of the most difficult in the treaty, which is partly caused by the bad state of preservation of the tablet. 19 LUGAL 20

21 22

KUR URUḪa-la-ap ḫi-i-(  ṭ[á it-ti)] LUGAL KUR URUḪa-n[i]-gal-bat iḫ-ṭì ù it-ti Ḫa-at-tu-š[i-li LUGAL KUR UR]UḪa-at-ti-[(ma ḫi-i-ṭá i)ḫ]-ṭ[ì]-ma I

DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUAš-ta-ti ù? [ ]xx-bu? x [ URU.DIDLI.Ḫ]Á ù ZAG.ḪÁ-ni ša KUR URUḪa-la-ap [   ]LUGAL ša? [   ]x[ i-te?]-e?-er-šu

23

ù LUGAL KUR URUMi-it-ta-a[n-ni a-na DU]MU?.MEŠ [KUR URUAš-ta-ti?] ù DUMU. M[EŠ K]UR URUNu-ḫaš-ši 24 URU.DIDLI.ḪÁ ù ZAG.ḪÁ-n[i? ]x? a?-ša?-xx [    ] ri-ik? [ ]x it-ta-ta?-ad-din 25

ù DUP.PA.HÁ-šu-nu URU.DIDLI.H[Á an-nu-tim] ù ša Z[AG.Ḫ]Á-ni an-nu-tim il-ta-ṭar-šu-nu-ti 26 [i-na]x NA4KIŠIB-šu i[k-nu?-kan?-š]u-nu-ti DUMU.MEŠ URUḪa-la-ap it-ti I Ḫa-at-tu-ši-li 27 [LUGAL KUR URU]Ḫa-at-ti a-kan-[na ] ḫi-ṭá [    ] ah-ta-ṭù-ú 28

[DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUAš-ta-ti] ù [[DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUNu-ḫ]aš-š[i] a-na I Ḫa-[a]t-tu-ši-li-ma LUGAL KUR URUḪa-at-ti 29 [ UR]U DIDLI.[ḪÁ ù ZAG.Ḫ]Á-ni ša KUR URUḪa-la-ap i-te-er-šu 30 [ù IḪa-at-tu-ši-li-]-ma URU.DIDLI.ḪÁ-ni ù ZAG.ḪÁ-ni ša KUR URUḪa-la-ap 31 [    a-na DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUAš-ta-t]a? ù a-na [D]U[MU.MEŠ? K]UR URU Nu-ḫaš-ši ki ri-mu-ti it-ta-din-šu-nu-t[i] 32 [   i-na] NA4K[IŠI]B-šu x[  i]k-nu-kan-ma na-šu-ú 19 20 21 22

The king of Halap commited a sin against the king of Hanigalbat. And against Hattušili, the king of Hatti, he committed a sin. (a slash) The citizens of Astata and [the citizens of Nuhašše] requested from the king cities and border districts of Halap.

23 And 24 to

the king of Mitanni gave cities and border districts the citizens of Astata and Nuhašše.

25 And

he wrote for them the tablets of these cities and border districts sealed them with his seal. The citizens of Halap 27 committed a sin against Hattušili, the king of Hatti, as well. 26 and

28 [The

citizens of Astata and [citizens of Nuhašše] came to Hattušili, the king of Hatti, 29 [and requested] cities and border districts of Halap 30 [and Hattušili] gave cities and border districts of Halap 31 [to the citizens of Astata and] Nuhašše, 32 and sealed them with his seal, and they have them in their possession.

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One of the problems that arises from this text is the sins committed by the citizens of Halap against the kings of Hanigalbat and Hatti. It is difficult to explain both the character of these crimes and the sequence of events. What kind of sins could these be, if they were at the same time sins against Hatti and against Hanigalbat? And why were both the kings of Hatti and of Hanigalbat able to distribute the land of Halap? The most successful explanation was proposed by N. Naʾaman in the 1980 article cited above: he advised that we should cease searching for the phantom sins of the citizens of Halap, which perhaps were only mentioned in the text of the treaty as a justification for the activities undertaken by the predecessors of the author of the treaty against Halap. 7 A similar situation can be found in Tudhaliya’s treaty with Šunaššura of Kizzuwatna, where it is said that the Hurrians committed a sin against Hatti and Kizzuwatna, but the character of this sin is not further explained. What I would like to add to this proposal is the following. I think that there is an alternative to thinking that the whole passage refers to a single event. The primary basis for thinking this way is the division of the text into segments by the lines. But it is important also to remember that what we have now is a copy of the original treaty of Muršili II, the father of Muwatalli. It is possible to imagine that in the original text there were no dividing lines and that the scribe, who was making a copy for Muwatalli, decided to add the lines to assist in understanding the text— but his interpretation of the text was not correct. If we remove the dividing lines and read the same text, pausing in different places, the sense turns out different as well—and it also becomes more understandable. 19 20 21 22

LUGAL KUR URUḪa-la-ap ḫi-i-(ṭ[á it-ti)] LUGAL KUR URUḪa-n[i]-gal-bat iḫ-ṭì ù it-ti IḪa-at-tu-š[i-li LUGAL KUR UR]UḪa-at-ti-[(ma ḫi-i-ṭá i)ḫ]-ṭ[ì]-ma DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUAš-ta-ti ù? [ ]xx-bu? x [ URU.DIDLI.Ḫ]Á ù ZAG.ḪÁ-ni ša KUR URUḪa-la-ap [   ]LUGAL ša? [    ]x[ i-te?]-e?-er-šu

23

ù LUGAL KUR URUMi-it-ta-a[n-ni a-na DU]MU?.MEŠ [KUR URUAš-ta-ti?] ù DUMU. M[EŠ K]UR URUNu-ḫaš-ši 24 URU.DIDLI.ḪÁ ù ZAG.ḪÁ-n[i? ]x? a?-ša?-xx [   ] ri-ik? [   ]x it-ta-ta?-ad-din 25

ù DUP.PA.HÁ-šu-nu URU.DIDLI.H[Á an-nu-tim] ù ša Z[AG.Ḫ]Á-ni an-nu-tim il-ta-ṭar-šu-nu-ti 26 [i-na]x NA4KIŠIB-šu i[k-nu?-kan?-š]u-nu-ti  DUMU.MEŠ URUḪa-la-ap it-ti IḪa-at-tu-ši-li 27 [LUGAL KUR URU]Ḫa-at-ti a-kan-[na ] hi-ṭá [   ] ah-ta-ṭù-ú 28 [DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUAš-ta-ti] ù [[DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUNu-ḫ]aš-š[i] a-na IḪa-[a]t-tu-ši-li-ma LUGAL KUR URUḪa-at-ti 29 [ UR]U DIDLI.[ḪÁ ù ZAG.Ḫ]Á-ni ša KUR URUḪa-la-ap i-te-er-šu 30 [ù IḪa-at-tu-ši-li-]-ma URU.DIDLI.ḪÁ-ni ù ZAG.ḪÁ-ni ša KUR URUḪa-la-ap 31 [    a-na DUMU.MEŠ KUR URUAš-ta-t]a? ù a-na [D]U[MU.MEŠ? K]UR URUNu-ḫaš-ši ki ri-mu-ti it-ta-din-šu-nu-t[i] 32 [   i-na] NA4K[IŠI]B-šu x[   i]k-nu-kan-ma na-šu-ú

Now here are two parallel cases: one concerns Hanigalbat, the other, Hatti. In both cases, there is first a shortened justification of transference of the lands of Halap to Astata and Nuhašše, and then the very procedure of this transference. It also seems 7.  N. Naʾaman, “The Historical Introduction of the Aleppo Treaty Reconsidered,” 40–41.

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that what we see here are not individual events but rather a description of a common practice stretched over time. The tablets with texts of land grants of the Mitannian kings found at Tell Bazi and published in 2006 by W. Sallaberger, B. Einwag, and A. Otto, 8 which include among the granted lands toponyms from the Halap region, fit the situation very well, although it would be too straightforward to suppose that these are exactly the transferences mentioned in the Talmi-Šarruma treaty. When trying to explain why Muršili, in his treaty with Halap, should mention in addition to the acts of his own predecessors also the episodes of the relations between Halap and Hanigalbat, it is important to keep in mind that this is a vassal treaty. Thus, the aim of the historical preamble is to demonstrate that, although in the past Halap was not loyal to the Hittites, Muršili is now showing grace toward his vassal. Accordingly, thankful citizens of Halap should be loyal to their favorable suzerain. Among these signs of Hittite largesse is the act of recovering the former lands of Halap, which were lost in past time. Thus, one should be not surprised that the description of the former transference of the lands of Halap to Astata and Nuhašše is so detailed and takes so much space. It seems that the process of collecting the former lands of Halap was at least started, if not conducted entirely, by Šuppiluliuma I. In the treaty, his reign immediately follows the actions of Hattušili II that we have discussed. In a few lines, the treaty explains the conquest of Syria, and then, as far as we can tell from the scanty remains of the text, it passes again to the question of the lost lands of Halap. This action of Šuppiluliuma fits well into the context of his One-Year War, during which, as it seems from the Šattiwaza treaty, Nuhašše and Astata resisted the Hittites much more strongly than did Halap. As a result, Halap must have found itself much more bonded to the Hittites. For this reason, Šuppiluliuma could later have chosen it as the center of a Syrian domain for his son Telipinu, although economically and strategically Alalakh, during and immediately after the war that Šuppiluliuma used to consolidate his power in Syria, satisfied the requirements much better. 8.  W. Sallaberger, B. Einwag, and A. Otto, “Schenkungen von Mittani-Königen an die Einwohner von Basṣīru. Die zwei Urkunden aus Tall Bazi am Mittleren Euphrat,” ZA 96 (2006) 69–104.

Bibliography Archi A., “Hattusili I and the treaty with Talmi-Šarruma of Aleppo again,” NABU (1999) 39–40. Astour, M. C., “The Partition of Confederacy of Mukiš-Nuhašše-Nii by Šuppiluliuma. A Study in Political Geography of the Amarna Age,” Or. 38 (1969) 384–89. Beal R. H., “The History of Kizzuwatna and the Date of Šunaššura Treaty,” Or. 55 (1986) 424–45. Dassow, E. von, State and Society in the Late Bronze Age: Alalah under Mitanni Empire. Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 17. Bethesda: CDL, 2008. Na’aman, N., “The Historical Introduction of the Aleppo Treaty Reconsidered,” JCS 32 (1980) 34–42. Sallaberger, W., Einwag B, and Otto A., “Schenkungen von Mittani-Königen an die Einwohner von Baṣīru. Die zwei Urkunden aus Tall Bazi am Mittleren Euphrat.” ZA 96 (2006) 69–104. Yener, K. A., “Alalakh Spatial Organization.” Pp. 99–144 in The Amuq Valley Regional Projects, Vol. 1. Surveys in the Plain of Antioch and Orontes Delta, Turkey, 1995–2002. Edited by K. A. Yener. Oriental Institute Publications 131. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2005).

Magie et Histoire: les rituels en temps de guerre

Chargée

Cynthia Jean de recherches

FRS – F.N.R.S. (ULB)

Dans le cadre de mon étude sur la profession de prêtre-lamentateur (kalû en akkadien) à l’époque néo-assyrienne, je m’intéresse actuellement aux rituels de guerre, 1 dans lesquels ce spécialiste jouait un rôle important. La guerre est une activité ritualisée par nature puisqu’elle est souvent présentée, dans le monde mésopotamien, comme une volonté divine ou comme approuvée par les dieux. Cependant, lors des combats, l’armée et le souverain font face à une souillure, par un contact avec le sang et la mort, ainsi qu’à de multiples dangers. Pour laver cette souillure et se protéger face au danger, différents rituels pouvaient être mis en place. L’activité guerrière, qui occupe une bonne partie du temps du roi mésopotamien à toutes les époques, détermine les zones d’influence culturelles et économiques, façonne les empires et est donc un élément clé dans l’écriture de l’Histoire. Pourtant, en dehors d’assez nombreuses références aux procédés de divination servant à justifier une guerre, à choisir la tactique à utiliser, ou encore à connaître l’issue d’une campagne, 2 nous avons très peu de détails sur les rituels offensifs, défensifs et purificatoires qui accompagnaient les campagnes militaires. Ce type de rituel est parfois mentionné dans des sources comme les annales royales, la correspondance entre les officiels et savants et le souverain, ou encore dans des textes techniques, comme le célèbre Manuel de l’exorciste (KAR 44).

1.  Source indirecte: les annales Les mentions les plus vagues se trouvent dans les annales, où l’accent est mis plus volontiers sur les prouesses militaires et sur la victoire. Ainsi, la référence la 1.  L’exposé présenté lors de la RAI de Barcelone visait à faire un état de la question au sujet des tablettes et fragments identifiés comme des rituels de guerre. Une édition des textes inédits conservés au British Museum, ainsi qu’un commentaire sur ce type de textes, est en préparation et paraîtra sous peu. Ce travail n’aurait pas pu voir le jour sans l’énorme travail préliminaire entamé par le Prof. D. Prechel (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) qui m’a très aimablement confié ses notes, ce pour quoi je la remercie grandement. Je remercie également les professeurs M. J. Geller, W. G. Lambert, S. Maul, Ph. Talon, et J. Scurlock, pour leurs aides et suggestions diverses. 2.  L’importance de la divination dans les questions guerrières est particulièrement bien illustrée par de nombreuses lettres de Mari. Les questions oraculaires de type tamītu montrent également les différentes situations où une vérification de la volonté divine était ressentie comme nécessaire pour choisir la tactique à adopter en cas de guerre ; voir Lambert 2007, tamītu n°1, 3 à 8 et 24. Voir aussi Hamlin 2006, surtout 99–100 ; 186–92 ; 221.

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plus célèbre est probablement le lavage des armes dans la mer dans les annales de Sargon d’Akkad. 3 De manière générale, les annales royales nous donnent des renseignements sur quelques pratiques rituelles consécutives à une victoire, mais sans en expliquer le déroulement précis, notamment concernant le rapt des dieux ennemis et la purification des participants du combat. D’autres passages sont moins clairement liés à des rituels, parce qu’ils sont probablement à considérer comme relevant de la coutume militaire: la prise de possession des lieux s’accompagne souvent de la destruction des dieux locaux et de réjouissances diverses, ainsi que de la prise du butin. Régulièrement, ces passages font référence à des sacrifices aux divinités de la guerre et aux grands dieux. Un cas particulier apparaît dans les annales d’Assurbanipal, où après la prise des villes de Babylonie, dirigée par son frère rebelle Šamaš-šum-ukîn, des purifications sont opérées à Babylone, mais il s’agit là, à mon avis, d’un acte symbolique et politique plutôt que d’un rituel habituel. En effet, ces purifications font suite à une série de mesures prises pour punir les rebelles de Babylone, Kutha et Sippar: sacrifice des rebelles en l’honneur de Sennachérib, nettoyages «matériels» (enlèvement des corps et membres) et «spirituels» (purification – ebēbu – des sanctuaires par des rites relevant de l’išipūtu ; lavage des rues – elēlu – et apaisement des divinités babyloniennes par des banquets takultu et des chants ÉR.ŠÀ.ḪUN.GÁ). 4

2.  Source indirecte: les lettres L’existence d’une série de rituels de guerre est confirmée par une lettre qui cite un titre de série. Cette lettre (CT 22, 1) fut envoyée à Borsippa par Assurbanipal, qui demande à son agent Šadūni de ramener en Assyrie des tablettes de textes rituels. Parmi ces titres de tablettes, le roi mentionne la série ÉŠ.GÀR MÈ («Série Combat») ainsi qu’une rubrique, ina MÈ GI ana LÚ NU.TE.GÁ («Pour que lors du combat, la flèche ne s’approche pas d’un homme»). 5 La correspondance des exorcistes donne également quelques petits détails. L’exorciste-en-chef d’Assarhaddon, Marduk-šakin-šumi, félicite le roi pour une victoire militaire et mentionne les préparatifs de rituels de purifications lors de l’entrée triomphale à Arbèles. 6 Grâce à une lettre de l’exorciste babylonien Kudurru à Assar­ haddon, nous savons que des exorcistes et des sorcières accompagnaient les troupes assyriennes sur le champ de bataille. 7 Enfin, deux lettres fortement abimées citent des textes magiques dans un contexte de guerre: il s’agit d’un fragment attribué à l’exorciste Nabû-nadin-šumi, 8 et d’une lettre où l’exorciste Adad-šumu-uṣur parle de trois tablettes scellées envoyées au roi, dont l’une contient une incantation: 3.  RIME 2, 14. Citation et interprétation dans Hamlin 2006, 75. 4.  BIWA, p. 45 (texte) et p. 235 (traduction), Prisme A, col. IV, l. 83–89. 5.  CT 22,1, lignes 18 et 21. 6.  SAA 10, 254. L’exorciste y expose les dates favorables pour les rites de purification (rev. 2–4): [ù ina UGU dul-l] i! ḪUL GARZA.MEŠ [ša LUGAL be-]lí iq-bu-u-ni [an-nu-rig n]u!-šá-aṣ-bat «[Et concernant le ritu]el (contre) l’offense cultique, [à propos duquel le roi], mon seigneur, a parlé, nous en faisons à présent les préparatifs». 7.  SAA 10, 371, lettre qui accompagne suite à l’envoi de sorcières et d’un exorciste ayant déjà effectué des rituels pour un commandant de l’armée (rev. 6–11): IdPA–MU–SI.SÀ DUMU–ŠEŠ-šú šá Iza-kirru LÚ.MAŠ šu-ú É–ri-me-ki É.GAL.KUR.RA ù ma-mì-i-ti u pa-šá-ari a-na IdEN–ŠUR LÚ.GAR–UMUŠ i-pu-up-uš «Nabû-šumu-lešir, le neveu de Zakir, est un exorciste; il a fait des rituels Bīt rimki, É.gal.kur. ra and «Défaire la malédiction» pour le commandant Bel-eṭir». 8.  La lettre SAA 10, 288 cite des textes magiques (?) ainsi que d’autres ouvrages (l. 4 e-nu-ma [x x x], pour Enūma eliš ou Enūma Anu Enlil) puis mentionne les forces armées.

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d

1[5! be-lit MURUB4 u MÈ] šá zi-ka-ru u si-in-niš ina MURUB4 tu-šak-ma-su-nu-te

«Ištar, maîtresse de la mêlée et du combat, qui fait se soumettre hommes et femmes à la guerre» (SAA 10, 194, rev. 2′–4′)

3.  Source indirecte: les textes techniques Les textes techniques nous donnent des informations sur les incantations à caractère guerrier et sur les materia magica. Le Manuel de l’exorciste énumère au moins deux titres de rituels de guerre, dont le texte ne nous est pas connu: GI LÚ.KÚR NU.TE.GE26.E.DÈ «Que la flèche de l’ennemi n’approche pas», qui rappelle le titre très semblable cité dans la lettre CT 22,1 (voir ci-dessus), ainsi que KI-šú AL.DIB «Pour qu’il tienne son poste». 9 Un troisième titre cité dans la même ligne du Manuel pourrait désigner une incantation destinée à une expédition militaire, mais également à la protection contre les démons qui peuplent la steppe: EDIN.NA DIB. BÉ.DA «Passer dans la steppe». Ce dernier est connu par une tablette de la bibliothèque d’Assurbanipal. 10 D’autres textes font parfois allusion à des aspects pratiques de ces rituels de guerre, comme ce texte tardif d’Uruk qui mentionne des pierres pour protéger le chariot du roi et empêcher une personne d’être blessée au combat 11 ou encore la grande tablette d’hémérologie d’Assur, qui donne un procédé magique pour vaincre un ennemi (figurine à dissoudre dans le fleuve), à effectuer le 29 du mois. 12 Ces trois types de témoignages indirects (annales, lettres et textes techniques) démontrent que l’armée assyrienne était accompagnée par des exorcistes, des prêtres-lamentateurs et même des sorcières, chargés d’organiser une défense magique offensive et défensive, ainsi que des purifications.

4.  Les sources directes: incantations et rituels. Les témoignages directs, à savoir les rituels de guerre ou incantations de guerre, sont quant à eux difficiles à identifier. Des incantations complètes ou quasi complètes sont peu nombreuses; la plupart sont à l’état de fragments. Pour le présent relevé, les textes considérés comme rituel de guerre ou incantation guerrière ont été repérés par la présence d’un ou plusieurs termes appartenant au champ sémantique de la guerre : les expressions LÚ.KÚR «l’ennemi», ana miṣri KUR nakiri «à la frontière du pays ennemi», ou tout vocabulaire relatif au combat sont de bons indicateurs. Toutefois, il ne faut pas perdre de vue que l’expression «ennemi» peut aussi désigner un démon, un ennemi personnel ou un adversaire dans un procès, ce qui renvoie à d’autres types de magie (exorcistique, anti-sorcellerie, ou protection personnelle). 13 Pour cette tâche ardue qu’est la constitution du corpus des rituels de guerre, j’ai pris comme point de départ l’article (unique en son genre) de Moshe Elat, sur les rituels de guerre mésopotamiens (Elat 1982), qui donne malheureusement peu 9.  KAR 44, ligne 23 et duplicats. 10.  K 9875, voir Vanstiphout 1977. 11.  SpTU 4: 129. 12.  KAR 178, col. VI, lignes 10–23 et extrait de celle-ci, le duplicat KAR 171. 13. M. Elat attire l’attention sur ce point lorsqu’il justifie son choix de rapprochement avec des rituels des textes de Sultan tepe; Elat 1982, p. 11–12. Cette ambigüité concerne aussi l’incantation «Pour traverser la steppe», comme indiqué plus haut.

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d’information concernant le contenu des rituels de guerre. J’ai également bénéficié des notes du Prof. Doris Prechel de Mayence, qui avait commencé l’étude de ces rituels il y a quelques années mais est à présent préoccupée par d’autres sujets de recherche. Actuellement, plusieurs types d’incantations ont été identifiées, de différentes époques, à réaliser avant, pendant ou après le combat. Les plus complets d’entre eux sont édités. Datant de l’époque paléo-babylonienne, deux rituels seulement ont été recensés: un rituel de protection et de purification de l’armée au grand complet (chef des troupes, armes, chevaux, . . .), rédigé en sumérien (de Larsa?), 14 ainsi qu’un rituel de demande de protection divine (de Babylone). 15 Grâce à la bibliothèque d’Assurbanipal à Ninive et aux tablettes provenant de Sultan tepe, la période néo-assyrienne est plus riche en fragments de rituels de guerre. Un de ces rituels de guerre, conservé en plusieurs exemplaires provenant de Ninive et de Sultan tepe, était un rituel d’apaisement des dieux pratiqué par le prêtre-lamentateur, le kalû, avant le combat. 16 L’incipit nous indique la triple action du rituel: empêcher l’ennemi de s’approcher des frontières, éviter qu’il n’étende les siennes et le repousser. Divers chants du répertoire du kalû, des ÉR.ŠÀ.ḪUN.GÁ et des ÉR.ŠEM4.MA, sont récités et accompagnés de dédicaces de répliques d’armes sacrées, d’offrandes et d’autres prières. Le texte se termine par une rubrique: e-numa LUGAL it-ti LÚ.KÚR-šu im-taḫ-ṣu-ma DU14 ip-pu-šu «Lorsque le roi se bat avec son ennemi et fait un combat». Deux rituels de protection, édités depuis longtemps (dans BBR 51 et BBR 57 17), exposent avec précision les techniques et actes magiques à mettre en œuvre: magie défensive (statuettes apotropaïques de lions), sympathique (figurines d’armes avec inscription de leur nom) pour BBR 51; purification (balayage du sol et libation) et autels aux dieux guerriers Ištar, Šamaš et Nergal. Un grand fragment, dont nous connaissons deux parallèles, tous trois inédits, 18 mentionne une cérémonie centrée autour d’un arc et où sont présent des exorcistes, des kurgarrû et des assinnu. Un rituel de guerre de Ninive, édité récemment, 19 possède des procédés magiques similaires aux rituels pour lutter contre la sorcellerie. Plusieurs autres fragments sont à placer dans le corpus des rituels de guerre grâce à leur incipit, leur rubrique ou leur vocabulaire spécifique, 20 mais leur état de conservation ne permet pas d’avoir une idée précise de leur contenu. Dans les textes tardifs retrouvés à Uruk, un seul rituel de guerre a été identifié: il comporte plusieurs stades d’intervention magique: intimidation de l’ennemi, limitation de son avancée dans le territoire, et protection contre les embuscades ennemies. 21 14.  YOS 11, 42; voir van Dijk 1973. 15.  PBS I/2, 106; voir Ebeling 1949, repris dans Elat 1982:  5–6 (collation Borger). 16.  K 3457+ et duplicats: 81–2-4, 306 // STT 218–219; cf. Elat 1982: 12–22. Le fragment 81–2-4, 246 propose un rituel assez similaire. 17.  Réédités et commentés par Elat 1982: 7 + 21–24 (K 6207+ = BBR 57) et p. 8 + 23–25 (Sm 95 = BBR 51). 18.  K 3438+ // K 9923 // K 10209, dont je prépare l’édition. 19.  Ki 1904-10-9,18, édité par Schwemer 2007. 20. STT 72 // STT 251 mentionnent une victoire sur l’ennemi, Sm 296 possède une rubrique KA.INIM.MA ina MÈ [x x x] «Paroles à dire dans un combat . . .» et K 10259 comporte l’expression ina mi-iṣ-ri KUR na-ki-ri x [x x x] (col. II, l. 6′) «à la frontière du pays ennemi . . .». 21.  SpTU I, 12.

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À ces incantations guerrières à proprement parler, nous pouvons associer d’autres rituels appartenant à des catégories bien connues comme les namburbis, et qui sont spécifiquement destinés à un contexte guerrier. Plusieurs namburbi sont ainsi destinés à la protection des chevaux et des troupes royales contre diverses maladies (diʾu, peste et pestilence), et à assurer le bien-être du roi, notamment lors d’un déplacement en pays étranger. 22 Des chants d’apaisement ÉR.ŠÀ.ḪUN.GÁ et des ÉR.ŠEM4.MA, dissipaient les mauvais présages qui annonçaient l’arrivée des ennemis. Étant donné l’ampleur et l’importance des campagnes militaires, il est finalement assez surprenant que si peu de documents, rituels ou incantations, soient parvenus jusqu’à nous. Dans les grandes bibliothèques fouillées à ce jour, très peu d’exemplaire ont refait surface: •  À Nimrud et Assur, aucun texte ou fragment n’a été identifié comme appartenant à cette catégorie; •  À Sultan tepe, un texte est un duplicat d’un rituel de Ninive (STT 218–219) et deux autres sont à rattacher au corpus (STT 72 et 251); •  Dans la bibliothèque séleucide d’Uruk, un seul texte est un rituel de guerre; •  Dans la bibliothèque de Ninive, plusieurs fragments ont été retrouvés, mais au vu de la lettre CT 22,1, on peut postuler l’existence d’une petite collection de rituels de guerre, dont très peu d’entre eux auraient été retrouvés (ou identifiés?) à ce jour. Parmi ces rituels de Ninive, deux exemplaires portent des colophons: K 9923 porte l’indication LIBIR.RA.BI.GIM AB.SAR (bari) «Comme son original, copié et collationné», et Sm 296 présente le colophon dit «de type C» de la bibliothèque d’Assurbanipal. 23

Expliquer ce silence dans les sources n’est pas aisé. Il est d’autant plus curieux si l’on considère le nombre de sources disponibles dans une zone voisine, à savoir les serments et rituels militaires hittites. Un certain tabou devait très probablement entourer ce type d’incantations, dont l’importance était ressentie comme un secret d’état. Le fragment K 10259 porte d’ailleurs la catégorie de «Secret de Šamaš». 24 Les textes emportés au combat étaient peut-être brisés ou détruits après utilisation, afin qu’ils ne tombent pas dans de mauvaises mains. D’autre part, on pourrait imaginer que lors des campagnes militaires, des textes sur polyptyques ou, à l’époque néo-assyrienne, écrits sur du parchemin, aient été jugés plus faciles à transporter, mais, de notre point de vue, plus périssables. La mention de sorcellerie pratiquée au combat, dans un cadre politiquement correct pour une fois, pourrait aussi faire penser que les incantations étaient récitées de mémoire, sans l’aide d’une tablette. De plus, il ne faut pas oublier que certains rituels génériques, comme des namburbi ou des purifications, pouvaient convenir dans le contexte guerrier et ne sont pas a priori perçus comme rituels de guerre par les chercheurs modernes. Enfin, il est toujours possible d’attribuer ce silence au hasard des découvertes: dans un domaine similaire, les stèles commémorant une victoire devaient être une pratique courante, alors que nous n’en connaissons que très peu.

22.  Par exemple 82–3-23,1; édité dans Caplice 1970, p. 118–124. 23.  BAK 319c. Revers, l. 1–6. 24.  K.10259 - Colonne II, ligne 7′: AD.ḪAL (pirištu) dUTU [ ]. Ce type de secret n’est pas repris dans l’ouvrage de Lenzi 2008.

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Bibliographie BBR =

Zimmern, H. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion II. Die Beschwör­ungs­ tafeln Šurpu. Ritualtafeln für den Wahrsager, Beschwörer und Sänger. Leipzig, 1901.

Caplice, R. 1970 “Namburbi Texts in the British Museum IV.” Or 39 (1970) 111–51. Ebeling, E. 1949 “Beschwörungen gegen den Feind und den bösen Blick aus dem Zweistromlande.” ArOr 17/1 (1949) 173–83. Elat, M. 1982 “Mesopotamische Kriegsrituale.” BiOr 39 (1982) 5–25. Hamlin, W. J. 2006 Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 bc. Holy Warriors at the Dawn of History. Warfare and History. Abingdon, 2006. Lambert, W. G. 2007 Babylonian Oracle Questions. Mesopotamian Civilizations 13. Winona Lake, 2007. Lenzi, A. 2008 Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel. State Archives of Assyria Studies 19. Helsinki, 2008. Schwemer, D. 2007 “Witchcraft and War: the Ritual Fragment Ki 1904-10-9,18 (BM 98989).” Iraq 69 (2007) 29–42. van Dijk, J. 1973 “Un rituel de purification des armes et de l’armée. Essai de traduction de YBC 4184.” Pp. 107–17 in Symbolae Biblicae et Mesopotamicae Francisco Mario Theodoro de Liagre Böhl Dedicatae. Edited by M.A. Beek, et al. Leiden, 1973. Vanstiphout, H. L. J. 1977 Vanstiphout, H. L. J. “A Note on the Series ‘Travel in the Desert’.” JCS 29 (1977) 52–56.

Time and Again: Marduk’s Travels Erika D. Johnson

University

of

B i r m i n g h am

The Assyrians utilized the kidnap of the cult statue of a god, termed “godnap,” to punish and subjugate conquered cities and populations. 1 The absence of the deity from his or her patron city was thought by the citizens to cause cosmic chaos. This idea was manifested in literary works such as The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur and The Erra Epic. 2 The Mesopotamians chose to see the theft of their gods not as a theft by an outside race but as the gods’ abandonment of their patron cities. This enabled them to effect the return of their gods by rectifying whatever wrongs they had committed against them rather than being forced to reconcile with an enemy. Though the act of godnap was used with great success by the Assyrians, they were not the only civilization in Mesopotamia to steal the cult statues of gods, and the practice can be seen from the Early Dynastic Period through to the destruction of Babylon in 539 b.c. at the hands of the Persians. In a large number of historical inscriptions describing the act of godnap, the names of the gods are not mentioned. The most notable exception is that of Marduk. As he was the patron god of Babylon it is not surprising that the theft of his statue was specifically recorded. The movements of the cult statue of Marduk have been described in both historical and literary sources. The annals of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal and the inscriptions of Šamaš-šuma-ukin describe Marduk’s removal to Assyria from Esagila and Babylon as well as the return of his statue to his temple. Likewise, the historical-literary inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar I describe his return of the statue of Marduk to its rightful place. Marduk’s earlier movements have been described by a literary text, the Marduk Prophecy. 3 It is from this text that we will begin our exploration of the travels of Marduk. The Marduk Prophecy has been so-called because it was found in a series of two tablets, the second containing the prophecy of Šulgi. This was a misnomer, as it can be better described as a historical-mythological apology from the cult of Marduk, because in the text Marduk has taken an active role in his journeys. The text is seemingly autobiographical, with Marduk discussing his movements in the first person. It can be divided into sections, each detailing a different segment of Marduk’s travels and will be discussed along these divisions. 1.  An exploration of the phenomenon of godnap forms my doctoral work at the University of Birmingham. The following texts are also discussed in my thesis, though in a different capacity. 2.  See Piotr Michalowski, The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989) and Luigi Cagni, The Poem of Erra (Malibu, CA: Undena, 1977). 3.  The edition of this text has been published by Riekele Borger, “Gott Marduk und Gott-König Šulgi als Propheten Zwei prophetische Texte,” BiOr 28 (1971) 3–24.

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Marduk first proclaims that he will go to Hatti in order to establish trade routes for Babylon. A prayer of the Hittite king Mursili II mentions the earlier Hittite sack of Babylon in 1595 b.c. by Mursili I, the theft of the statue of Marduk, and subsequent placement of the statue in the temple of the Sun Goddess of Arinna. 4 The prayer provides corroborating evidence for the theft of the statue of Marduk by the Hittites. This mention of Marduk going to Hatti gives a new interpretation of that theft of the statue, affirming that the god commanded his own journey there and did so for the benefit of Babylon. Therefore, he did not abandon the city; he merely left to further business ventures for his beloved city. He then states that he resided in Hatti for 24 years and tells of his return to Babylon by an unnamed Babylonian king. A text ascribed to the Kassite king Agum-kakrime II describes that king’s return of Marduk to Babylon from Hani. The authenticity of this text has been called into question, leading some to believe it to be an ancient forgery or possibly an inscription copied from a statue. 5 For the purposes of this discussion, it seems easier to examine the inscription as if it were authentic. As Hani was on the route from Babylon to Hattusa, it is conceivable the Hittites left the statue there. Agum-kakrime then describes his return of Marduk and the resettlement of Marduk and his consort Sarpanitum in Esagila. The purpose of this Kassite text seems to be to ingratiate Agum-kakrime to his Babylonian subjects and show his true devotion to Babylon. In his inscription, Agum-kakrime describes himself as being looked upon favourably by Marduk, further supporting the view that he was attempting to proclaim himself a true king of Babylon. The Marduk Prophecy next speaks of a journey to Assyria. He looks upon Assur favourably and even summons troops to assist the Assyrian king. He blesses Assur and gives the king the Tablet of Destinies, effectively making him ruler of the entire world. This affinity for Assyria seems odd, as the Babylonian and Assyrians were at odds for most of Mesopotamian history, but can be easily explained. The Assyrians were the major power at the time of this theft of Marduk in 1225 b.c. at the hands of Tukulti-Ninurta I. To the Babylonian scribe/priest writing this text, the Assyrians would have needed the support of Marduk to attain this position, so Marduk must have helped them. The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic describes the sack of Babylon but is broken, so the subsequent theft of the statue of Marduk is not detailed. We do have corroborating evidence for the theft in a Babylonian chronicle called Chronicle P. Marduk next describes his return to Babylon, merely saying that he returned and asked for tribute. Chronicle P, however, gives more information on this return. It states that Marduk was returned during the reign of Tukulti-Aššur after living in Assyria for a number of years. This king, Tukulti-Aššur, is not mentioned in any of the extant king lists. Glassner has equated this king with Ninurta-tukultiAššur, but this association is problematic. 6 Ninurta-tukulti-Aššur had a short reign (under a year) in 1133 b.c. or 1132 b.c., and the statue of Marduk was taken by the Elamites when they sacked Babylon in 1155 b.c. This king, therefore, could not have returned the statue of Marduk that was subsequently taken by the Elamites. As there was more than one statue of Marduk, the Elamites could have taken a dif4.  Itamar Singer, Hittite Prayers (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2002), 53. 5.  Tremper Longman III, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Comparative Study (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1991) 83–84. 6.  Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles (Atlanta, GA: SBL 2004) 281.

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ferent statue, but the passion of Nebuchadnezzar to return the statue from Elam seems to indicate that the statue taken by the Elamites was highly prized, as the main cultic statue would have been. The line that states how many years Marduk stayed in Assyria in Chronicle P is broken and the first part of the number is unintelligible. The figure has been suggested to be restored as 76, 86, 96, or 106. The span of 76 years coincides with the reign of Ninurta-tukulti-Aššur and explains Glassner’s decision to ascribe the return of Marduk to this king. It is possible that this name, Tukulti-Aššur, was either an error by the Babylonian scribe who wrote this chronicle, or a fabrication, as the name is quintessentially Assyrian. The attribution of this return of the statue to Ninurta-tukulti-Aššur would fit perfectly if Nebuchadnezzar I had not been so concerned with retrieving the statue of Marduk that had been subsequently taken by the Elamites. In the Marduk Prophecy, the god next tells of his sojourn to Elam. Once again, Marduk proclaims that he commanded his journey, and has taken all the gods with him. This voyage is different to his other ones, not only because he forces all the other gods to leave with him, but also in the way he describes what happens after he has left. The other journeys were undertaken to promote trade for Babylon or to help Assyria, but the only result of this journey is the fall of Babylon into utter chaos. Once Marduk and the gods leave, horrific events take place within the city; cannibalism occurs frequently, dogs are rabid and bite people, and the kings of the land did not help it to prosper. Marduk seeks a new king, who will return him to his home and restore the greatness of Babylon. He describes this king, saying that he will renew all the temples and will lead him back to his rightful place in Babylon, restoring order and civility to the city. Historical-literary inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar I describe a similar situation, with the people of Babylon weeping at the abandonment of their gods. 7 The gods are said to have become angry with Babylon and abandoned the city for Elam before the king takes their statues away. 8 The composition of the Marduk Prophecy is thought to date to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, the king in whose reign Marduk was raised to the head of the Babylonian pantheon. The similarities in the descriptions of Marduk’s return during his reign in both the Marduk Prophecy and Nebuchadnezzar I’s own royal inscriptions lead to an assignation of Nebuchadnezzar I as the unnamed king in the Marduk Prophecy. In his royal inscriptions, Nebuchadnezzar I affects Marduk’s return by military means, but also through prayer; Nebuchadnezzar I prays to Marduk, the god hears his supplications, and decides to return. 9 If the statue of Marduk was taken to Elam, how will it return if Nebuchadnezzar I does not go to Elam to retrieve it, but merely prays for Marduk’s return? This could be part of a dual tradition in which the statue was returned by military means and the god was called back from the heavens to his statue by prayer. The Marduk Prophecy can be described as propaganda promoting Nebuchadnezzar I as well as a historical-mythological apology for Marduk’s absence from his cella. In the text, Marduk leaves Babylon of his own volition in order to increase his city’s wealth and renown. Since the most complete account of Marduk’s return is from his journey to Elam, the text lauds Nebuchadnezzar I’s heroic actions in defeating the wicked Elamites. Only after this momentous event is the city able to 7.  RIMB 2, B.2.4.5, ll. 5–18; RIMB 2, B.2.4.8, ll. 17–25; RIMB 2, B.2.4.10, l. 16. 8.  RIMB 2, B.2.4.8, ll. 17–18. 9.  RIMB 2, B.2.4.9, ll. 9–14.

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recover from the ravages set upon it during Marduk’s absence. The idea of abandonment seems to be preferable to the capture of the gods by an enemy. In either instance, the citizens would blame themselves for either committing a wrong against the god or not fighting hard enough to keep the god safe from invaders. In the case of the Marduk Prophecy, the idea of abandonment is turned around completely with the deity choosing to leave his city. The chronicling of Marduk’s travels did not end with the Marduk Prophecy. His movements were also described in the annals of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal, and the inscriptions of Šamaš-šuma-ukin. The statue of Marduk was taken back to Assur after Sennacherib’s destruction of the city in 689 b.c., although Sennacherib’s own inscriptions declare the statue to have been smashed. 10 We know this to be false, as Esarhaddon describes the restoration of the statue in his inscriptions. So Marduk again visits Assur, although he does not look favourably upon the city and its king this time. In contrast to his father, Esarhaddon decides to return the statue of Marduk to Esagila and Babylon after refurbishing it. His attempt to return the statue were not successful, although he had inscriptions composed proclaiming the event to have happened. In one such text, Marduk originally makes a prophecy that he will return to Babylon in 70 years but reverses the order of the cuneiform signs to change the length of his exile to 11 years. 11 As the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal and Šamaš-šuma-ukin tell of the return of Marduk during the reigns of the two kings, we know Esarhaddon was unsuccessful in returning the statue. En route to Babylon, proper sacrifices were made at the proper intervals, but when the statue came close to the border between Assyria and Babylonia the fear of revolt and the actions of one man, who jumped onto one of the horses pulling the cart with Marduk’s statue on it and yelled the name of a previous powerful Babylonian ruler, caused the statue’s return to Assur once more. Only with the accession of Šamaššuma-ukin does the statue of Marduk finally come to rest in its rightful place in Esagila and Babylon. Marduk’s travels had been consistently disastrous for the population of Babylon. The Marduk Prophecy sought to describe these difficult times from a different perspective, emphasising Marduk’s desire to visit other lands rather than his capture at the hands of enemies. This complete reversal illustrates exactly the destructive nature of godnap and its effect on those who had their gods taken. The return of the statue of the god was also a highly honourable act, with early kings dedicating entire inscriptions to such an act and later kings including their reported return of the statue within their standard epithets. The statue of Marduk was returned by both Babylonians and Assyrians, showing his preeminence among all the peoples of Mesopotamia. The political situation during and after the reign of Esarhaddon necessitated a concession to Babylon, and Esarhaddon, and subsequently his sons, responded by returning the statue of the patron god of the city. The Marduk Prophecy and the historical records of the Neo-Assyrian kings explain the movements of Marduk, though with different aims. 10.  OIP 2, 83, 137. 11.  Rykle Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Königs von Assyrien (Graz: Selbstverlag Ernst F. Weidner, 1956), § 11, Episode 10.

Time in Death and Afterlife: The Concept of Time and the Belief in Afterlife Dina Katz Leiden

Time as a measuring system that sequences and quantifies the duration of events and the intervals between them operated in Mesopotamia already in the archaic period. It was a tool necessary for planning and maintaining economic activities, especially agriculture. A part of the economic activities was organized in bala 1 – palû: a system which regulates the sequence, the duration, and the change of a term in office. It seems, however, that time had a significance beyond mere economic and administrative purposes. Some examples illustrate the matter. The maximum lifespan of mankind according to “Enlil and Namzitara” is 120 years. Two times 60 is a rounded number that expresses a more realistic duration of life compared to the hundreds of years of reign that “The Sumerian King List” and the “Ballade of Early kings” ascribe to early kings. 2 One should question whether these numbers of years reflect the perception of time, the perception of history, or the historiographer’s attitude toward these particular kings. The same question arises in regard to “The Rulers of Lagaš,” which postulates that in ancient time youth lasted 100 years and then man lived for another 100. 3 According to “Enki and Ninhursaĝa,” each month of Ninhursaĝa’s pregnancy lasted one day. In total, she was pregnant for nine days. Was divine time different from human time? Or was it the same time, but with the deity having a faster pregnancy? In other words, does it describe the nature of time or the nature of the deity? Likewise, Atra-hasīs I:294–95 states that a brick should be placed at the house of pregnant women for nine days in honor of Nintu. Are the nine days reminiscent of Ninhursaĝa’s nine days of pregnancy or a spontaneous symbol for the nine month pregnancy reenacted in a ritual? 4 The names of An’s

time.

1.  The duration for which an office was held; it signifies time as well as change, which actualizes

2.  Enlil and Namzitara, the version from Emar: B. Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer (Bethesda: CDL, 2005) 336–37 lines 19′–26′; The Ballade of Early Rulers: op.cit., pp. 314, l. 11 ; The Sumerian King List: ETCSL 2.1.1, ll. 1–115. 3.  ETCSL 2.1.2, ll. 14–16. 4.  Nintu and Ninhursaĝa are names of the mother goddess. The praise of the mother-goddess in Atr. I:295–98 names her Nintu (l. 295) and Mami (l. 296) but concludes with “praise Keš” (l. 298)—that is, the cult center of Ninhursaĝa. Therefore, we cannot preclude the possibility that the nine days mark an association between the two texts. Establishing a linkage, however, is highly speculative, since I cannot determine whether the common nine-day period is the result of a phase of editorial activity with an ideological and theological purpose or the original version that mythicized an existing ritual which commemorated the pregnancy symbolically.

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ancestors dāru dūru “Ever and Ever” is another example: 5 both names mean continuity and thus personify time. Their place in the god-lists suggests that Time was created before An. But is it a mark of the beginning of Time or a statement that Time always was and will be? Or, perhaps, are these names a statement about the immortality of the gods? The same is true for En-ul and Nin-ul among the ancestors of Enlil. 6 Enūma Eliš counts five generations of deities until the birth of Marduk, long before he created the heavenly bodies, which provided time with a framework and a means of quantifying it. Does this mean that until then nothing existed, including Time? Or, that Time existed but could not be measured? The last example is Gilgameš’s journey of twelve bēru, in the dark path of the sun from the gate of Sunrise at the mountain Māšu. 7 This raises the problem of whether bēru measure time or space? It is commonly assumed that bēru measures time, so the journey took twelve double hours and as such, twelve bēru amount to one full cycle of the sun—that is, 24 hours. The choice of twelve bēru, a full day unit, lends the episode a sense of completeness. However, since for half of that time the sun travels in the sky, how can his dark path last for twelve bēru? If, on the other hand, it is a measure of distance and Gilgameš stood at the gate of Sunrise, as is commonly assumed (IX:39), then the sun should have come toward him in the dark tunnel on its way to rising. In this case, which direction did Gilgameš go, and where did he arrive before the sun? 8 The example of Gilgameš also raises the question whether we should look for an explanation in modern actual reality (spatial/ geographical and temporal) or restrict ourselves to the search for meaning(s) on a metaphorical, ideological level. The ancient Mesopotamians perceived mythological reality as actual and, therefore, the examples presented above pose a question about the perception of time in ancient Mesopotamia. How was time perceived? Could it be manipulated for literary or ideological purposes, and to what extent? Until now, the study of time in cuneiform texts has focused on its practical functions in daily life. Usually, it has considered the methods of calculating time, its purposes and uses in administrative and historical records, the attitudes in such texts to the past and the future, and the terms that express time. 9 An issue that has not yet been systematically addressed is the Mesopotamian idea of the nature of time: “What is time?” The ontology of time has kept philosophers and physicists busy from Plato until now. 10 They seek answers to the questions about the identity or properties of time, such as: does Time exist as an independent entity or is it contingent on the actual occurrence of events? Is it real or a mental construct? Is it tensed or tenseless? How long is the present, and are the past and the future real? Does Time move, and if it does, in what direction? and more. Their contentions on the nature of time raise questions that offer additional 5.  An = Anum I:12–13. 6.  An = Anum I:98–99. u l signifies distance in time. 7. Gilgameš SB version, tablet IX:125–70 (A. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford, 2003), vol. 1, 670–72 and discussion, pp. 492–98. For images of the sun rising between two mountain peaks on cylinder seals, see Collon, CSBM II, pl. 25 nos. 169, 172; Boehmer, EGWA nos. 305, 307, 327. 8.  The latest treatment of the problem is C. Woods, “At the Edge of the World: Cosmological Conceptions of the Eastern Horizon in Mesopotamia” JANER 9.2 (2009), 196 ff., with previous literature. 9.  Such as u d, u d - z a l, á, á - g i6- ba, á- u4- d a, and some specific concepts such as dāru, dūru, and ana dūr u palâ. 10.  A comprehensive study of time is P. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative (3 vols.; Chicago, 1984–88); henceforth TN. Lately, the concept of time in ancient Mesopotamia has become a focus of attention, but the definitions and exact objectives of the new studies will become apparent only when published.

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insight and new avenues to explore the perception of time in Ancient Mesopotamia, in actual and in mythological realities. Even if the ancient Mesopotamian scholars did not philosophize, they must have had opinions about time. Certain words seem to suggest that the definition of time was not limited to the sequence of alternating events and intervals. For example, the use of the concepts šimtu—“predetermined fate”—to signify death and simanu —“the proper time.” We cannot preclude the possibility that they made a distinction between quantitive and qualitative Time, like Greek chronos and kairos, or Paul Ricoeur’s “cosmic time” and “lived time.” 11 Some cuneiform texts seem to suggest separate systems of time for human beings and deities or ghosts, namely, a cross-temporal reality. 12 Yet, the application of the philosophers’ questions to the ancient Mesopotamian material is not simple, not least because of the literary and ideological properties of our sources. The Mesopotamians’ perception of mythological reality as historical is an additional obstacle for decoding the message of a text. This paper is the result of a preliminary attempt to test the application of some philosophical theories to Mesopotamian source material. For this purpose, I chose to examine time during death. Since the moment of death is the ultimate point of transition in human life, it seems to me suitable for the evaluation of the attitude toward time. 13 In addition, it may indicate if and to what extent the Mesopotamian sources coincide with any of the philosophical models which I employ here. The complexity of our sources, the product of multiethnic social structure at work within a large chronological and spatial framework, might give rise to more questions than answers. Therefore, a comprehensive study, which would include additional facets of life, may be more instructive for decoding the Mesopotamian perception of the nature of Time. I have chosen to employ two classical theories, which I will now present briefly. 14 One is the relational theory. 15 Two representatives of this theory are Aristotle and Leibniz. Aristotle argued that “time is either movement or something that belongs to movement.” Time is not independent of movement and change, yet it is a measure of change not the change itself, because change can be faster or slower. 16 Leibniz 11. Or Meletinsky’s mythological time and empirical time; see E. M. Meletinsky, The Poetics of Myth (London: Routledge, 1998), 158–63. 12.  Ricoeur maintains that man integrates and harmonizes the Lived (Phenomenological) time with Cosmological time into Human time by organizing time in the form of a narrative; see TN I pp. 3 and 6; TN VI, “Narrated Time” (vol. 3). Indeed, two distinct systems of time seem intolerable, and therefore his assertion is logical. It is uncertain, however, that such harmonization deemed necessary for an ancient Mesopotamian. Cosmological time was calculated in southern Mesopotamia already in the third millennium, but although the same measuring units were used to signify time in both mythological and historiographical narratives, the narratological texts still reflect different systems of time for human and mythological beings. The temporal references concerning gods and ghosts suggest a concept of cross-temporal beings. If there was any specific concept of time applied to the kings of the remote past, perhaps time seemed dynamic. Be that as it may, a careful study of the nonadministrative texts would show whether or not Ricoeur’s theory of time and narrative is applicable to ancient Mesopotamia. 13.  Note some basic questions that Ricoeur raised in Time and Narrative, vol. 1, p. 86. 14.  The chosen theories have the advantage of representing two opposing views, real vs. ideological, that are at the same time nonpsychological and, therefore, most suitable for the purpose. 15.  Regarding the question of the relationship between instant and event, the relationalist links time with event: time exists only when an event is happening. On the difference between instants and event, see The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/time-sup/#H1. 16.  Aristotle, Physics Book IV, ch. 10–11 (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.4.iv.html). Note that by movement Aristotle means also thought, “mind.”

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argued that time is the temporal relations between events and, therefore, it cannot exist as an entity, independent of an occurring event. 17 The second theory, Absolutism, is opposed to the first and associated mainly with Newton. 18 It claims that time is absolute, like substance, suggesting that it exists independently. Metaphorically, it is described as a container filled with or empty of events. 19 The reality of time is the subject of three theories: (1) Presentism, (2) the growing-universe (or growingblock theory) and (3) Eternalism, (or block-universe theory). I shall return to these later. The first question is whether time exists independently, as the Absolutist claims, or depends on the temporal relations between events, as the Relationalist asserts. The textual evidence is ambiguous. The concept of šimtu “predetermined fate” implies that the future is decided in advance. If the future is already known, it exists, and then time does not depend on the occurrence of events. Rather, it is an independent entity. Therefore, as the Absolutist would perhaps say, Time is a container filled with šimtu. The concept of šimtu entails that there is no free will, as one would actually expect in a world governed by the gods. But how binding was šimtu? In the texts, we find the expressions mūt lā šīmti and ūm lā šīmti. Therefore, it appears that gods were capable of changing a fate—namely, the future. Witnesses to this idea are found in the account of the death of Urnamma, in appeals and dedications to gods for grants of long life in reward for services, in prayers, and in incantations. Apparently, a man can exercise some influence on the decision of the gods, and the future is not really definitively fixed. The concept of time is related to the movements of the universe, the repeated cycles of the day, the night, the heavenly bodies, and the seasons. Since this was the basis for the Mesopotamian calendar, one may argue, in the spirit of the Relationalists, that time is the temporal relations between the changes in nature. The concept of bala – palû is actually a sequence of changes, and ana dûr u palâ—literally, “for continuity and change,”—is a concept of Time as a series of changes. However, the cyclic temporal relations in nature are a universal structure that forms a closed temporal system with a fixed sequence of changes. Thus, the theory of Relationalism is applicable only inside the boundaries of this system, a system which may be seen as comparable to the container of the Absolutists. What is time in afterlife? In the barren netherworld, the seasons do not change, 20 and the ghosts do not age. That death was likened to sleep conveys the image of a timeless, inactive, and inert world. But could a Mesopotamian envisage a world without time? New generations of ghosts constantly join the population of the netherworld, indicating constant movement. The sequence of generations actualizes change. Thus, following the definition of Aristotle, there is time in afterlife. The cult of the dead is a series of events regulated according to the local calendar. This is an indication of time. Since, however, the cult and the changes do not derive from the 17.  For Leibniz’s relational theory of space and time, see http://www.iep.utm.edu/leib-met/#H7, sec. 7a and 7b. Ricoeur’s connection of time and narrative is actually an emplotment, which means that according to him time also depends on event. 18.  This view of time was also shared by Plato in Timaeus 37c–38b. According to his theory of form, time is the moving copy of the unchanging eternity. Past and future are forms of Time which imitate eternity. 19.  On relational vs. absolutism (or Leibniz vs. Newton), see http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/#H6. 20.  Presumably, if the sun would set inside the realm of the dead, time there could be quantified as it is in the world of the living.

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inner reality of the netherworld, the question is whether they reflect the time of the ghosts or the time of their living kin. The conflicting realities suggest a possibility that ghosts are cross-temporal entities: their needs corresponded to actual terrestrial life but their habitat as well as their very being is immutable. Considering that ghosts had functions in the world of the living, their immutability in the afterlife can hardly mean timelessness. In terms of tense, it may mean an endless present. The same seems to apply to the gods. They live in heavenly mythological reality and in earthly temples. They experienced the cycles of nature, and their cult is conducted according to the calendar, so their time seems to be the same as that of human beings. But the idea that gods are subject to human time implies that they aged and decayed like humans. The duration of the pregnancy of Ninhursaĝa was measured in terms of actual reality. 21 But if it is not a shorter divine pregnancy, then the nine-day pregnancy indicates a different system of time, which the author described by the only temporal terms known to him, terms of calendric time. The text may thus be making the point that divine time is different from human time. In this case, there is no point in seeking the actual reality of the divine time. The very state of becoming pregnant, that it was a temporally quantified pregnancy, and the sequence of daughters that were eventually born as a result—all these imply that gods were not atemporal beings. Since the gods experienced and created changes in nature but were not subject to these changes, in the same way as ghosts, I suggest that they were cross-temporal entities. An additional dilemma is the reality of Time. Is it real or a subjective perception? This question was not strange to a Mesopotamian. When Gilgameš woke up from his sleep during the visit to Utanapištim, he was sure that but a split second had passed, because sleep delivers man beyond the actual chronological time. Yet, Utanapištim was prepared for the difference between Gilgameš’s personal experience and actual reality. 22 He therefore calculated the duration of his sleep by marks on the wall in addition to loaves of bread (Gilg. XI:209–/232–233/–241). The marks indicated the sequence of days, and the loaves, objectified Time. That death was likened to sleep is probably related to external characteristics rather than to the question of time. For the Relationalist, time is an idea, it is the temporal relations between real things and, therefore, an illusory perception. But if Time exists independently, as the Absolutist claims, it is real. Yet does it mean that only the present is real, 23 or are the past and the future also real? Consider these three statements: “The man was not a ghost,” “The man is not a ghost,” and “The man will become a ghost.” All three are true, but are all three tenses simultaneous? 24 21.  Her one day was one month: u d 1 - à m i t u d 1 - a - n i (Enki and Ninhursaĝa: 75–83). Atr. I: 294– 95 describes a symbolic gesture, in the framework of a ritual, related to healthy pregnancy and birthgiving. It stands to reason that the nine-day tribute to the mother-goddess (Nintu, Mami, Ninhursaĝa) commemorates the fact that human pregnancy imitates divine pregnancy. 22.  Kant’s proposition that time is a subjective condition related to experience seems to apply to the situation of Gilgameš. It seems to me, however, that the means taken by Utanapištim in order to measure the time indicate that subjective time was known, but as an illusion and, therefore, too psychological to be a Mesopotamian concept. More comprehensive research may prove me wrong. 23.  Augustine wondered: if time is real, where is it? The nature of the present is also a problem, which I leave for another study. 24.  This painful possibility as well as the nature of the past, the present, and the future were subject to deep reflections in book 11 of Augustine’s “Confessions.” He answered with distentio animi. See especially P. Ricoeur in Time and Narrative, vol. 1, and idem, “Narrated Time,” Philosophy Today 29

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The authority of prophetic practices and the use of past events to predict the future illustrate this situation. If you can foresee the future, then it must be there. The belief in afterlife is closely related. According to tradition, man was purposely created from clay mixed with immortal, godly flesh. The divine component would become a ghost, the mode by which man would survive death. The reason for the creation of the ghost is to keep alive forever the memory of the circumstances of the creation of man, why and how man was created. 25 As long as the cult of the dead is observed, the ghost is kept alive and thereby also the memory of the creation of man. Thus, by definition, the future of mankind was already embedded in the present. This future aims for eternity but depends on the cult. In actual reality, the memory of man was objectified in a concrete form that kept his presence among his kinsmen. Since the ghost as well as its icon remained unchanged forever, could we say that temporally it existed in an endless present? It is not only the ghost that survived but also bones, and in intramural burials the dead were kept present in the household. Family ghosts were invoked individually for up to three generations, which means that five or even six generations existed simultaneously. Thus, the present comprises the past generations (ghosts) as well as a family’s future generations. The function of these ghosts in the life of their living kin implies that in the cult they were subject to two temporal systems: the actual calendrical time of their living kin in parallel to the immutable time of afterlife, perhaps a continual present. 26 Presentism is a theory that holds that only present things exist. The past is an abstract memory and the future is a potential or a fiction. Therefore, this theory cannot hold neither that the afterlife is real nor that šimtu (which is future) is true. According to the Growing Universe theory, the past is as real as the present, but the future is merely a potential. This theory coincides with the opinion that maḫru “in front of ” and arku “behind” also mean “past” and “future,” respectively, describing time in terms of the actual sight of the observer. However, although afterlife and šimtu are not yet seen and will materialize in the future, they were fixed in the past and deemed to be certain rather than potential. Thus, not only the past but also the future is as real as the present. According to the theory of Eternalism, time is the fourth dimension (a direction rather than a state). There is no ontological difference between past, present, and future. Therefore, all three are real. Any difference is subjective, depending on the situation of the observer. Hence, the statements “The man was not a ghost,” “The man is not a ghost,” and “The man will become a ghost” are consistent and true; any point in time is real. Theoretically, it suits the Mesopo(1985), 259–72. A response to Riceuor is M. B. Pranger, “Time and Narrative in Augustine’s Confessions,” The Journal of Religion 81 (2001), 377–93. All have additional bibliography. 25. The why is a lesson to mankind, that man was created in order to serve the gods. For the gods, it is a reminder that gods rebelled because of their hard work and that without the services of man they would starve. As for the how, the ghosts remind the gods that one of them was slaughtered in order to create the man who took over their work. It has already been noted that Atrahasīs couples two different myths (C. Wilcke, “Weltuntergang als Anfang,” in A. Jones (ed.) Weltende [Harrassowitz, 1999], 70). This part of Atrahasīs prefixes the story of the flood, the attempts to decimate humanity, and, eventually, the institution of measures to maintain the size of the population. The plot as a linear sequence raises the question of “time in myth”: the desire to annihilate mankind is irreconcilable with the creation of the ghost earlier, since the existence of a ghost is the existence of death. Yet, the intervals between the attempts to reduce the population are measured in years. One wonders, therefore, what concept of mythological time and “Narrated Time” the compiler of Artahasīs had in mind. 26.  Comparable to Augustine’s distentio animi?

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tamian belief in afterlife and šimtu, but not for the same reasons. For the ancient Mesopotamian, destiny and afterlife were objective and impersonal actual reality. If all the tenses are real and simultaneous, then time would be endless and tenseless. 27 If Time is real, a substance-like element, could it be endless as well? Endless life gods kept to themselves, unless they were killed violently. Thus, the reality of the future remains in question, particularly the reality of afterlife. Death causes such a change in man’s mode of existence that it becomes elusive. So, what sort of reality is this future? The Epic of Gilgameš is all about the awareness that man is mortal. Gilgameš expressed deep doubts about the reality of afterlife in his answer to Enkidu: “Since a man cannot pass beyond the final end of life I want to set off into the mountains, to establish my renown there” (Gilgameš and Huwawa A:30–33). 28 After three generations, the dead were mentioned only collectively. Did they become a kind of present absentees? If the appeals for and blessings of eternal life meant that afterlife is merely a memory, preserved by means of great achievements and commemorative inscriptions, then the cult of the dead, particularly feeding the ghosts, was pointless. But the cult was observed. It seems, therefore, that the reality of the future was a matter of opinion, in parallel to a belief in this mode of existence. An additional issue is the flow of Time and its direction. If time is merely the temporal relations between events, it is not real and therefore does not move. But if it is an independent real entity, it may move. The Sumerian temporal expressions with the components ud- and gi6 suggest that the concept of time was based on the alternation of light and darkness—that is, the daily cycle of the sun. In this case, the flow of time may have been felt physically as a truth. 29 The Sumerian verb zal, “to pass,” particularly with the ablative /-ta-/, illustrates this notion. The sequence of days, months, and years in calendrical time and the succession of generations outline the motion of Time in a linear direction. The temporal meaning of maḫru and arku actualize the direction from the back to the front. An example for a calendar sequence is the formula for a short period of time: ud nu 5-àm ud nu-10-àm “5 days did not pass, 10 days did not pass” (Gilgameš and Akka: 48). The sequence day – month – year expressed a longer period of time: ud šid-e i tid é-ba ku4-ku4 mu šu du7-du7-da / mu šu du7 unken-e eš-bar šúmmu-da “Counting the days and putting the months in their houses, in order to complete the years and to submit the completed years to the assembly” (Enki and the World Order: 17–18; ETCSL 1.1.3); ūmū rīšātu araḫ tašīlāti šatti (MU.MEŠ) hegalli “grant me days of joy, months of rejoicing, years of abundance” (Nabunaid CT 34, 36 iii:61). Generations objectify change. So, for the Relationalist, sequences of generations outline the flow of Time, and allusions to ancestors and offspring convey the volume 27.  As, for instance, in the cycle of seasons. Eschatological religions fix and describe the end of the world, but eschatology is not a characteristic of Mesopotamian religions. 28.  Compare “Naram-Sin and the Enemy Hordes”; “Cuthean Legend” SB version ll. 23–30 about Enmerkar king of Uruk, who did not inscribe his achievements on a stele. Text edition: J. Goodnick Westenholz, Legends of the Kings of Akkade (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 304–7. 29. (1) LB I: 240–42 dut u sipad k alam - m a a - a s a ĝ g í g - g a / n ú - a - z u - n e ù ĝ š i - mu - e da -nu2 / šul dut u zi- zi- da- zu- ne ùĝ ši- m u- e - da - z i - z i - i “Utu, shepherd of the land, father of the black-headed people, when you go to sleep the people go to sleep with you; youth Utu, when you rise the people rise with you” (ETCSL 1.8.2.1).

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of Time. A fine example is the genealogy of Hammurabi. 30 More examples are those in Enūma Eliš regarding the birth of Marduk 31 and the list of ancestors of Anu. 32 The Hymn to Šamaš BWL 178:27 compares offspring to everlasting spring water: kîma mê naqbi dârî zêra dârî “Like the water of everlasting spring his descendants will last for ever.” If Time is an independent entity that moves, it may be good or bad. Akkadian simanu and Sumerian á, as in ud-á-bi = umu simanu (Hh I:207), convey the idea of proper Time. We tend to sense the quality of time subjectively, projecting on time our feelings about the event with which time is linked. But when time is linked with šimtu, it is a neutral element, because the proper time is the occurrence of events as predicted. Time is still event-related, but the qualitative evaluation is not of the event but of its timing. 33 Proper Time reveals itself in the fixed, recurring cycle of the heavenly bodies and the seasons. As such, time seems to be integral to the cosmos, implying that it moves in a circular direction, which led to the belief in a periodic universal resurrection. In a Mari letter to Yasmah-Addu, Ammištamar justifies his nomadic life: “Now, why am I not like Dumuzi, by the count of the year they kill him and [in the spring] he returns to the temple of Annunitum.” 34 Dumuzi may have returned from the dead, at least for the people of Mari. But the appearance of new spring grass or lambs is not necessarily a resurrection. Thus, not all the young dying gods, who symbolized seasonal decay, returned to life. In fact, in the tradition of “Dumuzi’s Dream,” Dumuzi did not return from the dead. Later, when this myth was coupled with an Inana myth to create the text known now as “Inana’s descent,” the motif of resurrection was introduced to his divine properties. 35 Ningišzida, who became the chair-bearer of the Netherworld, says to his wife Ninazimua “I am not the grass, I shall not grow in the desert.” 36 With a similar phrase in Edina-usaĝa, Damu mourns his death: “I am not grass, I will not grow for her again; I am not water, I will not rise for her again. I am not the grass sprouting in the desert.” 37 Whether the administrative concept bala – palû signifies a true cycle or a linear series of changes depends on the frequency of the changes. Regularly repeated intervals would add up to a cycle. It is quite possible that the perception of a linear course coexisted with the cyclic but outlined different developments. And finally, if time is real, then it must have started somewhere. When was the beginning of Time? This very complex issue of time in creation deserves a special study. The perception of time is a significant element in the life of any society, and the more we know about it, the better we can decipher its cultural codes. Our sources make temporal distinctions by means of grammatical and semantic elements. How30.  J. J. Finkelstein, “The Genealogy of the Hammurapi Dynasty” JCS 20 (1966), 95–118. 31.  En.el Tablet I. 32.  See n. 5. 33.  Compare Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 “There is an appointed time (zman) for everything, and there is a time for every event under heaven. . .”. 34.  P. Marello, “Vie nomad,” in Durand (ed.), Florilegium marianum: recueil d’études en l’honneur de Michel Fleury (Memoires de NABU 1; Paris, 1991), 115–25. ll. 42–44. 35.  This may have been the result of the introduction of the principle of “substitute to Ereškigal” that was used to save the life of the patient in healing rituals. On this development in the healing magic, I shall elaborate elsewhere. 36.  Ningišzida and Ninazimua: 100 ú- š i m n u - m e - e n e d i n - n a n u - m ú. 37.  SK 26 vi:16–19// PRAK D41:15–18.

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ever, they indiscriminately mix the diverse realities of different parts of the cosmos and thereby generate a multifaceted reality. The merger of actual with mythological leads to various interpretations. A crucial issue is whether the texts refer to deities, superhuman beings, or to human ghosts, since activity makes the difference. According to both models, where things happen, there is time. But in a dead-still world, time could exist only if it is a real and independent entity. The issue of time in afterlife depends on the interpretation of the sources that describe the experience of the human ghosts inside the Netherworld. Were they active or did they lie motionless? Was the world of the dead as still as the grave, or was there some activity there? 38 These considerations must take into account the fact that the ritual was performed in front of an icon of the dead which, like the statues of gods, actualized and personified the ghost and would grant it a longer earthly existence. The conflicting descriptions and statements about afterlife suggest that the details were molded according to the ideological purpose and function of a text. For example, there is a discrepancy between the attitudes to afterlife in Gilgameš and Huwawa A:30–33 on the one hand and Gilgameš, Enkidu, and the Netherworld on the other. Time in afterlife was not a focal point for these sources; much like our information about death, it is inferred. I assume that a learned Mesopotamian would have had a view about the nature of time, but ideology played a more important role in the construction of the text. This preliminary survey suggests that time was perceived as a real independent entity, in line with the Absolutism theory. But its pace varied according to the different realities and beings involved, actual or mythological. Moreover, even if there were different systems of Time, the scribe measured it in the only terms he knew, in terms of calendrical time. A better understanding of the Mesopotamian’s view of time in death may be achieved from a further, extensive, literary-oriented study. 38.  Regarding activity, one should ask whether chthonic gods and demons really resided with the dead human ghosts or in another underground region of the cosmos, such as the Apsu. This question has been so far overlooked, despite the evidence of, e.g., KAR 307.

Concepts and Perception of Time in Mesopotamian Divination. Ulla Susanne Koch

University

of

Copenhagen

By its very nature, divination is intimately connected with the temporal and with concepts of time. Dealing with time in relation to divination involves a discussion of concepts such as the “future” and “fate” and discussions of the perception of time in general, a discussion which is often held in terms such as “linear” versus “circular” time-perception or perception of time as having inherent qualities such as “real” versus “supernatural” time or “ritual” versus “social” time. 1 Mesopotamian divination actually presents quite a number of perspectives on conceptions of time. From the point of view of divination as a means of obtaining otherwise hidden information, divination gives information about events in the past, present, and future, and from the point of view of divination as a guide to action, it represents the possibility to manipulate events, or at least their effects, whether these events took place in the past, are underway in the present, or may happen in the future. Divination itself and the concomitant rituals and other resulting actions create a locus, where time is—if not actually suspended, then at least represented as open to reinterpretation and manipulation. Concepts as such are relatively straightforward to discuss: a concept is a cognitive unit of meaning, and it can be an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a “unit of knowledge.” A concept is of course often built from other units of meaning which act as the concept’s characteristics. These other units may well be metaphors that are used either unconsciously or purposefully. 2 Perception, on the other hand, is more difficult to pin down; here I move into the realm of psychology, philosophy, and physics—dealing with the human ability to understand the true nature of things—and what is the true nature of time? I certainly do not pretend to establish that here; I will merely outline some of the ways time played a role in the context of Mesopotamian divination and how the roles time played were expressed. Finally, I want to suggest how this reflects on the perception of time within the Mesopotamian divinatory locus. The observations are based on the practice of extispicy as attested at the Neo-Assyrian court. Since Mesopotamian concepts of time and other matters touched upon here are as likely to have changed over the centuries as any other cultural product, I must of course accept that the picture I piece together, even using sources that were created Author’s note: My participation in the Rencontre Assyriologique 2010 was made possible by a grant from the Center for Canon and Identity Formation at the University of Copenhagen. 1.  Gell 1992. 2.  Lakoff and Johnson 2003 (originally published 1980).

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within a few centuries, may be inaccurate or misleading. Even looking at my chosen time capsule—the relatively well-documented centuries of the Neo-Assyrian period, I also have to rely on texts which are centuries older and the product of Babylonian rather than Assyrian culture.

1.  Anthropological Approaches A few words on time: One of the most common metaphors that make up concepts of time in many languages, including Akkadian, is “time is a moving object,” 3 and “life is a journey” where we follow in the footsteps of our fathers, hence we have expressions like “those who went before us,” referring to the past, and “après nous la deluge,” referring to the future. In both cases, the journey metaphor is embedded. The individual on this journey “looks forward” to new things but at the same time follows after those who went “before him.” Time is sometimes likened to an arrow (“a moving object”), which implies that time itself is dynamic and brings about change: that “an event has the date it has because it was once future, occurred on a given date, and thereafter was past.” To this, the anthropologist Alfred Gell objects: “It is not an essential attribute of event-hood to be located at some point in the future, present or past.” 4 I am not convinced that the metaphor of the arrow and the single dimension that it implies is a sufficient description of perception of time as evidenced by Mesopotamian divination, with its more relativistic attitude to time, as I will try to illustrate. I also do not think it reflects the Mesopotamian view of change, for that matter, but that is a different line of inquiry. The anthropologist Alfred Gell’s description of what he sees as the two basic contemporary schools of thought on the nature of time are very enlightening in this connection—what he calls the A-series and B-series. I think, however, for my present purpose at least, his most useful conclusions, are: “there is no fairyland where time is perceived differently than anywhere else”; 5 as a result, he dismisses, for instance, the supposedly cultural specific “linear” and “circular” perceptions of time. The A-series metaphor for time is “time is an arrow”; the B-series metaphor is “time is a piece of cake,” with events positioned in time like berries in a muffin. While B-series is a description of “real” time, he accedes that humans rely on A-series “tensed” beliefs in their everyday life, but at the same time that their more abstract time-maps are founded in some way on the reality of the B-series. 6 This seems to make sense, for instance, for calendars. As Gell 7 points out calendars themselves are knowledge systems, a species of “symbolic capital” viewed in their totality from the B-series perspective, since in A-series terms, dates are just landmarks to be passed. He actually compares calendars to divination in that they confer power through knowledge.

2. Divination The nature, function, and scope of divination have been discussed by academics for a couple of millennia, and I do not intend to add to that discussion here. In this connection, the focus is on divination as a tool to gather otherwise inaccessible 3.  Lakoff and Johnson 2003: 41–43. 4.  Gell 1992: 157–58. 5.  Gell 1992: 315. 6.  Gell 1992: 149–74. 7.  Gell 1992: 304–5.

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information. Not just any kind of inaccessible information is investigated by divination—only the kind that pertains to the most vital concerns about health, safety, and happiness for the individual or for the social group. Divination can therefore also pertain to ecological, political, and military affairs. This is what in cognitive studies of religion is called “strategic social information.” The information gained by divination is generally “a guide to action,” and the divinatory process is thus part of an event frame that includes some form of action: ritual, military, medicinal, or trivial. Strategic social information is hard to come by, and you have to depend on communication with people you deem reliable. Hence, you call upon superhuman agents, since superhuman agents—that is, gods—have “full-access to social strategic knowledge” as one of their defining characteristics. According to cognitive theorists, the argument runs this way: because our innate cognitive constraints fit gods into the ontological category person, they are person-like and agents with whom we can interact; like us, they hear, see, and feel. Gods and humans interact as humans interact; gods take part in social congress and exchange. Our default judgment of communication is that it is relevant to the context and truthful—otherwise communication as a social strategy would be self-defeating and probably would not have evolved as it has. 8 Observation is possible, but communication clearly is the most direct way to gain social strategic information in everyday human lives, which is why divination typically is presented as a form of communication—in the case of extispicy, as a court of law where the gods are present. So divination is represented as communicative signs, but this is not straightforward communication, at least in the case of extispicy. As suggested by Jesper Sørensen, the reading of signs 9 relies on one or more of three models whereby a sign and referent are connected by a stronger or weaker causal link, so-called indexical signs (according to Peirce’s typology of signs). The models are: (1) Intuitive causal reasoning: the footprint of the hare precisely indicates its former presence due to its body’s physical interaction with a surface. From an early age, humans entertain a large number of causal and probabilistic models that guide expectations for events in the world. The flying ball will crash the window and so on. (2) Associative learning or “weak” or “arbitrary” causal knowledge: for instance, associating the sounding of a bell with food or associating the sounding of the fire alarm with a break from work. (3) Cultural learning: cultural transmission makes it possible not only to transmit models originally established through conditioned learning to an individual not encountering these stimuli but also to create systems of “artificial indexes”—that is, indexes based on neither intuitive causal knowledge nor associative learning. “Models based on cultural learning make it possible to have a much longer time interval between a sign and an effect than is the case in associative learning. The relation therefore must be established and maintained by other means in order to be transmitted. Recent cognitive theories suggest that the evocation and memory of such culturally learned relations can be developed by different methods, all with particular cognitive effects: “by the associations themselves being salient, e.g., by being minimally counterintuitive; by being often repeated and explicitly taught; or by being linked to individually salient events as exemplars.” 10 8.  Boyer 2001. 9.  Sørensen 2005. 10.  Sørensen 2005: 317.

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Fig. 1.  Relation in time between sign and event.(After Sørensen 2005).

All of these methods are found in the transmission of extispicy: the associations themselves are part of a hermeneutic system that makes sense, as the extispicy omens do to a certain extent (e.g., “weapon” marks were associated with warfare, and so on), 11 the associations are repeated and explicitly taught from father to son (or master to apprentice), vested with the authority of their ancient divine origins and long scribal tradition, and the historical omens function as meaningful, salient exemplars for the whole system. The system of associative hermeneutics has been described recently by Ivan Starr and Ulla Jeyes.

3.  The “Arrow of Time” in Prospective Divination Prospective divination can be either prognostic, looking to the future, or diagnostic, looking to the past. Whereas the diagnostic process is seen as pointing backward to a previous event, an underlying cause, the prognostic is understood as pointing forward to a coming event. The indexical or communicative link always goes from event to sign. This means that if one performs diagnostic divination looking for causes in the past, one looks back to the past for the event which is at the same time connected forward in time to the sign. If one performs prognostic divination, to find out what will happen, one looks forward in time to the event, but the event is connected backward in time to the sign. The observer is always contemporary with the sign. This reflects the model of cultural learning. When the signs are perceived as part of a communication, as is often the case with divination, their validity is further strengthened. The above relationship between sign and event holds true for prospective divination. Retrospective divination is “divination post factum.” The mechanism of ret11.  Starr 1983 and Jeyes 1989: 51–92, with previous literature.

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rospective divination would run like this: “My lottery number didn’t come up; oh, I remember I dropped a mirror while seeing a black cat crossing the street last Friday the 13th—it must have been a sign that my lottery number would not come up.” Here the observer is contemporary with the event. Retrospective divination probably existed also in Mesopotamia, at least in everyday life, but the nature of the sources makes them hard to find. The best example may be the oft-quoted letter from the astrologer Balasî (SAA 10 42): As to what the king, m[y lord, wr]ote [to me]: ‘[In] the city of H[ar]ihumba lightning struck and ravaged the fields of the Assyrians’ — why does the king search 12 (for a sign) and why does he search [the ho]me of a tiller? There is no evil inside the palace, and when has the king ever visited Harihumba? . . . Now, provided that there is (evil) inside the palace, they should go and perform the (ritual) Evil of Lightning there.

Balasî’s reasoning is that, since there is nothing evil now in the palace, there is no reason to look for anything pointing to the presence of evil and no reason why this particular stroke of lightning should have been a sign. If, however, there is something amiss in the palace, then it would make sense for the king to look for pointers, and the stroke of lightening could have been a sign and ritual action should be taken. This is tantamount to retrospective divination.

4.  Functions of Time: Chronometric Entities in Extispicy For everyday purposes, time was measured and defined by various subdivisions or “chronometric entities,” which were part of the world order itself as described in, for example, Enūma Elish. 13 The sources attest abundantly to the use they served in the context of divination. Time was used in extispicy as a parameter in three different functions: A. Setting the scene.  The normative constraints inherent in the symbolical system of calendars and other of time’s subdivisions served the purpose of guarding the procedure by securing that it took place at the “right time.” The same normative constraints also contributed to emphasize the liminal character of divination. Extispicy could not be performed whenever; the scene had to be set at the right place and at the right time. B. Defining the question.  It was of the highest importance that the question put before the gods be as precise as possible. Part of defining the question was to specify the “who” and the “what” but specifying the period of time the divination pertained to could also be important. When the period the divination pertained to was not specified, the divination question could pertain to the past, present, or future. C. Qualifying the answer.  If the time-frame was not part of the question, it was still possible to calculate the period to which the divination pertained. The date itself may be taken into consideration when interpreting the answer and the answer’s significance may be modified on the basis of its temporal location.

12.  The verb buʾû is also used to refer to examining the exta or looking in reference works for pertinent omens. 13.  For a recent discussion, see Robson 2004.

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The most obvious use of time in relation to divination is perhaps “Tagewählerei.” This pervasive form of divination is found in all societies which regulate their days and nights in calendric systems. Examples of this kind of divination persist in Europe probably even to the present day. The Danish renaissance astronomer Tycho Brahe was credited with compiling a list of 32 unfavorable days; in Denmark, these are popularly known as “Tycho Brahe’s Days” and are otherwise also known as Egyptian days. On these days, it was not advisable to enter into a new enterprise, because “it will not meet with success but will only lead to losses and misery.” This kind of admonition can be found almost verbatim in the Mesopotamian hemerologies. Even today, the Tycobrahs days are not forgotten. When a ferry, christened “Tycho Brahe” by the queen on November 5, 1991, on its virgin Fig. 2.  Tycho Brahe’s days. A copy journey on November 6 collided with the pier in of an original said to date from 1616. (Danish National Museum). Elsinore, the media duly noted that this was indeed a Tycobrahs Day (cf. fig. 2)—what else could be expected from a ferry named Tycho Brahe? The Mesopotamian hemerologies provided the framework for everyday life. In theory, any important action had to be timed in accordance with their directions: Marriage, house-building, beginning a business venture, performing sacrifices and other ritual actions, and of course there were favorable and unfavorable days for performing divination.

A. Setting the Scene: Calendar Days Two scholars, B. Pongratz-Leisten (1999) and A. Livingstone (1993), have independently gone through the extispicy reports to see if the diviners serving the king complied with the royal hemerology Enbu bēl arḫi. Livingstone compared the dates of both private transactions, royal building enterprises, and the performance of extispicy for the king and has demonstrated that they were indeed in good accordance with prescriptions of the hemerologies. The court set an example by following the prescriptions most closely. There is only one attestation of an extispicy presumably performed on the unsuitable date of the 28th, 14 but since the text is broken, there is still the possibility that a collation may redeem the diviners. There is however a caveat: The dating of the queries is very often based on the assumption that the divination took place on the first day of the stipulated term (adannu). Very few reports actually have dates that specify when the extispicy was 14.  SAA 4 no. 5 = Klauber 1913: no. 28 (1889-4-26, 26 Neo-Babylonian script). According to the copy in Klauber, the number 30 indicating the nights of the adannu is completely preserved; the transliteration in Starr (1990), however, indicates that the sign is broken. If so, then the adannu could have been 20 days, which would have yielded the 8th as the date for the performance. The 8th would have been absolutely alright.

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Fig. 3.  After Livingstone 1993 and Pongratz-Leisten 1999, revised. The arrows indicate forbidden days according to the royal hemerology.

performed. That the first day of the adannu was indeed the same day that extispicy was performed need not always have been the case; in fact, at least two queries seem to have been written or performed on another date than the beginning of the stipulated term (SAA 4 nos. 85 and 281). SAA 4 85 mentions as the period of validity: “from the beginning of the coming year until Dumuzu”—that is, in the spring months when campaigns were usually launched. Was it performed on Nisan 1? Or perhaps it was instead sometime in Adaru? SAA 4 281 defines the adannu as “from the 8th of this month Abu (V) to the 8th day of Elulu (VI)” but the report itself is dated to Adaru (XII) the Xth. Perhaps many enquiries for plans for the coming year were performed in Addaru, in which case the dates of the adannu do not tell us anything about the date the extispicy actually was performed. According to an Assyrian hemerology (KAR no. 178), 15 neither the seer (bārû) nor the medical expert (asû) were supposed to perform their art on the 1st, 7th, 9th, 14th, 19th, 21st, 28th, 29th, and 30th of the month of Nisan, whereas on the 17th it was only the medical expert who should refrain from business. These days are associated with the stages of the lunar cycle: New Moon, half Moon, full Moon, and so on, and this may be why they were chosen as forbidden days. 16 The beginning and the end of the month were especially closely associated with divine decision making and the phases of the Moon played an important part in omen astrology. On the days around neomenia, Sin and Shamash were in conference and had to be treated with circumspection; on the 28th, they made decisions for the individual’s 15.  Edited by Labat 1939: 50–146. 16.  Livingstone suggests this has something to do with a blood taboo which would apply to both professions (Livingstone 1998: 63–64).

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days. 17 Just as it was inauspicious for the seer and the medical expert to perform their trade, it was apparently unfortunate for the individual to seek a decision by divination on certain days. It was not suitable for a person to go to “judgment and (or of) divination” (ana dīni (u) bārûti lā illak) on the 2nd, the 4th, the 6th, and the 10th. 18 Interestingly, these days do not coincide with the seer’s forbidden days, adding to the number of days unsuitable for divination. The excerpt KAR 151, 19 on which was collected various material salient to the seer, focused on the positive side and listed only favorable days for extispicy. In Nisan, these were: 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 23rd; and favorable each month were: 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th, xth, 21st, 23rd, 24th, 26th, 27th. The right time of day was “at sunrise when the Moon is dim.” Some individual dates have special instructions: extispicy should not be performed on the 3rd, the 14th, the 16th, 24th, and 25th before Marduk; extispicy should be performed before Gula on the 23rd and not on the 5th; the 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 17th, 22nd, 26th, and 27th were favorable, as was the 13th if it was the day of full moon. Insofar as they provided this framework, the hemerologies were in themselves a form of divination, but the assurance that “this is a good day for it” is not the same as a confirmation that it was the right thing to do in the first place. When Esarhaddon wanted to rebuild a temple, it was not enough to consult a hemerology for the right date; he also needed express confirmation for his plans: 20 I felt danger, I was afraid. I was negligent in renewing that temple (Aššur). In the seer’s wooden bowl, the gods Shamash and Adad answered me a firm yes: they caused an omen to be written on the sheep’s liver for building that temple, for the renewal of its inner sanctum.

B.  Setting the Scene: Time and Space. Divination itself participates in liminality, since it functions as a portal between human and divine. In contemporary societies, divination is performed at special places, such as the edge of a village, which symbolize a transition from one sphere to another. The diviner is also typically a liminal figure, a person set apart by birth, learning, initiation, or charisma. Similarly, the Babylonian seer was supposed to be of special origin and was set apart by his learning and swearing of an oath. The scene of the divination session in time and space served to emphasize this liminal­ ity. 21 Extispicy was performed at a special time: in the morning, when night turns to day, and a special place: a special enclosure by the river (qirsu), and often on the roof of a building temple or palace, 22 not inside in private and not out in the public sphere, either, and always in a ritually “clean place.” Some of the so-called ezib-formulae 23 which served to protect the ritual ensuring that the answer did not get corrupted by unintentional interference emphasize the importance and vulnerability of the special place:

17.  KAR 178 iii 23–24. 18.  KAR 178 i 16, 33, 43, 68. 19.  See, e.g., the edition Koch 2005: 295; new edition KAL 5 no. 70. 20.  Borger 1956: 3. 21.  Peek 1991: 197. 22.  Robson 2009: 10. 23.  Starr 1990, xx–xxvii.

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Disregard that an unclean man or woman has come near the place of extispicy and made it unclean. Disregard that I have performed extispicy in this unclean place.

Both the time and place selected in the Mesopotamian ritual can be regarded as liminal spheres. Leading up to the divinatory procedure itself was a complex ritual beginning on the previous day. Liminality is typically associated with considerable danger, and the anthropologists Evans-Pritchard 24 and Victor Turner 25 describe the importance of preparation and setting the scene of divination as a precaution against the interruption or disturbance of the ritual by hostile agents. Indeed, this appears to be the main function of the night ritual leading up to the extispicy session itself, calling upon the gods of night to stand by while the great gods deliberate. The nature and function of the nightly rituals have been recently discussed by Steinkeller and Fincke. 26 Formulating the question as precisely as possible was of course of preeminent importance. Ezib-formulae typically took into consideration that the diviner might have mumbled or otherwise made mistakes. It was, however, not enough just to get the actors and the stage right but also the time-frame. At least one ezib, “disregard that the day is advanced,” 27 indicates that it was a problem if the procedure was not performed at the proper time in the morning. This was not one of the standard ezibs, so it is presumably safe to assume that the risk of the time of day influencing the extispicy was an exception and that the time-frame was generally adhered to.

C. Defining the Question: Using the Stipulated Term Part of formulating a precise question was stipulating an exact period of validity or “stipulated term.” The Old Babylonian reports do not use the term adannu for the stipulated term but define the period of validity by other means. The query may, for instance, pertain to “the coming year” 28 or could be more specific “from this day and the rest of the month.” If the seer did not get a clear and favorable answer, he could ask again, narrowing the time frame, from the whole month and for instance “until the 15th” instead. 29 The stipulated term could also be described by calendar date: “an enterprise in the month of Addaru.” 30 The Neo-Assyrian queries and reports frequently refer to a stipulated term. The most common length of the term is 30 days, but it also can be 7, 20, 40, 50, 90, 100 days and even 4 months are attested on the 24 reports where the length of the stipulated term can be determined. However, an adannu might be more loosely defined, as in SAA 4 85, which mentions the period: “from the beginning of the coming year until Dumuzu,” and even more loosely (SAA 4 88): will the king be safe “for as long as he stays in Egypt.” An ezib specifically asks the gods to disregard what happens after the stipulated term and also to disregard that the persons in question may later change their minds (e.g., SAA 4 18). One query (SAA 4 85), which by the way seems to be an example of an adannu not starting on the day the extispicy itself 24.  For instance, in his classical description of the Azande poison oracle (1937: 271–312). 25.  Turner 1968. 26.  Steinkeller 2005 and Fincke 2009. 27.  U4-mu iš-qa-a: SAA 4 98, 118, and 206. 28.  E.g., the two ikribus published by Meyer 1982. 29. E.g., ARM 26, 1 no. 152. 30.  Ungnad 1908: pl. 6; see Koch-Westenholz 2002: 133.

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Fig. 4.  Lengths of the stipulated term according to the reports in SAA 4. 62 reports certainly had a defined adannu, 104 seem never to have had one.

was performed, mentions: “from the beginning of the year until Dumuzu”—that is, in the spring months when campaigns were usually launched. Now, considering the importance of “getting the question right,” one would expect that at least most, if not all, of the queries to have had an adannu. In all, just 62 of the approximately 350 fragmentary reports indeed have adannus or certain indications that they originally did have one. The queries with an adannu naturally all refer to events in the future, and in this respect they are straightforward. As one would suspect, it seems that the more immediate the threat or the need to take action, the shorter the adannu. The shortest adannu, seven days, was used when enemy attack on a specific town seemed to be imminent (SAA 4 49).

Defining the Question: The Unspecified Past—Present—Future There are 102 queries without any indication that they ever contained an adannu, almost twice as many as those which certainly had one. The texts which are too broken to tell either way were counted as uncertain; only those texts which are not broken in the place where the adannu formula usually is written—for instance, in the first lines right after the introductory phrase: “Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you!” or when the divination question is repeated after the report on the first inspection of the entrails—are here classified as having no stipulated term. Giving the state of preservation, it is difficult to venture a guess as to whether it is significant that more reports are without than with an adannu, but it is significant that the need to define the precise time-frame was not absolute. The queries with no adannu include those which aim to test the validity of a written plan of action or the reliability of a person. In both cases, the details are placed before the god in written form on parchment or clay. The written question

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itself could well have contained dates or stipulated terms, so these are left out of consideration here. As mentioned, the queries which do have an adannu clearly pertain to the future; but what of those which have no stipulated term? They seem to be of three types: either they pertain to the past, the present/immediate future, or the more distant future. They can be either a general preliminary question—“is this or that sort of action a good idea?” (to be followed by more precise questions with a specific time frame) 31 or they are, on the contrary, ad hoc questions which concern a concrete present situation which needs to be resolved here and now. 32 Past:  Though rare, a number of queries must be classified as pertaining to actions and intentions which are not primarily present or future but are set in the past. Of course, they are only relevant because they have consequences in the present, but that is the essence of divination as a guide to action. Queries regarding the sincerity of messages from the enemy pertain to the past: what was his motivation when he had the message written and sent it? The questions are phrased in the past tense “have NN honestly sent true, sincere words” (e.g., SAA 4 75). Obviously, they never specify any stipulated term, since the questioner needed the answer to be open-ended. Another kind of question that pertains to the past is the confirmation of rumors or intelligence apparently not obtainable by the ordinary military means of espionage and surveillance: has the enemy captured and plundered the city Ṣišširtu (SAA 4 77)? Has Šamaš-šumu-kīn fled (SAA 4 282). Has Tammaritu mobilized his army and will he invade within the stipulated term (SAA 4 289). 33 Investigations 34 into the nature of an illness I also see as pertaining to the past, since the Mesopotamian aetiology of illness implies they are caused by things that happened in the past. Present or Immediate Future:  As mentioned, some queries that do not mention a stipulated term (adannu) in the introductory formula seem to pertain not to decision-making on a situation in general but rather to the present or to the immediate future. These queries concern situations on an existing battlefield: the outcome of an on-going siege (SAA 4 3), attack on the army already launched on a mission (SAA 4 9), on-going hostilities (SAA 4 10, 66), or taking up negotiations (SAA 4 57). Questions concerning suitable medication (SAA 4 185, 187) or appropriate rituals (SAA 4 196, 197) and sacrifices (SAA 4 315) also pertain to the present or very near future and have no adannu. Queries into the character of individuals, commonly in connection with appointments, are also primarily concerned with the present, since the character of a person is supposedly immanent. Sometimes, this kind of query does not have a stipulated term, typically if the appointment must be considered permanent, for instance when taking a character reference for a prospective royal son-in-law, 35 or investigating the suitability of a son to enter the Succession Palace as Crown Prince. 36 The 31. In SAA 4, the queries without an adannu are placed before those which have an adannu. This might be taken as an indication that the editors saw this as the likely chronology. 32.  SAA 4: 12, 13, 56, 74, 75, 319. 33.  Rumor about a person: SAA 4 313; rumor of insurrection SAA 4 321. 34.  Inquiry into the nature of illness: SAA 4 183, 184, 189–195, 277; inquiry into the meaning of a dream SAA 4 202, 316. 35.  SAA 4, 20, 21, 22. 36.  Sin-nadin-apli as crown prince (SAA 4: 149).

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appointments under investigation were all important cultic offices or positions close to the king and royal family. 37 Future:  It appears that an extispicy would be performed regarding the general advisability of pursuing a certain military or political objective in the future. This type of query had no stipulated term 38 and would presumably be followed by a more specific query with a stipulated term if the gods were agreeable to the idea. An example of this could be Esarhaddon’s query concerning sending an army to plunder the district of Karkašši (SAA 4 62) or capturing the city Amul (SAA 4 63) or even more long-term schemes, such as Essarhaddon’s plans to attack Egypt (SAA 4 84). A nice example of this procedure is the queries concerning the return of Marduk’s statue to Babylon. Two queries ask whether, in general, it a good idea to let Šamaššumu-kīn lead Bel to Babylon (SAA 4 262, 263); these have no stipulated term. More specific queries ask whether it would be acceptable to send Marduk as surface mail on a certain date (SAA 4 264, 265).

C. Qualifying the Answer (see table, p. 139) Aspects of time may serve to qualify the answer obtained by extispicy. There were ways to calculate the stipulated term from features of the exta. Certain marks on the caudate lobe of the liver (the finger) could be observed and by an intricate system used to calculate the period of validity. 39 This method was highly developed but appears never to have been put to practical use. A late Babylonian text from Uruk (SpTU 4 159) 40 correlates the basic parts of the liver, listed in the order of notation, each with a god, a month, and a star (constellation and/or planet). Some of the lines have a brief explanatory commentary. The part first to be recorded (the presence) was associated with the first month of the year (Nisan), and so on. The correlation of gods and months is undoubtedly traditional, though as yet no direct source for it has been identified. Only the months of Nisan and Dumuzu are in accordance with the list correlating gods and months found in Iqqur īpuš §105, 41 and Kislimmu is left out altogether. The stars are more or less in accordance with a list of heliacal risings according to an ideal calendar incorporated into the astronomical compendium mul.apin (see table on p. ). 42 Did correlations like those found in SpTU IV 159 play any role in relating an extispicy answer to a particular month? Probably not, but a link between parts of the liver significant for divination and specific calendric entities was formed.

5.  Fate and Future Definitions and discussions of šīmtu—for lack of a better translation, “fate”— and divination often remark on the apparent paradox between a decided and de37.  Checking the reliability of members of the royal family, courtiers, servants, officials, and allies (rebellion): SAA 4 139–148; and of other persons: SAA 4 274, 290, 293, 300–304, 310. Checking suitability for appointment as Chief Eunuch: SAA 4 299; bishop (š à . t a m) SAA 4 150; servant of lady Niq’a Esarhaddon’s mother: SAA 4 151; member of royal entourage: SAA 4 152–155, 275; high office: SAA 4 156–182, 305; priest (s a n g a) of Marduk: SAA 4 266; priest (s a n g a) of Anu: SAA 4 306; priest (s a n g a) of Sin: SAA 4 307; 308. 38.  SAA 4: 30, 33 39.  Koch 2005, Heeßel 2009. 40.  Discussed by Koch 2000: 24–25. 41.  Labat 1965: 196. 42.  I ii 36–iii 12; Hunger and Pingree 1989: 40–47, discussed on pp. 139–41.

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Month

Mul.apin (Month/star)

Iqqur īpuš (Month/god)

SpTU 4 159 (Month/god/star/exta)

Nisan

The Hired Man (Aries)

Anu, Enlil

Enlil [The Hired Man] The Presence

Ayyaru

The Stars (Pleiades, part of Taurus)

Ea

Shamash The Bull of Heaven (Taurus) The Path

Simanu

True Shepherd of Anu (Orion), Great Twins (Gemini)

Sin

Nusku True Shepherd of Anu The Pleasing Word

Dumuzu

The Little Twins, the Crab (Cancer)

Ninurta

Ninurta The Crab, The Heroic Šulpaea (Jupiter) The Strength

Abu

The Bow (Canis Major), the King-star (Regulus)

Ningizzida

Bēlet-ekalli The King-of-the-Palace, the Bow with the King-star The Strength

Ululu

Eridu, the Raven (Corvus)

Ištar

Adad The Raven The Well-being

Tašritu

The Scales (Libra), the Mad Dog (Lupus)

Šamaš

Anu The Scales The Gall Bladder

Araḫšamnu The Scorpion (Scorpio)

Marduk

[Break] [Scorpio?] The Finger

Kislimmu

The Panther (Cygnus), the Eagle (Aquila), Pabilsag (Sagittarius)

Nergal

Left out

Ṭebetu

The Swallow

Papsukkal

[Break] Bēlet balāṭi (Vega) The Increment

Šabaṭu

The Giant (Aquarius), the Field (part of Pegasus), the Stag

Adad

[Break] The Giant, the Yoke of the Land (Arcturus) The Yoke

Addaru

The Fish (Piscis austrinus), the Old Man (Perseus)

Sebettu

[Break] The Stars, Venus The River of the Liver

Addaru II

Aššur

creed fate and the fact that this can be revoked or changed if you ask nicely. 43 It is sometimes asserted that “the only way one can ‘divine’ what the future holds is for 43.  Lawson 1994: 71.

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the future to be predetermined. Yet, once one knows what is predetermined in one’s future, then there exists the possibility of avoiding or changing it. Therein lies the contradiction which is at the heart of divination!” 44 However, the workings behind divination, the implicit reason one can read the signs, is not that individual future events are seen as predetermined. The reason is rather the perceived validity of the hermeneutical rules linking sign and referent forward and backward in time. This link is based on the cognitive model of cultural learning of artificial indexes. A simple parallel would be: “The bear tracks leading into the cave is a sign we will be eaten when we sleep here. Why not crash somewhere else?” That is why divination is effective, why omens are called divine laws, and why it is possible to influence the future and correct past wrongs. Divination does not by itself necessitate fatalistic thinking—i.e., that everything is predetermined and all we can do is read our “fate,” the objection posed against divination, particularly astrology, since antiquity. But “fate” is not necessarily the same as “future.” The concept šīmtu embodies philosophical or religious explicitly formulated conceptualizations that need not be touched upon in practical divination. Šīmtu is “determined” (šâmu), “decreed” (nabû), or “created” (banû). Šīmtu may be “cursed” (arāru), “changed” or “turned around” (šupêlu), and it may be set for good or evil. The idioms are totally different from those used in extispicy queries, oracle questions 45 (tamītu), or prayers. 46 Actually, extispicy never explicitly asks for (short‑ or long-term) decisions on šīmtu itself. The queries never ask for a favorable “fate,” merely for favorable decisions ( purussû), a “firm yes” (annu kīnu), justice (kittu), or fair judgment (dīnu). What the divination section produces is not knowledge of “fate” but an “instruction” (têrtu). Šīmtu itself is rarely mentioned directly in omen apodoses, 47 and when it is mentioned in the first-millennium extispicy compendia, it is as a figure of speech, e.g., a “Weapon mark of šīmtu,” which here probably means “death” rather than “fate.” Apodoses may use the idiomatic expression “death of one’s fate,” which one may die or not as the case may be: 48 If 2) it is dark and a Hole lies in its normal place: The man will be taken captive and will die a natural death (mūt šīmtīšū) in the city to which he was taken as a captive. 49

The paradox of “fate” and divination is only a paradox if life’s individual events themselves were fixed and decreed, if “fate” and “future” were the same. But šīmtu should probably be understood in the broader sense as the “blueprint” of life, the path you must follow unless something happens—or you yourself do something—to put it askew. Divination is a means to get “directions” for following the “blueprint” and in that sense is connected to šīmtu. As I have tried to illustrate, divination, or at least extispicy, really is not about decoding the future or finding out the details of “fate.” The etiology underpinning the diagnostic omens, that your present misfortunes basically are due to you or maybe to an evil agent, is found everywhere in prayers, literary texts, apotropaic 44.  Lawson 1994: 79. 45.  Lambert 2007. 46.  Starr 1983, Zimmern 1901: nos. 75–78. 47.  A phrase found in a few Old Babylonian lecanomancy omens are the only exceptions I know of: e.g., CT 3 2:3 “[If] when I pour [oil] on water it has the appearance of blood: the šīmtu is the patient will die”; and CT 3 2:14 “If they (two drops of oil) coalesce: the šīmtu is they will marry”. 48. See CAD Š sub voce for references. 49.  Koch-Westenholz 2000: no. 19:102. This is a stock apodosis.

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rituals, and prayers and is also inherent in extispicy. Divination is a means of getting to know and correcting the effects of events that happened in the past, changing the course you are settling on now, and a means to make sure you stay on track in the future. The perception and manipulation of events anywhere in time in the frame of the divinatory process is part of underlying human cognitive mechanics—detecting agency, reading indexical signs, and communicating to gain vital information about events, intentions, and actions past, presentm and future all suspended in time simultaneously. In divination, time is not so much perceived as an arrow as a threedimensional piece of cake.

Bibliography Borger, Rykle 1956 Die Inschriften Asarhaddons. Archiv für Orientforschung Beih. 9. Horn: Institut für Orientalistik Wien. Boyer, Pascal 2001 Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors. London: William Heinemann. Durand, J.-M. 1988 Archives épitolaires de Mari I. Archives Royales de Mari 26/1. Paris: Musée du Louvre Ebeling, E. 1919–20 Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts. Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937 Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon. Fincke, Jeanett 2009 “Ist die mesopotamische Opferschau ein nächtliches Ritual?” Biblioteca Orientalis 66: 519–58. Gell, Alfred 1992 The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images. Oxford: Berg. Heeßel, Nils 2009 “The Calculation of the Stipulated Term in Extispicy.” Pp. 163–75 in Amar Annus (ed.), Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the Univiersity of Chicago. Hunger, Hermann, and David Pingree 1989 MUL.APIN. An Astronomical Compendium in Cuneiform. Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft 24. Horn: Institut für Orientalistik Wien. Jeyes, Ulla 1989 Old Babylonian Extispicy. Omen texts in the British Museum. Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul 64. Leiden. Klauber, E. 1913 Politisch-Religiöse Texte aus der Sargonidenzeit. Leipzig: Eduard Pfeiffer. Koch-(Westenholz), Ulla Susanne 2000 Babylonian Liver Omens. The Chapters Manzāzu, Padānu and Pān tākalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series mainly from Aššurbanipal’s Library. CNI Publications 25. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum. 2002 “Old Babylonian Extispicy Reports.” Pp. 131–45 in C.  Wunsch (ed.), Mining the Archives: Festschrift for Christopher Walker on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday. Dresden: Islet. 2005 Secrets of Extispicy. The Chapter Multābiltu of the Babylonian Extispicy Series and Niṣirti bārîti Texts mainly from Aššurbanipal’s Libraries. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 326. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. Labat, René 1939 Hémérologies et Ménologies d’Assur. Leiden: Brill.

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Un calendrier babylonien des travaux des signes et des mois (séries iqqur īpuš). Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson 2003 Metaphors We Live By. With a New Afterword. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lawson, Jack N. 1994 The Concept of “Fate” in Ancient Mesopotamia of the First Millennium: Toward an Understanding of Šīmtu. Orientalia biblica et christiana 7). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Lambert, W. G. 2007 Babylonian Oracle Questions. Mesopotamian Civilizations 13. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Livingstone, A. 1993 “The Case of the Hemerologies: Official Cult, Learned Formulation and Popular Practice.” Pp. 97–113 in Eiko Matsushima (ed.), Official Cult and Popular Religion in the Ancient Near East. Papers of the First Colloquium on the Ancient Near East—The City and its Life held at the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan (Mitaka, Tokyo) March 20–22, 1992. Heidelberg: Winter. 1998 “The Use of Magic in the Assyrian and Babylonian Hemerologies and Menologies,” Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente Antico 15: 59–67. Meyer, L. de 1982 “Deux prières ikribu du temps d’Ammī-ṣaduqa.” Pp. 271–78 in G.van Driel et al. (eds.), zikir shumim: Assyriological Studies Presented to F. R. Kraus on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Leiden: Brill. Parpola, Simo 1993 Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars.State Archives of Assyria 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Peek, Philip M. 1991 “African Divination Systems. Non-Normal Modes of Cognition.” Pp. 193–212 in Philip M.  Peek (ed.), African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pongratz-Leisten, Beate 1999 Herrschaftwissen in Mesopotamien: Formen der Kommunikation zwischen Gott und König im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v.Chr. State Archives of Assyria Studies 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Robson, Eleanor 2004 “Scholarly Conceptions and Quantifications of Time in Assyria and Babylonia c.750– 250 bce.” Pp. 45–90 in Ralph M.  Rosen (ed.), Time and Temporality in the Ancient World. Philadelphia: University Museum. 2009 “Empirical Scholarship in the Neo-Assyrian Court.” Pp. 1–27 in Festschrift für Hermann Hunger, zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen Freunden, Kollegen, und Schülern. WZKM 97. Vienna: Institut für Orientalistik. Starr, Ivan 1983 The Rituals of the Diviner. Biblioteca Mesopotamica 12. Malibu, CA: Undena. 1990 Queries to the Sun God. State Archives of Assyria 4. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Steinkeller, Piotr 2005 “Of Stars and Men: The Conceptual and Mythological Setup of Babylonian Extispicy.” Pp. 11–47 in A. Gianto (ed.), Biblical and Oriental Essays in Memory of William L. Moran. Biblia et Orientalia 48. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. Sørensen, Jesper 2005 “Cognitive Underpinnings of Divinatory Practices.” Pp. 311–37 in Unveiling the Hidden: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Divination. (Conference held in Copenhagen August 1–3, 2005, unpublished). 2007 A Cognitive Theory of Magic. Plymouth: Altamira Press. Turner, Victor 1968 Drums of Affliction: Study of Religious Processes Among the Ndembu of Zambia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ungnad, A. 1908 “Ein Leberschau-Text aus der Zeit Ammiṣaduga’a.” Babyloniaca 2: 257–73. 1965

Temps, mémoire et évolution des cultures aux époques archaïques: écriture du passé et listes lexicales Camille Lecompte

H e i d e l b e r g e r A k a d e m i e d e r W i ss e n sc h af t e n , R u p r e c h t -K a r ls -U n i v e r s i t ä t

1. Introduction 1 Les profondes évolutions culturelles, notamment perceptibles dans l’écriture et les substrats linguistiques, intervenant entre la fin de l’époque d’Uruk (fin du IVe millénaire), durant laquelle fut mise au point l’écriture protocunéiforme, et l’époque dite Dynastique Archaïque (DA 2950–2350), furent néanmoins marquées par une certaine continuité et par la transmission durant plusieurs siècles d’un corpus défini de listes scolaires. 2 Ces listes lexicales, constituant des répertoires de signes classifiés selon leur thématique, furent en effet rédigées dès l’origine de l’écriture, 3 puis furent recopiées et en partie modifiées par des scribes qui en conservèrent la mémoire, comme le démontrent les découvertes à Fara, 4 Abu Salabikh (AS) 5 et Ebla, 6 dans des niveaux du DA III (2600–2350), des copies des textes d’Uruk. La longévité de ces listes reste, au sein des ensembles de textes connus au IIIe millénaire, une exception, dans la mesure où aucun autre type de sources ne semble avoir été l’objet d’une semblable transmission depuis l’époque d’Uruk. Les listes lexicales 1.  Les abréviations se conforment à celles du Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie. A été également ajouté le volume des inscriptions royales archaïques publiées par D. Frayne, dans la série RIME, 1: Frayne, D., 2008: Presargonic Period, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods, 1. Les références aux inscriptions adopteront le système de l’auteur et se trouveront sous la forme E1. Le site d’Abu Salabikh se trouve également ici sous la forme abrégée AS. 2.  R. K. Englund, 1998, p. 88–89. Pour une vue d’ensemble et une définition du genre des listes lexicales, voir l’article d’A. Cavigneaux dans le RLA 6, Lexikalische Listen, p. 609–41. 3.  Englund, R. K. et Nissen, H. J.: 1993 Die lexikalischen Listen der archaischen Texte aus Uruk, Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, ATU 3, ici référencé comme ATU 3. 4.  Deimel, A.: 1923 Schultexte aus Fara. Leipzig : J. C. Hinrichs, WDOG, 43, ici sous l’abréviation SF. 5. Biggs, R.  D.: 1974 Inscriptions from Tell Abu Salabikh. Chicago : OIP 99, ici référencé sous l’abréviation OIP 99. 6.  Petttinato, G.: 1981 Testi lessicali monolingui della biblioteca L. 2769, Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, Materiali epigrafici di Ebla, volume III, ici référencé sous MEE III. Civil, M.: 2008 The Early Dynastic Practical Vocabulary A (Archaic HAR-ra). Rome: Universita degli studi di Roma «La Sapienza», ARES IV.

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constituent de ce point de vue, et ce en dépit de leur aspect laconique, des documents précieux pour mieux saisir l’histoire culturelle de la Mésopotamie du IIIe millénaire. En premier lieu, l’évolution des listes, notamment perceptible par les variantes entre les manuscrits d’époques distinctes, témoigne des modalités de leur transmission dans des contextes culturels différents. Une comparaison entre les manuscrits de mêmes listes à Uruk d’une part et Fara, Abu Salabikh et Ebla d’autre part est une méthode possible pour définir les évolutions graphiques et linguistiques du IIIe millénaire. Dans la mesure où langues et syllabaires des époques d’Uruk comme du DA restent mal définis, cette méthode contribue surtout à poser des équivalences plus assurées entre les signes et à mieux décrypter les textes archaïques. En second lieu, les modifications observables dans les copies du DA III des listes d’Uruk renvoient également à des interprétations plus ou moins explicites de ces textes et à des projets herméneutiques relevant d’un décalage culturel entre les champs institutionnels d’usage des textes. Les listes lexicales demeurent donc l’un des rares indices de la manière dont était perçu dès les époques présargoniques ce passé remontant à l’invention de l’écriture. Au IIIe millénaire, la mémoire du passé est toutefois avant tout retranscrite de manière directe et explicite dans certains textes qui se réfèrent à des événements révolus, et est l’objet de traditions relativement comparables à celles des époques postérieures, que Cl. Wilcke avait analysées sous l’angle de l’écriture du passé dans les chroniques royales. 7 Deux types de mémoires explicites du passé s’expriment en effet aux époques présargoniques dans les inscriptions royales et les textes littéraires, la première de nature politique et n’excédant pas quelques lignées dans les généalogies royales, l’autre plus profonde, mais se rapportant aux temps mythiques. Cette contribution se propose de considérer l’ensemble de ces mémoires et de les mettre en perspective en vue d’une histoire culturelle des époques archaïques.

2.  Une mémoire explicite des événements: inscriptions et textes littéraires 2.1.  La mémoire des événements politiques Les inscriptions de Lagaš, relatant divers épisodes du conflit contre Umma, cherchent, sous une forme de discours étiologique, à fixer, par le recours aux événements passés, les étapes chronologiques de certaines confrontations et à justifier la victoire des souverains de Lagaš. 8 Ainsi se trouve mentionné, dans les inscriptions d’Eannatum et Enmetena, l’arbitrage de Mesilim, roi de Kiš, qui traça la frontière entre Umma et Lagaš. Cet épisode serait antérieur de plus d’un siècle aux règnes des deux souverains de Lagaš et est évoqué de manière cohérente dans leurs inscriptions qui se réfèrent à la borne posée par le roi de Kiš. 9 Mais la narration de l’intervention de Mesilim demeure très allusive et n’est motivée que par le souci de démontrer que les souverains d’Umma ne respectèrent pas la décision alors prise par une instance pourtant reconnue. Que cet événement se retrouve dans les inscriptions de ces deux 7.  Cl. Wilcke, 1988. Voir également les analyses de J.-J. Glassner, 1993, sur l’écriture de l’histoire, p. 19–48. 8.  J. Cooper, 1983, p. 38–43, avait déjà exposé les indices inhérents aux inscriptions sur les modes de composition de l’histoire. 9.  Eannatum, E1.9.3.2 et E1.9.3.3: Me-silim-e na bi2-ru2-a. Enmetena, E1.9.5.1, col. i, 8–12: Mesilim / lugal Kiški-ke4 / inim dIštaran-na-ta / eš2 GAN2 bi-ra / ki-ba na bi2-ru2.

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souverains confirme par ailleurs que les chancelleries de Lagaš en conservèrent la mémoire comme d’un acte international censé légiférer entre les deux cités rivales. De même, la guerre opposant sous Eannatum Lagaš à Umma, qui est l’objet du récit de la Stèle des Vautours 10 et est évoquée dans d’autres inscriptions d’Eannatum, fut de nouveau relatée dans une inscription d’Enmetena, 11 neveu du précédent, mais de légères divergences apparaissent dans les récits. Dans les inscriptions d’Eannatum, le souverain d’Umma est simplement nommé «l’homme» ou «l’ensi2 d’Umma», et la victoire est attribuée au roi de Lagaš; l’inscription d’Enmetena, en revanche, précise le nom des souverains d’Umma, d’abord Uš, qui transgressa l’antique décision de Mesilim, puis En-a2-kal-le, avec lequel Eannatum fixa de nouveau la frontière, et affirme qu’Umma fut vaincue par le dieu Ninĝirsu. L’inscription d’Enmetena s’appuie donc certes sur une trame narrative commune à la Stèle des Vautours, mais, ajoute, comme l’avait remarqué J. Cooper, 12 des informations, soit que cette guerre de l’époque d’Eannatum fût encore connue de la chancellerie d’Enmetena, soit que les scribes se soient inspirés d’autres archives qui nous sont inconnues. J. Cooper avait déjà mis en valeur quelques divergences dans le récit d’épisodes communs aux inscriptions de différents souverains, qui ne sauraient alors être des sources d’informations exclusives pour les scribes. Même si la tradition de la mémoire des événements paraît à cet auteur cohérente et unifiée, elle repose en partie sur des procédés rhétoriques ajoutant ou retranchant des éléments et sur des biais relatifs aux informations. J. Cooper avait également suggéré que les inscriptions pouvaient être consignées dans des archives, étant accessibles aux scribes pour reconstituer un événement passé. Les inscriptions, néanmoins dépourvues de méthode historique systématique, répondaient non à un besoin de précision, mais davantage à un souci idéologique. C’est sans doute pourquoi les inscriptions de la première dynastie de Lagaš ne se réfèrent pas à deux des prédécesseurs d’Ur-Nanše, Lugal-ša3-engur 13 et En-ḫe2-ĝal2 14 pourtant connus d’autres sources de Ĝirsu. La mémoire des événements politiques, y compris lorsqu’ils sont relativement proches comme dans le cas des inscriptions de Lagaš, demeure donc imprécise au DA, comme en témoigne également l’absence de dates. Cette mémoire, dans les inscriptions de Lagaš, ne remonte enfin pas au-delà de quelques générations et reste en fait motivée par les conflits politiques qui leurs sont contemporains.

2.2.  La mémoire des temps anciens et mythiques Dans les textes littéraires se trouvent certains indices d’une mémoire relative à des temps mythiques et cosmogoniques, qui retint notamment l’attention de J. van Dijk, 15 mais que l’on peut encore approfondir pour les époques archaïques. Une tablette de Ĝirsu, déjà commentée par J. van Dijk, 16 se rapporte précisément à une époque originelle et antérieure à la genèse de certaines des principales divinités du 10. E1.9.3.1. 11. E1.9.5.1. 12.  J. Cooper, 1983, p. 24. 13.  E. 1. 8. 1. 1: Lugal-ša3-ENGUR / ensi2 / x?.NU11.L[Aki]. 14. Gelb, I. J., Steinkeller, P. et Whiting, R. M.  Jr.: 1991 Earliest Land Tenure Systems in the Ancient Near East: Ancient Kudurrus. Chicago: OIP 104, p. 71, texte 20: Face. I. 6, II. 9 et IV. 10: Enḫe2-ĝal2 lugal Lagaški. En-ḫe2-ĝal2 pourrait cependant ne pas avoir été un des rois de Lagaš, ainsi que le soulignait Cl. Wilcke. 15.  J. van Dijk. 1964–1965. 16.  AO 4153, transcrit et traduit par J. van Dijk, 1964–1965, p. 40.

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panthéon. 17 Un texte dit UD.GAL.NUN, se réfère par ailleurs au moment où ciel et terre auraient été séparés, conformément à l’interprétation de W. G. Lambert: 18 IAS 136 III. 1–3: ud GAL.NUN / an UNU-ta bad / ki an-ta bad. Les traditions de récits des origines du monde étaient donc déjà transcrites dans les textes. Ceux-ci assuraient une conservation double de la mémoire, en explicitant ces époques en réalité ineffables car antérieures à toute pensée qui pût les saisir, et plus concrètement en renfermant le mythe dans un support écrit. Dans la mesure où le second texte se réfère à la séparation du ciel et de la terre par Enlil, alors que le texte de Ĝirsu, affirmant l’antériorité d’An, décrit comment «ciel et terre ensemble se répondent», 19 il faut en déduire que les récits mythiques, dès le IIIe millénaire, divergeaient entre eux, les mises par écrit des cosmogonies se conformant vraisemblablement à des traditions orales antérieures. L’Hymne au Temple de Keš, 20 transmis du DA à l’époque paléo-babylonienne, est également révélateur de cette mémoire. L’apport de ce texte réside en ce que le chant, apparenté au type za 3 -mi 2 , serait une œuvre d’Enlil luimême, recopiée par Nisaba, l’épisode se déroulant, si l’on suit Cl. Wilcke, à l’origine du monde. 21 La mise à l’écrit des textes serait alors une «pratique des dieux», qui puiserait son origine non dans la coutume d’un scribe de retranscrire faits et paroles attribués à l’origine, 22 mais dans une création divine à la mesure de son contenu. Cette herméneutique influe sur la réception du texte: œuvre de divinités, son origine la légitime en tant que témoin du temps passé. Ces époques ne font par ailleurs pas l’objet de datations, mais, comme on le remarque dans le cylindre de Barton, sont plus simplement resituées par une terminologie vague : u 4 -ri 2 -a u 4 -ri 2 -še 3  nanam : «ces jours-là étaient des jours lointains». 23 On possède en revanche peu d’indices sur la mémoire d’époques qui devaient déjà apparaître au DA III comme héroïques: si les manuscrits du récit Gilgameš et Akka ne remontent qu’à l’époque paléo-babylonienne, 24 les attestations archaïques des souverains divinisés Gilgameš ou Lugalbanda se limitent principalement à l’anthroponymie, 25 la toponymie 26 et aux listes lexicales de type théonymique. 27 Or, 17.  AO 4153. Face, II. 3. u4-ba En-ki Nun-ki nu-sig7 4. dEn-lil2 nu-ti 5. dNin-lil2 nu-ti «Alors ne vivaient ni Enki ni Ninki, ne vivait pas Enlil, ne vivait pas Ninlil». NUN.KI se rapporte vraisemblablement à Ninki, parèdre d’Enki, ici écrite avec le signe NUN, dont on sait qu’il peut alterner avec NIN (voir par exemple la variante dans la liste Archaic Cities entre les manuscrits de Fara et AS: SF 23. Face. III. 01. Nin-lil2 ; IAS 021. Face. III. 4. Nun-lil2). Pour une assimilation à Eridu, voir J. van Dijk, 1964–1965, p. 40. 18.  W. G. Lambert, 1981, p. 90. 19.  AO 4153. II. 2. an ki teš2-ba šeg12 an-gi4-gi4. 20.  Voir l’édition et les analyses de Cl. Wilcke, 2006. 21.  Cl. Wilcke, 2006, p. 203. 22.  Cl. Wilcke, 2006, p. 205, oppose ainsi l’anonymat de l’écriture dans l’Hymne au Temple de Keš à ce que l’on observe dans l’Épopée d’Erra, revendiqué par Kabti-Ilâni-Marduk. 23.  B. Alster et A. Westenholz, 1994, p. 18, i 1. 24.  Cl. Wilcke, 1998, p. 481. 25.  Par exemple en RTC 018, Revers II. 9 : Ur-dBil3.aga3.mes, même si les anthroponymes comportant ce nom de dieu restent peu fréquents. 26.  A Lagaš est notamment connu le toponyme Gu2-dBil3-aga3-mes, voir par exemple J. Bauer, AWL 155, p. 439. 27. Les attestations lexicales se limitent pour l’essentiel aux listes de dieux: dBil3-aga3-mes se trouve en SF 01, XIII. 7′, M. Krebernik, 1986, p. 182, et Lugalbanda dans la même liste SF 01, VII. 15, ibid.. p. 174 et en IAS 82, Face. VI. 13 et IAS 86, Face. V. 2, voir l’édition de P. Mander, 1986, p. 8 et 16.

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le règne de Gilgameš étant généralement situé dans la première moitié du IIIe millénaire et l’invention de l’écriture, attribuée dans les légendes à Enmerkar, remontant au IVe millénaire, on peut se demander comment étaient perçues ces époques lors du DA III.

3.  D’Uruk à Fara: transmission des listes lexicales, réécriture et interprétation des textes Les listes lexicales ayant fait l’objet d’une transmission de l’époque d’Uruk au DA seront ici étudiées selon deux perspectives d’analyse qui ne furent jusqu’à présent pas abordées dans la recherche: 1.  Une analyse des variantes et des modifications apportées par les manuscrits du DA aux versions d’Uruk permet de fixer les modalités de transmission des listes et d’évaluer comment les traditions d’Uruk furent admises dans des écoles telles que celle de Fara. De plus, une telle méthode peut contribuer à une meilleure définition du syllabaire et du lexique des deux époques en comparant les manières dont un même terme peut être rendu ou dont un signe peut être par la suite modifié. Ainsi certains termes se trouventils écrits à Fara sous une forme différente de celles d’Uruk permettant d’en déduire le sens: par exemple, dans la liste dite Officials, le terme archaïque NIMb2 28 est écrit en SF 59 an-ta, 29 «depuis le haut», établissant une équivalence entre le signe NIMb2 d’Uruk et une expression sumérienne classique, nim signifiant «haut». 2.  Les listes lexicales élaborées lors des périodes d’Uruk et de Jemdet Nasr constituent les seuls documents dont la rédaction corresponde aux époques légendaires. Nous postulons donc qu’implicitement elles renvoient à un horizon historique chargé de sens, mais dont on doit se demander quelle signification le processus herméneutique des écoles du DA III lui attribua. Afin de mieux cerner ces enjeux, il nous faudra appliquer une méthode d’archéologie des textes lexicaux, en évaluant les divergences de sens perceptibles entre différentes époques et leurs liens aux champs conceptuels décisifs des scribes. 30

3.1.  Remarques générales sur les listes Il convient de rappeler que, en dépit de l’existence d’un modèle commun aux divers manuscrits représentant une même liste, il existe à époque d’Uruk suffisamment de variantes, même légères, entre ceux-ci pour exclure une version figée. L’édition ATU 3 permet par ses synopsis de constater ce phénomène de variantes: les manuscrits peuvent présenter de plus ou moins grandes divergences, soit qu’une entrée lexicale soit notée différemment, soit qu’un élément fasse défaut ou soit ajouté sur l’un des manuscrits. 31 Les versions des listes d’Uruk retrouvées à Fara, AS et Ebla, ne 28.  ATU 3, Officials, no 6, p. 87. 29.  MEE III, p. 179, texte 50, entrée no 6, voir également l’édition proposée sur le site DCCLT. 30.  Bien que les textes lexicaux demeurent très allusifs, l’application de la méthode de M. Foucault, 1969, permet de mieux cerner la réception des listes dans les écoles et l’attribution de sens qui leur est imparti dans un champ institutionnel distinct. 31.  Ainsi remarque-t-on que, dans la liste Archaic Cities, le manuscrit W21208, 17, diverge dans les entrées 39–46 des autres manuscrits contemporains et de la version de Fara (SF 23), puisque ses entrées ne sont pas nécessairement à la place que l’on attend:

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prennent jamais la forme ni de pures copies, en tout point identiques à leurs précurseurs, ni de gloses ou de commentaires, ajoutant un élément d’explication à un terme.

3.2.  Transmission de la liste Lu2 A Cette liste, dont l’évolution est bien connue, est représentée par plus de 163 manuscrits d’Uruk 32 et, dans les archives archaïques d’Ur, par quatre parallèles postérieurs d’un ou deux siècles. 33 Or, ces versions d’Ur divergent davantage des manuscrits d’Uruk que ceux-ci ne présentent de variantes entre eux. Comparons les copies d’Ur et le texte représentatif d’Uruk W 21266, 1: Lu2 A

Uruk W 20266, 1

UET II, 014

UET II, 264

UET II, 299

19

O0203. 1N1 GADAa SUKKAL

O0201′. 1 (aš) gada-luḫ

O0108′. 1 (aš) gada-luḫ

20

O0204. 1N1 GALa ⸢GAa⸣

O0202′. 1 (aš) gal-ga

O0109′. 1 (aš) galGARA2 (= GAa)

21

O0205. 1N1 SIG2b ⸢GAa⸣

O0203. 1 (aš) tug2GARA2 (= GAa)

22 23

O0101′. [. . .]

O0110′. 1 (aš) tug2GARA2 (= GAa)

O0206. 1N1 GALa KISAL2b

O0102′. 1 (aš) gal-NI

O0111′. 1 (aš) gal-NI

O0207. 1 1N1 GALa NIMa

O0103′. 1 (aš) gal-KISAL

O0112′. 1 (aš) gal-KISAL

•  alors que les manuscrits d’Uruk suivent dans cette section un ordre identique, les textes d’Ur convergent entre eux dans l’inversion des entrées 22 et 23, ce qui pourrait témoigner de la part orale de la mémoire des listes; •  dans l’entrée 23, UET II 299 et 264 remplacent également, sans doute pour des raisons phonétiques, NIMa par NI ; •  les manuscrits d’Ur en Lu2 A 20 présentent une variante dans les signes du terme gal-ga, l’un employant un signe ressemblant au GARA2 des textes de Lagaš, l’autre un authentique GA. Or il est certain que le signe ressemblant à GARA2 dans les archives archaïques d’Ur est habituellement employé pour une valeur GA, telle que dans PA.GARA2.BIL2.PAP. S.377 notant Pabilga, si bien que l’on se demande si le signe GA en UET II, 014 est normal ;

SF 023

W 20266, 65

W20335, 2

W21208, 17

40

III, 3. e2×pap

0304 E2b×1N57tenû

0303′ NAa E2a

41

iii, 4. dur e2

0304 K[U3a]

0304‘ GIŠIMMARa2

42

iii, 5. na e2

0305 [NAa?].E2a

0305‘ABagunû

43

iii, 6. gišimmar pa e[2] ki

0306 [GIŠIMMA]Ra2

0306′ sig7 NIMGIR

44

iii, 7. LAK541

0307 ABagunû

0307′ BA U2b NAGAa MUŠEN ZATU647

45

iii, 8. sig7 nimgir

0308 BUa E2b

0308‘ IMa [ada]

O0201 [sig7] nimgir

32.  ATU 3, p. 16. 33.  UET II, 014, 264, 299 et 300.

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•  enfin, en Lu2 A 21 les deux manuscrits d’Ur procèdent à une substitution de SIG2, pourtant connu dans le syllabaire de cette cité, par TUG2, sans doute motivée par une proximité sémantique.

L’un des points communs à ces variantes réside dans une certaine modernisation et actualisation des scripts qui sont mis à l’ordre du jour, les signes étant par exemple écrits selon le syllabaire contemporain (GARA2 pour le GAa d’Uruk). On peut en conclure que, dès le DA I-II, les listes lexicales, se transmettant oralement, subirent des modernisations divergeant des manuscrits d’Uruk, dont le rôle dans la transmission reste indéterminé. Ces procédures d’écriture, de réécriture et de modifications jouent encore aux époques de Fara et d’Ebla, dont sont connues de nombreuses copies de la liste Lu2 A permettant de systématiser ces réflexions. 34 1.  Il est intéressant de noter que les variantes observées ci-dessus dans les manuscrits d’Ur se retrouvent toutes dans les manuscrits du DA III, plaidant en faveur d’une continuité avec la tradition fixée au DA I-II davantage qu’avec celle d’Uruk proprement dite. 35 2.  Les manuscrits du DA III ne suivent pas toujours l’ordre des versions d’Uruk: ainsi, l’entrée 42, GAL GA2×SAL+ME, absente des manuscrits d’Uruk, y est ajoutée et provoque un décalage ; de même, sont ajoutés entre 102 et 106 des noms de professions alors courantes, telles que ašgab, mais inconnues de la liste d’Uruk, voire des textes archaïques, si bien que l’on doit tenir ces entrées pour des ajouts postérieurs. 3.  Les variantes graphiques entre manuscrits d’Uruk et du DA permettent d’observer plusieurs faits : •  certains signes du syllabaire d’Uruk ayant disparu, les scribes du DA procédèrent à leur substitution, éventuellement par une séquence souvent plus complexe: ainsi en va-t-il de ZATU737×DI, remplacé par GA2×DI+ME en Lu2 A 41, tandis que les signes de la série ZATU737 sont systématiquement remplacés, comme c’était le cas à Ur, par GA2×X+ME en Lu2 A 40–44 ; les substitutions de signes concernent également des signes jugés équivalents: ainsi ZATU725, peu usité dans les textes archaïques, est-il remplacé à Fara par DUB2 en Lu2 A 51 et ŠAGAN par LAK 175 (= sanga2) en Lu2 A 62 alors que les deux signes sont différents; •  il arrive que des signes soient ajoutés dans les manuscrits postérieurs afin de donner à l’entrée lexicale un sens compréhensible: ainsi Lu2 A 52–54 sont-ils écrits de manière à laisser possible une assimilation au logogramme Abgal:

ici.

Lu2 A

Version composite d’Uruk

Manuscrits Fara-AS

53

NUNa BU3a

NUN.ME BU3 (abgal2)

54

KAR2a MEa

KAR2 ME

55

GALGAa MEa

NUN GA2×GAR ME (abgal-galga)

34.  E. Arcari, 1982, p. 12–30, a proposé un synopsis des versions du DA III auquel nous renvoyons

35.  Ainsi retrouve-t-on NI à la place de NIMa, TUG2 à la place de SIG2, et surtout un maintien dans certains manuscrits du signe GARA2 pour GA, y compris pour gal-ga, trait confirmant le lien direct avec l’époque des archives archaïques d’Ur.

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C amille L ecompte •  Il demeure une certaine ambiguïté dans la mesure où les divers manuscrits d’Uruk, dans lesquels MEa et NUNa alternent, laissent songer à une équivalence entre les deux signes; ajoutons enfin que le premier de ces trois termes, Abgal2, est également connu de Ĝirsu à époque présargonique, 36 •  une modernisation est visiblement à l’œuvre par l’ajout d’entrées comportant des signes ou des séquences de signes inconnus à époque d’Uruk: les entrées 84–85 des versions du DA III comportent SU3 AN PA.SIKIL ZA3 et SU3 PA.SIKIL ZA3, qui désignent sans doute un collecteur de taxes liées aux céréales. Or, SU3 PA.SIKIL étant inconnu de l’époque d’Uruk et n’apparaissant qu’avec les archives d’Ur, 37 cette entrée ne correspond dans les manuscrits d’Uruk à aucun équivalent; on doit donc en déduire qu’il s’agit d’un ajout intervenu au plus tôt au DA I-II.

4.  Enfin, apparaissent, notamment à partir des copies d’Ebla, des commentaires et des équivalences généralement sémitiques: Lu2 A 44, Gal-IŠ (sušx) semble avoir pour équivalence i-še3-nu et Lu2 A 48, sa12-du5, ʾa3-NE-ma, la signification des deux mots restant néanmoins quelque peu obscure.

Alors que les variantes apportées à la liste Lu2 A par les versions postérieures à celles de l’époque d’Uruk paraissent, à première vue, réduites, elles témoignent toutefois d’une certaine modernisation dans une liste dont on peut supposer que les scribes de Fara eux-mêmes la jugeaient issue d’une tradition ancienne. Or ces variantes sont généralement communes à l’ensemble des manuscrits du DA, y compris d’Ur, tandis que, si l’on suit notamment les reconstructions d’E. Arcari, 38 les divergences des manuscrits du DA III entre eux sont plus restreintes. Il est donc possible de distinguer deux traditions, l’une d’Uruk et l’autre du DA, regroupant également les textes d’Ur: la liste Lu2 A connut dès le DA I-II de premières modifications qui semblent s’être conservées au DA III, la version «canonique» de la liste étant désormais celle issue de la tradition contemporaine d’Ur et non plus celle d’Uruk; puis au DA III de nouvelles innovations sont perceptibles, notamment à travers l’ajout d’équivalences sémitiques.

3.3.  La « liste archaïque des Cités », Archaic Cities Cette liste, qui rassemble environ 90 toponymes et noms de diverses cités archaïques, 39 fut élaborée dès le niveau graphique identifié comme correspondant à la strate Uruk IV et se transmit durant plusieurs siècles, comme en témoigne un manuscrit du IIe millénaire. 40 Elle est également connue par des versions provenant de Fara et d’AS, 41 qui retiendront ici notre attention et seront l’objet d’une comparaison avec les manuscrits d’Uruk. En premier lieu, les manuscrits du DA III divergent, de manière identique à ce qui fut observé pour la liste Lu2 A, sur un plan formel et principalement graphique, alors que les cités sont globalement énumérées

36.  Voir dans J. Bauer, AWL, 125, p. 346, les références bibliographiques. D’autres attestations en dehors de VS XIV 105 et 180 (AWL 125 et 126), qui citent simplement cette fonction, peuvent être mentionnées, telles que DP 220, Face. I. 7: Abgal2-dNanše. 37.  UET II, nom propre no 482, p. 34. 38.  E. Arcari, 1982, p. 57–59 et tableaux 1–11. 39.  Editée en ATU 3, p. 145–151. 40.  UET VII, 90, édité en MSL 11, p. 62. 41.  SF 23, IAS 21–22.

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dans le même ordre que dans les avant-coureurs urukéens. La mise en œuvre d’une modernisation du texte lexical peut être illustrée dans les exemples suivants: •  Archaic Cities 71, ILDUM3um présente à la suite du logogramme NAGAR.BU le signe UM qui serait un complément phonétique; •  Archaic Cities 53 et 54, SI AN PAPa et SI AN, sont remplacés par un logogramme dont l’usage, comme on l’a vu, remonte au temps des archives d’Ur, SU3 PA.SIKIL et AN SU3 PA.SIKIL respectivement.

Certaines variantes apportées par les versions du DA III semblent ne pas relever d’une simple modernisation, mais témoignent, certes implicitement, d’une éventuelle réinterprétation et d’une herméneutique compréhensible par l’application d’une archéologie des textes cunéiformes. Dans les manuscrits d’Uruk, les noms de cités, conformément aux usages en vigueur dans les textes archaïques, sont dépourvus du déterminatif du nom de lieu, KI, alors peu usité. Alors que ce même déterminatif KI était déjà d’un usage courant lors de l’époque de Fara, on constate qu’il n’est pas employé dans les manuscrits de Fara et AS de la liste Archaic Cities. Cet élément serait anodin et pourrait être tenu pour une preuve de la volonté des scribes de suivre en cela les versions d’Uruk, si l’on ne constatait que certains noms de cités sont précédés du déterminatif de nom de dieu AN. C’est le cas de six toponymes, parmi lesquels on peut mentionner AN.ASAR et AN.NANŠE qui correspondent à la fois aux toponymes connus par cette liste et à de réels noms de dieux notamment attestés dans les listes de théonymes 42. Cet ajout du déterminatif divin ne saurait toutefois surprendre, dans la mesure où, à Fara, la tablette SF 23 fait suivre la liste Archaic Cities, pourtant toujours recopiée seule à Uruk, d’une liste de dieux lui succédant sans séparation et qui omet d’ailleurs pour sa part le déterminatif de nom de dieu. Cette fluidité des entrées lexicales entre théonymes et toponymes pourrait s’expliquer en premier lieu par une raison graphique élémentaire, puisque ce sont, pour un certain nombre d’entre eux, des logogrammes identiques qui leur sont affectés, à la manière dont on sait que NANŠE peut aussi bien noter la ville de Niĝin que la divinité Nanše. L’adjonction du déterminatif divin relèverait en second lieu d’une interprétation des scribes de Fara, qui, héritant de la liste Archaic Cities dont ils pressentaient l’ancienneté en raison de toponymes disparus après l’époque d’Uruk, y auraient vu un témoignage d’un passé ancien. Or, puisque les cités étaient toutes protégées par une divinité tutélaire qui pouvait être écrite de manière identique à sa ville, une assimilation entre lieu et essence divine l’incarnant serait envisageable. C’est donc bien un projet d’interprétation du sens et de l’origine de cette liste dont témoignent les modifications des scribes de Fara qui furent opérées dans un champ conceptuel distinct de celui de l’époque d’Uruk. La réception des listes lexicales élaborées à Uruk dans les écoles du DA revêt de multiples aspects et une certaine dynamique qui contredit l’apparente rigidité d’une transmission sans innovation. Les versions de l’époque de Fara recèlent en réalité une modernisation partielle des scripts anciens, qui témoigne des changements des modes graphiques, d’essais de rendre les textes plus intelligibles et d’interprétations plus spéculatives. La généalogie des manuscrits permet de plus de fixer l’existence, sans doute dès le DA I-II, d’une tradition qui constitua un premier filtre de réception de la tradition d’Uruk et se transmit ensuite au DA III, où l’on observe à la fois une certaine canonisation des listes et l’apport de nouveautés graphiques. 42.  M. Krebernik, 1986, p. 192 et 196, P. Mander, 1986, p. 24.

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La tradition suivie au DA III est celle contemporaine des archives archaïques d’Ur. Le mode de transmission des traditions reste matériellement difficile à définir: on aimerait savoir ce que devenaient à chaque nouvelle génération les manuscrits des listes et estimer s’ils jouaient un rôle direct dans la conservation de la mémoire ou si la mémoire des textes reposait seulement sur un mode oral. Il est seulement certain, au vu de la continuité entre manuscrits d’Ur et de Fara, que les scribes du DA III ne pouvaient s’inspirer des textes originaux d’Uruk, mais devaient travailler sur un autre matériel.

4.  Des procédures d’écriture entre compilation et imitation: les listes de dieux et de «personnel cultuel» Parmi les listes attestées au DA III mais n’ayant visiblement pas de prédécesseur à Uruk, les listes de dieux et les listes dites de «personnel cultuel» ne furent pas l’objet de versions canoniques comparables aux listes précisément héritées du IVe millénaire, mais semblent avoir été compilées en diverses versions. Le corpus des listes de dieux, certes éclaté, est surtout représenté par des manuscrits de Fara 43 et AS. 44 Bien que l’on ne possède aucun précurseur précis à ces textes, l’hypothèse fut déjà envisagée de l’existence de listes de dieux antérieures: W20713, 1 45 et UET II, 105 n’annoncent toutefois pas les traditions de Fara. Quant aux listes dites de «personnel cultuel», 46 elles désignent un ensemble à vrai dire mal défini de textes présentant de forts parallèles et ayant pour principale thématique des officiels ou fonctionnaires à charge religieuse. La recherche des sources d’inspiration de ces deux listes nous permettra d’évaluer l’influence des traditions d’Uruk, leur interprétation au DA et la manière dont cette tradition était jugée.

4.1.  Les listes de dieux Bien que les scribes ne nous aient laissé aucun commentaire sur l’élaboration de ces listes, de nombreux indices permettent de définir l’horizon culturel et chronologique des sources d’inspiration, voire des emprunts opérés. On remarque ainsi que l’incipit de la grande liste de Fara, SF 01, place Nanna et Inanna après Enlil; en l’absence de listes de dieux d’Uruk, on peut prendre comme point de comparaison la liste Archaic Cities, dont l’incipit semble être déterminé par des vues religieuses: 47 rappelons que s’y succèdent Ur, Nippur, Larsa et Uruk, qui symboliseraient en fait leurs divinités poliades respectives. Or P.  Steinkeller avait supposé qu’au début du DA, Enlil serait devenu la divinité primordiale d’une ancienne ligue de Kiengir aux dépens d’Inanna. 48 Par conséquent, il se pourrait que la liste des dieux SF 01 témoignât d’un nouvel ordre théologique nécessairement postérieur aux époques d’Uruk et de Jemdet Nasr, et qui marquerait la prééminence d’Enlil. Cet incipit de 43.  Les textes comprennent la grande liste SF 01, ainsi que les listes plus réduites SF 03–06 et SF 23, éditées par M. Krebernik, 1986. 44.  IAS 82–90, édités par P. Mander, 1986, p. 5–18 45.  R. K. Englund, 1998, p. 88 ; mais le fragment, limité à quelques lignes, pourraient également être un texte se rapportant à des sanctuaires, puisque KAR2a GI6, que l’on trouve en O0102. AN MUŠ3a KAR2a GI6 UNUGa, est un élément connu en GI6 KAR2a NUNa, qui, dans les textes administratifs, pourrait designer un sanctuaire. 46.  SF 57, IAS 44–53. 47.  M. W. Green, 1977, p. 293 ; R. K. Englund, 1998, p. 92. 48.  P. Steinkeller, 2002, p. 257.

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la liste SF 01 devrait alors être attribué au DA I-II. Comme nous l’avons remarqué plus haut, les listes de dieux comportent également les deux souverains légendaires et divinisés Lugalbanda et Gilgameš, dont les mythes ne sauraient être antérieurs au DA I-II, si l’on se fie à la situation historique présumée de ces deux figures. Cette datation est de plus confirmée par la présence de divinités écrites à l’aide de graphies seulement attestées depuis les archives d’Ur. C’est le cas de la divinité dŠEŠ. IB-gal dont le logogramme ŠEŠ.IB est employé dans les archives d’Ur et au DA III, 49 et de dE2-IGI+BUR, le signe ligaturé IGI+BUR, apparemment inconnu des archives d’Uruk, 50 étant en revanche attesté dans l’anthroponymie d’Ur 51 et encore au DA III. 52 Si les listes de dieux du DA III rassemblent plus d’une centaine de noms, les textes administratifs des époques d’Uruk et de Jemdet Nasr ne se réfèrent qu’à peu de divinités, principalement Inanna, Nanna et Enlil. Il reste certes délicat de se prononcer sur les éventuelles évolutions du panthéon sumérien au début du IIIe millénaire, mais ce hiatus dans le nombre de divinités attestées aux deux époques soulève une certaine difficulté quant à l’origine des listes. Or une comparaison entre la liste Archaic Cities et ces listes de dieux, déjà partiellement opérée par P. Mander 53, révèle une vingtaine d’éléments communs entre les deux listes. On trouve notamment : 1. Des logogrammes ambivalents représentant aussi bien des villes que des dieux (Enlil/Nippur, Nanše/Niĝin, mais la liste Archaic Cities lui octroie le déterminatif divin). 2. Des noms en premier lieu attestés comme villes, et ensuite enregistrés dans les listes de dieux où ils constituent des hapax théonymiques (Ĝirsu, KIŠ. PIRIG, UR2×U4). 3. Des noms de cités précédés de l’élément NIN (Nin-Ildum, dNinBU.ŠA.NUN.KI, dNin-NAGAR.AB), NIN signifiant «maîtresse» en sumérien classique mais étant à l’origine non sexué, comme le prouve le nom du dieu Ningirsu. Ces deux derniers types de recoupements restent quelque peu artificiels dans les listes de dieux, les «divinités» KIŠ.PIRIG ou UR2×U4 semblant en fait des emprunts directs à la liste Archaic Cities. Les noms divins formés avec NIN se conforment à une certaine motivation étymologique semblable au nom de Ninĝirsu, «maitre(sse) de NG», même si Nin-Ildum est graphiquement par son logogramme, NAGAR.BU, la déesse des charpentiers. Cette signification pourrait expliquer la présence d’une divinité nommée Ĝirsu et non Ninĝirsu et permet de constater que les scribes ajoutèrent vraisemblablement l’élément NIN à certains noms de lieux de la liste Archaic Cities. 54 Par conséquent, cette liste toponymique servit de source d’inspiration aux 49.  Rappelons que ce logogramme se trouve à Ur en plusieurs noms propres sous une forme ligaturée, UET II, p. 37, noms propres no 663–669, tandis qu’il est encore attesté à AS, par exemple dans la liste géographique Atlante geografico commune à Ebla et publiée par G. Pettinatto en MEE III, p. 232, no 71: E2-ŠEŠ+IB dans les manuscrits d’AS et E2 (¡a3)-du dans celui d’Ebla. 50.  Toutefois ATU 6, pl. 78, W15897, a2, aurait en O0202. 1N1 AN BA X BURb U4 ŠITAa1. Comme le dernier signe, récurrent dans cette archive, désigne un récipient ou une quantité qui lui est liée, le bénéficiaire de la ration (GU7 figure en clause finale, mais la mention GU4 ŠEa laisse songer à du fourrage), pourrait être AN U4 BA BURb qui serait à comprendre comme dUtu-IGI.BUR. Le signe IGI n’étant en effet pas connu dans le syllabaire d’Uruk, il pourrait en fait être, comme le suggérait déjà M. W. Green, ATU 2, p. 178, signe 40, identifié avec BA. 51.  UET II, noms propres no 114, 266, 359–364, 625, 667. 52.  Pour une interprétation du terme, notamment dans les textes de Fara, on pourra se rapporter à M. Krebernik, 1984, p. 22; il est attesté à Lagaš, par exemple dans l’archive de Ĝirsu DP 490, Revers, II. 3. 1 (aš) lagab na4IGI+BUR. 53.  P. Mander, 1980. 54.  J. Bauer, 1998, p. 499, estimait que ce type de noms en NIN témoignait du passage dans la religion mésopotamienne de divinités abstraites à des divinités anthropomorphiques.

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scribes. Ce transfert d’une liste à l’autre relève à vrai dire d’une procédure d’écriture située entre la compilation et l’intertextualité et provient vraisemblablement d’une volonté «antiquaire» des scribes du DA de recomposer le panthéon sumérien sur la base d’attestations diverses. L’attribution aux toponymes de la liste Archaic Cities d’une nature divine 55 est en effet postérieure à l’élaboration de cette liste lors de l’époque d’Uruk et témoigne d’une herméneutique contemporaine de la rédaction des listes de théonymes. C’est pourquoi on peut estimer que le processus de compilation des noms de divinités dans des listes de dieux doit être fixé au plus tôt au DA I–II, mais il est vraisemblable qu’il fût amplifié à époque de Fara. Des indices exposés, nous pouvons déduire que les listes de dieux connues à Fara furent vraisemblablement une création postérieure aux époques d’Uruk et de Jemdet Nasr. Leur existence fut motivée par la volonté des scribes d’amplifier le corpus lexical en englobant les divinités du panthéon et en les enregistrant dans des listes autonomes. Mais, en l’absence de précurseur urukéen, les scribes du DA durent sans doute sélectionner dans diverses sources et dans d’autres listes, telles que la liste Archaic Cities, les théonymes à répertorier. C’est pourquoi ces listes possèdent une nature composite, avec des divinités propres au DA, à l’instar de Lugalbanda, et d’autres «divinités» en fait inspirées de la liste urukéenne Archaic Cities. Cette création tardive expliquerait également l’absence apparente de version canonique de cette liste.

4.2.  Les listes de «personnel cultuel» C’est un même principe de compilation de termes divers qui semble avoir été à l’œuvre dans la création de ces listes, dont on a noté auparavant l’absence de version canonique à Fara et AS. Ces listes enregistrent plus d’une centaine de titres de prêtres et fonctionnaires, mais, en l’absence de toute interprétation relative à leur contenu, ces fonctions doivent encore être resituées dans leurs traditions lexicales et administratives propres. Il ressort en premier lieu qu’une grande partie des titres ne semble avoir que peu de rapports avec ceux connus de la tradition lexicale d’Uruk représentée par les listes Lu2 A ou Officials. De nombreux noms de fonctions en ŠITA, LAGAR, SANGA et ME figurent dans les listes de «personnel cultuel», mais, inconnus des listes d’Uruk, semblent des créations modernes. On trouve notamment des titres de fonctionnaires comportant des séquences graphiques postérieures à l’époque d’Uruk et apparaissant seulement au DA, tels que : GUR7 ŠITA, 56 «responsable du grenier», dont le signe GUR7 n’est pas identifié à Uruk ; ME GEŠTUG.PI, 57 comportant le terme sumérien geštug, «entendement». Également «récent» doit être l’ajout des entrées relatives à la fonction, inconnue à Uruk, de Nu-banda3, d’ailleurs vu ici non comme un administrateur, mais comme un prêtre. 58 D’autres entrées lexicales juxtaposent en réalité deux titres distincts et jamais associés ni dans les listes ni dans les archives d’Uruk: ŠITA ŠE+NAM2, ŠITA SANGA ou ME NAM2 59: il s’agit de titres quelque peu fictifs et dont on suppose qu’ils furent notés dans un souci d’imitation des titulatures urukénnes. Un autre indice probant en faveur 55.  Voir 3. 3. 56.  SF 57, Face, V. 2. 57.  SF 57, Revers, VII. 6. 58.  Par exemple, SF 57, Face II. 12. Nu-banda3-Abgal2. A Ĝirsu se trouvent des fonctionnaires nubanda3 liés à Ninĝirsu et Nin-MAR.KI en DP 132, Face, VI. 8 et Revers, III. 2. 59.  Respectivement en SF 57, Face, V. 3, Face, V. 5 et Revers, VII. 16.

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d’une création postérieure à l’époque d’Uruk, réside dans les nombreux parallèles, une trentaine, entre ces listes et la liste Archaic Cities. Tout comme pour les listes de théonymes, il est vraisemblable que les scribes du DA qui composèrent celles relatives au «personnel cultuel» se soient inspirés de sources anciennes en insérant des termes préalablement choisis dans un texte hétérogène afin de rassembler un grand nombre d’entrées. Une telle stratégie textuelle répondait sans doute à un certain désir encyclopédique de créer une liste à valeur référentielle. Les emprunts à la liste Archaic Cities sont souvent opérés en juxtaposant un titre clérical, notamment ME, à l’une des anciennes cités assimilées par là à une divinité ou un lieu saint: ME UNUG, ME UNUG.KIŠ, ME UR2×U4, SIG7 GA2×BUR.ME en sont quelques exemples. Le transfert de toponymes depuis la liste Archaic Cities vers les listes de «personnel cultuel» participe d’une procédure d’écriture contemporaine du projet herméneutique voyant dans celle-là un texte à implication religieuse et est donc postérieur à l’époque de Jemdet Nasr. Les liens de ces listes avec celles du type Officials ou Lu2 A, élaborées à Uruk, restent limités et ne concernent guère que des titres isolés, tels que GAR3, attesté en Officials 60 ou Gal-IŠ (sušx). 61 Ces listes urukéennes ne furent donc que partiellement exploitées par les scribes pour ce corpus de textes relatifs au «personnel cultuel». Afin d’illustrer le caractère composite des listes, considérons l’incipit de SF 57:  62  63  64  65  66  67

SF 57. Face.

Entrées lexicales

Autres attestations et horizon culturel

I. 1.

NIG2 EN

Eventuellement à comprendre comme niĝ2-en, «propriété» en sumérien classique.62

I. 2.

ME UKKIN

N’est pas un terme courant, mais pourrait être attesté à époque d’Uruk dans des textes administratifs,63

I. 3.

Nunusx-zi-Nanna

Nunuzzi de Nanna; le titre Nunuzzi, très peu connu, à Uruk, est plus courant à partir du DA I–II.64

I. 4.

Nunusx-zi-Utu

Nunuzzi d’Utu, titre déjà connu à époque de Jemdet Nasr.65

I. 5.

[Lag]ar-SAL-Unug

Attesté non dans des listes, mais des textes administratifs d’Uruk.66

I. 6.

SAL DUG3 LAK648

Attesté dans les archives d’Ur.67

60.  Seulement conservé dans les manuscrits du DA, voir l’édition de G. Pettinato, MEE III, p. 182, texte 50, entrée no 81 et celle proposée sur le site DCCLT. 61.  ATU 3, p. 80, Lu2 A no 69. 62.  Voir par exemple pour Ĝirsu, J. Bauer, AWL, p. 630. 63.  Par exemple en ATU 5, pl. 37, W9123, t, O0302. 1N1 MEb UKKINa. 64.  UET II, 009, Face. I. 3 et UET II, 348, Face. I. 2′’ pour le titre de Nunuzzi de Nanna, et UET II, 259, Face, III. 1 pour le titre de Nunuzzi. Dans les archives archaïques publiées par S. Monaco en CUSAS 1, 075 se trouve citée la fonction: SAL UB ZIa, CUSAS 1, 075, R0102. 65.  CUSAS 1, 098, R0106. 66.  Il s’agit de textes non publiés en format papier, mais se trouvant sur le site de CDLI: MS 2430, O0301 et HJN 0011, O0108. En MS 2509 est également attesté à deux reprises SAL LAGARa UNUGa DUR2, en O0306 et R0205. 67.  UET II, p. 32, nom propre no 311.

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C amille L ecompte

I. 7.

SAL EN LAK648

I. 8.

NU GA2

I. 9.

nuNunus

I. 10.

TU

Pourrait être attesté dès les archives administratives d’Uruk.68

x-BAD

I. 11.

TU A (asalx)

I. 12.

dI

I. 13.

ZI KI EN GI

7

tu5

Jeux autour de TU-asalx et du son TU5 ; TU et Asal sont également associés ensemble dans la liste de signes d’Ebla;69 TU5 est un logogramme sûrement récent.

   68 69

L’incipit de SF 57 permet de mettre en valeur certaines procédures d’écriture: •  les termes connus dès l’époque d’Uruk ne proviennent pas de listes lexicales; •  d’autres titres sont principalement associés chronologiquement à l’horizon des tablettes d’Ur; •  ME UKKIN fait penser aux titulatures de l’époque d’Uruk, dont le syllabaire employait bien plus régulièrement UKKIN qu’aux époques postérieures ; il pourrait s’agir d’une reprise d’un terme en dehors du champ des listes lexicales, mais évoquant éventuellement aux scribes une expression passée; •  les lignes 10–12 sont trop conformes à des normes d’époque DA III pour ne pas être une section rédigée bien après l’époque d’Uruk.

4.3.  Remarques sur les listes de dieux et de «personnel cultuel», des textes créés au DA Des observations proposées sur ces deux types de listes, on peut retenir quelques conclusions: 1.  Les manuscrits qui nous sont connus du DA III de Fara et AS ne sauraient être des copies de textes transmis depuis l’époque d’Uruk, et doivent en réalité refléter une tradition plus récente, sans doute enrichie au cours des siècles. Nous estimons donc que l’élaboration des listes de dieux et de «personnel cultuel» remonte au plus tôt à l’époque des archives archaïques d’Ur. 2.  Ces listes combinent visiblement des sources d’influences multiples, croisant les références héritées d’Uruk et passées au crible d’une nouvelle herméneutique, avec des termes et des graphies plus modernes; une procédure sans doute proche de la compilation y semble à l’œuvre. 3.  Elles démontrent par conséquent que les scribes du DA étaient imprégnés d’une culture commune, qui, transmise par le biais de l’oral et conservée par écrit, influençait les compositions modernes. Les textes appris et recopiés offraient un stock de termes susceptibles d’inspirer les listes de théonymes et de «personnel cultuel». Il existerait alors une complémentarité entre apprentissage et élaboration de textes nouveaux: ainsi la liste Archaic Cities recopiée encore à Fara fut-elle l’une des sources d’élaboration des deux listes étudiées ici. Une telle complémentarité entre lecture ou apprentissage de textes et écriture s’intègre parfaitement aux problématiques abordées 68.  Texte publié sur le site de CDLI : IM 046107. 69.  MEE III, p. 189, texte 51, Revers, III. 6–7 et texte 52, Revers, III. 15- IV. 2 avec des équivalents phonétiques et sémitiques. Voir également la liste dite Lu2 C, SF 47, éditée sur DCCLT, entrées no 1–2.

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notamment par J. Goody 70 ou par A. Petrucci pour le Moyen Âge, 71 mais qui restent à approfondir pour la Mésopotamie archaïque à la suite des études de N. Veldhuis. 72

5.  Conclusion générale Les indices d’une mémoire explicite aux époques présargoniques restent restreints et se limitent à celle, relativement imprécise, des événements politiques récents, ainsi qu’à la tradition relative aux temps mythiques ou cosmogoniques. Ces deux types de mémoire directe n’obéissent pas à des principes systématiques et sont parfois traités de manière divergente dans les traditions. Dans les deux cas, l’intervalle historique allant de la fin du IVe au début du IIIe millénaire, soit de l’invention de l’écriture aux souverains légendaires, n’est pas l’objet de témoignages particuliers. Or les listes lexicales de l’époque d’Uruk, qui se transmirent tout au long du DA, comportent divers indices de leur réception dans les écoles et de la manière dont les scribes, comme on le voit principalement à Fara, les interprétèrent. Leur transmission témoigne en premier lieu d’un certain nombre de modernisations graphiques et linguistiques, tenant sans doute au fait que leur mémoire, en partie transmise oralement, était susceptible de légères modifications. Mais les scribes, conscients que ce matériel lexical provenait d’une époque antérieure, et, de fait, distante d’eux de près de quatre siècles à époque de Fara, procédèrent dans la liste Archaic Cities à des remaniements témoignant d’un projet certes moins explicite que des gloses ou commentaires, mais que l’on peut qualifier d’herméneutique. Ces listes devaient en effet être tenues pour un témoignage d’une époque légendaire et reculée, cette situation leur conférant sans doute une valeur culturelle symbolique prestigieuse aux yeux des scribes. On comprend alors mieux pourquoi les listes de dieux et de «personnel cultuel», que nous datons au plus tôt du DA I-II et sans précurseur défini, s’inspirèrent en partie d’autres listes urukéennes, dans une procédure d’écriture relevant en partie de la compilation. Il semble que les scribes cherchèrent à créer, sous l’émulation de leurs précurseurs des époques d’Uruk et Jemdet Nasr, une tradition qui s’approchât de celles des listes archaïques. La méthode de comparaison systématique des manuscrits d’Uruk et du DA constitue enfin une perspective d’étude encore peu abordée, mais qui pourrait s’avérer nécessaire à une meilleure compréhension des textes des IVe et IIIe millénaires par une grille d’équivalences entre les signes et les termes attestés. Cette méthode devrait contribuer à une meilleure définition des langues, des lexiques et des syllabaires des époques d’Uruk et de Fara. 70.  J. Goody, 1979. 71.  A. Petrucci, 1984, p. 610. 72.  N. Veldhuis, 1997.

Bibliographie Alster, B., et Westenholz, A. 1994 The Barton Cylinder. Acta Sumerologica 16: p. 15–46. Arcari, E. 1982 La Lista di professioni «Early Dynastic Lu A». Esempio di metodo di analisi dei rapporti tra le scuole scribali del III millenio a. C. Naples: Istituto Orientale di Napoli, AION supplément 32.

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C amille L ecompte Der vorsargonische Abschnitt der mesopotamischen Geschichte in Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdynastische Zeit, ed. P. Attinger et M. Wäfler. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 429–585.

Cooper, J. 1983 Reconstructing History from Ancient Inscriptions: The Lagaš-Umma Border Conflict. Malibu: Undena, SANE 2/1. Englund, R. K. 1998 Texts from the Late Uruk Period in Mesopotamien. Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdynastische Zeit, ed. P. Attinger et M. Wäfler. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 13–233. Dijck, J. van 1964–65 Le motif cosmique dans la pensée sumérienne. Acta Orientalia 28: p. 1–59. Foucault, M. 1969 L’archéologie du savoir. Paris: Gallimard. Glassner, J.-J. 1993 Chroniques mésopotamiennes. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Goody, J. 1979 La Raison graphique, traduction de J. Bazin et A. Bensa. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Green, M. W. 1977 A Note on an Archaic Period Geographical List from Warka. JNES 36 : p. 293–94. Krebernik, M. 1984 Die Beschwörungen aus Fara und Ebla. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, TSO 2. 1986 Die Götterlisten aus Fara. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 76: p. 161–204. Lambert, W. G.: 1981 Studies in UD.GAL.NUN. Oriens Antiquus 20: p. 81–97. Mander, P. 1980 Brevi considerazioni sul testo “lessicale” SF 23 = Sf 24 e paralleli da Abu Ṣālabīkh. Oriens Antiquus 19: p. 187–192. 1986 Il pantheon die Abu Ṣālabīkh. Contributo allo studio del pantheon sumerico arcaico. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli. Petrucci, A. 1984 Lire au Moyen Âge. Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Moyen Âge –Temps Modernes: p. 603–16. Steinkeller, P. 2002 Archaic City Seals and the Question of Early Babylonia Unity in Riches Hidden in secret Palaces, Nears Eastern Studies in Memory of T. Jacobsen, éd. T, Abusch, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, p. 249–57. Veldhuis, N. 1997 Elementary Education at Nippur. The Lists of Trees and Wooden Objects, Groningen. Wilcke, Cl. 1988 Die sumerische Königsliste und erzählte Vergangenheit, in Vergangenheit in mündlicher Überlieferung, éd. J. von Ungern-Sternberg. Stuttgart: G. B. Teubner, p. 113–40. 1998 Zu „Gilgameš und Akka“. Überlegungen zur Zeit der Entstehung und Niederschrift, wie auch zum Text des Epos mit einem Exkurs zur Überlieferung von „Šulgi A“ und von Lugalbanda II“, in dubsar anta-men, Festschrift für Willem H.Ph. Römer, éd. M. Dietrich et O. Loretz. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, AOAT 253, p. 457–85. 2006 Die Hymne auf das Heiligtum Keš. Zu Struktur und „Gattung“ einer altsumerischen Dichtung und zu ihrer Literaturtheorie, in Approaches to Sumerian Literature. Studies in Honour of Stip (H. L. J. Vanstiphout), éd. P. Michalowski et N. Veldhuis. Leiden : Brill. Cuneiform Monographs 35, p. 201–37. Liens internet: CDLI: http://cdli.ucla.edu/ DCCLT: http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/

Time in Ancient Israel: Hebrew ʿôlām, Past and Future Baruch A. Levine

New York University, Emeritus The announced theme of this Rencontre directs us to ancient Near Eastern narratives that reveal perceptions of time in diverse cultures. 1 The Hebrew Bible surely qualifies as one such narrative. It characterizes the ancient Israelites as virtually obsessed with a collective sense of time, both past and future, with the present being perceived as an interlude, characterized by crucial events and requiring consequential decisions. The biblical Sage, Ecclesiastes, put it well: I have observed the anxiety that God has instilled in humans, with which to be tormented. (To be sure,) he makes everything happen properly in its appointed time, but he also put the ʿôlām in their thoughts, while leaving humans unable to grasp what God has wrought, from beginning until end (Eccl 3:10–11).

The given translation of Hebrew ʿôlām that comes closest to its nuanced meeting in this passage is that of NOAB: “a sense of past and future.” Or, one could say: “a preoccupation with past and future.” Although humans are conscious of a future destined by God, and troubled over what it may bring, they are at a loss to predict, or foresee it in time. As for awareness of the past, not only is human memory limited, but humans cannot know where they fit into the sequence of unfolding events leading up to the present generation. The Creator stopped short of empowering them with the capacity to decode his plan for the progression of human history, and all that the Sage can do is to reassure us that everything happens at the precise time that God planned for it to happen. In the words of Ps 8:2, God made humans “little less than divine.” For Ecclesiastes this undoubtedly meant that humans are frustrated by their exceptional acumen because, withal, it ultimately fails them. 2 It is generally acknowledged that usage of Hebrew ʿôlām in the Ecclesiastes passage is unusual. It speaks for the wisdom tradition, and expresses an independent idea; it can be analyzed in certain contexts as an abstract noun. In most of biblical literature, ʿôlām functions adverbially and adjectively, often with prepositions, both iunctim and separatim, and occasionally with suffixes. The primary connotation of Hebrew ʿôlām, and its cognates in Ugaritic, Phoenician-Punic, and Aramaic, is “distance in time, a distant time.” Clarifying these temporal meanings 1.  I am grateful to Jacob Klein and Wilfred G. Lambert for discussing the subject of this study with me at the Rencontre. All translations of biblical and other ancient texts are original to this author. 2. Compare similar thoughts in Eccl 8:17. For a fairly recent treatment of Hebrew ʿôlām with extensive bibliography, see H. D. Preuss (1999).

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is the primary objective of the present study, where only limited attention will be given to the well-known spatial connotation of ʿôlām as “world.” 3 Hebrew ʿôlām has occupied the thoughts of many scholars by virtue of its theological import and its broad semantic range. The present study will focus on selected biblical and other ancient texts that can help to delimit time-frames of reference indicated by ʿôlām, all in an effort to understand it as less mythic and more historical in its applicability. The cited passage from Ecclesiastes immediately follows a binary series of times during the span of human life when either beneficial or adverse situations will unavoidably arise. Each occasion is designated ʿēt “fixed, appointed time,” a term based on the root *ʿnt. We know a great deal about Hebrew ʿēt, and its cognates in Phoenician-Punic (ʿt “time”), Ugaritic (ʿnt “now”), and Aramaic (ʿn, ʿnt “fixed period; now”), and there are, in addition, Hebrew ʿattāh “now,” and ʿônāh “ season, fixed period.” In all, Ecclesiastes, chapter 3 highlights a striking contrast between the precise and the indefinite in marking time. 4 Hebrew ʿôlām expresses the polarity of time; it reaches as far back into the past as can be remembered, and projects as far into the future as can be foreseen. Actually, ʿôlām stretches and contracts in time, and this brings into question the frequent translations “time immemorial (past); eternal, forever (future).” In certain instances, these meanings are apt, but in others, ʿôlām connotes less aeonic durations, and it is this elasticity that will occupy us here, and which will be reflected in our diverse contextual translations of ’ the same lexeme, ʿôlām.

On Hebrew ʿôlām and Its Cognates It would be of considerable value to know precisely what the form ʿôlām represents by tracing its etymology, morphology, and semantic range. It turns out that it is a problematic form, in several respects. At the outset, we can dismiss the view that Hebrew ʿôlām and its cognates are related to a stative verb ʿ-l-m “to be hidden,” attested in BH in the Qal -passive, and in some of the derived stems. 5 We would not be particularly concerned with this exegetical tradition, were it not for the fact that DUL (158, s.v. ʿ-l-m, vb.) evokes it in attempting to explain a difficult passage in Ugaritic. It lists a single entry of a passive, verbal form occurring in a Ugaritic letter, KTU 2, 14:14, and read as yʿlm. It is taken to mean: “to be hidden, be unknown,

3.  See Friedman (2007) on the spatial connotations of ʿôlām in later periods (Hebrew). Also see DNWSI 862, s.v. ʿlm2, 2: “world, universe.” 4. For Phoenician-Punic, see PhPD, 393, s.v.  ʿt; For Aramaic of the pre-Rabbinic period, see DNWSI, 896–97, s.v. ʿt 1 , ʿt 2 “time, now,.” as well as 526–27, s.v. kʿn 4 [kʿnt, kʿt] “now, at this time.” In the edition of the Aramaic papyri from Naḥal Ḥever ( Yardeni-Levine 2002: 6) it was proposed that a masculine realization of ʿnt, namely, *ʿn was expressed in the Aramaic term ʿnymyn (= ʿānê–mayîn ) literally: “fixed times of water,” which is to say, of irrigation. For Ugaritic see DUL 17 1–172,s.v. ʿnt. For BH see HALAT 851–854, s.v. ʿēt, ’attāh; and 809, s.v. ʿōnāh. 5. See Ben-Yehuda V: 4345, and note 1, s.v.  ʿôlām, for this line of interpretation. See HALAT 789–90, s.v. ʿlm I, and ʿlm II for BH occurrences. These entries testify to the confusion that currently obtains in BH lexicography. Whereas HALAT correctly derives its ʿlm II from a root with ġayin, as in Ugaritic, it mistakenly derives its ʿlm I from a root with ayin, notwithstanding the fact that the both fall clearly within the same semantic range. Both entries reflect an original ġayin, and should be combined. Furthermore, the listing of cognates in both entries is utterly confusing. On later Hebrew usage, see Levy, Wörterbuch, vol.3: 655, s.v. ʿālam, vb. “verborgen sein.”

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go unnoticed.” As cited in DUL, the cited passage reads: rgm lmlk šmy w lh yʿlm “Mention my name to the king, otherwise it will go unnoticed.” 6 This is hardly possible. The meaning “to conceal,” is expressed in Ugaritic by ģlmt “concealment, darkness, thick fog,” written with ġayin, not ayin, and it occurs in parallelism with Ugaritic ẓlmt “ darkness.” 7 In the reduced Canaanite alphabet, where there is only ayin, any number of lexemes in Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician-Punic originally written with ġayin are realized with ayin and are to be differentiated. Curiously, it is this very differentiation that tells us where the meaning “to conceal” in Hebrew and Aramaic comes from. The well-known connotation “world” in Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician-Punic and Arabic (on which see just below) reflects a perception of vastness, or endlessness, but applied to space, rather than time. It is, after all, a widespread phenomenon in language to express time in spatial terms, and vice versa. We speak of time “passing,” and employ the noun “infinity” to both space and time. Regarding the meaning “world,” it is noteworthy that Arabic lexicons list under Arabic ʿalima “to know,” the nominal form ʾal ʿâlamun, written with a-alif, meaning “the world, the human world, the universe,” understood as “that by means of which the Creator is known . . . the creation”—and all that is in it. In turn, lexicons of the WS languages routinely list Arabic ʿâlam as a cognate of Hebrew ʿôlām, and its Ugaritic, PhoenicianPunic and Aramaic counterparts. 8 This is misleading, however, because the cognate relationship between Arabic and the WS languages would apply only to the meaning ”world,” and not to the temporal connotations of Hebrew ʿôlām, and its attested cognates. As was their general practice, Arabic lexicographers registered the term ʾal ʿ âlamun “world” under the same entry as homographic ʿalima “to know,” and related forms. Lane registers additional Arabic homographs that also express spatial meanings very similar to those we encounter in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician-Punic and which are predicated on the time-space transaction. Whether or not Arabic ʾal ʿâlamun was borrowed is difficult to say, but in any case, Arabic is not revealing about the etymology of Hebrew ʿôlām/ WS ʿlm. 9 Nonetheless, Arabic ʾal ʿâlamun is valuable in another way. As is often true, Arabic preserves the core morphology, even in the case of borrowed words, and may thereby contribute, in the present instance, to our understanding of how the unusual Hebrew form ʿôlām developed. It is the result of the well known conditioned sound-shift in Canaanite from accented, long a- vowel to u-vowel. This notable shift occurred in Hebrew and Phoenician-Punic, but not in Aramaic or Arabic, and of 6.  If we are “reaching,” I would prefer an alternative translation of wlh yʿlm as “so that it will be known to him,” citing Arabic ʿalima “to know,” and related forms. See n. 8, below. 7. See DUL 320, s.v. ġlmt “concealment, darkness” 1004, sv. ẓ̣lmt “darkness.” For syllabic Ugaritic, see Huehnergard 1987: 164–65, s.v. ġlmt. 8.  See Lane 2138–42, especially 2140, beginning at bottom of 3rd column, s.v. ʾal ʿâlamun, and HALAT 754–55, s.v. ʿôlām, where suggested cognates are listed. 9.  See Gesenius 232, IV. r. For a different reconstruction, see Smith 1994: 322, and n. 181, in re KTU 1.2.IV:10. Smith vocalizes the Ugaritic form as ʿôlami-ka, based on the Hebrew. We have acknowledged the likelihood that Arabic registered the known (or borrowed) term ʾalʿalamun in the sense of “world” under homographic ʿalima “to know,” but this does not allow us to dismiss an original, long avowel in the initial position. Otherwise, how are we to explain Aramaic ʿālam? Are we to conclude that it, too, is a back-formation from an original o-vowel? Furthermore, if lexical almû is, indeed, a true WS cognate of Hebrew ʿôlām and WS ʿlm, that would further endorse an initial a-vowel. See n. 13 below and the discussion of almû.

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course, not in Ugaritic, which preceded the sound shift historically. The rare qôṭāl form in Hebrew is discussed by Gesenius, noting that the initial, stressed ḥôlām is present in all declined forms. 10 There have been interesting studies on the question of when the meaning “world” for Hebrew ʿôlām and its cognates developed. For an innovative discussion of this problem in its Hebrew aspects, the attention of the reader is drawn to the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation of my former student, Hwan-Jin Yi, The Biblical Hebrew ʿolam in Time and Space: The Spatial Use of a Temporal Term ( New York University, 2002). Yi finds evidence for the spatial connotation of cognate ʿlm in early Phoenician and Aramaic royal inscriptions, most notably in the Ahiram inscription, where its functional meaning is “tomb, grave.” He proposes a similar, spatial meaning in some biblical texts, where he accordingly translates ʿôlām as “afterworld,” referring to the world inhabited by the dead. If accepted, and Yi’s argument is well-taken, these findings would indicate that the spatial meaning “world” is attested earlier in biblical times than generally thought. To summarize up to this point: We know how Hebrew and Phoenician-Punic generated the form with initial long u-vowel from one with initial long a-vowel, and we can also provide a reasonable semantic predication as to how the spatial meaning “world” developed. What remains to be clarified is the etymology of this important group of cognate forms, a subject that has been skirted by most investigators. It has been proposed that Hebrew ʿôlām is cognate with Akkadian ullû (variously ullâ, allû) “then; distant, undetermined time; all-time,” applied to both past and future. I first encountered this proposed etymology in N. H. Tur-Sina’s notes to the Ben-Yehuda dictionary, where he cites by comparison Hebrew yômām “by day.” 11 On this basis, ʿôlam/ʿlm is to be analyzed as a bound adverbial form, with -ām suffix. In other words, the final mēm is not radical, thereby allowing for a cognate relationship with Akkadian ullû. 12 Before offering a critique of this proposed derivation, its suggestiveness must be conceded. Aside from similarity in sound and correspondence in meaning, Akkadian employs ullû with prepositions such as ultu/ištu, “from,” and adi and ana “to, until.” This syntax corresponds strikingly with that of Ugaritic, Hebrew, and Aramaic /Syriac, where, in variable degrees, comparable directional prepositions are employed. Yet, tempting as it is, this proposed cognate must be rejected, even though there is ample evidence of the adverbial function for the suffix ‑ām in Ugaritic, and in the EA letters, not to speak of Hebrew. This is because, in our case, there are counterindications affirming that the final mēm is, indeed, radical. Thus, Ugaritic attests an adverbial form ʿlmh “into the distant future, forever,” in which suffixed hēh has locative, adverbial force (KTU 1.23.42). Also occurring in Ugaritic is the declined form, ʿlmk “your afterlife” (see further). Neither of these forms would be expected if the final mēm of the WS and Hebrew forms represented a suffix. There is also a phonetic objection: We would not expect the initial u- vowel in Akkadian to be realized as ayin in WS, but rather as aleph. In fact, the recognized 10. See AHw 1410, s.v. ullû(m); 1408, s.v. ulla B, and CAD A I: 358, s.v. allû. All of these entries list lexical, as well as textual synonyms. 11.  See Ben Yehuda V: 4345, and n. 1. 12.  See Sivan 1997: 178–79, s.v. “Adverbial Suffixes.” DUL 158 lists together two augmented forms, ʿllmy/ʿllmn, with their different affixes, which are taken to mean “eternal.” If these are true variants of ʿlm, they would also attest radical mēm. See Smith 1994: 144–45, s.v. KTU 1.1.IV, lines 5–12, where one of the forms, ʿllmn, is discussed.

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Hebrew cognate of Akkadian ullû and related forms is ʾēleh “those.” The similarity in sound and meaning, as between Akkadian ullû and forms of Hebrew ʿôlām/WS ʿlm must, therefore, be regarded as coincidental after all, and we would do better to adopt a different approach to the etymological problem. In that pursuit, we will discover that curiously, Akkadian ullû is indeed relevant, but in an indirect way: Rather than constituting a cognate of WS ʿlm, Akkadian ullû may well be its synonym! In his presentation at the Barcelona Rencontre, entitled, “Time as a Cosmic Principle,” Wilfred G. Lambert cited several lexical correspondences pertaining to concepts of time, among them the following from Malku, 144, s.v. VIII: 110: almû ullû

What is more, almû also has as its synonym Akkadian maḫrû “first, former, earlier, next, future” in Malku, 78, s.v. III: 73. This further clarifies its meaning, since maḫrû attests additional synonyms, albeit with predominant reference to the past. 13 It would be reasonable to conclude, without phonetic objection, that almû is a form of WS ʿlm, hence a cognate of Hebrew ʿôlām. There is, however, a qualification to this proposed etymology: the form almû is attested only lexically, not textually, and at that, only rarely.

A Word about ʿôlām in Reference to the Past The method best suited for investigating perceptions of time in ancient Israel, as conveyed by Hebrew ʿôlām, is to focus on the most precise references, those which can be approximated in time. I begin with reference to the mid-9th-century b.c.e. inscription of Mesha, king of Moab. Note the following passages from that text: wʾš gd yšb bʾrṣ ʿtrt mʿlm So, then, the men of Gad have inhabited the region of Ataroth for as long as can be remembered. wyśrʾl ʾbd ʾbd ʿlm So then, the Israelites are surely gone forever. 14

The first passage recalls the past, and the latter predicts the future. Past reference to ʿlm with prepositional min “from” invokes memory, as if to say: No one can remember a time when the Gadites, in this instance, did not inhabit Ataroth. Compare Josh 24:2, of a later date: Thus said Yahweh, God of Israel: Your ancestors inhabited Cis-Euphrates for as long as can be remembered (mēʿôlām)–Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor, and they worshiped other Gods.

Also 1 Sam 27:8: David and his men advanced, deploying to the Geshurites and the Gizrites and the Amalekites, for they are the (clans) who have inhabited the region for as 13.  Also see CAD M I: 108–13, s.v. maḫrû, adj. Among the lexical synonyms listed for maḫrû is: panû adj. “ first, next, coming; former, past” (CAD P: 96–100). 14.  For a recent, annotated edition of the Moabite Stele (= the Mesha Inscription), see Ahituv 2008: 389–419.

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B aruch A. L evine long as can be remembered (mēʿôlām), at the approaches of Shur, reaching to the Land of Egypt.

Some scholars have found this last reference problematic and reject the reading ʿôlām in favor of a similar-sounding place-name on the basis of ancient versions, but I do not share that view. 15 In fact, this passage illustrates precisely how mēʿôlām was used in demographic reports. The shared perception in the above citations is conveyed by forms of the verb yāšab “to inhabit.” This sort of statement is, after all, intended to record early habitation patterns. The Deuteronomist, in Deuteronomy chapter 2, inserted a series of similar reports, where the operative time-indicator is the synonymous lepānîm “previously, in the past” ( Deut 2:12, 20). Can we be more precise as to the periods of time being referred to in these annals and chronicles? The Moabite inscription is apparently referring to Israelite settlement in Transjordan early in the Iron Age. Biblical traditions would associate this development with the activities of David in the 10th century b.c.e. Historians would most likely take it to refer to a time preceding the conquests of Omri, the Northern Israelite king, early in the 9th century b.c.e. Either way, Moabite mʿlm does not evoke an unfathomable past but rather a historical past. In other words, when Omri moved into Transjordan, some forty years prior to Mesha’s reconquest, he found Gadites inhabiting Ataroth, and proceeded to fortify that town. Similarly, the Joshua passage refers to the ancestors of the Israelites as having inhabited CisEuphrates in the Hauran area for as long as anyone can remember, in a more distant past. Israelite chroniclers fully acknowledged that the Israelites were foreign immigrants in Canaan who seized new lands from their previous inhabitants, just as Mesha asserts that Kemosh commanded him to seize territory in Transjordan then inhabited by Israelites. Such historical contexts account for the most precise usage of mēʿôlām. Isa 61:4, an early, postexilic prophet, has this to say about those who will be restored to Zion: They shall rebuild age-old ruins (ḥorbôt ʿôlām), raise up the desolations of earlier times, and renew towns left in ruin, the desolations of (past) generations (dôr wādôr).

Reference here is to the Babylonian invasions that began in the last years of the seventh century b.c.e., not all that distant in the past. This prophetic passage is particularly significant because it attests the frequent BH parallelism ʿôlām//dôr wādôr, here directed to the past, not the future, which is more often the case. Additionally, this parallelism is shared by Ugaritic ʿlm//dr dr, but only directed to the future, as far as we know. 16

Deuteronomy 32: Failure to Learn from ʿôlām of the Past We gain further insight into the functions of Hebrew ʿôlām from Deuteronomy 32, ostensibly a northern Israelite poem, perhaps of the 8th century b.c.e., which proclaims the henotheist doctrine that Yahweh alone brought his people, Israel, to the land he granted them, and on this basis he, alone, should be worshiped. It is in15. See TANAKH, s.v. 1 Sam 27:8, and explanatory note a, and NOAB s.v. 1 Sam 27:8, and explanatory note k 16.  For valuable studies of the numerous Ugaritic-Hebrew parallel pairs, see Dahood 1972, 1975, 1981.

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fused with a consciousness of times past and exhibits the connection between ʿôlām and the verb zākar “to recount, remember.” The poet opens with a call to heaven and earth to bear witness to his testimony. He seeks to explain a manifest yet unspecified crisis in Israel’s history by affirming Yahweh’s justice in the face of an ungrateful and unworthy people, who have abandoned him to worship false gods. He poses the rhetorical question: “Do you thus repay Yahweh? . . . Is he not your father who created you? It is he who fashioned and established you!” Then he continues: Remember (zekôr) the days of times past ( yemôt ʿôlām); Probe the years of (past) generations (dôr wādôr), Inquire of your father—he will inform you; Of your elders—they will tell you. When the Most High allotted territories to nations, When he separated human communities, He set the boundaries of peoples in relation to the number of Israelites. For Yahweh reserved a (special) share for his people; For Jacob- his own territorial estate. 17

The poet proceeds to recount how Yahweh had led the Israelites through the wilderness, with no help from any other deity, caring for them and feeding them on their long march to the Promised Land. Yet, the Israelites became faithless once they grew fat and angered Yahweh by practicing idolatry. Yahweh punishes his people severely and would have wiped them out entirely were it not for the hubris of the enemy, who would erroneously attribute Israel’s defeat to their own power. In large part, Israel’s ingratitude stems from ignorance of, or indifference to, God’s acts of providence in the past, a past still remembered by parents and grandparents, or about which they had been informed. Can we pinpoint in time when it was that Yahweh delimited national boundaries for all peoples? It has already been noted that Deuteronomy chapter 2 contains a series of inserts tracing demographic changes that had occurred in neighboring areas, as if to say that what happened in Canaan with the arrival of the Israelites was not exceptional. The difference between Deuteronomy 32 and those excerpts in Deuteronomy 2 is that Deuteronomy 32 expresses the idea that one, epoch-making divine decree determined national rights to territory, not a series of periodic, demographic shifts. A similar notion would seem to apply to the Deuteronomist, in general, who pronounces the doctrine that certain neighboring nations should not be attacked because Yahweh had granted them their respective lands, just as he had granted Canaan to the Israelites (Deut 2:5, 9, 19).

Hebrew ʿôlām as Anticipating the Future Isaiah of the Exile, of the mid-to-late 6th century b.c.e., reassures the Judean exiles in Babylonia that their redemption is at hand: Thus, Isa 46:8–10: 17.  There are issues in translating this passage from Deuteronomy 32 that are unrelated to the subject of this study, yet warrant mention. See NOAB, s.v. Deut 32:8 for the alternate rendering, indicated by several ancient witnesses: “according to the number of the gods,” reading: lemispar benê ʾelōhîm, instead of Masoretic: lemsipar benê Yiśrāʾēl “according to the number of Israelites,” which we have retained. In the same spirit, I translate the closing verse differently, because the point is, in my view, that from the beginning, Yahweh had set aside a special territory for his people. It is this act which required calculating Israel’s need for land on the basis of its population. For a discussion of this text-critical problem, see Rofé 2002: 9 and n. 8, where he endorses the non-Masoretic view.

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B aruch A. L evine Remember (zikrû) this and you will regain your strength! Take this to heart, sinful people! Remember (zikrû) earlier predictions from times gone by (mēʿôlām). For I am God, there is no other divinity; no one comparable to me. At the very the outset I foretell the outcome. And from of old- what has not (yet) occurred. The one who declares: “My plan shall be fulfilled; I will achieve my entire purpose.”

This is a rare statement about the present, urging memory of the past, in anticipation of a promised future. What are the projected points in time? For this, we return to one of the same prophet’s opening statements in Isa 42:8–9: I am Yahweh; that is my name. I will not share my glory with any other, Nor my praiseworthiness with idols! Behold, events once predicted have come about, And now I foretell new events; Even before they sprout, I announce them to you.

It is quite clear that the first retrospective is to the Cyrus edict of 538 b.c.e., inviting the Judeans to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. That is to say, prophets, principally Jeremiah and Ezekiel, had predicted a restoration, which became possible after the victories of Cyrus the Great. This is what the second passage is referring to by affirming that earlier predictions had come true. Now, there is more news: Your restoration is at hand if you seize the opportunity. If this reading is correct, we once again encounter a time-span of a number of generations.

On ʿôlām with Future Reference In the Moabite inscription, cited earlier, ʿlm was also used with future reference, in the king’s victory statement: “Israel is surely gone forever” (ʾbd ʾbd ʿlm). Syntactically, we have an infinitive absolute followed by a finite verb. To understand the precise future reference of ʿlm in the Moabite text it is important to clarify, on a comparative basis, that forms of the cognate BH verb ʾ-b-d do not usually connote annihilation or complete destruction but rather indicate permanent deportation with no hope of return. This is especially true in military contexts, where we often encounter the prediction (or promise) of the return of captive exiles, Israelites and others ( Jer 30:3, 18, 33:7, 48:47, Ezek 29:14, Amos 9:14, 8). Here, the King of Moab assures his people that the Israelites are gone for good! 18 Perhaps this is the place to repeat and amplify what has been intimated above: as regards the biblical period and what preceded it, only BH and Moabite employ ʿôlām/ʿlm with reference to both past and future. As frequent as is the occurrence of ʿlm in Ugaritic, and as similar as its usage is to BH, ʿlm never refers to the past in Ugaritic, as far as we can tell. In investigating future reference we find it difficult to pinpoint periods in time, as is only to be expected. And yet, there is usage that points to specific durations. This is true of Hebrew ʾebed ʿôlām= Ugaritic ʾbd ʿlm “life long slave, permanent slave.” In the version of the law of indenture in Exod 21:6 we have: waʿabādô leʿôlām “He shall be his slave permanently.” Compare in Ugaritic, KTU 1.5.II. 12, 18.  On the nuanced meanings of Hebrew ʾābad “to disappear, be lost,” see Levine 1995: 137–58.

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where we find a message from Baal to Mot: ʾbdk an wd ʿlmk “I am your servant, who is permanently yours.” In the Ugaritic Keret epic, ʾbd ʿlm refers incidentally to slaves as property offered as tribute in war, but its parallel bn amt “son of a handmaiden” reminds us that in projecting time-spans we must take into account that the offspring of slaves remained slaves, unless emancipated. This would extend the servile status associated with him into future generations. The reference in 1 Samuel 27 projects political subservience, when the petty Philistine king of Gath boasts that David will remain his permanent tributary. Even the hyperbolic passage in Job 40 is suggestive. The poet warns that we cannot make an alliance with Leviathan to become a lifelong slave; he is a force not to be toyed with! Before concluding this brief survey of Ugaritic references to the foreseeable future, we cite a Ugaritic “scribal exercise letter,” so-called, KTU 5.9. The sender, using conventional words of greeting, addresses a request: l aḥy l rʿy “to my brother, to my friend,” asking the addressee to grant it: l aḥh l rʿh rʿ ʿlm “to his brother, to his friend, a life-long friend.” The evidence indicates that Ugaritic ʿlm, like Hebrew ʿôlām, may be declined, as noted earlier, In one passage in the Baal Cycle, KTU 1.2. IV. I0, we find declined forms of both ʿlm and its parallel dr dr: tqḥ mlk ʿlmk // drkt dt drdrk “Seize your perpetual kingship // your limitless generations of sovereignty.” Compare Ps 145:13: malkûtekā malkût kol ʿôlāmîm // ûmemšāltekā bekol dôr wādôr “Your kingship is a kingship for all eternity // your sovereignty endures throughout all generations.” These parallels occur in statements about divine powers and lead to the equation: BH melek ʿôlām (Jer 10:10) = Ugaritic mlk ʿlm (KTU 1.108.1). When brought down to earth, these statements express a divine promise to earthly kings, a theme narrated so beautifully in Nathan’s oracle. David, like each king after him, will pass away when his days are fulfilled, but the Davidic dynasty shall endure ʿad ʿôlām (2 Sam 7:16).

A Concluding Thought If there is anything distinctive about biblical perceptions of ʿôlām, it is the evocation of memory. This perspective does not reflect the major emphasis in the biblical outlook, which is strongly directed to the future of the Israelite people, but it is significant, nonetheless. Collective memory was vital to the solidarity of a migrant people in a new land, seeking to express its religion in new ways, all within a precarious regional environment. It is this mentality that connects ʿôlām to the verb zākar “to recount, remember,” bringing the past ever nearer to the present.

Abbreviations AHw Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, ed. W. von Soden. Ben-Yehuda  Dictionary and Thesaurus of the Hebrew Language, by Eliezer Ben Yehuda. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1960, 8 vols. (Hebrew) BH Biblical Hebrew CAD The Assyrian Dictionary, University of Chicago. DUL A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, ed. G. del Olmo Lete, J. Sanmartin. Leiden: Brill, 2005, 2 vols. DNWSI Dictionary of the Northwest-Semitic Inscriptions, ed. J.  Hoftijzer and K.  Jongeling. Leiden: Brill, 1995, 2 vols.

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Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, ed. E.  Kautzsch; 2nd English edition by A. E.Cowley. Oxford: Clarendon, 1910. HALAT Hebraisches und Aramaisches Lexikon zum alten Testament, ed. L. Kohler and W. Baumgartner, 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill, 1967–1990, 4 vols. KTU The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts. KTU, 2nd, enlarged edition, ed. M.  Dietrich, et al. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995. Lane An Arabic-English Lexicon, by Edward William Lane. Beirut, Lebanon: Librairie du Liban, 1980, 8 parts. Levy, Wörterbuch  Wörterbuch über die Talmudim und Midraschim, by Jacob Levy. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963, 4 vols. Malku Ivan Hrůša, Die akkadische Synonymenliste, malku = šarru. Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2010. NOAB New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. PhPD Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, by Charles R. Krahmalkov. Leuven: Peeters, 2000. TANAKH A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985. TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. J. Botterweck, et al. vol.10. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999 (translation of 1986). WS West-Semitic Gesenius

References Ahituv, Shmuel 2008 Echoes from the Past. Jerusalem: Carta. Dahood, Mitchell 1972 “Ugaritic-Hebrew Parallel Pairs.” Pp. 71–381 in vol. 1 of Ras Shamra Parallels, ed. Loren R. Fisher. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. 1975 “Ugaritic Hebrew Pairs Supplement.” Pp. 34–39 in vol. 2 of Ras Shamra Parallels, ed. Loren R. Fisher. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. 1981 “Ugaritic Hebrew Pairs Supplement.” Pp. 178–206 in vol. 3 of Ras Shamra Parallels, ed. Loren R. Fisher. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. Friedman, Shamma 2007 “The Transformation of ʿôlām.” Pp. 272–85 in vol. 2 of Shaʿarei Lashon,. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. (Hebrew) Huehnergard, John 1987 Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Levine, Baruch A. 1995 “The Semantics of Loss: Two Exercises in Biblical Hebrew Lexicography.” Pp. 137– 58 in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots, ed. Z.  Zevit et al. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Preuss, H. D. 1999 “ʿôlām.” Pp. 530–45 in TDOT vol. 10. Rofé, Alexander 2002 Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation. London: T. & T. Clark. Sivan, Daniel 1997 A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language. Leiden: Brill. Smith, Mark 1994 The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, Volume 1. Leiden: Brill. Yardeni, Ada, and Levine, Baruch, A. 2002 The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters, ed. Y. Yadin, J. C. Greenfield, A. Yardeni, B. A. Levine. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Yi, Hwan-Jin 2002 The Biblical Hebrew ʿolam (“Afterworld”) in Time and Space: The Spatial Use of a Temporal Term. Upublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University.

“Lange Jahre” und Lebenszeit bei den Hethitern Jürgen Lorenz

P h i l i p p s -U n i v e r s i t ä t M a r b u r g Die Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen Endlichkeit und die Erkenntnis der Unvermeidbarkeit des eigenen Todes ist ein Thema, mit dem sich auch die Menschen im Hethiterreich auseinandersetzten. Die Schlussfolgerung, zu der sie kamen, lässt sich kaum klarer ausdrücken als im Gebet des Kantuzzili an den Sonnengott. KUB 30.10 Vs. 21′ (CTH 373) da-an-du-ki-iš-na-ša DUMU-aš uk-⸢tu⸣-u-ri na-at-ta ḫu-⸢iš-ua⸣-an-za ḫu-iš-waan-na-aš UDḪI.A-ŠU kap-pu-u-an-te-eš „Der Mensch aber lebt nicht ewig, seine Lebenstage sind abgezählt.“ 1

Über diese Erkenntnis konnten auch die poetischsten Vergleiche nicht hinweg­ täuschen. KUB 28.8(+) Rs. r. Kol. 2′ff. (Duplikat KBo 17.22 Rs. III 5′ff.) (CTH 736) (2′) nu-za la-ba-a[(r-na-aš LUGAL-uš ut-n)e]-e da-a-aš MUḪI.⸢A⸣-[š]a-az (3′) ta-lu-ga-uš d[(a-a-aš nu la-ba)-ar-na-a]š MUḪI.A-še-eš ta!-lu-ga-e-eš (4′) pal-ḫa-e-eš a-š[a-an-du a-ru-na-aš] ma-aḫ-ḫa-an ta-lu-ga-aš (5′) pal-ḫi-iš la-b[(a-ar-na-ša MUḪI)].A QA-TAM-MA ta-lu-ga-e-eš (6′) pal-ḫi-e-eš [a-ša-a]n-du Laba[(rna, der König)], nahm sich das [(Lan)]d und lange Jahre na[(hm er)] sich. Die Jahre des Labarna sollen lang und weit s[ein]. Wie das [Meer] lang und weit ist, ebenso sollen des Lab[(arna Jahr)]e lang und weit sein. 2

Zwar ist arunaš „Meer“ an dieser Stelle nicht erhalten, aber aufgrund des Kontextes kann die Ergänzung als gesichert gelten. 3 Über die Lebenserwartung der Hethiter wissen wir so gut wie nichts. 4 Einen Anhaltspunkt dafür, was als zufriedenstellend lang angesehen wurde, ist die 1.  Vgl. Singer (2002: 32). 2.  Vgl. Klinger (2000: 158). 3.  Vgl. Klinger (2000: 158 Anm. 32). 4.  Für das Mesopotamien des 1. vorchristlichen Jahrtausends hat Dandamayev (1980) einige Personen aufgeführt, die mindestens 90 Jahre alt geworden sind und Böck (2000: 31) hat auf die Häufigkeit der Omenapodose “seine Tage sind lang” hingewiesen. J. Fincke machte mich auf die Sultantepetafel STT 400 aufmerksam, in der die verschiedenen Lebensalter des Menschen mit den “Fachbegriffen” der Omenapodosen geglichen werden. UDMEŠ LÚGUD.DA „kurze Tage“ sind demnach 50 Jahre, während UDMEŠ GÍD.DAMEŠ „lange Tage“ 70 Jahren entsprechen. 90 Jahre als höchste Altersangabe ist durch littūtum „ausgesprochen hohes Alter“ wiedergegeben.

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J ürgen L orenz

Erwähnung eines Traumes der Puduhepa in einem Gelübdetext, in dem eine Gottheit verspricht, ihrem Mann Hattušili 100 Lebensjahre 5 zu geben: KUB 15.1 Rs. III 11′f. (CTH 584) (11′) nu-ua-ra-aš TI-an-za 1 ME MUKAM.ḪI.A-ia-ua-aš-ši [ ] (12′) pí-iḫ-ḫi . . . „Er (dein Mann Hattušili) wird leben und 100 Jahre werde ich ihm geben.“ 6

Dieses Lebensalter ist im Alten Orient wohl nur in den seltensten Fällen erreicht worden, und wir haben keine Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass es auch bei den Hethitern erreicht wurde. 7 Wahrscheinlich wussten die Menschen im Anatolien des zweiten vorchristlichen Jahrtausends im Normalfall nicht, wie alt sie genau waren, weil das Lebensalter oder auch der Geburtstag im praktischen Leben keine Rolle spielten. So erklärt sich vielleicht auch, dass im Brief KBo 18.30 von Ramses II. an Hattusili III. das Alter der Schwester des Hethiterkönigs nicht genau angegeben, sondern nur auf 50 bis 60 Jahre geschätzt wird. 8 Da der Anlass des Briefes die Bitte hethitischerseits um ägyptische ärztliche Hilfe war, um eine Schwangerschaft der Prinzessin zu erwirken, können wir davon ausgehen, dass im Zusammenhang mit der Erreichung eines hohen Lebensalters eine Reproduktion in Form von Kindern als sehr wünschenswert angesehen wurde, da sie als Alterssicherung galten. In Mesopotamien waren die Kinder darüber hinaus für die Versorgung der Eltern über deren Tod hinaus zuständig. Für den hethitischen Bereich können wir das allerdings nicht nachweisen. Den verstorbenen Königen werden zwar Opfer gebracht. Der Anlass dafür scheint aber eher ihre Vergöttlichung zu sein, als die Notwendigkeit im Jenseits versorgt zu werden. Haben wir bei den hethitischen Königen noch einige Anhaltspunkte dafür, wie man sich ihre jenseitige Existenz vorstellte, 9 so liegen für die „Normalsterblichen“ so gut wie keine Informationen vor. 10 Kinder scheinen auch bei ihnen eine eher diesseitige Rolle zu spielen. Im Märchen von Appu (CTH 360) wird Kinderlosigkeit als ein wenig wünschenswerter Zustand thematisiert, 11 und in der Geschichte vom Sonnengott, der Kuh und dem Fischer (CTH 363) klingt die selbe Thematik an. 12 Die Kontrastierung im Geburtsomen KUB 8.35 ist sehr deutlich. 13 5. Aus dem ptolomäischen Ägypten ist eine Aufstellung über die Lebensalter des Menschen bekannt, in der 100 Jahre als die von der Gottheit vergebene ideale Lebenszeit bezeichnet wird. Vgl. Malamat (1981: 215). 6.  Vgl. de Roos (2007: 94, 102). 7.  Belegt ist ein Lebensalter von 104 Jahren für Adda-guppi, die Mutter des letzten Königs der neubabylonischen Chaldäerdynastie Nabonid. S. Gadd (1958: 69f.). A. Bauer verdanke ich die Kenntnis der hieroglyphenluwischen Inschrift Sheizar, die aus der ersten Hälfte des ersten Jahrtausends v. Chr. stammt. Dort ist in § 2 die Rede davon, dass die Königin, für die die Stele errichtet wurde, 100 Jahre gelebt hat. Vgl. Hawkins (2000: 417). 8.  Vgl. Edel (1994: 178f.). 9.  Vgl. Haas (1994: 216ff.). 10.  Vgl. dazu Hoffner (1988) und Şenyurt (1998). 11.  Vgl. Siegelová (1971: 4ff.). 12.  Besonders deutlich in KUB 24.7 Rs. IV 32′’ff. S.  Rieken et al. (ed.), http://www.hethiter.net/: CTH 363.1.A. 13.  Beckman (1983: 14f.).

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KUB 8.35 Vs. 3′ (CTH 545) . . . ma-a-an I-NA ITU 5KAM DUMU-aš mi-ia-ri UDKAM.ḪI.A-uš-ši ma-ni-in-ku-e-eš-ša-an-zi „Wenn ein Kind im 5. Monat geboren wird, werden die Tage für es kurz sein.“ KUB 8.35 Vs. 9′f.   (9′) . . . I-NA ITU 12KAM DUMU-aš mi-ia-ri a-pa-a-aš DUMU-aš LÚŠU.GI-eš-zi (10′) [nu]-⸢za⸣ DUMUMEŠ me-ik-ki i-ia-zi . . . „(Wenn) ein Kind im 12. Monat geboren wird, wird dieses Kind alt werden und reichlich Kinder machen.“

Zwar handelt es sich bei KUB 8.35 um Übersetzungsliteratur, die mesopotamische Tradition widerspiegelt, allerdings wird man bei den Hethitern ähnliche Vorstellungen erwarten dürfen. Kein Zufall ist es darum, wenn in Evokationsritualen dem Königspaar regelmäßig neben langem Leben auch Kinder und Enkel gewünscht werden 14 und wenn bei den guten Dingen, die das Schafvlies (KUŠkurša) enthält, das in einer Version der Mythen um die verschwundenen und wiederkehrenden Gottheiten an einem Baum aufgehängt ist, lange Jahre und Kinder zusammen genannt werden. KUB 17.10 Rs. IV 30f. (CTH 324) (30) . . . na-aš-ta (31) [a]n-da MUKAM GÍD.DA DUMUMEŠ-la-tar ki-it-ta „[d]arin liegen lange Jahre (und) Nachkommenschaft.“ 15

Sehr deutlich kommt der Zusammenhang zwischen alt werden und Kinder haben auch im Beschwörungsritual gegen die Unterirdischen zum Ausdruck. KBo 11.10 Vs. II 27′ff. (CTH 447) (27′) . . . nu A-NA LUGAL MUNUS.LUGAL DUMUMEŠ DUMU.MUNUSMEŠ     DUMU.DUMUMEŠ-ŠU-NU (28′) pa-a-i nu-uš-ma-aš LÚŠU-tar MUNUSŠU.GI pa-a-i ———————————— (29′) ku-iš-ša-an UDUḪI.A-aš ḫu-li-ia-aš nu-uš LUGAL-i MUNUS.LUGAL-ri (30′) MUKAM.ḪI.A GÍD.DA pa-a-i . . . „Dem König und der Königin gib (Sonnengottheit der Erde) Söhne, Töchter und Enkelkinder. Gib ihnen Greisenalter. Die Wolle der Schafe, sie gib als lange Jahre dem König und der Königin.“ 16

Hier ist alles drei vereint: Nachkommenschaft, Greisenalter und lange Lebensjahre. Wie in allen vormodernen Gesellschaften dürfte die Kindersterblichkeit im Hethiterreich hoch gewesen sein. Das Leben war von Geburt an sehr bedroht, und schon für die Neugeborenen werden deshalb allerlei gute Wünsche geäußert. In einem Geburtsritual heißt es beispielsweise an die Sonnengottheit der Erde gerichtet: 14.  Vgl. z.B. KUB 60.151 Vs. 1ff., KBo 13.126 r. Kol. 15′f. und KBo 48.14 Vs. 18′ff. 15.  S. Rieken et al. (ed.), http://www.hethiter.net/: CTH 324.1. 16.  Vgl. Popko (2003: 36, 47).

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J ürgen L orenz KBo 17.60 Rs. 10′f. (CTH 430) (10′) . . . A-NA DUMU-ma TI-tar in-na-ra-aḫ-ḫu-ar (11′) [Ø?] MUḪI.A GÍD.DA pí-iš-ki „Dem Kind aber gib Leben, Kraft, [ ] und lange Jahre.“ 17

In einem anderen Geburtsritual ist gar die Rede davon, dass etwas in Bezug auf das Neugeborene für immer leben soll. KBo 17.62+ Rs. IV 12′ (CTH 409) na-at uk-tu-u-⸢ri TI⸣-an e-eš-tu „Es soll ewig leben.“ 18

An dieser Stelle ist allerdings unklar, was mit „es“ gemeint ist, da der Text, wie so oft, an der entscheidenden Stelle lückenhaft ist. Beckman (1983: 39) verweist in diesem Zusammenhang auf das Entsühnungsritual KBo 15.10+. KBo 15.10+ Vs. II 5f. (CTH 443) (5) k[i-i] NA4⸢pí⸣-e-ru ma-a-aḫ-ḫa-an uk-tu-u-ri BE-LU Ù DAM-SÚ (6) DUM[UMEŠ-Š]U QA-TAM-MA uk-tu-u-ri-eš a-ša-an-du . . . „So wie di[eser] Stein ewig ist, ebenso sollen der (Ritual)herr, seine Frau und seine Kin[der] ewig sein.“

Wenn Götter aufgefordert werden, den Neugeborenen lange Jahre oder Leben zu geben, heißt das, dass die Lebensdauer nicht von vornherein unumstößlich feststand, sondern durchaus beeinflusst werden konnte, wie auch eine bekannte Stelle aus der sog. Apologie des Hattušili nahelegt: KUB 1.1 Vs. I 12ff. (mit Duplikaten, CTH 81) (12) . . . nu [(dIŠTAR GAŠAN-IA) (13) A-NA mmur-ši-li A-BI-IA ⸢Ù⸣-it mNIR.GÁL-in ŠEŠ-IA (14) u-i-ia-at A-NA mḫa-a[(t-t)]u-ši-li-ua MUKAM.ḪI.A ma-ni-in-ku-ua-an-te-eš (15) Ú-UL-ua-ra-aš TI-an-n[(a-aš n)]u-ua-ra-an am-mu-uk pa-ra-a (16) pa-a-i nu-ua-ra-aš-mu L[(Úša-a)]n-ku-un-ni-iš e-eš-du (17) nu-ua-ra-aš TI-an-za . . . „[(Ištar, meine Herrin)], schickte den Muwatalli, meinen Bruder, im Traum zu Muršili, meinem Vater: Für Ha[(tt)]ušili sind die Jahre kurz, er wird nicht leb[(en)]. Übergib ihn mir, er soll mir [(Pr)]iester sein und er wird leben.“ 19

Gerade für das Königspaar Hattušili und Puduhepa waren Leben und Gesundheit ein wichtiges Thema, wie sich zahlreichen Texten entnehmen lässt. Eine ganze Reihe von Gelübdetexten kennen kein anderes Thema, 20 und auch in einem Gebet ergeht die Aufforderung an eine Gottheit: KUB 21.27+ Rs. III 34′f. (CTH 384) (34′) nu A-NA mḫa-at-tu-ši-l[i ÌR-K]A ⸢Ù A-NA⸣ fpu-du-[ḫé-pa GÉME-KA (35′) MUḪI.A ITUḪI.A UDḪI.A-ia [da-lu-g]a-e-eš pa-a-i 17.  S. Beckman (1983: 60f.). 18. Vgl. dazu KUB 33.67 Rs. IV 28ff. mit Duplikat Bo 4861: 14′ff. wo mit den gleichen Worten wahrscheinlich auf das Leben des Opferherren Bezug genommen wird. S. Beckman (1983: 76f.). 19.  Vgl. Otten (1981: 4f.). 20.  Vgl. de Roos (2007: 26ff.).

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„Hattušil[i, dein]em [Diener], und Pudu[hepa, deiner Dienerin], gib [lan]ge Jahre, Monate und Tage.“ 21

So als wolle man wirklich sicher gehen, werden hier neben den Jahren auch die Monate und Tage genannt, um eine möglichst lange Zeit zu erbitten. Wenn schon das Leben und die Gesundheit für einen normalen Sterblichen nichts Nebensächliches waren, so waren sie beim regierenden Königspaar von staatstragender Bedeutung. War das Leben des Königs aufgrund eines üblen Vorzeichens bedroht, konnte ein sogenanntes Ersatzkönigsritual durchgeführt werden, mit dem das Schicksal des Königs auf ein Substitut gelenkt werden sollte. KUB 24.5+ Vs. 22′ff. (CTH 419) (22′) . . . ⸢nu-ua⸣ ḪUL-l[u-u]š GISKIM-iš ma-an-ni-[i]n-⸢ku⸣-ua-an-te-eš     MUḪI.A-uš (23′) ma-a-an-ni-in-ku-ua-an-⸢te⸣-eš UDḪI.A-[uš ku-u-u]n ⸢še-ik⸣-tin nu-⸢ua⸣     ki-e-[d]a-ni :tar-pa-al-li EGIR-an (24′) [ p]a-it-tin . . . „Böses Vorzeichen, kurze Jahre, kurze Tage, erkennt [diese]n. Diesem Ersatz(mann) folgt.“ 22

Im weiteren Verlauf des Rituals wird in einer parallelen Version eine lange Liste von Gottheiten, die mit DINGIRMEŠ dapiyanteš „alle Gottheiten“ abgeschlossen ist, aufgefordert: KUB 17.14+ Rs.! 18′ff. (CTH 421) (18′) [nu-z]a-an IŠ-TU MUḪI.A GÍD.DA EGIR UD-MI TI-an-ni-it (19′) [ḫa-a]t-tu-la-an-ni-it in-na-ra-u-ua-an-ni-it (20′) [aš-š]u-li kap-pu-u-ua-an-du „Mit langen Jahren in Zukunft, mit Leben, mit [Ge]sundheit, mit Lebenskraft in [Gü]te (um den König) sollen sie sich kümmern.“ 23

Auch die Aufzählungen guter Wünsche für den König und die Königin der mythologischen Texte enthalten an prominenter Stelle den Wunsch nach langen Jahren. KUB 33.68 Vs. II 13ff. (CTH 332) (13) GIŠGEŠTIN ḪÁD.DU.A ma-aḫ-ḫa-an GEŠTIN-ŠU ŠÀ-it ḫar-zi     GIŠSE20-IR-DUM (14) ma-aḫ-ḫa-an Ì-ŠU ŠÀ-it ḫar-zi dIM-ša ŠA LUGAL MUNUS.LUGAL (15) ŠA DUMUMEŠ-ŠU-NU a-aš-šu TI-tar in-na-ra-u-ua-tar MUḪI.A GÍD.DA (16) tu-uš-ga-ra-at-ta!-an QA-TAM-MA ŠÀ-it ḫar-ak „Wie die Rosine im Innern ihren Wein hält, wie die Olive im Innern ihr Öl hält, ebenso halte du, Wettergott, aber das gute Leben, die Stärke, die langen Jahren (und) die Fröhlichkeit des Königs, der Königin (und) ihrer Kinder im Innern.“ 24

Mehr oder weniger die selben Wünsche wie in Bezug auf die königliche Familie werden auch ausgesprochen, wenn es um normale Sterbliche geht. 21.  S. Sürenhagen (1981: 114f.). 22.  Vgl. Kümmel (1981: 10f.). 23.  Vgl. Kümmel (1981: 60f.). 24.  S. Rieken et al. (ed.), http://www.hethiter.net/: CTH 332.3.

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J ürgen L orenz Im Ritual der Ambazzi heißt es beispielsweise: KUB 27.67+ Rs. III 28f. (CTH 391) (28) A-NA [B]E-LU-TI-ma TI-tar in-na-ra-u-ua-tar MU[ḪI.A GÍD.DA (29) pí-eš-⸢ki⸣ . . . „Den Herren aber gib Leben, Stärke, [lange] Jahr[e]!“ 25

Und auch für diese sind kurze Jahre offenbar nicht wünschenswert. HT 6+ Vs. I 25′f. (CTH 409) (25′) [k]u-u-un-na-ua an-tu-uḫ-š[a-a]n i-da-a-lu-uš UD-az ma-ni-in-ku-ua-a-an   za MUḪI.A-za (26′) [DING]IRMEŠ-aš kar-pí-iš pa-a[n-ga]-u-ua-aš EME-aš li-e ku-ua-pí-ik-ki     a-uš-zi „Diesen Menschen sollen der böse Tag, das kurze Jahr, der Zorn der Götter, das Gerede der Leute keineswegs sehen.“ 26

Zwar gehörte der Wunsch, jemand möge „lange Jahre“ durch die Götter gewährt bekommen, nicht zu den Standardwünschen der Briefe, nichtsdestoweniger konnte er aber auch in diese Eingang finden. 27 HKM 81 Vs. 9ff. (CTH 190)  (9) nu-ut-ta TI-tar ḫa-ad-du-⸢la-tar⸣ [ ] (10) in-na-ra-u-ua-tar MUḪI.A G[ÍD.DA (11) DINGIRMEŠ-aš a-ši-ia-u-ua-⸢ar⸣ (12) [D]INGIRMEŠ-aš mi-ú-mar ⸢ZI-na-aš⸣ [ ] (13) du-uš-ga-ra-ta-an-na pí-eš-[kán-du] „Dir sollen sie (die Götter) Leben, Gesundheit, Stärke, l[ange] Jahre, Liebe der Götter, Sanftmut der Götter und Freude der Seele geb[en].“ 28

Wie andere Eigenschaften, Zustände und Zeitbegriffe auch konnten Jahre durch konkrete Gegenstände repräsentiert werden. 29 Während solche Gegenstände in den Ritualtexten nur sehr selten vorkommen, 30 sind sie als Votivgaben in den Gelübdetexten öfter anzutreffen. KUB 15.3 Vs. I 6ff. (CTH 584)   (6) [ma-a-an-ua] d30 EN-IA A-NA dUTU-ŠI ⸢da⸣-lu-ga-uš MUKAM.ḪI.A-uš   (7) [pí-eš-t]i MUKAM.ḪI.A-ua ku-i-e-eš IŠ-TU DINGIR-LIM da-ra-an-te-eš   (8) [dUTU-ŠI] UGU ti-it-ta-nu-zi nu A-NA DINGIR-LIM EN-IA 25.  S. Christiansen (2006: 51). 26.  Vgl. Hutter (1988: 45, 96). 27.  Vgl. auch den akkadischen Brief KUB 3.70 Rs. 1ff. “und sie (die Götter) sollen veranlassen, dass die Jahre des Großkönigs, des Königs des Landes Ägypten, und die Jahre des Hattusili, des Großkönigs, des Königs des Landes Hatti, seines Bruders, verlängert werden.” Edel (1994: 35). 28.  Vgl. Alp (1991: 272ff.). 29.  Zur Bestattung des Alten Jahres, das sicher durch einen konkreten Gegenstand repräsentiert wurde, als Teil des purulliya und/oder AN.TAH.ŠUMSAR Festes s. Haas (1994: 792). 30.  Unklar ist, ob es sich bei den kurzen Jahren im Ritual des mythologischen Textes KUB 36.38 (CTH 342) auch um Gegenstände handelt: KUB 36.38 Rs. 3′ [ ]-x-da-ni ma-an-ni-in-ku-ua-an-du-uš MUḪI.A-uš an-da [ [ ] A-NA DUGNA-AK-TÁM-MI ti-an-zi 1 UDU GE6 9 NINDA.KU[R4.RA S. Rieken et al. (ed.), http://www.hethiter.net/: CTH 342.1.3.

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  (9) MUKAM-ti 1 GAL KÙ.BABBAR MUKAM-ti-ma-aš-ši 1 GAL KÙ.GI (10) KI.LAL.BI NU.GÁL pí-iḫ-ḫi A-NA MUKAM-ia ku-it ITU 12KAM (11) MUKAM-li MU 1KAM ITU 12KAM-ia ŠA KÙ.BABBAR KÙ.GI (12) e-eš-šu-u-ua-an te-iḫ-ḫi KI.LAL.BI ZI-za da-aḫ-ḫi (13) na-aš A-NA DINGIR-LIM pí-eš-ki-u-ua-an te-iḫ-ḫi d30-ma (14) ku-iš ZI-an-za nu ITUKAM.ḪI.A ŠA KÙ.BABBAR KÙ.GI a-pí-e-da-ni (15) pí-eš-ki-mi . . . „Wenn du, Mondgott, mein Herr, der Majestät lange Jahre gibst. Die Jahre, die von der Gottheit festgesetzt sind, (wenn) [die Majestät] sie vollendet, werde ich der Gottheit im Jahr eine Schale aus Silber und ich werde ihr im Jahr eine Schale aus Gold von unbestimmtem Gewicht geben. Was das betrifft, dass das Jahr 12 Monate hat, so werde ich beginnen jährlich ein Jahr und 12 Monate aus Silber und Gold herzustellen, das Gewicht nach (meinem) Wunsch, und sie werde ich der Gottheit geben. Welchen Wunsch der Mondgott aber hat, nach diesem werde ich die Monate aus Silber und Gold geben.“ 31

Auch in weiteren Gelübdetexten tauchen neben anderen Gegenständen aus Edelmetall gefertigte Jahre auf. 32 Eine Textgattung, in der gegenständliche Jahre regelmäßig genannt werden, ist die der Orakeltexte. KUB 49.2+ Vs. I 9′f. (CTH 575)   (9′) . . . MUŠ ŠUM LUGAL-kán IŠ-TU MUKAM.ḪI.A GÍ[D.DA (10′) [ú-it] na-aš-kán GUNNI pa-it „Die Schlange, Name des Königs, [kam] von den la[ngen] Jahren und ging zum Herd.“ 33

Ein vergleichbares Szenario wird in KUB 18.6 beschrieben. KUB 18.6 Rs. IV 2ff. (CTH 575) (2) a-e-iz-za-ma-aš-kán I-NA EGIR.UDKAM (Rasur) (3) pa-it na-aš-kán TI-an-ni pa-it (4) na-aš-kán A-NA MUKAM.ḪI.A GÍD.DA pa-it „Von dort aber ging sie (eine Schlange) zur Zukunft, sie ging zum Leben und sie ging zu den langen Jahren.“ 34

Wie die Orte des Geschehens und die Zukunft, Leben und lange Jahre darstellenden Gegenstände aussahen, muss offen bleiben. Naheliegend wäre beispielsweise für Leben die Form der Lebenshieroglyphe. Gerade in den Orakeltexten kommen aber noch eine Reihe weiterer Benennungen für Zeit- und Schicksalsbegriffe vor, die offenbar gegenständlich dargestellt wurden. Da prinzipiell die Götter für die Verlängerung oder Verkürzung des Lebens oder auch für die Gesundheit und das Wohlergehen des Einzelnen verantwortlich waren und man in den Orakeltexten den göttlichen Willen erkundete, nimmt das allerdings auch nicht weiter wunder. Um ein langes Leben zu erhalten, konnte prinzipiell jede Gottheit angesprochen und um Gewähr gebeten werden. 31.  Vgl. de Roos (2007: 105ff.). 32.  So z.B. in KUB 31.69 Rs.? 8′ und 1333/u:4′. Vgl. dazu de Roos (2007: 202ff., 300f.). 33.  S. van den Hout (1998: 114ff.). 34.  S. van den Hout (1998: 122f.).

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J ürgen L orenz Im Beschwörungsritual für die Göttin Wišuriyanza heißt es: KBo 15.25 Vs. 9ff. (CTH 396)   (9) . . . [z]i-ga dú-i-šu-ri-ia-an-za (10) A-NA EN.SÍSK[UR E]GIR-pa TI-tar ḫa-ad-du-la-a-tar in-⸢na⸣-ra-u-ua-tar   MUḪI.A GÍD.DA (11) [IG]IḪI.A-ua u[š-ki-u-a]r GÚ-tar ša-ra-a ap-pa-a-tar-⸢ra⸣ pí-iš-ki „[D]u aber, Wischurijanza, gib dem Op[fer]herrn wieder Leben, Gesundheit, Stärke, lange Jahre, S[ehkra]ft der [Au]gen, Muskelkraft und Aufstehen.“ 35

In diesem Ritual werden einige Zeilen später die selben positiven Attribute auch von den Schicksals- und Muttergöttinnen erbeten. 36 Andererseits begrenzen im Tempelbauritual KUB 29.1 Sonnengottheit und Wettergott die Jahre des Königs nicht. KUB 29.1 Rs. III 6ff. (CTH 414) (6) dUTU-uš-za dIM-aš-ša LUGAL-un EGIR-pa kap-pu-u-e-ir (7) na-an da-a-an ma-ia-an-da-aḫ-ḫi-ir MUKAM.ḪI.A-ša-aš-ša-an (8) ku-ut-ri-iš Ú-UL i-e-ir „Sonnengottheit und Wettergott kümmerten sich wieder um den König und haben ihn wieder kräftig gemacht. Eine Begrenzung haben sie für seine Jahre nicht gemacht.“ 37

Im selben Ritual heißt es von den beiden Gottheiten, dass sie dem König die Jahre erneuert haben, was man wohl als Verjüngung auffassen muss. 38 An anderer Stelle hingegen werden Ištuštaja und Papaja und die kuša-Wesen beschrieben, die Spindeln halten und KUB 29.1 Vs. II 8ff.  (8) nu LUGAL-ua-aš MUKAM.ḪI.A-uš ma-al-ki-ia-an-zi  (9) ú-it-ta-an-na ku-ut-ri-eš-mi-it kap-pu-u-ua-u-ua-ar-ša-me-it (10) Ú-UL du-uq-qa-a-ri „die Jahre des Königs spinnen sie, und der Jahre Kürze und Zählung werden nicht gesehen.“ 39

Das aus anderen Kulturen bekannte und gängige Motiv des Spinnens des Lebensfadens ist in den hethitischen Texten sehr selten und scheint nur in Texten vorzukommen, die auf hattische Vorlagen zurückgehen. Andererseits wird in der eben zitierten Passage aus Zählbarkeit wie in der modernen Mathematik auf Endlichkeit geschlossen. An anderer Stelle wird eine Waage genannt, auf der die langen Jahre für König und Königin abgewogen werden. KBo 21.22 Vs. 18′ff. (CTH 820) (18′) ⸢ka⸣-a-ša GIŠ.ERÍN ⸢kar⸣-pí-⸢i⸣-e-mi nu la-ba-ar-na-aš ta-lu-qa-uš MUḪI.A-uš (19′) uš-ne-eš-ki-mi ka-a-ša GIŠ.ERÍN kar-pí-i-e-mi na-aš-ta (20′) MUNUS⸢ta⸣-ua-na-an-na-aš ta-lu-qa-⸢uš⸣ MUḪI.A-uš uš-ne-eš-ki-mi 35.  S. Carruba (1966: 2f.). 36.  Vgl. KBo 15.25 Vs. 23ff. 37.  S. Görke (ed.), http://www.hethiter.net/: CTH 414.1. 38.  S. KUB 29.1 Vs. II 50. 39.  S. Neu (1968: 178). Ähnlich auch KUB 29.1 Vs. I 21f.

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„Die Waage habe ich hier aufgenommen und des Labarna lange Jahre ausgewogen. Die Waage habe ich hier aufgenommen und der Tawananna lange Jahre ausgewogen.“ 40

Leider wird nicht angegeben, gegen was die Lebenszeit aufgewogen wird. Werden gerade die Schicksals- und Muttergöttinnen besonders häufig mit der Bitte um langes Leben angesprochen, so konnten auch gerade sie für einen frühen Tod verantwortlich gemacht werden. Das zeigt sich u.a. sehr deutlich im Brief KUB 23.85 Rs.? 5′ff. (CTH 180) (5′) [z]i-ik-za mta-at-ta-ma-ru-uš DUMU.MUNUS NIN-IA [D]AM-an-ni   ⸢da-a-an ḫar⸣-t[a (6′) [n]u-ut-ta dgul-ša-aš ḪUL-aḫ-da na-aš-ták-kán BA.ÚŠ „Du, Tattamaru, hattest die Tochter meiner Schwester zur Frau genommen. Dir hat die Schicksalsgöttin Böses angetan, und sie ist dir gestorben.“ 41

Aus diesen Zeilen kann man schließen, dass nicht nur Lebensjahre aktiv gegeben wurden, sondern dass das Leben des Einzelnen durch Eingreifen einer Gottheit auch beendet werden konnte. In den Texten werden nicht nur einzelne oder auch alle Götter zusammen direkt mit der Bitte um Lebenszeit angesprochen, sondern ausgewählte Gottheiten werden gebeten, als Fürsprecher in der Götterversammlung aufzutreten. KUB 21.27+ Vs. II 28f. (CTH 384) (28) [ŠA mḫa-at-tu-ši-li-ma T]I-tar DINGIRMEŠ-aš ḫu-u-ma-an-d[a-aš (29) [tu-li-ia-aš p]í-di ú-e-ik . . . „Erbitte (Sonnengöttin von Arinna) das Leben [des Hattušili, in der Versammlung] all[er] Götter.“ 42

Um eine Götterversammlung handelt es sich vielleicht auch im Telipinumythos, in der lange Jahre eine Rolle spielen. KUB 17.10 Rs. III 33f. (CTH 324) (33) nu DINGIRMEŠ-aš kat-ta ta-lu-ga-aš MUKAM.ḪI.A-aš ḫi?-m[u?-uš (34) a-ni-[i]a-nu-un na-an pár-ku-nu-nu-[un „Ich beh[and]elte bei den Göttern Substit[ute?] der langen Jahre und ihn (Telipinu) reinigte ich.“ 43

Es ist nicht sicher, wessen lange Jahre damit gemeint sind. Möglicherweise sind es die langen Jahre der Götter, was dann auf deren prinzipielle Sterblichkeit hinwiese. Auch KUB 9.4+ ist in dieser Hinsicht keineswegs eindeutig. KUB 9.4+ Rs. III 15′ff. (CTH 409) (15′) DAM-ŠU-ma-an LÚMU-ZA-ŠU i-ia-a[n-du (16′) DUMUMEŠ-ma-an at-ta-an i-ia-an-du (17′) DINGIRMEŠ-na-aš-ma-an ŠA MUḪI.A GÍD.DA (18′) ÌR-an i-ia-an-du 40.  Vgl. Kellerman (1978: 199ff.). 41.  Vgl. Hagenbuchner (1989: 15). 42.  Vgl. Sürenhagen (1981: 112f.). 43.  S. Rieken et al. (ed.), http://www.hethiter.net/: CTH 324.1.

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J ürgen L orenz „Zum Ehemann seiner Ehefrau aber sollen [sie] ihn (den König) machen. Zum Vater von Kindern aber sollen sie ihn machen. Zum Diener der langen Jahre der Götter/für die Götter aber sollen sie ihn machen“ 44

Auch an dieser Stelle ist nicht klar, ob wirklich die Lebenszeit der Götter gemeint ist. Vielleicht soll auch der König zum Diener auf Lebenszeit für die Götter gemacht werden, 45 ein Motiv, das sich etwas anders formuliert auch im Treueeid eines Schreibers in Bezug auf den König wiederfindet. 46 Eindeutiger formuliert, wenn auch nur in bruchstückhaftem Kontext erhalten, ist dagegen KBo 43.4 Vs.? II 5′ (CTH 338) [ ] nu dkam-ru-še-pa-aš a-ki „Kamrušepa wird sterben.“ 47

Auch wenn es sich dabei vielleicht nicht um eine Aussage, sondern eher um einen Teil einer Frage oder um etwas Hypothetisches handelt 48, zeigt die Zeile doch, dass der Tod von Göttern prinzipiell denkbar war und damit stattfinden konnte. Über die eben genannten Belege hinaus ist der in der mesopotamischen Tradition fest verankerte Tod von Göttern bei den Hethitern jedoch nicht weiter greifbar. Zusammenfassend kann man sagen, dass die Hethiter die Lebenszeit der Menschen als von den Göttern gewährt begriffen haben. Es war kein unumstößliches Schicksal, das mit der Geburt feststand, sondern die Lebenszeit des Einzelnen, sei er König oder normaler Mensch, konnte im positiven wie im negativen Sinn von den Götter geändert werden. Die Absicht der Götter konnte erforscht und gegebenenfalls beeinflusst werden, und als unvermeidlich Empfundenes konnte umgelenkt werden. Auch wenn sich die Hethiter ihre Götter sehr anthropomorph vorstellten, waren diese im Allgemeinen nicht sterblich (mit den oben angeführten Ausnahmen). Aber auch diese angenommene Unsterblichkeit der Götter hat den hethitischen Königen, deren Sterben mit dem Euphemismus „Gott werden“ umschrieben wurde, den Tod offenbar nicht leichter gemacht. 49 Auch sie versuchten nämlich, nach allem, was wir wissen, den Zeitpunkt ihrer Vergöttlichung möglichst weit hinaus zu schieben. 44.  Vgl. Beckman (1990: 39, 47). 45.  Beckman (1990: 47) übersetzt: “Let them make him the servant of the gods for many year!”. 46.  KUB 31.106+ Rs. III 8′:       nu-kán am-me-el MUḪI.A-u[š] UDKAM-uš A-⸢NA⸣ m⸢KÙ.GA⸣.P[Ú-ma       pa-ra-a a-ša-an-du Vgl. dazu HW2. Bd. II:E, S. 95. 47.  Vgl. dazu Polovani (2007: 569ff.) und Groddek (2007: 328). 48.  Zu möglichen Interpretationen vgl. Groddek (2007: 330) und Polvani (2007: 570ff.). 49.  Zur Vergöttlichung hethitischer Herrscher nach ihrem Tod vgl. Hutter-Braunsar (2001).

Literatur Beckman, G. M. 1983 Hittite Birth Rituals. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten. Heft 29) 1990 The Hittite „Ritual of the Ox“ (CTH 760.I.2–3). OrNS 59: 34–55.

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Die babylonisch-assyrische Morphoskopie. Wien: Institut für Orientalistik. (= Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft 27). Carruba, O. 1966 Das Beschwörungsritual für die Göttin Wišurijanza. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten Heft 2). Christiansen, B. 2006 Die Ritualtradition der Ambazzi. Eine philologische Bearbeitung und entstehungsgeschichtliche Analyse der Ritualtexte CTH 391, CTH 429 und CTH 463. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten Heft 48). Dandamayev, M. A. 1980 About Life Expectancy in Babylonia. Pp. 183–86 in B. Alster (ed.), Death in Mesopotamia. XXVIe Rencontre assyriologique internationale. Copenhagen: Akademisk. Edel, E. 1994 Die ägyptisch-hethitische Korrespondenz aus Boghazköi in babylonischer und hethitischer Sprache. Band I.  Umschriften und Übersetzungen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. (= Abhandlungen der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Band 77) Gadd, C. J. 1958 The Harran Inscriptions of Nabonidus. Anatolian Studies 8 (1958): 35–92. Groddek, D. 2007 Varia mythologica. Pp. 313–39 in D. Groddek und M. Zorman (edd.), Tabularia Hethaeorum. Hethitologische Beiträge. Silvin Košak zum 65. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007. Haas, V. 1994 Geschichte der hethitischen Religion. Leiden: Brill. (= Handbuch der Orientalistik. Abt. 1, Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten Bd. 15) Hagenbuchner, A. 1989 Die Korrespondenz der Hethiter. 2. Teil. Die Briefe mit Transkription, Übersetzung und Kommentar. Heidelberg: Winter. (= Texte der Hethiter Heft 16) Hawkins, J. D. 2000 Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. Volume I.  Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Berlin: de Gruyter. (= Untersuchungen zur indogermanischen Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft Bd. 8.1) Hoffner, H. A. 1988 A Scene in the Realm of the Dead. Pp. 191–99 in E. Leichty, M. deJ. Ellis, and P. Gerardi (edd.). A Scientific Humanist. Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs. Philadelphia: University Museum. Hutter, M. 1988 Behexung, Entsühnung und Heilung. Das Ritual der Tunnawiya für ein Königspaar aus mittelhethitischer Zeit (KBo XXI 1–KUB IX 34–KBo XXI 6). Freiburg / Göttingen: Universitätsverlag / Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. (= Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Bd. 82) Hutter-Braunsar, S. 2001 The Formula „to Become a God“ in Hittite Historiographical Texts. Pp. 267–77 in T. Abusch et al. (edd.), Historiography in the Cuneiform World: Proceedings of the XLVe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. Part 1. Harvard University. Bethesda: CDL. Kellerman, G. 1978 The King and the Sun-God in the Old Hittite Period. Tel Aviv 5: 199–208. Klinger, J. 2000 „So weit und breit wie das Meer . . .“–Das Meer in Texten hattischer Provenienz. Pp.  151–72 in Y.  L. Arbeitman (ed.), The Asia Minor Connexion: Studies on the PreGreek Languages in Memory of Charles Carter. Leuven: Peeters. Kümmel, H. M. 1967 Ersatzrituale für den hethitischen König. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten. Heft 3)

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Malamat, A. 1982 Longevity: Biblical Concepts and Some Ancient Near Eastern Parallels. Pp. 215–24 in H. Hirsch und H. Hunger (edd.), Vorträge gehalten auf der 28. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Wien. 6.-10. Juli 1981. Horn: Ferdinand Berger. Neu, E. 1968 Interpretation der hethitischen mediopassiven Verbalformen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten. Heft 5) Otten, H. 1981 Die Apologie des Hattusilis III. Das Bild der Überlieferung. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten. Heft 24) Polvani, A. M. 2007 The „Death“ of Kamrušepa. Pp. 569–74 in D. Groddek und M. Zorman (edd.), Tabularia Hethaeorum. Hethitologische Beiträge. Silvin Košak zum 65. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Popko, M. 2003 Das hethitische Ritual CTH 447. Warszawa: Agade. Roos, J. de 2007 Hittite Votive Texts. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. (= Publications de l’Institut historique-archéologique néerlandais de Stamboul. Bd. CIX) Şenyurt, S. Y. 1998 Ein Überblick über die hethitischen Jenseitsvorstellungen. Pp. 573–85 in S. Alp and A. Süel (edd.), Acts of the IIIrd International Congress of Hittitology. Çorum, September 16–22, 1996. Ankara. Siegelová, J. 1971 Appu-Märchen und Ḫedammu-Mythus. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (= Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten. Heft 14) Singer, I. 2002 Hittite Prayers. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. (= Writings from the Ancient World. Vol. 11) Sürenhagen, D. 1981 Zwei Gebete Ḫattušilis und der Puduḫepa. Textliche und literaturhistorische Untersuchungen. AoF 8: 83–168.

The Heuristic Value of E. de Martino’s Concept of Metahistory and Related Topics in Research into Mesopotamian Cultural History Alessandro Di Ludovico La processione è cominciata già nella notte. Vedo la fila dei mietitori toccano la stella l’unica rimasta in cima alla strada tortuosa. Nel mio viottolo budello i ferri dei muli sulle selci suonano mattutino. Rocco Scotellaro, Suonano mattutino

Contemporary Italian academic and scientific traditions of ethnology and cultural anthropology developed rather late in the day, in comparison with the rest of Europe and North America, and very few Italian scholars have been involved in the major international debates on the principal questions that these disciplines have faced in the course of the the last 150 years. Cultural and ethnological studies in Italy, as well as other fields of Humanities, have been deeply permeated by Crocean historicism, especially in their methodological foundations. Nevertheless, such disciplines swiftly adopted an original and composite view of human societies and a peculiar way of interpreting cultural phenomena. This is primarily due to the remarkable theoretical and field activity of Ernesto de Martino (Naples 1908 – Rome 1965) and the considerable repercussions his work had on subsequent developments in ethnology and related disciplines. Crocean historicism was central to de Martino’s education and work, but through his detailed and rich research, it became the original core of a dynamic philosophical perspective that affected his observation of world history and specific human phenomena. 1 Crocean teaching was largely rearranged by de Martino into a new personal approach, mainly inspired by both his field activity and his political activism. 2 These Author’s note: In memoriam: Paolina Mariani (June 29th 1907 – December 27th 2010). 1.  The development of this peculiar and original perspective can be detected in almost all de Martino’s works (as early as his first theoretical monograph: de Martino 1941), and in critical reactions to some of them (above all, Croce’s critical review and further reflections on de Martino 1948–Croce 1948; 1949: 193–208), but it very vividly emerges in the interpretation of specific concrete topics concerning politics, culture and society that de Martino expresses in a number of non academic writings (see, e.g., those collected in de Martino 1993: 103–9, 115–17, 123–26; they respectively date to 1948, 1948, 1949). 2. In general, de Martino’s political activism was so closely connected with his epistemological perspective that in the introduction to his second monograph he explicitly considers that kind of political and research engagement which he names “heroic historicism” as the only true form of historicism

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experiences soon led him to reach a distinctive awareness of the value and cultural dimension of his work, and then to develop a new view on his ethnological theory and methodology: the so called ‘critical ethnocentrism’ (etnocentrismo critico). 3 Originally, in de Martino’s view there was an irremediable incompatibility between his epistemological foundations and the basic logical and theoretical assumptions that developed in the best known schools of European and American sociological and anthropological thought. 4 According to the Crocean view, every human phenomenon should be considered and investigated within the frame of the Absolute Spirit progressions, and could be considered meaningful only in relation to its relationship to these progressions. This general view could necessarily lead to the consideration of popular cultures, rural communities, most non-European societies, etc., as groups that were living a decayed dimension of the spirit. ‘Critical ethnocentrism’ worked as the channel through which de Martino—who was also deeply inspired by the political thinking of Antonio Gramsci—sought ideally to bring back those human groups to the fully historical dimension. This meant helping them into a position where they could reach cultural, political and historical self-determination, and also to find their positions in the same objective phenomenological context that was more consciously experienced by the society to which the scholar himself belonged. As early as the beginning of the 1950s (athough one can easily locate symptoms of this inclination in earlier writings), de Martino’s thinking was therefore developing in a very original way. This involved a partial detachment from Crocean heritage and developing an attitude that brought him closer to some European thinkers and to an enrichment of his view with the products of some trends of international thinking. In particular, some concepts which had originated in Psychoanalysis and philosophical Existentialism found functions and roles in de Martino’s theoretical experience. 5 Two useful and interrelated concepts can serve as a synthesis of the importance and value of this intellectual course: the presence and the metahistory. (de Martino 2007: 3–7; see also Angelini 2008: 13–24). A rich picture of de Martino’s intellectual engagement in political and social problems has been outlined, e.g., by: Di Donato 1999: 159–83; Angelini 2008: 51–74. On this theme, besides many explicit and implicit clues scattered through de Martino’s scientific works, it is, again, particularly interesting to take a look at de Martino’s writings oriented to non academic readers: de Martino 1993: 103–9, 111–13, 119–21, 123–26 (dating to 1948, 1948, 1948, 1949). 3.  The logical foundations (although not yet properly developed) of ‘critical ethnocentrism’ can be located in de Martino 1941: 206–10. Some explicit statements on the topic are expressed only in later works, in particular in de Martino 1977: 389–413 (especially 395–97; see also the comments in Fabietti 1991: 146–48). Saunders 1993 makes a general survey of de Martino’s work in order to outline the intellectual birth, political facets, historical development and actual use of this concept by the Italian ethnologist: his efforts have been precious, also in recalling (quoting C. Gallini and C. Cases) that ‘critical ethnocentrism’ had been de facto part of de Martino’s methodology well before its formal explicit adoption (879), but it needs to be remarked that he was able to give only a partial picture of de Martino’s thought and field experience, and that he could not fully, nor correctly explain some basic relevant paradigms and concepts (see below, nn. 6, 7). 4. Such incompatibility was explicitly stressed by de Martino himself (1941: especially 7–118; 2007: 169–222; 1953–54), and later discussed by ethnology historians (e.g., Fabietti 1991: 135; Angelini 2008: 15–28). In his introduction to “Morte e Pianto Rituale” (first published in 1958, here referenced to in its 2000 reprint), de Martino comments the theoretical basis of his main past works, and partly reappraises his general approach (7–14). In that same work he also explicitly states his view of the current approaches of human sciences to religious and ritual phenomena and practices, and their appreciable aspects (in particular, through pp. 15–54). 5.  Besides his peculiar relationships with Heidegger’s thought and psychoanalysis (here briefly discussed in note 6), de Martino expressed clear and definite personal judgements on some theoretical

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Presence is the possibility an individual person or a whole cultural group has to act and actively attach meanings and establish relationships to worldly phenomena. 6 Of course, presence is founded on paradigms and interpretive frames of a perspectives of French Sociology (in particular, he strongly criticized Lévy-Bruhl’s perspective on ‘primitive thought’) and Religionsphänomenologie (he could agree only in part with van der Leeuw’s approach: de Martino 1953–54). A different kind of interest he showed in the work of R. Otto (de Martino 2000: 36–42; 2002: 35–66; Pàstina 2005: 115–18; Massenzio 1995: 20–29). 6.  See de Martino 2007: 156–63; 2000: 22–25; 1953–54: 15–18; 1995: 116–18. P. Angelini (2008: 39) highlights the psychiatric origin of the concept of ‘presence’ in de Martino’s ethnology, and depicts how it meant a new orientation if compared to traditional idealist historicism. The same scholar (2008: 47–49) also noticed how de Martino further defined the developments of his own methodological perspective in an introductory note (published in 1951) to the Italian edition of a collection of essays by É. Durkheim, H. Hubert, and M. Mauss (1951, quoted by Angelini 2008: 47–48). There de Martino sees a strong similarity between his concept of ‘presence’ and Hegel’s Selbstgefühl. Many scholars (but not much the just mentioned Angelini) have rightly stressed great differences between the concept of ‘being in-the-world’, related to the ‘presence’ in de Martino’s thought, and Heidegger’s Dasein: de Martino considered the possibility to act in the world as mainly based on the general interpretative and applicatory instruments that are provided by the cultural group one belongs to. On the other hand, Heidegger would have considered this much culturally and socially structured approach to the world as definitely uneigentlich. The latter concept has been used by Heidegger quite explicitly (1967: 41–45, 126–30, especially 129: “Das Selbst des alltäglichen Daseins ist das Man-selbst, das wir von dem eigentlichen, das heißt eigens ergriffenen Selbst unterscheiden. Als Man-selbst ist das jeweilige Dasein in das Man zerstreut und muß sich erst finden”; but very relevant is also the concept of Sein zum Tode, Ibid. 263: “Das Vorlaufen erweist sich als Möglichkeit des Verstehens des eigensten äußersten Seinkönnens, das heißt als Möglichkeit eigentlicher Existenz [. . .] Der Tod ist eigenste Möglichkeit des Daseins. Das Sein zu ihr erschließt dem Dasein sein eigenstes Seinkönnen, darin es um das Sein des Daseins schlechthin geht. Darin kann dem Dasein offenbar werden, daß es in der ausgezeichneten Möglichkeit seiner selbst dem Man entrissen bleibt, das heißt vorlaufend sich je schon ihm entreißen kann”). Such a different perspective in understanding and using basic concepts for the description and explanation of individual and cultural existence was due to personal originary assumptions. Though innovative and original, de Martino’s view had idealisthistoricist roots, which permeated all his work. A good and meaningful example of the consequences of his approach can be found in the use of another fundamental “exitentialist” and ethnopsychiatric concept: ‘anxiety’ (Angst, in Heidegger). Anxiety (angoscia, in de Martino and Italian translation of Heidegger) was thought and used by de Martino in a way that diverged from Heidegger’s one as much as his use and definition of ‘authenticity’ (Eigentlichkeit) and Dasein. According to de Martino, anxiety is the feeling of radical confusion before the existence, a symptom of the existential danger of losing the possibility itself to express one’s existence in the world: it is a sign of the opposition the presence puts up against the actual and developing risk of its own break up (de Martino, 2007: 70–79; 2000: 30–32; 1995: 109–12; Massenzio 1995: 32–33; see also below, n. 7). On the other hand, Heidegger (1967: 184–91) considers anxiety as the symptom of the opening for a true and authentic experience of the world, since it comes from the opportunity to directly feel the self and one’s relationship with the world: “Wenn sich demnach als das Wovor der Angst das Nichts, das heißt die Welt als solche herausstellt, dann besagt das: wovor die Angst sich ängstet, ist das In-der-Welt-sein selbst” (187); “Das Un-zuhause muß existenzialontologisch als das ursprünglichere Phänomen begriffen werden” (189). The different views between de Martino and Heidegger on concepts that were formally expressed in the same way have been discussed by: Massenzio 1995: 20–26; Cases 2007: xxviii–xxix; Fabietti 1991: 142; Cherchi – Cherchi 1987: 190–91. Saunders (1993: 882–84) was not able to locate the substantial distance between the two perspectives. If de Martino’s concept of anxiety cannot be compared to Heidegger’s, it has quite a lot in common with some theorizations in the field of psychopathology. This is explicitly said in de Martino 2000: 30–32, where writings of K. Goldstein and J. Favez-Boutonier are mentioned. Quite often in his researches de Martino mentioned the clinical observations by P. Janet while interpreting phenomena of possible ethnopsychiatric interest (e.g., de Martino 2000: 48–49; 1964; 1977: 15–18, 96–113; see also Talamonti 2005; Pàstina 2005: 122; Angelini 2008: 37–39, 128–29). Ethnopsychiatry and “existential psychiatry” were also explicitly involved in some of the leading themes (partly discussed in advance in de Martino 1964) of his last and unfinished monumental work on ‘cultural apocalypses’, posthumously published (de Martino 1977). As well as in other passages of his works, also here, while alluding to the psychopathologic Daseinanalyse, de Martino himself mentions heideggerian concepts, attaching them his personal meanings

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cultural nature and is guaranteed by the actual shared acknowledgment and mental effectiveness of those frames and paradigms in the social group. Not to be able to exert presence is tantamount to falling into a state of ‘not-being-in-the-world’, a critical condition that seriously jeopardizes the psychic and physical integrity of individuals and the group to which they belong. The ‘Loss-of-Presence’ is in de Martino’s view the fundamental risk that a cultural group glimpses when some radical events can be perceived as about to happen. Generally, magic is one of the means by which the group avoids the ‘Loss-of-Presence’ and defends and restores its possibilities to act in the world. 7 The way magic and rites work to restore the presence are summarized by the concept of dehistorification. 8 According to de Martino, rites and myths are always connected to one another by a dense net of symbolic connections which establish the actual foundations of the presence of a culture and the individuals who are part of it. The mythical-ritual dimension is thus the special ground in which the culture defends, consolidates and establishes its own possibility to stay and act in the world. The place and name that this dimension finds in de Martino’s historicism is metahistory. This view sees metahistory as the necessary condition for the cultural solution to existential crises. Crises can affect individuals or—more rarely—social groups and can be the product of quite common events as well as of unusual phenomena. The depth and danger of these crises depend on the number of people involved, and how unusual they perceive the crisis to be. For instance, a frequent source of ‘crisis of presence’ related to individual experiences is death. To overcome this, every culture has developed a ritual process of grief. Rarer are events in which the presence of whole human communities is in danger: in these cases the cultural catastrophe can only be avoided if the event does not annihilate all symbolization (168–71). Perhaps only in few lines (683) he explicitly stresses a difference between his perspective and Heidegger’s: according to de Martino, this difference can be basically due to the different backdrop to which they refer their reflections. In fact, the “scene” of Heidegger’s view would have been the petit bourgeois in modern industrial and capitalist Europe, while his own was referred to a (logically) much broader social and cultural background. Relationships between de Martino’s concept of anxiety and those developed in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis cannot be easily established. Perhaps some slight affinity can be located in Lacan’s definition of anxiety (angoisse) as an affect which prevents the subject from desire (Lacan 2004 specifically deals with the angoisse; by way of an example, one can consider what is said in p. 53: “L’unheimlich est ce qui apparaît à la place où devrait être le moins-phi. Ce dont tout part en effet, c’est de la castration imaginaire, car il n’y a pas, et pour cause, d’image du manque. Quand quelque chose apparaît là, c’est donc [. . .] que le manque vient à manquer”). Being desire one of the main boosts to human creative activities, anxiety may signal the risk of feeling prevented from being humanly (so, culturally) active in-the-world. 7.  The phenomenon of ‘Loss-of-Presence’ (and crisis-of-presence) is well described in de Martino 2000: 15–22 (see n. 6 above). Making his ‘loss-of-presence’ coincide with the Heideggerian Geworfenheit, de Martino built his personal interpretation of this concept, which was coherent with his interpretation of Dasein (see Massenzio 1995: 24–25 and n. 6, above): clear explanations of these problems and the long development of the concept of ‘Loss-of-Presence’ can be found in Di Donato 1999: 206–10; Angelini 2008: 38–50. Uncomplete and partly altered is the description Saunders (1993: 882–83) gives of presence and crisis- and loss-of-presence: a little more precise is the same author in his 1995 article (330–333). Among the very few non Italian scholars who mention de Martino, J. S. Amelang (2005: 9–14) deserves to be mentioned for briefly outlining de Martino’s idea of magic and its role in the recovering of presence (I am grateful to Prof. Amelang for sending me a copy of his article). 8.  The term “dehistorification” has been created by the author of this article as a cast from the original de Martino’s destorificazione. Saunders (1993: 875; 1995: 333) translates it as “de-historification”. On institutional and other forms of “dehistorification”, see de Martino 1953–54: 19–23; 1995: 110– 12, 122–31; 2001: 104–8; Massenzio 1986.

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abilities and possibilities of the group. In de Martino’s historicist view, such crises are, in fact, historical crises: occasions in which the danger of no longer being able to build history emerges. This is the ‘not-being-in-the-world’ state that can derive from the condition of the ‘crisis of presence’. In psychoanalytic terms, the ‘crisis of presence’ can be compared to a state of dramatic aphanisis which cannot be recovered by any signifier, 9 and the metahistorical mythical-ritual practices as sequences of acts that aim at establishing or re-establishing signifying relationships, starting from the culturally shared master-signifier. 10 Metahistory is therefore a state in which history as a human product is suspended by means of specific ritual practices in order to recover or fix the symbolic relationships necessary to culture for being-in-the-world. In his later years, de Martino was working to a precise definition of ‘dehistorification’ and the related phenomenology, and in particular to the processes that led, through ritual repetition, to the abandonment of historical presence and achievement of the state of a ‘dehistorified presence’, in which the crisis could obtain a proper ritual treatment. Meanwhile, the actual status of the individual who takes part in the rituals is that of being in history as if one would not be there (in history). 11 This treatment has mythical foundations, and the whole process works by virtue of the redundant ritual practices that establish and affirm values–which are shared basic symbolic references–and possible connections between signifiers. 12 The way it works is as effective as it is deep-rooted and its mythical references are shared in society. For this reason, de Martino often grouped these practices under the term Institutional Dehistorification. In de Martino’s view, metahistory is by definition the mythical dimension, and is also the constantly active foundation of the actual being in—and the building of—history performed by individuals and societies. 13

Metahistory and Lamaštu The field of Mesopotamian magical practices and beliefs is one of the most obvious spheres of ancient life where one would expect to find phenomena that could be interpreted in the light of the concepts of ‘dehistorification’ and ‘loss-’ or ‘recoveryof-presence’. A fairly straightforward parallel can be established, in fact, between 9.  For a basic and an extended view of the concept of aphanisis, see Lacan 1973: 188–203; Žižek 2001: 104–5; 2007: 121–22. 10.  The principles underlying the master-signifier and its role in the signifying chains and processes have been outlined in Lacan 1973: 197–202; 1966a: 33. The possible usefulness of such concept and related ones in cultural and political analysis has been showed by Žižek 1992: 69–110; 1993: 200–219. 11.  See, e. g., de Martino 1953–54: 18–21; 1977: 221–22; 1995: 122–26; Gallini 1977: xx. 12.  The concept of value plays for de Martino a central role in the description and comprehension of the symbolic order and the mythic-ritual behaviour and thought. The dimension of the value (this expression in the singular, rather than in the plural, is very often used by de Martino) is strictly connected to the concept of ethos, and is the background of many ritual practices (as those related to the process of grief). The way anthropology, sociology, and also Crocean idealism think the values can be so summarized: they are the fundamental signifiers of the whole shared symbolic order of a community, which means that they are the ultimate reference points of the cultural activity in the world. In fact, they allow to arrange other signifiers and interpret things and events in the light of the symbolic sphere (see the descriptions and hints in de Martino 2000: 42–48; 1977: 8–9, 15–18, 57–58, 176–77, 220–21, 637–39, 667–68, 674–79). 13.  Needless to say, other scholars (for example, H.  White, in his famous 1973 monograph) have used the term “metahistory” to express concepts that have nothing or very few in common with de Martino’s interpretation of it.

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some of the main subjects investigated by de Martino in Southern Italy and Mesopotamian phenomena, not least in some specific narrative contents of the rituals or the reading of omina 14. As personifications and myhtical sources of unbearable environmental, physical or psychic conditions, the many known Mesopotamian evil demons and sorcerers can all be considered as expressions of the more or less severe threats to the possibility of being-in-and building-history which one could run up against during one’s life. If considered from a point of view outside the Mesopotamian symbolic narratives, such figures can structurally be considered as signifiers essential to the performance and utterance that lead to the recovery of the presence. As signifiers, they could often be part of signifying chains, and always had to be thought in a radically different dimension to that of humans. The more they worked as symbols, the less access they had to history. In fact, they played out their cultural roles entirely in the metahistorical dimension, and had to be as effective as the interaction between them and humans was deeply shared and perceived as producing meaning on the occasions of ‘dehistorification’. 15 Among Mesopotamian demons and diseases, the first millennium Lamaštu distinguishes herself by a number of features that reveal a peculiar relationship between her and the metahistorical dimension. Written sources of different periods offer much information about the figure of supernatural being bearing the Akkadian name of Lamaštu (or Dimme in Sumerian), 16 and many visual representations that can be associated with this character date at least from the early second millennium onwards. 17 Some attributes of first millennium Lamaštu are probably due to her progressive acquisition of features that once belonged to different beings, 18 but in general the picture of this demoness seems to have reached quite a firm outline as early as the Old Assyrian age in its literary form and the Early Iron age in its iconography. 19 First millennium Lamaštu’s textual depiction can be quite easily and accurately compared with her visual appearence on contemporary amulets, and both types of description are consistent. The demoness looks like a composite monstrous being; she has the head of a lion, often with showy donkey’s ears, talons of a bird of prey, 14.  See for instance de Martino 2001: 15–67. The structured system of signs and codified observations that was recently defined “Babylonian Semiotics” and “Mantic Body” by Bahrani (2008: 57–99) resembles very much, in some logical aspects, some of the magic behaviours and beliefs de Martino observed in southern Italy, as well as the kind of diagnosis, care and interpretation of signs related to the action of Lamaštu described by Wiggermann 2000: 236–40. 15.  The fundamental metahistorical nature of signifiers, especially of those which play key roles in signifying chains and the symbolic sphere, has been well discussed (though, of course, making no reference to de Martino or his concept of metahistory) by J. Lacan (e.g., 1966b: 272–89, 685–95, 793–827); especially important and logically basic is the “Nom-du-Père” (2005; 1966b: 812—“C’est le père mort, répond Freud, mais personne ne l’entend, et pour ce que Lacan en reprend sous le chef du Nom-du-Père”). 16.  Names, iconographies, genealogy, mythology and beliefs pertaining to Lamaštu have been discussed and summarized, for instance, in: Wiggermann 1983; 2000; Farber 1980–83; Thureau-Dangin 1921; Tonietti 1979; Leibovici 1971: 94–96. E. Reiner (1966: 80) also remarks that the “Almasti” attested in Central Asia could have a lot in common with Lamaštu, and thus be a kind of “survival” of the ancient Mesopotamian demon. 17. Thureau-Dangin (1921) tried a first systematic view on the then known amulets against Lamaštu, providing also translations of the attached incantations; Wiggermann (2000: 219–24) classified Lamaštu amulets and proposed a convincing diachronic development of them. 18.  Farber 1980–83: 439. One of these beings could be Samana (Finkel 1998: in particular 92–93; Stol 2006–8; Leibovici 1971: 100–101). 19.  Wiggermann 2000: 217–24; 231–36.

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and a body covered in spots or scales. Lamaštu is rarely winged and usually does not have accentuated sexual attributes, while her jaws and claws are emphasized. Some objects and animals can be seen by Lamaštu’s side: their roles and symbolisms have been outlined and interpreted by scholars in some depth. 20 Some of them are at times omitted or only subtly alluded to. Among the most significant ones, a comb, a spindle, a little jar, a piglet, a puppy, a donkey’s leg, a donkey, snakes, a scorpion. Lamaštu’s victims are almost exclusively children. According to the surviving narrative, Lamaštu abducts infants and kills them, 21 she counts the months and days remaining before their birth, and sometimes causes miscarriages. Of course, by endangering pregnancy, Lamaštu causes the emerging of symptoms in the expectant mother, but her logical target is still the child. 22 The content of a number of incantations against Lamaštu could inspire deep reflection, but the general figure of the abductor of infants is the most relevant topic here. Lamaštu is not the only demonic character that attacks newborn or very young children: some other figures, like Samana or the triad Lilu, Lilitu, and Ardat Lili behave in a similar way, however Lamaštu seems to be the only one that is precisely specialised in acts against the survival or the birth of infants. Lamaštu’s favoured victims are the newest descendants of humans, that is to say, the concrete beings that embody and symbolize the community’s actual presence—in de Martino’s meaning of mastering one’s being-in-the-world. By attacking infants, Lamaštu endangers the capacity of human beings to actively produce history. On the one hand, newborn children represent the actual future life of the community, and the results and evidence of its effective capacity to produce a meaningful historical process, to build its own signifying history. On the other hand, according to some incantations, Lamaštu cannot give birth to any creature, 23 and, in general, the nourishment she can offer to children is poisonous, thus producing the opposite physiological effect of that of each human mother’s milk. The latter is not only a means of nourishment: it is also the cultural means by which the woman carries out one of the basic acts ensuring the community’s presence in history and giving sense to it. In fact, keeping alive a newborn seems to fit quite well with the function of mastering history, and the words of an incantation from the Lamaštu Canonical Series used to describe the tying up of the demoness here seem significant: “Tie her to a mountain tamarisk or a solitary reed stalk!/Like a dead person who has no burial/ Or a stillborn child who suckles not a mother’s milk” (B. R. Foster). 24 20.  See above, n. 15. Other works focusing on specific symbols related to Lamaštu are: Farber 1987; 2007b; Wiggermann 2010. 21.  For instance by poison or strangulation: Falkenstein 1931: 10–11; Wiggermann 1983: 101–2; 2000: 230–32; Farber 1980–83: 444; 1995: 1897; 2007a: 141. Some ritual practices aimed at preserving the child and the mother during pregnancy and in the earliest days of life are recorded in: Farber 1989: 60–61, 68–73, 102–5, 116–17. A short but rich overview of these ritual defense practices is in Volk 1999: 4–6. 22.  This is also what W. Farber (2007a: 141) states, after having expressed disagreement with some interpretations (in particular, J. V. Kinnier Wilson’s and J. Scurlock’s) on possible illnesses or specific medical symbolisms related to Lamaštu. In that same contribution, Farber remarks how Lamaštu has to be considered a “primary demon and not a secondary personification of a disease” (p. 145), and, as such, she poses a general and serious threat to children, so to mankind. This impression could agree with what Wiggermann (2000: 242) says about what seems to be a tendency to use incantations against Lamaštu for general prophylactic purposes. 23.  Foster 2005: 982; Leibovici 1971: 93. 24.  Foster 2005: 983.

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Just like the dead who have no official funerary rites, the general implicit cultural interpretation of non-surviving or undernourishing of newborn children can be quite clearly understood in the context of the perspective offered by de Martino: they are signs of the unsolved crisis of presence, that in other words can be expressed as the feeling of being-acted-by. 25 Agents that symbolize this status are forces that can be dangerous as they cannot be referred to usable signifiers. De Martino explains very clearly the importance, for the sake of personal and social psychic protection, of the “delimitation of a hidden agent” (my translation) 26 related to the crisis. His later research largely dealt with this point and was oriented towards an ethnopsychiatric reading of the different degrees of possession as depersonalization and being-acted-by. 27 Despite the superficial meaning such “being-acted” might suggest, it is a state of crisis that involves the active relationship between humans and the world: it is the crisis of presence. De Martino uses the parallel expression beingacted-by because it fits both the existential content of these crises and the typical forms of possession by which they emerge. 28 Almost all Mesopotamian demons show traits that suggest they are outside history, like their undefined nature of creatures that are simultaneously similar to both gods and spirits of the dead, or their undefined (because usually very wide and boundless) and inhospitable places of origin and dwelling. 29 In de Martino’s terms, they belong to the metahistoric sphere, and could have an indirect relationship with the dimension of value (but this is not the way de Martino would have interpreted them: within the tradition of absolute historicism, he would have probably rather considered them as symptoms of an insufficient existential stability, of a precarious or frequently threatened presence), and therefore play central symbolic roles in many rituals. As a relic of ancient cultural history, Lamaštu can be interpreted in 25.  Farber (2007a: 141–42) highlights: “Her attack on the babies is thus aimed at instant death, and not at inflicting a potentially curable disease [. . .] In a way, she thus produces a social fait-accompli rather than a curable medical problem, which is underlined by the fact that she even prevents the dead children from getting a normal burial. [. . .] She is out to deprive the family and/or society of members of the next generation, and even of any memory of them”. Also interesting in this perspective is what van der Toorn (1999: 141–43) remarks: “The god has his dwelling place in the išertum, a spot that must be located at the centre of the house [. . .] In the Sippar incantation, published by Cavigneaux and Al-Rawi, the demon first kills the cattle [. . .], and then proceeds to the fireplace (kinūnum) and the išertum [. . .] The ultimate problem [. . .] [is] the disastrous effects of these irregular events upon the god (and goddess) of the house. The departure of the god [. . .] is the final episode in a series of untoward happenings [. . .] The children having died, Lamaštu surreptitiously enters the storage room [. . .] Her next act is the dispersion of the fireplace [. . .] The ‘fireplace’ is the heart of the house and symbolizes the presence and continuity of the family; an ‘extinguished fireplace’ (kinūnum belûm) stands for an extinct family. By dispersing the fireplace, then, the demon ruins the family”. Also the lines from the Sumerian hymn to the sun god that van der Toorn quotes (Ibid.: 145) seem very relevant to this subject. 26.  De Martino 2001: 100. 27.  De Martino 2001: 98–103; 1977; 1995. 28.  The experience of being-acted-by is one of the phenomena observed by P. Janet that de Martino considered fitting for his perspective on psychic and cultural crises (de Martino 2001: 98–103, 109–16, 181–84; Angelini 2008: 48, 108). 29.  The origins of Lamaštu are sometimes located in the sky (Farber 1989: 102–3); after all, one of her most frequent epithets is “daughter of Anu” (see, e.g., Farber 1989: 116–17; Thureau-Dangin 1921: 171, 196, 198; Myhrman 1902). Inhospitable and usually desolate places are those where demons are forced back by incantations; see Reiner 1966: 79; Tonietti 1979: 304–7; Farber 1980–83: 439; 2007b: 141; Foster 2005: 982; Wiggermann 2010: 409. Some formulas of the Lamaštu “canonical series” contain explicit references to such typical “demonic” landscapes: “wie ein Wildesel der Steppe besteige deinen Berg!”; “nach dem Getiere der Steppe richte dein Antlitz!” (Myhrman 1902: 163).

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the same way, but her peculiarities lead to attach to her a slightly different logical role among the demonic creatures. Lamaštu does not only exist outside history and endanger human possibilities to be-in- and build history. Differently from other demons, for example those usually related to diseases, Lamaštu represents the general threat to presence. Her activities against human procreation are par excellence an attack on the possibility for the existence of a human history, on the capacity humans have to develop their history. The cultural meaning of the complete deprivation of individual humans or human communities of their progeny and procreation possibilities is a radical halting of their own historical processes. In such conditions, humans are cast in a dimension in which they cannot authentically act their own history, but are rather acted-by, in a destructive metahistorical spiral. This does not mean that frequent or isolated stillborn babies, miscarriages, or dying children were an unrecoverable loss which actually threatened the surviving of Mesopotamian cultures. They should rather be considered phenomena that severely exposed them to the risk of not being able to restore a historical horizon, that is to say, a cultural structure in which these phenomena could be effectively inscribed. As noted by de Martino and other historians of religion, the effectiveness and importance of magical practices are, in fact, not related to what present-day capitalist cultures could consider technical success. Magical beliefs and practices are effective as long as they can ensure, build, and renew the symbolic horizon that absorbs the crisis. Their existence would not be possible if they were not authentically shared, supported, and fed by members of the community, and not just by specialists. 30 Magic itself requires relevant practices to be deeply rooted in a dense and dynamic net of signifiers. This net must be profoundly engraved in individual psycho-physical entities and constantly live in their daily utterances and performances. 31 It is also for these reasons that the number of figures taking part in rituals is usually huge, and that many objects are involved in the rituals. 30.  Here “authentically” has to be considered more in the light of de Martino’s meaning of authenticity, than as Heidegger’s Eigentlichkeit (see above, footnote 6). In relation to a very different context from the ones with which I am dealing here and de Martino dealt in the mentioned works, M. de Certeau (1975: 249–73) very finely showed and examined two important issues that deserve to be shortly reminded here. On one hand, he remarked how both common people who are more or less directly involved in the ritual action and “ritual specialists” act and talk on a largely shared symbolic background. On the other hand, he noticed that while the ‘specialist’—in particular the academic scientist, but also the ritual specialist or similar figures–is often inclined to put his own speech on the place of the cultural phenomena he (or she) observes (I would consider a typical example of this substitution of speech the tendency to consider magic practices as attempts to mechanistically act on natural or human phenomena), something else, different and not reducible to the terms of official speech, comes back from the observed otherness: something that may even alter the official (academic or pertaining to the ritual) knowledge, a revenant ghost (I would locate an example of this altering potential in the embarrassing question of the actuality of magic powers that de Martino often mentions, especially in de Martino 2007). 31.  De Martino 2001: 89–116; 2002: 35–83; 2007: 169–222; see also Augé 1979. Trolle Larsen (1987: 205–8; I thank Prof. Eckart Frahm for pointing me to this article) makes a quick and interesting examination of magical thought, mentioning works of notable anthropologists like Lévi-Strauss, EvansPritchard, Leach, Godelier. In my opinion, however, he makes a mistake in interpreting magic and in outlining the differences between non-scientific and scientific perspectives, when he does not consider properly the logical environments in which each time those perspectives develop (see also below, n. 37), and when he does not face the risk–for the scientist or other observers–of errors of perspective (or errors of symmetrization) in assessments of phenomena pertaining to different cultural groups but looking analogous to one’s group.

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In the light of what has been stated here, in Mesopotamia in the first half of the first millennium, Lamaštu’s main stratified characteristics perhaps allowed her to become the most suitable personification of the concept and feeling of loss-ofpresence or being-acted-by. The recorded tendency to extend the use of rituals and formulas related to Lamaštu or the well known “Lamaštu vs. Pazuzu” amulet’s iconography 32 to other kinds of existential crises can be interpreted on this basis. In fact, it seems that a quite general symbolic connection was increasingly being established between the figure of this demoness and the crisis of presence.

Metahistory, Politics, and Culture The relevance of de Martino’s concept of metahistory to the sphere of political relationships and communication is less obvious. Nevertheless, an updated use of the ideas of value and metahistory described here seems helpful for the interpretation of some Mesopotamian cultural and political interrelated phenomena that took place during the reign of Šulgi and those reigns immediately before and after. The nature and number of the so called reforms promoted, suggested or carried out by Šulgi have been long discussed, and deserve a proper treatment. 33 At least two of them, anyway, stand out because they can be related to the topics under discussion here: the more intensely spread use of writing in administrative offices and the deification of the royal figure. The enlargement of the number of literate officials and scribal schools, and the increase of the occasions in which writing was used in official contexts can be logically connected to some administrative choices, like the “bala”-system and to the boasts contained in some of Šulgi’s hymns about the king’s abilities in writing and reading different languages. 34 The introduction of a uniform system of weights and measures also falls within this logical field. 35 Though in different measures, all these phenomena can be considered parts of a general program of cultural reforms and of the relevant feedback effects, as well as the consequences of more radically cultural developments. I have dealt with this topic elsewhere: 36 what is important to recall here is the cultural value of Šulgi’s deification. It ideally separated the king from the human community, not just in the sense of a difference in nature, but rather from the point of view of signifiers. As a divine king, Šulgi aimed at entering a course that had to lead him closer to the purely symbolic dimension. This process could see him become a master-signifier and allow him to place his image at the heart of the metahistoric dimension. In fact, it is very likely that Šulgi’s propagandistic project had the goal of producing and imposing the ideal of a unique Southern Mesopotamian state with a linear cultural and political history. Literary works like the Sumerian King List and Šulgi’s Hymns (in particular those in which a kinship relationship is asserted between the king and 32.  See n. 21 and Wiggermann 2000: 222–24. 33.  This subject has been part of the paper I have presented at the 52nd RAI in Münster in 2006 (Di Ludovico in press). Šulgi’s reforms have been analyzed and examined in particular in: Sollberger 1954–56: 17–20; Steinkeller 1987: 20–21; Waetzoldt 1991: 638–39; Sallaberger 1999: 146–56, 234–37. 34.  See Castellino 1972: 11–17, 19–22, 30–69, 243–63; Klein 1981: 14–16; on the bala-system: Steinkeller 1987. 35. Sallaberger 1999: 147–48; Sollberger 1954–56: 18; Steinkeller 1987: 21. According to Sallaberger (1999: 147–48), this reform did not cause the introduction of a new system of weights and measures, but rather the generalization and consistent use in the Land of an existing one. 36.  Di Ludovico in press.

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gods or heroes of the epic like Gilgameš and Lugalbanda) 37 bear a number of symptoms of the plan to establish an idea of kingship that had an autonomous existence outside the historical process (both in the sense of Absolute Spirit History and in that of history of events). Within the state administration, the wider use of writing favoured the development among the officials of a shared tendency to evaluate events by parameters abstracted from daily life contexts. 38 By virtue of this process state administrators were able to introduce the view of official ideology in their ordinary documents, but also to understand better than the others the strategies of power and possibly dodge them. The ideological position and claims of Šulgi are partly comparable to those attested among chiefs of many South American native societies. According to anthropologists, chieftainship of those societies is of a purely symbolic kind: in fact, the chief has no coercive authority, except in wartime, when his authority may even be absolute, but he enjoys privileges, like prestige and polygamy, denied to other people. 39 In these societies the chief is required, on the other hand, to be an excellent orator, to be very generous and to be able to keep social peace. Of course, Šulgi’s actual authority can be hardly questioned, and those South American native societies are structurally very different from that of late third millennium Mesopotamia, but both the deification of the king of Ur and the unique social status and prerogatives of the Amerindian chief can reveal the symbolic nature and basis of their political roles. In fact, such characteristics put the figure of the chief outside the community, and reveal his role as a phallic signifier or Nom-du-Père: the signifier that relates to the radical emptiness of the existence, and ensures the unity of the social group. 37.  See the discussion in Di Ludovico in press and Steinkeller 2003; Glassner 2004: 117–27; Michalowski 1988: 21–23; Wilcke 1993: 36; Klein 1976; 1981: 21–38. 38.  The topic has been illustrated in Di Ludovico in press. Interesting and tempting considerations have been proposed by P. Clastres (1973b) on the relationships one can point out between the body, the writing and the law. M. Trolle Larsen (1987: 217–25) has stressed how the topic of writing technologies and their consequences on knowledge and logics remains underdeveloped in studies on ancient Mesopotamia: “We have no studies of the impact of writing on modes of thought or on the development on the major institutions of society” (218). As far as I can evaluate, not much has changed until today, but it is also true that this subject requires a proper and rich interdisciplinary approach. I have tried to define and discuss this problem in relation to specific historical period and cultural environment (especially in Di Ludovico 2007: 11–55, 230–74; more quickly in Di Ludovico in press and in a yet unpublished oral paper I presented at the 51st RAI in Chicago, July 2005), and hope to return to it soon in the future. 39.  Clastres 1962. In a short article Clastres (1973a) describes the kind of oratory typical of the chief of some Amerindian societies, highlighting the clues of his being privileged and deprived of actual power at one time. The behavior of the members of the group reveals the absence of a single person playing the role of the actual political leader: “La parole du chef n’est pas dite pour être écoutée [. . .] Le devoir de parole du chef, ce flux constant de parole vide qu’il doit à la tribu, c’est sa dette infinie, la garantie qui interdit à l’homme de parole de devenir homme de pouvoir”. In that case, as well as in others with which this author deals in other works, the chief is only a symbolic leader. His role and words may be righteously or not defined “vacuous” (by “parole vide” Clastres clearly means that the words of the chief are not orders, nor have explicit and immediate conscious consequences in the behavior of the members of the group) but, in fact, this cannot mean that they are senseless, or without repercussions in social and cultural life. In few words, I think that, in the case of Šulgi, the Nom-du-Père (which, in Clastres’ terms, one could define “vacuous”, as far as it is pure symbol, not related to anything but placed at the top of singifying chains) emerging from the propagandistic speeches and performances is the fundamental symbol on which the political relations and rhetorics are established. It hides (and is managed by) the actual Šulgi-person and his court, who hold the power. In the case of Clastres’ Amerindians, the person of the chief itself is symbolized (“vacuous”), playing the purely symbolic role (Nom-du-Père) which hides (and is managed through) the actual exertion of power, that in this case is in the collective hands of an assembly, of which the chief is left out.

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In the case of Šulgi, it is quite clear that he also ensures and represents the alleged political and cultural unity of the territory of the reign. 40 The figure of the king can play this role insofar as it can show a non-human or a non-living aspect. In other words, this is the metahistorical aspect of the exertion of political power. In Ur III propagandistic speech a metahistoric topic of a different logical kind looks more like that of the demonic figures and could have served the inner political cohesion of the state. This topic is that of the “dangerous Gutians”, who are supposed to be a paradigmatic threat to the surviving of cultures of Lower Mesopotamia and their values. 41 What remains of the propagandistic and cultural policies of Šulgi suggests a more or less conscious plan of merging themes pertaining to an official literate metahistorical level and others related to a more traditional and popular one into a single set of messages addressed to different social classes. The channels through which this project was executed are, for instance, the particular role of writing in Ur III times, the deification of the king, and the many strategies adopted in official propaganda at different levels, like the demonizing of Gutians, the adoption of a new prevailing glyptic iconography, the spreading of the ideas of a unique Mesopotamian kingship and of kinship relationships between the king and heroes or gods, etc.

Summing Up Ernesto de Martino died before his time, while he was further developig his view of popular cultures and the theoretical instruments that were central to his critical ethnocentrism. Though having explicit or subtle differences with many contemporary European and American schools of thought in the field of social and cultural studies, de Martino progressively reached a scientific view that could represent a valid and updated version of the Crocean Historicism applied to Humanities. In fact, it was no longer very Crocean in some respects. His latest orientation can be presumed on the basis of his posthumous works and working notes, and is part of his scientific heritage. This heritage allows Italian ethnological disciplines to offer their own view about human phenomena, without losing the opportunity of a fruitful dialogue with other international schools of thought. De Martino’s concepts of presence, dehistorification and metahistory have been applied here to the interpretation of some Mesopotamian phenomena of cultural history. In particular, they have been used to reconstruct some of the ways popular and official cultures of 40.  Di Ludovico in press. 41.  Frayne 1997: 20–21, 66–68, 92–94; Hallo 1971: 710, 714–15. An important witness of the ideological use of the theme of the victory over Gutians is the “Weidner Chronik” (Guterböck 1934: 47–57; Frayne 1993: 283–87). On the processes of demonisation of the foreigners and the otherness in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, see Poo’s interesting study (2005; on pp. 69–70, Poo describes the specific Ur III and post-Ur III literary view of Gutians). Significantly, in a first millennium incantation Lamaštu is compared to Sutaeans, clearly felt as hostile people (Farber 1980–83: 439; Foster 2005: 983), and a line of the “canonical series” says, apparently with similar implications: “eine Elamiterin bist du” (Myhrman 1902: 191). V.  Haas (1980) deals with the typical landscape topoi related to both demonic figures and foreigners (especially through pp. 38–39 and 42–43), themes that are resumed by Poo (2005: 80–81). Many scholars consider that very likely Gutians were in fact much more integrated in Mesopotamian societies than what surviving written texts dating from the second half of third millennium on could suggest, and this idea seems nowadays largely accepted (Glassner 1986: 21, 46–54; FlückigerHawker 1999: 4–5; Poo 2005: 146–47, and the references mentioned there).

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Mesopotamia considered and faced some of their historical experiences in the world in different periods. I hope to investigate this further in the future and be able to put together the resulting observations in a general picture of these specific problems of Mesopotamian cutural history.

Bibliographic References Amelang, J. S. 2005 Mourning Becomes Eclectic: Ritual Lament and the Problem of Continuity. Past & Present 187: 3–31. Angelini, P. 2008 Ernesto de Martino. Rome: Carocci. Augé, M. 1979 Magia. Pp. 708–723 in Enciclopedia vol. 8. Turin: Einaudi. Bahrani, Z. 2008 Rituals of War. The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia. New York: Zone. Cases, C. 2007 Introduzione. Pp. vii–lv in de Martino 2007. (first published in 1997) Castellino, G. R. 1972 Two Šulgi Hymns. Studi Semitici 42. Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente–Università degli Studi di Roma. de Certeau, M. 1975 L’écriture de l’histoire. Paris: Gallimard. Cherchi, M.–Cherchi, P. 1987 Ernesto de Martino. Dalla crisi della presenza alla comunità umana. Naples: Liguori. Clastres, P. 1962 Échange et pouvoir: philosophie de la chefferie indienne. L’Homme. Revue française d’anthropologie 2: 51–65. 1973a Le devoir de parole. Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse 8: 83–86. 1973b De la torture dans les sociétés primitives. L’Homme. Revue française d’anthropologie 13: 114–120. Croce, B. 1948 Recensione al Mondo magico. Quaderni della Critica 10: 79–80. 1949 Filosofia e storiografia. Bari: Laterza. Di Donato, R. 1999 I Greci selvaggi. Antropologia storica di Ernesto de Martino. Rome: Il Manifesto. Di Ludovico, A. 2007 Ritualità e politica nell’arte della Terza Dinastia di Ur. Ph.D. dissertation. Università di Roma “La Sapienza”. In press The Reign of Šulgi. Investigation of a King above Suspicion. In Proceedings of the LII Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Münster, 17–21 July 2006. Fabietti, U. 1991 Storia dell’antropologia. Bologna: Zanichelli. Falkenstein, A. 1931 Literarische Keilschrifttexte aus Uruk. Berlin: Vorderasiatische Abteilung der Staat­ lichen Museen. Farber, W. 1980–83 Lamaštu. Pp. 439–446 in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 6. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 1987 Tamarisken-Fibeln-Skolopender. Zur philologischen Deutung der ‘Reiseszene’ auf neuassyrischen Lamaštu-Amulette. Pp. 85–105 in Language, Literature, and History: Philological Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, ed. F. Rochberg-Halton. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society.

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Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf! Mesopotamische Baby-Beschwörungen und ‑Rituale. Mesopotamian Civilizations 2. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. 1990 Magic at the Cradle. Babylonian and Assyrian Lullabies. Anthropos 85: 139–48. 1995 Witchcraft, Magic, and Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia. Pp. 1895–1909 in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 3, ed. J. M. Sasson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1998 māra/āt Anim oder: Des Anu Töchterlein (In Singular und Plural, Text und Bild). Pp. 59–69 in Festschrift für Rykle Borger zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Mai 1994. tikip santakki mala bašmu. . . , ed. S. M. Maul. Cuneiform Monographs 10. Groningen: Styx. 2007a Lamaštu—Agent of a Specific Disease or a Generic Destroyer of Health?. Pp. 137–45 in Disease in Babylonia, ed. I. L. Finkel and M. J. Geller. Cuneiform Monographs 36. Leiden-Boston: Brill. 2007b Lamaštu and the Dogs. Pp. 635–45 in Fauna and Flora in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the L Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Skukuza 1–6 August 2004, ed. W. Boshoff. Tydskrif vir Semitistiek 16/3–Special Edition. Pretoria: Southern Africa Society for Near Eastern Studies. Finkel, I. J. 1998 A Study in Scarlet: Incantations against Samana. Pp. 71–106 in Festschrift für Rykle Borger zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Mai 1994. tikip santakki mala bašmu. . . , ed. S. M. Maul. Cuneiform Monographs 10. Groningen: Styx. Flückiger-Hawker, E. 1999 Urnamma of Ur in Sumerian Literary Tradition. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 166. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Foster, B. R. 2005 Before the Muses. An Anthology of Akkadian Literature. Bethesda: CDL. Frayne, D. R. 1993 Sargonic and Gutian Periods (2334–2113 bc). Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Volume 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1997 The Ur III Period (2112–2004 bc). Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Early Periods, Volume 3/2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Gallini, C. 1977 Introduzione. Pp. ix–xciii in de Martino 1977. Glassner, J.-J. 1986 La chute d’Akkadé: L’événement et sa mémoire. Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 5. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. 2004 Mesopotamian Chronicles. Writing from the Ancient World 19, ed. B. R. Foster. Atlanta, GA: Society for Biblical Literature. Guterböck, H. G. 1934 Die historische Tradition und ihre literarische Gestaltung bei Babyloniern und Hethitern bis 1200. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete N.F. 8: 1–91. Haas, V. 1980 Die Dämonisierung des Fremden und des Feindes im Alten Orient. Rocznik Orientalistyczny 41/2: 37–44. Hallo, W. W. 1971 Gutium (Qutium). Pp.  708–20 in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 3. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Heidegger, M. 1967 Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Klein, J. 1976 Šulgi and Gilgameš: two Brother-Peers (Šulgi O). Pp. 271–92 in Kramer Anniversary Volume: Cuneiform Studies in Honor of Samuel Noah Kramer, ed. B. L. Eichler. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 25. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker. 1989

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Lacan, J. 1966a Le Séminaire XX. Encore. Paris: Seuil. 1966b Écrits. Paris: Seuil. 1973 Le Séminaire XI. Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse. Paris: Seuil. 2004 Le Séminaire X. L’angoisse. Paris: Seuil. 2005 Des Noms-du-Père. Paris: Seuil. Leibovici, M. 1971 Génies et démons en Babylonie. Pp. 87–112 Génies, anges et démons, Sources Orientales 8. Paris: Seuil. de Martino, E. 1941 Naturalismo e Storicismo nell’etnologia. Bari: Laterza. 1951 Prefazione. Pp.  9–14 in Le origini dei poteri magici, by E.  Durkheim, H.  Hubert, M. Mauss. Turin: Boringhieri. 1952 Review of Le mythe de l’éternel retour, archétypes et répétition, Paris: Gallimard, 1949. Psychologie et histoire des religions, à propos du symbolisme du ‘Centre’. EranosJahrbuch XIX (1951): 247–282. Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l’extase. Paris: Payot, 1951, by M. Eliade. Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 33: 148–55. 1953–54 Fenomenologia religiosa e storicismo assoluto. Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 24–25: 1–25. 1964 Apocalissi culturali e apocalissi psicopatologiche. Nuovi Argomenti 67–71: 105–41. 1977 La Fine del Mondo. Turin: Einaudi. 1993 Scritti minori su religione marxismo e psicoanalisi. Rome: Nuove Edizioni Romane. 1995 Inediti. Pp.  97–178 in Ernesto de Martino, Storia e Metastoria. I fondamenti di una teoria del sacro, ed. M. Massenzio. Lecce: Argo. 2000 Morte e pianto rituale. Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri. (first edition, Turin 1958) 2001 Sud e magia. Milan: Feltrinelli. (first edition, Milan 1959) 2002 Furore Simbolo Valore. Milan: Feltrinelli. (first edition, Milan 1962) 2005 Scritti Filosofici. Naples: Il Mulino. 2007 Il mondo magico. Prolegomeni a una storia del magismo. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri. (first edition, Turin 1948) Massenzio, M. 1986 Il problema della destorificazione. La Ricerca Folklorica 13: 23–30. 1995 La problematica storico-religiosa di Ernesto de Martino: il rimosso e l’inedito. Pp. 7–41 in Ernesto de Martino, Storia e Metastoria. I fondamenti di una teoria del sacro, ed. M. Massenzio. Lecce: Argo. Michalowski, P. 1988 Divine Heroes and Historical Self-Representation: From Gilgamesh to Shulgi. Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 16: 19–23. Myhrman, D. W. 1902 Die Labartu-Texte. Babylonische Beschwörungsformeln nebst Zauber-verfahren gegen die Dämonin Labartu. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete 16: 141–200. Pàstina, R. 2005 Il concetto di presenza nel primo de Martino. Pp.  115–29 in Ernesto de Martino e la formazione del suo pensiero. Note di metodo, ed. C. Gallini. Naples, Liguori. Poo, M.-Ch. 2005 Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Reiner, E. 1966 La magie babylonienne. Pp. 69–98 in Le monde du sorcier. Sources Orientales 7. Paris: Seuil.

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“I Read the Inscriptions from before the Flood . . .” Neo-Sumerian Influences in Ashurbanipal’s Royal Self-Image Natalie Naomi May

T h e O r i e n tal I n s t i t u t e

of the

University

of

C h i ca g o

In the Late Assyrian period, a conscious and politically engendered revival and modification of the conception of divine royalty took place in the spirit of historical self-reflection and archaization. 1 Historical self-reflection of first-millennium Mesopotamia is expressed in a variety of antiquarian activities: reconstruction of old monuments, “archaeological” excavations, search for ancient texts, establishment of museums and libraries, and use of intertextual allusions to the ancient compositions while creating new ones. The immediate aim of all these antiquarian activities was establishing the legitimacy of various political claims through historical or quasi-historical precedent. Among the Assyrian Sargonids, known for their “archaeological” tendencies, Ashurbanipal was the most prominent antiquarian. Reproduction of the basketbearer image of Ur III foundation figurines on his steles (fig. 1a–b) is the best-known example of the adaptation of the Neo-Sumerian heritage for the state purposes of the Late Sargonids and particularly of Ashurbanipal. 2 Ashurbanipal’s famous story of his education 3 while still a crown prince and his boasting of literacy is paralleled by Shulgi Hymn B, which tells about this king’s training at the edubba. Ashurbanipal describes his education at the “House of Succession” in the introductions to his prisms’ A and F inscriptions as follows (A I 23–34/F I lines 18–32; Borger 1996: 16). 4 1.  On “archaeological” research and archaization in first-millennium Mesopotamia, see recently Schaudig 2003, Roaf 2000, and Winter 2000. 2.  The foundation figurines of the third dynasty of Ur were found in the excavations during the restoration of the Babylonian temples, and their imagery was used by both Ashurbanipal and his brother Shamash-shumu-ukin, king of Babylon. The expression ‘I bore a bucket on my head’ ku-dúr-[ru] ina SAG.DU-ja áš-ši-ma introduced to the Assyrian royal inscriptions by their father Esarhaddon (Borger 1956:4, Ass. A, IV:36–37) is paralleled by Sumerian (gu3- d e2- a l u2 e2 d u3- a - ke4 e2- a d u s u - b i me n ku g s a ĝ-ĝa2 m u-ni -ĝal2 ‘Gudea, in charge of building the house, placed on his head the carrying-basket for the house, as if it were a holy crown’ (Gudea, Cyl. A, lines 562–63; ETCSL t. 2.1.7); d u s u k u g m u - i l2 ‘he (Gudea) lifted up the holy carrying-basket’ (ibid., lines 499ff.). 3.  Literacy was prized at Esarhaddon’s court, and Ashurbanipal was not alone to be trained in writing, as follows from the letter of his sister Sheru’a-etirat (Luukko and Buylaere 2002: 23, no. 28) to her brother’s lazy wife Libbi-ali-sharrat. The Babylonian hostages had to learn scribal art, sometimes compulsory (Fales and Postgate 1995: no. 156, and also Parpola 1972: 33–34; Fincke 2003/2004: 118). 4.  This inscription is given in transcription to avoid presenting a score. Other Akkadian and Sumerian quotations will appear in transliteration. The introductions to prisms A and F are, of course, not

199

200

N atalie N aomi M ay

a

b

Fig. 1.  Basket-bearer images. a (left).  Foundation Figurines of Ur-Namma (ca. 2112–2095 b.c.e.) and Shulgi (ca. 2094–2047 b.c.e.; after Rashid 1983: nos. 121 and 136). b (right).  Stele of Ashurbanipal, before 648 b.c.e. Copyright © Trustees of the British Museum. A23/F18

ina ḫidâte u rīšāte ērub ina bīt redûte A24ašru naklu markas šarrūte A25/ ša Šin-aḫḫē-ēriba ab abī ālidija A26/F20mār šarrūte u šarrūte ēpušu ina libbišu A27/F21 ašar Aššur-aḫḫi-iddina abī bānûa F22qerebšu i’aldu F21amār šarrūte u šarrūte ēpuš ina libbišu A28/F22irbu ēpušu bēlūt māt Aššur A29/F23gimir malkē irdû kimtu urappišu A30/F24ikṣuru nišūtu u salātu A31/F25u anāku Aššur-bāni-apli qerebšu āḫuz nemēqi Nabê A32kullat ṭupšarrūte F27ša gimir ummânē A33mala bašû iḫzēšunu aḫīṭ A34/F28almad šalê qašti rukūb sisê F29narkabāte ṣābat ašāte ina amēlūte F30šarrāni ina umāmē labbū lā išētū ina pān qištija F31īde epēš qabli u tāḫāzi F32kullumāku sedēru u mitḫuṣūtu F19

In joy and exultation I entered the House of Succession, place of skills, the bond of royalty, where Sennacherib the father of (my) father that gave birth to me ruled as a crown prince and as a king; the place inside which Esarhaddon, (my) father, my creator was born, and where he ruled as a crown prince and as a king; where he grew up, exercised the rule over Assyria, governed all the (foreign) kings, enlarged the family, tied together the kin and the clan; and I, Ashurbanipal, learned there the wisdom of Nabu; the entirety of scribal art, knowledge of all the scholars as much as there are, I explored. I learned archery, horse- and the only instance of Ashurbanipal’s boasting of his literacy. See, for example, Hunger 1968: 97–98 and 104–5 (the last one is a colophon of the bīt rimki ritual text). In his other colophons, he represents himself as a scribe who copied the text.

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Fig. 2.  North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. Room S. Lion Hunt. Detail. Copyright © Trustees of the British Museum.

chariot-riding, holding of the reins. Among humans—kings, among animals—lions, did not escape my bow. I know warfare. I have been trained in (lit., shown) battle order and combat.

It is noteworthy that Ashurbanipal stresses his literacy also in his hunt reliefs (fig. 2; Seidl 2007). Compare the inscription of Ashurbanipal to Shulgi’s self-praise poem (Shulgi B; ETCSL c. 2.4.2.02): 11. lugal a lugal-e ru-a nin-e tud-da-me-en 12. dšul-gi-me-en dumu-gir15 šag4 zid-ta nam dug3tar-ra-me-en 13. tur-ra-ĝu10-ne e2-dub-ba-a-a-am3 14. dub ki-en-gi ki-uri-ka nam-dub-sar-ra mi-ni-zu 15. nam-dumu-gir15 ĝe26-e-gin7-nam im nu-mu-un-sar 16. nam-dub-sar-ra ki nam-kug-zu-ba lu2 im-mi-re6-re6 17. zi-zi-i ĝa2-ĝa2 šudum niĝ2-šid-de3 zag im-mi-til-til 18. dnanibgal sig7-ga dnisaba2-ke4 19. ĝeštug2 ĝizzal2-la šu daĝal ma-ni-in-dug4 20. dub-sar ĝal2 taka4-a niĝ2-e nu-dib-be2-me-en I am a king, offspring begotten by a king and born by a queen. I, Shulgi the noble, have been blessed with a favourable destiny right from the womb. When I was small, I was at the academy (edubba), where I learned the scribal art from the tablets of Sumer and Akkad. None of the nobles could write on clay as I could. There where people regularly went for tutelage in the scribal art, I qualified fully in subtraction, addition, reckoning and accounting. The fair Nanibgal,

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N atalie N aomi M ay Nisaba, provided me amply with knowledge and comprehension. I am an experienced scribe who does not neglect a thing.

Moreover Shulgi, as well as Ashurbanipal, describes his special skills in the lion hunt. He fights alone, face to face with a beast, as we learn from the same self-praise poem (Shulgi B; ETCSL c. 2.4.2. 02) 59. ur-maḫ ug ušumgal edin-na-ke4 60. me-da im-ti-ba me-a ĝen-na-ba 61. gu3 nam-ur-saĝ-ĝa2-bi-ir edin-na ĝa2-la ḫa-ba-ni-dag-dag 62. sa-du3-a-ta ba-ra-ab-ši-ĝen-ne-en 63. še-er-tab-ta en-nu-uĝ3 ba-ra-bi2-ak 64. a2 ĝiš-la2-a ba-ab-ak ĝištukul ba-ra-bi2-šubub 65. ud zu2 sis-a-bi urudšukur zi-ba ḫe2-bi2-ĝar 66. za-pa-aĝ2-bi-še3 gaba-ĝu10 ba-ra-bi2-zig3 67. ĝe26-e tuš-ĝu10-še3 ba-ra-ba-ta-ĝen-ne-en 68. ur-saĝ ur-saĝ-e gaz-a-gin7 69. edin-na niĝ2 ul4-la-aš ḫu-mu-ni-ak 70. gu3 šubtum5-ma ki ĝiri3 kud-da-ba edin-ba ḫu-mu-sig9-si-ig 71. tur3 amaš ki saĝ bi2-in-bur2-bur2-ra 72. sipad ildum2-ma-bi-ir su-bi ḫu-mu-dug3 73. ud me-da ud ul-le2-a-še3 74. ga-nam 1(AŠ)-bi ba-an-da-sig10-ga lu2 nam-mu-un-ši-ib-be2 75. ur-maḫ ĝištukul-la bi2-til-la-ĝu10 76. a-ra2-bi zag-bi-še3 šid-bi ba-ra-zu I put an end to the heroic roaring in the plains of the different lions, the dragons of the plains, wherever it approaches from and wherever it is going. I do not go after them with a net, nor do I lie in wait for them in a hide; it comes to a confrontation of strength and weapons. I do not hurl a weapon; when I plunge a bitter-pointed lance in their throats, I do not flinch at their roar. I am not one to retreat to my hiding-place but, as when one warrior kills another warrior, I do everything swiftly on the open plain. In the desert where the paths peter out, I reduce the roar at the lair to silence. In the sheepfold and the cattle-pen, where heads are laid to rest (?), I put the shepherd tribesmen at ease. Let no one ever at any time say about me, “Could he really subdue them all on his own?” The number of lions that I have despatched with my weapons is limitless; their total is unknown.

Shulgi is the only non-Assyrian king who describes his royal lion hunt. It is in his self-praise only but nowhere else that we find the same topoi as in the descriptions of Ashurbanipal. So Ashurbanipal’s Prism E fragment (82-5-22,2, lines 5′–10′, after Weissert 1997: 357), which is also paralleled by his Great Hunting Text:   5′. [e-la-m]u-ú-a šur-bu-t[e la-ab-bi i-lit-ti ḫur-šá-a-ni]   6′. [ez-z]u-ú-te tar-[ba-ṣu iš-ḫi-ṭu]   7′. [ina 1-et] ú-re-ja ṣi-mit-ti ru-kub E[N-ti-ja]   8′. [10 UŠ u4-mu ina a-la-[ki]   9′. ⸢ša⸣ ⸢UR⸣. MAḪ-ḫi na-ad-ru-[ti] 10′. ina 1TA.ÀM GIŠ šil-ta-hi nap-šá-te-šú-nu ap-⸢ru⸣-⸢u⸣ 5′–6′[Befo]re

my arrival hug[e lions, a fier]ce mountain breed attacked (there) the cattle-p[en(s)] 7′[With] my [single] team, harnessed to [my] l[ordly] vehicle,

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8′

[fort]y minutes after daybre[ak] 9′–10′I pier[ce]d the throats o[f] ragi[ng] l[i]ons, each (lion) with a single arrow.

In the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Sumerian topos of divine parentage and nurture is revived as well. It exists along with the idea of the gods individually creating the king (May 2008). Expressions similar to those of Esarhaddon, 5 but more developed and consolidated, are known from Ashurbanipal’s Hymn to the Ishtars of Nineveh and Arbela, where the king says of himself (Livingstone 1989 :12, no.3, obv. 13–15): ul i-di AD u um-me ina! ⸢bur⸣-ki! ⸢d!⸣U.DARMEŠ-ja ár-ba-a ana-ku it-tar-ru-un-nii-ma DINGIRMEŠ GALMEŠ GIM la-’e-e im-ni u šu-me-li it-tal-la-ku it-ti-ja I knew no father or mother, I grew up in the lap of my goddess. As a child the great gods guided me, going with me on the right and left.

And (ibid., rev.14–16): d

be-lit-URUNi-ná-a um-mu a-lit-ti-ja taš-ru-ka LUGAL-u-tu šá la šá-na-a-ni dbelit-URUArba-ìl ⸢ba!⸣-[ni]-⸢ti⸣-ja taq-ba-a TI.LA da-ra-a-te The Lady of Nineveh, the mother who bore me, endowed me with unparalleled kingship; the Lady of Arbela, my creator, ordered everlasting life (for me).

The topoi of growing up on his goddess’s lap and suckling her breasts appear in the Dialogue between Ashurbanipal and Nabu (Livingstone 1989: 34, no.12: rev. 7–8): a-ku-u at-ta mAN.ŠÁR-DÙ-A ša ù-maš-šir-u-ka ina UGU dšar-rat-NINAKI er-bi zi-ze-e-šá ina pi-ka šak-na 2 te-en-ni-iq 2 ta-ḫal-líp ana pa-ni-ka You were a baby, Ashurbanipal, when you sat in the lap of the Queen of Nineveh! Her four tits are placed in your mouth; two you suck, and two you milk to your face.

Compare this to Shulgi hymn P, Segment C, lines 22–27. His “divine mother” Ninsun addresses the king Shulgi as follows: 22. šul-gi amar kug tud-da-ĝu10-me-en3 23. a ⸢dug3⸣ dlugal-ban3-da-me-en3 24. ur2 kug-ĝu10-a mu-ni-ib2-buluĝ3-en3 25. ubur2 kug-ĝu10-a nam ma-ra-ni-tar Shulgi, you are a pure calf, born to me. You are a good seed of Lugal-banda. I raised you upon my own holy lap. I have decided your fate with my holy bosom

The topoi of divine nurture and the king growing on the lap of his goddess are so close to those of the Neo-Sumerian royal hymns that I would suggest that here the intentional revival of tradition takes place. Concerning the pictorial sources, Ashurbanipal is the only Assyrian king who presents himself in a “sporting costume” and not in the usual long royal dress (fig. 2). He wears a costume that is shorter in the front than at the back and leaves the feet 5.  In oracles for Esarhaddon we find: a-na-ku d15 ša URUArba-ìl . . . sa-ab-su-ub-ta-k[a] ra-bi-tu ana-ku mu-še-ni[q!]-ta-ka de-iq-tú a-na-ku ‘I am Ishtar of [Arbela] . . . I am your great midwife; I am your excellent wet nurse’ (Parpola 1997: 7, no. 1.6, lines 7 and 15–18) and a-na-ku AD-ka AMA-ka bir-ti a-gappi ur-ta-bi-ka ‘I am your father and mother. I raised you between my wings’ (ibid.: 18, no. 2.5, lines 26–27). The god speaking is not named here, but we can assume that it was Ishtar since she is represented as winged more often than other gods and is actually the only female winged goddess.

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Fig. 3.  Ashurbanipal’s North Palace at Nineveh. Room S. Lion Hunt Reliefs. Copyright © Trustees of the British Museum.

exposed. The king’s garment differs from these of his attendants only by richness of the decor of the fabric, but not by its cut. In fact, it seems to me that the hunt reliefs of the North palace room S (fig. 3), which represent Ashurbanipal mostly in a short dress, without a crown, but with the band diadem only and with the stylloi on his belt, depict him as a crown prince of bīt redūti in the period of his training in hunting and literacy. Shulgi is also depicted in a short knee-high kilt under a fringed mantel. This costume—short skirt and a shawl, and with exposed left leg—becomes traditional for representations of the warrior kings (fig. 4), as well as the knee-high kilt alone. Shulgi 6 follows Naram-Sin, who was the first royal to let himself be depicted in the short dress of a solder (Nigro 1998: esp. fig.10). 6.  See, for instance, Shulgi of Ur as a warrior on Seal of his consort Geme-Ninlila (Mayr and Owen 2004: 149, no. 8, fig. 2).

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The hunting dress of Ashurbanipal and his attendants is unique in Neo-Assyrian art and resembles more that of Naram-Sin and his soldiers on the famous stele of Naram-Sin, 7 rather than the kilt and the shawl of Shulgi and the Old-Babylonian kings. It was probably modeled after Akkadian reliefs. Nevertheless, we find this special short sporting and war disguise among other common features of the images of Ashurbanipal and Shulgi. I will argue here that the striking similarities in self-representation of these two kings are not accidental and not an oral tradition in kind but show that Ashurbanipal was acquainted with Shulgi’s autobiography and modeled his own after it. 8 Ashurbanipal describes his knowledge of expertise in scribal art thus (K. 694+3050: lines 10–18; Livingstone 2007: 100): 10 d

[ AMAR.UT]U ABGAL DINGIRMEŠ uz-nu ra-pa-áš-tu ḫa-si-su iš-ru-ka širik-te 11⸢d⸣AG ṭup-šar gim-ri iḫ-zi né-meqi-šú i-qí-šá-an-ni a-na qiš-ti 12⸢d⸣Ninurta dU.GUR dun-zi zik-ru-te e-muq-qí la šá-na-an ú-šar-šu-u gat-ti 13[š]i-pir apkal-li a-da-pà a-ḫu-uz ni-ṣir-tú ka-timtú kul-lat ṭup-šar-ru-tú 14[GIŠ]KIMMEŠ AN-e u KI-tim am-ra-ku 15šu-ta-du-na-ku ina UKKIN um-ma-a-ni šu-ta-bu-la-ku DIŠ BÀ-ut ma-aṭ-lat AN-e it-ti ABGAL ÌMEŠ le-’u-u-ti 16ú-pa-ṭàr I.GI.A.RÁ-e itgu-ru-ti šála i-šu-u pi-it pa-ni 17áš-ta-si kam-mu nak-lu šá EME.GI7 ṣu-ul-lu-lu ak-ka-du-u ana šu-te-šu-ri áš-ṭu 18ḫi-ṭaa-ku GÙ.SUM ab-ni šá la-am a-bu-bi {DIŠ?} šá kak-ku sa-ak-ku bal-lu 10Marduk,

the sage of gods, gave me wide understanding and broad perception as a gift. 11Nabu, the scribe of the

7.  For Naram-Sin represented on his Victory Stele as wearing a kilt rather than naked, see Nigro 1998. On kilt, also as military garment, in Early Dynastic through Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian periods, see Suter 2012: 439–41. 8.  OB copies of Shulgi texts were made in order to train scribes in Sumerian. No such practice is known in the Neo-Assyrian period (see Gesche 2000: 23–24 on the training of Assyrian scribes), so naturally there are no Neo-Assyrian copies of Shulgi hymns.

Fig. 4.  Statuette of Shulgi. First half of his reign. After Suter 1991–93: 65, fig.3, by kind permission of Claudia Suter.

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N atalie N aomi M ay universe, bestowed on me the acquisition of all his wisdom as a present. 12Ninurta and Nergal gave me physical fitness, manhood and unparalleled strength. 13 I learnt the lore of wise sage Adapa, the hidden secret, the whole of scribal art. 14 I can discern celestial and terrestrial portents and deliberate in the assembly of the experts. 15I am able to discuss the series “If the liver is a mirror image of the sky” with capable scholars. 16I can solve convoluted reciprocals and calculations that do not come out evenly. 17I have read cunningly written text in Sumerian, dark Akkadian, the interpretation of which is difficult. 18I have examined stone inscriptions from before the flood, which are sealed, stopped up, mixed up.

It is the ability to read the most ancient texts “from before the flood” in Sumerian, as well as in ancient Akkadian, which suggests Ashurbanipal’s ability to read Shulgi’s texts. Although Jeanette Fincke (2003/2004: 122) and Alasdar Livingstone (2007) have shown that the literacy of Ashurbanipal himself was in fact very limited, his scribes definitely mastered all the skills that the king ascribes to himself. There is no doubt that the first-millennium scribes were able to read the Sumerian of the Ur III and Old Babylonian inscriptions in general and inscriptions of Shulgi in particular. Proof of this can be found in a Neo-Babylonian copy of an original Shulgi inscription of Nergal’s E-meslam at Kutha, with a colophon by the scribe Bel-uballit, who made it (Frayne 1997: 133, Shulgi E3/2.1.2.24). 9 Late copies of Shulgi’s Akkadian texts are also known (ibid., 133–35 and 142–43, Shulgi E3/2.1.2.25–26, 35). In general, copies of ancient inscriptions found in excavations while searching for the original foundations during the restoration of temples are not rare. In my opinion, these were “archival copies,” sometimes of genuine foundation inscriptions, prepared to reassert their discovery. These copies make clear that first-millennium scribes were able to read and reproduce, though with limitations, the epigraphy of the third and second millennia. For instance, a copy of the inscription of Amar-Suen with the colophon of Nabu-shuma-iddin, the scribe of Sin-balassu-iqbi, governor of Ur during the reign of Assurbanipal, or probably earlier, shows that he possessed the skills of paleographer (Frame 1995: 246–47, B.6.32.2016). We have at our disposal copies of three inscriptions found during the excavations at the city Akkad, all made by Nabonidus’s paleographer Nabu-zeru-lishir from Babylon (Schaudig 2003: 450–54). First-millennium scholars searched for ancient tablets and were able to identify and date them, obviously by reading their texts. An astrologer, Asharedu the Younger, writes to the king from Babylon that he has discovered a proper ritual tablet from the time of Hammurabi, as well as the inscription, which antedates Hammurabi. The find most probably took place during Assurbanipal’s “tablet hunt” (Parpola 1993: 118, no. 155: line 5). In the first-millennium, Sumerian inscriptions on bricks are known in Babylonia from the times of Sargon II (Frame 1995: 145–46, B.6.22.2; 150–52, B.6.22.5–6), Merodach-Baladan II (ibid.: 138–41, B.6.21.2-3) and Esarhaddon (ibid.: 172–73, B.6.31.8). But the revival of writing in Sumerian takes place in the reigns of Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shumu-ukin. Numerous bricks from Babylonia bear both stamped and manually inscribed texts in Sumerian commemorating the renova9.  It is noteworthy that Bel-uballit carefully copied lapidary Sumerian signs of Shulgi’s inscription, while his own colophon is written in NB ductus, which was a common practice for the “archival” first-millennium copies of ancient inscriptions.

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tion of Etemenanki and Ekur by Ashurbanipal (ibid.: 210–11, B.6.32.9; 221–22, B.6.32.16; 223–24, B.6.32.17–18) and Ebabbar by his treacherous brother (ibid.: 251–52, B.6.33.2). The same Sin-balassi-iqbi described his construction activities in texts written on building components such as a door socket, bricks, and clay pegs (ibid.: 230–44, B.6.32.2001–14). Many of these inscriptions were written in an archaizing ductus. Moreover, Shamash-shumu-ukin left a rather long bilingual cylinder inscription deriving from Sippar, dedicated to the renovation of the city wall (ibid.: 248–51, B.6.33.1). The other good indication 10 that Sumerian texts were comprehensible in the late periods is the story of the installation of En-nigaldi-Nanna, the daughter of the Late Babylonian king Nabonidus, another notoriously celebrated antiquarian, as the high priestess (entu) of the moon-god Sin of Ur in his second regnal year. Nabonidus presents proof of the authenticity and antiquity of the high priestess office acquired through his archaeological research: a reference to En-ane-du, daughter of Kudur-Mabuk, sister of Rim-Sin (1822–1763 b.c.e.), the last high-priestess of the moon god known to us by name. We have at our disposal the inscription of the highpriestess En-ane-du. Comparing it with the Akkadian inscription of Nabonidus, dedicated to the installation of his daughter, reveals that not only had he delivered correctly En-ane-du’s biographical data but also demonstrates the use of expressions similar to those of En-ane-du’s Sumerian inscription (Schaudig 2003: 482–85). The similarity of Assurbanipal’s education story to Shulgi’s self-praise is even more obvious due to their claim for the highest expertise in literacy and also in mathematics. It is Shulgi who claims to be an expert in omina (Shulgi B lines 131– 32 ; ETCSL c. 2.4.2.02): maš2-šu-gid2-gid2 dadag-ga-me-en ĝiri3-ĝen-na inim uzu-ga-ka dnin-tur5-bi ĝe26-e-me-en ‘I am a ritually pure interpreter of omens. I am the very Nintur (creator deity) of the collections of omens’. Moreover, it seems to be too early for Shulgi to have antiquarian claims but nevertheless (Shulgi B; ETCSL c. 2.4.2.02): 270. nam-lu2-ulu3 us2-a an-ta sig10-ga-ta 271. ĝeštug2 dab5-ba-ba na-ĝa2-aḫ-bi nu-me-en-na 272. en3-du ud-bi-ta libir-ra ul-le2-a 273. tigi za-am-za-am šu ši-tum2-mu-de3 274. ud na-me lul-še3 ba-ra-bi2-pad3 ka-ge ba-ra-bi2-gi4 275. niĝ2 libir-ra-bi en ḫe2-bi-tar-tar šub-bu-de3 ba-ra-bi2-šum2 276. tigi za-am-za-am ki di-bi niĝ2 ⸢na⸣-[me] ĝeštug2-ga ḫe2-ni-us2 I am no fool as regards the knowledge acquired since the time that mankind was, from heaven above, set on its path: when I have discovered tigi and zamzam hymns from past days, old ones from ancient times, I have never declared them to be false, and have never contradicted their contents. I have conserved these antiquities, never abandoning them to oblivion.

Shulgi was well known and studied in Late Assyrian and in Neo-Babylonian times (Frahm 2006: 24). It is significant that in the late texts his name is often associated with divination (e.g., Starr 1986: 632). Pseudepigraphic texts are ascribed to him (Frahm 2006: 24), among them prophetic compositions, such as Shulgi’s Prophecy (Borger 1971, esp. p. 22). Shulgi is mentioned on the tablet, which bears the colophon of Ashurbanipal’s library (ibid., 13). 10.  I am grateful to Andrea Seri for calling my attention to this case.

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To summarize: we can trace the following common topoi concerning royal education, 11 the lion hunt, and birth and parentage in the texts of Ashurbanipal and Shulgi: 1.  Education in a special place: either bīt redūti, or edduba (Asb., A I lines 23–34/F I lines 18–28; Shulgi B lines 13). 2.  Excellence in scribal art and knowledge of it in its entirety with the reference to the gods responsible for it, either Nabu or Nisaba (Asb, A I lines 31–33/F I lines 25–27, Shulgi B lines 18–19). 3.  Ability to read ancient and obscure texts (Asb., K. 694+3050, lines 17–18; Shulgi B lines 270–76) . 4.  Proficiency in divination (Asb., K. 694+3050, lines 14–15; Shulgi B lines 131–32). 5.  Knowledge of mathematics and complicated calculations (Asb., K. 694+3050, line 16; Shulgi B lines 16–17).

And in reference to the lion hunt these are: 6.  “Lion plaque” disturbing the shepherds (Ashurbanipal, Great Hunting Text, K. 2867+; line 31; Weissert 1997: 344: i-bak-ku-ú lúSIPAmeš lúna-qí-di ša laab-bi ik-k[a-lu ina tar-ba-ṣi u] su-pu-ru ‘the shepherd and herdsmen had been complaining that lions were dev[ouring in the cattle-pen(s)] [and] sheepfold(s)’; Shulgi B lines 59–61 and 70–72). 7.  The king’s special skills in the lion hunt (Asb. E, 82-5-22,2, lines 9′–10′; Shulgi B lines 62–79). 8.  The king vanquishes the lions on his own or with a single team (Asb. E, 82-522,2, line 7′; Shulgi B lines 73–74). 9.  Enormous numbers of killed lions, particularly eighteen in the case of Ashurbanipal (Weissert 1997: 355, Hunt in the Nineveh Arena, K. 6085, line 6′ b: ša 18 UR.MAḪmeš na-ad-ru-ti uz-za-šú-nu ⸢ú⸣-[šap-ši-iḫ] ‘I [quelled] the tumult of eighteen raging lions’; Shulgi B lines 75–76).

Concerning birth and parentage: 10.  Special stress on the royal parentage through the reference to his forefathers’ rule in the case of Ashurbanipal and to his both parents’ royalty in Shulgi B hymn (Asb. A I lines 23–31/F I lines 18–28; Shulgi B lines 11–12) 11.  Claims of divine parentage and nurture (Ashurbanipal, Livingstone 1989: 13: obv. 13–15 and rev. 14–16; no. 12: rev. 7–8; Shulgi P, Segment C, lines 22–27; Shulgi A line 11: ETCSL c. 2.4.2.01: mi2 zid d ug4-ga dnin-t ur5-ra -m e-en ‘I am he who is cherished by Nintur’).

And finally in art: 12.  Representation of both Shulgi and Ashurbanipal in a short dress of a warrior (figs. 2 and 4).

There are many commonplaces in the image of ideal king in Mesopotamia and in the ancient Near East in general (Kramer 1991). However, it is only in the autobiographies of Ashurbanipal and Shulgi that both superb literacy and skills in 11.  The question remains to be checked if there were literary topoi of an image of a skillful scribe, as there are the topoi in representation of the king. Among the kings, beside Shulgi and Ashurbanipal, it is only Ishme-Dagan of Isin, who is said to be literate in the entire history of Mesopotamia (a praise poem of Ishme-Dagan, ETCSL c2.5.4.0, Segment A, lines 359–77). In this self-praise hymn, Ishme-Dagan also uses the topos of sitting on the lap of the divine nurse (ibid., line 61).

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lion hunt are referred, and in very similar expressions. Textual parallels between Shulgi’s and Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions taken together lead to the conclusion that Ashurbanipal modeled his royal image much after divine Shulgi, and these include extraordinary education and knowledge appropriate only to a high-level scribe and priest, skills of a lion hunter and a warrior, and topoi of divine parentage, nurture, and seating on the lap of the divine mother. Shulgi was well known in the late Mesopotamian tradition. Assyrian and Babylonian scribes, and probably even Ashurbanipal himself, were able to read Sumerian texts of the Ur III period. The revival of the ancient concept of divine kingship probably started in the times of Esarhaddon and was developed by Ashurbanipal. In their time, the Neo-Assyrian royal theology reaches the climax of its development. It is attempting to combine the fact of the king’s being human with more-or-less direct hints at royal divinity. Allusions to the divine kings of old were one of the components of this complicated system of Neo-Assyrian representation of the king as a supernatural being.

Abbreviations AfO AfOB AOAT BiOr ETCSL N.A.B.U. RIME SAA ZA

Archiv für Orientforschung Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft Alter Orient und Altes Testament Bibliotheca Orientalis The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/) Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Early Periods State Archives of Assyria Zeitschrift für Assyrologie

Bibliography Borger, R. 1956 Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien. AfOB 9. Graz: Im Selbstverlag des Herausgebers. Borger, R., with Fuchs, A., 1996 Beitäge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals. Die Priesmenklassen A,B,C=K,D,E,F,G,H,J und T sowie andere Inschriften. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz. Borger, R. 1971 Gott Marduk und Gott Koenig Shulgi als Propheten. BiOr 28: 3–24. Fales, F. M. 1995 Imperial Administrative Records, Part II: Provincial and Military Administration. SAA 11. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Fincke, Jeanette 2003/4 The Babylonian Texts of Nineveh AfO 50: 111–49. Frahm, E. 2006 Šulgi Sieger über Assur und Skythien. N.A.B.U. 1, no. 25:21–26. Frame, G. 1995 Rulers of Babylonia: From the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (1157–612 bc). Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Babylonian Periods 2. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. Frayne, D. 1997 Ur III Period (2112–2004 bc). RIME 3/2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Gesche, Petra D. 2000 Schulunterricht in Babylonien im ersten Jahrtausend v.  Chr. AOAT 275. Münster, Ugarit Verlag.

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Hunger, H. 1968 Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone. AOAT 2. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Kramer, S. N. 1991 Solomon and Shulgi: A Comparative Portrait. Pp. 292–313 in Ah, Assyria. . . : Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor, ed. M. Cogan and I. Eph’al. Jerusalem: Magnes. Livingstone, A. 1989 Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. SAA 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. 2007 Ashurbanipal: Literate or Not? ZA 96: 98–118. Luukko, M., and Van Buylaere, Greta 2002 The Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon. SAA 16. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. May, Natalie N. 2008 Sacral Functions of the King as Represented in Neo-Assyrian Art (Ninth–Seventh Centuries bce). Ph.D. Dissertation. Beer Sheva, Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Mayr, R. H. and Owen, D. I. 2004 The Royal Gift Seal in the Ur III Period. Pp.  146–74 in Von Sumer nach Ebla und Zurück: Festschrift Giovanni Pettinato zum 27. September 1999 gewidmet von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern, ed. H. Waetzoldt. Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient 9. Heidelberg; Heidelberger Orientverlag. Parpola, S. 1972 A Letter from Šamaš-šumu-ukīn to Esarhaddon. Iraq 34: 21–34. 1993 Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. 1997 Assyrian Prophecies. SAA 9. Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press. Rashid, S. A. 1983 Gründungsfiguren im Iraq. Munich: C. H. Beck. Roaf, M. 2000 Survivals and Revivals in the Art of Ancient Mesopotamia. Pp. 1447–62 in Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Rome, May 18th–23rd 1998, ed. P. Matthiae et al. Rome: La Sapienza. Schaudig, H. 2003 Nabonid, der “Archäologe auf dem Königsthron”: Erwägungen zum Geschichtsbild des ausgehenden neubabylonischen Reiches. Pp. 447–97 in Festschrift für Burkhard Kienast zu seinem 70. Geburtstag dargebracht von Freunden, Schulern und Kollegen: Versammelt von Gebhard J. Selz. AOAT 274. Münster : Ugarit-Verlag. Seidl, Ursula 2007 Assurbanipals Griffel. ZA 97: 119–24. Starr, I. 1986 The Place of the Historical Omens in the System of Apodoses. BiOr 43: 628–42. Suter, Claudia E. 1991–93 A Shulgi Statuette from Tello. JCS 43:63–70. 2012 The Royal Body and Masculinity in Early Mesopotamia. Pp. 434–58 in Menschenbilder und Körperkonzepte: Kulturanthropologische Studien zum Alten Testament, Alten Orient und Alten Ägypten. Orientalische Religionen in der Antike, vol. 9, ed. A. Berlejung, J. F. Quack, and J. Dietrich. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Weissert, E., 1997 Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph in a Prism Fragment of Ashurbanipal (82-5-22,2). Pp. 339–58 in S.  Parpola and R. M.  Whiting, eds., Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project Helsinki, September 7–11, 1995. Helsinki, The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Winter, Irene 2000 Babylonian Archaeologists of the(ir) Mesopotamian Past. Pp.  1785–1800 in vol. 2 of Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Rome, May 18th–23rd 1998, ed. P. Matthiae et al. Rome: La Sapienza.

Mesopotamian Idea of Time Through Modern Eyes (Disruption and Continuity) Àngel Menargues Rajadell B a r c e l o n a , S pa i n

This paper presents an approach to a particular idea of Time in Mesopotamia and its implications for mythology and cosmology. This hermeneutical approach emerges from the comparison between Modern and Mesopotamian systems of thought, and it is only possible after having carefully understood our own conception of Time as a sieve that filters, distorts and classifies (in a very specific way) what is factually perceivable. Just by thoroughly analyzing our modern sensorial procedure of comprehending our surroundings, just by taking as a subject how our perception through our modern eyes works, one can understand how reality—in its temporal scope, considering time as a mould of our sensibility—has been filtered through ages, and therefore, how its meaning has been twisted by our view. Only after having taken into account the presuppositions about what Time is—the knots that Modernity has considered intrinsically valid and therefore not just inevitable, but invisible for us—can we loosen them, bringing them into sight. In this manner we avoid potential misconceptions about interpretations of thoughts in ancient times caused by not having considered precisely the subjectivity of our own modern way of thinking. (This conjecture is obviously not only applicable to time, but also to any other field: the universe, philosophy, linguistics, etc.). Once this premise has been accepted and its implications have been explored and analyzed, it will be easier to properly compare the notion of Time in Modernity and in Mesopotamia, and, ultimately, to delve into their subsequent similarities or differences (thus, continuity or disruption). The main goal of the paper is not just to identify the obvious—and superficially visible—differences or abysses between both understandings but also the similarities that have been kept between them regarding the idea of Time. To achieve this Author’s note:  The author focuses the paper on a (with no univocal pretension) Mesopotamian idea of Time regarded necessarily from Modernity; an idea of Time that emerges from the genuine understanding of how does our modern system of thought operate, and therefore, how do we twist the meaning of what there is objectively in a source and filter it subjectively. The problems (maybe even the impossibility) that all translations have between ancient and modern languages will be the starting point of the analysis, only with the aim of building a solid background to achieve carefully, at the end, a whole picture of this general idea of Time implied in the Mesopotamian literature, with all its meanings and nuances, in resemblance or distinction with Modernity. By understanding the involuntary and inevitable application of our system of thought to historical sources (which indubitably are not in our system of perceiving reality), it will be easier for us to delve into the Mesopotamian sources meticulously, being already aware of the regular misconceptions that our own subjectivity brings. These main specificities are to be seen in this paper particularly around the idea of Time.

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aim, the thesis development has placed together the distinctive features of both the similarities and the differences, thus enabling comparisons, suggestions 1, and the attainment of a higher number of direct, clear relations between ancient and modern conceptions of Time. The paper is organized around the three unique states of time: the status of time which-is-already-going-by (the usual status, the sequence itself, the one-afteranother); the status of time which-is-not-time-yet (the before, the origins, the time before time); and the status of time which-has-already-ended (the after, the end of time). In each of them specific details of this comparison between the Mesopotamian and Modern conceptions of Time will be analyzed thoroughly. The Mesopotamian notion of Time will be exemplified by extracts from the epic of Atra-ḫasīs 2 and Enūma Eliš. 3 Modern understanding and its concepts will mainly be extracted from the Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant, 4 as well as from some physical interpretations of the universe and its origins by modern physicists Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, and Albert Einstein. 5 Aristotle’s and Martin Heidegger’s categories and thoughts will be introduced as exceptional aids to establish clear and secure connections between Mesopotamia and Modernity, but purely as methodological support. Both conceptions of Time need to be examined from a hermeneutical approach, and only then, fully aware of our own (namely, modern) categories, can we avoid the trend of unconsciously applying our conceptions to what surrounds us. In other words, the only way to interpret carefully an ancient text is by taking cognizance of our own filters and subjectivity, and therefore being able to approach as precisely as possible the meaning of the text itself, not merely a coarse approximation. (If it is possible to accept that such meaning exists or it relies necessarily on the presence of a particular reader). The filters that have been taken into consideration are organized from generals to specifics within the following warnings: As a first warning, we should take into consideration that the most catastrophic misconceptions we can easily bring forth are a consequence of not having clear the relationships between a rational pattern (own or foreign) and a given experience. We: do apply our Time pattern to our experience,   setting contemporary experiences in our boundless Cartesian system of thought should apply their 6 Time pattern to their experience, 1. Although the author might have suggested or pointed out some ideas around the concept of time, they are always addressed from the required hermeneutical precaution. 2.  W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). 3.  T. R. Kämmerer and K. A. Metzler, Das babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos Enūma Eliš (AOAT 375; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2012). 4.  Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kants gesammelten Schriften, Band 3: Kritik der reinen Vernunft (2.Aufl. 1787) (Berlin: Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1904, 1911). 5.  Without attempting completeness we may quote the following: S. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988); S. Hawking and L. Mlodinow, The Grand Design (New York: Bantam, 2010); S. Weinberg, The 3 First Minutes (New York: Basic, 1977); and A. Einstein in his Nobel lecture, Fundamental Ideas and Problems of the Theory of Relativity (1923) in Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901–1921 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967). 6.  The pattern of Time in Mesopotamia appears in this case as a no-pattern, but not because it is assumed that it actually has not existed. It has been stipulated this way just to avoid any attempt to

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  instead of setting experiences from a distant past in our own system of thought,   but, not being able to know it, usually apply our Time pattern to their experience, 7   setting experiences from a distant past in our boundless Cartesian system of  thought.

A second warning defines the attempt to guarantee a perfect isomorphism between different languages or linguistic structures as impossible. The necessity of being aware of the idiosyncrasies of each language, in the same or in different linguistic branches, will be treated subsequently, but this work goes a step further. Modern languages underline the possibility of directly and unambiguously translating texts or ideas between distinct linguistic structures, implying a nearly total inter-translatability (or at least, an attempt); yet in depth, the idea of translatability among them can be rejected as they are nothing but versions of the same phenomenon, particular exemplifications of the same structure, a language-system itself, 8 that is: the unique modern linguistic-conceptual scenario, the current logical-empirical scientific perspective. The concept of Time does indeed have, for example, either in French or English, the same implications and an identical meaning. However, this parallelism cannot occur between any of our modern languages and languages such as Old Babylonian or Sumerian. Words, signs, symbols or ideas (particularly abstract ideas and concepts) can neither be translated with all their nuances, nor with their main significance. Even to attempt this would be something tremendously naive. If unambiguously defined concepts like day or year can have an entirely different meaning today in comparison with what citizens of Mesopotamia could think (through other conceptual patterns, as said before), how can we be sure about the meaning they would have given to such an abstract or ambiguous concept as Time? Let us imagine, for instance, that one can without further problems translate the Akkadian word adannu (dana in modern eastern Assyrian and edono in the western) into ‘appointed time’, ‘deadline’ and addu (addeya and eddo, respectively, in these languages) as ‘now’. From this translation one cannot directly equate the word addu with what we in our language and our contemporary times understand as now and adannu with what we nowadays understand as a deadline. The difficulty is not just trying to translate the cuneiform signs and words themselves into our language; the problem is to understand what they truly mean once we have assigned a specific translation. 9 What this ‘now’ could have meant in Mesopotamia is hazard a guess that would obviously fail. This decision is a mere result of the impossibility of inference of any specific pattern and the hermeneutical care the author wants to plead in this paper. 7.  The main problem consists in applying our own way to seize the reality to a given experience which has been necessarily perceived in another time through other rational patterns, whose features and specificities are so distant from our thinking, that we cannot guarantee a precise understanding of them. 8.  See F. M. Marzoa, Lengua y tiempo (Madrid: Visor, 1999). This modern language-structure is necessarily linked to the current procedure of validating the reality, to the actual scientific categories of logic and truth, which allow us to distinguish what is real from what is not. This implies that languages are nothing but a huge variety of distinct mental structures from which a unique system of Truth can be reached (considering all of them therefore subsumed to this only established criterion of thinking). 9.  See Martin Heidegger’s lectures about Parmenides (1942–43) in M. S. Frings, Martin Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe, Band 54 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1982). Heidegger defends in it the untranslatability of an idea, a word, supporting his argument in the impossibility of avoiding the use of the current meaning of a word, distorting its own significance, the, so to say, self semantics of the word, or, as he says, the significance in which the word was thought, said for the first time.

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something that may have nothing to do with our instant fleeting present moment which looks forward to the future. 10 At least, it could not have been understood as an ephemeral point in an infinite and infinitely divisible Cartesian linear structure of Time. A third warning refers to the (un-)feasibility of a translation between different languages, especially from different linguistic branches. All the specificities of any translation are to be thought of as concerning not just semantic terms, but also as syntactic (and therefore structural, conceptual). This occurs due to the fact that all languages mould the manner in which a person thinks and perceives reality. The more distant two languages are, the more complicated the complete transfer of an idea between both languages can be. As a result, we are not always able to translate words literally without ambiguities. However, if it can be done, it will be through a careful understanding of all the idiosyncrasies of a language, the background noise of a source. A fourth warning shall be introduced with the words of Martin Heidegger about the essence of any hermeneutical process of interpretation or translation: Zunächst fassen wir diesen Vorgang äußerlich technisch-philologisch. Man meint, das »Übersetzen« sei die Übertragung einer Sprache in eine andere, der Fremdsprache in die Muttersprache oder auch umgekehrt. Wir verkennen jedoch, daß wir ständig auch schon unsere eigene Sprache, die Muttersprache, in ihr eigenes Wort übersetzen. Sprechen und Sagen ist in sich ein Übersetzen, dessen Wesen keineswegs darin aufgehen kann, daß das übersetzende und das übersetzte Wort verschiedenen Sprachen angehören. 11

The problem does not lie exclusively in translations between entirely distinct language structures (e.g. Old Babylonian and French); nor between closer languages. There are other sorts of obstacles to which normally we do not attend which can be found in translating texts into the same language structure, either in the general phenomenon of modern languages, or even in a same language. The dilemma of having a word already given in our own language, directly internalized, a word which means something specific for us—the main idea and the nuances around it-, is that its translation can falsely be assumed, considering the given interpretation to which we are used to valid in any case, forgetting the fact that the meaning of a word can change through space or time: Dagegen bleibt die Übersetzung der eigenen Sprache in ihr eigenstes Wort stets das Schwerere. So ist z. B. die Übersetzung des Wortes eines deutschen Denkers in die deutsche Sprache darum besonders schwierig, weil hier sich die hartnäckige Vormeinung behauptet, wir verstünden das deutsche Wort von selbst, weil es ja der eigenen Sprache angehört, wogegen wir doch beim Übersetzen des griechischen Wortes erst noch die fremde Sprache lernen müssen. 12

Without having in mind these prejudices, this ghost of knowledge (the simulated, apparent and uncertain understanding) can prevent the comprehension of the real meaning of a word in a specific moment of civilisation or culture. All the related branches of alternative meanings of a word or a possible interpretation-translation 10. The direction of Time will be explored in the chapter Time as Pure Sequence §17–19. 11.  See M. S. Frings, Martin Heidegger. 1. Einleitung §1, Die Göttin »Wahrheit«, 17, §3. 12.  Ibid., 18, §2.

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of it and its nebula of signification, its constellation of semantics, 13 would disappear here. As the fifth and last warning, a morphological problem will be examined. One can easily assimilate that there are some words, normally seen in an accusative case (also in the temporal and the essive cases), which are essentially unable to appear in the nominative case form. They cannot be thought as a subiectum of any sentence, as the ὑποκείμενον, the receiver of any sort of object; any χατηγορούμενον or specific characteristic can be told about them. Being able to be the object of any praedicatum is the necessary condition of any linguistic particle with a whole semantic meaning to function as the subject or nominal predicate of a sentence (understanding this presence in a linguistic sequence which includes our modern duality subject-object or in our basic constitution of a sentence subject-predicate 14). They cannot be a theme by themselves. Any term in the semantic field of counting time, specifically or in general, will fit in with the aforementioned particles: now, deadline, yesterday, today, before, after, someday, future, past, present, etc. These words cannot be understood merely by themselves in the Antiquity as possible subjects, receivers of predicates. They cannot function in any case as nominative case forms, because they are nothing but a possible praedicatum of a determined subject. In ancient times the concepts 15 they represent could not be understood as anything more than determined temporal parameters in which something else (what we would call the subject, or the relationship between subject and predicate) could happen. The action is something that happens in a specific moment of time, but the specific moment of time itself is not a theme, represents no presence. 16 Once analyzed some of the problems of the translation process itself (between different language structures or within the same language structure, perceiving a reality through own understanding or foreign sieves created by other thinking patterns, etc.), the insurmountable abyss between a living language and an extinct one (a language only accessible through its corpus) can be fully taken into consideration, and accordingly, so does the impossibility of a direct translation between them (as a process to reach the so called linguistic isomorphism). Having regarded all these preliminary indications, we are now careful enough to scrutinize the concept of time in Modernity and Mesopotamia.

13. See J. Bottéro, Mésopotamie: l’écriture, la raison et les dieux (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), chap. L’écriture et la dialectique, specifically the linguistic analysis of the «constellation sémantique» of words and signs. 14.  See F. M. Marzoa, Desconocida raíz común (Madrid: Visor, 1987), chaps. 1–3; and De Kant a Hölderlin (Madrid: Visor, 1992), chaps. 1.1–1.2. 15.  In the sense of meanings, ideas. Although the author generally understands in this paper the word concept in a strictly Kantian way, with all its implications, here the meaning of the word is to be understood sensu lato. 16.  The same difference could be seen by thinking about the ‘theoretical’ incapability of adverbial or adjectival words or phrases to be nominalized. They are essentially objects, characteristics assignable to subjects or nouns. The conceptualization or pure nominalization of these particles into nouns is a modern step that modern languages allow. There are no objects referring to other objects: only to subjects.

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Time as Pure Sequence The first main chapter of this article is based on the consideration of time in its status quo, as the status that already goes by, a sequence, a succession—or simultaneity—of facts, events: the time while it is functioning, as usual, the time as we know it. It can be seen as trivial to focus on speech here, but Time always operates this way; in fact, all hypotheses about the other two states (the beginning and the end of time) are mere unsustainable speculations, whether scientific or mythological (both in Modernity and Mesopotamia). In addition, there are some further implications into what can be considered a sequence that need to be analyzed. We can establish that the essential structure of the sequence of time, that is, the pure one after, before or at the same time as another, is in the Mesopotamian idea of time as valid as in modern conceptions. Immanuel Kant writes in his Critique of Pure Reason, in the Transcendental Aesthetics, about Time: Die Zeit ist 1) kein empirischer Begriff, der irgend von einer Erfahrung abgezogen worden. Denn das Zugleichsein oder Aufeinanderfolgen würde selbst nicht in die Wahrnehmung kommen, wenn die Vorstellung der Zeit nicht a priori zum Grunde läge. Nur unter deren Voraussetzung kann man sich vorstellen: daß einiges zu einer und derselben Zeit (zugleich) oder in verschiedenen Zeiten (nach einander) sei. 17

We would not be able to distinguish between the coexistence and the succession of some events if we were not able to sequence them, to establish relations between them through Time. For Modernity, but also for Mesopotamian thought, Time, as sequence, must be the pure possibility of ordering experiences, of settling an event after, before or at the same time as another; in words of Kant, the form of experience: not this or that specific experience, but all possible experience. 18 This sequence can be clearly distinguishable in the next fragment: [The gods] were digging watercourses, [The waterways of the gods, the] life of the land. [The Igigi dug the Ti]gris river, [And the Euphrates there]after 19

First, the Igigi dug the river Tigris, then, after, 20 the Euphrates. Where the reference to some divine activities before others does not exclusively imply a specific ‘quantity’ of time between one and another, it at least allows one to see a sequential process, an order which emerges between them. In this case, the succession of

17.  See Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ibid., Buch I. Transzendentale Elementarlehre, 1. Teil: Die transzcendentale Ästhetik, 2. Abschnitt: Von der Zeit §4. 18.  Idem “Die Zeit ist eine notwendige Vorstellung, die allen Anschauungen zum Grunde liegt”. 19. Apud J. Bottéro and S. N. Kramer, Lorsque les dieux faisaient l’homme. Mythologie mésopotamienne. Atra-ḫasīs I 21–6, 533 (Paris : Gallimard, 1989). Although a more precise translation can be found in W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, ibid. I vv. 19–26, 42–3, with the transliteration–translation of the main fragments and an addenda of the Assyrian Recension corresponding to these same verses, the author has avoided its fragmentary condition, by quoting the translation of Bottéro and Kramer, more complete. 20.  The translation of W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard keep, like the one proposed by J. Bottéro and S. N. Kramer, a clear temporality between the verses. First, the Tigris, and after (and only after) the Euphrates.

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events, the one after the other, is explicit. However, we frequently find that references to the sequence are not so clearly visible: Let one god be slaughtered, So that all the gods may be cleansed in a dipping. From his flesh and blood Let Nintu mix clay, That god and man May be thoroughly mixed in the clay 21

Here there are two events that are being realized in a succession which is implicit (through the causal expression so that . . .): 22 the moment in which the slaughter of the god happens is when Nintu can mix clay from his flesh and blood. It is easy to find these examples, as implicit sequences, in Mesopotamian literature. The immovable and characteristic repetition of verses, sometimes of grammatical structures, establishes in numerous cases this movement through time, this consecution or succession of actions or events. In this case, it is clear that first of all a god has to be slaughtered to be then purified (explicit), so then Nintu can mix his flesh and blood as clay. Especially in repetitive consecutions of verses, one can perceive a progress or contrast between different moments in which a same sequence of verses is told with diverse nuances, establishing a stronger connection between them (the tangible) and Time (the internal structure of the tangible 23): Twelve hundred years had not yet passed, When the land extended and the peoples multiplied. The land was bellowing like a bull, The god got disturbed with their uproar. Enlil heard their noise And addressed the great gods, ‘The noise of mankind has become too intense for me, With their uproar I am deprived of sleep [...]’ 24

In these verses, the implications of Enlil’s anger do not come from a succession of events, but rather from the process (necessarily through time) in which humankind has, over successive generations, achieved an annoying level of noisiness. It is true that the phrase less than twelve hundred years implies a certain lapse of time— clearly brief for the god, visible because of the expression “less than”—, but the text evokes no process, rather an instant in which humankind has become annoying for Enlil, and, simultaneously, at that particular moment in time, 25 the god realises how upsetting is that for him. 21.  See W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-ḫasīs I vv. 208–213, 59. 22.  This expression is translated by J. Bottéro and S. N. Kramer, Lorsque les dieux, La création de l’homme, vv.210–213, 537 with a temporal clause (using ‘then’ as the connector). The implications in both cases remain for the goal of this paper the same. 23.  See Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Von der Zeit, §4.: “two different times cannot be simultaneous, but rather successive, while two different spaces are not successive, rather simultaneous”. 24.  See W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-ḫasīs II.i vv. 1–8, 73. 25.  See Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Von der Zeit, §4–7; this comprehension of time as a Cartesian timeline in which events happen (being then able to be linked, classified, through the temporal distance between them in the system) is a modern conception of time, already accepted in the time when Kant wrote his first Critique.

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Summarizing, it would not be feasible to place something into existence at the same time or at different times without the a priori condition of time as implied in all possible experience. It is the necessary basis of the experience itself, in general. In this sense, not just the list of Kings, the Calendars, but also some myths can reflect the need to slot events (whether mythical or historical) in time—both successive and simultaneous. What is important to notice here is when and how these events are placed in time. In our modern conception, it is understandable that the events are necessarily placed in an imaginary infinite linear timeline, which chronologically goes from the beginning of time and moves towards the future (it is actually irrelevant if there is an end of this timeline or not 26); still any factual limit of this infinite system brings always special problems. So to say, we think of Time through a Cartesian linear infinite time conception. 27 Although it is the rejection of it by Isaac Newton who fixes it in the same 17th century when it was proposed 28, it comes, partly, from a path which clearly begins with Zeno and his paradox about infinity 29, and Aristotle in Physics, book III. 30 Opposed to this conception, the ancient understanding, especially Mesopotamian, adopts another form of chronological conception of time. Although it is true that the next verses can be understood as if they were in a temporal linear structure, this is just because, as discussed before, we look through our modern eyes, and apply our time patterns to everything: For one year they ate couch-grass (?); For the second year they suffered the itch. The third year came [And] their features [were altered] by hunger 31 26.  At least, it is irrelevant concerning the actual chapter, within Time is understood as the sequence, its status quo. As announced in the foreword of this paper, the beginning and the end of time will be the next chapters. 27.  See P. J. Oscamp, R. Descartes, Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001). 28.  Newton argued that Descartes had taken God out of the equation of science. He tried to put God again as main interventor of the equation, but all philosophers who followed their path, namely Spinoza or Leibniz, took Descartes’ side, rejecting the hypothesis of Newton, and therefore, accepting his constant infinite Cartesian system. 29.  The paradox brings to sight Achilles in a footrace with a tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres. If we suppose that each racer starts running at a constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise’s starting point. During this time, the tortoise has moved a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches any point the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise. The same can be seen with the possibility of cutting a wooden board through its half section an infinite number of times (where each time is logically different). The paradox is in the impossibility of reaching the endpoint if space—also time—is considered as infinite (so, infinitely divisible), as a mathematical function which never reaches the asymptote. 30. See E. Hussey, Aristotle. Physics, Books III and IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Aristotle argued against a real infinite towards a potential infinite, refusing the paradox of Zeno. His conception of potential infinite is based on the fact that one cannot reach an endpoint (either in space or time), because it is not. If one considers something as a final point, there would be something further, the end is intrinsically unreachable. Although this would bring us to the current infinite time conception, it is still not that way for Aristotle. 31.  See W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-ḫasīs II.iv vv. 9–12, 79.

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Here we can see a clear sequence of years. Yet whilst these years can be projected in a common linear structure (being the one-after-another a part of a potentially—already existing—infinite time pattern), they can also be perceived as merely identical objects with no common background, nor with any underlying infinite structure and with no further relation to others, only with their contiguous. The sequence could therefore be understood as the mere addition of several lapses of time (a concatenation of events) with some kind of relationship (contiguity), or as a reiteration of the relationship between a year and the subsequent one. The concatenations of events in Mesopotamian narrative such as the previous example give to the succession the character of a list (as it is directly visible in the Kings’ lists, the purest one after another in Mesopotamian written documentation), a character of consecutiveness, being the essence of time the one-after-another itself and not any Cartesian pattern behind it. Time is only the pure one before and after another. Nevertheless, is it possible for us to understand something not structured in our linear chronological conception of time, but as a list? We should consider events, experiences, as indivisible objects in the void, indivisible as the natural numbers. 32 The events, whole entities related to others, should be arranged, without losing their own essence by subsuming them into a major system that denies the uniqueness of every singularity (slotting them in the void, as said before, in a no-pattern). Maybe we cannot think in these terms at all. However, by being aware of this problem we can try not to slot singular or successive events into the imaginary infinite axis in which we are used to place and relate them to the others. How could they relate to each other in Mesopotamian perception? Time is indeed the relationship between events, the temporal concatenation, a relationship between moments, lapses of time. In Mesopotamia, Time is purely relationship. This essential relativity in time (yet also in space) developed in Modernity through the universal conception of Space-Time by A. Einstein 33 may offer a key solution to the problem. The structural form of this time sequence refers to the cycles of nature through the ages. These cycles are necessarily activated at first by the divine set of gods and reactivated by human rituals dedicated to gods assuring its perpetual motion. Although one can understand that the pure succession of events as a linear time conception cannot agree with the Mesopotamian one, transposable to a positional numeric system (making numbers more concise without defining its dimension or value in a main structure, but keeping their position and nature as entities), it can be inferred that the main essential order or Time pattern in Mesopotamian thought does not consist of a non-closed linear chronology, but rather of a (closed) cyclic—also chronological—conception of time, similar somehow to suggested conceptions such as the eternal return, the ewige Wiederkunft 34 by F. Nietzsche, or l’éternel retour 35 by M. Eliade. This cyclic procession shall settle the order of the cosmos and its effectiveness, insurable through ritual celebrations, letting the cycle, the sequence of time, begin again repeatedly. 32.  The succession 1, 2, 3, 4... In this case, the author takes them only as discrete, as the opposite of the decimal numbers—in terms of divisibility-, having the naturals a relevant uniqueness of each of their pieces as whole entities, and not a fluent undistinguishable continuum of always-divisible elements. 33.  See Elsevier, Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901–1921. A. Einstein: Fundamental Ideas and Problems of the Theory of Relativity (1923). 34.  See G. Colli and M. Montinari, F. Nietzsche: Kritischen Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung VI, Band 3. Ecce Homo: wie man wird, was man ist (1888), erste Teil (Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1969). 35.  See M. Eliade, Le mythe de l’éternel retour, chap. 2. (Paris: Gallimard, 1949).

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Once analyzed the form of the sequence in which time goes by (for us, linear notclosed, and for them, linear closed, cyclic), one would need to enquire how this form is arranged, and also what is the direction of this form: how do events succeed each other? First of all, we shall discuss the fact that in Modernity, Time passes in a forward direction. We look at the mystery of the not-yet-known, the future, face to face, and we lose our perception of the past, gradually forgetting it. We confront what we cannot know for sure, leaving what we already know to oblivion. In contrast, when the Mesopotamian people considered the future, this not-yet-known, they left it as the mystery that it is, not looking at what humankind could not comprehend face to face. Instead, they focused on what they already-knew (the most clear and safe), the past, leaving the future unrevealed, the unknown, the not-knowable future, behind. This more consistent logic, coherent through a phenomenological understanding of the direction of Time related to how humans experience the past and the future, assumes that the future, sensu stricto, is a product of imagination, 36 yet the past, already known, is the only thing of which we can be sure. What does this consideration imply? Both ways of piling up events, acts, reigns, and wars, take us to this linear form (which can be closed, in cycles, or not-closed, just linear) which, as time passes, can allow the corresponding upcoming events to be set there. However, if the considerations about form and direction of the sequence are consequently followed, it can be determined that for the Mesopotamian conception of time slotting something from the present into the past appears as suddenly upcoming in front of us, face to face (as they would look towards it, to the past). Therefore, it is precisely a way to honour it, to lay it down in history (an always-memorable past) as the most recent memory, the clearest, the brightest, the most memorable. Meanwhile, our conception tends to discard the events (the new settable elements, the new 37 ‘stories’, ‘experiences’ are to be ordered in the already past-time), pushing them back to where, soon, they will be forgotten. Once the form and direction of this cyclic time has been explored, the author wants to point out a last detail about the sequence: its magnitude, its dimension. The speed of this progression is determined whether we are dealing with a historical narration—in which case we can see a quite reasonably human advance of the time pattern—or a mythical one, in which time goes by more slowly, in the manner of a godly dimension. As an example of the mythical time advance, in Enūma Eliš: Sobald sie groß geworden waren, gewachsen waren, Wurden Anšar und Kišar geschaffen, sie überragten sie. Sie verlängerten die Tage, sie vermehrten die Jahre. Anu, ihr Erbe, war seinen Vätern ebenbürtig; 38 36. Here the term Imagination does not designate some kind of irrationality, lack of consistent thinking or even some kind of fairy tale. The imagination is understood here as the Einbildungskraft for Kant (See Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kritik der reinen Vernunft §179), the cognitive faculty which links the faculty of understanding (Begriffsvermögen) and sensitivity (Empfindlichkeit), which, respectively, form the only process through which we can reach knowledge, something new. More references to the not-yet-known as the potential of imagination, creation, and even art, can be found in Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kants gesammelten Schriften, Band 5: Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790) (Berlin: Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1913) and F. M. Marzoa, Desconocida Raíz Común, chaps. 2–5. 37.  The new elements, experiences, have a displacement from, linguistically speaking, an imperfect verb tense to a perfect verb tense; the grammatical assignment whereby something is placed, settled, from a continuous present to an already ended state of past. 38. See T. R. Kämmerer and K. A. Metzler, Das babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos Ee I 11–14, 111–12.

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This sequence is placed in a time before time, before the genesis of the Universe as we know it. It also works with this series of events in some kind of temporal succession, but it has no reference to any human measurable time pattern (nonsensical when describing the acts of the divine): ‘they have extended the days and the years’, it is said. This reference to the ‘days’ cannot be linked in any way to our current conception of 24 hours, but rather to a longer lapse of time. The same happens with the years, obviously. It is only a direct metaphorical comparison to extend the time scale measure in which we humans think (the basic time units) into something nonspecific, unknowable, to extend the contrast between divinity and human being. Consequently, as soon as a fraction of a story (or event, specific reign, 39 war, campaign, etc.) approaches the antediluvian times (the most remote past for the human memory or history, the most mythical), it experiences a diachronic 40 progressive extension of its measure; its rhythm advances slowly. This variation might be ascribed as a gradual deification of the time parameters. This process tends to infinity, reaching the status of the divine, whose existence would be kept as immortal, while human beings (though they were kings or high priests and not mere slaves) would be kept within the limits of mortality, and even the most ancient predecessors of humanity (those placed further in the past) would have had longer days than those succeeding them, they remained mortal. The fluctuation of these limits (depending on how far away in time from the writer they are) can be seen when quoting fragments of the Sumerian King List 41, or, going further in detail, analyzing how the formulas of the presentation of the Kings change through dynasties and generations. 42 In the Early Bronze Age I, ca. 3000 B.C. and earlier, before the migration of the royalty to the city of Sippar, the antediluvian kings in Eridu(g), Bad-tibira(k) and Larak 43 would have reigned an average of 8 to 12 sar each (from ≈43200 to ≈28800 years) and then, after the migration, 44 only around 5 sar each (≈20000 years). After the Flood, already in the Early Bronze Age II, the postdiluvian kings ruled, in the First Dynasty of Kish, with reigns from 1200 to 140 years, 45 with an average of 700–900 years per king. There is an abyss between both time intervals: before or 39.  An extensive analysis of the past will be mainly exemplified through the different Mesopotamian (Sumerian, Assyrian, etc.) Kings’ Lists. 40. As diachronic here, the author wants to establish a clear differentiation between the times in which a serial of reigns took place and the late moment of their historization, the moment in which these events have been written down or organized as themes or lists in a specific cuneiform tablet. For all the minutiae of the versions and formulas of the Sumerian King List (main example now on), their differences and subsequent deduced relative chronology, see T. Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List (AS 11; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939). 41. Idem. 42.  Ibid., 28–42. 43. Ibid. I 1–23, 69–75. From the first reign after the kingship descended from heaven in Eridu(g), A-lulim(ak) and Alalğar were kings. Then, in Bad-tibira(k), En-men-lu-Anna(k), En-men-gal-Anna(k), (divine) Dumu-zi(d) the shepherd. The royalty migrated then to the city of Larak, where only En-sipa(d)zi(d)-Anna(k) reigned. All the reigns lasted between 8 and 12 sar (approximately in lengths between 28800 and 43200 years). 44. Ibid. I 24–38, 75–77, about the last antediluvian kings. When the kingship arrived to Sippar En-men-dur-Anna(k) ruled, and then in Shuruppak, Ubar-Tutu(k). 45. Ibid. I 39-II 44, 77–85. It is when the royalty reached the First Dynasty of Kish where we can see an abyssal decrease of the lengths of the reigns, from the 1200 years of Ga. .ur(?), the 960 of Nidaba, 670 of Palâ-kînātim, and so on—with certain exceptions and fluctuations as, chronologically, the tendency is a decrease in the amount of years of each reign, and a huge leap between antediluvian and postdiluvian reigns.

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after the Flood. And in both sequences one can see a tendency to decrease through generations the length of the sovereignty. 46 In this progress, the advance and succession of kings tends asymptotically to infinity when reaching the beginning of time, extending the reigns, the days, the years. As we approach Modernity, we see a reduction of these reigns. These different time scales illustrate the successive change from a mythical to a historical (and therefore measurable, reachable) time pattern of the different dynasties or reigns in the Sumerian King List.

The Beginning of Time Once having understood this sequential change of our stable structure of time (the human time, the mere sequence, the going-by) into a distorted version of it (by metaphorically extending the days, years, reigns and other events), and this curious tendency 47 to infinitely extend the time length as history moves away from the present, one cannot avoid the question of how and when time began, how this tendency reaches its origin, its first moment. The second main chapter of this paper deals with time as the ‘not-yet-going’, scrutinizing antediluvian times, the beginnings, the origins of time (thus the Universe). What happens in these longer days and years mentioned in Enūma Eliš. Although there are numerous conceptions and subsequent implications about the beginnings of time for Modernity, it has been seen as coherent to focus speech on a physical-scientific approach. 48 In contrast, the Ancient conception of a temporal starting point will be focused on a mythical one. 49 In the basic construction of the concept 50 of Time in Mesopotamia (in the same way as in Ancient Greece) there is a beginning understood as an insurmountable boundary. In our current understanding, through physical scientific thoughts, the most accepted theory is also something insurmountable: the Big Bang. That being 46.  Although it has been consistently said that the temporality of these lists is merely an ideological question, a legitimization product for the Dynasty of Ur III—in case of the Sumerian King List-, or that understanding these reigns under a singular figure of a king could be rejected in order to be understood as a group of kings (as a set of generations under the same name), the length of the different sorts of groups, of king-sets, remains in the same length decrease progress. Ideological or historically, the written documents show an interest to the near deification of the first kings, validating their own past, their roots, while a humanisation—in terms of the time pattern and the length of their realms—of the later kings. The argument of the progressive decrease of the reign durations, ergo, can be still considered valid. 47.  It is maybe arguable as a process of legitimization of the most ancient history that humankind can remember, making that events look like under the frame of the divine, even if this history has to be, at a point, created, invented, modified, or the time lapses extended, in order to approach the past of humankind to the genesis of Gods and universe. 48.  The already referenced physical theories taken in this paper as foci on Modernity are firstly proposed by A. Einstein with the theory of relativity and its implications to the Space-Time conception as the 4 basic dimensions in the universe and the relativity among them. As a continuation of it, the theories of S. Hawking and S. Weinberg in the second half of the 20th century will be outwardly analyzed (only from a theoretical approach), to expose the theory of the Big Bang, the string, and M theories attempts of Unification. 49.  In this case Mesopotamia, of course, with Enūma Eliš as main reference, but emphasising similar structures as Ancient Greece did through Hesiod’s Theogony. 50.  Even though, of course—as can be inferred from I. Kant’s first Critique-, what we understand by concept is something exclusively modern, whose creation is only possible when a specific subject thinks of it as a concept, develops it through one’s own understanding, thinking and synthesizing it through a very specific process.

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true, in both explanations of the beginning of the Universe (and therefore, Time) a singularity—in mathematical terms—exists, an instant in which there is some kind of perturbation which makes the primeval non-being into being: the Greek Chaos into Cosmos and the non-separated Heaven and Earth—in Enūma Eliš—into Heaven and Earth: Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth 51 Als oben der Himmel nicht genannt war, Unten die Erde mit Namen nicht benannt war 52

Similarly in modern physics, through theories and quantum mechanics 53, the singularity of the beginning of time has become even more mythical, as in mythical explanations of the primeval Universe, the Big Bang: In the Beginning there was an explosion. Not an explosion like those familiar in earth, starting from a definite centre and spreading out to engulf more and more of the circumambient air, but an explosion which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space from the beginning, with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle 54

What can we consider as the initial cause of Universe’s existence? What is the reason that Heaven and Earth became distant, Chaos came to be, or an Explosion took place, as the universe and time began? Why might these singularities have occurred in the specific moment when they did? This issue has been addressed since the dawn of civilization, and attempts to solve it have been made through each imaginary, the given imagination 55 of each mental or conceptual sieve. It obviously has nothing to do with any kind of absolute truth of our modern superiority 56 over the ancient, nor the opposite; every single model agrees consistently with its contemporary vision of 51.  See H. G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod’s Theogony (1914), vv. 116–120: ἦ τοι μὲν πρώτιστα Χάος γένετ᾽, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα / Γαῖ᾽ εὐρύστερνος, πάντων ἕδος ἀσφαλὲς αἰεὶ

[ἀθανάτων, οἳ ἔχουσι κάρη νιφόεντος Ὀλύμπου, ] / Τάρταρά τ᾽ ἠερόεντα μυχῷ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης,.

52.  See T. R. Kämmerer and K. A. Metzler, Das babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos Ee I 1–2, 109: Enūma Eliš lā nabû šamāmū

šapliš ammatum šuma lā zakrat

53.  The most basic axiom of this group of hypotheses is the necessarily simultaneous understanding of the dual particle-like and wave-like behaviour, in the interactions between energy and matter. Its strong and difficult mathematical processes to reach an—at least at this time—impossible Grand Unification Theory including all fundamental interactions, forces, in the Universe (gravity, electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces) tend, logically, to convert the old physic models (a visible coherent system, a perceivable logic) to something completely intangible, lost in complicated mathematic equations which try to solve insurmountable problems and, in this sense, kind of mythical, unreachable. 54.  See S. Weinberg, The 3 first minutes, chap. 1, §7. 55. See Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kritik der reinen Vernunft §151 and §179, about Imagination “(Einbildungskraft)”. 56. The scientific logic and understanding (as always happens with any current valid system of Truth of each moment in History) has a Will of superiority which refuses, invalidates, most of the ancient thoughts because of their condition of myths. A lucid refutation of the allegedly untruth of the myths in the synchronous duality between μῦθος and λόγος can be found in F. M. Marzoa, Historia de la Filosofía, I, 1. Introducción general a la Filosofía griega, 17–18 (Madrid: Istmo, 2000).

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the Universe and Time. Nowadays, the current view of Universe (physical, scientific) can explain only the first moment (the first nanoseconds) after the singularity of the origins of Space-time (a concept whose relative parts—‘space’ and ‘time’— make no sense when separated 57) came out from the pure void, 58 not the explosion instant: the singularity, the origin itself, cannot be described. Therefore, it cannot be inferred why it had happened; only how it had worked, how this proto-universe had been in their first minutes developed. It is nothing but a concentration of matter that explodes. It happens suddenly, everywhere, and no one can yet know why. Which kind of distortion (logically external to the Universe, or, to be more accurate, to this Universe 59) created our Time, our Universe? Is it possible, nevertheless, to imagine an existence of time before time? Physicists agree on the impossibility of the acquisition of this knowledge without knowing how dense the Universe is, 60 and therefore they present three different possibilities: Either the Universe is not so dense, and it will be always in expansion (the Big Rip model of an open universe, in a constant—with a constant amount of Dark Energy—or in an increasing—a very open universe—acceleration); it is so dense, that it is currently in expansion but at some time it will come back to a primeval form and implode definitely (Big Crunch model with a closed universe) or operate in a permanent and cyclical periodic process of expansions and implosions (Big Crunch model with an oscillating universe); or it has the very specific density (a constant amount of Dark Matter) that makes the universe be at the moment in a limited expansion, but will someday reach a limit in which it will stay, a stationary dimension (stable model of open universe). From the current status of a universe in expansion, we cannot choose any of the options; we only know that our universe is expanding at this very moment. Only time will tell how this expansion accelerates or decelerates. If the Universe is describable with the cyclical decreasing (to the point from which the Big Bang began)-and-increasing (to a maximal limit, in which the density of the universe makes the expanding acceleration turn into zero) Space-Time, is it meaningful to contemplate it as a Time system (whether from a modern or an ancient perspective) that collapses and raises from its ashes into a multiple—and cyclical—structure? In principle, it does make sense. However, what does not make sense is any attempt to 57.  See Elsevier, ibid. In his Nobel lecture, A. Einstein exposes the basis of Space-Time as a mathematical model which combines space (as three-dimensional) and time (as the fourth dimension) into a single continuum, which has interferences, interactions, in its own constitution (either in spatial or temporal terms). 58.  Although this term is not used in these physical hypotheses, both interpretations of S. Hawking in either A Brief History of Time or in The Grand Design—naturally, among the aforementioned— propose the possibility of a self-generation of the Universe, and therefore, Time and Space. Our own physical laws, the ones which we nowadays consider valid, avoid answering the main question about the first instant, the very first moment, and instead, they push the importance of the beginning into the background. 59.  The intrinsic externality of the causes of the genesis of this Universe (whether or not among others) is, in fact, the same problematic that Parmenides explores in his poem On Nature. For more information, see J. Burnet, Parmenides’ Proem in Early Greek Philosophy (London-Edinburgh: A. C. Black, 1892) or the new revision of D. Gallop, Parmenides of Elea. Fragments (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984). 60.  See. A. Friedmann, Über die Krümmung des Raumes in Zeitschrift für Physik, 10 377–86 (Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer, 1922). The expansion of the universe and its acceleration are measured by calculating the average distance between the different galaxies.

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compare, to establish links between both time structures, sequences. It is not meaningful to ask how a Time system could have been before our Time, as we know it, as the singularity between a system and its subsequent one is absolutely insurmountable. For Science, talking about a Golden age or a divine pre-time makes no sense. 61 (. . .) how could it come into being? If it came to being, it is not; nor is it if it is going to be in the future (. . .) 62

How is it possible to imagine that something—in this case everything—came to be, suddenly, from nowhere, from a not-being? The problem can be distinctively settled by both modern science and ancient mythology. Why then, at that specific instant? How did it happen? What-where-when does our universe (and therefore time) come from? These insurmountable dilemmas for any of the given explanations of Universe and origins of Time are also a main theme in the Mesopotamian narrative. It is true that the divine processes that once were made, in the first time (necessarily repeated in ritual processes that help the world go through 63 time without impediments, to keep the Universe calm, in order), can be considered as in a ‘time’ lapse. Nonetheless, these divine acts and processes are essentially situated before time, out of time, at least of our human time, and, strictly, they cannot be slotted into our own timeline lots of years before in a distant past. 64 They must be placed before time starts, necessarily, before a beginning. The same happens if we try to understand these events through physical terms and the aforementioned logical consecution: a time before time, the time of gods 65 has nothing to do with, has no relation to, the human measure of time. Even if it could be considered a time sequence, nothing would permit the establishment of any link to our human time structure, either in form, in direction, or in measure. It is true that, in mythology, the antediluvian kingdoms, or even the golden age for Greeks, have a more similar temporality to ours (longer, but still similar in a way). However, the events that happened before the existence of time (events caused necessarily by the gods or, as proposed in the current Standard Model of Particle Physics, the universe itself) can hardly be classified under Time (sensu stricto as we know it nowadays). For our current view of the Universe, in the 21st century, Time is necessarily understood (itself, in its process) from a beginning. It does not matter if it is through the Creation of a God, according to the theory of Big Bang in contemporary physics or Chronos castrating his father. Essentially, these hypotheses do not differ greatly: we cannot understand the universe without a starting point, yet we cannot know why this moment happened. Our comprehension refutes the possibility of the uni-

61.  See S. Hawking and L. Mlodinow, The Grand Design. This denial, although the possibility of a time before our time is in science acceptable, comes from the infeasibility of talking about it. 62.  See J. Burnet, Parmenides’ Proem VIII, 20–22. 63.  See M. Eliade, Le mythe de l’éternel retour, chaps. 1–3. 64.  The statement will be thoroughly examined through different literary examples in Mesopotamian narrative. The time of the divine, of the creation, is not our time. It has distinct characteristics, advances differently; that is a clear remark visible in all possible fragments. 65.  The author will not consider the obvious rejection of the mythical creation of the universe by scientists: the paper wishes to deal with the methodological and metaphysical problems, to examine the conceptual dilemmas of the different conceptions of time, not the factual incompatibilities. Further problems and discordances are not the aim of this analysis.

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verse always having been operating, eternally. 66 In all of the hypotheses around the idea of the beginning of time, humankind tries to explain what kind of singular event could suddenly provoke the appearance of what there is, the Universe, and, therefore, Time. Whether it comes from a singular perturbation in the void or from a design of a Divine Being, 67 it necessarily has to come from outside our own Universe–time pattern, as some kind of law (physical or divine) which reigns over this specific universe even before it gets to be universe. Parmenides points out, that not-being cannot become being, 68 that this transformation would be contradictory. What now is must have been then, always, in one specific form or another. Is there any possible resolution to this paradox? The only possibility is a ‘change of status of the matter of the Universe’ (from matter to energy, from some kind of matter to another one, etc.), a change which allows Time to begin as we know it. Indeed, some kind of being can turn into another kind of being: transformation, mutation, is viable, but not creation from nothing. Then, if Time is a consequence of this matter-energy mutation which began as a Big Bang or a designation from a divine Creator, a Beginning must have occurred. Time must have been booted at an initial moment and it must have had a cause. Nevertheless, if that beginning or even that temporality before time, as speculation, might be treated as timely and logically needed to cause Universe and Time, how was this condition of pre-time emphasized in Mesopotamian culture and myths? The main reference of the paper will be the Enūma eliš, but first, it would be useful to shortly summarize what Aristotle said about physics, time, and being. In his book III of Physics, Aristotle affirmed that something can be only if it is limited, only if it has boundaries. The day is day because the night is night, and vice versa. 69 And through this process one can see that it is of no importance whether day or night previously existed or not. It is in the moment in which they limit each other—day as day and night as night—in which each one is, in which each one has a specific constitution, boundary, name, designation, being. Remembering the importance of the ascription of a name for the Mesopotamian culture, in words of J. Bottéro: [. . .] the name has its source, not in the person who names, but in the object that is named: that it is an inseparable emanation from the object, like a projected shadow, a copy, or a translation of its nature. They believed this to such an extent that in their eyes “to receive a name” and to exist (evidently according to the qualities and the representations put forward in the name) was one and the same. 70 66.  As a matter of fact, our modern understanding firmly disproves the idea of eternal, being the logical consecution cause-effect the imperative relationship among all events. Accordingly, a primeval cause is to be found when we want to delve into our farthest past, a first cause is needed to boot up this system. It can be still understood as eternal, but it has to have a beginning point. Even though it could have an end point, the causality would remain eternal, permanent. 67.  The aim of answering this question, in contemporary physics, is included as the main goal of S. Hawking and L. Mlodinov, The Grand Design, though the supporting arguments there (in the attempt to make physics understandable to everyone) may be eroded and not extremely convincing in terms of logical consistency for readers. 68.  See J. Burnet, Parmenides’ Proem. 69.  See F. M. Marzoa, El decir griego (Madrid: Visor, 2006), chap. 2, §1–2. 70.  See J. Bottéro, Mésopotamie, chap. L’écriture et la dialectique, hypothèses de cette herméneutique § 2, quoted through the translation by Z. Bahrani and M. Van de Mieroop, 97.

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Coming back to the theme, at the beginning of time, Heaven and Earth could be, but as they had yet no name, they were not. They could not exist by themselves as two separate entities before having boundaries between them. Day is day if and only if night is night. When the boundaries between them were not clear, certain, they could not be, at least understood as day and night. There is nothing which can be without a name, without boundaries which separate this ‘thing’, ‘god’ or ‘time’ from others. A contrast between A and B is needed to make A and B exist by themselves. Heaven and Earth could not be differentiated before time. They were not, neither Heaven, nor Earth. Als oben der Himmel nicht genannt war, Unten die Erde mit Namen nicht benannt war, Apsû, der Erste, ihr Erzeuger, Die lebenswirkende Kraft Tiamtu, die Erzeugerin ihrer Gesamtheit, Ihre Wasser zusammen mischten, Weide nicht ineinander gefügt war, mit Rohrdickicht nicht gepolstert war, Als (noch) überhaupt keine Götter hervorgebracht waren, Keine mit Namen benannt waren, mit Schicksalen bestimmt waren, Wurden die Götter in ihrer Mitte geschaffen, Wurden Laḫmu und Laḫāmu hervorgebracht, wurden mit Namen benannt. 71

It is important to see that all the references to a pre-time are written in negative form, establishing an essential contrast between ‘now’, time, and ‘then’, no-time (or other time). Obviously the height heaven and the earth beneath now have a name, they have been named, Apsû and Tiamtu do not merge waters anymore, the field is formed, the marshes are to be seen, the Gods have been called into being, all with names, even Laḫmu and Laḫāmu. The Universe and Time are what they are in contrast to before, when they were not as they are now. It is the contrast between what was not yet and what is now, the contrast which allows us to differentiate between the pre-time, these mythical considerations about time before our time, and our time, the historical chronological sequence.

The End of Time Finally, once considered that Time has, needs to have, boundaries, once observed the possibility from Physics that the Universe could collide again, imploding itself, the paper will conclude with the last of the three aforementioned sole states of time: (the fear of) the final End. The third main chapter, shorter in comparison to the others, is dedicated to the consideration of time as ‘the not-anymore’, the end, the Revelation of time and Universe. There are both mythical (religious) approaches and physical (Big Crunch, in which this expansive Universe goes back into an implosion), but in Mesopotamia one can only talk, as also in Ancient Greek culture among others, about the fear of losing the lanes of time, the stability of Universe and Time, the fear of the return of the chaotic forces, Tiamtu, Typhon, etc. which threaten the order of Everything. 72 The thought of an End of Ages is not explicitly spread (as occurs in later religious versions of time): the end of time does not appear 71.  See T. R. Kämmerer and K. A. Metzler, Das babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos Ee I 1–10, 109–11. 72. Obvious references can be found in the battles between Marduk and Tiamtu, and Zeus and Chronos, in which the forces of Order fight against the possibility of a deconstruction of the previously achieved status.

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in Mesopotamian narrative as an unavoidable presence which lies in wait at the end of time, at the end of the procession. It is only the pure fear of the void, of the forces of chaos returning to plunge the World, the Universe and Time, into Chaos, the only thing that has to be taken into account about the End of time. Those who want to destroy the established Order of the Universe and Time are a mere menace to the order, to time, but always negatively, never from a positive possibility, or from an accomplished End of time. The fear of an end is just that: a fear. The fear of losing the abstract idea that allows us arranging our experience. Maybe, time is nothing else. [Stavrogin]: “In the Apocalypse the angel swears that there will be no more time.” [Kirillov]: “I know. That is very true; distinct and exact. When all mankind attains happiness then there will be no more time, for there will be no need of it, a very true thought.” [Stavrogin]: “Where will they put it?” [Kirillov]: “Nowhere. Time is not an object but an idea. It will be extinguished in the mind.” [Stavrogin]: “The old commonplaces of philosophy, the same from the beginning of time,” Stavrogin muttered with a kind of disdainful compassion. [Kirillov]: “Always the same, always the same, from the beginning of time and never any other 73 73.  See F. M. Dostoyevsky, Demons (1871–72), Part II, chap.1, v, translated into English by R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Classics, 1995).

Temporalité et spatialité dans les rites de passage de l’Anatolie hittite Alice Mouton

UMR 7044 CNRS S t r as b o u r g

Pour une définition des rites de passage Les rites de passage 1 sont les rituels qui encadrent les moments-clefs de l’existence, qu’il s’agisse de transformations biologiques (naissance, puberté, enfantement, mort), sociales (rituels d’installation des prêtres ou des devins, intronisation des rois, etc.) ou religieuses (rituels d’initiation). Leur fonction est multiple: 1) ils participent à la «fabrication» 2 d’un membre de la communauté  en ce sens qu’ils l’accompagnent dans son développement biologique, psychique, social, mais aussi dans ses déplacements d’un groupe humain à un autre ; 2) ils participent à la cohésion des différents groupes sociaux, car les membres d’un même groupe sont très souvent amenés à collaborer lors du déroulement de ces rituels. En même temps, les rites de passage rappellent les clivages qui sont ancrés dans la structure sociale : les personnes qui ont traversé ou traversent ces rites sont définitivement distinguées de celles qui ne les ont pas traversés. 3 Mais c’est encore une autre fonction des rites de passage qui va nous intéresser ici: la manipulation symbolique du temps qu’ils opèrent. Le fait que les rites de passage soient également appelés, dans la littérature anthropologique, «rituels liés au cycle de vie» est particulièrement significatif: il implique une conception cyclique du temps, et plus particulièrement du temps biologique. Comme si, déjà par l’usage même de cette expression, on tentait d’affirmer que l’existence humaine n’est pas linéaire (de la naissance au néant de la mort) mais cyclique (de la naissance à une nouvelle naissance). Les effets-miroirs sont bien connus dans les rites de passage : une initiation met souvent en scène une mort symbolique, un rituel funéraire contient souvent des éléments faisant écho au phénomène de la naissance, etc. Tout cherche, dans ces rituels, à nous affirmer que la vie n’est qu’un éternel recommencement. Et pourtant, chacun de nous sait à quel point certains événements sont uniques et prouvent le caractère irréversible du temps. Ainsi, l’homme instaure un temps du rituel pour essayer d’oublier le temps biologique dont il est tributaire. Dans un article de 1986, Edith Campi indique: «[. . .] les deux caractéristiques spécifiques de l’expérience temporelle sont représentées par les concepts de durée et de succession. La durée étant l’intervalle de temps qui s’écoule entre deux instants 1.  Notion inventée et définie par Van Gennep 1909. 2.  Sur cette notion, voir Calame 2003: 138. 3.  Bourdieu 1986.

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donnés, l’on peut parler d’une durée objective (ou extérieure) et d’une durée subjective (ou psychologique). La deuxième caractéristique, la succession, est le rapport avant et après en relation avec le ‘continuum’ temporel irréversible : passé-présentfutur. L’irréversibilité de la succession temporelle, qui vient à coïncider avec l’irréversibilité du processus vital — de la naissance à la mort — a souvent été considérée comme une matrice d’angoisse; les croyances religieuses comme celles de la palingénésie, ou celles de la vie dans l’au-delà, pourraient en effet être considérées comme des tentatives pour défier l’irréversibilité de la succession temporelle et donc l’inévitabilité de la mort.» 4

Temporalité, spatialité et rites de passage au Proche-Orient ancien: l’exemple de deux rituels de naissance du Kizzuwatna Dans le cadre du projet de recherche ViGMA «Vivre, Grandir et Mourir dans l’Antiquité: rites de passage individuels au Proche-Orient ancien» 5 que je dirige depuis Janvier 2009, quinze chercheurs s’interrogent ensemble sur les modalités et les implications des rites de passage au Proche-Orient cunéiforme et en Égypte ancienne princepalement. C’est dans ce cadre que j’ai décidé de me pencher sur les problèmes de temporalité et de spatialité. En effet, la spatialité ne peut être soustraite à cette réflexion, car elle est presque toujours en adéquation avec la dimension temporelle des rituels. Pour être plus précis, on pourrait dire que la spatialité est souvent employée, dans les rituels, comme une métaphore de la temporalité. 6 En d’autres termes, les progressions spatiales mises en scène par les rituels, et, dans le cas qui nous occupe, les rites de passage, symbolisent très souvent une progression temporelle. J’illustrerai mon propos par deux exemples en provenance du monde hittite. Il s’agit de deux rituels de naissance du Kizzuwatna, le Sud de l’Anatolie hittite, que j’ai eu l’occasion d’étudier par ailleurs. 7

A.  Le rituel de naissance KUB 9.22 Le premier exemple est le rituel KUB 9.22 (et ses duplicats) qui est destiné à préparer la femme enceinte à l’accouchement. 8 Le début du texte est lacunaire, mais les lieux du rituel mentionnés dans la partie préservée sont  : la pièce intérieure É.ŠÀ, 9 qui se trouve manifestement dans la demeure même de la femme enceinte, le reste de la maison de la femme, 10 la porte menant à la pièce intérieure, 11 et la chaise à accoucher, 12 qui se trouve dans la pièce intérieure même. Ces différents espaces peuvent être schématisés de la manière suivante (fig. 1). Si nous considérons à présent les déplacements qui sont mentionnés par le texte, nous obtenons la liste suivante: 4.  Campi 1986: 131. 5.  http://vigma.misha.fr/. Ce projet est financé par l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche (projet n° ANR-08-JCJC-0140–01). 6.  De Polignac 2000: 143. Voir également Hall 1966: 163 : « Time and the way it is handled has a lot to do with structuring space ». 7.  Mouton 2008a. 8.  Beckman 1983: 86–97 et Mouton 2008a: 83–93. 9.  KUB 9.22 ii 4; ii 13–37; ii 47–iii 2; iii 38–41. 10.  KUB 9.22 ii 5–7; ii 35–36; iii 8–10. 11.  KUB 9.22 ii 38–39; iii 4–5; iii 24–25; iii 35–37. 12.  KUB 9.22 ii 17; ii 33–35; ii 47-iii 2; iii 30–34; iii 38–41.

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Fig. 1.  schématisation des espaces rituels de KUB 9.22.

1) la pièce intérieure dans laquelle se trouve la femme enceinte (KUB 9.22 ii 4: [(MUNUS⸗ya⸗kan kuedani ANA É.ŠÀ)] andan (var. anda) ēšzi); 2) l’extérieur de la pièce É.ŠÀ où quelqu’un (probablement le patili-, l’expert rituel) enfonce deux piquets, sans doute de part et d’autre de la porte menant à la pièce intérieure (KUB 9.22 ii 5–7 : [(nu apēdani ANA É.ŠÀ ar)]ahza) ; 3) à nouveau la pièce intérieure, puisque c’est visiblement là que se trouve la chaise à accoucher de la femme enceinte : le patili- est à présent dans cette pièce avec la femme enceinte pour y pratiquer des gestes rituels et un sacrifice (KUB 9.22 ii 13–37: É.ŠÀ anda). Notons que le texte précise que plusieurs objets appartenant à la femme enceinte se trouvent dans cette pièce, ce qui indique, à mon avis, que la pièce intérieure dont il est question est dans la demeure même de la femme; 4) toujours à l’intérieur de la pièce É.ŠÀ, le texte indique que le patili- mène la femme à la chaise à accoucher (KUB 9.22 ii 17 : harnaui peran); 5) plus loin, la femme va se prosterner devant la chaise à accoucher et place sa main en direction de la chaise à accoucher (KUB 9.22 ii 33–35 : harnāui UŠKEN . . . QATAM harnāui parā dāi); 6) tout le monde (la femme enceinte, le patili- et d’autres personnes mentionnées incidemment par le texte, à savoir le mari, d’autres patili- et des femmes katra-: KUB 9.22 ii 35–36) sort de la pièce intérieure et la porte de cette pièce est scellée par le patili- (KUB 9.22 ii 38–39 : harnāui peran šiya[izz]i). Le départ de la femme enceinte est sous-entendu dans ce passage ; 7) le patili- revient dans la nuit desceller la porte et mène la femme enceinte dans la pièce intérieure où elle se prosterne à nouveau devant la chaise à accoucher. La femme place également sa main en direction de la chaise (KUB 9.22 ii 47-iii 2: harnāui [p]eran kinu[zzi] . . . MUNUS anda pēhute[zzi]); 8) le patili- et la femme enceinte ressortent de la pièce intérieure et le patiliscelle à nouveau la porte de la chambre (KUB 9.22 iii 4–5: É.ŠÀ peran šiyai[z]zi) ; 9) des offrandes ont visiblement lieu dans la maison de la femme enceinte, en dehors de la pièce intérieure (KUB 9.22 iii 8–10); 10) après avoir été dédiés au sacrifice par la femme enceinte dans sa maison même, semble-t-il (KUB 9.22 iii 18), deux chevreaux sont emmenés par le patili- à la croisée des chemins. C’est là qu’ils sont abattus rituellement et offerts aux dieux (KUB 9.22 iii 19–23: KASKAL-ša[š h]atrešnaš);

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11) le patili- retourne dans la demeure de la femme enceinte et va se prosterner devant la porte de la pièce intérieure (KUB 9.22 iii 24–25: [PAN]I É.ŠÀ UŠKEN); 12) il repart (il retourne chez lui pour la nuit?), mais la femme enceinte reste dans sa demeure. Toutefois, elle n’entre pas dans la pièce intérieure dont l’entrée est toujours scellée (KUB 9.22 iii 28 : arha paizzi); 13) le patili- descelle l’entrée de la pièce intérieure et mène la femme à la chaise à accoucher dans le cas où elle a reçu un rêve témoignant de sa pureté: «Si la femme (est) pure en rêve, le patili- la mène à la chaise à accoucher.» Elle se prosterne devant la chaise à accoucher et peut poser la main sur la chaise elle-même (KUB 9.22 iii 30–34 : mān MUNUS tešhaz parkuīš . . . harnāui [(a)]nda pēhutezzi) ; 13′) mais dans le cas où la femme enceinte n’a pas reçu le rêve escompté, elle n’est pas autorisée à entrer dans la pièce intérieure et doit se contenter de se prosterner devant la porte. Elle place alors à distance sa main en direction de la chaise à accoucher (KUB 9.22 iii 35–37: mān⸗aš tešhaz UL parkuiš . . . [(PAN)]I KÁ É.ŠÀ UŠKEN . . . ara[hza] harnāui QATAM parā [(dāi)]); 14) le patili- attend alors la nuit pour emmener la femme enceinte dans la pièce intérieure. Elle se prosterne devant la chaise à accoucher et place sa main dans sa direction (KUB 9.22 iii 38–41 : mahhan⸗ma nekuz MU[L w]atkuzi . . . MUNUS and[a p]ēhutezzi); 15) il semble bien que le patili- retourne à la croisée des chemins puis à la demeure de la femme, mais le texte devient trop lacunaire pour reconstituer tous les événements (KUB 9.22 iii 44–46 : KASKAL-ši hatr[eššan]aš . . . É.ŠÀ). Tous ces déplacements ne sont pas anodins, mais doivent correspondre aux différentes étapes du rituel. Essayons de les examiner plus en détail du point de vue de la femme enceinte, qui est la personne directement concernée par ce rituel (fig. 2) : n°1 fig. 2: la femme enceinte est dans la pièce intérieure: nous ne disposons pas du début du texte et ne savons donc pas quand ni dans quelle circonstance la femme est entrée pour la première fois dans cette pièce É.ŠÀ. Dans les quelques paragraphes partiellement préservés avant cette phrase, la femme n’est pas mentionnée. Toujours dans la pièce intérieure, la femme fait un sacrifice zurki-. Ce terme hourrite qui est bien attesté dans les textes religieux kizzuwatniens désigne une offrande et/ou un rite purificatoire utilisant du sang animal. 13 n°2 fig. 2  : le patili- conduit la parturiente à la chaise à accoucher. Ce n’est qu’après avoir pratiqué un premier rite purificatoire que la femme peut s’approcher de la chaise à accoucher. Ce déplacement en direction du point focal du rituel, à savoir la chaise à accoucher, indique donc bien le franchissement d’une étape dans le processus de purification de la femme enceinte. Celle-ci se prosterne devant la chaise à accoucher et place sa main dans sa direction. Il faut remarquer que plusieurs sacrifices, des gestes rituels purificateurs et une onction ont eu lieu entre temps, ce qui a sans doute permis à la femme d’acquérir le droit de s’approcher un peu plus de la chaise à accoucher. Le processus de sa purification se poursuit. n°3 fig. 2: tout le monde sort de la pièce intérieure et la porte de cette pièce est scellée par le patili-. Les gestes rituels consistant à fermer puis à rouvrir un objet et a fortiori une porte sont bien connus des rites de passage. 14 Ils théâtralisent les rites de séparation, éléments constitutifs essentiels des rites de passage. Ici, il est important de remarquer que la séparation ne concerne pas la femme enceinte elle-même, 13.  Otten 1971: 12–13 et Strauss 2006: 95–98. 14.  Van Gennep 1909: 186–187 notamment.

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Fig. 2.  Schématisation des déplacements de la femme enceinte lors du rituel KUB 9.22+.

car elle reste avec les gens qui l’entourent, mais la pièce de la chaise à accoucher : à ce stade du rituel, il semble bien que la pièce intérieure soit devenue taboue, en ce sens que le rituel l’a sacralisée. Seules les personnes habilitées par l’expert rituel pourront dorénavant y pénétrer. Cette étape ne marque donc pas une transformation de la femme enceinte, mais met l’accent sur le changement de statut de la pièce intérieure, pièce dans laquelle l’accouchement aura lieu. n°4 fig. 2: le patili- attend la nuit pour desceller la porte et emmener la femme enceinte dans la pièce intérieure où elle se prosterne à nouveau et place sa main devant la chaise à accoucher. Nous avons ici un élément temporel explicitement mentionné par le texte: la nuit. Dans un article paru en 2008, je me suis demandé quelles pouvaient être les raisons de pratiquer des gestes rituels pendant la nuit. 15 Après examen des témoignages écrits hittites à ma disposition, j’en ai conclu que la nuit était un moment privilégié pendant lequel communiquent les deux mondes connus, celui des hommes et celui des entités supérieures (dieux et esprits), à l’instar de ce qu’avait suggéré Erica Reiner pour le monde mésopotamien. 16 Si cette hypothèse est correcte, cela indique que, dans le cas de notre rituel de naissance, le patili- souhaite, en menant la femme enceinte à la chaise à accoucher pendant la nuit, rapprocher celle-ci des entités divines qui sont concernées par ce rituel, la chaise à accoucher étant, en quelque sorte, leur représentation symbolique. Le fait que la chaise à accoucher a un caractère sacré dans le contexte des rituels de naissance kizzuwatniens est illustré par le scellement de la porte de la pièce intérieure, déjà mentionné. Il est également bien documenté par le célèbre rituel de Pāpanikri qui doit être effectué en cas de désacralisation de la chaise à accoucher. 17 À la lecture de ce texte dans son entier, on comprend que la détérioration de la chaise à accoucher est interprétée comme un signe de colère divine vis-à-vis de la femme enceinte: les dieux signifient de cette façon qu’elle n’est pas en paix avec eux. n°5 fig. 2: le patili- et la femme enceinte ressortent de la pièce intérieure et le patili- scelle à nouveau la porte de la chambre. Le fait que le patili- ressente le besoin de sceller à nouveau la pièce intérieure indique clairement que cette pièce 15.  Mouton 2008b. 16.  Reiner 1965. 17.  Strauss 2006: 284–309 et Mouton 2008a: 95–109.

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est toujours consacrée. La visite nocturne de la femme enceinte ne l’a donc pas profanée. En scellant son entrée, le patili- s’assure en outre qu’aucune personne non autorisée ne pénétrera dans la pièce intérieure. Par la suite, la femme enceinte reste dans sa demeure, mais n’entre pas dans la pièce intérieure. En revanche, de nombreux dons d’offrande et gestes rituels sont réalisés. De manière encore plus significative, la femme enceinte est censée recevoir un rêve qui la déclare «pure». J’ai déjà eu l’occasion de commenter plusieurs fois cette séquence du rituel, notamment dans mon étude sur les rêves dans les textes hittites. 18 À mon sens, le fait d’espérer recevoir un rêve omineux dans lequel les dieux vous déclarent pur, c’està-dire dénué de fautes, revient à supposer la pratique d’un rituel d’incubation. Les rituels d’incubation sont bien connus dans les textes hittites. On peut généralement les classer en deux catégories (quoique celles-ci se recoupent dans plusieurs cas): 1) les incubations divinatoires servant à obtenir un rêve-message des dieux ; 2) les incubations thérapeutiques, servant à résoudre une «maladie» soit par le biais d’un rêve-message, soit par l’effet curatif du sommeil ainsi obtenu. 19 Pour revenir à notre texte, il est intéressant de souligner que deux cas de figure différents sont envisagés à l’issue de l’incubation de la femme enceinte. n°6 fig. 2 : si le rêve a «décrété» la femme enceinte pure, celle-ci est autorisée à entrer dans la pièce intérieure et même à poser la main sur la chaise à accoucher. n°6′ fig. 2 : mais si son état de pureté rituelle n’a pas été confirmé par un rêve, c’est le statu quo, et la femme ne peut accéder à la pièce intérieure. Elle se contente de rester à la porte de la pièce. Le déplacement de la femme enceinte de l’extérieur vers l’intérieur de la pièce É.ŠÀ est, manifestement, central à ce moment du rituel. Il symbolise clairement l’acquisition, pour la femme enceinte, d’un statut rituel particulier: celui de pureté. Jusqu’à présent, seule l’offrande expiatoire zurki- et les gestes rituels effectués juste après dans la pièce intérieure avaient fait progresser la femme enceinte vers ce statut tant espéré. Mais cela n’était manifestement pas considéré comme suffisant, ce qui n’a rien d’étonnant lorsque l’on considère que tous les rituels de purification hittites que nous connaissons combinent de nombreuses techniques cathartiques pour obtenir la purification souhaitée. Ici, la femme enceinte a été mise en contact avec des essences de bois traditionnellement considérées comme purificatrices en ellesmêmes (le bois de cèdre, de tamaris et d’olivier: KUB 9.22 iii 11–12), avec de la laine de couleur, materia magica bien connue des rituels kizzuwatniens (KUB 9.22 iii 12). Elle a, en outre, sacrifié symboliquement (c’est-à-dire sans doute dédié aux dieux) deux chevreaux. Elle s’est donc préparée rituellement à recevoir un rêve omineux. n°7 et 8 fig. 2: une fois encore, le patili- attend la nuit pour emmener la femme enceinte dans la pièce intérieure, ce qui implique que la femme soit sortie de la pièce intérieure auparavant. On peut trouver cette séquence redondante par rapport au n°6 et même contradictoire par rapport au n°6′. Pourquoi retourner tout de suite dans la pièce intérieure si on en vient (n°6) ou si on n’a pas pu y accéder de jour (n°6′) ? Une des façons d’expliquer la présence de cette séquence est de prendre en compte le passage malheureusement très fragmentaire du duplicat KBo 17.64 qui semble s’insérer entre n°6 et n°6′ (KBo 17.64:1’-3’) : on y fait allusion à l’offrande d’un gâteau. Au moins un sacrifice aurait donc eu lieu entre les deux « visites » à la chaise à accoucher, mais le texte principal, KUB 9.22 l’aurait omis. 18.  Mouton 2007. 19.  Mouton 2003.

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Ainsi, il me semble que tous les déplacements mentionnés par le rituel KUB 9.22 doivent être révélateurs d’une progression dans l’acquisition de la pureté de la femme enceinte. Les va-et-vient de la femme de l’extérieur vers l’intérieur de la pièce É.ŠÀ symboliseraient le cheminement qu’elle réalise d’un point de vue symbolique. Les déplacements scandent le rituel en autant de séquences qui ont une réalité temporelle, ils jalonnent la transformation symbolique de la femme enceinte. Si l’on compare ses déplacements à ceux du patili-, on s’aperçoit en outre que la femme enceinte n’accompagne jamais l’expert rituel en dehors de sa maison. Le patili- se rend toujours sans elle à la croisée des chemins pour faire des sacrifices en son nom. Peut-on imaginer que la femme enceinte n’est pas autorisée à quitter sa maison au cours de ce rituel ? S’agit-il d’un cas de réclusion rituelle, tel que nous en connaissons tant pour les grossesses dans les sociétés traditionnelles? 20 Ce n’est pas impossible, mais le texte ne le dit pas clairement. Il faut donc rester prudent sur ce point. On peut toutefois remarquer qu’un cas de semi-réclusion semble attesté par un autre texte du même corpus kizzuwatnien. 21 Le fait que le patili- se rende seul à la croisée des chemins pourrait en outre s’expliquer par le statut très particulier de ce lieu : les textes hittites montrent clairement qu’il s’agit d’un des points de jonction connus entre le monde des dieux et celui des hommes. 22 Peut-être le patili- est-il le seul habilité à approcher les dieux en ce lieu? Quoi qu’il en soit, il faut remarquer que dans ce rituel tout comme, d’ailleurs, dans les autres rituels de naissance du Kizzuwatna, l’emphase est plus mise sur les changements de lieux que sur la chronologie. En effet, les allusions au passage du temps sont rares dans ces textes. Dans KUB 9.22, par exemple, très peu d’éléments peuvent être relevés: une allusion à un repas (ii 44–45), à la nuit (ii 47 et iii 38), au lendemain matin (iii 29), ce qui implique que le rituel dure au moins deux jours et deux nuits. Nous remarquons par ailleurs que les déplacements de la femme enceinte dans KUB 9.22 forment un mouvement de pendule entre deux pôles qui symbolisent deux concepts opposés: espace consacré – espace non consacré, et ce mouvement de pendule représente symboliquement le passage du temps, comme l’indique Edmund R. Leach: «Now rites de passage, which are concerned with demarcating the stages in the human life cycle, must clearly be linked with some kind of representation or conceptualization of time. But the only picture of time that could make this deathbirth identification logically plausible is a pendulum type concept. All sorts of pictorial metaphors have been produced for representing time. They range from Heraclitus’s river to Pythagoras’s harmonic spheres. You can think of time as going on and on, or you can think of it as going round and round. All I am saying is that in fact quite a lot of people think of it as going back and forth.» 23 Contrairement à ce que semblait penser Edmund R. Leach, cependant, il me semble que ce schéma en pendule du temps rituel peut coexister avec d’autres schémas au sein d’une même société, puisqu’il y a manifestement d’autres catégories de temps. Le temps biologique, par exemple, que nous considérons aujourd’hui comme linéaire (de la vie à la mort) devait, je pense, être vu comme cyclique par les Hittites, à l’instar du temps cosmique (passage des saisons). L’illustration la plus convaincante de ce phénomène 20.  Mouton 2008a: 64 avec bibliographie. 21.  Mouton 2008a: 64–65. 22.  Mouton 2008a: 94. 23.  Leach 1961: 133.

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est un passage du rituel funéraire kizzuwatnien KUB 30.28, qui indique probablement que le mort retourne auprès de sa mère. 24 Un second témoignage en faveur de cette théorie est l’utilisation que les textes hittites font de l’expression «le jour de son père et de sa mère» pour désigner le jour du décès. 25 Par ailleurs, le mouvement en pendule observé dans ce rituel de naissance, et nous le verrons, également dans le rituel de Pāpanikri est, à tout bien considérer, une forme de cyclicité, puisque l’alternance d’un pôle à l’autre n’est qu’un éternel recommencement. Alfred Gell a donc raison d’affirmer: «In fact, the alternating time which Leach is at pains to contrast with cyclical time would be correctly described as ‘cyclical’ in terms of the topology of time [. . .] The logical property of cyclicity is built into the concept of alternating time, whatever its geometrical or metaphorical embodiment.» 26

B.  Le rituel de Pāpanikri KBo 5.1 C’est donc la progression spatiale qui reflète le mieux les étapes du processus rituel. Le rituel de Pāpanikri KBo 5.1 nous fournit une seconde illustration: de nombreux déplacements de la femme enceinte sont notés, principalement entre sa demeure et le temple šinapši-. Le fait que, dans le cas du rituel de Pāpanikri, la femme enceinte sorte à plusieurs reprises de chez elle pour se rendre au temple šinapši- s’explique par les circonstances mêmes dans lesquelles ce rituel est pratiqué : rappelons-nous qu’il est effectué dans le cas où la chaise à accoucher s’est détériorée, ce qui est visiblement un signe de colère divine. Cette circonstance particulière implique des gestes purificatoires plus forts que dans KUB 9.22. Considérons à présent les jalons temporels donnés par le rituel de Pāpanikri. Le premier, et le plus évident, est le moment où la chaise à accoucher l’un de ses éléments se casse (i 2–4). C’est la raison d’être du rituel tout entier. Le deuxième repère temporel est l’expression « quand il [= le patili-] les [= la chaise à accoucher et les objets associés] a transportés par la porte  » (i 9–10). Voici une illustration claire de ce qui a été dit au sujet de KUB 9.22: ce sont les déplacements qui servent de repères temporels au sein du rituel. La troisième allusion notable est celle du soir (i 48), pendant lequel des dons d’offrandes ont lieu. Mais il apparaît que ces sacrifices se poursuivent sur toute la journée suivante, puisque le texte indique: «On sacrifie deux grands récipients DÍLIM d’huile fine, etc., et, le deuxième jour, deux tuhalzi-. Ce jour passe pendant ce temps. Le troisième jour, etc.» Le passage du premier au deuxième jour ne semble donc pas marquer une étape dans le rituel, ni un changement dans l’état de la femme enceinte, puisque les mêmes actions se poursuivent. Quant aux lieux mentionnés par le rituel, ils sont les suivants (fig. 3) : la maison de la femme enceinte, 27 le temple šinapši-, 28 et un portail monumental, 29 très vraisemblablement une porte de ville menant au šinapši-. Examinons à présent les déplacements effectués pendant le rituel: 1) Le patili- emporte la chaise à accoucher et les objets associés hors de la maison – sous-entendu (KBo 5.1 i 7–8: n⸗at⸗kan mahhan KÁ-aš parā arnuzi); 24.  Mouton 2008a: 139–40. 25.  Puhvel 1984: 56. 26.  Gell 1992: 34. 27.  KBo 5.1 i 14, ii 8–13, iii 2–4, iv 30–31. 28.  KBo 5.1 i 12–13, i 31–40, ii 1–3, ii 7, iv 21–29. 29.  KBo 5.1 i 9–11.

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Fig. 3.  Schématisation des espaces rituels de KBo 5.1.

2) Il passe par un portail monumental et fait des Brandopfer devant ce portail (KBo 5.1 i 9–11 : KÁ-aš peran); 3) Il emporte la chaise à accoucher et les objets qui lui sont associés au šinapšipuis les place dans un lieu inculte (KBo 5.1 i 12–13  : šinapšiya pēdāi . . . arahza dammili pedi dāi); 4) La femme accouchera « à l’intérieur même » de sa maison, sans doute (KBo 5.1 i 14: andan⸗pat hāši); 5) Le patili- rejoint la femme dans sa maison — sous-entendu. Préparation de deux nouvelles chaises à accoucher et sacrifices (KBo 5.1 i 14–30  : LÚpatiliš⸗(š)a ANA MUNUSTUM kiššan tezzi); 6) Transport de la chaise à accoucher et des offrandes alimentaires au šinapši-. Sacrifices sanglants et prière du patili- dans le šinapši-. Offrandes durant le soir, le jour suivant et une partie du troisième jour (KBo 5.1 i 31–57: n⸗aš šinapšiya pēdāi . . . šinapšiya); 7) La femme se rend au šinapši- pour y effectuer une Brandopfer (KBo 5.1 ii 1–3: šinapšiya); 8) Consécration du šinapši- et sacrifice sanglant (KBo 5.1 ii 7: šinapši šuppiyahhanzi); 9) Transport d’une effigie divine à la porte de la maison, très vraisemblablement en procession, du šinapši- à la maison de la femme. On lui fait une offrande puis on la faire entrer dans la maison. Offrandes et manipulation rituelle d’un oiseau-de-trou (KBo 5.1 ii 8-iii 1: n⸗an mahhan KÁ ÉTIM arnuwanzi . . . n⸗an⸗kan É-ri anda udāi) 10) La femme va dans la maison et y fait une offrande de viande. Le patiliest déjà dans la maison avec l’effigie divine et fait des sacrifices puis tous deux se

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lavent les mains. De nouveaux sacrifices et offrandes sont effectués et le patili- crie «Santé!». Les femmes katra- appellent les divinités puis un repas est organisé. Préparation d’un agneau substitut du nouveau-né� (KBo 5.1 iii 2-iv 20  : anda parna pānzi); 30 11) L’agneau est emmené en procession jusqu’au šinapši-. La femme le suit. Le patili- crie «Santé!» (KBo 5.1 iv 21–26: n⸗an šinapšiya pēdanzi BĒL SÍSKUR EGIRan iyaddāri); 12) La femme entre dans le šinapši- et fait des sacrifices d’oiseaux (KBo 5.1 iv 27–29: INA Éšinapšiya anda pānzi); 13) Elle rentre chez elle (KBo 5.1 iv 30–31: arha INA É⸗ŠUNU pānzi); 14) Préparations rituelles et libations, probablement dans la maison (KBo 5.1 iv 31–36). Tentons à présent d’analyser ces différents déplacements, en se concentrant sur le personnage de la femme enceinte (fig. 4). n°1 fig. 4  : la chaise à accoucher s’est détériorée, ce qui provoque la mise en place de ce rituel. Le patili- emporte donc les objets souillés (la chaise à accoucher et ce qui lui est associé) hors de la maison de la femme. La femme reste dans sa demeure, semble-t-il. Le patili- passe par un portail monumental, sans doute une porte de ville, pour se rendre au šinapši- qui doit être hors la ville. Il fait des sacrifices devant cette porte. La porte est le symbole du passage par excellence. Elle délimite les deux espaces dans lesquels le rituel se joue: l’intérieur (la maison) et l’extérieur (principalement le šinapši-). Étant donné les nombreux déplacements qui sont faits par la suite pendant ce rituel, déplacements qui s’effectueront probablement tous par cette porte, les sacrifices pratiqués devant cette porte ne sont pas anodins. Le patili- se rend au šinapši- puis dans un lieu inculte. Il semble bien que pendant tout ce temps, la femme est restée chez elle, où elle accouchera. Le patili- rejoint la femme dans sa maison, du moins est-ce sous-entendu. Il retourne au šinapši- avec la nouvelle chaise à accoucher nouvellement consacrée. n°2 fig. 4: la femme peut à présent se rendre pour la première fois au šinapši‑ pour y effectuer un sacrifice. Jusqu’à cette étape, seul le patili- était apparemment autorisé à se déplacer d’un lieu à l’autre. Cela est très vraisemblablement dû à l’impureté rituelle dans laquelle se trouvait la femme enceinte, impureté révélée, en quelque sorte, par la détérioration de la chaise à accoucher. Mais après toutes les intercessions du patili- (sacrifices dans différents lieux), sans compter la mise au rebut de la chaise à accoucher souillée et la confection d’une nouvelle chaise à accoucher, il semble que la femme est désormais considérée comme digne d’entrer dans le temple. n°3 fig. 4: une effigie divine qui se trouvait probablement dans le šinapši- est déplacée jusqu’à la porte de la maison, ce qui doit être l’occasion d’une première procession rituelle. La femme qui était elle aussi dans le temple participe visiblement à cette procession. On ne mettra jamais assez l’emphase sur l’importance des processions dans les cérémonies rituelles. 31 Dans le cadre de cette étude sur la relation 30.  Dans le texte, la femme enceinte est souvent comprise dans l’expression plurielle «les commanditaires du rituel» (ENMEŠ SÍSKUR). Pour une discussion sur la signification de ce pluriel, voir Mouton 2008a: 29. 31.  Sur l’importance des processions dans les cérémonies religieuses, voir notamment Jacobsen ed. 2008.

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Fig. 4.  Schématisation des déplacements de la femme enceinte lors du rituel KBo 5.1. Les flèches grises représentent les processions rituelles.

entre le temps et l’espace du rituel, la procession est la plus convaincante illustration de la manipulation de ces deux dimensions par le rituel : elle matérialise clairement le passage d’un lieu à un autre, mais aussi d’une étape à l’autre. n°4 fig. 4: la femme va dans la maison et y fait une offrande de viande. Toute une série de préparations rituelles ont lieu. n°5 fig. 4: une seconde procession a pour but de transporter l’agneau-substitut du nouveau-né de la maison au šinapši-. La femme participe également à cette procession. n°6 fig. 4: la femme entre pour la seconde fois dans le šinapši- et y fait des sacrifices d’oiseaux. n°7 fig. 4: elle rentre chez elle, où le reste du rituel semble avoir lieu. Tout comme dans le cas du rituel KUB 9.22, les déplacements du personnage au centre du rituel, la femme enceinte, se résument à un mouvement de pendule, un va-et-vient entre deux pôles. Dans le cas de KUB 9.22, ces deux pôles étaient: la pièce intérieure et le reste de la maison, car nous étions dans un cas de figure «normal». Dans le cas du rituel de Pāpanikri, en revanche, les deux pôles sont la maison de la femme et le temple šinapši­-. La porte de la ville sert manifestement de sas entre ces deux espaces, tout comme la porte tour à tour scellée et descellée de la pièce intérieure jouait visiblement cet office dans KUB 9.22. Le choix de ces deux pôles met plusieurs éléments importants en évidence: 1) la pièce intérieure n’est jamais mentionnée dans le texte car il est exclu que la femme y accède jusqu’à

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purification et même reconsécration de l’espace, des instruments de l’accouchement (principalement la chaise à accoucher) mais aussi de la femme elle-même; 2) les deux pôles mettent en opposition le monde des hommes (la maison), dans lequel une anomalie a eu lieu (souillure de la chaise à accoucher) et celui des dieux (le temple šinapši-), où la femme ne peut avoir à nouveau accès qu’après toute une série de préparations rituelles. L’emphase mise sur le šinapši- indique en elle-même l’importance que cet événement pouvait avoir pour la sphère divine. Cela peut notamment s’expliquer par le fait que la femme au centre du rituel est très probablement un membre de la famille royale; 32 3) aussi bien dans KBo 5.1 que dans KUB 9.22, les deux pôles mis en opposition matérialisent les deux états antagonistes de la femme enceinte (consécration et non consécration) et la porte située entre ces deux espaces symbolise la fonction principale de ces rituels de naissance, à savoir le passage facilité d’un pôle à l’autre.

Conclusion Comment manipuler le temps, ce phénomène que nous savons inéluctable? La façon la plus aisée consiste, nous l’avons vu dans les deux rituels de naissance kizzuwatniens étudiés ici, à représenter le temps par quelque chose que l’on pourra manipuler plus aisément et qui lui est intimement lié, à savoir l’espace. Ainsi, à chaque fois que l’on passe d’un lieu à l’autre, c’est bien d’une étape à l’autre que l’on cherche à passer. L’utilisation du symbole de la porte tout comme des processions en est sans doute l’illustration la plus claire. Ces deux éléments mettent en scène le passage d’un temps rituel à l’autre qui, lui, fait écho au passage d’un état à l’autre. En mettant en scène ces déplacements en pendule, c’est la logique de la magie analogique ou homéopathique que l’on emploie: on substitue à un phénomène incontrôlable un phénomène contrôlable. Dans le cas de la magie analogique, il s’agit souvent d’une purification, voire d’une guérison. Dans le cas des rites de passage, il s’agit de forcer le temps à faire un mouvement de pendule, afin d’en annuler symboliquement la linéarité. Notons que cet objectif se retrouve dans la plupart des rituels, et n’est donc pas l’apanage des rites de passage. Comme l’indique très bien Maurice Bloch, «The common elements particularly relevant for understanding the historical potential of ritual are 1) repetition, 2) formalisation and 3) the construction of a particular image of time.» 33 Mais dans le cas des rites de passage, démontrer le caractère cyclique du temps biologique ou, du moins, du temps social représente un enjeu majeur : prouver que l’homme est éternel. 32.  Mouton 2008a: 23. 33.  Bloch 1986: 184. Notez également la remarque de Barbara G. Myerhoff (Myerhoff 1977: 200): « The most salient characteristic of ritual is its function as a frame. It is a deliberate and artificial demarcation. In ritual, a bit of behavior or interaction, an aspect of social life, a moment in time is selected, stopped, remarked upon. »

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Bibliographie Beckman, G. 1983 Hittite Birth Rituals. Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 29. Wiesbaden. Bloch, M. 1986 From blessing to violence. History and ideology in the circumcision ritual of the Merina of Madagascar. Cambridge. Bourdieu, P. 1986 Les rites comme actes d’institution. Pp. 206–215 in Les rites de passage aujourd’hui, ed. P. Centlivres et J. Hainard. Paris. Calame, C. 2003 Modes rituels de la fabrication de l’homme : l’initiation tribal. Pp. 129–73 in Figures de l’humain. Les représentations de l’anthropologie, ed. F. Affergan & al. Paris. Campi, E. 1986 Rite et maîtrise du temps. Pp. 131–37 in Les rites de passage aujourd’hui, ed. P. Centlivres et J. Hainard. Paris. de Polignac, F. 2000 Changer de lieu, changer de temps, changer la cité : sites et déplacements de la construction du temps dans l’Athènes archaïque. Pp. 143–54 in Constructions du temps dans le monde grec ancien, ed. C. Darbo-Peschanski. Paris. Gell, A. 1992 The anthropology of time. Cultural constructions of temporal maps and images. Explorations in anthropology. Oxford – Providence. Hall, E. T. 1966 The Hidden Dimension. Garden City. Jacobsen, K. A., ed. 2008 South Asian religions on display: religious processions in South Asia and in the Diaspora. New York. Leach, E. R. 1961 Rethinking Anthropology. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology 22. Londres. Mouton, A. 2003 Usages privés et publics de l’incubation d’après les textes hittites. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 3: 73–91. 2007 Rêves hittites. Contribution à une histoire et une anthropologie du rêve en Anatolie ancienne. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 28. Leyde – Boston. 2008a Les rituels de naissance kizzuwatniens : un exemple de rite de passage en Anatolie hittite. Paris. 2008b ‘Dead of Night’ in Anatolia : Hittite Night Rituals. Religion Compass 2: 1–17. Myerhoff, B. G. 1977 We don’t wrap herring in a printed page : Fusion, fictions and community in secular ritual. Pp. 199–226 in Secular rituals, ed. S. Moore et B. G. Myerhoff. Amsterdam. Otten, H. 1971 Materialien zum hethitischen Lexikon. Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 15. Wiesbaden. Puhvel, J. 1984 Hittite Etymological Dictionary A-I. Berlin – New York. Reiner, E. 1965 ‘Dead of Night’. Pp. 247–51 in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on his seventyfifth Birthday, ed. H. G. Güterbock et T. Jacobsen. Assyriological Studies 16. Chicago. Strauss, R. 2006 Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna. Berlin – New York. Van Gennep, A. 1909 Les rites de passage. Paris.

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Annexe: synopsis de KUB 9.22 et KBo 5.1 Les informations concernant les lieux sont en gras, celles concernant le temps sont soulignées.

1. KUB 9.22 et duplicats - Mention des éléments constitutifs de la chaise à accoucher dans un contexte lacunaire (KUB 7.39 : 2’-4’). - Mention du liquide harnāi- et d’essences de bois dans un contexte lacunaire. Les morceaux de bois semblent attachés ensemble (KUB 7.39 : 5–9’ et KUB 9.22 ii 2–3). - Quelqu’un enfonce des piquets auxquels on attache des morceaux de bois de part et d’autre de la porte donnant sur la pièce intérieure. La femme enceinte se trouve dans cette pièce (KUB 9.22 ii 4–8). - On suspend des denrées alimentaires (KUB 9.22 ii 9–11). - L’expert rituel patili- manipule un oiseau-de-trou et des éléments du mobilier de la femme enceinte, ainsi que la femme elle-même (KUB 9.22 ii 13–14). - Offrande de zurki- dans la pièce intérieure par la femme enceinte (KUB 9.22 ii 15). - La femme se lave les mains puis elle est conduite à la chaise à accoucher (KUB 9.22 ii 16–17). - Sacrifice d’oiseaux (KUB 9.22 ii 18–20). - Des piquets sont attachés à la chaise à accoucher (KUB 9.22 ii 20–21). - Le patili- dépose sur la femme du bois de cèdre, de tamaris et d’olivier liés ensemble avec de la laine rouge (KUB 9.22 ii 22–25). - Onction de la tête de la femme enceinte (KUB 9.22 ii 25–26). - De la laine rouge est attachée aux mains de la femme (KUB 9.22 ii 26–27). - Consécration de la bouche de la femme par le patili- à l’aide du liquide harnāi- et des trois morceaux de bois reliés ensemble (KUB 9.22 ii 28–30). - Dépôt d’un grand récipient DÍLIM et du liquide harnāi- sur les piquets (KUB 9.22 ii 31–32). - La femme va se prosterner devant la chaise à accoucher et placer sa main dans sa direction (KUB 9.22 ii 33–35). - La femme s’assied (sans doute pas sur la chaise à accoucher elle-même, ce serait prématuré) et plusieurs personnes se prosternent devant elle (KUB 9.22 ii 35–37). - Sous-entendu : tout le monde sort de la pièce intérieure et le patili- scelle la porte (KUB 9.22 ii 38–39). - Dépôt d’un récipient sur les piquets plantés devant la porte de la pièce intérieure (KUB 9.22 ii 39–43). - Repas des patili- et des femmes katra- qui s’étaient prosternés devant la femme enceinte (KUB 9.22 ii 44–45). - Ces personnes s’en vont (KUB 9.22 ii 45–46).

NUIT DU PREMIER JOUR PRÉSERVÉ - À la nuit tombée, le patili- descelle la porte de la pièce intérieure et y emmène la femme enceinte (KUB 9.22 ii 46-iii 1). - La femme enceinte se prosterne devant la chaise à accoucher et place la main dans sa direction (KUB 9.22 iii 2–4). - Le patili- et la femme sortent de la pièce intérieure et le patili- scelle à nouveau son entrée (KUB 9.22 iii 4–5).

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- La femme s’assied et des offrandes de pains ornés de symboles astraux sont faites (KUB 9.22 iii 6–10). - Le bois qui avait été mis sur la femme est enlevé et placé sur l’offrande de pain par le patili- (KUB 9.22 iii 11–15). - Deux chevreaux sont dédiés aux dieux par la femme enceinte avec du vin (KUB 9.22 iii 16–18). - Le patili- emporte les chevreaux à la croisée des chemins où il les abat rituellement (KUB 9.22 iii 19–23). - Le patili- revient dans la demeure de la femme enceinte et se prosterne devant la pièce intérieure puis devant la femme elle-même (KUB 9.22 iii 24–26). - Le patili- crie «Santé!», boit et s’en va (KUB 9.22 iii 26–28). - Sous-entendu par la suite du texte: incubation de la femme enceinte.

NOUVEAU JOUR - Le lendemain matin, la femme enceinte se lave (KUB 9.22 iii 29). - La femme raconte son rêve et, en fonction de son contenu, le patili- la mène ou non à la chaise à accoucher (KUB 9.22 iii 30–37) + insertion d’un paragraphe sur une offrande de gâteau dans le duplicat KBo 17.64 :1’-3’.

NUIT DU SECOND JOUR PRÉSERVÉ - À la nuit tombée, le patili- emmène la femme enceinte dans la pièce intérieure, où elle se prosterne devant la chaise à accoucher et place la main dans sa direction (KUB 9.22 iii 38–41). - Passage lacunaire qui mentionne le patili-. Celui-ci se rend apparemment à la croisée des chemins (KUB 9.22 iii 42–47).

2. KBo 5.1 (rituel de Pāpanikri) - La chaise à accoucher s’est détériorée (KBo 5.1 i 2–4). - Le patili- emporte la chaise à accoucher et les objets associés hors de la maison – sousentendu (KBo 5.1 i 7–8). - Il passe par un portail monumental (une porte de ville ?) et fait des Brandopfer devant ce portail (KBo 5.1 i 9–11). - Il emporte la chaise à accoucher et les objets qui lui sont associés au šinapši- puis les place dans un lieu inculte (KBo 5.1 i 12–13). - La femme accouchera «à l’intérieur même» de sa maison, sans doute (KBo 5.1 i 14) = anticipation du texte. - Discours du patili- préconisant une interrogation oraculaire (KBo 5.1 i 14–17). - Interrogation oraculaire et offrande (KBo 5.1 i 18–20). - Préparation de deux nouvelles chaises à accoucher (KBo 5.1 i 20–24). - Consécration des chaises à accoucher par le sang de deux oiseaux et sacrifices sanglants (KBo 5.1 i 25–27). - Sacrifices de viande aux divinités «de manière groupée» (KBo 5.1 i 28–30). - Transport de la chaise à accoucher et des offrandes alimentaires au šinapši- (KBo 5.1 i 31–33). - Sacrifices sanglants dans le šinapši- (KBo 5.1 i 34–40). - Discours du patili- au sujet d’une faute éventuelle de la parturiente (KBo 5.1 i 38–47).

SOIR DU PREMIER JOUR - Offrande de deux vases šehelliški- et d’autres offrandes le soir (KBo 5.1 i 48–55).

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DEUXIÈME JOUR - Continuation des dons d’offrandes pendant tout le deuxième jour (KBo 5.1 i 56–57).

TROISIÈME JOUR - Offrande alimentaire le troisième jour (KBo 5.1 i 58). - Les commanditaires du rituel vont au šinapši- pour y effectuer une Brandopfer (KBo 5.1 ii 1–3).

SOIR DU TROISIÈME JOUR - Le soir, préparation d’un pain et consécration de l’enfant à venir (KBo 5.1 ii 4–5).

QUATRIÈME JOUR - Le quatrième jour, consécration du šinapši- et sacrifice sanglant aux divinités du père (KBo 5.1 ii 7).

SOIR DU QUATRIÈME JOUR - Le soir, on transporte la divinité à la porte de la maison, on lui fait une offrande puis on la faire entrer dans la maison (KBo 5.1 ii 8–13). - Dons d’offrandes (KBo 5.1 ii 14–54). - Le patili- manipule rituellement un oiseau-de-trou (KBo 5.1 ii 55-iii 1). - Les commanditaires du rituel vont dans la maison et y font l’offrande de viande aux divinités du père (KBo 5.1 iii 2–4). - Sacrifices effectués par le patili- pour le dieu de l’orage (KBo 5.1 iii 4–24). - Le patili- et la commanditaire du rituel se lavent les mains (KBo 5.1 iii 25). - Sacrifices pour Hepat (KBo 5.1 iii 26–40). - Offrandes aux divinités masculines (KBo 5.1 iii 41–46). - Le patili- crie « Santé ! » (KBo 5.1 iii 47). - Appel des divinités par les femmes katra- (KBo 5.1 iii 48). - Repas de la parturiente et des patili- (KBo 5.1 iii 48–51). - Tissage d’une étoffe et confection d’un šurita- par les femmes katra- (KBo 5.1 iii 51-iv 2). - Préparation rituelle d’un agneau (KBo 5.1 iv 2–10). - L’agneau est placé sur les genoux d’une femme katra- (KBo 5.1 iv 11). - L’agneau est lavé puis paré des vêtements et des bijoux destinés au nouveau-né (KBo 5.1 iv 12–20). 34 - L’agneau est emmené en procession jusqu’au šinapši-. La femme le suit (KBo 5.1 iv 21–26). - Le patili- crie «Santé!» (KBo 5.1 iv 26). - Les commanditaires du rituel vont dans le šinapši- et y font des sacrifices d’oiseaux (KBo 5.1 iv 27–29). - Les commanditaires du rituel rentrent chez eux (KBo 5.1 iv 30–31).

CINQUIÈME JOUR - Le lendemain matin, le petit est nettoyé et traité rituellement toute la journée (KBo 5.1 iv 31–33). - Des libations sont effectuées (KBo 5.1 iv 35–36). 34.  Pour cette interprétation, voir Mouton 2008a: 74.

Reconsidering the Categories of Time in Ancient Iraq 1 Susana B. Murphy

Buenos Aires, Argentina Historiographical analysis sets forth the question of continuity, genealogy, a sense of ownership between its operators and its objects, establishes a difference between them, marked by an intention of objectivity. The space it organizes is, in turn, divided and given a hierarchy. It includes “the same” (the present moment of a practice) and “the other” (a studied past). Memory becomes a closed field in which two opposite operations are confronted: oblivion, which is neither passivity nor loss, but an action against the past; and the traces of remembrance, which represent the return of the things forgotten, that is to say, an action of that past, always compelled to mask itself. Every autonomous order constitutes itself on the basis of that which is eliminated, producing a “rest” doomed to oblivion; nevertheless, all that 1.  We wish to state, in the first place, that we choose the name Iraq because we consider that the word Mesopotamia, of Greek origin, is an intellectual construction of 19th-century modern colonialist western Europe, responding to the power and authority of imperialist policy. The use of the name Mesopotamia masks numerous political implications. First, it should be noted that some scholars consider that it was during the post-Ottoman period that the name Iraq came into use, but they forget that the word is recorded during the 7th and 8th centuries, precisely in the works of Arab geographers like Yakut al Rumi and in the descriptions of Ibn Hawqal and the map of the world by al Idrisi, where the region is clearly called al Iraq. H. Saggs, in his book The Babylonians, published in 1995, poses that archaeologists should not use the name Iraq, as “it implies a political, nationalist character which is inappropriate,” suggesting that the term Mesopotamia should be kept to name the region between rivers where a preIslamic civilization arose, the region that under Ottoman rule was known as Iraq. In this way, replacing the name Iraq with the term Mesopotamia, historiographical commitment is avoided because of the clear “non-political” character this term conveys, an attitude that implies an estrangement, causing—in an imaginary sense—the idea of different worlds, to preserve and legitimize European colonialist concept of freedom, civilization, and progress confronted by the discovery of a wild, despotic, and inert world. In this present-future, these pseudo-scientific postures tend to legitimize wars that break out “with the noble purpose of protecting and homogenize,” which in fact constitutes the continuum of the policy of vengeance in the name of the law carried out by the USA. In a paradoxical way, unlike in Aeschylus’s Oresteia, where it is proposed that law can substitute vengeance, USA politics has curiously a non-Greek essence, which implies that they impose a planetary vendetta in terms of domination and forget that the much-renowned democracy that they try to impose by military means provokes a visceral rejection. Cf. Z.  Bahrani, The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) 4 and 56–59, and the works of E. Said, Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, where the western intellectual construction of the Oriental world, reconstructed and represented from the European point of view, is critically discussed; see also A. Badiou, Filosofía del presente (Buenos Aires: Zorzal, 2005) 38–40. 

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has been excluded always passes through and sometimes becomes disturbing, as it happens with the ghostly images related to the time of death. 2 Undertaking the subject of time in History leads to some theoretical considerations about the traces left by time changes in the historical process and creates some questions: Has History its own time, other than the calendar or the clock time? Do different histories have a different time? Space and time constitute fundamental categories of human experience, but far from being immutable, they are in great measure subjected to historical change. The time to remember is negotiated in any society by means of the resource of memory, in the bosom of beliefs and values, the rituals and institutions of the social body. The intensely remembered past can be transformed into a mythical time and memory, as it is attested by numerous sources of the ancient Near East related to the needs of legitimacy of royal power. Time is a social variable, a cultural fact that differs from one community to another, and even the degree of variation in a culture may be considered as a revealing feature in itself. Each civilization has its own history and its own time; every culture is built upon a particular sense of time, organized according to the conditions of nature. Each school of thought develops its own conception of the origins that go back to a cosmic time; each of them wonders about the movements of the stars and the seasons that mark the time. In Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cities, different stories about the genesis of gods, men, and the earth were told. The most important cosmogonic document is the renowned Enuma Elish or “Poem of Creation,” an epic story that takes us back to the evolution of the Universe from the earliest times. Although it has been dated to the second millenium b.c.e., it has been possible to detect the use of ancient cosmographic materials from earlier authors. The 5th tablet of the poem narrates how the god Marduk, having defeated the forces of chaos, proceeds to order the cosmos and sets the kakkabu (‘stars’, ‘planets’, ‘constellations’) in the sky, imposes the calendar and the constellations for each of the twelve months, establishes the home of Jupiter (Nebiru) beside Enlil and Ea. Then he creates the moon, Sin, and wisely organizes its phases, which are used to determine the calculation for the month and the week, and later gives origin to the sun, Shamash; and with these celestial bodies fixes the divisions of night and day. 3 Despite its fragmentation, the contents of the tablet show important evidence of a scientific and astronomical character, with symbolic connotations. In accordance with the beliefs of each culture, the constellations of stars assume a diversity of forms. Mythical representations of animals and objects are attested in these civilizations, particularly the ones related to the full moon. It was considered that everything that occurred on earth was contained in the stars and that an appropriate interpretation would allow the determination of present facts and predictions for the future. Traditions and literary compositions record different ways of measuring the movements of the stars and a variety of astrological techniques. The astronomical texts such as Astrolabes and Mul-Apin refer to the course of events that can be seen in the skies, which are related to the course of time; in them, the ideal astronomical year is formed by 360 days, divided in twelve months of thirty 2. M. de Certeau, Historia y Psicoanálisis. Entre Ciencia y Ficción (México D.F.: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1998) 77–81. 3.  F.  Lara Peinado y M.  G. Cordero (eds.), El poema babilónico de la creación (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1981) 26. Cf. W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998) 106–22.

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days each. They both explain the yearly model of star movements with the months of the astronomical year, and Mul-Apin examines related topics, such as the movements of the sun and moon along the seasons of the year. As a by-product of this attempt to correlate astronomical activity and the days of the year, both Astrolabes and Mul Apin give a description of the geography of the visible skies. 4 They also provide information about the zodiac, which complements information about the celestial conception of time and cosmic space attested in ancient Iraq. Clay tablets dating back to the end of the third millenium b.c.e. show the different paths used by scribes to divide space and time. The extreme importance that celestial divination had in the hands of royal power 5 also becomes evident, and it was practiced according to the distances and spaces previously described. It was precisely the ability to establish spacial distances that allowed the flourishing development of cuneiform astrology, and in fact scribes began predicting by means of the observation of celestial phenomena. A. L. Oppenheim used the term “scholars” to describe experts in divination and other arts in the period of the Neo-Assyrian kingdom, during the 8th and 7th centuries b.c.e.; 6 those scholars generally came from families of experts that in the course of successive generations had acquired from ancient sources and myths the basic celestial wisdom, the initial knowledge that had connected them to royal power. Throughout the second millenium b.c.e., this stream of traditions became a corpus that included an important group of texts about the measuring of time and space. Celestial divination was effective for the protection of the king in the face of misfortune and, at the same time, the signals sent by the gods were interpreted. In this way, the time of magic present in the texts shows an ancestral logic that, as in the case of myths, becomes evident in such introductory phrases as “in the beginning,” “since then,” expressions that are typically used in the mythological texts of incantations and exorcisms that evoke eternal time. Myths are enriched in the collective conscience in the course of millenia and denote a time that language conveys and finally fixes in writing. We enter into the time of myth conceived as repetition, a time for which the past exists—it is never dead, it is never really past in terms of grammatical temporality. The moon cycle, the rising and setting of the sun, and the seasonal weather were perceived in a sensitive, intuitive way, and these events are in the origins of time measurement. Aristotle pointed out that “The amorous thing about myth is, so to speak, amorous because of its wisdom, because myth is made up of wonders.” 7 A myth is a story crossed by social practices—that is, a global discourse that articulates practices that it does not narrate but must respect, practices that are lacking in it and that also keep watch on it. Nevertheless, historiography warns us that historical ages have a temporal order that differs from the one ruled by the cycles of nature. 8 4. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 157–58. 5.  D. Brown, “The Cuneiform Conception of Celestial Space and Time,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10 (2000) 103. 6.  A. L. Oppenheim, Divination and celestial observations in the last Assyrian Empire, in Centaurus 14, 1969, pp. 97–135. 7.  M. de Certeau, La invención de lo cotidiano. 1 Artes de hacer (México: Universidad Iberoamericana, A.C., 1996) 99. 8.  B. André-Salvini, La conscience du temps en Mésopotamie, in F.Briquel-Chatonnet et H. Lozachmeur (eds.), Proche-Orient Ancien: Temps Vécu, Temps Pensé (Paris: College de France, Jean Maisonneuve, 1998) 29–30.

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In ancient Iraq, the distant past and the origins of civilization are explained through two temporal sequences of a unique event: the great Flood. There is, consequently, a “before” and an “after” the Flood, an event that marks the end of the mythical time of the formation of things, of knowledge, of the existence of a divine society, of the models of civilization, given once and for ever by the Seven antediluvian Sages with the purpose of giving advice to the kings and of setting the rules and ways of doing things in earthly life. Learned scribes saw themselves as the heirs to these sages and as created by their spirit and retaining their knowledge, giving place to the beginning of historical time, when everything starts to work according to the established rules. 9 This is clearly expressed in the Sumerian King List or “Kingship came from Heaven,” a propaganda text composed in the 2nd millenium b.c.e., which reveals the time of the distant ancestors, legendary kings with extraordinary long reigns. The text also includes an antediluvian section dedicated to ancient Sumerian cities; in the first part, the mythical nature is remarkable; and later in the text, we can clearly notice the intention of getting closer to periods that could be considered as historical. In the same way, the Assyrian King List constitutes one of the chronological axes of Assyrian history. It is a late text written by Assyrian scribes in the 8th century b.c.e. Various copies have been found, of which the most important is the one from Khorsabad, dated with some accuracy to 738 b.c.e. Like the scribes from Babylon, those from Assyria, when evoking the past, concentrated especially on the period of the “Akkadian Empire.” This is a reconstruction of the past to explain the origins, the identity of a state, and to give structure to Assyrian history in the longue durée. To do this, they made use of the astronomical cycles, because in Assyrian mentality, there was a strong relationship between earthly events and the movements of the stars; in this way, Assyrian chronology would be based upon the lunar eclipse that took place in 763 b.c.e. The Assyrian King List lists a detailed series of Assyrian kings, their genealogies, and the length of their reigns. When the writer refers to events of a distant past that are alien to his historical experience, he mentions the kings “who lived in tents,” referring to a possible nomadic and mythical past. In this text, the eponymous tribes of the Amorite dynasty are carefully listed. They could be related to the genealogy of Hammurabi that was devised in the second millenium b.c.e., which would be connected to the genealogical line of Shamshi Adad I. 10 Philological studies of the Sumerian term bala and the Akkadian dârou refer us to the classical conceptions of historical time in ancient Iraq. In the first case, there is an allusion to the circular nature of time, of succession and alternation; the term refers to duration, an action, specifically, “the time an activity lasts.” From the semantic point of view, the term implies the idea of rotation and periodicity typical of circular time, which is expressed in a sinusoidal outline. Time is perceived as a structural relationship between two points and scans the duration. In the second case, the term dârou refers to a time that has a point of departure in the past but an unknown limit in the future. Creation myths begin with the following expression: “in that time,” a deictic expression that implies the idea of eternity. In ancient Iraqi thinking, Duri and Dari are the descendants of Anu, the divine ancestor, and evoke 9.  André-Salvini, “La conscience du temps,” 31; cf. J. Bottéro, Mesopotamia: La escritura, la razón y los dioses, (Madrid: Cátedra, 2004) 262. 10.  S. B. Murphy, El fenómeno de la deportación asiria y neobabilónica en Samaria (720 a.C) y Jerusalén (586 a.C.): Una perspectiva histórica comparada (Luján: UNLu, 2007) 76–77.

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permanence and continuity, the duration of the gods and their works. 11 This time can be represented according to an oscillating, pendular thinking related to periods of prosperity and depression 12 or as order and chaos. However, the shapes of time become intercrossed in complex labyrinths, inscribed in the characteristics of each society and culture that are the object of the present study. The rhythm of life rules over the experience of the passing of time; the uneasiness caused by the uncertain duration of life, and finally death, requires explanations and solutions in order to reach conclusion and confort. Predictions, prophecies, astronomical calculations, wishes, and hopes are all part of the historical experience of time and the organization of power. In this way, we become aware of the difference between objective time and subjective time. Ancient Iraqi literature offers many examples of social reflections of a satirical nature, either pessimistic or burlesque—according to our analytical perspective—in which anxiety and the questions about the past become painfully clear, as also occurs with the subject of philosophical suicide or the preaching of voluntary death, an existencial break-up of time, as described in the “Pessimistic dialogue”, Go wander on the ancient tells Consider the (mixed) skulls of peasants and lords Who was the wrongdoer? Who was the kindhearted? (. . .) So what should we do? Break my neck and yours, or throw ourselves into the river, Is this what we should do? Who is big enough, then, to reach the sky? Who is big enough to hold the entire earth? Oh, no, my servant, I shall kill myself and send you before me! Yes, but my lord will not survive more than three days! 13

This passage emphasizes the precariousness of life, the weakness of human memory, and stresses the pessimism that permeates the lives of men and women in the face of irreversible death, 14 as can be noted both in the communities and the spheres of power. The early version (ca. 1700 b.c.e.) of a paragraph from the Epic of Gilgamesh clearly expresses what has already been stated about the finitude of life, giving it a divine sense related to the creation of men, Only gods live for ever under the sun. As regards to men, their days are all numbered. Whatever they do, they are nothing but wind. 15

The magical “Shurpu” text enables us to examine the quality of time and manifest belief in a numinous time. The calendar units of time possess an additional quality, because they can be used as a magical element; and precisely in this document, time 11.  André-Salvini, “La conscience du temps,” 29. 12. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� J. J. Glassner, «Temps (Conceptions mésopotamiennes du),» in J. Leclant, (ed.), Dictionnaire de l’Antiquité (Paris: PUF, 2005) 2143–44. 13.  W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960; repr., Winona Lake, IN: 1996) 139–49; cf. Bottero, Mesopotamia, 296–301; cf. R. Labat et al., Les religions du Proche-Orient asiatique (Paris: Fayard, 1970). 14.  André-Salvini, “La conscience du temps,” 36. 15.  Gilgamesh, ancient Babylonian version, III, IV, 6–8, in J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969) 79.

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and calendar take up a central place, hemerological and menological references become important, and days and months with positive or unfortunate characteristics are established in both texts, involving society as a whole. Day, month, year, nubattu, eshsheshu, 7th day, 15th day, 19th day, 20th day, 25th day, day of disappearance of moon, bathing day, evil day, 20th day, may your sin, your oath, your error, your crime, your invocation, your disease, your weariness, sorcery, spittle, dirt, the evil machinations of people which might occur, get in the way, or appear repeatedly to you or your family, your offspring, your progeny, be released for you, be absolved for you, be wipped off for you! 16

There are fateful days for the members of this society through the course of the years and months, as can be deduced from this source; days when wrongdoing, crimes, illness, sorcery, and evil thoughts and actions should be placated, days when it is necessary to turn away from the curses that may be cast upon families and their descendants. Ancient omens could be used as references for the present time, just as did the dynastic prophecies that evoked a future that mirrored the past. The observation of life on earth compelled men to conclude that the time they lived was finite, precarious, and determind by the gods—a linear time beginning with birth and ending in death, which does not announce its arrival. Death carries the issue of the individual subject to the extreme limits of non-action: he is deprived of language, wrapped in a shroud of silence, he cannot be named. The myth of irreversible destiny is present here. The death of King Ur-Nammu, “abandoned in the battlefield as a broken pot,” exposes the uneasiness and imbalance produced by his death in society, expressed in an extensive poem that refers to the king’s funeral and describes the treasures offered on his tomb to gain the favor of the gods of the Netherworld. 17 All this accounts for the search for an explanation to mitigate and control anxiety about finite time. The secret of death dwells in vast metaphors, in sorcery, in necromancy, in astrology, wisdom hidden in protected caves to conjure up death. The accentuation of the present time is only another way of expressing the acceptance of death. Civilizations that bury their dead express the wish to last in time; rituals constitute a denial of death, a pretense of life inhabiting the tomb, which is the residence where offerings call to mind the bond between life and death. 18 Around 2000 b.c.e., we have clear proof in the city of Mari of traditions referring to the celebration of kishpu, a ritual for the royal ancestors of king Shamsi-Adad. 19 In order to justify his legitimacy, Shamsi-Adad related himself to legendary kings in two ways: dynastically and by hereditary succession. In this way, rituals, repetitions, and returns of the past time are combined in a legitimizing present. Thus, collective memory became significant through the family ritual of kishpu. The names of the dead relatives were invoked, along with the pakadu ‘assignment’, to ensure 16.  A. Livingstone, “The Magic of Time,” in T. Abush and K. van der Toorn, (eds.), Mesopotamian Magic Texts: Historical and Interpretive Perspectives (Groningen: Styx, 1999) 134–35. 17.  S. N. Kramer, “The Death of Ur-Nammu and His Descent to the Netherworld,” in Journal of Cuneiform Studies 21 (1967) 104–27. 18. M. Maffesoli, El instante eterno: El retorno de lo trágico en las sociedades posmodernas (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2005) 61. 19. The king’s ancestors were offered food and drink, and the statues of his predecessors were included. The fact that the king presented the kishpu offerings and also a kishpu for his own ancestors, which included a genealogical recitation, constitutes evidence of a special connection with ancient Akkadian traditions, a particular relationship expressed in the royal title “King of Akkad and of the Haneans,” this one referring to his own traditions.

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survival, invoke their spirits, and lend them reality, presence, existence; they were provided with consumables to eat and drink in the Netherworld. The term kisikkû could refer to these offerings for the dead. Rituals evoked these actions. There was a kishpu room in the family house that had the purpose of gathering the living members of the family. In this way, the members of the lineage—the etemmu—were regularly supplied with necessary goods, since in ancient Iraqi thought they had supernatural powers for good and evil. The close relationship between life and death reached its climax with this ritual, which emphasized the continuity of the past and also suggested the social order. Funerary rituals were part of the lives of men and women and enhanced the global understanding of the time considered. Nevertheless, the kishpu ceremony was not a feature unique to the Amorite world. It is possible to trace signs of this ritual to Sumer, where it was part of a series of regular rituals celebrating the new moon. The periodic disappearance of the moon at the end of the month was equated with its death and descent to the Netherworld. The Akkadian term bubbulu is ambivalent, because it designates at the same time the“disappearance” and the “rebirth”of the moon. The bubbulu was a day for mourning, sadness, and funerary offerings devoted to Nergal, god of the Netherworld related to plagues, fever, and fire in the woods. But at the same time, it was a day of celebration because of the beginning of the new moon. These rituals survived into the Neo-Babylonian period. 20 Thus, death is celebrated and, at the same time, the renewal of life is reinforced in a time that has come to a standstill. Rites as backward movement, regression, and coming to a standstill reinforce life by confronting and resuming its opposite. The genealogy of Babylonian kings was used as a significant way of making the past present by means of the celebration of the kishpu ritual. The mystery of monthly renewal conferred the moon a particular prestige; the moon was “the lord of the month” and established the months of the lunar year. The moon-god Sin was “the father of the months.” The fundamental virtue of lunar time is its regular recurrence, its rhythm. When speaking about the moon and lunar time, we are led to think of a predictable time that becomes visible during eclipses. Allegorical images and descriptions of eclipses are frequent, 21 and in ancient Iraqi thought, this phenomenon was associated with dangerous effects on the person of the king and the community, so it was counteracted by means of rituals where the kettle-drum, the musical instrument par excellence played an important role, with the purpose of producing intense noises accompanied by lamentations intended to drive evil forces away 22—forces that had been unleashed and announced by the total or partial hiding of the moon—and thus restoring the time of order. Gods, however, are immortal; they survive after eclipses, they are the lords of the state, hierarchically organized, personifying cosmic elements, the forces of nature, and the characteristics of ancient Iraqi civilization. The perceptions of the world and people are measured by means of the ways they are imagined, explained, implemented, and used in the conception of the diversity of times. The struggles for power related to time are frequently more violent 20.  S. B. Murphy, El fenómeno de la deportación, 80–81. 21.  VAT 7851, an allegory of a lunar eclipse drawn in an astrological tablet found in Uruk in the Seleucid period; see P. A. Beaulieu, “The Babylonian Man in the Moon,” Journal Cuneiform Studies 51 (2000) 92. 22.  For the description of these rituals, see the documents LAS 278 and BRM 4,6 in P. A. Beaulieu and J. P. Britton, “Rituals for an Eclipse, Possibly in the 8th Year of Cyrus,” Journal Cuneiform Studies 46 (1994) 77.

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than wars between peoples and cultures. It can be historically proved that either wise men (in an ideological sphere) or kings (in the state sphere) take control of calendars as a means of reinforcing and legitimizing their power. Their purpose is to gain social control by imposing a new pace to collective life. 23 Certain documents give proof of the interest in the present: the composition of date lists, contemporary chronicles, and the list of eponymous officials in Assyria represent useful sources of information for establishing calendars and, in this way, regulating everyday life practices. The economic texts and royal inscriptions of ancient Iraqi cities show how after critical periods it was necessary to restablish order. Therefore, in order to strengthen the state circuit, the instruments of rule are standardized: legislation, calendars, and systems of weights and measures. 24 In this way, the exemplary nature of the kingdom is justified by means of a calendar that emphasizes the years of rule and the most important events. Although the calendar follows the cycles of nature, the years, names, and heroic deeds of ancient kings are kept in the calendric memory to ensure continuity in time and civilization and safeguard the institution of kingship, which in ancient Iraqi thought had descended from heaven.

Conclusions It has been my purpose to reexamine the concept of time from a comprehensive perspective. This concept is not reduced—as I expect to have proved—to the idea of a linear time and a circular time. A diversity of times does exist: it can be found in documents that embrace the different forms of thinking about time, both in the community and state spheres. I have pointed out the relationship that links the cosmic, astronomical, prophetic, divination, and magic time. I have considered mythical time, the movement toward the past made in the present to reaffirm the time of power and its legitimacy, the inclusion of the time of remembrance and oblivion, which also refers us to the ways of its manipulation and the need of restoring order over chaos. I have stated the difference between an objective, historiographic time, vindicated by philology, intellectually based on ideas and words, and a subjective time responding to an inner, psychological time, a tempo which reveals itself in the anxiety of the existential course of life and death, where the myth of destiny is present. Social life is based upon regressions, and this reaffirms the idea of cyclical time, while the repeated actions of everyday life point to the vital need of regeneration, an anthropological need built upon the thought that in spite of difficulties, life goes on and starts again. The tragic perception of life—whether acknowledged or not—expressed consciously or unconsciously in documents reminds us that daily monotony has changing openings that light it up. Paul Klee’s image, the Angelus Novus, marks the essential nature of time: it is a bird in movement, flying toward the future but directing its eyes to the past, while the future and the past become intertwined in its look, the complexity of a multiplicity of times. 23.  E. Zeruvavel, “The French Revolution Calendar: A Case Study in Sociology of Time,” in American Sociological Review 42 (1977) 870. 24.  An example of this were the reforms of Shulgi, or the ones made during the first Babylonian dynasty, during the reign of Hammurabi and his reforms.

“Internal” and “External” Evidence for a Reconstruction of Nuzi Chronology P. Negri Scafa Rome

Preliminary Remarks From a certain point of view, time is a human invention: for stars and galaxies that rotate, indifferent in the universe, it does not exist; and as a paradox it can be said that Nuzians 1 seem to have showed a similar indifference to the matter. In fact since the publication of the first tablets scholars noticed how scanty were chronological details in the texts, where no date system allows to reconstruct the chronological succession of the documents. Actually, in a few texts some formulae that have been defined as date formulae occur. 2 There are three different kind of formulae: the so-called šundu-formulae, in which some particular events are related; 3 the formulae in which the names of ḫazannus occur; 4 some clauses that are introduced by MU. 5 But they are found only in about 0.18% of the texts and these are really very limited data: these formulae that recall dating systems in use elsewhere scarcely influenced Nuzi texts, as is reflected in their meager presence. Only in the contracts does a formula, the šudūtu formula, occur, in which it is affirmed that the contract has been stipulated “after the šudūtu”: but this is a legal, not a chronological, remark. Therefore, it is difficult to arrange the Nuzi corpus chronologically. A study of the chronology of the Nuzi texts requires that several different aspects be considered; this is due to the fact that the Nuzi texts are mainly juridical and administrative. Therefore, because it is impossible to reconstruct the history of 1.  Nuzians or “Nuzi corpus” are terms commonly used to refer to people or documents not only with regard to the texts found at Nuzi (Yorghan Tepe) but also to the tablets coming from Al-Ilāni (Kirkuk) and Tell al-Faḫḫar. 2.  P. Negri Scafa, “The Scribes of Nuzi: the Date Formulae and their Use in the Nuzi Texts,” in Proceedings of the 51 Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (ed. R. D. Biggs, J. Myers, and M. T. Roth; Chicago, 2008), 119–26. 3. H.  Lewy, “A Contribution to the Historical Geography of the Nuzi Texts,” JAOS 88 (1968) 150–62; W. Mayer, Nuzi-Studien I (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1978); A. Fadhil, Studien zur Topographie und Prosopographie der Provinzstädte des Königreichs Arrapḫe (Baghdader Forschungen 6; Mainz, 1983), esp. pp. 97–98; G. G. Müller, Studien zur Siedlungsgeographie und Bevölkerung des mittleren Osttigrisgebetes (Heidelberger Studien zum alten Orient 7; Heidelberg, 1994). See also CAD s.v. šundu, which distinguishes general cases from date formulae. 4.  Only two ḫazunnus are quoted in the system of date formulae: Kušši-ḫarpe, the most cited (JEN 13, 23, 31,46, 252, 257, 455, 587, 591, 693, 806, 916) and Pai-tilla son of Kuari (JEN 290). 5.  The most famous formula beginning with MU occurs in JEN 289 and is connected with the ascension to the throne of king Itḫiia.

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the kingdom of Arrapḫa, the features of the documents that modern scholars have paid attention to are socioeconomic aspects of the kingdom; in order to arrange the documents chronologically, they find a remedy for the lack of date formulae by applying other systems, mainly prosopographical. On the other hand, the fact must be taken into consideration that for Nuzians it was important to control their business, and this requires attention to dates and time; therefore, the lack of date formulae must be related to a choice, something that will be discussed later.

The Administrative Documents Obviously, in the texts, terms related to the time are used: terms for day, month, and year are employed to a large degree, as in all other texts of the whole ancient Near East; they can be helpful in reconstructing an internal chronology. For example, months-names are quoted often in the administrative documents that record the ration system and that come either from the palace or from private archives, such as the archive of the mār šarri Šilwa-teššup; sometimes, monthnames also occur in the contracts. The calendar of Nuzi has been reconstructed, 6 even though some uncertainties remain, because no intercalary months are known nor is it known how many days there were in each month. However, it offers some help in arranging administrative documents chronologically. Nevertheless, the ration system, organized monthly, but also bimonthly, 7 fivemonthly, 8 or semi-annual 9 disbursements of goods, is only partially helpful in reconstructing an internal chronology. Nor can distributions of rations for a few days in a month 10 be usefully employed for this purpose. Lists, receipts, deliveries, and consignments are often sealed by the recipients or by the responsible persons, but usually they are not dated; when some date formulae are recorded, they do not belong to an actual dating system, even when some special events are recorded. Actually, the main purpose of these formulae is not to offer a chronological indication but to attest to the extra expenses connected with the special events recorded. So the administrative documents are typically characterized by two factors: 1.  it is important that commodities are distributed and received, and therefore more attention is paid to the persons who bear the responsibility than to the internal chronology; 6. The calendar of Nuzi has been studied since the beginning of Nuzi studies: C.  H. Gordon, “The Names of the Months of the Nuzi Calendar,” RSO 15 (1934) 253–57; A. L. Oppenheim, “Die nichtsemitischen Monatsnamen der Nuzi-Texte” ArOr 8 (1936) 290–305; C. H. Gordon and E. R. Lacheman, “The Nuzi Menology,” ArOr 10 (1938) 51–64. The most recent analysis and reconstruction occurs in G. Wilhelm, Das Archiv von Šilwa-Teššup, Heft 2, Rationenlisten I (Wiesbaden 1980) 28. On the basis of this analysis, the following calendar can be reconstructed: Impurtanni (March / April); Ḫiari / Arkuzzi (April / May); Ḫinzuri / Kurilli (May / June); Šehali ša dTeššup / Tammūzu (June / July); Šeḫali ša dNergal (July / August); Arkapinni / Ulūlu (August / September); Sabûtu / Attanašwe (September / October); Šeḫli (October / November); Kinūnu (November / December); Ḫuri (December / January); Mitirruni (January / February); Ḫutalši (February / March). 7.  AdŠ 21; AdŠ is the abbreviation of Archiv des Šilwa-Teššup, a series published by G. Wilhelm and devoted to the archive of that prince and of some members of his family, his staff, and employees. 8.  AdŠ 44. 9.  AdŠ 35–37. 10.  HSS XV 239

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2.  these documents are short-term records, mainly related to the distribution for the current year, even if sometimes the previous or the next year are recorded.

Therefore, it is useful to remember that the chronological distribution of the administrative documents throughout a year is based on the calendar, whereas the reconstruction of a chronology of documents belonging to several years is possible only as a result of an analysis of the different elements quoted in the lists, especially the persons named, according to a methodology applied for many years by scholars. The work of G. Wilhelm on the Šilwa-teššup archive is an excellent example of this; in fact, he identifies the persons in the various lists: if a list mentions a person as a suḫaru and another list mentions him as a LÚ ÌR, it is evident that the second list is younger than the former. 11

Letters and Juridical Documents In any case, if it was not particularly important for the Nuzians to record the chronology of the administrative documents according to a year system, primarily when the activities were from a short time-span, the situation should be completely different with other kinds of texts from the Nuzi corpus: letters, wills, lawsuits, and mainly contracts. Letters are often official documents by which high-ranking individuals gave orders and instructions. At the most, it is possible to reconstruct the sequence of events connected to an individual letter, even if it is often difficult to reconstruct them, especially when sender and addressee refer in a cryptic way to events they both know. Nuzi letters are undated, unlike other text corpora in the Ancient Near East. Therefore, only letters in which the individuals mentioned are recognizable and known from other texts can be arranged chronologically; in this case, information offered by the letters can be usefully associated with other textual data. An interesting example can be offered by HSS XIV 14 (SMN 3057), a letter from the king to the emantuḫlu Šar-Teššup, which contains several instruction. Despite the fact that many elements in this letter are unclear and alternate scenarios may be proposed, the possibility of connecting it with the archive of Šar-Teššup opens up the interpretives possibilities of the document. 12 Of particular interest are the contracts: every jurist knows that it is important to establish the period of validity of a contract. In fact, contracts in other text corpora in the Ancient Near East, such as old Babylonian, Middle Assyrian, and so on, are dated. In Nuzi, the many kinds of contracts found are usually undated, without regard to whether the obligations they record are permanent or temporary. For example, in contracts related to real estate ( ṭuppi marūti), the problem of the term of the contract is of relative value, because the alienation of the property is definitive. At the most, the lack of the date formula does not make possible to establish when the contract came into force according to an absolute chronology. Only the presence of a declaration or clauses such as ištu ūmi anni or x kaspa elteqe u aplākumi indicate that the contract came into force. 11. G. Wilhelm, Archiv of Šilwa-Teššup, Heft 2, 23–24. 12.  P. Negri Scafa, “Administrative Procedures in the Texts from the House of Zike, Son of Ar-tirwi, at Nuzi,” in General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi in Honor of David I. Owen (ed. G. Wilhelm; SCCNH 18, 2009) 437–79.

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More complex is the status of other kinds of contracts, especially those related to persons. There is a set of real adoptions, for example, in which the adopted person receives rations year after year, as long as he lives, in a situation similar to some last wills. But the topic of crucial importance is connected with loan contracts, in whatever form they take, whether ḫubullu-loans or titennūtu contracts. In fact, in loan contracts, dates are critical in order to establish the period of validity of the contract itself, and this is true for every kind of loan. Sometimes, Nuzians seem to pay attention to the problem, as is demonstrated by the text HSS IX 97, where it is precisely stated that the nabalkutu clause against any breach of the agreement is in force for the 2 years of the contract. This is certainly pleonastic but also clear. Under the name “ḫubullu contracts” are a very complex set of various documents that, according to Owen, 13 constitute about 10 % of the Nuzi texts: loans with or without interest, individual or multiple loans, agricultural loans (barley, wheat, emmer), which are the majority, or loans related to other goods: bricks, wood, tools, cloths, animals (sheep, goats, oxen, asses), and in particular metal loans, involving many different kinds of metals: tin, copper, bronze, and silver. Often, this last type of document is not a true loan and refers to commercial activities. In any case, loans must be repaid, and a term is usually mentioned in the texts. It is well known to the scholars who are concerned with this topic that the most common term indicating that a loan is to be repaid is at harvest, ina arki ebūri— to some extent, a frozen formula, like its parallel u4-buru14-šè in old Babylonian documents. 14 This formula is usually employed for agricultural loans, but it is in use also for other kinds of loans. Why this time was chosen is self-evident: at harvest is when crops came in, wool had been shorn, herds were increased, and more goods were circulating. There are an infinite number of parallels in the text corpora from the Ancient Near East, and something similar existed in Europe in traditional societies from Medieval times on. Therefore, it can be considered the main expiration date for the loans in Nuzi. Nevertheless, harvest is a process that requires several activities and is completed in the course of one or two months, and therefore one wonders if it is possible to relate the “harvest formulae” to any specific calendar day or month. This problem is also present in old Babylonian texts, 15 where complementary formulae offer useful indications. As for Nuzi, some texts use the clause ina arki ebūri and a monthname: a good example is offered by EN 9 /2 363 where the harvest formulae and the month Šeḫali ša Teššup are quoted. In any case, loans can also be repaid in other periods, as is found in some documents that indicate the months Ḫinzuri/Kurilli, Šehali ša Teššup, Arkapinnu, Šeḫli, or Kinūnu. 16

13.  D. I. Owen, The Loan Documents from Nuzu (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1969). 14. A. Skaist, The Old Babylonian Loan Contract: Its History and Geography (Bar-Ilan University Press, 1994); R. A. Veenker, “Two Old Babylonian Contracts,” in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of M. C. Astour (edd. G. D. Young, M. W. Chavalas, and R. E. Averbeck; Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1997) 519–25. 15. Skaist, Old Babylonian Loan Contract, 190–201. 16.  See above, n. 6.

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This usually happens for kinds of loans other than agricultural, such as, for example, metal loans, which are often commercial loans and not bound to agricultural activities. In any case, the mention of the clause ina arki ebūri or of a month name served as an indication of the time in which the loan must be repaid; but a month is a long period of time: on which day must the repayment happen? The problem comes up in a more complex way for “loans” that belong to the category of titennūtu. 17 They are contracts in which the debtor takes some goods from a creditor and guarantees with a pledge that the loan will be repaid. When the loan is repaid, the pledge is also given back: it is practically an exchange of goods, usually an exchange of more durable, long-lasting goods for short-lasting goods. Actually, in this kind of contract, the pledge plays a very important part; moreover, a great variety of items can be involved in this kind of contract: people or land or other commodities are given in exchange for barley, or cattle, or bricks, or metals, or clothing, or oil, and so on. Furthermore, for this kind of contract the moment at which the loan is repaid and the pledge is given back must be taken into consideration. In some cases, the duration of the arrangement is indefinite: when the goods taken by the weaker party (debtor) are returned to the other party (creditor), the item given as a pledge is taken back. In this case, it is of fundamental importance that the debtor is able to repay his loan. In other cases, the duration of the arrangement is definite, because the goods must be returned within a well-established term. However, in this case, a distinction is also necessary: in some texts, the time of repayment is so long (from 20 to 50 years) that the exchange of goods must be considered permanent. But the contracts that are of interest in this context are those titennūti in which a relatively short duration is indicated: ina arki ebūri, or a few years—two, three, five, six, and so on. 18 In this case, the lack of date formulae makes it more and more difficult to establish when the contract begins and what is the expiration date; texts only say: after x years. If in the case of the ḫubullu-loan a month seemed to be a very long-term loan, what about a year? When the term is ina arki ebūri, the situation is same as in the case of the ḫubullu-loans, but it becomes more problematic when the goods are given back after some years: how is the expiration date fixed? Various conjectures can be made: one is that the titennūtu-loan expiration date is in any case ina arki ebūri, obviously in the agreed year. However, as seen formerly with ḫubullu-loans, it is possible that the expiration date is also in another month of the year. Another possibility is that the expiration time is in the same month in which the contract has begun, but this is only a hypothesis, because there is no data to support it. In any case, even if the problem of which month in the year is month in which the loan is due is resolved, as in the case of the ḫubullu-loan, there is the problem of the day on which the loan was to be repaid. But was it important to know this day? Texts offer uncertain data, even if in some cases the reply to this question must be affirmative. According to EN 9/3 378, which records the sale of a good, it was 17.  B. L. Eichler, Nuzi Personal Ditennūtu Transactions and Their Mesopotamian Analogues (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1967); idem, Indenture at Nuzi (New Haven and London, 1973). 18. Eichler, Nuzi Personal Ditennūtu Transactions, 147.

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important to know the day: in fact, if the buyer is late in paying by more than five days, a special penalty of 50%, the tamkarašši, will be added to the agreed repayment amount. In some cases, the loan is to be repaid at the request of the creditor, as EN 9/1 319 suggests. From some texts it is possible to ascertain that the loans were repaid on some classic dates that were related to well-identified periods in the month: the first (HSS XIII 40, RA 23, 14) or the last (EN 9/3 330) day in the month; in one text (HSS XIV 106), too, the fifteenth day of the month is cited, but this text is not a loan and is related to an activity to be performed. Sometimes, with the first day of the month, the period in which the loan could be repaid without interest began; if the whole month went by without the loan being repaid, interest was added: 10. ù ri-iḫ-tu4 17 MA.NA 11. AN.NAMEŠ i+na eš-ši ITI Ar-ka4-pí-nu 12. a-na NP 13. a-na-an-din-mi šum-ma AN.NA 14. i+na ga5-ma-ar ITI 15. Ar-ka4-pí-nu 16. la a-na-an-din ù AN.NA 17. a-na MÁŠ-ti GIN-ak . . . and the remaining 17 MA.NA tin at beginning of the month Arkapinni to PN I give; if I do not give the tin through the month Arkapinni, then the tin (begins to) accrue the interest (HSS V 10)

However, it was possible that other dates were agreed on, as in BM 85.226. 19 In this interesting document, connected with a lost ṭuppi titennūti, the pledge previewed in the former contract must be replaced by another pledge because a claim has been raised; and the date in which it must be given is the day of the “braziers festival” ina isinni Kinūni ša Nuzi, a festival celebrated in more than one town, as AASOR XVI 83 demonstrates, where ina isinni Kinūni ša al-Ilāni is quoted. If some festivals in Nuzi are taken into consideration, it is possible to observe that there is a festival in most of the months in which loans were repaid: •  ina ūmi isinni ša Sehali (JEN 390; HSS XV 239) •  ina arki isinni ša Arkapinni (HSS XIV 185) •  ina isinni Kinūni ša Nuzi (BM 85226) •  ina isinni Kinūni ša Al-Ilāni (AASOR XVI 83) •  ina isinni ITI Mitirunni (JEN 388) / ana Mitirunni (as festival) (HSS XV 240, HSS XVI 183)

Therefore, not only the first or the last (or, perhaps, also the fifteenth) day of the month but also other days could be useful dates to repay a loan. Concerning this, another clause should be pointed out: in a text, the loan must be given back ina ūmi ša kirrāti (HSS XV 244); if this does not happen, the debtor will also pay the interest. Kirrātu is the plural of kirru, “vessel,” and the entire clause is considered obscure. Nevertheless, some hypotheses can be formulated: the fact that if the debtor “will not give back” (šumma la inandin) the goods, he will be obliged also to pay the interest (ina muḫḫiia ṣibta), means that this clause indicates a specific payment 19.  This text in the British Museum has been published as LNT 64 by G. G. Müller, Londoner NuziTexte (Wiesbaden, 1998).

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term and eliminates other possible interpretations, such as, for example, the possibility that the debtor was a craftsman who must turn in his work (kirrātu) in order to repay his loan. A likely hypothesis seems to be that it is a festival day: just like there is a braziers (kinūni, kinunāti) festival, there could also be a vessels (kirrāti) festival. An indirect support of this hypothesis comes from Middle Assyrian texts, and in particular from KAR 139, where a ritual is described in which kirrū are very important, because the priestess pours beer into them. This hypothesis is not in contrast with the document’s context, which makes it clear that the day of kirrāti is a specific date. Taking into consideration what has been said thus far, it is possible to observe some details: 1.  in the texts, there are many deficiencies that do not comport with the importance of the contracts; 2.  one of the most relevant among these deficiencies is the lack of date

This possibly confirms that in Nuzi, as elsewhere in the Near East, some conditions of the contract were verbally agreed and were only recorded on the tablet as an exception, a useful exception that sometimes offers an indication of conditions that usually go unrecorded. Verbal agreements were made in front of witnesses, and many details and information depended on their excellent memory. It is superfluous to note how important their office was in the various phases of contractual agreements: (1) at the moment in which the agreement was concluded, because witnesses attended the formal legal event and often inspected the goods involved in the contract; (2) later, because they could be called to court to witness in a lawsuit; but (3) it is possible that they were present also before the contract was stipulated, when private settlement between the parties was reached. Therefore, it is stipulated in several texts that the original witnesses cannot be replaced by someone else without invalidating the contract. Now, from what has been said, it follows that the dates of the contract also were dependent on the witnesses’ memory, and this offers further indication of the importance of their office in Nuzi society. There is another aspect of some interest related to the witnesses: sometimes, the same group of individuals is present in several documents; certainly, every party to the contract brought his own witnesses, but these groups could also be important for other kinds of analysis of the Nuzi texts, such as analysis of the prosopographical data.

Prosopographical Data As noted above, because the reconstruction of a chronology of the Nuzi texts is not possible according to internal details of the texts, any attempt to arrange the texts of that corpus chronologically must be based on external features. The most relevant of these features are the proposographical data, which shed light on the relationships among groups of people. Therefore, the interest of scholars has been centered for many years on those groups or families that can be followed for several generations; two families in particular have been taken into consideration: that of the well known Teḫip-Tilla, an eminent person whose family covers five generations; and the scribal family of Apil-Sin, which also covers five generations. Many scribes of this family worked for the Tehip-tilla family and also for other prominent families

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in Nuzi. Thanks to prosopographic comparisons among these families, it is possible to establish many relationships among the individuals. A difficulty in application of this methodology is the fact that it involves a great quantity of prosopographic comparisons, since there are thousands of personal names recorded in the Nuzi texts. Therefore, apart the systematic analysis of a group of data made by Friedman by computer several years ago, 20 the methodology is often employed for remarks such as “NP1 is contemporary with NP2” in well-defined groups; and the prosopographic comparisons are frequently with members of Teḫip-Tilla or of Apil-Sin families. As a good example of this methodology, the case of the scribe Arip-šarri can be cited.

An Example: The Scribe Arip-šarri Arip-šarri was a scribe, father of a scribe, and warad ekalli; about twenty texts are signed by him. He is important because he worked for several archives, has only indirect contacts with the Teḫip-Tilla family, and in particular, because of his office as warad ekalli he has a strong relationship with the palace; for all of these reasons, he plays an important role in the present analysis. Two of the archives for which Arip-šarri writes belong to the Eastern Area of Nuzi and have been studied by M. Morrison, 21 who brought to light that people living in that area were officials or private citizens who had good economic resources. The former archive belongs to the family of Ḫuia, who lived in the Nuzi zone labeled by Starr as group 18A. 22 Arip-šarri worked for the son of Ḫuia, Šukriia, for which he wrote the last will (HSS XIX 5); moreover, he also writes two documents for the wife and the sons of Šukriia. Some data on a relative chronological relationship between Arip-šarri and Šukriia already exists: the scribe was in contact with Šukriia in the final part of the life of the latter, and also in the final part of the family’s history, when the family estate began to disintegrate and the sons of Šukriia gave their estates to their uncle Tarmiia, who had survived his brothers and was able to profit from the misfortune of the Šukriia line. Tarmiia was a palace official who was also connected with irrigation. Just a remark: Tarmiia was a palace official (alaḫḫinnu), and Arip-šarri a warad ekalli: is it a strange coincidence that Arip-šarri worked as a scribe for the members of Tarmiia family? The four texts that Arip-šarri wrote for the latter archive of the Eastern Area, the archive of Utḫap-tae son of Ar-tura, are typical of an active businessman: he engages in personnel contracts (HSS XIX 96) and also in real estate acquisitions (AASOR XVI 58, EN 9/2 10 and 262). A prosopographic analysis of these texts shows an interesting relationship among the documents of the archive of Utḫap-tae and the other texts written by Arip-šarri. In AASOR XVI 58, the adopter is Eḫli-teššup son of Kipaia who is one of the witnesses in HSS XIX 65. In turn, Zikaia son of Ḫuziri, one of the party in HSS XIX 65, is one of the witnesses in EN 9/2 10. Also, though it is impossible to ascertain the relative chronology of these three texts, it does seem possible that they were written within a relatively short time-span. This hypothesis is confirmed by the presence of Balṭu-šar son of Taiuki among the witnesses of HSS XIX 65 and of JEN 78, another text written by Arip-šarri in which Ḫut-arrapḫe son of Tišam20.  A. H. Friedman, “Toward a Relative Chronology at Nuzi,” SCCNH 2 (1987) 109–30. 21.  M. A. Morrison, The Eastern Archives of Nuzi (SCCNH 4; Eisenbrauns, 1993). 22.  R. F. S. Starr, Nuzi I (Cambridge, 1939) 304.

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mušni occurs. It is to be wondered if he is the son of the well-known Tišam-mušni, who is often mentioned in the palace texts and should be a šakin bīti like Erwi-šarri. This hypothesis is supported by the presence in the text of the warad ekalli Erwiḫuta and of the scribe, who is also a warad ekalli. Therefore, it is possible to connect some texts: AASOR XVI 58, HSS XIX 65, EN 9/2 10, JEN 78. It is more difficult to connect HSS XIV 623, which is related to Tišam-mušni and for this reason could be older than JEN 78—though this conclusion is not necessary. The presence of Eḫliteššup son of Kipaia and of Auturta son of Nuḫuia in AASOR XVI 58 and EN 9/2 262 relates the latter text to the other documents of the archive. In this analysis, the administrative list in which the scribe and warad ekalli Arip-šarri is mentioned together with other warad ekalli (HSS XIV 593) has not been taken into consideration: obviously, a prosopographical analysis requires that those data are also taken into account.

Some Methodological Considerations In this short analysis of a portion of the documents of Arip-šarri, an example is given of the methodology that scholars usually employ to study Nuzi texts. However, there is a conceptual ambiguity, as everybody who has employed this methodology knows: it is related to the concept of genealogy. In fact, in this system, “genealogy” is employed in two different meanings. On one hand, it is a “static,” historical notation, according to which an average of 20–30 years per generation is usually assumed. On the other hand, individuals belonging to one generation in a family can live and be active for a number of years that may vary widely from an average of 20–30 years. For this reason, generational overlaps in the same text are not infrequent. This makes it more difficult to find an acceptable solution to the problem of reconstructing an internal chronology, because many more data are necessary. Furthermore, even if the scribes of the Apil-Sin family wrote more than the 25% of the Nuzi texts and the members of the Teḫip-Tilla family established many relationships in the kingdom, they certainly did not cover the entire area of interest. A solution to the problem of generational overlaps and of the difference between static, historical generations and real generations may come from the new possibilities that computerized data analysis now offers: it is possible, in fact, to use metadata from any collection of available resources and to employ several computers, acting in concert, that can solve research problems requiring the analysis of very large amounts of data. This is an opportunity offered by the GRID, a distributed system that allows the use of metadata from any collection of available resources. In it, at the same time, several computers act in concert on research problems, requiring access to large amounts of data and/or a great number of computer processing cycles. The GRID infrastructure provides access to computational resources for creating corpora, libraries, links among libraries, or preserving digital resources, museums, and universities. Using GRID, it is possible to analyze corpora (concordances, indexes, etc.), to collect and analyze linguistic data of every kind by means of “textual statistics,” technologies (lists of words, sequences, frequencies of occurrences; vocabulary analysis); to cooperate in the gathering of data and output of results, using various software for text analysis and text mining; to apply grammatical tags for the analysis of grammatical categories; to teach a computer to cooperate with other computers “autonomously” following agreed-upon parameters.

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But it is also known that computers and software can be iron-stupid (even if there are now “intelligent”) and the very problem is how to set the parameters for its operations, because it is not only the members of the prominent families cited above that must be taken into consideration but also other groups of people cited in the texts. Moreover, it is possible to improve the analytical methodology when other instruments are taken into consideration. Demography can come to our aid. In a general way, however, nothing in the Nuzi texts is interesting for a demographer, because he works with the dates of birth and death of individuals, and in the Nuzi texts individuals as such can hardly be found. Nevertheless, there is a branch of demography that can in some measure be useful for this kind of study: the study of the fictitious cohort—that is, a way to analyze the behaviors of individuals who are not of the same age (are born in different years) but are contemporary to a single event. In other words, if the situation described in a single text is considered as an event, surely all of the individuals cited in that text were not born in the same year but certainly are contemporary, at least as far as that text is concerned. It is impossible to suggest an absolute application of the laws of demography, but the analysis of fictitious cohorts can offer support for dealing with lists of Nuzi texts, especially using computational analysis. If this is done, rules must be established to obtain well-grounded information. A further analysis of the texts of Arip-šarri can be useful as a development of this methodology; it is possible to identify two events: event 1 HSS XIX 122; in this text, Ḫutiia son of Arip-šarri buys a slave from the warad ekalli Tuḫmiia and his wife Merallu; the warad ekalli Arip-šarri signs the text. event 2 HSS XIX 113 and 114: both texts are part of a single contract and therefore must be considered one event; Tuḫmiia sells his wife Merallu to Utḫap-tae son of Ar-tura; in HSS XIX 113, one of the witnesses is Naniia son of Kip-ukur, who witnesses also EN 9/2 10, a text of the archive of Utḫap-tae. 23

Some considerations: certainly, HSS XIX 122 was written when Arip-šarri was at least middle-aged, because his son is adult and able to buy a slave. Event 2 happens after event 1, and it is possible that it comes before events recorded in AASOR XVI 58, HSS XIX 65, EN 9/2 10, JEN 78. As a result of these relationships, it is possible to affirm that an important part of the documents written by Arip-šarri belong to his maturity (fig. 1). It remains to observe that the two events belong to two different archives, even if virtually identical groups of individuals are cited, and this detail must be taken into consideration in the analysis of the lists of witnesses. As stated above, Arip-šarri worked not only for those whose documents constitute the archives of the Eastern Area; he also worked for Ilānu son of Taiuki, whose house and archive are in the suburban area of the town; furthermore, in this case, the presence of two witnesses (two brothers, Manniia and Naip-tilla sons of Tultukka) in both texts that he wrote and are preserved in this archive (HSS IX 97 and 102) suggests that they were probably written in a short span of time. Arip-šarri warad ekalli obviously worked also for the archives of the Northwestern Ridge, not to mention the temple: EN 9/1 170 and EN 9/3 378; this was the 23.  Both of these events have been studied in P. Negri Scafa, “Alcune Osservazioni sui testi HSS XIX 113 e HSS XIX 114,” SCCNH 1: In Honor of E. R. Lacheman (ed. M. A. Morrison, D. I. Owen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 325–32.

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Fig. 1.

natural circle for Arip-šarri, because the individuals of these archives are connected with the palace and with some mār šarri. Again because of his relationships with the palace he wrote a contract (HSS XIII 65) for the šakin biti Erwi-šarri, in which he entrusts an amat ekalli to two men; nonetheless, one of the witnesses is Naniia son of Kip-ukur, and this connects the text to the archive of Utḫap-tae. Finally, it is interesting to note how complex the relationships of Arip-šarri with the family of Teḫip-Tilla were: he writes two documents for Zilip-Tilla son of Kelipšarri (LNT 28, 56), an attendant of Allai-turaḫḫe, the wife of Šurki-Tilla son of Teḫip-Tilla; moreover, he gets rations of barley together with the son of Šurki-Tilla in the same context (HSS XIV 593). Again, various disciplines have been employed to analyze the relationships among texts in order to improve the prosopographical methodology.

Conclusions The analysis that has been made herein denies in some respects what was claimed at the beginning: despite our first impressions, Nuzians paid attention to time, especially in contractual situations. The problem is that Nuzi legal documents seem to have served as a summary of the transaction, not as a carefully formulated, all-inclusive, written contract. This fact, which has been recognized for a long time, 24 makes the role of witnesses more and more important: they had the responsibility of keeping in mind the transactions they witnessed in detail, in case any matter resulted in a lawsuit. For this reason, changing the composition of the group was not allowed, as some tablets explicitly say. A detail that must not be overlooked is that every contracting party was accompanied by his own group of reliable witnesses. A prosopographical analysis, based only on the groups of witnesses, aimed to bring to light the relationships not only between individuals but the connection of groups or parts of them can be useful either to establish an internal chronology or to ascertain connections with the owners of the archives. Anyone who has attempted to perform 24. Eichler, Nuzi Personal Ditennūtu Transactions, 133.

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this kind of analysis knows how difficult and sometimes despairing it is. For this reason, tools such as demography and the complex system of the computer grid can offer helpful support, as long as we remember that attention must be paid to evaluating data and details (and in this, the sensibility of the assyriologist is crucial). Perhaps it is impossible to know the day on which the poor farmer needs to pay his loan, but there are good possibilities that we may know who his contemporaries were.

The Other Face of the Moon: Some Hints on the Visual Representation of the Moon on Third-Millennium b.c.e. Mesopotamian Glyptic

Sara Pizzimenti

“S a p i e n z a ” U n i v e r s i t y

of

Rome

The moon had a particular importance in third-millennium Mesopotamian society: it was the basis of the Ur III calendar, of daily life, and of the religious cult. The moon was in fact the astral representation of the moon-god Nanna/Sîn. Thus, its first visual representation, as a crescent with its hump pointed down, belongs to this period. But the moon is not only a crescent; it has in fact four different phases: from the crescent to the full moon and the reverse. The goal of this paper is to analyze the representation of the moon, in its two main phases (new moon and full moon), on Ur III glyptic as representing a specific time and temporal event in the Ur III lunar calendar.

Introduction Time is an abstract entity, a measurable and indefinite continued movement of existences and events divided into past, present, and future. Since the beginning of civilization, time has been calculated for cyclical physical events as perceived by humans, often linked to changing climate, the seasons, or to the course of the heavenly bodies (Nilsson 1920; Friedman 1985; Whitrow 1988; Verderame 2008). Time units have always been based on the continuous alternation of the two main heavenly bodies in the sky, the sun and the moon, and on the cyclical passage from light to dark, from day to night. As in all ancient cultures, even in Mesopotamia, the “day” was considered the basic time unit (Englund 1988: 168; Verderame 2008: 128), as testified by the bilingual poem “The Exaltation of Inanna/Ishtar,” where the divine astral triad of An, Enlil, and Ea equally divides the duties of Nanna/Sîn, the moon-god, and Utu/Shamash, the sun-god. 1 When the attention is shifted from the day to the month and to the year, this equilibrium disappears. The moon and the god Nanna/Sîn take the upper hand, becoming the basis of the Mesopotamian calendar. While the month, 30 days long, had to correspond to the synodic phase of 1.  “Dans les fondaments, éternels, du ciel e de la terre dans les immutables constellations divines, au commencement, Anu, Enlil et Ea ont fait le partage de parts: pour le deux dieux, qui veillent sur le cieu e la terre, et ouvrent la porte d’Anu, pour Nanna/Sîn et pour Utu/Shamash, par le jour et la nuit, il y eut deux parts égales, de la base des cieux jusqu’au somet du ciel; . . .” (Exaltation of Inanna/Ishtar: lines III 47–54).

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the moon (Lambert 1962; Leibovici 1962; Stol 1992; Hunger 1995; Verderame 2008: 130), the year, composed of 12 months, was 360 days long (Verderame 2008: 131). 2 However, the effective length of the moon cycle, 29.53 days, did not result in a correspondence between the lunar year (360 days) and the solar year (365 days), which created some problems with the changing of seasons, problems solved by the addition of a thirteenth month when needed. 3 The beginning of the month overlapped with the appearance of the new moon, the crescent, in the sky and ended with its disappearance (Rochberg–Halton 1992: 810). Furthermore, the day itself started and ended with the sunset and with the consequent appearance of the moon in the sky. The importance of the moon in the counting of time is pointed out in the Lugal‑e poem, where the important task of counting the time “by the moon” is ascribed to Nisaba 4 by Rim-Sin of Larsa (1822–1763 b.c.e.). 5 The moon marks the days, marks the months, and marks the month itself by its four phases. On the first day, the new moon—the crescent—marks the beginning of the month; its “horns” are visible for six days, while on the seventh, the first quarter appears; on the fifteenth day, the full moon is visible, followed by the descending phase. The last quarter corresponds to the twenty-first day, and the complete disappearance of the moon marks the end of the month itself.

The eš-eš Festival The cyclical changing of the moon, and therefore of the moon-god Nanna/Sîn, has permitted the fixing of particular festivities based on the calendar and on the lunar cycle. Specific monthly events were added to the regular daily rituals, in correspondence to the four lunar phases. At least at the end of the third millennium b.c.e., the main offering types were the eš-eš and the siskur (Hall 1985: 261). The eš-eš involved animal offerings, including bulls, sheep, and goats, and fruit offerings, such as pomegranates and dates, while the siskur involved beer libations accompanied by various flours. 6 Moreover, while the siskur seems to be a more generic offering type, the eš-eš was associated with the lunar phases. The eš-eš— the “all temple festival,” as interpreted by Jacobsen (1976: 122)—was celebrated on the first, the seventh, and the fifteenth day of the month but most often on the first day and on the fifteenth day. 7 Thus, it is possible to consider the first day, the new moon, the “day of the new moon at the beginning of the month,” and the fifteenth day, the full moon, the “day of the new moon on the fifteenth day”—as they are called in the Ur III texts—the most important days of the month (Landsberg 1915: 99ff.; Stol 1992: 245–50; Choen 1993: 3ff.; Verderame 2002: 447). These two specific lunar phases have an explicit and perfectly explicable cultural meaning. The moon’s appearance in the sky after nights of darkness had to be a moment of thanksgiving and celebration, while the brightness of the full moon had to be a source of attraction and a symbol of prosperity and abundance (Choen 1996: 15–16). 2.  The year usually started in March, at the spring equinox (Charpin 1993). 3.  The addition of a thirteenth month was established by the king when the gap between the lunar calendar and the seasonal event became evident (Charpin 2005). It becomes a regular occurrence in the middle of the first millennium b.c.e. with the discovery of the metonian cycle (Hunger and Reiner 1975). 4.  “Nisaba . . . it counting the days by the moon” (The Ninurta Myth Lugal-e: v. 721). 5.  “Nanna, who establishes the months, who completes the year” (RIM 4220: 5–6). 6.  Occasionally, the two offering types overlap, and sometimes animals and fruits are described as s iskur. However, these offerings are exceptions in comparison with the vast majority (Hall 1985: 261). 7.  For a complete analysis of the e š - e š festival, see Hall 1985: 261ff. and Sallaberger 1993: 56ff.

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The imperfect coincidence of the ideal lunar month (30 days) and the actual lunar month (29.53 days) corresponds to an inconstant correspondence between the lunar phases and the day established for them in the month. This non-continuous correspondence between the festivities and the calendar is proof of constant observation of the sky and of the lunar phases in the Neo-Sumerian period and thus of attention directed toward the sky and the astral bodies at least since the end of the third millennium b.c.e. 8. The importance of these two lunar phases, new moon and full moon, continued until the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, as testified by many omina during these periods based on the day and on the visibility of the new and the full moon. 9

The Iconography of the Crescent The moon, the astral correspondent of Nanna/Sîn, appears in Mesopotamian visual imagery from the prehistoric times onward (Black and Green 1992: 54) as a crescent with its rounded portion turned down, a propitious moment when the god came back into the sky with his “boat,” 10 gazing at the country benevolently. This particular and standardized representation of the crescent has a precise correspondence with its actual shape at the latitude of Sumer, where the crescent really appears as a “boat,” with its rounded portion at the bottom (Collon 1992: 20–21; Pizzimenti in press). This testifies to a strong relationship in Sumer between the representation of the crescent and its real aspect. Attestations on seals from Fara place the crescent always in the upper part of the scene, beginning with its first appearance. 11 However, the crescent is not only the astral correspondent of Nanna/Sîn but also his more common attribute, as clearly is evidenced by the anthropomorphic representations of the moon-god with a crescent on his tiara. 12 Moreover, beginning in the Ur III period, the moon, in its crescent representation, became the symbol of Nanna/Sîn, 13 a growth in importance that has its parallel in the contemporaneous growing importance of Ur, the chief cultic residence of the moon-god Nanna/Sîn. However, the influence of the moon-god 8.  The vault of heaven has always exerted a big influence on Mesopotamian people. Since the end of the third millennium b.c.e., Mesopotamians observed the sky, thinking that what happened in the sky was reflected in the earth. Stars were considered to be messengers exerting a direct influence and serving as mediators between humanity and the gods, as man’s means of communication with the divine (Reiner 1995: 15–16). Referring to the moon in particular, the first thirteen tablets of the astrological series “Enūma Anu Enlil” are a homogenous and autonomous group inside this series, forming a subseries with a name of its own, IGI.DU8.A.ME s á 30 “visibilities of the moon.” For a complete study of this subseries, see Verderame 2002; 2003. 9.  For Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian astrological omina, see Hunger 1992. 10.  In literary texts, the moon-god is often represented as a “boat” moving across the heavens (Stol 1992: 248 n. 36). For an analysis of the meaning of the moon-god as a boat and its parallel with the lunar phases, see Stol 1992: 247–49. 11. See, for example, the seals VA8606 (Heinrich 1931: Taf. 58:c) and VA 8725 (Heinrich 1931: Taf. 47:b). 12.  This representation appears beginning with the Akkadian period. On a seal from Tello with an inscription that names Enmenanna, daughter of Naram-Sin of Akkad and en-priestess of Ur, the moongod and his wife are represented seated, facing each other. Behind each deity stands a goddess with one hand raised. The moon-god in particular is identified from his tiara, a tiara with a crescent between the single pair of “horns” (Bohemer 1965: Abb. 725). 13.  The link between the moon-god and the crescent is confirmed by pictorial evidence and religious texts. For a specific analysis of the symbolic meaning of the crescent, see van Buren 1945: 60–64; Seidl 1989: 97–98; Collon 1992: 19–37; Black and Green 1992: 54; Stol 1992: 245–47.

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Fig. 1.  Seal of Khashkhamer, governor of Ishkun Sin during the reign of Ur-Namma (end of the 22nd century b.c.). WA.89126.  British Museum (Matthiae 2000: 61).

is at least as early as the Early Dynastic period through the Old Babylonian period. The value of the crescent as the symbol of the moon-god could be explained if we consider that the crescent itself is the real form of the first appearance of the god in the sky, the beginning of the lunar cycle, and thus his most representative form.

Moon Representations in Ur III Glyptic Ritual scenes showing a worshiper in front of a deity became the prevalent theme in Ur III glyptic (Winter 1986; Collon 1987: 36; Matthiae 2000: 60). In this standardized “presentation scene,” the crescent appears quite systematically. Its position in the scene is constant, beginning with its first appearance. It is always placed in the upper part of the scene, between the deity (or the deified king) and the worshiper, or the interceding deity, holding a relevant place (figs. 1, 2). Placed in front of the seal impression, human eyes naturally read the image from left to right, the same direction as the characters’ procession. This natural reading is stopped by the seated figure, statically placed on the opposite side, facing left. Blocked between these two opposite forces, the gaze is focused on the empty space between the advancing characters and the seated character, the space occupied by the crescent. 14 Therefore, the crescent occupies a central place, maintaining an important role in the organization of the scene. In the “presentation scenes,” the crescent could be represented alone (fig. 1) or accompanied by the sun-disk, symbolic astral representation of the sun-god Utu/ Šamaš (fig. 2). 15 In this last case, the two astral symbols are always arranged with 14.  For reading movement in visual representation, see Arnheim 2006: 303ff. 15.  The sun-disk is clearly identified as the symbol of the sun-god Utu/Šamaš by the stone tablet of Nabû-apla-iddina (9th century b.c.e.) and its duplicates in clay (King 1912: 120, pl. XCVIII: C1–2), where the king is conducted by a priest into the presence the sun-god. A great solar disk is represented in front of the god, while a lunar disk, a sun disk, and a star are placed in the shrine, above the god. The label above them reads: “Sîn, Šamaš, and Ištar are set over against the haevenly ocean.” For a specific

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Fig. 2.  Seal of Kirikiri, governor of Eshnunna (20th century b.c.). A.7468 - Chicago, Oriental Institute Museum (Matthiae 2000: 60).

the sun-disk placed on the concave side of the crescent. This composition appears for the first time in the Neo-Sumerian period, both in Ur III glyptic and on the famous Ur Namma stele (Moortgat 1967: fig. 194)—in this case, in its upper part. This position, in the Ur III glyptic, is occupied only by the crescent or by the sun disk–crescent composition, when present, but never by the sun-disk alone. Considering the upper part of the scene as “up” and the sky in the real world, the constant position of these astral signs represents their ideal placement in the heavenly vault. Shifting attention entirely to compare these representations with the reality, it is possible to point out some problems. The moon is always represented as a crescent, corresponding only to its first phase, the first appearance of the moon after its darkness period. In fact, there is no evidence of the representation of the moon in its other phases. 16 Even if the fact that the first phase is primary, it is nonetheless odd that the full-moon phase, which was very important in the religious life of the society, was represented as a crescent. Analyzing the sun disk–crescent composition, it also should be noted that this composition cannot take place in the real world. The two astral bodies can never appear together in that position in the sky. In order for the moon to be visible, it has to be placed above the sun and at a certain distance from it; otherwise the light of the sun is so intense that the moon will be invisible. In the real world, these two astral bodies can be seen at the same time only on a full-moon day, the ideal fifteenth day of the month, when the moon becomes fully visible because of the opposition of the sun, with the moon reaching its full exposure in the east while the sun is going down in the west (fig. 3). The fifteenth day of the month is in fact considered “the day when the moon and the sun are seen together,” and since the day begins at sunset, analysis of this symbol see: van Buren 1945: 87–90; Seidl 1989: 98–100; Black - Green 1992: 168; Herles 2006: 254–255, Pizzimenti in press. 16.  For further hypothesis on the representation of the different phases of the moon see Stol 1992.

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Fig. 3.  Position of moon and sun on the full-moon day (Stellarium 0.10.2 software).

the moment of their visibility has to be considered the going down of the sun and the rise of the moon. 17 Therefore, if we consider the upper part of the scene as the sky and the sun-disk and the crescent as astral representation of the sun and the moon, then it is possible to assume that the sun disk–crescent composition previously described could be the representation of a precise moment during the lunar month: the beginning of the ideal fifteenth day of the month, the full-moon day, the only contemporaneous presence of the two astral bodies in the sky. Consequently, this composition could be considered as the iconographic representation of the full moon.

Conclusions On Ur III seals, the unique astral representations are the crescent and the sun disk–crescent composition. If we consider the latter as the artistic representation of the full moon, “when the moon and the sun are seen together,” then the crescent becomes simply its original representative function of the new moon—not of the moon in general. In this way, the two principal phases of the moon and, consequently, of the moon-god Nanna/Sîn would have their iconographical correspondence. Finally, their presence in the scene could have a double value: (1) a symbolic value as symbol of the moon-god in one of its main phases, the focus of the scene, and (2) at the same time a temporal value, an indication of the precise moment corresponding to one of the two most propitious days of the month: the new moon = the crescent, and the full moon = the sun disk–crescent emblem. 17. IEnuma Anu Enlil reports: [. . .] it is visible on the day 15 [. . .] / [. . .] it is seen together with the sun (Sm 751, Recto: 11′–12′); while in Enuma Elish, it is said: “At the beginning of the month, waxing over the land, / You shine with horns to mark six days, / At the seventh day, the disk as [ha]lf. / At the fifteenth day, you shall be in opposition, at the midpoint of each [month]./When the sun f[ac]es you from the horizon of heaven, / Wane at the same place and form in reverse” (Enuma Elish, V, 15–20); in later Neo-Assyrian omina, we find:“[If on the 14th day the moon and sun] are seen together: [reliable speech]; the land will be hap[py; the gods will remem]ber [the land favorably; joy among the tr]oops” (RMA 136P: 1–4).

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Moortgat, A. 1967 The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia. London. Nilsson, M. P. 1920 Primitive Time-Reckoning: A Study in the Origins and First Development of the Art of Counting Time among the Primitive and Early Culture Peoples. Acta Societatis Humaniorum Litteratum Ludensis 1. Lund. Pizzimenti, S. in press The Astral Family in Kassite Kudurrus Reliefs. Iconographical and Iconological Study of Sîn, Šamaš and Ištar Astral Representation. In Preceedings of the 55 R.A.I., Paris 6th–9th July 2009. Winona Lake, IN: 2013. Reiner, E. 1995 Astral Magic in Babylonia. Philadelphia. Rochberg-Halton, F. 1992 Calendars, Ancient Near East. The Anchor Bible Dictionary 1: 810–13. New York. Sallaberger, W. 1993 Der kultische Kalendar der Ur III-Zeit. Urtersuchungen zur Assyriologie und Vorder­ asiatischen Archäologie 7/1. Berlin. Seidl, U. 1989 Die babylonischen Kudurru-reliefs. Symbole mesopotamischer Gottheiten. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 87. Freiburg. Stol, M. 1992 The Moon as Seen by the Babylonians. Pp. 245–77 in Natural Phenomena. Their Meaning, Depiction and Description in the Ancient Near East, ed. D. J. W. Meijer. Amsterdam. Van Buren, E. D. 1945 Symbols of the Gods in Mesopotamian Art. Analecta Orientalia 23. Rome. Verderame, L. 2002 Enūma Anu Enlil Tablets 1–13. Pp. 447–257 in Under One Sky: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Ancient Near East, ed. J. M. Steele and A. Imhausem. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 297. Münster. 2003 Le Tavole I–VI della serie astrologica Enūma Anu Enlil. Rome. 2008 Le calendrier et la mesure du temps dans la pensée mythique suméro-akkadienne: da kêmi à birīt nāri. Revue Internationale de l’Orient Ancien 3: 121–56. Winter, I. J. 1986 The King and the Cup: Iconography of the Royal Presentation Scene on Ur III Seals. Pp. 253–68 in Insight Through Images. Studies in Honor of Edith Porada, ed. M. KellyBuccellati et al. Malibu. Whitrow, G. J. 1988 Time in History: The Evolution of Our General Awareness of Time and Temporal Perspective. Oxford.

The Tuleilat al-Ghassul Star Painting: A Hypothesis Regarding a Solar Calendar from the Fourth Millennium b.c. Andrea Polcaro

University

of

Perugia

Introduction to the Site The site of Tuleilat al-Ghassul is located in Jordan, northeast of the Dead Sea, near the modern city of Amman, west of Mount Nebo, on the opposite side of the Jordan River with respect the biblical site of Jericho. At the end of the 5th millennium and the beginning of the 4th millennium b.c.e., Ghassul appears to have been a huge settlement of 20–30 ha, with clear attestation of agriculture and permanent domestic architecture (Bourke 2001: 119–23). In the Late Chalcolithic, Tuleilat al-Ghassul was perhaps the primary settlement in the whole southern Levant and probably spread its cultural influence over all of the sites in this geographical area. The excavations of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in the 1930s (Mallon et al. 1934; 1940) and the later archeological mission to the site, operated in the 1970s by the University of Sidney (Hennessy 1977), brought to light an impressive domestic quarter in areas 1 and 3, with houses of various dimensions, all centered on a main courtyard with many rooms around it (fig. 1). Some of these houses have specific features, such as paintings along all internal walls characterized by red, black, and yellow colors; most of them also had many layers of painting, as many as twenty layers one over the other, which, as Cameron (1981a) has suggested, may indicate periodical redrawing of the pictures for specific religious occasions or festivals. The houses in areas 1 and 3 that have these paintings also have unusual finds, such as many “cornet cups,” vessels that were probably used in rituals. 1 These objects, together with some consideration of the architecture of the houses, which have larger dimensions than those without paintings, suggest that elites occupied these houses, persons probably related to the clergy of the community or perhaps connected with cult shrines inside the domestic quarters of the settlement. 2

An Analysis of the Paintings In this study, I am specifically focusing attention on three Ghassulian paintings, two of them discovered by the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1929–34, the “Star” 1.  The cornet-shape vessels, sometimes painted, are typical of the Late Chalcolithic period (see Bourke 2001: fig. 4.12). 2.  The function of the houses with paintings is a subject of controversy, and various hypotheses have been proposed (see Bourke 2001: 120).

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Fig. 1.  Plan of domestic quarters (Area 1 and 3) of Tuleilat al-Ghassul (Burke 2001: fig. 4.1).

and the “Notables” paintings (Mallon et al. 1934: front page; pl. 66:1), both unfortunately lost because of a failed attempt to detach them from the walls but well documented by photographs and drawings, and the “Procession,” the only Ghassulian painting preserved and now preserved in the Amman Citadel Museum, discovered by Hennessy in 1975–77. Our hypothesis is that these three paintings reflect homogeneous religious thinking related to an important solar cult that had was begun in Ghassul by the dominant clergy elite when the main sacred area of Tuleilat alGhassul was established. In the “Procession” painting, three characters are visible, clearly identified as clergymen by their ritual masks (fig. 2a); they proceed from right to left, toward a geometrical structure that seems very similar to the front of the temples that we know from contemporary Late Uruk glyptic, also from the 4th millennium b.c.e. 3 In front of the first character, who carries a sort of sickle like those found in contemporary Chalcolithic caves, 4 there is a schematic representation of a throne, prob3.  The representation of temple facades in Mesopotamian glyptic is always from the front side, in a homogeneous scheme that began in the fifth-fourth millenniua b.c. and continues throughout the following periods; see on this topic Rova 1994; Collon 1987. 4.  In the southern Levant, during the Paleolithic and Chalcolithic periods, the use of natural caves along the wadis to hide copper treasure is common. In some of these, as in the Nahal Mishmar Cave, one of the most important sites for ancient metallurgy, many copper, gold, and silver ritual objects and tools

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Fig. 2.  (a) The “Procession painting” of Tuleilat al-Ghassul (Burke 2001: fig. 4.3); (b) Late Uruk seals impressions showing ritual scenes involving priests in front of a temple façade (from top: Rova 1994: pl. 46:768; pl. 44:750; pl. 46:767).

ably indicating a divine statue. The different height of the human figures probably reflects different ranks of the clergymen represented or perhaps is an attempt to represent the climb toward the temple, on higher ground. The picture can easily be recognized as a scene of dedication of a sacred building or as the representation of a particular festival connected with the introduction of a divine statue to a temple. 5 Actually, there are many examples in Mesopotamian Late Uruk glyptic of ritual scenes involving priests in front of a temple façade (fig. 2b). In the badly preserved “Notables” painting, it is possible to notice another cult scene (Mallon et al. 1934: pl. 66:1). There are two main figures, visible only by the two pairs of feet standing on a stone base, perhaps part of two divine statues seated on thrones. Behind them are other four standing figures, again evident only by the half of their legs that is preserved. In front of the first main seated figure is a smaller black nude character that probably represents an attendant of the clergy performing some kind of ritual on the divine statue (fig. 3a). 6 The two divine statues represented on the Ghassulian “Notables” painting look toward a large star, preserved only in the lower part, where a primary perpendicular red ray and two smaller yellow rays on the right and on the left of the main one are visible. The large dimension of the star and the nature of the rays, which have different colors and were found. The discoveries in this cave show how advanced copper mining and copper craft production was in the proto-urban communities of the southern Levant, where many copper mines are present (Levy 1998: 232–34). 5.  This interpretation was already proposed by Cameron (1981a). 6.  This kind of representation is known from later artistic contexts in Mesopotamia, such as the Ur-Namma stele, from the end of the third millennium b.c.e., where on the third register fragment 28, in the collection of the Museé du Louvre (fig. 3b), is represented the same scene of a nude clergyman performing a purification ritual in front of a statue of a god seated on a throne, usually identified as the sun-god Shamash (see Canby 2006: pl. 43).

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Fig. 3.  (a) Scene from the “Notables painting” from Tuleilat al-Ghassul (Mallon et al. 1934: pl. 66:1); (b) scene of a nude clergyman performing a purification ritual in front of a statue of a god seated on a throne, from fragment 28 of the Ur-Namma stele (Canby 2006: pl. 43).

lengths, identify this object with the representation of an important astral object such as the Sun or Venus. The scene of the “Notables” thus seems to represent an important rite centered on the cult of divine statues, probably performed inside a temple, that focused on a star, which in ancient Near Eastern religious thought was itself always a symbol of the divinity. 7 The last painting to be analyzed is the “Star” painting (fig. 4). This particularly well preserved painting in the center shows a big star with eight rays, four in black and four in red; the circular center of the star has two other white stars, one inside the other. The smaller stars are inscribed inside two circles, the external one marked by sixteen red and pink triangles pointing toward the center of the figure. This complicated geometrical representation is easily recognizable as an astral symbol of a god, probably related to the Sun or Venus. 8 The large star of the Tuleilat al-Ghassul Star painting has a diameter of two meters and was painted over various more ancient paintings, which are badly preserved, except for one figure painted later and covering part of the ray of the big star on the right. This object is similar to an aspect of the Procession painting, representing a temple’s front wall; moreover, in this case, there are additional similarities to the temple facades shown on Mesopotamian Late Uruk seals, which have a geometrical design for the pediment and the central door (Rova 1994). In this painting, a temple was painted over the star and may possibly be connected with the divine symbol itself. 7.  For example, in a famous prayer of the second millennium b.c., star and planets were invoked with the epithet “gods of the night” (Foster 2005: 207–8). See also, on this topic, Reiner 1995: 15–16. 8.  The eight-pointed star is known in the northern Mesopotamian tradition beginning with the Halaf–Ubaid cultures, in the sixth millennium b.c.e., as a solar symbol, and only later, in Akkadian culture at the end of third millennium b.c.e., is Venus represented as the goddess Ishtar exclusively by an eight-pointed star. When this happened, the Sun, as symbol of the god Shamash, assumed, first, representation as a sixteen-pointed star with eight rays shown as small parallel waves, indicative of the heat transmitted by the Sun, in a way similar to the wave pattern of the star’s rays in the Tuleilat al-Ghassul Star painting. Later, in the Old Babylonian period at the beginning of the second millennium b.c.e., the symbol of the Sun came to be standardized as a four points and four rays shape. Finally, at the end of the second millennium b.c.e., during the Cassite Dynasty, the Sun also was represented with an eight-ray shape (on this topic, see Pizzimenti in press).

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Fig. 4.  The “Star painting” of Tuleilat al-Ghassul (Mallon et al. 1934: frontispiece).

The Sacred Area of Tuleilat al-Ghassul Looking at the public sacred area of Tuleilat al-Ghassul, the discovery in the 1970s of a huge temenos in Area E clearly indicates that important clergy, as dominant elites of the society, were present at the site. Stephen J. Burke later investigated this area in 1994–97 and excavated two buildings, Temple A and Building B, which was clearly related to an important sanctuary (Seaton 2000). In particular, Temple A also had an external altar, in an open area or temenos, connected with the temple main door by a paved road (fig. 5). The altar is surrounded by an asymmetrical stone wall, shaped like the section of a circle. This important sacred area, with a major temple, a second structure, and the temenos was in use for at least a thousand years and provides evidence of the maintenance of a cult and that it was the center of the spiritual life of the settlement. Evidence for agricultural activities is found in an adjacent bulk grain storage area. 9 The orientation of the sacred Area E of Tuleilat al-Ghassul makes it immediately evident that the main Temple A, the “paved avenue” leading from the temple to the altar, and the long wall of the temenos are more or less parallel and roughly oriented to the east; in addition, the long 9.  The economic role of the sacred area is also evidenced by the traces of grinding found on the altar and the presence of many basalt grinding tools in Area E (Seaton 2000: 1506–7; Seaton 2008: 80–82, Table 1.31). For an extensive analysis of the building phases of the Tuleilat al-Ghassul sanctuary, see also Seaton 2008: 18–37.

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Fig. 5.  Plan of Tuleilat al-Ghassul sacred Area E (Seaton 2000: fig. 1).

side of “Sanctuary B,” whose entry door looks south. 10 This orientation is strongly 10.  A closer analysis shows that the plan of the area is much less “rough” than appears at first glance. First, north in the map must be corrected for magnetic declination. Following the NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center on-line computer code for the geographical coordinates of Tuleilat alGhassul and the years 1977–97, the correction is on the order of 3° (a more precise correction could be provided if the exact date of the measurement was known: for instance, for 1977 it would be 3.5°). The axis of the paved avenue is thus very nearly true east, and the entry door of Sanctuary B is almost true

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Fig. 6.  (a) The three upper figures of the “Star painting” (Mallon et al. 1934: frontispiece); (b) enlargement of the human central figure of the “Star painting” upper group; (c) upper part of a male statue from the Square Temple of Tell Asmar (Moortgat 1969: pl. 62).

suggesting that the cults celebrated in this area were connected to the rising and setting of the sun. 11 We also have to bear in mind that Tuleilat al-Ghassul is located at –298 m with respect to sea level and that Mount Nebo, to the east, is at a level of 813 m above sea level. The implication is that the view to the east is covered for more than 5.8° of the astronomical horizon. It is worth noticing that, at the end of the fifth millennium and the beginning of the fourth millennium b.c.e., the sun reached a height of 6° at an azimuth of 92° 50′ (the azimuth of the paved avenue) south (for the calculation of the astronomical orientation of ancient buildings, see Polcaro and Polcaro 2009). 11.  The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, reaching its zenith in the middle of the day on the south: many ancient buildings having an astronomical orientation focus on these three moments of the sun’s journey; however, only on the equinoxes does the sun rise exactly in the east, while on all other days, the sun rises to the north or south of east, reaching its maximum southern or northern distance from east at the solstices (see, e.g., Hoskin 2001).

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Fig. 7.  Overlap of the round altar and Building B in the Tuleilat al-Ghassul sacred area with the “Star painting.”

exactly 30 minutes after the astronomical sunrise time at the equinoxes. The paved avenue is thus pointed exactly in the direction where, at the equinoxes, the sun appears over Mount Nebo.

A Solar Cult at Tuleilat al-Ghassul Looking back to the “Star” painting, it is possible to make some observations concerning the figures on the left. They are mostly badly preserved; moreover, one layer cannot be distinguished from another, so that it is impossible to understand the relationship between them. However, three smaller figures on the upper part of the painting are possibly related each other (fig. 6a). These figures are: on the left is a horned head of a goat or of a similar animal; at the center is a human head similar

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Fig. 8.  Interpretive hypothesis of the “Star painting” as a solar calendar, with a year of 15 months plus one, starting with the Winter Solstice (first month).

to the “death masks” 12 of the “Bird” painting; and on the right is a strange monster composed of a crescent head with a large, open mouth and something behind often identified as a wing. Cameron (1981a; 1981b) interpreted these three figures as a chrysalis on the left, a corpse in the middle, and a butterfly on the right representing birth, death, and rebirth. In our view, these three figures should be interpreted in a different way. On the left, the goat-like figure is, more probably, the animal connected with the sun-god in the Mesopotamian Halaf culture; 13 at the center, the so-called death mask seems more likely simply to be a frontal representation of a face (fig. 6b), like the head of the male statue from the Square Temple of Eshnunna (third millennium b.c.e.), characterized by long curls on the shoulders and large, open eyes (fig. 6c). 14 The head shown on the Ghassul painting has a kind of shining 12.  As this figure was named by Cameron (1981a; 1981b: fig. 33). The symbolism of the bird connected to death is well know from the Neolithic period: it is represented, for instance, by the “Vulture Shrine” of Catal Huyuk (Cameron 1981b: 27–30). The “Bird” painting, like the “Notables” and the “Star paintings,” was discovered by the Pontifical Biblical Institute’s excavations (Mallon et al. 1934: 129–40). 13.  There are many examples on the prehistoric stamp seals from the Halaf culture of the sixth millennium b.c.e. that show goats connected to astral symbols interpreted as the sun (see Goff 1963: 20–22, figs. 83, 85, 86, 87). 14.  The statue, discovered together with another female statue, both holding a small beaker in their hands, was interpreted as a high priest or as the god Abu with his wife (see Moortgat 1969: 34; pls. 61, 62).

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aureole behind, painted in yellow, like the one that appears behind the image of the goddess Ishtar in Syrian glyptic. 15 Furthermore, the representation of Shamash that rises over the mountains in Akkadian glyptic shows some rays or flames behind the shoulders of the sun-god, representing the heat and the shining of the sun. 16 This scene seems thus to me to be similar to later Mesopotamian glyptic scenes of the Akkadian period in which myths about gods are represented. 17 In particular, the scenes connected to the sun-god Shamash often show the god followed by sacred animals and fighting against a monster. 18 Finally, the analyses of the three paintings, the stylistic representation of the solar disk, and the orientation of the main Temple A of Tuleilat al-Ghassul all are evidence of an important cult inaugurated by the elite clergy of the settlement, an inauguration that was accompanied by the construction of sacred Area E and that is celebrated by the painting on the walls of the elites’ houses—all clearly connected with the sun-god. This solar cult is historically well connected with the economic framework of Ghassulian people, who, in the fourth millennium b.c.e., experienced a rapid, strong growth in the implementation of an agricultural subsistence economy, as is attested by the archaeological stratification identified by the final expedition of the University of Sidney (Seaton 2000; Bourke 2001).

The Hypothesis of a Solar Calendar Another question remains: why did the Ghassulian clergy choose a geometrical representation of the solar disk for the Solar painting, so different from the other representation of the sun in the “Notables” painting? Certainly, an increase in the importance of the solar cult would require a more detailed symbol for the sun-god, which now occupied a primary position in the Ghassul pantheon, a change that in some ways is similar to the glorious Enuma Elish poem, which celebrates the increase in importance of the Babylonian god Marduk in the second millennium b.c.e. So, although in a literate urban society writing is the normal instrument for the diffusion of religious change, in a nonliterate proto-urban society like Ghassul, art was the only way to convey this kind of ideological message. However, perhaps another explanation for the geometrical Solar disk symbol is that it was connected with some kind of calendar, linked to the cycle of that sun that regulates agricultural life. In support of this possibility, we can point to the extreme regularity of the painting, showing that it was made by someone well trained in geometry. Second, one of the external points of the rays, the horizontal one to the right, is clearly marked as a “starting point.” Third, 16 isosceles triangles are drawn at regular intervals inside the outer circle; of these, 11 are red, 4 are pink, and one, dividing the two color series, is half pink and half red. 19 There is thus a highly asymmetric scheme inside a very symmetrical pattern. This could have significance, especially alongside the asymmetry identified in the altar plan of the sacred area. So, an experiment: overlap the plan of the altar of Temple A on the “Star,” by put15.  See Collon 1987: 42, no. 139. 16.  See Collon 1987: 34, no. 104. 17.  See Collon 1987: 179, no. 844. 18.  This tradition has a long life, as is shown by an Old Babylonian plaque of the second millennium b.c.e., showing the sun-god striking a cyclopic monster with his sacred knife (see Moortgat 1969: pl. 211). 19.  However, it is also possible that the color difference between red and pink is not real but caused by the passage of the time or by an incorrect reproduction of the painting in the publication process.

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ting the altar in the center and the beginning of the semicircle at a point where it correspondes with the marked ray of the “Star.” The end of the larger portion of the semicircular wall fits with the second ray of the star to the left, and the paved road with the first upper ray. Because we know that the paved avenue is pointed east, the marked point thus could represent morth, and the building next to the star in the painting appears to be Sanctuary B (fig. 7). Obviously, the painting cannot represent the actual distance and proportion of the buildings but, considering the star as a sort of “wind rose,” it reflects the actual orientation of Temple B in relationship with the altar and the paved avenue. If this hypothesis is correct, we could suggest that the second ray of the star to the left and the half red/half pink triangle denote the winter solstice, corresponding on the altar plan to the last southwest stone of the semicircular wall, providing a good approximation of the direction of the winter solstice sunset as seen from the center of the altar. Furthermore, if we think that the difference between the two colors is real and not merely a result of fading over time, the arc denoted by the pink triangles could corresponds to the maximum rain period (about 3.5 months, from mid-December to beginning of March), covering the same percentage of the painted circle and of the year, respectively. We could then imagine that the 16 triangles correspond to a subdivision of the year: 360 days/year divided into 15 “months” of various unknown lengths, plus a shorter one (maybe around the winter solstice) added in order to maintain this calendar in phase with the rain seasons (fig. 8). The altar of Temple A could have been the device used to perform this task. It is worth noticing that a sort of prehistoric calendar of 16 months—obtained by dividing the year first into two parts, corresponding to the solstices, then into four, adding the equinoxes, then again splitting each of these intervals into two parts—has been suggested by Thom for Britain Island (1967: 106–18): such a calendar could be recognized in the Ghassulian Star painting and would easily fit the world vision of a society whose life was based on a solar religion. 20 20. However, it is commonly accepted that the, at least in Mesopotamia, a lunar calendar of 12 months of 30 days each was used since the earlier times (see Cohen 1993; Britton 2007; Steel 2007): further studies are thus needed to reach a final conclusion about Ghassulian calendar of the fifth millennium BC.

Bibliography Britton, J. P. 2007 Calendars, Intercalations and Year-Lengths in Mesopotamian Astronomy. Pp. 115–32 in Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East, ed. J. M. Steele. Oxford. Bourke, S. J. 2001 The Chalcolithic Period. Pp. 107–62 in The Archaeology of Jordan, ed. B. MacDonald et al. Sheffield. Cameron, D. 1981a The Ghassulian Wall Paintings. London. Cameron, D. 1981b Symbols of Birth and of Death in the Neolithic Era. London. Canby, J. V. 2006 The “Ur-Nammu” Stela. Philadelphia.

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Cohen, M. E. 1993 The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East. Bethesda. Collon, D. 1987 First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East, London. Foster, B. R. 2005 Before the Muses. Bethesda. Goff, B. L. 1963 Symbols of Prehistoric Mesopotamia. New Haven. Hennessy, J. B. 1977 Teleilat Ghassul: An Interim Report. Sydney. Hoskin, M. 2001 Tombs, Temples and Their Orientations. Oxford. Levy, T. E., ed. 1998 The Archaeology of the Society in the Holy Land. London. Mallon, A.; Koeppel, R.; and Neuville, R. 1934 Teleilat Ghassul I. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. 1940 Teleilat Ghassul II. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. Moortgat, A. 1969 The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia. London. Pizzimenti, S.  In press The Astral Family in Kassite Kudurrus Reliefs. In Proceedings of the 55th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Paris 6th–9th July 2009, Paris. Polcaro, A.; and Polcaro, V. F. 2009 Man and Sky: Problem and Methods of Archaeoastronomy. Archeologia e Calcolatori 20: 223–45. Reiner, E. 1995 Astral Magic in Babylonia, Philadelphia. Rova, E. 1994 Ricerche sui sigilli a cilindro vicino orientali del Periodo Uruk, Jemdet Nasr. Rome. Seaton, P. 2000 Aspects of New Research at the Chalcolithic Sanctuary Precint at Teleilat Ghassul. Pp. 1503–13 in Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Rome, May 18th-23rd 1998, Volume II, ed. P. Matthiae et al. Rome. 2008 Chalcolithic Cult and Risk Management at Teleilat Ghassul. BAR International Series 1864. Oxford. Steele, J. M. 2007 The Length of the Month in Mesopotamian Calendars of the First Millennium b.c. Pp. 133–48 in Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East, ed. J. M. Steele. Oxford. Thom, A. 1967 Megalithic Sites in Britain. Oxford.

The Monster’s Gaze: Vision as Mediator between Time and Space in the Art of Mesopotamia

University

K. Sonik

of

C al i f o r n i a , L o s A n g e l e s

Arresting, penetrating, and strangely discomfiting; in the midst of action, carrying on and safely contained to either side of it, a figure turns and looks out at us, its gaze establishing a direct and potent connection between its world and ours, between the timeless moment inhabited by its body, and the present moment inhabited by us. The role of the frontally rendered, and specifically en face, figure in art of all mediums, spanning the period from the ancient through to the contemporary world, and the effect of its direct gaze on the viewer, has been a subject of active art historical and psychological discourse since the early publications of Alfred Yarbus, Ernst Gombrich, and Meyer Schapiro on how we look at images, on the relationship in image making between form and meaning and form and function, and on frontal and profile figures as potential symbols, capable of encoding and communicating messages to the viewer through their juxtaposition or interaction. 1 In Mesopotamia, en face figures are depicted on cylinder seals from at least the Uruk period, continuing to appear in that and other mediums through to the NeoAssyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. 2 Outside of so-called popular art such as the 1. Early treatments include Alfred L.  Yarbus, Eye Movements and Vision (New York: Plenum, 1967); Ernst Hans Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, A. W. Mellon Lectures in Fine Arts 5 (New York: Phaidon, 1977); Ernst Hans Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979); and Meyer Schapiro, Words and Pictures: On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text (Approaches to Semiotics. Paperback Series 11; The Hague: Mouton, 1973). More recently, see Jaś Elsner, Roman Eyes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), esp. 21–26; W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), esp. 35–46; Jean-Pierre Vernant and Froma I. Zeitlin, eds., Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1991), ch. 6; Louis Marin, “’Le trompe l’oeil’, un comble de la peinture,” in L’effet trompe l’oeil dans l’art et la psychoanalyse (Paris: Dunod, 1988). 2. The introduction of frontality is typically associated with Parthian art in the ancient Near East; see H.  J. W.  Drijvers, The Religion of Palmyra (Iconography of Religions; Leiden: Brill, 1976), esp. 7–8; H. J. W. Drijvers, “The Syrian Cult Relief,” Visible Religion VII: Genres in Visible Representations (1990); Marie-Henriette Gates, “Dura-Europos: A Fortress of Syro-Mesopotamian Art,” Biblical Archaeologist 47/3 (1984), although, as Gutmann points out, frontality as a deliberate compositional technique is known primarily from the sites of Palmyra and Hatra; see Joseph Gutmann, “Early Synagogue and Jewish Catacomb Art and Its Relation to Christian Art,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neuren Forschung, ed. Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), 1331–32. The subject of the origins and influence

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terracotta plaques, 3 however, the form is rare and seems to have been reserved primarily for two types of figures: female divinities such as Ishtar and the frontal nude goddess, and Zwischenwesen, figures of intermediate or “in-between” nature existing in the space between men and their gods and functioning as masters of animals, guardians and gatekeepers, and as apotropaic or threatening supernatural forces. While the overarching category of Zwischenwesen includes not only monsters, daimons, ghosts, and witches, but also viziers, messengers, and heroes, 4 those Zwischenwesen treated here, being those of whom frontal renderings exist in any significant number, primarily belong to the category of monsters. Eschewing the traditional art historical division between monsters and daimons based on their modes of ambulation, 5 the two categories of Zwischenwesen are instead classified on the basis of their respective spheres of agency, with monsters defined as those operating primarily in the divine sphere, interacting with gods and, occasionally, with legendary heroes, and daimons defined as those interacting with and primarily affecting human beings and the natural world. 6 of this convention was taken up by scholars early on, as in Clark Hopkins, “A Note on Frontality in Near Eastern Art,” Ars Islamica 3/2 (1936) and Henri Seyrig, “Palmyra and the East,” The Journal of Roman Studies 40, no. 1/2 (1950), although no definitive resolution has yet been reached. While strict frontality may be a feature of late first millennium b.c.e. and early first millennium c.e. art in the region, frontally rendered images were certainly in circulation in Mesopotamia thousands of years before this time. See, for example, the frontally rendered cyclopic master of animals on an Uruk period cylinder seal in Edith Porada, Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections (Bollingen Series 14; New York: Pantheon Books, 1948), fig. 4. 3.  In terracotta plaques, the frontal form is common for both gods and goddesses, including the socalled nude goddess among their number, see Marie-Thérèse Barrelet, Figurines et reliefs en terre cuite de la Mésopotamie antique I: Potiers, termes de métier, procédés de fabrication et production (Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 85; Paris: Geuthner, 1968), esp. pls. 12–15, 28. For further discussion of the role and definition of so-called popular art in Mesopotamia, see K. Sonik, “Pictorial Mythology and Narrative in the Ancient Near East,” in Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art (ed. M. Feldman and B. Brown; Berlin: de Gruyter, forthcoming). 4.  All of these beings exist in the space between mortal humans and their great gods: while some originate as humans (as witches and ghosts) and subsequently gain supernatural qualities or abilities, others may be nominally divine (as viziers) and yet have marked transgressive qualities, like the ability to transition between distinct realms and to cross otherwise impenetrable borders, or the ability (as heroes or kings) to directly mediate between the human world and the divine. For a detailed and thorough exploration of the term Zwischenwesen from a history-of-religions perspective, albeit specifically in the context of Christianity, see Bernhard Lang, “Zwischenwesen,” in Handbuch Religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe (ed. Hubert Cancik, Burkhard Gladigow, and Matthias Laubscher; Stuttgart: W.  Kohlhammer, 2001). 5.  Four-legged “monsters” were linked to the animal world, while two-legged “demons” were connected to the human world; see Edith Porada, “Introduction,” in Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada (ed. Ann Farkas, Prudence O. Harper, and Evelyn B. Harrison; Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern), 1; Dominique Collon, First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 186. This ambulatory division cannot usefully be extrapolated outside of visual contexts: Tiamat’s monstrous children, for example, all of which play the same role as enemies of the gods, include both two- and four-legged creatures among their number, as do Ninurta’s enemies. Such a division also fails to account for the fish-man and fish-woman, and renders impossible the classification of inanimate entities such as Copper or Gypsum or of those that are not described in detail. The classification suggested here, based on spheres of agency rather than on physical composition, may be applied both in visual and literary contexts. 6.  There are significant problems with applying such foreign terminology to specifically Mesopotamian entities, given the very different cultural contexts in which these terms were originally developed and applied—as well as the connotations that they have since garnered. Such terminological cherrypicking has the benefit, however, of allowing for the selection of terms that encompass the full range

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Recognizing the significance of the rare frontal representations of figures, Julia Asher-Greve, Zainab Bahrani, Nanno Marinatos, and Irene Winter have published studies that begin to address the gap in scholarship on the role of vision, the direct gaze, and the frontally rendered figure, especially in respect to the goddess and the nude female, in the visual and literary sources extant from Mesopotamia. 7 Taking this work as a starting point, and considering recent studies in evolutionary psychology and visual and social cognition, this paper seeks to elucidate some of the factors governing the use and meaning of the frontal face and direct gaze in Mesopotamian art, specifically as pertaining to the representation of the Zwischenwesen. Beginning with a discussion of the frontal and profile forms as potential symbols capable of communicating specific meanings, it continues on to explore three primary questions: What is the role and power of the frontal face and the direct gaze in mediating between time and space—and art and life—in Mesopotamia? What is the relationship between the form, nature, and function of those Zwischenwesen rendered with the frontal face and direct gaze? And in what specific contexts are these figures, especially the malevolent or inimical among them, represented?

Form, Meaning, and Symbol: Reading the Frontal and Profile Forms An image, according to Schapiro in his 1973 study of frontal and profile figures in medieval art, was to be read not only for its denotation or literal meaning, as a representation of a specific or generic object, person, or event, but also for the connotations it encoded, for the meaning it acquired through use or convention. As fundamentally different modes of communication, Schapiro read the frontal face or posture as a grammatically first person address, a direct interaction between “I,” the figure itself, and the implicit “you,” the external audience, which is viewed by the frontal image even as it views. 8 This contrasts sharply with the profile figure, grammatically third person, which is read as the impersonal “he” or “she”: remote of qualities and characteristics of the entities under consideration. Given the dearth of Sumerian and Akkadian terms for these entities (the terms maškim and rabiṣu, while applicable to some of these entities, are too narrow in scope to suffice), the benefits of employing carefully defined and delimited foreign terminology to classify and describe the Zwischenwesen rather outweigh the drawbacks. For a more extensive discussion of terminology in relation to the Mesopotamian monsters and daimons, see Karen Sonik, “Mesopotamian Conceptions of the Supernatural: A Taxonomy of Zwischenwesen,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte, forthcoming. 7. Julia M.  Asher-Greve, “The Gaze of Goddesses: On Divinity, Gender, and Frontality in the Late Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian Periods,” NIN 4/1 (2003); Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia (London: Routledge, 2001); Zainab Bahrani, “The Hellenization of Ishtar: Nudity, Fetishism, and the Product of Cultural Differentiation in Ancient Art,” Oxford Art Journal 19/2 (1996); Nanno Marinatos, The Goddess and the Warrior: The Naked Goddess and Mistress of Animals in Early Greek Religion (London: Routledge, 2000); and Irene Winter, “The Eyes Have It: Votive Statuary, Gilgamesh’s Axe and Cathected Viewing in the Ancient Near East,” in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (ed. Robert S. Nelson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 8. Schapiro, Words and Pictures: On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text, 40ff. For a nuanced discussion of the interaction between first and third person, between “you” and “I,” and the problem of looking, see Mieke Bal, Double Exposures: The Subject of Cultural Analysis (New York: Routledge, 1996), 59–61 and Louis Marin, To Destroy Painting (trans. Mette Hjort; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 115–49.

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and utterly contained in its own delimited space and action, it is safely viewed by the external and unseen audience. 9 The interpolation of one of these forms into a scene otherwise characterized by the other type, as the situating of a frontal figure among exclusively or predominantly profile figures, should then be read as both purposeful and significant, signaling a specific distinction between the two types, as, for example, one of rank or hierarchy. Where deliberately juxtaposed, the frontal and profile forms might also effectively convey a polarity between the forces, qualities, or values that they represented or embodied, as “the distinction between good and evil, the sacred and the . . . profane, the heavenly and the earthly . . . the active and the passive . . . the living and the dead, the real person and the image.” 10 The meaning of these forms cannot be read as fixed or static, however, but must further be read in context, taking into consideration the specific scenes or compositions in which they appear.

The Potent Eye: The Power of the Direct Gaze Of these two types, the frontal and the profile forms, it is the former that is the more immediately compelling. At the crux of its power are its eyes and, more specifically, its gaze. Turned away from its own pictorial space and directed into the external world, this acts as a potent arrestor, capable of establishing a mutual connection with the viewer. 11 Through the forging of this visual link, 12 it transcends its own pictorial field and intrudes into the viewer’s world even as it draws the viewer’s 9.  Stawarska succinctly summarizes the response to frontally rendered, as opposed to profile, figures, although here assuming interaction with a live other: “looking at the eyes, when reciprocated by the other, enables an I/Thou relation where the self and other regard each other as subjects, while looking at the body produces an I/it relation where the other is regarded as an element of the visual field,” Beata Stawarska, “Mutual Gaze and Social Cognition,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 5 (2006), 20. See also Marin, To Destroy Painting, 30–44, esp. 32–36, for a discussion of the neutralizing of eye and gaze, as well as the relationship between painting and viewer; and Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, “Semiotics and Art History,” The Art Bulletin 73/2 (1991). 10. Schapiro, Words and Pictures: On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text, 43. 11.  For a seminal treatment of eye gaze, and for defining mutual gaze as “the main mode of establishing a communicative context between humans” and, consequently, as fundamental to social development, see M.  Argyle and M.  Cook, Gaze and Mutual Gaze (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); see also Mark H. Johnson and Michelle de Haan, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 3rd ed. (Malden: Blackwell, 2010), 124, 136; and Daniel C. Richardson, “Eye Movements During Cognition and Conversation,” in Encyclopedia of Perception (ed. E. Bruce Goldstein; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010). For a discussion of “attention contact” and directly addressing another through shared gaze, see Stawarska, “Mutual Gaze and Social Cognition.” For primates’ use of gaze (following gaze, mutual gaze, gaze avoidance), see Brian L.  Keeley, “Eye Gaze Information-Processing Theory: A Case Study in Primate Cognitive Neuroethology,” in The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition (ed. Marc Bekoff, Colin Allen, and Gordon M. Burghardt; Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002). For a discussion of eye-gaze processing across different animal species, see Bernard J.  Baars and Nicole M. Gage, Cognition, Brain and Consciousness: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience (2nd ed.; Burlington: Elsevier, 2010). 12.  The role of the direct gaze in art has been, perhaps, most extensively treated in relation to the images of Medusa, whose aggressive frontality merges also with monstrosity where she is represented: “her features comprise a complex amalgam of God/human/animal categorical transgressions . . . [the Gorgon’s] frontality means that it always gazes at the viewer, while the monstrosity, which may be seen as characteristic of its gaze at the level of content, opens the viewer to the void of indeterminacy,” Mark Featherstone, “The Eye of War: Images of Destruction in Virilio and Bataille,” Journal for Cultural Research 7/4 (2003), 434.

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gaze into the image, so that it comes to occupy “a space virtually continuous with our own.” 13 The impact of the frontal face and direct gaze, and the viewer’s response to it, may well be coded in human evolutionary development. The human eye, with its white sclera and darker iris, is morphologically unique among primates 14 (which by adulthood typically develop eyes with dark sclera and dark irises) and reflects a fundamental difference in the function of the eye in human, as opposed to primate, social interaction: it signals, rather than conceals, gaze direction. 15 In addition to its white rather than pigmented sclera, the human eye is further distinguished from the eyes of other primates by the expanse of its visible sclera, possessing the largest ratio of such within the outline of the eye, and by its extraordinary horizontal elongation. These features, allowing greater eye movement, represent adaptations that both extend the visual field and enhance the ability to detect the gaze direction of other individuals. 16 Eye gaze detection, in humans, is vital: where the direct gaze in many other species frequently elicits an aversive response, signaling a potential risk—as a predator—or functioning as a threatening display, direct eye contact in humans plays a crucial role in communication and affective bonding, and has a tangible effect on perception, cognition, and arousal. 17 The critical significance of the direct gaze for human socialization and development is underscored by studies revealing a preference even on the part of newborns for faces with a direct gaze over faces with an averted gaze or closed eyes, and for the preferential scanning and pursuing of others’ eyes from early infancy. 18 13.  Asher-Greve, “The Gaze of Goddesses: On Divinity, Gender, and Frontality in the Late Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian Periods,” 6. 14.  In their study of 92 primate species, Kobayashi and Kohshima noted that while there do exist at least two primate species with pale brown sclera, Macaca sylvanus and M. nemestrina, and four species with brown sclera but small white sections alongside the iris, Saguinus midas, S. labiatus, Callithrix argentata, and Callimico goeldii, only humans have the completely white sclera that facilitates detection of gaze direction, Hiromi Kobayashi and Shiro Kohshima, “Unique Morphology of the Human Eye and Its Adaptive Meaning: Comparative Studies on External Morphology of the Primate Eye,” Journal of Human Evolution 40 (2001), 429–30; see also Hiromi Kobayashi and Shiro Kohshima, “Unique Morphology of the Human Eye and Its Adaptive Meaning,” Nature 387 (1997). 15.  Atsushi Senju and Toshikazu Hasegawa, “Direct Gaze Captures Visuospatial Attention,” Visual Cognition 12/1 (2005), esp. 127–28; Fox, “The Role of Visual Processes in Modulating Social Interactions.” 16.  Kobayashi and Kohshima, “Unique Morphology of the Human Eye and Its Adaptive Meaning,” 767. Where gaze camouflage may be adaptive in most primate species, both to conceal gaze from fellow primates (for whom direct eye contact may be associated with tendency to attack) and from predators (so that these latter do not know if they have been identified by their prey), the enlarged body size of humans, as well as their use of both tools and fire, may have rendered gaze camouflage for these purposes unnecessary, Kobayashi and Kohshima, “Unique Morphology of the Human Eye and Its Adaptive Meaning: Comparative Studies on External Morphology of the Primate Eye,” 431, 433. In this case, gaze-signaling, and the development of features enhancing this (as the depigmentation of the sclera) in humans, may have aided “the conspecific communication required for increased co-operative and mutualistic behaviours to allow group hunting and scavenging,” see ibid., 433; see also Stephen V. Shepherd, “Following Gaze: Gaze-Following Behavior as a Window into Social Cognition,” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 4 (2010), esp. 5.4. 17.  Senju and Hasegawa, “Direct Gaze Captures Visuospatial Attention,” 128. On eye gaze perception as carrier of socially relevant information, crucial to social interaction, see also Senju and Johnson, “The Eye Contact Effect: Mechanisms and Development,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13, no. 3 (2009. This is opposed to the averted gaze that produces increased autonomic arousal in non-human primates as macaques, see Kari L. Hoffman et al., “Facial-Expression and Gaze-Selective Responses in the Monkey Amygdala,” Current Biology 17 (2007). 18.  Senju and Hasegawa, “Direct Gaze Captures Visuospatial Attention,” 127; Teresa Farroni et al., “Eye Contact Detection in Humans from Birth,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the

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Where the averted gaze leads us to involuntarily follow its direction, on the principle that “the target that another attends to is also likely to be of interest to you,” 19 the direct gaze demands that it be met, endowing its possessor with a uniquely powerful presence. 20 While differences in autonomic and other responses have been noted between observers interacting with live participants and observers interacting with static images, 21 eyes in even schematic sketches of faces, and especially eyes directed outward into the exterior world, retain their ability to attract – and arrest—the gaze of the viewer. 22 This phenomenon persists even in cases where the pupils or iris are not specifically marked, or where the eyes themselves are represented merely by dots or other shapes suggestive of a frontal gaze, suggesting we are inclined, as noted by Schapiro, “to see whatever faces us as looking at us and to respond by looking back.” 23 To what extent, however, is the phenomenon of the direct gaze (as observable in life) also apparent in art, here in the art of ancient Mesopotamia? 24 United States of America 99/14 (2002). 19.  Richard Morris and Lionel Tarassenko, Cognitive Systems: Information Processing Meets Brain Science (San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press, 2006), 143. 20.  For useful reviews of the studies on the subject, see Senju and Hasegawa, “Direct Gaze Captures Visuospatial Attention”; Senju and Johnson, “The Eye Contact Effect: Mechanisms and Development”; C. Neil Macrae and Susanne Quadflieg, “Perceiving People,” in Handbook of Social Psychology (ed. Susan T. Fiske, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Gardner Lindzey; Hoboken: Wiley, 2010), esp. 448–51; Shepherd, “Following Gaze: Gaze-Following Behavior as a Window into Social Cognition.” On the subject of meeting the gaze of frontally rendered portraits, see Marin, To Destroy Painting, 119: “Represented full face on the canvas, “ego” seizes my viewing and receptive eye by means of her gaze. But as viewer I do the same to her. I seize your gaze with my viewing and emitting eye.” 21.  Laura M. Pönkänen et al., “Does It Make a Difference If I Have an Eye Contact with You or Your Picture? An ERP Study,” Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5 (2010), 8; see also Laura M. Pönkänen et al., “Facing a Real Person: An Event-Related Potential Study,” NeuroReport 19/4 (2008). 22.  Michael von Grünau and Christina Anston, “The Detection of Gaze Direction: A Stare-in-theCrowd Effect,” Perception 24/11 (1995); Senju and Hasegawa, “Direct Gaze Captures Visuospatial Attention.” For the impact of the direct gaze on a viewer, even where the viewer is engaging with a photograph, painting, statue, computer-generated or televised image, or simple schematic rendering of a human face or eyes, see ibid. 23. Schapiro, Words and Pictures: On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text, 39; see also Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, 96. 24.  Gell, writing prior to the most recent studies on the human eye and eye gaze detection, offered already a nuanced discussion of how to approach art that appeared to exploit specific biases of human visual perception capable of triggering unconscious behavioral responses in Alfred Gell, “The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology,” in Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, ed. J. Coote and A. Shelton (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); Alfred Gell, “Vogel’s Net: Traps as Artworks and Artworks as Traps,” Journal of Material Culture 1/1 (1996). Discussing the carved prow-boards of Kula canoes, intended to demoralize and dazzle the trading partners of their possessors (and to cause these partners to offer more valuable goods in the exchange process than they would otherwise) and characterized by bold tonal colors, symmetrical circles (eye-spots), and opposed volutes (drawing the eye in opposing directions), he argued the potency of these artifacts lay not in the disturbances provoked by their actual visual effects, which would be mild enough, but rather in the interpretation of these disturbances as evidence of the board’s magical power. The canoe-board would then be read as a token of its owner’s magical capacity, the work of an artisan whose “artistic prowess is also the result of his access to superior carving magic,” Gell, “The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology,” 45–46. Gell’s interpretation of how ‘enchanted’ objects function, and his dissection of how they are embedded in social interactions and issues of ownership and power, offer compelling matter for thought, but should be explored further alongside recent studies that indicate the ability of certain stimuli to actually provoke direct if unconscious behavioral changes in their viewers.

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Frontality and the Direct Gaze in Mesopotamian Art In the specific context of Mesopotamia, the subject of the gaze has received a very thoughtful treatment by Irene Winter in a 2000 article treating instances of visual cathexion in both the surviving textual and visual corpus. Drawing upon examples including a passage in the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic recording the hero’s vision of and cathexion to an axe, as well as his viewing and assessment of Enkidu; 25 the attribution of large, staring eyes to early Mesopotamian votive figures as those of Tell Asmar, read as a case of form directly invested with meaning so that the enlarged eyes and fixed gaze function both to express devotion to and admiration of the deity, as well as the awe-struck response of looking upon its image; 26 and numerous references in royal documents to focused viewing or visual inspection as a means both of assessing the value of inanimate precious objects or structures and of positively engaging with the divine, 27 Winter demonstrated the recognition not only of the power of the active gaze but also of the role of vision as both a cognitive and a symbolic act, a vital path to religious and aesthetic experience in Mesopotamia. 28 Focusing on frontality in two-dimensional representations, Julia Asher-Greve and Zainab Bahrani extend this line of thought in their studies of frontally rendered or en face goddesses (fig. 1). 29 Reading the frontal figure as message carrier, uniquely capable of transcending its own space to engage with and compel the gaze of the viewer, both scholars evince a particular interest in the twisted-profile pose: 25.  Winter, “The Eyes Have It: Votive Statuary, Gilgamesh’s Axe and Cathected Viewing in the Ancient Near East,” 24–25. Royal or divine positive regard, “described in terms of glowing or shining (not unlike the English “beaming” at someone) is seen as a mark of favor,” ibid., 25–26. 26.  Discussing the Sumerian worshiper figures, Winter writes that “in addition to the focus of attention, what we are seeing in those eyes is literally the physical manifestation of the individuals struck by the u6-di response to the deity before him/her, a deity whose awe-inspiring nature is then reflected in the wide-eyed stare,” ibid., 36. 27.  Ibid., 28–29. Discussing a text of Shalmaneser III, recording a statue extraordinary in appearance, the workmanship of which it is a pleasure to behold, Winter writes that “if through a combination of workmanship and visual attributes value is achieved, it is also the case that through seeing, value is perceived,” ibid., 29. 28.  Ibid., 38 29. The corpus of artifacts treated by Asher-Greve includes stelae, votive plaques, vessels, and seals, Asher-Greve, “The Gaze of Goddesses: On Divinity, Gender, and Frontality in the Late Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian Periods.” Bahrani discusses the frontal female nudes (not treated by Asher-Greve) as they appear on cylinder seals and terracotta plaques, Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia, esp.  130–34. Asher-Greve focuses on gender differences and the frontal versus profile forms in ritual scenes, suggesting that the frontal form, as it pertains to Mesopotamia, ought be read as a symbolic form, a dominant and exclusive posture, a feature of ritual, a dramatic form to invoke and act as a reminder of the sacred, and an arrangement reflecting rank or hierarchy, Asher-Greve, “The Gaze of Goddesses: On Divinity, Gender, and Frontality in the Late Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian Periods,” 5. In contrasting the fully frontal nude goddess with profile or twisted profile nude male hero figure, the two figures being associated in a number of scenes, Asher-Greve and Sweeney note the isolation and immobility of the former within the context of its pictorial frame, even if it engages with the exterior world, and the motion and engagement of the latter, even if it is the more remote from the viewer: “As with gender differentiation of deities, the nude form is augmented with sociocultural codes to represent prevailing ideas of femininity and masculinity: sexualized (‘soft’) female versus de-sexualized (‘hard’) male body, female immobility versus male motion, violent aggression versus the opposite,” Julia M. Asher-Greve and Deborah Sweeney, “On Nakedness, Nudity, and Gender in Egyptian and Mesopotamian Art,” in Images and Gender: Contributions to the Hermeneutics of Reading Ancient Art (ed. Silvia Schroer; Fribourg: Academic Press, 2006).

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Fig. 1.  BM: 86267. Hematite cylinder seal. Old Babylonian period. Twisted profile warrior goddess, hero with curls (2), bull-man, and frontal nude goddess.

termed a meta-figure by Asher-Greve, a glyph literally to be read as “in between,” 30 the image seems to capture the instant of turning, its profile lower body anchoring it within its own scene, where it recently interacted with the other actors inhabiting its pictorial field, while its frontal upper body and head have rotated so that its gaze is directed into exterior space, engaging the gaze of the viewer and opening a compelling line of communication between two worlds, Fig. 2.  BM 103225. Terracotta Plaque. Old Babylonian Period Twisted-Profile Bull-Man. between the image—and us. The power and unique transgression achieved by the twisted-profile figure in such a context makes it, as noted by Bahrani, 31 a particularly suitable form for a goddess such as Inana/Ishtar, who is by nature a crosser of boundaries capable of mediating between different realms and categories of being. Inana/Ishtar, after all, not only enters and escapes from the netherworld, dying and being restored to life in the narratives recording her descent to that realm, but also is associated, in the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, with the metamorphosis of her lovers. In Tablet VI, when Gilgamesh rejects the goddess’ overtures, he first recounts her treatment of her previous lovers and her overseeing of their transformations from one physical form or state of being to another, in all cases to their detriment. Among the alterations he cites are those of Dumuzi, from the living to the dead; the speckled allallu-bird, from the intact and healthy to the damaged or crippled; the lion and the horse, from the free to the ensnared or enslaved; the gardener Išullānu, struck and turned into a dwarf; and the loyal shepherd, cruelly transformed into a wolf to be driven away from his own flock. 32 While the frontal or twisted-profile form is not restricted to Inana/Ishtar, Asher-Greve notes its use, at least in the Early Dynastic III to Ur III periods, pri30.  Asher-Greve, “The Gaze of Goddesses: On Divinity, Gender, and Frontality in the Late Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian Periods,” 24. 31. Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia, 133. 32.  Gilg. Epic VI 6–79. See also K. Sonik, “Breaching the Boundaries of Being: Metamorphoses in Mesopotamian Literary Texts,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 132 (2012) 385–93.

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marily for goddesses of the highest (local) rank, and its association especially with those divinities mediating between realms through interaction with the king. 33 The quality of the so-called “twisted-profile,” with its suggestions of transgression and mediation, makes it a peculiarly fitting form for the other types of figures with which it was especially associated in Mesopotamian art—the Zwischenwesen, and of these especially the monsters, which most frequently adopt this pose in the glyptic iconography and on the Old Babylonian terracotta plaques (fig. 2).

The en face Monster Properly existing in, or relegated to, the interstices, the spaces between cognitive and conceptual categories, the betwixt and between of various species, and the all too permeable zones where order and chaos meet, the full face or twisted profile depiction of the monster, when juxtaposed with the profile renderings of in-category beings such as gods, humans, and even natural animals, reiterates its transgressive qualities and insinuates its unique ability (as it properly belongs to no single or easily definable class of being) to navigate borders and boundaries. Its role as ambiguous and dangerous “Other” is similarly inscribed in its body, which is frequently a mélange of anthropomorphic and theriomorphic parts or otherwise remarkable in appearance, as in size or “hairiness.” 34 Some of the earliest visual compositions in which monsters appear are the contest scenes. Beginning as relatively naturalistic renderings of predatory animals attacking domesticated or otherwise vulnerable ones in the fourth millennium b.c.e., sometimes with intervening humans, these scenes are removed to a mythical plane in the Early Dynastic Period, coming to reflect the defining conflict at the heart of the Mesopotamian cosmos, that between the civilized and the wild, between established order and perpetually threatening chaos. 35 Visually, this shift is marked by the new vertical rather than horizontal rendering of the animals, and by the frequent intervention on behalf of the domesticates of two monsters, the hero with curls and the bull-man (figs. 3 and 4). 36 Both figures 33.  “Excepting glyptic images, frontal goddesses feature mainly on monuments dedicated by a king or for his life . . . it may be possible that communication between king and goddess is visually expressed in the latter’s frontal posture and that this communication concerns predominantly the king’s divine selection, legitimization, and fate,” Asher-Greve, “The Gaze of Goddesses: On Divinity, Gender, and Frontality in the Late Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian Periods,” 34. Asher-Greve suggests that the audience or beholder in these cases, the “you” addressed by the frontally rendered divinity, is the king (ibid., 34) and offers a compelling reading of the interaction between Gudea and the twisted profile goddess as represented on stelae fragments from Girsu as operating on two levels: “the profile level with Gudea being presented by minor deities to Ningirsu or Baba represents a ritual that took place in “sacred” space in front of the divinities’ statues in the temple, but is imagined to have taken place in “divine” space in the past . . . Another level is associated with the frontal parts. . . . On this level deity and beholder encounter each other repetitively in present and future times. The en face part of the deity assumes an encounter with the view[er] as otherwise he/she would gaze into a void,” ibid., 24. 34.  In addition to composite entities, as the kusarikku, there are (more-or-less) human entities such as Huwawa/Humbaba, characterized by his typically larger than normal size; Bes, characterized by his frequent smaller size; and the lahmu, with his distinctive curls. 35.  The contest scenes are formally analyzed in Yelena Zora Rakic, The Contest Scene in Akkadian Glyptic: A Study of Its Imagery and Function within the Akkadian Empire (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2003); see also Collon, First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East, 27. 36.  The hero with curls is fully anthropomorphic and depicted in the nude, with the exception of a belt that may be looped about his waist; the bull-man is depicted with a human upper body and face,

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Fig. 3.  BM 89308. Greenstone cylinder seal Old Akkadian period. Contest scene with twisted profile hero and bull-man.

Fig. 4.  BM 134763. Greenstone cylinder seal. Old Akkadian period. Contest Scene with twisted profile hero and lion with head as if from above.

Fig. 5.  BM 121566d. Lapis lazuli cylinder seal Old Akkadian period. Contest Scene with twisted profile hero and bull-man, and en face human-headed bull.

Fig. 6.  BM 119427. Marble cylinder seal. Early Dynastic III period. Contest scene with en face human-headed bull and lion with head as if from above.

frequently serve as protectors of the vulnerable animals against ravening and often leonine predators. 37 Where all figures are rendered in profile, the contest scenes convey the remote, if perpetual nature of the conflict depicted. Even while their bodies are fully occupied with the action, however, the hero and bull-man frequently take on the twisted profile form, momentarily turning to gaze out into the exterior world and visually interrupting the scenes in which they appear, imbuing the cosmic and eternal contest in which they participate with a compelling immediacy as they engage with the viewer in the present moment. Occasionally, the animals with which the hero and bull-man interact also take on a human face, as in the case of the human-headed bulls known from as early as the Early Dynastic Period, 38 and the horns and lower body (hind legs only) of a bull. The question of whether the bull-man and hero with curls are already to be identified by the names kusarikku and lahmu, by which they are known in later periods, at this early date has been raised in both F. A. M. Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts (Groningen: Styx, 1992), 177f. and Eva A. Braun-Holzinger, “Apotropaic Figures at Mesopotamian Temples,” in Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives (ed. Tzvi Abusch and K. van der Toorn; Groningen: Styx, 1998), 160. Unfortunately, this cannot be fully resolved on the basis of the surviving evidence. 37.  There are rare cases in which the human-headed bulls appear to be acting instead as aggressors; see, for example, Dominique Collon, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Cylinder Seals II: Akkadian, Post-Akkadian, Ur III Periods (London: British Museum Publications Limited, 1982), nos. 2, 131, and also the unusual scene in no. 126. 38.  Perhaps the best known of the early representations of the human-headed bulls are those on the Great Lyre of Ur, depicted in the uppermost register of the front panel; see Richard L. Zettler and Lee

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and communicate a new awareness of the cosmic conflict in which they participate, turning their human heads only, but not their animal bodies, to look out into exterior space (fig. 5). Natural animals or animal-headed hybrids in these scenes, despite the frequent rendering of the lion with face shown as if from above (fig. 6), 39 are rather less common though not completely absent. A midthird millennium votive marble mace head from Sippar (fig. 7) bears lions in relief with heads emerging in the round, while numerous frontal renderings of Imdugud/Anzud, the lion-headed eagle, appear from the Early Dynastic Period on cylinder seals and other objects (figs. 8 and 9). 40 In the Old Akkadian Period, the hero and bull-man not only continue as primary actors in the contest scenes but also take on a new role as gatekeepers Fig. 7.  BM 92681. Limestone Mace Head. and standard-bearers of the gods. 41 In Early Dynastic III Period. Frontal Lion Heads these scenes, in which they frequently (in the round). stand to one side of, or flank, a profile deity, their frontal upper bodies and faces take on a new significance: they simultaneously delimit sacred space and, as secondary agents of the god they serve and guard, act as emphatic visual reminders of both his potency and his mastery over the chaotic and potentially inimical realm as well as the ordered and civilized one (fig. 10). As Zwischenwesen, the twisted-profile monsters function as mediators between the depicted scene and the exterior world, their direct gaze forging an effective connection with the human viewer and the present time that transcends the Horne, eds., Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,1998), cat. no. 3. For similarly dated depictions in the glyptic corpus, see D.  J. Wiseman, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum I: Cylinder Seals: Uruk–Early Dynastic Periods (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1962), pls. 15f, 19a, 20b, e, f, h; for reclining human-headed bulls, see also 22d–e. 39.  The lion’s head, when rendered as if from above, is distinguished from a frontal view by its typically angled face (a rare exception appears in Wiseman, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum I: Cylinder Seals: Uruk–Early Dynastic Periods, 17(b)) as it bites down on its prey, and by a view of the head that frequently, though not always, terminates at the nose, omitting the whiskers and mouth below, see the variations depicted in ibid., 16(a–c); Collon, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Cylinder Seals II: Akkadian, Post-Akkadian, Ur III Periods, 10, 11, 32. 40.  Whether this was a deliberate choice, or indicates a difficulty in adequately representing specific animal facial features on so small a scale (or both) is open to question, though it is suggestive that the bull gains a frontal face only when it gains a human one. The human-headed bull is depicted with frontal face not only in the glyptic imagery, where it is protected by the bull-man and the hero with curls, but also in sculpture in the round (where it retains a profile body). 41.  Earlier renderings of the hero with curls or bull-man as standard-bearers exist, as in the ED II example in Wiseman, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum I: Cylinder Seals: Uruk–Early Dynastic Periods, pl. 15(e); however, these are rare.

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Fig. 8.  BM 114308. Monumental Copper Frieze. Early Dynastic III Period. Frontal Anzud with Lion Head in Round.

pictorial space and timeless moment within which their lower bodies are anchored. They function to invite, as well as to engage, simultaneously opening and guarding the portal between the mundane world and the divine or sacred space occupied by the god. The inclusion of these monstrous mediators in these scenes, and their rendering in the twisted profile, then, suggests the imminent possibility of direct approach to, and interaction with the divine without making the god himself too easily accessible through a frontal rendering of his own form or compromising his preoccupation with the pictorial scene within which he is depicted. If they function as a means of divine access for the human viewer, however, the Zwischenwesen thus portrayed act also as formidable and terrifying sentries against both visible and invisible dangers. As in-between entities, capable of mediating between different realms and types of being, these creatures are singularly equipped to challenge not only human threats but also supernatural ones: their endowment with the frontal face and direct gaze, with its extraordinary ability to arrest attention, both bolsters their magical potency and signals their alertness against inimical forces. In their appearance on cylinder seals, the lahmu and kusarikku serve as early forerunners of various such Zwischenwesen, among the latest and most memorable examples of which are the massive lamassu, the monumental gateway guardians of the Neo-Assyrian palaces.

Frontality, Narrative, and Feeling To this point, this study has focused on considering the meaning of the frontal and profile forms in the context of scenes for which there are no associated textual accounts or narratives. Before turning to one of the few scenes from Mesopotamian art that is actually associated with such a narrative, it is worth considering briefly the role of frontality in the slightly later corpus of ancient Greek art, in which the frontal form appeared similarly as a marker of monstrosity or Otherness (albeit in images with much more substantial literary ties and explication).

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Fig. 10 (above).  BM 89771. Serpentine cylinder seal. Old Akkadian period: Water-god in shrine with twisted-profile attendants (hero with curls). Fig. 9 (left).  BM 23287. White Stone Macehead. Early Dynastic III Period. Frontal Anzud with Lion Head in Relief.

In the art of ancient Greece, frontally rendered figures are those who upset norms, 42 and who are capable or otherwise on the verge of transgressing important boundaries: these include Dionysus and his followers, associated with excess, drunkenness, and abandon, as well as those who have died or are on the brink of death. 43 Yvonne Korshak, in an important early monograph on the depiction of frontal faces in Attic vase painting, explored the transition from the use of frontality as a means of expressing a magical quality or potency to its use as a means of expressing an existential state: the common quality shared by the frontally rendered drunk, dying, and grieving, and by extension also the monstrous or inhuman beings of Attic art, is one in which “the governance of the self is relinquished and nature takes hold . . . they meet in an extreme state of being, the realm of lost control” (figs. 11 and 12). 44 While there are hardly sufficient frontally rendered figures or narrative scenes surviving from Mesopotamian art to argue for a broadly conceived similarly existential expression, there is one specific use of the frontal form in the extant imagery, that in the Death of Huwawa/Humbaba scenes, that may be read both as retaining the magical potency of the earlier frontally depicted hero and bull-man, engaging 42.  The most prominent such figure is, of course, Medusa, both in her ancient Greek and more modern incarnations: among the more illuminating of the studies published on the subject of the Gorgon/ gorgoneion and the direct gaze are those of Vernant and Zeitlin, eds., Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays, esp.  112ff.; F.  Frontisi-Ducroux, Du masque au visage: Aspects de l’identité en Grèce ancienne (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), esp. 65–80; Rainer Mack, “Facing Down Medusa (an Aetiology of the Gaze),” Art History 25/5 (2002); Hal Foster, “Medusa and the Real,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 44 (2003); and Guy Hedreen, “Involved Spectatorship in Archaic Greek Art,” Art History 30/2 (2007); see also A. David Napier, Masks, Transformation, and Paradox (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). Much of the discussion of the Gorgon, however, centers on the viewer’s encounter with Medusa’s unique petrifying gaze, which, while illuminating, must be used with caution when discussing the direct gaze of other figures in art. 43.  Susan Deacy, Athena. Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World (London: Routledge, 2008). 44. Yvonne Korshak, Frontal Faces in Attic Vase Painting of the Archaic Period (Chicago: Ares, 1987), 24–25.

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Fig. 11.  BM Vase B471. Black-Figure Attic Amphora, ca. 540 b.c.e. Contest between Herakles and Geryon with en face Eurytion. Fig. 12.  BM Vase B194. Black-Figure Olpe by Amasis Painter, ca. 550–530 b.c.e. Perseus (on left) slaying Medusa as Hermes looks on.

with the presence and present time of the viewer even while inviting or drawing his gaze into the scene, and as heralding an imminent or impending transition between one state of being and another, namely, the transition between life and death. Overmastered, sinking to one knee between the two profile heroes that are utterly engrossed in the act of his destruction, 45 Huwawa/Humbaba is depicted in the instant before his own impending and inevitable death. Turning his head away from Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the monster looks out into exterior space, his gaze deliberately directed at the viewer (figs. 9 and 10). Like the earlier hero with curls and bull-man, Huwawa/Humbaba not only belongs to the ranks of the Zwischenwesen, possessing supernatural powers and guarding the Cedar Forest as a deputy of the great god Enlil but also (interacting as he does with gods and with heroes and be45.  The renderings of Huwawa/Humbaba’s decapitated head alone are not discussed here, as they require a lengthy, detailed, and formal analysis that is beyond the scope of this paper. That said, they would be productively studied both in the context of monstrous apotropaia and guardians in Mesopotamia generally, as well as in the context of disembodied heads, faces, and masks specifically, both inside Mesopotamia (as that of Pazuzu) and outside of it (as Medusa’s head). For the latter, see the sources cited in n. 42 above.

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Fig. 13.  BM 89763. Carnelian cylinder seal. Neo-Assyrian period. Death of Humbaba.

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Fig. 14.  BM 89569. Hematite cylinder seal, ca. 1400–1300 b.c.e. (Mitanni). Death of Humbaba (between running spiral borders).

ing a wild and lonely exile from any type of community or kinship) is specifically a monster. 46 His portrayal here in the twisted-profile pose is in keeping both with his nature as an intermediate or “in-between” being and with his transitional state within the pictorial scene itself: his frontality, juxtaposed with the profile renderings of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, visually creates a rupture—signifying the sundering from the other actors caused by his death. But what is the explanation for the apparent projection of his threat into the external world, for the outward turning of his gaze, rendered in such a way that it might light upon the viewer? 47 One possibility is suggested by studies on the images of confrontation between the hero Perseus and the frontally rendered gorgon Medusa, in which such scenes have been read as a performative reproduction of that heroic conflict: “The viewer, by this account, played the role of Perseus, and in the simple act of viewing the image . . . re-enacted his heroic triumph over the monster.” 48 While the circumstances of the Greek scene, and the powers and qualities of the agents rendered, are unique, especially in respect to the peculiar petrifying power of Medusa’s gaze, it is worth noting that the gaze of Huwawa/Humbaba, in the Sumerian if not the Akkadian version of the encounter, is said to be “the 46. Huwawa’s classification as a monster is based less on his physical form, which is uncertain but often atypical (George, for example, refers to Huwawa as a “giant”: A. R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts [2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 464); and more on his possession of superhuman or supernatural powers in GH A, as well as on his exile from human intercourse and society, which render him indisputably “Other”: his look is the look of death (line 123); he possesses seven “terrors,” of which Gilgamesh must divest him prior to taking him on (lines 137–50); he knows neither a mother nor a father, being brought up in the mountains by Utu in version A (lines 155–56) and being born to a “cave in the hills” that served as both his mother and father in version B (lines 163–66); and he is described as a mighty and terrible being (GH B, lines 90–95). He is categorized as a monster rather than a daimon in this context because his sphere of interaction is primarily with the gods rather than with humans: even in Gilgamesh and Huwawa, his encounter is with a semi-divine hero rather than with mundane mortals. 47.  This full-bodied rendering of Huwawa/Humbaba is to be distinguished from the disembodied heads or masks of his face that comprise a type of Old Babylonian terracotta plaque (i.e., BM 116624, 127443; Louvre Sb 6567) and that stare out from various cylinder seal compositions (i.e., BM 89327). 48.  Mack, “Facing Down Medusa (an Aetiology of the Gaze),” 593. See also n. 45 above.

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look of death,” 49 mirroring the look of death turned on Inana by the Anunna following her descent to the netherworld, and by Inana on Dumuzid after she chooses him for her substitute in Inana’s Descent. 50 On a more elementary level, of course, the threat posed by Huwawa/Humbaba may be at least momentarily suppressed or negated in his moment of death, so that the viewer may meet his gaze, at this singular juncture where his defeat is if not complete then at least assured, with equanimity. 51 49. Though highly speculative, Huwawa’s look of death suggestively recalls Medusa’s petrifying gaze. Certainly, connections between the iconography of the Mesopotamian Huwawa/Humbaba and the Greek Gorgon, as well as between the narratives in which the two entities feature, have long been postulated and explored by scholars. Among the earliest such scholarly treatments is Clark Hopkins, “Assyrian Elements in the Perseus-Gorgon Story,” American Journal of Archaeology (1934); more recently, see Napier, Masks, Transformation, and Paradox, 108ff.; Walter Burkert, “Oriental and Greek Mythology: The Meeting of Parallels,” in Interpretations of Greek Mythology (ed. J.  N. Bremmer; London: Croom Helm, 1987); M. L. West, The East Face of Helicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 453–54; J. Michael Padgett, The Centaur’s Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art (New Haven: Princeton University Art Museum, 2003), esp. 65. 50. See GH A 123 (ig i m u- ši- in- bar ig i uš2- a - ka m) and ID 168 (i g i mu - š i - i n - b a r i - b i2 u š2-a ka m), 354 (igi m u- un- ši- in- bar ig i uš2- a - k a) in Black et al., “The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/).” 51.  This would account also for the frontally rendered face of the solar-headed cyclop on the earlysecond-millennium b.c.e. Khafaje Plaque from the Diyala excavations of the Oriental Institute, as the monster in that case is similarly depicted at the point of death.

A Time to Rejoice: The Egalkura Rituals and the Mirth of Iyyar Henry Stadhouders Utrecht University

Literary Akkadian has a rare simile, which goes kīma ajjari riāšu + dative of person ‘to rejoice over someone like ajjaru.’ While the verbal part of this locution poses no real problem, the adverbial kīma ajjari has defied full comprehension so far, owing to the uncertainty of how to assess its core noun ajjaru, or ajaru for that matter, lexically. Let us first have an overview of the several suggestions that have been put forward on the issues of, first, whether this particular ajjaru ought to be considered a noun in its own right, to be kept distinct from the rest of ajjaru homophones, or rather be relegated to one of these and be denied any independence whatsoever; and, second, whether the comparison like ajjaru bears upon the subject of the verb riāšu, which can be in either number, or upon its always singular indirect object; and, consequently, whether the phrase kīma a-a-ri should be interpreted as kīma ajjarī (plural, on the condition that the comparison can regard the subject and this is in the plural) or rather be articulated kīma ajjari (singular) throughout. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary allots a separate entry to the ajjaru vocable that constitutes this particular expression, tagging it ajaru B to distinguish it from its four homophones (CAD A/1, 230). The dictionary thus seems to take it for a separate lexeme. Nonetheless, the lexicon wisely abstains from coining a proper meaning for it on the less than meager evidence it could draw on, since just a single instance of the simile happened to be positively known at the time the relevant CAD volume was conceived. It occurs in Nabonidus’s Ebabbar Cylinder and reads: Text 1 (VAB 4, 258, ii, 15–17) 15Šamaš

. . . ana Ebabbar . . . 16. . . ina erēbīka bābānu nērebānu pappaḫū u diʾānu 17liḫdû pānukka kīma a-a-ri li-ri-šu-ku (-ka V.; = lirīšūku(m) / -ka)

When you, Shamash, enter the Ebabbar temple, let the gates and pass-ways, the chapels and platforms happily welcome you and rejoice over you like ajjaru.

The CAD renders the crucial words at the end as follows: “(let they) be as happy as ajaru over you.” The exact meaning of ajaru B is therefore left undetermined and the lemma concludes with a remark to the effect that the word might rather be subsumed under either ajaru D ‘young man,’ if the comparison refers to persons, or ajaru C, the name of the second month, if the reference is “to a festival typically celebrated in the month Ajaru.” The CAD noticeably ignores ajaru A ‘rosette’ as a viable way out and has the comparison bear upon the subject. 301

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Neither option to get rid of ajaru B this way seems to have been pursued by other lexicographers. The last scholar to deal with the text containing our simile was Schaudig, who translates the lines just quoted as follows: “Šamaš . . . , wenn Du nach Ebabbar . . . einziehst, mögen die Tore, die Eingänge, Cellae und Kultsockel sich freuen vor Dir, wie Blüten Dir zujauchzen.” 1 His “wie Blüten” shows Schaudig to be opting for the solution to our problem that CAD tacitly rejects, and he does so without further argument but in apparent adherence to AHw, where our simile is found referred to and translated under the heading “ajjaru I ‘Blüte; Rosette,’ (1) Blüte, selten” (p. 24). Von Soden inspired Schaudig but for the subtlety of having put a question-mark behind “wie Blüten” in his quotation of the Nabonidus lines. The major reason for the arch-lexicographer’s caution may well have been the lack of evidence that would decisively point to a basic meaning ‘blossom’ for the ajjaru normally rendered ‘rosette’, a meaning that is overwhelmingly well attested and beyond any dispute. CAD concludes its discussion section attached to ajaru A ‘rosette’ with the claim that “the primary meaning is ornament rather than blossom.” Some interpreters, on the other hand, did follow the CAD in leaving the precise meaning of ajaru B undecided by having its place represented by an open space in their translations—notably so von Weiher and Schuster, on whom more shortly. 2 The last solution to have been proposed, in fact the only one to defend a distinct lemma for ajaru B, is concealed in a footnote to a chapter of Mark Cohen’s Cultic Calendars, where he comes to treat the etymology of the month-name Ajjaru ‘Iyyar’. 3 Pursuing Durand’s argument that the western festival and month name Ḫijar(u) is to be identified with the Mari vocables ḫāru, ḫaʾaru, and ajaru, all of them meaning ‘donkey’, he contends that, if the standard month Ajaru is, indeed, related to the Nuzi month Ḫijaru, then the second month of the standard calendar derived from the “Donkey Festival.” Whereas people would not have been long in becoming oblivious of where exactly their second month had got its name, so he seems to suggest, an awareness of ajaru meaning ‘donkey’ may have survived in the first millennium occurrences of “the phrase kî ajari and kīma ajari in the sense of ‘as happy as ajari .’ (. . .) Quite possibly this expression refers to the braying of a donkey when it bares its teeth, as if laughing.” Although Cohen does not explicitly say so, he seems to imply that despite their common etymology the month name ajjaru and the ajjaru of our idiom must be kept apart lexicographically as a matter of principle, since a descriptive linguist will seek a word’s real meaning in its actual use, not in its remote derivation. Consequently, CAD ajaru C would mean ‘Iyyar’ and ajaru B ‘donkey’. A mere footnote in a substantial book, Cohen’s idea seems to have escaped notice by later commentators on the subject. Whatever its merits, to determine the sense of an enigmatic word along lines of etymology only would seem a tricky thing to do in the first place—all the more so when a long time-span needs to be bridged; in this case, the alledged forerunner antedates its avatar by a full millennium. Moreover, riāšu does not exactly mean ‘to laugh’ or ‘to smile’, as if focussing on the happy subject’s facial expression; rather, the verb has strong acoustic overtones, which is 1.  H. Schaudig, Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros’ des Großen (AOAT 256; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2001) 393: 2.9, II, 15–17. 2. Already so W. Lambert, “Devotion: the Languages of Religion and Love,” in Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1987) 36. 3.  M. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1993) 310 n. 4.

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why it can be rendered ‘to exult’, ‘to be jubilant, ‘to hail’. It would hardly befit a god’s welcoming committee to behave like donkeys in matters of sound, though. Admittedly, it cannot be ruled out that our locution, if it is as old as Cohen would have it, had become a fossilized relic well before the moment it pops up for the first time in our textual record, when no native speaker would have bothered about its analysis or literal meaning any longer but would have applied it rather mindlessly as an agehonored phrase to describe overjoyed exultation. Even so, we need not feel compelled to give up hypothesizing that first-millennium users of the simile did have an awareness of what its imagery is about, if only in consequence of an act of contemporizing an obsolete idiom by redefining the meaning of its ill-understood constituent. As our evidence has increased in the meantime, there is a fair chance that we shall succeed in substantiating this assumption. So let us address our problem afresh from what novel viewpoints the new material will enable us to do so. Among its innumerable treasures, the Late Uruk literary text hoard contains two new occurrences of our elusive ajjaru. The first one is cast in the same vein as the Nabonidus instance, exemplifying the simile kīma ajjari riāšu. The pertinent lines read: Text 2 (SpTU IV, 129, iii, 24′–27′) 24

eṭlūt āli līmurūʾinnima 25lišālilū liḫtabṣū ardāt āli līmurāninnima 27kīma a-a-ri li-ri-ša-ni (= lirīšāni(m))

26

Let the lads of the city exult and cheer when seeing me, let the girls of the city rejoice over me like ajjaru when seeing me.

E. von Weiher translates the last hemistich “wie . . . sollen sie über mich jauchzen.” The scholar’s pioneering editio princeps of the tablet of which these lines are a part, is lists of strings of beads with prescriptions for their use and purpose and has recently been reedited by A. Schuster as Text Nr. 11 in her Steine als Schutzund Heil­mittel under the heading “Eine Sammlung von Amulettsteinketten.” She translates iii, 27 “und dann sollen sie sich an mir freuen wie (an) eine(r) Blüte (?).” 4 The question-mark put behind “Blüte” is motivated thus: “Die genaue Bedeutung ⟨des HS⟩ Wortes ajjaru in diesem Zusammenhang ist nicht geklärt,” with a reference to the CAD discussion section to ajaru A ‘rosette’ quoted above. 5 Notice that she is the second to relate the comparison to the object of the verb rather than its subject. She might have chosen to translate ‘wie (an) Blüten’ just as well, since aa-ri is ambiguous as to number and may be rendered in normalized spelling either ajjari (singular) or ajjarī (plural). The way the simile is framed in the context of the distich calls to mind the suggestion which the CAD made alternatively, that ajaru B might be identical with ajaru D ‘young man,’ a noun otherwise attested in lexical context only, Malku-šarru for all clarity, in equations with such common male-denoting nouns as eṭlu and zikaru. Indeed, girls rejoicing over their meeting with the boys in the streets would seem a most natural thing to happen. The translation of the second line of the distich would accordingly have to be altered to: ‘let the girls of the city rejoice over me like over an ajjaru-man/ajjaru-men when seeing me’. Thus, 4. A. Schuster, Steine als Schutz- und Heilmittel. Untersuchungen zu ihrer Verwendung in der Beschwörungskunst Mesopotamiens im 1. Jt. v. Chr. (AOAT 46; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2008) 342. 5.  Ibid., 344: “Allerdings gibt es wenig eindeutige Belege für die Übersetzung Blüte. Sie wird daher auch in CAD als Bedeutung für ajjaru abgelehnt (s. CAD A I, 230, s.v. ajaru A Kommentar).”

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a meaning ‘young man’ would make sense in this particular instance of our simile’s record. Before we proceed to the next attestation, the present one is worth lingering on as for its context and function. The Uruk tablet section it belongs to is comprised of two subsections separated by a dividing line. The first one is an enumeration of fourteen stone-names that make up a necklace. The second one, which is the one the lines under discussion are embedded in, is what appears to be an ill-transmitted incantation expounding its efficacy. The bipartite section clearly forms a coherent unit, and as such it has been reedited by Schuster along with its duplicates as Text 13, labeled “Die Kette ‘Narām-Sîns’ (Kette 204), Version I.” The second subsection, which is the one that concerns us here, still has the Uruk tablet for its nearly exclusive source, as the corresponding lines on the duplicates are largely broken. In connective transcription it reads: Text 3 (SpTU IV, 129 iv 19’-27’) 19

14 abnāt kišād Narām/Rīm-Sîn (AM-dXXX) šar Uri2 šaknākuma errub ana e[kallim!] (É.[GAL!]) 21 ina! erēb! ērubu ana e[kallim] (É.[GAL]) 22 ilu šarru kabtu u rubû kī ištēniš li[ḫd]ûni ! (li[ḫ!-d]u°!-ni) 23 allak sūqa lū šurruḫāk ina bītī[ ja]? 24 eṭlūt āli līmurūʾinnima 25 lišallilū liḫtabṣū 26 ardāt āli līmurāninnima 27 kīma ajjari lirīšāni te!?.én!? 20

Wearing the fourteen stones that make up the necklace of Narām/Rīm-Sin, king    of Ur I will enter the pa[lace]. When I make my entry into the pa[lace], let god and king, courtier and prince be pl[eas]ed with me. As I walk down the street, may I be glorified among [my] family?; let the lads of the city exult and cheer when seeing me, let the girls of the city rejoice over me like ajjaru when seeing me. 6

Lacking any clear generic markers, this subsection has surprisingly been categorized by Schuster as “(. . .) eine ‘Ritualanweisung’ (. . .), die in der 1. Sg. abgefaßt ist,” although the quotation marks point to her hesitation in doing so. 7 Ritual instructions, however, will as a rule of thumb be found conceived in the second-person singular, addressing either the professional ritualist or the client; directions for the latter in the third singular are frequently interspersed. A text of this type being cast in the first singular would constitute an utter incongruity and a rarissima avis. Moreover, its poetry would seem alien to the terse prose that instructions will stick to. A literary style of the kind is, on the other hand, quite the thing we would ex6.  Superscript exclamation marks are placed whenever I deviate from Schuster and von Weiher, whose editions of this portion fully agree. I would like to draw special attention to how I believe the fourth line should be restored, viz., li[ḫ-d]u°-ni = li[ḫd]ûni(m), ‘let them be pleased with me/glad to (see) me,’ instead of l[i]-né-[u] = linēʾū, ‘let them turn away,’ which is how both of them tentatively propose to read. 7.  Ibid., 341.

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pect an incantation to display. And that is definitely what it is, even though it does not start off with the introductory én/šiptu marker, the final te.én is far from certain, and an instruction detailing how to apply it is missing. There is, however, a plausible way to account for these irregularities. Presumably, at some point in the transmission process, the copyist who originated the text in its present form, having finished transcribing the stone list, skipped a couple of lines owing to the error of parablepsis and awkwardly conflated this list’s rubric, its instruction line, and the first clause of the incantation. Consequently, his Vorlage would have looked like what follows, starting with the dividing line that marks off the list of stone-names: Rubric: 14 abnāt kišād AM-Sîn šar Uri Instruction: ⟨šipta 14 abnāt kišād AM-Sîn šar Uri šaknākuma tamannu Incantation: én 14 abnāt kišād AM-Sîn šar Uri⟩ šaknākuma errub ana É.[GAL] etc.

Between ⟨ ⟩ are the words the scribe omitted. Proof to corroborate the validity of this reconstruction can be found in the parallel text, “Die Kette ‘Narām-Sîns’ (Kette 204), Version II” in Schuster’s edition, which has preserved in actual fact the pattern just reconstructed. After enumerating the fourteen stones, this version continues: Text 4 (Schuster, Steine, p. 344, Text 13: ‘Die Kette “Narām-Sîns”, Version II, i, 15′–20′) 15

14 abnāt kišād Narām/Rīm-Sîn šar [Ur]i šipta ṣūḫu uqnû pappardilû dabābuka tamannu 17 é n ṣūḫu uqnû pappardilû dabābī 18 kīma ṣurri aqar (i) epiš-pîja 19 annī šadû ša mekku 20 sāmtu parašî amâtūʾa (remainder damaged) 16

14 stones making up the necklace of Narām/Rīm-Sin, king of Ur. You recite the incantation ‘My! smiling is lapis lazuli, pappardilû is my!   (text: your) speech. Incantation: My! smiling is lapis lazuli, pappardilû is my speech, like green flint is my utterance, my ‘Yes’ is a mountain of mekku-stone, Parašû carnelian are my words. 8

Names and sequence of the stones neatly match those of the preceding list. Both of these necklace incantations bear a striking resemblance to the Egalkura type, so much so, that I would readily place them in that class of “magical” texts, leaving the matter open as to whether they are Egalkura proper or closely related. 9 Broadly defined, more than 60 such incantations with their pertinent rituals have been identified to date. Egalkura, always written é.gal-ku4.ra, literally means “Entering the Palace” and is about how to get access to the authorities in 8.  Written unorthographically pa-ra-ši; perhaps a pun on parāšu: sāmti parāši ‘carnelian for flattering.’ For references to other like examples of scribal irregularaties deliberately made to signal some special or added meaning, see S. Noegel, Nocturnal Ciphers: The Allusive Language of Dreams in the Ancient Near East (AOS 89; New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 2007) 24 n. 83. 9.  Besides, a similar stone list appears to feature on BM 103385, iii, 13′–17′, a tablet collecting Egalkura compositions, where it is attached to a šuduʾa ritual (iii, 1′–12′, duplicating KAR 238, rev. 8–19 and the rev. of an Istanbul Assur tablet with Egalkura content, A 373, rev. 5′–15′).

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charge of jurisdiction in order to have one’s claim or defense allowed and investigated, and to have the legal administrator judge favorably on one’s case. The means and methods to achieve these goals are ritualistic throughout, at home in the realm of manipulative magic rather than the lawyers’ reason. The high official to render justice is typically referred to as rubû, a designation deliberately used for its vagueness so as to include the whole range of authorities of the sort, from the king himself down to the local mayor. The name traditionally translates ‘Prince’ for Egalkura and similar contexts. This title would seem a less apt designation for the Egalkura rubû, though, he generally being an agent of the central government and the local representative of the king rather than the king himself or some other lower-ranking member of the royal class. He would, on the other hand, be entrusted by the king with the administration of the law, besides other tasks of domestic governance, so he may be said to impersonate the king as his deputy, hence ‘Prince’ is how he will be named hereinafter, too. Occasionally he pops up with such specific titles as šāpiru and ḫazannu. To be sure, a number of incantations does involve the king personally. The locality where he has offices is consistently called ‘Palace,’ which would mostly denote the local branch of the royal palace in the capital as a consequence; we might call it ‘City Hall’ in the majority of instances. The Egalkura spells are predominantly structured as first-person singular speeches, this person being the client whose interests are at issue and for whom the rituals are performed. Let us call him Ego for the sake of brevity and neutrality. 10 Ego’s main concern, then, is threefold. First, he must manage to be admitted into the Palace, a move described by the verb erēbu, usually complemented with the phrase ana ekallim or, more often, ana pān rubê; a rendering ‘to go on / to get an audience (with the Prince)’ has been proposed for the idiom; ‘to enter into the presence of ’ may do as well. 11 Second, he needs to catch the attention of the Prince and of everybody who may have a role in introducing him to the latter, too, so that Ego will get to meet the Prince face to face and will not be dismissed in the matter of his case but will have it looked into decisively; all of this is expressed by the polyvalent verb amāru. Third, in preparation to his entering the Palace, Ego is meticulously diligent in trying to look pleasant—in fact, handsome and attractive, so as to stir pleasure and joy in everyone he meets, most of all in the rubû, thus appeasing him and gaining his special favor. The relevant verb here is ḫadû, which may be asserted to hold the key to the Egalkura mind-set: the pleasure of the senses which Ego arouses in the Prince and his entourage, captivating them with his charms, will reveal itself in effect as their willingness toward him. Their agreeable attitude mirrors his agreeable appearance. Their being pleased with him is not so much the cause of their willingness toward him; rather, the twin feelings are two sides of one coin and take effect concomitantly, which is what the texts express by using the verb ḫadû and its derivatives, ḫidûtu in particular. The fourth line of the necklace incantation, Ver10.  Ego’s anonymous identity would become more tangible should we assume him to be mirroring such vividly pictured characters as Gimil-Ninurta (Poor Man of Nippur, esp.  lines 70–74) and Šubšimešrâ/ê-Šakkan (Ludlul) in their respective strives for justice to be done to a commoner and rehabilitation to be bestowed on a high-ranking courtier. The last-mentioned correlation would seem to apply in particular for the later periods of cuneiform civilization, as its textual canon would have been functioning and circulating exclusively within palatial environments, so as to be meaningful for state officials and their dependents in the upper classes only (see the remark by T. Abusch, JCS 37 [1985] 95). 11.  A. Oppenheim, “Idiomatic Akkadian,” JAOS 61 (1941) 258 n. 28.

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sion I, may therefore just as well be rendered: ‘let god and king, courtier and resident be wi[lli]ng/ favorably-[dispo]sed toward me.’ A frequent line of text typical of how Egalkura rituals conclude reads: ina pān rubê terrubma immarma rubû iḫadduka

Multiple renderings may be valid at the same time: •  ina pān rubê terrubma ‘you enter into the presence of the Prince / you go on/ get an audience with the Prince’ •  immarma, ‘he will see/notice (you) / have a meeting with (you) / investigate (your case)’ •  rubû iḫadduka, ‘the Prince will be pleased with you / willing towards you’

The objective of the rituals can occasionally be found stated in words like these: ana āmiršu ana pānīšu ḫadî

If this is to be understood in line with the formula just quoted, a correspondingly broad range of renderings would apply in this case, too: •  ‘in order that the one who sees/meets him is glad to see him / happily welcomes him’ •  ‘in order that the one he has a meeting with shows himself willing/welldisposed toward him’ •  ‘in order that the one who investigates his (case) shows himself favorably minded toward him’

The āmiršu would accordingly appear to be none other than either the rubû himself or a lower-ranking official in his entourage, possibly one of Ego’s peers. However, in quite a number of instances the āmiršu would rather seem to be referring to Ego’s adversary in court, having the pregnant meaning ‘the one who envies him,’ ‘his ill-wisher’ (CAD A/2, 65, āmiru, 3. ‘ill-wisher(?)’), which would explain why in Egalkura related contexts it can be found paired with dābib-ittīšu, ‘the one who sues/litigates with him.’ 12 For not only does the author of Egalkura show unabated confidence that Ego will persuade the Prince the way he does; he also wants himself and us to believe that the Egalkura magic will invest him with the power to win over even his adversary and prosecutor, bēl-dabābi, to his side, turning adversaries into allies. Besides sullumu, the verb conveying this miraculous event is saḫāru, ‘to make a volte-face,’ ‘to be talked round.’ An incantation’s final line will illustrate the point: Text 5a Sources: K (SpTU II, 24), 29–30; Q (BM 77263, unpub.), 17′–18′ šusḫur ālu šusḫur ekallu (bītu, K) šusḫur bēl-dabābīj­ama illakū ina arkīja the city has been talked round/won over, the Palace has been talked round/won over, my adversary has been talked round/won over, following me (obediently). 12. Schuster, Steine, 251, Text 6 (= SpTU II, 22 + SpTU III, 85), i, 22 and 29, 34 and 42–43; STT 247, 9–10; STT 275, i, 6′–7′; CAD A/2, 65. For several in-depth studies into these topics and related texts we are indebted to T. Abusch, “Dismissal by Authorities: šuškunu and Related Matters,” JCS 37 (1985) 91–100, and “Witchcraft and the Anger of the Personal God,” in Mesopotamian Witchcraft (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 27–63. Because their subject-matter is closely related to Egalkura, my projected edition of the latter will discuss them in more detail in its commentary. BM 45755 (unpub.), 12–13 is about how “to make your āmiru’s name stink and to humiliate him.”

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Another one, subscripted kaʾinimma uzzi nuḫḫi, has for its climax: Text 5b Sources: A (KAR 71), 10; D (LKA 104), 20–22; M (BM 103385, unpub.), iv, 21 lišesḫir (lissaḫra, A) bēl dabābīja līpula kūmūʾa Let (the asḫar facial paint I am anointed with) cause my adversary in court to make a volte-face, such that he takes on my defense! (‘let my adversary in court make a volte-face . . . ,’ A).

Contrariwise, to be sure, quite a number of incantations deal with the adversary in a hostile way, being spells for the purpose of incapacitating him in order to achieve success in litigation or contest. 13 Also, a substantial number of Egalkura incantations depicts the Palace as a place of danger and potential doom to which Ego fears he is going to fall victim. It accommodates a court of law to which Ego is unvoluntarily dragged for trial, agonized with the unpredictability of its outcome. A particular fear that looms large in his mind is that he may be sentenced to imprisonment there, never to leave the heavily locked palace again. The way it conjures up the Palace as a place of judgment and imprisonment, Egalkura is heir to such much older compositions as Sumerian Proverb Collection 6.1–4 and the highly intricated Nungal Hymn (Nungal in the Ekur), which have proven key texts for decoding quite a few of the riddles Egalkura poses. 14 Even more, it is this old and rather elusive 13.  Aimed at manipulating fellow humans in the client’s sole interest, if need be to the point of their getting harmed, quite a number of Egalkura rituals would appear to operate on the verge of legimate and illicit magic; witchcraft of the kadibbidû ‘seizure of the mouth,’ zikurrudû ‘cutting of the throat/breath’ —both disabling one’s enemy’s faculty of speech—and dibalû types are lurking to intrude. This tendency for infringing societal correctness might account for the occasional instructions to proceed “undercover” keeping the magical tools hidden in one’s clothes and whispering the incantation silently on approaching the Prince. 14.  To mention just the most conspicuous judgment and prison themes articulated in these texts (a pivotal line is Nungal Hymn, line 95) of Old Babylonian or earlier date, and that resurface in Egalkura: The ‘Palace’—or ‘Great House’ for that matter—is a forest, its Prince a raging lion. The accused is dragged there for an agonizing trial, presided over by the Prince. A river full of threats is there to pass, probably to determine guilt in the fashion of the i7. l ú . r u . g ú. Daggers and hostilities have to be confronted. The Palace doors are heavily locked, it is a dark place, where forced labor is done. Whoever enters this prison will have to take refuge with Nusku and, even more, Shamash, the god of justification, acquittal, and release. Ninegal appears several times in the role of Nungal, the ‘Lady Wardress’; she seems to be involved in banquet scenes celebrating Ego’s acquittal(?). References. For Nungal Hymn text: Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), 4.28.1: “A Hymn to Nungal (Nungal A)” along with the critical text edition by P. Attinger, “L’Hymne à Nungal,” in Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien–Festschrift für Claus Wilcke (OBC 14; Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2003) 15–34, which is introduced by a lucid analysis of its structure. For comments, see M. Civil, “On Mesopotamian Jails and Their Lady Warden,” in The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1993) 72–78; T. Frymer, “The Nungal-Hymn and the Ekur-Prison,” JESHO 20 (1977) 78–89. For Sumerian Proverb Collection 6.1–4 (B): B. Alster, Proverbs of Ancient Sumer (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1997) I, 146–47 with II, 409. W. Hallo had an inkling of these correlations as far back as 1979; at the conclusion of his argument that é.gal in the above-mentioned compositions means ‘prison’ he says: “Finally, the late series called ‘Entering the palace’ (é - g a l k u4- r a) . . . may preserve a hint of the ‘colloquial’ meaning [i.e., ‘prison’— HS] of the term [i.e., é . g a l—HS]” (“Notes from the Babylonian Collection, I: Nungal in the Egal: An Introduction to Colloquial Sumerian?” JCS 31 [1979] 164). The unpublished Egalkura material provides solid evidence to substantiate his keen suspicion; what he cautiously refers to as a “hint” I would not hesitate to call a remnant or legacy. Sjöberg on the other hand, who was the first to edit the Nungal Hymn,

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concept of the Palace, that is likely to have formed the primitive core around which the later Egalkura corpus as we know it gradually accrued. 15 However, to elaborate this theme is off-topic here. 16 Vital details of Egalkura methods of persuasion can be learned from the third instance of our ajjaru, since it happens to be a case in point. It reads as follows: Text 6 Sources: B (KAR 237), rev. 12–15; K (SpTU II, 24), 36–43 1ÉN

šak-na-ka KUŠ.E.SIRa ina GÌRII.b-jac ina dpa-nid-ka áš-eba-ake    = é n: šaknāka šēna ina šēpēja ina pānīka ašbāk 2a-ṣa-ḫu ṣu-ua-ḫu ba-a-ri IGI-jáb cḪI.LIc IGIII-ajad eKI.ÁG!.GÁe    = aṣâḫu ṣūḫu ajjari pānūja kuzbu īnāja râmu 3a É.SIG4 ana-ku si-in-na-tu-um-ma b mim-ma ma-laa c dDU11.GA-kad ṣe-e-ḫi    = igāru anāku sinnatumma mimma mala aqabbâkka ṣēḫi 4 DÙ.DÙ.BI ÉN an-ani-tama b3-šúb inac UGUd KUŠ.E.SIRe-kaf ŠID-nu    = dù.dù.bi šipta annītam šalāšīšu ina muḫḫi šēnīka tamannu 5 ina GÌRII-ka GAR-an-ama KI DU-ku ḪÚL.MEŠ-kaa    = ina šēpēka tašakkanma ašar tallaku iḫaddûka Variants: 1. a .SÍR K | b -MEŠ- ins B | c -ja5 K | d IGI- K | e -bak B || 2. a -ú- K | b om B | c ku-uz-bi B, = kuzbi | d -já K | e ra-i-mu-ja5 = rāʾimūja B || 3. a la [ . . . ] x tu ú mu mu B | b šá-niš si-in-na-tu-um-ma ins K | c šá ins B | d a-qabaak-ka K, = aqabbâkka || 4. a -nita K | b om K | c ana K | d -ḫi add K | e .SÍR K | f om K || 5. a prob om B. With shoe(s) put on my feet I am sitting before you, laughing/smiling/flirting the laugh/smile/flirtation of (an?) ajjaru, my face being all charm, my eyes being all love (being my lovers, var.). I am a wall; indeed, a shield! Whatever I am going to say to/request of you, smile? (at it) / is my smiling?.

makes a noteworthy remark to the contrary in his comment on a fragmentary text with parallel content, stating: “é-gal may not always refer to the ‘royal palace’ (cf. AfO 24 p. 19 n. 3) but I am now inclined to interpret é-gal in Nungal in the Ekur as referring to the ‘royal palace’ (“Miscellaneous Sumerian Texts I,” Orientalia Suecana 23/24 [1974] 160). Noteworthy, and last but not least: Iddin-Dagan A, lines 169–72 for enumerating é. g a l, g i š . r à b, i7. lú. r u. g ú, dnin- é . g a l . l a, l u g a l. Detailed references will come with the comprehensive edition of the Egalkura texts, which is projected for 2014. 15.  It might be hypothesized that Egalkura has its very beginnings in an attempt to get over the frustration vented by Nungal Hymn, line 48b: ‘incantations are its (i.e., the Palace’s) abomination’. Outside Egalkura, evidence of the above semantics also being valid for Akkadian ekallu seems rare. A pair of Šumma ālu omens have preserved a telling example (CT 40, pl. 48, lines 26–28): 26šumma

amēlu kīma maṣṣārtu ana ekalli našûšuma šurdû ištu šumēl amēli ana imitti amēli ītiq 27amēlu šū eli bēl-dabābīšu izzaz māḫira ul irašši 28šumma amēlu kīma maṣṣārtu ana ekalli našû⟨šu⟩ma šurdû ištu imitti amēli ana šumēl amēli ītiq amēlu šū kīlšu irrik

If, when the police drag a man to the ekallu, a falcon passes from the man’s left to the man’s right, then this man will prevail over his prosecutor and will have no adversary. If, when the police drag a man to the ekallu, a falcon passes from the man’s right to the man’s left, then this man will suffer a long imprisonment. 16.  I dealt with it in more detail at the 2012 Leiden RAI, the theme of which—Private and State— lent itself most naturally to discussing this fascinating subject matter.

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The person addressed will be the authority Ego is going to approach; his adversary would make a possible candidate, too. The first line exemplifies a recurrent motif, which may be said to epitomize a leading principle of Egalkura mentality, viz., “Dress to impress!” Quite a few parallels to both the idea and the pattern of its grammar can be adduced. Some random examples: Text 7a (BM 48481, unpub.; line 13′) [é n šaknā]ku šēnu ina šēpīja ana pānīka tebâku [x x] With shoe(s) put on my feet I am standing up to you. Text 7b (BM 48481, unpub.; line 7′) [é n šaknā]ku kubšu ina qaqqadīja ana ni- x x x x [x x x x x] With a turban on my head . . . Text 7c; sources: B (KAR 237), rev. 16–17; E (LKA 105), 15; M (BM 103385), ii, 6′–7′; N (LKA 107a, unpub.; A 374), 16 é n: nēbeḫ bālti raksāku nēbeḫ uqnât[i (tabarri EMN) r]aksā qablāja (qablāja   raksā MN) I wear a belt of pride/dignity, a belt of lapis lazuli (red wool, var.) is tied around   my waist. Text 7d (BM 48481, unpub.; line 10′) [é n n]ēbeḫu qablāja raksū ana pānīka tebâka x[ x ]: Wearing a belt around my waist I am standing up to you.

A strikingly similar clause pattern was found to open the Narām/Rīm-Sîn necklace spell, Version I (Text 3), which supports its classification as Egalkura or related. 17 Another major principle is encapsulated in the second line of Text 6, which is the one that happens to contain our ajjaru, at least according to the Uruk exemplar; the Assur duplicate omits it. 18 In fact, this line is just one of a great many more to illustrate the very leitmotiv of the Egalkura corpus, which is: imagine yourself as persuading by appearance rather than argument; looks prevail over words, nice talk over well-argued proof. In court, you shall win people over by courting them; your juridical pleading, dabābu, dibbū, will convince them along the lines of a suitor’s seductive talk, dabābu, dibbū. The resulting parlance is a perplexing mix-up of juridical and amorous meanings stored in the very same words and phrases and both fully operative at the same time. The same means, methods, and tools are implemented as when charming someone into the mood for love and neutralizing his or her reluctance or even hostility. Ego makes sure to dress for the occasion top to toe, 17.  See also the catalogue drawn up by W. Mayer, “Ein Ritual gegen Feindschaft,” Or NS 59 (1990) 27–28; the text edited there (VAT 13683) is closely related to Egalkura, and so is the incantation (p. 17) against DI.BAL.A. 18.  If we are to take its ending in -i seriously and take it for a genitive, the -u Auslaut of ṣūḫu should be taken for a so-called überhängender Vokal, i.e., a redundant vowel, a phenomenon liable to develop after closed syllables containing a long vowel. So must be the -u of aṣâḫu, and the -i of ṣēḫi in the otherwise enigmatic third line, assuming it is an imperative mood form. Alternatively, an interpretation as ṣêḫī, ‘my laughing/smiling’, would make sense as well. For the -e- in forms of ṣiāḫu, compare the Gtn iṣṣenêḫ; see also the next incantation (Text 8), which happens to contain a variant reading ṣu-ú-ḫu for ṣe-e-ḫi.

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adorning himself with jewelry, notably lapis lazuli and carnelian, applying facial make-up, and, above all, making use of perfumes and ointments. Each of these add to Ego’s attraction and make him irresistable, at least in the virtual world of magical fancy, and his beguiling appearance and coquettish behavior are aptly depicted with such carnal notions as kuzbu, lalû, bāltu, râmu, ṣiāḫu, ulṣu, and still other like terms. 19 The CAD accordingly translates the love-making ṣiāḫu + dative of person ‘to entice’. 20 Tying in with the laughing/smiling/flirting theme of the above incantation, I would like to highlight the following one for its erotically telling language; its sources are unpublished. Text 8 Sources: J (BM 47457, unpub.), 39–43; P (BM 32515, unpub.), 25′–29′ 1

ÉN ṣu-uḫ-ḫu ku-uz-bia da-ba-bub °ra-a-mu al-kam-ma ti-ib ina IGI-ja    = é n ṣuḫḫu kuzbi dabābu râmu alkamma tib(i) ina pānīja 2 šá-api-ir a ḫa-za-nu lu-ud-du-bub-kam-ma cṣe-e-ḫi c lu-šá-an-ni-kam-ma    = šāpir (u) ḫazannu luddubukamma ṣêḫī lušannikamma 3a dib-bu-ú-aa ki-ma bGIŠ°.ḪAŠḪURb cli-im-qu-túc ina UGU lìb-bi-ka TE.ÉN    = dibbūʾa kīma ḫašḫuri limqutū ina muḫḫi libbīka t e.én 4a DÙ.DÙ.BI ki-i ina IGI NUN bte-ru-bub    = d ù. dù . bi kī ina pān rubê terrubu 5 ÉN an-nitaa 3-šú bKI ra-man-ni-kab ŠID-nuc-ma dana IGI NUN KU4d NUN        ei-ḫad-di-kae    = šipta annīta šalāšīšu itti ramannīka tamannuma ana pān rubê terrub       rubû iḫaddika Variants: 1. a -bu J | b -ba P || 2. a -pir P | b -ba- P | c ṣu-ú-ḫu P || 3. a da?-ba°bi °? x P, = dabābī (?) x | b ḫa-áš-ḫu-UD P | c lim-qut(u) P || 4. a DIŠ KI.MIN KI.MIN ins J, = šumma ki. min ki. min | b [DU]-ku P, = [talla]ku || 5. a om J | b om P | c om P | d om P | e NUN šá-a-šú iḫ-di ?-ka? P, = rubû šâšu iḫdika (?). O Smile of charm, o talk and love, come to me and rise before me! O Governor and Mayor, let me talk to you and relate to you my smiling. May my talking be as much to your liking as an apple!

Dabābu and dibbū hint at Ego’s amorous talk disguising a convincing plea; his rendezvous with the Prince is fancied as a flirtation. The tertium comparationis would be the “sweetness,” obviously a desirable state of being, shared in common by his alluring speech and a ripe apple. Fruit metaphors abound in the Love Lyrics and their erotic implications, at least the apple’s, are well-established; 21 the verb tebû can also be taken in a sexual sense. 19.  An added motive for Ego to lay emphasis on his fine clothing might be to bring about in anticipation his acquittal and to commend a favorable decision to the Prince. It has been surmised that the changing of dirty clothes for clean ones may have been an act of legal symbolism celebrating the accused’s discharge of prosecution and the prisoner’s release from jail: Frymer, “Nungal-Hymn,” 85–87; the then still unpublished text she refers to in n. 12 has been published by Sjöberg as Text 5 in “Miscellaneous Sumerian Texts I,” Orientalia Suecana 23/24 (1974) 159–77; it would link these spells to those that have Ego partake in a banquet scene. For comparison, Psalm 23 and Zechariah 3 come to mind; the latter, however, might just be an instance of a Hebrew prophet’s indulging in ad hoc symbolism. 20.  CAD Ṣ, 65, ṣâḫu a. 2′ ‘to be alluring, to act coquettishly, to entice, to attract’. 21.  R. Biggs, Šà.zi.ga: Ancient Mesopotamian Potency Incantations (TCS 2; Locust Valley, NY: Augustin, 1967) 70–71, editing KAR 61; see esp. p.71 ad line 2; also Lambert, “Devotion,” 27 with nn. 16–17.

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Now that the “smile of ajjaru” has turned out to occur in alliance with sex-appeal and a mood for love, have we come any closer to the precise meaning of our ajjaru? If a meaning ‘young man’ is maintained for it, one might argue for an adolescent in his prime, at the age of courting, as its more specific meaning. In support of this hypothesis, it is worth recalling the synomym list Malku-šarru, for in addition to eṭlu and zikaru it records mutu and māru as equivalents of ajjaru. 22 At this point, the famous Catalogue of Hymns and Songs (KAR 158) comes to mind, as a fair number of its love lyrics incipits, which make up the greater part of the seventh column, use the māru vocable in its pregnant meaning ‘darling, lover’. Could the Malku-šarru lexicographer have had in mind this special meaning? At any rate, some of these incipit lines do not sound unlike the pair of Egalkura incantations we just heard: •  aṣīḫkum-man māru māru (vii, 41), ‘I would have smiled to/flirted with you, darling, darling’ •  attā māru rāʾimu dādīni (vii, 29), ‘You, darling who loves our caressing’ •  kē ṣīḫākuma ana naḫši (vii, 7), ‘When I (fem.) was smiling to/flirting with (my) sweetheart (masc.)

Interestingly, Malku-šarru has the ajjaru vocable closely followed by entries that have to do with wooing (erēšu) and wedding (root ḪŠD/ḪDŠ). 23 Is it far-fetched to ponder the possibility that a PaRRāS-pattern underlies the noun and to consider the ajjāru based on it identical with ḫajjāru, which in turn is to ḫāw/ʾiru as, for instance, ḫajjāṭu is to ḫāʾiṭu? 24 All things considered, ‘young man courting/wooing,’ ‘suitor’ or some such meaning for ajjaru B would seem to fit the context of the post-CAD occurrences of the noun which the Late Uruk texts have yielded, both the Egalkura incantation and the one accompanying the Narām/Rīm-Sîn necklace, and to do so perfectly well. The case of the Ebabbar Cylinder would join in as Dritter im Bund, if its a-a-ri is taken to be singular and to refer to Shamash: the god visiting his abode in the manner of a valiant lover in order to consummate the sacred marriage with his spouse could have formed the background that inspired the inscription to apply the simile in a scene of hailing welcome. As a result, CAD ajaru B would have to be canceled and its references be subsumed under CAD ajaru D. 25 However, yet another solution to the problem can be offered—one, indeed, that presents itself cogently and may settle the case. It comes from a line of text on the large fragment BM 103385, making this the third document to contain the simile kīma ajjari riāšu. 26 The cuneiform piece forms the lower half of a six-column tablet 22.  Now available in the comprehensive edition by I. Hrůša, Die akkadische Synonymenliste malkušarru: Eine Textedition mit Übersetzung und Kommentar (AOAT 50; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2010). Malku-šarru I, 168: ajjaru = eṭlu, I, 169: mūtu = eṭlu; Explicit malku-šarru, I, 63–66: zikru / ajjaru / mutu / ajjalu = zik[aru], I, 186: ajjaru = māru. 23.  Malku-šarru I, 167–70: muʾāru / ajjaru / mutu / muraššû = eṭlu, 171: ērišu = ḫāʾiru, 172A: ḫadaššû = ḫaššāšu, 172B: ḫadaššūtu = ḫašā[du], 173A–173B: ḫadaššû / ḫadaššūtu = kallatu. 24. See Explicit malku-šarru, I, 168–69: ēri[šu] / ḫajjāru = ḫāʾi[ru]. 25. CAD, ajjaru D = Hrůša, ajjaru III. In his commentary on the ajjaru entries quoted in the preceding footnotes, Hrůša points to an Ekalte document alleged to have yielded the first and so far only contextual occurrence of ajjaru, ‘young man’; it mentions PN a-bi a-a-re-e ḫa-ta-a-i-mi, ‘PN, Vater der verschwägerten? jungen Männer’ (Synonymenliste malku-šarru, 205). 26. It is publicly accessible through the BM online database http://www.britishmuseum.org/research.aspx. I. Finkel studied it decades ago, and he presumed it to join an OI fragment supplementing

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containing Egalkura and related incantations with the appurtenant rubrics and rituals. The six-column tablet will serve as the matrix for editing the Egalkura corpus as a whole. Each incantation inscribed on it has a rubric defining its type. Four such rubrics provide a formal criterion as to whether or not any given incantation should be included in the edition: •  k a .inim . ma é. g al-ku4.ra, by far the commonest, incidentally with ša ḫūd-pānī added •  k a .inim . ma šu -du8. a. kám •  k a .inim. ma ig i. bi-ḫ ú l. la. ke4 / ana āmir (ī)šu ana pānīšu ana ḫadê •  ka.inim.ma šúr-ḫun.gá / uzzi nuḫḫi, ‘appeasing anger’ / ‘calming down sexual excitement’

Unfortunately, our anchor tablet is very poorly preserved, with large portions of text rubbed or damaged otherwise. It took me quite an effort to add some dozens of lines to those Finkel had managed to read in the past and to fill in about as many of the spots he had left blank in these. The line that concerns us here is a case in point. It forms the conclusion of an ointment incantation. Faint though they are, the signs making up the simile leave no doubt about how to read them, which is: Text 9a Source: M (BM 103385, unpub.), v, 13 GIM °ITU.GUD ri-i-šá-⟨šú?⟩ Rejoice ⟨over him?⟩ like (over/in) the month of Iyyar! 27

At last, then, we have a clue to put ajaru B in its proper place lexically, for the logographic writing ITU.GUD makes unambiguous reference to the name of the second month Iyyar, CAD A/1, 230, ajaru C. Less positivist skeptics might readily discard this piece of evidence as an idiosyncrasy of some copyist who felt free to replace a syllabically written a-a-ri with the logogram for the month name, either on purpose in an act of reinterpretation of a vocable he failed to understand or unintentionally because, of the several ajjaru homophones, the one meaning Iyyar is the commonest (lectio facilior). Let us, however, give the oldest witness to testify to our simile some credit and first ask: Why a merry Iyyar, of all months? Several Egalkura texts may provide an explanation. The Egalkura incantation, of which the just quoted line makes part, was found nearly completely lost by the ancient scribe: a major part of the upper half as a result. The tablet is of Assur provenance. Finkel has done further groundbreaking work on the Egalkura texts by identifying a dozen additional manuscripts in the BM collections, mere fragments as a matter of fact, with the exception of one complete masterpiece of Late Babylonian date. The provisional results of his labor and expertise he kindly put at my disposal for the purpose of providing an up-to-date edition of the complete Egalkura text corpus, which has expanded into more than twice its volume since the days of Ebeling. Its publication is projected for 2014; for the time being, anyone interested will profit from M. Klan, Als das Wünschen noch geholfen hat oder: wie man in Mesopotamien Karriere machte. Eine Untersuchung zur ‘dunklen Seite’ der akkadischen Beschwörungsliteratur des 1. Jt. v. Chr. (Hamburg: Diplomica, 2007), which, however, is limited in its scope drawing upon the published texts only and treating these from a primarily anthropological point of view; it does not consider any unpublished material. 27.  Unless it is either rīšā or rīša(m), the pronominal suffix -šú would have been omitted by the scribe on account of haplography, as the next sign is ÉN, which looks like ŠÚ+AN.

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H enry S tadhouders Text 9b Source: M (BM 103385, unpub.), v, 12–15 1

É[N Ì]+GIŠ bal-ti ḫe-pí eš-šú    = é[n ša]man bālti ḫepi eššu 2 ina [K]U4? NENNI A NENNI GIM °ITU.GUD ri-i-šá-⟨šú?⟩ ÉN    = ina [er]ēb? annanna mār annanna kīma Ajjari rīšā⟨šu?⟩ én 3 KA.INIM.MA É.GAL-KU4.RA    = k a .in im. ma é. g al-ku4. r a 4 DÙ.DÙ.BI ina UGU Ì DU10 ÉN °3-šú ŠID-ma IGI.MEŠ-ka EŠ-aš-ma KI.MIN    = d ù. dù . bi ina muḫḫi šamni ṭābi šipta šalāšīšu tamannuma pānīka    tapaššašma ki. min Incan[tation: . . . anointed with] the oil of pride/dignity recent break When NN son of NN enters?, rejoice ⟨over him?⟩ like over/in the month Iyyār! Incantation.

Fortunately, what has been preserved is enough to observe a link between the joy of Iyyar and ointment or perfumed oil, šamnu, which Ego is instructed to apply, the way he is many times in the Egalkura rituals. Nature and provenance of the ointment here qualified by the genitive bālti are disclosed by the incantation that precedes this ill-preserved one on the tablet: Text 10 Source: M (BM 103385, unpub.), v, 6–11 1

ÉN Ì bal-ti p[a-á]š-šá-ku Ì+GIŠ Ì°.[SAG p]a-nu-u-°a pa-áš-šú    = é[n šaman bā]lti p[aš]šāku šamna r[ūšta p]ānūʾa paššū 2 man-nu? x x [x]-ka Ì bal-ti pa-áš-šá-ta Ì+GIŠ Ì.SAG    = mannu? xx[x]ka šaman bālti paššāta šamna rūšta 3 IGI.MEŠ-k[a pa]-áš°-šú Ì bal-ti šá dna-na-a° Ì+GIŠ Ì.SAG    = pānūk[a pa]ššū šaman bālti ša Nanāja šamna rūšta 4 ša° °dzer-pa-ni-tum ÉN    = ša Zērpānītum én 5 KA.INIM.MA É.GAL-KU4.RA    = k a ʾ in im. ma é. g al-ku4-r a 6DÙ.DÙ.BI É[N an-ni-t]am ana UGU Ì DU ŠED-ma IGI.MEŠ-ka EŠ-aš-ma 10  KI.MIN    = d ù. dù . bi šipta annīta ana muḫḫi šamni ṭābi tamannuma pānīka      tapaššašma ki. min Incantation: I am [anoint]ed with oil of pride, my [f]ace is anointed with first [quality] oil. [How come? . . . ] you are anointed with oil of pride, your face is anointed with first quality oil? With the oil of pride of Nanāya, the first quality oil of Zerpanitum! Incantation.

The ointment thus turns out to be Nanāya’s, which makes it an utterly feminine thing to use; so would be the rūštu oil alleged to be Ṣarpanītu’s. The qualifier bālti would convey two meanings at the same time: as a genitive of subject or possession, it refers to Nanāya’s sexuality; as a genitive of object, it is intended to conjure up Ego’s dignity or pride. 28 As a matter of fact, quite a few Egalkura incantations 28. ‘Pubic parts’ is what bāš/ltu literally designates. To illustrate this kind of “punning” on the multiple meanings a word can have at the same time, the famous opening lines of the Gilgamesh Epic

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make it their special aim to help Ego gain or regain bāltu ‘dignity.’ Again, a key word is being used in an ambiguous way, and wilfully so, in the very nature of magical manipulation. By the same token, the recurrent theme of calming down the anger, uzzu, of one’s adversary or that of the Prince, for that matter, may be suspected to involve an ambiguity of the sort, for uzzu, basically having the neutral meaning ‘arousal’, ‘mania’, can denote sexual arousal or, rather, sexual frenzy as well. 29 To the magical mind operative in Egalkura, appeasing anger becomes tantamount to quenching sexual arousal; the former can be conceived of in terms of the latter; the tools that bring about calmness of the flesh in an over-excited lover will of necessity put an angry mind at ease as well. J. Westenholz has pointed to analogies with this peculiar aspect of magical language, as observed in love poetry. 30 At work in the Babylonian mind here is what we might call the logic of polysemia, which also underlies their divinatory systems—the classic cases of kakku and erištu in extispicy, for instance—and etymoligizing methods of exegesis—as seen in the Names of Marduk and Names of Esangila texts. 31 may be called to mind as one example out of many: the nagbu which the hero is boasting to have explored simultaneously denotes ‘the deep,’ i.e., the apsû he had dived into, and ‘all things,’ i.e., everything a man can possibly experience and discover during his mortal life in this world; in either sense, nagbu has made him all-knowing, which is what the “pun” is all about. See also RlA, “Nackte Göttin” §2. 29.  No doubt, Foster rightly puts into focus the sexual aspect that uzzum has in the three Isin Love Charms lines 78–99, which each have for their incipit: uzzum uzzum, ‘Arousal, arousal!’ and for their refrain šeḫiṭ uzzum ša Nanāya, ‘Spring, O arousal of Nanāya!’; see B. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1993) 144, translating the text edited by C. Wilcke, “Liebesbeschwörungen aus Isin,” ZA 75 (1985) 188–209. It is k a . i n i m . m a k i . á g . g á . k a m how their rubrics read and they are supposed to be sung by the woman in love to incite her lover’s desire; the šaḫāṭu imperative šeḫiṭ is certainly meant to convey the verb’s notion ‘to mount’, with reference to mating. For the semantic phenomenon that “ ‘Arousal’ may refer to the onset of sexual desire or anger” Foster refers to Waldman, who lucidly observed the same correlation for some Biblical Hebrew verbs, as becomes apparent in the Book of Canticles (Foster, Before the Muses, 123; N. Waldman, “A Note on Canticles 4:9,” JBL 89 [1970] 215–17). The latter brings Akkadian labābu, ‘to be enraged’, and Late Hebrew ‫ לבב‬to bear on Cant 4:9 ‫לּב ְַב ָּתנִי‬, ִ suggesting “that a semantic development has taken place in the Hebrew from a sense of ‘rage’ or ‘be aroused to fury’ to one of ‘be aroused sexually’.” Waldman is evidently ascribing this sense to a presupposed *Qal stem of the root ‫לבב‬, which, however, is not actually present in the biblical record; the Piel form ‫ ִלּב ְַב ָּתנִי‬must have factitive meaning ‘You have aroused my desire’. In addition, he juxtaposes Akkadian ezēzu and Hebrew ‫ עזז‬to clarify—less convincingly—Cant 8:6 ‫הבָה‬ ֲ ‫ ַעּזָה ַא‬, ‘Love is intense’, as well as Akkadian raʾābu and Hebrew ‫ רהב‬to give an apt explanation of Cant 6:5 ‫ה ְר ִהי ֻבנִי‬, ִ ‘(Your eyes) have excited me’. The analogy with the Greek semantics of ὀργή ‘passion, wrath’ and ὀργάω ‘swell with lust, be excited’, to which he points I would like to supplement with an interesting parallel from the early Middle Dutch vernacular of the mystic Hadewijch, a poetress in the special field of Love Mysticism, who shaped for herself the noun orewoet for the very purpose of expressing the passionate love of the Soul seeking unison with God the way bride and groom yearn to become one flesh. The component woet is the current word for ‘anger, rage’; its German cognate is Wut. What the element ore- might stand for has always been a moot question; it has been believed to have the sense of ‘arch-’, normally oer- in Dutch, German ur-. Deeply inspired by the Song of Songs, this Muse of God sings about the orewoet der minne, ‘the fury of love’ in a language that stands out for its erotically colored metaphors and figures. 30.  J. Westenholz, “Metaphorical Language in the Poetry of Love,” in La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancien (Actes RAI 38; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991) 381–387; esp. p. 387. 31.  See the admirably complete overview of the scholarly debate and the vast literature on this subject matter given by Noegel, Nocturnal Ciphers, chap. 1 “Introduction,” which goes far beyond oneirology proper; of special interest for our topic are: p. 10 with n. 23; p. 11 with n. 29; pp. 23–24 with n. 83; p. 25; p. 36 with n. 127; pp. 38–43; p. 54.

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A strong vein of eroticism thus appears to run through the Egalkura vernacular; indeed, a purely imaginative thing not recognized by outside beholders, evoked by figurative speech and metaphorical language in secrecy, yet, for the one to practise the arcane magic all too real in its actual effect: persuasion. Little wonder the goddess Nanāya figures prominently in these texts, inasmuch as she has all-surpassing powers to persuade, thanks to her irresistible sex-appeal and erotic expertise. 32 From the following Egalkura text, we nicely learn how she goes about her delicate job, becoming a role-model for Ego in persuading a person invested with power, who tends to be capricious and an irascible type of character: Text 11 Sources: J (BM 47457, unpub.), 1–14; Q (77263 (unpub.), 6′–10′ 1

ÉN pa-áš-šak Ì.GIŠ ŠIM.GIG KU4-ub ana É.GAL šá diš-tar DÙ-uš ana   rama-ni-šú    = é n: paššāk šaman kanakti errub ana ekalli ša Ištar īpuš(u) ana ramānīšu 2 ḫi-iš-ti i-pu-šú ana DAM-šú dna-na-a TA AN-e ú-še-ri-du ana ḫi-du-ut ra-man-šú    = ḫīšti īpušu ana mūtīšu Nanāja ultu šamê ušēridu ana ḫidût ramān(ī)šu 3 ana-ku ina qí-bit dna-na-a be-let ḪI.LI u ra-a-mu Ì.GIŠ a⟨bal⟩-ti a šá be-let  DINGIR.MEŠ pa-áš-šak!b    = anāku ina qibīt Nanāja bēlet kuzbi u râmu šaman ⟨bal⟩ti ša bēlet ilī       paššāk 4 a-°mur-an-ni-ma NUN ḫi-da-a    = amurannima rubû ḫidâ 5 man-za-zi É.GAL la° ta-še-eb-bi-ma lál-aja    = manzazi ekalli lā tašebbima lalâja 6 GIŠ.IG u asik-ku-rua a-°na pa-°ni°-ja lū ḫa-da-tu-nu    = daltu u sikkūru ana pānīja lū ḫadâtunu 7 a-di i-ir-ru-bu ù °uṣ-ṣa-aʾ a-na e-piš °pi a-ja lu-ú pu-uq-qa    = adi irrubu u uṣṣâʾ ana epiš pîja lū puqqā 8 ina °qí-bit iq-bu-°ú dNIN-É.GAL TE.ÉN a    = ina qibīt iqbû Bēlet-ekallim te. é n 9 AK.AK.BI Ì.GIŠ ŠIM.GIG a tu-raq-qu    = a k .ak. bi šaman kanakti turaqqu 10 NÍG.NA ŠIM.LI ina UGU-ḫi pe-en-du GIŠ.KIŠA GAR-ana    = nignakka burāša ina muḫḫi pēndu ašāgi tašakkan 11 ÉN an-nit(a) 3-šú °a-°na Ì.GIŠ ŠIM.GIG ŠID-nu    = šipta annīta šalāšīšu ana šaman kanakti tamannu 12 a-di la NÍG.NA ŠUK.aḪ[I.Aa-s]u° ú-qa-at-tu-ú    = adi lā nignakku kurummassu uqattû 13ul-tu lìb-bi NÍG.NA TI-qí a[na Š]À Ì.GI[Š Š]IM.GIG ḪI.ḪI-ma IGI-ka ŠÉŠ-ma    = ultu libbi nignakki teleqqi a[na lib]bi šam[an ka]nakti taballalma       pānīka tapaššašma 14a-na NITA ù MUNUS° °a°-°mir °-šú ana IG[I-š]ú ḫa-di-i    = ana zikari u sinništi āmiršu ana pān[īš]u ḫadî 15a-mir-ru li-iṣ-ṣur KI MÚL.AB.SÍN DÙ-uš SILIM-ima    = āmiru liṣṣur qaqqar múl.absin inneppuš išallim

32.  RlA, “Nanaja”; a detailed study on the goddess is J. Westenholz, “Nanaya: Lady of Mystery,” in Sumerian Gods and Their Representations (Groningen: Styx, 1997) 57–84.

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Variants: 3. a or TI = balāṭi ? | b –KA on tablet J || 6. a GIŠ.SAG.KUL Q || 7. a KA- Q || 8. after a dividing line a subscript line [KA.INIM.MA x x ] SIG5tim ins Q, = [ka. in im. ma xx ] damiqtim || 9. a ina mu-šá-lu ins Q, = ina mušālu || 10. a om Q || 12. a om Q || 15. a -mi J. 1

Incantation: Anointed with kanaktu-oil I am about to enter the Palace, (the oil) which Ishtar (or: the Goddess) prepared for herself, 2the ḫīštu-oil Nanāya prepared for her husband and brought down from heaven to (cause) pleasure over herself. 3At the behest of Nanāya, Lady of charm and love, I, too, am anointed with the oil of ⟨pri⟩de (or: of life?) of the Mistress of the gods. 4Look at me, Prince, be pleased with me. 5Palace courtier, fail to become sated with my attractiveness. 6Door and bolt, be glad to see me. 7Let (people) be attentive to what I have to say between my entrance and exit. 8At the order pronounced by Bēletekallim (or: Ninegal)!  33 ( . . . )

Line 2 demands our keen attention: the genitive ramān(ī)šu complementing ḫidût is one of object: her consort’s pleasure over the way the ointment makes her look and smell is what the lady is after so as to get things her way, once she has brought him in the mood for love. She wants his sensual pleasure over her to take effect in his willingly granting her whatever she is going to request, either for herself or for those who have invoked her to intercede with the male god on their behalf. This is how we are entitled to contextualize the love scene alluded to here; details are wellknown from prayers, love lyrics, and mythology that stage a goddess entreating her husband when she is about to join him in bed. 34 By the same token, Ego will achieve persuasion using the goddess’s tested tools and tricks. I would like to point to a similar pattern of grammar involving the noun ḫidûtu for further argument. It is embedded in the rubric attached to various stone lists, reading in its fullest form: Text 12 (Schuster, Steine, 176; “Kette 224”) X abnāt ḫidûti qabê šemê magāri X stones to (bring about) pleasure/willingness/an agreeable mood (in others toward oneself) having one’s requests listened to and granted. 35

The persuasive eroticism they share would also explain why Egalkura and love rituals often happen to be mentioned in the same breath, e.g., by the so-called Almanac: 33.  The mentioning of doors and locks being happy, Ego’s exit on having spoken, and dNIN-É.GAL siding with him may allude to the dark side of the Palace as a place where the risk of imprisonment lurks for those who enter. See above, n. 14. 34.  M. Nissinen, “Love Lyrics of Nabû and Tašmetu: An Assyrian Song of Songs?” in “Und Mose schrieb dieses Lied auf”: Fs. O. Loretz (AOAT 250; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1998) 585–634, esp. p. 597 with n. 51. 35.  Rather so than ‘X stones for the joy of having one’s requests listened to and granted’, although a variant ḫi-du-UD exists, which one might interpret as indicating a construct state ḫidût followed by qabê, etc., as a genitive of object, instead of ḫi-du-tú. Jewelry is popular for having alluring and persuasive powers in love poetry; for instance, Catalogue of Hymns and Songs KAR 158, vii, 43–44: râmka lū ṣurru / ṣīḫātūka lū ḫurāṣu, ‘Your loving is truly obsidian, your smiles/flirtations are really gold’. Westenholz, “Nanāya,” deals with this theme thoroughly. See also above, Text 4.

318

H enry S tadhouders Text 13 (STT 300, 11) ina ITI.GUD u ITI.SIG4 KI.ÁG É.GAL.KU4.RA TA U4.1.KÁM EN U4.[x.KÁM x   x] DÍM-ma AL.SILIM    = ina Ajjaru u Simānu râmu é. g al -ku4.ra ištu U4.1.KÁM adi U4.[x.KÁM      x x] inneppušma išallim In the months of Iyyar and Siwan, love magic and Egalkura will be successfully performed from the first through the [xth day x x].

Another concomitance of the sort can be observed in line 14 of Text 11, which should be taken for a rubric that has been incorporated into the section it had previously been attached to: For the purpose of (kindling love in a woman for) a man and (in a man for) a woman; (and/or) in order that the one who meets him is glad to see him / shows himself agreeable to him.

The mythologeme of the goddess seductively talking round her spouse and lord is a reflex of its enactment as an episode of what scholars usually call the Sacred Marriage Ritual or, with a neutral term, theogamy, Akkadian ḫašādu. Nanāya-Tašmētu and Nabû (Muati) celebrated theirs in the month of Iyyar. 36 The mere date would have instilled a predilection for the second month in the Egalkura mind-set. Three out of a total of four known instances of our merry ajjaru occur in this corpus of texts after all. The joy of Iyyar, then, would have been linked up with the festivities celebrating the divine love and would have been a happy event for everybody to join in, but of special interest to an Egalkura insider on account of its eroticism. The fourth one, in the Ebabbar Cylinder hailing Shamash, would fit the overall picture, if his Marriage Festival is in the background, for it too happened to take place in Iyyar. In his most recent essay on the theogamy theme, M. Nissinen is quite assertive in ascribing a character of public enthusiasm for love and merrymaking to these festivities and their month. 37 One text stands out as prime evidence: 36.  E. Matsushima, “Le Rituel Hiérogamique de Nabû” (ASJ 9 [1987] 131–75) 162 sub 2; from the 4th through the 11th in Assyria; the calendar text from Babylonia (SBH VIII) schedules the festivity episodes in different days but underscores Iyyar as the month for it, qualifying this month as ‘that of Ningirsu, Enlil’s stalwart farmer, when the ploughing oxen are made ready and the field plots are broken up’ (ii, 12–13). Matsushima’s is still the basic philological study on this god’s hierogamy, although it has partially been superseded by M. Nissinen, “Love Lyrics.” A recent study of the Mesopotamian hierogamies and divine love songs is incorporated in the same author’s essay, “Song of Songs and Sacred Marriage,” in Sacred Marriages: The Divine-Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008) 173–218; esp. pp. 201–12 are important for the Assyriologist for the exhaustive overviews of earlier studies and the pertinent Akkadian sources. The Late Babylonian testimonies for Iyyar as the festal month of Nabû and Nanāya have been revisited by M. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practice (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 63 with nn. 268–69, p. 68 with nn. 322–24, pp. 70–71, p. 90. See also Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 309–12. 37.  Nissinen, “Song of Songs and Sacred Marriage,” 207–8: “they (i.e., love poetry and rituals of divine love documents) confirm the understanding of sacred marriage as a ritual of divine love that brings heavenly blessings and favor upon the king and the people. In many of them, the goddess assumes a central role as the intercessor and mediator between the gods and the kings. (. . .) The texts indicate that huge sacrificial meals were an essential part of these rituals, which were not confined to temples. The processions of the gods through the streets of the cities were certainly an occasion for the public to fête

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Text 14 SAA 3, Nr. 10 ( = STT 87), Blessing for the City of Assur rev. 4’-12’ 4–7

ana PNs ikarrabū

8

ūmu lismu ša Nabû ūmu [ša] Ajjaru urḫu ṭābu 10 imn[ukkunu] šumēlukkunu sūq ālīšu ana etēqi 11 purussê ā[li an]a parāsi bīt nērubu nuḫšu kuzbu 12 sūq nētiqu iriāš ālu 9

‘They greet persons (i.e., Esarhaddon’s [son]s and [offsp]ring, the craftsmen, the city’s elders) saying: “On the day of the Run of Nabû —a day of Iyyar, the month favorable for traversing the street(s) of the city on [your] right and on your left and for deciding the city’s affairs— there is wealth and prosperity (in) whichever house we enter, the city rejoices wherever we cross a street.” ’

Strictly speaking, the rejoicing mentioned in the last line is for the 11th of Iyyar only; however, since the Run of Nabû concludes the nuptial week forming its climax, it would seem reasonable to assume that the preceding days shared in the revelry also. 38 The obverse of the Blessing for the City of Assur mentions riāšu two or three times (lines 4, 5(?), 21) and ḫadû twice (lines 15, 16); if this part were to turn out to be about Iyyar, too, it would confirm that the month indeed was one of mirth. The overall favorable (and happy?) character of Iyyar has been known for a long time through the famous letter of Adadšumuṣur: Text 15 SAA 10, Nr. 207, 12–17 12lēlûni 13ajjaru

elê

17ina

urḫu ṭābu šū 14ūmūšu ṭābūtu maʾda 15(. . .) 16ṭāba adanniš ana pān šarri bēlīja

Let them (i.e., PN and PN2) appear (now), for Iyyar is a favorable month, its days are most auspicious. (. . .) It is most favorable (for them) to appear before the king my lord.

Notice the phrase ana elê ina pān šarri bēlīja, which might indicate a link to Egal­ kura in particular. Also in praise of Iyyar, with even more enthusiasm, is a hemerology. After enumerating ample proof of Ajjaru’s many favorable and happy days it concludes: Text 16 SAA 8, Nr. 231, rev., 8–14 8it u.g ud .s i. sá

Simānu

Jēru arḫu šutēšur kalāma (. . .) 12urḫu ṭābu ša adanniš šū rēš Šabāṭu urḫu šū ša? rēš ? 14ša maʾdūti

13Tašrîtu

the love of the gods, and in Hellenistic Uruk, people are said to have celebrated the feast in their homes. (. . .) This, however, hardly deprived them (i.e., the average persons who took part in the (. . .) popular festivals) of the joy of singing songs of love, both divine and human, in the same breath.” Nissinen is joining Cooper here in the latter’s hypothesis that things would have happened this way in the course of the festival. 38.  Run of Nabû: SAA 13, Nr. 70: 4th day of Iyyar: Nabû and Tašmētu enter the bed-room; 5th– 10th: the divine couple stays there; 11th: Nabû comes out disconnected from his daise (GÌR-šú ipaššar), going to slay buffaloes (which Jacobsen, “Religious Drama in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Unity and Diversity [Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1975] 75–76 considers to have been the dramatic enactment of a theomachic episode).

320

H enry S tadhouders i t u . g u d . s i.sá is Jēru (= Ajjaru), the month to get everything ready. (. . .) It is a most favorable month indeed, having priority over Siwan, Tišri and Šebat; that month has priority? over (all) the others.

Finally, in view of the traditional role of Iyyar as the month that ushers in the agricultural season, for which it became Ningirsu-Ninurta’s, it may well have been the public joy accompanying this new start that originally gave the month its cheerful character. Its name-giver the ezem-gu4-si.sù officially signaled that the farming had begun. It would have been the principal festival of the month during Ur III and Old Babylonian (Nippur) times. Sumerian compositions reflecting the ceremonies do indeed report that their performance caused joy and happiness. 39 It is hard to decide whether the comparison to the merry month regards the subject or the indirect object of riāšu. If it is the subject, the month’s name would stand metonymically for the merrymakers. In support of a reference to the object, on the other hand, the following Egalkura Spell might be quoted for its third line: Text 17 Sources: B (KAR 237), 17–22; C (KAR 238), 1–6; M (BM 103385, unpub.), v, 16–19 1

ÉN.aÉ.NU.RUa šu-muḫ-an-ni MINb šu-uš-cqa-anc-ni MINd    = é n. é. n u . r u šummuḫanni min šušqânni [min] 2 Ì+GIŠ Ì+GIŠ a. dna-na-aa b[Ì]+GIŠ dÉ-ab ap-pa-šiš c-ka    = šamnu šaman Nanāja šaman Ea appašiška 3a Ì+GIŠa GIM dsin b[cli-i]ḫ!.c-da-a GIMb dUTU lid-ri-šá    = šamnu kīma Sîn liḫdâ kīma Šamaš lirīša 4 GIMa b.diš-tar b šá še-re-e-tu4 c.d    = kīma Ištar ša šērētu 5a di-na šáb la na-šu-uc dina ŠUII-jad liš-kuna    = dīna ša lā našû ina qātēja liškun 6 DÙ.DÙ.BI ÉN an-ni-tam 7-šú inaa UGU Ì DU10.GA ŠID-nu-ma    = d ù. dù . bi šipta annītam sebîšu ina muḫḫi šamni ṭābi tamannuma 7a I[GI.MEŠ]-ka ŠUII.MEŠ-ka ŠÉ[Š-m]a a-mir-ka ḫa-di-kaa    = p[ānī]ka qātīka tapaš[šaš]ma āmirka ḫadika Variants: 1. a om M | b om BM | c -qanan- B | d [MIN MIN]? B || 2. a dna!-na!-a! C; om B | b om M | c -ši-iš- B || 3. a om CM | b om C | c ḫi- M | d om M || 4. a k[i-m]a? C | b dXV M | c -tú C | d x x x ins C(M?) || 5. a x x x x x x x °mu-du-u M, = x x x x x x x mūdû | b om? C | c -ú C | d a-na qa-ti-ja C || 6. a [i/a-n]a C || 7. a om B. Enuru incantation. It has made me voluptuous, it has made me voluptuous, it has exalted me, it has exalted me. Oil, Oil of Nanāya, Oil of Ea, I have anointed myself with you. Oil, may he be as pleased with me as with Sin, may he rejoice over me like over Shamash. May he bestow on me a final? verdict like the Venus of dawn. 39. Cohen, Cultic Calendars, 83–92, esp. 91, the quotation from Lipit-Eshtar and the Plow (LipitEshtar F ): “My king, I want to praise the leading oxen of the plow: ‘(. . .) Your step, oxen, rejoices the people, you have been given strength to work!’ The oxen you guide, Lipit-Ištar, and your song is a pleasure.” The Nippur festivities toward the end of the 2nd month commemorating Ninurta’s return and exaltation would have greatly added to this month’s mirth, all the more so as it is likely that they would have culminated in the god’s hierogamy; see the references by V. Emelianov, “From gu4-si-su3 to GU4. AN.NA (TAURUS)” (in Intellectual Life of the Ancient Near East. 43rd RAI; Prague 1996, Prague: Oriental Institute, 1998, 141–46), 143.

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However, neither of these alternatives would be applicable and an escape from the dilemma would thus offer itself should we resort to the assumption that the adverbial ina Ajjari is encapsulated in the phrase kīma Ajjari, so that kīma Ajjari riāšu (+ dative of person) = *kīma ina Ajjari riāšu (+ dative of person) ‘to rejoice (over somebody) like (people customarily do) in Iyyar’. In the instance of the phrase ṣūḫAjjari ‘(I am performing) the laughing/ merrymaking/ flirtations of Iyyār’ (Text 6), however, it would seem most appropriate to opt for a genitive indicating belonging to (gen. possessivus) or cause (gen. auctoris), although one of object cannot be totally ruled out. Although Egalkura and related proceedings would indeed seem to have a predilection for the month Iyyar, this is far from exclusive. The Babylonian Almanac states: Text 18 (STT 300) 7

Ajjaru, 10th day: šu.du8.a; ina ITI.GUD u ITI.SIG4 KI.ÁG É.GAL.KU4.RA TA U4.1.KÁM EN U4.[30?.KÁM   x x] DÍM-ma AL.SILIM    = ina Ajjaru u Simānu râmu é. g al -ku4.ra ištu U4.1.KÁM adi U4.[x.KÁM      x x] inneppušma išallim 11

In the months of Iyyar and Siwan Love (Magic) and Egalkura will be successfully performed from the first through the [x-th day x x]. 40

The extant Egalkura rituals themselves do nowhere prescribe any specific time or term for their performance. The matter of who is the subject of riāšu kīma ajjari in contexts indisputedly Egalkura remains to be examined. Unfortunately, our prime witness M (BM 103385), v, 13 proves open to more than one explanation in determining the subject, as well as the object of its imperative ri-i-šá-⟨šú?⟩: •  rīšā⟨šu?⟩, ‘rejoice ⟨over him?⟩!’ the plural may refer to a presupposed nišū or the Palace’s gates and their parts •  rīša⟨ššu⟩, ‘rejoice ⟨over him⟩!’ a singular must be taken to invite the Prince •  rīša, ‘rejoice over me!’ the Prince is being addressed

The -⟨šú⟩ needs to be supplemented regardless of the imperative’s number, should the line’s beginning indeed be restored ina KU4 = ina erēb- with annanna mār annanna as the infinitive’s third-person subject, since riāšu does not normally occur without its dative complement. The traces do allow for this restoration, which also is in smooth harmony with the other occurrences of the simile. 41 The third option is problematic, inasmuch as it would seem to require either simple jâši or the phrase ana jâši/ajjâši to be restored instead, whereas the traces are incompatible with either. Perhaps the circumstance that two more lines of the same column end in rīša, ‘rejoice over me!’ led the scribe to copy a less correct ri-i-šá in this instance as well. The first one of these occurs toward the end of the incomplete first incantation of 40.  Notice lines 9–10: Siwan, 10th day: KI.ÁG NITA ana MUNUS; 21th: KI.ÁG MUNUS ana NITA; 30th: KI.ÁG NITA ana MUNUS; line 16. ITI.KIN (Elūl) . . . U4.21.KÁM UD.DA.KÁM É.GAL.KU4.RA . . . BRM IV, 19: āmirka ana pānīka ana ḫadê : râši, in 8th (?) month. 41.  Obvious restorations, such as [K]I (= [it]ti), [a-n]a, or even [ana-k]u are compatible with the traces to the right of the narrow gap but not with those to the left, unless the latter are to be discarded as caused by damage; they do, however, positively look like two horizontal wedges.

322

H enry S tadhouders

this tablet’s fifth column, and like the rest making up this column it is concerned with anointing in order for Ego to stir pleasure in the Prince and gain his sympathy: Text 19 Source: M (BM 103385, unpub.), v, 2–5 2ki-i dsin

ḫi-da°-°a ki-i dšamaš ri-i°-°šá    = kī Sîn ḫidâ kī Šamaš rīša 3at-ta KI-ia ḫa-[d]u°-um-ma lu-u ḫa-da-ta    = attā ittīja ḫa[d]ûmma lū ḫadâta 4KA.INIM.MA É.[G]AL-KU .RA 4    = kaʾinim.ma é. g al-ku4. r a 5.DÙ.DÙ.BI ina UGU Ì DU ŠID-ma IGI.MEŠ-ka ŠUII.MEŠ-ka EŠ-aš-ma 10  KI.MIN    = d ù. dù . bi ina muḫḫi šamni ṭābi tamannuma pānīka qātīka tapaššašma       ki. min Be as pleased with me as with Sin, rejoice over me like over Shamash; as for you, may you be in a happy mood of gladness with me!

The second one is line 17 of this tablet’s fifth column, quoted above as line 3 of Text 17, which reads ḫidâ and rīša (masc. sg. imperative forms + first-person dative suffix) against the lectio potior liḫdâ and lirīša (third-person sg. precative forms + firstperson dative suffix), respectively, the Prince being the subject in either variant. A bonus worthy of concluding this essay is provided by a section of text that has hitherto escaped proper classification but can now be assigned its true nature of being an Egalkura incantation—one, indeed, which closely resembles those that form the fifth column of M (BM 103385). It is a section of STT 144, which reads as follows: 42 42.  E. Reiner, “Another Volume of Sultantepe Tablets” (JNES 26 [1967], 177–211) 184: “may be against Lamaštu, as those on the reverse are, if my restoration -°ki° at the end of lines 15′f. is correct.” Line 14′b is puzzling; the interpretation offered is a mere conjecture; see also Reiner’s comment. The Maqlû parallel (vii, 31–38)) she hints at has the second-person masc. sg. suffixes referring to the oil, addressed in the vocative, rather than the client; this part of the incantation stands apart as a Kult­ mittelbeschwörung, while the rest is directed to the client; differently: T. Abusch, “Blessing and Praise in Ancient Mesopotamian Incantations,” in: Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien: Festschrift für Claus Wilcke (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003) 4–5. Line 16′ becomes understandable when the following pair of Egalkura parallels is adduced for comparison (both of the i g i . b i - ḫ ú l . l a . k e4 subtype): IGI-ka Á.MEŠ-ka bir-ta a-ḫi-ka ŠÉŠ-ma = pānīka aḫīka birta-aḫīka tapaššašma (K [SpTU II, 24] 34); IGI-ki a-ḫi-ki u bi-rit a-ḫi-ki ŠÉŠ-ma = pānīki u aḫīki birit-aḫīki tapaššašma (K [SpTU II, 24] 14–15; -ki is for -ka). The Sultantepe copyist obviously skipped the 1st person pronominal suffix twice. The first incantation on the obverse lines 1′–13′ has a fair chance to be Egalkura, too, in view of such phrases as ana ṣabāt pîka (line 6′, referring to the the illicit magic of disabling an adversary’s speech, also known as k a . d i b . b i . d a/ kabiddidû) and, even more, lā taraʾʾubu (line 12′). On the assumption that the tablet is excerpts copied out of context, the incantation’s final line attā ittīja k i . m i n (13′) might indeed bring added support for this identity, should the k i . m i n be meant to resume the phrase ḫadûmma lū ḫadâta, with which the incantation that originally came before would have concluded, for attā ittīja ḫadûmma lū ḫadâta is exactly how two incantations unmistakably Egalkura conclude. Anyway, the k i . m i n will hardly be meant to repeat the prohibitive forms of the preceding line, if only since raʾābu has not normally an itti phrase for its prepositional complement. An anti-witchcraft setting, however, is not unlikely either. Contrary to

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Text 20 STT 144, 14′–18′ 14

ÉN! Ì.SAG DUḪ!?.DUḪ!?-ta    = én rūštu ṭuḫḫudāta? 15 Ì GI DU10 ap-pa-šiš-[k]a    = šaman qanê ṭābi appašiška 16 ap-šu-uš ši-ti-iq GABA [I]GI a-ḫi-[i]á    = apšuš šitiq irti pānī aḫī[ j]a 17 [N]UN-u lid-g[u]l-a-°ni-°ma    = [r]ubû lidgulannima 18 [k]i °-ma a-a°-ri ° li-ri-šá ÉN    = [k]īma ajjari lirīša én  

Rūštu oil, you are provided abundantly(?), Fine cane oil, I have been anointed with you; I have anointed my breastbone, face, and arms. May the Prince look at me and rejoice over me with the joy of Iyyar!

Lines 17′–18′ are of particular value for adding a new item to the short list of kīma ajjari locutions presently known. Restored the way they are here, their Egalkura Sitz im Leben is clearly borne out. Also, these lines corroborate the above contention that the Prince is assumed best to be the subject of the volitive forms of ḫadû and riāšu in the incantations that make up the fifth column of M (BM 103385); see lines 2, 3, 13, 17.

To summarize: On the assumption that our pièce de résistance M (BM 103385), v, 13 cannot be dismissed as a self-willed scribe’s oddity of no further importance, the meaning and background defended here for the simile kīma ajjari riāšu are in remarkable concord with those intuited by the CAD as the second of two alternatives. The next-best proposal, ajjaru, ‘suitor,’ which does seem to fit in a number of instances, would be building on the dictionary’s first suggestion for ajaru B.

Postscript After this essay had been finalized, J. Westenholz kindly communicated to me that P. Steinkeller, “Stars and Stripes in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Note on Two Decorative Elements of Babylonian Doors” (Iranica Antiqua 37 [2002] 359–71), 363–64 n.  15 translates kīma a-a-ri of the Nabonidus text “like flowers” and rejects the idea that ‘blossom’ is a secondary meaning of CAD ajaru A. His arguments do make sense within the context of the Ebabbar Cylinder but would fail to convince in any of the other ones, none of which is considered by the author. Those who assume that CAD ajaru A does primarily mean ‘blossom’, ‘flower’ could argue that CAD ajaru D is identical with it, having the metaphorical sense of ‘(a man in) the bloom of youth’. Springtime bloom sparking joy seems to be referred to in the simile kīma kirê inbi pān šatti eli āmerī šuḫbuṣu “like one is overjoyed at seeing an orchard in springtime” (see CAD I, 145). its reverse, the tablet’s obverse would appear to have virtually nothing to link it positively to Lamaštu, though.

Der Kalendar von Adab im 3. Jahrtausend* M. Such-Gutiérrez

U n i v e r s i d a d A u t ó n o ma

de

Madrid

Die alte Stadt Adab (modern Bismaya), die ungefähr 40 km östlich des modernen Diwaniya (Iraq) und 30 km südöstlich der alten Stadt Nippur liegt, wurde in den Jahren 1903–1905 von J. Banks und V. S. Persons im Auftrag der Babylonian and Assyrian Section of the Oriental Exploration Fund of the University of Chicago (heute Oriental Institute of Chicago) ausgegraben. Die Ausgrabungen brachten mehrere Gebäude, Gegenstände und Tontafeln ans Tageslicht. Ein Teil dieser Texte (ungefähr 300) wurde ins Oriental Institute of Chicago verbracht und hauptsächlich von D. D. Luckenbill und Z. Yang editiert. Ein anderer Teil (ca. 600), welcher noch unpubliziert ist, kam ins Istanbul-Museum. Seitdem sind mehrere aus unregelmäßigen Ausgrabungen stammende Sammlungen bekannt geworden (ca. 1,615 Texte). 1 Einige dieser Sammlungen sind veröffentlicht worden (z.B. die 263 Texte der Banca d’Italia), 2 und andere werden gerade editiert (z.B. die ca. 900 Texte in dem Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York). 3 Die meisten dieser Texte aus Adab datieren in die altakkadische Periode (ca. 2,375), während wenige Texte zu der präsargonischen Periode (ca. 100 Texte) und der Ur III-Zeit (51) gehören. Damit ist Adab bis jetzt der am reichsten dokumentierte Fundort der altakkadischen Periode. 4 Diese Texte vermitteln einen Einblick in die verschiedenen Aspekte des Lebens in Adab: z.B. Gesellschaft, administrative und politische Organization, Religion und Kalender. Es ist der Kalender, der im Einklang mit dem Thema der 56 RAI „Time *  Für die Erlaubnis, unveröffentlichte Texte zu zitieren, die in dem Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University (NES) und in der Real Academia de la Historia (RAH) aufbewahrt werden, möchte ich jeweils D. I. Owen und M. Almagro-Gorbea ganz herzlich danken. Die Abkürzungen richten sich nach cdli.ucla.edu/wiki/doku.php/abbreviations_for_assyriology. Ferner sind noch folgende Abkürzungen zu berücksichtigen: BdI I = F. Pomponio, G. Visicato und A. Westenholz, Le tavolette cuneiformi di Adab delle collezioni della Banca d’Italia. Volume I (Roma 2006); CBC 3 = M. Sigrist, Catalogue of the Babylonian Collections at Yale. 3. Neo-Sumerian Archival Texts in the Nies Babylonian Collection (Bethesda, Maryland); NES = Texte aus dem Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University (Ithaca, New York); RAH = Texte aus der Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid); SIFA = Z. Yang, Sargonic Inscriptions from Adab (Changchun 1989). Weitere Abkürzungen sind folgende: AS = Amar-Suen; IS = IbbiSuen; Rd. = Rand; Š = Šulgi; ŠS = Šū-Suen. 1.  Zu den verschiedenen Sammlungen von Texten aus Adab siehe Such-Gutiérrez 2005/2006: 1–2 Anm. 1–2, Milone 2006a: 66–67 und Schrakamp 2008: 665–66. 2.  Pomponio-Visicato-Westenholz 2006: 81–239. 3.  Von diesen ca. 900 Texten sind bis heute 503 veröffentlicht worden: Maiocchi 2009: 23–190, 250 —161 Texte — und Visicato-Westenholz 2010: 11–91, 99 — 342 Texte —. 4.  Vgl. Milone 2006a: 67 und Schrakamp 2008: 666.

325

326

M. S uch -G utiérrez

and History in the Ancient Near East” steht, den ich in meinem Beitrag erörtern möchte.

1. Monatsabfolge Mehrere Verfasser haben sich mit der Reihenfolge der Monate im Kalender Adabs auseinandergesetzt. 5 Unter diesen Gelehrten sind Z. Yang, M. E. Cohen und M. Maiocchi jene, die die Grundlagen für die Reihenfolge der Monate in Adab im 3. Jahrtausend geschaffen haben (siehe Tab. I). Z. Yang danken wir für die erste Reihenfolge der 12 Monate, M. E. Cohen für die richtige Ordnung des Kalenders, der mit dem Monat iti-še-ŠE/ŠE+KIN-a endet und M. Maiocchi dafür, daß er zufolge des von ihm neu veröffentlichten Textes CUSAS 13 114 (- / iv, vi–i) festgestellt hat, daß iti-še-KIN-ku5(-a) und iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a nicht, wie vorher angenommen wurde, Varianten desselben Monats waren, sondern zwei verschiedene Monats­namen, da beide Monatsnamen in demselben Text (CUSAS 13 114 Rs. 8–9) vorkommen. Die drei Verfasser stießen, und damit jene, die ihrer Theorie folgten, jedoch auf ein Problem, das sie daran hinderte, die richtige Reihenfolge feststellen zu können: Ihnen waren 13 anstelle der zu erwartenden 12 Monatsnamen bekannt. Um dieses Problem zu lösen, nahmen sie an, daß sich zwei dieser 13 Monatsnamen auf denselben Monat bezogen: Z. Yang und M. E. Cohen vermuteten, daß iti-šeKIN-ku5 und iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a Varianten desselben Monats, jeweils des IX. und XII. Monats, waren, während M. Maiocchi die Meinung vertrat, daß iti-éš-aša5-ra und iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a Namen des I. Monats darstellten (siehe Tab. I). Die Lösung für das Problem der 13 Monatsnamen liegt darin, daß einer dieser 13 Monatsnamen nie existiert hat, nämlich iti-éš-GÁNA-ra / iti-éš-aša5-ra. Die Einführung dieses „Phantom-Monats” in die Studien zum Kalendar von Adab geht auf Z. Yang zurück, die den von F. R. Kraus (1947: 100 Anm. 12) angeführten Monat „itu ZÍD.kàr.ra” als „itu éš-GÁNA-ra” verlas. 6 Der neu geschaffene Monat wurde von allen Verfassern, die sich nach Z. Yang mit dem Adab-Kalender beschäftigten, übernommen. 7 Es ist eindeutig, daß das dritte Zeichen in „itu ZÍD.kàr.ra” das Zeichen KÀR und nicht GÁNA ist, wie Z. Yang annahm. Lesen wir „itu ZÍD.kàr.ra” richtig als iti-éš-gàr-ra, haben wir eine abgekürzte Form des Monats iti-aša5éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) (siehe Anhang 1) und keinen selbständigen Monatsnamen. Nach der Lösung des Problems der 13 Monatsnamen bleibt die Frage, welcher Monatsname der Erste des Adab-Kalenders war. Der einzige Text, der einen Anhaltspunkt für die Monatsanordnung gibt, ist der klassisch-sargonische Text SIFA A 730 (- / i-xii -), denn er ist bis jetzt der einzige Text, der 12 Monaten umfaßt. Der Text stellt eine Abrechnung von Gerste und Emmer für 12 Monate dar, dem zufolge i ti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a der letzte Monat des Jahres war, sowie es M.  E. Cohen bemerkt hatte 8. Nach den oben angeführten Voraussetzungen, daß der Monat iti-éš-GÁNA-ra / iti-éš-aša5-ra nie existiert hat und iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a der letzte Monat war, ergibt sich folgende Monatsabfolge: 5.  Schneider 1936: 107, Kraus 1947: 100 Anm. 12, Yang 1989: 53–59, Cohen 1993: 201–5, Milone 2006b: 62–63 und Maiocchi 2009: 11–12. 6.  Yang 1989: 55, vgl. Tab. I. 7. Cohen 1993: 202, Milone 2006b: 62 und Maiocchi 2009: 12 1.5. Zu Cohen und Maiocchi vgl. Tab. I. 8.  Cohen 1993: 201, vgl. Tab. I.

Der Kalendar von Adab im 3. Jahrtausend I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

327

iti-aša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) iti-še-sag-KAL/SA6-ga iti-á-ki-ti iti-ab-è-zi-ga iti-gá-udu-ur4 iti-du6-kù iti-níg-(giš)kiri6 iti-MU.TIR iti-(d)Šùba-nun iti-ezem-dNin-mug iti-še-KIN-ku5(-a) iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a

Diese Monatsanordnung gilt zumindest seit der klassisch-sargonischen Zeit, da itiaša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) (abgekürzt iti-šu-gar) nicht der erste Monat in der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Zeit war, worauf die in dem präsargonischen/ früh-altakkadischen Text CUSAS 11 291: I 1′–Rs. I 1 (- / xii?-x?) angeführten Monate verweist:  9

XII I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X

[XI. Monatsname?] [iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.K]IN-àm [iti-aš]a5-ÍL-šu-gar9 iti-še-sag-KAL-ga iti-šu-gar iti-á-ki-ti iti-ab-è-zi-ga iti-gá-udu-ur4 iti-du6-kù iti-níg-kiri6 iti-MU.TIR iti-šùba

Aus dem Text geht hervor, daß [iti-aš]a5-ÍL-šu-gar der I.  Monat war, und itiaša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) bzw. iti-šu-gar dagegen der III., wenn man die ab der klassisch-altakkadischen Periode bezeugte Monatsanordnung mit iti-še-ŠE/ ŠE.KIN-a als letzter Monat des Jahres annimmt. Nach M. Maiocchi fand eine Reform des Kalenders in der klassisch-sargonischen Zeit statt, nach der iti-aša5-ÍLšu-gar durch iti-aša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) ersetzt wurde. 10 Dieser Reform zufolge wurden alle Monate mit Ausnahme von iti-še-sag-KAL/SA6-ga (II), iti9.  Nach dem Photo auf pl. LXIX (Hinweis von M. Maiocchi). 10.  Diese Reform des Kalenders von Adab wird von M. Maiocchi demnächst in dem Band CUSAS 19 behandelt. M. Maiocchi stellte mir das unveröffentlichte Kapitel des Kalenders zur Verfügung, wofür ich ihm ganz herzlich danke.

328

M. S uch -G utiérrez

še-KIN-ku 5(-a) (XI) und iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a (XII) anscheinend um einen Monat rückwärts verschoben. Mit dieser Reform verbindet sich auch die Einführung des Monates iti-ezem-dNin-mug, um über zwölf Monate nach der Abschaffung des Monates iti-aša5-ÍL-šu-gar zu verfügen (siehe Anhang 10). Diese Umgestaltung des Kalenders von Adab fand wahrscheinlich in der mittelsargonischen Zeit statt, da [iti-aš]a5-ÍL-šu-gar nicht mehr zu dieser Periode bezeugt ist (siehe Anhang 1) und der Ausdruck iti-(d)Šùba-nun(-ke4) (iti-)ab-ús-(s)a, „der Monat, der dem (Monat) iti-(d)Šùba-nun folgt”, in der mittelsargonischen Periode anstelle des neu eingeführten Monates iti-ezem-dNin-mug verwendet wurde (siehe Anhang 10). CUSAS 11 291 stellt bis jetzt leider die einzige Liste mit Erwähnung mehrerer Monatsnamen für die Zeit vor der klassisch-altakkadischen Periode dar, so daß die Monatsabfolge für diese Periode offen bleiben soll, da es möglich wäre, da ein anderer Monat (nicht iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a) vor der Reform als letzter Monat galt. Der oben aufgeführten Monatsabfolge zufolge, die zumindest ab der klassischsargonischen Zeit bezeugt ist, werden den zwei Monaten iti-du6-kù und iti-šeKIN-ku5(a), die auch im Kalender von Nippur (VII. und XII.  Monate) vorhanden sind, eine frühere Stellung bzw. dem VI. und XI. Monat zugedacht. Einige dieser Monate sind in der präsargonischen Periode (6 Monate) und in der Ur III-Zeit (8 Monate) bereits bezeugt (siehe Tab. II). In der Ur III-Zeit scheint es dieselbe Monatsanordnung wie in der klassisch-sargonischen Zeit gewesen zu sein, worauf der Text MVN 13 895 Rs. 5–7 (IS 2 / x-iii -) hinweist, nach dem 6 Monate zwischen den Monaten iti-ezem-dNin-mug und iti-á-ki-ti vorhanden sind: iti-ezem-dNin-mug-ta, iti-á-ki-ti-šè, iti-bi iti-6,

„Von dem (Monat) iti-ezem-dNin-mug bis zum (Monat) iti-á-ki-ti; die betreffenden Monate (sind) 6 Monate.”

Ein Problem des Kalenders in der Ur III-Zeit ist die angenommene Einführung des Monats iti-ezem-dŠul-gi anstelle eines der in der altakkadischen Periode bezeugten Monatsnamen, der in der Ur III-Zeit nicht belegt ist (Monate 2, 7, 8, 12) (siehe Tab. II 2). 11 Jedoch empfiehlt es sich vorsichtig zu sein. Soweit nicht alle Monate der Ur III-Zeit belegt sind, könnte es sein, daß iti-ezem-dŠul-gi eigentlich ein Monat des sogenannten Reichskalenders wäre, der in Adab auch verwendet wurde. In der Tat gehören zwei Texte, nämlich MVN 3 165: 5 (Š 39), und 209 Rs. 3 (Š 45), die i ti-ezem-dŠul-gi bezeugen, zum Archiv eines Mannes namens Ilak-nuʾid, in dem der Reichskalender sehr häufig verwendet wurde. 12

2.  Deutung und einige Merkmale der Monate des Adab-Kalenders Die Monatsnamen wurden ursprünglich als „Monat des . . .” interpretiert, worauf die in den präsargonischen und früh-altakkadischen Texten vorhandene Konstruktion iti-. . . -ak+enklitische Kopula (-àm), „es ist der Monat des/der . . .”, hin11. Die These der Einführung des Monats i t i - e z e m -dŠ u l - g i anstelle eines der in der altakkadischen Periode vorhandenen Monatsnamen findet sich bei Yang 1989: 57 1.3.4.1 und Cohen 1993: 202. 12.  Zur Verwendung des Reichkalenders im Archiv von Ilak-nuʾid siehe Such-Gutiérrez 2005/2006: 2 Anm. 2.

Der Kalendar von Adab im 3. Jahrtausend

329

weist. 13 Das letzte Zeugnis dafür findet sich in einem Text der mittelsargonischen Periode. 14 Die enklitische Kopula (-àm) allein, welche an den Monatsnamen angehängt ist, wird erst seit der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Zeit und nur über die ganze altakkadische Zeit bezeugt. 15 Schreibvarianten und Deutungen der Monatsnamen finden sich in dem Anhang, in dem sie nach der ab der klassisch-sargonischen Periode bezeugten Anordnung angeführt werden.

3.  Weitere Fragen Ich möchte auf zwei Probleme hinweisen, die zwei Texte aus der altakkadischen Periode aufweisen: 1.  Nach dem Text SIFA A 730 Rs. IV 2–4 (- / i-xii -), den ich in CDLI überprüfen konnte, sind es von iti-MU.TIR bis iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a nur insgesamt vier statt der zur erwartenden fünf Monate. 2.  Im Text BdI I 51: I 5-II 1 (- / vii?, vi? -) steht iti-du6-kù (VII?. Monat) vor it i-⟨g á -⟩u du -u r4 (VI?. Monat). Da der Text Ablieferungen von Gerste von zwei Monaten (VI?–VII?) für Lugal-ḫegal erwähnt, ist es möglich, daß der Schreiber den VII?. vor dem VI?. Monat anführte. Da der Text möglicherweise die Ablieferungen von zwei Monaten zusammenfaßt, scheint die Anordnung der Monate nicht so wichtig gewesen zu sein. 13.  Präsargonisch: [i t i]- a b - è -[z i - g a]- k a m, CUSAS 11 37: II 6 (- / v? 1); ⸢i t i - n í g⸣-giški ri6- k a m, CUSAS 11 52 Rs. II 2 (- / viii? -) und präsargonisch/früh-altakkadisch: i t i - š u - g a r - k a m, CUSAS 11 187: II 4 (Mes-kigala / iii? -), NES 48–09–044: 4 (- / iii? -), NES 48–09–068 Rs. 6 (- / iii? -), i t i -⸢á⸣-[k i]- t i - k a m, BdI I 23: II 2 (Mes-kigala / iv? -); it i- g á- udu- ur4- k a m, CUSAS 11 220 Rs. II 2 (- / vi? -), NES 48-09-119 Rs. 5 (- / vi? -); i t i- du6- k ù - k a m, CUSAS 11 278 Rs. 2 (- / vii? -), NES 48-09-073 Rs. 1 (- / vii? -); i ti - n í g ki ri6-kam: CUSAS 11 135: 6 (- / viii? -); i t i -(d)Š ù b a(MÙŠ×ZA)- n u n - k a m: CUSAS 11 140: III 3 (- / x? -), NES 48-09-036 Rs. 3 (- / x? -), NES 48-09-043 Rs. 2 (- / x? -); i ti - š e -KIN- k u5- k a m, NES 48-09-070 Rs. 1 (- / xi -). 14.  BdI I 127: 5–6 (- / x -): it i - Š ù b a(MÙŠ×ZA)- n u n - k e4 i t i - a b - ú s - à m, „Es ist der Monat, (der) dem (Monat) iti-Š ù b a(MÙŠ×ZA)-nun folgt”. Zu dieser Wendung anstelle des Monatsnamens i t i - e z e m dNin-mug siehe Anhang 10. 15. z.B. präsargonisch/früh-altakkadisch: i t i - a[b - è]- z i - g a - à m, CUSAS 11 165: II 1 (M e s - k i gal a / v? -), iti-še -ŠE/ŠE-KIN- à m, CUSAS 11 123 Rs. I 1 (M e s - k i g a l a / xii -); mittelsargonisch: i t i š e-sa g-SA6-ga-àm, BdI I 129 Rs. 3 (- / ii -), i t i - a b - è - z i - g a - à m, BdI I 91 Rs. 1 (- / iv -) und klassischsargonisch: iti-še-KIN-ku5- àm!, CUSAS 13 154 Rs. 6′ (- / iii, i, xi -).

330

M. S uch -G utiérrez Tab. I 16 Yang 1989: 56

Cohen 1993: 202 éš-GÁNA-ra

 1

itu á-ki-ti

iti

 2

itu ab-è-zi-ga

itiéš-gàr-šu-gar-ra

itu gá-udu-ur4

itiše-sag-sig

 3  4

itu du6-kù

iti

/ šu-gar

itu níg- kiri6

iti

itu mu-tir

itigá-udu-ur

 7

itu dŠùba(MÙŠ.ZA)-nun

itidu

 8

itu ezen-dNin-mug

iti

 9

a) itu še-KIN-ku5 b) itu še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a

itimu-TIR

10

itu éš-GÁNA-ra

iti

11

itu šu-gar

iti

12

itu še-sag-sa6-ga

a) itiše-kin-ku5 b) itiše-kinx(ŠE/ŠE.KIN)-a

 5  6

giš

a) iti éš-aša5-ra b) iti še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a

6-ga

á-ki-ti

ab-è-zi-ga 6-kù

Maiocchi 2009: 12

iti (aša5) éš-gàr(-ra)-šu-gar(-ra)

iti še-sag-sa6-ga iti á-ki-ti

iti ab-è-zi-ga 4

nì-giškiri6

ezem dŠùba-nun-na d

ezem- Nin-zadim

iti gá-udu-ur4

iti du6-kù

iti nì-giš-kiri6 iti mu-tir

iti ezem-dšùba-nun-na iti ezem-dNin-zadim iti še-kin-ku5

Tab. II 1. Präsargonische Periode Texte

Monat  1  2

iti-aša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra)

----

iti-še-sag-KAL/SA6-ga

----

iti-á-ki-ti

CUSAS 11 64: II 2 (- / iv? -), OIP 14 67: II 2 (- / iv? -)

 4

[iti]-ab-è-[zi-ga]-kam

CUSAS 11 37: II 6 (- / v? 1)

 5

iti-gá-udu-ur4

CUSAS 11 30 Rs. II 1 (- / vi? 19)

 3

iti-du6-kù(-kam)

CUSAS 11 28 Rs. I 2 (- / vii? -), OIP 14 68: II 2 (- / vii? -)

⸢iti-níg⸣-giškiri6-kam

CUSAS 11 52 Rs. II 2 (- / viii? -)

iti-MU.TIR

----

 9

iti-dŠùba(MÙŠ×ZA)-nun

CUSAS 11 33: II 2 (- / x? -)

10

iti-ezem-dNin-mug

----

11

iti-še-KIN-ku5(-a)

----

 6  7  8

12

iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a

----

16.  Die Monatsnamen in dieser Tabelle entsprechen ganz und gar der Form, unter der sie bei den jeweiligen Verfassern angeführt werden.

Der Kalendar von Adab im 3. Jahrtausend

331

2. Ur III-Zeit 17 Monat

Texte

 1

iti-šu-gar

MVN 3 320 Rs. 2 (IS 2 / i -), 322 Rs. 2 (IS 2 / i -), A 832 und fraglich die Zugehörigkeit zu Adab von NATN 116: 5 (ŠS 2 / iti-šu-ma/mar-ra -)

 2

iti-še-sag-KAL/SA6-ga

----

 3

iti-á-ki-ti

MVN 13 895 Rs. 6 (IS 2 / x-iii -), A 789

 4

iti-ab-bé

A 843

 5

iti-gá-udu-ur4

MVN 3 246 Rs. 3 (AS 9 / v -), CBC 3 S. 223 NBC 8213 (IS 2 / v [?])

 6

iti-du6-kù

A 1052

 7

giš

iti-níg- kiri6

----

iti-MU.TIR

----

 9

iti-ezem-dŠùba(MÙŠ.ZA)-nun(-na)

MVN 3 183 Rs. 1 (Š 40 / ix 25), 204: 4 (Š 44 / ix -), 212 Rs. 2 (Š 45/AS 2 / ix -)

10

iti-ezem-dNin-mug

MVN 3 166 Rs. 1 (Š 39 / x -), 172 Rs. 1 (Š 39 / x -), 211 Rs. 3 (Š 45/AS 2 / x -) MVN 13 895 Rs. 5 (IS 2 / x-iii -), CBC 3 S. 213 NBC 6733 (Š 44/ x [?])

11

iti-še-KIN-ku5

MVN 13 658 Rs. 2 (Š 47 / xi -), A 952

 8

12

iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a

----

iti-ezem-dŠul-gi

MVN 3 165: 5 (Š 39), 188 Rs. 3 (Š 41), 209 Rs. 3 (Š 45)

Anhang 1. iti-aša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) Der Monat iti-aša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-g ar(-ra), „Monat (der) auf das Feld der éš-gàr (-Arbeit) angelegte Hand” 18 ersetzte den nur in der präsargonischen/frühaltakkadischen Periode bezeugten Monat iti-aša5-ÍL-šu-gar, „Monat (der) auf das Feld (der) corvée-Pflicht angelegte Hand” 19 als erster Monat des Kalenders von Adab 17. Die unveröffentlichten Texte von Adab in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (A+Nummer) und jene der Nies Baylonian Collection in Yale (NBC+Nummer) werden aus Cohen 1993: 202 Anm. 3 zitiert, jedoch muß beachtet werden, daß sich die in NBC 6733 und NBC 8213 angeführten Monate nach Sigrist 2001: 213, 223 nicht erhalten haben. 18. Die Interpretation von ‑a nach a š a5- é š - g a r ist anscheinend als Genitiv ‑a(k) („Feld der é š gàr{-Arbeit}”) und nicht als Lokativ abhängig von dem Verb šu . . . gar zu interpretieren. ‑a(k) als Genitiv ist in CUSAS 13 71: 1–2 (- / -) eindeutig: 1;0.1 1/2 s ì l a š e g u r - m a ḫ, š e a š a5- é š - g a r- ra - š è, „250 ½ l Gerste, Gerste für das Feld der é š - g à r (-Arbeit).” Passagen, in denen das -a trotz der Auslassung des Wortes aša5 geschrieben wurde, sind schwer erklärbar, siehe i t i - é š - g a r - r a - š u - g a r, CUSAS 13 81 Rs. 1′ (- / i -), NES 99–08–95 Rs. 4 (- / i -) und NES 99–12–014 Rs. 6 (- / i -). Das ab der altakkadischen Periode bezeugte Wort éš-g à r (akkadisch iškarum), das in der altakkadischen Periode in Adab, Mugdan, Nippur und Nuzi und in der Ur III-Zeit in Nippur nachweisbar ist, bezieht sich auf die Vorbereitungs- und Saa���� tarbeiten, die mit dem Pflug durchgeführt wurden. Dafür spricht die Zusammenfassung von gu4-numun, “Ochsen (des) Säen(s)”, und g u4- g i š - ù r, „Ochsen (des) Eggen(s)”, als g u4- é š - g à r, „Ochsen (der) é š gàr(‑Arbeit)”, in dem Text aus der Ur III-Zeit von Nippur TMH NF 1/2 303 (ŠS 8 / vi 21), vgl. Maekawa, 1990: 115. Ferner konnte é š - g à r die Felder bezeichnen, auf denen diese Arbeiten durchgeführt wurden, siehe CUSAS 13 71: 2 (- / -) und SIFA A 984: 4 (- / -). 19. Der Monat it i - a š a5-ÍL- š u - g a r läßt sich in drei präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Texten nachweisen, die wohl zum Archiv des Stadtfürsten Mes-kigala gehören: CUSAS 11 181 Rs. I 2

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in der mittelsargonischen Zeit. Vorher scheint iti-aša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) der III. Monat gewesen zu sein (siehe Abschnitt 1). Die vollständige Form iti-aša5éš-gàr(-ra)-šu-gar / iti-éš!(TÚG)-gàr-šu-gar-⸢ra⸣ ist bis jetzt nur in Texten der mittelsargonischen und klassisch-sargonischen Zeit belegt. 20 Die abgekürzte Form i ti-šu-gar ist hingegen die beherrschende Variante, die sich zum ersten Mal in der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Zeit nachweisen läßt (siehe z.B. Anm. 13) und die einzige, die bis jetzt in der Ur III-Zeit bekannt ist (siehe Tab. II 2 1). Mit diesen in dem I. Monat ausgeführten Feldarbeiten sollen sich lú-ḫun-gá, „Mietlingen”, mit Gerstebeträgen (jeder 50 l) 21, anše-bìr, „Eselgespanne”, mit Gerstebeträgen (30/40 l) 22 und Gerste (60 l) für Esel, 23 die Texte aus dem I. Monat erwähnen, verbinden. Auf diese, für die Feldarbeiten benötigte Gerste, bezieht sich die 250 ½ l Gerste in CUSAS 13 71: 2 (siehe Anm. 18). In diesem ersten Monat fanden auch Drescharbeiten auf der Tenne statt, worauf die Übergabe von Dreschschlitten (gišbad) hinweist 24. Darüber hinaus ist der erste Monat der am meisten dokumentierte Monatsname.

2. iti-še-sa g-KAL/SA6- g a Der Monat iti-še-sag-KAL/SA6-ga, „Monat (der) gut/schön gewordenen Frühgerste”, ist zum ersten Mal in den präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Texten des Archivs des Stadtfürsten Mes-kigala belegt. 25 Beide Varianten (SA6 und KAL) sind in der mittelsargonischen und klassisch-sargonischen Periode bezeugt, wobei sich beide Formen zahlmässig ungefähr gleich nachweisen lassen 26. Die abgekürzte Form iti-še-sag-KAL ist in drei Texten bezeugt. 27 Zeugnisse für den II. Monat in der Ur III-Zeit fehlen bis heute (siehe Tab. II 2 2). In diesem Monat wurden Feldarbeiten fortgesetzt, worauf die Erwähnung von l ú-ḫun-gá, „Mietlingen”, mit Gerstebeträgen (jeder 50 l), 28 anše-bìr, „Eselgespanne”, mit Gerstebeträgen (10/30/40 l) 29 hinweisen. Zwei in den II.  Monat datierte Texte erwähnen 2 Felder mit dem Areal von gemessenen Feldstücken und (Mes-kigala / i -), 291: I 2′ (- / xii?-x? -) — siehe Abschnitt 1 — und BdI I 50 Rs. 1 (- / i -). Die Deutung gründet sich auf den mit i t i - a š a5- é š - g à r - r a - š u - g a r - r a übereinstimmenden Satzaufbau von i t i - a š a5ÍL-šu-gar. Zu ÍL als corvée-Pflicht siehe zuletzt Wilcke 2007: 35 2.1.3.4.4 — dusu gelesen —. 20.  Mittelsargonisch: i t i - a š a5- é š - g à r - r a - š u - g a r, NES 98-10-115 Rs. 3 (- / i -), i t i - a š a5- é š - g à rš u-gar, BdI I 140 Rs. 4 (- / i -), RAH 1999–207 Rs. 4 (- / i -), CUSAS 13 40 Rs. 3 (- / i -), wahrscheinlich NES 98-07-107 Rs. 3 (- / i -) und klassisch-sargonisch: i t i - a š a5- é š - g à r - š u - g a r, BdI I 231 Rs. 9 (- / i -), iti-éš!(TÚG)-gàr- š u - g a r -⸢r a⸣: SIFA A 994 Rs. 4 (- / i -) — durchgestrichene Tafel —. 21.  NES 97-11-061: 1 (- / i 11) und NES 91-11-60: 1 (- / i 16). Siehe auch die Erwähnung von Mietlingen in CUSAS 11 181: II 2 (Mes-kigala / i -) — i t i - a š a5-ÍL- š u - g a r — und die Abgabe eines nicht erhaltenen Produktes für Personen (unter diesen einen n u - b à n d a, „Oberaufseher”) auf einem Feld in CUSAS 11 215 (- / i -). 22. CUSAS 11 181: I 1–2 (M e s - k i g a l a / i -) — i t i - a š a5-ÍL- š u - g a r —. 23. SIFA A 1008: 1–2 (- / i -). 24. BdI I 175: 1 (- / i -) und 176: 1 (- / i -). 25.  i ti-še-sa g -⸢KAL- g a⸣: CUSAS 11 118: II 5 (- / ii -) und i t i - š e - s a g -SA6- g a: CUSAS 11 167 Rs. I 5 (- / ii -), 198: I 6 (- / ii -), 209 Rs. I 8 (- / ii 9), 214: II 2 (- / ii -). 26.  i ti-še-sa g -KAL- g a, z.B. CUSAS 13 33 Rs. 2 (- / ii -), NES 48-09-053 Rs. 5 (- / ii -), RAH 1999– 321 Rs. 1 (- / ii -), RAH 1999–323 Rs. 5 (- / ii -) und i t i - š e - s a g -SA6- g a, z.B. SIFA A 965+1016 Rs. 9 (- / ii -), A 970 Rs. 12 (- / ii -), A 1067 Rs. 9 (- / ii -), A 677: 6 (- / ii-v -). 27.  Präsargonisch/früh-altakkadisch: CUSAS 11 283: 3 (- / ii 7), 284 Rs. 1 (- / ii 9) und mittelsargonisch/klassisch-sargonisch: NES 97-12-241 Rs. 4 (- / ii -). 28.  NES 97-11-064: 1 (- / ii 26) und NES 97-11-062: 1 (- / ii [  ]). 29.  CUSAS 11 118: I 1–3, 5, II 1 (- / ii -).

Der Kalendar von Adab im 3. Jahrtausend

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Gerstebeträgen, 30 die wahrscheinlich als die vorgesehene Gersteproduktion interpretiert werden sollen.

3. iti-á -ki-ti Der Monat iti-á-ki-ti, „Monat (des) Akiti(-Festes)”, ist von der präsargonischen Periode bis zur Ur III-Zeit bezeugt. 31 Anscheinend war iti-á-ki-ti ursprünglich der IV. Monat im Kalender von Adab und wurde nur ab der mittelsargonischen Periode zum III. Monat (siehe Abschnitt 1). Das Akiti-Fest (⸢ezem⸣-á-ki-ti) stand anscheinend auch in Adab in Verbindung mit der Aussaat. 32

4. iti-a b -è-zi - g a Der Monat iti-ab-è-zi-ga, „Monat (des) ‘erhobenen’ ab-è(-Festes)”, 33 ist auch von der präsargonischen Periode bis zur Ur III-Zeit belegt: iti-ab-è(-zi-ga) kommt in der präsargonischen und altakkadischen Zeit vor, 34 iti-ab-bé dagegen einmal in der Ur III-Zeit (siehe Tab. II 2 4). Bis zur klassisch-sargonischen Zeit wird die Verbalform -zi-ga normalerweise wegen der Länge des Monatsnamens von itiab-è getrennt und unten innerhalb derselben Zeile geschrieben. 35 In der mittelsargonischen Periode wird der ganze Monatsname iti-ab-è-zi-ga zum ersten Mal in demselben Niveau angeführt, 36 was sich in der klassisch-sargonischen Zeit durchsetzt. 37 Die abgekürzten Formen iti-ab-è und iti-ab-è-zi sind bis heute nur in der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Zeit belegt. 38 Es scheint, daß iti-ab-è-zi-ga vor der mittelsargonischen Periode der V. Monat war (siehe Abschnitt 1). Das ab-è(-Fest) als Anlaß für die Ablieferung von Naturalien ist in einem Text belegt. 39

5. iti-gá -u du - ur4 Der Monat iti-gá-udu-ur4, „Monat (des) Schafe-Raufen-Gebäude(s)”, ist von der präsargonischen Periode bis zur Ur III-Zeit belegt. 40 Ein Schafe-Raufen-Gebäude 30.  CUSAS 11 283: 1–2, 4–5 (- / ii 7) und 284: 1–4 (- / ii 9). 31.  Zur präsargonischen Periode und zur Ur III-Zeit siehe Tab. II 1–2 3. Zur altakkadischen Periode siehe z.B. SIFA A 677: 9 (- / ii-v -), A 759 Rs. 4 (- / iii -), A 878 Rs. 12 (- / iii -), A 936 Rs. 10 (- / iii -), A 998 Rs. 10 (- / iii -) und A 683+869: 3, Rs. 28 (- / iii-xi -). 32.  Darauf scheint die problematische Passage šu - n u m u n ⸢e z e m⸣- á - k i - t i in SIFA A 835+840 Rs. 20–21 ([  ] / [  ]) hinzuweisen, siehe dazu Such-Gutiérrez 2005/2006: 39 Anm. 408. 33. Eine andere Deutung bietet Milone 2006b: 62 V) an: „mese dell´uscita e del levarsi (degli antenati).” 34.  Zur präsargonischen Zeit siehe Tab. II 1 4. Zur altakkadischen Periode siehe z.B. i t i - a b - è - z i ga: SIFA 918 Rs. 12 (- / iv -), 992 Rs. 8 (- / iv -), 677 Rs. 12 (- / ii-v -) und 683+869: 6 (- / iii-xi -). Zu den abgekürzten Schreibungen i t i - a b - è und i t i - a b - è - z i siehe Anm. 38. 35.  In einem Falle wird der Monatsname in drei Niveaus geschrieben, i t i - a b -[UD.]/⸢DU⸣- z i -/g a, RAH 1999–275: II 1 (- / v? -) — präsargonisch/früh-altakkadisch —. 36.  BdI I 165 Rs. 3 (- / iv -) — i t i - a b -⸢UD+DU⸣- z i - g a —. 37. CUSAS 13 83 Rs. 3 (- / iv -), 114 Rs. 1 (- / iv, vi-i -) und SIFA A 677 Rs. 12 (- / ii-v -), A 683+869: 6 (- / iii-xi -), A 730 Rs. III 8 (- / i-xii -), A 918 Rs. 12 (- / iv -). Jedoch wird –zi-ga noch in SIFA A 992 Rs. 8 (- / iv -) getrennt angeführt. 38. i ti-ab-è: CUSAS 11 74: 6 (- / v? 4), RAH 1999–153 Rs. 4 (- / v? -) und i t i - a b - è - z i: CUSAS 11 160: II 3 (- / v? -). Siehe ferner a b - è, „Abe(-Fest)”, in SIFA A 835+840: 6 ([  ] / [  ]) — klassischsargonisch? —. 39. SIFA A 835+840: 2–6 ([  ] / [  ]). 40.  Zur präsargonischen Periode und zur Ur III-Zeit siehe Tab. II 1–2 5. Zur altakkadischen Zeit siehe z.B. BdI I 201 Rs. 5 (- / v 12+[2?]), 108: 5 (- / v -), 135: 5 (- / v -), 149 Rs. 3 (- / v -) und CUSAS 13 26:

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ist außerhalb des Monatsnamens wohl in drei Texten belegt. 41 Einer dieser Texte, CUSAS 11 220 Rs. I 1–2 (- / vi? -), der dem Mes-kigala-Archiv gehört, zeigt, daß das Gebäude dem Stadtfürsten von Adab gehörte: gá-[udu]-ur4-[  ]-énsi-kam, „Es ist das Schafe-Raufen-Gebäude [  ] (des) Stadtfürst(en)”. Dies steht im Einklang damit, daß die Schafschur im Palast (des Stadtfürsten) stattfand. 42 Der Text CUSAS 11 220, der in den Monat iti-gá-udu-ur4 datiert, erwähnt 600 Stück Brot (ninda) für das Gebäude, was darauf hinweist, daß das Gebäude als Ort des Schrerens die wichtigste Rolle im VI./V. Monat spielte. Es scheint, daß iti-gá-udu-ur4 vor der mittelsargonischen Periode der VI. Monat war (siehe Abschnitt 1). Auf das Schafe-Raufen scheinen die gír, „Messer”, und gišsi-udu-ur4, „hölzerne ‘Horn(-Gegenstände)’ (zum) Schafraufen”, die in einem Text aus dem V. Monat erwähnt werden, 43 zu verweisen.

6. iti-du6-kù Der Monat iti-du6-kù, „Monat (des) reinen Hügel(s)”, ist auch von der präsargonischen Periode bis zur Ur III-Zeit bezeugt. 44 Es scheint, daß iti-du6-kù vor der mittelsargonischen Zeit der VII. Monat im Kalender von Adab war (siehe Abschnitt 1). Die Texte weisen darauf hin, daß Saatarbeiten in diesem Monat auf den Feldern durchgeführt wurden, denn gišeme-numun, 45 „Saatpflugscharen”, gišGÍN, 46 „Axt?”, und še-numun, 47 „Saatgerste”, wurden übergeben. Zwei Texte, die auch in den VI. Monat datieren, führen Naturalien für ezem-níg-giškiri6, 48 „Fest (der) Gartengüter”, [N]E.NE-gar, 49 „NE.NE-gar(-Fest)”, und ⸢giš-apin-na⸣ bí-⸢duḫ-ḫa-a⸣, 50 „das Holz des Pfluges, das gelöst worden ist”, auf. Da das Lösen des Pfluges als Abschluß der Saatarbeiten im Widerspruch zu den oben erwähnten Saatarbeiten des Monats steht, ist es anzunehmen, daß dieses Fest im nächsten Monat stattfand, obwohl die dafür zugedachten Naturalien kurz davor bzw. im vorigen Monat abgeliefert wurden. Dafür sprechen zwei Tatsachen: A) Der Text SIFA A 865: 1–3 (- / vi -), der in VI. Monat datiert, führt Naturalien für ezem-níg-giškiri6, „Fest (der) Gartengüter”, an, das dem nächsten Monat (VII) den Namen gibt, und in welchem es stattfinden sollte. 5 (- / v -), 75 Rs. 2′ (- / v -), 111 Rd. 1 (- / v -) — i t i - g[á]- u d u!(DIB)- u r[4] —, 73: 5 (- / v-viii -). 41. BdI I 37: 4 (- /–9), CUSAS 11 220 Rs. I 1–2 (- / vi? -) und fraglich in CUSAS 13 114: 12′ (- / iv, vi–i -). 42. SIFA A 1022 Rs. 5 (- / -). Zur Schur im Palast siehe Waetzoldt 1972: 15 5. A). 43.  RAH 1999–185: 1–2 (- / v -). Die genaue Bedeutung von gišsi ist mir unbekannt. Liegt gišs i in dem Substantiv zú - s i, „das Raufen”, und in dem Ausdruck s i - 2 - l á, „zweimal geschoren”? Zu z ú - s i siehe Waetzoldt 1972: 11–12 und zum Ausdruck s i - 2 - l á siehe Steinkeller 1995: 56 5.2. gišs i, „hölzerner ‘Horn(-Gegenstand)’ ”, und g í r, „Messer”, werden auch in BdI I 198: 1–2, 4–5, 7–8, Rs. 1 (- / -) angeführt. gišsi in Verbindung mit Schafen kommt in einem unklaren Zusammenhang in dem Ur III-zeitlichen Text Ontario 2 214: 5 (- / -) vor. 44.  Zur präsargonischen Periode und zur Ur III-Zeit siehe Tab. II 1–2 6. Zur altakkadischen Zeit siehe z.B. BdI 133 Rs. 1 (- / vi -), 148 Rs. 4 (- / vi -), 182: 4 (- / vi -) und SIFA A 819 Rs. 10 (- / vi -), A 865 Rs. 10 (- / vi -), A 921 Rs. 5 (- / vi -), A 1057 (- / vi -). 45. CUSAS 11 336: 1 (- / vii? 13). 46. CUSAS 11 336: 3 (- / vii? 13). 47. CUSAS 11 169: I 1 (- / vii? 1) und SIFA A 677 Rs. 17 (- / ii-v -) — Saatgerste nach dem V. Monat erwähnt —. 48. SIFA A 865: 1–3 (- / vi -). 49.  SIFA A 865: 4-Rs. 5 (- / vi -). 50. SIFA A 1057: 1–6 (- / vi -).

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B) ⸢giš-apin-na⸣ bí-⸢duḫ-ḫa-a⸣ steht in Verbindung mit dem VIII. Monat des Nippur-Kalenders iti-gišapin-du8-a, der auch den Abschluß der Pflug- und Saatarbeiten feierte, 51 so daß ein Stattfinden im VII. Monat statt des VI. Monats dem Nippur-Kalender näher liegen würde, und dies würde der im Abschnitt 1 angeführten Korrelation zwischen dem Adab- und Nippur-Kalender mit dem Plazierungsunterschied eines Monats gut passen.

7. iti-n íg-(giš)k iri6 Der Monat iti-níg-(giš)kiri6, „Monat (der) Gartengüter”, ist bis jetzt nur in der präsargonischen und altakkadischen Zeit bezeugt 52. Zeugnisse für die Ur III-Zeit fehlen bis heute (siehe Tab. II 2 7). iti-níg-(giš)kiri6 war anscheinend vor der mittelsargonischen Periode der VIII. und nicht der VII. Monat im Kalender von Adab (siehe Abschnitt 1). Die übliche Form ist iti-níg-kiri6, die von der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Zeit bis zur mittelsargonischen Periode belegt ist, 53 während sich iti-níggiškiri sehr selten vor der klassisch-sargonischen Zeit, nämlich einmal jeweils in der 6 präsargonischen (siehe Tab. II 1 7) und mittelsargonischen Periode, 54 nachweisen läßt. iti-níg-giškiri6 ist die einzige Form in der klassisch-sargonischen Zeit. 55 Eine ähnliche Entwicklung läßt sich in dem Beruf nu-(giš)kiri6, „Gärtner”, ersehen. 56 Der Monat iti-níg-(giš)kiri6 ist in der Ur III-Zeit noch nicht bezeugt (siehe Tab. II 2 7). In diesem Monat sollte das Fest eze m-níg-(giš)kiri6 stattfinden, das in drei Texten belegt ist. 57 Das Fest und damit der Name des Monats sollen Bezug auf die Ernte der Gartenprodukte wie úninni5, 58 „ninni5-Pflanzen”, und zú-lum. 59 „Datteln”, nehmen, die in Texten aus dem VII. Monat erwähnt werden. 51.  Siehe dazu Such-Gutiérrez 2005/2006: 39 2.1. 2). 52.  Zur präsargonischen Periode siehe Tab. II 1 7. Zur altakkadischen Zeit siehe Anm. 53–55. 53.  z.B. präsargonisch/früh-altakkadisch: BdI I 43: II 1 (- / viii? -), CUSAS 11 109 Rs. II 1 (- / viii? -), 135: 6 (- / viii? -), 136: II 2 (- / viii? -), 143 Rs. I 2 (- / viii? -), 245 Rs. I 2 (- / viii? -), 303: 4 (- / ix? 6), 291: II 5 (- / xii?-x? -) und mittelsargonisch: BdI I 107 Rs. 5 (- / vii -), 145 Rs. 5 (- / vii -), 146 Rs. 3 (- / vii -), 152 Rs. 2 (- / vii -), 153 Rs. 1 (- / vii -), 180 Rs. 2 (- / vii -), 183 Rs. 3 (- / vii -). 54.  NES 52-11-004: 5 (- / vii -). 55. SIFA A 950: 4 (- / vii -), 991 Rs. 6 (- / vii -), 1028 Rs. 6 (- / vii -), S. 431 Y 2 Rs. 5 (- / vii -) und CUSAS 13 103 Rs. 5 (- / vii -) — i t i - n[í g -gišk ir i6] —, 73 Rs. 2, 6 (- / v-viii -), 114 Rs. 4 (- / iv, vi-i -). 56.  z.B. nu-k i r i6, präsargonisch: CUSAS 11 1: II 4′, III 2′ (- / [  ]); mittelsargonisch: BdI I 103 Rs. 1 (- / -) und nu-giškir i6, klassisch-sargonisch: CUSAS 13 90: 7 (- /–3), SIFA A 660 Rs. III 3 ([  ] / [  ]), 680: 11 (- / -). 57. SIFA A 865: 3 (- / vi -) — siehe Anhang 6 — und die sehr abgebrochenen Texte NES 97–12–283 Rs. 3 ([  ] / [  ]) und NES 99-07-005 Rs. 5 ([  ] / [  ]). 58. BdI I 180: 1 (- / vii -). Die Identifikation von (ú)n i n n i5, n i n n i5sar in BdI I 185: 3 (- / -), ist problematisch, siehe Schrakamp 2008: 680 Anm. zu BdI Adab 23 Vs. I 1. Für ihren Anbau in Gärten spricht ihre Erwähnung mit dem Determinativ SAR, „Gemüse”, neben š e l usar, „Rübensamen”, in BdI I 185: 3 und nebst Palmengütern in Gärten in den Ur III-zeitlichen Texten YOS 4 238: 1, Rs. 8–9 (IS 1 / x -) und MVN 15 33: 4–6 (AS 5 / xi -). Die n i n n i5-Pflanzen wurden auch im IV?. Monat geliefert, BdI I 23: 1 (Mes -ki gal a / iv? -). Beachte, daß úninni5 anscheinend auch in Wäldern wuchs, wenn die Transliteration (úninni5) in BPOA 6 1290: 3 (ŠS 1 / -) stimmt, vgl. úš u b5 in gleichem Zusammenhang in UTI 6 3698: 3 (ŠS 1 / -). 59.  RAH 1999–112: 1 (- / vii -) und RAH 1999–215: 1, 6–7, Rs. 3′ (- / vii -). Für die Beziehung beider Texte zu dem Fest des VII.  Monats spricht die Verwendung der Datteln für verschiedene Sorten von Gebacken: gúg-lu g a l -(a)k, „Geback des Königs” (RAH 1999–112: 2), n í g - ì - d é - a - é n s i - k a, „Kuchen des Stadtfürsten” (RAH 1999–215 Rs. 4′).

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8. iti-MU.TIR Der Monat iti-MU.TIR, „Monat (des/der) ?”, ist seit der präsargonischen/frühaltakkadischen Periode und über die ganze altakkadische Zeit bezeugt. 60 Zeugnisse für iti-MU.TIR in der Ur III-Zeit sind nocht nicht vorhanden (siehe Tab. II 2 8). Es scheint, daß iti-MU.TIR vor der mittelsargonischen Periode der IX. Monat war und nur ab der mittelsargonischen Zeit zum VIII. Monat wurde (siehe Abschnitt 1). iti-MU.TIR ist bis jetzt der einzige Monatsname des Adab-Kalenders, dessen Deutung noch unbekannt bleibt. 61 Kein Text aus diesem Monat gibt einen Hinweis auf die Verbindung des Monats mit einer Feier oder einer landwirtschaftlichen Tätigkeit, die zu dem Enträseln der Namensdeutung beitragen könnte. Auch der Text CUSAS 11 113: II 2 (Mes-kigala / ix? -), der ausnahmensweise den Vokal ‑a hinter dem Monatsnamen (iti-MU.TIR-a) anführt, ist nicht sehr aufschlußreich, da der Vokal sowohl als eine a-Form eines unbekannten Verbs TIR als auch als eine Kasuspostposition (Lokativ?) 62 interpretiert werden könnte.

IX. iti-(d)Š ù b a - nun Der IX. Monat ist von der präsargonischen Periode bis zur Ur III-Zeit bezeugt. 63 Es scheint, daß iti-(d)Šùba-nun ursprünglich der X.  Monat war und nur ab der mittelsargonischen Periode zum IX.  Monat wurde (siehe Abschnitt 1). Der Monatsname lautete iti-(d)Šùba-nun, „Monat (der) (Gottheit) Šuba-nun”, 64 in der präsargonischen und altakkadischen Zeit, wobei das Gottesdeterminativ vor allem in der mittelsargonischen Periode ausgelassen wurde, 65 und iti-ezem-dŠùbanun(-na), „Monat (des) Festes (der) Gottheit Šuba-nun”, in der Ur III-Zeit. Die Schreibung des Elementes Šùba weist eine Veränderung im Laufe der Zeit auf: iti(d)Šùba(MÙŠ×ZA)-nun (mit dem Zeichen ZA innerhalb des Zeichens MÙŠ) von der präsargonischen Periode bis zur mittelsargonischen Zeit. In der klassisch-sargonischen Zeit scheinen die wenigen Belege darauf hinzuweisen, daß der Monatsname i ti-dŠùba(MÙŠ.ZA)-nun geschrieben wurde, wobei das Zeichen ZA hinter MÙŠ gesetzt wurde. 66 Dieselbe Schreibung mit der Hinzufügung des Wortes ezem, „Fest”, und des eventuellen Genitivs (-a{k} > -na, „Fest der . . .”) findet man in der Ur IIIZeit (siehe Tab. II 2 9). 60.  z.B. präsargonisch/früh-altakkadische Zeit: CUSAS 11 113: II 2 (M e s - k i g a l a / ix? -), 121: II 3 (Mes-kigal a / ix? -), 124 Rs. I 3 (M e s - k i g a l a / ix? -), 163: II 3 (- / ix? 1–2), 253: I 6 (- / ix? 2), 303 Rs. 3 (- / ix? 6), 213: II 2 (- / ix? 10), 196: II 3 (- / ix? 28), 321 Rs. 1 (- / ix? 30), 137: II 3 (- / ix? -), 184 Rs. I 5 (- / ix? -), 291: II 6 (- / xii?-x? -); mittelsargonisch: BdI I 66 Rs. 5 (- / viii 10), 164 Rs. 2 (- / viii -) und klassischsargonisch: BdI I 213 Rs. 6 (- / viii -), CUSAS 13 73 Rs. 3 (- / v-viii -), 114 Rs. 5 (- / iv, vi-i -). 61. Siehe die Deutungsversuche von Cohen 1993: 205 und vgl. Milone 2006b: 62 IX) „iti-mu-tir, significato incerto”. 62.  Eine andere Möglichkeit wäre ‑a als Genitiv ‑a(k) (Monat des/der MU.TIR) zu interpretieren, obwohl dies nicht sehr wahrscheinlich ist, da diese Bildung immer durch ‑kam (Genitiv {a}k+enklitische Kopula) ausgedruckt wurde (siehe Abschnitt 2). Die Schlußfolgerung aufgrund der Schreibung -a, daß iti-MU.TIR nicht auf ‑r auslatet, ist nicht zwingend, vgl. z.B. k i l ú - t i r - a - t a, „aus dem Ort des Wald­ arbeiters”, in der Ur III-zeitlichen Text aus Umma MVN 13 258: 2 (ŠS 3 / ix -). 63.  Zur präsargonischen Periode und zur Ur III-Zeit siehe Tab. II 1–2 9. Zur altakkadischen Zeit siehe z.B. BdI I 109 Rs. 4 (- / ix -), CUSAS 13 114 Rs. 6 (- / iv, vi-i -) und SIFA A 683+869 Rs. 18 (- / iii– xi -), A 816 Rs. 10 (- / ix -). 64.  Zur Gottheit Šuba-nun siehe Such-Gutiérrez 2005/2006: 33 135. 65.  Siehe z.B. BdI I 109 Rs. 4 (- / ix -), 127: 5 (- / x -), 137: 5 (- / x -) und 141 Rs. 3 (- / x -). 66. SIFA A 683+869 Rs. 18 (- / iii-xi -), A 816 Rs. 10 (- / ix -). Die Schreibung i t i - Š ù b a(MÙŠ×ZA)nun in CUSAS 13 114 Rs. 6 (- / iv, vi-i -) ist wohl aufgrund der Platzbeschränkung wegen der Angabe des Gerstebetrages vor dem Monatsnamen in derselben Zeile zu erklären.

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10. iti-ezem-dNin- m ug Der Monat iti-ezem-dNin-mug, „Monat (der) Göttin Nin-mug”, 67 ist ab der mittelsargonischen Periode bis zur Ur III-Zeit nachweisbar und ist der am wenigsten bezeugte Monatsname des Adab-Kalenders. 68 Dieser geringe Textbestand scheint mit einer Reform des Kalenders im Laufe der mittelsargonischen zusammenzuhängen. Im Laufe dieser Reform wurden unter anderem iti-aša5-ÍL-šu-gar durch iti-aša5-éš-gàr-ra-šu-gar(-ra) ersetzt (siehe Abschnitt 1) und der Monat i ti-ezem-dNin-mug eingeführt, um über zwölf Monate nach der Abschaffung des Monates iti-aša5-ÍL-šu-gar zu verfügen. Bei dieser Umgestaltung des Kalenders scheint es, daß einige Schreiber den Namen des neu eingeführten Monates nicht kannten und den Ausdruck iti-(d)Šùba-nun(-ke4) (iti-)ab-ús-(s)a, 69 „der Monat, der dem (Monat) iti-(d)Šùba-nun folgt”, der an die mu-ús-sa-Jahresformeln der Ur III-Zeit erinnert, verwendeten. Diese Vermutung begründet sich auf der zeitlichen Verteilung der Belege: Der Ausdruck iti-(d)Šùba-nun(-ke4) (iti-)ab-ús-(s) a ist mit einer zweifelhaften Ausnahme nur in der mittelsargonischen Zeit belegt (siehe Anm. 69), während sich iti-ezem-dNin-mug von der mittelsargonischen Periode bis zur Ur III-Zeit nachweisen läßt (siehe Anm. 68), und der Ausdruck iti-(d) Šùba-nun(-ke4) (iti-)ab-ús-(s)a ist nach der mittelsargonischen Zeit nicht mehr bezeugt. Die hier aufgestellte Hypothese soll anhand neuerer Texteditionen geprüft werden. Der Text SIFA A 988: 1, 4 (- / x 7) weist darauf hin, daß der Monat iti-ezemdNin-mug vor dem Anfang der Ernte in den Monaten XI und XII lag, in dem die (Früh)gerste aus den Ähren herauszukommen begann. 70

11. iti-še-KIN- k u5(-a) Der XI. Monat iti-še-KIN-ku5(-a), „Monat (der) (mit) der Sichel geschnittenen Gerste”, 71 ist von der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Periode bis zur Ur III67.  Zur Göttin Nin-mug siehe Such-Gutiérrez 2005/2006: 27–28. 68.  Mir sind nur 12 Belege bekannt: 5 Belege aus der Ur III-Zeit (siehe Tab. II 2 10) und 7 Zeugnisse aus der altakkadischen Periode, die sich zeitlich folgendermaßen verteilen: Mittelsargonisch, NES 99-07-007 Rs. 1 (- / x 1–2), NES 99-07-008 Rs. 2 (- / x 3–5), NES 99-07-009: 3 (- / x 7) und klassischsargonisch, CUSAS 13 114 Rs. 7 (- / iv, vi–i -), SIFA A 683+869 Rs. 21 (- / iii–xi -), A 988: 1 (- / x 7), NES 00-04-111: 4 (- / x -). 69.  Die Belege für diesen Ausdruck sind folgende: CUSAS 11 260: 5–6 (- / x 10), BdI I 127: 5–6 (- / x -), 137: 5 (- / x -), 141 Rs. 3 (- / x -), NES 97-12-193 Rs. 4 (- / x -) und NES 50-04-108 Rs. 2 (- / x -). Mit Ausnahme von CUSAS 11 260: 5–6 datieren alle Zeugnisse in die mittelsargonische Periode. Die Datierung von CUSAS 11 260 in die präsargonische/früh-altakkadische Zeit nach G. Visicato-A. Westenholz soll überprüft werden. 70.  Siehe dazu und zum Text Yang 1989: 59 1.3.4.2, 136–37. 71.  Die Lesung des Zeichens KIN und die Deutung des Monatsnamens sind strittig. Die frühere angenommene Lesung des Zeichens KIN als s a g11 aufgrund des ersten Monats in dem Ur III-zeitlichen Kalender von Umma i t i - š e - s a g - k u5 / it i- še -KIN- k u5, siehe z.B. Bauer 1998: 122 Anm. zu S. 167–71, ist kaum zu halten, da beide Monatsnamen in demselben Text BE 3/1 100 Rs. III 55, IV 78 (Š 31, 34–35 / ?), vgl. Cohen 1993: 165, angeführt werden — Umma Text? Umma-Monate und Reichskalender (e z e m m[aḫ], Rd. 90) —, so daß i t i - š e -KIN- k u5 keine Variante von i t i - š e - s a g - k u5 sein kann. Während i t i š e-sa g-ku5 „Monat (der) geschnittenen Frühgerste”, bedeuten soll, vgl. š e - s a g, „Frühgerste”, in dem Adab-Monatsnamen i t i - š e - s a g -KAL/SA6- g a (siehe Anhang 2), weisen die vollständigen Schreibungen iti-⸢še⸣-KIN-ku5-a und i t i - š e -ŠE/SE.KIN- k u5-a (s. Anm. 73) mit ‑a hinter k u5 auf zwei Tatsachen hin: Erstens sind KIN und k u5 jeweils ein Nomen und ein Verb, vgl. Maiocchi 2009: 12 1.5, obwohl ‑a hinter ku5 anstelle des zur erwartenden ‑ r á zu erklären schwerfällt, vgl. š e - s a g - k u5- r á in Anm. 76. Liegt hier schon dasselbe Phänomen wie in der Ur III-Zeit, in der k u5- a und k u5- r á belegt sind? Zweitens ist ŠE/ SE.KIN eine Variante des Zeichens KIN, so daß KIN und ŠE/SE.KIN in den XI. und XII. Monats­namen

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Zeit bezeugt. 72 Die vollständige Form mit ‑a hinter ku5 ist nur in drei Texten aus der mittelsargonischen Periode bezeugt. 73 Aus derselben Zeit stammt ein Text mit der Schreibung iti-KIN-ku5. 74 Die Schreibung iti-še-ŠE/SE.KIN-ku5-a — ŠE/ŠE.KIN ist sonst nur im Namen des XII.  Monats belegt — in RAH 1999–337 Rs. 2 (- / xi -) verweist auf die naheliegende Bedeutung der Monate XI und XII (siehe Anm. 71). iti-še-KIN-ku5(-a) zeigt den Beginn der Erntezeit in Adab, die in dem nächsten Monat iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a fortgesetzt wurde (siehe Anhang 12). In diesem Monat fand eine Feier, die als še-KIN-ku5, 75 „(mit) der Sichel geschnittene Gerste” oder šesag-ku 5-rá, 76 „geschnittene Frühgerste”, bezeichnet wird. Entweder auf dieses oder auf ein Fest im XII. Monat bezieht sich die abgebrochene Passage ezem-še-[  ], 77 „Fest der [  ] Gerste”. 78 Die Bezeichnung der Feier als še-KIN-ku5 oder še-sagku5-rá zeigt, daß iti-še-KIN-ku5 in Bezug auf das Schneiden der Frühgerste stand, und dies hat einen engen Paralellismus mit der Ur III-zeitlichen Bezeichnung des I.  Monats in Umma-Kalender als iti-še-sag-ku5 / iti-še-KIN-ku5 und des dort gefeierten Festes als ezem-še-sag-ku5 / ezem-še-KIN-ku5. 79

mit Sichel/sicheln zu übersetzen sind. ŠE/ŠE.KIN als Variante von ŠE.KIN und KIN ist auch aus anderen Passagen bekannt, siehe den Monatsnamen von Lagaš aus der altakkadischen Periode und der Gudea-Zeit iti-še-ŠE.KIN- a / i t i - š e -KIN- a, Cohen 1993: 65 Anm. 1, S. 66 Anm. 3, der dem XII. Monatsnamen von Adab i t i - š e -ŠE/ŠE.KIN- a entspricht, und i t i - š e -ŠE.KIN- k u5 anstelle des üblichen i t i š e-KIN-ku5 in den Ur III-zeitlichen Texten aus Umma UTI 4 2454: 5 (ŠS 1 / i -), YOS 4 18: 3 (ŠS 2 / i-ix -) und YOS 4 212 Rs. IV 107 (ŠS 6 / i-xii2 -). ŠE.KIN als Variante von KIN ist in Umma in folgenden Passagen bezeugt: TÚG.ŠE.KIN / TÚG.KIN, „Umbruch(-pflug)” und (urudu)KIN / (urudu)ŠE.KIN, „Sichel”, zu beiden siehe Civil 1994: 90 75, 168–69, und in der Feldarbeit š e ŠE.KIN- a / š e KIN- a, „gesichelte Gerste”, z.B. UTI 3 2099: 1 (AS 7 / -) und 2165: 2 (ŠS 1 / -). Das seltene Vorkommen von š e ŠE.KIN k u5a, AuOrS 5 S. 195 5.6: 1 (AS 3 / -) und MCS 2 57 BM 111801: 2 (AS 7 / -), anstelle von š e (ŠE.)KIN- a spricht auch für die naheliegende Bedeutung der Monatsnamen XI und XII bzw. von š e KIN k u5, „Gerste (mit) der Sichel schneiden”, und š e ŠE/ŠE.KIN- a / š e (ŠE.)KIN-a, „gesichelte Gerste”, wobei KIN, ŠE/ ŠE.KIN, ŠE.KIN „Sichel” (Nomen) oder „sicheln” (Verb) je nach dem Zusammenhang bedeuten konnten. Für diese naheliegende Bedeutung spricht auch die Erwähnung von uruduš u m, „küpfrigen gezähnten Sicheln” in den XI. und XII. Monaten (siehe Anhang 11–12). KIN, ŠE/ŠE.KIN, ŠE.KIN als Verb gehört zur Verdopplungs-Klasse, siehe z.B. SIFA A 1095 Rs. 5 (- / xii 5, 10, 15): š e a l -ŠE/ŠE.KIN.ŠE/ŠE.KIN, „Gerste wird gesichelt”. Bezüglich der Lesung scheint ŠE/ŠE.KIN, (ŠE.)KIN mit der Bedeutung „Sichel” /kin/, vgl. Civil 1994: 90 75, und damit des Monats i t i - š e - k i n - k u5, vgl. Beckman 2000/46, zu sein. Im Gegensatz dazu scheint ŠE/ŠE.KIN, (ŠE.)KIN mit der Bedeutung „sicheln” eine Lesung /gur/ zu haben, siehe ezem -še-gur10(KIN)- r a, „Monat der gesichelten Gerste”, TCL 5 5671 Rs. II 18 (Š 45 / i – Š 46 / iv -), vgl. Sallaberger 1993: 9 Anm. 24 und g u r10(KIN) = eṣēdu, „to harvest”, bei Civil 1994: 170 (b). Beachte dagegen Maiocchi 2009: 12 1.5, der eine Lesung s a g ax(ŠE/ŠE.KIN), s a g a11(KIN), „ to reap”, vorschlägt. 72.  z.B. präsargonisch/früh-altakkadisch: CUSAS 11 96 Rs. II 1 (- / xi 12), 146: II 3 (- / xi -), 338 Rs. 6 (- / xi -); mittelsargonisch: BdI I 102 Rs. 3 (- / xi -), 105 Rs. 3 (- / xi -), 151 Rs. 5 (- / xi -); klassischsargonisch, SIFA A 683+869 Rs. 24, 29 (- / iii-xi -), A 858 Rs. 16 (- / xi -), A 946 Rs. 5 (- / xi -), A 981 Rs. 10 (- / xi -), A 1012 Rs. 4 (- / xi -), A 1113 Rs. 5 (- / xi -) und zur Ur III-Zeit siehe Tab. II 2 11. 73.  it i-še-KIN- k u5- a: BdI 102 Rs. 3 (- / xi -), RAH 1999–127 Rs. 4 (- xi -) und i t i - š e -ŠE/SE.KIN- k u5a: RAH 1999–337 Rs. 2 (- / xi -). 74.  NES 48-09-063: 5 (- / xi -). 75.  RAH 1999–173 Rs. 3 (- / -). 76. SIFA A 835+840 Rs. 22 ([  ] / [  ]). 77. SIFA A 956 Rs. 5 (- / -). 78.  Zu diesen Feiern vgl. Such-Gutiérrez 2005/2006: 39 Anm. 411. 79.  Siehe dazu Cohen 1993: 165.

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Für das Schneiden der Gerste sollen die šumurudu, „kupfrigen gezähnten Sicheln”, 80 die drei in diesen Monat datierten Texte erwähnen, 81 in Beziehung gesetzt werden.

12. iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN- a Der XII. Monat iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a, „ Monat (der) gesichelten Gerste”, 82 ist bis jetzt von der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Periode bis zur klassisch-sargonischen Zeit bezeugt. 83 Zeugnisse für die Ur III-Zeit fehlen bis jetzt (siehe Tab. II 2 12). Nur in der präsargonischen/früh-altakkadischen Periode sind die abgekürzten Formen iti-ŠE/ŠE.KIN-a 84 und iti-še-ŠE/ŠE.KIN 85 nachweisbar, während der vollständige Monatsname immer in der mittelsargonischen und klassisch-sargonischen Periode vorhanden ist. Der XII. Monat stellte die Fortsetzung der Erntezeit dar, in dem die spätere Gerste nach dem Schnitt der Frühgerste in XI. Monat geerntet wurde. Dieser Ernte wurde der 10. Tag nach einem Text gewidmet: u4 10 al-zal še al-ŠE/ŠE.KIN.ŠE/ŠE.KIN, 86 „am 10 Tag wird die Gerste gesichelt”. Nach demselben Text wurden der 5. Tag und der 15. Tag jeweils dem Zerstoßen von Gemüsen und der Festsetzung der Feldergrenzen gewidmet. 87 In dem XII. Monat ist auch die Übergabe von šumurudu, 88 „kupfrigen gezähnten Sicheln”, bezeugt. 80.  Nach den Monaten (XI und XII) der Belege (siehe Anm. 81, 88) ist es anzunehmen, daß š u murudu eine Abkürzung von š u murudu (š e) ŠE.KIN.ŠE.KIN, „kupfrige gezähnte Sichel, um (Gerste) zu sicheln”, darstellt. Zu šumurudu (še ŠE.KIN.ŠE.KIN) s. Selz 1993: 629 (1:2) — mit früherer Literatur —, Civil 1994: 90 75 und Maiocchi 2009: 188 Anm. zum Text 158 obv. 1. 81.  RAH 1999–093: 1 (- / xi -), RAH 1999–168: 1–2 (- / xi -) und RAH 1999–257: 1 (- / xi -). 82.  Zu ŠE/ŠE.KIN als Variante von ŠE.KIN und KIN, „Sichel, sicheln”, siehe Anm. 71. 83.  Siehe z.B. präsargonische/früh-altakkadische Periode: CUSAS 11 141: II 3 (- / xii -), 234 Rs. I 2 (Mes-kigala / xii -), 291: I 1′ (- / xii?-x? -), 356: III 8 (- / xii 28), BdI I 55: I 4 (- / xii -); mittelsargonisch: BdI I 82 Rs. 5 (- / xii 23), 115 Rs. 3 (- / xii -), 147: 3 (- / xii -) und klassisch-sargonisch: BdI I 244 Rs. 6 (- / xii -), CUSAS 13 114 Rs. 9 (- / iv, vi-i -), SIFA A 730 Rs. IV 4, Rd. 1 (- / i-xii -), A 955 Rs. 18 (- / xii -). 84. CUSAS 11 234 Rs. I 2 (M e s - k i g a l a / xii -). 85. BdI I 55: I 4 (- / xii -). 86.  SIFA A 1095: 4–Rs. 5 (- / xii 5, 10, 15), vgl. Yang 1989: 58, 161 4.1.3. 87.  SIFA A 1095: 2–3, Rs. 6 (- / xii 5, 10, 15), vgl. Yang 1989: 57–58, 161 4.1.3. 88.  RAH 1999–014: 1 (- / xii -), RAH 1999–028: 1 (- / xii -), RAH 1999–178: 1 (- / xii -) und RAH 1999–280: 1 (- / xii -).

Bibliographie Bauer, J. 1998 Georgica Sumerica. OrNS 67: 119–25. Beckman, G. 2000 Month XII. NABU 2000/46: 52. Civil, M. 1994 The Farmer’s Instructions: A Sumerian Agricultural Manual. AuOrS 5. Sabadell: Editorial AUSA. Cohen, M. E. 1993 The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East. Bethesda, MD: CDL. Kraus, F. R. 1947 Die Istanbuler Tontafelsammlung. JCS 1: 93–119. Maekawa, K. 1990 Cultivation Methods in the Ur III Period. BSA 5: 115–45.

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Maiocchi, M. 2009 Classical Sargonic Tablets Chiefly from Adab in the Cornell University Collections. CUSAS 13. Bethesda, MD: CDL. Milone, M. E. 2006a Testi da Adab del III milennio. S. 66–67 in Le tavolette cuneiformi di Adab delle Collezioni della Banca d’Italia. Volume I, F. Pomponio-G. Visicato-A. Westenholz. Rome. 2006b Unità di misura e calendario. S. 60–63 in Le tavolette cuneiformi di Adab delle Collezioni della Banca d’Italia. Volume I, F. Pomponio-G. Visicato-A. Westenholz. Rome. Pomponio, F., Visicato, G., und Westenholz, A. 2006 Le tavolette cuneiformi di Adab delle collezioni della Banca d’Italia, Volume I. Rome. Sallaberger, W. 1993 Der Kultische Kalender der Ur III-Zeit. Teil 1–2. UAVA 7. Berlin-New York. Schneider, N. 1936 Die Zeitbestimmungen der Wirtschaftsurkunden von Ur III. AnOr 13. Rome. Schrakamp, I. 2008 Pomponio, F. a. o. — Le tavolette cuneiformi di Adab. Le tavolette cuneiformi di varia provenienza (Le tavolette cuneiformi delle collezioni della Banca d’Italia, volume 1 and 2). BiOr 65: 661–712. Selz, G. J. 1993 Altsumerische Verwaltungstexte aus Lagaš. Teil 2. Altsumerische Wirtschaftsurkunden aus amerikanischen Sammlungen. 2 Abschnitt: Texte aus: Free Library Philadelphia, Yale University Library, Babylonian Section. Indices, Textkopien, Photos. FAOS 15/2. Freiburg: Steiner. Sigrist, M. 2001 Catalogue of the Babylonian Collections at Yale, 3: Neo-Sumerian Archival Texts in the Nies Babylonian Collection. Bethesda, MD: CDL. Steinkeller, P. 1995 Sheep and Goat Terminology in Ur III Sources from Drehem. BSA 8: 49–69. Such-Gutiérrez, M. 2005/2006  Untersuchungen zum Pantheon von Adab im 3. Jt. AfO 51: 1–44. Visicato, G., und Westenholz, A. 2010 Early Dynastic and Early Sargonic Tablets from Adab in the Cornell University Collections. CUSAS 11. Bethesda, MD: CDL. Waetzoldt, H. 1972 Untersuchungen zur neusumerischen Textilindustrie. Rome. Wilcke, C. 2007 Early Ancient Near Eastern Law: A History of Its Beginnings. The Early Dynastic and Sargonic Periods. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Yang, Z. 1989 Sargonic Inscriptions from Adab. Changchun: China.

Divine or Human Creation of Time? The Issue of Time as a Factor Determining the Relationship of Man to God Krzysztof Ulanowski

University

of

G d a n s k , P o la n d

In Mesopotamian civilization, depending on the version of the myth, the goddess, god, or gods create humanity. Who and when, therefore, creates time? Mesopotamian myths begin with the words “at a time when,” “when”: the concept of time is a determining element in the course of events. Myths and stories do not say explicitly that time began to flow with the creation by the gods. Is divine time from the beginning only magical—that is, is the world of exclusively divine presence atemporal, and real time begins to flow only with the creation of mankind? The answer to this question may have significant implications for estimating the value of humanity and may undermine the traditional understanding of the role of human beings as replacing the gods at work. Assuming that time begins to flow with the creation of man, we recognize that it is only with the creation of humanity that civilization arose. This means that without human beings, the gods were not able to build a world in which they would have perpetuated their own existence, and they certainly would have failed to create a culture. Following the Sumerian myths and the idea of people growing from the earth like a plant, one should accept the existence of the notion of a growing time (symbolically, a single year). One should take into account the course of Sumerian myths in which the goddess is solely responsible for the creation of man and consider whether we are in these cases to deal with a different concept of time and, hence, civilization’s development, in contrast with traditional Akkadian myths, where the creator of humanity is a divine couple or exclusively one male god. One should consider whether human creation, from the clay of Apsu in the myth Enki and Ninmah, which could be compared to the creation by the gods, is to be treated as a cosmic event or represents merely an ideological approach. Could the myth Cattle and Grain have been interpreted so that people are responsible for the development of civilization? Is the command to acquire knowledge in the text The Creation of Mankind only a dimension of serving the gods better or is it a means to being equal to the gods? One could find the echo of these issues in the Story of the Flood, in which the god Wê voluntarily surrendered himself to be the victim. The text is not explicit 341

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about the fact that people were destined to death. Perhaps, in the first version of the creation, people, like the gods, were immortal. In the History of Babylonia (Babyloniaca) written by Berossos, Marduk cut off his own head to create man. Could we interpret this event as an acquisition of leadership by mankind in order to create civilization?

Widely Accepted Understandings of Time In Mesopotamian theogony and cosmology, it is impossible to find a direct statement that the gods created time. In the Hebrew Bible, God is credited with the invention of time, but in Mesopotamia one has to search for the sources of time. 1 Sumerian texts assume that the gods know what the time is. Nana, the god of the moon: “changes day into night, shall determine the months and years.” 2 In Creation of Sun and Moon, which is the beginning of When Anu and Enlil, we clearly see that the gods endow the people with time through the creation of the moon and the sun: When Anu, Enlil, and Ea, the great gods, in their wisdom, Had laid down the plans for heaven and earth, Had confided to the hands of the great gods to bring forth the day, to start the month for humankind to see, They beheld the Sun in the portal of rising. 3

Here one obtains a clear signal that the gods created humans, but the text probably is late. A primitive knowledge of astronomy can be assumed for Mesopotamia as early as the third millennium, particularly because of dependence on the seasonal indicators provided by the sun and moon for management of calendars and agricultural life. 4 At the beginning of Mesopotamian civilization, time defined the seasons, so knowledge of time was required for survival. From this need arose calendars. 5 Enlil creates the seasons, Summer and Autumn, 6 which exchange with each other an almost philosophical discussion about the notion of time. 7 This cyclical understanding of time has a bearing on eschatological conceptions. Religious feasts are based on cyclical-agricultural understanding of time as well. 8 In religious life, rites and rituals evoke the most important situations, reproduce the oldest things, making them at the same time current and timeless. 1.  J. M. Sasson, “Time & Mortality: Creation Narratives in Ancient Israel and Mesopotamia,” in: Papers on Ancient Literatures: Greece, Rome and the Near East, Proceedings of the “Advanced Seminar in the Humanities” Venice International University 2004–2005 (ed. E. Cingano, L. Milano; Padova, S.A.R.G.O.N., 2008) 496. 2.  D. R. Fryne, The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods, vol. 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990) p. 220, II. 5–6. 3.  Creation of Sun and Moon, 1–5, in: B. R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2005) 495. 4.  F. Rochberg, “Astronomy and Calendars in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in: Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (vols. 3 and 4; ed. J. Sasson; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006) 1925. 5.  B. André-Salvini, “La Conscience du Temps en Mesopotamie,” in: Proche-Orient Ancien Temps Vécu, Temps Pensé: Actes de la Table Rounde du 15 novembre 1997 organisée par l’URA 1062 (ed. Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet et Hélène Lozachmeur (Etudes Sémitiques; Paris: Maisonneuve, 1998) 30. 6.  In Mesopotamia there were only two seasons. 7. B. André-Salvini, La Conscience du Temps en Mesopotamie, 30. 8.  A. Caubet and J. Ritter, “Les Temps dans l’Orient Ancien,” in: La Temps de la Prehistoire (vol. 1, ed. P. Mohen; Paris: Archéologia, 1989) 54–55.

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Time is necessary for the development of the world. The Mesopotamians believed in the continued sustainability of time, as reflected in the Akkadian expression ana dū dār, which means ‘forever’. 9 In Story of the Flood, one could read: “When gods were man,” 10 implying that the gods were at one time what they afterward created man to be. It seems that the most important part of time was future: things that had not yet happened. Anticipating these things are the signs already evident in the world. An example is Nabu, who should be a successor of Marduk, but he never takes on Marduk’s role; that he is the successor only points to the idea of what he will be. 11 We are closer to finding the truth if we accept the idea that in Mesopotamian thought the past and future were directly linked; this conception of time can be demonstrated by numerous divinatory texts. There appears to have been a perceived circulation of past and present, the one having an effect on the other, inseparably and continuously. Divination allows the memory to persist: it “predicts the future by restoring the past.” 12 T. Jacobsen draws attention to the fact that in Akkadian literature we find no comment on the importance of the act of creation of man. In fact, the main ideas of the myth repeat the pattern known from Sumerian literature. 13 Of the same opinion is W. G. Lambert, who shows that the Sumerian epic and the Akkadian Story of the Flood are very similar: all parts of both deal with the same topics. Despite the similarity in content, the size is quite different: the Sumerian version has only 300 lines, but the Akkadian has 1,245 lines. 14 In the Old Babylonian Story of the Flood, inferior gods refused to be exploited any longer and demanded equal rights. 15 When gods were (like) man, They did forced labor, they bore drudgery. Great indeed was the drudgery of the gods, The forced labor was heavy, the misery too much: The seven(?) great Anunna-gods were burdening The Igigi-gods with forced labor. 16

Man was created as a result of revolt of the Igigi (the lower gods) against the higher Anunnaki. Thus, from the blood of the god (Akkadian ilu) Wê man was created (awîlu or awêlu). From god, the man had a spirit in the sense of the spiritual element (têmu); after death, the man remained a spirit in the sense of a ghost ((w)etemmu). 17 9. B. André-Salvini, La Conscience du Temps en Mesopotamie, 29 10.  Story of the Flood, tab. I, 1, in: B. R. Foster, From Distant Days: Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1995) 52. 11. Z.  Bahrani, Rituals of War: The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia (New York: Zone Books, 2008), 76. 12.  Ibid., 65. 13. See The Eridu Genesis, in: T. Jacobsen, The Harps that Once . . . Sumerian Poetry in Translation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987) 145–50. 14.  Atra-Hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (ed. W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard; repr.: Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999) 14. 15.  The work written by “the junior scribe” Ku-Aya is dated to the rule of the king Ammiṣaduqa (1646–1626), fourth of the successors of Hammurabi. 16.  Story of the Flood, I, 1–6, in: B. R. Foster, From Distant Days, 52. 17. J. Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001) 100.

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K rzysztof U lanowski Let the one god be slaughtered, Then let the gods be cleansed by immersion. Let Nintu mix clay with his flesh and blood. Let that same god and man be thoroughly mixed in the clay. Let us hear the drum for the rest of time, From the flesh of the god let a spirit remain, Let it make the living know its sign, Let he be allowed to be forgotten, let the spirit remain. 18 [Belet-ili, the midwife], is present. Let the midwife create a human being,, Let man assume the drudgery of god . . . Let him bear the yoke, the task of Enlil, Let man assume the drudgery of god. 19

The (Im)mortality and (A)morality of Gods The traditional relationship gods – mankind presumes human obedience to the gods, to minor deities as well as to the major gods, and constitutes the basic functional principle in Mesopotamian religion. One proverb runs as follows: Man is the shadow of god (and the slave is the shadow of man). 20 Seen from a different point of view, it is fair to pose the question: were the gods mortal like men? In the Epic of Creation (Enuma Elish) it is written: “[Excessive] drudgery [has killed us].” 21 The belief that the gods are immortal is certainly present, 22 but death existed even before the creation of the world. The Sumerian god of death Uggae existed before the creation of man, exclusively in the divine world. So death did not appear when man chose sin; man was formed from the blood of the wicked god Qingu, and therefore from the beginning was evil at his core. 23 All of this is obvious, but what are the implications for the structure of the cosmos that the creation of humankind requires the sacrifice of life to an immortal god? One example is especially meaningful. In the History of Babylonia (Babyloniaca), Marduk 24 cut off his own head to create a human being. We have two versions: first, that it really was the head of Marduk that was cut off; and a second version, in which the head of another god is decapitated to give life to humanity and to every creature. This version, of course, is more similar to the Epic of Creation. 25 According to A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic is a meditation on death. The answer that Gilgamesh received is sad. For man, death is inevitable; people will die. The 18.  Story of the Flood, I, 205–12, in: B. R. Foster, From Distant Days, 58–59. 19.  Story of the Flood, I, 185–94, in ibid., 57–58. 20.  Ibid., 389. 21.  Atrahasis (OB Version), I, 147, in: B. R. Foster, Before the Muses, 234. 22.  A subversive divinity can be killed, its blood becoming a component in the creation of human beings (Wê or Wê-ila in the Story of the Flood, alla-deities in a Middle Assyrian bilingual; Qingu in the Epic of Creation; Aw-ilu – a pun on awīlu, ‘man’). 23.  Epic of Creation, VI, 32–34, in: B. R. Foster, From Distant Days, 39. 24.  Here presented under the name Bel. 25.  G. Verbrugghe and J. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001) 45–46, comp. F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (vol. III C 1, Leiden: Brill, 1958) = FGrHist #244, Syncellus, Ecloga Chronographica (Chronological Excerpts), 53, in: J. Karst, Die Chronik aus dem Armenischen übersetzt (vol. 5 of Eusebius, Werke, Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911) 6.

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gods who create man endowed him with mortality and kept immortality for themselves. 26 Death was the result of the very constitution of humanity and, therefore, an incomprehensible and unfathomable law of nature. 27 According to the epic: “The gods live forever with Shamash but man whatever he does is but wind!” 28 Human time, unlike the divine, is finite, uncertain, and runs in linear fashion from birth to death. Man has no appeal from the judgment of the gods. This creates anxiety in humans and an attempt to find an explanation. From the perspective of the divine, however, time recalls the cycle of nature, birth, death, and rebirth. 29 Gilgamesh has almost inexhaustible power: he does not need to rest during the day or night. 30 If his supernatural characteristics are not sufficient to achieve immortality, what can an ordinary man count on? The case of Utnapishtim and his wife is an exception to the divine rules. They received immortality not through their achievements but as a divine gift. 31 Other texts mention their son, who was a boatman of the Babylonian “ark,” among those chosen by the gods. H. Zimmern also includes the Sumerian king Enmeduran or Enmeduranki from Sippar, who according to one ritual tablet from Assyria was summoned into the presence of certain gods (perhaps only a temporary summon to a meeting with the divine powers). 32 From The Babylonian Theodicy we learn that mankind learned about evil from the gods: Enlil, Ea, and Mami gave mankind perverse speech, lies, and untruth forever. 33 The Mesopotamian literary heritage very often shows the ambivalent attitude of humans towards the gods. While sleeping, Kronos 34 came to Xisouthros to tell him that in the month of Daisios (probably Aiaru, the turn of April and May) mankind will be destroyed by a deluge. Ea had commanded him to bury all of the tablets with the knowledge provided by the gods through the wise monsters in Sippar so that, after the deluge, this knowledge could be recovered and civilization be rebuilt. 35 This could be treated as a symbolical seizure of power by man and the beginning of a new era. Atrahasis, the hero’s name that we use as the title of the epic, means ‘very wise’, but we should instead use the name ‘the history of mankind’. These texts do not have much to do with piety, like the books of the Old Testament. Instead, Atrahasis sees the gods in a critical manner and is saturated with human 26.  This is one of the basic messages of the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, where Siduri, keeper of the divine tavern, tells the distraught hero: “Gilgamesh, whither runnest thou? / The life which thou seekest thou will not find; / (For) when the gods created mankind, / They allotted death to mankind, / (But) life they retained in their keeping” (The Gilgamesh Epic, tab. X, column iii:1–5). Siduri intimates that procreation is the vehicle to immortality, “Cherish the little one holding thy hand, / (And) let the wife rejoice in thy bosom” (X, iii:12–13). Similar sentiments are more elusively expressed by Utnapištim: “The Annunaki, the great gods [of the Netherworld] ga[ther together], / Mammetum, the creatress of destiny, de[crees] with them the destinies. / Life and death they allot; /The day of death they do not reveal.” (X, vi:36–39; A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963]). 27.  The Gilgamesh Epic X, iii:3–5, OB. 28.  The Gilgamesh Epic, III, iv:141–43. 29. B. André-Salvini, La Conscience du Temps en Mesopotamie, 31. 30.  The Gilgamesh Epic, I, v:19. 31.  The Gilgamesh Epic, XI, 192–95. 32. H. Zimmern, Beiträge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1901) 116; 141. 33.  The Babylonian Theodicy, XXVI, 276–80, in: B. R. Foster, From Distant Days, 323. 34. Kronos was the father of Zeus, as Enki was the father of Marduk; Berosssos here used the Greek equivalents. 35.  G. Verbrugghe and J. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, 49.

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optimism, almost cynicism. Enlil incredulously notes that the human race survived even in the face of the divine decision. 36

Sumerian Myths In The Eridu Genesis, goddess Nintur, creator of man grieves over the loss of humanity and wishes to see people return from their nomadic lifestyle: “May they come and build cities and cult places, that I may cool myself in their shade; may they lay the bricks for the cult cities in pure spots, and may they found places for divination in pure spots!” She gave directions for purification, and cries for clemency, the things that cool (divine) wrath, perfected the divine service and the august offices, said to the (surroundings regions: “Let me institute peace there!” When An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursaga fashioned the dark-headed (people), they had made the small animals (that come up) from (out of) the earth come from the earth in abundance and had let there be, as befits (it), gazelles, (wild) donkeys, and four-footed beasts in the desert. 37

Without people, there is no civilization, and thus no time. The goddess speaks as if this was the second creation after the flood, but here she refers clearly to antediluvian times. So where should the people come back from if they are not yet created? The human era is divided into two periods: antediluvian, and after the flood. In the classical version, humanity is reborn only with the help of gods. Antediluvian times are the “golden ages,” when humankind is helped by the seven sages sent by Ea. In the world before the flood, the difference between humans and gods was only faintly visible. Some rulers lived for several thousand years. In five cities, nine kings ruled for 352,800 years. In historical times, the length of rule is more predictable. 38 Lugalbanda ruled for 1,200 years, but Gilgamesh only for 126. After the deluge, royalty for the second time comes down from heaven. Only now, kingship comes from heaven to earth with a crown, scepter, and throne and the ability to create cites. 39 Enki talked to Enlil in The Eridu Genesis: “You here have sworn by the life’s breath of heaven the life’s breath of earth that he (human) is allied with all of you.” 40

36. W. Burkert, Die Griechen und der Orient: Von Homer bis zu den Magiern (Munich: Beck, 2003) 41; 54. 37.  The Eridu Genesis, 5–15, in: Jacobsen, The Harps that Once, 145–46. 38. B. André-Salvini, La Conscience du Temps en Mesopotamie, 32. 39.  The Eridu Genesis, in: Jacobsen, The Harps that Once, 146–47. 40.  Ibid., 149.

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Man is united with the deities. An and Enlil provide life for Ziusudra as a god. Thanks to Ziusudra, the human species has survived : And An and Enlil after hono[ring him] were granting him like a god’s were making lasting breath of life, like a god’s, descend into him. That day they made Ziusudra, preserver, as king, of the name of the small animals and the seed of mankind, live toward the east over the mountains in Mount Dilmun. 41

In the second part of the myth The Birth of Man, one has to deal with some inconsistencies. Enki found the right place for seven beings created by Ninmah to live, in most cases at the royal court, among the royal retinue. This suggests that humanity already had existed for a long time and that gods and humans lived together, but here man has just been born and swathed in wool by Enki. 42 Nothing is mentioned about the creation of time, only about the distribution of the gods and the hard work done by lower-ranking deities. Enki at this time sleeps, which may also symbolize a lack of civilization and time. At the feast, only An and Enlil eat meat; the rest of the gods must be satisfied with bread. This may suggest that, before man was created, poverty prevailed among the gods. 43 The mother of the gods is here called Namma, and she is also the mother of Enki. Enki was the creator of everything; 44 Enki, not Enlil was treated as ruler of the gods. 45 All the gods praise him for creation, naming him embodied me. 46 All creatures created by Ninmah are crippled, but a creature bred by Enki with a phallus is healthy. 47 About Enki’s relationship to humans, it is said: “You are like father who produced a son.” 48 [as if man was the son of Enki]

In the context of praise of Enki is a reference to time: May men to the end of days in awe pay their respect to him.” 49

41.  The Eridu Genesis, 178–82, in: Jacobsen, The Harps that Once, 150. 42.  The Birth of Man, 45, in ibid., 152. 43.  The Birth of Man, 48, in ibid., 158. 44.  The Birth of Man, 25, in ibid., 156; compare Enlil and Ninlil, in ibid., 167. 45. J. J. A. van Dijk contrasts two centers of thought, one of which was centered in the city of Nippur, with Enlil as its major god, in which a cosmic marriage of heaven (a n) and earth (k i) initiated the series of births that produced gods, terrestrial creatures, and institutions. Rain played a major role as fertilizer. In his opinion, the other center was in the city of Eridu, with Enki (Ea) as its major deity; its creation theme exploits fertilization of the soil through subterranean waters. See J. J. A. van Dijk, “Existe-t-il un Poème de la Création Sumérien?” in: Kramer Anniversary Volume (ed. B. Eichler et al.; AOAT 25, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976) 125–33. 46. G. Farber-Flügge, Der Mythos “Inanna and Enki” unter Besonderer Berücksichtigung der Liste der ME (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1973) 116–53. 47.  The Birth of Man, 85–86, in: Jacobsen, The Harps that Once, 162. 48.  The Birth of Man, 51, in ibid., 158. 49.  The Birth of Man, 133, in: Jacobsen, The Harps that Once, 166.

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As if only from the moment of man’s appearance, time began to flow. The author of another interpretation of the myth Enki and Ninmah, A. D. Kilmer, interprets the section otherwise, as a competition. She recognizes that Enki creates two creatures, not only one, as T. Jacobsen says; thus, we have the first woman and the first female genitals. 50 In addition, Kilmer recognizes what appears to have no coverage in the content of the myth itself, namely, that Enki fertilizes the woman he himself has created, because at that time no man existed. 51 Udmuʾul, 52 according to Kilmer’s interpretation, is considered to be the son of Enki and is thus identified with Ziusudra. This hypothesis, in her opinion, can be justified by the assumption that “The son of Enki/Ea is a man’s saviour. Enki’s warning of the flood to men may be more meaningful if we understand that he warns his own son.” 53 It is difficult to confirm this thesis with certainty, but it is worth noting that in this version Ziusudra also rescues man.

From Creation of a Woman to Creation of a Couple In The Gilgamesh Epic, 54 the goddess Aruru created both Gilgamesh and Enkidu: Great Aruru they called: “Thou, Aruru, didst create [Gilgamesh(?)]; Now create his equal, to the impetuosity of his heart let him be eq[ual] Let them ever strive (with each other), and let Uruk (thus) have re[st].” When Aruru heard this, she conceived in her heart an image of Anu; [A]ruru washed her hands, pinched off clay, (and) threw (it) on the steppe: [. . .] valiant Enkidu she created, the offspring . . . of Ninurta. 55

The goddess created the human form in the steppe, but he is not fully man. 56 Enkidu was created on the model of the supreme god of the Sumerian pantheon, Anu. Is it possible clearly to identify these two heroes with ordinary people? Gilgamesh was two-thirds god, and Enkidu humanizes only under the influence of elements of civilization that, according to the Sumerian concept of me, was also a sex. In my opinion, these two are distinguished from the gods in many respects, except for one primary point, namely, that they both were aware of their own mortality and the immortality of the gods. One more Sumerian myth, Sheep and Grain, tells about the creation of man. After the birth of the Anunnaki gods but before the birth of Lahar, the goddess of cattle, Ashnan, the goddess of grain, and Uttu, the goddess of plants, the gods did 50. A.  D. Kilmer, “Speculations on Umul, the First Baby,” in: Kramer Anniversary Volume (ed. B. Eichler et al.; AOAT 25, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976), 266. 51.  It is worth recalling that in the first part of the myth Namma created all humanity, not just the female half. 52.  At the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) at University of Tartu, Estonia, 25–29.07.2010, professor T. Kämmerer in his paper “Masked Speech as a Form of Communication between Humans and Deities” claimed that Udmuʾul could be translated as a breath of a god. 53.  A. D. Kilmer, “Speculations on Umul,” 267. 54.  The oldest fragments of The Gilgamesh Epic derived from the Sumerians and come from the end of the third millennium. 55.  The Gilgamesh Epic, I, ii:30–35. 56.  At this point in the development of civilization, actual people live in city (not the steppe). Enkidu was not yet humanized.

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not know about either grain or cattle, they did not know about bread, and they did not even wear clothes. The creation of the above-mentioned gods led to civilization continuing to make inroads into the world of the divine, which was defined by separation from the world of nature. 57 The successful remedy of this situation was the creation of humankind. Man was created in order to “take care of farms and deliver to the gods of good things.” 58 It seems that after the gods learned to eat food and were clothed in garments, man was designated to secure the progress of civilization and permit the gods a comfortable life. The Anunnaki were unable to make effective use of the products created by Lahar, Ashnan, and Uttu: After on the mountain of heaven and earth, An (the heaven-god) had caused the Anunnaki (his followers) to be born Because the name Ashnan (the grain-goddess) had not been born, had not been  fashioned, Because Uttu (the goddess of plants) had not been fashioned, Because to Uttu no temenos had been set up, There was no ewe, no lamb was dropped, There was no goat, no kid was dropped, The ewe did not give birth to its two lambs, The goat did not give birth to its three kids. (. . .) Like mankind when first created, They (the Anunnaki) 59 knew not the eating of bread, Knew not the dressing of garments, Ate plants with their mouth like sheep, Drank water from the ditch. In those days, in the creation chamber of the gods, In their house Dulkug, Lahar and Ashnan were fashioned; The produce of Lahar and Ashnan, The Anunnaki of the Dulkug eat, but remain unsated; In their pure sheepfolds milk, . . . and good things, The Anunnaki of the Dulkug drink, but remain unsated; For the sake of the good things in their pure sheepfolds, Man was given breath. 60

The gods create sheep, grain, and agricultural implements. These are given to humanity so that they might enrich themselves and the gods. Bread and clothes are what separates humanity and gods from animals. Bread is the early Mesopotamian symbol that betokens a group’s status as a civilized human. The proof for this is that the names of months are connected with barley cultivation, bread, and major religious festivals that focus on barley. 61 57.  S. N. Kramer, From the Poetry of Sumer: Creation, Glorification, Adoration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979) 41–42. 58.  S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961) 72–73. 59.  There is a problem with translation and interpretation here. In Kramer’s version, “they” refers to the Anunnaki, but in the translation at the Electronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature http:// etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.5.3.2&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc&lineid=t532.p8#t532.p8, “they” is interpreted as “the people” (The Debate between Grain and Sheep, II, 20–25). 60.  Cattle and Grain, in: S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 72–73. 61.  A. C. Cohen, “Barley as a Key Symbol in Early Mesopotamia,” in: Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context: Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by Her Students (ed. J. Cheng and H. Feldman; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 418.

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In the myth The Creation of the Pickax, we find again the idea that the world was created just so that a man could be born into it: The lord, that which is appropriate verily he caused to appear, The lord whose decisions are unalterable, Enlil, who brings up the seed of the land from the earth, Took care to move away heaven from earth, Took care to move away earth from heaven. In order to make grow the creature which came forth, In the “bond of heaven and earth” (Nippur) he stretched out the . . .

This is why Enlil separates heaven and earth: The lord called up the pickax, decrees its fate, He set the kindu, the holy crown, upon his head, The head of man he placed in the mould, Before Enlil he (man?) covers his land, Upon his black-headed people he looked steadfastly. The Anunnaki who stood about him, He placed it (the pickax?) as a gift in their hands, They soothe Enlil with prayer, They give the pickax to the black-headed people to hold. 62

Mankind — The Abundance of Earth and Heaven The first human beings develop from childhood to maturity, becoming ready for propagation. 63 After creation, people multiply on the earth for 1,200 years, until they begin to be too noisy. 64 What is ironic in this story that noise caused by the complaining (the only gift from gods) becomes a reason for human trouble: it is the reason why Enlil sent the deluge. Ea urges the people to revolt against the gods, and persuades the god of plagues, Namtar, and other gods to favor mankind. 65 It is significant that gods work together with people against other gods. The role of man is so important that, during the time of deluge, a violent discussion ensues among the gods about his tragic fate. Goddess Mami (Nintu) accuses Enlil of misuse of his power. 66 It seems that the existence of the gods without humankind is threatened: (Gods) Like sheep, they filled a streambed. Their lips were agonized with thirst, They were sufferings pangs of hunger. 67 The scent of sacrifices made by people rescued from the flood, fills the gods with   the biggest joy. 68

This raises the legitimate question regarding the possibility of a second creation. It appears that, at the end of the Story of the Flood, after the deluge, a second human creation occurs (unfortunately, the text is damaged at this place), but Enlil requires 62.  The Creation of the Pickax, in: S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 52. 63.  Story of the Flood, I, 263, in: B. R. Foster, From Distant Days, 60. 64.  Story of the Flood, I, 343–50, in ibid., 62. 65.  Story of the Flood, I, 370–75, in ibid., 63. 66.  Story of the Flood, III, 111–23, in ibid., 74. 67.  Story of the Flood, III, 136–38, in ibid., 74. 68.  Story of the Flood, III, 205–9, in ibid., 75.

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Nintu, the goddess of creation, to put death into the human world. 69 Perhaps, then, in the first version of creation, the human race, like the gods, was immortal. Man seems at this time to have been abundant in the earth, and he appears together with the establishment of fate. This hypothesis is supported by the myth Enki’s Journey to Nippur: In those remote days, when destiny was determined, In a year (full of abundance), which An (Heaven) had created, When people sprang up from earth like herbs (and) plants. 70

A variation of this perspective, which came to be known as “agricultural,” is the birth of man as deriving from the personalized and divinized powers of Heaven and Earth. In this version, the divine Earth is fertilized by the rain of Heaven. Man is thus born as a result of a cosmic act: After the deluge destroyed (earth) . . . when mankind was created for all, when human sperm has been sent (by Heaven and Earth) when black-headed people, alone from himself appeared (on Earth). 71

In the myth Creation of Humankind, which was written in Akkadian, although it contains many Sumerian ideas, the creation of man is described as resulting from the initiative of the Anunnaki gods in a place named Uzumua. 72 The task of humanity is to take on the most troublesome duties of the gods, which are listed in detail, as well as the solemn celebration of gods’ feasts and festivals. What is important and differentiates the responsibilities of humans in this myth from all other stories is the duty and privilege of man to gain knowledge and wisdom, which usually were treated as a special reserve of the gods. In the myth, a number of other differences from the classical scheme also appear. The man had to be created from the blood of the gods Alla—at least two gods, probably a god and goddess. 73 Two beings were created at a single time (perhaps a man or woman) with the names Ullegara and Annagarra, which can be explained as reflecting the establishment of abundance and prosperity but could also be connected with the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’. 74 It is the goddess Aruru who takes care of people, and perhaps this is a reference to the fact that she is their creator. An additional problem is introduced in the verses referring to the goddess Aruru and, probably, people: Making many of them spring out of the earth, like grain, A pattern unalterable as the stars of heaven! 75

This seems to be a reference to the previously mentioned “agricultural” concept, although in this case it may simply be a reference to crops that people have grown to make a sacrifice to the gods: 69.  Story of the Flood, III, 255–56, in ibid., 76. 70. A. Al-Fouadi, Enki’s Journey to Nippur: The Journeys of the Gods (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1969), 69–85. 71. C. Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod (London: Routledge, 1997) 205–6; cf. E. Sollberger, “The Rulers of Lagaš,” JCS 21 (1967) 280–81, lines 1–5. 72.  It is the name of a place in Nippur, where, according to Sumerian tradition, man was created. 73.  Creation of Humankind, 24–25, in: B. R. Foster, Before the Muses, 492. 74.  Creation of Humankind, 9′, in ibid., 493. 75.  Creation of Humankind, 13′, in ibid.

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K rzysztof U lanowski When heaven had been separated from earth, in a pair established, When the mother goddesses had appeared, When the earth had been founded, the earth built up, When they established the plans for heaven and earth And had established watercourses and irrigation canals, Had established the Tigris and Euphrates channels, Anu, Enlil, Ninmah, and Ea, the great gods, And the Anunna gods, the great gods, Took their places on the sublime daises, They conferred among themselves. 76

There is no reference to time, but the first task that Enlil instructs the gods to perform is the creation of humankind. The existence of people not only ensures that duties will be performed but also that the gods and the land will have abundance. In a myth from the late period, Providing for the Gods, the gods create the world but there is no description of how humans were created. The gods suddenly establish their domain in the human world, which already exists. Did they and their worlds exist in parallel? When Anu, Enlil, and Ea undertook heaven and earth, They artfully provided for the gods. They made a pleasurable dwelling for them in this land, The gods moved into their dwelling, the original house of the gods (. . .) [Thus] the gods [established] their dominion . . . in the land of the original people. 77

In the myth Creation of the King, we are dealing with the delight resulting from the creation of human beings. Belet-ili creates first the man in the likeness of gods, and he took on the gods’ hard work: Ea talks: “Let us make an image of clay, let us impose [the forced labor upon it], “Let us relieve their weariness for all time.” 78

This creature is so perfectly formed that it evokes applause from Enlil and the other gods. Later, Enlil asks Belet-ili to create a king. There is a second creation, and the king is particularly generously endowed by the gods: “Make a king, a counsellor-man, “Adorn his whole body with excellence, “See to his features, make fair his body.” (. . .) Anu gave his crown, Enlil ga[ve his throne], Nergal gave his weapon, Ninurtu gave [his splendor], Belet-ili gave [his] fea[tures] Nusku commissioned a (wise) counsellor and 76.  Creation of Humankind, 1–12, in ibid., 491–92. 77.  Providing for the Gods, 1–8, in ibid., 494. 78.  Creation of the King, 7–9, in in ibid., 496.

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He stood in attendance upon him, (. . .) [The gods of heaven and netherworld assembled], [They blessed the king, the counsellor-man]. 79

In this version, nothing is said about mixing the clay with the blood of a god. The king in his majesty is equal to the gods. The song Relation about a Creation from Ashur describes the genesis of the world in general, and among the things created also mentions a man: Marduk bound a structure of reeds upon the face of the waters, He formed dust, he poured it out beside the reed-structure. To cause the gods to dwell in the habitation of their heart’s desire He formed mankind. The goddess Aruru with him created mankind. 80

It is important to recall that, in the Sumerian version, only the goddess Aruru was responsible for the creation of man. Here, she must share this privilege with Marduk. However, in the creation of humanity in the tradition of Semitic Mesopotamia it is only very rarely that someone beside Marduk and Ea is involved.

The Human Attempt to Seize Time Even if time began to flow with the arrival of man on earth, it would never have stopped. Earlier in this essay, I mentioned unsuccessful attempts to achieve immortality by Gilgamesh; but Mesopotamian civilization found substitutes for immortality. In the Bible, the word bara ‘to create’ only is used of God; in Mesopotamia, the similar terms banǔ ‘to build’ and băēmu ‘to model’ are used of both gods and humans. In Mesopotamian civilization, an individual’s name and personal depiction have privileged position. The name was so important because the name was the basis for existence: absence of the name was equal to non-existence.. 81 This can be seen, for example, in The Gilgamesh Epic: “What is your name?” “Gilgamesh is my name, I am.” 82 Royal inscriptions of a historical nature were devoted to preserving memories of the exalted deeds of the king. These royal inscriptions do not cite the year, implying that the king has become immortal through his deeds and by virute of his name, which originated in a specific time frame. They are drafted according to this model: “Ur-Nanshe, king of Lagash, the son of Gunidou, built the temple of Ningirsu” (2494–2465 b.c.). During the rule of the Dynasty of Agade (2330–2100 b.c.), date is indicated by reference to specific events, such as building a temple, a military campaign, a natural phenomenon—which allows us to place one year in an absolute time-line: “(To the god) Enlil, (king) Rimoush, when he defeated Elam.” 83 It is worth noticing that some kings even destroyed earlier chronicles in order to show 79.  Creation of the King, 33′–50′, in ibid., 497. 80.  The Creation Account from Ashur, 17–21, in: G. Barton, Archaeology and the Bible (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1937) 303–5. 81.  W. G. Lambert, “Myth and Mythmaking in Sumer and Akkad,” in: Civilizations of the Ancient Near Eas (vols. 3 and 4; ed. J. Sasson; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006) 1828. 82.  The Gilgamesh Epic, X, iv:8. 83. J-R.  Kupper and E.  Sollberger, Inscriptiones royales sumériennes et akkadiennes (Paris: Du Cerf, 1971) 100.

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that time and history started to flow during their rule. In this way, they acted in the manner of gods. The sentence-construction shows how the basis for the creation of this record was a direct link between the event and a record of thanksgiving for it. Henceforth, the event serves only to memorialize the time, regardless of the occasion that gives rise to the record. 84 The event is a royal institution that gathers the individual into the collective memory and protects them from chaos. 85

Conclusions Time as it is depicted in Mesopotamian literature is a subjective notion. Its existence in the period when divine beings existed is only theoretical. Generations of gods came and went, but in fact nothing changed: the world was left in a vacuum. Only when humanity was created did time begin to flow. The creation of people brings a new impulse: people build civilization. The role of mankind as it is mentioned in the classical myths of Mesopotamian civilization seems to be much higher. The second issue is closely connected with the first: as the Igigi were linked with Anunnaki, in the same way, people are closely related to the gods. They are like the previous generation of gods. Because of this, heroes, kings and ordinary people very often were looking for a world without death, beyond time. 84.  A. Caubet and J. Ritter, Le Temps dans l’Orient Ancien, 56. 85. B. André-Salvini, La Conscience du Temps en Mesopotamie, 33.

Modern Architecture and Archaeology: The Case of the Hypothetical Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian Palace at Tell Massaïkh (Syria), 2007–2009

Jordi Abadal, Pedro Azara, David Capellas, Albert Imperial, Miguel Orellana UPC-ETSAB, B a r c e l o n a

At a 2007 colloquium on celestial architectures hold in Barcelona, Dr. MariaGrazia Masetti-Rouault, head of the international archaeological mission at Tell Massaïkh (Syria), mentioned that she wanted to bring one or more architects onto the team of archaeologists working at the mission. The reason was so that the architects could study the spatial qualities of the Neo-Assyrian palace and the possible lifestyles it accommodated. The goal was to understand and appreciate the palace not only for its shapes but also for the life that it may have harbored. In this way, the palace would be studied not so much as an empty structure, or as an ideal one, but rather in relation to the life and functions it housed, framed, or shaped. We, the “architectural team,” have participated now in three missions, always in the last week, when the annual excavations are coming to an end and all the partial conclusions could be drawn. A fourth mission is slated to take place in November, 2010. It would be the last one, due to the civil war in Syria at the beginning of 2011.

Fig. 1.  General view of the tell, with the Governor’s Palace.

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Fig. 2.  Plan of the Throne Room area and the late addition of the ramp at the Governor’s Palace.

Year 2007 As soon as we arrived in 2007, we encountered a problem posed by Dr. MasettiRouault: the unexpected and non-logical discovery of a massive structure, resembling a huge block of bricks, that invaded and neutralised the northern wing of the palace. This area was entered via a ramp installed, of all places, in the so-called governor’s bedroom, a particularly representative room located, just as in any other Neo-Assyrian palace, next to the throne room, which opened up onto the main courtyard. This structure was interpreted as the foot of a tower built hurriedly, without taking the palace’s structure and logic into account, most likely due to a foreseeable attack. This was the first problem in grasping the design and construction logic of the palace where modern architectural praxis could provide a possible convincing explanation. We considered how this addition—the tower—might have been built, an

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Fig. 3.  First hypothetical reconstruction sketch of the Throne Room area, distorted by the addition of an unexpected ramp going to a late platform or the base of a tower.

operation similar to what would be conducted today: reinforcing the walls, raising the ceiling in the room where the ramp was placed, and possibly reorganizing the heights of the different rooms affected by the enlargement of one of them. Such a drastic structural change as introducing a ramp into a room and attaching a building to a tower had to be studied from both the formal and functional standpoint. This is a well-planned palace, not a jumbled juxtaposition of rooms. The palace’s location and internal organization were not left to chance. Some sort of design based on a model of imperial palace should have existed. The relationship between the solid areas and large openings (the courtyards), seems to be harmonious. There is a gradation in the sizes of the rooms related to the purposes they presumably served. The organization of the spaces in the original design seems anything but fortuitous. Therefore, a tower and a ramp that completely and profoundly altered at least one wing of the palace could not have been drawn and built without evaluating and modifying the other volumes. Thus, even in the event that the ramp might have been built out of emergency rather than meditated change, its careful construction reveals that it was not entirely improvised or built in total haste. This also applies to the tower. As a result, we believed that the changes made led the entire design to be rethought. We tried to imagine what kind of elevation the ramp that ran the length of an elongated room prompted. We also tried to see and understand how the required elevation of the room with the ramp and the attachment of the tower affected the play of volumes. Palace life had to continue with some logic. The proper lighting and ventilation, especially in rooms with no external facades, had to retained, fostering a pleasant, logical life in the palace. At the same time, we assumed that the height of the different volumes had to be determined by symbolic or functional considerations. Changing or altering the design had to result not from urgent, chaotic work but meditated effort. After all, the

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Fig. 4.  Possible solutions to the relation of the late ramp and the late platform or the late tower.

Fig. 5.  Sketch of the main public courtyard or babanu at the Governor’s Palace.

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Fig. 6.  3-D hypothetical reconstruction of the entrance to the Throne Room seen from the courtyard or babanu.

symbolism of the palace had to be retained, and the legibility of its well-articulated forms had to be preserved. So, our earliest efforts at interpretation and virtual reconstruction were based on an assumption: that the palace reflected a single design whose logic had to be maintained. Somehow, our effort consisted of ascertaining how the reasons leading the palace to be designed and built were articulated. We had to start with the palace itself to arrive at the design: we had to “deconstruct” the entire complex, working under the hypothesis that it was built based on a well-organized design that covered the formal, functional, and symbolic needs of any palace. A Neo-Assyrian “architect” had to be behind the design, or at least an intelligent interpreter of the governor’s desires and of the models of Neo-Assyrian imperial palaces. At the same time, the “design logic” provided a possible clarification of the shape of one part of the palace that had not yet been unearthed (discovered). Indeed, its remains might never be discovered, since they are in a highly deteriorated area. In effect, while on previous missions, two of the wings on the main courtyard had been unearthed, the same did not happen on the south and west sides of the palace (facing the Euphrates). On the other hand, the traces of the wall not far from the supposed edge of the courtyard might lead to the conclusion that the wall was the boundary of the courtyard, not a wing with its own rooms. A contradiction seemed to arise between archaeology and architecture. However, the floor plan and elevations that we drew up showed that if the palace did indeed spring from a single design, it was “necessary” or “inevitable” that a volume, and not just the wall, would delimit at least the western side of the courtyard.

Year 2008 The subsequent mission in 2008 corroborated what the “design logic” “required”: what should “logically” be found, unless Neo-Assyrian architects had a very different

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Fig. 7.  Plan of the central area of the Governor’s Palace around the public courtyard or babanu.

view of how shapes could be articulated and how volumes and openings should be defined. Indeed, the base of the walls of an entire wing of rooms was found the following year. This wing was not constrained. A more careful study of the site revealed that the traces of the wall unearthed until then were not right: the wall had to be shifted westward, freeing up the space that should be occupied by the building that delimited one side of the courtyard, as it was later discovered. That year, it also became clear that modern building praxis may contribute to our understanding of archaeological structures. A fine layer of sand was found between the slab and the thick walls resting on it. No convincing reason could be found for the sand. One possible explanation was based on symbolism; the reason for this material had to be symbolic, not functional (after all, loose sand is not a

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Fig. 8.  3-D hypothetical reconstruction of the public courtyard or babanu, looking toward the entrance of the Throne Room; section of the same area, above.

building material). Given that it clearly came from the Euphrates River, and given the sacred, nurturing nature of the river, an evocation of the life forces needed for the survival of the palace seemed plausible. After all, despite the disproportionate thickness of the walls (more than three meters thick), the structures built using dried clay brick suffered under the heavy rainstorms that led the river to swell in spring and autumn (as the flood myth tells). However, without denying the symbolism of the vitality of the river, the presence of the fine layer of sand might stem from more prosaic needs. Even today, at least in conventional Spanish buildings, a layer of sand is usually placed on the ground and smoothed out, a simple, effective way of leveling the foundation on which the walls are going to rest. A comparison between an architectural design and archaeological ruins should not lead us to forget, however, that the building results from the adaptation of a hypothetical model to some specific s situation and location. A building has a life of its own that leads it to undergo alterations and restorations. These can substantially alter the initial design, adapting it to new needs that were not foreseen when it was commissioned. This observation is pertinent due to a problem that arose in 2008. Until then, the entrance to the palace had not yet been found. However, the discovery of a large solid brick platform on one side of the modern road leading from the river to the tell, led us to believe that we were near the main entrance to the palace. This entrance was probably enclosed and defended by two tall towers, the base of one of which

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Fig. 9.  Richard Neutra: Lovell House (Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.), 1927–1929.

might have been discovered. We only had to consider the need for a second tower which had yet to be found. However, a detailed study of the relationship between the supposed base of the tower and the other structures showed that the tower was a late addition to the palace. It was the result of a subsequent remodeling. Therefore, doubt was cast on the “need” for not just one but two towers to set off and protect the entrance. This does not mean that there was no tower or towers, or that the original entrance was not located there. But the remains of the supposed tower did not date from the first stage of the construction of the palace. Nothing helped us to align the design needs with the reality. It is true that a comparison with a hypothetical design has helped us to interpret the remains. But we had to be careful not to force the interpretation of the archaeological remains by trying to fit them into a model. Unexpected changes caused by reasons that are impossible to know at this point in time may have been capable of altering the “design and construction logic.” If these changes take place incessantly today, why would they not have also happened in the past?

Year 2009 The 2009 mission was confronted with a strange discovery. First, new excavations revealed that the supposed tower found in 2007 occupied a much larger area

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Fig. 10.  Plan of a hypothetical reconstruction of the main gate of the walled area of the Governor’s Palace.

than previously assumed, extending further westward. Second, the west side of the outer wall facing the Euphrates, whose edges had not been discovered, but which extended further each year, was clearly determined now. It was dozens of meters wide; it was a huge brick bulk on top of which carts pulled by several horses could have easily traveled. The strangeness of the extreme width of this wall was aggravated by its plan. Drawn from above, following the archaeological traces, the poor compositional relationship between the wall and the tower became clear: an excessively narrow courtyard was constrained by both volumes. It must have been a poor design, or an unsuccessful articulation of a predominantly horizontal element (the wall) and a vertical element (the tower). On paper, it almost seemed like a mistake. Even though the entire palace was not built at the same time, was such a clumsy play of volumes conceivable? Neo-Assyrian architects might have perceived space differently, although this is hard to believe in view of the perfect delimitation of the central courtyard and the articulation of the internal spaces, as well as the intricate yet controlled transition towards the main courtyard and the throne room. Then, one late afternoon, while we were resting under the shadowy veranda of the mission house near the river, some images came suddenly to our mind: pictures of the rationalist villas located high in the sunny hills of Los Angeles in the United States. Were these the ones that provided us a clue for a possible solution to the compositional problem? Indeed they were, and the solution would not be out of place in Neo-Assyrian culture either (as in Karkemish). The relationship between such a thick wall and the tower is better grasped if we assume that the wall is not a wall but an extensive

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Fig. 11.  Sections of the babanu and bitanu areas of the Governor’s Palace.

Fig. 12.  3-D aerial views of a hypothetical reconstruction of the various phases of part of the Governor’s Palace, corresponding to areas around both courtyards, the babanu and the bitanu.

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terrace atop which the palace was built. The tower discovered in 2007, over which palatial quarters might have been built, would not be a tower; rather, it would be part of an extensive terrace. But the actual edges of the terrace would not reflect any objective boundary; rather, they would have resulted from the randomness of the excavation. Our own prejudices or misinterpretations might have created the tower. With the terrace, the neo-Assyrian architects would have avoided the clumsy, irregularly-shaped ventilation shaft between the supposed wall and the tower. The extremely high terrace might act as both buttress and wall. The wall per se, then, would not exist. This platform would account for such an extensive brick-covered surface, first interpreted as the horizontal cross-section of a wall that was inexplicably thick. At the same time, it would serve not only defensive purposes but also as a true platform that would make the palace stand out. From a defensive system based on walls, we would have shifted to a system for articulating volumes and adapting to the land based on platforms. This possible interpretation of the remains would fully endorse a well thought out design. But the system of horizontal planes cannot be discerned immediately in the building, but rather through a drawing, bearing in mind models of both ancient and modern architecture. But we have to say that these architectural interpretations of the space and volumes of the palace, sometimes offering alternatives to the ones posed by archaeology, are based on the information that archaeology provides. Then, some criteria are followed: to think on the palace as a single complex that was built on a plan.

Fig. 13.  Aerial view of the remains of the Governonr’s Palace.

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The Neo-Assyrian palace in Tell Massaïkh is a building which at first might have been designed, drawn. At the same time, however, it was not just an ideal design but a building that was adapted to a particular place, to given topographical and environmental conditions. Sometimes we forget that, in archaeology, what is excavated and studied is architecture, at least when dealing with royal or holy buildings: a work of architecture, the result of the materialization of a design—that is, of a mental image captured on a two-dimensional medium. Behind the building is a mind that has drawn out the plans and supervised the construction. Yet another mind is also in the picture: the archaeologist and the historian mind, minds of those who unearth the building, study it and fill in the missing parts, who also work with their own mental models or images. The reconsideration and restoration of the lost building stems from a twofold comparison between the hypothetical design and the building, and between the models used to reconstruct and analyse the remains and the physical building itself. The palace will never again be the way it was back in its day. The filter of history conditions the reconstruction, yet also makes it possible. Somehow, inevitably, all buildings from the past will be contemporary buildings, because the contemporary eye is what brings them back to life. And this eye examines them as the work of a past architecture whose procedures can only be guessed at through comparison with our own. Our images are what give again life to the buildings from the past. Scientific objectivity is impossible, and perhaps undesirable: after all, we are dealing with a human work, and this can only be considered if we analyse it as if it were the fruit of our own effort—which, somehow, it is. The Neo-Assyrian palace is both a hypothetical work of architecture from the 8th century b.c.e. and our own work. The past is only discovered when it is brought into the present—and thus ceases to be the past.

Idea and Image: How What We Know Determines What We Want to Know Fernando Escribano Martín

U n i v e r s i d a d A u t ó n o ma

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My goal in this paper is to reflect on how current thinking conditions the rebuilding of what happened in the Mesopotamian world—that is, what we have been researching, documenting, thinking, imagining, and reconstructing within the past 150 years about what happened at least 2,500 years ago. But I also would like to consider how to proceed in the future to reconstruct the past based on what we as archaeologists find, because this phase of research—the reconstruction and the ideas underlying it—are the basis of and play a fundamental role in our work as historians. From the beginning, from the origins of the science of oriental archaeology, when it was dependent on the Bible and what was considered significant in it, it seems that the sole purpose of archaeology was to confirm what was reported in the Bible—even if originally this impulse was much stronger than it is now. From earliest times, architects who served oriental archaeology were part of the investigation. Both architects and historians, like any other student or person of science, began with their previous training, which of course had the goal of interpreting and studying the topic at hand but nonetheless had existing patterns on which the investigation built and, perhaps, also reflected subjective intentions. Early work in the “rediscovery” of the Middle East saw a major effort on the part of researchers to adapt to the new reality under study, both in terms of the types of buildings, the materials used, and the degree of decay of the remains. And the sources presented several difficulties: •  They were not very many sources. •  The images and representations original to the sources were few and therefore not as clear. •  Investigators could be influenced by their own set of symbols. •  The discoveries belonged to another era that could only be considered in terms of the researcher’s prior knowledge (recall the influence of minarets such as the one at Samarra in the reconstruction of ziggurats frequently seen, for example, in the paintings of Bruegel the Elder and others artists (figs. 1 and 2). •  The Bible was an absorbing presence for many in the science of archaeology. It was sacred and thus predisposed the interpretation of discoveries from other cultures.

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Fig. 1.  Minaret of mosque at Samarra.

Fig. 2.  The Towel of Babel. Flemish School. Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. Late 16th century.

What we need to determine is whether the intention was to create architecture truly based on the original time and place, or are we simply confronting an attempt to produce a recreation that is only imagined. Or have all of the recent reconstructions of ancient architecture simply be drawn from the work of Koldeway and Andrae, who were taken as a reference point and whose work has been reproduced without question? Few questions have been raised, and it appears that most recent reconstructions take the predecessors as a new dogma, a new faith—this time, however, the dogma of the pioneers in Orientalism, even though they surely never intended to express more than a hypothesis about the reconstructions that they presented, which were based only on the state of research at that time. This was, however, the general position about these reconstructed images of buildings that we took as standard until several studies, among them those of Gabriella Micale, raised questions about them. In one of her studies, Micale refers to Andrae, who, near death in 1955, admitted that each ziqqurrat has a distinctive character and distinctive shape and structure. Micale 1 thinks that the discussion of this problem must be framed by an acknowledgment that every architectural reconstruction is not only the result of a combination of data, mental images, interpretations, and suggestions (in others words, “concepts”) but must also take account of changing opinions, which inescapably are subject to evolution and the never-ending development of knowledge. And for me this is the key. Koldewey and Andrae probably began with this understanding, wanting to present a reconstruction that could be based on the knowledge available at the time but not intended as an absolute truth. And like others who have held onto images of the sacred, we have not ques1.  Micale, “The Course of the Images,”, p. 578.

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Fig. 3.  The temple of Ištar of Agade in Babylon, perspective. Reconstruction by O. Reuther. From Reuther, WVDOG 47 (1926), Abb. 84.

tioned the reconstructions of those who have gone before, and their images have become part of our cultural heritage as if they were a absolute truth, when they were nothing more than possible reconstructions of buildings, which are based on little more than a drawn plan from excavation and the initial surveys of a site (fig. 3). The relationship between archaeology and architecture is clearly evident in ancient Near East research, and buildings and urban planning are perhaps the more obvious and even spectacular considerations when we want to explore the lifestyle of a city, town, or population. That architects have to be involved in this research seems obvious. How their profession influences reconstruction of what we investigate is part of the methodology we are discussing here. How architecture is reconstructed based on archaeological remains from the Middle East has been carefully studied by Micale and other scholars; this is the topic of this workshop. I want to present some examples of how ideas determine architecture, and Gabriella Micale’s conclusions therefore do not seem particularly strange to me (although I was surprised again by the seriousness of her research and insight and to find that the subject is often unnoticed or not given much importance by others). Her conclusion is that an idea determines the erection of a building in one form or another, with one decoration or another, with one function or another. Similarly, when we physically reconstruct a building at an archaeological site— or virtually do so, on paper—because we usually have only a small quantity of data, we must carefully justify each choice we make, because surely we make these choices in accord with variables conditioned by what we know and believe; but we do not know exactly what this building looked like, what its height was, how it was decorated, where and what size the windows and doors were, etc. And, therefore, in order to represent these ideas in the form of reconstructed images, we must begin on the basis that anything we do is only a hypothesis and we must try to keep open various options that could replace the ideas we first propose. Fortunately, new technologies allow us to do this without great difficulty.

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That architecture is the product of ideas is something that we have all assumed. I have studied the architecture of the city of Babylon, and my study was based on two main sources—archaeology, obviously (I did not study more than the temples that have been discovered and their locations and, indeed, if I now had to re-study them in terms of their decoration and their effect on the city as a whole, I would rethink my perspective and my previous ideas about it), and also the texts. One of the key findings of my thesis 2 is that Babylon in the sixth century b.c.e. was, surprisingly, the same as the Babylon described in the texts of the twelfth century b.c.e., and this conclusion is only explicable if the sixth-century city was planned, if there was a desire to rebuild the same city and its major buildings in a similar (though not necessarily identical) fashion. Why? It seems to me that there must have been something about the importance of the city of Babylon in the religion and in the subconscious of its people. Or, perhaps, the city was thought to have its power because it replicated what had existed in the past, at the time when Enūma eliš held sway. Therefore, the city that was built by the gods themselves as a tribute to and in gratitude to Marduk, just as Marduk built the Ešagil for the great gods who preceded him, and just as the scheme of Ešarra and Apšu cannot be modified but must remain the same, so retaining the same plan for Babylon is the basis of its legitimacy and power. Does this idea means that the buildings were restored and rebuilt precisely the same as they once were? Not necessarily. The design characteristics of the area implies that buildings had to be restored and rejuvenated every few years, at regular intervals. Indeed, the protection and care of the temples, the houses of the gods, was one of the most important missions of kings; but this does not mean that the buildings were always identical in every technical and architectural feature. I think that some features were preserved, always respecting a certain way to build but not necessarily following a plan as if it were a not-to-deviated-from manual. What was needed was an idea—more or less accurate and more or less adapted to the present time—and then to say that the original plan has been followed, which implies that the rebuilt structure inherits the power of the original: this is the important thing. It is impossible to imagine that architectural shapes remained stable for more than 2,500 years; that we observe a certain unformity in representations of reconstructions is probably due to the influence of European parent of the reconstructions, which are linked to the ideas that Europe imposed on these cultures, frequently based on the Bible and on classical authors. 3 If we look for the origins of this influence and the image of those civilizations that was created, usually we mention travelers who passed through these lands and described them. And so, in this spirit, we should refer to Pietro Della Valle, whose text has recently been republished by Invenizzi, or to the Spaniard García de Silva y Figueroa, who is said to have been the first to note that cuneiform represented a written language, not just drawings. The text was only published in 1905 and remains very difficult to see even today. 4 Indeed, these two travelers paths crossed on their way to the East, and they shared a mutual despising of one another (fig. 4). Based on these testimonies, which appeared gradually in medieval times, the image of that area and those cultures that appeared in the minds of biblical and 2.  Religious Beliefs, Party and Urban Space in the Chaldean Babylon (see bibliography). 3.  Micale, “Imagini di architettura,” 122. 4.  Prof. Dr. Joaquín M. Córdoba is preparing a new edition.

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Fig. 4.  Cover of the manuscript by García de Silva y Figueroa’s. Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid.

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Fig. 5.  The walls of Babylona, as reconstructed by the Iraqi government.

classical scholars was mingled with contemporary Islamic architecture. After the first half of the nineteenth century, important additional visitors to the area began to do work more or less systematically, and the presence of cultures that had almost disappeared, with only the testimony of the Bible to their existence, began to rise in importance. The image went from a mental to visual image, thanks to drawings and reconstructions that authors such as Victor Place, Layard, Andrae, and Koldewey themselves were creating to illustrate their works, some less biased scientifically and some with other goals and intentions. A visual image was thus created, and perhaps what we are asking here is whether this process is reversible. This reconstruction from more than a century ago was assumed as a primary reference when the Iraqi government physically rebuilt some buildings in Babylon decades ago. There was no discussion about whether what Koldewey had assumed needed to be reconsidered; they simply erected temples and buildings based on the work of the German project, and this is a good example of the continuing effect of their efforts until the present (fig. 5). Another example of the importance of ideas in the design and development of buildings is the Monastery of El Escorial and its alleged inspiration by the temple of Herod in Jerusalem. I do not pretend to have an esoteric theory or will not go down roads that belong to specialists, but I think we can establish connections between the work of Felipe II and a Jewish temple, because the latter, at least in origin, was based on architectural concepts and ideologies coming from the ancient Near East (fig. 6). As is well known, in 70 c.e., the Second Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed along with the entire city by the troops of Titus. Some of the temple’s sacred furnishings were taken to Rome, as is shown in the image carved into the Arch of Titus, and were placed in the Temple of Peace, except for the Book of the Law and the curtains from the sanctuary, which were stored in the Reggia.

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Fig. 6.  View of El Escorial, España. Perhaps: Leiden, 1715.

This temple, regardless of the symbolic importance that it subsequently acquired (and which we will ignore), was described in the Bible almost as if it were a divine creation. Josephus, who was present at the temple’s destruction, also provides a description, and his testimony was the one used when an attempt to restore the temple was made in medieval times. Here is a part of his description. The temple had doors also at the entrance, and lintels over them, of the same height with the temple itself. They were adorned with embroidered veils, with their flowers of purple, and pillars interwoven; and over these, but under the crown-work, was spread out a golden vine, with its branches hanging down from a great height, the largeness and fine workmanship of which was a surprising sight to the spectators, to see what vast materials there were, and with what great skill the workmanship was done. 5

I cite this text because, at the time of religious conflict in the sixteenth century, the temple of Jerusalem gained primary religious and even political significance. In the Catholic world, it became a point of reference, and the restoration of the temple’s image was, in this era, a leit-motif, the meaning of which was expressed in sermons. 6 During the Spanish “Golden Century” (seventeeth century), much was written and discussed regarding the temple, and some of these scholars and theorists worked in the Library of El Escorial, which Philip II constructed in the image of the Jewish temple; he himself was considered a “new Solomon.” Pablo de Céspedes (a disciple of Arias Montano) argues that the twisted column (in Spain referred to as a “Solomonic” column) and Corinthian capital come directly from Babylonian architecture. The basis for this contentious claim is found in the Geography of Strabo and in plant forms (fig. 7). It is not the purpose of this communication to establish whether this was so or not, but I am interested in the fact that religious and political motives to reconstruct the building on the basis of written testimony, not on the basis of archaeological research, existed at that time. This attitude, common at so many times in the history of architecture and archaeology, is the focal point of this workshop. Nabonidus 5.  Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15.11 (trans. Whiston). 6.  S. Tuzi, Le Colonne e il Tempio di Salomone, p. 243.

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Fig. 7.  “Solomonic” column. Basilica de San Isidro Labrador, Madrid; photo by the author.

himself had reconstructed buildings based only on ancient texts, and at Uruk, texts have been found that indicate that buildings were reconstructed based both on the remains found and on the information found in ancient texts. All of these research projects around the temple, all of the ideas focusing on the matter, often were a result of confrontation with the movement taking place in the Protestant world; the result was that a “new temple” was built, initially on paper, but eventually in reality. The pursuit of knowledge and wisdom that a Renaissance prince undertook later resulted in his becoming a champion of the “CounterReformation.” Because of the religious conflict, in the new building, many symbols were hidden, though they nonetheless created a link between the building built in the 16th century in the hills of Madrid and the temple destroyed in Jerusalem 1500 years earlier, both having clear, symbolic architectural resemblances to the Mesopotamian and Babylonian world. Once again, it is clear that ideas and belief systems were used to justify the form and symbolism of a building. There is nothing new under the sun, even though in the mythology of the age of Philip II, the sun never set on his dominions (fig. 8).

Reconstructions from Past to Future Thus far, I have noted that the reconstructions we create are a product of the ideas we have inherited. In fact, this has been true of the architectural reconstruction of archaeological remains since the beginning. Based on the remains, we determined the character of the building, and from this we drew conclusions about the way of life of those who lived there. The same arguments we have made about earlier reconstructions we can now consider in terms of what it means for the future.

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Fig. 8.  View of Babylon. J. B. Fischer von Erlach. British Library.

By definition, design is a scientific reconstructive procedure that applies to all stages of analysis of the evidence. 7 We begin with the evidence presented by Micale, that some of the first reconstructions made in the first stages of this effort have been considered almost sacred and have been treated as standard images of the past used in education of new generations of scholars, as if these images were genuine and not merely assumptions. And we also share the idea that reconstructions are one of the higher results of research and partly justify the work of archaeologists. Reconstructions have several uses that we are not going into in this paper, though are very important: pedagogical work in the classroom or in museums as well as the purely scientific process that we helps us understand what lies ahead. Reconstructive methods should be based on interdisciplinary work, requiring close collaboration between everyone who is involved in research or who is able to provide information. It is always possible that the archaeologist is also an architect who has the ability to draw or to make surveys in 3D, but this is neither always the case nor easy. Reconstruction of building volumes involves elements that are not reflected in the archaeological remains; to collect the data, process it, and hypothesize what existed in the past involves a partnership between archaeologist and artist or technician. 7.  Baccy et al., “L’utilizzo della reconstruzione,” p. 55.

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During the conception of the 3D model, 8 the archaeologist must reflect on his own hypotheses and some simple facts. For example, the necessity of light in a living room does imply that a proposed reconstruction have windows but says nothing about their placement or location—we note only that windows are needed. And certainly they were needed. With this technology, the path leads from 3D scanning, to 3D restoration, then on to 3D reconstruction. The scanning should begin when digging begins, and 3D reconstruction implies a very close collaboration between archaeologists and computer graphic designers. The archaeologist has to check hypotheses and other assumptions that directly emerge from the 3D visualization of the reconstruction. 9 Recently, researchers have reflected on the process of image production and the problematic relationship between images and knowledge creation. Visual studies within archaeology have focused on the history of pictorial reconstructions of ancient life, 10 challenging familiar assumptions about our understanding of humans in the distant past. Even a not very comprehensive review produces a wealth of different models or proposals that all have the same goal—assisting the rebuilding of buildings and structures from archaeological remains. In this regard, I have been especially struck by the 3D project Collaborative Environments in Archaeology, directed by Maurizio Forte, 11 which provides a collaborative simulation platform where multiple users can interact in the 3D space, sharing the context and 3D graphic libraries in the same cyber space. This is all based on a set of ideas and research directions that I find particularly interesting: The capacity to learn is based on informative exchange between users and the ecosystem, where mind and body, interaction, behaviors, feed-back, are fundamental steps for generating information. 12

And something that I find very interesting is that the basis of work, in 3D or in any reconstruction—which was not at all well understood in the work of our predecessors (Layard, Andrae, and Koldewey; see above)—is that “3D models can be disassembled and recomposed according to different combinations and solutions . . . different hypotheses corresponding to the ‘possible realities’ can coexist, showing the reconstruction of the past through an articulated simulation process.” 13 Regardless of all of the possibilities that are already present in our research into the ancient world—available to anyone who wants use them—and despite the fact that we have not exhausted existing methodologies for research in the Middle East, perhaps it is time to consider everything done so far. Micale’s wake-up call seems essential to me, especially in light of thinking how we will carry out research in the future. There is much to take into account: ways to proceed, difficulties in proposals, previous documentation and result to review, forms of the work, conclusions and reconstruction, rethinking what is truly necessary; nonetheless, it is possible to imagine application of new technologies in a systematic reconstruction of a specific site; some of this is already being done, but many surprises may await us. 8.  R. Ercek et al., “3D Reonstructions and Digitalization,” p. 76. 9.  Ibid., 77. 10.  G. Gibbons, “Visualisation in archaeology,” p. 11, in Moser 1998. 11.  M. Forte and E. Pietroni, “Collaborative Environments in Archaeology: Experiencing the Reconstruction of the Past.” This paper is just one example of Forte’s work. 12.  Ibid., 63. 13.  Ibid., 64.

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In conclusion, we began this essay by focusing on reconstructions and rethinking some key characteristics of the science of reconstruction as it was practiced at the beginning, images of which have remained on the retina of all of us. We moved on to consider the movement’s successes and mistakes and the development of models whose methodology must be reevaluated, because we are working with scenarios and, as such, those scenarios are subject to error and change. New technology facilitates the simultaneous presentation of various possibilities, immediate interconnection among various scholars, and the relatively easy amendment of a proposal or idea for the reconstruction of something built, all of which brings only benefits. Multidisciplinary work and various contributions to the reconstruction of the past can only bring advantage and enrichment, and we are working on it.

Bibliography Córdoba Zoilo, J. Mª, “Un caballero español en Isfahán. La embajada de Don García de Silva y Figueroa al sha Abbás el Grande (1614–1624),” in ARBOR 153 (March-April, 2005) 645–69. R Ercek, D. Viviers, and N. Warzée, “3D Reconstruction and Digitalization of an Archeological Site, Itanos, Crete”, in VAR: Virtual Archaeology Review 1/1 (2010) 74–78. Escribano Martín, Fernando. Creencias religiosas, fiesta y espacio urbano en la Babilonia caldea. 2009. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Forte, M., and E. Pietroni, “Collaborative Environments in Archaeology: Experiencing the Reconstruction of the Past,” International Journal of Architectural Computing 1/7 (2010) 57–76. Garry Gibbons, “Visualisation in Archaeology: Connecting Research and Practice,” VAR: Virtual Archaeology Review 1/2 (2010) 11–15. Invernizzi, A., ed., Pietro della Valle, In viaggio per l’Oriente. Le mummie, Babilonia, Persepoli. 2001. G. Micale, “Immagini di architettura: strutura e forma della architetura mesopotamica attraverso le rocostruzioni moderne.” Pp. 121–66 in Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale 10 (= Studi in onore di Paolo Matthiae; 2005), ed. A. Di Ludovico e D. Nadali (Rome). _______ . “Riflessi d’architettura mesopotamica nei disegni e nelle ricostruzioni architettoniche di Assur e Babilonia: tra realtà archeologica e mito dell’architettura monumentale.” Pp. 117–40 in Further Approaches to Travelers and Scholars in the Rediscovering of the Ancient Near East. ISIMU 10/2; ed. J. Mª Córdoba, F. Escribano, and M. Mañé; Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2007. _______ . “The Course of the Images: Remarks on the Architectural Reconstructions in the 19th and 20th Centuries: The Case of the Ziqqurrat.” Pp. 571–58 in vol. 2 of Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Madrid (2008). Ed. J. Mª Córdoba et al. Rodríguez Hidalgo, José Manuel. “De la reconstrucción tradicional a la virtual. Una visión desde la Arqueología”, in VAR: Virtual Archaeology Review 1/1 (2010) 144–48. Torres, J. C. et al. “Applicaciones de la digitalización 3D del patrimonio.” VAR: Virtual Archaeology Review 1/1 (2010) 45–48. Tuzi, S.. Le Colonne e il Tempio di Salomone: La storia, la leggenda, la fortuna. Rome: Gangemi, 2002.

Architecture and Ancient Near East in Drawings, Buildings, and Virtual Reality Issues in Imagining and Designing Ancient and Modern Space

Maria Gabriella Micale

“S a p i e n z a ” U n i v e r s i t à

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Experiences of Architecture Architecture is a cultural product that allows human perception to experience it in both two and three dimensions. This double experience does not depend on the fact that it projects an image of itself, as does any three-dimensional object (fig. 1) nor on the possibility that this image would be reproduced. Rather, it seems to depend on its two-dimensional assumptions (the drawing) and, at the same time, on its three-dimensional purposes (the building). Even though they are basically design instruments for architects with which to test and order imagined spatial relationships, architectural drawings represent the first step toward a global perception of space, because they are necessary in order to guide the imagining of the three-dimensional development of a two-dimensional plan. It is undeniable that the centrality of the human point of view that forces us to imagine built space around us has been affected by the Renaissance and the way that artists and architects of that time transformed architecture into built image of itself. However, even during the Renaissance, the perspective tricks used to “open” walls, ceilings, and paintings to create apparent depth mainly depended on projections and plans—that is, on spaces already geometrically organized, thus reflecting a certain difficulty in creating three-dimensional spaces, even when only for the purposes of illusion, without the support of two-dimensional bases. In the case of both ancient and modern architecture, the second and third dimensions become a question of images and perception of volumes. Image of space, on the one hand, and perception of volumes, on the other, seem to be two different Author’s note: This contribution is mainly based on studies and researches that I conducted since 2002, when I defended my M.A. dissertation at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” on the relationship between archaeological data, iconographic sources, and the historical architectural reconstructions of Assyrian monuments realized by Robert Koldewey and Walter Andrae (see Micale 2005). The attention on record and reconstruction of architecture in archaeology, with a focus on the influence of historical and cultural events of the decades between 19th and 20th centuries, is addressed in Micale 2007a, 2008a and, more recently, in Micale 2010, with a special observation of the influence of ancient Mesopotamian motifs in Italian art at the beginning of the 20th century. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Pedro Azara for his invitation to attend the Workshop and his kind interest in my research.

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Fig. 1.  Mitchell’s diagram, according to which mental and physical images belong to the same category: images. The candle could be both a real object or the image of an object (Mitchell 1984: 508).

Fig. 2.  Perspective reconstruction of the Citadel of Khorsabad (Place 1867–70: III, pl. 18).

Fig. 3.  St. Joseph’s Church, Ainkawa, Iraq (Photo: Sinje Stoyke).

and, sometimes, opposite outcomes of their relationship. On the one hand, images, as two-dimensional vehicles, directly reflect and transmit ideas, interpretations, and reconstructions of what sometimes does not exist anymore (ancient architecture) or is out of sight of those to whom these ideas and interpretations belong (ancient architecture and/or modern ruins). On the other hand, even though they are more difficult to reproduce, since they should be strictly related to the function of a building, volumes represent the connection with the original architectural design

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of a form and, to some extent, the attempt to reproduce them in different times and places should act as a guarantee of their correct perception. But, in reality, what registers more frequently is the use of both image and volume as an “envelope” of spaces whose assumptions and functional aims do not have anything in common with them. A very interesting case, for example, is the use of the Mesopotamian ziqqurrat (in reality known only as ruins or reconstructed image) as direct or indirect source for shaping cultural, ethnic, or religious lineages or to suggest them without overtly mentioning them (figs. 2–5). Actually, it is possible not only to find a ziqqurrat in the reconstructing drawings made to provide a media for envisioning the past but also to recognize its alleged shape in modern buildings: a church, a luxury hotel, a museum share a common shape, but not a real common origin; they Fig. 4.  Four Seasons Hotel, Damascus are not descendents of the same monument. (Photo: author). In those cases, since ancient and modern architecture takes place in imagining, building, reconstructing, envisioning each other, if tradition is not directly involved, any suggestion of images or volumes has to be considered a purely reciprocal simulation. However, it must be emphasized here that, in approaching modern or ancient architecture, even though preserved as a ruin, the perception of the actual character of a building usually prevails over the perception of its visual one. This means that, according to a common approach toward materiality, even though it is only partially preserved, an ancient ruined building could impose itself as reflection of the real (or even the real itself) and generate, as a consequence, clichés or commonplaces that act as obstacles to interpretation and the comprehension of the lost reality behind the ruins. The frequent lack of preserved colors in ancient sculptured wall decoration, for instance, is the most common case. Actually, even thought it is clearly documented, its poor state of preservation, which in some cases leaves the impression of a real deficiency in the original, has always affected not only public imagination but also its historical and aesthetic interpretation, which, still today, is based mainly on a vision of white stone surfaces.

Images of Architecture When we consider the relationship between modern and ancient architecture, their images represent a most complex field of investigation, because they represent more than their architectural subjects, even if images apparently have less effect upon common opinion than architecture itself. Images of architecture projected on the second-dimension (video, pictures, etc.) are currently the most common. But images of architecture are also the set of drawings of the original design of a building, images of something that could never exist in reality; or the drawings that

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Fig. 5.  Tate ziqqurrat, London by Herzog - de Meuron (source: http:// www.guardian.co.uk/ arts/gallery/2007/ mar/28/1).

reproduce the architectural reality of already existing buildings; but also images of ancient buildings that, depending on their state of preservation, are either partially or fully reconstructed. Architectural reconstructions of ancient monuments are complex intellectual and technical creations that lie somewhere between reality and imagination. On the one hand, they reflect archaeological and architectural data and their interpretation(s), ancient iconographic sources, and technical details of execution, which are certainly strictly linked to the educational and professional background of the picture maker; on the other hand, they are also the expression of the picture maker’s entire visual and intellectual world, which also includes already existing architectural reconstructions (actually, images of the past survive longer than the theories they were designed originally to support) and contemporary architecture. All of these elements that the image is made from act as a filter of meaning, thus delimiting its overall impact and manipulating the viewer’s reaction. 1 Mesopotamian antiquities became the focus of a first real “archaeological” attention only in 19th century, when colonial interests of the European great powers in Near East rose. 2 And Near Eastern ancient architecture, the drawings and architectural reconstructions made by the first European archaeologists and architects that worked in Mesopotamia, played a fundamental role in both the interpretation and the rationalization of archaeological data and, mainly, their transmission. Actually, the image of Near Eastern architecture held by modern scholars is based mainly on the architectural conception expressed in the reconstructions made by European archaeologists between the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. According to Barthel Hrouda, who wrote about this subject in the late 1970s, a great number of “archaeological” articles were written by philologists or architects (Hrouda 1978: 22). There is no doubt that his opinion was affected by the 19th-century pioneers of Near Eastern studies that, in the best case, 1.  For the case of German archaeologists at the beginning of the 20th century, see Micale 2005: 150–51; Micale and Nadali 2008: 406–9. 2.  For a general overview of this question in the context of the first archaeological activity in the Near East and the first reconstructions of the image of its ancient architecture, see Micale 2008a.

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Fig. 6.  Perspective reconstruction of the Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh (Layard 1853: frontispiece).

were architects. It should be admitted, as archaeologists, that Mesopotamian architecture started to be understood only when archaeologists began to draw it (Micale 2007: 120–22). Without doubt, the first scientific approach to visual reconstruction of Mesopotamian architecture is due to Walter Andrae and Robert Koldewey, the two German architects that started to conceive archaeological drawings as instruments of archaeological practice that, under German direction, started to be, for the first time, a scientific method that could reconstruct the global historical and cultural context to which the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian buildings belonged. Their reconstructions offered an image of ancient Mesopotamian architecture so strong and verisimilar that they have been accepted as reproductions (not reconstruction!) of the original state of the buildings depicted by both scientific and common opinion. Those images impacted the shared imagery as if they were the real shape of Mesopotamian architecture. However, taking into consideration that, first of all, they are images, the analysis of these drawings allows us to infer that sources that do not belong to the field of archaeology take part in the reconstruction process as well. The employment of the reconstructed images by other scholars is usually never mentioned and, actually, only rarely do Andrae and Koldewey admit that they were inspired by already existing images. But, when they do, they refer to the perspective reconstructions of Khorsabad made by Victor Place at the middle of 19th century. Compared with the reconstructions by A. H. Layard (fig. 6), the French drawings could be rightly considered the first “archaeological” image of Mesopotamian architecture because they were consistent with the available evidence regarding Mesopotamian architecture

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Fig. 7.  Perspective reconstruction of the Citadel of Khorsabad (Loud and Altman 1938: pl. 1).

at that time (Micale 2005: 140–43). But even if the drawings published by Layard were not based on any scientific archaeological interpretation, they provide and fix, for the first time, the two kinds of drawings of the archaeological publications for many decades after Layard: two- and three-dimensional reconstructions. His lack of interest in walls and structures without sculptured decoration (walls that actually were systematically demolished [Liverani 2000: 2–6]) affected the images he published where, for example, there is an evident lack of relationship between two- and three-dimensional drawings. Thus, it is clear why the drawings of Khorsabad by Victor Place, only few years later, mark the crucial transformation of the image of Mesopotamian monuments from illustrations into images of architecture, even though the use of plans and perspective reconstructions might reveal that the graphic elaboration of both two- and three-dimensional architecture may have been perceived already by Layard as the basis for a correct understanding of architecture (Micale 2008b: 3–4). A stratigraphical approach to the archaeology of Mesopotamia arose only as a result of the work of the German archaeologists that, as an expression of their new methodological attitude toward the architectural sequence, provided the publications of detailed plans, sections, and elevations of the structures brought to light and schematic plans corresponding to different phases of each building. The heritage of these first German experiences in later, again German, archaeological publications is difficult to follow. Detailed plans became more and more exceptional, perspective reconstructions disappeared altogether, and, in general, traditional drawings (including sections) were progressively replaced by pictures

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Fig. 8.  Digital perspective reconstruction of the Ištar Gate at Babylon (Martin Cox — IMK3D — for Editorial Sol90).

of mud-brick structures. During the same decades, when the German publications were still in preparation, G. Loud and C. Altman published the new discoveries at Khorsabad, providing two books of relevant but, in reality, hardly revolutionary drawings (fig. 7). They anticipated recent approaches toward the evaluation of the structures’ capacity to develop in height, but without the support of detailed plans, the American drawings can be considered only an attempt to (re)-create the monumentality of the buildings by means of the image (Micale 2008b: 7–15). The introduction of the so-called New Technologies in the reconstruction of ancient Near Eastern architecture should have represented a natural improvement of the knowledge about ancient architecture by means of the drawing. But the analysis of some recent 3D virtual reconstructions suggests that sometimes they reflect only a development of the devices by means of which architecture is visualized (figs. 8–9). The recent virtual reconstruction of the Citadel of Nimrud is currently the most complex representation of a Near Eastern architectural context by means of information technology. But except for the chance to perceive the architecture as a box-space around us, this virtual image in reality reflects the same problems and interpretive doubts that we have in traditional drawings (i.e., the possible height of the walls, the lighting, the roofing, or the shape of the gates). Actually, these virtual reconstructions are based on schematic plans that generate volumes by means of software: they result in nothing more than a suggestion of the potential volumetric development of a building’s plan. 3 3.  A first analysis of the virtual reconstruction of the Citadel of Nimrud has been presented in Micale 2007b, a preliminary evaluation of the results of the project led by State University of N.Y. at Buffao, with the scientific coordination of Prof. Samuel Paley, and Learning Sites Inc. I was personally invited by Prof. Paley to cooperate with him and find, at each step of the reconstructing process, a proper way to present ancient Assyrian architecture to the public in order to avoid the insertion of a false image

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Fig. 9.  Perspective reconstruction of the Ištar Gate at Babylon (Koldewey 1918: pl. 19).

Ancient and Modern Architecture: A Reciprocal Depiction The relationship between modern architecture and the reconstructed image of ancient Mesopotamian architecture is often recognized in the use of alleged “Mesopotamian” or generically defined “oriental” features in western architecture. 4 Actually, whereas in modern post-colonial countries the fabrication of ethnic, religious, or national identities is frequently linked to the fabrication of the material world (and, as a consequence, the exploitation of architectural shapes and decorative elements of archaeological origin could depend on the need to express self-determination), “Oriental” features in modern Western architecture are, on the contrary, only a subproduct of the Orientalistic trend of European art between 19th and 20th century. Real or alleged “Oriental” or “Mesopotamian” motifs seem to be recognized in either the overall volume design of some buildings or even in single decorative elements. Their use could be ascribed to a new research looking for “otherness” and exoticism whose “anti-academic” spirit, in reality, consists in an emancipation from classical patterns rather than the conscious use of cultural models (Micale 2005: 148–49). It is clear that the Oriental attitude of the first archaeological research in the Near East became a basis of confusion: generically “Oriental” features became, from to common opinion. I am grateful to him for his encouragement at that time, when he used to tell me that, as long I was a “thorn in his side,” to that extent the virtual images of Nimrud would be verisimilar images. And I am still grateful to him (he died in 2010) for the example of his open-minded approach to life in archaeology. It is impossible for me to forget our attemps to imagine how many windows the Throne Room of Ashurnasirpal II could have had and, at the same time, laugh at our stupid pretension. 4.  For an analysis of Oriental motifs in 19th architecture and art, with a special focus on the Italian case, see Micale 2010.

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the western point of view, symbols of an Orient that lacked its own identity. After the first archaeological discoveries in the first decades of the 19th century, which were almost exclusively late-Assyrian, the attempt to define a verisimilar image of Assyria and Babylonia known in biblical and Classical sources led to an inaccurate portrait of ancient Mesopotamia, to whose construction both past and present contributed. All the first images of Mesopotamian architecture were realized with the help of contemporary architecture, both Eastern and Western. The drawings by Fergusson, where elements of contemporary Iranian and Indian origin can be seen, are the first explicit examples of the difficulty in giving shape and image to a newly discovered ancient Assyrian architecture. But its three-dimensional reproduction in the Assyrian Court, designed for the Crystal Palace in 1854 by Fergusson and Layard themselves, as if it was not ancient but contemporary and so living architecture, is symptomatic of the general approach toward Mesopotamian antiquities: they were perceived and then represented as a blend of foreign and local elements, that is, imaginary (and thus suitable for European culture) architecture (Micale 2010: 95–96). Some years later, in the reconstructions of the Citadel of Khorsabad, Victor Place used small, decorated domes clearly inspired by the urban landscape of Oriental cities of that time, and, for ventilation and lighting systems, he hypothesized that they could be similar to the ones used in the contemporary churches of southern Egypt, which were clay tubes inserted in roofs or domes (Place 1867–70: I, 54). Unlike Layard and Fergusson, who seemed to focus purely aesthetic issues, these insertions of contemporary elements depended on the need to find functional solutions and to integrate poor archaeological data. However, it is clear that is not possible to reconstruct what was originally a mud-brick building using different materials and techniques and not deny, as a consequence, the original’s identity and uniqueness. In addition to single architectural and decorative elements, it is possible to recognize contemporary features in both techniques and styles adopted in the drawings. The technical and artistic personal education of W. Andrae and R. Koldewey emerges in their reconstructions and, even though they switched between different ways of representation, it is possible to distinguish the more frequently used methods and techniques according to the destination of the drawing itself. Koldewey’s drawings are characterized by an almost absolute lack of detail. The amplification of quadrangular volumes, which are shown by the contrast of light and shadow, and the lack of any decorative element, seem to reveal Koldewey’s conformity to the principles that anticipate the later results of the Rationalist Movement, of which at the beginning of the century Germany was one of the most productive centers. On the contrary, Andrae used any device available to make the city’s image spectacular. The propensity toward a regular use of decorative elements and the adoption of a specific low-perspective point of view, that actually recalls a trend of the Gothic Revival of the 1920s expressed in both architecture and figurative arts, reveal the employment of both the principles and techniques that he had learned at the university thanks to some of the most important representatives of German Jugendstil (Micale 2005: 150–51). To some extent, Andrae’s drawings could be defined as a media operation that aimed to emphasize the monumental nature of an architecture preserved only as ruins. However, the deception generated by the reconstruction did not mean the renouncement of the principles of archaeological documentation and scientific research. Compared to the German drawings, the perspective

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Fig. 10.  National Mall and Memorial Parks of Washington according to the McMillan Commission, 1901 (source: http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/McMillan_Plan).

Fig. 11.  The Citadel of Nimrud, digital reconstruction (Image courtesy of Learning Sites, Inc.).

reconstructions by Loud and Altman, which not only stylistically correspond to the trend of contemporary American architecture but also recall examples of American State monumental architecture of the early 20th century (figs. 7, 10), are the only images of a lost architecture whose archaeological and architectural assumptions seem to have been intentionally hidden.

Architecture in Images: Between Virtual and Real Deception Concerning digital images of ancient architecture, it could be asserted that it is more difficult to find in them traces of other architectures except in the ones that are already recognizable in traditional drawings. Information technology used to build architectural images should provide an advanced way of providing a verisimilar experience of spaces that actually do not exist in reality. However, the very advanced and multi-layered example provided by the reconstruction of the Citadel of Nimrud shows that the visual results are not more realistic than the ones reached by means of traditional drawings on paper (fig. 11). For instance, compared with traditional drawings, where the technical and artistic skills of the drawer could mark a real

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difference in their visual and aesthetic perception, the standardization of colors and architectural elements of digital drawings seems to provide the image with a surface that is a smooth plane, which does not improve the comprehension of the hypothesis expressed in the image itself. Thus, even though Virtual Reality should be a crucial tool that results in the best average of similarity to the original architectural form, in reality it prolongs unsolved questions and the proper ambiguity of each image shaped on the base of interpretation and imagination. But, if the aim of any architectural reconstruction, at the risk of by-passing the archaeological data, becomes also the creation of images that could live by themselves, the choice of the drawing device becomes a secondary matter, revealing, as a consequence, the real ambition of any architectural image—that is, a visual and sensory deception.

Bibliography Hrouda, B. 1978 Grundlagen und Methoden. Pp. 18–39 in Methoden der Archëologie. Munich. Koldewey, R. 1918 Das Ischtar-Tor in Babylon (= WVDOG 32). Leipzig. Layard, A. H. 1853 Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. London. Liverani, M. 2000 La scoperta del mattone: muri e archivi nell’archeologia mesopotamica. Vicino Oriente 12: 1–17. Loud, G., and C. B. Altman 1938 Khorsabad, II: The Citadel and the Town. OIP 45. Chicago. Micale, M. G. 2005 Immagini di architettura: struttura e forma della architettura mesopotamica attraverso le ricostruzioni moderne. Pp. 121–66 in D. Nadali and A. Di Ludovico (eds.), Studi in onore di Paolo Matthiae presentati in occasione del suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno. CMAO 10. Rome. 2007a Riflessi d’architettura mesopotamica nei disegni e nelle ricostruzioni architettoniche di Assur e Babilonia: tra realtà archeologica e mito dell’architettura monumentale. Pp. 117–40 in J. Córdoba, M. Mañé, and F. Escribano (eds.), Further Approaches to Travellers and Scholars in the Rediscovering of the Ancient Near East, II. Madrid. 2007b From Drawing to Vision: The Use of Mesopotamian Architecture Through the Construction of its Image. In W. Börner and S. Uhrliz (eds.), Cultural Heritage and New Technologies. Workshop 11: “Archaeology and Computer.” Magistrat der Stadt Wien, (disk). 2008a European Images of the Ancient Near East at the Beginning of the 20th Century. Pp.  191–203 in J.  Nordbladh and N.  Schlanger (eds.), Archives, Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Light of its History. Goeteborg. 2008b Making Archaeology, Imagine Architecture: Patterns of Production and Diffusion of Two and Three-Dimensional Architectural Drawings in Near Eastern Archaeology. In W. Börner and S. Uhrliz (eds.), Cultural Heritage and New Technologies. Workshop 12: “Archaeology and Computer.” Magistrat der Stadt Wien, (disk). 2010 Designing Architecture, Building Identities: The Discovery and Use of Mesopotamian Features in Modern Architecture between Orientalism and the Definition of Contemporary Identities. Pp. 93–112 in P. Matthiae et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th ICAANE, Rome, 5th–10th May 2008. Rome. Micale, M. G., and D. Nadali 2008 “Layer by Layer. . . .” Of Digging and Drawing: The Genealogy of an Idea. Pp. 405–14 in R. D. Biggs, J. Mayer, and M. Roth (eds.) Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Chicago, 18–22 July 2005. SAOC 62. Chicago.

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Mitchell, W. J. T. 1984 What Is an Image? New Literary History 15/3: 503–37. Place, V. 1867–70 Ninive e l’Assyrie, avec des essais de restitution par F. Thomas, I–III. Paris.

Invented Space: Discovering Near Eastern Architecture through Imaginary Representations and Constructions

Davide Nadali

Sapienza Università

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R o ma

From the beginning, the discovery of the archaeological ruins of the ancient Near East and the physical appearance of that ancient past in the European mind was built upon a series of images that reconstructed the urban space and buildings of the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian cities. Indeed, we can even affirm that images of the ancient Near East came before the discovery of ancient Near Eastern history, when the real shape and nature of the archaeological ruins and oriental antiquities were still unknown: however, those images persisted even afterward, with archaeologists and specialists using and referring to them to describe and illustrate their new discoveries. Mesopotamia suffered the impossibility of a vivid representation of its own past and monumental architectural remains if we compare it with the experience of Egypt and Persia, where the emerging ruins of palaces, temples, and cities were immediately perceivable and those monuments could be more easily recorded and drawn and reached Europe in a more concrete and less imagined way. However, travelers crossing the Near East registered and recorded emerging ruins and the shape of several mounds that were only excavated in the mid-19th century, thus revealing their hidden “secrets.” The attention of travelers focused on recording the shape of the Near Eastern landscape (the archaeological hills were in fact part of it); they looked at the remains of ancient civilizations from the viewpoint of their time, transferring and reflecting the attitude of the period, thus imprinting a particular antiquarian curiosity on the archaeological remains and giving emphasis to a romantic view of the past. 1 The study of the Near East was strongly imbued with biblical references, and for that reason every anomaly of the surface was immediately thought to be proof of the Tower of Babel recorded in the Bible: indeed, at the time of the first travels in 1.  The archaeological ruins in the landscape bore witness to a real past and they are signs of the ongoing and inexorable action of time. Travelers thus transferred their image of the Orient, adding personal remarks and considerations, aiming at building stereotypes overlapping the world they were visiting and the past civilizations that once existed in the regions. On travelers’ accounts, see the study by A. Invernizzi (2000), with references to the accounts by Pietro della Valle (In viaggio per l’Oriente: le mummie, Babilonia, Perseopoli; Alessandria, 2001), the editing of the travel account by Ambrosio Bembo (Viaggio e scoperte per parte dell’Asia di quattro anni incirca fatto da me Ambrosio Bembo nobile veneto; Turin, 2005), and the remarks of Di Paolo 2006.

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Mesopotamia, many travelers tried to identify the existence of the tower. 2 So many towers line the Mesopotamian landscape that in fact Robert Ker Porter, when visiting Borsippa and the ruins of Birs Nimrud in 1818, felt able to identify Birs Nimrud with the ruins of “the very tower of Babel.” 3 This was also the feeling behind the first archaeological explorations in Mesopotamia in 1842. The explorers began their researches with the intention of discovering the capitals of the Assyrians mentioned in the Bible: the destroyed and abandoned city of Nineveh was the first goal of these explorations, and the race between France and England to discover the very city of Nineveh immediately started. 4 The discovery of archaeological remains thus produced a series of images that sought to represent the monument represented by the discovered city: based on the results of archaeological exploration, those images were presented and thus perceived as the real shape and appearance of what the city originally looked like. Palaces were completely represented and furnished with many details of features that archaeology had not physically recorded; as a consequence, the urban landscape and skyline were shaped and presented based more on a preconceived and ideal design than on real evidence. But, how was the Orient perceived and represented before archaeological knowledge? Painters of the first half of the 19th century ignored the shape and function of Near Eastern architecture and thus produced a completely invented image of the oriental city and its individual elements, mixing information, borrowing foreign architectural features, and transferring their own judgment and perception to the picture from the cultural expressions of the century in which they lived. Taking into account paintings by John Martin (Belshazzar’s Feast, 1826; and The Fall of Nineveh, 1830) 5 and by Eugène Delacroix (Death of Sardanapalus, 1827), 6 as well as the moral judgment that can be inferred from the paintings (a moral judgment on the attitude and life of the oriental despots that inexorably leads to ruin and death), the representation of the setting of the scene is strongly imbued with exotic features and coded clichés that aim to show the oriental city in its own nature and form, according to the communis opinio of the time. In fact, the shape of an oriental city was unknown and the image the paintings present derive from the combination of foreign architectural features and preconceived ideas of the painters based on what was known at that time about the Orient, not specifically the ancient Orient but the Orient of the 19th century with the concomitant transfer of many modern features and characteristics to antiquity. In particular, John Martin himself, when describing his painting The Fall of Nineveh, says that the architecture was “invented as the most appropriate for a city situate betwixt the two countries [Egypt and India] and necessarily in frequent intercourse with them.” 7 2.  I call to attention here the first archaeological investigation carried out by Pietro della Valle in Babylon in 1616 when he believed he had found the ruins of the tower of Babylon (Invernizzi 2000: 645; Di Paolo 2006: 24). 3.  Kaniuth 2007: 10 (my emphasis). 4.  See Liverani 1994 and Larsen 1996. 5.  See Bohrer 2003: 50–53, figs. 5–6. 6.  See Bohrer 2003: 54–55, fig. 7. 7.  Bohrer 2007: 228. See also Pedde (2001: 1214) on the use of Persian architectural elements and the architectural Indian Mogul style to connote Assyrian buildings.

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Fig. 1.  Giuseppe Borsato: royal residence in Babylon; on the left, entrance to the mausoleum of King Ninus. Stage set for Rossini’s Semiramide, Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1823. Reserve 2247 (2), Planche 102 (Bibliothèque nationale de France).

In fact, references to the well-known antiquities of Egypt, Persia, and Islamic architecture from Andalusia to Northern Africa, the Middle East, and India are commonly used to describe the architecture of the ancient oriental cities: architectural and figurative elements of these regions were in fact used and adapted to represent the ancient Orient, according to an imaginary representation derived from the syncretistic combination of foreign details that were often inappropriate. Indeed, these foreign features occur in the stage presentations of the lyric operas that deal with oriental subjects: Egypt is the strongest element, and it seems that it was used to convey the idea that the scene pertained to the Orient. Egyptian architectural elements and features occur as metonymy, a part describing the whole setting. A scene by Alessandro Sanquirico (1777–1849) for the opera Ciro in Babilonia or La caduta di Baldassare of Gioacchino Rossini shows the palace in Babylon. 8 The architecture of the palace, showing one of the wings with three oblong columned rooms and a second floor, combines Classical, Egyptian, and Persian architectural features: 9 the whole structure resembles a classical Roman basilica; the profile of the doorway recalls the Egyptian sloping gates; the animal-shaped capitals of the columns are of Persian inspiration. The statues and bas-reliefs probably take 8.  The opera was first presented in Ferrara in 1812. 9.  See Crespi Morbio (ed.) 2004: cat. no. 52.

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Fig. 2.  Giuseppe Borsato: the mausoleum of King Ninus (inside). Stage set for Rossini’s Semiramide, Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1823. Reserve 2247 (2), Planche 100 (Bibliothèque nationale de France).

inspiration from both the Classical world and the representations of Arab, Persian, and Indian officials and dignitaries that, with their rich attire and fez-shaped turbans, were known to Europeans thanks to trade activities and exchanges between West and East. Scenes for another opera show how the Orient and Near Eastern architecture were viewed before archaeological exploration. In the 18th century and in the age of Orientalism (19th century), Semiramis was a widespread drama and opera subject. 10 I specifically refer to the opera Semiramide by Gioacchino Rossini, first staged in Venice in 1823. The scene designs, made by Giuseppe Borsato, were used in the first production of the opera; later productions, 11 in 1824 and 1829 12 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and in 1840 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, were staged with scenes prepared by Alessandro Sanquirco and Giuseppe and Pietro Bertoja, respectively. 13 The earliest scenes of Giuseppe Borsato (Venice 1771–1849) are strongly imbued with Egyptian architectural elements such as pyramids, obelisks, pylon-shaped 10.  See Asher-Greve 2007: 339–46. 11.  Biggi 1995a: 82–89; 1995b: 70, 74–77, figs. 23–27. 12.  Biggi, Corchia, and Ferrero 2007: xxi. 13. For the scenes by Alessandro Sanquirico, see Biggi and Ferraro (2000: 182–84) and Biggi, Corchia, and Ferrero 2007. For the later scenes by Giuseppe and Pietro Bertoja, see Muraro and Biggi (1998: 34–36).

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Fig. 3.  Giuseppe Borsato: the Temple of Bel. Stage set for Rossini’s Semiramide, Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1823. Reserve 2247 (2), Planche 101 (Bibliothèque nationale de France).

towers, porticos with lotus-shaped column capitals to depict the Babylonian architectural setting of the palace and city of Semiramis (fig. 1). Egyptian elements such as statues and sphinxes are also used to transform an inner “anonymous” space into an Egyptian room, mixed with an exaggerated and baroque use of different architectural features and furniture. The mausoleum of Ninus (fig. 2) is shaped and represented as a Neoclassical funerary monument set in an underground space similar to the prisons of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Indeed, Neoclassical architectural schemes are deeply transformed by the addition of Egyptian architectural features: the resulting image does not depict a Classical urban and architectural context but gives birth to a new mixed architecture that, in reality, never existed. 14 The Temple of Bel is richly furnished and decorated (fig. 3): in particular, according to the drawing, the building seems to be circular in plan, a peculiar outline that was probably perceived as the best architectural solution for representing a sanctuary dedicated to an oriental deity, since the same device seems also to be used by Alessandro Sanquirico in the stage scene of 1824 (the inner cella of the Temple of Bel has either a quadrangular or octagonal plan; see fig. 4). 15 14.  See Biggi (1995b: 77) on the possible examples Borsato had in mind when he prepared the stage scene for Rossini’s Semiramide. 15.  However, a similar plan (round in shape) is also used by Alessandro Sanquirico to represent the Roman Temple of Vesta: the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum is in fact characterized by a circular cella. An interesting 18th-century engraving depicts the Temple of the Sun in Nineveh, based on a circular plan with a combination of several architectural features. The engraving is published in Reade 2010: fig. 2.8.

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Fig. 4.  Alessandro Sanquirico: the Temple of Bel. Stage set for Rossini’s Semiramide, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1824 (after Biggi and Ferraro 2000: 182).

Alessandro Sanquirico, already involved in the staging of Rossini’s Ciro in Babilonia, created the scenes for the production of Rossini’s Semiramide in Milan in 1824 and 1829. The influence of the previous drawings by Borsato can still be recognized in the style and treatment of the oriental architecture, with the evident and significant use and combination of Egyptian, Persian, and Indian architectural and decorative elements (fig. 5). At the same time, the classical tradition is also present, with Neoclassical results, for example, in the representation of the hypogeummausoleum of Ninus, where Egyptian canopic vases are present. Two brothers, Giuseppe and Pietro Bertoja, staged Rossini’s Semiramide in Venice in 1840. 16 Here, again, Egyptian architecture is largely used to connote Babylonian buildings: in particular, the presence of sphinxes, obelisks, and scalepattern vaults for the characterization of closed and underground spaces (such as the mausoleum of King Ninus), a device already present in the previous scenes by Borsato and Sanquirico. This was before archaeological exploration in Mesopotamia began. How was architecture then perceived when archaeology began to give evidence of the shape of the ancient Near Eastern city and its architecture for the first time? Initially, little changed. As observed by Bohrer, 17 after the discovery of the Assyrian past, “art and archaeology functioned as two parts of a larger system of cultural circulation, 16.  Muraro and Biggi 1998. 17.  Bohrer 2007: 265.

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Fig. 5.  Alessandro Sanquirico: royal residence. Stage set for Rossini’s Semiramide, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1824 (after Biggi and Ferraro 2000: 182).

in a continual process of reinventing Assyria. Although images might have been constructed in accord with archaeological and antiquarian knowledge, they also responded to the varying needs and capabilities of artists and audiences.” “The needs and capabilities of audiences”: this is particularly true if we realize that stage sets, before being realistic and lifelike, must be clear and must be based on known figurative codes and clichés to be understood. Indeed, this can be also said for reconstructions made by the archaeologists who discovered the Assyrian cities and palaces: the stage sets by Layard use the same language of the painters who represented Nineveh and Babylon before knowing what their architectural shapes looked like. Indeed, British and French archaeologists shared the same audience as the paintings of Martin and Delacroix; in fact, they used and shared the same figurative and coded language to be understood and thus accepted. 18 The opera Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi was first shown at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1842, the year the French archaeological excavation in Assyria began. 19 18.  Micale 2005: 144–47; 2007a: n. 17. See also the comments of the Egyptologist A. Mariette when he describes his reconstruction of an Egyptian monument for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867, created to satisfy the curiosity of the people visiting the Parc égyptien (Mariette 1867: 11). 19.  The stage sets for the first production do not survive: on that occasion, old scenes of the ballet Nabuccodonosor by Antonio Cortesi, presented at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 27 October 1838, were probably reused, although some discrepancies in the sequence of scenes between Cortesi’s ballet and Verdi’s opera exist. See Rossi 1986–87; Viale Ferrero 2001: 149, 154, 159.

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Fig. 6.  Romolo Liverani: hanging gardens in Babylon. Stage set for Verdi’s Nabucco, Faenza, 1843 (after Vitali ed. 1990: cat. no. 75).

The scenes of the presentation in Faenza in 1843 by Romolo Liverani (1809–1872) 20 are strongly influenced by the previous experiences of Alessandro Sanquirico and Giuseppe and Pietro Bertoja: the underground spaces still recall the style of the prisons of Giovanni Battista Piranesi; the temple of Solomon has two colonnaded courtyards leading to the Neoclassical entrance of the temple beyond; Egyptian architectural elements are still used to depict the Babylonian palace of Nebuchadnezzar; open spaces, such as the bank of the Euphrates and the hanging gardens, are again characterized by Egyptian features, but the minaret of Samarra is also added next to the pyramids (fig. 6). When the statue of the god Bel is introduced, the exotic presence of two elephants is also added. 21 Only in 1850 do we have the first scenes for Verdi’s Nabucco showing typical Assyrian features (figs. 7–8). Botta’s Monuments de Ninive and Layard’s Monuments of Nineveh respectively appeared in 1850 and 1849. The scenes were prepared by 20.  See the catalogue of the exhibition held in Modena, Liverani e Verdi: Teatro Comunale Città di Modena, Sala del Ridotto 10 dicembre 1984 – 15 gennaio 1985, Modena (1984), and Vitali ed. 1990. 21.  Vitali ed. 1990: no. 76. Elephants were also present in the presentation of Semiramis’ palace by Alessandro Sanquirico. They are again used by Romolo Liverani to represent the square in the stage setting of the ballet Aladino e la lampada meravigliosa (Padova, 1854), in a story set in the Islamic context of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. On the representation of the ancient Orient deriving from the knowledge of the Islamic cities by the Italian and European (French and British) painters, see Giubilei 1998.

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Fig. 7.  Filippo Peroni: scene sketch, probably for the first performances of Nabucco, Teatro alla Scala, Milan (after Parker 1997: pl. 12).

Filippo Peroni, who also staged Nabucco in 1853, 1855, and 1857: so it is impossible to ascertain the precise year. 22 These provide the first examples of antiquarian use of newly discovered Assyrian art and architecture in the context of Italian stage productions: France and England, with the journals L’Illustration and the Illustrated London News, are the media that permitted Italy to know of the recent archaeological discoveries and thus alter the perception of the Orient in the operas dealing with Near Eastern subjects. 23 It is, however, merely an antiquarian use of the Assyrian artifacts, and the architecture is still strongly imbued with Egyptian features and elements: only the Assyrian human-headed bulls, the bas-reliefs and the typical triangular and scale-shaped crenellations are added as typical Assyrian elements as recorded and represented by the French and British archaeologists. 24 Filippo 22. Filippo Peroni was probably also responsible for some of the sets for the first production of Verdi’s Nabucco at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1842. Grilli 1986–87; Parker 1997: pl. 12; Viale Ferrero 2001: 159. 23.  Terraroli 1998: 42. On images of the Illustrated London News dealing with images of Assyrian antiquities and architectures derived from the British discoveries in Assyria, see Bohrer 2003: figs. 25, 27, 28–30, 36. 24.  Bohrer 2003: 254.

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Fig. 8.  Filippo Peroni: scene sketch, probably for Nabucco’s production at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, in 1850 (after Grilli 1986-87: 28-29).

Peroni was surely aware of recent archaeological discoveries, but he only used some elements to characterize a completely invented architecture as Assyrian, with porticos and a second floor (even putting a lamassu on a kind of terrace; fig. 7). At the time of the first archaeological finds in Mesopotamia, the human-headed bulls and lions as well as the Assyrian bas-reliefs become typical Near Eastern elements (in contrast to the Egyptian and Egyptianizing features used earlier) employed to characterize ancient oriental architecture in Assyrian, Babylonian, and biblical cultural contexts. 25 Even after the subsequent discovery of Babylon by German archaeologists, Assyrian elements continued to be favored, either alone or mixed with Babylonian and Persian features, to define a properly Babylonian setting, right up to recent times. 26 In the case of Peroni’s scenes for Verdi’s Nabucco, the lamassu are 25.  For the use of Assyrian architectural and figurative elements, see for example the engraving by Gustave Doré, Jonah Preaching to the Ninevites (1865), with a lamassu (Pedde 2000; Bohrer 2003: fig. 18); the paintings by Georges Antoine Rochgrosse depicting La fin de Babylone (1890) and Le Rêve de Nabuchodonosor (1899) with clear references to the Assyrian lion hunt bas-reliefs discovered by Layard in the palace of Ashurbanipal (André-Salvini [ed.] 2008: cat. nos. 421–22). For the Italian experience, contemporary with the works of the stage designers, see the paintings by Carlo Bonatto Minella, Giu­ ditta o Giuditta dalle mura di Betulia si presenta al popolo (1877), with the use of scale-pattern crenellations and Assyrian bas-reliefs; the representation of queen Semiramis by Augusto Valli (Semiramide muore sulla tomba di Nino, 1895) with lamassu, statues, and bas-reliefs to characterize a non-Assyrian architectural space (Bossaglia [ed.] 1998: figs. 36, 109). 26.  For the use of Assyrian instead of Babylonian architectural and figurative features, even after the discovery of Babylon, see for example the stage setting for Verdi’s Nabucco in 1913 by Antonio

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set against an Egyptian-style architecture. This is less surprising if we remember that James Fergusson, in his reconstruction of Sargon’s Palace and in the Sydenham Crystal Palace of 1854, inserts Persian animal-shaped capitals into an Assyrian palace. 27 For unknown reasons (or perhaps to allow the same set can to be used on several occasions?), Filippo Peroni preferred Egyptian architecture: borrowing from Fergusson, Peroni used Egyptian architecture as the bones while the Assyrian features are the flesh he appositely added to indicate the properly ancient oriental stage. 28 However, again in 1860, Giuseppe Bertoja, after the work of Filippo Peroni and the archaeological discoveries, still preferred an Egyptian setting for Verdi’s Nabucco, without any reference to, or insertion of, Near Eastern elements. 29 Stage sets both before and after the archaeological finds in Mesopotamia share a common feature: they aim to present an invented space. Before archaeology reached Mesopotamia, the architecture of the ancient Orient is profoundly invented, built on coded images deriving from other cultures and mixing different elements in search of those specific details that, alone, according to the personal attitude and feeling of the artist, define the entire invented space as an oriental place. After the archaeological finds, the space remained invented by using the same coded stylistic features (in particular, the preponderance of Egyptian architecture) but the typical and, at that time, new Assyrian elements are added as the real and specific details that define the proper oriental setting of the opera. 30 Italian set designers knew of the archaeological finds and they used them to make their stage sets concrete and real. Do these provide a true image of ancient Near Eastern architecture? Of course not. Nor can they be defined as realistic. But the point is that they used the archaeological data and the reconstructions made specifically by those archaeologists who discovered the ruins of ancient Assyrian cities and palaces: they probably thought that those images, produced by the same archaeologists who were excavating the Rovescalli and by Mario Zampini in 1933 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, mixing Assyrian and Persian elements to represent Babylon. In 1966, Nicola Benois still refers to Assyria to set Verdi’s Nabucco in Milan with a “quotation” of the reconstruction of Assur monuments made by W. Andrae (Temple of Anu and Adad and the panoramic view of the city from the north; Andrae 1977: figs. 37, 169). Even in more recent times, for the presentation of Verdi’s Nabucco at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1986, directed by Riccardo Muti: the sets of the second act bear the representations of the Ashurbanipal lion hunt, thus using Assyrian bas-reliefs to depict the residence of Nabucco in Babylon. Indeed, to make the bas-reliefs more Babylonian in style, the bodies of the lions have been painted in blue to reproduce the typical Babylonian blue surface of the glazed bricks of the Ishtar Gate. See Crespi Morbio (ed.) 2004: cat. no. 39. 27.  Bohrer 2003: 212–18, fig. 53; Micale 2010: 95–96. 28.  Bohrer 2003: 210. 29.  The scenes by G. Bertoja were prepared for the presentation of Verdi’s Nabucco at the Teatro Apollo in Venice. See also the stage scenes by Giuseppe Rossi for the presentation of Rossini’s Semi­ ramide in 1874 at the Teatro del Pavone in Perugia (Biggi and Ferraro 2000): even in that period, when Assyrian antiquities were already known in Europe, Egyptian architecture and statues as well as statues of elephants on the upper part of a tower are still used, keeping the tradition of the first scenes drawn by Giuseppe Borsato (1823) and Alessandro Sanquirico (1824 and 1829). 30.  The search for a proper setting of the operas dealing with ancient oriental subjects and, thus, with direct quotation of the works and reconstructions made by French and British archaeologists working in Mesopotamia, is directly reflected in the words of Charles Kean when he prepared, in 1853, the stage setting for the tragedy Sardanapalus, written by Lord Byron in 1821: “it is a noteworthy fact that, until the present time, it has been impossible to render Lord Byrons tragedy Sardanapalus upon the stage with proper dramatic effect, because, until now, we have known nothing of Assyrian architecture and costume” (Krengel-Strudthoff 1981: 6). Scenes were thus prepared according to the excavation reports, drawings, and reconstructions published by Layard in his Nineveh and Its Remains (1849). See the detailed presentation by Krengel-Strudthoff with the drawings of the stage presentation (1981: figs. 1–2, 5–6).

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Fig. 9.  Walter Andrae: scene sketch for the production of the opera Sardanapal, 1908 (after Andrae and Boehmer 1992: pl. 8, fig. 132).

Assyrian past, were obviously more accurate because they were based on scientific interpretations and evaluations or, at least, on first-hand sightings of Assyrian ruins. But we now know that the imaginary reconstructions of the 19th and early 20th centuries are the result of a subjective interpretation of the archaeological data, as well as being the composite product of various cultural effects and traditions. 31 If we can easily judge and comment on the stage productions of Alessandro Sanquirico, Giuseppe and Pietro Bertoja, Filippo Peroni, and other artists for their naïve attempts at representing a realistic Orient (particularly when they use the recently discovered Assyrian features merely as connotations and quotations), how do we judge the stage sets for the production of the opera Sardanapal, appositely made by the archaeologist Walter Andrae in 1908 when still working in Mesopotamia (fig. 9)? 32 Invented? Verisimilar? Truthful representations of an Assyrian palace? Recently, the debate has also employed virtual 3D reconstructions, 33 and I would suggest that the scenes of the operas Semiramide and Nabucco are the first exploratory example of a 3D reconstruction: the scenes bear the representation of the urban and architectural spaces that define a fictitious place, a non-place. The stage scenes live outside time, or in the limited time that dramatic action takes place, just as the time of virtual 3D reconstructions is limited to our virtual visit. 31.  See the debate in Micale 2005 and 2007b. 32.  Andrae and Boehmer 1992: 21, 125, figs. 132–34; Bohrer 2003: 300; Micale 2008: 196–97. 33.  Micale 2007a.

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Old media and solutions still raise questions on unsolved problems. On the other hand, new technology brings together old and new problems. Our task lies in the middle: understanding the unsolved problems of the past so that we can avoid replicating those problems in the future.

Bibliography Andrae, W. 1977 Das wiedererstandene Assur. Zweite, durchgesehene und erweiterte Auflage herausgeben von Barthel Hrouda. Munich. Andrae, E. W., and Boehmer, R. M. 1992 Bilder eines Ausgräbers/Sketch by an Excavator: Walter Andrae im Orient 1898–1919. Berlin. André-Salvini, B. (ed.) 2008 Babylone: À Babylone, d’hier et d’aujourdhui. Paris. Asher-Greve, J. M. 2007 From “Semiramis of Babylon” to “Semiramis of Hammersmith.” Pp. 322–73 in Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible, ed. S. W. Holloway. Sheffield. Biggi, M. I. 1995a Giuseppe Borsato scenografo alla Fenice 1809–1823. Venezia. 1995b Scenografie rossiniane di Giuseppe Borsato. Bollettino del centro rossiniano di studi 35: 61–83. Biggi, M. I, Corchia, M. R., and Ferrero Viale, M. 2007 Alessandro Sanquirico «il Rossini della pittura scenica». Pesaro. Biggi, M. I. and Ferraro, C. 2000 Rossini sulla scena dell’Ottocento. Bozzetti e figurini dalle collezioni italiane. Pesaro. Bohrer, F. N. 2003 Orientalism and Visual Culture: Imaging Mesopotamia in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge. 2007 Inventing Assyria: Exoticism and Reception in Nineteenth-Century England and France. Pp.  222–66 in Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible, ed. S.  W. Holloway. Sheffield. Crespi Morbio, V. (ed.) 2004 La Scala e l’Oriente (1778–2004). Milan. Di Paolo, S. 2006 Archeologia e territorio nella letteratura di viaggio sul Vicino Oriente (XVII–XIX secolo): la scoperta e lo stereotipo. Isimu 9: 21–35. Ferrero Viale, M. 2001 “Lo spettacolo è degno alla Scala.” Pp.  147–249 in Verdi e la Scala, ed. F.  Degrada. Milan. Giubilei, M. G. 1998 I volti dell’esotismo attraverso le scuole settentrionali. Pp. 15–27 in Gli orientalisti italiani. Cento anni di esotismo 1830–1940, ed. R. Bossaglia. Venezia. Grilli, N. 1986–87 La prima del Nabucco: la scenografia. Gazzetta del Museo del Teatro alla Scala 5/2: 26–29. Invernizzi, A. 2000 Discovering Babylon with Pietro della Valle. Pp.  643–49 in Proceedings of the 1st ICAANE, Rome, May, 18th-23rd 1998, ed. P. Matthiae et al. Rome. Kaniuth, K. 2007 Some Remarks on the Mesopotamian Travels of Robert Ker Porter. Pp. 1–16 in Who Travels Sees More: Artists, Architects and Archaeologists Discover Egypt and the Near East, ed. D. Fortenberry. Oxford.

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Krengel-Strudthoff, I. 1981 Archäologie auf der Bühne–das wiedererstandene Ninive. Charles Kean Ausstattung zu »Sardanapalus« von Lord Byron. Kleine Schriften der Gesellschaft für Theater­ geschichte 31: 3–24. Larsen, M. T. 1996 The Conquest of Assyria. Excavations in an Antique Land. London. Liverani, M. 1994 “Voyage en Orient”: The Origins of Archaeological Surveying in the Near East. Pp. 1–16 in The Near East and the Meaning of History. International Conference (23–27 November 1992). Studi Orientali 13. Roma. Mariette, A. 1867 Description du parc égyptien. Exposition Universelle de 1867. Paris. Micale, M. G. 2005 Immagini d’architettura. Struttura e forma dell’architettura mesopotamica attraverso le ricostruzioni moderne. Pp. 121–66 in Studi in onore di Paolo Matthiae in occasione del suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno. Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale 10, ed. A. Di Ludovico and D. Nadali. Rome. 2007a From Drawing to Vision: The Use of Mesopotamian Architecture through the Construction of its Image. In Cultural Heritage and New Technologies. Workshop 11: “Archaeology and Computer,” ed. W. Börner and S. Uhrliz. Vienna (Disk). 2007b Riflessi d’architettura mesopotamica nei disegni e nelle ricostruzioni architettoniche di Assur e Babilonia: tra realtà archeologica e mito dell’architettura monumentale. Isimu 10: 117–40. 2008 European Images of the Ancient Near East at the Beginnings of the 20th Century. Pp. 191–203 in Archives, Ancestors, Practices. Archaeology in the Light of its History, ed. J. Nordbladh and N. Schlanger. Göteborg. 2010 Designing Architecture, Building Identities: The Discovery and Use of Mesopotamian Features in Modern Architecture between Orientalism and the Definition of Contemporary Identities. Pp. 93–112 in Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, May, 5th–10th 2008, Sapienza–Università di Roma, ed. P. Matthiae et al. Wiesbaden. Muraro, M. T., and Biggi, M. I. 1998 L’immagine e la scena. Giuseppe e Pietro Bertoja scenografi alla Fenice 1840–1902. Venice. Parker, R. 1997 «Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati». The Verdian patriotic chorus in the 1840s. Parma. Pedde, B. 2000 Altorientalische Motive in den Illustrationen zum Alten Testament von Gustave Doré. Pp. 567–91 in Variatio Delectat: Iran und der Westen. Gedenkschrift für Peter Calmeyer, ed. R. Dittmann et al. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 272. Münster. 2001 Orient-Rezeption. II. Vorderasien/Kunst. Pp. 1210–22 in Der Neue Pauly, Enzyklopädie der Antike, Bd. 15/1, ed. H. Cancik and H. Schneider. Leiden. Reade, J. E. 2010 The Early Exploration of Assyria. Pp.  86–106 in Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography, ed. A. Cohen and S. E. Kangas. Hannover and London. Rossi, L. 1986–87 Nabuccodonosor: il balletto. Gazzetta del Museo del Teatro alla Scala 5/2: 8–11. Terraroli, V. 1998 «Pioggia d’opale e perle»: itinerario iconografico fra temi e invenzioni degli orientalisti italiani. Pp.  39–49 in Gli orientalisti italiani. Cento anni di esotismo 1830–1940, ed. R. Bossaglia. Venice. Vitali, M. (ed.) 1990 Romolo Liverani scenografo. Faenza.

Fragments d’arts mésopotamiens: aux origines des empires Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault

E c o l e P r at i q u e

des

Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris

1.  L’intégration de l’architecture et de l’art mésopotamiens dans l’histoire: un survol Plus qu’à son art ou à ses savoirs, c’est grâce à son architecture, une architecture plus rêvée que connue, que la mémoire de la Mésopotamie a survécu depuis l’antiquité classique dans la culture de l’Occident, identifiée comme le pays où se trouvent deux des « Merveilles du monde » 1 : les murailles de Babylone et ses jardins suspendus. 2 La tradition biblique, de son côté, a retenu la monumentalité de la ziggurat, pour indiquer la perversion de l’humanité première et sa naturelle soif de puissance, 3 ou encore l’extension démesurée de sa capitale du Nord, Ninive, peuplée de pécheurs, roi, hommes et animaux. 4 Et déjà, le symbole même de Babylone se configure comme une ruine fumante, sur laquelle la divinité est certes descendue, mais pour détruire. Il a fallu attendre, au 16ème et au 17ème siècle, les récits et les dessins des voyageurs et des marchands européens sur les routes de la Mésopotamie, pour que cette architecture se donne enfin à voir, de quelque façon. La réalité du monde mésopotamien antique est entrée alors dans l’imaginaire occidental surtout comme de gigantesques amas de ruines, perdus dans le désert et habités par des serpents. 5 La vision de cette architecture en fragments, détruite et informe, est sans doute apparue alors comme un signe, une confirmation de la mort de la civilisation qui l’avait produite — et un rappel implicite des raisons de sa fin. La reproduction de la ruine et du vide laissés par l’architecture abîmée a amplifié le sens de la césure dans le temps et dans l’espace séparant ce monde de la culture et du savoir modernes. C’est l’appel à la mémoire des créations architecturales mésopotamiennes conservée par la littérature et l’historiographie classiques et bibliques qui a permis la récupération et les premières restitutions du sens et de la fonction des ruines et des fragments d’art proche-orientaux arrivés dans les musées de capitales européennes, tout en déterminant une orientation particulière de la reconstruction des liens historiques. Dans le témoignage antique, caractérisées par leur échelle démesurée, les œuvres bâties mésopotamiennes figurent non 1.  Adam et Blanc 1989. 2.  André-Salvini 2008: 430–35; Dalley 1994. 3.  Gen 11, 1–9. 4.  Jon 3, 1–5. 5.  Allard 2008.

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seulement comme constructions fonctionnelles intégrées dans une structure sociale et dans un paysage précis, mais elles y sont déjà présentées, de par leur monumentalité et leurs dimensions extrêmes, comme la manifestation, la visualisation de la complexité et de la force du pouvoir despotique maîtrisant le monde proche-oriental. Depuis le 3ème millénaire, le pouvoir royal mésopotamien avait bien analysé et exploité les potentialités de l’art, et surtout de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme, comme moyen de communication de l’idéologie et de contrôle politique de la société. 6 C’est dans la même logique, que l’épisode de la Tour dans la Genèse, ou la description de Babylone chez Hérodote 7 ou Ctésias, 8 expriment leur jugement sur la nature et les valeurs du monde mésopotamien, concentrant leur discours sur la structure architecturale de la ville et de ses monuments. Dans le cours de ces récits, la référence à l’œuvre bâtie résume et remplace, — sans les citer — l’histoire des rois babyloniens et assyriens, de leurs états et de leurs dynasties, responsables de ces constructions. C’est à la description de l’architecture publique et monumentale qu’est laissée la charge d’analyser et de définir le pouvoir et le système politique qui ont rendu possible les investissements nécessaires à ses réalisations. Est ainsi créée une mémoire qui, tout en révélant l’étonnement, la stupeur, l’admiration de l’observateur pour l’ouvrage bâti, permet de fait de ne pas questionner l’identité du constructeur et de l’architecte, ni leur raison ou leurs stratégies. Si cette documentation, écrite et fiable, a donc véhiculé jusqu’au monde moderne l’image de l’importance de l’architecture mésopotamienne, ce n’était pas dans sa nature ni dans sa fonction de susciter un intérêt précis ni de provoquer la recherche de liens, ou de relations possibles, entre « nous » et les cultures proche-orientales, qui sont restées la marque identifiant longtemps en Occident l’ennemi par excellence, le barbare, et un bon exemple de modes de production et de gouvernance primitifs. Dès le départ, aux essais de quelque auteur classique, comme Ctesias, d’insérer dans une vision globale de l’histoire et de la chronologie du monde (occidental et grec) les empires «  asiatiques  » (l’Assyrie, mais surtout la Médie et la Perse), 9 ont correspondu seulement de rares allusions mythologiques et légendaires aux contacts non-belliqueux avec l’Orient dans la littérature grecque, 10 ainsi que le rapide traitement généalogique réservé à Nemrod, fils de Kush, dans la « Table des nations » du livre de la Genèse. 11 La lointaine origine méditerranéenne orientale/anatolienne du fondateur de Rome ne semble pas avoir donné lieu à des développements historiques remarquables, au-delà de la vocation impériale de la cité. De fait, le monde grec d’époque classique, puis le monde romain, n’ont jamais reconnu volontiers un quelconque niveau de partage ou de contact avec la civilisation, ou les civilisations, de l’Orient mésopotamien, et ils ont fait peu d’effort pour identifier et fixer ses caractères et sa chronologie par rapport à la leur. A la fin du Vème siècle, Hérodote exprimait certes ouvertement son respect pour l’organisation architecturale et urbanistique de Babylone, 12 mais il se hâtait d’insister sur l’incompréhensibilité et l’irrationalité de sa démesure, attribuant sa construction à une femme — et le monde grec savait à quoi s’en tenir, en ce qui 6.  Bretschneider, Jans et Van Lerberghe 2007; Masetti-Rouault 2012. 7.  Barguet 1985: 135–41, Livre I, 178–87. 8.  Auberger 1991: 36–39. 9.  Auberger 1991: 48. 10.  Rollinger 2008, et voir, récemment, López-Ruiz 2010: 1–22. 11.  Gen 10, 8–12. 12.  Van de Mieroop 2003.

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concerne les reines mésopotamiennes. 13 Sur le fond de leur cadre architectural magnifique, quoique mégalomane, Hérodote présente la culture et le mode de vie des Babyloniens, mettant en évidence la totale différence de cette société, son altérité morale et culturelle, au fond donc sa barbarie. 14 De cette façon, il a posé les bases justifiant une attitude de grand désintérêt par rapport à ce monde, montrant qu’il est impossible, voire inutile, de se comparer ou se confronter avec lui. A la même époque, la formation de la tradition biblique faisait, du polythéisme mésopotamien, l’indicateur de la distance culturelle maximale, et une des raisons d’opposition identitaire. Malgré les invitations faites par certains prophètes aux exilés judéens de Babylone à faire confiance à la pédagogie divine et à s’intégrer dans le système vaste et complexe d’un état protecteur, 15 la cité de Nabuchodonosor, avec toute sa grandeur et sa beauté, devient le symbole, la source même du pouvoir — et de tous les pouvoirs — destructeur de Jérusalem et de son temple. L’histoire biblique montrera que Ninive et Babylone, capitales d’empires puissants mais éphémères, auront enfin bien mérité leur destruction, jusqu’à l’effacement complet de leur mémoire.

3.  Utilisation de l’architecture mésopotamienne: art et empire, Rome et Babylone Avant les premières fouilles archéologiques au Proche-Orient et, dans le courant du 19ème siècle, dès les débuts des études assyriologiques en Europe et aux EtatsUnis, la reconnaissance de la grandeur de l’architecture mésopotamienne et de ses réalisations urbanistiques n’a donc pas pu se faire l’objet d’un traitement historique, ni non plus être exploitée comme illustration et source d’information sur les pouvoirs qui l’avaient généré. Restant incompris, ou justement parce qu’incompris, fragmentaires et détruits au-delà de toute reconstruction, les monuments de Babylone, les «merveilles du monde», mais aussi la «tour de Babel», ont pu être utilisés par la culture européenne, dès la fin de l’Antiquité classique, dans un autre sens, comme manifestations et symboles de certaines formes de pouvoir étranger et excessif, qu’on avait besoin d’évoquer, sans même les connaître et les comprendre. L’architecture imaginaire mésopotamienne, et son ombre, restaient ainsi disponibles pour véhiculer l’image ambigüe d’un pouvoir hégémonique, impérial et universel, grand mobilisateur du travail humain, sans doute exploiteur, et, de par sa nature, hostile à l’Occident civilisé. 16 Déjà aux premiers siècles de l’ère chrétienne, dans le livre de l’Apocalypse de Jean, Babylone, la Grande Prostituée, est promue à être le masque et l’image de Rome. 17 L’évidente association symbolique permet de voir que, dans la logique prophétique, Rome, comme déjà Babylone, sera enfin réduite à des ruines. Dans cette perspective, il est facile de comprendre pourquoi l’architecture babylonienne deviendra par la suite une métaphore utile et utilisée dans le débat entre protestants et catholiques, et pourquoi Luther lui aussi verra en Rome, bâtie sur sept collines, la résurrection de Babylone, assise sur la bête apocalyptique à sept têtes. Comme le roi de Babylone a construit sa capitale et sa tour en exploitant les forces de son peuple 13.  Masetti-Rouault 2009b; Auberger 1991: 40. 14.  Rollinger 1993. 15.  Jr 29, 4–7. 16.  Monterroso Montero 2010. 17.  Masetti-Rouault 2009b.

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pour un objectif impie, les condamnant ainsi, de fait, à la destruction, de la même façon le pape se fait édifier à Rome la nouvelle église de Saint-Pierre, un projet architectural marqué par la démesure et la plus grande vanité, financé par les indulgences extorquées au peuple, mais voué au néant. 18 Cette lecture de la situation historique, fonctionnant dans les deux sens, met en évidence l’importance assumée par l’image et l’histoire de Rome puis de l’Eglise, centre d’empires, pour récupérer, préciser et comprendre la symbolique de l’architecture monumentale et urbanistique de la Mésopotamie  : les productions symboliques impériales se ressemblent souvent. Breughel l’Ancien (1563), pour créer l’image de la tour de Babel, exploitera ce qu’il connaît de l’architecture de Rome ancienne, et du Colisée, lieu en ruine tant des triomphes impériaux, que du martyre des chrétiens. Dès lors, la similitude, sinon l’équivalence, établie et acceptée entre la vision de Rome et celle de Babylone devient un facteur important pour comprendre et imaginer l’histoire mésopotamienne dans une perspective opposée. Grâce à ses créations architecturales—résultat de sa puissance politique et de ses capacités d’exaction et d’enrichissement, mais aussi reflet de son idéologie politique—, Babylone se révèle finalement comme un possible archétype du pouvoir impérial tout court, à une époque où les valeurs et la civilisation attribuées à la Rome classique sont redevenues progressivement celles de la société occidentale moderne. L’image reconstituée de la cité mésopotamienne, à partir des fragments à disposition dans la littérature antique, peut alors être située au loin, dans la nouvelle généalogie des nations, comme préfiguration, anticipation historique de l’empire romain. Dans cette position, redimensionnée par la comparaison avec Rome, l’architecture babylonienne finit par perdre son rôle de symbole ou de métaphore d’un pouvoir politique conquérant et destructeur des identités locales, rival et révolté contre la divinité et contre les libertés des citoyens. L’histoire de la tour de Babel, le chantier et la ville qui l’entourent, les forces et les ressources mis en place pour sa réalisation, peuvent servir à mettre en scène autre chose que l’orgueil et la superbe de l’humanité: ils représentent désormais aussi la capacité et le plaisir de faire, de produire et de construire propres à la société complexe et organisée, où l’architecture correspond à un savoir et à un savoir faire. La grandeur se mesure par la création d’œuvres non seulement démesurées, mais aussi artistiques, fruit d’une recherche esthétique et éthique : Babylone peut être aussi une ville « sainte », « la porte des dieux » : Voltaire le sait déjà, et il le dit dans l’article « Babel » du Dictionnaire philosophique (1767).

4.  Empires et ruines Tout en conservant une perspective apocalyptique, et la conscience d’une destruction divine toujours possible, la monumentalité et l’échelle de l’architecture assyro-babylonienne imaginée assument enfin, au cours du 17ème et 18ème siècle, la capacité de représenter aussi des valeurs nouvelles — la complexité du monde, sa variété, son activité, sa richesse. C’est ainsi que les intellectuels du siècle des Lumières ont pu reconnaître en Babylone le modèle de la cité moderne, la cité des philosophes, et dans la tour le chef d’œuvre de l’intelligence et de la connaissance, fruit de l’union des hommes et de l’harmonie du travail. A cette époque, sans encore 18. Allard 2008: 439–40; voir ill. n°396, “Das Schloss zu Babylon”, gravure de Johann Georg Schmidt, d’après Athanasius Kircher, Turris Babel. . .Amsterdam 1679, André-Salvini 2008: 474.

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connaître les données archéologiques, les historiens de l’architecture se réapproprient la réflexion sur leurs plans. Par une lecture critique des textes classiques, les architectes commencent à dessiner la ville et ses monuments certes encore comme des « Merveilles du monde », mais aussi comme des lieux et des constructions réelles, et la tour reste au centre de leurs projets. Le paysage urbain mésopotamien, redéfini et rationalisé, se donne désormais à regarder comme celui d’une métropole occidentale idéalisée, défini par la grande orthogonalité de ses structures et de ses voies, signe d’un pouvoir pensant et régularisant la construction, qui domine pleinement les vides et les aspérités de la nature. 19 Le développement planifié et plat de la cité reproduite est toujours marqué et orienté par le symbole de la verticalité, la tour, dessinée enfin comme une série de terrasses superposées 20 — structure dont l’existence sera confirmée par la suite par les fouilles à Babylone, à Ur et à Borsippa. L’impact ultérieur de la réalité des sites fouillés par la suite ne signifiera pas pour autant l’abandon de la médiation de l’architecture de Rome pour comprendre les métropoles mésopotamiennes et l’empire qui les soutient. Dès le début du 19ème siècle, dans le cadre de la construction de réseaux commerciaux, politiques et militaires des nouveaux empires coloniaux européens au Proche-Orient, les voyageurs et les diplomates orientalistes traversent la Mésopotamie. 21 Ils visitent et étudient les ruines, les tells, les reconnaissent comme les vestiges des capitales et des empires anciens et ils en décident les fouilles, les ramenant progressivement à la vie et dans le cadre du savoir moderne. 22 Les premiers archéologues, et les organismes qui les financent, comprennent la valeur et l’intérêt des sites et des monuments retrouvés parce qu’ils les confrontent et les mettent en relation avec les reconstructions élaborées au siècle précédent, et sans doute aussi parce qu’ils entrevoient déjà, dans les ruines enfouies sous la poussière, un possible modèle archétypal des sociétés et des structures de pouvoir d’où ils proviennent eux-mêmes. Napoléon, en Egypte, avait déjà eu la même perception des opportunités offertes par la découverte d’un certain passé. Il est bien connu que les premières découvertes et fouilles archéologiques en Mésopotamie, ainsi que le déchiffrement du cunéiforme, qui a ouvert la voie à la connaissance d’autres aspects de la culture, ont d’abord et surtout renforcé l’idée que la civilisation assyro-babylonienne avait un lien immédiat et évident avec le milieu biblique, lui fournissant enfin le cadre historique qui lui manquait. 23 Cette relation, si elle est restée longtemps indéfinie et ambigüe, a permis d’établir un rapport privilégié et une forme de continuité historique entre la civilisation mésopotamienne et l’occident chrétien. Par contre, moins visible et sans doute moins bien identifié, parmi les raisons qui ont suscité l’intérêt des élites intellectuelles et politiques européennes pour ces découvertes, reste le fait que l’étude des empires mésopotamiens, comme ils avaient été imaginés et reconstruits dans les siècles précédents, était susceptible d’offrir à la société occidentale, après celui de Rome, encore d’autres modèles idéologiques pour définir et normaliser la politique impérialiste et coloniale qui détermine l’histoire d’une grande partie du 20ème siècle. Ayant pleinement intégré le modèle existant du système impérial de Rome et de l’architecture 19.  Cf., par exemple, André-Salvini 2008: 469–473, ill. n° 391, 392, 393, 395. 20.  Montero Fenollós 2010b. 21.  Benoit 2003: 505–631; 22.  Matthews 2203: 1–9. 23.  Masetti-Rouault 2009.

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correspondante, — style déjà largement exploité dans les projets de constructions pour exprimer les tensions conquérantes et impérialistes des nations modernes — les archéologues et les assyriologues travaillant sur la Mésopotamie ont pu reconstituer avec une grande confiance son histoire, à partir d’une documentation de plus en plus vaste, mais toujours et encore fragmentaire, incomplète et déséquilibrée. C’est seulement par une interprétation fortement orientée que, dès les débuts de l’assyriologie, la trajectoire des sociétés proche-orientales est reconstituée comme allant inévitablement du campement nomade au village, à la cité, à l’état, et enfin à l’empire — remplissant les vides documentaires ou contredisant parfois les sources elles-mêmes —, pour connaître enfin la crise et la disparition. Est ainsi tracée et définie, de façon imperceptible, une courbe, une évolution logique, presque naturelle, sinon même un destin, pour toutes les nations civilisées anciennes — au moins, pour celles ayant vécu avant le christianisme.  L’impression forte créée, dans la culture occidentale, par l’architecture et l’urbanisme mésopotamiens, par le marquage de l’espace urbain et du paysage naturel au travers des infrastructures étatiques, a rendu possible leur interprétation comme la manifestation originelle, très ancienne, d’états et d’empires puissants, à vocation universelle, dont le paradigme évolutif est semblable à celui de Rome. Par la suite, l’application automatique, sans doute acritique et peut-être inconsciente, du modèle de la structure impériale de Rome, de son administration et de son fonctionnement à la situation proche-orientale antique — en particulier au premier millénaire av. J.C., à l’époque néo-assyrienne et néo-babylonienne — a permis à son tour d’organiser la masse de documents et de monuments, récits, archives, plans et ruines produits par les pouvoirs en place et retrouvés par les archéologues, et de lire et articuler les informations de façon telle que l’ensemble génère à nouveau l’image d’un empire 24. Malgré la vigilance de la méthode et de la pratique historique, ce modèle et cette image théorique de l’empire, élaborés pour Rome, puis pour la Mésopotamie, sont utilisés, presque comme des mythes, aussi quand il s’agit d’expliquer certaines formes d’exercice du pouvoir, d’exploitation ou de gouvernement modernes et contemporaines, évitant la prise en compte et l’analyse du réel. Pour d’évidentes raisons chronologiques, l’architecture assyro-babylonienne a été beaucoup moins sollicitée et copiée par les pouvoirs hégémoniques impériaux modernes que l’art de Rome classique, à quelques exceptions prés. Par contre, un fragment spécifique de l’architecture mésopotamienne — évidemment, l’architecture de la tour, dans toutes ses valeurs reconnues par la culture occidentale — sera utilisé comme symbole et cas d’espèce pour discuter et représenter l’irruption, dans une société déjà largement urbanisée et industrialisée, d’une nouvelle façon de concevoir l’habitat, dans un débat qui se structure d’une manière spécifique. Développés depuis la fin du 19ème siècle surtout aux Etats-Unis, où ils s’imposent comme un aspect idiomatique de la culture nationale américaine, représentatifs d’un idéal scientifique et technique d’efficacité et de rendement social et économique, les gratte-ciels, se proposant heuristiquement comme symboles de la modernité, sont pourtant difficilement acceptés dans les villes européennes occidentales — à Paris, dans les années 30, on se bat contre la «babylonisation» du paysage urbain. 25 Comme toute émanation d’une force impériale, mobilisant des financements colossaux et nécessitant une organisation spécifique de l’espace civique, on 24.  Liverani 1979, Postgate 1979. 25.  Gimbal 2009.

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considère alors que l’apparition des grandes tours peut déterminer la crise et la destruction des cultures et des modes d’occupations traditionnels et en place, et des pouvoirs locaux qu’ils représentent. Par contre, pour des raisons semblables, et dans des contextes idéologiques pourtant différents, les très hautes tours deviennent un des modes d’expression favoris du pouvoir soviétique, qui a bien saisi la fonction de l’architecture dans l’urbanisme comme moyen de communication de masse. De par sa forme, sa structure, les fonctions et les modes de vie qu’il détermine, ce type de bâtiment fonde et manifeste, aussi dans des territoires coloniaux, la présence d’une nouvelle culture et d’une tradition de l’état triomphant sur l’histoire. Le 11 septembre 2001 la destruction des Twin Towers de New York a été pensée et comprise, plutôt que comme une attaque contre une culture, comme un acte de guerre contre un pouvoir impérial, ou impérialiste, lui reprochant son húbrys. Mais la force et la violence de l’image des tours en flamme — vues dramatiques et comprises par tous — rappellent aussi qu’un empire bâtisseur d’œuvres pourtant démesurées pour communiquer et démontrer la portée de sa puissance, reste en réalité, toujours, une construction virtuelle, et très fragile.

References: Adam J.-P., et Blanc, N. 1989 Les sept Merveilles du monde. Paris. Allard, S. 2008 « Le mythe de Babylone du XVIe au XIXe siècle». Pp. 437–53 dans B. André-Salvini, éd., Babylone, Catalogue de l’exposition Babylone. Paris. André-Salvini, B., 2008 «Sources classiques (grecques et latines)». Pp. 430–34 dans B. André-Salvini, éd., Babylone. Catalogue de l’exposition Babylone. Paris. Auberger, J., éd., 1991 Ctésias. Histoires de l’Orient. Paris. Barguet, A. éd. 1985 Hérodote, l’Enquête, Livres I à IV. Paris (1964). Benoit, A. 2003 Art et archéologie: les civilisations du Proche-Orient ancien. Paris. Bretschneider, J.; Jans, G.; et Van Lerberghe K. 2007 « Power and Monument : Past and Present ». Pp. 3–9 dans J. Bretschneider, J. Driessen, et K. Van Lerberghe, K. (éds.), Power and Architecture. Monumental Public Architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 156. Leuven. Dalley, S. 1994 “Niniveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens: Cuneiform and Classical Sources Reconciled.” Iraq 56 (1994) 45–58. Gimbal, J. 2009 “Le gratte-ciel à Paris au début des années 1930: discours et représentations.” Histoire de l’Art 65 (Octobre 2009) 117–28. Larsen, M. T. 2001 La Conquête de l’Assyrie. Histoire d’une découverte archéologique, Paris, (1994). Liverani, M. 1979 “The Ideology of the Assyrian Empire.” Pp. 297–317 dans M. T. Larsen, éd., Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires, Mesopotamia 7. Copenhagen. López-Ruiz, C. 2010 When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East. Cambridge, MA et London.

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Masetti-Rouault, M. G. 2009a “Du bon usage de la mythologie mésopotamienne.” Pp. 19–29 dans X. Faivre, B. Lion, et C. Michel, éds., Et il y eut un esprit dans l’Homme: Jean Bottéro et la Mésopotamie, Paris. 2009b «Femmes, mythes et cultes dans la culture mésopotamienne ancienne». Pp. 129–44 dans F. Briquel-Chatonnet, et al., éds., Femmes, cultures et société dans les civilisations méditerranéennes et proche-orientales d’hier à aujourd’hui», Topoi Suppl. 10. 2012 «Bâtir une tour en l’air : l’architecture comme métaphore du pouvoir en Mésopotamie ancienne». Pp. 51–60 dans P. Azara, J. Carruesco, F. Frontisi-Ducroux, et G. Luri, éds., Arquitecturas celestiales. Documenta 21, Istitut Català d’Arqueologia Classica, Terragona. Matthews, R. 2003 The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches, London. Montero Fenollós, J. L. 2010a “Fuentes documentales para el estudio de la torre de Babel. De los textos cuneiformes a los viajeros europeos.” Pp. 65–96 dans J.  L. Montero Fenollós, éd., Torre de Babel. Historia y mito. Murcia. 2010b “Historia de una archiectura utópica. Hipótesis de reconstrucción de la torre de Babel.” Pp. 97–105 dans J. L. Montero Fenollós, éd., Torre de Babel. Historia y mito. Murcia. Monterroso Montero, J. M. 2010 “Precipicio de soberbios y cima de sabios / Los procesos de apropriación simbólica del terma de la torre de Babel.” Pp. 153–65 dans J.  L. Montero Fenollós (éd.), Torre de Babel. Historia y mito. Murcia. Postgate, J. N 1979 “The Economic Structure of the Assyrian Empire.” Pp. 193–221 in M. T.  Larsen, ed., Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires. Mesopotamia 7. Copenhagen. Rolliger, R 1993 Herodots Babylonischer Logos. Innsbruck. 2008 “L’image et la postérité de Babylone dans les sources classiques.” Pp. 374–77 dans B. André-Salvini, éd., Babylone. Catalogue de l’exposition Babylone. Paris. Van De Mieroop, M. 2003 “Reading Babylon.” American Journal of Archaeology 107: 256–75.

Reception of Ancient Near Eastern Architecture in Europe and North America in the 20th Century Brigitte Pedde

Free University

of

Berlin

In the 19th century, during the period of Historicism, ancient European styles served as prototypes for new architecture. Toward the end of the century, there was a great need to find other approaches to modern building. Avant-garde architects were looking for inspiration from archaeologists’ reconstructions beyond Classical antiquity and European tradition. Since the middle of the 19th century, French and English explorers had excavated on a large scale in Mesopotamia, followed by German excavations at the end of the century. As a result, many spectacular objects were collected by museums of the countries mentioned and many books and journals filled with imaginative and grandiose architectural reconstructions were published. Robert Koldewey, the excavator of Babylon, published a three-dimensional drawing (fig. 1) and vertical plans (fig. 2) of his reconstruction of the Tower of Babylon in 1918. 1 He was of the opinion that the platforms of the tower did not differ very much in size, and so he designed it as a massive block, with narrow steps. Kol­ dewey’s drawing and the ziggurrat reconstructions made by other archaeologists had a great impact on future architecture. The American career of the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen began with his design for “The Chicago Tribune Competition” in 1922 (fig. 3). At that time, the newspaper “The Chicago Tribune,” with a large and increasing circulation, celebrated its 75th anniversary. Therefore, a new high-rise office building ca. 400 feet high (ca. 145 m) was planned. 2 Although the design was awarded second prize, it became a model for many buildings constructed in the years to follow. 3 Saarinen designed a stepped building with a vertical wall structure that was created by buttresses ending in merlons. A comparison of Saarinen’s building with Koldewey’s reconstruction of the Tower of Babylon (figs. 1, 2) shows many analogies, although Saarinen’s building is higher and narrower in proportion: both are block-shaped buildings with narrow steps. The same kind of vertical ribs and niches, as well as the patterns of various blocks set on one another look similar. The top of the building reflects the upper part of Koldewey’s reconstruction, and the round-arched windows correspond 1.  Koldewey 1918: figs. 3, 4, 7, 8. 2.  Sarnitz 2010: 57. 3.  Lampugnani 1998: 322.

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Fig. 1.  R. Koldewey, Babylonian Tower (Koldewey 1918: fig. 8).

Fig. 2.  R. Koldewey, Babylonian Tower, west side (Koldewey 1918: fig. 7).

Fig. 3.  E. Saarinen, “The Chicago Tribune Competition” (Lampugnani 1998: fig. p. 323).

Fig. 4.  A. Loos, “The Chicago Tribune Competition” (Sarnitz 2010: fig. p. 59).

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Fig. 5 (left).  J. Fergusson, Ziggurat of Nimrud (Gill 2008: 74, detail). Fig. 6 (above).  E. Kettelhut, “Metropolis” (Neumann 1997: fig. 55).

to the round-arched door of the upper part of Koldewey’s ziggurat (fig. 2). Saarinen’s knowledge of ancient Near Eastern architecture is obvious when we consider the design and construction of the railway station in Helsinki, built between 1910 and 1919. Here he had already used a few Assyrian patterns. Another contribution to “The Chicago Tribune Competition” was the sketch of the Austrian architect Adolf Loos (fig. 4). His drawing shows a massive block covered by a three-fold stepped terrace. A huge Doric column with a square abacus stands on its flat roof. The windows on its shaft show that the column was also supposed to accommodate offices in 21 floors. At the main entrance of the building, there are two Doric columns, and the roof terrace of the annex building is bounded by a row of Doric columns as well. Loos’s block-shaped, stepped building is reminiscent of the reconstruction of the ziggurat of Nimrud by James Fergusson published in 1853 in Austen Henry Layard’s book, The Monuments of Niniveh 4 (fig. 5). On the top of Fergusson’s representation of the Nimrud ziggurat, there is a columnshaped superstructure as well, although it is proportionally much smaller in size than Loos’s column. The entrances to the lower part of the ziggurat are marked by columns, too. Even the annex buildings of the ziggurat have colonnades. As a result of these striking similarities, there is no doubt that Loos was inspired for his design by Fergusson’s graphic representation. A combination of the drawings of Fergusson and of Loos is shown in the second version of the setting for the movie “Metropolis” (fig. 6), directed by Fritz Lang, who got the idea to make this movie when he had visited New York in 1924. 5 The set designer Erich Kettelhut was obviously inspired for his “Tower of Babel” in the center of “Metropolis” by the drawing of Adolf Loos: his tower consists of a stepped base on which a column-like shaft is erected, with a huge capital and a square platform like an abacus. Moreover, on the left, Kettelhut’s setting shows a high-rise building with a stepped top and a small column-shaped form on it. Here, Kettelhut was 4.  James Fergusson, “The Palaces of Nimrud Restored. Lithograph printed in colors,” in Layard 1853: pl. 1. 5.  Neumann 1997: 81.

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Fig. 7.  A. Loos, “Grand Hotel Babylone” (Minkowski 1991: fig. 574).

Fig. 8.  W. Andrae, Double Ziggurat in Assur, 1909 (Heinrich 1982: fig. 360).

evidently inspired by Fergusson’s ziggurat of Nimrud (fig. 5). Later in the movie, the huge column was replaced by a massive building, more in the shape of Pieter Bruegel’s Tower of Babylon, 6 and the small column on top of the high-rise building by a small dome. 6.  Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babylon, oil on wood, 114 × 155 cm, 1563, Vienna, Kunst­ historisches Museum, Inv.Nr. 1026–1563.

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Fig. 9.  H. Ferriss, King Salomon’s Temple (Willis 1986: fig. 43).

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Fig. 10.  New York, Barclay-Vesey Building (Bayer 1992: fig. p. 105).

In 1923 Adolf Loos made a drawing for a hotel that was intended to be located at the “Promenade des Anglais” in Nice on the French Mediterranean coast. 7 The drawing was published in the journal Das Kunstblatt. 8 Loos designated it “Grand Hotel Babylone” (fig. 7). The sketch shows a building of two similar ziggurat-shaped parts connected by a base floor. The building is similar to the reconstruction of the double ziggurat of Anu-Adad in Assur made by the excavator Walter Andrae and published in 1909 (fig. 8). 9 Moreover, the two component parts reflect the proportions of the reconstruction of the ziggurat at Birs Nimrud by Henry C. Rawlinson. 10 In the middle of the 19th century, the ziggurat of Birs Nimrud was regarded as the Tower of Babylon. When the Equitable Building in New York, a huge building with 36 stories, was completed in 1915, it was evident that a building of that height and size robbed daylight and fresh air from its neighborhood. 11 As a result, the demand for greater regulation of skyscraper construction arose in New York. Finally, in 1916, the “Zoning Law” came into effect. The law stated that large and high buildings must be stepped upward from a certain height on. “The Commission on Building Restrictions” itself gave some simple sketch proposals, with zoning diagrams, each consisting of a large block with a smaller block on top of it. 12 This law had a great impact on skyscraper architecture in general. From 1922 on, the American architecture designer Hugh Ferriss and the architect Harvey Wiley Corbett worked together to design skyscrapers according to the 7.  Sarnitz 2010: 59. 8.  Westheim 1924. 9.  Andrae 1909: pl. 8, 9. 10.  Hilprecht 1903: fig. 118. 11.  Nash 1999: 25. 12.  Willis 1986: 157, fig. 11.

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Fig. 12 (above).  Berlin, Department Store Karstadt (Boberg – Fichter – Gillen 1986: fig. 251).

Fig. 11 (left).  H. Ferriss, “Modern Ziggurats” (Ferriss 1929: fig. 99).

Fig. 13.  W. Andrae, Double Ziggurat in Assur, 1924 (Heinrich 1982: fig. 327).

Fig. 14.  Lower Manhattan across the East River (Stern 1997: 600 bottom, detail).

conditions provided by the Zoning Law. At the same time, they also worked on a project of reconstructing King Solomon’s Temple and its citadel. For that purpose, Corbett and Ferriss cooperated with archaeologists who were researching ancient Near Eastern architecture. 13 Ferriss’s drawing of the temple (fig. 9) shows that he was influenced by ziggurat reconstructions. Moreover, the Mesopotamian influence is shown by Assyrian lamassu sculptures, some in the foreground, some flanking the temple’s entrance. The experience of working with archaeologists had probably inspired Ferriss and Corbett to create visions of skyscrapers following reconstructions of Babylonian and Assyrian ziggurats. They developed drawings with four different stages of the evolution of set-back buildings. The drawing “The Four Stages” of 1923 represents a summing-up of the four designs from the year before. These drawings served as models for many architects from that time on. 13.  Willis 1986: 160–61.

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The Barclay-Vesey Building in New York (fig. 10) was the first skyscraper built according to the new zoning requirements. It was constructed by the architect Ralph Walker between 1923 and 1926. The front part of Ferriss’s design of “Stage Four” shows similarities to the Barclay-Vesey Building: the narrow steps and two wings in the middle part. Moreover, the Barclay-Vesey Building has some analogies with Koldewey’s reconstruction of the Babylonian tower (fig.  1): the vertical niched facade, the narrow steps in the middle part, and the Fig. 15.  A. Moberg, Tower of Babylon niched top decoration with merlons. The (Schmid 1995: fig. 19). huge windows on the top of the BarclayVesey Building show the same round bows as the entrances in Koldewey’s elevation of the west side (fig. 2). Another drawing of Hugh Ferriss from 1924 published in 1929 in his book The Metropolis of Tomorrow with the title “Modern ziggurats” (fig. 11) is further evidence of the relation between reconstruction drawings of ancient ziggurats by archeologists and modern set-back skyscrapers. Ferriss’s comment about this drawing was: “The ancient Assyrian ziggurat, as a matter of fact, is an excellent embodiment of the modern New York legal restriction; may we not for a moment imagine an array of modern ziggurats, providing restaurants and theaters on their ascending levels?” 14 The word “ziggurat” became a synonym for skyscraper, because “The New Babylon” had already at that time become a synonym for mulitilingual and multicultural New York. One example of a ziggurrat-shaped building in Berlin was the department store Karstadt at the Hermannplatz, constructed by the architect Philipp Schäfer (fig. 12). For more than 30 years, Philipp Schäfer was the leading architect for the enterprise of Karstadt. In the 1920s and 1930s, he had great influence on the architecture of department stores in Germany. His buildings mostly have a strict structure with vertical ribs and niches. His best-known building was the Karstadt department store erected in 1927—at that time, considered to be the most modern department store in Europe. Here, Schäfer obviously followed Walter Andrae’s 1924 reconstruction of the temple of Anu-Adad with two ziggurats at Assur (fig. 13). Both this reconstruction drawing and the facade of the department store have a vertical structure with ribs and niches and are also equiped with a horizontal tie in the lower part. An aerial photograph of Karstadt shows another correspondence to Andrae’s reconstruction: both have a central inner court behind the two towers. In April 1945, the department store was destroyed. A photograph of lower Manhattan from across the East River made in the 1930s (fig. 14) shows ziggurat-shaped buildings. On the left side is the building at 120 Wall Street, built by the architect Ely Jacques Kahn in 1930; in the middle is the high tower 70 Pine Street (today, the AIG Building), built by Clinton & Russell and Holton & George, completed in 1932; and on the right side of the photograph is 116 14.  Ferriss 1929: 98.

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Fig. 16.  Large-scale model of 70 Pine Street, New York (Brigitte Pedde).

Fig. 17.  New York, 250 Broadway (Brigitte Pedde).

John Street, constructed by Charles Glaser and Louis Allen Abramson in 1931. All these buildings and some similar-shaped skyscrapers still exist today and are located in the Wall Street District. There is a remarkable resemblence between Robert Koldewey’s reconstruction (fig. 1) and the building at 120 Wall Street. Moreover, the building at 116 John Street has analogies with Axel Moberg’s reconstruction of the Tower of Babylon from 1918 15 (fig. 15). Especially the small “temples” on the top look very similar: at 120 Wall Street, the top with niches, and at 116 John Street, the small “temple” on the top. The AIG Building, 70 Pine Street, and its adjacent building, 1 Cedar Street, completed three years earlier by Clinton & Russell, represent two types of set-back skyscrapers. They are of the same shape, one with, and the other without, tower. A large-scale model of the building at 70 Pine Street is carved into the stone on both central pillars at its north and south entrances (fig. 16). The model represents the skyscraper tower standing on a ziggurat. The lower part shows some similarities to 15.  Schmid 1995: fig. 19.

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Fig. 18.  London, 200 Aldersgate Street (Brigitte Pedde).

Koldewey’s reconstruction of the Tower of Babylon: the vertical niches, the different hights of the platforms, and their narrow steps. The uppermost part of the AIG Building also has vertical niched structures. The similarities to the ziggurat facades are obvious. Even inside the AIG Building, the door of the elevator 16 shows similarities to the merlons of the Khorsabad ziggurat, reconstructed by Felix Thomas in 1867. 17 The rosettes of his drawing are replaced by the logo of the building’s company. In the 1930s, the construction of ziggurat-shaped skyscrapers came to an end. The new high-rise buildings, some with a glazed curtain-wall facades, mostly have a rectangular shape. But there are a few exceptions—for example, an office building at 250 Broadway in New York built by the architects Emery Roth & Sons (fig. 17). It was completed in 1963 and has five steps with a dark-green glass facade. In London, at 200 Aldersgate Street, an office building was constructed by the architect Morey Smith in 1997 (fig. 18). The entrance also has a glazed zigguratshaped form. These examples show that even in the recent past, elements from the Ancient Orient are still used in architecture. 16.  Abramson 2001: fig. 137. 17.  Perrot and Chipiez 1884: fig. 102.

Bibliography Abramson, Daniel M. 2001 Skyscraper Rivals: The AIG Building and the Architecture of Wall Street. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Andrae, Walter 1909 Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur. Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 10, Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung.

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Bayer, Patricia 1992 Art Deco Architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Boberg, Jochen; Fichter, Tilman; and Gillen, Eckhart, eds. 1986 Die Metropole. Industriekultur in Berlin im 20. Jahrhundert. Munich: Beck. Ferriss, Hugh 1929 Metropolis of Tomorrow. New York: Ives Washburn. Gill, Anton 2008 Gateway of the Gods: The Rise and Fall of Babylon. London: Quercus. Heinrich, Ernst 1982 Die Tempel und Heiligtümer im Alten Mesopotamien. Denkmäler antiker Architektur 14. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hilprecht, Herman V. 1903 Explorations in Bible Lands. Philadelphia: Holman. Koldewey, Robert 1918 Der babylonische Turm nach der Tontafel des Anubelschunu. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 59. Berlin. Lampugnani, Vittorio M., ed. 1998 Lexikon der Architektur des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ostfildern-Ruit: Gerd Hatje. Layard, Austen Henry 1853 The Monuments of Niniveh. London: Murray. Minkowski, Helmut 1991 Turm zu Babel. Freren: Luca-Verlag. Nash, Eric P. 1999 Manhattan Skyscrapers. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Neumann, Dietrich 1997 “Der Turmbau zu Babel und das Hochhaus im 20. Jahrhundert.” Pp. 70–89 in Joachim Ganzert, ed., Der Turm zu Babel: Maßstab oder Anmaßung. Biberach: Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei. Perrot, Georges, and Chipiez, Charles 1884 Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, Chaldée et Assyrie, tome 2. Paris: Hachette. Sarnitz, August 2010 Adolf Loos, 1870–1933, Architekt, Kulturkritiker, Dandy. Cologne: Taschen. Schmid, Hansjörg 1995 Der Tempelturm Etemenanki in Babylon. Mainz: von Zabern. Stern, Robert A. M. 1997 New York 1930. New York: Rizzoli International. Westheim, Paul, ed. 1924 Das Kunstblatt, No. 4. Berlin / Vienna: J. B. Neumann. Willis, Carol 1986 “Drawing towards Metropolis.” Pp. 148–99 in Hugh Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Assyrian Wall Paintings and Modern Reconstructions 1 Paola Poli

University

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F e r r a r a , I tal y

0. Introduction Dealing with “architecture and archaeology” wall-painting decoration is a subject that must not be overlooked. As has been pointed out by various scholars, wall paintings represented a very important aspect of the decorative program in Assyrian buildings, and they must have played a role not less important than the reliefs or the sculptures. 2 Unfortunately, because of the perishable character of their material, very few painted surfaces have come down to us, especially from earlier excavations. In the past, before the advent of photography, drawings made on the spot by the archaeologists were the only way of preserving images of the mural paintings. In a few cases, indications or actual graphic reconstructions of the hypothetical placement of the painted wall surface in the context of the physical structure were written down. Therefore, two kinds of reconstructions were sometimes made: one reproducing the simple figurative or decorative motif, and another corresponding to its placement on wall surfaces in a certain location of the building. Of course, every archaeologist or painter, consciously or unconsciously, was influenced to a certain extent by his cultural and historical background or simply by imagination in both kinds of reconstruction. 3 1.  I am grateful to Dr. P. Campiglio (Department of Literature and Art, University of Pavia) with whom I have discussed the problem of modern influence on wall-painting reconstructions considered in this contribution. 2.  See among the most recent contributions Albenda 2005: 134–35 3.  On architectural reconstructions realized in the second half of the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century in relation to their historic and cultural background, see the recent articles by M. G. Micale (2005, 2008), with related bibliography. Of some interest also are the observations reported by I. Winter in her contribution: “Seat of Kingship” / “A wonder to behold”: The Palace as a Construction in the Ancient Near East.” She (Winter 1993: 28) writes: “Our popular impression on the pre-Islamic palace come from biblical references, on one hand . . . and from British watercolor reconstructions of Assyrian palaces and Nimrud and Nineveh following excavations in the mid-nineteenth century, on the other. In the latter, we see, splendid, multi-storied structures, elaborately decorated. Because the ground plans and ground-floor sculptures were based upon excavated remains, they are generally reliable; however the rest of the elevation is largely invention: oftentimes a hodge-podge copied from other known ruins, such as Persepolis in Iran. . . . It is also striking when one compares the restoration drawing of Nimrud and Nineveh, how very much they resemble the drawings done for the restoration of the façade

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There is also another type of decorative form that can be considered as a sort of reconstruction of Assyrian wall-painting motifs: it is the revival and the emulation of Assyrian antiquities in the second half of the nineteenth century. This phenomenon—mainly an English one—involved various sorts of artistic expressions and consisted in the selection of specific motifs and details from archaeological sources and their reproduction or adaptation to various typologies of decoration. What is presented here is a selection and an examination of some of the most significant figurative documentation in which it is possible to recognize a sort of wall-painting “reconstruction.” This documentation belongs to a period between the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. On the basis of the considerations mentioned above, three different kinds of documents will be considered in this contribution: (1) the drawing reconstructions of wall paintings, as well as the (2) architectural and (3) decorative reconstructions.

1.  Nineteenth-Century Discoveries 1.1.  Drawing Reconstructions of Wall Paintings In the nineteenth century, Layard was the first archaeologist to make drawings of the wall paintings found at Nimrud. The paintings were found in two areas of the ancient mound: in several rooms of the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859), and in a building that Layard labeled the “upper chamber,” which was erected by Adad-Nirari III (810–783). 4 While digging in certain area of the Northwest Palace, Layard mentions that the walls “had been painted with figures and ornaments; but the colors had faced so completely, that scarcely any of the subjects or designs could be traced. . . . I was able to draw a few of the ornaments, in which the colors chiefly distinguishable were red, blue, black and white.” 5 He had no means of preserving even a small portion of the wall paintings, but he was able to make very careful drawings of the few fragments showing decorative motifs. These drawings are located in the folio volumes of Original Drawings, now kept in the British Museum, and most of them were published by Albenda in 1994 for the first time. 6 A second version of Layard’s individual drawings was published in 1849 in his book The Monuments of Nineveh, from Drawings Made on the Spot, where he collected all the revised drawings into two plates. 7 These latter images soon became the actual sources for all successive works, both scientific and more popular. A comparison between the two versions of the single motif shows that the original designs differ from the published drawings in a few details. of Buckingham Palace in the 1820s! One is forced to conclude that the draftsmen responsible for the Assyrian watercolors were themselves “(re-)constructing” palaces according to their own contemporary desires and imagination-in particular an imagination that saw the Assyrian “empire” in the mirror of the then contemporary British empire.” 4.  Before Layard, Botta, digging at Khorsabad, mentions blue fragmentary wall paintings of which no graphic reproduction exists. See Botta 1850: 26. 5.  See Layard 1849a: vol. 2: 16. 6.  All the drawings are again reproduced in Albenda 2005: pl. 1; pls. 3–6. Only the drawing of a fragmentary section of ornament called by Layard “unfinished Plan 4” was published by Nunn in 1988: pl. 96. 7.  See Layard 1849b: pls. 84–85.

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Fig. 1.  Layard, drawing of ornamental wall painting from the Northwest Palace. Original Drawings III, 86c. (source: Albenda 2005: pl. 1).

Fig. 2.  Layard, reconstructed ornamental decoration from Northwest Palace (source: Layard 1849b: pl. 84).

From the Northwest Palace comes an ornamental motif, according to the sketch drawn on the spot, composed of two parts of a frieze divided into two wide bands. The design on the top register consists of a garland decorated with a cone, a palmette and a tulip arranged alternatively; the lower one is a guilloche motif (fig. 1). In the second version, the archaeologist has completed the decoration, repeating some details and suggesting that the two outer bands have a mirror-image design (fig. 2). The ornamental motifs found in the so called “upper chamber” are quite different from those brought to light in the Northwest Palace. Here there were three

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Fig. 4.  Layard, drawing of Upper Chamber A (detail). Original Drawing III, 79 (source: Albenda 2005: pl. 4). Fig. 3 (above).Layard, drawing of Upper Chamber A (detail). Original Drawing III, 80 (source: Albenda 2005: pl. 3).

Fig. 5 (right).  Layard, reconstructed ornamental decoration from chamber A. (source Layard 1849b: pl. 85).

rooms connected, aligned side by side, that Layard labeled B, A, C. In chamber A, he exposed two big sections of wall painting. Each fragment was composed of three wide horizontal registers with narrow bands and stripes between them. Each band contained one or several motifs repeated at regular intervals (figs. 3, 4). In his reconstruction, he put together the main elements of the two decorations (fig. 5). The top register is ornamented with a three-stepped battlement parapet. The middle band presents a winged bull standing between two circles enclosing a flower with twelve decorated petals and a central disc. The image of the winged bull is completed and assimilated with the animal design reproduced on the sketch of room C, while the petals of the flower are rendered in a different way from the original ones. The bottom register shows a square with incurved sides drawn in one sketch (fig. 4), but the inside decoration is based on the design of the rectangle reproduced in the other sketch (fig. 3). Within each square are concentric squares that surround concentric circles. At each corner is a decorated chevron bud. Two little concentric circles completed the ornamental design within the square. On the wall of chamber B were preserved two fragments with various decorations. One sketch presents a row of small rosettes above an arcaded garland of diskshaped flowers (fig. 6), while the other shows a row of rosettes centered between two chevron-decorated bands (fig. 7). In both of the revised decorations, Layard simply completed the two bands (figs. 8, 9).

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Fig. 6 (left).  Layard, drawing of Upper Chamber B (detail). Original Drawing III, 79. (source: Albenda 2005: pl. 3).

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Fig. 8 (right).  Layard, reconstructed ornamental decoration from upper chamber B. (source: Layard 1849b: pl.85). Fig. 7 (left).  Layard, drawing of upper chamber B (detail). Original Drawing III, 85. (source: Albenda 2005: pl. 5).

Fig. 9 (right).  Layard, reconstructed ornamental decoration from upper chamber B. (source Layard 1849b, pl.85).

In Chamber C, Layard brought to light a painted section containing the reproduction of a bull. The animal is inserted between registers, of which the upper one is composed of a three-stepped battlement, while the lower one is ornamented with a motif composed of an arcaded garland of target-shaped flowers (fig. 10). In the published version of the design, Layard has concluded that the entire motif was composed of two animals posed one in front of the other (fig. 11). In all his drawing reconstructions, Layard shows that he correctly understood that one of the main rules of Assyrian wall-painting decorations was the repetition of a single motif in a single band and the reproduction of a single image in a mirrorimage design. 8

1.2.  Wall Paintings and Architectonic Reconstructions As we have noted before, Layard also mentions figurative wall paintings with processions of human figures. He did not copy single images because the colors were too damaged. Nevertheless, he did reproduce figurative decorations suggesting the entire reconstruction of a hall inside an important building in a color print (fig. 12). According to Layard’s words, the reconstruction that he suggests is “a hall in an Assyrian temple or palace, restored from actual remains, and from fragments discovered in the ruins.” 9 When analyzing the image, one notes that on the lower 8. More recent discoveries and modern studies have confirmed Layard intuitions. On the main rules of ornamental wall painting composition, see Albenda 2005: 81. 9.  Layard 1853a: 2.

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Fig. 10.  Layard, drawing of upper chamber C. Original Drawing III, 85 (source: Albenda 2005: pl. 5).

Fig. 11.  Layard, reconstructed ornamental decoration from upper chamber C (source: Layard 1849b: pl.84).

parts of the walls, he has put stone bas-reliefs, while above them there are figurative wall paintings with various characters. He has provided a graphic description of his method: “The subjects of the paintings appeared to be generally processions, in which the king is represented followed by his eunuchs and attendant warriors. The figures were merely in outline, in black upon a blue ground, and I was unable to distinguish any other color.” 10 A more recent contribution by Tomabechi 11 on the subject of a large wall-painting fragment representing part of the image of a chariot, found in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, seems to confirm Layard’s reconstruction. 12 Between the engraved slabs and the frescoes the archaeologist has inserted ornamental motifs based on the decorations exposed both in the Northwest Palace and the Upper Chamber at Nimrud. One can distinguish, in fact, a row of small rosettes over a garland found in chamber B of the Upper chamber. While on the register immediately on the frescoes Layard has placed another kind of garland found in the Northwest Palace. The top register is ornamented with a battlement parapet also found in chamber A. The open sector of the roof, from which the light comes into the hall, is bordered with a fantastic decoration composed of yellow palmettes, a decorative element that appears both in wall painting ornaments or on dress decorations. 13 The colors chosen by Layard for his reconstruction are of some interest, because they seem different from the originals. For the decorative bands, he has generally not used very bright colors, like the ones he published in his books, but he preferred pastel colors, maybe in accord with what was more familiar to him: the typical shades of the Victorian Age. For instance, the blue background of the frieze from the Northwest Palace is replaced with a pale yellow. Even the form of the coffered ceiling reproduces the typology of nineteenth-century palaces. 14 10.  Layard 1849a: vol. 2: 12 11.  See Tomabechi 1986: 45–49. 12.  See Matthiae 1994: 107; 188 n. 65. 13.  See for instance Layard 1853a: pl. 43. 14.  Layard was conscious that some elements of his reconstruction were speculative; in fact, he says (Layard 1853a: 1): “The restoration of the ceiling is entirely conjectural. No traces whatever of a roof are to be found in the Assyrian ruins; but it is possible that the ceiling was formed by beams of wood,

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Fig. 12.  Reconstruction of an Assyrian hall (source: Layard 1849b: pl. 2).

The tradition that is the basis of the architectural reconstruction of the hall is completely different. This sector of the palace is pictured as an open court like that of the oriental houses that Layard probably had seen at that time in Mosul. The use of contemporary architecture as an inspiration for reconstructing an ancient building was quite common in that period. 15 So even if Layard’s intention was to suggest a “restored” Assyrian hall based on the archaeological documentation that he used, he nevertheless presents a reconstruction including speculative elements that recall, in certain respects, his contemporary world. The archaeologist also gives importance to the characters that are depicted. Even if they serve as traditional, stylized figures, establishing scale and spacing, Layard has reproduced some characters, such as the king and a few other attendants, on the basis of the image engraved on the slab. The dress of the figures is based on the evidence of the reliefs. The “restored hall” proposed by Layard in this print is quite different from the other reconstructions realized both in England and in France at the same time. Each feature of the representation, even the dress of the characters, is based on painted, gilded, and inlaid, and that light was admitted into the chambers through it, by square openings, or skylights. The selection and arrangement of the ornaments and colors are arbitrary; such have been chosen as appear to be most consistent with the taste of the Assyrians, as displayed in various parts of their edifices” . 15.  On the problem, see also Micale 2010: 94–95 n. 6. According to Layard: “the great halls were in some cases entirely open to the air, like the court-yard of the modern houses of Mosul, whose walls are still adorned with sculptured alabaster.” See Layard 1853b: 648.

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Fig. 13.  Hall of Nimrud in the tragedy of Sardanapulus, acts III–IV, Princess Theatre, 1853. (source: André-Salvini ed. 2008: fig. 404).

archaeological sources and not on elements typical of the fabulous and luxuriant Orient that Martin and Delacroix painted in their works. The other contemporary architectonic reconstructions suggested by Fergusson, in order to achieve popularity and thus be accepted by the Victorian public, were much more influenced by contemporary artistic taste and expression. 16 In this print, Layard seems to reflect his desire to show his readers a realistic image of the ancient Orient. Layard’s books soon became very popular, a kind of “best-seller,” 17 and the����� discovery of Assyrian civilization had a considerable impact on the art, literature, and theatre of the nineteenth century. The greatest and most influential of the theatrical plays based on Layard’s discoveries was Charles Kean’s production of Lord Byron’s Sardanapalus, King of Assyria. 18 Kean transformed Byron’s play into a real show, using Layard’s discoveries of the remains of Assyria to visualize the drama of the last Assyrian king. The play was performed in 1853 at the Princess Theatre. Some scenes (acts III and IV) were played in the interior of a palace. The scenic design was based on the reconstruction suggested by Layard for his Assyrian hall, examined above (fig. 13). 16.  On this aspect, see Micale 2005: 144–47 17.  Reade 1995: 214; Bohrer 2003: 142–44; 18.  See Grisenegger-Georgila 1996: 278; McCall 1998: 202–3; Bohrer 2003: 178–81.

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Fig. 14.  Reconstruction of an Assyrian Palace, Nineveh Court, Sydenham Crystal Palace, 1854. Lithograph (source: Bohrer 2003: fig. 53).

On the other hand, there were contemporary reconstructions that were much more speculative, such as the architectural structure presented at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1854, the Great Exposition of Arts and Manufactures. It represents an attempt at a real reconstruction of an entire hypothetical Assyrian building (fig. 14). The facade of the palace was decorated on its upper part with wallpainting ornaments. The reconstruction project was realized by James Fergusson. Layard, in fact, admitted that he had no idea regarding the external appearance of the buildings or the means of providing lighting. 19 He insisted that Fergusson design the court structure; at the time, he was very famous and considered to be an authoritative source for his architectonic reconstruction of ancient buildings presented in his book The Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored. 20 At Sydenham Crystal Palace, in fact, he suggested a structure very similar to his Khorsabad court. 21 The entire building was again imagined on two levels: the first decorated with winged bulls; the second composed of a row of columns with zoomorphic capitals very similar to the sculptures found at Persepolis. On the top of the building was set a large decoration that reproduced part of the garland painted on the wall of the Northwest Palace at Nimrud. Even though Layard accepted the architectural reconstruction suggested by Ferguson, he emphasized that the building was clearly not a restoration of an Assyrian building. 22 Until 1867, when the structures were destroyed by fire, it was possible for a Victorian family to stroll through the throne room of the Assyrian palace and pretend it was back in ancient Assyria. Therefore, this reconstruction, which was mainly speculative, became a very important and easy medium of diffusion of ideas about some aspects of Assyrian civilization. 19.  From a letter read at the Royal Institute of British Architects: Bohrer 2003: 206–7. 20.  On the figure of Fergusson and his works, see Bohrer 2003: 210–13, with related bibliography. 21.  See Fergusson 1851: frontispiece. 22.  On the debate and the examination of the related documentation in regard to the reconstruction of the Assyrian Palace at the Crystal Palace, see Bohrer 2003: 212–18.

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Fig. 15.  Cover of Layard’s Nineveh and its Remains. (source Curtis 1995, fig. 239).

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Fig. 16.  Cover of Layard’s Nineveh. (source Reade 1995, fig. 240).

Fig. 17.  Frontispiece of Layard’s Monument of Nineveh.(source Layard 1953a).

1.3.  Assyrian Wall Painting Motifs and Decorative Reconstructions Even though Assyrian wall-painting drawings, exposed during excavations, were very poor in comparison with the large quantities of reliefs, their decorative aspect must have had a certain impact on the imagination of artists and intellectuals of the time. Most of the covers and the frontispieces of Layard’s books were embellished with decorations that emulated certain details of the wall-painting decoration brought to light at Nimrud. The cover of the Layard’s Nineveh and Its Remains, published in 1849 (fig. 15), shows an Assyrian winged bull in the center but all around, along each side of the book, appears a decoration composed of a garland with a tulip, a palmette, and a cone, emulating the wall-painting fragment discovered in the Northwest Palace. The 1858 edition presents another kind of cover but again with wall-painting decorations (fig. 16). The entire depiction reproduces the same motifs painted in room A of the upper chamber. The individual elements include the winged bull, the squares with in-curving sides, the rosette decoration, and the three-stepped battlement parapet. Only the simple disposition of the individual elements is altered to match the form of the book and the presence of writing. The frontispiece of The Monuments of Nineveh, which is probably the most important work by Layard, is much more elaborate: it is a color print with two winged, human-headed lions supporting a gateway on their backs (fig. 17). Most of the designs of the gateway are based on the plaster decorations found in the two buildings at Nimrud. On the top of the image, we once more see the upper part of the garland painted on the wall fragment found in the Northwest Palace. Slightly below appears another garland that reproduces a stylized form of the bottom decoration from chamber C. The frontispiece is completed by other wall-painting details, such as the three-stepped battlement parapet, which is the upper band of some decoration fragment, the zig-zag, and the chevron pattern, decorative elements that generally complete more complex

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wall-painting motifs. The ornamental design composed of winged horses on a sort of rosette reproduces a dress pattern of a character engraved on a relief from the Northwest Palace. 23 In 1856, Owen Jones published a very important book on ornaments bearing the title Grammar of Ornament. The book, which was a study and analysis of a remarkable collection of ornamental design from Ancient Egypt, Greece, Imperial China and Renaissance Italy, contains some plates dedicated to Assyria and Persia. On pls. XII–XIV, Jones presents some motifs chosen from the wall-painting patterns and other kinds of decorative elements published by Layard. Even if he claims that all the ornaments are taken from Layard’s book and are colored as published, 24 Jones proposed some variations from the originals. The decoration painted in the Northwest Palace is the only example to be reproduced like the original. On the other hand, as far as the motifs from the “Upper Chamber,” Jones has selected, separated, and isolated some specific elements from a more complex decorative program (fig. 18). He has not understood that the various geometric and figurative motifs were a combined decorative unit, and he has omitted what may be considered a figurative detail, such as the fronted bulls from chamber C and the winged bull from chamber A. 25 Of the decoration from room C, he has considered only the upper and the lower register, omitting the animal images, and the garland is represented turned up, while of the decorative composition painted on the wall of Chamber A, he has considered, as if separate elements, only the circle with a complex depiction inside and the square with in-curved sides. The colors are also not as bright as the originals. It is evident that Jones, in his work, which was considered a basic, scientific book on ornamental decoration, suggests images that in some respects are his own interpretation. It must be remembered that Jones’s book had great success, inspiring many contemporary artists. 26 Some decorative drawings have had a long history. In 1916, the American filmdirector Griffith released the film “Intolerance.” One of the four stories in the film was set in Babylon at the time of king Belshazzar. In the scene, which shows the Babylonians as an enlighted people, a girl, in historical costume, is shown wearing a long dress bordered in its lower part with a garland that reproduces the same motif painted in chamber B from the Upper Chamber at Nimrud (fig. 19 and fig. 8). This is not surprising, since both Griffith and Henabery, his assistant, devoted much attention to the costumes of the actors and to the interior of the scenes. To achieve this aim, a scrapbook containing illustrations cut out from other books was established. 27 It is of some interest to note that recent studies have outlined a probable connection between the Assyrian wall-painting drawings and the textile drawings. According to Albenda, it is possible that similar subjects and designs used in contemporary carpets and textiles were interchangeable. 28 When Griffith chose this 23.  See Layard 1853a: pls. 48/9. 24.  Jones 1856: 27. 25.  At the beginning of his book, Jones fixes a series of principles that form the basis of the decoration. In Jones’s opinion: “All the ornaments should be based upon a geometric construction.” So he may have omitted the animals because they were considered figurative, not geometric, elements. See Jones 1856: 5. 26.  Jones’s opinion of Assyrian art is not enthusiastic. In his opinion, “the Assyrian is not an original style, but was borrowed from the Egyptian, modified by the difference of the religion and habits of the Assyrian people.” Jones 1856: 28. 27.  On the bibliographical sources used by Griffith, see Hanson 1972: 502. 28.  Albenda 2005: 131

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Fig. 18.  Assyrian decorative elements (source Jones 1856: pl.12).

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Fig. 19.  Scene from film Intolerance: The Marriage Market (source: Hanson 1972: fig. 27).

pattern as a dress ornament, he certainly did not know the results of recent study but nevertheless he probably unconsciously and according to his personal taste noted a possible affinity and suitability between some detailed patterns from the wall-painting motifs and hypothetical dress decorations. Of course, the historical costume is completely speculative, and in addition, the ornament is Assyrian, but it nonetheless embellishes a dress worn by a Babylonian girl. 29

2.  The Twentieth-Century Discoveries: Wall Paintings from Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta Some of the most important drawing reconstructions of the twentieth century are the middle-Assyrian wall-paintings from Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. The site was excavated by Bachmann between 1913 and 1914. 30 29.  For the female dresses in the film Intolerance, see McCall 1988: 210. The scholar points out that the historical costumes produced for the film had great success, becoming the source of inspiration for a new female fashion. In a sketch published in Photoplay magazine of April 1917 and reproduced by McCall (1988: fig. 96) is presented a model wearing a robe decorated with winged horses placed on a palmette motif. The same kind of drawing is reproduced by Layard and defined as “ornaments of robes of figures” (see Layard 1853a: pls. 43/4, 44/4). So, after more than two thousand years, an Assyrian motif for dresses is once again used as a textile ornament. 30.  A full excavation report appeared only in 1985. See Eickhoff 1985. The excavation at the site was undertaken again in 1986 (see Dittman et al. 1988: 97–138) and in 1989 (see Dittman 1990: 157–71).

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The archaeologists found various fragments of mural paintings that were part of one and the same representation, at the southern and northern sides of the terrace on which the palace stood. The fragments were copied by Andrae and Bachmann, and a few pieces were preserved. 31 They were later published by Andrae in 1925 in the catalogue Colored Ceramics from Ashur and Earlier Ancient Assyrian Wall-Paintings, and most of the water­ color reproductions presented in the book were made by Andrae on the basis of Bachmann’s handwritten notes and drawings. 32 The fragments from the so called South Palace, especially from the south side of its terrace, reveal that the palace walls were adorned with polychrome ornamental and figural paintings. On pls. 1–3 33 of the book are shown the reconstructions of three different representations made on the basis of isolated fragments. The drawings clearly show that large parts of the designs are modern reconstructions, 34 while pl. 4 contains single pieces for which it was impossible to suggest a reconstruction. 35 The motifs depicted in the three panels are mainly decorative patterns such as rosettes, palmettes sacred tree, geometric drawings, and reproduction of a few figurative images. In Andrae’s discussion of the wall paintings, the scholar generally agrees with Bachmann’s designs, only expressing his doubts over some details of the reconstruction of pl. 3. 36 More recently, Albenda 37 has emphasized that “the three paintings are heavily reconstructed and portions of the numerous details that make up the respective paintings are modern interpretations. Therefore, to some extent, the original appearance of the Assyrian wall painting at Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta probably differed from the modern version.” This aspect of the representation is particularly evident in some features of the panel reproduced on pl. 2 (fig. 20). 38 The painting shows large rectangular panels arranged alongside one another. In the central panel, there are two goats on 31.  Andrae (1925: 11–12) says: “From this considerable height [some meters] the clay walls were precipitated on the decay of the palace. We found them in ruins at the foot of the terrace. It easy to understand that there are only a few fragments of wall painting hanging together. They had to be drawn where they lie, for the colors, though appearing extremely fresh, shining and bright, faded in a few hours to shadow. Besides this the wall surfaces lay, for the most part, face downwards, and could be reached by digging below them. We had to draw them lying on our backs, and could only make water color copies bit by bit.” Some of the preserved fragments are now in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. 32.  See Wartke 1995: 110. 33.  See Andrae 1925: pls.1–4; Albenda 2005: pls. 27–30. 34.  On fig. 20, the artist’s interpretations appear lighter than the original parts. 35.  See Andrae 1925: pl. 30. A review of Bachmann’s original documentation related to his excavation at Kar-Tukulti-ninurta will appear in connection with the final publication in WVDOG of the investigations from the years 1986–89. See Wartke 1995: 110 n. 4. 36.  Andrae (1925: 14) mentions: “The piece . . . has four different patterns in the broad strip: two different sorts of palm tree, a square with a rosette in it, and a little flower frieze under this square, which seems to be there as a stop-gap, to bring the square on a level with the higher divisions on each side of it, containing tree, the two latter have been restored by Bachmann, from the pattern shown in Plate 2, but it must be recognized that the lower part may have been different. Probably, they really were longer than the rosette squares, so that it seems convenient to add something to the flower strips just there.” 37.  Albenda 2005: 79. 38.  For wall-painting fragments conserved in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, see Harper et al. 1995: pl. 13. In particular, the fragment of catalog no. 74a corresponds to the portion drawn at the bottom-left of the reconstructed panel (see fig. 20). On the restoration of the wall-painting fragments conserved in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, see Eickstedt, Unger, and Wartke 1994.

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Fig. 20.  Reconstructed wall painting from the south side of palace terrace at Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. (source: Moortgat 1959: fig. 17).

either side of a tree. The interpretation of the iconography is probably correct, because it reproduces a very common image attested on other kinds of documents. Andrae himself, in his comment on Bachmann’s reconstruction, emphasizes that the drawing recalls the iconography represented on contemporary fine clay vases. 39 Nevertheless, the representation both of the two animals and of the tree reflects the influence of modern taste. Andrae points out that “the drawing of the palm leaves here is particularly free and flowing.” 40 The specific typology of the tree composed of a central trunk with four long branches does not find any parallels in the ancient documentation. 41 On the contrary, the particular form of the branches with curved and flowing shapes seems to reflect typical trends of the art of the beginning of the twentieth century. It seems likely that the specific use of curved shapes and lines reveals a graphic rendering of the image that can reflect the influence of the contemporary “Jugendstil.” It has been pointed out by M. Gabriella Micale that the architectonic reconstructions realized by Andrae seem to reveal the use of technical and stylistic principles of the Jugendstil, which he learned at the University of Dresden. 42 Bachmann also attended the same university more or less at the same time. It cannot be ruled 39.  Andrae 1925: 14. 40.  Andrae 1925: 13 41.  Kantor (1999: 703) says: “There are several ornaments consisting of hybrid elements but not classifiable under any of the categories we have set up. Two of them are from the Kar Tukulti-Ninurta murals, and are both incomplete. All remarks must be made with reservation that the reconstructions, though probable, cannot be substantiated in details.” For the glyptic variant of the Assyrian tree, see Parpola 1993: 200–201; Collon 2001: 83–85. 42.  See Micale 2005: 148 n. 84, with related bibliography, regarding Andrae’s personal history.

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out that Andrae had completed the wall-painting representation with a rendering of the images that again reveals his personal artistic education. The archaeologists did not present an architectural reconstruction containing the wall-painting panels but they did provide a detailed description of the disposition of the panels: they decorated the interior of the palace, and they were positioned over a black band in order to be level with the eye of the spectator. 43

3. Conclusions In conclusion, I would like to suggest some observations concerning the different kinds of reconstructions that we have considered thus far, focusing our attention on images that remain in our visual culture. To a first category belong the drawings made at the moment of their discovery and their successive elaboration—namely, Layard’s, Bachmann’s, and Andrae’s works, respectively at Nimrud and at Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. It seems probable that the reconstructions suggested by Layard, in his Original Drawings, are closer to the ancient decorations than those of Bachmann and Andrae. Even though the secondary drawings were produced in a period with a better archaeological method and with much more scientific information on Near Eastern archaeology and history, the wall paintings were found in fragments. Bachmann and Andrae understood the importance of the discovery. They are in fact the only documentation of Middle Assyrian wall-painting that has come down to us. 44 Evidently, the publication of only a few fragments would have had a different impact on the public than the presentation of large panels, but it is clear that these pictures are very much the archaeologists’ interpretations, certainly influenced by their cultural and historic context. At the same time, it is possible to note that, frequently, in the chapter dealing with the Middle-Assyrian period, the wall-painting panels reconstructed by Bachmann and Andrae are reproduced. This means that the drawings are, in some way, accepted as reproductions of the originals, even if it is probable that the modern reproduction is quite different from the ancient original. Even if the iconographic interpretation is probably correct, the rendering of the drawing is influenced by modern trends belonging to Andrae’s and Bachmann’s artistic formation and tastes. With regard to the architectonic reconstructions, it must be noted that the interior hall suggested by Layard was reproduced even as recently as Heinrich’s book Die Päleste im Alten Mesopotamien, published in 1984. 45 Even though the restoration of the Assyrian hall proposed by Layard is based on archaeological sources and a hypothesis that more recent investigations have confirmed—such as the disposition of the wall paintings immediately on the engraved slabs—the entire depiction presents various fantastic elements. At the same time, the reproduction of Layard’s Assyrian hall in quite recent books testifies that in some respects continues to be accepted as an authentic image of an ancient structure. Various considerations can be suggested as to the decorative reconstructions. First of all, it is a phenomenon that primarily has involved the archaeological docu43.  See Andrae 1925: 12 44.  Andrae (1925: 7) says: “Up to now the earliest Assyrian decorations of buildings that we have is from Kar-Tukulti-Enurta, and is shown here [the book]. Other similar wall-paintings are from Nimrûd and Khorsabad, that is ninth and eight century work, known through Layard and Place’s researches.” It must be remembered that German archaeological research in the Near East was strongly encouraged and supported by Wilhelm II. See Micale 2005: 147–51; 2008: 196, with related bibliography. 45.  Heinrich 1984: 100, 105, fig. 53.

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mentation discovered in the nineteenth century. On the basis of the material considered here, which only consists of few examples and is not an exhaustive list, it seems that the motifs reproducing garlands are much more appreciated than the other decorative drawings; on the other hand, much less attention is paid to the figurative elements, such as the bull and winged bull. It is evident that this kind of reconstruction is much more influenced by the taste and fantasy of the creator or the artist: except in the case of Jones’s book, which is a scientific work, all the other examples reproduce contemporary ornamental patterns inserted in various kinds of Assyrian emulations. In some cases, the original patterns represent a form of inspiration on which one creates a new kind of decoration. A much more detailed analysis, which is not the aim of this contribution, would be interesting to focus attention on the spread, the assimilation, and the reinterpretation in modern forms of decoration of the ancient Assyrian wall-painting motifs.

Bibliography Albenda, P. 1994 Wall Paintings from the Upper Chambers at Nimrud. Source: Notes in History of Art 13/4: 2–14. 2005 Ornamental Wall Painting in the Art of the Assyrian Empire. Leiden: Brill. Andrae, W. 1925 Colored Ceramics from Ashur and Earlier Ancient Assyrian Wall-Paintings. London: Kegan. André-Salvini, B., ed. 2008 Catalogue de l’exposition “Babylone” Paris, muse du Louvre, 14 mars–2 juin 2008. Paris: Musée du Louvre. Bohrer, F. N. 2003 Orientalism and Visual Culture: Imagining Mesopotamia in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Botta, P. E., 1850 Illustrations of Discoveries at Nineveh; Consisting of Forty-Nine Plates of sculpture and Inscriptions on Assyrian Monuments with Descriptions, Being a Translation of M. Botta’s Letters on the First Discoveries at Nineveh. London: Longmans. Collon, D. 2001 Catalog of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum: Seals V, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods. London: British Museum. Curtis, J. E. 1995 Catalog number 239. P. 214 in Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum, ed. J. E. Curtis and J. E. Reade. London: British Museum. Dittmann, R. 1990 Ausgrabungen der Freien Universität Berlin in Assur und Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta in den Jahren 1986–89. MDOG 122: 157–71. Dittmann, R., et al. 1988 Untursuchungen in Kār-Tukulti-Ninurta (Tulūl al-’Aqar) 1986. MDOG 120: 97–138. Eickhoff, T. 1985 Kar Tukulti-Ninurta: Eine mittelassyrische Kult-und Residenzstadt. Abhandlunen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellshaft, no. 21. Berlin. Eickstedt, U., Unger, A., and Wartke, R-B. 1994 Untersuchungen an den Resten bemalten Wandputzes aus Kar Tukulti Ninurta. Pp. 17–26 in Handwerk und Technologie im Alten Orient: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Technik im Altertum, ed. R-B. Wartke. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Fergusson, J. 1851 The Palace of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored. London: J. Murray.

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Grisenegger-Georgila, V. 1996 Die Bühne als lebende Historienmalerei. Pp. 275–83 in Traum vom Glück: Die Kunst des Historismus in Europa. Vienna: Akademie des bildenden Künste. Hanson, B. 1972 D. W. Griffith: Some Stories. The Art Bulletin 54: 493–515. Harper, P., et al. 1995 Assyrian Origins: Discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Heinrich, E. 1984 Die Paläste im Alten Mesopotamien. Berlin: de Gruyster. Jones, O. 1856 The Grammer of Ornament. London: Day and Son Ltd. Kantor, H. J. 1999 Plant Ornament: Its Origins and Development in the Ancient Near East. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Chicago, 1945. Rev. ed., 1999. Layard, A. H. 1949a Nineveh and Its Remains. 2 vols. London: J. Murray. 1949b The Monument of Nineveh from Drawings Made on the Spot. London: Murray 1953a A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh. London: Murray. 1953b Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. London: Matthiae, P. 1994 Il sovrano e l’opera. Arte e potere nella Mesopotamia antica. Rome: Laterza. McCall, H. 1998 Rediscovery and Aftermath. Pp. 183–213 in The Legacy of Mesopotamia, ed. S. Dalley. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Micale, M. G. 2005 Immagini di architettura: struttura e forma dell’architettura mesopotamica attraverso le ricostruzioni moderne. Pp.  121–66 in CMAO X: Studi in onore di Paolo Matthiae presentati in occasione del suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno, ed. A. Di Ludovico and D. Nadali. Rome: Università di Roma “La Sapienza.” 2008 European Images of the Ancient Near East at the Beginning of 20th Century. Pp. 191– 203 in Archives Ancestors, Practices: Archaeology in the Light of its History, ed. N. Schlan­ger and J. Nordbladh. New York: Berghan Books. 2010 Designing Architecture, Building Identities: The Discovery and the Use of Mesopotamian Features in Modern Architecture between Orientalism and the Definition of Contemporary Identities. Pp. 93–112 in Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Archaeology of Ancient Near East, ed. P. Matthiae et al. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Moortgat, A. 1959 Alt-Vorderasiatische Malerei. 4. Jahrtausend bis 550 v. Chr. Berlin: Safari. Nunn, A. 1988 Die Wandmalerei und der Glasierte Wandschmuck im alten Orient. Handbuch der Orientalistik I,VII/6. Leiden: Brill. Parpola, S. 1993 The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origin of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy. JNES 52: 161–99. Tomabechi, Y. 1986 Paintings from Northwest Palace at Nimrud. Archiv für Orientforschung 33: 45–49. Reade, J. E. 1995 Catalog number 240. P. 214 in Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum, ed. J. E. Curtis and J. E. Reade. London: British Museum. Wartke, R.-B. 1995 Wall Painting from Kar Tukulti-Ninurta. Pp. 110–11 in Assyrian Origins: Discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris, ed. P. O. Harper et al. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Winter, I. 1993 “Seat of Kingship” / “A Wonder to Behold”: The Palace as Construction in the Ancient Near East. Ars Orientalis 23: 27–55.

Form und Datierung früher semitischer Lehnwörter im Sumerischen 1 J. Keetman

Istanbul / Staufen Als Gruppe zweifellos am jüngsten sind die ab Ur III auffallend häufig belegten Lehnwörter auf -um. Für Fāra und Abū Ṣalābīkh ist mir kein sicheres Beispiel für ein Lehnwort auf -um bekannt. 2 Lehnwörter auf -a sind hingegen in ED IIIa bei den eindeutig semitischen 3 Lehnwörtern am besten vertreten, d. h. auch besser als die Lehnworte ohne Endung. 4 Die häufig vertretene Ansicht, die Lehnwörter ohne Endung seien noch älter als die Lehnwörter auf -a wird durch nichts gestützt. Der Grund für diese Annahme dürfte sein, dass sumerische Wörter, die aufgrund reiner Lautähnlichkeit für Lehnwörter gehalten werden, in der Regel in die Gruppe der endungslosen fallen und zugleich falsche Lehnwörter immer wie besonders alte Lehnwörter erscheinen, da sie in Wirklichkeit zum Bestand der Sprache gehören. Sumerische Worte, die auf den Vokal a enden, sind nicht selten 5 und daher ist dies für sich alleine betrachtet noch kein Kriterium für das Vorliegen eines 1. Dieser Artikel ist die überarbeitete Fassung des auf der Rencontre in Barcelona gehaltenen Vortrages. Am Anfang habe ich einen Teil weggelassen, in dem durch den Austausch von Konsonanten gezeigt wurde, dass sich auch mit willkürlichen Konsonantenentsprechungen viele scheinbare semitische Lehnworte im Sumerischen ergeben würden. Diese ungewohnte Methode wurde von einem Zuhörer als Versuch gedeutet, das „Lebenswerk“ eines Autors ins Lächerliche zu ziehen. Das war natürlich nicht gemeint. Die Methode denkt der Autor in anderem Zusammenhang ausführlicher darzustellen. Indem dies hier unterbleibt, wurde Platz geschaffen, um eine kommentierte Liste der Lehnworte auf -a anzufügen, die als Beleg für die in diesem Artikel gemachten Feststellungen unbedingt notwendig ist. 2.  Unsicher ist EDPV-A 357 (AA) ŋešé - z i - d u m. Vielleicht von esittum „(Mörser-)Stößel“ abzuleiten. Die Parallelen aus Ebla schreiben ŋešé - g i - d u m, was auf Zeichenverwechslung beruhen könnte. Vgl. Civil 2008: 141. 3.  Dieses Adjektiv wird konventionell verwandt, weil „akkadisch“, „früh-akkadisch“ etc. zu einschränkend wäre. Aus historischen Gründen ist das Akkadische bzw. eine Art „ältere Tante“ davon aber die wahrscheinlichste Quelle für diese Wörter. Bei den wirklich sicheren Lehnwörtern findet man auch kaum etwas was nicht auch im Akkadischen zu finden wäre. 4.  Siehe die Zusammenstellung in Krebernik 1998: 265 für Fāra und die Liste ED Lú E (MSL 12 und Krebernik 1998: 269–70) für Abū Ṣalābīkh, sowie den Anhang unten. Die Annahme p a4- š e š sei ein akkadisches Lehnwort wird heute stark bezweifelt. Siehe Krispijn 2004, Sommerfeld 2006a: 57. Für Abū Ṣalābīkh sind dann noch MAŠ.GAG.EN (= /m a š g a j i n/?) < muškaʾʾinum Mensch von niedrigem Status Muškēnum“ und s a - g a z < „Flüchtling“, „Nichtseßhafter“, „Räuber“, „Totschläger“ < šaggāšum belegt. Siehe Krebernik 1998: 269–70. 5.  Dazu nur eine Stichprobe: In Enmerkara und der Herr von Aratta sind nach Zählung des Autors 119 mehrsilbige sumerische Worte belegt, die weder mit Sicherheit Zusammensetzungen noch Lehnwörter sind. Davon enden 15 auf /a/, also rund jedes achte mehrsilbige Wort.

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Lehnwortes. Allerdings kombiniert mit einer phonetisch und historisch plausiblen semitischen Etymologie senkt dieses Kriterium doch das Risiko einer rein zufälligen Entsprechung. Karl Oberhuber hat als Erklärung für dieses -a das -a vorgeschlagen, das im Sumerischen zur Nominalisierung von Verben verwendet wird. 6 Es ist aber nicht einzusehen, warum dieses -a auch nach Substantiven wie dam-ḫa-ra < tamḫārum „Schlacht“ gebraucht werden sollte. Beim einzigen Verbum in dieser Gruppe ḫa-za < aḫāzum „packen“ wird ha-za auch in finiten Verbalformen gebraucht. Wolfram von Soden hat eine Status constructus-Endung erwogen. 7 Für diese Lösung lassen sich Argumente anführen. In den Fällen, in denen im Akkadischen der Status constructus gebraucht wird, steht im Sumerischen das Wort ebenfalls ohne Endung. Doch nur im Status constructus vor konsonantisch anlautendem Suffix wird im Akkadischen -a angefügt und zwar nur bei Nomina, die auf zwei Konsonanten enden, meistens mit Ausnahme der Bildungstypen pars pirs purs. Auch die nach Antritt der Endung verkürzten Bildungstypen paras paris parus werden vor Suffix meist einfach wieder hergestellt und es tritt kein -a an. 8 So weit ich sehen kann fällt damit kein einziges der fraglichen Lehnworte in die Kategorie der Worte, deren Status constructus vor Suffix mit -a gebildet wird. Natürlich kann in einer früheren Sprachstufe einmal eine weiter verbreitete Status constructus-Endung -a wie im Äthiopischen existiert haben. Andererseits sind im Reichsakkadischen und in der Dichtung noch Reste eines diptotischen Systems im Status constructus mit -u und -i zu finden, 9 das auf ein triptotisches System zurückzugehen scheint, wie es auch im späteren Akkadischen bei einigen Substantiven vor Suffix 10 und generell im Arabischen zu finden ist. Dies passt schlecht zu der Annahme eines allgemein verbreiteten Status constructus auf -a noch kurz zuvor. Eine weitere Möglichkeit ist -a zum Ausdruck des Prädikats wie im Arabischen Perfekt qatala. Diese Form des Prädikats ist aber mit Ausnahme einer Wendung 11 nur in frühdynastischen und sargonischen Personennamen belegt. 12 Aber auch in den Personennamen ist sie offenbar nicht mehr produktiv, da auf wenige Worte beschränkt. Das zuerst von Gelb gedeutete prädikative -a, das auch in amurritischen Personennamen belegt ist, wurde später in einen größeren Rahmen gestellt und mit Formen in anderen semitischen und sogar nichtsemitischen Sprachen verglichen. Diese Diskussion kann hier nur in Stichworten angedeutet werden. Das -a wurde als Möglichkeit der Determination verstanden und mit dem „Status emphaticus“ des Aramäischen verglichen. 13 Streck sieht den „ /a/-Kasus“ als 6.  Oberhuber 1981. 7.  Siehe von Soden 1960: 170. 8.  Siehe GAG³ § 65d–f. 9.  GAG § 64a und Hasselbach 2005: 182–84. 10.  GAG³ 106 § 65h. 11.  Siehe Gelb 1961: 152–53 zu šu den-líl ma-ḫi-ra la ì-dì-nu-sum, was Gelb mit „to whom DN did not give one who is an adversary“ übersetzt. Weitere Belege für diese Wendung in sargonischen Königsinschriften Kienast 1994: 238b. Offenbar handelt es sich um eine feste Wendung. Hier nicht berücksichtigt wird die wahrscheinlich zutreffende Erklärung einiger Zahlausdrücke (siehe unten Tropper) und von mammana; mannama „irgendjemand“ (Kogan 2008: 24–25) mit Hilfe von -a, bzw. Plural -ā, da diese speziellen Verwendungsweisen für die Lehnworte keine Rolle spielen. 12.  Siehe Gelb 1961: 146–53. Für altbabylonische Reste siehe Stol 1991: 195. 13.  Kienast 1987.

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„Zitierkasus und in prädikativer Funktion“. 14 Ähnlich Tropper, der in den Formen auf -a die Vorgängerform des sogenannten „Status absolutus“ sieht und für die Bezeichnung „Absolutivkasus“ plädiert. Die von Tropper angegebenen Funktionen sind „Zitationsform“, 15 Prädikativ, Vokativ, Kasus für Maßangaben und Kasus gewisser adverbialer und distributiver Ausdrücke. Auch Tropper zieht eine Verbindung zu qatala und dem Status constructus im Äthiopischen. Außerdem benennt er wahrscheinliche Reflexe des alten Absolutivkasus im Ugaritischen. 16 Lipiński sieht in dem -a einen Rest eines alten Ergativsystems in dem sich -u als Ergativ und -a als Absolutiv gegenüber standen. 17 Es ist aber völlig unwahrscheinlich, dass Lehnworte in einer Form entlehnt wurden, deren Gebrauch auf einige Worte in Personennamen beschränkt war. Die vierte Möglichkeit ist ein akkadischer Akkusativ. Diese Möglichkeit hat bereits Arno Poebel genannt. 18 Gerd Steiner begründet die Verwendung des Akkusativs damit, dass der akkadische Akkusativ wegen der „intransitiv-passivischen Verbalauffassung“ syntaktisch einem „sumerischen Nominativ (Subjektskasus)“ entsprechen würde. 19 Der akkadische Akkusativ entspricht dem sumerischen Absolutiv in seiner Funktion als direktes Objekt in einer Ergativkonstruktion. Als Subjekt des intransitiven Verbums entspricht dem sumerischen Absolutiv jedoch der akkadische Nominativ. Akzeptiert man die Gleichung Akkusativ gleich Absolutiv trotzdem, so hat man zunächst einen Ansatzpunkt für die Erklärung: Der Absolutiv ist im Sumerischen endungslos wodurch der akkadische Akkusativ mit dem reinen Wortstamm gleichgesetzt werden könnte. Akkusative treten jedoch nur in Sätzen mit Subjekt, Objekt und Prädikat auf. Für eine Entlehnung würde man eine einfache Nennung „der Hirte“, „ein Hirte“, „der Hirte von. . .“ oder eine Identifikation „er ist ein Hirte“, „er ist der Hirte von. . .“ etc. erwarten. Wenn man sich für den Akkusativ aus einem syntaktischen Vergleich heraus entscheidet, so setzt dies eine Situation voraus in der ganze Sätze erfasst und analysiert werden. Dann gehört aber nicht mehr viel dazu um einzusehen wie oberflächlich diese Analyse ist. Der Akkusativ ist im Akkadischen ja weder die kürzeste Form des Wortes noch der Ausgangspunkt zur Bildung weiterer Formen. Schließlich ist es unverständlich, warum die Mimation in allen Fällen verlorengegangen sein sollte. Ein m am Ende sumerischer Wörter ist nicht ungewöhnlich und bei Entlehnung aus dem akkadischen Nominativ wird es fast immer beibehalten. Daher kommt nur die Erklärung als Bezeichnung des Prädikates in Frage. Dafür spricht auch die Silbenstruktur der Lehnworte ì-bí-la/ibila „Erbsohn“ und ugula 14.  Streck 2000: 288–90; Streck 2002: 111. 15.  Der gegenwärtige Autor hat Schwierigkeiten mit dem Gebrauch der Ausdrücke „Zitierkasus“ (Neologismus?) bzw. „Zitationsform“ in diesem Kontext. Wirkliche Zitationen, etwa in einem Lexikon, sind aus Mesopotamien frühdynastisch nicht überliefert. In Ebla wird bereits der Nominativ in Listen gebraucht. Lehnworte müssen nicht die Form einer Zitation haben. Außerdem wird man erwarten, dass eine Form, die für das Zitieren von Worten gebraucht wird, auch in anderer Funktion in der Sprache auftritt. Es handelt sich also um eine abgeleitete Verwendungsweise. 16.  Siehe Tropper 1999; 2000a; 2000b: 336–38. 17.  Lipiński 2001: 259–66. Die Diskussion um Ergativität im Semitischen kann hier nicht referiert werden. Siehe u. a. Diakonoff 1988; Müller 1995; Zaborski 1999; Kienast 2001: 179; Waltisberg 2002; Edzard 2003: 176. 18.  Poebel 1923: 33 §91. 19.  Steiner 2003a: 631.

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„Aufseher“. Diese Struktur passt nicht zu den Akkusativen aplam und waklam, ein Stativ *parisa würde jedoch als Vorlage passen. 20 Kommt hinzu, dass so auch der Vokal i in ibila erklärt werden kann, der sonst nur aus dem Status constructus abzuleiten wäre. Bei den wenigen semitischen Namen aus ED IIIa wird das Prädikat häufig ohne -a gebildet. Als eindeutigen Beleg für -a bei den Personennamen kann man in Abū Ṣalābīkh zé-na < zinûm ein Teil der Dattelpalme ansehen. 21 Gut belegt sind solche PN für ED IIIb, 22 wenn auch viel weniger als Prädikate ohne -a. Das Prädikat ohne -a ist ED IIIa in Namen wie a-lum-ì-lum „Die Stadt ist Gott“, 23 il-turBÀD = il-dūr „Der Gott ist eine Mauer“ 24 bezeugt. Nicht ganz zu klären ist ì-lum-gàr(a) = ilumwaqar (a) „der Gott ist kostbar“. 25 Der letzte dieser Namen ließe sich mit Schwierigkeiten auch als ilum-qarrād „der Gott ist ein Held“ interpretieren. 26 Mehrdeutig ist ì-lum-ma-lik „Der Gott ist ein Ratgeber“ oder „Mālik ist Gott“. 27 Vielleicht ist der Name i-ku-a-ḫa = /jikūn-aḫa/, trotz der Parallele i-ku-il mit „Es hat sich bewahrheitet: Es ist ein Bruder!“ zu übersetzen. Spätere Parallelen zeigen dagegen, dass Namen mit en-na wie en-na-il als verkürzte Sätze aufzufassen sind, in denen ennum „Gnade“ im Akkusativ steht. Damit wäre Anfang ED IIIa vielleicht sogar ED I/II der letzte mögliche Zeitpunkt für die Übernahme dieser Lehnworte ins Sumerische. Angesichts der nachgewiesenen Präsenz von Semiten in Mesopotamien in ED IIIa und zwar bereits in der Schicht der Schreiber, ist dies historisch kein Problem. Der zeitliche Rahmen ist zwar nach oben offen, da es sich aber bei den Worten auf -a um eine kleine Gruppe von Lehnworten handelt, ist es eher wahrscheinlich, dass er für einen nicht allzu langen Sprachkontakt steht. Im Anhang sind 32 Lehnworte auf -a zusammengestellt. Für die Uruk-Zeit steht nur unsicheres maš-gána „Lagerplatz“. Für die an Texten nicht reiche Epoche ED I/II gibt es 4 Kandidaten. Nämlich ába „alter Mann, Zeuge“, gada „Leinen“, ugula 20.  Dass der Vokal einer hinteren Silbe auf eine vordere Silbe wirkt, wie in ibila < *apila angenommen, ist die normale Wirkungsweise der sumerischen Wurzelharmonie. Z. B. in Lehnworten i š i b < wāšipum „Beschwörer“, ma-al-ga/ŋalga < milkum „Rat“, in der sumerischen Form von Wanderworten wie a-gàr ~ ugārum „Feldflur, Ackerland“, z a b a r ~ siparrum „Bronze“ und in sumerischen Worten, z. B. altsumerisch a-ne später meist e-ne „er, sie“, altsum. p i s a n - ì - š u b - b a „Ziegelform“ (DP 122 iii 3), Gudea ŋeš/pisan- ù - š u b - b a (Zyl. A xviii 10; 17; xix 13, Statue F ii 12) und von da an häufig auch mit u5 statt ù. Entgegen dieser Regel kann sich auch /u/ in der ersten Silbe gegen folgendes /e/ bzw. /i/ (der Unterschied ist in der Schrift nicht klar) durchsetzen. Z. B. Ebla ù-mi-nu ~ u m u n5/i m i n „7“ (siehe Edzard 2005: 102–03; 2003: 63–64 mit Erklärung der Formen). Einige Beispiele liefert auch die Liste der Zeichennamen aus Ebla (EZn), z. B. EZn 39: su-me-núm ~ s ú m u n, EZn 46: nu-rí-šúm ~ ŋ u r u š, EZn 89 gur-gi-LUM ~ ŋur g u (zu EZn siehe Archi 1987; Gong 2000: 3–5 und 78–83). Mithin kann man *wakila > *ugila > ugula annehmen. Zu *parisa vgl. auch Huehnergard 2006: 6–7. 21.  Siehe Selz 1993: 533–34 auch zu den späteren Schreibweisen zex(AB.ŠÀ.GE)-na, zi-na. 22.  Z. B. a-ba-ì-[lum] OSP 1, 47 iii 11, vgl. a-bù-da-gan ebd. ii 2; a-ḫi-da-ba ebd. i 10; SIPA-ki-na TuM 5, 206 + 209 + Nt-6 + HS-998 ii 4′ und einige mehr. 23.  OIP 99, 475 Kolophon. 24.  OIP 99, 141 ii′ 3′ (Kolophon). Cf. il-BÀD OIP 99, 142 Kolophon. 25. NTSŠ 140 i 2; OIP 99 254 Kolophon. Die defektive Schreibung hängt wahrscheinlich damit zusammen, dass sumerisches BE6 (= PI), noch nicht für die Schreibung von wa, wi, wu im Akkadischen eingesetzt wurde. Zur Lesung qàr oder qàra vgl. im Anhang zu d a m - g à r (a). 26.  So erwogen von Krebernik 1998: 261 Anm. 213. Dort auch erwogenes /ʿaṯtar-qarrād/ ist nicht ganz auszuschließen. 27.  OIP 99, 298 Kolophon, vgl. im-lik-il = /jimlik-il/ “Der Gott hat Rat erteilt”, OIP 99 S. 68 Nr. 231. Spätestens in der Akkad-Zeit gibt es allerdings neben Namen wie Ea-mālik „Ea ist Ratgeber“ auch Namen, in denen mālik ein theophores Element ist. Siehe MAD 3, 176–77. In Ebla ist außerdem Mālik oder Malik eines der häufigsten theophoren Elemente. Siehe Pomponio-Xella 1997: 458–65.

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„Aufseher“ und aza „Bär“. Für gada und ába kann die Herkunft aus dem Akkadischen nicht sicher angenommen werden, außerdem ist die Lesung in dieser frühen Zeit natürlich nicht ganz sicher, jedoch wegen ED IIIa na-gada „Hirte“ und ED IIIb ab-ba sehr wahrscheinlich. Die Lesung ugula ist ebenfalls recht wahrscheinlich. 28 Was aza betrifft, so ist die Identifikation des Zeichens in zwei Personennamen nicht gesichert, aber wahrscheinlich. In ED IIIa sind 4 weitere Lehnworte auf -a sicher belegt: na-gada „Hirte“, das Hohlmaß lí-ga wohl als /lidga/ zu verstehen, dam-gàra „Kaufmann“ und buršu-ma „Matrone“. Entweder ab ED IIIa oder früh ED IIIb ist iš-gána „eine zusätzliche Zahlung“ belegt. Mit ED IIIb kommen 10 weitere Lehnworte hinzu. 29 Die These, dass die akkadischen Lehnworte auf -a spätestens während ED IIIa entlehnt wurden, lässt sich also mit Hilfe einer Sammlung der jeweils ältesten Belege nicht beweisen. Sie ist dadurch aber auch nicht zu widerlegen. Manche Textgattungen, in denen diese Lehnworte auftreten, sind einfach älter nicht oder nur spärlich belegt. Zum Teil mögen sie sich auch hinter Logogrammen verbergen oder auf dem Weg über regionale oder soziale Dialekte erst später den Strom der bis heute wiedergefundenen schriftlichen Überlieferung erreicht haben. Wie der Rückgang von -a auch bei den Namen zeigt, war es schon in ED IIIb keine allgemein übliche Form. Prädikatives -a ist auch weder in den Urkunden noch in den wenigen Briefen und Beschwörungen der Akkad-Zeit belegt und in den Königsinschriften nur in einer festen Wendung. 30 Das schließt nicht aus, dass dieses -a in einer archaisierenden literarischen Sprache noch verwendet wurde, die damit noch konservativer gewesen wäre als die sprachlich bereits konservativen Königsinschriften. Doch es ist wenig wahrscheinlich, dass eine nicht ganz kleine Gruppe von Lehnwörtern aus einer gehobenen literarischen Sprache entlehnt wurde, darunter das wenig poetische Wort ar-za-na „Gerstengrütze“. Nach allem was wir wissen haben sich zwar Semiten spätestens seit ED IIIa mit sumerischer Literatur beschäftigt, doch umgekehrt lässt sich ein Interesse von Sumerern an akkadischer Literatur nirgends nachweisen. Altbabylonisch gab es auch in der Literatur sicher kein -a mehr, aber vermutlich noch immer ein paar damit gebildete Namen. 31 Eine Entlehnung endungsloser Worte aus dem akkadischen Status constructus oder dem endungslosen Stativ war dagegen jederzeit möglich. Sumerer mit mehr sprachlicher Kompetenz im Akkadischen, könnten auch einfach gewusst haben, was Stamm und was Endung ist. Dies und der Umstand, dass sie grundsätzlich ein Kriterium für ein Lehnwort weniger haben als die Gruppen auf -a und -um macht die Lehnworte ohne Endung zu der am schwersten einzuschätzenden Gruppe. Sicher sind auch in dieser Gruppe einige Worte älter als es der jeweils älteste Beleg anzeigt. Bei der Untergruppe der syllabisch geschriebenen Lehnworte ist aber die Gruppe auf -a unter den bereits ED IIIa und älter belegten Lehnworten eindeutig besser vertreten als die Gruppe ohne Endung. 32 28.  Siehe dazu im Anhang. 29.  Siehe Anhang z u a - b u l5- la, be6- lu5- da, dam- ḫ a - ra, g u - z a, ḫ a - b ù - d a, ḫ a - z i - n a, ma - a l - g a, za-á š-da, za -ḫa -da, za- r a. 30.  S. o. Anm. 10. 31.  Siehe Stol 1991: 195. Amurritischer Einfluss ist nicht ganz auszuschließen, aber bei Stols Beispielen eher unwahrscheinlich. 32.  Vgl. Anm. 2 und Sommerfeld 2006a. Ein unsicherer Fall ist m a - n a „Mine“, da es zum einen Bedenken gibt ob es sich überhaupt um ein Lehnwort handelt und weil nicht klar ist, in welche Lehnwortkategorie es zu stellen wäre. Neben erheblichen sprachlichen Bedenken (siehe Sommerfeld 2006a:

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Die Lehnworte auf -a sind keine große Gruppe. Es verwundert nicht, dass sich ein Wort für Hirte darunter befindet und ein Wort für ein in Sumer nicht heimisches Tier. Darüber hinaus finden sich vor allem Ausdrücke, die mit Politik und staatlicher Verwaltung zu tun haben, so wie Personenbezeichnungen, die zwar dem familiären Bereich entstammen, aber auch eine Bedeutung für das Gemeinwesen bzw. eine juristische Bedeutung angenommen haben. 33 Spärlich vertreten sind Gegenstandsbezeichnungen. Für Architektur steht nur abulla „Stadttor“, also ein Begriff, der mit Krieg und anderen öffentlichen Funktionen verbunden ist. Tempelverwaltung und Religion fehlen ganz. Es gibt jedoch eine kleine Gruppe von Götternamen auf -a wie da-ba, da-ba4-ba4, dhaja, dišhara u. a. Die Abgrenzung dieser Gruppe und ihre religionsgeschichtliche Einordnung bedürfen jedoch einer eigenen Untersuchung. Jedenfalls sind es verglichen mit den sumerischen Götternamen wenige Götter und sie spielen in sumerischen Texten keine überragende Rolle. Zum Vergleich einige kursorische Angaben zur Gruppe der Lehnworte auf -um. In MAD 3 sind 202 Lehnworte auf -um verzeichnet. 34 Davon sind 141 (70 %) erstmals Ur III bzw. bei Gudea belegt. Es gibt keine Belege für ED IIIa oder älter, in ED IIIb allenfalls verschwindend wenige. 35 Die meisten Lehnworte deren Bedeutung sich eingrenzen lässt, bezeichnen Gebrauchsgegenstände (insbesondere Behälter, Textilien), die nächsthäufige Gruppe sind Pflanzen(teile). Berufsbezeichnungen fehlen so gut wie ganz, 36 außerdem u. a. die Felder Religion, Politik, Recht, Architektur und allgemein nahezu alles was man nicht anfassen kann. Das Fehlen übergeordneter Begriffe (wie Baum, Stoff, Kleidung, Waffe etc.) und der Umstand, dass es viele Worte mit nur wenigen Belegen gibt, erwecken den Eindruck, dass meist nicht Gegenstände, sondern deren Spezialisierungen aufgrund der Herkunft oder anderer Besonderheiten benannt werden. Die Lücke, die sich zwischen dem mutmaßlichen Ende der Übernahme von Lehnworten auf -a etwa Anfang ED IIIa und dem eigentlichen Einsetzen der Lehnworte auf -um in der Akkad-Zeit auftut, spricht dafür, in dieser Zeit vor allem die Entstehung der Lehnworte ohne Endung anzunehmen. Dies würde ja auch dem Übergang *parisa > paris etc. beim Stativ entsprechen. Zu den vorgestellten Ergebnissen würde folgendes Scenario passen: In der ersten Hälfte der frühdynastischen Zeit trat das Sumerische in einen Sprachkontakt mittlerer Intensität mit einer semitischen Sprache, in der ein prädikatives -a noch produktiv war und deren Wortschatz und Nominalbildung dem späteren Akkadischen nahe stand. Intensive Sprachkontakte mit irgendeiner semitischen Sprache vor dieser Zeit, sind aufgrund der nur beschränkten Zahl von Lehnworten mit -a und der Schwierigkeit beim Nachweis semitischer Lehnworte anderen Typs unwahrscheinlich. Gegen ein noch höheres Alter der Lehnworte auf -a spricht auch dass sie überwiegend „syllabisch“ geschrieben werden, wenn auch anders als spä63–64) kann man einwenden, dass m a - n a Teil eines sexagesimal aufgebauten Systems von Gewichten ist, das mithin sumerischen Ursprungs sein dürfte. 33.  Vgl. noch ni ŋ i r < n ā g i r u m „Ausrufer“, falls so abzuleiten (Siehe Schretter 1990: 202 mit Literatur; Rubio 1999: 4–5) und die allerdings spätere Übernahme des Richteramtes aus dem semitischen Milieu (Sommerfeld 2006b). 34.  Das m ist in seltenen Fällen geschwunden, wobei kontraktionslanges u in sa-TU < šadûm „Berg“ als Sonderfall zu betrachten ist. 35. Siehe šimu9-lu-lum, šimNI-mi-tum CUSAS 11, 68; zi-ri-LUM Selz 1989: 515 und oben Anm. 2. 36.  Mehr eine Bezeichnung des Standes als des Berufes ist niskum (CAD N/II 272a).

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ter noch häufig mit KVKV-Zeichen, anstatt mit KV- oder KVK-Zeichen. Die Feststellung überwiegend syllabischer Schreibweise beruht dabei nicht auf dem Zirkelschluss dass syllabische Schreibweise selbst ein Kriterium für die Feststellung von Lehnworten ist. Viele der betreffenden Worte haben außer der Endung drei oder vier Konsonanten und eine identische Silbenstruktur mit einem von der Bedeutung her exakt passenden akkadischen Pendant gemeinsam und würden daher auch ohne syllabische Schreibweise als Lehnworte auffallen. Versuchen wir dies in einen natürlich spekulativen frühgeschichtlichen Rahmen zu stellen: Im letzten Drittel des 4. Jahrtausends wurde das Klima wesentlich trockener. Steppen wurden zu Wüsten, Brunnen versiegten langsam. Die Sahara und die Arabische Halbinsel näherten sich ihrem heutigen ariden Zustand. Dadurch setzten über viele Generationen anhaltende Wanderbewegungen ein und ein Ausläufer dieser Verschiebungen begann am Anfang der frühdynastischen Zeit in Babylonien zu einem politisch und kulturell bedeutsamen Faktor zu werden. Das würde der Zeitverzögerung entsprechen, die auch zwischen dem ersten Auftreten der Amurriter und der Aramäer und ihrem Erscheinen als politisch wichtiger Faktor innerhalb Babyloniens zu beobachten ist. Die frühdynastische Mauer um Uruk mag ein archäologisches Zeugnis dieser Veränderung sein und Worte wie abulla „Stadttor“ und dam-ḫa-ra „Schlacht“ philologische Zeugnisse.

Anhang: Liste der Lehnworte mit -a 37 ab- ba/aba4(UNUG)/a b b á(AB×ÁŠ), 38 „Ältester“ < abum „Vater“. Das Wort ab-ba bezeichnet neben häufigerem a / a - a und a d - d a im Sumerischen auch einfach den leiblichen Vater und ist in dieser Funktion den Worten der Baby-Sprache zuzurechnen, wie deutsch „Papa“, türkisch „baba“, ungarisch „apa“ etc. Daneben bezeichnet ab-ba aber auch eine öffentliche Funktion die man mit „Ältester“ oder „Senator“ andeuten kann. Daher kann man an eine Entlehnung aus dem Akkadischen in Betracht ziehen. 39 Vgl. auch unten zu um-ma.    Belegt in der Schreibung á b b a ab ED I/II (Ur) und in der Schreibung ab-ba und der Funktion a b - b a i r i ab ED IIIb. 40 a- bu l5- l a, a b u l l a „Stadttor“, belegt ab ED IIIb. 41 In den ältesten Belegen wird das Wort syllabisch geschrieben und später mit dem erklärenden Logogramm KÁ.GAL(la) = abul l a(la). Da das akkadische Wort abullum und nicht *abullû(m) lautet, kann es nicht vom Sumerischen abgeleitet sein. All dies spricht zusammen mit der für ein Lehnwort typischen Form strickt gegen ein sumerisches Wort. ar - z a- n a < arsānum „Gerstengrütze“. Wahrscheinlich bereits sargonisch, sonst Ur III. 42 37.  Die älteren Belege werden bei Sommerfeld 2006a diskutiert. Jüngere Lehnworte wurden meist MAD 3 entnommen. Steiner 2003a nennt keine Belege, so dass die Liste nur zur Kontrolle verwendet werden konnte. Sie ist aber nicht vollständig. Den sich so ergebenden Grundstock hat der Autor aus neueren Veröffentlichungen ergänzt. Vollständigkeit wird aber insbesondere für die erst ab Ur III belegten Lehnworte nicht garantiert. Es dürfte aber nicht viel fehlen. Wo es angebracht erschien wurde kurz begründet, warum ein Wort nicht aufgenommen wurde. 38.  So die wichtigsten Schreibweisen. Für weitere siehe PSD A II s. v. ab-ba A. 39.  Vgl. PSD A II s. v. ab-ba A. 40.  Siehe a bb á UET 1, 11; UET Suppl. 2 iv 1 (Titel?); a b b á OIP 99 S. 69, 241 (Names and Profession List), ab -ba d iŋ ir - r é - ne - k e4 Enmetena 28–29 i 3 und a b - b a i r i „Stadtrat“, Bar. 1, 7 (Adab ED IIIb). Beachte dass á b b a(AB×ÁŠ) sargonisch auch für „Zeuge“, akkad. šībum steht. UET Suppl. 2 ist wohl bereits ED IIIa, cf. Alberti/Pomponio 1986: 27. 41.  Siehe CT 50, 45 ii 1: a- b u l5- la dn i n - ŋ í r - s u - k a “Stadttor des Ninŋirsu”; RA 102, 6–7 iii′ 6′; weitere Belege Behrens und Steible 1983: 5; PSD A II 180–84 unter dem Stichwort “abul”. 42.  Cf. Steinkeller 1992: 55 Nr. 27 i 8 še a r - [ z a - n ] a g u r a - g a - d èki; cf. CAD A II 306b.

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a z a < asum „Bär“, eventuell über das Akkadische vermitteltes Lehnwort aus einer anderen Sprache. Wahrscheinlich bereits ED I/II oder sogar Uruk III, sicher ab ED IIIa. 43 Das meistens a z gelesene Zeichen ist aus einem Tierkopf (PIRIG) und einem phonetischen Komplement zusammengesetzt. Etwas vereinfacht dargestellt, durchläuft dieses Komplement folgende Entwicklung: Uruk III: ZA7 (NUNUZ); ED I/II Ur: A; ED IIIa Fāra: A.ZA7, ZA7; TAS: A, ZA7, A.ZA7; ED IIIb Lagaš: ZA.  ZA7 44 steht einfach für die ältere Form von ZA, was die ab ED IIIb übliche Form des Komplementes ist. Die Aufnahme von ZA (ZA7) in das Komplement könnte man als Versuch deuten, einen silbenschließenden Konsonanten von az auszudrücken, da es kein anderes Zeichen für /az/ gab. Doch diese Methode wäre im Sumerischen einmalig. Außerdem ist eine Lesung aza neben az für AZ = asum „Bär“ belegt. Die Form az lässt sich aus aza durch Verkürzung ableiten, oder als Nebenform des über das Akkadische asum entlehnten Wortes während umgekehrt aza nicht so leicht aus az abzuleiten ist. Die zuerst von Mittermayer erwogene Lesung aza ist die einfachste Erklärung für das Nebeneinander von aza und az, sowie für den Gebrauch der phonetischen Komplimente bis zurück in den Anfang der frühdynastischen Epoche oder sogar davor. be6- l u5- d a „Herrschaft(sform)“ < bēlūtum. 45 Belegt ab ED IIIb, Irikagena. 46 bur-šu-ma u. ä. < puršumum oder puršumtum nach PSD B 188–89: 1. (a senior servant or official) 2. “old woman”, “dowager”, “matron”, “matriarch”. 47 Die Herkunft des Wortes ist dunkel, es scheint aber nicht vom Sumerischen ins Akkadische entliehen zu sein. Vier gleiche Konsonanten, gleiche Vokale und gleiche Bedeutung unterstreichen den Zusammenhang. Das Wort dürfte mithin über das Akkadische ins Sumerische gekommen sein. Belegt ab ED IIIa (Fāra). 48 d am- g àr a < tamkārum „Kaufmann“, ED IIIa. Altbabylonische Belege lassen keinen Zweifel an der Aussprache /d a m g a r a/, 49 obwohl sonst nur die Lesung gàr nachgewiesen ist, die von g à r (> karrum) „Knauf“ kommt. ED IIIa hatten die Schreiber weder für das Akkadische noch für das Sumerische ein ausgebildetes Syllabar, sondern begnügten sich mit Andeutungen. Insbesondere bei r werden auch später noch die normalen Regeln über den Gebrauch der Silbenzeichen verletzt. /KVrVK/ wird häufig KVr-VK anstatt KV-rVVK geschrieben. 50 d a m - ḫ a - r a „Schlacht“ < tamḫārum. Belegt ab ED IIIb. 51 43.  Siehe Mittermayer 2005: 10–13. 44.  Ausführlich Mittermayer 2005: 14. 45.  Steiner 2003a, 633 mit Anm. 8 und ders. 2005: 346 übersetzt „Besitzverhältnis“, ähnlich Frayne 2008: 261 zu Ukg. 4 vii 26 „proprietary rights“. Das Wort entwickelt sich aber zu einem Ausdruck für Riten im Dienste eines Gottes schon bei Gudea. Siehe Selz 1998: 324 Anm. 195 mit weiterer Literatur und Belege PSD B 155–56 s. v. b i l u d a und l ú b i l u d a. Eine semantische Entwicklung von „Besitzverhältnis“ in diese Richtung ist schwer vorstellbar. Zum anderen wird b e6- l u5- d a von Irikagena dem sumerischen nam-tar-ra im Sinne von „von den Göttern entschiedene Zustände“ gegenübergestellt (Ukg. 4 vii 26 zu viii 7). Offenbar wird hier negativ auf einen akkadischen Begriff verwiesen. Akkadisch bēlūtum hat aber ganz überwiegend die Bedeutung „Herrschaft“. Daneben kann es auch die „Herrschaft“ über einen Sklaven bedeuten, doch kaum jemals allgemein „Besitzverhältnis“ (siehe Belege in AHw und CAD). In den Reformtexten (wenn man sie wörtlich nimmt „Restaurationstexten“) Irikagenas geht es zwar auch um Besitzverhältnisse, aber es wird daneben noch viel mehr geregelt. „Besitz“ heißt altsumerisch (n í ŋ-) ú-rum (Bauer 1972: 62–64). Für „Besitzverhältnis“ würde man also im Sumerischen am ehesten ein meines Wissens nicht belegtes *n a m - ú - r u m erwarten. 46.  Ukg. 4 vii 26. 47.  Nach Pomoponio und Visicato 1994: 179 mit Anm. 58, hat das Wort in Fāra auch einfach die Bedeutung „alt“. 48.  Belege PSD B 188b. 49.  Z. B. Varianten da m - g a - r a und d a m - g à rra Löhnert 2009: 454. 50. Z.  B. ì-lum-gur-ad (ilum-qurād) UET 2 Suppl. 19 i 2; sar-um-GE (šarrum-kên); is-sà-qar-am Gilgameš OB II i 2; ni-iš-pur-am und li-iš-pur-an-ni-a-ši TCL 18, 135, 6; 7 (aB) etc. auch jünger. 51.  Enmetena 28 (=29) i 27.

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d u - d ì - d a, jünger t u -d i -d a < t/dudittum „ein Brustschmuck“, ab Ur III.  Keine semitische Etymologie. Siehe MAD 3, 108 und AHw 1365–66. g a d a „Leinen(gewand)“ < kitûm. AHw 495b sieht eine Ableitung aus dem Sumerischen, Kaufman 1974: 28 zieht die andere Richtung wegen des a am Ende vor. Sommerfeld 2005: 56 argumentiert gegen Kaufman: „Unter Anwendung dieses Kriteriums bekommt man rasch eine stattliche Anzahl von Pseudolehnwörtern zusammen.“ In westsemitischen Sprachen ist das Wort häufig um ein n erweitert, wie in hebr. kuttānet, aram. kittūnā/ kuttīnā. Dieser Befund lässt verschiedene Deutungen zu, doch die wahrscheinlichste ist, dass es sich um ein Wanderwort handelt. Dass es über das Akkadische ins Sumerische gekommen ist, ist möglich aber nicht sicher. Belegt ab ED I/II oder früher. 52 g u - z a < kussīum „Stuhl, Thron“. Vermutlich ein Wanderwort. Vgl. ug. ksʾ, hebr. kissē, aram. ko/ursja, ar. kursī, pers. korsī (ein Stuhl mit Heizung). Doch wahrscheinlich ist das Wort über das Akkadische ins Sumerische gekommen, wo es mehrere sumerische Alternativen gibt ŋ e š - g a l, ŋišd ú r - ŋ a r, a š - t e (Emesal). Der Eintrag gu-za findet sich in der Abschrift einer frühdynastischen Liste (ED IIIa oder b?). 53 Sargonisch ist ŋišGU.ZA als Logogramm für kussīum belegt. 54 In sumerischen Texten sonst erst später. g u - z i - d a < kusītum „ein Gewand“, sarg. siehe Civil 2008: 95. ḫ a- bù - d aurudu, uruduḫ a - b ù - d a (auch ḫ a - Ú - d a) eine Hacke mit Metallteil (das war möglicherweise die Besonderheit, die zur Übernahme eines wohl semitischen Wortes führte). Ab ED IIIb (OIP 14, 61 i 3; ii 1). Siehe CAD H 86a; AHw 322a; 1559a. ḫ a - z a „packen, festhalten“ < aḫāzum. Erst altbabylonisch belegt. ḫ a - z i ( - n a) „Axt“, in der verkürzten Form (Schreibweise?) bereits ED IIIb (Bauer 1972: 256). ibi l a/ì - bí - l a „Erbsohn“ < aplum. 55 i- ti - i r - d a < itirtum „ein Milchprodukt“, ab Ur III; MAD 3, 84; CAD I/J 298. iš- g án a < *iškinum (nur Plural belegt) „eine zusätzliche Zahlung zum Kaufpreis von Grundstücken“. Die Lautform lässt wenig Zweifel daran, dass gána und nicht gán zu lesen ist. Zur Lesung gána vgl. auch m a š - g á n a. Belegt ab ED IIIa oder früh ED IIIb, siehe Gelb et al. 1991: 220–222. lí - g a (= /l i d g a/), ein Hohlmaß < litiktum. Seit ED IIIa (Fāra) belegt, 56 möglicherweise aber älter. 57 ma- d a < mātum „Land“. Gudea Zyl. A xiv 8 und jünger. ma- al - g a/ŋ al g a < milkum „Rat“; < māliktum „Ratgeberin“. Ab ED IIIb. 58 m a š + g á n a(?)/m a š - g a - n a „Lagerplatz“ 59 < maškanum. Dass zwei Belege aus Verwaltungsurkunden der Späturuk-Zeit aus Uruk mit der Ligatur maš+gána für das akkadische Lehnwort stehen wird von Sommerfeld verneint. 60 Sommerfeld argumentiert: „Diese frühe Entlehnung (. . .) müßte für 800 Jahre in Vergessenheit geraten sein.“ Die gleiche Textgattung ist aber in der Zwischenzeit in Uruk kaum belegt, weswegen dieses 52.  Siehe Sommerfeld 2006a, 56 und 55 mit Verweis auf Englund 1998: 24 Anm. 15. 53.  MS 3199 iv 22 (Early Dynastic Sign List C), siehe Civil 2010: 170–73. 54.  Tutub 10, 4; 11 iii 9; MAD 1, 336, 6. Cf. MAD 3, 152. 55.  Siehe auch Anm. 16. 56.  Marvin Powell, RlA Bd. 7 (1987–90) 495. 57.  Cf. Pomponio und Visicato 1994: 183 zum Maß lí - g a (dort NI-ga): „its use seems to be more ancient than that of the g u r - m a ḫ, which, at the time of our Texts [Fāra], was replacing it, at least in the practice of the central administration.” 58.  In Ukg. 57, 2 (Rat einer Göttin für einen König). Eventuell davon zu trennen, wenn auch zur gleichen Wurzel gehörig, ist m a - a l - g a „Freundin“ wohl von māliktum „Ratgeberin“ abgeleitet. Das Wort findet sich bereits in ED IIIb Personennamen. Siehe Bauer 1972: 239. Hierzu ist auch aB m a - l a ( - g) zu stellen (dazu Alster 1972: 103). Zu ŋ a l g a und Emesal m a - a l - g a Schretter 1990: 206–07. 59.  So Steiner 2003a, 633. 60.  Sommerfeld 2006a, 52. Entschieden ablehnend äußert sich auch Englund 1998: 73 Anm. 144. Doch Englunds Widerspruch resultiert aus der Annahme, dass Sumerisch nicht die Sprache der Schrifterfinder war. Mithin konnte es auch keine sumerischen Lautwerte maš und gána geben. Siehe jedoch Wilcke 2003.

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Argument nicht ganz überzeugt. Andererseits verweist Sommerfeld auf ED IIIb maša š a g(GÁNA)- g a „Feldabgabe“, 61 was zeitlich allerdings auch nicht viel näher an Uruk IV ist. Immerhin existiert das Lehnwort in der Akkad-Zeit in der Schreibung maš-ga-na und gleichzeitig ist auch die Schreibung maš-GÁNA für maškan(a) in mehreren Ortsnamen belegt. 62 Daher ist maš+gána für /m ašgana/ Lagerplatz in Uruk IV nicht völlig auszuschließen. n a - g a d a „Hirte“ < naqīdum. Da die Vokalharmonie in diesen Worten meistens von hinten nach vorne eintritt, erscheint die Lesung gada statt gad eher angemessen und damit die Zugehörigkeit des Wortes zu der hier untersuchten Kategorie. Dafür spricht auch der Personennamen n a - g a - d a. 63 Für eine ähnliche Lesung des zweiten Zeichens vgl. rá/ r a - g a b a unten. Belegt ab ED IIIa (Fāra). 64 ŋeš nu- ú r - ma/l u -ú r -m a < nurmûm „Granatapfel“, ab Ur III. 65 rá / r a - g a b a „reitender Bote“ < *rkb, wie genau das Wort aussah, das entlehnt wurde ist unklar. Das Wort wurde als rakbû ins Akkadische zurückentlehnt. Deshalb ist gaba und nicht *gab zu lesen. 66 Der Ausfall des mittleren Vokals bei der Rückentlehnung spricht auch gegen eine Entlehnung von einer Form rakkābum. Belegt sargonisch oder älter, siehe MAD 3, 235. š a b r a „Präfekt“ < šāpirum. Belege seit Akkad-Zeit, siehe MAD 3, 281. š e r7- d a < šērtum „Schlimmes; Strafe, Schuld“, ältester Beleg Gudea Zyl. A xii 26. 67 u g u l a „Aufseher“ < waklum. 68 Das Wortzeichen ugula (PA) erscheint schon in den archaischen Texten aus Ur (ED I/II), offenbar als ein Titel. 69 Die Lesung kann natürlich nicht bewiesen werden. Stand an der Stelle des Lehnwortes zu dieser Zeit noch ein sumerisches Wort so müsste dieses völlig verlorengegangen sein. Eine andere Lösung hat Bauer erwogen, dass PA in dieser Zeit nämlich ensix zu lesen ist für énsi (PA.TE.SI) „Stadtfürst“ (bzw. ähnlich). 70 Bereits in Fāra existieren beide Titel, PA und PA.TE.SI nebeneinander und sind außerdem semitische Namen und Lehnworte belegt. Die Lesung ugula ist also für ED I/II nicht völlig bewiesen aber auch nicht unwahrscheinlich. u m - m a „Alte“, „Klagefrau“ < ummum „Mutter“. Trotz der Zugehörigkeit des Wortes zum Bereich der Baby-Sprache, spricht die auffallende Übereinstimmung des ersten Vokals entgegen der bei Worten der Baby-Sprache und im Sumerischen häufigen Identität der Vokale (im Falle des Sumerischen natürlich Identität durch die Brille des Akkadischen) für eine Entlehnung. Dafür spricht ferner die Übereinstimmung mit den aus der gleichen Bedeutungssphäre stammenden Personenbezeichnungen ab-ba und bur-šu-ma. Alle drei Begriffe haben ein akkadisches Äquivalent, werden syllabisch geschrieben, enden auf -a, stimmen ansonsten mit dem akkadischen Vokalismus überein, bezeichnen ältere Männer oder Frauen und gehören in ihrer Verwendung mehr dem öffentlichen als dem privaten Bereich an. Belegt ist u m - m a ab ED IIIb. 71 z a - ḫ a - d a „eine Art Streitaxt“, CAD Z 13b, Ebla VE 1105 za-ḫa-da/dax(DAG), ab ED IIIb. Dass sich das Wort nur als ausschließlich in lexikalischen Listen bezeugte Rückentlehnung zahad/ṭû im Akkadischen nachweisen lässt, könnte damit zusammenhänge, dass der Waffentyp aufgegeben wurde und mit ihm auch der ursprüngliche Name. 61.  Sommerfeld 2006a, 52 mit Verweis auf Selz 1989: 394. 62.  Siehe RGTC 1, 119–20. 63. Siehe MAD 3, 205. Der Name na-GI-da (ITT II 2737 Siegel) kann auch akkadisch sein und zwingt daher nicht zu einer Lesung n a - g i d ax neben n a - g a d a im Sumerischen. 64.  In Wirtschaftstexten häufig z. B. NTSŠ 165 Rs. iii 4′: GADA.NA. 65.  Siehe Postgate 1987: 121; 127; Powell 1987: 148. 66.  Anders Steiner 2003a, 634. 67.  Das Wort kommt aber auch in Inninšagura 250 vor, was wegen der Autorschaft Enheduanas auf seine Existenz in der Akkad-Zeit hindeuten könnte. 68.  Cf. Anm. 19. 69.  Dazu Sommerfeld 2006a, 65. 70.  Bauer 1987. 71.  Siehe Bauer 1998: 559–60; Selz 1995: 206 mit Anm. 956; Behrens/Steible 1983: 254–55.

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z a - á š - d a „Falschheit (im Zusammenhang mit Verheimlichung)“ < sartum, ED IIIb. 72 z a- r a < ṣerrum Pohlschuh an der Türe, erstmals ED IIIb als hiervon abgeleitetes theophores Element in Personennamen belegt. Siehe Selz 1995: 288. Wohl zugleich ein Teil am Wagen, siehe MAD 3, 262. Nicht aufgenommene Worte: a - l a „Ansiedlung“ < ālum „Stadt“, a - k a - l a / l u m „Brot, Nahrung“ < akalum, Steiner 2003a, 632; beide nicht in PSD A. g ába(KAB)- r a/g a -b a -r a < kaparrum „Hirtenjunge,–mädchen“. 73 Nicht nur die sumerische Form des Wortes sieht wie ein Lehnwort aus sondern auch die akkadische Form, für die überdies keine semitische Etymologie existiert. Im Altsumerischen kann das Verbum ra auch das Treiben von Tieren bedeuten (indem man hinter ihnen geht und notfalls etwas auf sie einschlägt). Eine sumerische Etymologie als „Ich will forttreiben!“ wäre also denkbar. Die noch ältere Form des Wortes gáb-rá aus Fāra 74 muss dem nicht widersprechen. 75 li b i r(- r a) „alt“ < labīrum. Es ist nicht zu entscheiden, ob die Schreibung libir-ra eine Variante /l i b i r a/ meint oder eine Nominalisierung, wie sie häufig auch bei eher adjektivischen Wurzeln im Sumerischen vorkommt: zi(-d)/zi-da, sa6(-g)/s a6-ga usw. m a r - z a (Emesal und Emege), ŋ a r z a ~ parṣu Kultbrauch, Pfründe, Geschichte des Wortes und seiner Bedeutung unklar. Siehe Schretter 1990: 210 mit weiterer Literatur. *š a g i n a „Statthalter“ < šaknum (Steiner 2003a, 634). Die Lesung *šagina ist nicht belegt. Sie ließe sich höchstens aus SAG.DU = s a ŋ-ŋen (MDP 57, 1 iv 23) herauslesen, was aber ebd. mit šakkanakku übersetzt wird. Zu vergleichen ist ša-gu-ubANŠE.NITÁ = šakkanakku (siehe CAD Š I 170a) und mithin s a ŋ - g u b o. ä. zu lesen. šaknu ist erst altbabylonisch belegt und wird logographisch (LÚ.)GAR oder GAR.KUR geschrieben. /š e r ( i ) d a/, älteste Schreibung d šèš e r7(NIR)- da „(vergöttlichte) Morgenröte“(?), ab ED I/ II. Powell 1989; Sommerfeld 2006a, 74; Krebernik 2010. Sommerfeld hat eingewandt, dass eine entsprechende semitische Gottheit nicht belegt ist und dass der Sibilant frühdynastisch mit einem Zeichen der S-Reihe zu schreiben wäre. Krebernik weist auf die logographische Schreibung dZALAG dUTU hin, die die Gottheit mit dem Sonnenlicht identifiziert. Auch sei es möglich, dass das Wort bei der Übernahme ins Sumerische lautlich verändert wurde oder dass die abweichende Widergabe des Lautes damit zusammenhängt, dass das Syllabar noch nicht etabliert war. Für ED I/II und davor sind gerade 8 unsichere semitische Personennamen bekannt. Nur ein allgemeiner Ausdruck für eine Gottheit lässt sich vermuten. 76 Es wäre also möglich, dass im Sumerischen eine Gottheit bezeugt ist, die im späteren Akkadischen als Gemahlin des Sonnengottes durch Aja verdrängt wurde.      Wenn man diese Probleme bei Seite lässt, kann man das Wort nicht nur von šērum „Morgen“, sondern auch von šērtum ableiten, das wohl „Morgendämmerung“ aber auch allgemeiner „Leuchten, Glanz“ bedeutet. Die allgemeinere vorwiegend in Personennamen 72.  In Anlehnung an Wilcke 2007: 59 mit Anm. 180. Zur älteren Literatur dort. Die Übersetzung „indemnity payments“ (Frayne 2008: 273) zu Ukg. 6 iii 11′; 24′ ergibt an beiden Stellen nur mit Mühe einen Sinn. Gemeint ist, dass was gefunden wird nicht mehr verheimlicht (und mithin gestohlen) wird und dass Frauen nicht mehr regelmäßig Ehebruch begehen. Es geht hier also nicht um neue rechtliche Regelungen, sondern um die Durchsetzung des Rechts. Mit welchen Mitteln, außer den dort beschriebenen Publikationsakten (cf. Steiner 2003b), dies geschieht, wird nicht mitgeteilt. Die Annahme, Irikagena spreche hier von Witwen ohne das Wort zu gebrauchen (Wilcke 2007: 59–60 mit Anm. 181) ist so nicht nötig. Eine Übersetzung „crime“ (Wilcke a. a. O.) erscheint zu allgemein. 73.  Siehe Bauer 1972: 198 zu II 4. 74.  WVDOG 43, 47 (VAT 12619) 35 (auch MSL 12, 14), gefolgt von sipa anše. 75.  Vgl. Selz 1993b. 76.  Für die Namen Sommerfeld 2010: 83. Zu deuten ist pux(Ú)-il „der Gott ist das Wort“ oder „der Gott ist Pū“. Vgl. Ú.KA-il = puxKA-il, Pettinato 1997: 3 iii 3′. Für Ú = pux siehe z. B. oben ḫ a - b ù - d a: ḫ a Ú-da; ba-Úki = bù-bùki in Ebla (siehe Civil 2010: 196 Nr. 189).

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J. K eetman bezeugte Bedeutung ist den Wörterbüchern entgangen. AHw ordnet die Belege unter šērtu(m) I „Schlimmes; Strafe; Schuld“ ein, wo sie offensichtlich nicht hingehören. CAD sammelt die Belege unter šērtu D, wagt aber keine Übersetzung.

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Stativität und Perfektivität in den Ost- und Westsemitischen Sprachen Eulàlia Vernet i Pons

Universitat

de

Barcelona

Einführung Der Zweck dieses Referats ist, die morphologische Ausprägung der verbalen Stativität und Perfektivität im Akkadischen unter historischen Gesichtspunkten zu analysieren und eine Verbindung zwischen diesem Verbalsystem und dem der bereits ausgereifteren Westsemitischen Sprachen herstellen.

1.  Die suffigierte Konjugation und die präfigierte Konjugation des Semitischen Das Verbalsystem der bezeugten antiken semitischen Sprachen ermöglicht für das Protosemitische die Rekonstruktion, neben anderen Merkmalen, einer klaren formalen Opposition zwischen der sogenannten Suffixkonjugation und der Präfixkonjugation. Wenngleich diese Opposition ursprünglich—wie ja durch das Akkadische nach wie vor beze.g., wird—auf die Aktionsart Bezug genommen haben könnte (Stativität vs. Agentivität in der Verbalaktion), wird sie im Westsemitischen zunächst aspektual (Perfektivität vs. Imperfektivität) und später temporal ausgeformt. Die Diathese wird in der Grundform durch den Ablaut gekennzeichnet, welcher ursprünglich auch die Aktionsart markiert haben könnte. Was das Ostsemitische (Akkadische) angeht, wird die präfigierte Form von zwei verschiedenen Formen gebildet, nämlich dem Präsens (iparras) für die nicht abgeschlossene Handlung, sowie dem Präteritum (iprus) für abgeschlossene Handlungen. Es gibt noch eine dritte, sekundären Ursprungs, die sich in diachronischer Weise vom Präsens ableitet und mit dem Infix -ta- gebildet wird: das sogenannte “Perfekt” (iptarras), womit eine abgeschlossene Handlung bei fortdauernder Wirkung ausgedrückt wird; es wird auch als Relativtempus verwendet. 1 1.  Lipiński (1997: §38.4) rekonstruiert diese gt-Form im Akkadischen, Amoräischen und Ugaritischen: “The perfective (gt) is represented by the Assyro-Babylonian perfect (. . .). It is also attested in Palaeosyrian, in Amorite (e.g., ia-ab-ta-ḫa-ar-na [ yabtaḥarna] ‘he has chosen us’), and in Ugaritic (e.g., ʾimtḫṣ ksp ʾitrṯ ḫrṣ ‘I have seized silver, acquired gold’).

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Es entspricht der Meinung vieler (unter anderem Kuryłowicz 1949, 2 Friedrich 1952: 154 3 und 1952: 155, 4 Diakonoff 1988: 87, 5 und Kienast 1960: §11) 6, daß das Akkadische das alte Entwicklungsstadium zeigt, und beibehält: die präfigierte Konjugation des Stamms mit reduziertem Vokalismus (Diakonoff 1988: 87) wurde zur Bildung des Perfektivs und des Iussivs verwendet (der auch zum Stamm für den Imperativ wurde), und die Konjugation mit Vollvokalismus—c1ac2c2vc für den Imperfektiv. 7 Später wurde die Funktion des ehemaligen Perfekts im Akkadischen auf den gtStamm übertragen; der Stamm des Perfektivs (jedoch mit—u zur Kennzeichnung des Subjunktivs) wurde in jener Zeit lediglich für die Verben von Nebensätzen verwendet. Parallel zu diesen Ausbildungen gab es den konjugierten Stativ als Ausdruck eines Zustands.

2.  Die Zustandsverben und die Tätigkeitsverben in den semitischen Sprachen Das Verbalsystem der semitischen Sprachen unterscheidet zwischen Tätigkeitsverben und Zustandsverben anhand unterschiedlicher morphologischer Verfahren: entweder mittels Ablaut 8—agentiv-transitive Tätigkeitsverben wie yaqtu/ilu und 2.  Wie wir im Folgenden noch darstellen werden, erfährt die allgemeine Idee dieses Artikels in dem 1961 erschienenen Buch eine Veränderung, vor allem was den frühesten Ursprung des akkadischen Stativ anbelangt. 3. “Während das Akkadische die zwei präfigierenden Tempora des Präteritums ikšud und des Präsens ikaššad bildet, hat das Arabische (ebenso wie Hebräisch und Aramäisch) nur das eine Imperfekt jaqtulu, und in diesem Fallle dürfte das Akkadische die ursprachlichen Verhältnisse besser refliktieren als die jüngeren Sprachen. Nur das Aethiopische hat in seinem ‘Indikativ des Imperfekts’ jeqattel das ursprachliche Präsens, in seinem ‘Subjunktiv des Imperfekts’ jeqtel das alte Imperfekt wenigstens lautlich, wenn auch nicht syntaktisch bewahrt”. 4.  “Damit ist das akkadische Verbalsystem den älteren Forschern vom sonstigen semitischen Typus abweichend und deshalb sekundär umgestaltet erschienen”. 5. “Old Akkadian reflects that stage of the linguistic development, when the prefixal conjugation of the stem with reduced vocalism was used for the formation of the perfective and the Jussive (it was also the stem of the Imperative), and the stem with the full vocalism—c1ac2c2vc was used for the imperfective”. 6.  “Im Akkadischen ist das ursemitische System noch lebendig: der Stativ (paris) bezeichnet Zustände, das Dur.-Prs. (iparras) dient als Präsens-Futur und zur Darstellung der Dauer oder Wiederholung in der Vergangenheit. Das Punktualthema (*japrus) wird gebraucht als: a) Punkt.-Prt. (iprus); b) Jussiv (*iprus). 7.  In allen semitischen Sprachen, und somit auch in bereits geschichtlicher Zeit, ist die Vokalisation der präfigierten Konjugation der Zustandsverben vorhersehbar, und zwar aufgrund der suffigierten Form, was umgekehrt auch für die Tätigkeitsverben gilt (veg. Kuryłowicz 1972: 66, § 4); diese ausgeprägte morphologische Vorhersehbarkeit trennt die Tätigkeitsverben (agentiv-transitve Verben wie yaqtu/ilu und qatala) deutlich von den Zustandsverben (yi/uqtalu) sowie von den fientiven (qatila) als auch den stativen Verben (qatula), und scheint darauf hinzudeuten daß der Vokal der präfigierten Form und des Imperativs der Tätigkeitsverben tatsächlich den charakteristischen, direkt vom Wurzelvokal abgeleiteten Wurzelvokal darstellt (siehe Fronzaroli 1963: 126). 8.  Der Ablaut hat im Semitischen ein passendes morphologisches Merkmal, da die vokalische Gradierung oft einziger Träger der morphologischen Unterscheidung ist, im Unterschied etwa zu anderen Sprachfamilien, zum Beispiel der Indogermanischen, wo das rekonstruierbare, in seinen Ursprüngen schwache apophonische System sehr undeutlich geworden ist, so daß es in seiner Beschaffenheit eine morphologische Redundanz aufweisen kann (wenngleich der Ablaut im Germanischen sowie in den Verbalstämmen des Griechischen und Lateinischen lebendig bleibt). Es wäre angemessen, im Westsemitischen die folgenden primären Konjugationen zu unterscheiden (welche im Prinzip das Konjugationssystem des

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qatala; Zustandsverben (yi/uqtalu), fientive Verben (qatila) und stative Verben (qatula)—oder aber durch die Verwendung präfigierter Konjugation (Tätigkeit) und suffigierter Konjugation (Stativität).   9 Im Grundstamm sind die Variationen im Vokalschema nämlich auf Unterscheidungen zwischen Tätigkeit und Zustand zurückzuführen. Diese Variationen sind sehr gut im Westsemitischen definiert. Im Arabischen wird der Typ faʿala für die Tätigkeitsverben verwendet, faʿila für die transitorischen stativen Verben, faʿula für die beständigen stativen Verben (Wright 19913 §37–38 und Moscati 1969 §16.2): ex. Arabisch naẓara ‘er hat geschaut’, salima ‘er war wohlauf’, ḥasuna ‘er war schön’. Das Alter dieser drei Vokaltypen wird durch die ältesten Manifestierungen des Nordwestsemitischen, i.e., Amoräisch, Ugaritisch (stativ qatila, qatula; perfektiv qatala) 10 bestätigt, sowie die kanaanitischen Glossen von El-Amarna (ṣa-bat “er packte” (114:8); ḫa-bat “er raubte” (286:56); damiq “er ist gut”; alik “er ging”; ṣa-du-uq “er ist gerecht” (287:32) einzige Form). Im Bibelhebräischen bleibt diese Unterscheidung ebenfalls bewahrt, wenngleich die protosemitischen Vokale diesen Typs, a, i, u, auch ein anderes Timbre entwickelt haben (siehe Joüon-Muraoka 1993 §41b). 11 Akkadisch ist von allen semitischen Sprachen die einzige, die eine Konjugation zur expliziten Kennzeichnung der Stativität beibehalten hat. Im Stativ präsentieren die aktiven Verben einen Vokal i als Zweitvokal (ex. šakin ‘er befindet sich’), wohingegen es a oder u in Übereinstimmung mit dem Vokal des entsprechenden Adjektivs (ex. ḫalaq ‘er ist verirrt’, neben ḫaliq; vgl. von Soden 19953: §87l) aufweisen kann. 12 In formaler Hinsicht ist die Beziehung zwischen dem östlichen Stativ und dem westlichen Perfektiv offensichtlich. Um den Schritt von der Stativität hin zur Perfektivität der suffigierten Konjugation des Semitischen zu verstehen, muß zunächst eine historische Analyse des akkadischen Stativ erstellt werden.

Semitischen repräsentieren) (siehe Kienast 2001: § 205 und Kuryłowicz 1961: § 92): 1a) Aktiv-transitive Konjugation: impf. yaqtu/ilu: perf. qatala. (halb-passiv = 2); 1b) Aktiv-intransitive Konjugation: impf. yaqtu/ilu: perf. qatila und 2) Deponens-Konjugation: impf. yaqtalu: perf. qatila (mit dem verbliebenen Typ qatula). 9.  Es gibt noch ein weiteres, den Sprachforschern bisher unbekanntes Behelfsmittel, nämlich die Suffigierung eines Wurzeldeterminativs—h an die ursprüngliche Wurzel (siehe M. Vernet 2000). 10.  Vgl. folgende Beispiele (Sivan 1997: 113). Qatila: lʾik [laʾika] he sent (2.46,9); sʾid [saʾida] “he served food” (1.3 I,3); šʾil [šaʾila] “he asked” (2.63: 12). Qatala: ṣa-ma-ta [ṣamata] “the property was transferred” (PRU III, S. 51,16); ta-ba-ʾa [tabaʿa] “he went away, departed” (PRU VI, 77,1). Qatula (anhand semitischer Vergleiche): mrṣ [maruṣa] “he fell sick” (1.16 I, 56,59). 11. “The statives verbs, wich are ‘conjugated adjectives’, have two forms, a more frequent form *qatil (vgl. Akk. paris), e.g., ‫ ; ָּכבֵד‬he is heavy, and a less frequent form *lutaq (vgl. Akk. ṣuram), e.g., ‫;קטֹן‬ ָ he is small.” 12.  In den präfigierten Formen wird die Stativität mittels des distinktiven Vokals i (Präs. ikabbit ‘er wird lästig’, Prät. ikbit ‘er ist lästig geworden’) gekennzeichnet, während a seltener auftritt (Vgl. von Soden 19953 §87a), wie sehr es auch in aAK und aB beze.g., sein mag (ex. iqrab ‘er näherte sich’, später iqrib). Bei den Tätigkeitsverben tritt a häufiger im Präsens und u häufiger im Präteritum auf (ex. išakkan ‘er (hin)stellt, (ein)setzt, anlegt’, Prät. iškun ‘er (hin)stellte, (ein)setzte, anlegte’); manchmal jedoch kommt a auch im Präteritum vor (ex. Präs. ilammad ‘er (kennen)lernt’, Prät. ilmad ‘er (kennen) lernte’); i erscheint dann, wenn die verbale Aktion als auf den Augenblick bezogen gilt (ex. idallip ‘er aufstört; er schlaflos ist’), sowie in einigen bewegungsanzeigenden Verben (ex. ittiq ‘er geht vorüber’); u tritt in allen Fällen auf, in denen die verbale Aktion eine intransitive ist (ex. irappud ‘er (umher)lauft’) (vgl. von Soden 19953 §87c).

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3.  Die suffigierte Konjugation des Ostsemitischen: der akkadische Stativ In der durch den akkadischen Stativ ausgelösten Forscherdebatte stand die Frage nach dessen historischen Ursprung im Vordergrund. 13 Während der Stativ nach Meinung einiger einer verbalen Kategorie angehört, wird er von anderen als Bestandteil eines Nominalsatzes analysiert. 14 Der Hauptunterschied hinsichtlich der anderen finiten Tempora besteht darin, daß die pronominalen Elemente im Stativ suffigiert auftreten. Da das Morphem, worin sich die pronominalen Elemente eingliedern, in identischer Weise dem verbalen Adjektiv angefügt wird (pars-āku ‘ich bin geteilt’, vom Verbaladjektiv parsum ‘geteilt’), und da die gleichen pronominalen Elemente auch an Nomina affigiert werden können (šarr-āku ‘ich bin ein König’, vom subst. šarrum ‘König’), ist der Stativ auch als konjugiertes Nomen beschrieben worden. 15 Diese analytische Methode ist von anderen Forschern verfolgt worden (vid. Kouwenberg 2000: 22, mit bibliographischen Angaben). Unter den Verfechtern der verbalen Natur des Stativ ist Kouwenberg (2000) hervorzuheben. Diesem Autor zufolge ist der Stativ den präfigierten Konjugationen gleichzusetzen, da er, so wie jetzt der Ventiv oder der Subjunktiv, die den verbalen Formen eigenen Endungen tragen kann, 16 wie auch die pronominalen verbalen Suffixe in Akkusativ und Dativ.  Die lediglich an Substantiven zu suffigierenden Pronomina in Genitiv werden vom Stativ nicht angenommen. In Übereinstimmung hiermit behandeln einige Forscher den Stativ als eine verbale Kategorie (von Soden 19953: §125c, Kuryłowicz 1972: 92 und 93), oder sie schla13.  Für den Fachausdruck Stativ wurden seitens der Sprachforscher auch andere Bezeichnungen verwendet. Einige bedienen sich der Bezeichnung Permansiv (Vgl. Zimmern 1890, Knudzon 1892, Nougayrol 1948–1951, Rowton 1962, unter anderen), während manche die Unterscheidung zwischen “Stativ” als einem semantischen und “prädikative Form” als einem syntaktischen Fachausdruck für notwendig erachten (Reiner 1970: 292 und Huehnergard 1987: 229). Wir halten jedoch an der Bezeichnung Stativ fest, weil er uns am besten zur Benennung seiner Hauptfunktion, nämlich der Stativität, geeignet scheint. Was die Bezeichnung Prädikative Form anbelangt, scheint uns diese nicht geeignet, da sie lediglich auf Stative nominaler und adjektivaler Herkunft Bezug nimmt. 14.  Vid. Buccellati 1968: 1, Fußnoten 1 und 2, samt bibliographischer Verweise. 15.  Vid. von Soden (19953 §77a): “Der Stativ nimmt unter den Tempora nicht durch seine Konjugation mit einer besonderen Art pronominalen Endungsaffixe eine Sonderstellung ein, sondern noch mehr durch seinen Gebrauch, da er eigentlich ein konjugiertes Nomen ist”. Nach Meinung Buccellatis ist der Stativ weder das eine noch das andere, sondern vielmehr ein Nominalsatz (1996 §17.4): “Akkadian grammars normally include another item among the finite forms of the verb, namely the ‘permansive’ or ‘stative’. Traditionally, this is considered on a par with the tenses, and listed regularly in the paradigms as a separate entry. In spite of the general acceptance of this form, it cannot in fact be shown to have any autonomous status. Morphologically, it is wholly subsumed under categories which are described indepedndently: in terms of internal inflection, the patterns are identical to those of the stative participle or verbal adjective, while on the other hand external inflection is that of the noun in the predicative state bound with pronominal suffixes. And syntactically, the so-called ‘permansive’ is identical to a bound nominal sentence. It is thus redundant and uneconomical to add a special category which cannot be differentiated, on any distributional grounds of either form or function, from other existing categories”. 16.  Nach Ansicht Kouwenbe.g., (2000: 24–25, Fußnote 5) sind die Beschränkungen dieses Sachverhalts aus morphosyntaktischer oder semantischer Sicht vertretbar. Erstens kann aus morphosyntaktischen Gründen weder ein Ventiv noch eine Subjunktivendung einer 1. oder 2. p eines Stativ angefügt werden. Zweitens pflegen die Stativa im Allgemeinen keine Ventiva zu haben, und zwar aus semantischen Gründen: der Ventiv ist ein richtungsanzeigendes Element und somit auch geeigneter für Verben der Bewegung. Der Stativ dagegen drückt einen Zustand aus, also das Nichtvorhandensein von Bewegung. Der Ventiv ist nach einem Stativ nur dann üblich, wenn er als Dativsuffix der 1. p verendet wird.

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gen einen Mitelweg ein: sie vertreten einen doppelten Ursprung des Stativ, zum einen nominal, zum anderen verbal (Rowton 1962: 236; Kraus 1984: 13 und Edzard 1996: 13, Anmerkung 19), oder aber einen zunächst nominalen, danach aber einem entschiedenen Verbalisationsprozeß unterworfenen Ursprung (Cohen 1975: 92–94 und Kouwenberg 2000: 21). 17 Wie man sieht, ist die syntaktische Funktionsweise des Stativ tatsächlich in jeder Hinsicht eine verbale (Kouwenbwerg 2000: 29). Die Stativa verhalten sich insofern wie finite Verbalformen, als daß sie eine direktes Objekt erlauben und ein indirektes, wie auch einen beigefügten Akkusativ.  Zudem dulden sie, wie andere Verbalformen, einen paronomastischen Infinitiv, der das Prädikat deutlich emphatisiert (von Soden 19953: §150a). Der Stativ folgt auch der syntaktischen Reihenfolge der Wörter des Verbalsatzes, und nicht etwa derjenigen des Nominalsatzes. 18 Die Möglichkeit, Stativa anhand von Nomina zu bilden, ist zwar eine hervorhebenswerte Eigenschaft des Akkadischen, aber dennoch kein gewichtiges Argument zugunsten eines nominalen Ursprungs derselben, da dies ja auch im Falle der denominativen Verben der präfigierten Konjugation geschieht: vgl. die folgenden Beispiele aḫu I ‘Bruder’ > aḫû II (ahw 22) ‘sich verbrüdern’ (Gt, Št und N); lalû I ‘Fülle, Überfluß’ (ahw 530) > lullû II (llī) ‘bereichern, füllen’ (D) (ahw 562); qadû I ‘(kleine) Eule’ > qadû III ‘wie eine Eule schreien’, etc. Kraus (1984) hat in diesem Zusammenhang dargelegt, daß die Stativa nominalen Ursprungs im Vergleich mit den Stativa verbalen oder adjektivalen Ursprungs in der Minderzahl und daher sekundär einzustufen sind. 19 Die Verwendung des Stativ in Nomina bleibt auf diejenigen beschränkt, die auf Lebewesen Bezug nehmen und geschieht zu deren Beschreibung hinsichtlich ihrer gesellschaftlichen Stellung, familiären Beziehungen etc. Die einzigen Nomina deren Stativa allgemein verbreitet sind, sind awīlu ‘Herr, Mann’, zikaru ‘Mann’ und šinništu ‘Frau’ (Buccellati 1995: 168, von Soden 19953: §77a; Rowton 1962: 261b; Kouwenberg 2000: 39). 20 Zudem kann in diesen Fällen auch der Nominativ verwendet werden. Tatsächlich ist der Nominativ die normale, also nicht gekennzeichnete 17.  Die Anhänger von Buccellatis Theorie gestehen dem Stativ in mancher Hinsicht sogar einen gewissen Grad an Verbalkategorie zu. Huehnergard zum Beispiel läßt als Ausgangspunkt gelten, daß die Sätze mit Stativ nominal (verbless) sind (1987: 215), räumt aber ein daß sie in syntaktischer Hinsicht oft verbal funktionieren, aufgrund der Tatsache daß sie einen Ventiv enthalten können, mit direkter und/ oder indirekter Satzergänzung, sowie einen Subjunktiv-Suffix (1987: ab S. 226). 18.  In den Verbalsätzen ist die grundlegende Wortreihenfolge diejenige des Verbs an letzter Stelle. In Übereinstimmung hiermit folgt die grundlegende Reihenfolge der Nominalsätze dem Schema Subjekt-Prädikat (Huehnergard 1986: ab S. 221). Trotz allem folgt ein Nominalsatz mit einem Pronomen als Subjekt im Allgemeinen der umgekehrten Reihenfolge, i.e., Prädikat-Subjekt (Huehnergard 1986: 223): bēlī atta ‘du bist mein Herr’. Ist das Prädikat aber ein Stativ, erscheint es am Satzende (SubjektPrädikat): šina sí-in-ni-ša ‘sie sind Frauen’ (Kouwenberg 2000: 30). Daraus geht hervor, daß der Stativ eher der Wortreihenfolge des Verbalsatzes folgt als der des Nominalsatzes, und sich von daher auch in diesem Sinn wie ein Verb verhält. All dies deutet darauf hin, daß der Stativ in syntaktischer Hinsicht der Verbalkategorie angehört (Kouwenberg 2000: 30). 19.  Unter insgesamt 1200 den AbB 1 bis 10 (altbabylonische Briefe) entnommenen Stativa leiten sich nur ca. zwanzig weder von Verben noch von Adjektiven ab, und von diesen 20 wiederum sind weniger als die Hälfte denominativ. Der Rest sind nicht von Verben abgeleitete Adjektive sowie Numerale. In literarischen Texten lag der prozentuelle Anteil bedeutend höher, da die überwältigende Mehrheit nominaler Stativa diesen Texten entstammt (Kouwenberg 2000: ab S. 33). 20.  Bei nicht-animierten Nomina wird der Stativ in einfachen Prädikaten sehr selten, und allenfalls mit metaphorischer Absicht verwendet (Kouwenberg 2000: ab S. 39). Zur Einsicht der Liste von für die Verwendung in Stativ anfälligen animierten Substantiven, vid. Kouwenberg 2000: 43–47.

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Form, während es sich beim Stativ um die gekennzeichnete Form handelt, die nur unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen Verwendung findet (Huehnergard 1986: 232 und 233). 21 Diese Feststellungen haben Kouwenberg (2000: 54 und 55) zu einer Reihe von Schlußfolgerungen veranlaßt, unter denen einerseits diejenige hervorzuheben ist, daß die von Nomina abgeleiteten Stativa eine Unterabteilung der von Adjektiven abgeleiteten Stativa darstellen; grammatisch können sie innerhalb ein und derselben Kategorie analysiert werden. Als Konsequenz folgt hieraus, daß der Stativ anhand von Nomina aus historischer Sicht eine sekundäre Entwicklung darstellt, abweichend von der Gruppe der Stativa anhand von Adjektiven. 22 Da aber andererseits weder ein formaler noch ein funktionaler Unterschied zwischen den denominativen und den von Adjektiven abgeleiteten Stativa besteht, und da die letzteren, ebenso wie die von Verben abgeleiteten Stativa, finite Verbalformen darstellen, schließt Kouwenberg (2000: 55) darauf, daß die denominativen Stativa ebenfalls verbal sind, weil sie einen grammatischen Status als Verb erreicht haben.  23 Die Nomina der denominativen Tätigkeitsverben stellen einen Parallelfall zu dem der denominativen Stativa dar. In beiden Fällen kam es zu einer Dekategorisation (Verlust ihrer nominalen Eigenschaften) um sich an ein neues Wort anpassen zu können, ein Tätigkeitsverb in einem Fall und ein Zustandsverb im anderen. Die Tatsache, daß sich die denominativen Tätigkeitsverben generell von Substantiven ableiten und die Zustandsverben eher von Adjektiven als von Substantiven, ist keineswegs zufällig bedingt: entscheidend ist der Bedeutungsgehalt des Verbs, an das sie sich anpassen müssen. 24 Es ist durchaus logischer, daß ein Adjektiv, das ja generell einer Entität eine Eigenschaft zuschreibt, zu einem Zustandsverb wird, jedoch ein Substantiv, dessen vorrangige Funktion in der Bezugnahme auf eine Entität besteht, als Tätigkeitsverb fungiert. Die gegenteiligen Fälle, in denen etwa Substantive zu Stativa werden, sind durchaus vertretbar, wie wir weiter oben schon 21.  Ein hervorhebenswerter Aspekt des denominativen Stativ besteht darin, daß er oft in literarischen und Gesetzestexten erscheint. In den literarischen Texten werden die Stativa vorrangig als Beiwörter für Götter und Könige verwendet; in Gesetzestexten dienen sie dazu, einer bestimmten Person einen speziellen Status zu verleihen. Siehe Kouwenberg (2000: 49 und 51): “In other words, the use of the stative is restricted to those contexts in which the subject is described as belonging to a certain class of individuals, but is not used when the subject is identified as a specific individual. The nominative can be used in either case”. In diesem Sinne, siehe auch Kraus (1984: 42). 22.  Diese Feststellung fand bereits durch Kraus (1984: 16) und Huehnergard (1986: 238) Beachtung und wird durch ein formales Argument gestützt (Kouwenberg 2000: 55): die Tatsache, daß das weibliche Morphem -t- bei den Stativa der Nomina wegfällt, zeigt, daß deren Bildung dem Modell des Adjektivs folgt, denn während dieses Morphem bei den Adjektiven aus einem dem Stamm angefügten Suffix besteht und nur in einem Teil des Paradigmas vorhanden ist, nämlich den Nomina, ist das besagte weibliche Morphem ein wesentlicher, stets vorhandener Bestandteil des Wortes und kann allenfalls anhand einer etymologischen Analyse herausgelöst werden, nicht aber unter grammatischen (oder synchronischen) Gesichtspunkten. 23.  Diese Schlußfolgerung kann anhand formaler und syntaktischer Aspekte untermauert werden, die auf ihr Verhalten Bezug nehmen. Formal weist sich die 3. p. sg. des Stativ durch das Wegfallen der Kasusendung aus, wie auch der Mimation: šarrum > šar ‘er ist (ein) König’; sinništum > sinnišat ‘sie ist eine Frau’. Es sind ebendiese Elemente, welche im Akkadischen ein bestimmtes Wort die Kategorie eines Nomens oder Adjektivs annehmen lassen. Und aus diesem Grund darf ihr Wegfallen als symbolisch für den Verlust ihres nominalen Status aufgefaßt werden. 24.  Vgl. folgende Beispiele: ps *ḥayay- / *ḥayaw- (*ḥaway- mit Metath.) ‘leben, lebendig sein’ < ps *ḥay- ‘am Leben, lebend’ < aa **ḥay/w- ‘ lebendig / lebend ‘ und ps *par-iy- ‘sprießen, Frucht bringen’ < ps *pir- ‘Frucht’ < aa **pir- ‘Frucht, Korn’.

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dargelegt haben: das Nomen kann einen Stativ bilden, vorausgesetzt es fungiert semantisch als Adjektiv. Somit erscheint es also plausibel, daß der historische Kern des Stativ im verbalen Adjektiv zu verorten ist, und daß dieses sich zwecks einer morphologischen Unterscheidung zwischen einer atributiven und einer prädikativen Verwendung herausbildete (Cohen 1975: 88 und 89; Rowton 1962: 301; Huehnergard 1986: 239). 25 Das deutlichste Beispiel für diese Änderung der Ableitung ist der Fall des Aktiv-Stativ (vom Typ eqlam ṣabit ‘er vermaß das Feld’). 26 Diese Verwendung kann nicht direkt vom verbalen Adjektiv abgeleitet werden, das im Allgemeinen eine passive Bedeutung hat, sondern eher von den Grundformen des verbalen Paradigmas. Dieser Ableitungsprozeß ist sehr deutlich in jenen Fällen zu sehen, in denen eine ganz klare Bedeutungsunterscheidung zwischen präfigierter Konjugation und verbalem Adjektiv stattfindet. Der Stativ kašdāku (‘ich kam an’) z.B. kann nur vom Verb kašādu ‘ankommen’ abgeleitet werden, da sein verbales Adjektiv kašdu ‘befolgt, ausgeführt’ bedeutet. Die direkte Abhängigkeit vom verbalen Paradigma ist ein entscheidender Schritt hin zur Einbeziehung des Stativ in das verbale Paradigma, und hin zur Entwicklung des westlichen Perfektivs. Theoretisch wäre denkbar, daß dieser Verbalisationsprozeß so weit ging, daß sämtliche Stativa, einschließlich der Adjektive, von einem verbalen Paradigma abgeleitet werden. Daraus würde folgen daß das Adjektiv als solches nicht primär ist, sondern von einem in der präfigierten Konjugation verwendeten adjektivalen Verb abstammt (siehe von Soden 19953: §52a und Huehnergard 1987: 230, Fußnote 59). 27 Was die Bedeutung und Verwendung des Stativ angeht, dürfte uns deren Abhandlung ebenfalls interessieren, vor allem unter den theoretischen Gesichtspunkten seiner Bedeutung. 28 25. Diese Unterscheidung ist nicht unabdingbar, in den weltweit vorhandenen Sprachen jedoch oft genug vorhanden, daß daraus eine starke Tendenz abgeleitet werden kann sie zu etablieren, wann immer die Sprache die Möglichkeit dazu bietet. 26. Der Aktiv-Stativ ist von den Forschern bisher wenig untersucht worden. Rowton spricht in seinem Artikel von 1962 genau das Problem dieses Stativ an, und veranschaulicht die generelle Verwendung. Rowton unterteilt die Anwendungen des Stativ in zwei Gruppen: Aktiv-Stativ und deskriptiver Stativ. Der Unterschied zwischen dem Aktiv-Stativ und dem deskriptiven Stativ besteht darin, ob das Subjekt der Agens ist oder nicht. 27.  Dies wurde dennoch von einigen Forschern kritisiert, und zwar aus verschiedenen Gründen. Erstens, weil in den präfigierten Konjugationen einige Adjektive, vor allem diejenigen welche beständige und inhärente Eigenschaften bezeichnen, weniger oft verhanden sind als das Adjektiv selbst oder der Stativ (Kouwenberg 2000: 62, Fußnote 36). Zweitens, weil die Möglichkeit, Stativa von Adjektiven abzuleiten, für das Vorhandensein von nominalen Stativa von entscheidender Bedeutung ist. Es wäre schwierig, Stativa von Nomina abzuleiten, wenn alle sonstigen Stativa von Verben abgeleitet würden. Drittens, weil in identischen zweit- und drittrangigen Wurzeln (verba secundae geminatae) unterschieden wird zwischen Stativa die von Adjektiven, und solchen die von fientiven Verben stammen. Diese Stativa sind monosyllabisch in 3. p. sg. mask., wenn sie von einem Adjektiv stammen (dān ‘er ist stark’ < dannu; ēl ‘er ist rein’ < ellu), aber bisyllabisch, wenn sie von einem fientiven Verb stammen (ṣalil ‘er liegt, erschläft’ < ṣalālu, madid ‘er (ver)messt’ < madādu, etc.). Dies wird dadurch hervorgerufen daß die erste Form direkt vom Adjektiv abgeleitet wird (dannu → dān), und zwar durch Wegfallen des nominalen Kasus und der Mimation. Letztere folgt jedoch dem Modell paris, was typisch für die starken Wurzeln ist: ṣalālu → ṣalil, genau wie parāsu → paris (vgl. Reiner 1970: 292). 28. Historischer Ausgangspunkt für die Ableitung des Stativ ist das (Verbal-)Adjektiv.  Die ursprüngliche Funktion des Verbaladjektivs besteht darin, einer Entität den aus einer Tätigkeit resultierenden Zustand in Form eines Attributs zuzuschreiben. Im Prinzip ist er neutral, was den Modus angeht, genau wie der Infinitiv (Kouwenberg 2000: 63). Die Tatsache daß selbst die intransitiven Verben

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Bei intransitiven Verben charakterisiert der Stativ den einzigen involvierten Teilnehmer, nämlich das Subjekt (ex. wardum ḫalqum ‘ein flüchtiger Sklave’). Bei transitiven Verben kann er im Prinzip sowohl das Subjekt als auch das Objekt der Handlung charakterisieren, i.e., er kann aktiv oder passiv sein, wie selten die AktivBedeutung auch vorkommen mag. In der Praxis beschreibt das verbale Aktiv nahezu immer den aus dem Objekt resultierenden Zustand und bedarf einer passiven Bedeutung (ālum nadûm ‘eine verlassene Stadt’). Je höher der durch ein Verb ausgedrückte Transitivitätsgrad ist, desto öfter erhält das verbale Adjektiv eine passive Bedeutung. Verben die einen niedrigen Transitivitätsgrad aufweisen (Besitz- und Bewegungsverben, Situationsverben, etc.) zeigen weniger verbale Adjektive als die erstgenannten. Bei den intransitiven Verben beschreibt er den Zustand des Subjekts der vorausgegangenen Handlung, vorausgesetzt daß es der einzige Teilnehmer ist. 29 Der Transitivitätsgrad, welcher der Bedeutung des transitiven Verbs innewohnt, entscheidet ob der Stativ des betreffenden Verbs aktiv oder passiv ist, und tatsächlich, je höher der Transitivitätsgrad, desto stärker herrschen die passiven Stativa vor. Daher sind die Stativa der Verben mit einer erhöhten Transitivität mehrheitlich passiv und die Stativa anderer Verbtypen können, je nach Kontext, passiv oder aktiv sein. 30 Die Annahme, daß sich die Verbalisation des von Verben abgeleiteten Stativ verbreitet, bis sie den Stativ der Adjektive und Nomina erreicht, erscheint also plausibel. Dieser Prozeß garantiert die Uniformität des Stativ als grammatische Kategorie, ungeachtet des nominalen, adjektivalen oder verbalen Ursprungs des Stativ. Trotz allem erreichte dieser Verbalisationsprozeß nicht die gleiche Position wie die der präfigierten Konjugation des Präsens, Präteritum und Perfekt, die im Gegensatz zum letzteren nicht die verbale Aktion nuancieren konnte. Die präfigierten Konjugationen bilden die zentralen und grundlegenden Kategorien des verbalen Paradigmas im Akkadischen und Protosemitischen. Wenn der Stativ auch eine fiein Verbaladjektiv haben und daß es transitive Verbaladjektive transitiver Verben gibt, wenn auch nicht sehr oft, ze.g., daß das Verbaladjektiv nicht als Passiv anzusehen ist, wie oft behauptet wird. 29.  In den transitiven Verben kann er sowohl das Subjekt als auch das Objekt der vorausgegangenen Aktion beschreiben. Z.B. der Stativ walid, des transitiven Verbs walādu ‘zur Welt bringen’, kann sowohl die Mutter als auch das Kind zum Subjekt haben: (eine Frau) ša mārī waladat ‘die Kinder zur Welt gebracht hat’, also ein Aktiv-Stativ der den Zustand des Subjekts von walādu zum Ausdruck bringt, hingegen aber mārū mala waldu ‘die Kinder die zur Welt gebracht wurden’, also ein Passiv-Stativ der den Zustand des Objekts von walādu zum Ausdruck bringt. 30.  Der Aktiv-Stativ ist an diejenigen Verben gebunden, die einen niedrigen Transitivitätsgrad besitzen, denn diese Verben nehmen eine Zwischenstellung zwischen den intransitiven Verben und denen mit einem hohen Transitivitätsgrad ein. Viele der Verben, die einen niedrigen Transitivitätsgrad aufweisen, können mit oder ohne Objekt verwendet werden (ex. Tätigkeitsverben wie essen, trinken, lesen, schreiben oder bewegungsanzeigende Verben wie hineingehen und hinausgehen). Die Aktiv-Stativa kommen nicht oft vor, wenngleich vier vor ihnen viel verwendet werden (Rowton 1962: 235): ṣabatu ‘packen, greifen, nehmen’, leqû ‘nehmen’, maḫāru ‘empfangen’ und našû ‘heben, tragen’. Hierauf ist zurückzuführen, daß sich der Stativ auf die meisten Verben ausgedehnt hat, mit Ausnahme derer die einen erhöhten Grad an Transitivität aufweisen. Dieser Vorgang wurde von Huehnergard (1987: 228) beschrieben. Er geht davon aus, daß eine Beziehung des Typs ūšib ‘er setzte sich’ → wašib ‘er sitzt’ in analoger Weise auf Fälle wie eqlam iṣbat ‘er vermaß das Feld’ → eqlam ṣabit ‘er hat das Feld vermessen, er besitzt ein Feld’ ausgedehnt wurde. Dieser Prozeß setzt die zuvor kommentierte Änderung der Ableitung voraus und hat die Verwendung des Stativ von den semantischen und pragmatischen Einschränkungen abgesondert, welche die Verwendung des Verbaladjektivs kennzeichnet.

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nite verbale Form darstellt, ist er dennoch ein Randbestandteil des Paradigmas, da er keine Handlung ausdrücken kann, sondern lediglich Zustände. Diese Randposition erklärt, warum er eine Neutralisation in diversen Unterscheidungen zeigt, die in den präfigierten Konjugationen stattfinden, wie etwa Modus oder Tempus (von Soden 19953: §77 d/e).

4.  Historische Entwicklung der suffigierten Konjugtion im Semitischen: von der Stativität zur Perfektivität Der Höhepunkt des Verbalisationsprozesses des Stativ mündete schließlich in das Perfekt des Westsemitischen (qatala), das einen vollen verbalen Status zeigt, da es sogar auf verbale Aktionen Bezug nehmen kann (Cohen 1975: 94). 31 Es besteht kein Zweifel, daß beide Formationen auf den gleichen Ursprung zurückgehen, ungeachtet der formalen Unterschiede, aufgrund derer die Details jener Entwicklung schwer zu erklären sind (Diem 1997). Wenngleich die Funktion des akkadischen Stativ hauptsächlich die ist, einen Zustand zu bezeichnen, und durch das Fehlen eines Tempus gekennzeichnet ist, reichen einige Stativa (vor allem die aktiven) zuweilen sehr nahe an das westliche Perfekt heran, da sie dazu tendieren als Perfekt verwendet zu werden. Bei diesen Stativa handelt es sich generell um Aktiv-Stativa (Rowton 1962: 235). 32 Die Tendenz des Stativ, sich zu einem Perfekt zu entwickeln, wurde als mögliche Ursache des westlichen Perfekt angesehen (Rowton 1962: 291). 33 Nach Rowton (1962: 235) kann diese Tendenz bereits im akkadischen Stativ beobachtet werden. Das westliche Perfekt bezeichnet zudem nicht immer Handlung, sondern in einigen Fällen nur die Stativität (qatil, qatul vs. qatala): vgl. ea ḫa-bat “er raubte” (286: 56); damiq “er ist gut”. Einige Autoren sahen in den Formen qatil / qatul des westlichen Perfekts die möglicherweise originären Formen, da es diejenigen sind die zur Anzeigt, von Stativität im Perfekt verwendet werden (Knudzon 1892: 43 und 44; Rowton 1962: 300). 34 Diese Formationen wurden mit der Bildung paris des akkadischen Stativ verglichen (Zimmern 1890: 8). 35 31. “L’akkadien n’a pas connu l’aboutissement du processus et l’achèvement de la verbalisation. C’est le sémitique de l’Ouest que, en réservant la construction permansive à des formes verbo-nominales exclusivement, de valeurs aussi bien actives que passives, en a fait une véritable forme verbale caractérisée par des marques personnelles suffixées, pénétrant dans le système verbal pour l´expression de l’accompli tandis que l’ancien processif à préfixes prenait le valeur d’un inaccompli”. 32.  “Precisely when the permansive speaks of active condition it has inherent in it the tendency to be used as a perfect. When that is the case it speaks almost exclusively of action, and it is in this use that the tense is most conspicuously a permansive in the ususal sense of that term”. Gemäß Rowton (1962: 244) bestätigt die Verwendung von maḫir und leqi die Tatsache, daß der Aktiv-Stativ dazu neigte, zu einem Aspekt, in diesem Fall einem Perfekt zu werden. 33.  “For it means that, when the context focuses attention on past action rather than on the situation resulting from it, the permansive, passive or active, tends to become a perfect. As we shall see, there is evidence to indicate that the ws perfect very probably is a permansive in origin”. 34.  “Dafür, dass das in Rede stehende a des ‘Factum’ nicht der ursprüngliche Vokal ist, dürfte auch geltend gemacht werden können, 1) dass diejenigen hebr. “Facta”, die meines Erachtens die ursprüngliche (präsent.) Bedeutung aufweisen, im Qal (solche Beispiele sind in den andern Konjugationen selten) gewöhnlich ē oder ō hinter dem 2. Radikal haben bzw. auf Formen mit diesen Vokalen (bzw. i, u) zurückgeführt werden müssen...”. 35.  “Durch diese Auffassung der assyr. Permansivformen als nicht nur im Grundstamm identisch mit dem intransitiven Perfectstamm des semitischen Verbums, und zwar hier demjenigen mit i, sondern auch in den vermehrten Conjugationen, und zwar hier mit demjenigen, der einer Bildung mit u im

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Aus den genannten Gründen sahen einige Forscher den westlichen Perfekt als einen ursprünglichen Stativ oder verbales Adjektiv. Wir konnten bereits sehen daß der Stativ, und zwar aufgrund seiner Fähigkeit eine perfektive Aktion in der Vergangenheit darzustellen, die Tendenz besaß als Perfekt zu fungieren. Diese Tendenz tritt auf, wenn der Kontext eher die Handlung selbst fokussiert statt ihre Auswirkungen. 36

5.  Afroasiatischer Ursprung der suffigierten Konjugation Das Verbalsystem der afroasiatischen Sprachen zeichnet sich vor allem, und trotz seiner vielfältigen Struktur, durch die Umterscheidung zwischen den Kategorien Handlung und Zustand aus, und an zweiter Stelle durch den Unterschied zwischen den syntaktischen Kategorien der Transitivität und Intransitivität. Zugleich unterscheiden sich die Tätigkeitsverben nach zwei Aspekten: punktual und durativ. Die aspektualen Formen gingen also in den perfektiven und imperfektiven Aspekt über, und mit einiger Verzögerung werden sie schließlich temporal konzipiert (Vergangenheit und Präsens-Futur; siehe Diakonoff 1988: 85). Der Afroasiatische Ursprung der morphologischen Kategorie der stativen suffigierten Konjugation (Lipiński 1997: 337) ist durch das Vorhandensein dieser Konjugation in diversen afroasiatischen Sprachen nachgewiesen: abgesehen von der suffigierten Konjugation der semitischen Sprachen bezeugte das Altägyptische einen vormaligen, auch „Pseudo-Partizip“ genannten Perfektiv (ex. hr-t/ti ‘du (mask.) bist zufrieden’), also eine suffigierte Konjugation, die Zustand und Resultat einer Handlung zum Ausdruck bringt und seit längerem schon mit dem akkadischen Stativ verglichen wurde (Zimmern 1890: ab S. 21.), da sie formal und semantisch mit ihm übereinstimmt. Die berberischen Sprachen haben ebenfalls eine suffigierte Konjugation für die Zustandsverben zur Bezeichnung von Eigenschaften beibehalten, nämlich den sogenannten “Qualitativ” der Amazigh-Sprache (ex. Tuareg məẓəg ‘er ist taub’), der auf sehr ähnliche Weise wie der akkadische Stativ verwendet wird: also nur mit Verben zur Bezeichnung von Eigenschaften, nicht etwa Tempora. Er konjugiert auch Adeinfachen Stamm des semitischen Perfects entspräche, erklären sich, wie mir scheint, mehrere Tatsachen ziemlich einfach...”. Man hat versucht, den perfektiven Aspekt des westlichen Perfekts vom Präsens abzuleiten (Knudzon 1892: 35 und 36): “Umgekehrt kann die eigentlich perfektische Bedeutung sich sehr natürlich aus der präs. entwickelt haben; so geht z.B. ‘er ist ein Mörder” leicht in ‘er hat gemordet’ über, ebenso ‘er ist alt’ in ‘er ist alt geworden’, ‘er ist bekleidet’ in ‘er hat sich angezogen’ u. s. f. Wie die Beispiele zeigen, kann diese Entwicklung sowohl bei Verben, die eine Handlung, als auch bei solchen, die einen Zustand bezeichnen, vor sich gegangen sein”. Der Schritt vom stativen Verb hin zu einem Verb mit perfektivem Aspekt ist unter den Sprachen weltweit verbreitet. In ig. wurde für den Fall des Perfektstamms eine sehr ähnliche Prozedur postuliert, die mit der Konjugation in -ḫi des Hethitischen und dem halb-passiven Modus in -ḫa in Verbindung gebracht wird, welche aus einer früheren stativen Konjugation hervorgegangen sein könnte. Diese Theorie bedarf jedoch einer Weiterentwicklung, da sie auf die frühesten ig. Rekonstruktionsstadien zurückgeht und tragfähige Schlüsse nur schwer gezogen werden können (Adrados 1996: 396 und 397). 36.  Im Licht dieser Beobachtungen hat Rowton (1962: 300) den hebräischen Perfekt und den akkadischen Stativ anhand folgender Punkte verglichen: a) Im Hebräischen funktioniert der Perfekt oft wie ein Präsens in den Zustandsverben und beschreibt das Subjekt auf sehr ähnliche Weise wie der akkadische Stativ; b) der hebräische Perfekt spricht von “Umstand”, während wir in wayyiqtol einen fientiven Wechsel haben, der Vorgang sieht aus wie ein Element in einer Veränderungssituation. Rowton (1962: 301) hat in der Verwendung des akkadischen Stativ innerhalb von parataktischen Sätzen den eigentlichen Ursprung der aufeinanderfolgenden Syntax des Hebräischen gesehen.

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jektive und kann von Verben abgeleitet werden, um den als Ergebnis der verbalen Handlung geschaffenen Zustand zu bezeichnen (vgl. Rabin 1984: 394 und Diakonoff 1988: 87). Zudem geht die Form des sogenannten Präteritum ii oder suffigierte Form des Perfekt im Mubischen, einer tschadischen Sprache, wahrscheinlich auf den gleichen Ursprung zurück. All diese für das Afroasiatische typischen Formen sind ursprünglich Zustands- oder stative Prädikate und weisen eine gleichförmige Konjugation mittels Suffigierung der abgekürzten Form des Personalpronomens an einen Stamm auf, der allem Anschein nach zu einem Zustandspartizip (Verbaladjektiv, siehe Diakonoff 1988: 95) gehörte. Innerhalb des aspektualen Systems des Afroasiatischen lassen uns diese Tatsachen den Stativ gegenüber der Perfektivität und der Imperfektivität, d.h. aspektuell gekennzeichneten Kategorien, als nicht gekennzeichnete Kategorie begreifen.

6. Schlußfolgerungen Somit scheint also das Vorhandensein einer durch die Zustandsverben suffigierten Konjugation im Afroasiatischen auch ein Hinweis darauf, das das Verbalsystem des Akkadischen das ursprüngliche ist: das Vorhandensein eines den westlichen Sprachen eigenen internen Passiv (Kienast 2001: §222), wie auch die verbale Spezialisierung des neuen westlichen Perfektivs, als Kennzeichner von Agentivität und Stativität, sind die Indikatoren einer Erneuerung der westsemitischen Sprachen. Unter Berücksichtigung all dieser Faktoren legen wir also, als Elemente der an die ost- und westsemitischen Varianten weitervererbten grundlegenden Konjugation, folgende Konjugationen nahe: a) Eine präfigierte, verlängerte Vollkonjugation mit imperfektivem Erscheinungsbild, Typ yaqattal oder yaqātal im Ostsemitischen und Äthiopischen, sowie Typ yaqtulu (yaqtilu, yaqtalu) in den Westsemitischen Sprachen. b) Eine apokopierte präfigierte Konjugation mit eher perfektiven Nebenbedeutungen (Erzähltempus pendens), der auch die Kennzeichnung des Subjunktivs zufällt (volitiv, desiderativ, jussiv, prohibitiv, etc) Typ yaqtul (yaqtil, yaqtal). c) Eine durch Personalpronomina suffigierte Konjugation qatal(a), qatil(a), qatul(a), ursprünglich um Zustandsverben zu konjugieren, beze.g., durch den akkadischen Stativ und den neuen Perfektiv der westsemitischen Sprachen. Wie bereits angemerkt, erleichtert die transitive Verwendung des sogenannten aktiven (oder prädikativen) Stativ den Schritt von der Stativität zur verbalen Perfektivität, wie durch das Westsemitische bezeugt, das nach wie vor Stativa der Eigenschaft beibehält.

7. Abkürzungen Akk. Akkadisch AbB. Altbabylonisch ca. circa ea. El Amarna ig. Indogermanisch impf. Imperfektiv mask. maskulin Metath. Metathese p.  Person

perf. Präs. Prät. S. Sg. subst. vgl. vid.

Perfektiv Präsens Präteritum Seite Singular Substantiv vergleich videtur

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8. Bibliographie Adrados, F. R., A. Bernabé und J. Mendoza 1996 Manual de lingüística indoeuropea, 2. Band, Madrid. Barth, J. 1967 Die Pronominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen, Leipzig. Benveniste, E. 19623 Origines de la formation des noms en Indo-européen, Paris. Bergsträsser, G. 1977 Einführung in die semitischen Sprachen, München. (= 1928) Blau, J. 1971 “Studies in Hebrew Verb Formation.” Hebrew Union College Annual 42: 133–58. Bolinger, D. 1967 “Adjectives in English: Attribution and Predication.” Lingua 18: 1–34. Bolozki, Sh. 1978 “Word Formation Strategies in the Hebrew Verb System: Denominative Verbs.” Afroasiatic Linguistics 5/3: 111–36. Brockelmann, C. 1999 Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der Semitischen Sprachen [in zwei Bänden], Hildesheim [u.a ]. 1927 “Semitische Reimwortbildungen.” Zeitschrift für Semitistik 5: 6–38. Buccellati, G. 1968 “An Interpretation of the Akkadian Stative as a Nominal Sentence.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27: 1–12. 1996 A Structural Grammar of Babylonian, Wiesbaden. Cantineau, J. 1946 “Esquisse d’une phonologie de l’arabe classique.” Bulletin de la Societé de Linguistique de Paris 126: 93–140. 1948 “La notion de « schème » et son alteration dans diverses langues sémitiques.” Semitica 3: 73–83. 1950 “Racines et schèmes.” Mélanges offerts à William Marçais, Paris, 119–24. Castellino, G. R. 1962 The Akkadian Personal Pronouns and Verbal System in the Light of Semitic and Hamitic, Leiden. Cohen, D. 1970 Dictionnaire des racines sémitiques ou attestées dans les langues sémitiques, Paris. 1975 “Phrase nominale et verbalisation en sémitique .” dins Mélanges Linguistiques offerts à Émile Benveniste, Collection Linguistique publiée par la Societé de Linguistique de Paris LXX, Paris, 87–98. Corrientes, F. 1996 Introducción a la gramática comparada del semítico meridional, Madrid. Cuny, A. 1924 Études prégrammaticales sur le domaine des langues indo-européennes et chamitosémitiques, Paris. Diakonoff, I. M. 1970 “Problems of Root Structure in Proto-Semitic.” Archiv Orientalní 38: 453–80. 1975 “On root Structure in Proto-Semitic.” J. Bynon und Th. Bynon (Hrsg.), Hamito-Semitica. Proceedings of a colloquium held by the Historical Section of the Linguistics Association (Great Britain) at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ. of London, on the 18th, 19th and 20th of March. The Hague : Mouton. S. 133–51. 1988 Afrasian Languages, Moscow : Nauka. 1991--92 Proto-Afrasian and Old Akkadian: A Study in Historical Phonetics, Princeton.

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Diem, W. 1997 “Suffixkonjugation und Subjektspronomina: Ein Beitrag zur Rekonstruktion des Ur­ semitischen und zur Gesichte der Semitistik.” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 147/1: 10–76. Edzard, D. O. 1965 “Die Stämme des altbabylonischen Verbums in ihrem Oppositionssystem.” H.G. Güterbock und Th. Jacobsen (Hrsg.), Studies in honor of Benno Landsberger, 111–20, Chicago. Eilers, W. 1978 “Semitische Wurzeltheorie.” Atti del Secondo Congresso Internazionale de Linguistica Camito-Semitica (P. Fronzaroli Hrsg.), Firenze. Fleisch, H. 1961 Traité de Philologie Arabe, 2 Bände, Beyrouth: Impr. catholique. Fraenkel, M. 1970 Zur Theorie der Lamed-He-Stämme, Jerusalem. Frajzynger, Z. 1979 “Notes on the r1r2r3 Stems in Semitic.” Journal of Semitic Studies 24: 1–12. Gelb, I. J. 1969 Sequential Reconstruction of Proto-Akkadian, Chicago. 19732 Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar, Chicago. Gesenius, W. 1817 Lehrgebäude der hebräischen Sprache, Leipzig. Gesenius, W. (E. Robinson Hrsg.). 1951 A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford : Clarendon. Gesenius, W., E. Kautsch, und G. Bergsträsser. 1995 Hebräische Grammatik, Hildesheim: Olms. Goetze, A. 1938 “The Tenses of Ugaritic.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 58: 266–309. Goldenberg, G. 1987–88 “The Contribution of Semitic Languages to Linguistic Thinking.” Jaarberich van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux” 30: 107–115. 1994 “Principles of semitic Word-structure.” (G. Goldenberg und Sh. Raz Hrsg.). Semitic and Cuschitic Studies, Wiesbaden, S. 29–64. Greenberg, J. H. 1950 “The Patterning of Root Morphemes in Semitic.” Word 6: 162–81. Haldar, A. 1963 “The Akkadian verbal system. 1. The paris form.” Orientalia 32: 246–79. 1964 “The Akkadian verbal system. 2. The iprus: iparras forms.” Orientalia 33: 15–48. Hetzron, R. (ed.). 1997 The Semitic Languages, London. Huehnergard, J. 1986 “On Verbless Clauses in Akkadian.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 76: 218–49. 1987 “´Stative, Predicative Form, Pseudo-verb.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 21: 233–303. Hurwitz, S. T. H. 1913 Root-Determinatives in Semitic Speech, New York : Columbia University Press. Izre'el, Sh. 1978 “The Gezer Letters of the El-Amarna Archive: A Linguistic Analysis.” Israel Oriental Studies 8: 13–90. Joüon, P., und T. Muraoka. 1993 A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, Rome: Ed. Pontificio Ist. Biblico. Jucquois, G. 1973 “Trois questions de linguistique sémitique.” Le Muséon 86: 475–97. Kazimirski, A. de B. 1860 Dictionnaire arabe français, 2 Bände. Paris.

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Kienast, B. 2001 Historische semitische Sprachwissenschaft, Wiesbaden. Knudzon, J. A. 1892 “Zur assyrischen und allgemein semitischen Grammatik.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 7: 33–63. Kouwenberg, N. J. C. 1997 Gemination in the Akikadian Verb, Assen. 2000 “Nouns as Verbs: the Verbal Nature or the Akkadian Stative.” Orientalia 69: 21–71. Kraus, F. R. 1984 Nominalsätze in altbabylonischen Briefen und der Stativ, Medelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Lerkunde , Niuwe Reeks, 47, num. 2. Amsterdam [u.a.] : Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij. Kuryłowicz, J. 1949 “Le systeme verbal du sémitique.” Bulletin de la societé de linguistique de Paris 45: 47–56. 1961 L’Apophonie en sémitique, Wrocław. 1972 Studies in Semitic Grammar and Metrics, Wrocław [usw.]: Zakł. nar. im. Ossolińskich. 1973 “Verbal Aspect in Semitic.” Orientalia 42: 114–20. Lane, E. W. 1984 Arabic-English Lexicon, Cambridge. Lasor, W. S. 1990 “Protosemitic: Is the Concept No Longer Valid?” Maarav 5–6: 189–205. McCarthy, J. J. 1981 “A Prosodic Theory of Nonconcatenative Morphology.” Linguistic Inquiry 12: 373–418. Meyer, R. 1989 Gramática del hebreo bíblico, Barcelona. Militarev, A., und L. Kogan. 2000 Semitic Etymological Dictionary, 1. Band, Münster. Moscati, S. 1947 “Il biconsonantismo nelle lingue semitique.” Biblica 28: 113–35. 1969 An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages, Wiesbaden. Nougayrol, J. 1948–51 “La phrase dite nominale en accadien.” Groupe Linguistique d’etudes Chamitosemitiques 5: 23. Pokorny, J. 1959 Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2 Bände, Bern [u.a.] : Francke. Rabin, Ch. 1984 “The Genesis of the semitic Tense System.” J. Bynon (Hrsg.), Current Progress in AfroAsiatic Linguistics: 391–97. Reiner, E. 1966 A Linguistic Analysis of Akkadian. Ianua Linguarum, Series Practica 21, London [u.a.]: Mouton. 1970 “Akkadian.” T. A. Sebeok (Hrsg.), Current Trends in Linguistics, 6. Band, 274–303, The Hague [u.a.]: Mouton. Rix, H. 20012 Lexicon der indogermanischen Verben, Wiesbaden. Rowton, M. B. 1962 “The Use of the Permansive in Classic Babylonian.” Journal of the Near Eastern Studies 21: 233–303. Saad, G. N., und Sh. Bolozky. 1984 “Causativization and Transitivization in Arabic and Modern Hebrew.” Afroasiatic Linguistics 9/2: 29–38. Schramm, G. M. 1962 “An Outline of Classical Arabic Verb Structure.” Language 38: 360–75.

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“Semitic Morpheme Structure Typology.” A. S. Kaye (Hrsg.), Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, 2. Band, 1402–8, Wiesbaden. Schrinjen, J. 1937 “Autour de l’s mobible.” Bulletin de la Societé de Linguistique de Paris 38: 117–21. Segert, S. 1974 Altaramäische Grammatik, Leipzig. Soden, W. von. 19852 Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3 Bände. Wiesbaden (AHw). 1964 “Zu A. Haldar, The Akkadian verbal system.” Orientalia 33: 437–42. 19953 Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik, Rome (= GAG). Tropper, J. 2000 Ugaritische Grammatik, Münster. Ullendorf, E. 1958 “What is a Semitic Language?” Word 27: 66–75. Vernet, M. 2000 “Flexió i derivació dels verbs de tercera gutural (V”k) al TH de la Bíblia.” Anuari de Filologia, 22. Band, Sektion e, Num. 9: 31–40. Werner, F. 1982 “Die introflexive Wortbildung im Hebräischen.” Folia Linguistica 16: 263–95. Wright, W. 19913 A Grammar of the Arabic Language, Cambridge. Zaborski, A. 1991 “Biconsonantal Roots and Triconsonantal Root Variation in Semitic: Solutions and Prospects.” (A. S. Kaye Hrsg.), Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, 2. Band, 1675– 99, Wiesbaden. 1994 “Exceptionless incompatibility Rules and Verbal Root Structure in Semitic.” G. Goldenberg und Sh. Raz (Hrsg.), Semitic and Cuschitic Studies, 1–18, Wiesbaden. Zimmern, H. 1890 “Das Verthältnis des assyrischen Permansivs zum semitischen Perfekt und zum ägyptischen ‘Pseudopartizip’ untersucht unter Benutzung der El-Amarna-Texte.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 5: 1–22. 1991

A Hurro-Akkadian Expression for Changing One’s Testimony Attested in Nuzi Trial Records 1 Jeanette C. Fincke Leiden

It is a well-known fact that the so-called Nuzi-texts have great potential for further improving our understanding of Hurrian grammar and lexicography. The private documents and administrative texts found in the kingdom of Arrapḫe were written in Akkadian by scribes from a population that was basically of Hurrian origin. So grammatical features and words from the native language entered the Akkadian texts as loans and the written language is called Hurro-Akkadian. 2 The Hurrian loanwords include objects 3 or units 4 for which there was no exact Akkadian equivalent; the other nouns 5 and the verbs 6 describe special operations or procedures. The more attestations for an individual word that can be found in these documents, the higher the possibility of defining its meaning from the context. After having established the general meaning of a Hurrian loanword, the Hurrian grammar is carefully considered to pinpoint more closely the meaning. Similar derivations from the same Hurrian root in other texts also need to be checked before a hypothesis is substantiated as a conclusion. Both the dictionary and the grammar are thus improved from the analysis of the Nuzi-texts. This procedure has been practiced several times, and one might think that the potential of the Nuzi texts has already been fully exploited in this respect. This, of 1.  This study was presented as “The value of the Nuzi-texts for the Hurrian dictionary” as part of the workshop on the Hurrian language on 26 July 2010. I would like to thank Prof. Juan Carlos Oliva Mompean for organizing this productive meeting as part of the 56th RAI. The research for the HurroAkkadian term presented here was conducted and the results first drafted in 1993. The final article, however, has been written as part of the project “The Impact of Migration” funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University. 2. For the Hurro-Akkadian language of the Nuzi-texts, see G.  Wilhelm, Untersuchungen zum Hurro-Akkadischen von Nuzi (AOAT 9; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner Verlag, 1970). 3.  See, e.g., H.  Schneider-Ludorff, “takulatḫu ‘Lampenständer, Kandelabar’,” SCCNH 15 (2005) 161–68. 4.  For Hurrian measures of area and capacity see D. Cross, Movable Property in the Nuzi Documents (AOS 10; New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1937) 9–10, 12–15. For measuring wool, see G. Wilhelm, “Zu den Wollmaßen in Nuzi,” ZA 78 (1988) 276–83. 5. See, e.g., J.  Fincke, “Hurritisch alambašḫe,” WdO 24 (1993) 42–49, I.  Röseler, “Zu den hurritischen Begriffen firubatḫe und alubatḫe in Texten aus Nuzi,” SCCNH 15 (2005) 127–32, G. Wilhelm, “firadi ‘auswärtiger Gast,’ firadošḫe ‘Gästehaus’,” SCCNH 15 (2005) 175–84. 6.  See, e.g., J. Fincke, “Beiträge zum Lexikon des Hurritischen von Nuzi, Teil 2,” SCCNH 9 (1998) 41–48.

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course, is not the case. Some Hurrian loanwords are still awaiting a more detailed analysis and all studies should be read critically, with the evidence sifted. Such a refinement will be demonstrated here by using an example of the well-known HurroAkkadian verbal construction that combines a Hurrian word ending on x-umma with Akkadian epēšu. The collocation under consideration is šinapšumma epēšu, which occurs in trial records usually directly before the pronouncement of the judgment. In this position, other trial records indicate an ordeal to be undertaken to reveal the truth; for instance ana ilāni (ana našê) šapāru “sending to the gods (to carry)” 7 or ana ÍDḫuršan alāku “going to the ḫuršan-(river-)ordeal.” 8 This is why Cyrus Gordon 9 proposed the meaning “to be condemned by an ordeal(?)” for this Hurro-Akkadian expression. Raymond Hayden 10 understood the phrase differently and summed up one of the trial records with “during the process of the trial Urḫi-teššub changed his testimony (šinabšumma êpuš).” Paola Negri Scafa 11 revived Gordon’s suggestion and explained šinapšumma epēšu as a Hurrian expression for taking an ordeal. In her study, published in 1992, she drew attention to the fact that the same root is attested in a few Hittite ritual texts of Hurrian origin in the šinapši-house or the šinapši-mound. 12 Negri Scafa understood that the link between both terms concerned the complexity of the actions in both procedures.

Attestation and Translation of the Hurro-Akkadian Term šinapšumma epēšu The expression šinapšumma epēšu is used as follows in the Nuzi-texts: Singular: JEN 668 (34) . . . ki-i-m[e]-e . . . (36) ⸢ù⸣ a-wa-ti-šu [ša] PN (37) ⸢ši-na⸣-a[p]-⸢šu⸣-[u]m-ma i-ip-pu-uš HSS IX 8 (30) [ki]-me-e a-wa-ti-šu ša PN (31) [š]i-na-ap-šu-um-ma i-te-pu-uš HSS XIX 72 (31) . . . ki-me-e (32) [a]-wa-tù ša PN ši-na-ap-šu-um-ma dù-uš BM 102360 13 (24′) [k]i-me-e a-wa-ti-šu ⟨ša PN⟩ (25′) ši-na-ap-šu-um-ma dù-uš EN 9/1 14 396 (20) ki-me-e a-wa-ti-šu ša PN (20a) ši-na-ap-šu-um-ma [dù-uš]

7.  For this ordeal, see, e.g., R. E. Hayden, Court Procedure at Nuzu (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University; 1962) 34–39, and T. Frymer-Kensky, “Suprarational Legal Procedures in Elam and Nuzi,” in Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians (ed. M. A. Morrison and D. I. Owen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1981), vol. 1: 120–31. 8. The ḫuršan-(river-)ordeal of the Nuzi-texts has been studied by R. E. Hayden, Court Procedure at Nuzu, 39–50, and T. S. Frymer-Kensky, The Judicial Ordeal in the Ancient Near East (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1977) 259–341; for the river ordeal in other periods, see the relevant chapters. 9.  C. H. Gordon, “The Dialect of the Nuzu Tablets,” OrNS 7 (1938) 53, translation of text no. 31 (HSS IX 8:31). 10.  R. E. Hayden, Court Procedure at Nuzu, 138. 11.  P. Negri Scafa, “Osservazioni sull’espressione šinapšumma epēšu nei testi di Nuzi,” SMEA 29 (1992) 189–202. 12.  For these two terms in Hittite texts, see pp. 476–479 below. 13.  See K. Grosz, The Archive of the Wullu Family (CNI Publications 5; Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1988) 159, 145. 14.  The EN 9/1 texts are published in Studies on the Culture and Civilization of Nuzi and the Hurrians 2 (ed. D. I. Owen and M. A. Morrison; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987) 357–702.

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Plural: EN 9/1 434 (49) ⸢ù⸣ a-w[a-ti-š]u-nu ša L[Ú.MEŠši]-bu-ti (50) ⸢a⸣-[n]a pa-ni MEŠ d[i.ku]d ši!-na-[ap-šum-m]a dù-⸢šu⸣ EN 9/1 434 (51) ⸢ki⸣-i-me-e ⸢a⸣-wa-ti-šu-n[u ša L]Ú.MEŠši-bu-⸢ti⸣ (52) ⸢ši⸣-na-ap-šum-ma dù-šu

The structure of all attestations in the singular is kīmē awātī-šu ša PN šinapšumma īpuš, and in the plural it is kīmē awātī-šunu ša LÚ.MEŠšibūti šinapšumma īpušū. The Hurro-Akkadian grammar of the Nuzi texts cannot determine whether awātī-šu ša PN or awātī-šunu ša šibūti is an explanation for šinapšumma epēšu or a direct object of the verb. These sentences could therefore be translated “because of the words of PN (or ‘the witnesses’) he (or ‘they’) made šinapšumma,” or “because PN (or ‘the witnesses’) made his (or ‘their’) words šinapšumma.” For both possibilities, similar constructions can be found in other trial records from Nuzi, all stated directly before the decision of the judges. One example refers to the river ordeal: EN 9/1 430 (24) [k]i-me-e a-ma-t[i-šu] (25) ša PN1 ⸢a-na⸣ [ÍDḫur-ša-an] (26) it-tala-ku i+na di-ni (27) PN2 (28) il-te-i-ma “Because of the words of PN1 he went to [the ḫuršan-(river-)ordeal]. PN2 wins the trial.”

Two examples refer to changing statements made earlier in the process: EN 9/1 411 (21) [ki-i-m]e-e a-wa-ti-šu ša (22) PN1 it-ta-na-ab-[l]a-⸢ki-tù⸣ (23) i+na di-ni PN2 (24) il-te-e-ma “[Beca]use PN1 has changed his words constantly, PN2 wins the trial.” JEN 669

(68) ù ki-i-me-e a-wa-t[i-šu] (69) ša PN1 ⸢a⸣-na 3-šú it-ta-ab-la-ku-t[u] (70) i+na di-ni PN2 il-te-e-ma “And because PN1 has changed [his] words threetimes, PN2 wins the trial.”

The record of a trial EN 9/1 434 quoted above gives proof of how to translate passages with šinapšumma epēšu correctly. The trial concerns emmer, which Taḫirišti was meant to receive but was instead given to Arip-šarri. Arip-šarri, however, claimed that the grain had not been given at all. So the judges ask Arip-šarri to produce witnesses that Taḫirišti had not taken the emmer although he was told to do so. The text says: 47u Arip-šarri šibūtī-šu 48ana pāni dajjāne uštelī-šu imtanū 49u awātī-šunu šibūtī 50ana pāni dajjāne šinapšumma īpušū 51kīmē awātī-šunu šibūtī 52šinapšumma īpušū. . . , “And Arip-šarri made his witnesses appear in front of the judges and they recounted (the events). The witnesses made their words in front of the judges šinapšumma. Because the witnesses made their words šinapšumma. . . .” Since awātī-šunu must be a direct object to šinapšumma epēšu, this HurroAkkadian construction introduced by kīmē is not to be equated with the Nuzi references to the ordeal, which would be translated “because of his words he went to the ḫuršan-(river-)ordeal” or “because of his words he went to carry the gods.” Another of the trial records (HSS XIX 72) supports this conclusion. There, directly after the sentence with šinapšumma epēšu, the judges do not give their verdict but the accusers present additional proof for their statements: 15 “Because he (sc. Ḫanu) made the words of Ḫanu šinapšumma, the [son]s of Ṣill-abuḫe presented 15. HSS XIX 72 lines 31–39: . . . ki-me-e (32) [a]-wa-tù ša mḫa-nu ši-na-ap-šu-um-ma dù-uš (33) [dumu].meš zi-il-la-pu-ḫé ṭup-pu-ša (34) [ša] fel-la-ša-ri ša ma-ar-tù-ti (35) [ša] mzi-il-la-pu-ḫé ana pa-ni di.kud.meš (36) i-[t]e-li-šu-nu-ti ù di.kud.meš ṭup-pu (37) ša fel-la-ša-ri ša ma-ar-tù-ti (38) il-te-mu-ú dumu.meš zi-il-la-pu-ḫé (39) i+na di-ni il-te-ma.

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the document [of] Ṣill-abuḫe [about] the adoption of Ella-šari in front of the judges, and the judges listened to (the text of) the document about the adoption of Ella-šari. The sons of Ṣill-abuḫe won the trial. . . .” If šinapšumma epēšu had been a reference to an ordeal, the gods would have proved the truth, superseding this additional evidence adduced from human beings. “Returning” (turru) from an ordeal means that the candidate was considered guilty by the gods. The record JEN 699 is the only example among the Nuzi-texts where the accused “returns” from the ordeal by carrying the gods and then makes another statement. The accused confirms the statement of the opposing party and the grounds for the judgment that “Tieš-urḫe wins the trial” are: 16 u kīmē awāt[ī-šu] ša mar-tirwe ana 3-šú ittablakut[u], “Because Ar-tirwe has changed [his] words three-times.”

Interpretation of the Expression kīmē awātī-šu ša PN šinapšumma epēšu In order to understand the exact meaning of šinapšumma epēšu, what is referred to by the Hurro-Akkadian expression kīmē awātī-šu ša PN šinapšumma īpuš has to be identified. EN 9/1 396, recalling the sequence of events that occurred during the court procedure, states: 17 “The judges questioned Urḫi-teššup and said: ‘Utḫap-tae, why did you seize his hem?’ ” Seizing someone’s hem indicates guilt for some misdemeanor. The record continues: 18 “Th[us] (said) Urḫi-teššup: ‘[Utḫap]-tae owes me one ho[rse].’ [Then, Utḫap]-tae drove three horses [in front of] the judges [and] said: ‘If I owe you one horse (lit.: ho[rs]es), well, then [ta]ke one [of] (these) horses!’ Thus (answered) Urḫi-teššup: ‘I have (already) received one horse from Utḫap-tae,’ and a second time: ‘The horse I will take (now) from Utḫap-tae.’ ” The Hurro-Akkadian text continues: 20kīmē awātī-šu ša U[rḫi-teššup] 20a𒑱 šinapšumma īp[uš] 21kī sisê-šu Urḫi-teššup 22ašar Utḫap-tae ilteqe 23u qanna-šu ša [Utḫ]ap-tae 24iṣṣabat Utḫap-tae 25ina dīni ilteʾē-ma. . . , “Because U[rḫi-teššup] has ma[de] his words šinapšumma with respect to (the fact) that he, Urḫi-teššup had (already) taken his horse from Utḫap-tae but (still) seized the hem of [Utḫ]aptae, Utḫap-tae wins the trial. . .” It is obvious that the “words” mentioned within the construction awātī-šu ša PN šinapšumma epēšu relate to the earlier evidence of the person referred to by this phrase, and that this person had made two contradicting statements during the court procedure. Another trial record supports this conclusion: In HSS XIX 72 the grounds for the judgment are as follows: 19 “Because he had said first: ‘I am the brother of Ella-šari’, and had said (then,) the second time: ‘I am no[t] Ella-šari‘s brother’, because he (sc. Ḫanu) made the words of Ḫanu šinapšumma. . . .” Also, in this case, two contradict16.  JEN 699 reverse 68–70: ù ki-i-me-e a-wa-t[i-šu] (69) ša mar-ti-ir-we ⸢a⸣-na 3-šú it-ta-ab-la-kut[u] (70) i+na di-ni mti-eš-ur-ḫé il-te-e-ma. 17.  EN 9/1 396 lines 7–9: ù di.kud.meš mur-ḫi-te-šup iš-ta-lu-[uš] (8) ù iq-ta-bu-[ú mu]t-ḫáp-ta-e (9) am-mi-n[i] qa-an-na-šu iṣ-⸢ṣa⸣-bi-it-[mi]. 18.  EN 9/1 396 lines 10–20: ⸢um⸣-[ma m]⸢ur⸣-ḫi-te-šup-ma ana 1 an[še.kur.ra] (11) [mut-ḫáp]-ta-e a-na ia-ši ḫu-bu-ul-mi (12) [ù mut-ḫáp]-ta-e 3 anše.kur.ra.meš (13) [a-na pa-ni] di.kud.meš ú-r[i]-⸢i-ma⸣ (14) [ù i]q-ta-bi šum-ma anše.[kur.r]a.meš (15) [ḫu]-ub-bu-la-ku-mi a-nu-um-[ma] (16) [ša] anše.kur. ra.meš 1-en anše.kur.r[a] (17) [il]-qè-mi ù um-ma mur-ḫi-[t]e-šup-ma (18) ⸢1⸣ anše.kur.ra a-šar mut-ḫápta-e >a< (19) el-te-qè-mi ša-na-am-ma-a (20) anše.kur.ra a-šar mut-ḫáp-ta-e e-leq-qè⟨-mi⟩. 19.  HSS XIX 72 lines 28–32: (28) ki-me-e il-ti-il-tù (29) a-ḫa-tù-mi ša-ni-a-na (30) [i]q-ta-bi a-na fella-ša-ri (31) l[a] a-ḫa-tù-mi ki-me-e (32) [a]-wa-tù ša mḫa-nu ši-na-ap-šu-um-ma dù-uš.

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ing statements were made and the phase awātī-šu šinapšumma īpuš refers to that. This is the case in three of the six trial records that have this Hurro-Akkadian construction. 20 One tablet is heavily broken and gives no evidence at all; 21 the remaining two trial records are unclear in this respect. 22 Given that half of the Nuzi-texts with the Hurro-Akkadian phrase awātī-šu šinapšumma epēšu support a meaning “to change one’s words (or ‘testimony’), to contradict oneself,” a meaning already proposed by Raymond Hayden in 1962, it corresponds in meaning exactly to the Akkadian expression awātī-šu nabalkutu found in two other trial records from Nuzi. 23 However, the Hurro-Akkadian phrase could also mean “to lie in one’s words (or ‘testimony’),” which would also result in the loss of lawsuit.

Grammatical Analysis of šinapšumma The ending ⸗umma in šinapšumma is the Hurrian infinitive -umme followed by the essiv -a, just as in other Hurro-Akkadian constructions of the type x-umma epēšu. 24 Next, an element -pš- can be identified, which is also found as root-complement 25 in other Hurrian words, see for instance taġ⸗apš⸗i “a blanket for horses or a stole” 26 d um⸗ar⸗apš⸗i (a god; Bogh.) 27 eġ⸗epš⸗ol- “to be strangulated” (⸗ Hittite arḫa awuišurija-) (Bogh.) 28 ēnn⸗ipš⸗i (unknown; Bogh.) 29 ḫil⸗ipš⸗i⸗man (an anomaly of the liver; Bogh.) 30 ḫud⸗upš⸗ō/ūž (unknown; Bogh.) 31 20.  EN 9/1, 396, HSS XIX 72, and JEN 668. 21.  BM 102360. 22.  EN 9/1 434 (see p. 473 above) and HSS IX 8. 23.  JEN 669 (see pp. 473 and 474) and EN 9/1 411 (p. 473). 24.  See G. Wilhelm, “Zum hurritischen Infinitiv,” SCCNH 2 (1987) 331–38, M. Giorgieri, “Die hurritischen Kasusendungen,” SCCNH 10 (1999) 236–37, and M. Giorgieri in La civiltà dei Hurriti (La parola del passato vol. 55; Napoli: Macchiaroli, 2000) 256 IV.2.2.e. 25. See M.  Giorgieri, “Zu den sogenannten Wurzelerweiterungen des Hurritischen. Allgemeine Probleme und Einzelfälle” in Languages in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 53e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Vol. 1, Part 2 (ed. L. Kogen, N. Koslova, S. Loesov, and S. Tishchenko; Babel und Bibel 4/2; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010) 927–47 with bibliography. 26.  For attestations (MB, LB, MA, NA, Nuzi, Alalaḫ) see AHw 1301a (“eine Decke für Pferde usw.”) and CAD T 40b–41b. See also the profession LÚtaġ⸗apš⸗o⸗ġ(e)⸗o/u⸗li, “manufacturer of taḫapšu” (MB, Alalaḫ); for the grammatical structure of these formations of professions see G. Wilhelm, “Hurritische Berufsbezeichnungen auf -li,” SMEA 29 (1992) 239–44. 27.  KUB X 63 I 18, 19, 22, see E. Laroche, Glossaire de la langue hourrite II [GLH II], RHA 35 (1977) 280. 28.  G.  Wilhelm, “Hurritische Lexikographie und Grammatik: Die hurritisch-hethitische Bilingue aus Boğazköy,” OrNS 61 (1992) 129 (“abgeschnürt sein”) with bibliography; E. Neu, Das hurritische Epos der Freilassung I. Untersuchungen zu einem hurritisch-hethitischen Textensemble aus Ḫattuša (StBoT 32; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996) 154 (analysis: eḫ⸗ep⸗š⸗ul⸗i⸗le). 29.  For the attestation in the Boğazköy texts see V. Haas and I. Wegner, Die Rituale der Beschwö�������� rerinnen SAL.ŠU.GI (ChS I/5 Teil 1: Die Texte; Roma: Multigrafica, 1988) 339 (text no. 75 obverse I 5‘). The analysis could, however, also be en(i)⸗ne⸗b⸗ši “your (personal) god.” 30.  Derived from ḫil- “to inform, to say, to speak”? For attestations in Boğazköy as well as a bibliography, see St. de Martino, Die mantischen Texte (ChS I/7; Rome: Bonsignori, 1992) 145–46. 31.  Derived from ḫud- “to pray, to worship, to raise”? For the attestation in KBo XXI 18 line 5, see E. Laroche, Glossaire de la langue hourrite I [GLH I], RHA 34 (1976) 112.

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These examples point to an element of the structure -vowel-pš-, where the vowel corresponds to the preceding vowel of the word. There are a few exceptions, for instance: pur⸗apš⸗e “priest” 32 t[u]-mu-ma-ap-ši (unknown; an OB incantation) 33 ḫa-ri-ip-ši-iš ḫa-⸢ri⸣-ip-ši-ta-an (unknown; Bogh.) 34

Since the meaning of most of these words remains unclear, it is not at all certain whether or not the root-complement -pš- can always be identified. Some forms might have to be explained differently, for the abstract suffix -š(š)e 35 could be involved. As with the three exceptions, in šinapš- the vowel of -pš- is also not identical to the preceding vowel. The reason for this might be found in the word from which šinapš- is derived. Using the corresponding vowel would lead to šinipš-, which one would interpret as derived from a—possibly transitive—root šin-, whereas the form šinapš- leads to šina, the Hurrian number “two” as the basic root. In the context of the Nuzi-texts, awātī-šu šinapšumma epēšu means something like “to contradict oneself in (at least) two statements / testimonies,” “to make contradictory statements / testimonies,” “to say the opposite of what one said before.” Whether or not the morpheme -pš- or -vowel-pš- indicates an antonym to the root must await further studies, for, unfortunately, the meaning of only two examples for the Hurrian root-complement -vowel-pš- is known, and there is not enough evidence to establish its meaning with certainty at this moment.

Attestations of šinapš- in Hittite Texts It is very fortunate that the Hurrian word šinapš- is not only attested in the Nuzi-texts but also in Hittite ones. While this term is used in Nuzi in the context of lawsuits, Hittite religious texts of Hurrian origin apply it to a locality (šinapši). This locality, which is named especially in rituals from Kizzuwatna, was encircled with walls; it may even have been a room or a building, since it can be written either with or without the determinative for “house” (Éšinapši). 36 That a patient who has just eaten in the šinapši “then leaves the temple” 37 suggests that šinapši is a part of a temple or of a temple-complex. The šinapši could have been made of brick or wood, as proved by reference to the goddess “Hebat of the wooden šinapši” (dḫebat GIŠšinapši). 38 There is also mention of a mound or heap called šinapši (ḪUR.SAGšinapši, 32. E. Laroche, GLH II, RHA 35 (1977) 206. 33.  VAS XVII 5 line 9, see E. Laroche, GLH II, RHA 35 (1977) 271. 34. From ḫari- “path, route”? For the attestation in KBo XXXIII 200+102 obv. 13′ see V. Haas and I. Wegner, ChS I/5 Teil 1, 1988, 297 (text no. 63). 35.  Added to words ending in l/m/n/r, the suffix -šše changes to -ži; see M. Giorgieri in La civiltà dei Hurriti, 203. The same change from a double (-šše) to a single consonant (-ši) of this suffix could also be assumed for words ending in -b/-p; in this case, both consonants would be voiceless (-p⸗ši). 36.  For the text references, see J. Tischler, Hethitisches etymologisches Glossar, Teil II/2, Lieferung 14: S/2 (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 20; Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachen und Kulturen der Universität, 2006) 1048–51. 37.  KBo XVII 65 rev. 20; see G. Beckman, Hittite Birth Rituals (StBoT 29; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983) 140–41. 38.  KUB VI 45 i 63: [dḫ]é-bat GIŠši-na-ap-ši in a list of gods; see I. Singer, Muwatalli’s Prayer to the Assembly of Gods through the Storm-god of Lightning (CTH 381) (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1996) 12. It is unlikely for this to be understood as a reference to a species of tree or a type of wood; for this interpretation, see also J. Tischler, HEG Teil II/2, Lieferung 14: S/2, 2006, 1050–51.

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paban šinapši). 39 The “gods of the šinapši” (dingirMEŠ Éšinapšiyaš) 40 comprise “male deities and female deities” (dingirMEŠ munusMEŠ Éšinapšiyaš), 41 among which are singled out the storm-god Teššup (du šinapši), 42 his spouse, the goddess Ḫebat (dḫebat GIŠšinapši), as well as their son Šarrum(m)a (dlugal-ma Éšinapšiyaš). 43 If a šinapši has become culturally impure and “has pleaded with the Storm-god. . . . Those towns that are inhabited and have a šinapši-sanctuary, they shall be surveyed and [shall be set right].” 44 According to the Papanegri-ritual, tools that have become cultically unclean during the birth process were brought into the šinapši but then may have been placed “outside at an uncultivated place.” 45 In the course of this ritual, they burn offering birds and a sheep for purification from “misconduct” and “sin” in the šinapši, and they then clean the šinapši cultically the following day. 46 According to another birth-ritual collection, there are several different rituals for a woman that is late in her delivering the baby; each of them depends on the number of days she is late. According to one of these rituals, the pregnant woman offers birds and other offerings in the šinapši, then eats in the šinapši, and leaves the temple. 47 A patili-priest calling to a person, who had just died, says: “He went to the šinapši-house.” 48 Various identifications of the locality of the šinapši have been proposed: Emmanuel Laroche 49 described the šinapši as a building or part thereof suggesting it was a Hurrian term for the “portail de l’enceinte sacrée.” Albrecht Goetze 50 considered Laroche’s interpretation “not yet fully convincing,” but offered no alternative. Volkert Haas and Gernot Wilhelm 51 suggested “Entsühnungshaus.” When the passage in a ritual, where several ritual activities have been carried out in the šinapši-house and “the woman comes out forth from the temple” (KBo 39.  KBo XXXV 141 line 2: ḪUR.SAGši-na-ap-[ši . . .] and KUB XXXII 52 rev.? 4: pa-a-pa-an ši-na-ap[ši . . .]. For both see, e.g., J. Tischler, HEG Teil II/2, Lieferung 14: S/2, 2006, 1050, for the latter, see V. Haas and G. Wilhelm, Hurritische und luwische Riten aus Kizzuwatna (AOAT-S 3; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner Verlag, 1974) 38, 252. 40.  See, e.g., KBo XVII 69 l. 14: dingirMEŠ Éši-nap-⸢ši⸣-i[a-aš] or KBo XXXI 6 iii ? 6′: dingirMEŠ Éšinap-ši-ia-aš. For the second attestation see J. L. Miller, Studies in the Origins, Development and Interpretation of the Kizzuwatna Rituals (StBoT 46; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004) 32–33. 41.  See, e.g., KUB XXX 38 i 35+KBo XXIII 1 i 55: dingirMEŠ munusMEŠ Éši-nap-ši-ia-[aš. . .] in the ritual of Ammiḫatna; see R. Lebrun, “Les rituels d’Ammihatna, Tulbi et Mati contre une impureté = CTH 472,” Hethitica III (1979) 143, 150. 42.  See, e.g., KUB VI 45 i 62: du ši-na-ap-ši; see I. Singer, Muwatalli’s Prayer, 12. 43.  KBo XVII 69 l. 9′: dlugal-ma Éši-nap-ši-ia-aš; this ritual is part of the rituals of the patili-priest, see V. Haas, Die hurritischen Ritualtermini in hethitischem Kontext (ChS I/9; Rome: Istituto per gli studi micenei ed egeo-anatolici, 1998) 75. 44. I. Singer, Hittite Prayers (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 84 (KBo XI 1 obv. 32, 33), see also J. Tischler, HEG Teil II/2, Lieferung 14: S/2, 1049. 45.  KBo V 1 i 12–13, see R. Strauß, Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006) 294–95. 46.  KBo V 1 ii 1–3, 6, see V. Haas and G. Wilhelm, AOAT-S 3, 37, and R. Strauß, Reinigungsrituale, 289, 297. 47.  KBo XVII 65 rev. 14–20; see G. Beckman, StBoT 29, 140–41. 48.  KUB XXX 28 rev. 1–4; see V. Haas and G. Wilhelm, AOAT-S 3, 37. 49.  KUB XXX 28 rev. 1–4; see E. Laroche, RA 54 (1960) 197 (his discussion of the term extends to p. 198). 50. A. Goetze, RA 17 (1963) 61. 51.  V. Haas and G. Wilhelm, AOAT-S 3, 37.

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XVII 65 rev. 21), Gary Beckman 52 understood that that “šinapši-house” is another word for “temple.” Johannes Tischler 53 described šinapši as part of a temple, in which cultural unclean activities were done, where tools from an interrupted birth process and corpses were deposited, and where sacrificial animals were burnt. Volkert Haas 54 recalled the passage in the Papanegri-Ritual, where šinapši is not an individual building but rather a room next to the entrance of a temple. He, therefore, translated šinapši as “šinapši-Entsühnungsraum (des Tempels).” Rita Strauß 55 assumed the name šinapši, derived from Hurrian šin(i) “two,” was used to denote a kind of double-temple for Teššup and Ḫebat and their entourages.

As a term closely connected to the Hurrian cult and predominantly known from the Kizzuwatna rituals, šinapši seems to refer either to a kind of “mound” or “heap,” or to a room or “house,” located within a temple complex. Nothing is known about the “mound šinapši,” except that the goddess Ḫebat is associated with it. The šinapšistructure, on the other hand, although perhaps attached to a temple, does not seem to have been an indispensable part of every Hurrian temple. Even though Teššup and Ḫebat, together with their entourage consisting of their son Šarru(m)ma and other male and female gods, are especially associated with šinapši, it is unlikely that the Hurrian name is a reflection of the duality of male and female divinity at this place. If the meaning of šinapši was “double-temple” or, more precisely, the “double-temple for Teššup and Ḫebat,” we would expect to find more references to this locality. Pairing gods with spouses was not only a feature of Hurrian religion but also of other Ancient Near Eastern religions, and the Hittite religion began to show strong Hurrian influence from the Middle Hittite kingdom onward. As a consequence, the Hittites accepted the Hurrian gods Teššup and Ḫebat, who were made a couple, as the highest gods in the Hittite pantheon. It is, therefore, more likely to understand the name šinapši as reflecting the function of this place. Since the šinapši-structure is a cultic building, it needs to be purified after becoming ritually unclean, just like any other place of worship. Moreover, the texts point to šinapši as a place for activities that specifically involve impurity. 56 Ritually unclean items and people, even spirits of the recently deceased, enter there, without doing harm to the temple or to the rest of the world. Although it has not been explicitly stated that the impure objects have been purified inside the šinapši, such a procedure seems most probable, for after an impure woman had burned animal offerings to receive absolution from “misconduct” and “sin” that had caused complications for her giving birth to her child, the place was ritually cleaned. The impurity, which was believed to materialize in the course of the purification ritual, had to be removed from the body of the person or object and then eliminated before it touched any other place or infected other people. The šinapši might have been regarded as a safe place for such a procedure. 57 The rituals attested for enactment in the šinapši 52.  G. Beckman, StBoT 29, 113. 53. J. Tischler, HEG Teil II/2, Lieferung 14: S/2, 1049. 54. Haas, Materia Magica et Medica Hethitica: Ein Beitrag zur Heilkunde im Alten Orient (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003) 13 n. 62. 55.  R. Strauß, Reinigungsrituale, 10 n. 42. 56.  See V. Haas, Materia Magica, 13. 57.  I am informed that in her paper on “Time and Space in the Hittite Rites of Passage,” given on Monday 26 July 2010 during the 56th RAI in Barcelona, Alice Mouton strongly rejected the interpretation

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on the other hand, all refer to either birth or death, which means to the two most significant phases of life for any individual. If the šinapši was the specific place in the Hurrian religion for performing such rites de passage, 58 it could be that women actually gave birth there, but this was not the case.

Summary and Conclusion These are the results obtained so far for the Hurro-Akkadian expression awātī-šu šinapšumma epēšu and the Hurrian locality šinapši: •  The Hurro-Akkadian expression awātī-šu šinapšumma epēšu attested in the Nuzi-texts has the meaning of “to contradict oneself in (at least) two statements / testimonies,” “to make contradictory statements / testimonies,” “to say the opposite of what one said before.” It is equivalent to the Akkadian expression awātī-šu nabalkutu “to change ones words,” “to contradict oneself.” •  Many aspects of šinapši as a locality (“mound”) and a structure point to a kind of dualism or duality (Teššup – Ḫebat, male – female divinity, impurity – purity, pregnancy – having delivered, life – death), deriving from the fact that šinapši is to be linked with Hurrian šina “two.” The most likely function of this place was for purification, but the exact meaning of šinapši within the Hurrian cult remains unclear.

In the meaning of the infinitive šinapšumme there is a clear dualism; dualism is likely in the noun šinapši. It is highly probable that both words are derived from the same root, Hurrian šina “two.” If this is correct, the morpheme -pš- or -vowel-pšcould indicate antonyms, opposites, complements, or the like. But to find the exact meaning of this root-complement requires further study. of šinapši as a place for purification. I did not hear her presentation so I will not be able to discuss her opinions until they are published. 58.  See also the preceding note.

Hurrian Personal Names in the Kingdom of Ḫatti Stefano de Martino Torino

1.  This paper presents only the chief points of the results of my research on the corpus of Hurrian personal names documented in the Hittite texts, which is now in print in the 18th volume of the series Eothen (Florence, 2011). The aim of this study is finding out in which way the percentage and the typology of Hurrian personal names changed from time to time and if we can recognize differentiations in the Hurrian onomasticon among the various components of the Hittite society. In consideration of this kind of analysis, I have studied Hurrian personal names inside the Hittite documents in their pertinent prosopographic context, so that at least some of the individuals who held Hurrian names can be known also in terms of their family background, social condition, profession, and the time when they lived. 2.  Hurrian personal names are a minority in the onomasticon of Ḫatti. Moreover, the number of Hurrian names and their distribution in the various segments of the Hittite society changed during the four centuries of life of the Hittite kingdom. Hurrian personal names were not held by members of the royal family during the Old Kingdom, 1 whereas they became frequent starting at the beginning of the 14th century—that is, with the reigns of Tutḫaliya I/II, Arnuwanda I, and Tutḫaliya III, when many members of the Hittite royal family had Hurrian names. Queen Nikkal-madi, Tutḫaliya I’s wife, was the first member of the royal family who had a Hurrian name; some scholars believe that she was a princess of Kizzuwatna, and this might explain her Hurrian name. 2 After her, other queens (AšmuNikkal, Tadu-Ḫeba, and Šatandu-Ḫeba 3), princes (Tutḫaliya III/Tašmi-šarri, AšmiŠarruma, 4 Tulbi-Tešob 5), and princesses (Ašmu-Ḫeba) bore Hurrian names. About 70 years later, Muwatalli II reintroduced Hurrian names in the royal family: he had a Hurrian second name—Šarri-Tešob 6—and named his two sons, respectively, Urḫi-Tešob and Ulmi-Tešob. 7 1.  Concerning BU-Šarruma of the Offering Lists, see de Martino 2010b: 130–31. 2.  See Houwink ten Cate 1998; Beal 2002: 69; and, more recently, Freu 2007: 118; Marizza 2007: 2 n. 11. 3.  On this queen, see most recently de Martino 2010a. 4.  Son of Arnuwanda I (?); see Beal 2002: 66. 5.  He might have been Mannini’s son; see Marizza 2007: 30–33. 6.  See de Martino 2011: 14, with bibliographical references. 7.  He was the same person whose other name was Kurunta; see most recently Giorgieri and Mora 2010: 138–39 n. 10, with previous literature.

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Ḫattušili III had several children, 8 some of them with his last wife Pudu-Ḫeba, others with another woman/other women and born before this marriage. As is well known, Pudu-Ḫeba came from Kizzuwatna and was the daughter of the priest of Ištar Pentib-Šarri. Her father held a Hurrian name and her name, too, was Hurrian. Some of Ḫattušili’s children bore non-Hurrian Anatolian names, while others had Hurrian names, 9 like princes Tutḫaliya (IV)/Tašmi-Šarruma, Ḫešni, ḪišmiŠarruma, Ewri-Šarruma, princesses Kiluš-Ḫeba; the Hittite princess who married Ramses II, presumably, had the name Šaušganu. 10 One of Tutḫaliya IV’s daughters held the Hurrian name Eḫli-Nikkal; she married Niqmaddu III king of Ugarit; perhaps also one of Tutḫaliya IV’s sons received a Hurrian name: Tulbi-Šarruma. 11 As we have seen, Hurrian personal names are frequent among the members of the Hittite royal family mostly during three periods: (1) when Kizzuwatna became part of the Kingdom of Ḫatti at the time of Tutḫaliya I/II; (2) during the reign of Muwattalli II, a king who had a clear predilection for religious and cultural tradition of southeastern Anatolia; 12 (3) during the reign of Ḫattušili III, whose wife Pudu-Ḫeba was closely tied to her Kizzuwatnean roots. Kizzuwatnean and more generally southeastern Anatolian traditions and culture seem to have played an important role in the diffusion of Hurrian onomasticon inside the Hittite royal family. Hurrian personal names borne by the members of the Hittite royal family belong to the well-known typology of “Satznamen;” 13 most of them are composed of a verb in the third person and a divine name (Nikkal, Ḫebat, Tešob, Šarruma). 14 Although we do not know much of the onomasticon of Kizzuwatna, I have the feeling that Hurrian names borne by the members of the Hittite royal family might have copied those of the élites of the Kizzuwatnean society. 15 The choice of Hurrian names for some of the members of the Hittite royal family is a sure signal of the diffusion of Hurrian culture and traditions and of the receptivity of them among the élites of the Hittite society. At the same time, it is true that the Hurrian component of the Hittite world never became prevalent, and it remained outside the dynastic ideological tradition of Hittite kingship: in fact, no heir to the throne of Ḫatti chose a Hurrian name on becoming king. The case of Piyaššili, son of Šuppiluliuma I, is just the opposite, since he preferred a Hurrian name, Šarri-Kušuḫ, when he became King of Kargamiš; this is a signal that the social and/or cultural dominance of the Hurrian language among the upper levels of the society of Kargamiš was much greater than at Ḫattuša. 3.  Let us take a look at Hurrian personal names inside Hittite society. During the Old Kingdom, Hurrian personal names are documented only for a very few foreigners with whom the Hittites had relations. 16 In the Early Empire (from Tutḫaliya I/II to Tutḫaliya III), Hurrian personal names are more frequent than 8.  See de Roos 2006: 20–23; van den Hout 1995: 80. 9.  For these names, see de Martino 2011: 15. 10.  Edel 1994: 226–27; see also Beal 2002: 67. 11.  See de Martino 2011: 17. 12.  See, for example, Singer 2006. 13.  On names of this kind, see Wilhelm 1998. 14.  See de Martino 2011 for the grammatical analysis of many of the Hurrian personal names documented in the Hittite texts. 15.  See de Martino 2011: 17–20. 16.  See de Martino 2011: 25.

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during the Old Kingdom, but, apart from the members of the royal family, they still belong mostly to foreigners—experts in rituals, or in medicine, or in divination—who moved to Ḫatti or are mentioned in Hittite texts. We can quote, for example, authors of rituals such as Allaituraḫḫi from Mukiš, Kiziya from Alalaḫ, Aštu MUNUSŠU.GI URUḪurlaš, 17 Madi, Tulbi(ya), Papa-nigri and Naniyanni from Kummani, Šalašu from Kizzuwatna; physicians such as Agiya and Ḫudubi; Eḫal-Tešob, a diviner from Aleppo and the author of rituals. Only very few Hurrian names refer to people working for the Hittite administration. From the available tablets of the archive of the Hittite city of Šapinuwa, excavated by A. Süel and M. Süel, we know that some of the functionaries who were active in the administrative structures of this city had Hurrian names, as, for example, Agiya, Ḫubidi (who are senders of letters), 18 and Mušu (who is the recipient of a letter sent by the King). 19 We cannot explain why only in Šapinuwa in the Early Empire there were people with Hurrian names active in the administration of the state. Since Šapinuwa was a royal residence of Tutḫaliya III, we might in some way link the predilection of the royal family for Hurrian names to the presence of Hurrian or Hurrianized people in this city. We do not know whether these functionaries came from Kizzuwatna or belonged to a local Hurrian community that until that time had been excluded from the ranks of the Hittite administration. In the course of the 13th century, Hurrian personal names became more and more popular among the élites of Hittite society, although they remained a minority inside the Hittite onomasticon. Hurrian personal names seem to be common mostly at the time of Ḫattušili III and Tutḫaliya IV, whereas they were not diffused among functionaries and dignitaries at the time of Šuppiluliuma I and Muršili II. Hurrian names documented in Hittite texts are mostly male, but this is due in part to the fact that men were more involved in official roles and in professions and therefore more visible in Hittite sources. The choice of Hurrian names within a family through two or more generations is attested in some cases. In spite of this, if we look at the families of the élites of Hittite society that we know for some generations, we see that the same eclectic character of the onomasticon (Hattian, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian names) of the Hittite royal family at the time of Ḫattušili III can be recognized also among them. Concerning the professions of those individuals who held Hurrian names, 20 we find several officials involved in the administration at different levels, as, for example, Ewri-Šarruma Chief of the Palace Attendants (GAL DUMUMEŠ É.GAL), Šaušga-Runtiya City-Lord (EN URULIM) of Ḫatti, Šaušgamuwa City-Lord (EN URULIM) and scribe, Tagi-Šarruma Cup-bearer, Talmiya Golden Page (LÚKUŠ7. GUŠKIN), Talmi-Tešob Chamberlain ( LÚ ŠÀ.TAM), Ali-ḫešni LÚḫalipi, Šaušgapiya Overseer of the Seal Cutters (UGULA LÚMEŠ BUR.GUL), Ašmi-Šarruma, Eḫli-Kušuḫ and Eḫli-Šarruma, who seem to have been supervisors in the control of movements of goods. Moreover, we know two high dignitaries who had Hurrian names, PendiŠarruma and Talmi-Tešob. Pendi-Šarruma was Chief Scribe, 21 Chief of the Palace 17.  On this expression, see Görke 2010: 273–77. 18.  See Ünal 1998: 31. 19.  See Ünal 1998: 40–41. 20.  See de Martino 2011: 35–87. 21.  See Marizza 2006: 168 n. 148.

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Attendants 22 and Prince. He might be the same individual 23 who was the sender of the letter RS 94.2523—that is, the companion letter of the one sent by the Hittite King (presumably Šuppiluliuma II), RS 94.2530; the receiver of both letters was Ammurapi, King of Ugarit. 24 Talmi-Tešob, Chief of the Chariot Drivers, is among the witnesses to both the treaty of Tutḫaliya IV with Kurunta (IV 38) and KUB 26.43 (rev. 31′); he is also mentioned in the letter sent by Ini-Tešob of Kargamiš to Ibiranu of Ugarit, RS 17.289 (lines 6–7). The position of Chief of the Chariot Drivers was very high in the Hittite hierarchy and it was not necessarily concerned with military activities on the field; it might have been an honorific title. 25 Two Hittite royal messengers bore Hurrian names: Teli-Te�������������������� š������������������� ob was Hittite messenger at the court of Ramesses II; 26 he was the same official who was the owner of the seal the impression of which is preserved on the tablet from Ugarit RS 17.137 (Ugaritica III, 39–40, 135–37). On this same tablet, there is also the impression of the seal of Teḫi-Tešob, who was another Hittite ambassador. Teḫi-Tešob might have been the son of the scribe Ibizzi. Several scribes with Hurrian names are known from the Hittite texts: Aliḫḫini son of Zuwa, Ḫešni son of Naniya, Ibizzi, Kuzi-Tešob, Pendi-šena, Šaušga-muwa, Šaušga-Runtiya, Tadikkanna, Talmi-Tešob, Teḫub-šeni. Pendi-Šarruma, whom we have already mentioned, and Tagi-Šarruma have the title Chief Scribe. Some of these scribes are involved in the production of texts of the Hurrian or Syrian tradition, such as Ibizzi, who is the scribe of KBo 10.47, a Hittite version of the Poem of Gilgameš, which might derive from the Hurrian version; 27 Kuzi-Tešob, who is the scribe of omina in the Syrian tradition; Talmi-Tešob is the scribe of two tablets of the ḫišuwa festival (KBo 15.37] and KBo 35.260′); Teḫub-šeni, who is the scribe of the tablet KUB 55. 59, which belongs to the group of the Hurrian lists of offerings for Tešob and Ḫebat (ChS I/3–2). Not all the scribes with Hurrian names are specialists only of texts related to the Hurrian language and culture; for example, Ḫešni is the scribe of the tablet KUB 44.24, a festival for a tutelary deity, 28 and also of one of the tablets of the nuntarriašḫa festival, KUB 25.10, which is a text belonging to the non-Hurrian Anatolian tradition. Concerning the cult, we know some priests who had Hurrian names, such as Agiya and Hesni. Naniya was patili priest; patili priesthood presumably belonged to the Hurrian tradition, 29 even if not every patili priest had a Hurrian name. In fact, we know, for example, another patili who had the Anatolian name Lullu. 30 fManniya is a singer from Ankuwa. Experts in rituals are fNikkaluzzi, fŠabšušu, and fUmmaya. Finally, regarding the lower levels of Hittite society, some Hurrian personal names are documented also for individuals mentioned, for example, as members households, as workers, and as servants. 22.  For the interpretation of the hieroglyphic title MAGNUS.DOMUS.FILUS as equivalent to the cuneiform GAL DUMUMEŠ É.GAL, see Hawkins 2005a: 304. 23.  See Singer 2006b: 244. 24.  See Lackenbacher and Malbran-Labat 2005. 25.  See Beal 1992: 450. 26.  See lastly Pernigotti 2010: 97–98. 27.  See Klinger 2005. 28.  See MacMahon 1991: 233–34. 29.  See Taggar-Cohen 2006: 177; Strauss 2006: 88. 30.  Lullu is an Anatolian Lallname; see most recently Zehnder 2010: 46 n. 69.

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The names of officials and dignitaries usually mimic those of the members of the royal family. Moreover, there also many hybrid names—that is Hurro-Hittite or Hurro-Luwian names, such as Ḫeba-piya, fḪeba-muwa, Š����������������������� ������������������������ au��������������������� š�������������������� ga-Runtiya, etc. Finally, among functionaries of a lower level we find shortened (or hypocoristicon) names, 31 such as Agiya or Eḫalte. 31.  On this kind of names in the Emar texts see now Cohen 2010.

Bibliographical References Cohen, J. 2010 “Shortened Names in Emar and Elsewhere.” Pp. 44–49 in I. Singer (ed.), ipamati kistamati pari tumatis: Luwian and Hittite Studies Presented to J. David Hawkins on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday. Tel Aviv. Beal, R. 2002 “The Hurrian Dynasty and the Double Names of Hittite Kings.” Pp. 55–70 in S. de Martino and F. Pecchioli Daddi (eds.), Anatolia Antica (Eothen 11). Florence. Edel, E. 1994 Die ägyptisch-hethitische Korrespondenz. Opladen. Freu, J. 2007 Les débuts du nouvel Empire Hittite. Paris. Giorgieri, M., and Mora, C. 2010 “Kingship in Ḫatti during the 13th Century: Forms of Rule and Struggles for Power before the Fall of the Empire. Pp. 136–57 in Y. Cohen, A. Gilan, and J. L. Miller (eds.), Pax Hethitica (StBoT 51). Wiesbaden. Görke, S. 2010 Das Ritual der Aštu (CTH 490). Leiden. Hawkins, J. D. 2005 “Commentaries on the Readings.” Pp. 248–313 in S. Herbordt, Die Prinzen- und Beamtensiegel der hethitischen Grossreichszeit auf Tonbullen aus dem Nişatepe-Archiv in Hattusa. Mainz am Rhein. Hout, T. van den 1995 Der Ulmitešub-Vertrag (StBoT 38). Wiesbaden. Houwink ten Cate, P. 1998 “An Alternative Date for the Sunasuras Treaty (KBo 1.5).” AoF 25: 34–53. Klinger, J. 2005 “Die hethitische Rezeption mospotamischer Literatur und die Überlieferung des Gilgameš-Epos in Ḫattuša.” Pp. 103–27 in D. Prechel (ed.), Motivation und Mechanismen des Kulturkontaktes in der Späten Bronzezeit (Eothen 13). Florence. Lackenbacher, S., and Malbran-Labat, F. 2005 “Ugarit et les Hittites dans les archives de la ‘Maison d’Urtenu’.” SMEA 47: 227–40. Marizza, M. 2006 “La carica di GAL DUMUMEŠÉ.GAL nel regno ittita.” SMEA 48: 151–75. 2007 Dignitari ittiti del tempo di Tuthaliya I/II, Arnuwanda, Tuthaliya III (Eothen 14). Florence. Martino, S. de 2010a “The Hittire Queen Šatanduḫepa.” Pp. 91–98 in J. Fincke (ed.), Festschrift für Gernot Wilhelm. Dresden. 2010b “Nomi di persona hurriti nella prima età imperiale ittita.” Orientalia 79: 130–39. 2011 Hurrian Personal Names in the Kingdom of Ḫatti (Eothen 18). Florence. McMahon, G. 1991 The Hittite State Cult of the Tutelary Deities. Chicago.

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Roos, J. de 2006 “Materials for a Biography: The Correspondence of Puduḫepa with Egypt and Ugarit.” Pp. 17–26 in Th. Van den Hout (ed.), The Life and Times of Ḫattušili III and Tutḫaliya IV. Leiden. Singer, I. 2006 “The Failed Reforms of Akhenaten and Muwatalli.” British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 6: 37–58. Strauss, R. 2006 Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna. Berlin. Taggar-Cohen, A. 2006 Hittite Priesthood (THeth 26). Heidelberg. Ünal, A. 1998 Hittite and Hurrian Cuneiform Tablets from Ortaköy (Çorum), Central Turkey. Istanbul. Wilhelm, G. 1998 “Name, Namengebung. D. Bei den Hurritern.” RlA 9: 121–27. Zehnder, T. 2010 Die hethitische Frauennamen (DBH 29). Dresden.

Gedanken zu den Textstellen I:90 und III:30 in dem Mittanni-Brief  1 J. Oliva UCLM

Die wohl bekannten Zeilen: I:90 und III:30 des Mittanni-Briefs (EA 24) stehen unter den zahlreichen problematischen Stellen dieses Textes, die sich wegen unserer aktuellen lückenhaften Kenntnis des Hurritischen immer noch einer endgültigen Übersetzung widersetzen. Verbleibende große Analyse- und Deutungsprobleme führen dazu, dass wir diese genannten Zeilen des hurritischen Briefes des Königs von Mittanni, Tushratta, an Amenofis III., den großen Pharao Ägyptens um 1350 v.Chr., nach ungefähr hundert Jahren hurritologischer Forschung nur noch teilweise verstehen können. 2 Im vorliegenden Aufsatz sollen diese beiden Zeilen: I:90 und III:30 unter neuem Blickwinkel behandelt werden. Bei unserer Untersuchung der Zeile III:30 werden neue lexikographische Angaben, die vor kurzer Zeit im nordsyrischen Raum entdeckt worden sind, besonders in Betracht gezogen. Eine neue Übersetzung der betreffenden Paragraphen wird zum Schluss versuchsweise vorgeschlagen.

1.  Die Zeile I:90 Den ersten Teil unseres Vortrags zu I:90 während der Barcelona-RAI 3 haben wir mit bestimmten offenen Fragen nach einer möglichen alternativen Lesung zum dunklen Terminus: ši-u-u-ši beendet, die sich inzwischen, nach Kollation des Textes im Mai 2011 4 und der darauf folgenden Untersuchung dieser und ähnlicher epigraphischer Stellen im selben Mittanni-Brief, definitiv mit Sicherheit negativ beantworten lassen. Da es daher überflüssig geworden ist, an epigraphische Details des Terminus ši-u-u-ši heranzugehen, hat sich hier unsere Diskussion zu I:90 beträchtlich vereinfacht. Doch im Lichte der gegenwärtig existierenden vorläufigen Übersetzungen der betreffenden Passage, 5 dürfte noch folgende Argumentation 1.  Die vorliegende Veröffentlichung entsteht im Rahmen unseres Forschungsprojektes: Hurritische morpho-lexikalische Wörterlisten FFI2008–05004-C02–02, das vom Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) der spanischen Regierung finanziert wird, und des gleichnamigen Projektes POII11–0218– 5304, das von der Consejería de Educación, Ciencia y Cultura der Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha unterstützt wird. Für die Korrektur dieses Manuskripts danke ich R. Sanmartín herzlich. 2.  Dazu aber haben die anderen bekannten Briefe Tušrattas des Amarna-Archivs in akkadischer Sprache in großer Weise beigetragen. Siehe H.-P. Adler, Das Akkadische des Königs Tušratta von Mittanni (AOAT 201; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1976). 3.  Im Rahmen des Workshop „Hurrian Language“. 4.  Ich danke J. Marzahn herzlich, dass ich EA 24 im VAM im Mai 2011 kollationieren durfte. 5.  M.  Giorgieri, ,,La lettera in hurrita“, bei: M.  Liverani, Le lettere di El-Amarna, 2. Le lettere dei „Grandi Re“, Paideia, Editrice, Brescia, 1999, 378; G. Wilhelm „Der Brief Tušrattas von Mittani an

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gültig sein. Im Kontext der Zeile I:90 begegnen wir auch in der vorangehenden Z. 89 weiteren Schwierigkeiten: 89. (. . .) za-ar-ra-ma-a-an še-e-na-a-ab-be 90. KUR u-u-mi-i-né ši-u-u-ši a-ti-i-ni-i-in ta-še-e-en id-du-u-uš-ta.

Unsere Umschrift dieser Passage lautet: 89. (. . .) zarra⸗mān šēna⸗ab⸗be 90. KUR ūmīne ši⸗ū⸗ši atī⸗nīn tašē⸗n idd⸗ūš⸗t⸗a. Einer Anregung Wilhelms 2000 folgend, interpretiert Wegner 6 in dieser Passage den Gebrauch eines Satzes in einem sogenannten „erweiterten Antipassiv“, in dem die Wurzel zarr- direkt durch hurr. šari- „Beute“ gedeutet 7 und dabei den Ausdruck zarra⸗mān als direktes Objekt der Handlung aufgefasst wird. Dabei wird ūmīne „Land“ als Subjekt durch einen nicht ausgedrückten Ergativ (ômini ši⸗ôš⸗i) interpretiert und die Übersetzung: „Und das Land deines Bruders hat die Beute bestaunt?“ geboten. Diese Analyse und die entsprechende Übersetzung scheinen aber meines Erachtens im starken religiösen Kontext des gesamten Paragraphen unwahrscheinlich. Dasselbe gilt für die zuletzt von Dietrich und Mayer gebotene Übersetzung, 8 die die Wurzel zarr- durch akk. sarru „Lügner“ als Subjekt des Satzes interpretieren und šēna⸗ab⸗be KUR ūmīne „das Land Eures Bruders“ als direktes Objekt der Handlung auffassen möchten. Zu diesen Vorschlägen möchte ich folgende Alternativanalyse beider Zeilen im Kontext des gesamten Paragraphen (ZZ. 83–90) anbieten: der Ausdruck zarra⸗mān, dessen Bedeutung leider noch unbekannt ist und dem die enklitische Partikel -mān angeschlossen wird, dürfte vielleicht als intransitives (Zustands-)Verb (mit -a Markierung), d.h.: zarr⸗a⸗mān im Singular interpretiert werden, 9 obwohl in diesem Fall kein erwartetes enklitisches Personalpronomen der 3. Person Singular (-nna-) zu finden ist. Der Ausdruck “deines Bruders das Land ši⸗ū⸗ši“, d.h.: “das Land ši⸗ū⸗ši deines Bruders“ könnte man vielleicht als Subjekt dieser Verbalform im Absolutiv auffassen, wobei wir folglich zwei intransitiven Hauptsätzen in diesen Zeilen begegnen könnten: 1. „Ist doch zarra- das Land ši⸗ū⸗ši deines Bruders“, 2. „sodass das Geschenk abgegangen ist“. Die Stelle könnte dann theoretisch folgendermaßen verstanden werden: 89. hat er sehr sehr vermehrt; 10 ist doch zarra⸗mān deines Bruders 90. das Land ši⸗ū⸗ši, sodass das Geschenk abgegangen ist. Amenophis III. in hurritischer Sprache (EA 24)“, bei: Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments NF 3, Briefe (Hrsg. B. Janowski und G. Wilhelm; Gütersloh, 2006), 182–83; M. Dietrich und W. Mayer, Der hurritische Brief des Dušratta von Mīttānni an Amenḫotep III. (AOAT 382; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2010) 31, 56, 90–91. 6. I. Wegner, Hurritisch. Eine Einführung (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007) 239. Siehe aber zuletzt anders bei Wilhelm, Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments NF 3, Briefe (Hrsg. B. Janowski und G. Wilhelm; Gütersloh, 2006) 183: „Und das Land deines Bruders hat die Beutestücke bewundert“. 7.  Vgl. dazu šarri- in Ugarit bei E. Laroche, Glossaire de la langue hourrite, RHA XXXV (1977) 217, bestätigt jetzt als šari- in Qatna, siehe Th. Richter, „Das Archiv des Idanda“, MAOG 135 (2003) 175. 8.  M. Dietrich und W. Mayer, Der hurritische Brief des Dušratta, 56: „ist ein Lügner, wer das Land Eures Bruders (bei Euch) armselig dargestellt hat/ klein gemacht hat“, siehe dazu auch SS. 91–93, 272. 9.  Vgl. dazu die Verbalformen mit enklitischen Personalpronomina + der Partikel -man: mānn⸗ā⸗ lla⸗mān (MB I, 8, 109; II, 81, 121; III, 102, 109), mānn⸗a⸗tta⸗man (MB II, 85; III, 63), mānn⸗a⸗t(ta)⸗man (MB III, 65), mānn⸗a⸗tilla⸗man (MB IV, 119), idd⸗ūš⸗t⸗a⸗mān (MB III, 2, 11) mit enklitischer Partikel –man auch: keb⸗ān⸗ož⸗āu⸗lla⸗man (MB III, 18). 10.  Mit Giorgieri, ,,La lettera in hurrita“, bei: M. Liverani, Le lettere di El-Amarna, 2. Le lettere dei „Grandi Re“ (Brescia: Paideia, 1999) 378.

Gedanken zu den Textstellen I:90 und III:30 in dem Mittanni-Brief 

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Epigraphisch einleuchtend für die Analyse und Deutung von ši-u-u-ši könnten vielleicht folgende Worte ähnlicher Struktur im Mittanni-Brief von Bedeutung sein: teu-u-na-e (II:112; III:92), Adjektiv/ Adverb, aus der Wurzel te- „zahlreich“, šu-u-u-we (III:115) 11, wobei die Kette –u-u- direkt am selbständigen Personalpronomen der 1. Person Singular šu- „ich“ vor dem Genitivsuffix –we angeschlossen wird, „meiner“, aber auch anscheinend bei gi-u-u-ša (IV:8), die möglicherweise als eine Verbalform der Vergangenheit zu interpretieren ist. Da diese Kette –u-u- unterschiedlich bei verschiedenen Wortarten vorkommt, könnten wir daraus schliessen, dass ein Morphem: -u-u- gegebenenfalls wie beispielsweise bei te-u-u-na-e oder bei šu-u-u-we als Derivationssuffix beziehungsweise als Konnektivum interpretiert werden kann, das im Falle ši-u-u-ši nach einer Wurzel ši- und wahrscheinlich vor einem auslautenden Nominal- beziehungsweise Adjektivsuffix –ši 12 erscheinen könnte und sich direkt auf ūmīne „Land“ beziehen dürfte. Wenn dies richtig wäre, könnte man vermutlich eine Segmentierung: ši⸗ū⸗ši vorschlagen und darunter theoretisch eine hurritische Wurzel unter ši- „, šim-, šiw-, šib- oder šip- suchen. 13 Historisch ist leider aus dem gesamten Paragraph immer noch sehr wenig zu entnehmen. Ob es sich bei ši-u-u-ši um die Benennung eines Territoriums Syriens oder Palästinas handelt, in dem lange ein berühmtes Heiligtum für den Sonnengott in der Stadt Iḫibe existierte, und das damals unter Kontrolle Ägyptens war, bleibt unklar. Es sei hier jedenfalls besonders daran erinnert, dass gerade Palästina in der Amarna-Zeit ein Distrikt Ägyptens war. Der Terminus šiūši scheint nahe einer Bedeutung zu sein, die besonders eng mit dem Sonnengottkult verbunden ist. Trifft diese Analyse -mindestens teilweise- zu, ist vorübergehend folgende Übersetzung des gesamten Paragraphen vorzuschlagen: 14 83. Gilia, mein Gesandter, hat dieses Wort gesagt. 84. Er sagt: “Dein Bruder Nimmuria, 85. der König Ägyptens, hat ein aple-Geschenk gemacht. 86. Er hat es nach Ihibe, der Stadt des Shimige, gebracht 87. (und) er hat es dem Shimige, seinem Gotte, seinem Vater, dargebracht. 88. Alle Geschenke seiner Vorfahren 89. hat er sehr sehr vermehrt; ist doch zarra- deines Bruders 90. das Land šiūši, so dass das (aple-)Geschenk abgegangen ist.

Wenn wir vorläufig diese Auffassung annehmen, dann könnten wir die Stadt Ihibe, diese im Text genannte Stadt des Sonnengottes Shimige, als bekannte heilige Stadt betrachten, die zu einem bedeutungsvollen Heiligen Land šiūši gehören könnte, wohin in der Tradition der Pharaonen der XVIII. Dynastie das aple-Geschenk regelmäßig gesandt wurde. Wenn wir diese Stadt des Shimige versuchsweise in Palästina suchten, hätten wir auf der Karte gut drei Kandidaten zur Verfügung –die Sache ist selbstverständlich noch völlig unklar-: vielleicht die Stadt Joppa (für den Orts­ namen Ihib/pe?, heute Haifa) an der Küste, oder möglicherweise eine bekannte, westlich von Jerusalem liegende “Bet Schemesch”, beziehungsweise noch eine 11.  Jedoch auch šu-ú-ú-ta (III, 112; IV, 24). 12.  Siehe I. Wegner, Hurritisch, 55, 69. Vgl. auch in dem MB: salam⸗ši (III, 77,90,97,99,102,106). 13.  Siehe N. Nozadze, Vocabulary of the Hurrian Language, (Tbilisi, Georgia: Studies of the Society of Assyriologists, Bibliologists and Caucasiologists, 2007) 320 und 323, jedoch noch unklar. 14.  Siehe auch dazu I. Wegner, Hurritisch, 179–181 (lässt aber Z. 90 ohne Kommentar).

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zweite “Bet Schemesch”, die auch westlich von Hazor in Nordpalästina zu suchen ist. Die Lokalisierung von Ihibe muss jedenfalls noch offenbleiben. 15

2.  Die Zeile III:30 Zeile 30 in der III. Kolumne enthält einen dem Anschein nach bereits in Ugarit bekannten hurritischen Terminus tarite-, der hier wahrscheinlich mit dem enklitischen Pluralartikel –na plus der enklitischen Partikel –an in einer segmentierenden Form: tarīte⸗na⸗an vorkommt und zwar im folgenden Kontext: 30. ta-ri-i-te-na-an šuk-kán-ne e-e-še-né ḫa-i-e-ni-la-an 30. tarīte⸗na⸗an šukkanne eše⸗ne ḫa⸗i⸗en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an

Da eine lexikographische (sumerisch-akkadisch-hurritische) Gleichung útul (KAM) = dì-qa-ru = ta-ri-te in dem Vokabular aus Ugarit RS 94–2939:II, 4 bezeugt ist, 16 scheint es denkbar, diesen Terminus ta-ri-i-te-na-an in dem Mittanni-Brief mit dem in Ugarit belegten hurritischen ta-ri-te in Zusammenhang zu bringen und beide Termini versuchsweise mit derselben Bedeutung interpretieren zu dürfen. Bereits in ihrer Publikation dieses Vokabulars in Bezug auf tarite-, haben André-Salvini und Salvini auf tarīte⸗na⸗n im Mittanni-Brief hingewiesen und eine Anregung Speisers, dieses Wort als eine Verbalform aufzufassen, als wenig überzeugend betrachtet. Nach Wegner, 17 ist dieser Terminus in Ugarit eher als tar⸗idi zu analysieren und als ,,Topf” zu übersetzen, was in engem Zusammenhang zu târi- ,,Feuer“ stehen kann. Ein nominales Element -idi ist aber in diesem Fall meines Erachtens unwahrscheinlich, da eine Segmentierung: tari⸗di wie z.B. bei kel⸗di in einem solchen Fall vorzuziehen wäre. Nach derselben Autorin, die zwar einer Ansicht Girbals folgt, ist diese Kette in dem Mittanni-Brief als eine Jussiv-Verbalform tar⸗i⸗(i) d⸗en⸗an in der 3. Person des Plurals plus dem enklitischen Konnektivum –an zu analysieren. 18 Wegner interpretiert dementsprechend tar- als intransitives Verb, und hat dabei keinen Zusammenhang zwischen ta-ri-te in Ugarit und ta-ri-i-te-naan in dem Mittanni-Brief in Betracht gezogen. 19 Doch ta-ri-i-te-na-an im Kontext unserer Stelle in III:30 dürfte aber anders als eine Verbalform interpretiert werden. Wenn wir ta-ri-i-te-na-an als eine Nominalbildung auffassen möchten, dann schiene eine Verbindung zu ta-ri-te in Ugarit gut denkbar. Nehmen wir eine solche Hypothese an, könnten wir darauf theoretisch feststellen, dass die MittanniForm ta-ri-i-te- eine Schreibung mit langem ‑i- gegenüber der kurzen ugaritischen Form ta-ri-te- aufzeigt. Eine orthographische beziehungsweise sprachphonetische (dialektische?) Variante in Ugarit (also im Westen) im Unterschied zum östlichen Mittanni-Hurritischen könnte man dann daraus wahrscheinlich folgern.

15. Vgl. zuletzt G.  Wilhelm, bei B.  Janowski-G.  Wilhelm (Hrsg.), TUAT NF, Band 3, Gütersloh 2006, 183, der die Stadt Ihibene als Ionu übersetzt und stillschweigend als „Heliopolis“ interpretieren möchte. Siehe dazu J. A. Belmonte, TAVO 12/2, 140f. (mit Literatur). 16.  Vgl. B. André-Salvini und M. Salvini, SCCNH 9, 1998, 5, 19; vgl. dazu J. Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription (Harvard Semitic Studies 32; Atlanta, Georgia, 1987) 28–29 unter 44.1. 17. Wegner, Hurritisch, 59 und 284. 18. Wegner, Hurritisch, 175, 178, 284. 19.  Dasselbe gilt für Wilhelm, bei B. Janowski-G. Wilhelm (Hrsg.), TUAT NF, Band 3, Gütersloh 2006, 186 und Dietrich und Mayer, Der hurritische Brief des Dušratta, 61.

Gedanken zu den Textstellen I:90 und III:30 in dem Mittanni-Brief 

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Eine mögliche lexikalische Gleichsetzung des im Mittanni-Brief bezeugten Terminus ta-ri-i-te- mit dem ta-ri-te aus Ugarit könnte zwar gegenwärtig durch einen Text aus Tell Chuēra (in Nordost-Syrien) geklärt und unterstützt werden. Es handelt sich um einen anderen Brief von Sîn-mudammeq an Sutī’u 20 mit Anweisungen zur Vorbereitung eines diplomatischen Treffens (wir möchten hier dies besonders unterstreichen) zwischen Sutäern und einem Großwesir. 21 In ZZ. 13–14 dieses Textes kann man folgendermaßen lesen: (13) DUG ta-ri-ḫa-te GIBIL (14) ki-i mu-ši-šu li-iš-ku-nu ,,Neue tariḫu-Gefäße soll man ihm zur Nacht hinstellen!” 22 Nach Jakob, spielen in Nordsyrien die ,,tarīḫu-Gefäße 23 gerade bei diplomatischen Treffen „anscheinend entgegen der in den Wörterbüchern angegebenen Bedeutung eine wesentliche Rolle beim Servieren von Bier”. 24 Dies ist gerade schon 2008 durch einen anderen Brief, nämlich Text 93–3 aus Tell Ṣabi Abyad, bekannt geworden, der ebenfalls in Nordsyrien und zwar sehr nahe von Tell Chuēra am Balikh entdeckt wurde. 25 Da das Vokabular aus Ugarit für den Terminus tarite- eine hurritische Herkunft deutlich festsetzt, 26 könnten wir uns fragen, ob wir daher nicht an eine Gleichung: Ugarit: ta-ri-te // Mittanni-Brief: ta-ri-i-te // Tell Ṣabi Abyad und Tell Chuēra: DUG ta-ri-ḫa-te

denken könnten. Als phonetisches Phänomen ist es gut bekannt, dass in bestimmten Worten des Hurritischen von Ugarit ein schwacher ‑ḫ schwindet, wie es z.B. in der Gleichung tae = taḫe „Mann“ deutlich festzustellen ist. Auch in dem Hurritischen von Boghazköy ist dies bezeugt, wie z.B. die gleichlaufenden Verbalformen itiḫ⸗in // iti-i-e-in „möge er schlagen“ nachdrücklich beweisen. Wenn tarite- dem akkadischen Terminus diqaru auf den angeführten Vokabular aus Ugarit 27 entspricht, scheint es klar zu sein, dass bei tarite- nur eine Bedeutung „Trinkgefäß“ anzunehmen ist, genauso wie die Texte aus Tell Ṣabi Abyad und Tell Chuēra bei DUG ta-ri-ḫa-te eindeutig aufzeigen. Folglich scheint eine Bedeutung tari- „Topf“ in diesem Fall wenig überzeugend zu sein. Abgesehen von dem Ausdruck ta-ri-ite-na-an in dem Mittanni-Brief, beweist sich hierdurch tatsächlich, dass ta-ri-te in Ugarit und DUG ta-ri-ḫa-te in Tell Ṣabi Abyad und Tell Chuēra doch in Verbindung zu bringen sind und höchstwahrscheinlich mit derselben Bedeutung wie Akkadisch diqaru „Trinkgefäß“ besonders für Bier zu bestimmen sind. Das Wort tarīḫu ,,Trinkgefäß” in den mittelassyrischen Briefen aus Tell Ṣabi Abyad und Tell Chuēra ist offenbar nicht Akkadisch. Dieses Wort ist zwar bisher in der Gegend zwischen dem Balikh und dem Habur bezeugt, im Falle Tell Chuēras 20. S. Jakob, Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien (Wiesbaden: Vorder­ asiatische Forschungen der Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung 2, III, 2009) S. XVII, TCH 92.G.218. 21. Jakob, Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell Chuēra, 52. 22.  Jakob, ibid. 23.  Siehe AHw, 1329 unbekannte Herkunft „ein wertvolles Gefäß, mA“; CAD T, 230b mit DUG auch in Mittelassyrisch belegt. 24. Jakob, Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell Chuēra, 53. 25.  Siehe F.  A. M.  Wiggermann, „Cuneiform Texts from Tell Sabi Abyad related to Pottery“, bei K. Duistermaat, The Pots and Potters of Assyria, Turnhout 2008, 561–562 (Mit Foto und Kopie): Text 93–3:14–18: lu tal-li-ka KAŠ MEŠ ù DUG ta-ri-ḫa-te um-ti s[u]-ti-ú i-lu-ku-ni-n[i] NINDA MEŠ “ . . . he must give beer and tarīḫu-vessels (for) when the Suteans come to have dinner with me” (Ich danke herzlich J. Llop für die Bereitstellung dieser Veröffentlichung). 26.  Siehe dazu bereits den interessanten Kommentar von Wiggermann, ibid., 561–563. 27.  AHw 172f. manchmal als ,,großes Trinkgefäß“; CAD D, 157–159.

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(13. zum 12. Jht. v.Chr.) vermutlich nahe westlich von Waššuganni-, und zwar interessanterweise in beiden Fällen bei der Vorbereitung eines diplomatischen Treffens. Ich halte es für sehr wahrscheinlich in diesem Zusammenhang, dass ta-ri-i-te-na-an in dem Mittanni-Brief ein dritter Fall auf Hurritisch sein könnte, und zwar ähnlich zu diesen nahen Nebenbelegen aus Nordost-syrien im Kontext eines diplomatischen Treffens. Wenn wir dies richtig interpretiert haben, könnten wir daraus folgende Schlüsse ziehen: 1.  Die assyrischen Formen dieses nicht-assyrischen Wortes zeigen eine typische assyrische Auslaut-Pluralform auf –ate. Eine hurritische Wurzel tariḫ- bzw. tarī- wäre dann in dieser assyrisierten Form tariḫ-ate zu erkennen. 2.  Die assyrische Endung: –ate hätte wahrscheinlich mit der hurritischen Endung –te in: tarite- nichts zu tun. 3.  Die hurritischen Termini: ta-ri-te und ta-ri-i-te-na-an wären dementsprechend sehr wahrscheinlich als Nominalformen + der Nominal-, Adjektiv-Endung –t-/ -ti noch unklarer Bedeutung aufzufassen. Vgl. dazu z.B. talim⸗t⸗e⸗na (MB III, 120–121) „die großen“ und die parallele Wortbildung tari(ḫ)- tarī⸗t⸗e⸗na. 4.  Die Formen tarite- und tariḫte- bzw. tarīte- (woraus sehr wahrscheinlich die akkadisierte Form tarīḫu stammt) sind im Singular zu bestimmen; wir würden folglich den Terminus in dem Mittanni-Brief als tarī⸗te⸗na⸗n analysieren und es als Pluralform nur durch den Artikel –na interpretieren. 5.  Der Satz in Z. 30 zeigt deutlich, dass auch hier wie bei dem Brief TCH.92.G.218: 13–14 aus Tell Chuēra von einem diplomatischen Treffen mit den tarite-Gefäßen die Rede ist, und wäre somit folgendermaßen zu analysieren und zu übersetzen: Akkadisch (mA): DUG ta-ri-ḫa-te GIBIL Hurritisch (MB): tarīte⸗na⸗an tarīte⸗na⸗an šukkanne direktes Objekt Adverb

ki-i mu-ši-šu li-iš-ku-nu šukkanne eše⸗ne ḫa⸗i⸗en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an eše⸗ne ḫa⸗i⸗en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an Lokativ transitives Verb

„Die tarite-Gefäße soll man dann (auf) den Boden hinstellen”

Folgende Analyse möchten wir daraus zusammenfassend vorschlagen: tarīte⸗na⸗an: direktes Objekt der Handlung im Absolutiv Plural „Die tarīte(-Gefäße) šukkanne: Adverb „einmal, dann“ eše⸗ne: Lokativ, wobei eše- in diesem Fall im Sinne von „Boden“ statt „Erde“ zu interpretieren ist.

ḫa⸗i⸗en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an: transitives Verb, ḫa- „nehmen, packen, greifen“, 28 das sehr wahrscheinlich zusammen mit dem Nomen eše- lexikalisiert vorkommt, d.h.: den hurritischen Ausdruck: eše⸗ne ḫa- könnte man etwa im Sinne von „auf den Boden fixieren/ fest setzen, hinstellen“ verstehen, und zwar in Übereinstimmung mit akk. šakānum bei dem oben zitierten Parallelausdruck aus Tell Chuēra. Die Verbalbildung ḫa⸗i⸗ en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an ist somit folgendermaßen zu analysieren: ḫa- Verbalwurzel + Transi28.  J. Catsanicos, „L´apport de la bilingue de Hattuša à la lexicologie hourrite“, bei Amurru 1. Mari, Ébla et les Hourrites (J.-M- Durand Hrsg.; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1996) 279; Wegner, Hurritisch, 51; s. dazu urart. Melikišvili, StPohl 7, 64–65; Wilhelm, Iraq LIII (1991) 164 Anm. 20. Siehe aber N. Nozadze, Vocabulary of the Hurrian Language (Tbilisi, Georgia: Studies of the Society of Assyriologists, Bibliologists and Caucasiologists 1, 2007) 132 unter ḫai-.

Gedanken zu den Textstellen I:90 und III:30 in dem Mittanni-Brief 

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tivmarkierung –i- + Jussiv –en + Bindevokal –i- + -la verkürztes Pronominalsuffix der 3. Person Plural -lla „sie“ als direktes Objekt der Handlung im Absolutiv (weist deutlich auf tarīte⸗na⸗an hin) + der enklitischen assoziativen Partikel –an. 29 Man beachte, dass ein direktes Objekt (akk. DUG ta-ri-ḫa-te GIBIL // hurr. tarīte⸗na⸗an) am Anfang des Satzes vorkommt, dem ein Temporaladverb (akk. ki-i mu-ši-šu // hurr. šukkanne) folgt; prekative und jussive Verbalformen kommen dann parallelerweise am Ende des Satzes (akk. li-iš-ku-nu // hurr. eše⸗ne ḫa⸗i⸗ en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an). Bemerkenswert ist auch, dass das akkadische Verb mit einem Prekativ Plural vorkommt, wörtlich ,,mögen sie hinstellen” gegenüber der hurritischen Verbalform: „mögen sie hingestellt werden“. Wenn diese Analyse richtig ist, ist die Verbalkette ḫa⸗i⸗en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an unter der hurritischen Verbalmorphologie noch genauer zu bestimmen, da dieser transitive Satz eine besondere Verbalregel aufzeigt. Syntaktisch ist diese Verbalform als transitives Verb mit ausgedrücktem direkten Objekt (Patiens) zu bestimmen, jedoch weder in ergativischer noch in normaler antipassivischer Satzkonstruktion, da hier der Patiens (tarīte⸗na⸗an mit dem betreffenden Suffix -(l)la- in der Verbalform) deu-

tlich ausgedrückt wird. Es könnte sich wahrscheinlich um einen noch nicht registrierten Fall des sogenannten „erweiterten Antipassivs“ handeln, d.h. eine transitive Verbalform bzw. Satzkonstruktion mit Objekt, 30 in der das Subjekt aber im Absolutiv stehen muss, jedoch nicht ausgedrückt wird (beziehungsweise werden kann) weil es unpersönlich ist, nämlich „es“. 6.  Wenn unsere Analyse richtig ist, gewinnen wir somit für das Hurritische folgende neue Bedeutungen: tariḫ-, tarī- „wertvolles Trinkgefäß für diplomatische Treffen“ eše⸗ne ,,Boden“ (vgl. auch „Erde”) eše⸗ne . . . ḫa- „(Gegenstände) auf den Boden hinstellen“ 7.  Abschliessend möchten wir versuchsweise folgende Übersetzung des gesamten Paragraphen III, 21–34 im Kontext dieses diplomatischen Treffens vorschlagen: 21. undu⸗mān inna⸗mē⸗nīn šēn⸗iww⸗ūe ašti un⸗ēt⸗t⸗a 22. inna⸗mā⸗nīn šēn⸗iww⸗u⸗ta tīḫ⸗an⸗ūll⸗ēt⸗t⸗a 23. uš⸗iww⸗ū⸗nna⸗mān šū⸗we⸗nē⸗nna itt⸗id⸗in uš⸗iww⸗ū⸗nna⸗ān 24. tīḫ⸗an⸗id⸗in šēn⸗iww⸗u⸗š⸗mān KUR ūmīne šūa⸗nna⸗man 25. pugl⸗ušt⸗en ūlla⸗ān KUR ūmīn⸗na šūa⸗lla⸗man 26. wīratē⸗na⸗ān paššītḫe⸗na.MEŠ šūa⸗lla⸗man tubb⸗ul⸗ain 27. tīḫ⸗an⸗īd⸗in⸗(n)na⸗ān šēn⸗iww⸗u⸗ta niḫārī⸗n 28. šēn⸗iww⸗ūe⸗nē āiē bet⸗ešt⸗id⸗in šūa⸗nna⸗man 29. inna⸗mā⸗nīn šēn⸗iww⸗ūe⸗nē āiē bet⸗ešt⸗ēt⸗t⸗a 30. tarīte⸗na⸗an šukkanne ēše⸗ne ḫa⸗i⸗en⸗i⸗(l)la⸗an šēn⸗iww⸗u⸗š 31. wīratē⸗na šūa⸗lla⸗man paššītḫe⸗na⸗ān šūa⸗lla⸗man 32. ūlla⸗ān KUR ūmīn⸗na šūa⸗lla⸗man mariānn⸗arti⸗(l)la⸗an 33. šēn⸗iww⸗u⸗š ūr⸗i⸗ā⸗šše⸗na waš⸗ain⸗an šēn⸗iwwe 34. bet⸗ešt⸗en⸗an niḫāri šir⸗en⸗n(n)a⸗ān

29.  Vgl. Wegner, Hurritisch, 103. 30. Wegner, Hurritisch, 120f., 122 und 128.

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Übersetzung: 21. Und nun, da die Ehefrau meines Bruders kommen wird, 22. wird sie sich meinem Bruder zeigen. 23. Meine legitime Tochter soll ankommen, meine leibliche Tochter 24. soll sich zeigen. Mein Bruder soll das ganze Land 25. versammeln. Vor allen anderen Ländern 26. vor allen Adligen und Gesandten als sich sammeln 27. soll er sie vorstellen. Meinem Bruder die Mitgift 28. insgesamt soll das Gesicht meines Bruders genügen, 29. sodass das Gesicht meines Bruders befriedigt bleibt. 30. Die tarīte-Gefäße soll man dann (auf) den Boden hinstellen, und wenn   mein Bruder 31. alle Adligen und alle Gesandten 32. alle anderen Länder und Streitwagenkämpfer, 33. die mein Bruder hochachtet, einberuft, mein Bruder 34. soll befriedigt sein, und soll die Mitgift genügend sein.

Historisch ist leider aus dem gesamten Paragraph immer noch zu wenig zu entnehmen. Man könnte aber den Eindruck haben, dass ein bestimmter politischer Brauch unter den Hurritern des XIV. Jahrhunderts v.Chr. für diplomatische Treffen in Nordsyrien bekannt war, bei dem eine bestimmte Art von Luxus-Trinkgefäßen, nämlich die tarite-Gefäße für Bier, bei hochpolitischen Empfängen benutzt wurde. Bei diplomatischen Treffen müssen diese Gefäße sicherlich eine wichtige Rolle gespielt haben. Dieser Brauch ist in Nordsyrien weiter erhalten und auch bei Syro-Hurritern und Assyrern während des folgenden Jahrhunderts.

Historical Context and Social Theories: Its Influence on the Study of Mesopotamian Juridical Phenomena

“S a p i e n z a ” U n i v e r s i t à

Eleonora Ravenna di

R o ma / U n i v e r s i d a d N ac i o n al

de

R o sa r i o

The Legacy of the Beginnings: Juridical Monism and Evolutionism Mesopotamian “Law” has attracted the interest of scholars from the very beginning of Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Oppert and Ménant: 1877; Peiser 1889, 1890a, 1890b, 1896; Kohler and Peiser 1890; Meissner 1893, 1898; Delitzsch 1902; Johns 1898, 1904), but it was the discovery and the rapid editing of the content of Hammurabi’s Stela (Scheil 1902) that caused a great impact, not only on assyriologists but also on historians of Law, represented basically by the German Historical School of Law. 1 All this situation was happening while the nation-states and the ideology that supported them, nationalism, were growing stronger (Anderson 1983; Gellner 1983; Hobsbawm 1991; Smith 1991, 2001) and the expansion of capitalism was giving birth to colonialism (Horvath 1972; Hobsbawm 1975, 1987; Bhabha 1994; Wesseling 1997). At the same time, the social sciences were growing, influenced by the same historical context (Wolf 1982; Goody 2006). Europe became the model to follow and the caliper to measure any social or cultural phenomenon. In the case of history, the British anthropologist J. Goody states: “the past is conceptualized and presented according to what happened on the provincial scale of Europe, often western Europe, and then imposed upon the rest of the world” (2006: 1). The same attitude prevailed in “Cuneiform Law” 2 studies; two ideas were born from the phenomena described above and underlie most of these studies. They are the ideas of juridical monism and evolutionism, respectively. Juridical monism assumes that there is a direct relationship between a nation-state and its legal system. The conclusions of this theory became progressively stronger throughout the 19th century as a new form of law, national law, 3 was 1.  The German Historical School of Law resulted in a new Roman tradition. To some extent, it split off from the ius comune and adopted, on the one hand, a different methodology and, on the other hand, returned to the juridical original sources, giving History of Law a scientific status. Its name derives, precisely, from the priority that this tradition gave to the historical dimension in the study of law and of the detailed analysis of the juridical sources. This is the distinctive feature of the school, which analyzed the juridical phenomena, taking into account the idea of “the spirit of times” (see Morineau 2004). 2.  I use the expression “Cuneiform Law” in a general manner. 3.  The 19th century is characterized by the draft of the national law codes in those countries with a Roman tradition; the common European juridical system, based on the ius commune, was replaced by this new system based on national codes (Morineau 2004: 190).

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developing. National law is a result of the intention to change law in order to adapt it to the new reality and to the needs of capitalism. It is the result of the synthesis of several premises of Roman Law, the European ius commune, and the new ideas of the Enlightenment. A turning point was the drafting of the Napoleonic Code, although the theoretical synthesis was achieved by H. Kelsen in his Reine Rechtslehre (“Pure Theory of Law”), later, in 1934. This conception of law is currently in force in most of the European countries and Latin America but not in the Anglo-Saxon world, where the legal system is based on Common Law. This idea of a unique, hierarchical, and centralized juridical system underlies Scheil’s work, which organized and considered the contents of Hammurabi’s Stela as a Code; later, many scholars accepted and used these as valid premises. The same conception may be seen in the collective work Hammurabi’s Gesetz (1904– 1923) 4, which presents the collection of laws and documents from juridical practice. M. Roth thinks that the German historians presupposed “an intimate and mutually illuminating relationship between two categories of sources, the provisions in the law collections and the documents from daily law practice” (2001: 244); the attitude of the German researchers may be explained by their deep involvement with the principles of the German Historical School of Law. These principles had as their scope the consolidation of the history of law as a science, so the School focused on the very careful study of the original documentation and not on later interpretation of it. On the other hand, they paid attention to private law and to the institutions to which the rules refer; for example, family, matrimony, property, etc., rules should be interpreted within the context of the institution to which they belonged (Morineau 2004). In connection with this, the several legal collections and the Mesopotamian juridical documentation has been studied, with few exceptions taking into account the categories and terminology of Roman Law. The problem is, as Liverani stresses, that Roman Law is a closed system that has its own coherence and specificity because it was born of Roman jurists. The use of these categories (or the modern ones) for the study of other legal and juridical systems has led to consideration of the difference in terms of logical and systemic inferiority and may produce negative effects: on the one hand, it distorts and trivializes the concepts and categories of Roman Law, using them in situations that have nothing to do with the original ones and, on the other hand, it misunderstands the nature of the cases and the alien institutions to which those categories are applied forcibly (Liverani 2008). This assumption greatly affected not only early interpretation but also more recent research. For example, in the two volumes edited by R.  Westbrook (2003), the sections of each chapter continue to be divided according to modern categories such as Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, or Family Law. The other determining factor, which I want to stress and has always been present—although today in “hidden” forms—is Evolutionism, the theoretical trend that was driven by a strong impulse in the second half of the 19th century whose origins can be traced through the theory of the Four Stages, which dates back to the 18th century (Meek 1987). 4.  Hammurabi’s Gesetz (1904–1923; Leipzig: Pfeiffer; Vol. 1 by Kohler and Peiser (1904); vols. 2 (1909), 3 (1909), 4 (1910) and 5 (1911) by Kohler and Ungnad; and vol. 6 (1923) by Koschaker and Ungnad.

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The appearance—in the academic universe—of this unexpected manifestation of law, “Cuneiform Law,” forced scholars to find a way to render it understandable. While some scholars tried to find the connections with the legal texts of the Old Testament, others tried to do so with the Law of the Twelve Tables (Leges Duodecim Tabularum) in an evolutionary fashion, as if the only possibile explanation should be a historically ascendant course. There are traces of this direct or indirect evolutionist perspective in the writings of many scholars beyond how they consider the law collections—as real codes, royal propaganda, or part of traditional wisdom. This isue was treated by M. Roth in Reading Mesopotamian Law Cases (2001).

Other Approaches: Juridical Pluralism and Legal sensibility The search for a better understanding of the social and cultural rationality of the “Other” lead the anthropologists to question the evolutionary perspective and to develop other perspectives in order to explain or understand these general problems. It is possible to take advantadge of this critical renewal. In this paper, I would like to stress two concepts: juridical pluralism and legal sensibility. They are not unknown in assyriological studies, 5 but they are not used systematically and may be useful in the study of juridical phenomena. Juridical pluralism represents a new way of thinking about law that gained momentum after the decolonization process and in the last few decades, as a result of globalization (de Sousa Santos 1997; Correas 1997; Castro 2000; Ochoa García 2002; Suárez Villegas 2006; Geertz 1983). These phenomena produced a paradoxical effect, putting pressure on the principles of the nation-state. On the one hand, it generated the need for a supra-national law in order to regulate different aspects of “globalized” capitalism; on the other hand, it generated resistance among, for example, the aboriginals in America and some local communities that expressed their demands for what they considered their rights and autonomy. Today, juridical anthropology, sociology of law and the critical theory of law are questioning the state’s monopoly on the drafting of law. They stress its strong rationality, which makes other juridical phenomena invisible. They postulate the existence of a juridical pluralism, which means the action of several juridical practices that coexist in the shadows with the hegemonic law, within a geographical or social space. This phenomenon gives birth to different kinds of norms, power mechanisms, legitimacy, and social organization. When we focus on the Old Babylonian Period, the well-known paragraph from Hammurabi’s collection—“Let any wronged man who has a lawsuit come before the statue of me, the king of justice, and let him have my inscribed stela read aloud to him, thus may he hear my precious pronouncements and let my stela reveal the lawsuit for him; may he examine his case, may he calm his (troubled) heart, (and may he praise me)” (Roth 1995a: 134–35) 6—introduces us, in an apologetic manner, to the processes that took place in Mesopotamia. The kingship/the state had 5. For example, J.  Renger (1977) states “it seems to me that we have to reckon with several ‘Rechtskreise’ in Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian period. They are, in my opinion, not only differentiated horizontally (i.e., representing the various regions of Old Babylonian Mesopotamia), but also vertically (i.e., representing the various segments of the Old Babylonian society).” Nevertheless, these ideas are not frequently considered. 6.  About the wronged man, see Roth 2002.

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enlarged its power, overlapping the traditional power of the assembly and the elders. This context made it possible that justice, understood as equity and justness, 7 could become a royal prerogative; but, although the communal institutions had been pushed into the background, they had not been destroyed and they retained a share of power. A hint of what I am proposing can be find in the letter AbB 4.40. 8 It refers to a fighter, Ibbi-Adad, who informs Hammurabi that another man named Šēp-Sîn had claimed a field that Ibbi-Adad says belonged to his father’s house. The dispute was not new, because it had first been presented before Šamaš-ḫāzir (an official of the crown), the city, and the elders. They concluded that the field belonged to Ibbi-Adad and they wrote their verdict. It seems that the lawsuit continued, because we have the letter that Ibbi-Adad wrote to Hammurabi attesting to this fact. The information that this document provides us with is important, because the plaintiff had presented his case first before Šamaš-ḫāzir, who was in charge of institutional affairs and was appointed by the central authority—the city—and the elders—who represented the local power (Ishikida 1998); and after this instance, he addressed it to Hammurabi, the king. Taking into account that recognition is one of the relevant elements to consider regarding the existence of a juridical system, in this situation, the plaintiff appeals to the traditional authorities and the king’s bureaucracy and, finally, to the king himself. On the other hand, Hammurabi recognizes his officer and the local authorities’ actions, at least in this case, at the same level. This could be considered a trace of two juridical spheres acting de facto in the same territory although in different social spaces: the communal one, represented by the elders and the city; and the state sphere, represented by officialdom, of which the supreme authority was the king. Another case helps us to trace a juridical pluralism (from our point of view) although, at first glimpse, it could be thought of as a domestic problem. In Hammurabi’s law collection, there is a provision that states: §129 If a man’s wife should be seized lying with another male, they shall bind them and cast them into the water; if the wife’s master allows his wife to live, then the king shall allow his subject (i.e., the other male) to live. (Roth 1995a: 105)

It is possible to conclude that, at least in certain circumstances, the king permitted the observing of previous traditions in the imparting of justice, regardless of the existence of differentiated institutions and authorities. 9 Taking into account what has been analyzed up to this point, I would like to insist that we are in these cases in the presence of two types of juridical practices that coexisted and interacted: the communal practice—represented by the city assembly and the elders—and the husband, resulting from a long tradition. On the other hand, there is the state, 7.  Zaccagnini states: “la disposizione legislativa, in quanto espressione concreta di un canone di equità e correttezza, è espressa attraverso . . . kittum e mīšarum. . . . In definitiva, kittum e mīšarum connotano la norma positiva come espressione di un ideale di correttezza e dirittura, di giustizia e di equità” (Zaccagnini 1988: 38–39) 8.  Kraus 1968. 9.  The authorities are those social actors who are at the same time individuals, like all the others, but are also assigned by the juridical discourse as persons whose actions are not going to be considered as their own but will be considered as belonging to the community. In Mesopotamia, there were various officials or consultative bodies that took part in the solution of diverse problems (see Driver and Miles 1960: 490–94; Lafont 2000: 16–21; Westbrook 2003: 25–31)

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represented by the king and officialdom, who in terms of the longe durée are a relatively new phenomenon. I think that this relatively new sphere was not interested in destroying the old practices except when they contradicted its own interests. The second concept I would like to introduce, which is also linked with the first, is legal sensibility. As I suggested previously, the answer to that “other law,” unknown and unexpected, was to consider it part of a historical continuum in an evolutionary fashion. Perhaps it is time to abandon this approach and use another one. I agree with the ideas of C. Geertz , an American anthropologist who proposed that anyone concerned with speaking comparatively of law must bear in mind that law is a cultural phenomenon. He states that legal sensibilities differ not only in the degree to which they are determinate and in the power that they exercise, visà-vis other modes of thought and feeling, over the processes of social life or in their particular style and content; they also differ, markedly, in the means they use, the symbols they deploy, the stories they tell, the distinctions they draw, the visions they project—to represent events in juridical form (Geertz 1983). An example of a similar perspective is Martha Roth’s article “Mesopotamian Legal Traditions and the Laws of Hammurabi.” In it, she focused on the set of provisions involving “cheek slapping,” considering it to be a social offence redressed by the legal system (1995: 15). I wonder whether it is possible to put into practice the concept of legal sensibility with regard to other provisions of the law collections, such as those that express social differentiation and gender distinctions. In doing so, investigating also the social fabric and the cultural assumptions that underlie these juridical categories, the legal collections must be associated with other kinds of documents that would provide information even more rich than the discourse that is crystallized in the provisions.

Some Final Thoughts “Time and History,” the topic of the 56th RAI, relates not only to ancient times; time also transforms our vision of the past. Doing history means interpreting past societies in the context of the present. In doing so, anthropology has an important role, because ancient societies are “others” to us. The current topic in anthropology is no longer “exotic” societies but the diversity between and among societies. This comprehensive perspective toward “otherness” allows anthropologists to develop a fine sensibility for the comprehension of differences—among them, especially different legal practices, which I have here called legal sensibility. I hope that a perspective that is not prejudiced by the evolutionary and Eurocentric positions will improve our comprehension of the social and cultural processes that lie at the bottom of the legal prescriptions.

Bibliography Anderson, B. 1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994 The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

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Castro, M. ed. 2000 Actas del XII Congreso Internacional Derecho Consuetudinario y Pluralismo Legal: Desafíos del tercer milenio. Arica: Universidad de Chile y Universidad de Tarapacá. Correas, O. 1997 El pluralismo jurídico: un desafío al Estado contemporáneo. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales 168: 91–98 Delitzsch, F. 1902 Zur juristischen Litteratur Babyloniens. Beiträge zur Assyriologie 4: 78–87. Driver, G. R., and J. C. Miles 1960 The Babylonian Laws I: Legal Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon. Geertz, C. 1983 Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Gellner, E. 1983 Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Goody, J. 2006 The theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, E. J. E. 1975 The Age of Capital 1848–1875. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1987 The Age of Empire 1875–1914. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1991 Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horvath, R. J.  1972 A Definition of Colonialism. Current Anthropology 13.1: 45–57. Ishikida, M. Y. 1998 The Structure and Function of Dispute Management in the Public Administration of Larsa under Hammurapi. Orient 33: 66–78. Johns, C. H. W. 1898–1902  Assyrian Deeds and Documents Relating to the Transfer of Property. 3 vols. Cambridge. 1904 Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Kelsen H. 1934 Reine Rechtslehre: Einleitung in Die Rechtswissenschaftliche Problematik. Vienna: Franz Deuticke.  Kohler, J., and A. Ungnad 1909 Hammurabi’s Gesetz, vol. 2/6. Leipzig: Pfeiffer. 1909 Hammurabi’s Gesetz, vol. 3/6. Leipzig: Pfeiffer. 1910 Hammurabi’s Gesetz, vol. 4/6. Leipzig: Pfeiffer. 1911 Hammurabi’s Gesetz, vol. 5/6. Leipzig: Pfeiffer. Kohler, J., and F. E. Peiser 1890 Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben. Leiden: Pfeiffer. 1904 Hammurabi’s Gesetz, vol. 1/6. Leipzig: Pfeiffer. Koschaker, P., and A. Ungnad 1923 Hammurabi’s Gesetz, vol. 6/6. Leipzig: Pfeiffer. Kraus, F. R.   1968 Briefe aus dem Archive des Šamaš-Hāzir in Paris und Oxford (TCL 7 und OECT 3) Leiden: Brill. Lafont, S. 2000 Considérations sur la practique judiciarie en Mésopotamie Pp. 15–34 in Rendre la justice en Mésopotamie, Archives judiciaires du Proche-Orient ancien (IIIe–Ier millénaires avant J.-C) ed. F. Joannès. Saint-Denis : Presses Universitaires de Vincennes. Liverani, M. 2008 I diritti “cuneiformi”: lineamenti per una storia degli studi (con particolare attenzione al caso italiano) Pp.  11–39 in I diritti nel mondo cuneiforme (Mesopotamia e regioni adiacenti ca. 2500–500 a.C), ed. M. Liverani and C. Mora. Pavia: IUSS Press.

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Los origenes de la Ciencia Social. El desarrollo de la teoría de los cuatro estadios. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Meissner, B. 1893 Beiträge zur altbabylonischen Privatrecht. Leipzig: Hinrichs. 1898 Altbabylonische Gesetze. Beiträge zur Assyriologie 3: 493–523. Morineau, M. 2004 Un acercamiento a Savigny. Anuario Mexicano de Historia del Derecho 16: 187–200. Ochoa García, C. 2002 Derecho Consuetudinario y Pluralismo Jurídico. Guatemala: Cholsamaj. Oppert, J. and J. Ménant, 1877 Documents juridiques de l’Assyrie et de la Chaldée. Paris. Peiser, F. E. 1889 Keilschriftliche Acten-Stücke aus Babylonischen Städten: Nebst 2 Lichtdrucktaf. / Von Steinen u. Tafeln d. Berl. Museums i. Autographie, Transscription u. Uebersetzung. Berlin. 1890a Jurisprudentiae Babylonicae quae supersunt. Ph.D. dissertation. Berlin University. 1890b Babylonische Verträge des Berliner Museums in Autographie, Transscription und Uebersetzung. Berlin. 1896 Texte juristischen und geschäftlichen Inhalts (Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek 4) Berlin: Reuther & Reichard. Renger, J. 1977 Wrongdoing and It Sanctions. On “Criminal” and “Civil” Law in the Old Babylonian Period. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 20: 65–77. Roth, M. 1995a Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Writings from the Ancient World 6. Atlanta: Scholars. 1995b Mesopotamian Legal Traditions and the Laws of Hammurabi. Chicago Kent Review 71.1: 13–39 2001 Reading Mesopotamian Law Cases: PBS 5 100: a Question of Filiation. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44: 243–92. 2002 Hammurabi’s Wronged Man. Journal of Ancient Oriental Society 122: 38–45. Scheil, J. V. 1902 Textes Elamites-sémitiques, deuxième série. Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse IV. Paris: LeRoux. Smith, A. 1991 National Identity. Reno: University of Nevada Press. 2001 Nationalism. Cambridge: Polity. Sousa Santos, de 1997 Pluralismo Jurídico, Escalas y Bifurcación. Pp. 63–78 in Conflicto y Contexto: Resolución alternativa de conflictos y contexto social. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo. Suárez Villegas, J. C. 2006 Pluralismo Jurídico. Madrid: Centro Estudios Financieros. Wesseling, H. L.  1997 Imperialism and Colonialism: Essays on the History of European Expansion. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Westbrook, R. ed. 2003 A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law I–II. Leiden: Brill. Wolf, E. 1982 Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zaccagnini, C. 1988 La formazione del diritto in Mesopotamia: codificazioni regie e consuetudine nel II millennio a.C.  Pp.  35–50 in La Formazione del diritto nel Vicino Oriente Antico, ed. A. Theódoridès. Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane.

The Importance of Time in Old Babylonian Juridical Texts Cristina Simonetti

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1.  Time as Legal Fact Time is a very important element for human activities, and also for legal activities. Legally, however, every relevant fact is unthinkable apart from spatial and temporal context. For some jurists, legal effects arise when an action is performed. For others, the time of the “effects” must follow the acts’ time. But jurists are not in agreement when they describe time with regard to the legal relevant facts. In any case, time is an aspect of the reality of legal facts. 1 For jurists, it is not “time” itself that is relevant, but the course of time. The course of time is an important element of legal documents because it is related to the legal effects of the legal situation. Legally, time is a mere fact, independent of the human will, but it has a huge influence on legal acts (acta) and deals (negotia). 2 Generally, a human act produces legal effects after its performance. For example, a person is married after his marriage, or becomes an owner after a purchase or another relevant act, or becomes a thief because he steals something, and so on. For this reason, every legal text must be dated in order to have validity. But sometimes, over the course of time, the effects can decay—for example, when something is invalidated by a new legal act or by a decree. In the latter case, human will is not involved. However, sometimes a legal act can have a retroactive 3 value and can produce retroactive effects, such as in the case of amnesty or other similar measures. In the Old Babylonian period, we have many legal texts that produced an effect after their performance and one kind of legal test that had a retroactive effect. In this short study, I will illustrate some aspects of time in Old Babylonian legal texts. 1. Cf. E. Moscati, s.v.“Tempo”, in Novissimo Digesto Italiano (Turin, 1971) 1115–16. 2.  Ibid., 1116–17. 3.  By “retroactive” I mean the etymological value of this adjective. Cf. M. S. Giannini, s.v. “Atto amministrativo. Efficacia: nel tempo e nello spazio” in: Enciclopedia del diritto (Varese, 1959) 184ff. “Vi sono, per contro, provvedimenti i quali sono ‘necessariamente’ retroattivi, perché volti per loro natura a regolare situazioni che si sono svolte nel passato, come l’annullamento, la ratifica, la convalida, la ricostruzione di carriera, i riscatti di anni di servizio al fine del trattamento di quiescenza, le concessioni in sanatoria, e così molti altri casi.”

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2.  Date in Old Babylonian Legal Texts The date is an essential requirement of a legal text: a legal text must be dated to have validity. Often, when we find a complete text that seems to be of a legal nature, but lacking a date, we say that it is a scholastic text, not a legal text. 4 The date is important for legal texts of a private nature but also for administrative and normative texts. In this latter case, we have difficulty identifying Old Babylonian legal codes as normative texts, but we all agree that Old Babylonian royal edicts should be defined as normative texts. So, when we read a legal text, in the Old Babylonian period, it must have a date. The date in this period was expressed by day, month, and year. On some occasions, the day was not considered important, and many legal texts have only the month and the year. Days were expressed by a numeral mark. The months in this period were twelve: I bár.zag.gar (nisannu), II gu4.si.sá (ajjaru), III sig4.ga (simanu), IV šu.numun.na (Duʾuzu), V NE.NE.gar (abu), VI kin.dinnin.na (elūlu), VII du6 /DUL-ku (tašrītu), VIII apin.du8.a (araḫsamna), IX gan.gan.na (kislīmu), X ab.ba.è (ṭebētu), XI zíz.a.an (šabaṭu), XII še.KIN. TAR (addaru). Each month had thirty days, but sometimes the Old Babylonian scribes had to add a thirteenth month, XIIa (there are various possibilities: dirig. bara.zag.gar, dirig.kin.dimin, dirig.še.KIN.TAR, itu.dirig.ga), to realign the course of the administrative year with the astronomical year. 5 The year was expressed by a year name—that is, a sentence in which an important event relating to politics, religion, or some other public event is named. The year-names were put in special lists, 6 and because of them, we can attempt to place an event in a relative chronology and approach an absolute chronology as well. 7 4.  This is true for many kinds of legal texts in this period, but the loan texts from Kanish, for exemple, have no dates. I think that this is the result of other contingent needs and that another explanation must be found. 5.  Cf. S. Greengus, “New Evidence on the Old Babylonian Calendar and Real Estate Documents from Sippar,” JAOS 121 (2001) 257–67. He analyzes the new data and distinguishes various sequences of the months in the different scribal traditions. The thirteen month is also unique at Sippar. 6.  Cf. S. A. B. Mercer, Sumero-Babylonian Year Formulae (London, 1956); M. Sigrist, Isin Year Names (Berrien Springs, MI, 1988); idem, Larsa Year Names (Berrien Springs, MI, 1990); M.  J.  A. Horsnell, The Year-Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon (Hamilton, Ont., 1999). 7.  For the chronological debate on the First Dynasty of Babylon, the publication of H. Gasche, J. Armstrong, S. Cole, and V. Gurzadyn (Gasche et al., Dating the Fall of Babylon [Ghent and Chicago, 1998]) has been very important. M.-H. Gates wrote: “the chronological debate was, I believe, conclusively resolved in 1998 only because, for the first time, ceramic typology, stratigraphic analysis and settlements distribution patterns for mid-second millennium Babylonia were given equal weight with textual data. In a second innovative move, the newly proposed chronology was tested against current historical and archaeological dating systems in the rest of the Near East, from Iran to Anatolia, modern Turkey, and Egypt” (M.-H. Gates, “Archaeology and the Ancient Near East: Methods and Limits,” in D. C. Snell, ed., A Companion to Ancient Near East [Malden, MA, 2007] 70), referring to the Gasche et al. volume. But she also refers to M. Tanret, ed., Just in Time: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Ancient Near Eastern Chronology (2nd Millennium bc), Akkadica 119–120 (2000), where an article by P.  J. Hubert (“Astronomy and Ancient Chronology,” pp. 159–76) contradictes the 1998 conclusions; Huber says: “the precise version of the Gasche Chronology (Ammisaduqa year 1 = 1549, fall of Babylon 51 years later) is not supported by the astronomical evidence, contrary to the claims made by Gasche et al. (1998). It is flatly contradicted by the Venus text, the nearest compatible Venus dates being -1581 and -1517. Also the eclipses do not support it” (p. 172), and “I do not think that the conflict can be resolved without additional evidence” (p. 173).

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Sometimes, however, we find texts with an unknown date, because the scribe used a different year-name that was not included on the list. In this case, the editor of the text can attempt to determine the event described in the year-name and place that year in a relative chronology. If the date is important, generally, for all legal texts, there is an important typology of texts in which there are two dates, namely, loan texts. Loan texts, however, need to be dated, like all other legal texts, but they require in addition a second date, the date when the debtor must repay his debt. And this second date must be in the future. This typology of legal documents produces effects related to time: the debtor will pay his debt after he has the silver or barley or similar other payment means. And a seller is not able to say, “this is my field,” after he has sold the field; otherwise, he would need to pay a penalty.

3.  The Old Babylonian Royal Edicts In the Old Babylonian period, kings often promulgated measures (i.e., edicts) to provide assistance to their subjects who were in difficulty of one kind or another. These measures are reflected in the year-names of the kings of the dynasties of Isin, Larsa, and Babylon. Unfortunately, we have only a few texts that are identified as edicts: the Edict of Ammi-ṣaduqa, 8 the Edict of Samsuiluna, 9 and an edict of an unknown king, 10 and all them are fragmentary, so it is difficult understand their real importance. But we can say, thanks to other evidence, that they had an effect on three areas: loans (and taxes), slavery, and the sale of real estate. When people were exhausted by famine and poverty, they contracted debts. When they were unable to repay them, they could sell themselves or their sons or daughters to their creditors and, in extreme cases, they sold their houses and fields. Obviously, creditors acquired real estate by paying a low price, because they used the real estate to get return on their capital but also interest on the loan. We know, moreover, that in the Code of Ḫammurapi there is an article 11 regarding the freeing of landed people who fell into captivity: after three year, they must be freed. The Old Babylonian kings apparently intended to assist their subjects by enacting this kind of measure, and they generally issued this sort of edict in the first or second year of their reigns. Only Rīm-Sîn of Larsa, who reigned 60 years, and Ḫammurapi of Babylon, who reigned 42 years, issued edicts more than once during their reign. 12 Edicts remitted some kinds of debts that had been negotiated prior to the promulgation of the edict; the edict set free people who had fallen into debt slavery before its promulgation, and it annulled sales that had been made prior to its promulgation. So we can say that Old Babylonian royal edicts had retroactive effects, because they intervened in regard to acts previously performed, annulling them. 8. F. R. Kraus, Ein Edikt des Königs Ammi-ṣaduqa von Babylon (SD 5; Leiden, 1958) 1–181; and idem, Königliche Vefügungen in altbabylonischer Zeit (SD 11; Leiden, 1984) 184–288. 9. Ibid., 154–60. 10.  Ibid., 160–62. 11.  CH §117. Cf. F. R. Kraus, Königliche Vefügungen, 265. 12.  Cf. J. Renger, Royal Edicts of the Old Babylonian Period: Structural Background, in ISCANEE 3 (2002) 139–62, where he cites the bibliography.

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C ristina S imonetti In §2 of Ammi-ṣaduqa’s Edict, we read: . . . iš-tu m u am-mi-di-ta-na lu g al. e ḪI.r a m a .d a. an . n a ab. ak. ak. k[e] b a .a n.d a .a b. d[u8].a a-di iti bar. zag .[ga r] ša ⟨mu⟩ a[m-m]i-ṣa-du-qa lu g al. e de n.lìl.le n am. en . n u n . n a.[n i] b[í].ib .g u.la du tu . g in7 kala[m. m]a.[ni.še] z[i . b]í . e[š í]b.t[a.èa] . . . “. . . from the year when Ammi-ditana, the king remitted the debts. . . , until the month of Nissan of the year when Ammi-ṣaduqa, the king: the god Enlil increased his noble power, like the god Šamaš rose firmly over his country. . . .”

In this passage, there are two dates: the first, related to the previous edict, is the terminus post quem; the second one is the terminus ante quem. Every outstanding amount due to the palace by the karum of Babylon and the karum of other cities during that period were remitted. In §4, the king also remitted some private loans on condition that they were contracted after the second day of the month dirig. še.gur10.kù (XIII) of the 37th year of Ammiditana; anyone who had collected debt should give it back, debts still active were to be canceled, and anyone who was noncompliant should be put to death. It is evident that the Edict of Ammi-ṣaduqa had retroactive effects (but it is almost certain that other edicts also were retroactive). This retroactive nature of the royal edict is very interesting because it was unusual in the Old Babylonian period. No doubt, creditors found it difficult to understand. Although edicts of this kind were well accepted by the poor, they probably were considered unjust by creditors, who saw their credits and income affected by the cancelation of debts. If we read the documents collected by Kraus, and now many more since his initial publications, we can see how people understood them.

4.  Clauses in Legal Texts We can see that only in the case of Larsa and Babylon are there legal texts relating to royal edicts (from Isin, we have only year-names and royal inscriptions or hymns). In some texts, dated to the reign of Rīm-Sîn of Larsa, from Larsa, Ur, and Kisurra, and from Sippar and other places in Babylonia dated to the reign of Sumu-la-El and his successors, there are references to royal edicts. These documents include loans, sales, decrees of manumission, transactions, and letters. Some of them are very famous because they have been cited as providing explanation of the matters addressed in the edicts. Others are less famous because they give us less helpful information. The most part of them stated that someone can claim something because of the Royal Edict: so we know that when the King enacted an Edict, the subjects could go to the judges, or other officers, with their tablets and ask for verification. If they had the exact requisites, the judge annulled the act, and broke the tablet. Sometimes, however, the texts are normal sales or loans, and the reference to the edict is not effective but temporal—that is, no annulment was involved; the scribe is simply recording that the action cited in the document was performed after the edict (so the edict has no effect on the transaction).

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TCL 10 40: iš-tu pu-ut ma-tim i-li-lu-na / ù ku-na-ka-tum it-ta-ab-ka / p kù-dnin šu bu r giš SAR/in . ši.in.šá m Larsa RS 15 sale in the operative section between the text and the witness list YBT 8 139 egir inim lugal Larsa RS 25 sale in the operative section YBT 8 110 wa-ar-ki a-wa-at šar-ri-im Larsa RS 49 sale in the operative section Peiser, KB 4, p.10 wa-ar-ki šar-ru-um mi-ša-ra-am [i]š-ku-nu Sippar Sumu-la-El (?) sale between the oath and the witness list BE 6/1 8 iš-tu lugal su-mu-la-dingir mi-ša-ra-am [i]š-ku-nu Sippar Sumu-la-El sale after the witness list OECT 8 3 wa-ar-ka-at ṣi-im-da-ti ša su-mu-ia-mu-ut-ba-⟨al⟩ ṣi-im-da-ta-am iš-ku-nu Sumu-yamut-bal sale between the oath and the witness list RA 52 p. 216 wa-ar-ka-at mu su-mu-li-el ù su-mu-ia-mu-ut-ba-⟨al⟩ ṣi-im-da-ta-am iš-ku-nu Sumu-la-El sale at the end CT 48 71 wa-ar-ki ṣi-im-da-ti-im Sippar Sin-muballiṭ 9 loan after the date of the repayment

They are very few cases and they are all dated in a few short years, from Sumu-laEl to Rīm-Sîn. The meaning of this indication has been clear for a long time: 13 the buyer, or loaner, want to confirm that the sale, or loan, is not subject to the effect of the current edict, because the transaction took place after the promulgation of the edict. But this disclaimer was not effective for the next edict, because the next edict would have retroactive effect.

13. Kraus, Edikt des Königs Ammi-ṣaduqa; and idem, Königliche Vefügungen, 31–33.

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Therefore, I think that this notation turned out to be not useful at all, and it was abandoned. This also explains why it was used in so few cases. 14 Nevertheless, this practice signals a misunderstanding of the reasons for the edicts by the subjects. They could not understand why a normative act, such as the edict, could annul their private legal acts. They thought they had found a solution in this notation, but it was ineffective, and so they had to resort to other means. In my opinion, the real answer to the problem, for the sale, was the creation of a new category of texts: fictive adoptions. 14.  They are not even 1% of the sale texts, which number more than 1,000.

Sag mir quando, sag mir wann. . . Stefan Jakob Heidelberg

Die Jahrhunderte währende Rivalität zwischen Assyrien und Babylonien fand im 13. Jahrhundert v.  Chr. in der Eroberung und Plünderung Babylons durch Tukultī-Ninurta I. einen vorläufigen Höhepunkt, der sowohl in literarischen Werken (Königsinschriften, Chroniken, Epen) als auch zeitgenössischen Alltagstexten thematisiert wurde. Dadurch steht der modernen Forschung eine Vielzahl verschiedener, sich ergänzender Quellen zur Verfügung, die zu einem nicht geringen Teil sogar datiert sind. Dieser glückliche Umstand wird allerdings nicht nur durch das übliche Problem mehr oder weniger fragmentarischer Textzeugen relativiert, sondern auch dadurch, dass die Chronisten, statt einer objektiven Darstellung historischer Sachverhalte erkennbar ihrer jeweiligen ideologischen Botschaft verpflichtet waren, was sich in der eklektischen Auswahl und stark wertenden Darstellung von Ereignissen zeigt. Zudem weist die Abfolge der Eponymen und damit das chronologische Rückgrat für die fragliche Epoche an entscheidender Stelle Unsicherheiten auf. Entsprechend groß ist der Freiraum für unterschiedliche Interpretationen, die denn auch in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten zu mitunter stark voneinander abweichenden Rekon­ struktionsmodellen geführt haben. Tukultī-Ninurta selbst beschreibt die Auseinandersetzung in mehreren seiner Inschriften in gekürzter Fassung so: „. . . mit Kaštiliaš, dem König von Karduniaš, traf ich zusammen, um Krieg zu führen . . . Inmitten der Schlacht ergriff Kaštiliaš, den kassitischen König, meine Hand . . . Gefangen und gebunden brachte ich ihn vor Assur, meinen Herrn.“ (RIMA 1, A.0.78.5:53–65)

Dieser Hergang wird durch Chroniken grundsätzlich bestätigt: Die aus assyrischer Sicht verfasste „Synchronistische Geschichte“ vermeldet, dass eine Schlacht stattgefunden hat. 1 Der babylonischen Chronik P ist darüber hinaus zu entnehmen, dass die Auseinandersetzung zunächst zu der Gefangennahme des Kaštiliaš geführt hat. Dann habe sich Tukultī-Ninurta umgewandt, Babylon geplündert, seine Bewohner dem Schwert ausgeliefert und 7 Jahre über Babylonien geherrscht: 2 iv 1 abi]⸢ikti⸣ I⸢Kaš⸣[tilašu šar māt Karduniaš] 2[iškun  in]a semer parzilli iddima a[na māt Aššur ilqe(?)]  3[  ITukult]i-dNinurta ana Bābiliki itūramma 4[  u]qarribū dūr Bābiliki iqqur mār Bābili ki ina kakki 5[ušamqi]t namkūr Esagil u Bābiliki ina šillat uštēṣi dBēlu rabû dMarduk 6[ina šu]btišu idkema 1.  Grayson 1975: 161. 2.  Weidner 1959: 41; cf. Yamada 2003: 17321.

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S tefan J akob ana kurAššurki ušaṣbit ḫarrān lúšaknūtišu ina kurKarduniaš iškun VII šanāti meš Tukultī-Ninurta kurKarduniaš umaʾʾir „Eine Niederlage brachte er Kaštiliaš, dem König von Karduniaš, bei . . . in eiserne Ketten schlug er (ihn) und brachte ihn in das Land Aššur . . . TukultīNinurta kehrte zurück . . . näherten sie sich. Die Mauer von Babylon riss er ein, die Bewohner Babylons erschlug er mit der Waffe. Den Besitz von Esagil und Babylon schleppte er frevelhaft fort. Den großen Herrn Marduk ließ er von seinem Sitz aufstehen und den Weg in das Land Aššur einschlagen. Seine Statthalter setzte er in Karduniaš ein. Für sieben Jahre beherrschte Tukultī-Ninurta das Land Karduniaš“

Die „Statthalter“ der Chronik P identifizierte Ernst Weidner mit den in der Babylonischen Königsliste auf Kaštiliaš folgenden Königen Enlil-nādin-šumi, KadašmanHarbe II. und Adad-šuma-iddina, denen dort insgesamt 9 Jahre zugeschrieben werden, so dass zwischen dem Sieg über den Kassitenkönig und der Eroberung Babylons 1,5–2 Jahre lägen. 3 Damit war die Idee, es habe (mindestens) zwei Feldzüge gegen Babylonien gegeben, erstmals angedeutet. Hannes Galter dagegen nimmt vier Phasen der assyrischen Herrschaft über Babylonien an, die als das Ergebnis eines einzigen Feldzuges gelten dürfen: 4 1.  Erweiterung des Staatsgebiets (direkte Herrschaft) nach der Niederlage des Kaštiliaš 2.  Indirekte Kontrolle durch die Einsetzung von Vasallenkönigen 3.  Reduktion des Einflussbereiches 4.  Politischer Zusammenbruch, möglicherweise erst unter den Nachfolgern Tukultī-Ninurtas I

Eben diesem Modell folgt bis in jüngste Zeit die Mehrzahl der Kommentatoren. Walter Mayer glaubt, aufgrund der Informationen aus Königsinschriften und dem TNE nur von einem einzigen Feldzug ausgehen zu dürfen, räumt aber im gleichen Atemzug ein, dass die zur Verfügung stehende Zeit keinesfalls ausreichend war. 5 Eine entsprechende chronologische Ordnung der Geschehnisse findet sich auch bei B. Cifola. 6 Sie geht davon aus, dass die beiden Inschriften RIMA 1, A.0.78.6 und A.0.78.18 in der Spätphase der Regierung Tukultī-Ninurtas, jedenfalls „after the Babylonian war“, entstanden sind. Abgesehen davon, dass sie dabei die Datierung der beiden Inschriften nicht in die Diskussion mit einbezieht, 7 so stand bereits lange zuvor durch die Sammeltafel MARV I 1 aus Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta ein gewichtiges Argument für die Existenz zweier Feldzüge zur Verfügung. 8 Dort werden Mannschaften erwähnt, die von ei3.  Weidner 1959: 41 (Kommentar zu Nr. 37 Z.3 und 6/7). Die Authentizität der Zeitangabe wird unterschiedlich bewertet. Während Freydank (1990: 540) im Hinblick auf A. Harrak (1987: 263 und 269) kritisch auf den Symbolwert der Zahl „7“ verweist und damit die Textaussage relativieren möchte, geht die Forschung heute allgemein davon aus, dass es sich um eine korrekte Zeitangabe handelt (so Yamada 2003: 166 und passim; Arnaud 2003: 17 mit Anm. 44; s. Pruszinsky 2009: 119 „. . . ca. 7 Jahre . . .“). 4.  Galter 1988: 221. 5.  Mayer 1995: 216 legt dar: “In den Königsinschriften und im Tukulti-Ninurta-Epos ist nur von einem Feldzug die Rede. . .Angriffe auf verteidigte Städte kosteten aber viel Blut und, in Anbetracht der großen Zahl, viel mehr Zeit, als Tukultī-Ninurta je zur Verfügung gestanden haben kann”. 6.  Cifola 2004: 14. 7.  RIMA 1, A.0.78.6 (Eponym Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat) und A.0.78.18 (Aššur-bēl-ilāne). 8.  H. Freydank AoF 1 (1974) 76f.; cf. Gilibert 2008: 179 mit Anm. 6.

Sag mir quando, sag mir wann. . .

511

nem gegen Babylonien geführten Feldzug zurückkehren. Da an anderer Stelle des Textes von kassitischen Kriegsgefangenen die Rede ist, die sich da bereits in KārTukultī-Ninurta aufhalten, schließt H. Freydank, dass der hier erwähnten militärischen Expedition bereits eine andere voraus gegangen sein muss, d. h. der Eponym Etel-pî-Aššur, nach dem die Tafel datiert ist, müsste das Jahr der Eroberung Babylons markieren. E.  Cancik-Kirschbaum nimmt diese These auf und glaubt darüber hinaus in Dokumenten des Eponymates Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat Hinweise auf die Datierung des ersten Feldzugs sehen zu dürfen. 9 In der vorerwähnten Königsinschrift RIMA 1, A.0.78.6 rühmt sich Tukultī-Ninurta im Rahmen seiner Epitheta als Überwinder des Kaštiliaš. Außerdem befinden sich „kassitische“ Kriegsgefangene in Assyrien, die Stadt Lubdi im Osttigrisgebiet wird belagert, möglicherweise auf dem Weg nach Babylonien. Und zu guter Letzt ist einem Brief zu entnehmen, dass nach dem 21. des Monats Ša-kēnāte in dem Provinzzentrum Dūr-Katlimmu eine königliche Reisegesellschaft eintreffen soll, die neben der assyrischen Delegation auch den kassitischen König nebst Ehefrau und Entourage umfasst. Cancik-Kirschbaum schließt daraus, dass die königliche Geisel bereits mitsamt ihrer Familie in den assyrischen Hofstaat integriert ist. 10 Die erfolgreiche Schlacht gegen Kaštiliaš wäre damit recht genau zwischen den Monaten Sîn (IV.) und Ša-kēnāte (IX.) in das Jahr Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat zu datieren, während der finale Schlag gegen Babylon im Eponymat des Etel-pî-Aššur erfolgte. 11 Mit dem nachvollziehbaren Ansatz von Shigeo Yamada, wonach die 9 Jahre der drei mutmaßlichen assyrischen Marionettenkönige den Zeitraum vom ersten Feldzug bis zum zweiten markieren, 12 schlösse sich der Kreis und es ergäbe sich folgende Reihung: Ina-Aššur-šuma-aṣbat

1. Feldzug

↓ 9 Jahre Etel-pî-Aššur

2. Feldzug

Ignoriert wurde dabei allerdings stets Folgendes: Aššur-iddin, Spross einer Seitenlinie des assyrischen Königshauses, stieg während der Regierung Tukultī-Ninurtas I. zum Großwesir (sukkallu rabiʾu) auf, nachdem er zuvor das Amt eines Wesirs (sukkallu) innegehabt hatte: 13 9.  Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996: 16. 10.  Die Zuordnung dieses Briefes zum Eponymat des Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat beruht auf der Quittung DeZ 4022 (Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996: 150), die aufzeichnet, dass der assyrische König in eben jenem Eponymat die Stadt Dūr-Adad besucht. Es dürfte sich dabei wohl kaum um die Stadt dieses Namens in der Umgebung von Nippur handeln (cf. Arnaud 2003: 12), sondern um jenes Dūr-Adad elû, dessen Lage am Mittleren Euphrat vermutet wird (Nashef 1982: 87). 11.  Bloch 2010: 12f. schließt sich der von Cancik-Kirschbaum vertretenen Argumentation hinsichtlich der Interpretation der Quellen aus dem Eponymat des Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat im Wesentlichen an, geht darüber hinaus aber davon aus, dass die Stadt Babylon sich nach jahrelangem Ringen bereits unter Kontrolle der Assyrer befindet (ibid., 13 Anm. 43 und 21 Anm. 89). Kaštiliaš sei es danach gelungen, so Bloch an, sich nach Dur-Kurigalzu abzusetzen, ehe er am Ende doch gefangen genommen wird. Diese Aktion bildet angesichts seiner chronologischen Tabelle (ibid., 31) und der vorgestellten Interpretation der Informationen aus anderen Eponymaten entgegen der communis opinio (cf. aber Harrak 1987: 256) den Abschluss des Kampfes zwischen Assyrien und Babylonien. 12.  Yamada 2003: 167. 13.  Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996: 19; s. hierzu bereits Jakob 2007: 107; cf. Bloch 2010: 5ff.

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S tefan J akob (a) sukkallu Eponym Text ______________ _____________________________ [nicht erhalten] DeZ 3358 (Sohn des Qibi-Aššur) Etel-pî-Aššur DeZ 2522; DeZ 3395; MARV IV 40 Uṣur-namkūr-šarre DeZ 2527 (b) sukkallu rabiʾu 14 Eponym Text ______________ _____________________________ Aššur-bēl-ilani DeZ 3841 Aššur-zēra-iddina DeZ 2530; DeZ 3309+3310 Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat DeZ 3823

Unter der Voraussetzung des wahrscheinlichen Falles, dass Aššur-iddins Karriere einen linearen Verlauf genommen hat, ist die Reihenfolge Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Etel-pî-Aššur ausgeschlossen. Beide wären dann vielmehr zu vertauschen. Da für das Jahr Etel-pî-Aššur ein Babylonienfeldzug bezeugt ist, wäre also anzunehmen, dass es sich dabei um den Krieg gegen Kaštiliaš handelt. Wie sind dann aber die scheinbar eindeutigen Indizien zu bewerten, die das Eponymat Ina-Aššur-šumīaṣbat mit den Ereignissen um den ersten Feldzug fest zu verbinden scheinen? Um diese Frage beantworten zu können, muss zunächst das chronologische Gerüst vervollständigt werden. Aus den Wirtschaftstexten von Dur-Katlimmu lässt sich eine mit Etel-pî-Aššur beginnende Reihe von 4 Eponymen sicher erschließen: 15 Etel-pî-Aššur    ↓ Uṣur-namkur-šarre    ↓ Aššur-bēl-ilāne    ↓ Aššur-zēra-iddina

Während der ersten beiden dieser Jahre trägt Aššur-iddin den Titel eines „Wesirs“ (sukkallu). Nach dem Eponymat Uṣur-namkūr-šarre übernimmt er das Amt des „Großwesirs“. Aufgrund dieser sicheren Folge sind alle weiteren Jahre, in denen Aššur-iddin als sukallu rabi’u bezeugt ist, nach Aššur-zēra-iddina zu positionieren. Das gilt somit auch für das Eponymat des Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat. Begrenzt wird die Amtszeit des Aššur-iddin durch das Eponymenjahr Abī-ilī, (Sohn des Katiri). In diesem Jahr ist mit Salmānu-mušabši nachweislich ein Nachfolger als Großwesir im Amt. 16 Durch einen Wirtschaftstext aus Aššur 17 lässt sich 14.  Aufgrund der Erwähnung bei Cancik-Kirschbaum op. cit. mit Anm. 63 hat außerdem der Eponym Aššur-mušabši, nach dem der Wirtschaftstext DeZ 3847/2 datiert ist, Eingang in chronologische Modelle zur Regierungszeit Tukultī-Ninurtas I. gefunden (Jakob 2009: 3; Bloch 2010: 4f.). Es wäre hier zu fragen, ob dieser Beleg für eine Ausübung des Großwesirats durch Aššur-iddin nach Kollation vielleicht zu Aššur-zēra-iddina oder Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat gestellt werden könnte. 15.  Nr. 53, 79 und 80 in Röllig 2008. 16.  Bloch (2010: 9) möchte die Möglichkeit nicht ausschließen, dass zwischen diesen beiden Titelträgern noch ein weiterer einzufügen ist, verweist aber richtigerweise auf jenen Brief des Königs an Assur-iddin, worin er eine Opferschau für Salmānu-mušabši anordnet, um möglicherweise die Frage nach dessen Eignung für die Nachfolge Aššur-iddins zu klären (s. bereits Jakob 2003: 62) 17.  MARV II 17+ (s. hierzu H. Freydank MARV IV, 14).

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im Übrigen mit Salmānu-šuma-uṣur das auf Abī-ilī folgende Eponymat bestimmen, so dass man insgesamt einen durch gesicherte Eponymenreihen gebildeten Zeitrahmen gewinnt. Das Jahr Abī-ilī scheint zudem auch die Unterbrechung der Kanzleitätigkeit in dem nordost-syrischen Provinzzentrum Ḫarbe (Tell Chuēra) zu markieren. Jedenfalls könnte das Auftreten dieses Eponymen auf einem unregelmäßig geformten Stück Ton, das möglicherweise Teil eines Türverschlusses war, 18 dahingehend interpretiert werden, dass er den Zeitpunkt markiert, zu dem der Archivraum zeitweise aufgegeben wurde. Daraus ergäbe sich ein terminus ante quem für die übrigen Eponymen des Konvoluts. Ein Text aus Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta zeigt, dass das Jahr Ninuʾāju dem Eponymen Abī-ilī auf jeden Fall vorangeht, vielleicht sogar unmittelbar. 19 Dafür scheint der archäologische Befund des Archivraums von Tell Chuēra ein weiteres Argument zu liefern: Die Urkunden und Briefe aus dem Eponymat Ninuʾāju fanden sich konzentriert in einer Nische des Archivraumes, vom Rest der Tafeln getrennt, so dass die Möglichkeit nicht ausgeschlossen werden sollte, dass hier das letzte Rechnungsjahr vor der Aufgabe des Raumes vorliegt. In diesem Fall wären die übrigen Eponymen aus Tell Chuera, die nicht in die feststehende Reihe zwischen der Akzession Tukultī-Ninurtas I. und dem Jahr Etel-pî-Aššur gehören, in der Phase zwischen Aššur-zēra-iddina und Ninuʾāju einzufügen: Bēr-išmânni Ellil-nādin-apli Kaštiliaš 20

Dabei ist zu berücksichtigen, dass nach dem Erweis von Personenlisten aus Tell Chuēra zwischen Ellil-nādin-apli und Bēr-išmânni mindestens 2 und maximal 3 Eponymate lagen. 21 Außerdem gibt es Hinweise auf das Verhältnis des Eponymen Kaštiliašu zu dem Jahr Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat: Während für das letztere durch einen Brief aus Dūr-Katlimmu/Tell Šēḫ Ḥamad ein Mann namens Assumīja-Adad bezeugt ist, in dem wir möglicherweise den gleichnamigen „Bürgermeister“ (haziʾānu) aus Harbe sehen dürfen, erscheint in einer Notiz aus dem Eponymat des Kaštiliaš ein gewisser Sîn-mušallim in einer sonst von Aššumīja-Adad bekleideten Funktion, wenn auch ohne Titel. 22 Es mag dabei von Bedeutung sein, dass jener AssumījaAdad in dem erwähnten Schreiben in gleichwohl unklarem Kontext offenbar als „feindlich“ eingestuft wird. So wäre etwa zu erklären, dass er von seinen Vorgesetzen durch einen Nachfolger ersetzt wurde. Zu Beginn des Eponymats Ninu’āju lässt sich in der Etappenstation Ḫarbe innerhalb von 6 Wochen eine außergewöhnliche diplomatische Aktivität feststellen. Gesandte aus Hatti, Ägypten, Amurru und Sidon befinden sich auf dem Rückweg von ihrer Audienz beim assyrischen König in Assur. Man geht wohl nicht fehl, als Reisegrund ein Ereignis von außerordentlicher Tragweite anzunehmen, wie es der Fall Babylons zweifellos wäre. Die Eroberung der Stadt hätte dann sicher im

18.  Jakob 2009: 73. 19.  MARV IV 33; s. Freydank 1991: 62. 20.  S. hierzu Bloch 2010: 29. 21.  Jakob 2001: 95. 22.  In gleicher Funktion lässt sich dieselbe Person auch in anderen Jahren nachweisen (cf. Jakob 2009: 167 s.v. Sîn-mušallim).

514

S tefan J akob

vorangehenden Jahr stattgefunden. Für die hier bereits aufgeführten Eponymate lassen sich allerdings keine entsprechenden Hinweise finden. Anders verhält es sich mit dem Eponymat des Qarrād-Aššur, S. d. Aššur-iddin. Die Notiz MARV I 9 registriert Tributleistungen, die „dem Land Zamban am Dijala auferlegt“ und in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta in Empfang genommen wurden. Die Stadt Zabban war in nA Zeit nachweislich mehrfach eine Station auf der Wegstrecke assyrischer Könige auf dem Weg nach Babylon (Salmanassar III. und Šamšī-Adad V.). Sollte im vorliegenden Fall ein Zusammenhang mit einem Babylonien-Feldzug bestehen, kann es sich, wie bereits zu zeigen war, jedenfalls nicht um den ersten handeln. Infolgedessen wäre so mit einer gewissen Wahrscheinlichkeit das Jahr des zweiten Feldzugs bestimmt. Dass es sich tatsächlich um eine Operation größeren Umfangs handelt, zeigt das im Text genannte militärische Personal, darunter die vier Divisionen (leʾānu), die Jahre zuvor als „hungernde Truppen“ aus Babylonien zurückgekehrt waren. Aus dem Gesagten ergibt sich folgende tentative Reihe von Eponymen: Etel-pî-Aššur Uṣur-namkūr-šarre Aššur-bēl-ilāne Aššur-zēra-iddina Ellil-nādin-apli Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat Kaštiliaš Bēr-išmânni Qarrād-Aššur

Der durch diese Eponymate abgedeckte Zeitraum entspricht recht genau der Regierungszeit der drei nach Kaštiliaš IV. regierenden babylonischen Könige, wie sie in der Babylonischen Königsliste niedergelegt sind, wonach Enlil-nādin-šumi (1 Jahr und 6 Monate), Kadašman-Ḫarbe II. (1 Jahr und 6 Monate) und Adad-šuma-iddina (6 Jahre) insgesamt 9 Jahre regiert haben. 23 Das spräche für die Ergänzung der entsprechenden Passage in Chronik P, wie sie S.  Yamada vorschlägt: [ina tarṣi Adad-šuma-iddina ITukul-t]i-dNinurta a-na Babìliki i-tu-ra-am-ma. . .“[Zur Zeit des Adad-šuma-iddina] kehrt Tukultī-Ninurta nach Babylon zurück. . .” 24 Im Detail stehen einer Korrelation der Eponymenreihe mit den babylonischen Herrscherdaten mehrere Probleme entgegen. Zu berücksichtigen ist etwa, dass für den fraglichen Zeitraum sehr wahrscheinlich von unterschiedlichen Kalendersystemen auszugehen ist. 25 Während in Babylonien der Jahresbeginn allgemein in der Nähe des Frühjahrsäquinoktikums im März datiert wird, 26 gibt es Hinweise darauf, dass in Assyrien der erste Monat des Jahres, entsprechend den altassyrischen Verhältnissen, möglicherweise im Herbst lag. 27 23.  RlA 6, 91. 24.  Yamada 2003: 161. 25.  Pruszinsky 2009: 106–8. 26.  Sassmannshausen 2001: 10. Problematisch ist zudem, dass der Jahresanfang offenbar um mehrere Wochen variieren konnte (RlA 5, 298f.). 27. RlA 5, a.a. O.; cf. Jakob 2003: 314 Anm. 33. Es scheint erst während der Regierung Tiglatpilesers I. zu einer grundlegenden Neuorientierung gekommen zu sein, indem man versuchte, beide System zu synchronisieren. Dabei wird offensichtlich in mehreren Eponymenjahren etwa der erste assyrische Monat Ṣippu mit dem 6. babylonischen, Ulūlu, geglichen (s. Freydank 83ff.) Anderer Auffassung

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Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass die Angaben der Babylonischen Königsliste hinsichtlich der Regierungszeiten von Enlil-nādin-šumi und Kadašman-Ḫarbe II. nicht unumstritten sind. So ist Kadašman-Ḫarbe II. zuletzt im 5. Monat seines ersten Jahres bezeugt, der Nachfolger Adad-šuma-iddina aber erstmals für den 13. Nisannu seines Akzessionsjahres. 28 Wenn die Inthronisierung babylonischer Könige zur Zeit der Kassitendynastie tatsächlich um den 1. Nisannu herum erfolgte, 29 müsste Kadašman-Ḫarbe zwischen dem Monatsanfang und dem 12. Tag des betreffenden Nisannu abgesetzt worden sein. Andererseits könnte die Inthronisierung aufgrund der besonderen Umstände nach dem Umsturz zwar noch im Nisannu, aber eben nach dem 13. erfolgt sein. Geht man dessen eingedenk davon aus, dass zumindest die Zeitspanne von 9 Jahren für die drei Nachfolger des Kaštiliaš in der Babylonischen Königsliste korrekt angegeben ist, führt die Rechnung von der Jahresmitte des Eponymates Etel-pî-Aššur als frühestem Zeitpunkt für die Machtübernahme durch Enlil-nādinšumi dazu, dass in der oben vorgeschlagenen Reihe vor Qarrād-Aššur ein Eponym einzufügen ist oder aber jener Feldzug in das Land Zamban in keinem unmittelbaren Zusammenhang zum zweiten Babylonienfeldzug steht. Wenn man die Sequenz Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī, wie sie die Evidenz der Tell-Chuēra-Texte zu suggerieren scheint, akzeptiert, wäre ein möglicher Kandidat der Eponym Bēr-nādin-apli. Wie J.  Llop in seinem Beitrag zu dieser Publikation im Zusammenhang mit der Expedition des Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat in die Stadt Tille überzeugend darlegte, ist jener sicher in der Nähe zu den beiden vorgenannten zu verorten. Mir scheint aber, dass die korrekte Reihenfolge wohl nicht aufgrund seiner als Beispiele angeführten Formulare ermittelt werden kann. So weist zwar MARV IV 33 (Eponymat des Ninuʾāju) eine besonders ausführliche Beschreibung des Vorgangs auf, das trifft aber nach den vorhandenen Zeichenspuren in MARV IV 45 zumindest auch für eines der Dokumente aus dem Eponymat des Bēr-nādin-apli zu. Während also das verkürzte Formular in den Texten des Eponymats Abī-ilī tatsächlich dafür spricht, dieses Jahr an das Ende der Reihe zu stellen, wäre es meines Erachtens durchaus möglich, mit Bēr-nādin-apli zu beginnen. Die Sequenz, die sich versuchsweise an die oben angeführte, mit Qarrād-Aššur endende Reihe, anschließen lässt, lautete somit: Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur 30

Auf der Grundlage des bis hierher entwickelten chronologischen Modells wird folgende Rekonstruktion der Ereignisse während der assyrisch-babylonischen Auseinandersetzung vorgeschlagen: Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → Qarrād-Aššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Der Kampf gegen Kaštiliaš, wie er u. a. durch die Chroniken geschildert wird, ist bis zum 9. Monat (Ša-kēnāte) des Jahres abgeschlossen, denn zu diesem Zeitpunkt sind hinsichtlich des Jahresbeginns in Asssyrien sind Llop 2003: 209 (1.Ṣippu = 1. Januar) und Röllig 2008: 4 (Jahresbeginn im März/April). 28.  Brinkman 1976: 150. 29.  Annus 2002: 34f. 30.  Bloch 2010: 26f. postuliert aufgrund des Wirtschaftstextes MARV V 83, vor Abī-ilī einen Eponymen Adad-šamšī einzufügen.

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S tefan J akob

militärische Verbände aus Babylonien zurückgekehrt. Auch halten sich zahlreiche Kriegsgefangene in der assyrischen Hauptstadt auf. Die Nachrichten über Heimkehrer aus einem Feldzug nach Suḫu sind geringfügig jünger. 31 Das deutet darauf hin, dass die Aktion gegen Babylonien bereits abgeschlossen war, als der Zug nach Suḫu begann. Das ist hinsichtlich der assyrischen Strategie interessant. Es sei daran erinnert, dass nicht nur Tiglatpilesar I. seinem ersten Babylon-Feldzug einen Angriff auf Suḫu anschloss, sondern dass diese Route auch noch später benutzt wurde. 32  33  34  35  36 MARV IV 40

Ša-kēnāte (IX) [10. Tag]

Verpflegung von Kassiten; Verrechnung über das „Siegel des sukkallu Aššur-iddin“

MARV I 133

Ša-kēnāte (IX) [n. Tag]

babylonische Kriegsgefangene in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta

MARV VIII 51

Muḫur-ilāne (X) 28. Tag

Versorgung von 100 Lasteseln, die Panzer getragen haben (vgl. MARV I 1 IV 43)

MARV I 1

Abu-šarrāne (XI) „hungernde Truppen“ kehren aus Babylonien [ n. Tag] zurück34

[MARV IV 27]35

Abu-šarrāne (XI) Versorgung von Truppenteilen, die mit dem König 23. Tag nach Suḫu gezogen waren und nun an Zikkurat und Palast von Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta arbeiten

[MARV IV 30]

Ḫibur (XII) 3.-12. Tag

Rationen für Soldaten, die „dem König voraus“ nach Suḫu gezogen waren, aus Nēmad-Ištar kommen und nun an Zikkurat und Palast von Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta arbeiten; assyrische Flüchtlinge aus Babylonien werden verpflegt

(92.G.187)

undatiert36

Deportierte aus Suḫu in Ḫarbe

Tab. 1 Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → Qarrād-Aššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Das durch Chronik P überlieferte militärische Eingreifen Elams, das sich gegen den vermutlich assyrientreuen kassitischen König Enlil-nādin-šumī richtet, 37 führt wahrscheinlich zu dessen Absetzung und verhilft Kadašman-Ḫarbe II. auf den Thron. Die Assyrer sind in dieser Phase offensichtlich nicht in der Lage, ihre Interessen in Babylonien durchzusetzen, möglicherweise auch deshalb, weil ihre Kräfte 31.  Llop 2010: 108ff. 32.  Tukultī-Ninurtas II. (890–884 v. Chr.) beschreibt in RIMA 2, A.0.100.4:41–127 unter Angabe der einzelnen Wegstationen einen Feldzug, der zunächst nach Babylonien führt, und von dort zum Mittleren Euphrat. 33. �������������� Freydank 1974. 34. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Die Entfernung zwischen Aššur und Babylon beträgt ca. 620 km. Bei einer Tagesleistung von 25–35 km/Tag wäre sie in 18–25 Tagen zu bewältigen (s. Bloch 2010: 24). 35. ������������������������������������������������� Zur Datierung von MARV IV 27 und 30 s. Llop 2010. 36. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Dieser Text (s. Jakob 2009, Nr. 66) wurde in räumlicher Nähe zu der Tafel 92.G.197 gefunden (ibid. Nr. 45), die in das Eponymenjahr Etel-pî-Aššur datiert ist. 37.  Grayson 1975: 176.

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517

andernorts gebunden sind. 38 In den assyrischen Distrikten am Unteren Ḫābūr bedrohen feindliche Aktivitäten, vielleicht von räuberischen Nomaden, Städte und staatliche Feldflächen.  39 Der Anbau von Getreide und Gewürzpflanzen ist, wenn überhaupt, nur noch eingeschränkt möglich (s. Tab 2 zu DeZ 2511). Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → QarrādAššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur Diese Situation besteht auch im nächsten Jahr fort. Währenddessen ist Kadašman-Ḫarbe II. in Babylon weiter an der Macht. Das könnte sehr wohl ein Grund sein, warum in der Inschrift zur Restaurierung des Sîn-Šamaš-Tempels in Aššur weder Babylonien noch die Gefangennahme des Kaštiliaš erwähnt wird. Erst gegen Ende des Jahres wendet sich das Blatt zugunsten der assyrischen Seite. Adad-šuma-iddina übernimmt die Regierung in Babylon. Dass er dies wohl mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung durch die Assyrer getan hat, verdeutlichen die Ereignisse der darauf folgenden Monate. RIMA 1, A.0.78.18 Allanātu (VI)

Steintafel zur Restaurierung des Sîn-Šamaš-Tempels; Keine Erwähnung von Babylonien

DeZ 2511 (Röllig 2008: 184)

Ḫibur (XII) 29. Tag

Seit dem Jahr Etel-pî-Aššur Sesam und Gewürzpflanzen nicht ausgesät

DeZ 3365 (Röllig 2008: 152)

o. A. (Ḫibur ?)

Keine Abrechnung des Ernteertrags; Stadtmauer von Duāra durch Feind genommen

Tab. 2 Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → Qarrād-Aššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

In der Wirtschaftsurkunde KAJ 106 aus Aššur wird vermerkt, dass viele Schiffe (mit Beute) aus Babylonien zurückgekommen und Kriegsgefangene zu versorgen sind. 40 Von den erbeuteten Beständen profitieren im Laufe des Jahres offenbar zahlreiche Gruppen, darunter Bauleute und ihre Mannschaften, die am MardukHeiligtum in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta gearbeitet haben (MARV 27+ MARV III 54). Die wichtigste Nachricht ist aber die von der Reise des assyrischen Königs nach Babylon, um dort bestimmte Opferhandlungen zu vollziehen. 41 Allein seine Anwesenheit in dieser Stadt ist bemerkenswert, die Beteiligung an rituellen Handlungen aber umso mehr. Man fühlt sich unwillkürlich an den Bericht Salmanassars III. erinnert, wonach dieser im Bruderzwist um die babylonische Krone eingegriffen hatte und nach siegreichem Kampf den großen Göttern Babyloniens in ihren Heiligtümern Opfer darbrachte. Es scheint möglich, dass zwischen Tukultī-Ninurta I. 38.  In MARV IV 146:12′–15′ aus dem Monat Ša-sarrāte (VIII) ist, wenn auch in unklarem Kontext, von einem Feldzug des Königs die Rede. 39.  Röllig 2008: 151. 40.  Postgate 1988: 147f. 41.  MARV VIII 7 7i+na u4-mi LUGAL 8a-na KÁ.DINGIR 9⸢me⸣-sa-na 10a-na šal-lu-ú-me 11i-lu-ú-ni 12[š]al-lu-ta ma-ʾa-da 13[še?-ṣ]u-ú-ni „am Tag als der König nach Babylon hinaufgegangen ist, um den mesānu(?)-Ritus zu vollziehen und viele Gefangene herausgebracht hat.“

518

S tefan J akob

und Adad-šuma-iddina ein ähnliches Abhängigkeitsverhältnis bestand. Vielleicht standen die zu vollziehenden Riten auch in Verbindung mit der Inthronisierung des letzteren.  42  43  44 KAJ 106

Ṣippu (I) 1. Tag

MARV VIII 7 [. . .]-tu42 10. Tag

König bringt Schiffe vom Unteren Meer; Kriegsgefangene in Bereich von Aššur Reise des assyrischen Königs nach Babylon; Rückkehr mit „vielen Gefangenen“

MARV I 27+ III 54

Kalmartu (III) Vergabe von Geschenken aus Beutebeständen an 8. Tag Bauleute

92.G.9243

Sîn (IV) 10. Tag

Verteilung von Gerste an Bedienstete des Palastes von Ḫarbe

KAJ 10344

Kuzallu (V) 1. Tag

Kriegsgefangene Babylonier in Aššur

Tab. 3 Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → Qarrād-Aššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Bei den „vielen Gefangenen“, von denen im Zusammenhang mit dem Aufenthalt des assyrischen Königs in Babylon in MARV VIII 7 die Rede ist, könnte es sich um Mitglieder der anti-assyrischen Fraktion am Hof handeln. Möglicherweise befinden sich unter ihnen, infolge der vermuteten Nähe des gestürzten Kadašman-Ḫarbe zum elamischen Königshaus, auch Elamer. So wäre zumindest zu erklären, warum in der Folge elamische Bogenschützen mit ihren Familien weitab ihrer Heimat auf assyrischem Territorium anzutreffen sind. Ihre Anwesenheit in Nordost-Syrien war bisher rätselhaft, da direkte Kriegshandlungen zwischen Assyrien und Elam nicht bekannt waren und auch die Annahme, die Männer seien als Söldner angeworben worden, nicht befriedigen konnte, da sie in geschlossenen Familienverbänden auftraten, über längere Zeit am selben Ort blieben und hinsichtlich der Entlohnung wie die anderen Bediensteten des Palastes behandelt wurden, indem man ihnen neben Gersterationen Land-Parzellen zur privaten Nutzung zuwies.  45 92.G.12745 92.G.172

Ṣippu (I) Registrierung elamischer Bogenschützen in Ḫarbe 5?. Tag Kuzallu (V) 14. Tag

Tab. 4 42. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Drei Monate sind theoretisch möglich. Bloch 2010: 24 spricht sich für den 6. Monat Allanātu aus. Seine Argumentation geht davon aus, dass der assyrische König mit den in KAJ 106 erwähnten Schiffen nach Assyrien zurückgekehrt ist, so dass eine erneute Reise nach Süden in den beiden darauf folgenden Monaten eher unwahrscheinlich sein dürfte. Anders verhält es sich, wenn Tukultī-Ninurta bis zu den in MARV VIII 7 erwähnten rituellen Handlungen in Babylonien geblieben ist. In diesem Fall wären weder Qarrātu (II) noch Kalmartu (III) auszuschließen. 43. ���������������� Jakob 2009: 95f. 44. �������������������� Postgate 1988: 146f. 45.  Jakob 2009: ������������� 99–103.

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519

Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → Qarrād-Aššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Im Verlaufe des Eponymates Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat scheinen sich die Beziehungen zwischen Tukultī-Ninurta und Adad-šuma-iddina entscheidend zu verschlechtern. Noch in der ersten Jahreshälfte wird die babylonische Stadt Lubdi im Osttigrisgebiet belagert, wie wir aus der Korrespondenz des Großwesirs Aššur-iddin erfahren. Der König hatte ihm wenige Wochen zuvor brieflich eine herbe Rüge zukommen lassen. Demnach hatte er sich gegenüber Babylonien zu zögerlich verhalten. U. a. heißt es da: . . .Beim Abwägen von vielen (Möglichkeiten). . .tust du (am Ende) gar nichts! . . .Das ganze Land Karduniaš war (doch geradezu) wie ein Tisch reich gedeckt. Ein Mann, der auf seine eigene Rettung bedacht ist, schaut nicht auf seine Erniedrigung“ (BATSH 4/1, 9:36–43). Da bisher das Eponymat Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat als das Jahr der Gefangennahme Kaštiliaš’s IV. galt, schien die Belagerung von Lubdi in engem Zusammenhang zum ersten Babylonienfeldzug zu stehen. Derjenige, von dessen Erniedrigung hier die Rede ist, konnte somit niemand anderes sein als Kaštiliaš, ebenso wie der „kassitische König“, der wenige Monate später mit Ehefrau und Gefolge in assyrischer Begleitung in Dur-Katlimmu Station macht. Unsicherheit bestand lediglich darin, ob er sich unmittelbar nach seiner Gefangennahme auf dem Weg in die assyrische Hauptstadt befand 46 oder nach bereits zurückliegender Deportation mit dem assyrischen Hofstaat durch das Land reiste. 47 Heißt der amtierende babylonische König, wie nach dem hier vorgestellten chronologischen Modell, zu dieser Zeit aber Adad-šuma-iddina, ergibt sich eine völlig andere Interpretationsmöglichkeit des Textbefundes: Es gab offenbar Spannungen zwischen Assyrien und Babylonien. Vielleicht war Adad-šuma-iddina nicht bereit, sich mit der Rolle eines Marionettenkönigs abzufinden, wurde zu selbständig, so dass sich die Assyrer zu Maßnahmen wie etwa im Falle von Lubdi genötigt sahen. Aššur-iddin könnte im Vorfeld eine eher abwartende, auf Frieden setzende Linie verfolgt haben, während der König von ihm ein hartes, entschlossenes Auftreten erwartete. Ob Lubdi am Ende tatsächlich den Assyrern zufiel, wissen wir nicht. Sieht man aber in Adad-šuma-iddina den kassitischen König, dessen Besuch in Dur-Katlimmu überliefert ist, wäre zu vermuten, dass er zumindest zum Einlenken gezwungen und nach Assyrien beordert wurde, um dort erneut seine Treue zum assyrischen König zu bekunden. RIMA 1, A.0.78.6

Steintafel anlässlich von Arbeiten im Neuen Palast in Assur; Erwähnung der Gefangennahme des Kaštiliaš

BATSH 4/1, 9

Sîn (IV) 5. Tag

Rüge des Königs an seinen Großwesir bezüglich Babyloniens

BATSH 4/1, 11 BATSH 4/1, 12

[Sîn] (IV) 27. Tag Kuzallu (V) 6. Tag

Belagerung von Lubdi

46.  Freu 2003: 112. 47.  Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996: 16f.

520

S tefan J akob

BATSH 4/1, 10

(o. A.= Ša-kēnāte?) 21. Tag

Kassitischer König in Dūr-Katlimmu

DeZ 4022

Ša-kēnāte (IX) 24. Tag

König geht von Dūr-Katlimmu nach Dūr-Adad

Tab. 5 Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → Qarrād-Aššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Eine Datierung des Eponymen Qarrād-Aššur, S. d. Aššur-iddin in das fünfte Jahr des Adad-šuma-iddina trennt den Feldzug nach Zamban, der erfolgreich abgeschlossen wird und zu Tributleistungen an die Assyrer führt, von der Eroberung Babylons, die der Regierung des Adad-šuma-iddina ein Ende bereitet. Die unmittelbar gegen eine zentrale, traditionell zur babylonischen Einflusssphäre gehörige Stadt gerichtete Militäraktion ist ein deutliches Indiz dafür, dass das Verhältnis zwischen dem assyrischen Oberherrn und seinem babylonischen Unterkönig zu diesem Zeitpunkt zumindest erheblich belastet ist. Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → QarrādAššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninuʾaju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Es bleibt uns bisher verborgen, was für den assyrischen König den Ausschlag gegeben hat, nach Babylon zu marschieren und dort in der Weise zu wüten, wie es die Chronik P beschreibt. Angesichts der Jahre zurückliegenden Belagerung von Lubdi und dem eben erwähnten Feldzug gegen Zamban ist die Eroberung Babylons wohl am ehesten als finale Strafaktion gegen einen dauerhaft aufsässigen Vasallen zu sehen. Das Konzept einer Regierung Babyloniens durch Vasallenkönige musste damit jedenfalls als gescheitert betrachtet werden. Tukultī-Ninurta nimmt nun selbst den Titel eines „Königs von Karduniaš“ an. 48 Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → QarrādAššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninu’āju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Die internationalen Reaktionen folgen schnell. Unter den Ländern, die Gesandte nach Aššur schicken, sind neben den Großmächten Ägypten und Hatti auch Amurru und Sidon zu nennen. 49 Es scheint, als würde die neue politische Situation akzeptiert, wie etwa die weiterhin freundlichen Kontakte zu Hatti belegen. 50  51 92.G.222; 92. G.209; 92.G.21151

Qarrātu (II) 11. Tag

Gesandtschaft aus Ḫatti in Aššur

48.  RIMA 1, A.0.78.24:12. 49.  S. hierzu ausführlich Jakob 2006. 50.  Jakob 2009: 86f. 51. ����������������� Jakob 2009: 59–68

Sag mir quando, sag mir wann. . . MARV IV 33

Qarrātu (II) 16. Tag

Verpflegung von 508 „Zeitarbeitern“, die im Palast von Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta gearbeitet haben

92.G.20851

Kalmartu (III) 20. Tag

Gesandtschaft aus Sidon (Pharao)

92.G.21251

Kalmartu (III) 20. Tag

Gesandtschaft aus Amurru

521

92.G.233+51 [MN] 25. Tag

Gesandtschaft aus Sidon

92.G.14952

Kuzallu (V) 2. Tag

Sonder?-Verpflegung für die Bediensteten von Ḫarbe

92.G.23453

Kuzallu (V) 22. Tag

Verpflegung hethitischer Gesandter

92.G.235+54 Ša-sarrāte (VIII) 21. Tag

Verpflegung eines Gesandten aus [ ]

Tab. 6 Etel-pî-Aššur → Uṣur-namkūr-šarre → Aššur-bēl-ilāne → Aššur-zēra-iddina → Ellil-nādin-apli → Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat → Kaštiliaš → Bēr-išmânni → QarrādAššur → Bēr-nādin-apli → Ninu’āju → Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur  52  53  54

Die unbotmäßigen Babylonier indes lässt man von assyrischer Seite deutlich spüren, was sie unter einem König Tukultī-Ninurta zu erwarten haben. Wirtschaftsurkunden aus Ašur und Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta lassen ahnen, dass die Assyrer in der Folgezeit die Ressourcen des Landes systematisch auszubeuten beginnen. So werden etwa Flußschiffe in Auftrag gegeben, um große Mengen von Getreide auf dem Wasserweg nach Assyrien zu bringen. Bereits aus der Zweckbestimmung dieser Schiffe geht hervor, dass sie Beutegut transportieren. In der Folge entfaltet sich eine ausgedehnte Bautätigkeit in den Königspalästen von Aššur und Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. Die Armee zeigt im Westen des Reiches, wo der anonyme „Feind“ in den zurückliegenden Jahren beständig für Unruhe gesorgt hatte, wieder mehr Präsenz und verschafft sich unter Führung Tukultī-Ninurtas Respekt.  55 MARV IV 34

Bēlat-ekalle (VII) 16. Tag

Bau von Schiffen zum Transport von Gerste „aus dem Feldzug nach Babylonien“

MARV VIII 38 Muḫur-ilāne (X) 1. Tag

39 Ehefrauen von „Bürgermeistern“ werden zum Dienst herangezogen, während jene auf einem „Feldzug“ sind.

MARV II 17+13 ab Muḫur-ilāne (X) 22. Tag

Verpflegung von Arbeitstrupps in Kār-TukultīNinurta und Aššur; der König befindet sich auf einem Feldzug nach Hanigalbat; Arrapḫa ist in assyrischer Hand

52. ���������������� Jakob 2009: 96f. 53. ���������������� Jakob 2009: 86f. 54. ���������������� Jakob 2009: 87f. 55. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Zahlreiche ergänzende Fragmente hat H. Freydank in MARV IV, 14 zusammengestellt.

522

S tefan J akob

MARV II 17+

Muḫur-ilāne (X) Ḫibur (XII)

Bauarbeiten im „Unteren Palast von KārTukultī-Ninurta“ sowie im „Neuen Palast“ in Aššur

Tab. 7 Die Zeit des Triumphes währt aber nur kurz. Wenige Jahre später wird sich der assyrische König gezwungen sehen, einen larmoyanten Brief nach Ḫattuša zu senden, in dem er sich bitter über die Duldung eines Usurpators, des so genannten „Knechts aus Suḫu“ beklagt, in dem wir, wie I. Singer kürzlich herausgestellt hat, jenen Adad-šuma-uṣur sehen dürfen, der die babylonische Selbständigkeit wieder herstellte und schließlich sogar in die assyrische Thronfolge eingreifen konnte. 56 Das aber hat Tukultī-Ninurta, der „König der Gesamtheit“, der „König der Vier Weltgegenden“, der „König von Sumer und Akkad“ nicht mehr erleben müssen, da er rechtzeitig von seinem Sohn und Teilen der assyrischen Elite ermordet wurde. 56.  I. Singer 2008: 239.

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Sag mir quando, sag mir wann. . .

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Grayson, A. K. 1975 Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin. Harrak, A. 1987 Assyria and Ḫanigalbat. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Jakob, S. 2001 „Aus Kindern werden Leute–Überlegungen zum mA Eponymen Ellil-nādin-apli“. N.A.B.U 2001 No. 4: 93–96. 2003 Mittelassyrische Verwaltung und Sozialstruktur. Leiden: Brill. 2006 „Pharaoh and His Brothers.” BMSAES 6. (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/ online_journals/bmsaes/ issue_6.aspx) 2007 „Diplomaten in Assur- Alltag oder Anzeichen für eine internationale Krise?“ Pp. 103–14 in P. A. Miglus and J. M. Córdoba, eds., Assur und sein Umland. ISIMU VI. Madrid: AM. 2009 Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Llop, J. 2010 „Barley from Alu-ša-Sîn-rabi. Chronological Relections on an Expedition in the Time of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 bc).” Pp. 105–16 in J. Vidal, ed., Studies on War in the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays on Military History. AOAT 372. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. Mayer, W. 1995 Politik und Kriegskunst der Assyrer. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Nashef, Khalil 1982 Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der mittelbabylonischen und mittelassyrischen Zeit. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert. Postgate, J. N. 1988 The Archive of Urad-Šerūa and his Family: A Middle Assyrian Household in Government Service. Corpus Medio-Assiro 1. Rome: Roberto Denicola. Pruszinsky, R. 2009 Mesopotamian Chronology of the 2nd Millennium b.c. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Röllig, W. 2008 Land- und Viehwirtschaft am Unteren Ḫābūr in mittelassyrischer Zeit. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Sassmannshausen, L. 2001 Beiträge zur Verwaltung und Gesellschaft Babyloniens in der Kassitenzeit. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Singer, I. 2008 „KBo 28.61–64 and the Struggle over the Throne of Babylon at the Turn of the 13th Century bce.” Pp. 223–45 in G. Wilhelm, ed., Ḫattuša-Bogazköy. CDOG 66. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Weidner, E. 1959 Die Inschriften Tukulti-Ninurtas und seiner Nachfolger. AfO Beih. 12. Yamada, S. 2003 “Tukulti-Ninurta I’s Rule over Babylonia and its Aftermath: A Historical Reconstruction.” Orient 38: 153–77.

Contractual Formalism and Zukunftsbewältigung in Middle Assyrian Agricultural Accounting J. Cale Johnson

Freie Universität Berlin For Kazuya Maekawa My goal in this paper is to clarify the precise bureaucratic and legal position of the pišerti karūʾe texts within the Middle Assyrian administrative system. The pišerti karūʾe texts, literally, “dissolution of the granary,” particularly as represented by the Dūr-katlimmu materials recently published by Röllig, attempt to track both grain production for particular agricultural units in a given year as well as the portion of the yield that will be needed to produce the following year’s crop. 1 Any “excess” yield was then remanded to central stores to be used for other purposes within the state administration. And while Postgate has repeatedly emphasized the bilateral, legalistic and “commercial” ethos of Middle Assyrian administration, particularly in its use of contractual language for intermediaries conveying materials or obligations from a “creditor” to a “debtor,” the pišerti karūʾe texts seem to stand in stark contrast to Postgate’s generalization. In themselves, the pišerti karūʾe texts even give the misleading impression that they are simply informational and lack any real, pragmatic consequences as administrative documents, but as we will see at the end of the paper, there are clear legal consequences for shortfalls in the pišerti karūʾe texts. In my view, the pišerti karūʾe texts lie at the very center of the Middle Assyrian administrative system in that they represent the operation of Zukunftsbewältigung within the Middle Assyrian agricultural sector. The role of Zukunftsbewältigung, literally, “management of the future,” in the administrative genres has only been touched on in these terms in the work of Gebhard Selz, who draws the term from Stefan Maul’s work on future-oriented omina and the various techniques that can be employed in order to dispel an untoward omen or prognostication. 2 Although the terminology stems from the realm of Mesopotamian divination, the key administrative exemplum in Selz’s argumentation is Bob Englund’s work on the administration of labor gangs in the Ur III period. 3 Selz argues that certain administrative textual Author’s note:  . Thanks to Bob Englund and Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum for comments on an earlier draft. All errors remain my own. This research was funded by the TOPOI Project (Berlin). 1.  Röllig 2008: passim. While the recently published Dūr-katlimmu texts are the most extensive, a number of early descriptions of the genre focused on much more fragmentary records deposited in Assur; see Freydank 1994; 1997. 2.  Selz 1999; Maul 1994; cf. Van de Mieroop 2004a: 57. 3.  Primarily Englund 1991, though rooted in Englund 1990.

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genres, primarily the core genres dealing with agricultural production as well as the storage and distribution of staple goods, especially cereal crops, necessarily call into being a virtual or projected future in which planning, standardization and in general terms “management” can take place. Given the emphasis in earlier discussions of Middle Assyrian administration on what I will call “contractual formalism,” viz., the use of legally binding contractual language even for seemingly trivial intermediary transactions, we obviously must ask ourselves precisely how these two basic modes of administration (contractual formalism and Zukunftsbewältigung) actually relate to and constrain one another within the administrative system as a whole. 4

Contractual Formalism In its original formulation, particularly in “The Instruments of Bureaucracy” (1986) and “System and Style” (2001), Postgate suggested that the privatization and tax-farming that epitomize Old Babylonian administration laid the historical groundwork for the use of “commercial,” contractual language in institutional administration in the Middle Assyrian period. In the Old Babylonian period, as administrative duties were increasingly farmed out and subcontracted into private or non-institutional hands, bilateral, contractual models were used to establish the legal obligations of these non-institutional actors vis-à-vis the institutional households that they were working for. In order to establish these obligations between institutional and non-institutional actors, contractual models that had been developed in the private sector for the purchase of real estate, slaves and the like were remodeled for official administrative purposes. 5 Renger’s classic formulation of this process reads as follows: The administration of the Ur III state recorded the obligations of its functionaries resulting from advances made to their operating accounts simply through book-keeping procedures; during the Old Babylonian period formal loan contracts could be used to record such advances. The reason is in part the fact that in the Ur III period most economic activities took place within an institutional household. In the Old Babylonian period, many of these activities were handled by entrepreneurs for the household for which they acted (“Palastgeschäft”). Thus a binding contract had to be drawn up in order to establish the obligations of the entrepreneur towards the institutional household. 6

4.  Both “contract” and “formalism” are loaded terms, whose meanings differ dramatically in certain disciplines, so I should emphasize that in my use of “contract” I am referring to a particular genre of documentation rather than, for instance, oral or implicit contracts; likewise, in speaking of “formalism” I mean to denote the layout and facteur (see Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012) of certain administrative and legal documents as well as their role in encompassing bureaucratic practices rather than the historiographic debates between substantivists and formalists (Earle 1985: 106–7, apud Garfinkle 2000: 15). 5.  On the recontextualization of bookkeeping practices as a particularly rich area of social, institutional and legal innovation in the context of partnership networks in Renaissance Florence, see Padgett and McLean 2006 and references therein. 6.  Renger 1994: 201; Renger depends largely on the description of Palastgeschäft in Kraus 1958, but Adams has recently offered a somewhat less involved description of the emergence of Old Babylonian notables operating within the private sector whose “objective was to take control of the product of public work or activity, to find ways to convert much of it into silver at prices advantageous to the middlemen as well as to the palace, and then to concentrate fungible wealth in royal hands while relieving the palace of most or all managerial responsibility” (Adams 2009: 7–8).

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And while the Palastgeschäft postulated by Kraus has been described, quite correctly in my view, as a kind of tax-farming in the historiographic tradition associated with Van de Mieroop and Garfinkle, 7 the Middle Assyrian state administrative documents do not give any hint of the outsourcing of administrative duties per se, but rather of the re-tasking of this hybrid, public-private contractual language by state officials in their management of purely state-internal accounts. 8 While Postgate’s proposal remains a particularly elegant and useful model for the development of contractual formalism in Middle Assyrian administration, some of its longue durée premises have shifted over the quarter century since it was first introduced. The once widely-held assumption that the transition between the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods was radical and discontinuous has increasingly been called into question in recent years. 9 If there is substantial continuity in social institutions between the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods, then the clear trajectory in the history of Mesopotamian political economy from a statist Ur III period to an Old Babylonian period in which subcontractors and entrepreneurs play the central role must be replaced with a much more complicated picture in which the evolution of bookkeeping procedures cannot serve as a simple proxy for changes in the political economy as a whole. 10 Moreover, if there is substantial continuity in social institutions (including quasi-private institutions such as merchant guilds) in both Ur III and Old Babylonian periods, it suggests that we may have to distinguish between bookkeeping techniques and the economic structure of the institutions to which they were applied. In other words, we should at least contemplate a scenario in which the economic structure of a given sector (whether the agricultural production of cereal crops or the employment of skilled craftsmen) changed relatively little between the end of the third millennium b.c.e. and the Middle Assyrian texts that we are looking at here, but the administrative and legal procedures that were used to manage these practices changed dramatically. Under such a scenario, the advent of Palastgeschäft arrangements in the Old Babylonian period, for example, would amount to little more than an out-sourcing of managerial responsibility in combination with a limited redistribution of certain institutional risks. Put differently, we should be particularly careful in using the mere presence of a given bookkeeping technique (such as ration lists or balanced accounts) as a diagnostic for the economic structure of the society in which such a technique was used. 11 7.  The language of “farming out” administrative obligations has been in use for some time (see Van de Mieroop 1992: 203), but Garfinkle (2010) is, as far as I can tell, the first to apply the term to the Ur III period dam-gar3 merchants. The status of Ur III dam-gar3 merchants as private individuals remains, however, an open question, see the ration lists in Englund 1990: 23–25, and the allotment fields discussed in Steinkeller 2004a: 97–98 n. 17. Needless to say, the administrative innovations that I mention here often take place within the dam-gar3 sector, which greatly complicates any discussion of their status as employees of the state, cf. Steinkeller 2004a: 97 n.  15, as well as 103. 8.  Postgate 1986: 26–29, 34–35; 2001: 185–93, especially 188–90. 9.  Neumann 1999: 44–45; Van de Mieroop 2004b: 59; Wilcke 2007; 2008; Garfinkle 2010: 186–87; Selz 2010. 10.  Van de Mieroop 1992: 3; Garfinkle 2000: 7–20 and n. 33; Garfinkle 2010: 186–87. On Mesopotamian political economy generally, see Yoffee 1995; Adams 2004b. 11. While Van de Mieroop and Garfinkle have argued for greater continuity in largely historiographic terms, Neumann has repeatedly noted substantial continuities in legal and administrative practice between pre-Ur III and post-Ur III sources as well: a possible use of private contractual language for an institutional transfer of slaves (Neumann 2007: 287–88); payment in lieu of dusu-service (2007: 291) as well as the various contractual devices used in connection with private smith and metalworking operations (2000). Moreover, particularly in a discussion of contractual formalism, there seems to be

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The other major change in the long-term administrative and legal landscape, particularly in terms of Postgate’s opposition between bilateral and unilateral types of documentation, is the field’s increasingly detailed knowledge of how ordinary, private sales contracts—the exempli gratia for bilateral documentation—functioned in society over time. Charpin’s on-going work on the “diplomatic” form and social context of Old Babylonian sales contracts has shown quite definitively that prior, out-of-date sales contracts for a particular piece of property or chattel slave were handed over to the purchaser along with the “live” or “legally active” tablet (equivalent to the Middle Assyrian ṭuppu dannatu). 12 As Charpin has emphasized, this means that the dossier associated with a particular piece of real estate usually traveled with the property itself into the family archive of its current owner, or in other words, Old Babylonian contractual dossiers were privately curated. 13 The same was true, at least in the Old Babylonian period, for legal decisions, the vast majority of which arose in disputes over a prior contract: the ṭuppi lā ragāmim, “tablet of no contest,” was provided to the winning party in a legal contest by the losing party, and in much the same way as a dossier of sales contracts, the ṭuppi lā ragāmim was also privately curated. 14 In direct contrast to the private curation of legal materials in the Old Babylonian period, Ur III “legal decisions” (di til-la)—again largely concerned with contractual disputes—were centrally stored presumably under the watchful eye of the “court officer” (maškim). 15 Moreover, as can be seen quite clearly in an Ur III appellate process that I published with Ronald Veenker in 2009, the maškim travels with the case, or to be somewhat more precise, the maškim is responsible for curating a particular legal case (and any relevant documentation) as it moves through, for example, a multi-stage appellate process. 16 The importance of Ur III some precedent in the Early Dynastic IIIb period, namely intentional damage to tablets to cancel them and prevent their reuse (first identified by Marzahn, see Selz 1999: 496–97). 12.  See Maidman 1979; Postgate 1986: 17–19. For a broader description of the curation of purchase contracts in the Old Babylonian period, see Charpin 2010: 53–69 (English translation and update of Charpin 1986). 13.  In addition to Charpin 2010, Charpin notes that the same phenomenon has also been identified in Kassite and Nuzi materials; see Charpin 2004 and Maidman 1979. For a similar phenomenon in the Middle Assyrian period, see Postgate 1971: 513. 14.  It is particularly important that we distinguish the procedures surrounding the surrender of a ṭuppi lā ragāmim (apparently limited to the Old Babylonian period) from the occurrence of the telltale phrase itself, which can be traced back into third-millennium private contracts, see Steinkeller 1989: 45–47, apud Garfinkle 2000: 305 and 319. Steinkeller emphasizes that no contest clauses in the third millennium do not refer to the possibility of legal proceedings and operate entirely within the non-judiciary sphere (Steinkeller 1989: 49). It can also be demonstrated that the facteur of private sales contracts is distinct from that of official scribes, see Sauren 1986; 1969; Wilcke 2000, non vidi, apud Charpin 2010: 12 n.  29; Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012; see as well the discussion of “extra-judicial agreements” in Neumann 1992: 171, apud Garfinkle 2000: 173. On Old Babylonian legal decisions generally, see Dombradi 2007. 15.  The Ur III pisan dub-ba (tags for classifying records in institutional archives) that held legal texts list only the judges and the ensi2 as responsible officials (there are ten examples in the current CDLI dataset, cf. Falkenstein 1956: 393–399), but since the maškim was the only person who was (i) not a party in the case and (ii) present at each stage of the appellate procedure published in Veenker and Johnson 2009, he must also be responsible for curating the legal materials as they move between jurisdictions. This seems to be confirmed by summaries of di til-la such as ITT 3, 5286 (NG 205 = P111164), which are organized in terms of the maškim responsible for particular legal proceedings (see Sallaberger 1999: 224–27). 16.  On the legal function of the maškim, see Lafont 1996: 46. In the tablet published in Veenker and Johnson 2009, the presence of the same maškim, namely lu2-du10-ga, in both the original court

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legal materials as a contrastive example, however, lies precisely in the fact that as officially curated documents, the Ur III di til-la are profoundly unilateral in Postgate’s terminology: they are not sealed, they are held in official archives and their validity cannot be challenged in court. 17 In the Old Babylonian period, the role of the Ur III period maškim in the public curation of legal records seems to have been replaced by the exchange of privately curated legal instruments such as the ṭuppi lā ragāmim, and consequently the office of maškim ceases to exist within the legal sphere and passes into the realm of demonology, a nice example of how shifts within Mesopotamian political economy also register in the broader culture. 18 The general principle that underlies the ṭuppi lā ragāmim system, namely that legal documents should be curated by the victorious party in a legal dispute rather than in a centralized archive, seems to align quite well with the growing privatization of administrative and legal practice in the Old Babylonian period. 19 Nonetheless we should not overemphasize the apparent homology between bookkeeping technique and socio-economic structures. As the ensuing Old Babylonian and Middle Assyrian periods show, ostensibly private contractual language can be adapted to hybrid public-private contracts and then, a few centuries later, reabsorbed into purely state-internal bookkeeping practice. But in the agricultural sector, in particular, we must keep in mind that the agricultural practices themselves (as opposed to their description in the administrative record) were extremely conservative and changed relatively little over time. The gradual extension of contractual formalism into an ever broader array of social practices and institutions as we move into the Middle Assyrian period can be used, therefore, to illustrate functionally distinct zones within the state administration. Crucially, certain administrative zones within the realm of agricultural production never fully succumb to contractual language, allowing us to draw a clear contrast between the realm of contractual formalism and a distinct, partially autonomous zone in which management and planning are the predominant concern.

The Morphology of an Administrative Genre Since a number of important surveys of the pišerti karūʾe texts have already appeared, while other important synthetic statements are forthcoming, I see little case as well as the appellate process is explicitly noted in each of the two corresponding sections of the document, viz. obv. lines 8 and 11. 17.  Old Babylonian appellate cases make the private curation of records particularly clear in that the authenticity and validity of privately held ṭuppi lā ragāmim is often at the heart of the legal question, see for instance the legal conflict between the daughter of Sîn-erībam and the sons of Iddinūnim described in Veenker 1974: 8–11. On the absence of sealings from Ur III court records, see Falkenstein 1956: 8, apud Steinkeller 1977: 41 n.  2, as well as 45–46. 18.  Traces of the legal function of the maškim survive in various corners of the cuneiform world, see CAD sub rābiṣu, but the maškim/rābiṣu is hardly ever mentioned in Old Babylonian legal records. The work and materials contracts between institutional households and skilled craftsmen in the Ur III period may represent the decisive transitional phase between Ur III unilateral and Old Babylonian bilateral bookkeeping techniques since they were bilateral documents (enveloped and sealed) but curated by the institutional household (Neumann 2000: 130). Since the palace in these contracts was both a legal authority and a contracting party at the same time, these practices would have provided an ideal model for the elaboration of the Palastgeschäft system in the Old Babylonian period. 19.  The shift from public to private curation of court decisions may also reflect a more general shift from publicly maintained scribal institutions in the Ur III period to privately run schools in the Old Babylonian period, see Robson 2008: 85–86 and 94, apud Adams 2009: 7.

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point in reiterating the communis opinio. 20 Instead, I would like to walk through the same standard example (BATSH 9, 60) that Röllig uses in his exposition of these texts in order to get a feel for how they are structured and perhaps even how they were precipitated as material text-artifacts. 21 Once we have this example in mind, I return to Selz’s discussion of Zukunftsbewältigung as an administrative sphere.

(1)  BATSH 9, 60, first field, (Röllig 2008: 104–7) (obv. 1)

2 me 40 ANŠE 4 BAN2 ŠE i+na GIŠ.[BAN2] ⸢ša⸣ ḫi-bur-[ni] ⸢pi⸣-šer3-ti ka-ru-e ma-di-id [te-li-it BURU14 ša 1 me] 50 GAN2 (3) 1 ANŠE 6 BAN ŠE.TA.AM it-tal-ka 4! BAN [ŠE ut]-⸢ru⸣ ša ŠU 2 3 2 mDINGIR-ma-a-bi —————————————————————————————— 240 emāru 4 sūtu = 24040 sila3 ÷ 150 iku = 160 sila3 per iku, remainder: 40 sila3 (2)

The first section in (1) begins with the yield from a particular plot of state-managed domain land, namely 24040 sila3, and notes that this amount of barley came from 150 iku of land. 22 The text then goes on to derive an average yield per iku. In this case, we have 160 sila3 per iku, with a remainder of 40 sila3, dutifully recorded as 4 BAN2 ŠE ut-ru in line 3, and then, finally, we have the name of the overseer, Ilīmaabī. The term that gives the genre it name, pišerti karūʾe appears at the end of line 1 and the beginning of line 2.

(2)  BATSH 9, 60, second field, (Röllig 2008: 104–7) (4)

2 me 52 ANŠE 2 BAN2 ŠE i+na GIŠ.BAN2 ša ḫi-bur-ni [pi]-⸢šer3⸣-ti ka-ru-e ma-di-id te-li-⟨it⟩ BURU14 ša [1 me] ⸢50⸣ GAN2 (6) 1 ANŠE 6 BAN2 8 SILA3 ŠE.TA.AM3 it-tal-ka ša ŠU m.d30-⸢mu⸣-[KAR] (5)

—————————————————————————————— 252 emāru 2 sūtu = 25220 sila3 ÷ 150 iku = 168 sila3 per iku, remainder 20 sila3, but the remainder is omitted from the written text

In the second section in (2) things work much the same, but the 20 sila3 remainder is left out, perhaps because of the similarity between the orthographic form of 2 BAN2 (two horizontals crossed by a vertical) and the right side of the KA sign in it-tal-ka in line 6: if the remainder of 2 BAN2 had been written out, it would have occurred immediately after it-tal-ka. It should also be said that one of the recurrent errors in these accounts is the omission of 2 BAN2 and the fact that numbers are regularly interspersed with non-numbers presumably leads to this type of mistake.

(3)  BATSH 9, 60, third field, (Röllig 2008: 104–7) (7) (8)

2 me ANŠE ⸢8! BAN2 ŠE⸣ i+na GIŠ.BAN2 ša ḫi-bur-ni pi-šer3-ti ka-ru-e ma-di-id te-li-⟨it⟩ BURU14 ša 1 me 50 GAN2

20.  Freydank 2009; Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012; 2012. Wiggermann 2000, which deals with the pišerti karūʾe materials from Tell Sabi Abyad, is a particularly enlightening case-study. 21.  For a much more detailed discussion of BATSH 9, 60, see Röllig 2008: passim. 22.  Here and throughout, quantities are transformed into the smallest whole unit, even if this is not how the quantities are expressed in the original text.

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(9)

1 ANŠE 3 BAN2 5 SILA3 ŠE.TA.AM3 it-tal-ka 3 BAN2 ŠE ut-ru ša ŠU m it-tab-ši-le-šir3 —————————————————————————————— (a) 200 emāru 8 sūtu = 20080 sila3 ÷ 150 iku = 135 sila3 per iku according to the text, but this is a miscalculation (b) 202 emāru 8 sūtu = 20280 sila3 ÷ 150 iku = 135 sila3 per iku, remainder: 30 sila3, but this would lead to a different number in the grand total

Only in the third section do we begin to see one of the characteristic problems of the pišerti karūʾe texts as an administrative genre. Even though I am fully in agreement with Röllig’s reconstruction of this text, the numbers do not add up: 20080 sila3 divided by 150 iku of land equals 133 sila3 per iku with a remainder of 130 sila3, which is not what we have in the text. We cannot, however, simply emend the 20080 sila3 in (3a) because, as we will see in a moment, the scribe clearly used the 20080 sila3 in (3a) in his calculation of the total yield for all the plots dealt with in this document. The solution lies in recognizing that in the pišerti karūʾe texts there are always two sets of calculations being carried out at the same time: a running total of agricultural yields—this invariably tied to the enumeration within the text itself—and concurrently a separate calculation of average yield per iku for each individual plot of land. 23 In order to make sense of the yield per iku in this section we must assume that the actual yield of the plot was 20280 sila3, namely the number in line 7 plus two additional emāru. This gives us the second calculation in (3b), namely 20280 sila3, which divided by 150 iku of land equals 135 sila3 per iku with a remainder of 30 sila3. This is precisely the yield per iku that the text records in line 9. Nonetheless, it is quite clear that the scribe used the number recorded in line 7, 20080 sila3 (without the 2 missing emāru) in the grand total. We must assume that a secondary document or calculation device of some kind, either a counting board or a wax tablet, was being used in conjunction with the pišerti karūʾe tablet itself. 24

(4)  BATSH 9, 60, fourth field, (Röllig 2008: 104–7) (10)

1 me 48 ANŠE ŠE ša šer3-e i+na GIŠ.BAN2 ša ḫi-bur-ni pi-šer3-ti ka-ru-e ma-di-id te-li-it BURU14 ša 50 GAN2 (12) 2 ANŠE 9 BAN 5 SILA ŠE.TA.AM it-tal-ka 5 BAN ŠE ut-ru 2 3 3 2 ša ŠU m.d30-SAG GAL LU2.ENGAR.MEŠ —————————————————————————————— 148 emāru = 14800 sila3 ÷ 50 iku (šerʾe) = 295 sila3 per iku with 50 sila3 remainder (11)

ŠU.NIGIN2 8 me 41 ANŠE 4 BAN2 ŠEum i+na GIŠ.BAN2 ša ḫi-⸢bur-ni⸣ pi-šer3-ti ⸢ka-ru⸣-e ma-di-id te-li-[it BURU14] (16) ša 5 me ⸢GAN ⸣ [1] ANŠE 6 BAN 8 SILA ŠE.TA.AM it-[tal]-ka 2 2 3 3 (17a) 1 ANŠE 4 BAN ŠE [ut]-ru 2 (14) (15)

23.  As Freydank has shown, these field by field average yields were also collected in separate summary tablets such as MARV 4, 130 (Freydank 2009: 49–52). 24. One particularly important methodological implication directly follows from the recognition that multiple accounting devices were being used in conjunction in drawing up the pišerti karūʾe texts: in our analyses of these documents we should generally take the total yield and its subcomponents and work backwards to the calculation of each subcomponent.

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J. C ale J ohnson 841 emāru 4 sūtu = 84140 sila3 = 24040 + 25220 + 20080 + 14800 (correct, given 20080 in section 3) 500 iku @ 168 sila3 per iku = 84,000 sila3 with a remainder of 140 sila3

Once the total yield for these four agricultural “units” for a given year is established in lines 14–15 (ŠU.NIGIN2 841 emāru 4 sūtu), the scribes estimate the amount of this yield that will be required for producing the following year’s crop. And in doing so, along with the Middle Assyrian scribes, we enter into the realm of a virtual, future-oriented classification of parts of the grain harvest. The part of the harvest needed for the coming year’s production, which is termed ripittu in a few of the texts, never enters into the official registers of the centralized stores. And while we might speak of this amount somewhat imprecisely as “floated,” the term ripittu presumably derives from rapādu ‘to roam about,’ so the metaphor that the Middle Assyrian bureaucrats adopt is of grain “moving around” in proximity to field and stall without otherwise entering into official documentation. 25

(5)  (17b) [i+na] ŠA3-bi ŠE an-ne2-e (18)

[1] me 50 ANŠE [ŠE] ⸢NUMUN⸣ ša 5 me GAN2 a-ra-še 3 BAN2.TA.AM3 i-za-ru

(Rs. 19)

a) 15000 sila3 of seed for 500 iku b) 30 sila3 seed per iku

(6)  (20) 81 ANŠE ŠE ŠUKU-at 30 GU4.MEŠ ša 15 [GIŠ].APIN.MEŠ (21)

ša 6 ITI U4.MEŠ 1 1/2 SILA3.TA.AM3 e-ku-lu

a) 30 oxen (for 15 plows) × 180 days × 1.5 sila3 per day = 8100 sila3 b) 1 team (2 oxen) per 30 iku plot (15 teams × 30 iku = 450 iku)

(7)  (22) 1 me 33 ANŠE 4 BAN2 ŠE ⸢i+na⸣ GIŠ.BAN2 ša ḫi-bur-ni ŠUKU-at

(23a)

ši-luḫ-li ša 12 ITI U4.MEŠ

a) 13340 sila3 for ši-luḫ-li workers over 12 months b) presumably 37 workers at 360 sila3 per year per worker: 37 × 360 = 13320 (20 sila3 too little)

In (5) we have the key phrase ina ŠA3-bi ŠE an-ne2-e “out of the heart or middle of this barley,” which separates the actual yield from the deductions projected for the following year’s crop, and then we get the usual three deductions: 30 sila3 of seed per iku for planting in line 19 in (5), fodder for 30 oxen for six months in (6), and 13340 sila3 in rations, for presumably 37 male šiluḫlu workers for an entire year in (7). The second and third deductions in (6) and (7) are slightly different from the rules of thumb in Wiggermann’s descriptions of the Sabi Abyad texts—one team of

25.  For a brief discussion of ripittu and its attestation in the pišerti karūʾe texts, see Röllig 2008: 20. Note as well that Mesopotamia bureaucrats use the “float” metaphor (viz. diri) in reference to ‘surplus production’ rather than an amount of grain that remains within the agricultural cycle and is otherwise off the books. The floated grain is presumably stored in various locations such as the qupattu ‘storage bin’ and the qabuttu ‘stall’ (see Jakob 2003: 320–28; Llop 2004; 2005; 2010: 129). The term is entered under ripītu in CAD R 365, but certain attestations, such as MARV 3, 9, line 2, and BATSH 8, 77, line 14, show that the correct form is ripittu.

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oxen for every 30 iku, for example, rather than the 40 iku per team that we generally find elsewhere.

(8)  (23b) ša 12 ITI U4.MEŠ 4 me 76 ANŠE 8 BAN2 ŠE re-eḫ-tu

a) 84140–13340–8100–15000 = 47700 sila3, but the text records 47680 sila3 “left over”

Then, finally, in (8) we have 476 emāru 8 sūtu reḫtu, “left over.” It is this amount that will be transferred to official storehouses. The calculation is, as we have seen elsewhere, off by 2 BAN2. The overall structure of the pišerti karūʾe texts can then be broken down into three main sections: the actual yield (I), deductions for the future crop (II) and a remainder that is entered into state warehouses (III).

(9)

Classification of grain    I. Actual yield    II. Deductions for future crop III. Remainder for storage

Sections

Designation

1–4 5–7 8

karūʾu ripittu reḫtu

In other words, the original yield prior to any deductions corresponds to (I) the karūʾu, namely the general term for any large amount of harvested grain, but the harvest is then subdivided into (II) ripittu, namely “floated” grain meant for future production costs, and (III) reḫtu, literally “what is left over” after future costs are deducted. There is widespread agreement that the pišerti karūʾe texts deal with “domain land” (Kronland) rather than ilku service allotments or leased agricultural fields, but up to now the interesting similarities between the bookkeeping practices associated with Ur III domain land and the pišerti karūʾe texts have not been highlighted. 26 In the interest of brevity, let me first draw out these functional parallels in tabular form.

(10)

Classification of grain

Ur III administrative genre (literature)

   I. Actual yield (1–4) domain land yield (Pettinato and    Waetzoldt 1975; Maekawa 1987;    1990; 1999: 82) yield assessments (“round tablets”)    (Maekawa 1982: 98–102; 1992)    II. Deductions for future crop (5–7) seed-and-fodder (Maekawa 1990: 75–82) labor (Maekawa 1989; 1990) III. Remainder for storage (8) guru7-a im ur3-ra texts (Huber 2000)

As can be seen in (10), the pišerti karūʾe texts achieve a number of administrative functions that are represented by distinct administrative genres in the Ur III period. Moreover, what the pišerti karūʾe texts occasionally lack in precision, they more than make up for by synthesizing a number of otherwise discrete administrative functions (average yields, seed and fodder, worker rations) within a single documentary format.

26. That pišerti karūʾe represent domain land was first recognized in Postgate’s review of MARV II (1990), but it has been commented on in a number of subsequent discussions: Freydank 1994; 1997; Jakob 2003: 15 and 24–28; Llop 2005: 46.

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Most of these functional parallels from the Ur III period are straightforward and require no further comment, but certain features of a particular Ur III yield text, namely SAKF 95, are noteworthy in that there is some indication of a historical—rather than merely typological—connection between texts like SAKF 95 and the pišerti karūʾe texts as an administrative genre. 27 Thus we see in SAKF 95, obv. 15–17: 1(bur3) 4(iku) 1/2(iku) GAN2 1(u) 1(diš)-ta / še-bi 1(geš2) 6(aš) 3(barig) 2(ban2) gur / diri 2(u) 6(diš) 3(barig) 2(ban2) gur “22 1/2 iku (with 11 furrows per nindan) yield 66 gur 200 sila3 with a surplus of 26 gur 200 sila3,” so the expected production was 40 gur, presumably for a 20 iku plot. 28 Although the round numbers in these lines are suggestive, most of the entries in SAKF 95 do not work out so easily. So, for the time being, it is probably best to associate yield assessments like SAKF 95 with the pišerti karūʾe texts on the basis of shared terminology. Röllig has identified the correct reading of the field classification EZEN-e as šer3-e, hence šerʾe in transcription. 29 Similarly, in texts such as SAKF 95 we find a Sumerian expression a-ša3 ša-ra-ḫu-um-ma functioning as a field classification as well. This phrase is to be analyzed as a Sumerian genitive construction, namely /aša(g) šarahum-a(k)/, in which the term ša-ra-ḫu-um is clearly a late Akkadian loanword into Sumerian. 30 The strong guttural represented by /ḫ/ would have colored any /a/ vowels to /e/ and with the replacement of /ḫ/ with an ʾ (aleph), vowel syncope and the loss of mimation, we arrive at an equation between šaraḫum and šerʾu. The relatively small surface area of these šaraḫum = šerʾu fields in combination with their above average yield would seem to confirm the equation. The general term karūʾu has long been recognized as a Sumerian loanword from guru7 and it may eventually be demonstrated that the term pišerti karūʾe itself derives from a Sumerian phrase such as guru7-a im ur3-ra or su7 du8-a, although I cannot go into the question in detail here. 31

27.  Maekawa usually refers to the text as “Oberhuber IBK 7–8, 95,” see generally Pettinato and Waetzoldt 1975; Maekawa 1987; 1999. 28.  Interpretations of the text have been hampered by the fact that allotments to the agricultural workers are included in the totals of surface area, but the amounts of harvested grain do not include these allotment fields. Since unharvested yields on domain land that are destroyed by acts of God are normally valued as 2 gur per iku (see OrSP 47–49, 347 [P125237], obv. 8: 2(eše3) GAN2 24 gur; Waetzoldt 1978: 48; see generally Wilcke 1999), we can be fairly sure that the expected yield of 40 gur corresponded to a 20 iku plot. The remaining 2 1/2 iku would be allotment land for the cultivator (engar) of a domain unit measuring approximately 5–6 bur3. If we assume a domain unit of 6 bur3 (= 108 iku) and the standard allotment of 12 iku per engar, we arrive at 1 iku of allotment field for every 9 iku of domain land or 12 iku of allotment field for 108 iku = 6 bur3 of domain land. The 3 gur per iku rate found in the Ur-Namma code for destruction of a standing crop through negligence presumably operates within the private sphere and was meant to be somewhat punitive (Wilcke 1999: 338–339, cf. Petschow 1984). 29.  Röllig 2008: 22–23. Interestingly enough, there seem to be both standard (ši-re-ʾe-e [Röllig 2008: 23]) and archaic (ša!-ra-ʾe [Röllig 2008: 151]) syllabic orthographies preserved in the corpus. 30.  That šaraḫum is an Akkadian loanword is already recognized in Pettinato and Waetzoldt 1975. The late date of the loan is indicated by the preserved nominative case ending. 31.  We might expect some form of bur2 to correspond to pišertu (cf. Civil 1994: 32–33, line 107, and 98), but bur2 as an Ur III administrative term is only very rarely used in agricultural contexts (MVN 1, 208, rev. 1 [P113241]; TUT 17, obv. i 26 [P135588]). There are a number of other examples of Sumerian administrative terminology that are borrowed into Middle Assyrian administration such as ša3-bi-ta = i+na ŠA3 ŠE an-ne2-e; these will have to be dealt with elsewhere.

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Zukunftsbewältigung The fashionable theory for administrative systems at present would seem to be the indexically-driven, symmetrical models of Actor Network Theory (ANT), particularly as seen in the work of Bruno Latour. 32 ANT theory builds on older network models, while at the same time providing an epistemology that (i) easily locates administrative documentation within its archeological context, (ii) attributes agency to both bureaucrats and the material processes that they seek to manage, and (iii) avoids the dubious rhetoric of immanence and its essentialism. 33 That being said, ANT also seems to lack real explanatory power in many cases, amounting to little more than a philosophy of spatio-temporal relations, otherwise known as indexicality. In contrast to these largely philosophical presuppositions, I would like to follow the lead of Gebhard Selz and argue for the partial autonomy of some parts of the administrative system, particularly in connection with staple crop production and the future oriented management of these stores. Selz speaks directly to how administrative genres such as the pišerti karūʾe texts are instrumental in “transcending natural time,” and establishing a virtual or projective future within which various forms of “planning,” “standardization” and “management of the future” (Zukunftsbewältigung) become possible. Selz then goes on to emphasize the inherent link between ration-driven economies and the need for future-oriented modeling as follows: Every instantiation of a ration-based economic system requires controls on incoming and outgoing materials as well as inventories. This gives rise not only to pressures to carefully manage crop yields from the agricultural domain, but also an urgent need for planning. The management of economic demands as well as productivity leads inexorably to the creation of a bureaucratic authority that is responsible for management and taxation. Planning, the model-based, conscious anticipation of future circumstances or events, perfectly signifies the center of this type of economy. 34

Put somewhat differently, ANT-based models would be particularly effective in describing, say, the fact that lower and more variable yields in northern Mesopotamia led to what Wiggermann has called “extensive” rather than “intensive” cultivation techniques, 35 but in order to capture the virtual or future-oriented features of institutional administration we must appeal to administrative and legal norms and the way in which these norms were applied within idealized models. Once we take the disconcerting step of distinguishing between spatio-temporally located “facts on the ground” and the valuation of these materialities within a largely autonomous administrative reality, the postulation of an array of hierarchically structured levels or orders within such a reality seems to follow quite naturally. In a 32.  Latour 1999; 2003; 2005; see Martin 2005; Auslander et al. 2009; and above all Harman 2009 for some context. 33.  For ANT-inspired archaeological theory, see Knappet and Malafouris 2008; Mills and Walker 2008; Nanoglou and Meskeel 2009; but it should be said that Preucel’s Archaeological Semiotics (2006) remains the best single sourcebook for this area and has the added benefit of drawing clear parallels between archaeological and linguistic anthropology, an aspect that is entirely missing from most symmetrical theories. 34.  Selz 1999: 467–477. This type of accounting practice is much older than the contractual variety, reaching all the way back to Late Uruk interdependencies between grain metrology, time-keeping and the distribution of rations, see Englund 1988; 1998: 111–127. 35.  Wiggermann 2000: 193–194.

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forthcoming discussion of orders of indexicality within the Middle Assyrian administrative system, Cancik-Kirschbaum distinguishes between first, second and thirdorder administrative documents: first-order documents are prototypically in direct spatio-temporal proximity to the commodities that are being evaluated, measured or managed, whereas second-order documents represent a more “internal” phase of text production in which the information from the first-order documents is systematized within new administrative contexts so as to generate decontextualized values that can be organized according to administrative system-internal schemata. 36 Normally only a single document stands for the recorded act(ion) or fact. There may have been copies, but there is no multiple coverage of a single first-level fact; second and third-level documents may of course refer to identical acts, but that lies in the nature of the genesis of hierarchically organised administrative layers. Several documents can build a file or dossier, either being related to the same action, recording different stages (e.g., credits, partial cancellations of debt, etc.) or attesting to an activity of the same type (taxation, harvest, accounting, etc.). 37

Cancik-Kirschbaum sees the pišerti karūʾe texts as particularly good examples of second-order documents in that (i) yields from a number of different fields are combined on a single document, (ii) average yields are calculated for each field as well as the fields on the document as a whole, and (iii) yield reports from different topographical locations (e.g. Dūr-katlimmu and Duara) are often combined in a single report. 38 If we classify the pišerti karūʾe texts, which each typically document a 500 iku group of fields (A.GAR3) under the authority of a rab ikkarāte, as second order documents, then summary tablets such as MARV 4, 173, in which each ca. 500 iku section is represented by a single line clearly represent third-order documents. 39 Given Cancik-Kirschbaum’s definition of orders of administrative indexicality, the realm of Zukunftsbewältigung postulated by Gebhard Selz can only correspond to second-order or higher documents. The question that I am grappling with here, however, is how historically distinct bookkeeping traditions (viz. contractual formalism in opposition Zukunftsbewältigung) intersect with Cancik-Kirschbaum’s largely synchronic model of relative proximity to real goods. In my view, the interaction between Zukunftsbewältigung and contractual formalism can be diagrammed as shown in Diagram 1: The key function of the pišerti karūʾe texts is to separate off the amount of grain required for the self-sufficient operation of the state-managed agricultural sector, namely the ripittu grain. Under ideal conditions the administrative norms that are used in carrying out the pišerti karūʾe calculations set aside sufficient ripittu grain for the planting of the following year’s crop. It is only within this realm of management and norm that we see conventional equivalencies (or more colloquially “rules of thumb”) applied systematically. 40 Crucially, however, the 36.  Cancik-Kirschbaum forthcoming: 40. 37.  Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012: 8. 38.  Cancik-Kirschbaum forthcoming: 41. The language of “orders (of indexicality)” is rooted both in traditional models of textual diplomatics (see Duranti 1998) as well as in certain discussions of language ideology, see Silverstein 2003 for background. 39.  Freydank 2009: 24–37. As Freydank notes, MARV 4, 173 is a cadastre rather than a yield summary, so it is not structurally equivalent to an Ur III yield summary such as BM 110116 (Maekawa 1987). Nonetheless, MARV 4, 173 and BM 110116 are structurally analogous in that both are third order documents and both summarize the agricultural sector of a particular geographical region. 40. The Middle Assyrian norms are discussed at length in Wiggermann 2000. See Lafont 1994 and Cancik-Kirschbaum and Chambon 2006 for a broader and more theoretical discussion of the role

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Diagram 1.  The interdependence between grain classifications and administrative techniques.

ripittu grain can never be re-tasked for some other administrative purpose, so in principle it never enters into the contractual system in any way. 41 It is only when the complicated web of normative assumptions surrounding agricultural production fails that we see seed and fodder being booked out of the karmu stores for agricultural purposes. Unlike the ripittu grain, the karmu stores are in principle available to any sector of the institutional economy at the discretion of the ruler. The key example that partially inspired Selz’s account of Zukunftsbewältigung is Englund’s work on the management of labor gangs in the Ur III period. 42 To the right of the pišerti karūʾe account in (11), I have outlined the structure of the Ur III labor text Erlenmeyer 155: an initial debits section stating any previously unfulfilled administrative obligations as well as the projected amount of labor available from a group of dependent laborers for a twelve month period of time, then a credits section in which receipts for various actual, documented labor activities as well as time off is deducted from the debits section and then finally in the third section a total consisting of either a la2-ia3 “deficit” or diri “surplus.”

(11)  Comparing a pišerti karūʾe account to an Ur III labor account BATSH 9, 60 Erlenmeyer 155 I. Actual yields I. Debits   (a) “the dissolution of the granary”   (a) previous debit    for 4 different agricultural units   (b) addition to debit   (b) total: 84140 sila3 actual yield   (c) total debit   pi-šer3-ti ka-ru-e   saĝ niĝ2-gur11-ra-kam of measurement and norms in the ancient Near East. This is symbolized, of course, by the inclusion of norms in the legal codes, see Adams 2009. 41.  Substantial amounts of ripittu grain do occasionally show up elsewhere in the Middle Assyrian administrative system such as MARV 1, 1 (VAT 17999) obv. i 60 and rev. ii 45. But even in this case, the ripittu grain is carefully distinguished from the karmu grain in rev. ii 50. For other occurrences, see CAD sub ripītu. 42.  Primarily Englund 1991, but see Englund 1990 for the background.

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J. C ale J ohnson II. Anticipated costs of future production II. Credits   i+na ŠA3-bi ŠE an-ne2-e   ša3-bi-ta   (a) 15000 sila3 for seed   (a) credits: milling   (b) 8100 sila3 fodder for 30 oxen   (b) credits: agricultural work   (c) 13340 sila3 for šiluḫlu workers   (c) credits: bala work   (d) yield minus future costs (ripittu)   (d) credits: time off   i-za-ru, e-ku-lu   zi-ga III. Total excess yield available for III. Balance   non-agricultural use: 47700 sila3   (a) positive or negative   re-eḫ-tu   diri or la2-ia3

The key difference between these two examples (the pišerti karūʾe text and the Ur III labor account) lies in where precisely the virtual or future-oriented element occurs within each of these administrative genres. In the Ur III text the projected future—here made up of the expected number of work-days of a team of laborers—is added to old debits from the previous year, and this amount is placed in the SAG or “head” of the tablet. In the pišerti karūʾe text on the right, however, the virtual or projected future—namely the estimated future inputs in seed, fodder and rations required for the production of the following year’s crop—is placed in the second section and subtracted from the current year’s actual yield in the first section. One could even go so far as to say the placement of the future-oriented projections in section II of the pišerti karūʾe text calls into existence a virtual field of possible state activities that would be supported by a given amount of staple crop surplus, while the inverted placement of the virtual domain in the first section of the Ur III labor account uses up or retires this operative potential. And consequently the location of the future-oriented component within each of these two genres mirrors the role of these genres within the Zukunftsbewältigung sector of the administrative system as a whole: administrative genres that track the generation of the staple crop surplus will necessarily be concerned with the amount available for non-agricultural purposes, while genres that control the distribution of the surplus will take these projections as their point of departure.

The Usual Perturbations and the Cancellation of Administrative Liabilities Although the description of the economic sector represented by the pišerti karūʾe texts as a partially autonomous domain of Zukunftsbewältigung in the preceding section can easily be rooted in any number of sociological or historical models, I would like to use of the language of perturbations, as developed in the work of Luhmann and Teubner, to describe situations in which normative assumptions fail and the political sphere must intervene in the otherwise autopoietic realm of Zukunftsbewältigung. 43 The real advantage of formulating it in terms of sociological framework provided by figures such as Luhmann and Teubner is that they clearly differentiate an administrative sector from the realm of politics and then argue for specific types of interaction between these two domains. Of course the primary

43.  The literature surrounding Luhmann’s sociology is voluminous, but see in particular Luhmann 2002: 91–141 for a relatively succinct overview as well as Teubner 1993.

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means of intervention throughout Mesopotamian history was the issuing of a royal edict cancelling various kinds of indebtedness and administrative obligations. 44 At first, shortfalls in the agricultural sector (insufficient ripittu grain to plant the following year’s crop, for instance) simply force the cultivators to draw seed, fodder and rations from the karmu stores just as any other state official would for non-agricultural purposes.

(12)  MARV 9, 62 (Freydank 2009: 24) (1)

KIŠIB mmar-ṣa-ni / (2) 6 ANŠE ŠE.NUMUN / (3) 1(barig) ŠUKU GU4.MEŠ ⸢i+na⸣ ĝišBAN2 ⸢ša⸣ ḫi-bur-ni / (5) ⸢ša⸣ E2.GALlim / (6) ⸢ša⸣ E2 kar-me (7) ⸢ša⸣ ŠU qe-pu-te / (8) ša irikar-mGIŠKIM-MAŠ / (9) ⸢i+na⸣ UGU mmar-ṣa-⸢ni⸣ (10) DUMU a-di-ie-⸢e? x ma?-di?⸣-[id] / (11) 20 A.ŠA3 GAN2 (12) [. . . iri]kar-mGIŠKIM-MAŠ / (13) [a-na (?)] a-⸢ra!-x-še?⸣ / (14) [ta]-⸢ad?⸣-na-aš2-šu (15) [te-li]-it BURU14 / (16) i-ma-da-ad / (17) ⸢u3 ṭup⸣-pu!-šu / (18) ⸢i⸣-ḫap-pi —————————————————————————————— (19) iti qar-ra-a-tu U4 21.KAM2 / (20) li-mu ma-bat-tu (4)

Seal: Marṣani (for) ca. 500 liters seed, 50 liters oxen-fodder, in the sūtu measure of the Hiburnu-house, property of the palace, from karmu storage and under the authority of the officials of Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. On the UGU-section of the account of Marṣani, son of Adiyû, it was measured out. It was given out to him for the planting of 20 iku in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. When he measures out the yield of the harvest, his tablet will be broken. Month: Qarratu, 21st day, limu of Abattu. (translation after Freydank)

The tablet is sealed at the top of the observe, includes an explicit liability placed on the UGU or debits section of Marṣani’s account and it also includes the decisive piece of evidence that it is a contractual obligation, namely the statement that the tablet should be broken when the liability is discharged at harvest. Moreover, the fact that the grain is drawn from karmu stores under the authority of the responsible officials (ŠU qe-pu-te) of Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta makes it fairly certain that this is an institution-internal administrative obligation rather than a private debt. The seed and fodder specified in the account would normally have been drawn from ripittu grain, but in its absence Mar-ṣa-ni is forced to check out karmu grain and incur an administrative obligation via a contractual instrument. 45 The assumption of a text like MARV 9, 62 is that small shortfalls can simply be deducted from the next harvest, but in the face of general perturbations such as warfare, prolonged drought or other bad weather, entire sections of the agricultural landscape could easily be driven into administrative “debts” from which they could not recover. If we juxtapose the pišerti karūʾe texts from Dūr-katlimmu with the small group of edicts cancelling administrative obligations in the agricultural sector that Freydank has assembled, we can arrive at some idea of how the danger of such a collapse could be avoided. BATSH 9, 79 below shows us what a pišerti karūʾe text would look like under difficult circumstances. 44.  See generally Charpin 2010: 83–96 (English translation and revision of Charpin 1990). 45.  The seed distribution for Hurrian deportees in MARV 2, 6, presumably represents an analogous situation, see Freydank 2009: 37–39.

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(13)  BATSH 9, 79 (DeZ 2487; Röllig 2008: 151) (1)

1 me GAN2 ša ŠU mqa-bu-di GAL ENGAR.MEŠ / (2) ša iridu-⟨a⟩-ra 1 me GAN2 ša ŠU m.d30-le-i / (4) 1 me GAN ša ŠU mre-ma-ni-U 2 (5) 1 me GAN ša ŠU m.dMAR.TU-⟨MU⟩-le-šir / (6) ŠU.NIGIN 3 me GAN ŠE 2 3 2 2 (7) 50 GAN ša ša!-ra-ʾe / (8) 3 me 50 GAN ša iriBAD -kat-li-mu 2 2 3 (9) ŠU.NIGIN 4 me 50 ANŠE ŠE / (10) ša li-me e-tel-pi-i-da-šur 2 (11) ša i+na pa-ni na-ak-ri / (12) la-a i-ni-ṣi-du-u -ni 2 (13) i+na li-me mu -ṣur-nam-kur-LUGAL / (14) 4 ME 50 GAN la-a i-na-re-še 2 2 (15) la-a i-ṣi-id —————————————————————————————— (16) 1 me 5 ANŠE ŠE.NUMUN ša 3 me 50 GAN !(ANŠE) 2 (17) 3 BAN .TA.AM i-za-ru / (18) a-di 50 GAN ša šer -ʾe 2 3 2 3 (19) 1 šu-ši 4 ANŠE 8 BAN ŠUKU-at GU .MEŠ 2 4 (20) 75 ANŠE 7 BAN 5 SILA i+na GIŠ.BAN SUMUN 2 3 2 (21) a-na ŠUKU-at ši-luḫ-li ta-di-in (22) ŠU.NIGIN 2 me 50! ANŠE 7 BAN ŠE 2 2 (23) i+na ŠE SUMUN na-aš -ra / (24) ta-di-in 1 me GAN / (25) la-a i-na-re-še 2 2 (26) itiḫi-bur U 20.KAM li-mu mPAP-nam-kur-LUGAL! 4 2 (3)

In formal terms, BATSH 9, 79, is a standard pišerti karūʾe text, but then in lines 9–15 we read: Total: 450 emāru of barley, dating to the eponymate of Etel-pî-Aššur, which was not harvested due to the presence of the enemy. In the eponymate of Uṣurnamkur-šarre, these 450 iku were not planted (and) were not harvested.

The text then goes on to list the seed, fodder and rations required for the planting of a new crop. With no harvest in either the eponymate of Etel-pî-Aššur or that of Uṣur-namkur-šarre, we must assume that no ripittu grain was available and the inputs for the future crop were drawn from karmu storage. 46 In the same eponymate of Etel-pî-Aššur we also find a curious and decidedly formal statement of innocence by the well-known figure of Aššur-iddin—the same Aššur-iddin whose letters appear in BATSH 4—apparently in opposition to a charge of corruption in his management of crown lands. 47

(14)  A. 2994 (Brinkman and Donbaz 1985: 84–86; Freydank 1991: 221; Lafont 2003: 526) (1)

⸢KIŠIB⸣ m.da-šur-i-din   (space for seal) (2) (indented) m.da-šur-i-din / (3) DUMU IR -DINGIR.MEŠ-ni 3 (4) a-na pa-ni LUGAL / (5) a-ki-a iq-ti-bi / (6) ma-a i+na UGU šu-ub-ri-e (7) KUR na-i-ra-⸢ie⸣-e / (8) u KUR kat-mu-ḫa-⸢ie⸣-e 3 46.  The statement that “450 emāru of barley was not harvested” in line 9–11 is not an idle piece of information but provides us with one piece of evidence that the administrative norm for unharvested grain on domain land that is destroyed by höhere Gewalt in the Middle Assyrian period may have been 1 emāru (= 100 sila3) per iku, hence 450 emāru for the 450 iku described in BATSH 9, 79. As noted in n. 28 above, the standard value assigned to standing crops on domain land in the Ur III period seems to have been 2 gur (= 600 sila3) per iku. 47.  The tablet was published in Brinkman and Donbaz 1985 and was associated with the eponym of Etel-pî-Assur in Freydank 1991.

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(9)

la-a am-li-ik la-a aš2-pur-šu-nu / (10) la-a aš2-ši-šu-nu GIŠ.⸢APIN⸣.MEŠ-⸢ia⸣ la-a u2-ka-i-lu / (12) A.ŠA3 la-a e-ru-šu / (13) i+na te-li-it ⸢BURU14⸣-šu-nu (14) a-⸢na⸣-ku la-a a-ku-⸢ul⸣ / (15) šum2-ma m.da-šur-i-din / (16) KUR šu-ub-ri-e (17) KUR na-i-ra-ie-e / (18) ⸢u3⸣ KUR kat-mu-ḫa-ie-e / (19) ⸢il⸣-ta-pa-ar (20) x-si-šu GIŠ.APIN.MEŠ-šu / (21) ⸢uk-ta⸣-i-lu / (22) te-li-⸢it⸣ BURU14-šu-nu (23) e-ta-kal m.da-šur-i-din / (24) nap-ša-a-tu2 ša LUGAL EN-šu / (25) iz-zi-ar —————————————————————————————— (26) [. . .] ⸢U4 19.KAM2 li-mu / (27) [. . . me-tel]-pi(KA)?-i?-daš-šur (11)

Seal: Assur-idin. Assur-idin, son of Urad-ilāni, spoke as follows in the presence of the king: “As for the people of Šubrû, the people of Nairi, and the people of Katmuḫu: I did not give advice. I did not give orders to them. I did not summon them. They did not use my plows. They did not seed (my) fields. I did not consume any of their harvest.” “If Assur-iddin gave orders to the people of Šubrû, the people of Nairi, or the people of Katmuḫu, (if) he has summoned one of them, (if) they have used his plows, (if) he has consumed any of their harvest, then Assur-iddin is guilty of treason (lit. hated the life of the king, his lord).” Month. . . , 19th day, limu of Etel-pî-Assur.” (translation after Brinkman and Donbaz)

Aššur-iddin swears that he has not misused the labor of three named groups of captive laborers. We must assume that he is asserting that he did not use these laborers for agricultural work on his own allotment lands, since it would be no crime to use the laborers for crown lands. Although the month name is not preserved in this statement of innocence, the fact that it deals with agricultural labor and especially the fact that it takes place on the 19th day of the month, both favor reconstructing the month name as that of Ḫībur, since it appears that the 19th and 20th of the twelve month (Ḫībur), at the very end of the administrative year, was the usual time of year for the settling of outstanding issues and accounts, particularly when these are related to the agricultural sector. This becomes particularly clear if we turn to a third crucial document from the same eponymate of Etel-pî-Aššur, namely MARV 4, 115 in (14) below.

(15)  MARV 4, 115 (Freydank 2009: 73–74) (first section, lines 1–8, describes an cancellations of liabilities associated with tribute [GU2-šu-nu] in the 8th month) (9)

[x] ⸢1⸣ me 26 ANŠE 8 BAN2 ŠEum ⸢i+na⸣ GIŠ.BAN2 [. . .] gi-na-u2 ša irikar-m.ĝiš⸢TUKUL⸣-[ti-dNIN.URTA] (11) ša a-na iriŠA -bi-IRI a-na E da-⸢šur⸣ 3 2 (12) ⸢ša⸣-kin KUR ša iri⸢kar⸣-mGIŠ.TUKUL-[ti-dNIN.URTA] 2 (13) [. . .] x x LAK iš-tu iri⸢kar-m⸣GIŠ.TUKUL-ti-⸢d⸣[NIN.URTA] (14) [. . .] x [. . .] x x a-na iriŠA -bi-IRI pa-[. . .] 3 (at least six lines quite fragmentary) —————————————————————————————— (rev. 2′) itiḫi-bur U 3.KAM li-me m.dIŠKUR-u -ma-⸢i⸣ [. . .] 4 2 2 —————————————————————————————— (10)

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ŠU.NIGIN2 14 ri-ik-sa-nu ša i+na li-me mU-u2-[ma-i] a-bat-te u3 li-me me-tel-pi-i-da-⸢šur⸣ (5′) a-na irikar-mGIŠ.TUKUL-ti-dNIN.URTA ra-ak-⸢su⸣-[ni] —————————————————————————————— (6‘) iti ⸢ ⸣ḫi-bur U4 19.KAM2 li-mu m.dbe-er-iš!-[ma-ni] (4′) m

(9)

128+ emāru 8 sūtu barley in the . . . sūtu-measure, (10) ginaʾu-offering of the city of Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta, (11) which is for Libbi-āli, for the temple of Assur. (12) The prefect of Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta . . . (rev. 2′) Month: Ḫībur, 3rd day, Eponym: Adad-umaʾʾi (3′) Total: 14 cancellations of obligations, which in the Eponymate of Adad-umaʾʾi, (4′) of Abattu and in the Eponymate of Etel-pî-Assur (5′) were declared. (6′) Month: Ḫībur, 19th day, Eponym: Bēr-Ismanni. (translation after Freydank)

MARV 4, 115 actually summarizes no less than 14 distinct royal decrees (14 ri-ik-sanu) and is part of a set of royal decrees that Freydank has assembled in his recent study of the agricultural sector in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. 48 And while the obligations in question (presumably including both gināʾu taxes as well as other kinds of obligations) were cancelled on the third day of the twelfth month, this particular document is issued on the 19th day of the twelfth month, exactly one day before the usual date on which the pišerti karūʾe accounts are drawn up. If we can assign A. 2994, the text published by Brinkman and Donbaz, to the 19th day of the twelfth month as well, then it seems reasonable to suggest that these various ancillary documents concerned with the agricultural sector, cancelling a variety of outstanding administrative obligations as well as, apparently, an allegation of corruption against Aššur-iddin, had to be issued prior to the formulation of a new pišerti karūʾe text on the 20th day of the month of Ḫībur. Although the fragmentary character of these administrative “edicts” (ri-ik-sanu) and the numerous uncertainties about the historical context of the near collapse of certain segments of the agricultural sector in the years surrounding the eponymate of Etel-pî-Aššur make the formulation of definitive conclusions impossible. It does seem fairly clear that a wide variety of perturbations of the agricultural sector had to be resolved through a series of royal edicts in the eponymate of Bēr-išmanni prior to the issuance of pišerti karūʾe texts on the following day. Thus, we see formal legal actions in the political sphere that resolve concrete, outstanding liabilities that have arisen through the external perturbations of the Zukunftsbewältigung sector of the administrative system.

Conclusion In this contribution I have argued that we can use the growth and elaboration of contractual devices in Middle Assyrian institutional bookkeeping to more precisely define those sectors of the institutional administration in which contractual techniques are not used, primarily the management of domain land. This realm of Zukunftsbewältigung (“management of the future”) was largely impervious to contractual innovations and presumably preserves an age old system of setting aside seed, fodder and rations so as to maintain self-sufficient (“autopoietic”) agricultural 48.  Freydank 2009: 70–75.

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production on crown land. In contrast to the usual discussions of supposed oikos economies, the description of this sector as autopoietic is meant to emphasize the idealized autonomy of state-managed agricultural production as well as the fact that the norms that governed this sector of the economy often failed in the face of adverse perturbations. Such failures then necessitated the intervention of political actors so as to re-establish the self-sufficient character of the agricultural sector. 49 The presence of distinct sectors within the Middle Assyrian institutional administration adds a new dimension to well-known discussions of the opposition between public and private sectors (or alternatively institutional versus non-institutional sectors). 50 If there is a partially autonomous sector of institutionally managed staple crop production in a given historical period, we should really speak of degrees of institutional autonomy rather than a simple public-private split. Moreover, as the history of bookkeeping procedures is increasingly distinguished from the economic, social and political structures that they represent, we can hopefully begin to see bookkeeping technique (including its ideological component) as one variable in a more broadly conceived history of Mesopotamian political economy. Addenda 2013: Since the submission of this manuscript, Hervé Reculeau’s Climate, Environment and Agriculture in Assyria (Harrassowitz, 2011) has appeared, but I have not attempted to integrate Reculeau’s findings into this paper. For an extended discussion of the calendrical aspects of Reculeau’s work, see E. CancikKirschbaum and J. Cale Johnson, “Middle Assyrian Calendrics,” forthcoming in State Archives of Assyria Bulletin XIX. 49.  On sectors in Mesopotamian economies generally, see Renger 1990. 50.  See Garfinkle 2005 for an extensive discussion of the these oppositions.

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The Eponym Bēr-nādin-apli and the Documents Referring to the Expeditions to the City of Tille in the Reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 b.c.e.) Jaume Llop

University

of

Barcelona

1. Introduction In contrast to the Old Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian periods, no significant list of eponyms has been found for the Middle Assyrian period. Nevertheless, scholars such as C. Saporetti, 1 H. Freydank, and W. Röllig, to name just the most prominent and recent ones, have considered the sequences of eponyms in published and unpublished documentation, in addition to further evidence ranging from historical events to the growth of people (biologically and numerically) in the lists of personnel. As a result, they have made significant contributions to the reconstruction of the list. However, we are still far from having a complete list of eponyms from the 15th to the 11th centuries b.c.e., and a great deal of work remains to be done. The original goal of this workshop was to make some progress in this reconstruction. In my paper, I will concentrate on the sequence of eponyms for the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 b.c.e.). Freydank 2 and Röllig 3 have recently made significant progress in reconstructing the sequence of the 37 eponyms, one for each Author’s note: An early version of this paper was read by E. C. Cancik-Kirschbaum, B. Faist, H. Freydank, and M. C. Perroudon; I would like to thank them for their invaluable comments. I am responsible for any remaining error. The bibliographical abbreviations in this article can be found in M. P. Streck (ed.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie. Berlin – New York, vol. 11 (2006– 2008) iii–xliv. Further abbreviations not listed there are the following: Freydank, SGKAO 21 Freydank, H.  Beiträge zur mittelassyrischen Chronologie und Geschichte (Berlin, 1991). Jakob, Tell Chuēra Jakob, S. Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien mit einem Beitrag von Daniela I. Janisch-Jakob (Wiesbaden, 2009). Saporetti, EMA Saporetti, C. Gli eponimi medio-assiri (Malibu, 1979). 1.  His book Gli eponimi medio-assiri (Malibu, 1979; hereafter EMA) is still one of the most significant in the field. 2.  Freydank, SGKAO 21 (1991); see more recently on the eponyms of Shalmaneser I and TukultīNinurta I, Freydank, “Zu den Eponymenfolgen des 13. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. in Dūr-Katlimmu,” AoF 32 (2005) 45–56. 3. W.  Röllig, “Eponymen in den mittelassyrischen Dokumenten aus Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad/DūrKatlimmu,” ZA 94 (2004) 18–51.

549

550

J aume L lop

year, of his reign. However, although Röllig 4 has recently accepted the corrections made by Freydank, and a certain consensus has been reached, the list is still far from complete and flawless.

2.  The Sequence of Eponyms for the Tukultī-Ninurta Reign: the Dissimilitudes Before we proceed, let us look at the proposed sequence of eponyms for the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta as suggested by Freydank, Röllig, S. Jakob, 5 and Y. Bloch. 6 The table on p. 551 shows a comparison of their proposals. As we can see in the table, there is no dissimilarity among the proposed sequences up to the year of Aššurzēra-iddina—that is, ca. the 16th year of the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta. After this year, S. Jakob has taken certain facts into account that Freydank and Röllig both knew about but either found irrelevant or simply overlooked when assembling their respective lists. First, Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat should be placed before Abī-ilī son of Katiri, given that Aššur-iddin was the great vizier (sukkallu rabiu) in the former’s year, whereas Salmānu-mušabši was the new great vizier in the latter’s year. 7 The second fact is that, for reasons we shall see below, and which Freydank himself has proposed, 8 Ninuāiu should probably be introduced into the sequence and placed before Abī-ilī son of Katiri. 9 Here, I will concentrate on the eponym Bēr-nādin-apli and try to introduce him into the above sequence. Freydank has placed Bēr-nādin-apli roughly in the second half of the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta. 10 Röllig has situated him tentatively (with a question mark) between Abī-ilī and Salmānu-šuma-uṣur. 11 However, as far as I know, there is no clear reason for locating him between these two eponyms. Bloch has placed him in the 26th year of Tukultī-Ninurta, after Enlil-nādin-apli, also with a question mark. 12 The sequence I propose is as follows: Ninuāiu → Bēr-nādin-apli → Abī-ilī son of Katiri → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur. This is done on the basis of the cuneiform tablets containing a reference to the expeditions to fetch barley from the city of Tille, which, as far as I know and at the time of writing (July 2010), are fifteen published documents from the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta. 4. Röllig, Land- und Viehwirtschaft am unteren Habur in mittelassyrischer Zeit (Wiesbaden, 2008; BATSH 9) 4. 5.  S.  Jakob, “Diplomaten in Assur–Alltag oder Anzeichen einer internationalen Krise?” Isimu 6 (2003 pub. 2007) 107; and Jakob, Tell Chuēra, 3. 6.  Y. Bloch, “The Order of Eponyms in the Reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I,” Or. 79 (2010) 1–35. 7. Jakob, Tell Chuēra, p. 3a; see also Bloch, Or. 79: 3–9. 8.  Freydank, SGKAO 21, 62. 9. At all events, Jakob does not clarify in his 2009 book the reasons why the succession Enlilnādin-apli Bēr-išmânni should be placed before the sequence Ninuāiu Abī-ilī son of Katiri. It is also not clear why the sequence Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat Aššur-mušabši (why this sequence?) should be inserted between Enlil-nādin-apli and Bēr-išmanni. Moreover, the introduction of Aššur-mušabši in this position is not completely certain. It is based on DeZ 3847/2, where the epomym is 1.d.a-šur-mu[. . . (Röllig, Letter 28/4/2010); however, this personal name could also be reconstructed as Aššur-šumī-aṣbat; see BATSH 4, no. 22: 30. Cf. Bloch, Or. 79: 4–5 and n. 12. 10.  Freydank, SGKAO 21, 44 n. 112 and p. 128 and Freydank, “Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta als Agrarprovinz,” AoF 36 (2009) 75. Followed by Cancik-Kirschbaum, BATSH 4 (1996) 17. 11.  Röllig, BATSH 9, p. 4a; cf. Freydank, “Betrachtungen zur Weidewirtschaft in Dūr-Katlimmu,” Studia Chaburensia 1 (2010) 97. 12. Bloch, Or. 79: 30 and 32. Bloch states that this position is “purely conjectural.”

The Eponym Bēr-nādin-apli Freydank, AoF 32, 49–50 and AoF 36 (2009) 76

Röllig, BATSH 9, p. 4

Bloch, Or. 79, pp. 31–32

Tukultī-Ninurta

Tukultī-Ninurta

Tukultī-Ninurta

Qibi-Aššur, son of Ibašši-ilī

Qibi-Aššur, son of Ibašši-ilī

Qibi-Aššur, son of Ibašši-ilī

Mušallim-Adad

Mušallim-Adad

Mušallim-Adad, son of Salmānu-qarrād

Adad-bēl-gabbe

Adad-bēl-gabbe

Adad-bēl-gabbe, son of the king

Šunu-qardū

Šunu-qardū

 5 Šunu-qardū Libūr-zānin-Aššur

Libūr-zānin-Aššur

Aššur-nādin-apli

Aššur-nādin-apli

Aššur-nādin-apli

Urad-ilāni

Urad-ilāni (?)

Urad-ilāni

Adad-uma’’i

Adad-umaʾʾi

10 Abattu son of

Libūr-zānin-Aššur Aššur-nādin-apli, son of the king Urad-ilāni (?) Adad-uma’’i

Adad-Šamšī

Abattu son of Adad-Šamšī

Abattu

Abattu son of Adad-Šamšī

Abattu son of Adad-šumu-lēšir

Abattu son of Adad-šumu-lēšir

Abattu son of Adad-šumu-lēšir

Abattu son of Adad-šumu-lēšir

Aššur-daʾʾān

Aššur-daʾʾān

Etel-pî-Aššur (?)

Etel-pî-Aššur

Etel-pî-Aššur

Etel-pî-Aššur, son of Kurbānu

Uṣur-namkūr-šarri

Uṣur-namkūr-šarri

Uṣur-namkūr-šarri

Uṣur-namkūr-šarri

Aššur-bēl-ilāni

Aššur-bēl-ilāni

Aššur-bēl-ilāni

Aššur-zēra-iddina

Aššur-zēra-iddina

Aššur-zēra-iddina

Aššur-zēra-iddina

Abī-ilī son of Katiri

Abī-ilī son of Katiri

?>Enlil-nādin-apli (3–4 years before Bēr-išmanni)

Aššur-mušabši (?; son of Adad-bān-kala)

Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Bēr-nādin-apli (?)

15 Aššur-bēl-ilāni

Ina-Aššur-šuma-aṣbat Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

20

Jakob, Tell Chuēra, p. 3

551

Enlil-nādin-apli (?)

Aššur-daʾʾān

Ina-Aššur-šuma-aṣbat, son of Aššur-nādin-šume Ina-Aššur-šumaaṣbat

Ninuāyu (?)

Aššur-mušabši

Adad-šamšī (son of Mariannu?)

Ina-Aššur-šuma-aṣbat Bēr-išmânni (?)

Abī-ilī, son of Katiri Bēr-išmânni

Salmānu-šuma-uṣur Enlil-nādin-apli (?)

25

Ninuāiu >?

Bēr-nādin-apli (?)

Abī-ilī son of Katiri

Kaštiliašu (?)

Salmānu-šuma-uṣur Bēr-išmânni (?)

3.  The Tille-documents First, however, we should familiarize ourselves with the passage mentioning Tille in the documents from the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta. The cuneiform tablets found by the German archaeologists at Kār-TukultīNinurta (Tulūl al-ʿAqr, Iraq) in 1913–14 belong to the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I.

552

J aume L lop

Most of them have been published by Freydank in his volume MARV 4, 13 and they include some documents stating the geographical origin of the barley that was distributed by the royal administration. 14 In one group of texts, barley comes from the city of Sîn-rabi near Kalhu. This barley was distributed in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta probably in the year of Etel-pî-Aššur, as I have tried to show elsewhere. 15 Barley was also brought from Nineveh in the year one of both Abattus, 16 from Šīmu in the year of Abī-ilī, 17 and from other cities whose names are either not preserved or not clearly legible. 18 In a larger group of texts, the distributed barley comes from the city of Tille (Tell Rumēlān?, Iraq). 19 The documents containing the passage mentioning Tille are dated in the years of Abī-ilī son of Katiri and Ninuāiu. Freydank, who studied some of the relevant texts in this group, proposed that the distributed barley is connected with an expedition undertaken during the year of Ninuāiu by the official Ina-Aššuršumī-aṣbat (a former eponym). 20 According to Freydank, one of the earliest documents should be MARV 4, 33 (VAT 18105), which contains the longest version of the passage mentioning Tille: 1.  36 ANŠE 7 BÁN 4 qa ŠE.UM i+na ⸢GIŠ.BÁN ša ḫi-bur-ni⸣ 2.  ša É.GAL-lim ša ŠÀ ŠE.IM ša URUti-le 3.  ša 1i+na-da-šur-MU-aṣ-bat DUMU da-šur-SUM-M[U.MEŠ] 4.  [i]š-ši-an-ni ša 1DI.KUD-EN-É.KUR 1LU[GAL-ú-ša-n]i 5.  ⸢ša⸣ SAG LUGAL ù 1da-šur-IBILA-SUM-na DUMU [10-EN-ga]b-be 6.  ⸢qe⸣-pu-ú-tu im-ḫu-ru-ni 13.  Freydank and C. Fischer, Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte IV. Tafeln aus Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta (WVDOG 99; Saarbrücken, 2001). 14.  For the tablets from Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta, see T. Eickhoff, Kar Tukulti Ninurta (Berlin, 1985), 61–97; Freydank, “Die Tontafelfunde der Grabungskampagne 1913–1914 aus Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta (Tulūl al-ʿAqar),” AoF 16 (1989) 61–67; Freydank and Fischer, MARV 4, pp. 10–14. 15.  J. Llop, “Barley from Ālu-ša-Sîn-rabi: Chronological Reflections on an Expedition in the Time of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 bc),” in Studies on War in the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays on Military History (AOAT 372; ed. J. Vidal; Münster, 2010) 105–16. Cf. now Freydank, “Anmerkungen zu mittelassyrischen Texten 7,” AoF 38 (2011) 359–65. 16.  The barley was brought by the official Aššur-mušēzib (possibly the eunuch of the king but without this title in both documents) according to: MARV 4, 172: 3′–5′ and MARV 4, 57: 20 (the latter without the name of the city). 17.  The name of this city is partially reconstructed. The name of the official leading the expedition is not stated.The representatives responsible for the barley were Daʾʾānī-bēl-uṣur and Aššur-tappūti in this case. Only one of the documents has preserved the date: VAT

MARV

Date

18099

4, 42

broken away

18104

4, 43

5th Ḫibur, Abī-ilī

For Šīmu, see K. Nashef, Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der mittelbabylonischen und mittelassyrischen Zeit (RGTC 5; Wiesbaden, 1982) 248. 18. In MARV 9, 58: 5–8 (VAT 20120), it is stated that Aššur-mušēzib, the eunuch of the king, brought barley in ships from a city whose name is damaged (cf. Freydank, MARV 9, p. 8a ad no. 58, reads Tille, but the traces of the signs preserved there are difficult to reconcile with this reading; see Freydank, AoF 36: 60 n. 104). This document is dated in the year of Erīb-Marduk (Freydank, AoF 36: 60 n. 104). In the fragment of a tablet MARV 4, 143: Rs?. 4′–5′, barley (?) may have come from URU.KI.ID. 19.  Nashef, RGTC 5, 261; S. Parpola and M. Porter, The Helsinki Atlas of the Near East in the NeoAssyrian Period (Helsinki, 2001) Gazetteer p. 17; K. Radner, “Provinz. C. Assyrien,” RlA 11 (2006) 53. 20.  Freydank, SGKAO 21 (1991) 62–63.

The Eponym Bēr-nādin-apli

553

3674 litres of barley in the sūtu measure of the ḫiburnu-house, belonging to the palace, from the barley from Tille, which Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat the son of Aššur-nādin-šumī brought in (and) which Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur, Šarru-ušanni, the eunuch of the king, and Aššur-apla-iddina the son of Adad-bēl-gabbe, the representatives, received. . . .

This document is dated as the 16th day of the second month (Qarrātu) of the year of Ninuāiu. 21 As a consequence of the above statement (on MARV 4, 33), the barley recorded in the documents mentioning Tille and belonging to the eponymy of Abī-ilī should be (according to Freydank) the barley brought in by Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat in the earlier year of Ninuāiu. The name of Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat does not appear any more in these documents, but the three representatives, who received this barley and were in charge of it, are the same as above: Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur, Šarru-ušanni, and Aššur-apla-iddina, son of Adad-bēl-gabbe. The Tille-passage of the documents for the year of Abī-ilī states the same as above concerning the barley “that was brought from Tille” (ša IŠTU URUTille naṣṣanni): 22 13)

ša IŠ-TU URU.[ti]-le na-ṣa-an-ni (MARV 1, 40: 13) ša IŠ-TU URU.ti-le 4)na-ṣa-an-ni (MARV 4, 34: 3–4)  3) [ša I]Š-TU URU.ti-le na-a[ṣ- ṣa(-an)-ni] (MARV 4, 113 + MARV 4, 71)  2) . . . ša IŠ-TU URU.ti-li 3)na-ṣa-an-ni (MARV 4, 36 + MARV 4, 80)  3)

To date, there are four documents from the year of Abī-ilī that contain this sentence and mention the above three representatives. These documents range from the sixth (Allanātu) to the tenth (Muḫḫur-ilāni) month of the year (Abī-ilī): VAT

MARV

Abī-ilī (son of Katiri)

18017

1, 40

6th Allanātu (VI)

18100

4, 34

16th? Bēlat-ekalli (VII)

16451 + 20158

4, 113 + 4, 71

1[+n] Bēlat-ekalli (VII)

20079 + 20129

4, 36 + 4, 80

3th Muḫḫur-ilāni (X)

Here, I do not consider further documents for the year of Abī-ilī, neither those containing the above representatives but not the sentence mentioning Tille 23 nor those containing the Tille-passage and the three officials named above but whose date is 21.  Perhaps earlier than MARV 4, 33 in the same year (Ninuāiu) is the document MARV 4, 46 (VAT 20236). The tablet is badly damaged and the names of the three representatives are not extant in the remaining part of the document. The month in the date is also damaged. However, the Tille-passage contains the name of Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat. This tablet might have been dated with the eponym Bērnādin-apli; see below, section 3. 22.  The badly damaged fragment MARV 9, 72 (VAT 20137) may have contained the reference to Tille (lines 5–6; see Freydank, MARV 9, p. 14a), but the traces of the eponym’s name in the date cannot be read with certainty (MARV 9, p. 19b). A possible reading might be Salmānu-[šuma-uṣur]. 23.  MARV 4, 121 (VAT 20131) and MARV 8, 38 (VAT 20152) are two badly damaged documents from the year of Abī-ilī, with the three representatives above and dated with the tenth month of this year (Muḫḫur-ilāni). They might belong to this group, although they do not contain the sentence mentioning Tille. The fragment of a tablet, MARV 4, 79 (VAT 20124), which contains the name of Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur (line 3) and a damaged date, where the name of the eponym Abī-ilī can be reconstructed, could also belong to this group of texts.

554

J aume L lop

damaged, 24 because discussion of these documents is not relevant to the main purpose of my paper. Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat was not the only official who led an expedition to fetch barley from Tille. After him, in the eleventh month (Apu-šarrāni) of the same year of Abī-ilī, a second expedition headed by Kidin-Sîn, son of Adad-šadûni, was launched with the same goal (MARV 2, 17: 18–20). The supply of 110 people to form the crew of the expedition ships is recorded in a Sammeltafel written during the eponymy of Salmānu-šuma-uṣur but containing counts of barley from the latter months of the preceding year, that of Abī-ilī: MARV 2, 17: 18–20 (Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur)   18) [3 emār 3 sūtu] i+na GIŠ.BÁN ša ḫi-bur-ni a-na 1 ME 10 ÉRIN.MEŠ ša       GIŠ.MÁ.ME[Š ša?]   19) IŠ-TU [1Kidin-Sî]n DUMU dIM-KUR-ú-ni a-na URU.ti-le ŠE.AM [(x x)]  20) a-na x x [iṣ-bu]-tu-ú-ni 3 qa.TA.ÀM ta-d[in] [330 litres of barley] in the sūtu measure of the ḫiburnu-house, for the 110 people of the ships, [who?] fetched barley for [. . .] with Kidin-Sîn son of Adadšadûni to the city of Tille; three liters each has been given.

This expedition returned and the barley was received and measured on the first day of the twelfth month (Ḫibur) of the same year of Abī-ilī (MARV 2, 20: 35). On this occasion, Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur (in Assur) and Ninurta-ālik-pāni, the eunuch of the king (in Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta) were the representatives responsible for receiving the grain (MARV 2, 20: 12.15 and 32–33). A new formulation citing Tille (and containing the name of Kidin-Sîn) and the names of the two officials mentioned above appears in documents of the last month of the year of Abī-ilī: MARV 2, 20: 30–34 (1st Ḫibur, Abī-ilī)   30) ŠE.UM ša 1ki-din-d30 DUMU 10-KUR-ni URU.U[R?]-tar-ra ÉRIN LUGAL   31) IŠ-TU URUti-le i+na GIŠ.MÁ.MEŠ iš-ši-a[n]-ni  32) ša 1DI.KUD-EN-É.KUR ù 1dNIN.URTA-a-lik-pa-ni ša SAG LUGAL  33) i+na URU.ŠÀ.URU ù URUkar-1GIŠ.TUKUL-ti-dNIN.URTA erasure  34) im-ḫu-ru-ni (It is) the barley which Kidin-Sîn, the son of Adad-šadûni, (of the city of?) . . . tarra, trooper of the king, brought with ships from the city of Tille, (barley) which Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur and Ninurta-ālik-pāni, the king’s eunuch received in the cities of Libbi-āli (Assur) and Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta.

This passage appears in two administrative documents: VAT

MARV

Abī-ilī (son of Katiri)

18001

2, 20: 31

1. Hibur (XII)

18094

4, 31: 5

28 Hibur (XII)

24.  Containing the Tille-passage and the three officials mentioned above, and therefore possibly belonging to the eponymy of Abī-ilī are the following tablets whose date is broken away: VAT

MARV

Abī-ilī (son of Katiri)?

18076

MARV 4, 59

date broken away

19579

MARV 4, 44

date broken away

The Eponym Bēr-nādin-apli

555

Again, I shall leave aside other documents that contain the name of Kidin-Sîn or the sentence mentioning Tille, but not the representatives above. 25 To sum up, we have a first expedition to Tille headed by the official Ina-Aššuršumī-aṣbat, probably in the first month of the year of Ninuāiu, whose barley was distributed during that same year and the following year of Abī-ilī (the distribution is attested during the sixth to tenth months of the latter year). A later expedition to Tille took place in the eleventh month of the year of Abī-ilī. This was headed by Kidin-Sîn. The barley from this expedition was distributed in, at least, the 12th month of this same year. On the basis of this information, Freydank proposed a sequence of eponyms: Ninuāiu → . . . Abī-ilī son of Katiri → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur. 26 Eponym (chronologically) Date

Barley from Tille, expedition led by

Representatives (receiving) the barley

Ninuāiu

16/II

Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat son Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur, of Aššur-nādin-šumī Šarru-ušanni, Aššur-apla-iddina

MARV 4, 33

Abī-ilī son of Katiri

6/VI

" (but name not written)

"

MARV 1, 40

"

16?/VII

" (but name not written)

"

MARV 4, 34

"

1[+n]/ VII

" (but name not written)

"

MARV 4, 113 + MARV 4, 71

"

3/X

" (but name not written)

"

MARV 4, 36 + MARV 4, 80

"

1/XII

Kidin-Sîn son of Adad-šadûni

Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur Ninurta-ālik-pāni

MARV 2, 20

"

28/XII

"

"

MARV 4, 31

Document

4. Ber-nādin-apli and the Tille Documents However, three more documents bearing the Tille-passage and the name of InaAššur-šumī-aṣbat as the leading official (i.e., the official responsible for the earlier expedition) have been published recently by Freydank. Although the Tille-passage in these documents contains the name of the official Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat, they are dated with neither the year of Ninuāiu nor that of Abī-ilī, as we would expect from the above. Let us compare the relevant wording in these three documents: 27 25.  The fragment MARV 4, 122 (VAT 20084), which contains the name Kidin-Sîn and possibly the Tille-passage, but whose date is broken away, may also belong to this group of documents. Containing the sentence with Tille (without the names of either Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat or KidinSîn) but of unsure classification in the year of Abī-ilī (?) or near, because the officials named therein are neither the ones which received the grain of the first or second expedition to Tille, and the date is broken away, are the following documents: VAT

MARV

Date

20172

8, 58

[Abi]-ili

18069

4, 39

[Abi-ili?]

MARV 4, 39 (VAT 18069) could belong to the period after the second expedition to Tille, because the representative Ninurta-ālik-pāni is mentioned. 26.  Freydank, SGKAO 21, 62. 27.  I was able to collate these documents on the 16–17 June 2010. Therefore, I would like to thank B. Salje, J. Renger, and J. Marzahn. MARV 4, 45 and MARV 9, 64 are too broken to know if they contained

556

J aume L lop MARV 4, 45 (VAT 18092)

beginning broken away 3′) [ša ŠE.I]M ša [URUti-le] 4′) [ša 1i+n]a-da-šur-MU-a[ṣ-bat] 5′) [DUMU] 1da-šur-SUM-M[U.MEŠ] 6′) iš-[ši]-an-ni (. . .) 20′) [ITI d]30 UD.11.KÁM 21′) [li-mu] 1dbe-er-na-din-IB[ILA]

MARV 8, 43 (VAT 20433) [barley] 4)[ša I]Š-TU URUti-[le] 5)[1(i+na-)da-š]ur-MU-a[ṣ]-bat ⸢ÍL⸣ (or ⸢iš-ši⸣- [an-ni]) (. . .) 17) [ITI] qar-ra-a-tu UD.10?.KÁM 18) [li-mu 1]db[e-er]-SUM-IBILA

MARV 9, 64 (VAT 20096) 20 emār barley 5) ša [Š]À [ŠE.IM ša U]RU.ti-[le] 6) ša 1[Ina-Aššur-šumī]-⸢aṣ-bat⸣ 7) DUM[U 1da-š]ur-[SUM]-⸢MU. MEŠ⸣ 8) [iš-š]i-an-ni (. . .) Rs.10′) [I]TI kal-mar-te UD[.n.KÁM] 11′)[l]i-mu 1dbe-er-SUM-IBIL[A]

The passage mentioning Tille in these documents is damaged but can be reconstructed by comparison with among the three. The date of MARV 4, 45 (on the left) is damaged but almost complete. The name of the eponym on the date of MARV 8, 43 (in the middle) can be reconstructed as Bēr-nādin-apli 28 by comparing it with the date of the two other documents. Three other eponyms of the reign of TukultīNinurta might also be considered for this reconstruction: Aššur-nādin-apli, 29 Enlilnādin-apli, and Ninurta-nādin-apli. 30 However, the sentence mentioning Tille is not, at the time of this writing (July 2010), attested in the documents dated for either of these eponyms. Moreover, they seem to have to be placed earlier (Aššurnādin-apli) or later (Ninurta-nādin-apli) in the sequence of eponyms of the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta. 31 Another tablet, recently published, is dated in the eleventh month (apu šarrāni) of the year of Bēr-nādin-apli. 32 It probably contained the Tille passage, but it is mostly broken ((lines 5′–9′: lines 5′ and 6′ might be a single line); only traces of the representatives receiving the grain in the year of Ninuāiu and named in the year of Abī-ilī (i.e., Daʾʾānī-bēl-ekur, Šarru-ušanni, and Aššur-apla-iddina, son of Adad-bēlgabbe) are preserved in lines 10′–13′ of the document (see MARV 9, 88, p. 557). 33 In conclusion, the so-called Tille passage also appears in the above documents in the second, third, fourth, and eleventh months of the year of Bēr-nādin-apli. 34

the names of the three representatives receiving the grain. MARV 8, 43 does not contain the names of the three representives. 28.  More documents dated for this eponymy are listed in Saporetti, EMA, 98; Freydank, SGKAO 21, 128–129 (all published now) and Röllig, ZA 94, 50. Add BATSH 9 no. 72: 24, according to Freydank, Studia Chaburensia 1, 98. See also TSA T 97–15 (friendly communication of F.A.M Wiggermann). 29.  In this regard, see Freydank, “Anmerkungen zu mittelassyrischen Texten. 5.” AoF 33 (2006) 217, but also cf. Freydank, MARV 8, p.19a, without reconstruction. 30.  Freydank suggests this reconstruction, correcting himself, in AoF 36, 76 note 121 and MARV 9, p. 6a ad no. 33. 31.  Enlil-nādin-apli may be placed in this period, but the Tille-passage does not appear in any document dated with the time of his eponymy . 32.  MARV 9, 88 (VAT 20112): 5′(?)–9′, only the verb iššianni (line 9′) is partially preserved (collated, 17th June 2010). 33.  Collated, 17th June 2010; cf. Freydank, MARV 9, pp. 10b, and 14–18, where these names are misread or not compiled. The badly damaged tablet MARV 4, 109 (VAT 20123) contained the Tille-passage (lines 1′-6′, collated), as well as the names of the three representatives receiving the barley (lines 7′-10′). The date of the tablet is broken. It can belong to the eponymies of Ninuāiu or Bēr-nādin-apli. 34.  The badly damaged document MARV 9, 26 (VAT 20182) is also dated with the year of Bēr-nādinapli. It seems not to contain any reference to Tille (collated 17th June 2010). All the documents coming from Assur dated with this eponym in the VAM Berlin, and listed by Freydank, SGKAO 21, 128–129 are now published.

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MARV 9, 88 (VAT 20112)  a   1) KIŠIB 1DINGIR-⸢x⸣     sealing   2) 11[+n] ANŠE [ŠE]   3) [i+na GIŠBÁN ša Éḫi-bur-ni]   4) [ša] ⸢É.GAL-lim⸣   5′) [ša ŠÀ ŠE.IM]   6′) [ša URUti-li]   7′) [ša 1da-šur-MU-aṣ-bat]   8′) [DUMU] 1da-šur-⸢SUM⸣-[MU.MEŠ]  9′) ⸢iš⸣-ši-an-[ni] 10′) ša 1.DI.K[UD-EN-É.KUR] 11′) ⸢LUGAL⸣-[ú- ša-ni] 12′) ù 1d[Aššur-apla-iddina] 13′) DUMU 10-E[N-gabbe (qēputtu)] 14′) im-ḫu-ru-ni [ 0 ] 15′) i+na UGU 1DINGIR-[ x ] 16′) DUMU? da-šur-uṣ-[ra-ni] 17′) ⸢ša/UGU??⸣ É.nu-pa-⸢ri ?⸣ 18′) [ ] x x 1da-šur-ú-[ ] 19′) ZÌ.DA a-na ṭé-a-ni 20′) ri x LUGAL a-na x 21′) ta-ad-na-áš-šu 22′) ZÌ.DA i-ṭí-an i-d[an?] 23′) ù tup-pu-šu i-hap-[pi] 24′) [1d]a-šur-i-din DUMU ÌR-[DINGIR.MEŠ] 25′) [1dŠamaš-E]N?-ke-na-te š[a SAG LUGAL] 26′) [ù?] 1SU-da-šur ÌR LU[GAL] 27′) qe-pu-tu ša i[l-te-šu] 28′) [IT]I.⸢a-pu-LUGAL.MEŠ⸣ UD.8.KÁM 29′) [li-m]u 1dbe-er-⸢na⸣-din-⸢DUMU?⸣.UŠ

Seal of Ilu/ī-[. . .] 11[+n] emār [barley] [in the sūtu-measure of the ḫiburnu-house] [of the palace], [from the barley] [from Tille], [which Aššur-šumī-aṣbat], [the son of] Aššur-nādin-[šumī] brought [which] Daʾʾānī-[bēl-ekur], Šarru-[ušanni] and Aššur-apla-iddina], son of Adad-bēl-gabbe, [(the representatives)], received; (this barley) is owed by Ilu/ī-[. . .], son of Aššur-uṣranni, the workhouse overseer. [. . .]. . . Aššur-. . . to grind (to make) flour . . . (the barley) was given to him. He will grind and give back, and he will break his tablet. Aššur-iddin, the son of Urad-[ilāni], [Šamaš]-bēl-kēnāte, the [eunuch of the king] and Erīb-Aššur, the servant of the king, (are) the representatives, which are with him. Month: Apu-šarrāni, 8th day, eponym: Bēr-nādin-apli.

a.  Collated, 17 June 2010.

The presence of the sentence mentioning Tille in these documents brings the eponymy of Bēr-nādin-apli close to the above-mentioned group: Ninuāiu → . . . Abīilī son of Katiri → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur. But, where is Bēr-nādin-apli to be placed in this sequence? First, we have to take into account the Sammeltafel, MARV 2, 17, where Abī-ilī and Salmānu-šuma-uṣur follow directly one after another. This invalidates the placement of B������������������������������������������������ ē����������������������������������������������� r-n�������������������������������������������� ā������������������������������������������� din-apli between these two eponyms, as proposed by Röllig (see the lists above in section 2). 35 We must also consider that the most-complete formulation of the Tille-passage is made in a document dated with the eponymy of Ninu�������������������������������������������������������������� ā������������������������������������������������������������� iu (see above MARV 4, 33), which should therefore be the earliest in the row (as assumed by Freydank). Moreover, in the documents considered in this section (MARV 4, 45; MARV 8, 43; and MARV 9, 64), the name of the leading official, Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat, is written (or can be reconstructed), whereas his name does not appear any longer in the documents of the supposed following year of Abī-ilī. Therefore, it is reasonable to place Bēr-nādin-apli between Ninuāiu and Abī-ilī and propose the sequence: 35.  See also Freydank, Studia Chaburensia 1, 97. The sequence Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur is also present in BATSH 9, 92 (as noted by E. C. Cancik-Kirschbaum).

558

J aume L lop Ninuāiu → Bēr-nādin-apli → Abī-ilī son of Katiri → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur

Against the proposed sequence are only the following consideration. It is possible that Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat led more than one expedition to Tille to fetch grain. 36 This consideration should remain open until additional dated documents with the Tille passage or with sequences of eponyms appear and either confirm or invalidate the proposed sequence. No more mentions of Tille are, at the time of writing, attested in documents dated with other eponyms in the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta.

5. Conclusions Let us summarize: With the attestations published to date, it is possible to propose the sequence of eponyms Ninuāiu → Bēr-nādin-apli → Abī-ilī son of Katiri → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur on the basis of the so-called Tille-passage. Abī-ilī and Salmānu-šuma-uṣur follow one another directly. Between Ninuāiu and Abī-ilī, further eponyms are possible (see addendum 2). This sequence should be placed after the eponymy of Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat, the last eponym for which Aššur-iddin is attested as the great vizier (sukallu rabiu), whereas Salmānu-mušabši was the new great vizier in the years of Abī-ilī and Salmānu-šuma-uṣur. It remains to be seen how long after the eponymy of Ina-Aššur-šumī-aṣbat this sequence should be placed. Obviously, this should be the subject of further study.

Addendum 1 After hearing this paper at the RAI, S. Jakob points out to me that Bēr-nādinapli should be possibly placed after the sequence Abī-ilī → Salmānu-šuma-uṣur. He grounds his opinion on the following argumentation, which I reproduce verbatim: Meine Argumentation ging eher dahin, dass Abi-ili in Tell Chuera (nach Freydank) der juengste Eponym ist. Die Dokumente aus dem Eponymat Ninu’aju wurden im Archivraum an einer speziellen Stelle, gesondert von aelteren Urkunden aufbewahrt. Daraus schloss ich, dass Ninuʾaju das letzte vollstaendige Jahr des Archivs darstellt. Da andererseits die einzige Bezeugung fuer Abi-ili ein vermeintlicher Tuerverschluss ist, schien dieser Eponym unmittelbar auf Ninuʾaju folgend.” (email, August 12th, 2010).

August 2010

Addendum 2 After having read this paper (July 2010) and committing it to writing (August 2010), Yigal Bloch sent kindly to me his recently appeared article in Orientalia 79/1 (2010) 1–35, which I received in October 2010. If Bloch’s assessment of MARV 5, 83 is correct (see Or. 79: 26f.), the eponym Adad-šamšī should be integrated in the sequence discussed above before Abī-ilī. October 2010 36.  This may be the case for Aššur-mušēzib, who possibly led two different expeditions; see above, nn. 16 and 18.

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Addendum 3 The appearance of a servant of Aššur-iddin (without title) in a loan from Tell Sabi Abyad (TSA T97-15, unpublished; personal communication of F. A. M. Wiggermann) might be an indication to place Bēr-nādin-apli earlier in the reign of TulultīNinurta than proposed above, in the case that Aššur-iddin was still acting Grand Vizier during the eponymy of Bēr-nādin-apli.

References Bloch, Y. “The Order of Eponyms in the Reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I.” Or. 79 (2010) 1–36. Cancik-Kirschbaum, E. C. Die Mittelassyrischen Briefe aus Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad. Wiesbaden, 1996. ________  . “Middle-Assyrian Eponyms of the 13th and 12th century and the eponym-list from Ashur.” Paper read at the 56th RAI (Barcelona). Eickhoff, T. Kar Tukulti Ninurta: Eine mittelassyrishe Kult- und Residenzstadt. Berlin, 1985. Freydank, H. Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte I. Berlin, 1976. ________ .  Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte II. Berlin, 1982. ________ .  “Die Tontafelfunde der Grabungskampagne 1913–1914 aus Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta (Tulūl al-ʿAqar).” AoF 16 (1989) 61–67. ________ .  Beiträge zur mittelassyrische Chronologie und Geschichte. Berlin, 1991. ________ .  “Zu den Eponymenfolgen des 13. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. in Dur-Katlimmu.” AoF 32 (2005) 45–56. ________ .  “Anmerkungen zu mittelassyrischen Texten. 5.” AoF 33 (2006) 215–22. ________ .  “Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta als Agrarprovinz.” AoF 36 (2009) 16–84. ________ .  “Betrachtungen zur Weidewirtschaft in Dūr-Katlimmu.” Studia Chaburensia 1 (2010) 87–100. Freydank, H., and B.  Feller, Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte VIII. Wiesbaden, 2007. ________ .  Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte IX. Wiesbaden, 2010. Freydank, H., and C. Fischer, Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte IV. Tafeln aus Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. Saarbrücken 2001. Jakob, S. “Diplomaten in Assur–Alltag oder Anzeichen einer internationalen Krise?” Isimu 6 (2003 pub. 2007) 103–14. ________ .  Die mittelassyrischen Texte aus Tell Chuēra in Nordost-Syrien mit einem Beitrag von Daniela I. Janisch-Jakob. Wiesbaden, 2009. Llop, J. “Barley from Ālu-ša-Sîn-rabi. Chronological Reflections on an Expedition in the Time of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 b.c.e.).” Pp. 105–16 in Studies on War in the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays on Military History. Edited by J. Vidal. Münster, 2010. Nashef, K.  Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der mittelbabylonischen und mittelassyrischen Zeit. Wiesbaden, 1982. Parpola, S., and M. Porter, The Helsinki Atlas of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period. Helsinki, 2001. Radner, K. “Provinz. C. Assyrien.” RlA 11 (2006) 42–68. Röllig, W. “Eponymen in den mittelassyrischen Dokumenten aus Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr-Katlimmu.” ZA 94 (2004) 18–51. Röllig, W. Land- und Viehwirtschaft am unteren Habur in mittelassyrischer Zeit. Wiesbaden, 2008.

Die tägliche Speisung des Assur (gināʾu) und deren politische Bedeutung Stefan M. Maul Heidelberg

Bei den Ausgrabungen der Deutschen-Orientgesellschaft in Assur untersuchten Walter Andrae und sein Team im Sommer 1911 die noch anstehenden Reste der Gebäude, die einst den großen Vorhof des Assur-Tempels umrahmt hatten. 1 Dabei stießen die Archäologen in dem nordwestlichsten Raum des Nebengebäudes, das sich im Südwesten an den Tempel anschloß (Abb. 1, Raum 3′), auf den bedeutendsten und weitaus umfangreichsten Fund von Archivalien aus dem Bereich des Haupttempels des assyrischen Reiches. 2 Als dieser in mittelassyrischer Zeit als eine Art Rampe genutzte, von Nordwest nach Südost stark abschüssige Raum umgebaut wurde, hatte man sich die Mühe gespart, den Raum ganz auszuleeren, bevor man damit begann, den tief liegenden südlichen Bereich durch Aufschüttungen zu erhöhen. So blieben dort, unweit der südöstlichen Schmalwand, insgesamt zehn tönerne Töpfe liegen, in denen Keilschrifturkunden abgelegt waren (Abb. 2), die man offenbar für so unwichtig erachtete, daß man darauf verzichtete, sie sicherzustellen. Die eigens zur Aufbewahrung der Dokumente hergestellten und zum Teil sogar beschrifteten Gefäße 3 (Abb. 3) enthielten insgesamt mehr als 650 Dokumente. 4 Man war auf jene Aufzeichnungen der Opferverwaltung des Assur-Tempels gestoßen, die O. Pedersén in seinem Buch Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur als das mittelassyrische Archiv M 4 beschrieb. 5 H. Freydank machte in den vergangenen 1.  Zu den Ausgrabungen im Gebiet des Assur-Tempels siehe A. Haller und W. Andrae, Die Heiligtümer des Gottes Assur und der Sin-Šamaš-Tempel in Assur, WVDOG 67 (Berlin: Mann, 1995). Die mittelassyrischen Bauphasen sind dort auf den Seiten 37ff. behandelt. 2.  Siehe O. Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur [im folgenden: ALA], Part I (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1985), 43–53. 3.  Von den zehn Gefäßen waren drei mit Beschriftungen versehen: 1.) VA Ass. 1138 (Fundnummer: Ass. 18763): siehe Abb. 3 sowie O. Pedersén, Katalog der beschrifteten Objekte aus Assur (Saarbrücken: SDV 1997), 126 mit weiterführender Literatur. 2.) VA 5035 (Fundnummer: Ass. 18766) mit dem Verweis, daß es Dokumente enthalte, die sich “auf den kakardinnu und den Ölpresser des Assur-Tempels” beziehen unter der Aufsicht des “Ezbu-lēšer, des Opferaufsehers (rab gināʾe)”: siehe O. Pedersén, Katalog der beschrifteten Objekte aus Assur, 126 mit weiterführender Literatur. 3.) VA 5046 (Fundnummer: Ass. 18827), mit dem Verweis, daß es “gesiegelte Urkunden der [Brauer] des Assur-Tempels” enthalte, die unter der “Aufsicht des “Ezbu-lēšer, des Opferaufsehers (rab gināʾe)” standen: siehe O.  Pedersén, Katalog der beschrifteten Objekte aus Assur, 126 mit weiterführender Literatur. 4.  Siehe O. Pedersén, ALA I, 43. 5. O. Pedersén, ALA I, 43–53. Der schon durch die Fundsituation hervorgerufene Eindruck, daß die in den zehn Gefäßen aufbewahrten Dokumente kein vollständiges, in sich geschlossenes Archiv

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Abb. 1.  Der Assur-Tempel in mittelassyrischer Zeit (nach E. Heinrich, Die Tempel und Heiligtümer im alten Mesopotamien, Abb. 317).

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Abb. 2.  Die mittelassyrischen Tontafeldepots aus der Opferverwaltung des AssurTempels (“M 4”) in Fundlage (Assur-Photo 5685).

Jahren einen beachtlichen Teil dieser Dokumente—zumindest in keilschriftlichen Autographien—in den Bänden der Reihe Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte (im folgenden: MARV) zugänglich. 6 Der Archivbestand dokumentiert im wesentlichen die Aktivitäten im Umfeld von vier Verwaltungsbeamten, die im Verlauf des 12. und frühen 11. vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts in ihrem Amt aufeinander folgten und den Titel »Aufseher des regelmäßigen Opfers« (ša muḫḫi gināʾe bzw. rab gināʾe) trugen. Aba-lā-īde, Sînuballiṭ und Sîn-nādin-apli dürften nacheinander als ša muḫḫi gināʾe “vom Ende der Tukultī-Ninurta-Zeit wenigstens bis in die Regierungszeit Aššur-dāns I.” 7 tätig gewesen sein. Ihr Nachfolger Ezbu-lēšer versah sein Amt (rab gināʾe) unter Tiglatpileser I. (1114–1076 v. Chr.). Der weitaus größte Teil des erhaltenen Archivbestandes stammt aus der Regierungszeit dieses Königs. darstellen, sondern nichts weiter sind als die zufallsbedingten Überbleibsel einer ursprünglich systematischer zusammengestellten Sammlung von Schriftstücken, bestätigt sich bei der Auswertung der Dokumente. 6. H. Freydank, MARV 1 (= VS 19; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1976), Texte Nr. 11, 16, 21, 25, 33, 49, 52, 56, 62, 66, 70 und 73; MARV 2 (= VS 21; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1982), Texte Nr. 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 18, 21 und 24; MARV 3 (= WVDOG 92; Berlin: Mann, 1994), Texte Nr. 6, 9, 14, 21, 22, 24–32, 34–42, 44, 45, 47–52, 55, 60, 61, 76, 84–86; MARV 5 (= WVDOG 106; Berlin: Mann, 2004), Texte Nr. 1, 2, 6–14, 16–29, 31–44, 48–51, 54–55, 57, 58, 60, 62–68, 70, 73 und 76; MARV 6 (= WVDOG 109; Saarwellingen: SDV, 2005), Texte Nr. 1–90; MARV 7 (= WVDOG 111; Saarwellingen: SDV, 2006), Texte Nr. 1–102; MARV 8 (= WVDOG 119; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), Texte Nr. 2, 6, 8, 9, 20, 22, 24, 25–27, 29, 30, 32, 35, 36, 40, 46, 48, 49, 50, 56, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 68, 69, 74, 75, 78, 79, 85, 88, 91, 92, 94, 95 und 96; MARV 9 (= WVDOG 125; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), Texte Nr. 1, 2, 6, 8–11, 14–17, 19, 21–25, 27, 30–32, 34, 41, 42, 46, 49, 50, 63, 69, 75, 76, 80, 81, 86, 90, 95–98, 100, 103–108, 110 und 112–116. Editionen von einem kleineren Teil dieses Archivs hat H. Freydank in seinem Aufsatz: “Das Archiv Assur 18764”, AoF 19 (1992), 276–321 vorgelegt. In diesem Aufsatz wurden die Tafeln ediert, die in dem in Abb. 3 gezeigten Topf gefundenen wurden. Hingegen folgt die Veröffentlichung der Tafeln aus dem Archiv der Opferverwalter in der Reihe MARV keinem ersichtlichen Ordnungsprinzip. Dem von H. Freydank mit AoF 19, 276–321 gegebenen Beispiel folgend, sollte man bei zukünftigen Untersuchungen darauf achten, daß stets jene Tafeln als zusammengehörig betrachtet und behandelt werden, die gemeinsam in einem Tontafelgefäß aufbewahrt wurden. Den Schlüssel zu derartigen Untersuchungen liefert O. Pedersén mit seiner nach Tontafelbehältern geordneten Zusammenstellung der Archivalien in ALA I, 48–52. 7. H. Freydank, AoF 19 (1992), 278. Zu den vier Beamten Aba-lā-īde, Sîn-uballiṭ und Sîn-nādinapli und Ezbu-lēšer siehe ebd., 276–278 mit Anm. 10.

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Abb. 3.  Mit dem Namen des Eigners (šá I.dŠamaš-aḫa-ēriš / mār Ri-iš-dMarduk) beschrifteter und mit Lüftungslöchern versehener Topf für die Aufnahme eines Tontafelarchivs. Das Piktogramm einer Tontafel (?) sollte offenbar die der Keilschrift Unkundigen auf den Inhalt des wohl ursprünglich verschlossenen Topfes verweisen.

Die in dem Nebengebäude des Assur-Tempels entdeckten Urkunden dokumentieren bis in Einzelheiten Eingang, Verwertung und Verwendung einiger Güter, die für die von den Assyrern gināʾu, »Regelmaß«, genannte tägliche Speisung der Götter des Assur-Tempels verwendet wurden. Während Getreide, Sesam, Früchte und Honig hierbei eine hervorragende Rolle spielten, ist eigentümlicherweise in keinem der aus der Opferverwaltung des Assur-Tempels stammenden Dokumente von Opfertieren oder von Fleischlieferungen die Rede, obgleich doch auch in mittel­ assyrischer Zeit das blutige Opfer von großer Wichtigkeit war. 8 Die Urkunden belegen, daß die im Assur-Tempel verbuchten Naturalienlieferungen als »Abgabe (ma(d)dattu)« betrachtet wurden 9, welche alle Provinzen des Reiches regelmäßig zu erbringen hatten. Der Abgabeverpflichtung kam dabei eine 8.  Dies zeigt sich allein schon in der tabellenförmigen Aufstellung aus mittelassyrischer Zeit über Häute von weit mehr als 5000 Schafen und anderem Vieh, welche im Verlauf von zwei Jahren aufgrund des Opferbetriebes in Assur anfielen: VAT 19193 (Fundnummer Ass. 13058 kl = MARV 2, Text Nr. 19 = ALA I, M 7, Nr. 175). Es ist gesichert, daß in neuassyrischer Zeit auch Opfertiere Gegenstand des »regelmäßigen Opfers« waren. Daher gibt es guten Grund zu der Vermutung, daß dies auch in mittelassyrischer Zeit so war und lediglich die Archivsegmente der mittelassyrischen Opferverwaltung, in denen Eingang, Verwertung und Verwendung von Opfertieren dokumentiert wurden, nicht auf uns gekommen sind. Sicher ist dies freilich nicht. 9.  Siehe z. B. MARV 5, Text Nr. 70:18; MARV 6, Texte Nr. 35:47 und 73:17; MARV 7, Texte Nr. 3:4 und 96:4.

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hohe politische Aufmerksamkeit zu. Dies läßt sich schon daran ermessen, daß sie als vertraglich bindende Vereinbarung geregelt war, die zwischen dem amtierenden obersten Opferverwalter und dem jeweiligen Gouverneur oder Statthalter der einzelnen Provinzen geschlossen wurde. 10 Jahresabrechnungen in Tabellenform 11 zeigen überdies, daß im 12. und frühen 11. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert jeder Verwaltungsdistrikt des Reiches eine genau festgesetzte Menge an Gütern—im wesentlichen Getreide, Honig, Sesam und Früchte—in die Hauptstadt zu liefern hatte. 12 Bis zu 27 Provinzen sind in solchen Zusammenstellungen genannt. 13 Da die penibel geführten Auflistungen der gināʾu-Abgaben für eine ganze Reihe von Jahren erhalten blieben, läßt sich ermitteln, daß im Durchschnitt jährlich insgesamt etwa 100 m3 Getreide, 1 m3 Honig, 10 m3 Sesam und 5 m3 Früchte nach Assur geliefert wurden. Pro Provinz entspricht das im Mittel 3,7 m3 Getreide, 37 l Honig, 370 l Sesam und 185 l Früchten. 14 Diese gewiß nicht übermäßig hohe und daher kaum wirklich zur ökonomischen Last werdende Abgabeverpflichtung bestand, wie den Jahresabrechnungstabellen leicht entnommen werden kann, nur für die der Krone unterstellten Verwaltungsdistrikte, oder anders gesagt: Die für die Speisung des Reichsgottes nach Assur gelieferten Güter kamen ausschließlich aus dem māt Aššur genannten Assyrien, nicht aber aus den Landen tributpflichtiger Vasallen. 15 Protokolle und Quittungen, die unmittelbar bei der Anlieferung der für das gināʾu-Opfer bestimmten Abgaben angefertigt wurden, geben uns einen lebendigen Eindruck des Geschehens. Getreide, 16 Sesam, Honig 17 und Früchte 18 kamen in der 10. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Siehe H. Freydank, “Mittelassyrische Opferlisten aus Assur” [wie Anm. 11], 49f. 11. ����������� Vgl. z. B. MARV 2, Texte Nr. 21; MARV 5, Texte Nr. 1ff., 58, 64, 67; MARV 6, Texte Nr. 1ff., 82; MARV 7, Texte Nr. 6, 8, 27, 30, 31, 44, 55, 63 und 93; MARV 8, Texte Nr. 24 und 35; MARV 9, Texte Nr. 1, 2, 6, 9 und 80 sowie O. Pedersén, ALA I, 46; siehe H. Freydank, “Mittelassyrische Opferlisten aus Assur”, in: Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten. XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg, 6.-10. Juli 1992 (ed. H.  Waetzoldt und H.  Hauptmann; Heidelberg, Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1997), 47–52 und ders., AoF 33 [wie Anm. 14], 219f. 12. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� In Ausnahmefällen konnten diese Güter durch andere ersetzt werden (siehe z. B.  MARV 3, Texte Nr. 35:1ff., 36:1 und40:1ff.; vgl. ferner MARV 7, Text Nr. 62:8). 13. ������������ So z. B. in MARV 2, Text Nr. 21. 14. �������������������������� Hierzu siehe O. Pedersén, ALA I, 46 und H. Freydank, “Mittelassyrische Opferlisten aus Assur” [wie Anm. 11]; vgl. auch H. Freydank, “Anmerkungen zu mittelassyrischen Texten 5”, AoF 33 (2006), 215–222. Es gilt freilich zu bedenken, daß die aus den Provinzen eingegangenen Beträge im einzelnen bisweilen erheblich höher, manchmal auch geringfügig niedriger sein konnten. 15. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Aus der Anzahl der in entsprechenden Urkunden genannten Toponyme wurde mit Recht auf die Ausdehnung des mittelassyrischen Reiches geschlossen, vgl. dazu H.  Freydank, “Mittelassyrische Opferlisten aus Assur” [wie Anm. 11], 51 mit Anm. 38. 16. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Der weitaus größte Teil der Getreidelieferungen besteht aus Gerste. Daneben sind auch Lieferungen von Emmer (siehe z. B. MARV 5, Text Nr. 23; MARV 7, Texte Nr. 40 und 97) und mirquMehl (siehe z. B.  MARV 5, Texte Nr. 27 und 39) bezeugt. Auch “weiße Gerste” (siehe z. B.  MARV 9, Text Nr. 110) und Weizen (siehe z. B. MARV 3, Text Nr. 6 und MARV 6, Text Nr. 73) fanden für die Herstellung der gināʾu -Opfergaben Verwendung. 17. ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Mit dem Honig kam auch Wachs nach Assur, das ein Vertreter der Schreiber—wohl zur Herstellung von Wachstafeln—entgegennahm. Hierzu siehe MARV 6, Text Nr. 39 und H.  Freydank, “»Honig«-Lieferungen für den Gott Assur”, AoF 34 (2007), 70–77 mit zahlreichen Korrekturen gegenüber MARV 6. 18. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� In der Dokumentation der Opferverwalter werden Früchte meist unter dem Sammelbegriff azamru genannt. Nur bisweilen finden sich Angaben darüber, welche Früchte zu den gināʾu-Abgaben zählten. Hierzu gehören Äpfel (siehe z. B. MARV 7, Text Nr. 51:3) und Feigen (siehe z. B. MARV 3, Text Nr. 32:2 und MARV 6, Text Nr. 1:20).

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Regel als Rohstoffe in noch unverarbeiteter Form 19 aus den Provinzen nach Assur und wurden erst danach in den Werkstätten und Küchen des Tempels zu Speisen und Getränken weiterverarbeitet, welche für die tägliche Grundversorgung des Reichsgottes und seines göttlichen Gefolges bestimmt waren. Zumeist erreichten die Naturalienlieferungen die assyrische Hauptstadt auf dem Wasserweg. 20 Manche Urkunden aus dem Archiv der Opferverwalter erweisen sich als vor Ort angefertigte Lieferungsprotokolle. Schon deren Schriftbild läßt den Vorgang der Übergabe der Güter in die Verantwortung des Assur-Tempels wieder lebendig werden. Die Lieferanten hatten nämlich—so zeigen es diese Texte—die Nahrungsmittel und namentlich das Getreide vor Vertretern der Opferverwaltung darzumessen. Zu diesem Zweck wurde unmittelbar nach der Ankunft in Assur—vielleicht bereits am Hafenkai—das stets in »Eselslasten (emāru)« gemessene Getreide in Einheiten von ‘halben Eselslasten’ übergeben. Ein Tempelbeamter registrierte dabei den Empfang einer jeden, wohl in Gestalt von Getreidesäcken 21 abgegebenen ‘halben Eselslast’, indem er dies mit einem stehenden Keil in einer »Strichliste« 22 vermerkte und dabei nach und nach jeweils kleine, aus zehn Keilen bestehende »Päckchen« entstehen ließ (Abb. 4 und Abb. 5). 23 In anderen Dokumenten der Opferverwalter wurde wohl ebenfalls gleich nach der Anlieferung festgehalten, daß die erwartete Sendung vollständig und ordnungsgemäß übergeben worden waren. Dabei notierte man auch die Namen der Schiffer, die die Güter nach Assur transportiert hatten. 24 Waren transportbedingt Verluste zu beklagen—etwa wenn Wasser in das Frachtschiff geschwappt und Getreide naß geworden war—mußten die Lieferanten noch vor Ort einen entsprechenden Schuldschein zeichnen. 25 Auch wenn eine Lieferung grundsätzlich geringer ausgefallen war, als dies in Assur erwartet wurde, stellte man dem für die säumige Provinz 19. �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Statt Sesam wurde bisweilen aus Sesam gepreßtes Öl geliefert (siehe z. B.  MARV 5, Texte Nr. 27, 55; siehe ferner MARV 3, Text Nr. 9). Im Normalfall wurde jedoch der aus gināʾu-Abgaben stammende Sesam in den Werkstätten des Assur-Tempels zu Öl weiterverarbeitet (siehe z. B. MARV 7, Texte Nr. 27, 78 und 79; MARV 8, Text Nr. 60). 20. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 6, Texte Nr. 3 und 29; MARV 7, Text Nr. 8; MARV 8, Text Nr. 27; MARV 9, Texte Nr. 15 und 95. Vgl. aber auch MARV 6, Text Nr. 13 als Beispiel für die aus der Provinz Kilizu entrichtete Abgabe von 4 Eselslasten Sesam, die auf dem Landweg nach Assur gelangten. 21. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Die Einheit der ‘halben Eselslast’ ergibt sich nahezu von selbst, wenn man davon ausgeht, daß die Getreidemenge, die man einem Esel aufbürden kann (etwa 100 kg), zum Transport regelmäßig auf zwei Satteltaschen verteilt wurde und dabei eine solche Satteltasche eine nach und nach normierte Verpackungsgröße bildete. In den hier besprochenen Urkunden sind freilich diese Satteltaschen oder Säcke nie explizit genannt. 22.  Beispiele für Dokumente der Opferverwalter, die solche vor Ort erstellten Strichlisten enthalten sind: MARV 5, Text Nr. 57; MARV 7, Texte Nr. 22, 46 (siehe Abb. 4a-b), 61, 83; MARV 8, Texte Nr. 13, 27, 30; MARV 9, Text Nr. 16 sowie das noch unveröffentlichte Dokument VAT 15426 (siehe Abb. 5a–b), in dem Lieferungen aus der Provinz Katmuḫu verzeichnet sind. Alle Tafeln sind so organisiert, daß—falls mehr als 100 halbe Eselslasten gezählt wurden—in der ersten Zeile der ‘Strichlisten’ stets insgesamt 100 Keil-‘Striche’ stehen. Nur in MARV 7, Text Nr. 46 (Abb. 4) wurden größere Einheiten (?) gesondert auf der Tafelrückseite mit einem runden Griffeleindruck vermerkt. Der Zusammenhang mit der ‘Strichliste’ auf der Tafelvorderseite bleibt unklar. Möglicherweise entspricht ein runder Griffeleindruck auf der Rückseite jeweils einem auf der Vorderseite mit einzelnen Keilen zusammengesetzten »Paket« von 10 halben Eselslasten. 23. ����������������������������� Siehe dazu auch H. Freydank, MARV 5, 12 zu Text Nr. 57. 24. ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Als Beispiel hierfür sei stellvertretend für zahlreiche weitere Urkunden MARV 9, Text Nr. 95 genannt. 25. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 1, Text Nr. 66 (= MARV 6, Text Nr. 28!); MARV 3, Texte Nr. 14, 27, 38; MARV 6, Text Nr. 42.

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567

Abb. 4.  VAT 20005, Vs. und Rs. (= MARV 7, Text Nr. 46). Protokoll der Lieferung von 166 halben Eselslasten Getreide für den Assur-Tempel.

Abb. 5.  VAT 15426, Vs. und Rs. (unveröffentlicht). Protokoll der Lieferung von 174 halben Eselslasten Getreide für den Assur-Tempel.

verantwortlichen Gouverneur, Statthalter oder ‘Bürgermeister’ einen Schuldschein aus, in dem in der Regel der Zeitpunkt genannt ist, bis zu dem die Ausstände spätestens beglichen sein sollten. 26 In nicht wenigen Urkunden wurde dabei der auch im Assur-Tempel verehrte, »Sonnensohn« genannte Stiermensch kusarikku(dGU4DUMU-dUTU) als Zeuge angerufen. 27 In manchen Fällen drohte man gar mit der Erhebung von Verzugszinsen, falls die Rückzahlung der Schuld nicht in dem vereinbarten Zeitraum erfolgte. 28 Über die dennoch ausstehenden Lieferungen wurde offenbar mit großer Sorgfalt buchgeführt. 29 Kein einziges Dokument aus den Archiven der Opferverwalter läßt erkennen, daß die Begleichung solcher Verbindlichkeiten 26. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 3, Texte Nr. 28, 30, 31, 35, 44, 55; MARV 5, Texte Nr. 41 und 44; MARV 7, Text Nr. 76. 27. ������������� So z. B. in: MARV 3, Texte Nr. 14:16, 20:16, 30:19, 31:15, 32:18, 38:15, 50:19, 51:13; MARV 5, Text Nr. 41:19; MARV 7, Text Nr. 76:19′. Siehe dazu auch H. Freydank, Beiträge zur mittelassyrischen Chronologie und Geschichte (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1991), 67 und 70 mit Anm. 183 sowie ders., AoF 19 (1992), 301 zu Z. 16. Zu dem im Assur-Tempel verehrten Stiermenschen kusarikku siehe A. R. George, Babylonian Topographical Texts (Leuven: Dep.  Oriëntalistiek [u.a.], 1992), 188:37′ und 190, 25′ sowie ferner die von R.  Borger in Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon, 2. revidierte und aktualisierte Auflage (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2010), 337 zusammengestellte Literatur. Es ist sicher kein Zufall, daß in mittelassyrischer Zeit ein hochstehender Brauer des Assur-Tempels, der maßgeblich mit der Bereitstellung des gināʾu-Opfers betraut gewesen sein muß, “für sein Leben” dem kusarikku ein bedeutendes Weihegeschenk zukommen ließ (Zu dem Hortfund auf dem großen Vorhof des Tempels siehe O. Pedersén, ALA I, 53 und E. Klengel-Brandt, J. Marzahn, “Ein Hortfund mit Kreuzen aus Assur”, BagM 28 [1997], 209–238 und Tf. 16–27). 28. ������ So in MARV 3, Texte Nr. 14 (falls die Schuld nicht innerhalb von 40 Tagen beglichen sein sollte) und 50 (falls die Schuld nicht innerhalb eines Monats beglichen sein sollte). 29. ����������� Siehe etwa MARV 6, Text Nr. 42 mit einer langen Liste solcher Schuldbeträge. Sie ist als “zweite noch nicht abgeschlossene Tafel” (Z. 44) bezeichnet.

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durch die Zahlung eines Silberbetrages erfolgte, auch wenn dies im freien Handel durchaus vorstellbar gewesen wäre. Bei den Opferverwaltern des Assur-Tempels gingen ausschließlich Naturalien ein. Weitere Dokumente lassen erkennen, daß—schon bei der Anlieferung—neben den Opferverwaltern auch diejenigen zugegen waren, die die eingehenden Rohwaren im Auftrag des Tempels weiterverarbeiten sollten. Beachtliche Mengen des angelieferten Getreides wurden nämlich sogleich, vielleicht sogar noch an der Bootsanlegestelle zu Füßen des Tempels, an Bäcker (alaḫḫinū) und Brauer (sirāšū) weitergegeben, die im Dienste des Assur-Tempels standen. 30 Sie hatten die Aufgabe, die angelieferte Gerste weiterzuverarbeiten, um dann Malz und Bier bzw. Getreidespeisen, Brot und Backwaren herzustellen, die dem Assur und seinem göttlichen Hofstaat dargebracht werden sollten. 31 Den Ölpressern des Tempels wurden Sesamlieferungen zur Weiterverarbeitung ausgehändigt. 32 All dies dokumentieren entsprechende Empfangsquittungen und auch werkvertragsähnliche schriftliche Vereinbarungen, in denen die ausgegebenen Nahrungsmittel, die Art des herzustellenden Produktes und der vorgesehene Zeitpunkt der Fertigstellung bzw. der Tag der Darbringung als Opfer genau festgelegt sind. 33 Bei Erfüllung des Auftrages entwerteten die Opferverwalter die Urkunden, aus denen hervorging, daß aus ihrer Lagerhaltung Güter an die betreffenden, stets namentlich genannten Brauer, Müller und Ölpresser ausgegeben worden waren. 34 Darüber hinaus wurde ein geringerer Teil der Getreidelieferungen auch zur Verpflegung derjenigen Arbeiter eingesetzt, die in den Wirtschaftsräumen des Tempels Bier brauten und Öl, Brot, Kuchen und andere Getreideprodukte herstellten. 35 Ein weiterer Teil des angelieferten Getreides diente den Opferverwaltern dazu, denjenigen Darlehen zu gewähren, die ihre Lieferverpflichtungen nicht erfüllt hatten, so daß dennoch die für den Gott bestimmte Lieferung in ihrem Namen eingesetzt werden konnte. 36 Erst bei der Begleichung der Ausstände wurden die ausgestellten und archivierten Schuldscheine durch das Durchstreichen der Urkunde sichtbar entwertet (Abb. 6). 37 Das Ausbleiben von Lieferungen aus den assyrischen Landen sollte jedoch auf gar keinen Fall zu einer Störung des Opferbetriebes führen. Als nämlich tatsächlich einmal ein solcher Engpaß entstand, und so der “Abbruch des regelmäßigen 30. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 1, Texte Nr. 11, 25; MARV 5, Texte Nr. 16, 21, 26, 28, 29, 49, 50, 65; MARV 6, Texte Nr. 19, 24, 69, 73, 81; MARV 7, Text Nr. 91; MARV 8, Texte Nr. 46, 48; MARV 9, Texte Nr. 14, 31, 96, 110, 112 und passim. 31. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 5, Texte Nr. 26 (Herstellung von Malz) und 70; MARV 6, Text Nr. 73; MARV 9, Text Nr. 110. 32. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 7, Texte Nr. 32, 78 und 79; siehe auch MARV 8, Text Nr. 60. 33. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 6, Texte Nr. 20, 33, 36 und 40. In zwei mir bekannten Urkunden ist ein bēt gināʾe genannt (MARV 3 Nr. 76 [= MARV 6, Text Nr. 8!] und MARV 6, Text Nr. 12). Möglicherweise ist bēt gināʾe die Bezeichnung jener Bereiche innerhalb des Tempelzingels, in denen die für das gināʾuOpfer verwendeten Speisen hergestellt oder aufbewahrt wurden. 34. ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Die solche Ausstände belegenden Urkunden wurden ungültig gemacht, indem man meist über Vorder- und Rückseite ein diagonal verlaufendes Kreuz (crux decussata) ritzte. Siehe z. B. MARV 5, Text Nr. 21, MARV 6, Text Nr. 24; MARV 7, Texte Nr. 2 und 32; MARV 9, Text Nr. 116. 35. ������������ Siehe z. B. MARV 1, Text Nr. 49; MARV 5, Texte Nr. 8, 17; MARV 7, Texte Nr. 4, 43; MARV 9, Text Nr. 23. 36. ����������������������� Hierzu siehe Freydank, AoF 19, 278–281. Belege hierfür lassen sich passim in den hier beschriebenen Archiven der Opferverwalter finden. 37. ��������������������������������������������� Zu der in Abb. 6 gezeigten Tafel VAT 19986 = MARV 7, Text Nr. 76 siehe auch J. Llop, OrNS 77 (2008), 180f.

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Abb. 6.  VAT 19986 (= MARV 7, Text Nr. 76). Eine durch Durchstreichen ungültig gemachte Schuldurkunde, in der ausstehende Lieferungen für das gināʾu-Opfer aufgeführt sind

Opfers für den Assur-Tempel (batiqti ša gināʾe ša bēt Aššur)” drohte, setzte der »Opferaufseher« (ša muḫḫi gināʾe) Aba-lā-īde—wie uns die als MARV 3, Text Nr. 34 veröffentlichte Urkunde zeigt 38—sein eigenes Vermögen (ša raminīšu) dafür ein, daß die Götter des Hauptheiligtums des Reiches weiterhin mit Speis und Trank versorgt wurden. “Damit dies nicht untergehe (ana lā mašāʾe),” und er das dem Tempel überlassene Darlehen zurückfordern konnte, ließ Aba-lā-īde sich seine Hilfeleistung freilich quittieren. Die tägliche Versorgung der Götter des Assur-Tempels hätte wohl ohne weiteres auch aus königlichen Domänen oder aus Tempelländereien gedeckt oder gänzlich aus dem Umland der Hauptstadt bestritten werden können. Indes zeigt die hier nur kurz vorgestellte, gewissenhaft geführte Dokumentation der Opferverwalter des Assur-Tempels deutlich, daß dies gar nicht beabsichtigt war. Denn man legte offensichtlich den größten Wert darauf, daß die Grundversorgung des Gottes von allen Teilen des assyrischen Reiches gemeinsam geleistet wurde. Weit wichtiger als die Notwendigkeit, die beachtliche Menge von Naturalien für das regelmäßige Opfer zusammenzutragen, scheint der Gedanke der im Auftrag von König und Tempel 38. ����������������������������������� Vgl. die Bearbeitung: H. Freydank, AoF 19 (1992), 285, Text Nr. 2.

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handelnden Opferverwaltung gewesen zu sein, daß Güter aus dem gesamten Land auf den Tisch des Gottes gelangten. Gott und Land tragen so nämlich ganz zu Recht den gleichen Namen: Das Land Assur mit allen seinen einzelnen Teilen nährt den Gott, der das Land selbst verkörpert. Dieser die mittelassyrische Opferpraxis charakterisierende Gedanke ist offenbar sehr alt und besitzt eine lange mesopotamische Vorgeschichte, die sich bis in das dritte vorchristliche Jahrtausend zurückverfolgen läßt. Denn schon im 21. Jh. v.  Chr., in der Zeit des Reiches der III.  Dynastie von Ur, findet er in Abgabeverpflichtungen seinen Ausdruck, die—ganz so wie in der späteren Zeit—Statthaltern und Gouverneuren der einzelnen zum Reich gehörigen Provinzen auferlegt waren. Einem Corpus von mehreren Hundert Urkunden aus Puzriš-Dagan (modern: Drehem) können wir entnehmen, woher das Fleisch kam, welches man Enlil, dem in Nippur verehrten Götterkönig, in seinem Tempel Ekur im Rahmen des täglichen Mahls vorsetzte. 39 Das hierfür benötigte Schlachtvieh stammte keineswegs allein aus den großen Herdenbeständen des Staates und der Tempel. Vielmehr wurden aus allen Regionen des Reiches Tiere für das Opfer geliefert. Jahr für Jahr schickten Statthalter und Gouverneure der einzelnen Provinzen ein gemästetes Schaf oder ein Ziegenböckchen als Gabe für den Reichsgott Enlil, ohne die zunächst vielleicht unverhältnismäßig erscheinende Mühe zu scheuen, einen Boten mit einem einzelnen Tier über Entfernungen von sogar mehreren Hundert Kilometern nach Nippur zu senden. Dort hatte man vor den Toren der Stadt mit Puzriš-Dagan (Drehem) ein Verwaltungszentrum eingerichtet, das für die zentrale Registrierung des staatlich kontrollierten Viehbestandes zuständig war. Von dieser staatlich-königlichen Behörde wurden—ganz ähnlich wie von den mittelassyrischen Beamten des Assur-Tempels—die Opfergaben registriert, quittiert und schließlich dem Tempel des Reichsgottes Enlil zugeführt. Die erhaltenen Urkunden zeigen, daß auch im 21. Jh. v. Chr. peinlich genau verbucht wurde, welcher Statthalter zu welcher Zeit sein jährlich bereitzustellendes Opfertier nach Nippur hatte bringen lassen. Den uralten Gedanken, daß alle Landesteile ihren Gott gemeinsam ernähren sollten, finden wir auch in Quellen der neuassyrischen Zeit wieder, diesmal aus der Perspektive eines allumfassenden Weltherrschaftsanspruchs ins monumental Kosmische überhöht. 40 Eine Königsinschrift des Asarhaddon (680–669 v. Chr.), in der dieser die Feierlichkeiten schildert, die er anläßlich des Richtfestes für den von ihm renovierten Tempel des Reichsgottes Assur angeordnet hatte, heißt es: “Ich schlachtete gemästete Stiere, schächtete Edelschafe und köpfte Vögel des Himmels und Fische der Wassertiefen ohne Zahl. Ausbeute des Meeres und Ertrag des Gebirges häufte ich vor (den Göttern des Assur-Tempels) auf. . . . Abgaben (igisê) aus (allen) Ortschaften, schwerwiegendes Begrüßungsgeschenk ließ ich sie empfangen und machte ihnen zahlreiche Geschenke.” 41 Die Tiere lieferten hier nicht allein die Nahrung für den Gott, sondern sie repräsentierten auch und vor allem die drei kosmischen Bereiche des altorientalischen 39. ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Vgl. die von W. Sallaberger vorgelegte grundlegende Wertung dieses Textfundes: W. Sallaberger, “Schlachtvieh aus Puzrisch-Dagan. Zur Bedeutung dieses königlichen Archivs”, Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux 38 (2003–2004), 45–62. 40. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Es ist freilich nicht unwahrscheinlich, daß die »kosmische« Konzeption des Opfers vor Assur, wie wir sie in der im folgenden zitierten Inschrift des Asarhaddon fassen können, bereits in mittelassyrischer Zeit existierte. 41. ����������������� Siehe R.  Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien, AfO Beiheft 9 (Graz: Selbstverlag des Herausgebers, 1956), 5 (§ 2, Ass. A, VI:37-VII:12).

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Weltbildes, denen sie jeweils entstammen: Schafe und Stiere stehen für die Erde; die Vögel für den Himmel und die Fische für den Süßwasser-Ozean (apsû), über den sich die Erde wölbt. Mit der Darbringung dieser Opfertiere wird der höchste Gott ernährt, indem er getragen wird von der Lebenskraft des gesamten Kosmos in seiner vertikalen Ordnung: von Himmel, Erde und Süßwasser-Ozean (apsû). Da zu den Tieren aller Art, die König und Tempel bereitgestellt haben mochten, auch noch, wie unser Text sagt, “Abgaben aus (allen) Ortschaften” kamen, liegt der Gedanke nahe, daß der gesamte Raum und die gesamte Gemeinschaft der (zivilisierten) Menschen, also gewissermaßen das »All« dem Gott seinen Tribut zu bringen hatte, um ihn gemeinschaftlich zu ernähren. Die hier insbesondere für die Zeit des ausgehenden 2. Jt. v. Chr. beschriebene assyrische Opferpraxis ist nicht zuletzt von dem theologisch motivierten Streben getragen, jenem in den Schöpfungsmythen immer wieder artikulierten göttlichen Auftrag an die Menschheit nachzukommen, in dem nach mesopotamischer Vorstellung die Daseinsberechtigung des Menschen liegt. Einhellig berichten nämlich sowohl der uralte sumerische Mythos Enki und Ninmaḫ, als auch die altbabylonische Atramḫasīs-Erzählung und das im späten zweiten vorchristlichen Jahrtausend entstandene babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos Enūma eliš, daß der Mensch allein deshalb erschaffen worden sei, um die Götter mit Speis und Trank zu versorgen. Hege und Pflege der Götter ist diesen Mythen zufolge—aller Geschäftigkeit zum Trotz— die eigentliche, die wahre Aufgabe des Menschen, der als Dank für seine Existenz einen ansehnlichen Teil seiner Arbeitskraft dafür aufzubringen hat, daß die Götter, freigestellt von jeglicher Last der Arbeit, umsorgt werden. 42 Allen hierarchischen Gesellschaftsvorstellungen zum Trotz sollte die Ernährung des Gottes aber keinesfalls allein beim König liegen, obgleich sich doch sumerische Stadtfürsten des dritten vorchristlichen Jahrtausends ebenso wie die Großkönige des neuassyrischen und des neubabylonischen Reiches mit Beinamen wie “Versorger der Gottheit N. N.” oder “Versorger des Tempels N. N.” schmückten. 43 Dem König Assyriens kam es zwar zu, die Gaben jeder einzelnen Provinz erfassen, verarbeiten und dem Gott zuführen zu lassen, bereichert um hinzugefügte eigene Gaben. In der Funktion des irdischen Statthalters seines Gottes stellte er so sicher, daß der an die Menschheit ergangene göttliche Auftrag erfüllt wurde. In dem assyrischen Opferwesen erhielt aber dennoch der in den Schöpfungsmythen besonders hervorgehobene Gedanke, daß es die Arbeit (aller) Menschen sei, die die Versorgung der Götter sicherzustellen habe, besonders großes Gewicht. 44 Eine Urkunde aus dem mittelassyrischen Archiv der Opferverwalter führt uns dies deutlich vor Augen. 45 Das Dokument enthält eine Aufstellung von insgesamt 49 »Getreidemahlern des Assur-Tempels« ( ṭēʾinū ša bēt Aššur 46), denen die Aufgabe 42.  Siehe hierzu S. M. Maul, “Den Gott ernähren. Überlegungen zum regelmäßigen Opfer in altorientalischen Tempeln”, in: E. Stavrianopoulou, A. Michaels, C. Ambos (Hrsg.), Transformations in Sacrificial Practices. From Antiquity to Modern Times, (Berlin; Münster: LIT, 2008), 75–86 [besonders 76–80]. 43. ����������������������� Belege bei M.-J. Seux, Épithètes royales akkadiennes et sumériennes (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1967) unter den Stichwörtern zāninu und ú-a. 44. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Die uns erhalten gebliebenen Dokumentationen reichen freilich bei weitem nicht aus, um zu entscheiden, ob hier ein Phänomen beschrieben wird, das die assyrische Opferpraxis von der babylonischen oder der des 3. vorchristlichen Jahrtausends unterscheidet. 45. ������������� H.  Freydank, MARV 5, Text Nr. 60 (VAT 20921). Der Text ist dort lediglich als Keilschriftautographie veröffentlicht. 46. Die ṭēʾinu oder ṭāʾinu (nicht in den Wörterbüchern gebucht; siehe aber MARV 7, Text Nr. 4:26′) genannten Handwerker sind in den Dokumenten der Opferverwalter aus Assur nur selten belegt. Die

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zukam, die aus den Provinzen des Reiches eingehende, für die Speisung des Assur bestimmte Gerste vor Ort im Assur-Tempel zu mahlen. In der Urkunde sind zwar nicht die Namen dieser Leute, dafür aber auffälligerweise die Herkunft einer jeden Arbeitskraft genannt. Obgleich in der Hauptstadt und deren Umland sicherlich ohne weiteres genügend Müller hätten rekrutiert werden können, um das eingehende Getreide für die Weiterverarbeitung aufzubereiten, kamen für diese Arbeit nur sehr wenige Menschen aus Assur zum Einsatz. 47 Neben diesen hatten an der Verrichtung des Getreidemahlens nämlich weit mehr als vierzig andere Personen Anteil, die wohl nicht zufällig aus insgesamt 23 weiteren Verwaltungsbezirken und Provinzen des assyrischen Königreiches stammten. Hinzu kamen noch zwei gesondert aufgeführte »Getreidemahler«, 48 die nicht von den unterschiedlichen Territorien des Reiches, sondern—wie man vermuten muß—von einer Person oder aber einer Institution gestellt wurden. Leider blieb die Angabe, die hier Klarheit hätte bringen können, in der Urkunde (MARV 5, Text Nr.60:29) nicht erhalten. Man wird aber mit einigem Recht davon ausgehen können, daß es entweder der Palast oder aber der Haupttempel des Gottes Assur war, in dessen Namen man diese Arbeitskräfte der ‘internationalen Gemeinschaft’ von Müllern noch hinzugesellte. Der alleinige Zweck der Urkunde, zu der sich bislang lediglich ein einziges Vergleichsstück nachweisen läßt, 49 kann nur darin gelegen haben zu dokumentieren, daß das gesamte Land, vertreten durch sein Territorien, nicht allein die Opfermaterie hervorgebracht hatte, sondern darüber hinaus auch—institutionell abgesichert—an der Bereitung der Götterspeisen Anteil haben würde! Wir wissen nicht, ob die aus den Provinzen entsandten Männer dauerhaft an der Opferbereitung beteiligt waren, oder ob sie bei bestimmten Gelegenheiten eigens für das Mahlen des Opfergetreides anreisten. Auch ist leider unbekannt, welcher sozialen Schicht sie angehörten. Wurden wirklich einfache Arbeiter in die Haupstadt geschickt, oder könnten es auch Honoratioren gewesen sein, die es als erstrebenswerte Ehre, ja als Gottesdienst empfanden, an der Speisung des Reichsgottes aktiv mitwirken zu dürfen?—Auch wenn entsprechende Erwähnungen oder gar Ritualbeschreibungen fehlen, kann man nicht ausschließen, daß ausgewählte Vertreter aller Landesteile in regelmäßigen Abständen zusammenkamen, um in einem großartig inszenierten performativen Akt, gemeinsam dem höchsten Gott das Opfer zu bereiten und so auch sichtbar und erlebbar die Gemeinschaft einer communio assyria zu feiern. Wie dem auch sei, der in den Schöpfungsmythen formulierte Anspruch an die Menschen, daß die Arbeit aller die Götter ernähren möge, wurde in Assyrien auf diese Weise bis in das Wörtlichste hinein umgesetzt. An der regelmäßigen Versorgung des höchsten assyrischen Gottes hatten nicht nur die Territorien und Provinzen des Reiches samt ihrer Bevölkerung teil. Die Gemeinschaft der Opferbringer war außer von dieser ‘horizontalen’ Komponente auch von einer vertikalen geprägt. Die Urkunde MARV 8, Text Nr. 68 lehrt nämlich, daß schon in mittelassyrischer Zeit—so wie wir es auch aus den späteren Jahrhunderten kennen 50—neben den Vertretern der einzelnen Landesteile auch die hohen, in der Hauptstadt angesiedelArbeit des Getreidemahlens scheint sonst in den Bereich der alaḫḫinū (siehe z. B. KAJ 318:6) bzw. der sāmidū zu gehören. 47. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Aus der Stadt Assur waren zwei, maximal drei »Getreidemahler« für diese Arbeiten eingesetzt (MARV 5, Text Nr. 60:12). Hinzu kamen ein bis zwei weitere aus dem Libbi-āli genannten Palast- und Tempelbezirk der Stadt (MARV 5, Text Nr. 60:16). 48.  MARV 5, Text Nr. 60:29. 49.  MARV 6, Text Nr. 64 (VAT 20946). 50. �������������� Siehe Anm. 54.

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ten Würdenträger des Reiches Naturalien für die Bereitung des gināʾu genannten, regelmäßigen Opfers bereitstellten. Durch ihre Arbeit brachten so in der späten mittelassyrischen Zeit neben dem König Gouverneure, Beamte und hohe Würdenträger, Handwerker, Bauern und wohl auch Hirten und Viehzüchter 51 die für den Gott bestimmten, täglich dargebrachten Speisen hervor. Diese konnten mit Fug und Recht als eine Gabe betrachtet werden, die eine alle Gesellschaftsschichten umfassende Gemeinschaft in ihrer gesamten territorialen Ausdehnung hervorgebracht hatte. Die Identitätsstiftende Kraft, die einer solchen Vorstellung des Opfers mit sich bringt, sollte nicht unterschätzt werden! Aus Herren und Untertanen wird so im performativen Akt des Opferns ein Gottesvolk. Im Falle Assyriens, in dem der Name des Gottes Assur auch das Land und dessen Bewohner bezeichnet, wird dies in besonderer Weise deutlich deutlich. 52 Bezeichnenderweise wurden in dem stark expandierenden neuassyrischen Reich neu eingegliederte Provinzen dazu verpflichtet, sich an der regelmäßigen Speisung des Reichsgottes zu beteiligen. So versuchte König Asarhaddon (680–669 v. Chr.), das eroberte Ägypten nicht nur unter einem Gouverneur in das assyrische Herrschaftsgebiet, das Land Assur, zu zwingen, sondern er erlegte ihm gleichzeitig, wie wir aus seinen Inschriften erfahren, die Pflicht auf, “bis in die Ewigkeit regelmäßige Opfer für Assur und die großen Götter” 53 zu entrichten. Das auf solche Weise erzwungene regelmäßige Opfer nötigte dem Besiegten, neben allem anderen auch noch die bis weit in die Transzendenz reichenden Verpflichtungen gegenüber einer fremden, ursprünglich dem Feind zugeordneten Gottheit ab, um damit göttliches Wohlwollen für jene zu erwirken, die das eigene Staatswesen entmachtet hatten. . . Wenn nun, wie im assyrischen Opferwesen, der großen Gemeinschaft von König und den ihm Unterstellten die Aufgabe zukam, den Reichsgott zu nähren und so nachhaltig göttliche Gunst sicherzustellen, bedeutet das im Umkehrschluß, daß eine Verweigerung der Speisegabe einem sich der »Ernährungsgemeinschaft« Entziehen und damit dem Leugnen gleichkommt, zu den Menschen zu zählen, für die der König vor dem Reichsgott Verantwortung hat. Eine Verweigerung der Speisegabe für den Reichsgott Assur unterscheidet sich daher kaum von einer Haltung, die Aufstand als unumgänglich betrachtet! Mit einem Mal wird klar, warum in dem mittelassyrischen Archiv der Opferverwalter so peinlich genau darüber Buch geführt wurde, wer seine Abgabe nicht erbracht hatte, und warum die entsprechenden, aus neuassyrischer Zeit auf uns gekommenen Urkunden 54 (worüber sich die Herausgeber wundern 55) nicht im Assur-Tempel sondern im Königspalast zu Ninive aufbewahrt wurden. Eine fehlende, nicht eingegangene Opfergabe konnte man zwar auch in neu­ assyrischer Zeit leicht verschmerzen, wie folgender, in Ninive gefundener Brief eines Assur-Priesters an den König deutlich zeigt: 51. ������������������� Vgl. hierzu Anm. 8. 52. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Hierzu siehe auch H.  D. Galter, “Gott, König, Vaterland. Orthographisches zu Assur in altassyrischer Zeit”, WZKM 86 (1996) [= Festschrift H. Hirsch], 127–141. 53. ����������������� Siehe R. Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons [wie Anm. 41], 99 (§ 65, Mnm. A [Zinçirli-Stele], Rs. 48–49). 54. ����������������������������� F.  M. Fales, J.  N. Postgate, Imperial Administrative Records. Part I: Palace and Temple Administration, State Archives of Assyria 7 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1992), 182–203 und G. van Driel, The Cult of Aššur (Assen: van Gorcum, 1969), 206–220. 55. ����������������������������� F. M. Fales, J. N. Postgate, Imperial Administrative Records [wie Anm. 54], XXXV: “Why these tablets should have been found at Nineveh remains obscure, but part of the explanation must be that the contributions come from members of the royal household.”

574

S tefan M. M aul Der heutige 5. Kanunu 56 ist von der Stadt Talmusu zu bestreiten. Nichts wurde geliefert. Niemand kam her. Ich habe (dennoch) für das Leben des Königs, meines Herrn, alle Opfer vor Assur [und den Göttern des] Königs, meines Herrn, dargebracht. 57

Das fehlende Opfergut konnte ohne weiteres aus dem Vermögen des Assur-Tempel erbracht werden. Aber darum ging es nicht. Der König selbst war an den Namen derjenigen die säumig blieben, höchst interessiert und forderte die Leitung des Assur-Tempels auf, ihm entsprechende Informationen zuzusenden. 58 Denn die verdeckte Renitenz, die das Nichtliefern der erwarteten Gaben darstellte, war nicht hinzunehmen, und wurde, wie ein anderer Brief aus den Staatsarchiven der neuassyrischen Könige des 7. vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts deutlich zeigt, geahndet: [An den König], meinen Herrn: [Dein Diener D]adî. [Heil], dem König, meinem Herrn. Mögen Nabû und Marduk den König, meinen Herrn, segnen!   Zwei Rinder und 20 Schafe, Opfergaben des Königs, die die Stadt Diquqina zu erbringen hat, sind nicht geliefert worden. Der König, mein Herr, möge dieser Angelegenheit nachgehen. (. . .) Es sind nun [x] Jahre, daß sie nicht geliefert haben. Die haben das eingestellt. Der König, mein Herr, sollte seine Soldaten [dort hinschicken].” 59

Wir beobachten hier, wie die »Ernährungsgemeinschaft des Assur« sich auf dem Weg befindet, einer Art Staatsidentität zu entfalten: Derjenige kann sich Assyrer nennen, der in der umfassenden Gemeinschaft der sozialen Schichten, der Städte und Provinzen an der Versorgung jener Gottheit teilhat, die den Namen des Landes Assur trägt und deren Unterhalt der assyrische König zu gewährleisten hat. Der Weg von einer Opfergemeinschaft zu einer gewissermaßen übernationalen Gemeinschaft des assyrischen Volkes wird hier beschritten. Die “Reste” der dem Gott vorgesetzten Gaben, wurden nach der Speisung des Gottes (zumindest in neuassyrischer Zeit) abgeräumt und an den König, an hochstehende Palastangehörige an Provinzstatthalter, Priester und Tempelpersonal verteilt. 60 Wer diese Reste ißt, so ist es ausdrücklich in einem neuassyrischen Brief an den König gesagt, “der wird leben”. 61 Aus der Gemeinschaft der Gottesernährer wird so auch eine Gemeinschaft, die mit Götterspeise nicht nur den Gott, sondern auch ihren König und sich selbst ernährt. Der mit einer solchen Götterspeisung verbundene Gedanke einer Gemeinschaft, die die Menschen untereinander ebenso verbindet wie das Gottesvolk mit seinem göttlichen Herrn, wird zumindest der Gemeinschaft der Willigen Identität und Festigkeit verliehen und so schon in mittelassyrischer Zeit dem assyrischen Reich in nicht unerheblichem Maße zu innerer Stabilität verholfen haben. 56. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Der Kanunu ist der zehnte Monat des Jahres. Er entspricht etwa dem Zeitraum Dezember/ Januar. 57.  S. W. Cole, P. Machinist, Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, State Archives of Assyria 13 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1998), 12, Text Nr. 8:Vs. 15-Rs. 7. 58. ������������������ Siehe S.  Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, State Archives of Assyria 10 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1993), 73, Text Nr. 96:Vs. 1–25 (Brief des Akkullanu an Assurbanipal); siehe außerdem: S. W. Cole, P. Machinist, Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal [wie Anm. 57], 12–14, Texte Nr. 8–11 und 20–22, Texte Nr. 18–21. 59. ��������������������������������������������������������� S. W. Cole, P. Machinist, ebd., 20, Text Nr. 18:Vs. 1–15. 60. ������������������������������������������������������������� Vgl. z. B. S. W. Cole, P. Machinist, ebd., 127, Text Nr. 156. 61. ������������������� Siehe S. Reynolds, The Babylonian Correspondence of Esarhaddon and Letters to Assurbanipal and Sîn-šarru-iškun from Northern and Central Babylonia, State Archives of Assyria 18 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2003), 109, Text Nr. 133, Rs. 2′–3′.

Imperial Culture: Some Reflections on Middle Assyrian Settlements Aline Tenu Lyon

From an epigraphic point of view, the Middle Assyrian period is the oldest “officially” known in Assyriology because the experiment of 1857, which intended to prove that Akkadian had been deciphered, was based on a prism of Tiglath-pileser I found by Hormuzd Rassam at Aššur. But from an archaeological point of view, the situation is rather different. Even if Aššur has been largely excavated since that time, the material culture and especially the pottery remained ill-defined until the 1970s and the salvage excavations in northern Iraq and in the Syrian Djezirah. A major advance has been made by Peter Pfälzner, who published in 1995 an impressive study of the Mittanian and Middle Assyrian pottery, 1 and this has been completed recently by the analysis of the Tell Sabi Abyad corpus by Kim Duistermaat. 2 These works now constitute the essential basis for every archaeological study of this topic. Peter Pfälzner not only proposed a typology but also attempted to provide an archaeological response to the question of the political limit of Assyrian power. Due to these contributions, identifying Middle Assyrian pottery in the field has become much easier than before. But one important question now needs to be asked: is Middle Assyrian culture the only culture in Assyria? To tackle this question, I would like first to briefly recall the main trends revealed by pottery analysis at Middle Assyrian sites, and then I will discuss these trends and perhaps propose an alternative hypothesis; finally, I will present a case study, the fortress of Haradu (modern Khirbet ed-Diniyeh) on the Middle Euphrates.

The Main Trends in Assyrian Settlement Patterns Archaeological data provided by excavations and surveys allow us to discern three main trends that show where and how Assyrian domination might have been exercised. To begin with, according to Peter Pfälzner, the area covered by Middle Assyrian pottery is not very extensive. The Euphrates Valley and the Upper Tigris Valley in modern Turkey are thus completely excluded. 3 In a footnote, Pfälzner mentions Assyrian material at sites in the Euphrates Valley but he did not take them into account because they were at that time too scanty to be really representative. 4 Royal 1.  Pfälzner 1995. 2.  Duistermaat 2008. 3.  Pfälzner 1995: 229, abb. 136. 4.  Pfälzner 1995: 169 n. 92.

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inscriptions, however, indicate a far wider extent of Assyrian domination as far as the Euphrates Valley, as the inscriptions of Adad-nîrârî I show. 5 In addition, Peter Pfälzner worked on the assumption that the specific corpus he defined 6 was only produced for administrative purposes. So wherever Assyrian power was exercised, the Assyrian administration produced official pottery there. Conversely, if you find official pottery, you are in an Assyrian administrative area and, therefore, in the Assyrian Empire. 7 The consequence of this opinion is that the extent of pottery find-spots corresponds exactly to the extent of Assyrian political and administrative power: the map published by Pfälzner showing the spread of Middle Assyrian pottery must also be understood as the map of the extent of the Assyrian Empire. 8 However, since his book, the multiplication of discoveries both on the Euphrates and in the Upper Tigris Valley 9 clearly modifies the map he drew and as a result limits the accuracy of this first observation. The second trend is that Middle Assyrian sites are not numerous. Many scholars underlined the decrease of occupied sites during the second half of the second millennium. In northern Iraq, the survey conducted by T. J.  Wilkinson and D. J. Tucker showed that only 47% of sites inhabited during the first half of the second millennium were still occupied during its second half. 10 The survey of B. Geyer and J.-Y. Monchambert between Deir ez-Zor and Abou Kemal leads to the same conclusion: 27 (6 uncertain) sites were occupied during the Middle Bronze Age, only 13 (3 uncertain) in the Late Bronze Age. 11 The authors stressed: “On ne peut nier que le Bronze récent correspond à une période de forte recession.” 12 The drop is much clearer between the Mittanian and Middle Assyrian occupations. According to J. D. Lyon, 80% of sites were deserted after the Mitannian period in the Balikh Valley. 13 In the Habur Valley, small rural sites were abandoned and replaced by larger settlements that were less numerous. 14 R. Bernbeck in the Wadi Agig survey identified only one site dated to the Late Bronze Age, whereas 17 were occupied in the Middle Bronze Age. 15 Even if the available data are neither exhaustive nor precise enough to be wholly comparable, in particular because Mittanian and Middle Assyrian pottery are often treated together, urban concentration seems to be the rule under Middle Assyrian domination, and one good explanation for that phenomenon may lie in the Assyrian will to impose close control upon populations gathered under the surveillance of Assyrian administration. 5.  Grayson 1987: 131. 6.  Pfälzner 1995: 1997 and 2007: 250–57. To sum up, the Middle Assyrian pottery is plain, utilitarian, wheeled without care, mass-produced with a limited range of shapes. According to Peter Pfälzner, the “Standard-Knickwandschalen,” the “Standard-Knickwandnäpfe,” and the “Standard-Flaschen” represent two-thirds of the complete assemblage (Pfälzner 1997: 337). For the distinction between an “official” and a “domestic” pottery corpus, see Pfälzner 1995: 260, Duistermaat 2008: 469–70 and Tenu 2009: 133–34. 7.  For the use of the word “Empire,” see Tenu 2009: 25–27; otherwise, see Postgate 2010: 20–21. 8.  Pfälzner 1995: 231–32. 9.  Tenu 2009:182–224. 10.  Wilkinson and Tucker 1995: 59. 11.  Geyer and Monchambert 2003: 256 and 259. 12.  Geyer and Monchambert 2003: 257. 13.  Lyon 2000: 224–25. 14.  Pfälzner 1995: 225. 15.  Bernbeck 1994: 67.

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The last significant trend is the reduction of size of sites. Settlements were not only less numerous but also smaller. Assyrians preferred to settle on the top of the tell: it is the case in northern Iraq for instance at Kharab Tibn, where in the Middle Assyrian period the occupation covered only 4 ha of the 18 ha of the Middle Bronze Age. 16 J. D. Lyon came to the same conclusion for the Balih area: “Middle Assyrian settlements were newly built, smaller and more concentrated than previous settlements.” 17 One example is provided by Tell Jittal, 7 km north of Tell Hammam et-Turkman. The site was in Middle Assyrian times half the size it had been in the Mittannian period. This reduction of the inhabited space does not preclude, however, important urban programs. At Tell al-Hawa for instance, the site is not large, but archaeologists identified there an administrative complex, a ziggurat, or at least a wide and imposing mud-brick platform, and a temple dedicated to Adad. 18 Newly created sites such as Kâr-Tukultî-Ninurta, 19 Tell Amuda, 20 and Tell Umm Aqrebe 21 to a lesser degree slightly made up for this important decrease of settlements, which may betray a population decline. D. Morandi Bonacossi, however, showed that even if the number of sites declined between the Mittanian and Middle Assyrian periods (from 24 to 9), the population in the Habur Valley increased. 22 Population became mainly urban, abandoning small villages. 23 Northern Mesopotamia was thus less densely occupied. According to J. D. Lyon, the settlement decline precedes the Middle Assyrian colonization of the Balih Valley. The hiatus attested between Mittanian and Middle Assyrian levels at Tell Sabi Abyad, Hammam et-Turkman, Tell Hammam Ibn esh-Shenef, and Tell Jidle may confirm this proposition. 24 Putting aside the difficulties of identifying Middle Assyrian and, more generally, Late Bronze Age pottery, as stressed by many scholars, 25 one good explanation for the population drain is the violence and cruelty of Assyrian wars. In addition to war victims, deportations may have deeply damaged the social and economic fabric, again deepening the human deficit. These interpretations of Middle Assyrian demographic trends are finally based on a tacit, implicit idea: all the pottery in the Middle Assyrian Empire is Assyrian, with the exception of possible imported wares. Assyrian material culture became, with the Assyrian conquest, not only the dominant culture but the only one, completely replacing older material.

The Middle Assyrian Pottery Assemblage This assumption certainly deserves discussion. To begin with, it is important to recall that the typology laid out by Peter Pfälzner is based on sherds and shapes found at Tell Sheikh Hamad and, to a lesser extent, at Tell Bderi in specific and 16.  Wilkinson and Tucker 1995: 60. 17.  Lyon 2000: 103. 18.  Wilkinson and Tucker 1995: 60; Ball 1990: 86. 19.  Eickhoff 1985. 20.  See Tenu 2009: 104–6, with previous bibliography. 21.  Bernbeck 1994: 179. The first-attested occupation on the site is Late Bronze Age (SBZ). 22.  Morandi Bonacossi 2008: 198. 23.  Morandi Bonacossi 2008: 199. See also Abb. 12:6 and Abb 12:7. 24.  Lyon 2000: 103 and 105. 25.  See, for instance, Wilkinson and Tucker 1995: 80 and Geyer and Monchambert 1987: 318.

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limited contexts, respectively, the western part of Building P in a storage unit and in a pit. In building P’s rooms, vessels were reserved for administrative use. 26 The Middle Assyrian pottery of Tell Sabi Abyad also stem from an administrative cadre: a dunnu an agricultural production center held by the “grand vizier” “king of Hanigalbat,” 27 who, however, had his residence elsewhere, at Dûr-katlimmu or Aššur. 28 It explains in large part why the Assyrian pottery is so plain, wheeled usually without care. Painted pottery or fine wares do not appear in this context and, as a result, in the reference corpus. The complete absence of luxury products is noticeable, whereas finely decorated pots (mainly glazed and painted goblets) have been discovered at Tell ar-Rimah 29 and at Tell Brak, 30 for instance. Even if metal or fine glass vessels may have been used at court, the corpus we refer to may not represent the complete assemblage. The vessels we are able to identify are those from the administrative context, 31 utilitarian pottery that we have difficulty imagining as prestige items used by governors or high ranking people at their table. In addition, we must recall that administrative pottery made by state potters is the only ceramic material we have found and identify as Middle Assyrian: Kim Duistermaat stressed that “Indeed until now all excavated Middle Assyrian sites have proved to be state-organized.” 32 The uniform and rather limited corpus we consider to be Middle Assyrian is characterized by its close association with state organization and, more precisely, with the provincial state system. We may then wonder why local populations would have adopted specific utilitarian administrative material, especially at the beginning of Assyrian domination, whereas it does not correspond to their own habits and to their own use. Moreover, if local elites adopted Assyrian wares, we may suppose that they would choose luxury Assyrian pottery to show their integration or their submission to Assyrian power (for example), but we are not really able to identify in the field these sorts of products, which perhaps were not very different from earlier Mittanian wares. As a result, we certainly may take into account the idea that we know that Assyrian pottery did not replace at every site and in every context the material previously used. The implication is that we may imagine that different material cultures existed at the same time, and local traditions continued to be developed. 33 We may then propose that the human decline revealed by pottery analysis was not that severe. At small sites, Assyrian pottery may have been lacking because these settlements were not integrated to the administrative network. As F. Wiggermann suggests, the “dunnu of the Subaraeans,” which depends on Tell Sabi Abyad authorities, probably continued producing its own pottery, 34 which is likely much closer to Mittanian than to the Middle Assyrian corpus. As a consequence, the site would be dated to the Mittanian period and considered to be abandoned during the 26.  Pfälzner 1995: 106–14. 27.  Wiggermann 2000: 172. 28.  Wiggermann 2000: 173. 29.  Postgate, Oates, and Oates 1997: 57. 30.  Oates, Oates, and McDonald 1997: 78. 31.  See also Postgate 2007: 145. 32.  Duistermaat 2008: 470. 33.  See also Duistermaat 2008: 27. This kind of production has not been clearly identified at Tell Sabi Abyad. 34.  Wiggermann 2000: 192.

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Middle Assyrian period. The reduced area of Assyrian pottery on the top of the tell perhaps corresponds to the area actually occupied by Assyrians, local populations remaining on the outskirts of the site and continuing to use their own production. Their presence is not visible to archaeologists, who would attribute it to the period before Assyrian installation. The coexistence of two different traditions is all the more difficult to identify, because pottery dated to the beginning of the Middle Assyrian control is not known. The typology drawn up by Peter Pfälzner begins with Shalmaneser I’s reign, 35 and the oldest Middle Assyrian level at Tell Sabi Abyad dates back to the reign of Tukultî-Ninurta I. 36 More generally, the sites where the transition from Mittani to Assyria is attested are not numerous. 37 In addition, the very impressive work done by Kim Duistermaat on the Tell Sabi Abyad data shows that shapes traditionally considered as diagnostic for Middle Assyrian pottery, such as the “carinated bowl,” for instance, are used as early as the Mittanian period. 38 Moreover, Pfälzner stressed that the term “Mittanian” is to be understood as a geochronological designation, unlike the term “Middle Assyrian,” which has a political—but I would say an administrative—meaning. 39 Both designations are then rather different and do not exactly cover similar considerations. As a consequence, we recognize Assyrian administration, which does not completely overlap Assyrian political power. The same situation clearly occurs on the margins of Assyrian domination, where, since Pfälzner’s work, Middle Assyrian materials have been found in the Euphrates Valley at Tell Shiukh Fawqâni, 40 Tell Ahmar, 41 Qabar abu el-Atiq, 42 and on the Tigris river at Giricano 43 and Ziyaret Tepe, 44 for instance. On neighboring sites, Assyrian sherds have been identified, but not the complete standard corpus, thus betraying the fact that indigenous occupations, supporting local traditions, were still alive, even though they were formally under Assyrian rule. 45

A Case Study: Haradu (Modern Khirbet ed-Diniyeh) I would like now to present in more detail a case study: the fortress excavated at Khirbet ed-Diniyeh by a French team led by Christine Kepinski between 1981 and 1985. The ancient name of the site was Haradu. The toponym Haradu was until quite recently not attested in the Middle Assyrian record, but a text dated to the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I and published in 2011 now fills the gap (Frame 2011). The rectangular fortress of Haradu was erected on the remains of the previous Old Babylonian city, which was deserted around 1629 b.c. The enclosure wall underwent three main stages of construction. In a first stage, a wall with large and regular casemates was built. Later, a second wall doubled it. This second wall was also built 35.  Pfälzner 1995: 235. 36.  Akkermans 2006: 209. 37.  Tenu 2009: 253–55. 38.  Duistermaat 2008: 469. 39.  Pfälzner 1995: 232. 40.  Capet 2005: 379–88. 41.  Bunnens 2009: 68–71. 42.  Einwag, Kohlmeyer, and Otto 1995: 102; Montero Fenollós, al-Shbib, Márquez Rowe, and Caramelo 2009: 192–94. 43.  Schachner 2002 and 2004. 44.  Matney et al., 2002. 45.  Tenu 2009: 218–19.

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with casemates, though smaller and more irregular. Then a third wall was erected, reinforced with buttresses, so that by this time the fortress was 150 m square. The ramparts were more than 30 m thick and in places already stood 4 m high. Graves surrounded the fort. 46 What is very puzzling is that, in the space delimited by the fortress, archaeologists could not find even the smallest building or walls of any kind. Not a single structure was excavated inside the enclosure wall, except a well. The best explanation for this truly unusual site is that it was a military camp similar to those depicted on the Balawat Gates. 47 The fortress belongs to a net of military sites, that was in use during the first centuries of the 1st millennium but which dated back to the end of the 2nd millennium. 48 Two Middle Assyrian tablets were found at the site; they are dated by eponyms of the 12th century: Aššur-iddin and Dayyan-Ninurta, who were limu between the reigns of Ninurta-apil-Ekur (1181–1169) and Aššur-rêš-iši I (1132–1115). 49 This period is particularly poorly known, but textual evidence indicates Aššur-dân I (1168–1133) may have conquered the Suhu and perhaps the land of Mâri. A very badly preserved inscription attributed to him mentions the land of Suhu, 50 probably in the context of the Babylonian campaign better known by the account in the Synchronistic History. 51 In Chronicle 25, 52 someone “attacked and removed the king of the Land of Mari in a rebellion” and as a result “controlled Mari.” In my opinion, 53 this sentence pertains to the Middle Euphrates Valley and not to the area near Tell Taban that also bears the name “Land of Mari.” 54 Haradu may have been created on the ruins of the Old Babylonian city at that time and became the first step in military occupation of the area. However, the material culture is not completely Assyrian and instead belongs to the continuity of local traditions in which Babylonian influence is still very strong. More precisely, standard shapes of Assyrian pottery are rare; some standard bottles were found, but carinated bowls and cups were almost completely absent. 55 If we follow Pfälzner’s proposition, it is tempting to conclude that Assyria did not really control the region, despite the textual data, 56 because Assyrian standard pottery was far from dominant. Nevertheless, a large range of Assyrian nipple-based goblets were discovered at the site, and Assyrian goblets are far more numerous than “kassite” ones. The presence of Assyrian goblets—which by the way are not practical at all, as Kim Duistermaat recalls, 57 because they must be hold continuously—may lead to another conclusion: even if Assyrian administration seems really loose, Assyrian social behavior, revealed by the use of this specific kind of drinking vessel, may have been widely adopted. In this quite remote area of the Assyrian Empire, which is close to Babylonia and to the steppe, the best way to 46.  Kepinski 2009 and 2012. 47.  Schachner 2007: 132. 48.  Tenu 2008. 49.  Clancier 2012 with references. 50.  Grayson 1987: 306. 51.  Grayson 1975: 162. 52.  Walker 1982: 401. 53.  For the complete argumentation, see Tenu and Clancier 2012. 54.  Maul 2005. 55.  Tenu 2012. 56.  For a general presentation of the Middle Assyrian occupation in the Middle Euphrates area, see Tenu 2006 and Tenu 2009: 182–94. 57.  Duistermaat 2008: 471–72.

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rule was maybe not to create a province with all the associated bureaucratic administration but to allow a less strict organization, controlled by local rulers who swore loyalty to the Assyrian king and became his vassals. As a result, administrative pottery is not used because it does not correspond to local needs; but this does not mean that Assyrian rule was not effective.

*   *   * In this paper, I have stressed how difficult it remains to integrate archaeological results in a way that results in broader historical perspectives. 58 In the Assyrian Empire, a large part of population was not Assyrian, and as Duistermaat underlines, it is meaningful when non-Assyrian people adopt Assyrian pottery. 59 At Tell Sabi Abyad, which is the dunnu of the Great Vizir, King of Hanigalbat himself, it is not really surprising that pottery was so Assyrian, because the site was completely embedded in a rigid Assyrian administration. Even there, however, ancient and local traditions are still perceptible. 60 We should thus keep in mind that the first administrative production is in all likelihood not the only one used in Assyria; and, second, it certainly does not replace all the other ones. The Assyrian form of domination we can recognize in the field is administrative in the provincial system, but it may not represent the only form. On the margins or at small sites, Assyrian administration was perhaps too distant to be archaeologically visible, local rule remaining precisely local, not Assyrian. The place of local population in Assyrian imperial system is very hard to perceive, but gradually we are gaining a better image of their weight and, above all, of their real importance in the shaping of the Empire itself. It is still quite difficult to have a clear overall picture, but the vision that is emerging from all these new data is very stimulating for future work and for a better understanding of Assyrian power. 58.  See also Tenu 2007 and Postgate 2010. 59.  Duistermaat 2008: 472. 60.  Duistermaat 2008: 469.

Bibliography Akkermans, P. M. M. G. 2006 The Fortress of Ili-pada: Middle Assyrian Architecture at Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria. Pp. 201–11 in Les espaces syro-mésopotamiens: Dimensions de l’expérience humaine au Proche-Orient ancien. Volume d’hommage offert à Jean-Claude Margueron, ed. P. Butterlin et al. Subartu XVII. Turnhout: Brepols. Ball, W. 1990 The Tell al-Hawa Project: The Second and Third Seasons of Excavations at Tell alHawa, 1987–88. Mediterranean Archaeology 3: 75–92. Bernbeck, R. 1994 Steppe als Kulturlandschaft. Das ‘Agig-Gebiet vom Neolithikum bis zur islamischen Zeit (mit Beiträgen von P.  Pfälzner). BBVO-Ausgrabungen Band 1. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Bunnens, G. 2003 Tell Ahmar/Til Barsib: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Seasons (2001–2002). OrientExpress 2003/2: 40–43.

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Capet, E. 2005 Les installations de la fin du Bronze récent et du début de l’âge du Fer. Pp. 379–407 in Tell Shiukh Fawqâni 1994–1998, ed. L. Bachelot and F. M. Fales. History of Ancient Near East/Monographs VI. Padova: S.A.R.G.O.N. Clancier, P. 2012 “Les deux tablettes médio-assyriennes.” In Haradum III: Haradu forteresse du moyen Euphrate iraquien (xii e– vii e s. av. J.-C.), ed. C. Kepinski. Travaux de la Maison RenéGinouvès 8. Paris: De Boccard. Geyer, B., and Monchambert, J.-Y. 1987 Prospection dans la moyenne vallée de l’Euphrate : Rapport préliminaire : 1982–1985. Mari: Annales de recherche interdisciplinaire 5: 293–344. 2003 La basse vallée de l’Euphrate syrien du Néolithique à l’avènement de l’Islam. Mission archéologique de Mari VI. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 166. Beirut: IFPO. Grayson, A. K. 1975 Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. Texts from Cuneiform Sources 5. Locust Valley, NY: Augustin. 1987 Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennia bc (to 1115). The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods I. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Duistermaat, K. 2007 The Pots and Potters of Assyria: Technology and Organization of Production, Ceramics Sequence and Vessel Function at Late Bronze Age Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria. Turnhout: Brepols Eickhoff, T. 1985 Kâr-Tukulti-Ninurta: Eine mittelassyrische Kult- und Rezidenzstadt. ADOG 21. Berlin: Gebr. Mann. Einwag, B., Kohlmeyer, K., and Otto, A. 1995 Tall Bazi-Vorbericht über die Untersuchungen 1993. Damazner Mitteilungen 8: 95–124. Frame, G. 2011 “Assyrian Royal Inscriptions.” Pp. 127–37 in Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, ed. A. R. George. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press. Kepinski, C. 2009 Conflict, Territory and Culture: The Case of Haradu, a Fortress on the Iraqi Middle Euphrates (11th–7th Centuries b.c.). Pp. 149–58 in Assyrian and Aramean Interaction. Actes de la Table Ronde tenue au 6 ICAANE, Rome, 5–11 mai 2008, ed. A. Tenu and C. Kepinski. Syria 86. Beirut: IFPO. 2012 Haradum III: Haradu forteresse du moyen Euphrate iraquien (xii e–vii e s. av.  J.-C.). Travaux de la Maison René-Ginouvès 8. Paris: De Boccard. Lyon, J. D. 2000 Middle Assyrian Expansion and Settlement Development in the Syrian Jazira: The View from the Balikh Valley. Pp. 89–126 in Rainfall and Agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia: Proceedings of the Third MOS Symposium, Leiden, May 21–22, 1999, ed. R.  M.  Jas. PIHANS 89. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Stambul. Matney, T. et al. 2002 Archaeological Excavations at Ziyaret Tepe, 2000 and 2001. Anatolica 28: 47–89. Maul, S. 2005 Die Inschriften von Tall Ṭâbân (Grabungskampagne 1997–1999): Die Könige von Ṭâbêtu und das Land Mâri in mittelassyrischer Zeit. Acta Sumerologica Supplementary Series 2. Tokyo: The Institute for Cultural Studies of Ancient Iraq, Kokushikan University.

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Montero Fenollós, J. L. et al. 2009 IV campaña del Proyecto Arqueológico Medio Éufrates Sirio. Sondeos en Tall Qabr Abu al-‘Atiq: de los origines de la ciudad al período Asirio Medio. Informes y trabajos 3: 192–99. Morandi Bonacossi D. 2008 Betrachtungen zur Siedlungs- und Bevölkerungsstruktur des Unteren Ḫābūr-Gebietes in der neuassyrichen Zeit. Pp. 189–214 in Umwelt und Subsistenz der assyrischen Stadt Dūr-Katlimmu am unteren Ḫābūr, ed. H. Kühne. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Oates, D., Oates, J., and Mac Donald, H. 1997 Excavations at Tell Brak, Vol I: The Mitanni and old Babyloniam Periods. London: Bristish School of Archaeology in Iraq / Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Pfälzner P. 1995 Mittanische und mittelassyrische Keramik: Eine chronologische, funktionale und produktionsökonomische Analyse. BATSH n°3. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. 1997 Keramikproduktion und Provinzverwaltung im mittelassyrischen Reich. Pp. 337–342 in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten, XXXIX ème Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg, 6–10 juillet 1992, ed. H. Waetzoldt and H. Hauptmann. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag. 2007 The Late Bronze Age Ceramic Traditions of the Syrian Jazirah. Pp. 231–91 in Céramique de l’âge du Bronze en Syrie II: l’Euphrate et la region de la Jézireh, ed. M. al-Maqdissi, V. Matoïan, and C. Nicolle. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 180. Beirut: IFPO. Postgate, C., Oates, D., and Oates, J. 1997 The Excavations at Tell al-Rimah: The Pottery. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Postgate, J. N. 2007 The Ceramics of Centralisation and Dissolution: A Case Study from Rough Cilicia. Anatolian Studies 57: 141–50. 2010 The Debris of Government: Reconstructing the Middle Assyrian State Apparatus from Tablets and Potsherds. Iraq 77: 19–37. Schachner, A. 2002 Ausgrabungen in Giricano (2000–2001): Neue Forschungen an der Nordgrenze des Mesopotamischen Kulturraums. Istanbuler Mitteilungen 52: 9–57. 2004 Die mittelassyrische Siedlungsshichten von Giricano. Pp. 1–13 in Das mittelassyrische Tontatefarchiv von Giricano/Dunnu-ša-Uzibi, ed. K. Radner. Ausgrabungen in Giricano 1. Subartu 14. Turnhout: Brepols. 2007 Bilder eines Weltreiches: Kunst- und kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Verzierungen eines Tores aus Balawat (Imgur-Enlil) aus der Zeit von Salmanassar III, König von Assyrien. Subartu 20. Turnhout: Brepols. Tenu, A. 2007 La diffusion de la culture des vainqueurs: l’exemple médio-assyrien (xive–xie siècles). Pp. 223–33 in Mobilités, Immobilismes. L’emprunt et son refus, ed. P. Rouillard. Colloques de la Maison René-Ginouvès 3. Paris: De Boccard. 2008 Les forteresses assyriennes de la vallée du moyen Euphrate. Pp. 151–76 in Les armées du Proche-Orient ancien (IIIe–Ier mill. av.  J. C.), Actes du colloque international organisé à Lyon les 1er et 2 décembre 2006, Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée, ed. P. Abrahami and L. Battini. BAR International Series 1855. Oxford: Archeopress. 2009 L’expansion médio-assyrienne: approche archéologique. BAR 1906. Oxford: Hedges. 2012 Le matériel céramique. Pp. 99–177 in Haradum III. Haradu forteresse du moyen Euphrate iraquien (xii e–vii e s. av.  J.-C.), ed. C. Kepinski. Travaux de la Maison RenéGinouvès 8. Paris: De Boccard. Tenu, A., and Clancier, P. 2012 Haradu dans l’empire assyrien xiie-viie siècles. Pp. 247–61 in Haradum III. Haradu forteresse du moyen Euphrate iraquien (xii e–vii e s. av. J.-C.), ed. C. Kepinski. Travaux de la Maison René-Ginouvès 8. Paris: De Boccard.

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Walker, C. B. F. 1982 A Chronicle of the Kassite and Isin II Dynasties. Pp. 398–417 in Zikir Sumim: Assyriological studies presented to F. R. Kraus on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. G. van Driel et al. Leiden: Brill. Wilkinson, T. J., and Tucker D. J. 1995 Settlement Development in the North Jazira, Iraq: A Study of the Archaeological Landscape. Warminster: Aris & Philipps. Wiggermann, F. A. M. 2000 Agriculture in the Northern Balikh Valley: The Case of Middle Assyrian Tell Sabi Abyad. Pp. 171–231 in Rainfall and Agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia: Proceedings of the third MOS Symposium, Leiden, May 21–22, 1999, ed. R. M. Jas. PIHANS 89. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Stambul.

Tugdamme and the Cimmerians: A Test of Piety in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions

Selim F. Adalı

Bilkent University Until ancient historians were able to read cuneiform, the Cimmerians were known to the world mainly through references in the classical Greek sources (Tokhtas’ev 1996). These sources ascribe the Cimmerians an original homeland on the shores of the Black Sea, from which it was believed that they were forced to emigrate into Anatolia due to pressure from the Scythians. The other prominent piece of information about the Cimmerians in the Greek sources concerns their military domination of Anatolia in the 7th century b.c.e., carried out under their leader Lygdamis. Not contemporary with the events concerning the Cimmerians, the classical Greek sources are based on traditions preserving memories and myths about them. It was the Scythians, not the Cimmerians, who captured the imagination of the ancient Greek tradition. Archaeological discoveries of “Scythian” artifacts on the shores of the Black Sea provided great impetus for the study of the Scythians and the Cimmerians. The progress of discoveries continues in the Russian-speaking world; revealed is a material culture that was part of the vast Eurasian steppes from eastern Europe to the northern frontiers of China. The identification of ethnic groups on the basis of material remains appears to be a difficult task; even today, there is tension between classifying the Cimmerians with other peoples of the steppes and trying to differentiate between their material culture and those of others (Ivantchik 2001). The written sources remain scanty to our day, but the dependence primarily on ancient Greek sources was softened upon the reading of cuneiform texts. Assyrian sources, contemporary with the events, provide tantalizing but fragmentary information (for detailed treatment, see Lanfranchi 1990 and Ivantchik 1993). They reveal that the Cimmerians conducted numerous military operations in Anatolia as early as the 8th century b.c.e.. They confirm Lygdamis’ existence and exploits and render his name as Tugdammê. Unlike the Greeks, the Assyrians had to pay more attention to the Cimmerians, who had established themselves as a major political and military force on Assyria’s Anatolian and Iranian frontiers at least from the time of Sargon II until the time of Assurbanipal. Various types of Assyrian cuneiform texts mention the Cimmerians. Among these, one primarily finds letters addressed to the Assyrian kings and and the Assyrian royal inscriptions. Assyria under Assurbanipal faced several external and internal threats. As interpreted by the proponents of the Assyrian royal image, each were depicted in 587

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Assurbanipal’s royal inscriptions using different types/models made evident by the means of literary allusions. Certain words and descriptions of events were deliberately tailored to evoke characters and events known from stories concerning mythological and legendary figures of Mesopotamian civilization. These characters and events served as types/models applied to Assurbanipal, his enemies, and the events described in the royal inscriptions. An exhaustive account will have to await a number of other studies. The present treatment analyzes some of these types/models detected in the description of the Cimmerians and seeks to interpret their significance for the concepts of time and history in the ancient Near East. The Cimmerians are mentioned in the extant royal inscriptions in the context of their invasion of Lydia and their planned offensive against Assyria under Tugdamme.

Assurbanipal and Tugdamme The Lydians had sought Assyrian aid against the Cimmerians. Later, the Lydians turned to Egypt, but they were unable to prevent the Cimmerian invasion. This invasion was most probably carried out by Tugdamme (Lanfranchi 2002: 82). Assurbanipal’s royal inscriptions portray these events according to Assyrian biases and ideological prerogatives (Gelio 1981). They claim that Gyges broke his vassal oath and sided with Egypt and “trusted his own strength and became arrogant” (a‑na e-muq ra-man-i-šú it-ta-kil-ma ig-pu-uš ŠÀ-bu; Prism A ii 113 in BIWA, 31). As a response, Assurbanipal cursed Gyges before the gods of Assyria (Prism A ii 115–19 in BIWA, 31–32): (115) a-na-ku áš-me-e-ma (116) ú-ṣal-li AN.ŠÁR u dXV um-ma pa-an LÚKÚR-šú pa-gar-šú li-in-na-di-ma (117) liš-šu-u-ni GÌR.PAD.DU.MEŠ-šú ki-i ša a-na AN.ŠÁR am-ḫu-ru/ra iš-lim-ma (118) pa-an LÚKÚR-šú pa-gar-šú in-na-di-ma iš-šú-u-ni GÌR.PAD.DU.MEŠ-šú (119) LÚGi-mir-ra-a-a ša ina ni-bit MU-ia šapal-šu ik-bu-su (120) it-bu-nim-ma is-pu-nu gi-mir KUR-šú (115) I heard (this) and (116) beseeched Aššur and Ištar: “May his body be cast down before his enemy and (117) may they carry away his bones!” (And) as I appealed to Aššur, it came to pass. (118) His body was cast down in front of the enemy and they carried away his bones, (119) (that is) the Cimmerians who in the calling of my name trampled him under. (120) They arose and scattered his entire land.

Gyges’ son acknowledged that Assurbanipal’s curse killed his father: “You are the king whose strength is of god. You cursed my father and there was evil before him” (LUGAL ša DINGIR i-du-ú-šu at-ta AD-u-a ta-ru-ur-ma MUNUS.ḪUL iš-šá-kin ina pa-ni-šú; Prism A ii 123–24 in BIWA, 32). The king of Assyria describes this evil as “the evil deed of the oath of my hands; the gods my helpers: in front (of him [Gyges’ son]) the father his maker they laid across (his) hands” (ep-šet ḪUL-tim ša ina ni-iš ŠU.II-ia DINGIR.MEŠ tik-le-ia ina pa-an AD DÙ-šú ú-šap-ri-ku ina ŠU.II; Prism A ii 121–22 in BIWA, 32������������������������������������������������������ ). The references to the power of the oaths even without Assyrian military intervention occur especially under Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. Apparently, there is an attempt to convince the vassals and the nobles that they should keep to their oaths on the basis of something other than the imposition of Assyrian military force (for a discussion of these vassal treaties, see Weeks 2004: 41–50). It is interesting how the power of the gods and Assurbanipal’s power to

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curse are connected; Assurbanipal represents what is the power of the gods. Assurbanipal’s ability to inflict harm by word of mouth especially recalls Adapa. Adapa had cursed and decapacitated the south wind so crucial to life in Mesopotamia. 1 The allusion seems to evoke the character of Adapa and his power in a rather discrete and intricate manner. Its primary purpose appears to be a literary expression of Assurbanipal’s intimate relation with, and knowledge of, the will of the gods—because only the gods could bring about the curse, and Assurbanipal merely expressed their power in a way that recalled Adapa. Elsewhere, Assurbanipal claimed to have acquired the “skills of Adapa the apkallu” (šipir apkalli Adapa; L4 [K 3050 + K 2694] i 13 in Streck 1916: 254). The word šipir probably relates to Adapa’s wisdom in the arts of magic and divination; the wisdom of Adapa was traditionally associated with the Neo-Assyrian Sargonid monarchs (see the references in CAD A/2 172 s.v. apkallu 2 a 2′). Letters addressing Assurbanipal refer to Adapa in various contexts. Referring to the recovery of the king’s mother, Marduk-šakin-šumi states that she is as able as Adapa (SAA 10 244 rev. 8–9). Another letter declares that the deeds of the king are like those of Adapa (SAA 10 380 3′–4′). Marduk-šumuuṣur praises the king by reminding him that in a dream the god Aššur called his grandfather Sennacherib a “descendant” (liblibbu) of Adapa and that Assurbanipal himself had surpassed the wisdom of all scholarship (SAA 10 174 7–9). This praise involving the deity Aššur can be seen in harmony with Assurbanipal’s claims to have acquired the wisdom of Adapa. In the inscriptions of Assurbanipal, the same deity Aššur appeared in a dream to Gyges of Lydia, persuading the Lydian king to approach Assyria and to be a vassal. Eventually, Gyges unwisely refused the gods, whereas Assurbanipal, wise like Adapa, proved to be in tune with them. Among his close circle and in his own inscriptions Assurbanipal was a successful “descendant” of Adapa, whose power to curse was in fact an expression of the gods whom he humbly served. This way, he was their powerful voice on earth. He had an intimate understanding of their will. The agent of destruction that moved at the word of Assurbanipal the “descendant” of Adapa was a force in truth controlled by the gods. The Cimmerians were not able to invade Lydia as long as Gyges trusted the deity Aššur and submitted to Assyrian rule accordingly. Gyges sinned, however, when he trusted his own strength and became arrogant. As a result, the gods allowed the Cimmerians to invade his kingdom. The Cimmerian ability to scatter distant lands at the will of the gods, and against Assyrian interests, recalls the powerful enemy Naram-Sin faced in the Cuthean Legend. 2 Naram-Sin was about to lose his kingdom because he, too, had 1. For the text and manuscripts of the Adapa myth, see Picchioni 1981 and Izre'el 2001. The manuscripts from Assurbanipal’s library, even in their fragmentary state, exhibit parallels with the earlier recension of the myth from Amarna that contains the narrative of Adapa cursing. One of these fragments has a very explicit mention of Adapa as the one who “authoritatively broke the wing of the South Wind” (šal-ṭiš kap-pi šu-ú-ti iš-bi-ru; Fragment D [= K 8214] 13 in Picchioni 1981: 122). Fragment D seems to mention Anu installing Adapa as his servant, and after the myth one finds attached in Fragment D a healing incantation that is based on Adapa’s success in breaking the wing of the South Wind; Izre'el 2001: 5. How precisely Adapa’s cursing was interpreted by Assurbanipal and his close circle may remain unclear but evidence independent of the discussed allusion also suggests that Assurbanipal was associated with Adapa, considered a great sage. This evidence is discussed immediately below. 2. For the text of the Standard Babylonian version of the Cuthean Legend in use at the court of Assurbanipal, see Westenholz 1997: 300–368. Westenholz takes exception to the majority view that the term Ummān-manda designates the enemy in the Cuthean Legend and notes certain philological difficulties. On the other hand, Lanfranchi (2002) sees the term Ummān-manda as one of the literary

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initially trusted his own strength. He managed to repent and trusted that the gods did control the fate of the enemy. He passed the gods’ test of piety, and so the gods destroyed the powerful enemy. Gyges was then a failed Naram-Sin and Assurbanipal a perfect Adapa. The identification of the Cimmerians with the powerful enemy described in the Cuthean Legend is explicit in the inscriptions concerning the Cimmerian leader Tugdamme. Tugdamme had died before he could launch his feared offensive against Assyria. One of Assurbanipal’s dedicatory inscriptions attributed Tugdamme’s death and the ensuing dispersion of Cimmerian might to Marduk. 3 Tugdamme was called šar Ummān-manda (“king of the Umman-manda”), tabnīt Tiāmat (“offspring of Tiamat”) and tamšil Dgallê (“likeness of the gallû-demon”). Marduk promised to destroy his “clan” (illatu). These epithets used for Tugdamme were not given to another historical figure in the inscriptions of Assurbanipal. 4 The powerful enemy led by Anubanini and his sons in the Cuthean Legend is called the Ummanmanda (compare with the discussion in n. 2 above). Tugdamme was the king of the Umman-manda. The Cuthean Legend states that Tiamat raised Anubanini and his sons. Tugdamme is king of the “offspring of Tiamat.” They were, in a sense, goddess Tiamat’s army. Her demon army was called gallû-demons in Enūma Eliš IV 116 (Lambert and Parker 1974: 25); Anubanini and his sons were a clan. Marduk promised Assurbanipal to scatter Tugdamme’s clan (illatu). In sum, the concentration of these epithets in Assurbanipal’s text proves that allusions to the Cuthean Legend were intended. Another term describing the enemy in the Cuthean Legend was zēr ḫalqātî (“seed of destruction”). Both zēr ḫalqātî and Ummān-manda were terms used to describe the Cimmerians in the letters addressing the kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (SAA 10 111 15, SAA 10 100 27). The royal inscriptions of Esarhaddon had also used the term Ummān-manda for the Cimmerians (Borger 1956: 36–37, 51; Thompson 1940: 105, fig. 14, no. 28). Assurbanipal’s inscriptions used both Ummān-manda and zēr ḫalqātî (BIWA, 200, 285; Bauer 1972: 83–84; Cogan and Tadmor 1977: 80 n. 26). Both in contemporary court life and in the royal inscriptions, the Assyrians designated the Cimmerians with terms otherwise found together in the Cuthean Legend. The Cuthean Legend depicts a powerful foreign enemy dominating Naram-Sin’s imperial realm. The gods command the king not to intervene. The enemy falls without the king’s intervention only after the latter learns to trust the gods and not to act against their will. The model king must trust the gods to the extent that he is willing to remain passive against a destructive enemy if the gods require so: this is the test of piety. The king must endure and wait for the gods to bring the enemy’s fall. Otherwise he risks losing his kingdom. quotations from the Cuthean Legend used in Assyrian texts to demonize the Cimmerians and suggests a relation with the Odyssey. I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with different aspects of both scholars’ interpretations; see my study of the term Ummān-manda and the allusions made to the Cuthean Legend in Adalı 2011. 3. K 120B+ 20–26 in BIWA, 202. The restoration [gal-le-e] follows tam-šil D[gal-le-e] in Streck 1916: 280. The expression tam-šil gal5-lá (“likeness of the gallû-demon”) that is used to describe Teumman, an Elamite king, in two other inscriptions of Assurbanipal; Prisms B iv 74 and C v 80 in BIWA, 97. The only difficulty with the restoration is that there is a divine determinative before [gal-le-e] in K 120B+ 20. 4.  The exception is tamšil Dgallê (“likeness of the gallû-demon”), used without a divine determinative for the Elamite king Teumman (n. 3 above). I will discuss the use of this epithet for Teumman below in the section Assurbanipal and Elam.

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The Cimmerians were associated with the enemy in the Naram-Sin story due to perceived similarities. They came from distant lands, destructively campaigned, and eventually lost their power, confirming to the original audience that this was a predetermined fact, as it was in the Cuthean Legend. The allusions to the Cuthean Legend and its themes appear vividly in the royal inscriptions of Assurbanipal describing the end of Cimmerian power under Tugdamme without Assyrian intervention. Assyrian historiography transformed a history of Assyrian inability to eliminate Cimmerian power into a victorious memory resembling the Cuthean Legend. Assurbanipal, like Naram-Sin, passed the test of piety. He witnessed the predestined fall of the Cimmerians. The ��������������������������������������������� Cimmerians were typified as the enemy described in the so-called Cuthean Legend and Assurbanipal was the proper NaramSin of his time.

Assurbanipal and Elam Assurbanipal was able to invade and raze parts of Elam and its capital Susa (Gerardi 1987; Potts 1999: 275–85). The political outcome and the demonstration of Assyrian military might was in stark contrast to the situation against the Cimmerians under Tugdamme. One of the kings of Elam, Teumman, was one of the veritable threats against Assyria. He was defeated and beheaded in battle. Two of Assurbanipal’s royal inscriptions refer to him as the “likeness of the gallû-demon” (n. 3). The reference to the gallû-demon recalls Tiamat’s army, and in this specific case, the demonic army that was utterly defeated in Enūma Eliš. Some of Sennacherib’s inscriptions had used the gallû-demon imagery and a number of expressions that would recall the enemy in Enūma Eliš; one of the purposes was to express support the destruction of Babylon under Sennacherib (Weissert 1997). Assurbanipal appears to be doing the same thing for Elam; his Babylonian policy was that of reconciliation, as with his father Esarhaddon rather than his grandfather Sennacherib. For Assurbanipal, Elam was the actual military problem. By conquering Elam with might and the will of the gods, Assurbanipal was his own time’s “Sargon who invaded Elam.” References to Sargon’s invasion of Elam in the Neo-Assyrian omen text K 2130 may refer to Assurbanipal’s invasion of Elam (Jeyes 1997: 63–64). These would complement the historical omens explicitly naming Assurbanipal and referring to his conflict with Elam (for these omens, see Starr 1985). Sargon’s invasion of Elam would be conceivable to the scribe who composed K 2130 due to texts such as the Sargon Geography that mentions Sargon ruling Elam along with the rest of the world. 5

History Writing under Assurbanipal Assurbanipal had a keen interest in cuneiform (Livingstone 2007). Cuneiform training, or at least familiarity with it, also assumes a knowledge of stories about Adapa, Sargon, and Naram-Sin. The literary allusions made in Assurbanipal’s royal inscriptions were ornamental and more. By recalling mythological and legendary characters, certain themes concerning them in stories such the Cuthean Legend made it into the narrative of events as discussed in the present contribution. 5.  See the references to Susa and Elam in Horowitz 1998: 70–73. For the entire text of the Sargon Geography, see ibid., 68–75.

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Assurbanipal appears to have been aware of these, since letters addressed to him support the types of allusions made in his inscriptions. Assurbanipal’s royal inscriptions interpreted history as the realization of the will of the gods. Gyges was a failed Naram-Sin type. Assurbanipal was a model Naram-Sin and Sargon. History was a legitimate repetition of the glories of Akkad personified in Assurbanipal and his wisdom as a descendant of Adapa.

Bibliography Adalı, Selim F. 2011 The Scourge of God: The Umman-manda and Its Significance in the First Millennium b.c.e. State Archives of Assyria Studies XX. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Bauer, Theo 1972 Das Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals. AB 1. Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik; originally printed in Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche, 1933. Borger, Rykle 1956 Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Königs von Assyrien. AfO Beih. 9. Graz: E. F. Weidner. 1996 Beitrage zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals: Die Prismenklassen A, B, C=K, D, E, F, G, H, J und T sowie andere Inschriften. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Cogan, Mordechai, and Hayim Tadmor 1977 Gyges and Ashurbanipal: A Study in Literary Transmission. Or 46: 65–85. Gelb, I. J., et al. 1956–2011  The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Gelio, Roberto 1981 La délégation envoyée par Gygès, roi de Lydie: un cas de propagande idéologique. Pages 203–24 in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological and Historical Analysis. Papers of a Symposium held in Cetona (Siena) June 26–28, 1980. Orientis antiqui collectio 17. Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, Centro per le Antichità e la Storia dell’Arte del Vicino Oriente. Gerardi, Pamela D. 1987 Assurbanipal’s Elamite Campaigns: A Literary and Political Study. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Horowitz, Wayne 1998 Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Izre'el, Shlomo 2001 Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death. Mesopotamian Civilizations 10. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Ivantchik, Askold I. 1993 Les Cimmeriéns au Proche-Orient. OBO 127. Fribourg Suisse: Editions Universitaires / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck š Ruprecht. 2001 The Current State of the Cimmerian Problem. Ancient Civilizations 7: 307–39. Jeyes, Ulla 1997 Assurbanipal’s bārûtu. Pages 61–65 in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten: XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.–10. Juli 1992, edited by Hartmut Waetzoldt and Harald Hauptmann. HSAO 6. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag. Lambert, W. G., and Simon B. Parker 1974 Enūma Eliš: The Babylonian Epic of Creation. The Cuneiform Text. Birmingham: Suttons; originally printed in Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966. Lanfranchi, Giovanni B. 1990 I Cimmeri: Emergenza delle elites militari iraniche nel Vicino Oriente (VIII-VII sec a.c.). HANE/S 2. Padova: S.A.R.G.O.N.

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The Cimmerians at the Entrance of the Netherworld. Filtration of Assyrian Cultural and Ideological Elements into Archaic Greece. Atti e Memorie dell’Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti Parte III: Memorie della Classe di Scienze Morali, Lettere ed Arti 94: 75–112. Livingstone, Alasdair 2007 Ashurbanipal: Literate or Not? ZA 97: 98–118. Parpola, Simo 1993 Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. SAA 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Picchioni, Sergio Angelo 1981 Il poemetto di Adapa. Az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Ókori Történeti tanszékeinek kiadványai 27. Assyriologia 6. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem. Potts, D. T. 1999 The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. Cambridge University Press Starr, Ivan 1985 Historical Omens Concerning Ashurbanipal’s War Against Elam. AfO 32: 60–67 Streck, Maximilian 1916 Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Nineveh’s. 3 Volumes. VAB 7. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche. Tokhtas’ev, Sergei. 1996 Die Kimmerier in der antiken Überlieferung. Hyperboreus 2: 1–46. Thompson, R. Campbell 1940 A Selection from the Cuneiform Historical Texts from Nineveh (1927–32). Iraq 7: 85–131. Weeks, Noel K. 2004 Admonition and Curse: the Ancient Near Eastern Treaty/Covenant Form as a Problem in Inter-Cultural Relationships. JSOT Supplement 407. London: T. & T. Clark. Weissert, Elnathan 1997 Creating a Political Climate: Literary Allusions to Enūma Eliš in Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule. Pages 191–202 in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten: XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.–10. Juli 1992, edited by Hartmut Waetzoldt and Harald Hauptmann. HSAO 6. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag. Westenholz, Joan Goodnick. 1997 Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts. Mesopotamian Civilizations 10. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.

The Changing Approaches to History in the Neo-Assyrian Palace Reliefs Mehmet-Ali Ataç P h i la d e l p h i a

Introduction The palace reliefs of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (ca. 883–612 b.c.e.) represent some 300 years of development. These carved orthostat slabs decorated what would have been the reception suites and ceremonial halls of the principal palaces of the three capital cities of the Empire, Nimrud (Kalhu), Khorsabad (Dur-Sharrukin), and Nineveh (Ninua). The reliefs primarily commemorated the military achievements of the Neo-Assyrian kings, in parallelism with the royal inscriptions, which constituted a tradition of history writing that reached back to the Middle Assyrian Period (ca. 1350–1000 b.c.e.). 1 The Neo-Assyrian visual narrative had its precedents and parallels within the international environment of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550–1000 b.c.e.) as well. In ancient Egypt, in the Ramesside Period (1295–1069 b.c.e.), especially during the reigns of Sety I (Dynasty 19, 1294–1279 b.c.e.), Ramesses II (Dynasty 19, 1279– 1213 b.c.e.), and Ramesses III (Dynasty 20, 1184–1153 b.c.e.), a visual tradition of historical narrative commemorating military achievements, also side by side with a textual narrative component, was already exploring a tension between realism and emblematic grandeur. 2 James Henry Breasted as early as 1932 credited this imperial phase of Egypt with giving a certain degree of impetus to relevant developments in the visual arts of Assyria. 3 He also pointed to representations of the 1.  A. Kirk Grayson, “Assyria and Babylonia,” Orientalia 49 (1980) 140–94, esp. 150–55 where the difference between “annalistic” and “display” texts is also discussed. Grayson points out that “annalistic” texts are an Assyrian innovation in ancient Mesopotamia, since they are unknown among Sumerian and Babylonian royal inscriptions. 2.  On this tension, see especially H. A. Groenewegen-Frankfort, Arrest and Movement: Space and Time in the Art of the Ancient Near East (Cambridge, MA; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987 [1951]) 121–41. On the ancient Egyptian tradition of historiography, see John Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), esp. 152–57 on the Ramesside “commemorative inscriptions.” On the ancient Egyptian royal annals, see John Baines, “On the Evolution, Purpose, and Forms of Egyptian Annals,” Zeichen aus dem Sand: Streiflichter aus Ägyptens Geschichte zu Ehren von Günter Dreyer (ed. Eva-Maria Engel, Vera Müller, and Ulrich Hartung; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008) 19–40. 3. “Assyrian Relief Sculpture and the Influence of Egyptian Art,” Studies Presented to F. Ll. Griffith (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1932) 267–71. In this regard, see also Holly Pittmann, “The White Obelisk and the Problem of Historical Narrative in the Art of Assyria,” The Art Bulletin 78 (1996)

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Egyptian royal hunt for lions on the walls of the Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu as a precursor to the Neo-Assyrian royal lion hunt, a visual theme that had been dormant in ancient Mesopotamia since the beginning of the third millennium b.c.e. In her classic work, Arrest and Movement: Space and Time in the Art of the Ancient Near East, Henrietta Groenewegen-Frankfort states that the commemorative reliefs of the Assyrian royal palaces are entirely secular and narrative. 4 Even though we have come a long way in the study of the art of the ancient Near East since Mrs. Frankfort’s work, the scholarship on the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs of the 70s through the 90s continued ascribing an ideological aim that is primarily public and political to historical narrative in this artistic tradition. It is this seemingly realistic narrative component in the Neo-Assyrian depictions of military conquest that takes on greater prominence and expansiveness as time progresses from the ninth to the seventh century b.c.e. and Assyria grows into a fully cosmopolitan empire. This historical consciousness in Neo-Assyrian art, with its growing emphasis on recording contemporary military events in much greater specificity and panoramic detail, perhaps presents one of the greatest challenges to a well-rounded understanding of the message systems embedded in the palace relief corpus, especially if one would like to go beyond the idea that these representations are an essentially biased ideological attempt to show the successes of Empire. Equally detrimental to an understanding of this art is the view that the Assyrians, being a cruel and violent political force, did not hesitate to surround themselves with the records of their blood-thirsty exploits, or even reveled in doing so, since many of the relief scenes unequivocally depict much carnage. 5 In this paper, I trace the major changes in the Neo-Assyrian historical relief sculpture throughout its development, and argue that this visual tradition devised new paradigms to counteract its gradual break from an earlier formulaic mode of visual narrative that did not so much indulge in suggestions of depth, “perspective,” realism, and pathos.

The Sense of History in the Art of Ashurnasirpal II Perhaps the best introduction to the Neo-Assyrian sense of history in the visual arts is the dual mode of representation that characterizes the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 b.c.e.) In the reliefs that decorated the interior of this palace on the citadel at Nimrud, we see two different modes of figural representation, one emblematic/hieratic, the other narrative. The emblematic/hieratic mode 334–55, esp. 349; and Marian Feldman, “Nineveh to Thebes and Back: Art and Politics between Assyria and Egypt in the Seventh Century b.c.e.” in Nineveh: Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, London, 7–11 July 2003 (2 vols.; ed. Dominique Collon and Andrew George; London: The British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2005) 1. 141–50, especially in relation to the probable Egyptian impact on the Neo-Assyrian art of the seventh century b.c.e. during which both Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal campaigned to Egypt. 4. Groenewegen-Frankfort, Arrest and Movement, 170 5.  For cautions against taking Assyrian cruelty as represented at face value, see Seth Richardson, “Death and Dismemberment in Mesopotamia: Discorporation between the Body and Body Politic,” in Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (ed. Nicola Laneri; Oriental Institute Seminars 3; Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2007) 189–208, esp. 198– 200; and Paul Collins, Assyrian Palace Sculptures (London: The British Museum, 2008) 9.

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Fig. 1.  Ashurnasirpal II holding bow and arrows flanked by two winged human-headed apkallus. Panels 6–7, Room G, Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. London, British Museum. Photo: author.

in the Northwest Palace is best represented by the Assyrian “sacred tree” and the figures of the antediluvian sages, which often interact with those of the king in scenes of a cultic character (fig. 1). 6 The ancient Mesopotamian antediluvian tradition constitutes what may be referred to as a sense of “proto-history,” or “primeval history,” embedded in the art of the Northwest Palace. The Flood represents a benchmark in one of the most fundamental historical documents of ancient Mesopotamia, the Sumerian King List dating from the Isin Dynasty (2017–1793 b.c.e.), which starts with the period before the Flood, exists during the Flood, and continues further with a lingering “mythical” period beyond the Flood, before it makes its final transition to “historical” periods 6.  For the plausible identification of many of the mythological beings shown on the orthostat reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II as apkallus, antediluvian sages, see F. A. M. Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts (Groningen: Styx, 1992) 65–68, 73–77. The human-headed winged being by virtue of his wearing a horned crown is less certainly identified as an apkallu on the palace reliefs. Wiggermann indicates that he must be a god and that apkallus were certainly not gods (ibid., 74). This being, however, holds the cone (mullilu?) and the bucket (banduddû) held by the more securely identified figural type of the apkallu in the reliefs, the bird-headed. Wiggermann points out that the description of the anthropomorphic apkallu in the ritual texts does not specify the exact nature of the headdress (ibid.). The correlation of the figural types of the genii shown in the reliefs with those of the figurines described in ritual texts remains to be a problem.

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and dynasties. 7 To the original audience of the Sumerian King List, the distinction of mythical and historical may not have made much sense, as no such polarization would have characterized this antiquarian endeavor. The second mode of visual representation in the Northwest Palace is historical narrative, which is found in the throne room suite and the so-called West Wing (fig. 2). 8 The majority of the throne room reliefs clearly depict select instances from the military campaigns of Ashurnasirpal, even though we cannot identify all these scenes securely. The Standard Inscription, a synoptic account of the principal military campaigns of the king, repeated over and over again with minor variations on the relief panels, does not directly shed light on the identity of the scenes shown in the throne room. 9 Since the annals of Ashurnasirpal II have not come to light, Irene Winter made much use of the king’s long Ninurta Temple inscription in associating plausibly a number of the scenes with military campaigns recorded in this text, concluding that the scenes represent “specifics, not generics.” 10 Although this statement is true in principle, the mode in which these scenes from the throne room are presented, without epigraphs accompanying them as is the practice after Ashurnasirpal II, inevitably partakes of the generic. Perhaps a phrase to characterize this second mode of representation in the art of Ashurnasirpal is “epic,” a concept that is not irrelevant to the Assyrian royal inscriptions and the later phases of historical narrative in the visual arts in Assyria either. 11 In Assyrian court literature, a highly original literary form blending aspects of a number of Babylonian literary genres such as royal hymns and city laments with annals is the so-called Tukulti-Ninurta Epic from the Middle Assyrian Period. 12 This poem essentially praises the military prowess of the king, especially in relation to his Babylonian campaign. The Assyrian royal inscriptions are primarily texts of praise as well, and it is likely that they were read aloud publicly, in celebrations of military victories. 13 7.  Thorkild Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939). 8.  For studies on the narrative program of the throne room of Ashurnasirpal II, see Irene J. Winter, “Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs,” Studies in Visual Communication 7 (1981) 1–38; eadem, “The Program of the Throneroom of Assurnasirpal II,” in Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Charles Kyrle Wilkinson (ed. Prudence O. Harper and Holly Pittman; New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983) 15–31. 9.  John Malcolm Russell, The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999) 62. 10.  “Program of the Throneroom,” 22. In this regard, see also Luc Bachelot, “La fonction politique des reliefs néo-assyriens,” in Marchands, diplomates et empereuers: Études sur la civilisation mésopotamienne offertes à Paul Garelli (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991) 109–28, esp. 112. 11.  In fact, Winter (“Program of the Throneroom, 22”) points out how the Banquet Stela inscription of Ashurnasirpal II declares that the king has decorated the palace walls with “my heroic praises” (tanati qardūtiya). See A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium b.c.e.1 (1114–859 b.c.e.), The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Assyrian Periods 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991) Ashurnasirpal II A.0.101.30, l. 30. 12.  See Peter Machinist, “Literature as Politics: The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic and the Bible,”Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976) 455–82, esp. 455–68. Further on this text in relation to the question of the divinity of the king, see idem, “Kingship and Divinity in Imperial Assyria,” in Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion (ed. Gary Beckamn and Theodore J. Lewis; Brown Judaic Studies 346; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2006) 152–88, esp. 160–64. 13.  See Marc Van de Mieroop, Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History (London and New York: Routledge, 1999) 57.

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Fig. 2.  Ashurnasirpal II in chariot shooting arrows. Panel 11 A, Room B (throne room), Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. London, British Museum. Photo: author.

Approaching the narrative component in the art of Ashurnasirpal within paradigms of “epic” might lead one to obtain a more balanced view of its semantic content and its relation to history. After all, in the classical tradition of epic as well, matters that have mythological implications also have historical ones, as is especially the case with the benchmark represented by the Trojan War and the fall of Troy. 14 There are important clues in the narrative reliefs of Ashurnasirpal that would point to a metahistorical substructure to the battle scenes, the best preserved of which are from the south wall of the throne room. The most revealing image in this regard is the winged disk, which always accompanies the king in the reliefs (figs. 2–3). It is essentially a solar symbol ultimately derived from ancient Egypt, where it denotes the sun, the solar East–West direction at doorways inside the temples, and gods who have solar characteristics. 15 The winged disk as a motif that is part of the principal carvings of the palace reliefs disappears altogether from Neo-Assyrian art after the reign of Ashurnsasirpal II. Given the winged disk’s proximity to the king in the throne-room battle scenes, the god it represents is in great likelihood the Assyrian state god Ashur (figs. 2–3). But by virtue of the solar symbolism inherent in this motif, we see here in great likelihood a “solarized” Ashur. The international character of the winged disk in 14.  For balanced views that acknowledge both historical incidents and the continuum of a literary tradition spanning the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in the making of the classical epic cycle revolving around the Trojan War, see Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 357–71; and Margalit Finkelberg, Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and the Greek Heroic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 15.  On the Egyptian sources of the winged disk, see Henri Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996) 134–35; Dominique Collon, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum: Cylinder Seals 5: Neo-Assyrian and NeoBabylonian Periods (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 2001) 79, citing the work of Dominique Parayre; and Tallay Ornan, “A Complex System of Religious Symbols: The Case of the Winged Disc in Near Eastern Imagery of the First Millennium b.c.e.” in Crafts and Images in Contact: Studies on Eastern Mediterranean Art of the First Millennium b.c.e. (ed. Claudia E. Suter and Christoph Uehlinger; Fribourg: Academic Press / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2005) 207–41.

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Fig. 3.  Ashurnasirpal II in chariot returning from campaign(?). Panel 5 A, Room B (throne room), Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpa II at Nimrud. London: British Museum. Photo: author.

the Late Bronze Age may be thought to point to a semantic shared by the cultures using it in their visual traditions, a transcendent quality in the nature of the god depicted by this motif. The growing transcendent characteristics of the solar religion in Ramessid Egypt following the Amarna period (1352–1336 b.c.e.), and the Assyrian efforts to merge the god Ashur with the primeval god AN.ŠÁR, a practice that goes back to the Middle Assyrian period, may be thought to parallel one another as far as the implications of this image in the second half of the second millennium b.c.e. is concerned. 16 It is noteworthy that in the throne room of the Northwest Palace, the military action in the majority of the scenes on the South wall moves from the East to the West. A number of scenes, among which is a group perhaps depicting the king returning from a campaign with war prisoners in tow, however, have a reversed 16.  On the increasing transcendent characteristics of the solar religion in ancient Egypt during the Ramesside era, see Jan Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amun and the Crisis of Polytheism (trans. Anthony Alcock; London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1995) 102–55, where Assmann summarizes the parameters for the concept of “transcendence” as follows: “The unity of god is realized as neither pre-existence nor monotheism, but as transcendence, as a ‘hidden unity,’ in which all living plurality on earth has its origin and whose inscrutable nature can be experienced and stated only in ‘colourful reflection’ of the polytheistic divine world” (ibid., 155). On the spelling of the name of the god Ashur in the Middle Assyrian period, see Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “The Cult of AN.ŠÁR/ AŠŠUR in Babylonia After the Fall of the Assyrian Empire,” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 11 (1997) 55–73, esp. 64. On Ashur’s transformation “into a universal deity, not one bound to a specific time and locale,” see ibid., 68. As far as the connection among Aššur, AN.ŠÁR, and transcendence is concerned, see also Simo Parpola, “Monotheism in Ancient Assyria,” in One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World (ed. Barbara Nevling Porter; Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute 1; Chebeague Island, ME: The Casco Bay Assyriological Institute, 2000 ) 165–209, esp. 168–73.

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Fig. 4.  Sennacherib enthroned receiving the captives and booty of Lachish. Panels 12–13, Room XXXVI, Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh. London: British Museum. Photo: author.

orientation. 17 The occurrences of the winged disk, too, with the exception of its appearance on the same scene group showing reversal in the movement of action, follow the same East–West direction. With the throne located to the east end of the throne room as well, the solar and the royal seem here to be set in apposition. Perhaps, what we view along the south wall of the throne room is much more than a synoptic sampler of Ashurnasirpal’s military campaigns and an assertion of the king’s relation to the gods. A more fundamental rhetoric may here be bringing together aspects of a historical speculation that also looks to the future in the sense of a teleological fulfillment of the promise of Empire. In this regard, a notion of temporality may have been conveyed by the movement of the vast majority of the scenes from the East to the West accompanied by the unfolding of the events depicted in the scenes. The teleological, with implications of an imminent or future fulfillment of the promise of Empire in terms of an ideal world organization or order, may have been signaled by the presence and movement of the winged disk. 18 17.  See Winter, “Program of the Throneroom,” 21. The relevant scenes are on panels 5–6. Panel 3 B, part of a scene showing the siege of a city, has its direction of action in the reverse as well. For a layout of the decoration against the plan of the throne room, see John Malcolm Russell, “The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art,” American Journal of Archaeology 102 (1998) 655–715, esp. pl. IV. 18.  On the royal duty of the “enlargement of the borders” as “a step forward in the activity of fulfilling the world organization,” see Mario Liverani, Prestige and Interest: International Relations in the Near East ca. 1600–1100 b.c.e. (Padova: Sargon srl, 1990) 56. On the possible teleological implications of this

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Fig. 5.  Lion-headed demons (ugallus). Panel 1, entrance d, Room S, North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. London: British Museum. Photo: author.

Changes in the Sense of History in Neo-Assyrian Relief Sculpture after Ashurnasirpal II: As already stressed, in the centuries that followed the reign of Ashurnasirpal, the narrative component in Neo-Assyrian art became more panoramic and realistic with an increased attention to specific event, detail, and landscape (fig. 4). 19 What I have referred to as the emblematic/hieratic, as opposed to the narrative, mode of representation in the art of Ashurnasirpal II continued its presence during these later reigns in a different guise, in the form of the Mischwesen from the Babylonian poem of cosmogony, Enūma Eliš, adopted and Assyrianized by the reign of Sennacherib (704–681 b.c.e.) in the Neo-Assyrian period (fig. 5). 20 The “proto-historical” component in these later phases of the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs hence went further back in time than the antediluvian era of a cosmos already in existence, which the art of Ashurnasirpal II had explored extensively. It now signaled an era that represented the incipient phases of this cosmos. visual configuration, see Mehmet-Ali Ataç, “ ‘Time and Eternity’ in the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II,” in Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography (ed. Ada Cohen and Steven E. Kangas; Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College; Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2010) 159–80. 19.  See Bachelot, “Fonction politique,” 113–15, where this aspect of the historical narrative is referred to as “anecdotic,” and seen taking over gradually the “cultic” component of the reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II. Bachelot, concurring with the thoughts of Irene Winter, sees the cause of this development in the growth of Empire, just as the introduction in monumental scale of the historical narrative mode into Assyrian art in the medium of carved orthostat reliefs is connected with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the early ninth century b.c.e. 20.  For a discussion of the Assyrian version of the Babylonian cosmogony, see Wilfred George Lambert, “The Assyrian Recension of Enūma Eliš,” in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten: XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.-10. Juli 1992 (ed. Hartmut Waetzoldt and Harald Hauptmann; Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient 6; Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1997) 77–79.

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Fig. 6.  The Assyrian triumph over the Elamites. Panels 4–6, Room XXXIII, Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh (carved for Ashurbanipal). London: British Museum. Photo: author.

The representations of the “cosmogonic” Mischwesen, especially in the palaces of Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal, are much less expansive, however, than those of the Assyrian “sacred tree” and the antediluvian sages in the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II. Moreover, the scenes in which the king interacts with the mythological beings are completely eliminated from the decorative programs of the palaces at Nineveh. 21 The Mischwesen on the reliefs of the Ninevite palaces are almost exclusively shown in pairs as gate guardians confined to doorways or niches (fig. 5). Greater emphasis is laid in these later palaces of Nineveh on elaborate scenes of historical narrative (fig. 6). It is in this latter mode of representation that we observe a more radical break in principle from the still somewhat generic mode in which the battle reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II are shown. Starting with the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 b.c.e.), there are specific epigraphs on relief scenes that identify certain cities conquered by the Assyrians. 22 These epigraphs become lengthier on the reliefs of Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal during the seventh century b.c.e. 23 The texts of the epigraphs of the two latter kings identify fully the subject matter of the relevant scenes, taking them several steps further than the throne room reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II in historical specificity. 21.  See Tallay Ornan, “Expelling Demons at Nineveh: The Visibility of Benevolent Demons in the Palaces of Nineveh,” in Nineveh (ed. Collon and George) 1. 83–92. 22.  R. D. Barnett and M. Falkner, The Sculptures of Aššur-Naṣir-Apli II (883–859 b.c.), TiglathPileser III (745–727 b.c.), Esarhaddon (681–669 b.c.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1962) esp. pls. XXXVII–XL, LXII, LXIX–LXX. 23. Russell, Writing on the Wall, 137 and 167.

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I would argue that this new detailed and historically determinate visual mode harbors its own metahistorical codes that need to be disentangled to approach the nature of the narrative mode of representation in the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs. Luc Bachelot is one of the very few scholars publishing in the 90s on the NeoAssyrian palace reliefs to have questioned an ideology aiming the dissemination of messages pertaining to military achievements through the palace reliefs, especially those of Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal (668–627 b.c.e.). 24 Doubting the potential of the message of the reliefs to reach out to masses outside the royal palace, he argued for a primarily internal audience for the relief slabs. 25 Bachelot wondered what function the short epigraphs inscribed on the reliefs were really meant to fulfill, if an internal audience already knew what each of the scenes represented. By the same token, he also questioned the usefulness of an increase in specificity and detail of event, at the expense of the “cultic,” for making the message of the reliefs more accessible, if the audience was primarily internal. These problems led Bachelot to consider the new detailed narrative mode susceptible to diverse interpretations rather than conducive to clarity and accessibility, and to think of the epigraph as primarily “magical.” 26 Even though this conception of the “magical” is rather vague, Bachelot’s observation is nevertheless sobering in its apt critique of contemporary assumptions of accessibility, propaganda, and historical record that have so long given direction to the study of the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs. A similar endeavor has also been made by Zainab Bahrani in her book, Rituals of War: The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia (New York: Zone Books, 2008). That there is a strong ideological component to the Neo-Assyrian historical narrative has always been clear. 27 It is rather the nature of this ideology that needs to be probed and investigated further.

The Sense of History in the Art of Ashurbanipal No series of military events finds as detailed and extensive an artistic expression in Neo-Assyrian art as Ashurbanipal’s battles against the Elamites (fig. 6). The Elamites often conspired with the Babylonians against Assyrian political interests. These battles continued over an extended period of time, starting with the defeat of Teumman around 653 b.c.e. and culminating in the defeat of Ummanaldash III around 646 b.c.e. 28 In some of the key scenes associated with the defeat of the Elamites, we see certain remarkably grisly details or situations in which the manipulation or humiliation of the Elamites are shown in a most piercing manner. Often, the negative circumstances of the opponent is presented in such an extreme way that the careful and educated beholder may have seen something much more in them than the cruel Assyrians delighting in their bloodshed and the physical and psychological torture they inflicted on their enemies. We can review briefly four of these scenes. 24.  “Fonction politique,” esp. 115–18. 25. Ibid. 26.  Ibid., 118. 27.  See, for instance, again, ibid., 113, on how the history depicted in the reliefs is a manipulated and desired one, rather than “real.” 28.  For an overview of Ashurbanipal’s numerous battles against the Elamites, see Pauline Albenda, “Landscape Bas-Reliefs in the Bīt-Ḫilāni of Ashurbanipal,” continued from BASOR 224: 49–72, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 225 (1977) 29–48, esp. 30–31; and Amélie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East: c. 3000–330 bc (2 vols.; London and New York: Routledge, 1998) 2. 500–501.

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Fig. 7.  Detail from the “Garden Scene” of Ashurbanipal showing the decapitated head of the Elamite king Teumman hanging from a tree. Panels B–C, Room S1 (“fallen into S”), North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. London: British Museum. Photo: author.

The first is the celebrated panoramic Battle of Til-Tuba on the River Ulai, which shows step by step the defeat and decapitation of the Elamite king Teumman. 29 The series was carved for Ashurbanipal in the Southwest Palace of his grandfather Sennacherib at Nineveh. 30 In the surrounding landscape and the river, we see dead bodies being scavenged by birds of prey on land, and eaten by fish in the river. The entire scene is loaded with an ominous air of decay. The second scene is one in which this idea of decay is even taken further with the decapitated head, presumably of Teumman, hanging from a tree now juxtaposed with an ideal garden scene in which Ashurbanipal and his queen relax (fig. 7). It was apparently the centerpiece of a larger composition that depicted the ultimate defeat of the Elamites in the upper chambers of the North Palace at Nineveh. 31 While the traditional view sees in the scene a celebration of the triumph over the 29.  For the series of epigraphs identifying various scenes from this sequence of reliefs, see Russell, Writing on the Wall, 166–81. For an analysis of the narrative structure of this panoramic depiction, see Chikako E. Watanabe, “The Classification of Methods of Pictorial Narrative in Assurbanipal’s Reliefs,” in Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, July 18–22, 2005 (ed. Robert D. Biggs, Jennie Myers, and Martha T. Roth; Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2008) 321–32. 30.  See Richard Barnett, Erika Bleibtreu, and Geoffrey Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh (London: The Biritish Museum, 1998) 94–95, pls. 286–99. 31.  For a detailed study of the relief and its context, see Pauline Albenda, “Landscape Bas-Reliefs in the Bīt-Ḫilāni of Ashurbanipal,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 224 (1976) 49–72; and eadem “Landscape Bas-Reliefs,” continued from BASOR 224: 49–72.

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Fig. 8.  Procession of “Elamite nobles” toward the banquet. Slab A, Room S1 (“fallen into S”), North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. London, British Museum. Photo: author.

Elamites after much strife, one should observe that a tone of anxiety and discomfort of another order is introduced by the decapitated head into an otherwise idyllic garden banquet. 32 To the left of the scene would have been another slab showing a number of the Elamite princes and nobles captured by the armies of Ashurbanipal, recognizable by their distinctive bulbous headdresses, now shown in the act of serving the king food at his banquet (fig. 8). 33 Assyrian officials are shown prostrating themselves in front of them, presumably ridiculing them. Finally, one very potent scene presumably shows the inauguration of the “puppet” successor to the throne of Elam, Ummanigash II, after the death of Teumman, while the Elamites receive him in prostration (figs. 6 and 9). 34 An Assyrian official 32.  I discuss this matter in “ ‘The Charms of Tyranny:’ Conceptions of Power in the ‘Garden Scene’ of Ashurbanipal Reconsidered” (forthcoming in the proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Würzburg, 2008). The semantics of the decapitated head of the Elamite king have also been dealt with in Scott B. Noegel, “Dismemberment, Creation, and Ritual: Images of Divine Violence in the Ancient Near East,” in Religion and Violence across Time and Tradition (ed. James Wellman; Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007) 13–27; and Bahrani, Rituals of War, 23–55. 33.  R. D. Barnett, Sculptures from the North Palace of Assurbanipal at Nineveh (London: The British Museum, 1977) 56; Albenda, “Landscape Bas-Reliefs,” continued from BASOR 224: 31. 34.  See Daniel David Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (2 vols.; Chicago: The University of Chicago press, 1927) 2. no. 863: “The head of Teumman, king of Elam, at the command of Assur and Marduk, the great gods, my lords, [I cut off] in the presence of [his] armies. The terrible splendor of Assur and Ishtar overwhelmed Elam and they bowed to my yoke. Ummanigash, who had fled and laid hold of my feet, I set upon his (Teumman’s) throne.” The epigraph itself is broken and the

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Fig. 9.  Detail of Fig. 6 showing the inauguration of the new Elamite king Ummanigash II after the defeat of Teumman. Photo: author.

holds the new king by the wrist and leads him toward the crowd of captives in the age-old visual formula of the “presentation scene.” The inauguration of the new Elamite king, too, is depicted on reliefs from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib, a short distance from representations of the Battle of Til-Tuba on the River Ulai. It is part of the series of slabs that show the aftermath of the battle, the triumph of the Assyrian king. 35 There is something quite awesome in all these scenes, one that transcends their immediate message of military success or revenge from the enemy. In them there are certainly connotations that go beyond a statement of triumph over foes and control and humiliation imposed on them, despite the plausible reality of all these incidents. It may be equally misguided, however, to think of them as subversive, or in any way covertly sympathetic with the enemy. While it is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to put one’s finger on the intrinsic semantics of these scenes, there is an element in them that negates, reverses, or puts into question the historical moment that is recorded or commemorated, a device available primarily in the visual arts. name Ummanigash is restored: “[Ummanigash, the fugitive], who had laid hold of my feet, at my word, brought my official, whom I had dispatched, into Madaktu and Susa, amid rejoicing, and seated him on the throne of Teumman whom my hands captured” (ibid., no. 1033). See also Bachelot, “Fonction politique,” 119 and n. 30 for a translation of the epigraph; and Barnett et al., Sculptures from the Southwest Palace, pp. 96–97, where the mutilated state of the epigraph is noted and the interpretive description of the scene, in summary, is that a chief or prince of the conquered people is taken captive and the subjects of the slaughtered king are reacting in surrender and mourning. 35.  Barnett et al., Sculptures from the Southwest Palace, pp. 96–97, pls. 300–305; Albenda, “Landscape Bas-Reliefs,” continued from BASOR 224: 30.

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If one assumes, after Mircea Eliade, that in archaic notions of history, discrete events and their details were of little interest in and of themselves unless they played into a primordial or sacral perception of history; 36 and if one further assumes that there was much more to the ideology of the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs than recording events of imperial glory sanctioned by the gods, then in this last phase of the Neo-Assyrian historical narrative in art, with its panoramic realism and increased attention to accuracy of event, setting, and detail, there are matters that we do not fully understand. 37 Whereas at the dawn of Neo-Assyrian art, historical narrative in the visual arts was still embedded within a formulaic format, in this final great phase of the Empire, the time of Ashurbanipal, this artistic mode may have created other antidotes for overcoming its own proliferation in the hands of a highly sophisticated body of court scholars and master craftsmen. 36.  Myth of the Eternal Return: or, Cosmos and History (Bollingen Series 46; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971) esp. 43–44, 141–55. 37.  See further Bachelot, “Fonction politique,” 120 on loss of meaning as an ontological aspect of the production of images.

References Albenda, Pauline. “Landscape Bas-reliefs in the Bīt-Ḫilāni of Ashurbanipal.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 224 (1976) 49–72. ________ .  “Landscape Bas-reliefs in the Bīt-Ḫilāni of Ashurbanipal.” Continued from BASOR 224: 49–72. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 225 (1977) 29–48. Assmann, Jan. Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amun and the Crisis of Polytheism. Translated by Anthony Alcock. London: Kegan Paul International, 1995. Ataç, Mehmet-Ali. “ ‘Time and Eternity’ in the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud.” Pp. 159–80 in Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography. Edited by Ada Cohen and Steven E. Kangas. Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2010. ________ .  “ ‘The Charms of Tyranny’: Conceptions of Power in the ‘Garden Scene’ of Ashurbanipal Reconsidered.” Pp. 411–27 in Forthcoming Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg, 20–25 July 2008. Edited by Gernot Wilhelm. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012. Bachelot, Luc. “La fonction politique des relief néo-assyriens.” Pp. 109–28 in Marchands, diplomates et empereurs: Études sur la civilisation mésopotamienne offertes à Paul Garelli. Edited by D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991. Bahrani, Zainab. Rituals of War: The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia. New York: Zone Books, 2008. Baines, John. “On the Evolution, Purpose, and Forms of Egyptian Annals.” Pp. 19–40 in Zeichen aus dem Sand: Streiflichter aus Ägyptens Geschichte zu Ehren von Günter Dreyer. Edited by Eva-Maria Engel, Vera Müller, Ulrich Hartung. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008. Barnett, R. D. The Sculptures from the North Palace of Assurbanipal at Nineveh. London: The British Museum, 1977. Barnett, R. D., Erika Bleibtreu, and Geoffrey Turner. Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh. London: The British Museum, 1998. Barnett, R. D. and M. Falkner. The Sculptures of Aššur-Naṣir-Apli II (883–859 b.c.), Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 b.c.), Esarhaddon (681–669 b.c.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud. London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1962. Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. “The Cult of AN.ŠÁR/AŠŠUR in Babylonia After the Fall of the Assyrian Empire.” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 11 (1997) 55–73.

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Breasted, James Henry. “Assyrian Relief Sculpture and the Influence of Egyptian Art.” Pp. 267–71 in Studies Presented to F. Ll. Griffith. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1932. Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Collins, Paul. Assyrian Palace Sculptures. London: The British Museum, 2008. Collon, Dominique. Catalogue of the ‑Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum: Cylinder Seals 5: Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods. London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 2001. Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return: or, Cosmos and History. Bollingen Series 46. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971. Feldman, Marian. “Nineveh to Thebes and Back: Art and Politics between Assyria and Egypt in the Seventh Century b.c.e.” Pp. 141–50 in vol. 1 of Nineveh: Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, London, 7–11 July 2003. Edited by Dominique Collon and Andrew George. London: The British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2005. Finkelberg, Margalit. Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and the Greek Heroic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Frankfort, Henri. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996. Grayson, A. Kirk. “Assyria and Babylonia.” Orientalia 49 (1980) 140–94. ________ .  Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium b.c. 1 (1114–859 bc). The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Assyrian Periods 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. Groenewegen-Frankfort, H. A. Arrest and Movement: Space and Time in the Art of the Ancient Near East. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987 (1951). Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Sumerian King List. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1939. Kuhrt, Amélie. The Ancient Near East: c. 3000–330 bc. 2 volumes. London and New York: Routledge. Lambert, Wilfred George. “The Assyrian Recension of Enūma Eliš.” Pp. 77–79 in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten: XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.-10. Juli 1992. Edited by Hartmut Waetzoldt and Harald Hauptmann. Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient 6. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1997. Liverani, Mario. Prestige and Interest: International Relations in the Near East ca. 1600–1100 b.c.e. Padova: Sargon srl, 1990. Luckenbill, Daniel David. Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia. 2 volumes. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1927. Machinist, Peter. “Literature as Politics: The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic and the Bible.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976) 455–82. ________ .  “Kingship and Divinity in Imperial Assyria.” Pp. 152–88 in Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion. Edited by Gary Beckman and Theodore J. Lewis. Brown Judaic Studies 346. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2006. Noegel, Scott B. “Dismemberment, Creation, and Ritual: Images of Divine Violence in the Ancient Near East.” Pp.  13–27 in Religion and Violence across Time and Tradition. Edited by James Wellman. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Ornan, Tallay. “Expelling demons at Nineveh: The visibility of benevolent demons in the palaces in Nineveh.” Pp. 83–92 in vol. 1 of Nineveh: Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, London, 7–11 July 2003. Edited by Dominique Collon and Andrew George. London: The British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2005. ________ .  “A complex system of religious symbols: The case of the winged disc in Near Eastern imagery of the first millennium b.c.e.” Pp. 207–41 in Crafts and Images in Contact: Studies on Eastern Mediterranean Art of the First Millennium b.c.e. Edited by Claudia E. Suter and Christoph Uehlinger. Fribourg: Academic Press / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2005. Parpola, Simo. “Monotheism in Ancient Assyria.” Pp. 165–209 in One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World. Edited by Barbara Nevling Porter. Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute 1. Chebeague Island, ME: The Casco Bay Assyriological Institute, 2000. Pittman, Holly. “The White Obelisk and the Problem of Historical Narrative in the Art of Assyria.” The Art Bulletin 78 (1996) 334–55.

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Richardson, Seth. “Death and Dismemberment in Mesopotamia: Discorporation between the Body and Body Politic.” Pp. 189–208 in Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean. Edited by Nicola Laneri. Oriental Institute Seminars 3. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2007. Russell, John Malcolm. “The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art.” American Journal of Archaeology 102 (1998) 655–715. ________ .  The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999. Van de Mieroop, Marc. Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Van Seters, John. In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983. Watanabe, Chikako E. “The Classification of Methods of Pictorial Narrative in Assurbanipal’s Reliefs.” Pp. 321–32 in Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, July 18–22, 2005. Edited by Robert D. Biggs, Jennie Myers, and Martha T. Roth. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2008. Wiggermann, F. A. M. Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts. Groningen: Styx. Winter, Irene J. “Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs.” Studies in Visual Communication 7 (1981) 1–38. ________  .  “The Program of the Throneroom of Assurnasirpal II.” Pp.  15–31 in Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Charles Kyrle Wilkinson. Edited by Prudence O. Harper and Holly Pittman. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983.

Genres Meet: Assurbanipal’s Prayer in the Inscription L4 and the Bilingual Communal Lamentations

Amitai Baruchi-Unna

The Hebrew University

of

J e r u sal e m

A central question in the study of ancient Near Eastern historiography is the nature of the source material used in the composition of the text. Scholarly discussions of Assyrian royal inscriptions usually proceed on the supposition that the only sources their authors used were their recollections, imaginings, and previous historiographical accounts of the events. Thus, varying accounts are usually dealt with in light of the differences between the accounts, as they appear within inscriptions from several periods of the reign of the same king. Apart from short notes or limited discussion within general reviews, 1 scholarly literature seldom attends to this topic, and then only as a solution for philological problems that have come up while treating a certain text 2 and when there are textual features that suggest the conclusion that the information was taken from a ready source. 3 This article is part of a project undertaken to fill this gap by means of systematic collection of cases in which the narrative deviates in various ways from the routine writing in the inscriptions and examination of their linkage to certain literary or administrative genres outside of the royal inscriptions. I will examine the text of the prayer that Ashurbanipal directed to the god Marduk before returning the god’s statue to Babylon as recounted in his inscription labeled L4; 4 and I will suggest taking it as Author’s note: This essay is based on a section of my Ph.D. dissertation: “Genres Meet: Itineraries, Prayers and Divine Messages in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions” (Jerusalem 2009; Hebrew), written under the supervision of Prof. Mordechai Cogan. I want to thank Prof. Cogan for his devoted guidance and for reading a draft of this paper as well. 1.  For chronicles as possible source material for the royal inscriptions, see: A. K. Grayson, “History and Historians of the Ancient Near East: Assyria and Babylonia,” Orientalia 49 (1980) 164. Nevertheless, the problem of source material is only displaced to the chronicle and is not solved. From the reliefs, it is clear that the scribes recorded in some details in the field, but this material has yet to be discovered, see: ibid. (in texts); and H. Tadmor, “Propaganda, Literature, Historiography: Cracking the Code of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions,” Assyria 1995 (ed. S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1997) 329. 2.  See, for example: H. Tadmor, “The Historical Inscriptions of Adad-Nirari III,” Iraq 35 (1973) 141–42; idem, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III King of Assyria (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994) 271; M. Cogan, “Tyre and Tiglath-Pileser III,” JCS 25 (1973) 96–99. 3.  See M. Cogan, “A Plaidoyer on Behalf of the Royal Scribes,” Ah Assyria . . . Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor (ed. M. Cogan and I. Ephʿal; Scripta Hierosolymitana 33; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991) 121–28. 4. M. Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh’s (3 vols.; VAB 7; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1916) 252–71 and further notes in R. Borger, Beiträge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996) 187–88.

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a citation of the prayer that the king actually prayed during the events narrated or as a paraphrase of it. This suggestion is based on internal analysis of the account, a comparison of it with the way in which other prayers are reported in Assyrian royal inscriptions, and, finally, a comparison of a group of prayers of which Ashurbanipal’s prayer can be considered to be a part with the corpus of the bilingual prayers of the lamentation-priests.

1.  The Prayer of Ashurbanipal to Marduk The prayer of Ashurbanipal to Marduk concerning returning Marduk’s image to his temple at Babylon appears within the inscription L4, a dedicatory inscription to Marduk composed to be engraved upon a royal statue to be set up in the god’s temple. 5 At the center of the inscription, which was found written on two fragments of a large tablet (K 3050+2694), is an account narrating the return of the Marduk statue, an event dated to the first full year of the king’s reign. 6 While the date of composition is not known, one can deduce from the positive attitude directed to Šamaš-šumu-ukīn—Ashurbanipal’s brother who was enthroned in Babylonia by their father’s command—that it was during the first phase of Ashurbanipal’s reign, before the Babylonian rebellion (652–648 b.c.e.). The actions narrated within this inscription resume the process of treating the image of Marduk begun during the days of Esarhaddon. Previous stages of this process are narrated in the Esarhaddon AsBbA inscription, within which the first case of a prayer incorporated into the inscriptional text occurs. The restoration of the temples of Babylonia and that of Esagila—the Marduk temple at Babylon—in particular had drawn near to completion toward the end of the reign of Esarhaddon, and the journey to return his divine image, which was the occasion of the previous prayer, had begun but was halted for some reason. Ashurbanipal resumed this process on his ascent to the throne (November 669 b.c.e.) and set the return of Marduk to his temple to the occasion of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn’s enthronement in Babylon, after the beginning of his first full year of reign (May 668 b.c.e.). 7 5.  See H. Tadmor, “The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assur: A Chronological-Historical Study,” JCS 12 (1958) 38 n. 92; idem, “Autobiographical Apology in the Royal Assyrian Literature,” in History Historiography and Interpretation (ed. H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983) 47–48. 6.  This dating is in accord with the relevant passages of three different chronicles fixing this event at Ayyāru (II) of the first not-full year of Šamš-šumu-ukīn. See A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Texts from Cuneiform Sources 5; Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1975) 86, lines 34–36; 127, lines 35–36; 131, lines 5–7. 7. For detailed treatment of these events, their chronology, and political background see: J.  A. Brinkman, Prelude to Empire: Babylonian Society and Politics 747–626 b.c. (Occasional Publications of the Babylonian Fund 7; Philadelphia: Babylonian Fund of the University Museum, 1984), 86; W. G. Lambert, “Esarhaddon’s Attempt to Return Marduk to Babylon,” in Ad bene et fideliter seminandum: Festgabe für Karlheinz Deller zum 21. Februar 1987, (ed. G. Mauer and U. Magen; AOAT 220; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker, 1988) 157–74; G. Frame, Babylonia 689–627 bc: A Political History (Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te İstanbul 69; Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1992) 103–4. For the theological background, see: M. Nissinen and S. Parpola, “Marduk’s Return and Reconciliation in a Prophetic Letter from Arbela,” in Verbum et Calamus: Semitic and Related Studies in Honour of the Sixtieth Birthday of Professor Tapani Harvainen (ed. H. Juusola et al.; Studia Orientalia 99; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2004) 199–219. For the possibility that the postponement was due to some technical problems faced by the restorers, see: A. R. George, “The Bricks of E-Sagil,” Iraq 57 (1995) 173–97. For the linkage of this description to the Esarhaddon texts describing this same step before the time it had finally been postponed, see: R. Borger,

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The inscription opens with the selection of Ashurbanipal for kingship, the curriculum of his studies while regent, 8 his ascent to the throne, and the peace and prosperity characteristic of his reign. Following this is a section resembling the “historical section” of a royal inscription, which starts with an indication of time and states that the king visited the temples and prayed; the latter is described by a sentence indicating the content of the prayer, after which the prayer is presented verbatim: In my first year of reign, when Marduk, lord of all, entrusted me to the kingship of Assyria, I took hold of the edges (of the garment) of his great divinity (and) visited his temples. Concerning the return of his divinity I constantly prayed, plead his greatness divine [saying?]:    Remember Babylon, which by your anger you destroyed!    Turn back (kišādka tirra) towards Esagila, the palace of your lordship;    Turn your face back (to it) (suḫḫira pā[nīka])!   It is enough (time) since you left your city, (and) set your residence in an     inappropriate place.    You, Enlil of the gods, Marduk, command to go to Babylon!   In your supreme unchangeable speech, let (the command) be set to enter      Esagila. . .’ 9

The concluding words of the prayer as well as the opening of the following account are missing, after which comes an account of the journey to Babylon, conducted with the participation of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn and accompanied by the army and additional divine images. After erecting the image in Esagila, it is reported that the king erected a statue of himself in a position of constant prayer before Marduk, probably the very statue upon which the inscription was inscribed. From the supposedly existent complete prayer, only the request section is presented; the name of the prayer is not indicated, while the divine address occurs only toward the end of the request. Obviously, both items do appear within the description of the prayer presented prior to its words. One can specify the divinity, deducing its identity from the explicit naming of the city and the sanctuary interwoven into the prayer prior to the sentence mentioning the god by his name. And as is found in Esarhaddon’s AsBbA inscription, the wording of the prayer is syntactically not necessary; the account would have been complete without it. The sentence that describes the prayer reports the existence of the prayer as well as its content. The latter is done by means of infinitive structures attached to the verb by a relative pronoun: ša alāk ilūtišu (“concerning his divine march”); thus, as far as concerns the continuity of the narrative, the wording of the prayer adds no new information. It is Die Inschriften Asarhaddons König von Assyrien (AfOBei 9; Graz: Im Selbstverlage des Herausgebers, 1956) 79; C. Walker and M. B. Dick, “The Introduction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mīs pî Ritual,” in Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East (ed. M. B. Dick; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999) 66–67. 8. This text holds a pivotal position at the discussion concerning Ashurbanipal’s literacy. See B. Pongratz-Leisten, Ina Šulmi Īrub: Die kulttopographische und ideologische Programmatik der Akītuprozession in Babylonien und Assyrien im 1. Jahrtausend V. Chr. (Baghdader Forschungen 16; Mainz am Rhein: P. Von Zabern, 1994) 311–15; A. Livingstone, “Ashurbanipal–Literate or Not,” ZA 97 (2007) 100–101. See also: J. C. Fincke, “The Babylonian Texts of Nineveh,” AfO 50 (2003–4) 111. 9.  Ashurbanipal L4 ii, Lines 26–34 see: Streck, Assurbanipal, 262 and notes: Borger, Assurbanipal, 188.

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noteworthy that prior to the wording, several signs are missing; the presence of the direct-citation marker might fill this gap. The request uttered in the prayer is an artistic and argumentive masterpiece. It consists of four requests for different divine actions arranged in casual order and divided into couplets: remembering and turning, going and entering. The name of the city is recalled within the first request in each couplet, each in different writing (Bābili and Šuanaki), 10 and the name of the sanctuary, Esagila, is recalled within the second request of each couplet. Between the two couplets, the prayer presents before his god the time that has passed and his stay in an inappropriate place as a problem requiring resolution; after directing divine attention to the city and the temple, these pieces of information are expected to lead the god to move ahead on what is asked within the second couplet. The verbs used in the first three requests are in the imperative form, whereas in the last one, because the word of the god (literary: “his mouth”) is the grammatical subject, the precative form is in use. Thus, the request is developed as a quadrilateral structure, whose apex—the request directed to the god to enter his temple—is marked by the transition from imperative forms (“Remember! Turn [your neck]! Turn [your face]! Command [to go]!”) into a precative one (“Let [the command] be set!”), while the quadrilateral structure is maintained by double use of an imperative form within the second part of the request. The direct appeal to the god is realized by the four imperative forms used within the first three requests as well as by other second-person verbal forms and pronouns. In particular, it is emphasized by the separate pronoun ‘you’, attā, used— though syntactically unnecessary—within the two couplets of requests.

2.  Reporting Royal Prayers and Their Content in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions To understand the uniqueness of the account of Ashurbanipal’s prayer to Marduk, one should examine the way in which Assyrian royal inscriptions usually report royal prayers and their content. The “praying king” topos is a literary pattern designed to report a “historical” prayer within the historical context in which it was uttered. Such a prayer was uttered, according to the inscription, during a specific historical event; it is neither a form of prayer to be uttered in a particular context, nor is it a prayer that was prepared to be uttered at some future point, nor is it a prayer that was inscribed upon an object that was perpetually in the presence of the gods. 11 The topos consists of the following components: a description of a threat or a difficulty faced by the king; the king’s turning to the gods in prayer; occasion10.  Šuanna was the name of a quarter in the city of Babylon, and beginning with the twelfth century b.c.e. became a nickname of the whole city. At the middle of the first millennium b.c.e., the spelling š u-an-na(ki) is to be taken as poetic form that should be read as Babylon. See A. R. George, Babylonian Topographical Texts (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 40; Leuven: Department Orientalistiek, 1992) 241–42. 11.  For (Sumerian) prayers written on such artifacts, see: W.W. Hallo, “Individual Prayer in Sumerian: The Continuity of a Tradition,” JAOS 88 (1968) 76. Beginning with the days of Esarhaddon, such Akkadian prayers sometimes appear within the concluding section of Assyrian as well as Babylonian royal inscriptions. In my Ph.D. dissertation (pp. 141–50), I dealt separately with this sort of prayer, and suggested seeing its appearance as a development of the section of the dedication inscription designated to indicate the purpose of the dedication, on which occasion the inscription has been composed.

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ally, this is followed by a divine response; and finally, the king is usually described as overcoming the threat or difficulty. The topos occurs in association with building projects or military campaigns, in preparation for which the king found it necessary to pray for help and success. At the first occurrences of the “praying king” topos, only the prayer is reported. Thus, for example, in an inscription of Shalmaneser I (1273–1244 b.c.e.) at the beginning of the military-political section, it is narrated: At that time, at the beginning of my vice-regency, the land of Uruaṭri rebelled against me. I prayed to the god Aššur and the great gods, my lords. I moved my troops and ascent the mass of their mighty mountains. I conquered. . . . 12

As mentioned above, an additional component that may appear is the divine response to the royal prayer, and this appears as early as the second occurrence of the topos within the inscription of same king (A.0.77.1 lines 88–106). 13 In the occurrences of the topos within the inscriptions of Shalmaneser I, neither the purpose of the prayer nor its content is indicated; they can only be deduced from their context. In later occurrences, however, the prayer’s purpose is occasionally indicated by means of grammatical structures using infinitive forms. Thus, for example, in an inscription of Aššur-nādin-apli (1207–1204 b.c.e.), an emergency building project is described as follows: When the course of the Tigris beside my city Assur was altered, it cut through six hundred (iku) of field, and (so) created a (new) bed for itself; I prayed to the gods Aššur and Šamaš to return (ana turri) the course of the Tigris to its (former) position, and I vowed in the presence of the gods Aššur and Šamaš to make my royal statue (and) to erect (it) at the entrance of my city, the desired object of the gods. 14

In this occurrence of the topos, the action that took place following the prayer is not narrated, whereas the purpose of the prayer is explicitly indicated. This is done, as mentioned above, by means of an infinitive structure: mardīt id(2)Idiqlat ana ašrišunu ana turri, “to return the course of the Tigris to its (former) position.” Within military-political accounts, the purpose of the prayer was first indicated a half millennium later in the inscriptions of Sargon II (722–705 b.c.e.), in an inscription known as “The Charter of the city of Aššur.” 15 In a rather broken section of this inscription, the uniting of his enemies in an alliance is described, after which the king narrates: “I prayed and applied to the god Aššur concerning the conquest (aššu kašād) of the land of Hamath,” (lines 23–24). Following this, the narrator reports that “the god Aššur heard [my prayer] and accepted my request” (line 25). The last stage of this process, in which the explicitness of the reported prayer increased, is found in an inscription of Ashurbanipal (669–627 b.c.e.). In a description of the relationships between the latter and the contemporary Lydian kings and those between Lydia and Egypt, the inscription implies that death came upon the 12.  A.0.77.1 lines 26–37 see: A. K Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennia bc (to 1115 bc) (The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods 1; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987) 183. 13.  See Grayson RIMA 1 184. 14.  A.0.79.1 lines 15–27 see: Grayson RIMA 1 301. 15.  See H. W. F. Saggs, “Historical Texts and Fragments of Sargon II of Assyria: 1. The “Aššur Charter”,” Iraq 37 (1975) 14.

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Lydian king Gūgu as a result of the prayer that the Assyrian monarch directed to the gods Aššur and Ištar: He (Gūgu) broke off his riders, which he constantly sent to inquire of my wellbeing. Since he had become unfaithful to the word of Aššur, the god, my begetter, he trusted in his own strength and became proud; he had sent troops to aid Tušamilki (Psametichus), the king of Egypt, who had thrown off my yoke. Whereas I was thus reported, and prayed to the gods Aššur and Ištar (as follows):    Let his corpse be cast before his enemies!   (pān nakiršu pagaršu linadīma)    And his bones be scattered about (lit.: carried off)!   (liššûni eṣmēssu) That which I implored of Aššur, came about: Before his enemies his corpse was cast; his bones were carried off. The Cimmerians, whom he had defeated by invoking my name, rose up and swept over his entire land. 16

In this account, the content of the prayer is presented by direct speech. It thus appears that during the centuries of the use of the “praying king” topos, the degree of explicitness concerning the content of the prayer increased: beginning with the absence of any indication, followed by indication of the purpose of the prayer by means of infinitive structures, and then developing into the presentation of the prayer as a citation. 17 The perfect fitness of the content of the present case and the report of its consequences implies that the text of the prayer in the inscription is based upon the account of the events that occur thereafter, and not upon another written source. This situation is rather similar to the basic occurrences of the “praying king” topos, in which the audience could deduce the content of the prayer from the account of the following actions and achievements. The cases in which the content of the prayer is indicated by means of infinitive structures can be taken as mediate stage between the two situations. The content of the prayer that audience was informed of in the last two stages is therefore detailing of the first stage and should be taken as the part of the free composition of the author. Nevertheless, it seems that the way in which Ashurbanipal’s payer to Marduk is incorporated in its context, as well as the linkage its content shows to texts outside of the royal inscriptions, implies that, whereas this case is similar to previous cases of reported royal prayer on Assyrian royal inscriptions, it is different with regard to the report of the content of the prayer. 18 16.  Ashurbanipal A ii lines 111–120; the whole passage is not included in the other editions. See Borger, Assurbanipals, 31–32. See further M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, “Gyges and Ashurbanipal: A Study in Literary Transmission,” Orientalia 46 (1977) 78–79. 17.  It is noteworthy that, as can be expected in such processes, the development described above did not occur within every known text and that, until the end of the Assyrian periods, inscriptions including prayer reports with features of the early stages were still composed. 18.  Elsewhere I have dealt with the first case in which a prayer is cited verbatim, in Esarhaddon inscription AsBbA, which narrates the restoration of Babylonian cities, temples, and divine images, and that of Marduk in particular. I suggested taking the prayer as a citation of the one prepared for the king to recite in one of the first stages of the process of creation of the images. See A. Baruchi-Unna, “Genres Meet: The Prayer of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, in the Inscription AsBbA and Akkadian Prayers in Ritual Contexts,” Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 21 (2012) 153–76 (Hebrew).

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3.  The Prayer of Ashurbanipal to Marduk and Prayers Out of Assyrian Royal Inscriptions The appeal directed to the god to return to his city that he has destroyed is a motif known from several prayers of a similar historical or ritual context: the bringing back of a divine image to his temple. In the first two cases brought here, the context within which the prayer is integrated is ritualistic, whereas the third prayer, as that of Ashurbanipal, occurs within a historiographic context. 19 The first prayer is part of the Babylonian Akitu-ritual. On this occasion, on the 2nd of Nisānu, the high priest (aḫu rabû) is to utter a prayer before Marduk. The prayer, a great part of which is represented in following lines of Sumerian and Akkadian, praises the power of the god in the world and describes his importance among gods as well as humans. Toward the end, in a unilingual Akkadian section, the prayer directs a request to his god: 20 Love your city, Babylon! Turn your face (suḫḫir pānīku) towards Esagila, your home! Establish the exemption of the Babylonians, the people of privilege! 21

The fact that the priest asks the god to turn his face to his temple, though he was there at this very moment, can be understood when we consider that during this festival the image was lead to a special temple outside of the city and returned only at its end. The second prayer is cited from a ritual from Uruk that was to be performed at the end of a mīs pî ceremony, 22 possibly following a restoration of a divine image, 23 during its ceremonial entrance into his temple. As part of this ceremony, the king and the eunuchs were to utter the following prayer: 24 19.  The following two cases are found in Babylonian rituals that were copied during the Seleucid Period but nevertheless reflect ancient custom. See M. J. H. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practice (CM 25; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 100. 20.  The fact that the last section of the prayer is presented in Akkadian only serves as a further evidence for Wasserman and Gabbay’s argument that at late periods in specific situations the kalûs sang in Akkadian. See N. Wasserman and U. Gabbay, “Literatures in Contact: The Balaĝ Úru Àm-Ma-Ir-Ra-Bi and Its Akkadian Translation UET 6/2, 403,” JCS 57 (2005) 75. 21.  DT 15 i lines 30–32; see F. Thuraeu-Dangin, Rituels accadiens (Paris: Leroux, 1921) 130. For the economic privileges of Babylonian citizens, the mention of which in this prayer may testify to their importance, see J. Bidmead, The akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia (Gorgias Dissertations—Near Eastern Series 2; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2002) 50–53. For a general treatment, see: M. Weinfeld, “Privileges and Freedoms for Temple Cities,” in Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes / Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 97–132. 22.  See W. R. Mayer, “Seleukidische Rituale aus Warka mit Emesal Gebeten,” Orientalia 47 (1978) 444. For the Mīs Pî ceremony, see: C. Walker and M. B. Dick, in Born in Heaven; idem, The Introduction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual (SAALT 1; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2001). 23.  See M. E. Cohen, The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia (Potomac: Capital Decisions, 1988) 26; A. Berlejung, Die Theologie der Bilder: Herstellung und Einweihung von Kultbildern in Mesopotamien und die alttestamentliche Bilderpolemik (OBO 162; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1998) 265. 24.  For reading “eunuch” at the last line preceding the prayer, see: Berlejung, Die Theologie der Bilder 262 n. 1254. For additional transliteration of this line, see: S. M. Maul, ‘Herzberuhigungsklagen’: Die sumerisch-akkadischen Ersahunga-Gebete (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988) 29.

618

A mitai B aruchi -U nna Come, O God! Come, O God! Come, O God! We want to see you! Come, O God! Look at your city (naplis āluka)! Return to your temple (ana bētka tūr)! Return to your city (ana āluka tūr)! Bless the king, who fears you! Keep the well-being of his men! 25

The ritual instructions in this text are written in Akkadian, whereas the various lamentations and prayers are mostly in the Emesal dialect, peculiar to the kalûs, the lamentation-priests. 26 In this case, as well as in the aforementioned one and in many cases in the literature of this kind from the first millennium b.c.e., the prayer is given in Sumerian along with an Akkadian version. Usually, the Akkadian text follows the Sumerian one, line by line, whereas in this case, it is written at the end of each line, probably due to the shortness of the lines. The third prayer of the group occurs within a historiographic context. In the year 1159 b.c.e. the Elamite army invaded Babylon, killed its king, bringing to an end the ruling Kassite dynasty and capturing the image of Marduk (and possibly that of the goddess Nanay as well). 27 A generation passed and Nebuchadnezzar I (1125–1104 b.c.e.) succeeded to the Babylonian throne, and in his Elamite wars he succeeded in bringing back the image of the national god to his temple. This event had political and religious significance 28 and is described with a special flourish in the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar I and other compositions of his time and later. 29 In these compositions, the king is repeatedly described as praying, and in several cases, parts of the prayers are presented as if cited verbatim. 30 In a bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian text, partly preserved in copies prepared for Ashurbanipal’s library, the royal prayers are presented at length (B.2.4.9 lines 6–14). 31 Another text, a Neo-Assyrian copy of Babylonian inscription probably also prepared for the same library, narrates the same achievement and the royal prayer is recounted; its Akkadian text is given verbatim: 25.  W 20030/3 32–43 see: Mayer, “Seleukidische Rituale,” 446. 26. For the Emesal prayers in general and the congregational lamentations in particular, see U. Gabbay, The Sumero-Akkadian Prayer “Eršema”: A Philological and Religious Analysis (Hebrew University Ph.D. dissertation; Jerusalem, 2007). In the introduction to the Eršema edition, he discusses this group of genres as a whole. 27.  See J. A. Brinkman, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia 1158–722 b.c. (AnOr 43; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1968) 86–90; R. Labat, “Elam and Western Persia, ca. 1200–1000 b.c.,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 2/2: The Middle East and the Aegean Region, c. 1380–1000 b.c. (3rd ed.; ed. I. E. S. Edwards et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) 485–87. 28.  For a restoration of the background of Marduk return to Babylon in the days of Nebuchadnezzar I and review of the consequences of this event, see Brinkman, Post-Kassite Babylonia, 105–10. Lambert suggests taking this event as the background for Marduk’s ascent to the head of the Babylonian pantheon. See W. G. Lambert, “The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A Turning Point in the History of Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Honour of T.J. Meek, (ed. W. S. McCullough; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964) 3–13. 29. For the theological significance ascribed to this event in a variety of ancient texts, see J. J. M. Roberts, “Nebuchadnezzar I’s Elamite Crisis in Theological Perspective,” in Essays on the Ancient Near East in Memory of Jacob Joel Finkelstein (ed. M. DeJong Ellis; Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1977) 183–87. For new editions of part of these texts, see G. Frame, Rulers of Babylonia, from the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (1157–612 bc) (The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Babylonian Periods 2; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995) 17–35 (B 2.4.5–11). Frame counts several further texts on p. 12. 30.  See B.2.4.5 (see below) and B.2.6.6, rev., lines 18–26 (Frame RIMB 2 21). 31.  See Frame RIMB 2 23–31.

Assurbanipal’s Prayer and the Bilingual Communal Lament

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Enough! For me the dejected and prostrate one Enough! In my country weeping and mourning exist. Enough! Among my people crying and mourning exist. Until when, O lord of Babylon, will you sit in the enemy country? May beautiful Babylon be remembered by you! Turn your face back (šusḫira pānika) to Esagila that you love! 32

The four prayers presented above share many of the same characteristics. All four were spoken, or were supposed to be recited, as part of a procedure of bringing back a divine image to its place in the temple, and in all of them the prayers request the god to come back to his temple. In all four, the action of return is divided into stages: first, the god is asked to give his attention to his city or temple, then to physically return. In each of the four, the temple and the city are separately mentioned. Three of the prayers—those of Nebuchadnezzar, Ashurbanipal, and the king and the eunuchs—share the following feature: although they are to be read by a king, his name is not mentioned in them, nor is space left to mention it. The two “historical” prayers (that of Nebuchadnezzar and Ashurbanipal) have further common features: both deal with the return of the same deity to the same temple; in both cases, the absence of the deity resulted from the occupation of the city by the enemy; and both contain a reference to the long duration of the exile and to the unfitness of its place. 33 Finally, as in the akitu prayer, these prayers variously use the phrase “turn your face!” 34

Ashurbanipal’s Prayer and the Bilingual Congregational Lamentation One feature is shared by the three prayers described above, and not by Ashurbanipal’s prayer: a close link to bilingualism. Nevertheless, it seems that the formulation of the request directed to the god by the words “Turn toward Esagila!” (literally: “turn your neck”) hints that this prayer has a link to the bilingual literary-religious domain of the kalûtu, the literary treasure of the lamentation priests. The combinations ‘to return’ (tarû D), or ‘to turn’ (saḫāru D or Š), the ‘neck’ (kišādu), or the ‘face’ ( pānu), are quite common in Akkadian texts that show an apparent link to Sumerian ones. For example, in a bilingual prayer written on the tablet K 101, the prayer says to the goddess: “Until when, my mistress, your face will be turned away?” (Sumerian: me.en.na gašan.mà i.bí.zu nigin.na.kex; Akkadian: adi mati bēltī suḫḫurū pānūki). 35 Similarily, the word kišādu, ‘neck’, occurs many times in the Akkadian translation within manuscripts of Emesal lamentations. For example, in an 32.  B.2.4.5 lines 5–10 see: Frame RIMB 2 18. 33.  Understanding the repeated call “Come, O god!” as reference to the unfitness of the place within which the god has remained while the priest has prayed would make the number of these prayers three. 34.  Höffken connects the inscription engraved on the stele of Adda-guppi, Nabunidus’ mother, to this group. See C. J. Gadd, “The Harran Inscriptions of Nabonidus,” Anatolian Studies 8 (1958) 46–52; P. Höffken, “Fürchte dich nicht, denn ich bin mit dir!” (Jesaja 41, 10): Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Grundtexten des Alten Testaments (Münster: LIT, 2005) 134. In this inscription, recording inter alia the return of divine images to sanctuaries in Harrān, Adda-guppi testifies that she prayed and grasped the hem of Sîn’s garment (i line 17; ii line 4), that she visited his sanctuaries (i line 34), and in her prayer she asks the god “Do not forget Eḫulḫul!” (ii line 4). 35.  See H. Zimmern, Babylonische Busspsalmen: umschrieben uebersetzt und erklaert (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Haertel, 1885) 10; Maul, Herzberuhigungsklagen, 309; and additional bilingual texts containing these combinations at CAD S s.v. saḫāru 11 (pp. 49–50).

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Ershahunga lamentation 36 entitled: me-e di-kud-ta me-e di-kud-ta, “I am to the judge! I am to the judge!” the prayer, while speaking about himself in the third person: “the man who prays”, calling his god: “Turn your neck to him” (Akkadian: kišādka suḫḫiršu; Sumerian: gú-zu ⟨x-⟩mu-un-ši-íb). 37 In a Balag lamentation entitled ame amašana, “The bull in his fold,” for example, a question is asked: “How long will you hide your neck in your lap?” (Akkadian: adi mati . . . kišādka ana sunika taškuna; Sumerian: gú-zu úr-ra ba-e-ni-mar-ra èn-šè). 38 The picture that emerges from this selection of occurrences of these combinations leads one to suspect that any such occurrence in an Akkadian prayer has a link with Sumerian texts. 39 Nevertheless, the link between Ashurbanipal’s prayer and its like and the prayers of the lamentation priests is not limited to vocabulary; it can be found in the ritual context and the content as well. The main function of the congregational lamentations of various genres, found in great quantity beginning from the Old Babylonian Period, was to pacify the hearts of the gods, and they were used in disaster-prone times, such as the moments of passage from day to night and vise versa, and while treating temples and divine images. 40 Even though over the course of time these lamentations tended to function in other contexts as well, their content, and occasionally their ritual function, connect the restoration of cities to the return of divine images to their places and to the reorganizing of ordinary ritual. In cases in which an Akkadian text is added to the Sumerian one, the choice of words strengthens this impression. For example, in the Eršema at the end of the congregational lamentation a-ab-ba ḫu-liḫ-ḫa, “O angry sea,” a request directed to a variety of gods repeatedly appears: “Turn back and look at your city!” (Sumerian: nigin-na urú-zu u6 gá-e-dè). 41 In several manuscripts of the same prayer, 36. For lamentations of this sort, see P. Michalowski, “On the Early History of the Eršahunga Prayer,” JCS 39 (1987) 37–48; Maul Herzberuhigungsklagen. 37.  See ibid. VAT 56+ obv. lines 42–43 (no. 37; pp. 206–213). See also: K 5992 obv. lines 23′–24′ (no. 6; p. 99); VAT 56+ rev. lines 19–20 ( no. 30; p. 166); K 4045 B + obv. lines 16–7; rev. lines 9–10 (no. 31; p. 186); Rm 2, 424 obv. lines 7′–8′ (no. 63; p. 273); K 4623 (+) obv. lines 23′–24 (no. 74; p. 297); K 13501 obv. lines 1′–2′ (no. 101; p. 347). 38.  See Cohen Canonical Lamentations 155, line 27. See also: ibid. 163 lines b+208. In a broken passage of the balag: z i b u m z i b u m, “Arise! Arise!” from Assur found in bilingual manuscripts, there appear the word gu - z u, ‘your neck’, while the equivalent Akkadian line the possessive pronoun survived only: [. . .]ka. See ibid. 344 lines b+26. 39.  The sentence ‘Turn your neck that was anger at me,’ tirra kišādka ša tasbusu elīya appears within an Akkadian incantation designated to appease the gods (W. G. Lambert, “Dingir. sa. dib. ba Incantations,” JNES 33 [1974] 276 line 47); in accord with the hypothesis presented here, this incantation occurs within an incantation file, within which a known incantation has been translated from Sumerian (ibid., 270; Wasserman and Gabbay, Literatures in Contact, 74). Such a linkage can be ascribed to a Babylonian text dealing with close issues: Šamaš’s abandonment of the city of Sippar is described: “(The god) Šamaš, the great lord, who for many days has been angry at the land of Akkad, his neck has been angry (isbusu kišāssu), in the days of Nabu-apla-iddin, king of Babylonia (888–866 b.c.e.), he made peace and turned his face back (usaḫḫira pānīšu).” See L. W. King, Babylonian Boundary-Stones and MemorialTablets in the British Museum with an Atlas of Plates Printed by order of the Trustees—Text (London: British Museum, 1912) no. 36 ii lines 11–8. 40.  See Gabbay, Eršema, 148–51. Gabbay suggests that the restoration of the sanctuaries, widely considered as the original setting of the creation of the congregational lamentations is just one such situation. See ibid., 145–48 41. See Gabbay, Eršema, 442–43. The whole lamentation was edited by R. Kutscher (Oh Angry Sea (a-ab-ba ḫu-luḫ-ḫa): The History of a Sumerian Congregational Lament [YNER 6; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975]. Its first part was reedited by Cohen (Canonical Lamentations 374–400) and the

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this line is translated into Akkadian: nasḫiramma ana ālika tūr (K 2003+ line 6; K 8514 line 8′; K 8646 line 7′). 42 In still another section of the same prayer there appears an Akkadian translation that deviates from the literal translation but reflects a possible Akkadian reading of the Sumerian signs: ‘Enough! Turn back to her!’ (The Sumerian a-gi4-a-zu, ‘flooded [by deluge],’ has been translated as two separate Sumerograms read: aḫulap [a] tūršu [gi4]; K 2003+ line 34). 43 As is true for the Ashurbanipal prayer to Marduk and for the prayer of the king and the eunuchs within the Uruk ritual, this prayer addresses several gods and calls them to turn to and look at their city, and the Akkadian verbs used are saḫāru and târu G. Similarily, within the Eršema lamentation: ušum gùd nú-a, “Snake laying in the nest,” the god is asked to ‘Enter into your true house and take a seat of rest!’ ana bītka kīni ērumma šubta nēḫta tišab (line 46), 44 and this theme is repeated in different wording in the following lines. The group of prayers reviewed above shows affinity to the congregational lamentations in the aspects of language, content and ritual context. It can therefore be assumed that Ashurbanipal’s prayer to Marduk before his return to Babylon—like the other three prayers of this group—has some affinity to the religious-literary domain of the kalûs. Nevertheless, it is not to be assumed that any of these prayers was taken directly from the Emesal kalûtu prayers. First, they differ stylistically and structurally from these prayers. 45 Second, none of these four prayers is labeled as belonging to one of the known genres of the kalûtu. Despite the mention of kalûs or the names of their prayers within the immediate contexts of three of the four, 46 none of them is said to have been recited by a kalû, or that such a person made the prayer recite it. Eršema at its end by him (M. E. Cohen, Sumerian Hymnology: The Eršemma [Hebrew Union College Annual Supplements 2; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College 1981] 113–17, 185–86) and then by Gabbay (Eršema, 440–49). Within the first part of the lamentation, a request is addressed to a variety of gods called by their names and epithets, while within its second part, cities, buildings, and sanctuaries are addressed and asked to turn and to return their look to their city. Within its third part, partly translated into Akkadian in part of the manuscripts, the devastation of the city and the distress of its people are described. 42. See Gabbay, Eršema, 565–66; Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 132 (text Haa). See also the Eršema dilmunki nigin-na 1, “The important one, turn!” (line 16; Gabbay, Eršema, 188). Another Eršema from which the first few words only are known: “The important one, turn! Seven times?.” See Gabbay, Eršema, 321. 43.  See Gabbay, Eršema, 569. 44.  See Gabbay, Eršema, 218. 45.  It is to be noted that the prayer of the priest in the akitu is mainly a hymn, and the section in which the characteristics common to it and to the other prayers dealt with here are found is short and near its conclusion. 46. A kalû is mentioned in a broken context: DT 15 line 40; all the instructions in W 20030/3 are directed to the kalû and an Eršahunga is mentioned as well; a kalû is also mentioned in the Ashurbanipal L4 iii line 3. In another Ashurbanipal inscription, within a description of cleaning and purification actions performed in Babylon after the suppression of the Šamaš-šumu-ukīn rebellion, the king reports: “I purified their temples by means of magic. I cleaned up their dirty streets. I pacified their angry gods and their furious goddesses by means of lament and Eršahunga. I completely fixed anew the sacrifices as they have been in the past” (Ashurbanipal A iv lines 86–91; Borger, Assurbanipal, 45.) The situation of Babylonia in 648 b.c.e. can be seen as parallel to its situation forty years earlier, after Sennacherib destroyed it, and the action performed by Ashurbanipal after he defeated his brother can be seen as parallel to the restoration undertaken by his father, Esarhaddon, which Ashurbanipal completed near the beginning of his reign. It is thus not surprising that the same genre of prayers found suitable for bringing the temples back to use, has previously been found suitable for bringing the Marduk image back to his restored temple. For taking god images out of their temples during restoration projects, see: V. A. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian

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It therefore can be determined that Ashurbanipal’s prayer is not a translation of an Emesal prayer. Neither is it necessary to assume its original bilingual nature. Nevertheless, we may speculate that this prayer was composed in the spirit of such prayers, and with a look toward their language and their translation tradition. The fact that within the prayer itself—as within Nebuchadnezzar’s prayer and that of the king and the eunuchs—the name of the king is not mentioned, leads to the assumption that the kalûs had texts of extra-generic prayer ready for use in special occasions. Royal participation in rituals relating to treatment of divine images emerges from a ritual that appears in the text TuL 27, the manuscripts of which are of NeoAssyrian and Neo-Babylonian setting. 47 This ritual, which opens with the line: “[If] a divine [image] became dilapidated and suffered damage. . . .” (line 1), includes a series of actions, including a relocation of the image—accompanied by performance of sacrifices and laments—and its escort to the workshop of a temple (bīt mummi). During its stay at the workshop the following ceremonies are to be performed: You set up an offering arrangement [. . .] in the courtyard of the bīt mummi where that god dwells; you light a pile of brushwood for Ea and Marduk. You offer a sacrifice to Ea and Marduk; you sacrifice to that god and you perform a takribtu-intercession. The king of the land together with his family prostrate themselves on the ground; they do not hold back their moaning. The city and its peoples, in lamentations (position) in the dust before the temple, prostrate themselves; the skilled craftsmen whose bodies are pure you shall install. Until the work of that god is completed, let not the lamentation-priest (involved in) the work cease offering and intercessions. 48

The king’s participation in rituals related to the maintenance of divine images is apparent, even though uttering prayers and laments is here the job of other participants. It is likely to give that as part of his role as the Babylonian monarch—as long as his brother has not yet been crowned and apparently even thereafter—Ashurbanipal took part in the rituals in the Babylonian sanctuaries in accord with the requirement of the local tradition. Accordingly, and in accord with the religiouspolitical and propagandistic policy delineated by his father, Ashurbanipal ordered this event to be described in a ceremonial inscription, that it be engraved upon an image of his own, designated to stand in prayer before Marduk at his temple. In this inscription, as in the one of his father narrating the first stages of this very same process (Esarhaddon AsBbA), the scribes choose to bring the wording of the prayer as a citation. To achieve this, they probably used the text of the prayer, which had been given to the king by the lamentation priests preparing this ceremony.

and Northwest Semitic Writings (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 115; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992) 328–29; idem, “Temporary Temples,” in Kinattutu ša Durati: Raphael Kutscher Memorial Volume (Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University–Occasional Publications 1; ed. A. Rainey et al.; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Institute of Archaeology, 1993) 37–50. 47.  Considering a few of the colophons, it may be even earlier. See Walker and Dick in Born in Heaven, 103. 48.  TuL 27, lines 10–20 see: C. Walker and M. B. Dick, SAALT 1, 232–33. Linssen suggests that parts of this ritual are additions of the late period. See M. J. H. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon, 154.

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Conclusions In light of the comparison of Ashurbanipal’s L4 prayer to Marduk and the bilingual prayers, recited, or prepared to be recited in similar contexts, and the comparison of this group of prayers and the Emesal prayers of the kalûtu, I suggest viewing the L4 prayer as the version of the lamentation recited by the king during the ceremony that accompanied the relocation of the divine image from the bīt mummi at Assur to the Marduk temple at Babylon. The prayer was either composed by the priests for the king for the occasion during which it was recited, or was chosen by them for him from an existing pool of extra-generic lamentations prepared for special occasions. The Akkadian text cited in the royal inscription is part of either a bilingual or unilingual Akkadian prayer composed in the spirit of the kalûtu, the prayers of the lamentation priests. It was composed using the typical vocabulary of these lamentations and in accord with the conventional translation traditions of this genre, and a copy of it was available to the authors of Ashurbanipal’s royal inscription L4. We may now ascribe another dimension to Ashurbanipal’s involvement in the rituals accompanying the return of the Marduk image to Babylon. By taking these actions the Assyrian king created a link between himself and Nebuchadnezzar I, the Babylonian king most identified with the successful returning of the image of the national god to his temple. The similarity between the two cases and their descriptions, as well as the supposition that Ashurbanipal knew the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar I copied for his library, allow us to consider the intention behind his moves. Thus, it seems, that Ashurbanipal chose to present himself as a second Nebuchadnezzar. The prestige carried by this historic name can be seen from the fact that Nabopolassar, the king who participated in the ruin of the Assyrian empire, building a Babylonian one in its stead, chose to name his son after the historic restorer of the Babylonian might. 49 49.  It is noteworthy that several years after composing the inscription, within which Ashurbanipal likened himself to Nebuchadnezzar I, the Assyrian monarch completed the task initiated by the Babylonian king. During the twelfth century, when the Elamite conqueror had taken the Marduk image, he also took the image of the goddess Nanay of Uruk; a generation later, Nebuchadnezzar brought the former back, while Ashurbanipal returned the latter more than half a millennium later. For Ashurbanipal’s claim of responsibility for Nanay’s return, see P.-A. Beaulieu, The Pantheon of Uruk during the NeoBabylonian Period (Cuneiform Monographs 23; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 188. 

L’incorruptible et l’éphémère: le miel et la glace, composants sacrés des boissons royales Daniel Bonneterre

M o n t r é al , U n i v e r s i t é

du

Québec

L’on sait que pour nourrir les dieux et les rois mésopotamiens on recherchait les produits les plus rares, les aliments de la plus haute qualité, ceux qui étaient censés fournir de la force et du sang. On cherchait aussi des ingrédients symboliques, élaborés avec art. 1 Ces substances considérées comme salutaires et sacrées avaient pour rôle de placer le souverain dans les meilleures conditions possible pour régner et pour lutter contre les fléaux de toute nature. Les ingrédients et les boissons aux pouvoirs magiques formaient, comme dans toutes les royautés sacrées, un langage codé autour de valeurs essentielles. Ces principes avaient vocation de mettre le souverain en étroite relation avec l’harmonie universelle. Les quelques réflexions qui vont suivre concernent la glace et le miel, compris comme ingrédients sacrés ajoutés spécifiquement au vin. Le thème des boissons alcoolisées a souvent été abordé par des collègues dans le sillage de Jean Bottéro, mais il ne me semble pas que l’on ait accordé aux dimensions symboliques qui l’accompagnent toute l’importance qu’elles méritent. 2 Dans le Proche-Orient ancien deux grands breuvages alcoolisés, la bière et le vin, sont consommés en concurrence. À partir du IIe millénaire, le vin connait un extraordinaire développement et s’impose comme le breuvage officiel de la cour. Le vin devient la boisson de convivialité que l’on offre à ceux que l’on estime, à l’occasion de cérémonies et de fêtes. Son importance apparaît dès lors considérable. De fait, le vin est, pour les anthropologues, un véhicule de valeurs qui introduit un ordre social, une hiérarchie, des prérogatives ostentatoires, et une étiquette stricte. 3 Le vin détient effectivement des pouvoirs d’une grande plasticité, comme l’expliquait déjà en 1957 Roland Barthes: «Il est avant tout une substance de conversion, capable de retourner des situations et des états, et d’extraire des objets leur contraire: de faire, par exemple, d’un faible un fort, d’un silencieux un bavard. . .» 1.  Voir à ce sujet Bonneterre à paraitre. 2. Kinnier Wilson 1972; Glassner 1991; Milano 1994; Michalowski 1994; Michel 2009; Faivre, Lion, and Michel 2009: 197–220. 3. Sur le concept général de consommation ostentatoire des boissons alcoolisées en particulier, Douglas 1987; Favre-Vassas 1989; Joffe 1998.

625

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Le vin servi sur la neige dans le monde classique Dans l’Antiquité, comme on le sait, le vin n’était que très rarement consommé pur. Afin d’en maîtriser la force on y mêlait en proportion variable des épices, des aromates, des herbes, de la résine, du miel ou encore d’autres ingrédients, façon d’apprivoiser ou bien de donner du caractère à des boissons que l’on voulait exceptionnelles. À Rome, on rafraîchissait le vin dans des récipients de grande taille. Et, à l’aide d’une louche, l’on faisait passer le vin à la neige sur une couche de morceaux de glace. Cette eau de neige, très appréciée, quelquefois même qualifiée de divine, servait à délayer le vin épais. Au dire du poète Martial, « dissoudre de la neige dans une coupe était un véritable délice d’été». 4 Ces rafraîchissements, selon Pline l’Ancien, constituaient l’expression d’une victoire sur l’environnement. 5 Boire du vin servi sur de la neige, voilà ce qui convenait à Rome et peut-être dans la Grèce antique, mais au Proche-Orient comment la chose était-elle possible? La surprise est d’autant plus grande que la littérature, appuyée d’une iconographie abondante sur les sceaux-cylindres, nous a plutôt habitués au portrait des habitants de la Mésopotamie buvant avec indolence une bière tiède au moyen d’un chalumeau, un peu comme leurs descendants arabes fument au café le narguilé. Présenter ici brièvement ces quelques repères tirés du monde classique m’a paru utile et nécessaire pour mieux faire apparaître la richesse de la symbolique de la glace (ou de la neige). Le phénomène de la solidification de l’eau demeurait un mystère si impénétrable que les sages et les philosophes, ignorants de notre étiologie météorologique, en concluaient que les productions célestes ne pouvaient être autre chose qu’une sorte d’exhalaison des dieux.

L’origine céleste de la glace Quelle représentation les Mésopotamiens se faisaient-ils de la glace, de la neige et de la grêle? D’où provenait donc le froid ? Selon les récits mythologiques, ce sont les entités cosmiques, Adad, Tiamat, mais aussi Marduk, qui conçoivent les phénomènes météorologiques et les utilisent à des fins précises. Dans le poème appelé Glorification de Marduk, il apparaît que les tempêtes sont dument confectionnées dans les ateliers du palais. Nous trouvons la même idée dans la Théodicée babylonienne. Nous la trouvons aussi partagée dans plusieurs pièces de la littérature de sagesse; notamment dans un passage surprenant qui décrit cette fois le dieu soleil, Šamaš comme le responsable du froid, du gel, de la glace et de la neige (mušabšû kûsu halpâ šurîpa šalgi». 6 Sur les hautes montagnes, la neige est à domicile. Elle recouvre de larges parties de celles-ci. Sa perception est, comme le souligne une prière d’Assurbanipal (668–627) à Šamaš, objet d’interrogation : « Quelles sont les 4. Martial, Ép. XIV 103–5; V 65; Pline, Hist. Nat. XV, 125. Voir sur ce thème les travaux d’O. Murray, A. Chernia et J.-P. Brun. 5.  Maîtriser les éléments atmosphériques les plus capricieux relevait d’une sorte de mégalomanie, qui n’effrayait pas l’empereur romain Eliogabal. Le descendant des rois-prêtres d’Émèse, portait le titre de « serviteur du dieu Baal » et «Seigneur de la Montagne», et apparaissait publiquement paré comme un soleil, portant des vêtements en or, constellé de pierreries. Dans des mises en scène délirantes et toujours imprégnées de symbolisme, l’empereur va jusqu’à déplacer de grandes quantités de neige afin de former une montagne dans le parc de sa demeure. Ælius Lampride, qui rapporte l’anecdote, comprend que devant l’astre solaire, la neige était immanquablement appelée à fondre. Aelius Lampridius, Historia Augusta, Eliogabal XXIII 8. 6.  Lambert 1960: 136, 181.

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montagnes qui ne sont pas revêtues de ton rayonnement (. . .). Qui provoque le froid, la gelée, la glace, la neige?» 7 En somme, le froid glacial, la grêle, les grains de glace, autant que les tonnerres sont des productions stupéfiantes mises au service de la royauté. 8 Elles relèvent de l’équipement militaire surnaturel. Elles sont un principe de guerre, localisé dans les cieux. Ce sont les fameuses armes divines qui assurent le succès des entreprises royales. 9 Leur succès ne s’arrête pas là. Dans le domaine rituel, ces armes prennent une dimension absolument terrifiante, comme en atteste la documentation d’Ébla. Là, dans les textes de conjurations, la grêle est directement associée à la luminosité du dieu Adad. Elle est une arme puissante, qui éconduit le mal et l’enfonce sous terre, domaine des ombres. L’efficacité de cette grêle 10—abnu (littéralement les pierres de baradu) est telle que l’on la retrouve dans les incantations magiques contre les nuisances qui affectent les cultures. 11

Leçon de choses Symbole de pureté depuis les temps les plus reculés, la neige qui tombe depuis la résidence des dieux sous la forme de flocons légers d’une blancheur éblouissante forme, selon les circonstances, des cristaux étoilés, des aiguilles de glace ou prend l’aspect de fleurs de glace qui expriment tout naturellement l’idée du ciel étoilé et lumineux. De plus, la neige qui couvre le sol a pour effet de protéger les plantes contre les froids trop intenses. Ses cristaux affectent une grande régularité et une variété telles qu’ils excitent l’imagination. Le plus souvent la neige présente une luminosité si aveuglante qu’elle est spontanément associée à un élément purificateur de l’âme. Il nous faut donc, à partir de ces observations, considérer la neige à la fois comme un symbole de pureté, mais aussi plus largement comme un agent actif de purification voire de régénération du corps et de l’esprit. 12 S’emparer de cette force sublime, la manipuler, la dompter, la pacifier, et l’incorporer à soi, c’était rechercher un rapport privilégié avec le cosmos dans le but de participer physiquement de l’harmonie universelle.

Le mot et la chose Qu’il s’agisse de neige compactée ou de grêlons agglomérés, son identification est assurée. 13 Le terme akkadien šurīpum correspond à la glace, c’est-à-dire de l’eau cristallisée par le froid. Le terme ne pose en fait guère de problème philologique, si ce n’est son genre. Le terme apparaît le plus souvent au féminin; et parfois, 7.  Seux 1976: 76. 8.  CAD H, vol 6, halpû A, p. 49. 9.  Van Driel 1992; Masetti Rouault 2008. 10. CAD A/1 sv.  abnu A6, p.  60: «Hailstones». Dans l’article du dictionnaire, il est question de grosses pierres qui tombent du ciel, de pierres sombres que le dieu de l’Orage envoie. Il est aussi question de malédictions appuyées par les «pierres de grêle». 11.  Fronzaroli 1997, Mander and Durand 1995 (Los dios y el culto de Ebla) 40–41; Xella 1986. 12.  Parrot 1936; Lang 1980. Dans l’Ancien Testament la neige est constamment perçue comme le symbole de la pureté extrême. La conception islamique, héritière des systèmes de représentation biblique et mésopotamienne, accorde pareillement à la neige des propriétés magiques stupéfiantes. Sur les propriétés curatives du froid, voir CAD 6, ḫalpû p. 49. 13.  Ahw 1284a; H. Freydank, « bīt šurīpim in Böğazköy », Welt des Orients 4 (1967–68) 316–17.

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notamment sur les lettres de Mari, il se présente comme masculin. 14 Il s’agit de toute façon de la forme substantivée d’un causatif de šarāpum qui signifie «brûler, consumer, passer par le feu». Par conséquent, le substantif šurīpum signifie littéralement «ce qui brûle, le brûlot». Cette neige/glace est comprise en fonction de ses effets physiques sur les corps, ceux des êtres humains, ceux des animaux, qu’elle brûle. Elle exerce son action comme un véritable feu. Dans la langue courante, ce terme désignait divers aspects de la glace et de la neige, évoquant indistinctement aussi bien les grains de glace ou grêlons que la glace proprement dite. 15 Provenant le plus souvent des montagnes environnantes, sa fonction comme élément rafraîchissant est plus qu’évidente. Voilà pourquoi la consommation de glace est interprétée comme la manifestation d’un raffinement extrême ou comme l’expression d’un luxe de la vie civilisée sous des températures caniculaires. 16 Pour exactes qu’elles soient, ces représentations me semblent quelque peu limitées. De toute évidence, il existe un lien fondamental essentiel entre la glace (ou la neige) et le sacré. 17

Cueillir le merveilleux Dans plusieurs lettres du roi Samši-Addu à son fils, Yasmah Addu, vice-roi en poste à Mari, on retrouve des recommandations entourant le ramassage de la glace. C’est sur ordre royal que sont conduites les opérations de récolte, de transport, de nettoyage et de conservation. L’origine de cette glace importe peu. Elle est à situer dans plusieurs zones différentes: tantôt dans les régions septentrionales du Haut Khabur 18, tantôt plus proche, sur les hauteurs du Djebel Sinjar. Parfois, plus rarement, elle est ramassée aux portes de la capitale. On se tourne alors vers les bassins de rétention, sorte de vasques (kalakku) 19 destinées à conserver l’eau. Là, la récolte peut se révéler excellente: 3600 litres de glace sont ainsi expédiés au palais pour y 14.  Voir l’araméen ‫ תלגא ברדא‬correspondant respectivement à “neige” et à “glace”; cf. M. Sokoloff, a Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (2002) 1208 et 242 (cité plus bas : DJBA), avec une référence à une inscription sur bol à incantation «Celui qui place sa Divine Présence dans le temple de feu et de glace»). 15.  On sait que des langues comme l’eskimo-aléoute possèdent une très grande variété de termes, jusqu’à 70 mots semble-t-il, pour désigner les différents états de la neige; en revanche, les langues sémitiques et indo-européennes apparaissent nettement plus floues lorsqu’il s’agit de la définir. 16.  De Planhol 1995. 17.  Sur cette pratique de la cueillette de la glace, on note qu’elle est encore en usage dans les hautes régions de la Hounza et dans la vallée du Karakorum proche de l’Himalaya et du Pakistan. Les derniers travailleurs de la glace parcourent jusqu’à 100 km pour extraire à 3000 ou 4000 m des charges de 70 à 80kg, transportés à dos d’homme dans des sacs en toile de jute, l’on recourt également à des branchages et à de la sciure, ce qui permet de résister aux fortes températures, pendant trois ou quatre jours. Lavés et découpés, ces blocs de glace aboutissent dans les villes pakistanaises où ils servent à la fabrication des fameux sorbets. Tout aussi remarquable est la cueillette de la glace en Équateur, sur le mont Chimborazzo, volcan dont le sommet atteint 5000m. Il faut six jours pour parvenir au sommet et prélever la glace, c’est un travail très dur qui se fait à main nue, sans aucun outillage. Par la suite, des divinités sont sculptées dans cette glace. En fait, il serait possible de se procurer ailleurs de la glace, mais on prête à ce glacier des vertus protectrices appréciables. 18.  Près de Zirânum, Durand 1997: 314–15. 19.  Il s’agit bien d’une excavation de taille moyenne destinée à recueillir l’eau ou encore à stocker des denrées alimentaires, cf. CAD K, vol. 6 p. 62–64. Les lettres de Mari, comme ARM III 6, 32, décrivent des travaux de restauration délicats autour de ces bassins. Il faut sans doute comprendre que ces bassins artificiels étaient étanches et soigneusement plâtrés. Le terme est à rapprocher de l’aram. Flq :: «Retenir étanche, piéger dans des murs». cf. M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods (Bar Ilan and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) 1017.

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être stockés. 20 Reste que le plus souvent, les équipes doivent se rendre sur les sommets des plus hautes montagnes pour prélever (napālu) cette précieuse glace. 21 Les groupes sont ordinairement dirigés par un fonctionnaire responsable des approvisionnements, le bêl pihatim. L’homme veille à la bonne marche des opérations. La procédure est en fait assez similaire à celle des vendanges. 22 Par nature, la glace exige une certaine rapidité de manœuvre, ainsi que des précautions particulières. Son transport se fait sous l’œil de professionnels et sous bonne garde. Sur place, la neige ne se conserve point. Par contre, dans les silos étanches, la glace peut prendre. Il suffit pour cela d’ajouter à la neige fraîche, aux grêlons, de l’eau de source suffisamment fraîche. 23 Bien au-delà de la performance technique, ce qui retient notre attention c’est le pouvoir de faire et de défaire un phénomène de la nature tel que la glace; l’affaire relevait assurément du prestigieux. Les archives du palais de Mari montrent que, pour mettre bien à l’abri cette récolte, il existait plusieurs «bâtiments à glace» (bīt šurīpim) répartis dans les villes royales: Terqa, Mari, Andariq et Saggaratum. 24 Les textes de Qaṭṭara (Tell al-Rimah) précisent que la glace était conservée en un lieu scellé et bien gardé. 25 Il est certain que la construction de ces glacières prenait même un caractère monumental, et qu’elle imposait des normes et des contraintes précises, des règles à respecter, et que l’entreprise était une véritable affaire d’État. 26

Les rites de consommation Les textes nous font défaut pour documenter les procédures rituelles en rapport avec les usages et la consommation de cette glace. La mise en forme de données à caractère économique nous permet toutefois d’affirmer que la glace est destinée à la consommation royale et à celle des divinités. 27 Son utilisation est réservée à rafraîchir les boissons alcoolisées servies à l’occasion des réunions festives et des banquets sacrés. Des professionnels en boisson, spécifiquement attachés à la cour du prince, prennent en charge les opérations. On retrouve les experts au service de table de la cour: les dumu saqî et les usmû: ceux qui servent boissons et douceurs et se tiennent (izzuzzu) aux côtés des grands. Ceux qui s’acquittent des rites de table, donc deux types d’activités qui se combinent et se complètent. Nous savons par ailleurs que les échansons rassemblent la glace, la nettoient (dapāru) scrupuleusement, avec un instrument en bois de tamaris, bois doté de vertus notoires. Ces experts extirpent 20.  Joannès 1994: 140. 21.  Il s’agit alors d’un déplacement lointain et de longue durée, de 10 à 20 doubles lieues (entre 80 et 160 km); Joannès 1994: A. 2875, pp. 146–47. 22.  Lion 1992. 23.  A 77 (Joannès 1994); A. 202 G. Ozan, Lettres de Manatân, FM III, 1997, 304. 24. Nougayrol 1947; IRSA, p.  249; Joannès 1994:  143; Page 1969; Charlier 1987; Durand 1997: 289–93; NABU 2004/23. 25.  OBTR 79, S. Page, op.cit. Pareillement à Mari, on note que la glacière se trouve dans «la cité interdite» (Ziegler 1994) « Deux esclaves en fuite à Mari », FM II pp. 11–21. 26.  ARM XIV 25 (trad. M. Birot), Durand 1997: 291. 27.  La glace est destinée à la table des dieux et à celle des rois. Mais il arrive cependant qu’un ambassadeur bénéficie, lui aussi, de privilèges spéciaux qui sont normalement réservés à la personne des souverains. Pour honorer parfaitement l’envoyé spécial du grand roi d’Élam, pour le mettre dans le meilleur esprit, le roi de Mari a ordonné de faire déboucher une jarre de bon vin (de le verser dans) deux beaux béliers—on comprend qu’il s’agit ici de hanaps en forme de bélier—, de la glace est également ajoutée. ARM XXV 567

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toutes les impuretés pour la rendre pure et limpide, et la porte à la quintessence. 28 Plusieurs de ces grands bouteillers du roi vont à l’étranger chercher le meilleur vin et de la glace qui convient à la cour.

La boisson royale En plus de l’eau pure et fraîche provenant des meilleures sources, le breuvage principal servi au roi de Mari était un vin rouge de qualité, adouci au miel (ṭābum). 29 On observe à plusieurs occasions que le roi se préoccupe de ses approvisionnements et donne des directives précises pour la préparation du mélange à base de vin. 30 D’importantes quantités de boisson provenant des zones climatiques favorables à la viticulture sont livrées, souvent avec du miel. 31 Le vin était ensuite transvasé, mélangé et stocké dans les magasins du palais. Servie à l’occasion des repas et des festivités, cette boisson royale occupait indéniablement une place centrale au plan symbolique et cérémoniel. 32 Tout comme le vin, la glace précieuse et sacrée était présentée dans des récipients précieux appelés habšitru  33et mukaşşītum. 34 On sait que le liquide couleur de sang n’est pas neutre. Il relève, lui aussi, de la sphère du sacré. Le vin, comme le soulignent les textes mythologiques, appartient au domaine magique. Pour le maîtriser, il était donc adouci de miel (dišpu), autre produit éminemment royal, 35 et dans une dernière phase, agrémenté de glace. 36 Il constituait alors beaucoup plus qu’un simple marqueur social, c’était une boisson civilisée et divine, pure entre toutes, une substance parfaitement supérieure et 28.  ARM I 21, Charlier 1987; B. Groneberg, FM I, pp. 71–73; Durand 1997: 612. 29.  Bottéro, RLA, Getränke, p. 305; Finet 1977. 30.  ARM X 133; Durand 1983, 1997: 353. 31.  ARM VIII 80; XXVI 535, 536, 537; Lafont, B. Correspondance de Ṣidqum-Lanasi. 32.  Favre-Vassas 1989; Douglas 1987. 33.  ARM XXV 567. Plusieurs textes économiques mentionnent cet ustensile précieux dont nous ignorons la forme. Selon un bordereau de livraison de métaux, sa confection se compose de seulement 116 grammes d’argent et d’un demi-gramme d’or; ce qui en fait un contenant extrêmement fin à moins qu’il ne s’agisse bien sûr que d’étamage sur bronze. Si la plupart des spécialistes considèrent l’objet comme un vase ou même un seau à glace, rien en réalité n’autorise à y voir un récipient. Le déterminatif GAL est absent des textes et la quantité de métal en fait un petit objet pouvant même se décomposer en deux unités; habû A, «to draw water or wine» (CAD H, p. 19a), et šitru (Ahw), p. 1252a «verteck, schleier?» (Voiler, cacher). Pour ma part, j’y verrais avec quelque réserve- plutôt une sorte de cuiller, une louche ou une patère. 34. Guichard 2005:  239–40 ARM VIII 80; XXVI 535, 536, 537; Lafont, B.  Correspondance de Ṣidqum-Lanasi; Favre-Vassas 1989; Douglas 1987; ARM XXV 567. Plusieurs textes économiques mentionnent cet ustensile précieux dont nous ignorons la forme. Selon un bordereau de livraison de métaux, sa confection se compose de seulement 116 grammes d’argent et d’un demi-gramme d’or! Ce qui en fait un contenant extrêmement fin à moins qu’il ne s’agisse bien sûr que d’étamage sur bronze. Si la plupart des spécialistes considèrent l’objet comme un vase ou même un seau à glace, rien en réalité n’autorise à y voir un récipient. Le déterminatif GAL est absent des textes et la quantité de métal en fait un petit objet pouvant même se décomposer en deux unités; habû A, «to draw water or wine» (CAD H, p. 19a), et šitru (Ahw), p. 1252a «verteck, schleier?» (Voiler, cacher). Pour ma part, j’y verrais avec quelque réserve- plutôt une sorte de cuiller, une louche ou une patère. Guichard 2005: 239–40. 35.  Comme on peut le constater dans l’Épopée de Gilgameš, ce breuvage est très prisé et fait clairement partie de la vie de cour. Sur le vin miellé comme aliment proprement royal, voir la série Šurpu V VI 76. 36.  Les textes sont sans ambiguïté: le šuripum accompagne constamment le vin. Jamais la glace n’est consommée avec aucune autre boisson. Le mariage du vin et de la glace apparaît véritablement comme un mélange classique, un incontournable. Finet 1977; Page 1969; Sasson 1984; Charlier 1987; Joannès 1994.

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convenant à la circonstance. Ce vin ainsi mélangé à la glace relevait d’une stratégie qui consistait à ouvrir une dimension vers le surnaturel.

Le sang des dieux Quant à l’usage du miel (dišpu) de très nombreuses observations peuvent être faites. Contentons-nous de quelques-unes. La première observation est que le miel n’a aucun équivalent, il est proprement exceptionnel et personne depuis les travaux de Claude Lévi-Strauss ne peut lui refuser cette qualité. 37 Il ne peut donc pas être réductible à un simple édulcorant, ne serait-ce que pour le vin. L’évidence suivante découle de la qualité des miels antiques, et des limites actuelles de nos connaissances de l’apiculture antique. 38 Le troisième point est que le miel est une denrée très prisée, employée aussi bien dans les rituels que comme offrandes aux divinités. 39 Le quatrième point tient à son statut et à son origine. Une richesse symbolique inépuisable dans toute l’antiquité en fait une production divine. Ainsi pour ne mentionner que les textes incantatoires (šurpu), il s’agissait du «sang des dieux»; et c’est pourquoi il apparaît régulièrement dans les thèmes légendaires et les théogonies. 40 En somme, et pareillement à la glace, il s’agit d’une production mystérieuse. Le miel n’est pas qu’un élément comestible, un signe d’abondance, et une substance imputrescible qui convient aux dieux, c’est avant toute chose une supranourriture avidement recherchée par les rois. Le miel, en tant que manifestation de la bienveillance divine et de signe d’extrême de pureté, d’incorruptibilité ne peut être dirigé ailleurs que vers la personne du roi. Le miel est en effet une de ces substances magiques qui transmettent de la vitalité, dans le registre de l’érotisme ainsi que dans celui de la parole. 41 Le miel est intimement lié à la douceur royale, aux qualités de magnanimité, de tempérance et de clairvoyance, en un mot de sagesse. L’évocation de la douceur royale passe par cet élément trouble, à la fois lumineux et transparent, sans doute parce qu’il représente un état intermédiaire entre le liquide et le solide, le visible et l’invisible, le céleste et le terrestre, un signe extrême de pureté, incorruptible, qui, par sa couleur, l’apparente à l’or. 42 Sa préciosité est d’autant plus importante qu’elle se situe au confluent de l’air, du soleil, et des fleurs aromatiques, c’était en somme l’aliment des substances immuables et éternelles, une émanation de l’au-delà. De toute évidence, la symbolique du miel est immense, elle n’aurait qu’un intérêt relatif si cette dimension ne s’opposait pas diamétralement à celle de la glace. Nous voici donc en présence d’éléments parfaitement opposés, mais cohérents avec les attributs de la royauté  : productions fabuleuses, descendues du ciel, qui augmentent la teneur en spiritualité du breuvage, alliance des contraires, affrontement des catégories opposées  : le froid contre le chaud, l’humide contre le sec, l’argenté contre le doré, le violent contre la douceur, l’éthéré contre le nutritif, la substance solide contre le mélange aqueux, le tout s’articulant autour d’une boisson 37.  Lévi-Strauss 1982; Mazar et al. 2008. 38.  Bloch et al. 2010; Mazar et al. 2008. 39.  CAD D, vol 3, 161; Lambert, RLA Hönig, p. 469 40.  Tétart and Héritier 2004; Borgeaud 2004; Lévi-Strauss 1982. 41. Pour évoquer l’éloquence du souverain idéal, les hymnes royaux emploient fréquemment le thème du miel qui coule des lèvres du roi. 42.  Comparer le rituel ougaritique keret: le vin est versé dans une coupe d’argent tandis que le miel est versé dans une coupe en or. CTA 14 II lignes 71–72, Pardee, Textes paramythologiques (1988) p. 28.

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fantastique et exceptionnelle d’une couleur sanguine symbolisant la royauté sur terre. Tout cela formait un équilibre vigoureux, une évocation de l’harmonie universelle dont la royauté ne pouvait qu’occuper le centre.

La boisson qui convient à la royauté Le vin miellé est la boisson parfaite qui convient à la royauté. Cette affirmation répétée mainte fois dans la poésie, figure en bonne place dans Ninurta le Preux où miel et vin forment un couple désirable entre toute chose. 43 Car si diverses boissons plaisent aux souverains seul le vin sucré de miel est vraiment digne de la divinité. 44 Par l’incorporation de miel et/ou de glace, substances considérées comme supérieures, le roi pouvait proclamer qu’il évoluait dans cette sphère proprement magique. Car, ces deux ingrédients miel et glace possédaient indéniablement des caractéristiques intéressantes : elles établissaient une relation directe avec le ciel une sorte de mise en perspective des deux grands astres que sont le soleil et la lune, évoquant concurremment la grandeur de la royauté dans un conflit sidéral. Tandis que le miel constituait une évocation de la douceur royale, la glace manifestait toute la force violente des éléments cosmiques. Miel et glace sont donc bien des éléments troubles, à la fois lumineux et transparents. Tous deux représentent un état intermédiaire entre le liquide et le solide, le visible et l’invisible, le céleste et le terrestre. Pour conclure, il est assez clair que la glace (ou la neige ou des grêlons compactés) occupait comme nous l’avons vu une formidable dimension symbolique. Cette dimension jouait un rôle tout à fait providentiel dans les multiples activités sociales et religieuses qui se déroulaient à la cour. Son utilisation est sans grand rapport, me semble-t-il avec l’alimentation banale ou les consommations «de rafraîchissements». C’est au contraire sur le plan spirituel et symbolique, dans la dimension du prestige royal que se situe l’usage, ou plutôt la consommation de la glace comme substance divine. Ces rites, bien entendu, nous échappent pour une très grande part. Mais les manipulations nombreuses entourant la consommation de vin, de miel et de glace, sont mieux attestées et peuvent être mises en rapport avec l’acquisition éventuelle d’une force surnaturelle. Le roi, de par sa condition, est un être à part qui touche au divin. Pour conserver son exception, le roi ne consomme que des produits hautement sélectionnés et purs entre tous, il ne boit que de l’eau pure, des boissons merveilleuses, propres à faire rêver. Le corps du roi fait évidemment l’objet de tous les soins: il est en quelque sorte ce réservoir rempli de forces mystérieuses émanant de l’Au-delà. 45 43.  Lugal.e, ligne 542; Bottéro and Kramer 1989: 361. 44.  Hymne d’Ishtar de Ninive, SAA III p. 18–19 ligne 15 45.  Cette force exceptionnelle se vérifie dans les rapports que le roi entretient avec la nature. Cette puissance est perceptible dans l’Épopée de Gilgameš, le sauvage Enkidu apparaît doté d’une « musculature aussi puissante qu’un bloc venu du ciel ».

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Références bibliographiques Barthes, R. 1957 Mythologies. Paris: Seuil. Bloch, G., M. T. Francoy, I. Wachtel, N. Panitz-Cohen, F. Fuchs, and A Mazar. 2010 Industrial apiculture in the Jordan valley during Biblical times with Anatolian honeybees. PNAS.  Bonneterre, D. à paraitre  Manger en Mésopotamie: Aliments sacrés et nourritures profanes Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Borgeaud, Ph. 2004 L’enfance au miel dans les récits antiques. In Naissance et petite enfance dans l’Antiquité. Actes du colloque de Fribourg, 28 novembre–1er décembre 2001, ed. V. Dasen. Fribourg/ Göttingen: Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis (OBO). Bottéro, J., and S. N. Kramer. 1989 Lorsque les dieux faisaient l’homme. Mythologie mésopotamienne, Bibliothèque des histoires. Paris: Gallimard. Charlier, P. 1987 Les Glacières à Mari. Akkadica 54: 1–10. De Planhol, X. 1995 L’eau de neige. Le tiède et le frais. Paris: Fayard. Douglas, M. 1987 Constructive drinking : perspectives on drink from anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Durand, J.-M. 1983 Textes administratifs des salles 134 et 160 du Palais de Mari, ARM 21. Paris: P. Geuthner. 1997 Documents Épistolaires du palais de Mari. Vol. 16, LAPO. Paris: Cerf. Faivre, X., B. Lion, and C. Michel. 2009 Et il y eut un esprit dans l’homme : Jean Bottéro et la Mésopotamie. Paris: De Boccard. Favre-Vassas, C. 1989 La boisson des ethnologues. Terrain 13: 5–14. Finet, A. 1977 Le vin à Mari. AfO 25: 122–31. Fronzaroli, P. 1997 Les combats d’Hadda dans les textes d’Ébla. In MARI 8. Paris: ERC. Glassner, J.-J. 1991 Les dieux et les hommes. Le vin et la bière en Mésopotamie ancienne. In Le ferment divin, ed. D. Fournier and S. D’onofrio. Paris: Maison des sciences de l’homme. Guichard, M. 2005 La vaisselle de luxe des rois de Mari, Matériaux pour le Dictionnaire de Babylonien de Paris; t. 2. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations. Joannès, F. 1994 L’eau et la glace. Florilegium Marianum 2 (Recueil à la mémoire de Maurice Birot, Paris): 137–150. Joffe, A. H. 1998 Alcohol and Social Complexity in Ancient Western Asia.” Current Anthropology 39/3 (1998) 297–322. Kinnier Wilson, J. V. 1972 The Nimrud Wine Lists: A Study of Men and Administration at the Assyrian Capital in the Eighth Century b.c. Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq. Lambert, W. G. 1960 Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

634 Lang, B. 1980

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Vorläufer von Speiseeis in Bibel und Orient. Eine Untersuchung von Spr 25, 13. Mélanges bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M. Henri Cazelles: 219–31. Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Lévi-Strauss, Cl. 1982 Mythologiques : Du miel aux cendres. Paris: Plon. Lion, B. 1992 Vignes au royaume de Mari. Florilegium Marianum, mélanges Fleury 1: 107–13. Mander, P., and J. M. Durand. 1995 Mitología y religión del Oriente Antiguo 2–1, 40– 41. Sabadell: Editorial AUSA. Margueron, J. C. 2007 Une glacière du royaume de Mari. Akh Purattim 1: 149–57. Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée. Mazar, A. , D. Namdar, N. Panitz-Cohen, R. Neumann, and S. Weiner. 2008 Iron Age Beehives at Tel Reḥov in the Jordan Valley. Antiquity 82 (317): 629–39. Michalowski, P. 1994 The Drinking Gods: Alcohol in Mesopotamia Ritual and Mythology. In Drinking in Ancient Societies: History and Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East: Papers of a Symposium Held in Rome, May 17–19, 1990, ed. L. Milano. Padova: Sargon. Michel, C. 2009 Dis-moi ce que tu bois. . . » In Et il y eut un esprit dans L’homme. Jean Bottéro et la Mésopotamie, ed. X. Faivre and C. Michel. Paris: DeBocard. Milano, L. 1994 Drinking in Ancient Societies. History and Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East. Paper read at Symposium held in Rome, May 17–19 1990, at Rome. Nougayrol, J. 1947 Une glacière centrale à Terqa sur l’Euphrate au début du 2ème millénaire avant notre ère. Compte rendu de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres: 265–72. Page, S. 1969 Ice, Offerings and Deities in the Old Babylonian Texts from Tell-el-Rimah. Paper read at Actes de la XVIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Ham-sur-Heure. Parrot, A. 1936 Le “Refrigerium” dans l’au-delà Revue de l’histoire des religions 113: 149–87. Sasson, J. M. 1984 Ice at Mari. Biblical Archaeologist 47: 115–16. Seux, M.-J. 1976 Hymnes et prières aux dieux de Babylonie et d’Assyrie. Littératures anciennes du Proche-Orient 8. Paris: Editions du Cerf. Tétart, G., and F. Héritier. 2004 Le sang des fleurs une anthropologie de l’abeille et du miel préf. de Françoise Héritier. Paris: O. Jacob. Van Driel, G. 1992 Weather: Between the Natural and the Unnatural in the First Millennium Inscriptions. In Natural Phenomena: Their Meaning, Depiction, and Description in the Ancient Near East, ed. D. Meijer. New-York and Tokyo: Royal Netherlands Academy. Xella, P. 1986 Le grand froid. Le dieu Baradu madu à Ébla. Ugarit Forschungen 18: 437–44.

Three Kings of the Orient in Archaic Ur

University

Petr Charvát of

West Bohemia

in

P i ls e n

This paper proposes to investigate three aspects of the highest political office of the Sumerian city of Ur at the very beginning of the third pre-Christian millenium, between the very inauguration of Ur as the land’s first-rate political center at the beginning of the 3rd millenium and the regnal period of king Mesannepada of Ur and Kish (2563–2524 b.c.e.). 1 The group of sources that I shall interrogate with the above-outlined purpose in mind shall be the both sealings found in the administrative-discard layers, designed by Leonard Woolley, excavator at Ur, as Seal Impression Strata (SIS) 1–8, and a group of cuneiform texts that came to light in SIS 8–4, chiefly in SIS 5–4. 2 Before we set out on our journey through the ages, let me make a few preliminary notes. The SIS consist of strata of administrative discards, clearly disposed of in a systematic and long-lasting manner, consisting not only of written materials but also of disused items of temple inventories such as derelict sculptures, as well as of everyday-life rubbish. 3 This shows that the systematic waste-disposal procedures were operated by a major social center of Ur, most likely one of the “royal” offices, as a part of long-term deliberate administrative policy. We may then imagine the following chaîne opératoire of the whole administrative process involving sealed material: 1.  Material deliveries were carried to Ur under whatever title this might have taken place, and deposited in storage spaces. 2.  The storage spaces were sealed by the suppliers of the goods, or alternatively, by “royal” officials charged with supervision of the correctness of such material deliveries. Author’s note: The present paper is a research output of a grant project sponsored by the Grant Agency of the Czech republic under No. 404/08/J013 (“Shepherds of the Black-Headed People”). I was fortunate enough to inspect the collections of the Near Eastern Section of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, U. S. A.) in 2003–2004 during my study stay in the USA, financed by a grant from the Prague establishment of the John William Fulbright Foundation, and in 2005 thanks to a Franklin grant conferred on me by the American Philosophical Society. For permission to study in the collections, as well as for manifold help and support, I am deeply obliged to Richard Zettler and Shannon White of the Near Eastern Section of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. 1.  The historical sources for Ur of this period have recently been subsumed in Frayne 2008: 377–407. 2.  Published as UE III; on the find context, see Woolley, in UE III pp. 1–2, most recently Sürenhagen 1999, as well as Zettler 1989, Dittman 2006: 38–39, and Marchetti 2006: 71–83, esp. pp. 72–76. For the texts, see UET II, esp. pp. 1–2, and recently Pomponio 1991, Visicato 2000: 14–18, Marchetti 2006: 72–76, and Visicato 2008: 17–19). 3.  Visicato 2000: 14–18, Marchetti 2006: 72–76.

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3.  The sealed storerooms were then counter-signed, or counter-marked, by (other?) officials of the administrative center, presumably to show secondary branches of the redistribution process, and the flow of goods collected for the center towards those consumers privileged to share revenues collected by the center. 4.  The storerooms were opened and the goods stored went their various ways. 5.  The sealings were collected by officials of the administrative center, and the correctness of all deliveries was checked by the central registry office. 6.  Finally, when all the controls showed the completeness and lawfulness of the whole process, all the administrative materials were discarded.

Among the sealings of archaic Ur (SIS 4–8), the foremost political body seems to have been the confederation of municipal communities referred to in specialized literature as the City league. 4 A numerous group of sealings bearing the names of CL member communities attests to its activites and to their overwhelming importance in political life of the land of Sumer in the early third millenium b.c.e. The CL consisted of the major municipalities of early historic Sumer, and, in consideration of the impression it has left in the period’s sphragistic sources, embodied especially by the inscribed sealings of the SIS 4–8, we may imagine it as a self-governing body: •  with its own identity and coherence, •  fund of material goods of which it freely disposed, •  administrative apparatus (seals and seal-bearers), and procedures resulting especially in a circulation of goods sealed in its name, and probably also •  religious unity, maintained by means of contributions to a fund established for the purpose of carrying out a specific ritual, likely to have functioned as a cementig agent of the CL unity.

The CL collected its membership fees under a variety of modes. The SIS 4–8 sealings show particularly two of these, one being signified by the enigmatic edinnu sign, as Leon Legrain once baptized it, the other denoted as a figure that Roger Matthews and Sarah Jarmer Scott define as legcross. Out of 62 CL sealings analyzed, the edinnu sign accompanied the CL toponyms in 13 cases and the legcross sign in 8. In 4 cases, the CL toponyms went together with both the edinnu and the legcross signs. Once, only the relevant seal patterns included a bare edinnu, 5 and once the bare legcross signs. 6 Also, one single instance shows a CL seal countermarked with a stamp seal featuring the edinnu sign. 7 In some cases, the texts supply additional information. 8 So, in UE III: 461 the edinnu turns up together with the ŠU2 sign, impying that the delivery in question came in in textiles. 9 In one text, 10 a group of toponyms links up with the IL2 sign, making it thus likely that the CL supplied the goods sealed as a kind of regular delivery. 11 2002.

4.  Henceforth CL; see most extensively Matthews 1993, Selz 1998: 309–12, and also Steinkeller

5.  UE III: 209. 6.  UE III: 422. 7.  UE III: 434. 8.  On questions of interpretation of seal impressions, and especially their reverses, see Martin and Matthews 1993: esp. p. 37. 9. ŠU2 = ZATU No. 534 p. 289, in textile accounts, also in MSVO 1 pp. 149–50. 10.  Matthews 1993: 14 = Scott 2005: 14. 11.  On IL2 in Fara texts, see Pomponio and Visicato 1994: 193; in ED Lagash evidence Selz 1995: 58 No. 111, 202–3 No. 70, 258 n. 1240; other ED material: Bauer 1989–1990: 78; Selz 1993: 555–56;

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Of the edinnu we can hardly say anything, 12 but the legcross seems to represent a particular fashion, or perhaps a legal title, under which the contributions to the CL funds came in. At least one of the documents show that the legcross referred to quantifiable entitites collected in vessels. 13 At the collection points in Ur, the CL deliveries were frequently deposited in storage spaces. Of the CL sealings attested, 26 are likely to have come from “locks” 14 and thus to have closed access to storage spaces. These are followed by 18 impressions from mobile containers 15 and 20 of such where the state of reverse preservation did not allow carrier identification. Once deposited in the storage spaces of Ur, the CL deliveries sometimes underwent redistribution to different consumers. This was visualized by counter-marks or counter-signs pressed into the still damp clay of the matrix sealings by stamp seals. In 49 cases out of the 62 mentioned above, the CL sealings of storage spaces received no further supplement in the form of impressions of counter-marking seals. 16 Counter-marks in the form of the rosette 17 were observed in 13 cases, while instances in which repeated sealings by one single seal were available showed such frequencies as one counter-marked against four bare, 18 three counter-marked against two bare, 19 and one counter-marked with two bare. 20 Of course, the rosette-design seals did not supplement CL sealings only. We see them attested on seals without inscriptions, and it seems that at least in one instance, the same matrix sealing received impressions of two different countermarks, one bearing a rosette and one a boar icon. 21 This shows that (the contents of) Westenholz 1987: 129 (íl tax levied on produce, not land, paid by higher officials to government after harvest); Englund 1990: 92 n. 292 for Ur III material. 12.  Save for a rather unexpected parallel in decoration motifs of the Ninevite-V pottery of northern Mesopotamia: Matthews, Matthews, and McDonald 1994: 180–82, 188, with a pattern on fig. 4:7, p. 182, alluding possibly to the edinnu sign of archaic Ur sealings. At least in one case, the edinnu entity received revenue by means of redistribution from a CL fund, when a CL sealing was counter-marked by a seal bearing the edinnu sign (UE III: 434 = Matthews 1993: 121 = Scott 2005: 472). 13.  UE III: 474, a “test strip” (rather a tablet) with the legcross sign with registration of a quantified delivery (DA) in pots of malt and a fragrant substance (PAP.DA IR.DA). These might have been sealed (RA) and intended to be delivered to the KISAL. The quantifiable entries are written by hand. 14.  Including such instances as UE III: 454, attested to with 22 impressions of door pegs (Matthews 1993: 63–64). 15.  Including those of a jar stopper (UE III: 80), pot (UE III: 209 = Matthews 1993: 48 = Scott 2005: 359), pot without covering (UE III: 403 = Matthews 1993: 20), leather-covered pot (UE III: 420 = Matthews 1993: 22 = Scott 2005: 465), pot? (UE III: 440 = Matthews 1993: 100 = Scott 2005: 477; Matthews 1993: 58 = Scott 2005: 577), reed box (UE III: 397 = Scott 2005: 19), box (UE III: 418 = Matthews 1993: 15 = Scott 2005: 85), bale (UE III: 401 = Matthews 1993: 6 = Scott 2005: 455), reed matting package (UE III: 407 = Matthews 1993: 16 = Scott 2005: 458; UE III: 419 = Matthews 1993: 25 = Scott 2005: 464; UE III: 430 = Matthews 1993: 28 = Scott 2005: 471), reed fastening (UE III: 437 = Matthews 1993: 120 = Scott 2005: 474), basket (Scott 2005: 958), package (?, UE III: 429 = Matthews 1993: 1 = Scott 2005: 76), “test strip” (rather a tablet, UE III: 416 = Matthews 1993: 9 = Scott 2005: 93; UE III: 441 = Matthews 1993: 119 = Scott 2005: 478), bag or pot (UE III: 417 = Matthews 1993: 10 = Scott 2005: 94). 16.  Including such instances as seal UE III: 454 (=Matthews 1993: 12 = Scott 239), surviving in 27 examples that are entirely free of counter-marks. 17.  On the rosette icon, see most recently Selz 2004: 201. 18.  UE III: 413 = Matthews 1993: 3 = Scott 2005: 108. 19.  Matthews 1993: 14 = Scott 2005: 14. 20.  Matthews 1993: 31 = Scott 2005: 63. 21.  Seal UE III: 297, displaying what seems to be a triumph scene, is once counter-marked with a rosette seal (UE III: 131, upon collation of the bearer seal) and once with a seal bearing a boar icon (UE III: 297).

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a storage space bearing one single bearer seal could have been counter-marked with different secondary seals. 22 In four instances, the CL sealings bore counter-marks other than the rosette. 23 Our evidence does nonetheless show that the CL was not the only actor at the political scene of early dynastic Sumer. Regardless of the fact that there might have been more CLs at one single moment, we do possess at least one document sealed with a matrix bearing both CL emblems and reference to a dignitary the title of which I have interpreted as the enigmatic NAMEŠDA 24 of the early lexical lists. 25 Regardless of whether this attribution will be confirmed or refuted by future research, the fact that the seal inscription links this dignitary with the city of Nippur and with what are probably the fields of the sun-god Utu shows that the significance of this agency definitely surpassed both local and regional milieu. In addition to the possible occurrence of the NAMEŠDA title, the other high offices mentioned by the sealings of archaic Ur include those designed by the traditional Uruk-IV title of NAM2, signifying something like “lordship,” “suzerainty,” “supremacy,” or similar. In our evidence, we meet three such instances, the nuclear NAM2 26 and the titles NAM2+LA 27 and ŠE+NAM2. 28 The existence of both dignitaries is thus attested to by the deliveries that they dispatched toward the center of the CL administration, located manifestly at Ur. One of the most difficult problems that we meet in the archaic Ur materials is a sealing showing a human figure grasping by both hands two long, slender and wavy objects resembling cord-like configurations or even the long necks of mythical animals known from the Uruk- and Jemdet Nasr-period seals. The sealing with this figure bears an inscription of two signs, TUR and NUN. 29 We hardly have any indication as to how this inscription should be read, and, given the character of the earliest phases of the TUR sign, it may even refer to a “(small) storeroom of Eridu.” If, however, this group is read DUMU NUN, it may convey a message of either “son of a noble,” or even “son of Enki.” 30 Do we have the very first instance of a deification of a member of Sumerian elite before us? Surprisingly enough, the LUGAL, an office that we would assume almost authomatically to turn up in the sealed materials, is entirely absent from among them. 22.  This phenomenon makes me think of the counter-marking seals as indicators of redistribution of the goods collected by the original agency towards various sub-consumers who received consent to share the original agency’s revenues. 23.  Images of a human face, representing probably a geographical entity (UE III: 426 = Scott 2005: 469), the edinnu sign (UE III: 434 = Matthews 1993: 121 = Scott 2005: 472), an illegible pattern (Matthews 1993: 53 = Scott 2005: 876) and a linear composition (Matthews 1993: 58 = Scott 2005: 577). 24. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� On NAMEŠDA, see Selz 1998: 295–301 and 326, Selz 2000: 187–88, and Charvát 2012. 25.  On these, see Selz 1998: 294–309, and now Veldhuis 2006. 26.  UE III: 26. See ATU 5, pp. 143–44, ZATU No. 384 p. 251, MSVO 1 p. 127 and MSVO 4 p. 67, now also the PSD: http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html s..v. nam, nam2 (OB “lord“). 27.  UE III: 25 (SIS 6–7) = Matthews 1993: 116 = Scott 2005: 219; UE III: 35 (SIS 6–7) = Scott 2005: 226. A lexical-list entry n a m2- l a turns up in the earliest proto-cuneiform texts (ZATU No. 306 on p. 234), but the lexeme is missing both from other coeval written material (MSVO 4, p. 67) and from the Jemdet Nasr texts (MSVO 1, p. 127). 28.  UE III: 441 = Matthews 1993: 119 = Scott 2005: 478. On this title, see now Cavigneaux 1992: 79 (ŠE+NAM2 = probably Akkadian kizû, shepherd or caretaker of animals = SAHAR?, and Selz 1998: 295 (“Oberhirte”). See also PSD: http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html s. v. kizû = k u š, a high official). 29.  UE III: 43 (= SIS 7). 30.  This sign combination is not attested to in any of the text groups preceding archaic Ur in time.

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Nevertheless, the Ur city had then its own LUGAL, who figures prominently in the texts of archaic Ur, discovered mostly in the SIS 4–5 strata and thus in part contemporary at least with some of the sealings. These texts give evidence on the LUGAL office especially in the form of personal names, which show beyond all doubt that the role of the pristine LUGAL of Ur was not only secular but sacerdotal and ritual as well. 31 This evidence makes the LUGAL first and foremost a provider of plenty, a guarantor of activation of forces of fertility and fecundity of nature and its living components, including people. 32 Thus, the Ur LUGAL of the ED I–II times is hardly the “king” of later ages. We shall do more justice to him and to his partner and consort by translating the LUGAL and NIN 33 titles as “lord” and “lady,” in accordance with the Old English versions of these titles, hlāford 34 and hlāfdiga, 35 meaning “bread-keeper,” “bread-kneader,” “bread-provider” or the like. 36 This significance of the LUGAL and NIN titles of archaic Ur is amply demonstrated by the fertility symbolism inherent in so many artifacts retrieved from the “royal graves” 37 of Ur, the age of which closes this epoch of the history of the Sumerian city. 38 Students of ancient Mesopotamian history will never cease to be amazed by the volume of both material and spiritual investments that the Ur society poured into the post-mortem treatment of its foremost representatives. 39 Perhaps eloquently, we have but one single instance in which a personage known from the “royal graves” milieu turns up in the SIS 4–8 sealings of Ur. 40 Clearly, the seal31.  See, in detail, Charvát 1997: 78–80. 32.  See the translations of the name of king Meskalamdu/Mesugedu of Kish and Ur: “Hero who provides well-being for the land” (in Frayne 2008: E1.13.3, p. 385). On questions of elite triggering-off of fertility and procreative forces of nature in ancient Mesopotamia, see, among others, Hurowitz 1992: 45–61 (Gudea), Tinney 1999, and Jones 2003. Though the following citation pertains to early medieval Ireland, I find it fitting to the Mesopotamian situation to such an extent that it is well worth quoting in full: The metaphor of the sacred marriage of king and goddess and the notion of the king’s righteousness that made the world fruitful were elaborately articulated in the vernacular literature and skilfully integrated with Christian concepts of kingship by a learned clergy (Ó Corráin 1995: 46). 33.  On NIN in archaic Ur see Charvát 1997: 85–87. 34.  See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lord#Etymology, cited July 20th, 2010. 35.  See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hl%C3%A6fdige, cited July 20th, 2010. 36.  A related line of thought is pursued by Gianni Marchesi (Marchesi 2004: 163–64 and 174–75, though he ultimately opts for a traditional link of the “royal graves” with royalty: ibid., 186). 37.  On these, see recently Zettler and Horne 1998, Rehm 2003, the contributions published in AruzWallenfels 2003, especially Collins 2003a, Reade 2003a and Reade 2003b; Marchesi 2004 with ref., Pollock 2007, Pollock 2007–2008, and Selz 2007: 101–3 with ref. 38.  On this aspect of lady Puabi’s head-dress, see Pittman 2003: 111, as well as Hansen 2003: 122 on a similar aspect of the sculpture called “Ram caught in the thicket.” On the male-cum-female symbolism in the ornaments of lady Puabi of Ur, see Miller 1999 and Miller 2000, esp. pp. 152–53 (male and female flowers of date palm). 39.  The trade of Ur entrepreneurs with the sphere of the Proto-Indian culture finds a fitting illustration in a Harappan seal newly identified as pendant on a copper pin from PG 489 at Ur: Reade 1995. On questions of lapis-lazuli representation in the “royal tombs,” see Casanova 2000: 173–77, 182–83. According to this author, the total amount of effort needed only for the manufacturing of beads constituting lady Puabi’s diadem may be estimated at 2,000 work-hours of experts’ work (ibid., 174). On lady Puabi, see Frayne 2008: 387–88; on her tomb, Collins 2003a. Gianni Marchesi suggests a reading Pū-abum instead of Puabi (Marchesi 2004: 175, 193–94) 40.  Nintur or Ninbanda, consort of Mesannepada: UE III: 443 = Matthews 1993: 125 = Scott 2005: 479, on her lapis-lazuli seal found in loose soil above the “royal graves,” see Pittman 1998: 82, No. 25, Collins 2003b, and Frayne 2008: 392–93, No. 3. A copper/bronze vessel inscribed in her name came to light

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ings and texts of Nannar’s city reflected two different worlds—those of the supraregional City league, aligned along traditional lines and heeding back to times when the LUGAL played but a little esteemed role, and of the city-state of Ur directed by the LUGAL and NIN, who, however they might have played key roles in the administrative direction of the CL, still kept their own offices distinctly separated from it. The third age of the central office of the Ur city-states came with the advent of Meskalamdug, the first king of (Ur and) Kish, about 2600 b.c.e., 41 but especially his successor Mesannepada, king of Kish and Ur (2563–2524 b.c.e.). 42 Again, it may be eloquent that the times of the lavish expenditure poured into the “royal graves” came to an abrupt end with him, as shown by archaeological observations of the cessation of those extravagant burial practices and of renewed superposition of administrative-discard layers over the cemetery deposit, displaying the Mesannepada documents over the last stratum of the “royal graves.” Mesannepada’s titles of “king of Kish” 43 and “consort of the Lofty One (i.e., Inanna, pch),” 44 known from his official seal, contain, for the very first time ever, a reference to the double aspect of royal power. The sacred character of Mesannepada’s kingship, expressed by his relation to the goddess of love and war, is linked with its secular aspect, embodied— surprisingly—not in his own Ur title but in the presumably more prestigious Kish supremacy. For the first time in Sumerian history, the Sumerian thinkers had defined a sacred-cum-profane nature of the royal office, triggering thus a process that, though it ultimately led to the predominance of the worldly aspect of the Mesopotamian kingly office, never quite extinguished the divine light falling on it. in PG 755: Marchesi 2004: 162 n. 61., Frayne 2008: 393–94 No. 4. Does this pertain to the above-cited sealing? See also Marchesi 2004: 176–78, 184–89. 41.  Frayne 2008: E1.13.5, pp. 391–392, on p. 392, and possibly E1.13.7, 401–2. The first reading of Mesannepada’s inscription from Mari as “Mesannepada, king of Ur, son of Meskalamdu, king of Kish” goes to Johannes Boese (apud Nagel-Strommenger 1995: 461), with consent of Gianni Marchesi (2004: 183–184, n. 175). 42.  Frayne 2008: 391–94. 43.  Frayne 2008, p. 392 No. 2. On the significance of the Kish kingdom in the early third millennium B.C. see Selz 1998: 313, and also Czichon 2006. 44.  Or “nugig priestess” (Frayne 2008: 392 No. 2). On the probability of this statement meaning claim of a divine origin by Mesannepada see Zgoll 2006: 113. If Mesannepada was trying to assume the garb of Dumuzi, it may be relevant that the association Ama’ušumgal (= the earliest documented form of Dumuzi)—Inanna is attested to: Krebernik 2003: 165, fn. 116 with ref. Inanna is mentioned in ED sources as the one who confers the Kish kingdom: Selz 1992: 194, 200.

References Aruz, Joan, and Wallenfels, Ronald (eds.) 2003 Art of the First Cities—The Third Millennium b.c. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art / New Haven: Yale University Press. ATU 5: Robert K. Englund, Rainer M. Boehmer: Archaic Administrative Texts from Uruk—The Early Campaigns. Archaische Texte aus Uruk Bd. 5. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1994. Bauer, Josef 1989–90 Altsumerische Wirtschaftsurkunden in Leningrad. Archiv für Orientforschung 36–37: 78–90.

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Casanova, Michèle 2000 Le lapis lazuli de l’Asie centrale à la Syrie au Chalcolithique et à l’âge du Bronze: traits communs et particularités régionales. Pp. 171–83 in P. Matthiae, A. Enea, L. Peyronel, and F. Pinnock (eds.), Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Rome, May 18th–23rd 1998. Rome. Cavigneaux, Antoine 1992 103) SAHAR = kuš7?, N.A.B.U. 4/1992: 78–79. Charvát, Petr 1997 On People, Signs and States: Spotlights on Sumerian Society, c. 3500–2500 b.c. Prague: The Oriental Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. 2012 From King to God: The NAMEŠDA Title in Archaic Ur. Pp. 265–74 in Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg 20–25 July 2008, ed. G. Wilhelm. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012. Collins, Paul 2003a The Tomb of Puabi, in Aruz-Wallenfels 2003: 108–19. 2003b No. 55a, b: Cylinder seals with royal names, in Aruz-Wallenfels 2003: 103. Czichon, Rainer M. 2006 Neue Überlegungen zur Bedeutung und Entstehung der frühdynastischen Beterstatuetten. Altorientalische Forschungen 33/2: 179–88. Dittmann, Reinhard 2006 Bemerkungen zu Ur, Pit F. Baghdader Mitteilungen 37: 23–44. Englund, Robert K. 1990 Organisation und Verwaltung der Ur-III-Fischerei. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Frayne, Douglas 2008 The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods, vol. 1: Presargonic Period (2700– 2350 b.c.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hansen, Donald P. 2003 No. 71: Rearing goat with a flowering plant, in Aruz-Wallenfels 2003: 121–22. Hurowitz, Victor (Avigdor) 1992 I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Jones, Philip 2003 Embracing Inanna: Legitimation and Mediation in the Ancient Mesopotamian Sacred Marriage Hymn Iddin-Dagan A. Journal of the American Oriental Society 123.2: 291–302. Krebernik, Manfred 2003 Drachenmutter und Himmelsrebe? Zur Frühgeschichte Dumuzis und seiner Familie. Pp. 151–80 in W. Sallaberger, K. Volk, and A. Zgoll (eds.), Literatur, Politik und recht in Mesopotamien—Festschrift für Claus Wilcke. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Marchesi, Gianni 2004 Who Was Buried in the Royal Tombs of Ur? The Epigraphic and Textual Data. Orientalia 73/2: 153–97. Marchetti, Niccolò 2006 La statuaria regale nella Mesopotamia protodinastica. Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei Anno CDIII, 2006, Classe di scienze morale, storiche e filologiche, Memorie, Series IX, Volume XXI, Fascicolo I), con un Appendice di Gianni Marchesi (205–71), Rome: Bardi. Martin Harriet P., and Matthews Roger J. 1993 Seals and Sealings. Pp. 23–81 in Anthony Green (ed.), Abu Salabikh Excavations Volume 4: The 6G Ash-Tip and Its Contents: Cultic and Administrative Discard from the Temple? London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq. Matthews, Roger J. 1993 Cities, Seals and Writing: Archaic Seal Impressions from Jemdet Nasr and Ur. Materialien zu den frühen Schrifterzeugnissen des Vorderen Orients (MSVO) Bd. 2. Berlin: Gebr. Mann.

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Matthews, Roger J., Matthews, Wendy, and McDonald, Helen 1994 Excavations at Tell Brak, 1994. Iraq 56: 177–94. Miller, Naomi 1999 Date Sex in Mesopotamia! Expedition 41/1: 29–30. 2000 Plant Forms in Jewellery from the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Iraq 62: 149–55. MSVO 1: Robert K. Englund, Jean-Pierre Grégoire, and Roger J. Matthews, The Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Jemdet Nasr I: Copies, Transliterations and Glossary. Materialien zu den frühen Schriftzeugnissen des Vorderen Orients Bd. 1. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1991. MSVO 4: Robert K. Englund and Roger J. Matthews, Proto-Cuneiform Textsfrom Diverse Collections. Materialien zu den frühen Schriftzeugnissen des Vorderen Orients Bd. 4. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1996. Nagel Wolfram, and Strommenger, Eva 1995 Sechzig Jahre Forschung zur frühdynastischen Bildkunst und ein neues denkmal des Urdynastikums. Pp. 455–68 in U. Finkbeiner, R. Dittmann, and H. Hauptmann (eds.), Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Vorderasiens: Festschrift für Rainer Michael Boehmer. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. Ó Corráin, David 1995 Ireland, Scotland and Wales to the Early Eleventh Century. Pp. 43–63 in R. McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2, c. 700–c. 900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pittman, Holly 1998 Cylinder Seals, in Zettler-Horne 1998: 75–84. 2003 No. 61a–e: Puabi’s headdress, in Aruz-Wallenfels 2003: 110–11. Pollock, Susan 2007 The Royal Cemetery of Ur: Ritual, Tradition, and the Creation of Subjects. Pp. 89–110 in M. Heinz, M. H. Feldman (eds.), Representations of Political Power: Case Histories from Times of Change and Dissolving Order in the Ancient Near East. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. 2007–8 Death of a Household. Pp. 209–22 in N. Laneri (ed.), Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean. Oriental Institute Seminars No. 3. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Pomponio, Francesco 1991 Antiche sementi. Rivista degli Studi Orientali 65: 161–63. Pomponio, Francesco, and Visicato, Giuseppe 1994 Early Dynastic Administrative Tablets of Šuruppak. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, Dipartimento di Studi Asiatici (Series maior VI). PSD: Philadelphia Sumerian Dictionary. See http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame​ .html, cited July 19th, 2010. Reade, Julian 1995 Magan and Meluhhan merchants at Ur? Pp. 597–99 in U. Finkbeiner, R. Dittmann, and H. Hauptmann (eds.), Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Vorderasiens: Festschrift für Rainer Michael Boehmer. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. 2003a The Royal Tombs of Ur, in Aruz-Wallenfels 2003: 93–107. 2003b The Great Death Pit at Ur, in Aruz-Wallenfels 2003: 120–32. Rehm, Ellen 2003 Waffengräber im Alten Orient: Zum Problem der Wertung von Waffen in Gräbern des 3. und frühen 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr. in Mesopotamien und Syrien. BAR International Series 1191. Oxford: Archaeopress. Scott, Sarah Jarmer 2005 Figure, Symbol and Sign: Semiotics and Function of Early Dynastic I Cylinder Seal Imagery from Ur. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2005. Selz, Gebhard J. 1992 Enlil und Nippur nach präsargonischen Quellen. Pp. 189–25 in Nippur at the Centennial. Comptes-rendus du Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale 35 = Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, 14. Philadelphia: University Museum.

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Altsumerische Wirtschaftsurkunden aus amerikanischen Sammlungen 2: Texte aus Free Library Philadelphia, Yale University Library—Babylonian Section. FAOS 15.2. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. 1995 Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Lagaš (UGASL). Philadelphia: Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund. 1998 Über Mesopotamische Herrschaftkonzepte: Zu den Ursprüngen mesopotamischer Herr­scherideologie im 3. Jahrtausend. Pp. 281–344 in M. Dietrich and O. Loretz (eds.), dubsar anta-men: Studien zur Altorientalistik, Fetschrift für Willem H. Ph. Römer zur Vollendung seines 70. Lebensjahres mit Beiträgen von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. 2000 Schrifterfindung als Ausformung eines reflexiven Zeichensystems. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 90: 169–200. 2004 Early Dynastic Vessels in ‘Ritual’ Contexts. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 94:s 185–224. 2007 Zu Ritual und Literatur in frühen mesopotamischen Texten. Pp. 77–115 in A. Bierl, R. Lämmle, and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion 1, Wege zu einer mythischrituellen Poetik bei den Griechen. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Steinkeller, Piotr 2002 More on the Archaic City Seals. N.A.B.U. 2002/2 (juin), No. 30: 29. Sürenhagen, Dietrich 1999 Untersuchungen zur relativen Chronologie Babyloniens und angrenzender Gebiete von der ausgehenden ’Ubaidzeit bis zum Beginn der Frühdynastisch II-Zeit 1, Studien zur Chronostratigraphie der südbabylonischen Stadtruinen von Uruk und Ur. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag. Tinney, Steve 1999 Ur-Namma the Canal-Digger: Context, Continuity and Change in Sumerian Literature. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 51: 31–54. UE III: Leon Legrain: Ur Excavations volume III: Archaic Seal Impressions. London and Philadelphia: The Trustees of the Two Museums (The British Museum and The University Museum), by the aid of a Grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York 1936. UET II: Eric Burrows: Ur Excavations, Texts II: Archaic Texts. London and Philadelphia: Trustees of the two Museums (The British Museum and The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia) 1935. Veldhuis, Niek 2006 How Did They Learn Cuneiform? Tribute/Word List C as an Elementary Exercise. Pp. 181–200 in Piotr Michalowski and Niek Veldhuis (eds.), Approaches to Sumerian Literature—Studies in the Honour of Stip (H. L. J. Vanstiphout). Boston: Brill. Visicato, Giuseppe 2000 The Power and the Writing: The Early Scribes of Mesopotamia. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press. 2008 Gestione e sfruttamento dei terreni agricoli nella Babilonia dal periodo tardo-uruk al periodo sargonico. Pp. 9–31 in Massimo Perna and Francesco Pomponio (eds.), The Management of Agricultural Land and the Production of Textiles in the Mycenaean and Near Eastern Economies. Paris: De Boccard. Westenholz, Aage 1987 Old Sumerian and Old Akkadian Texts in Philadelphia 2. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. ZATU: Hans-Jörg Nissen, Margaret Green, Peter Damerow, and Robert K. Englund: Zeichenliste der archaischen Texte aus Uruk. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1987. Zettler, Richard 1989 Pottery Profiles Reconstructed from Jar Sealings in the Lower Seal Impression Strata (SIS 8– 4) at Ur: New Evidence for Dating. Pp. 369–87 in A. Leonard Jr. and B. B. Williams (eds.), Essays in Ancient Civilizations Presented to Helene J. Kantor. SAOC 47. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 1993

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Ilum-išar et Apil-kīn: deux nouvelles inscriptions de Mari Laurent Colonna d’Istria and Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel Université

de

Liege

and

Université

de

Genève

Au cours des cinq dernières années, deux nouvelles inscriptions officielles provenant du site de Mari-Tell Hariri ont été découvertes, en fouilles ou dans les archives d’André Parrot, l’inventeur de Mari. Elles commémorent des travaux d’aménagement entrepris par les šakkanakkū: la première concerne Ilum-išar, et la seconde, un de ses prédécesseurs, Apil-kīn. 1 L’événement célébré n’est pas différent de ceux connus à ce jour pour ces deux šakkanakkū; mais la nature du support d’inscription ou le contexte de leurs découvertes invite à ouvrir une nouvelle fois ces deux dossiers. Cet article propose un état de recherches actuelles, fondamentalement disjointes, qui devront être approfondies par la suite.

Nouvelles inscriptions officielles d’Ilum-išar En 1936, François Thureau-Dangin 2 publiait, sans numéro d’inventaire, trois exemplaires de briques inscrites (planche 1) découvertes dans les décombres du Grand Palais Royal de Mari, lors des deuxième et troisième campagnes de fouilles (1935 et 1936). Les briques portent vraisemblablement la même inscription, qui a été conservée sur l’une d’entre elles dans son intégralité: 3 1.  Pour la séquence et la datation des šakkanakkū de Mari, plusieurs propositions ont été émises à partir de la documentation textuelle (inscriptions officielles, légendes de scellement et listes dynastiques : ARM 22 333 et T.343) et l’étude de la stylistique des statues et des scènes figurant sur les sceaux cylindres ; voir notamment J.-M. Durand, “La situation historique des Šakkanakku : nouvelle approche,” MARI 4 (1985) 147–172; A. Otto, “Archaeological Hints for a New Order of the Šakkanakku of Mari” in From Relative Chronology to Absolute Chronology: The Second Millenium bc in Syria–Palestine (Rome 29th November–1st December 2001) (ed. P. Matthiae; Rome 2007) 411–24. 2.  F. Thureau-Dangin, “Textes de Mari,” RA 33 (1936) 177–79; J.-M. Durand, “La situation historique des Šakkanakku  : nouvelle approche,” MARI 4 (1985) 151 (translittération et traduction)  ; D. Frayne, The Ur III period, RIME 3/2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1997) 443 (E3/2.4.3 édition, bibliographie); I. J. Gelb and B. Kienast, Die altakkadischen Königsinschriften des dritten Jahrtausends v.Chr., FAOS 7 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 1990) 360–61 (édition) ; E. Sollberger, J.-R. Kupper, Inscriptions royales sumériennes et akkadiennes, LAPO 3 (Paris: Du Cerf 1971) 167 (IRSA IIIE5a traduction); A. Parrot, “Les fouilles de Mari. Deuxième campagne (hiver 1934–35),” Syria 17 (1936) 1–31 (contexte archéologique). 3.  A. Parrot, “Les fouilles de Mari. Deuxième campagne (hiver 1934–35),” Syria 17 (1936) 24.

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L aurent C olonna d ’I stria exemplaire 1: 1. DIĜIR-i-šar 2. KIŠ.NITA2 3. ma-ri2ki 4. u3-šu-ri2-DA 5. dḫu-bu-ur 6. a-na KA2-me-erki

and

A nne -C aroline R endu L oisel

exemplaire 2: 1. DIĜIR-i-šar 2. KIŠ.NITA2 3. ma-ri2ki 4. u3-šu-ri2-id [. . .] [. . .]

exemplaire 3: [. . .] [. . .] 3. m[a-ri2ki] 4. u3-šu-ri2-⸢DA?⸣ 5. dḫu-bu-⸢ur⸣ 6. a-na KA2-⸢me⸣-[erki]

Ilum-Išar šakkanak Mari ušūrid ḫubur ana Bāb-Mēr Traduction: «Ilum-išar, šakkanakku de Mari, a fait descendre le Ḫubur jusqu’à Bāb-Mēr».

La présence du terme Bāb dans le toponyme Bāb-Mēr—toponyme désigné par la présence du déterminatif ki—n’indique pas nécessairement qu’il s’agisse d’une porte au sens propre du terme, mais peut tout à fait être la désignation d’une localité. N’étant pas documenté à l’époque paléo-babylonienne, Bāb-Mēr reste, malheureusement, un hapax, connu uniquement à travers ces inscriptions officielles d’Ilum-išar. 4 Nous souhaitions vérifier quelques informations sur le contexte archéologique de découverte de ces inscriptions. Les archéologues, J.-C. Margueron et P. Butterlin, ont ainsi mis à notre disposition les fiches de terrain correspondantes et datant des campagnes d’André Parrot. Parmi ces archives, deux fiches supplémentaires mentionnaient deux autres inscriptions non répertoriées, au nom d’«Ilum-išar, šakkanakku de Mari»: ces inscriptions, découvertes lors de la onzième campagne (1960), n’ont jamais été publiées, puisque les fouilles de 1960 n’ont pas fait l’objet d’un rapport préliminaire (habituellement publié dans la revue Syria). Seul un résumé des opérations entreprises durant cette campagne est présenté dans le rapport de la douzième campagne en 1961. 5 Ce sont ces inscriptions, toujours inédites et découvertes dans les archives de façon tout à fait fortuite, qui sont présentées ici-même : la première est une inscription sur jarre (M.3486) fragmentaire, et la seconde, un fragment de brique (M.3557). Les fiches de terrain sont malheureusement difficiles à déchiffrer. On peut lire que le fragment de jarre (M.3486) a été découvert le 22 mars 1960, au nord du massif rouge; le petit fragment de brique (M.3557) a été mis au jour le 3 mai 1960, dans un niveau de remblais à l’ouest du massif rouge et à l’est de la «ziggurat» (haute terrasse). De précieuses photographies accompagnaient ces fiches-objet, donnant alors accès aux textes qui y étaient inscrits. Le fragment de jarre (M.3486, planche 2) présente un texte de huit lignes préservé sur sa partie droite. Il s’agit d’une inscription sensiblement identique à celles publiées par Thureau-Dangin qui peut être restituée de la façon suivante: 1. [DIĜIR-i]-šar Ilum-išar 2. [da]-num2 dannum 3. [KIŠ.N]ITA2 šakkanak Mari 4. [ma-ri2]ki nār 5. [(d?)A].ENGUR 4. J.-M.  Durand, Documents épistolaires du palais de Mari, Tome II, LAPO 17 (Paris: Du Cerf 1998) 575. 5.  A. Parrot, “Les fouilles de Mari. Douzième campagne (automne 1961),” Syria 39 (1962) 152 n. 1.

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Exemplaire 2

Exemplaire 3

Planche 1.  Copies (LCI) effectuées d’après les photographies publiées dans F. ThureauDangin, RA 33 (1936) 178.

6. [ḫu-bu]-ur ḫubur ana bāb-Mēr 7. [a-na KA2-me]-erki 8. [u3-šu-ri2]-ID/DA ušūrid Traduction: «Ilum-Išar, le fort, šakkanakku de Mari, a fait descendre le canalḪubur jusqu’à Bāb-Mēr».

Le signe DA, présent sur au moins deux—probablement trois—des quatre inscriptions connues, reste pour le moment une énigme d’un point de vue grammatical. Un ventif ne peut être admis dans la mesure où, à cette époque, on attendrait une mimation. L’explication la plus probable reste la variante graphique DA pour ID. Dans cette nouvelle inscription, Ḫubur apparaît de façon très claire comme un cours d’eau: le déterminatif ID2 (A.ENGUR) est préposé au nom ḫu-bu-ur. L’état fragmentaire de l’inscription n’exclut pas la présence d’un déterminatif divin précédent ID2 (dID2). Sur les exemplaires 1 et 3 publiés en 1936 par F. Thureau-Dangin (planche 1), se trouve dḫu-bu-ur qui fut compris, dans un premier temps, comme la statue du dieu Ḫubur. 6 J.-M. Durand 7 a montré qu’il s’agissait en réalité de la 6.  F. Thureau-Dangin, “Textes de Mari,” RA 33 (1936) 179. 7. J.-M.  Durand, Documents épistolaires du palais de Mari, Tome II, LAPO 17 (Paris: Du Cerf 1998) 575: «Hubur ne peut être que l’équivalent de ce que les textes de Mari notent dHilib, donc le canal

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L aurent C olonna d ’I stria

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A nne -C aroline R endu L oisel

Planche 2.  Fragment de jarre inscrite M.3486 (n° photo : 7471, 7472). Photographie : Mission archéologique de Mari. Copie (LCI) effectuée d’après la photographie.

désignation du canal de rive droite, connu à l’époque amorrite sous le nom dIGI.KUR ou ḫubur. Les inscriptions d’Ilum-išar sont les plus anciens témoins écrits d’une organisation de chenaux autour de Mari. 8 D’après ses noms d’années, Yaḫdun-Līm, premier roi amorrite de Mari, dit avoir procédé à des travaux d’irrigation dont l’ouverture du canal Ḫubur. 9 Le canal à l’époque amorrite a pu tout à fait conserver un nom et un tracé ancien, remontant au moins à Ilum-išar; il est plus que probable que ce canal était déjà en fonction bien avant ce šakkanakku, étant donné l’importance du canal pour la survie de la ville: Mari se situe dans une zone subdésertique, et l’irrigation y est fondamentale pour l’agriculture. Ce canal de rive droite permet ainsi d’irriguer et de mettre en valeur les terres entre l’Euphrate et le plateau dans l’alvéole de Mari. 10 L’inscription portée sur le fragment de jarre (M.3486) présente d’autres variantes non négligeables par rapport aux inscriptions publiées par F. Thureau-Dangin. Pour l’exemplaire 1 qu’il publie, F. Thureau-Dangin remarquait l’ordre syntaxique Sujet-Verbe-Objet, rare pour l’akkadien; 11 l’auteur s’interrogeait sur une d’irrigation de rive droite. . . dHilib est une écriture idéogrammatique pour le nom du Fleuve Habur, surtout sous son apparence de fleuve des Enfers, ainsi que pour le nom d’un mois». D’une certaine façon, les travaux entrepris par le šakkanakku font ressurgir le grand fleuve dans la région de Mari. Dernièrement, J.-M. Durand distingue très nettement les deux éléments: «Il existe une opposition nette entre Ḫabur, nom du fleuve, et Ḫubur, réalité infernale, mais aussi canal d’alimentation dans l’alvéole de Mari» (cf. J.-M. Durand, Mythologie et religion des Sémites occidentaux, Volume I, Ebla, Mari (ed. G. Del Olmo Lete; OLA 162; Leuven: Peeters 2008) 698. 8.  J.-M. Durand, “La maîtrise de l’eau dans les régions centrales du Proche-Orient,” AHESS 57/3 (2002) 566. 9.  D. Charpin et N. Ziegler, Florilegium Marianum V, Mari et le Proche-Orient à l’époque amorrite, Mémoires de N.A.B.U. 6 (Paris: SEPOA 2003) 61: MU ia-aḫ-du-li-im ID2-DA ḫu-bu-ur ip-tu-u2 / u2-še-eptu-u2 « Année où Yaḫdun-Lim a ouvert/fait ouvrir le canal Ḫubur ». 10. J.-C. Margueron, Mari, Métropole de l’Euphrate, au IIIe et au début du IIe millénaire av. J.-C. (Paris: Picard/ERC, 2004) 68–72. 11.  GAG §130 a–d.

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possible influence du sémitique occidental. 12 Cependant, dans la «nouvelle» inscription sur jarre, et si la restitution est correcte, l’ordre syntaxique Sujet-ObjetVerbe (SOV) suit l’ordre classique en akkadien. 13 L’épithète dannum «fort, puissant» précède le titre de šakkanakku. Cette épithète royale, introduite par le roi akkadien Narām-Sîn, sera reprise par ses successeurs et les souverains de la fin du IIIème et début IIème millénaire. 14 Il s’agit de la seconde attestation de l’épithète à Mari, la première étant pour Apil-kīn. La « nouvelle » inscription a de toute évidence un caractère plus solennel, Planche 3.  Fragment de brique inscrite avec d’une part, la présence de l’épithète M.3557. Photographie: Mission archéologique dannum, et d’autre part, la syntaxe plus de Mari. akkadienne, tandis que les briques inscrites présenteraient une syntaxe plus locale, qu’il s’agisse ou non d’une phrase nominale. À ces différences s’ajoute la nature du support sur lequel figure l’inscription. La fiche de terrain l’identifie comme un fragment de jarre; mais la photographie ne permet pas d’avoir une meilleure appréciation de l’objet dans son ensemble. S’il s’agit d’une jarre, celle-ci pourrait avoir servi à stocker à des fins religieuses l’eau provenant du canal Ḫubur, ou lors d’une quelconque cérémonie en l’honneur de divinités associées au Ḫubur. 15 Enfin, sur le fragment de brique inscrite (M.3557, planche 3), seule la partie gauche du texte est préservée sur trois lignes: 1. ⸢DIĜIR-i⸣-[šar] 2. KIŠ-[NITA2] 3. ma-r[i2ki]   [. . .] Traduction: Ilum-išar šakkanakku de Mari [. . .]

Il s’agit du début de la titulature d’Ilum-išar. L’état de l’inscription ne permet cependant pas de savoir quel événement cette inscription devait célébrer. Rien n’exclu un nouveau duplicat des briques publiées par F. Thureau-Dangin. 12.  F. Thureau-Dangin, “Textes de Mari,” RA 33 (1936) 179. 13.  En raison de la place u3-šu-ri2-ID/DA dans les exemplaire de F. Thureau-Dangin, il faut peutêtre envisager que ce que nous analysons comme une forme verbale soit en fait un substantif à la forme construite, formé sur wrd et dont le thème soit proche de la forme verbale conjuguée. Ou bien, peuton voir, dans la présence du da, une marque du subjonctif, donnant la traduction «Ilum-išar, le fort, šakkanakku de Mari qui a fait descendre le canal-Hubur jusqu’à Bāb-Mēr»? 14. M.-J. Seux, Epithètes royales accadiennes et sumériennes (Paris, 1967) 68–69. 15. Une autre hypothèse pourrait également être envisagée: s’il s’agit bien d’une jarre, et étant donné le caractère solennel de l’inscription, la jarre pourrait avoir été employée en tant que support d’inscription à caractère solennel, tel qu’on en trouve à Lagaš: d’après les travaux de J. Cooper et J. Marzahn, le vase, sur un piquet fiché en terre et portant une inscription, servait à marquer une frontière. J. Cooper, “Medium and Message: Inscribed Clay Cones and Vessels from Presargonic Sumer,” RA 79 (1985) 97–114; J. Marzahn, “Entemena in Uruk,” BaM 28 (1997) 86–95.

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Planche 4a.  Tablette en bronze (TH08-01). Photographie: Mission Archéologique de Mari (PB).

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Planche 4bis.  Copie ACRL faite d’après original (TH08-01).

Apil-kīn et le saḫūru de Mari Au cours de la campagne de fouilles 2008, une plaque en bronze inscrite (TH08– 01, planche 4) a été mise au jour dans le secteur Temple Sud-Est, par Barbara Couturaud et Pascal Butterlin dans le cadre des nouvelles recherches au massif rouge entreprises par la Mission Archéologique de Mari depuis 2006. Cette tablette a été retrouvée dans le mur de briques érodées du temenos, mur liaisonné à l’angle SudEst du massif rouge. Il s’agit d’une tablette en bronze, inscrite, constituant un dépôt de fondation au nom d’Apil-kīn, le premier des šakkanakkū «royaux» après les šakkanakkū dits «restaurateurs» de Mari, contemporain d’Ur-Nammu, vers 2100 av. J.-C. 16 La tablette mesure 12,5 × 12,1 × 1cm. 1. a-pil3-GI 2. da-num2 3. KIŠ.NITA2 4. ma-ri2ki 5. DIM2 6. sa-ḫu-ri2 Traduction: «Apil-kīn, le puissant, šakkanakku de Mari, le constructeur des? saḫūru» 16.  Pour cette terminologie, voir P. Butterlin, “Mari, les shakkanakkû et la « crise » de la fin du IIIe millénaire,” in Une crise a-t-elle eu lieu en Haute Mésopotamie? Actes du colloque de Lyon 5–8 décembre 2005, (eds. C.  Kuzucuoglu et C.  Marro, Varia Anatolica XIX, Institut français d’études anatoliennes Georges Dumézil; Paris: De Boccard, 2007) 227–45.

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Deux autres tablettes de dimensions similaires présentent la même inscription sur six lignes, mais avec une marge ; elles ont été mises au jour par A. Parrot dans les angles Nord et Sud de l’entrée d’un bâtiment qui reçut par conséquent le nom de «Saḫūru». Dans cette inscription de fondation, le formulaire employé par Apil-kīn ne suit pas celui de ses prédécesseurs à Mari. 17 La syntaxe et le lexique employés sont conformes à ceux des rois de l’empire d’Akkad. En effet, on trouve dans les inscriptions de fondation de Narām-Sîn, la formule type : Nom du roi, baDIM2 (=constructeur), suivi du nom du bâtiment. 18 L’indicateur phonétique ba présent dans les inscriptions des rois d’Akkad est absente des trois inscriptions d’Apil-kīn. Tout comme Narām-Sîn, 19 sa titulature présente l’épithète royale dannum «  le fort  », une épithète que l’on retrouve plus tard chez un de ces successeurs, Ilum-išar, tous deux šakkanakkū dits «royaux». Conformément à sa titulature, le šakkanakku de Mari se présente comme le digne successeur des grands rois conquérants d’Akkad. L’inscription emploie dans les trois exemples conservés, un pluriel dans l’état construit des deux dernières lignes; en effet, la mimation (caractéristique de la marque du singulier pour cette même période) est absente: on lit sa-ḫu-ri2, alors que sa-ḫu-ri2-im—ou autre graphie notant la mimation—serait attendu en toute logique. Il convient donc de traduire la fin de l’inscription, non pas par «le constructeur du Saḫūru», mais bien par le «constructeur des saḫūrū». Depuis la première étude par Georges Dossin en 1940, et jusqu’à nos jours, le terme saḫūru était appliqué à Mari un ensemble architectural de petites dimensions (17m × 12m), constituant une sorte de vestibule. 20 L’entrée, assez imposante, donnait accès depuis l’Ouest à l’esplanade du temple aux lions, édifice cultuel en l’honneur de la divinité LUGAL-mātim «le seigneur du pays» et construit par Išṭupilum, un des prédécesseurs d’Apil-kīn. La localisation de la tablette, mise au jour lors de la campagne de 2008, ainsi que la notion de pluriel, invite à se pencher une nouvelle fois sur la notion de saḫūru à Mari. Placés dans des endroits stratégiques comme les entrées et les angles, les dépôts de fondations permettent de délimiter (rituellement) un espace. Retrouvée dans le mur du temenos liaisonné au massif rouge, la tablette de 2008, invite à élargir l’espace du domaine portant jusque là l’appellation «Saḫūru». On notera également que, lors de la même mission, à une même côte d’altitude, un clou de fondation anépigraphe a été retrouvé fiché dans sa plaque en métal dans le massif rouge. Ce clou marque la limite entre deux états du Massif, matérialisés

17.  Inscription de Niwār-Mēr E.2.3.4.1: ni-wa-ar-me-er KIŠ.NITA2 ma-ri2ki E2 dNin-ḫur-saĝ ib-ni; Inscription d’Išṭup-ilum (version A) E.2.3.5.2  : iš-ma2-dda-gan KIŠ.NITA2 ma-ri2ki iš-ṭup-DIĜIR KIŠ. NITA2 ma-ri2ki E2 dLUGAL-ma-tim ib-ni; Inscription d’Išṭup-ilum (version B) E.2.3.5.3: iš-ṭup-DIĜIR KIŠ.NITA2 ma-ri2ki DUMU iš-ma2-dda-gan KIŠ.NITA2 ma-ri2ki E2 dLUGAL-ma-tim ib-ni. 18.  Inscription Man-ištūšu E.2.1.3.6 : l-7: Man-ištūšu LUGAL KIŠ baDIM2 E2 dNin-ḫur-saĝ «Maništūšu, roi de Kiš, le constructeur du temple de Ninḫursag»; inscriptions de Narām-Sîn E.2.1.4.15 : l.1– 3: Narām-Sîn baDIM2 E2 den-lil2; E.2.1.4.16  : l.1–3: Narām-Sîn baDIM2 E2 dINANA; E.2.1.4.17  : l.1–3  : Narām-Sîn baDIM2 E2 dEN.ZU. 19. Inscription Šar-kali-šarrī E.2.1.5.2: l.1–9: Šar-kali-šarrī / DUMU da-di3 den-lil2 / da-num2 / LUGAL / a-ka3-de3ki / u3 / bu3-u2-la-ti / den-lil2 baDIM2. 20.  Voir description du Sahūru dans J. -C. Margueron, Mari, Métropole de l’Euphrate, au IIIe et au début du IIe millénaire av.J.-C. (Paris: Picard/ERC 2004) 386–92, figs. 369 et 371.

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par des briques roses (état 3) sur lesquelles reposent des briques grises (état 4). 21 Les briques grises correspondent aux travaux de réfection des šakkanakkū. Etant donné la proximité entre le clou et la plaque inscrite, il est tout à fait envisageable que ces travaux soient également l’œuvre du šakkanakku Apil-kīn. Restaurant le massif rouge dont il fait une haute terrasse, Apil-kīn doit composer avec les bâtiments existants dans un milieu urbain dense, en particulier avec le massif rouge déjà présent depuis la Ville II. Le secteur avait été précédemment remanié depuis l’incendie de la Ville II: Niwar-Mêr a rebâti le temple de Ninḫursag au Sud, tandis qu’Išṭup-Ilum a fait bâtir la haute terrasse et le temple aux lions. Apil-kīn réorganise et ferme architecturalement l’esplanade entre la Via Sacra et le temple aux lions, en construisant le temenos (cf. plan planche 5). Il sépare cet espace également des bâtiments plus au Sud, par un autre édifice (avec les deux autres dépôts de fondation trouvés par André Parrot) et le dote d’une entrée monumentale depuis l’Ouest. Il rehausse le niveau d’occupation et fait disparaître les temples anonymes, en en faisant une cour avec des pièces. Dès lors, la façade Sud du massif rouge, le temple aux lions et la haute terrasse ne sont accessibles que par ce vaste espace architecturalement délimité et fermé. L’idée de complexe avait déjà été proposée par Jean-Claude Margueron: selon l’archéologue et avant la découverte de la tablette de 2008, le «sahūru» offrait un accès monumental au complexe constitué uniquement du temple aux lions et de la haute terrasse. 22 La nouvelle inscription témoigne d’un état de la ville au cours duquel la haute terrasse et le massif rouge ont fonctionné ensemble. Avec Apil-kīn, on assiste à la fin d’une reconversion et d’une réorganisation de l’espace religieux du centre monumental de Mari. Dans un nouveau complexe cultuel, le šakkanakku inclut les vestiges architecturaux, mémoires des monuments anciens de la ville (massif rouge) et les conjugue avec les nouveautés architecturales (haute terrasse/temple aux lions). La nouvelle inscription de 2008 vient élargir le domaine en y intégrant l’espace à l’Est, jusqu’au temenos et au massif rouge. Le pluriel—les Saḫūrū—pourrait donc désigner ce nouveau complexe cultuel composite et multiple regroupant les bâtiments de cultes importants (récents et anciens) de la ville de Mari. Ce complexe du secteur des temples ne sera plus remanié jusqu’à la destruction de la ville par Hammurabi de Babylone, ou ne subira que des modifications mineures, dues à une utilisation régulière. L’unique changement apporté sera constitué par les travaux de réédification du temple de Šamaš, opérés par Yaḫdun-Līm. Nos inscriptions de Mari constituent l’attestation la plus ancienne du terme saḫūru; mais la question de l’étymologie de ce terme reste ouverte pour le moment. On se retrouve face à deux hypothèses qui sont mutuellement exclusives. L’«étymologie sumérienne» n’est absolument pas exclue: proposée par G. Dossin (suivi plus tard par CAD et AHw), elle fait de nos Saḫūrū un terme à rapprocher du sumérien SUḪUR (mais rien ne dit que le terme soit d’origine sumérienne et nous 21.  Pour les différents états du massif rouge, P. Butterlin, “D’Uruk à Mari. Recherches récentes sur la première révolution urbaine en Mésopotamie,” Histoire Urbaine 29 (2010) 152–59; P. Butterlin, “Le massif rouge de Mari, résultats des recherches conduites en 2007–2008 sur le centre monumental de Mari,” Studia Orontica (soumis pour publication); P. Butterlin, “Pierres dressées, bétyles, urbanisme et espace religieux à Mari: nouvelles recherches au ‘massif rouge’,” in Pierres levées, stèles anthropomorphes et dolmens (ed. T. Steimer-Herbet; BAR International Series 2317, 2011) 89–102; P.  Butterlin, “Cinq campagnes à Mari: Nouvelles perspectives sur l’histoire de la métropole du Moyen-Euphrate,” in Compte rendus de l’académie des inscriptions et belles lettres 2010–1 (2011) 171–210. 22. J.-C. Margueron, Mari, Métropole de l’Euphrate, au IIIe et au début du IIe millénaire av.J.-C. (Paris Picard/ERC 2004) 387–92

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Planche 5.  Plan schématique de la réorganisation du secteur des temples.

ne sommes pas en mesure de reconnaître dans quel sens s’est effectué l’emprunt): le terme SUḪUR a un sens architectural et désigne une structure légère sur les (toits des?) palais et une cabine de roseau sur les bateaux (e2-suḫur-ra 23): d’après les passages littéraires cités par M. Civil, 24 SUḪUR n’est pas un élément adventice ajouté aléatoirement, et fait pleinement partie du bâtiment. Après l’époque paléobabylonienne, 25 on notera que le terme suḫur est absent de la terminologie architecturale du sud ou en Babylonie, mis à part l’attestation aux époques tardives sur la tablette de l’Esagil comme la structure (légère?) sommitale de la ziggurrat de Babylone. 26 On pense alors au ‘plan de la ziggurrat’ de Nippur, publié par J. Oelsner et étudié dernièrement par W.  Sallaberger. 27 Au sommet de la terrasse à degrés 23.  Nabnītu X, l.228ff; Igituḫ I, l.369; Lanu I i, l.22. Voir notamment l’article de M.  Civil, “Note Lexicographique sur SUḪUR/KA,” RA 61 (1967) 63–68. 24.  RA 61 (1967) 64. 25. Dans les listes d’époque paléo-babylonienne (proto-Ea et proto-Aa), SUḪUR est écrit su2ḫur, ou su2-ḫu-ur, su2 (signe z u) et non avec s u1. Cf. Proto-Ea, l.809: s u2-⸢ḫ u - u r⸣ SUḪUR et ProtoAa, l.809.1–4  : su2-⸢ḫ u - u r⸣ SUḪUR = qi3-im-ma-tum; [s u ḫ u r] = ke-e-ze2-rum; [s u ḫ u r] = e-qe3-qum; [⟨e2 ⟩-suḫur] = ša-ḫu-ru-um (MSL XIV, p. 102, l.809.4). On remarquera l’absence du mot le plus attendu pour suḫur (purādu); qimmatum désigne le «sommet» et secondairement une chevelure (élevée), kēzeru est aussi en rapport avec une coiffure. Cette liste fournit un parallèle assez convainquant pour une structure sommitale légère. On notera aussi que le su2 n’est pas conforme au š de šaḫūru; il semble que les babyloniens les associaient cependant, comme le prouvent les lexiques cités. 26.  A. R. George, Babylonian Topographical Texts, OLA 40 (Leuven: Peeters, 1992) 433. 27.  W. Sallaberger, “Der ‘Ziqqurrat-Plan’ von Nippur und exorzistiche Riten in neusumerischer Zeit. Einige Anmerkungen,” in Ex Mesopotamia et Syria Lux, Festchrift für Manfried Dietrich zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. O. Loretz, K. A. Metzler, H. Schaudig; AOAT 281; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2002) 609–18.

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représentée, l’auteur hésite: les dessins représentés pourraient être interprétés comme une succession de pièces sur la terrasse du sommet mais aussi une installation cultuelle avec tables d’offrandes et autres éléments du rituel 28. Les structures apparemment légères (le dessin suggère des cloisons sans épaisseur) pourraient être des saḫūrū (ce qui aurait accessoirement l’avantage d’expliquer le pluriel); on aurait alors un lien avec la ziggurrat: ces saḫūrū auraient donné le nom à la dernière terrasse de l’Etemenanki dans la tablette de l’Esagil. Mais il reste surprenant qu’une inscription royale célèbre la construction de structures légères 29. Dans le cas de Mari, les structures (pluriel) auraient de toute façon donné le nom à l’ensemble du complexe fermé par Apil-kīn. S’il s’agit du même mot que le sumérien SUḪUR (ce que prouvent les listes lexicales), le terme à l’origine ne désigne pas une réalité architecturale religieuse (cabine de bateau), mais s’est spécialisé secondairement. L’attestation de Mari est contemporaine des attestations du terme SUḪUR à Ur III et du plan de Nippur que nous venons de mentionner. Il pourrait enfin s’agir d’un emprunt d’un terme d’origine occidentale ouest-sémitique dont la racine reste à déterminer 30. Le terme saḫūru désigne une réalité «architecturale» dans la sphère religieuse, commune au Nord de la Mésopotamie et que l’on retrouverait à Assur. Le terme de Mari, demeurant la plus ancienne attestation, trouve une continuité dans les formes ša/uḫūru attestées dans les inscriptions royales assyriennes, où il désigne un bâtiment de l’espace sacré, le bīt šaḫūri. 28.  W. Sallaberger 2002: 611–12. 29.  Le pluriel pourrait aussi être une désignation métonymique non architecturale, à l’instar des Invalides à Paris: l’hôtel national des Invalides est un monument du 17e s. ap. J.-C. construit au départ pour abriter les invalides des armées du roi Louis XIV. 30.  Il est tout à fait exclu que le terme soit issu de la même racine sémitique que le verbe akkadien saḫāru «faire le tour»; en hébreu, cette racine se retrouve avec un sameḥ montrant qu’il ne s’agit pas du s ancien. À Mari, elle devrait être écrite avec le signe za/sà, et non avec sa1. ‫« סחר‬parcourir», cf. P. Reymond, Dictionnaire d’hébreu et d’araméen bibliques, Société Biblique Française (Paris: Du Cerf, 1991) 262.

Bibliographie Butterlin, P. 2007 Mari, les shakkanakkû et la « crise » de la fin du IIIe millénaire. Pp. 227–45 in Une crise a-t-elle eu lieu en Haute Mésopotamie ?, Actes du colloque de Lyon 5–8 décembre 2005, ed. C. Kuzucuoglu, C. Marro, Varia Anatolica XIX, Institut français d’études anatoliennes Georges Dumézil. Paris: De Boccard. 2010 “D’Uruk à Mari. Recherches récentes sur la première révolution urbaine en Mésopotamie,” Histoire Urbaine 29: 152–59. 2011a Pierres dressées, urbanisme et espace religieux à Mari : Nouvelles recherches au ‘massif rouge’. Pp. 89–102 in Pierres levées, stèles anthropomorphes et dolmens, ed. T. SteimerHerbet. BAR International Series 2317. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée — Jean Pouillox / Oxford: Archaeopress. 2011b Cinq campagnes à Mari: Nouvelles perspectives sur l’histoire de la métropole du MoyenEuphrate.” Compte rendus de l’académie des inscriptions et belles lettres 2010–1 (2011) 171–210. (soumis pour publication)  Le massif rouge de Mari, résultats des recherches conduites en 2007– 2008 sur le centre monumental de Mari, Studia Orontica.  Charpin, D., Ziegler, N. 2003 Florilegium marianum V, Mari et le Proche-Orient à l’époque amorrite. Mémoires de N.A.B.U. 6. Paris: SEPOA.

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Civil, M. 1967 Note Lexicographique sur SUḪUR/KA. RA 61: 63–68. Cooper, J. 1985 Medium and Message: Inscribed Clay Cones and Vessels from Presargonic Sumer. RA 79: 97–114. Dossin, G. 1940 Inscriptions de fondations provenant de Mari. Syria 21: 152–69. Durand, J.-M.  1985 La situation historique des Šakkanakku : nouvelle approche. MARI 4: 147–72. 1998 Documents épistolaires du palais de Mari, Tome II, LAPO 17. Paris: Du Cerf. 2002 La maîtrise de l’eau dans les régions centrales du Proche-Orient, AHESS 57/3: 561–76. 2008 Mythologie et religion des Sémites occidentaux, Volume I, Ebla, Mari, ed. G. del Olmo Lete. OLA 162. Leuven: Peeters. Frayne, D.  1993 Sargonic and Gutian Periods (2334–2113 bc). RIME 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1997 The Ur III Period. RIME 3/2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Gelb, I. J. 1981 Ebla and the Kish Civilisation. Pp. 10–73, in La Lingua di Ebla, ed. L.Cagni. Naples. Gelb, I. J., Kienast, B. 1990 Die altakkadischen Königsinschriften des dritten Jahrtausends v.Chr.. FAOS 7. Stutt­ gart: Franz Steiner. George, A. R. 1992 Babylonian Topographical Texts. OLA 40. Leuven: Peeters. Margueron, J.-C. 2004 Mari, Métropole de l’Euphrate, au IIIe et au début du IIe millénaire av.J.-C. Paris: Picard/ERC. Marzahn, J. 1997 “Entemena in Uruk.” BaM 28: 86–95. Otto, A. 2007 Archaeological Hints for a New Order of the Šakkanakku of Mari. Pp.  411–424, in From Relative Chronology to Absolute Chronology: the Second Millenium BC in SyriaPalestine (Rome 29th November-1st December 2001), ed. P. Matthiae, Rome. Parrot, A. 1936 Les fouilles de Mari. Deuxième campagne (hiver 1934–35). Syria 17: 1–31. 1937 Les fouilles de Mari. Troisième campagne (hiver 1935–36). Syria 18: 54–84. 1940 Les fouilles de Mari. Sixième campagne (automne 1938). Syria 21: 1–22. 1962 Les fouilles de Mari. Douzième campagne (automne 1961). Syria 39: 151–79. Reymond, P. 1991 Dictionnaire d’hébreu et d’araméen bibliques. Société Biblique Française. Paris: Du Cerf. Sallaberger, W. 2002 Der ‘Ziqqurrat-Plan’ von Nippur und exorzistiche Riten in neusumerischer Zeit. Einige Anmerkungen. Pp. 609–18 in Ex Mesopotamia et Syria Lux: Festchrift für Manfried Dietrich zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. O. Loretz, K. A. Metzler, H. Schaudig. AOAT 281. Münster : Ugarit-Verlag. Seux, M.-J. 1967 Epithètes royales accadiennes et sumériennes. Paris: Du Cerf. Sollberger, E., Kupper, J.-R. 1971 Inscriptions royales sumériennes et akkadiennes. LAPO 3. Paris: Du Cerf. Thureau-Dangin, F. 1936 Textes de Mari. RA 33: 169–79. 1937 Inscriptions votives de Mari. RA 34: 172–76.

A Few Thoughts about Late Chalcolithic Architecture and the Uruk Expansion in the Middle Euphrates Area Jesús Gil Fuensanta and Juan Manuel Gonzalez Salazar Seminario

de

E s t u d i o s O r i e n tal e s , UAM M a d r i d

To the memory of André Finet, great scholar and excellent person, and to Ufuk Hoca

Introduction. The Late Chalcolithic and the Ubaid Culture The Late Chalcolithic (LC) in the Northern Mesopotamian regions is the period when early states and the first cities began in southern Mesopotamia (there referred to as the Uruk period). It is thought that sometime in the mid-fourth millennium b.c.e., the Uruk cultural expansion took place throughout many regions of the Near East. The following cultural phase, the Early Bronze I period, is equally important for understanding regional patterns. Apparently, the Uruk regional communication and exchange network collapsed at the end of the fourth millennium b.c.e. (cf. Algaze 2004). However, other scholars have argued that the system did not collapse as a whole in the early third millennium b.c.e. (cf. Fuensanta 1995a; Stein et  al. 1996; Rothman 2001); instead, certain areas, such as the area of Syria in which Habuba Kabira and Jebel Aruda were located, were then abandoned. Sites in the Iraqi Jazira and the ultramontane zone of Turkey, such as Samsat, as well as Arslantepe, continued to be occupied (cf. Lupton 1996). Architecture is an important tool for researchers dealing with these cultural periods. Several building types and general patterns have been related to the Uruk Expansion. But many Uruk characteristics seem to be already present during the former Ubaid cultural expansion. This older culture yielded just a few excavated sites in the Northern Euphrates region. The area of architectural deposits exposed for this period is limited. In the Syrian Euphrates, noteworthy examples are Tell Zeidan in the Balikh tributary and Tell Abr and Tell Mashnaqa in the Habur tributary. In the Turkish Euphrates, we note the exposed architecture from this period at Degirmentepe and Tilbes/Korche, both now submerged in reservoirs behind dams. Degirmentepe is presumed to have been a trade outpost for metals in the region of the Northern Euphrates. We can distinguish a few manor houses in a block layout, the so-called agglutinant. Tripartite houses were built and accessed through the roofs. They displayed a division of rooms according to the contents of each building; in this way, the use of certain buildings could be determined: they were administrative, used as workshops, for ritual, or for living (cf. Esin 1997). 657

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Fig. 1.  Birecik Map with the sites of the Tilbes höyük, mound (circle) and the off-mound site of Tilbes/ Körche (arrow).

The site of Tilbes/Korche lies one kilometer east of and close to the still-flooded site of the mound of Tilbes Hoyuk, on the former hillslopes (fig. 1). It reflects a Terminal Ubaid settlement—thus, LC 1–2 in terms of the local chronology (early fourth millennium b.c.). The architectural layout reveals close blocks of buildings (agglutinant). The division of rooms is based on the contents 1 but no trace of significant metallurgical activity in the excavated 1500 m2 but instead it appears that processing of bitumen and flint was well established: pyrotechnical features were discovered in the southeastern part of the site (cf. fig. 2). Human remains are elusive. Tripartite, bipartite plans, and administrative artifacts of local character were discovered at the site. The well-known sites of Habuba Kabira South–Tell Kannas and Jebel Aruda were occupied and rebuilt in various phases. Habuba Kabira South had at least 3 phases of main building activity dating to the LC 4–5. The architecture is both military and domestic. Many different activities took place in these buildings. But the buildings’ layout has a local cultural 1. Jesús Gil Fuensanta, Eduardo Crivelli, and Petr Charvat (eds.), Tilbes-Körche and Surtepe: The Ubaid levels, Memorias Finales del Proyecto Tilbes 1 (BAEO-Nuevas Series Anexas 3, UAM/AECIDMinisterio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid, forthcoming).

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Fig. 2.  Tilbes/Körche, topographic plan.

flavor—meaning “North Mesopotamian,” not southern—as proved by the block system, the so-called agglutinant layout. The city wall speaks for the existence of war or hostilities in the early period of the rise of cities; 2 a second outer, tiny wall seems to be a later addition during the last occupation of the LC here. 3 Tell Kannas, also a key site for the period, is important for the articulation of the interpretation of the 3 main Late Uruk sites in the Jazira–Tabqa area of the Syrian Euphrates. This settlement also was built in various periods and occupied mostly during the same time as Habuba. The buildings’ contents support the theory that there were few social changes in Late Uruk society in the region: over time, it appears that the people of the twin settlement Habuba–Kannas (and the temple elite) became wealthier and increased the building area. Kannas, on the other hand, seems to have experienced a later abandonment and burning of some of the buildings (cf. Finet 2002). 2. Other evidence comes from southern Mesopotamia and Iran, including iconographical documents (such as seals and impressions) and the burning of certain buildings, a characteristic mainly of Northern Mesopotamia. 3.  The towers are present even in buildings of later millennia in other lands; a good example can be seen the Hattusas reconstruction. The Habuba doors also have broad parallels during several other periods in the ancient Near East.

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At Jebel Aruda, the appearance of early writing (see Van Driel 1982) implies a slightly later dating than the other sites. Again, Jebel Aruda has a layout with various sectors (houses, temples) in an agglutinant arrangement. In the south were the manor houses; we recall especially the T-form houses, 4 formerly interpreted as a prototype of an e-gal, the house of a proto-king or perhaps a high temple officer (Fuensanta 1995b). The houses from Area DD area are of greater antiquity even than the Red Temple on the platform. The northern houses mostly resemble the Habuba examples; several activities took place in the north (industrial or housing), and later these structures were burned. The temples were not burned and had no significant contents in them or in the vicinity. The abandonment of this site is slightly later than Habuba. One alternative explanation for Aruda is that it was a contemporary settlement with Habuba-Kannas, perhaps being Aruda the “regional temple” site, 5 and if this explanation is true, when Habuba–Kannas was abandoned, it supposes a further growth of population at Jebel Aruda, the latter becoming the latest Uruk settlement in the area.

The Middle Uruk in the Syrian and Turkish Middle Euphrates In the are of the Syrian Euphrates, there are sites dated to the Middle Uruk period (LC3 in the local chronology; see Rothman 2001) but, again, they were submerged behind dam reservoirs. Tell Sheikh Hassan in the Birecik area was occupied at least during the Late-Terminal Ubaid, Middle-Late Uruk period (local LC3–5), EB 1, and certain historical periods. The huge Surtepe mound and adjacent area (fig.  3), considered on the basis of excavations, survey, sediment, and geological studies, might have occupied as much as 10 hectares at the end of the fourth millenium b.c.e., if we count the continuous surface pottery fragment scatters. The site lies across the Euphrates and supposedly sits along a stretch where, as the river meandered, a cul-de-sac ideal for boats to dock had formed—as geologists believe happened also was the case at Tilbes Höyük in prehistoric times. The most recent excavation campaigns have been very successful at determining the local relationship with the Ubaid and Uruk cultural expansions in the Birecik–Carchemish area. After work in squares E40–41, with 250 m² of area excavated to date and reaching an average depth of 3.00 m, it seems that the Middle and Late Uruk materials gradually replaced the Late Chalcolithic 1–2 local culture at the site. The Terminal Ubaid-like pottery of Surtepe does not differ so much from the Late Chalcolithic Ubaid-like settlement excavated at Korche in 2000–2001, as noted earlier. And Surtepe reflects a local LC 1–2 phase. After the 2005 campaign, we proved the extension of the Ubaid-like levels (Terminal and Late Ubaid) at Surtepe for an area of at least 5 hectares (on the south and southwestern slopes). We are not yet sure if it was bigger at that time. 6 After the early soundings (trenches C1 and C2) and the recent discovery of a painted pot fragment, we are now sure that at least Surtepe was occupied during the Terminal Halaf phase.

2010.

4.  A building type with later examples found even in second millennium Anatolia. 5.  See Finet 2002 for a similar theory. Also, personal communication by Guy Bunnens, RAI, July

6.  One sherd in the northern area was found in 2000; if true, it means that more than 8 hectares were occupied during the Ubaid.

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Fig. 3.  Surtepe Höyük, topographic plan.

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Artifacts of the Uruk culture at Surtepe show strong evidence that a conflagration marked the end of the LC 5 phase at the site. At least the southern platform seems to have been rebuilt after this phase (Squares E20–25), and a reorganization of the architecture in the southern portion of the site was proved by the 2008 campaign. In one inner corner of squares E40/E41, we found at least two cylinder sealings on bullae fragments, dated on the Late Chalcolithic 5 phase. For the same period at Surtepe we must also note a possible archaic accounting tablet. A later phase at Surtepe, early EB I, exhibited a continuity of settlement. From that period come jar fragments with cylinder-seal impressions that depict the Sumerian priest-king, the EN, plus a boat. The style resembles examplars found at Hassek Hoyuk. 7 Metallurgy apparently was of a remarkable quality and had a wide presence in the Birecik–Karkemish area (cf. Özbal and Turan 2002). A striking ritual context appears also in one of the buildings (figs. 4 and 5). It was burned at the end of local LC5. The pottery and other contents reveal a ritual function. Ovicaprid bones and a smashed bowl turned inward reflect a link with the Hassek Hoyuk tripartite building where pigs were sacrified and beveled-srim bowls turned inward appeared in LC5 levels. The sherd-type is Uruk but the animals from Surtepe imply a local connection with diet (see Stein 1999). In any case, pig bones are very common in this excavation area during Mid-Late Uruk times. The southern Mesopotamian ceramic types present at Surtepe might represent Uruk immigrant populations’ cultural material or perhaps just the adoption of some imported styles in the context of local Late Chalcolithic artifacts. There is a clear LC/EB I transitional phase well attested at Surtepe. It is present in Birecik at several sites (Tilbes Höyük, Zeytinli Bahce Höyük). A monumental local architectural feature is the platforms; and they are widely spread throughout Northern Mesopotamia. On the other hand, EB I evidences a huge population and an increase in the number of sites in the Birecik–Carchemish area. Hassek and Arslantepe are placed far north of Birecik in the Turkish Euphrates. These sites were occupied during the Late Uruk period (and Arslantepe since the fifth millenium). Hassek Hoyuk seems to have had a built area on only circa 60% of the inner area of the site marked by the circular city-wall. The buildings consist mostly of monumental and single-room structures. The cell plan characteristic of the area since the PPN period (i.e., Çayönü) is also present. The site layout and city-wall has some resemblance to Godin Tepe V in western Iran, another presumed Uruk outpost of the period. Arslantepe in the Malatya province (Turkey) yields a palace-temple complex with multiple functions, again in agglutinant layout. As in the Birecik area, both sites also had cultural continuity after the Uruk presence.

Conclusions The Ubaid expansion spread strongly into the Northern and Upper Euphrates. Settlement and architecture layouts, regarded as typical of the Uruk expansion, were already present at that time. Even during the late fifth and early fourth millennia b.c., building activities show a high degree of complexity in both northern 7.  Following Petr Charvát, in a style that recalls Hassek Höyük examples. This idea is shared by Christoph Gerber (personal communication, Ankara, June 1, 2008).

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Fig. 4.  Partial basement of Late Chalcolithic 5 building. Squares E-43–E45, Surtepe Höyük.

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Fig. 5.  Bowl smashed in basement of a Late Chalcolithic 5 building. Squares E-43–E45, Surtepe Höyük.

and southern Mesopotamia. The main difference is the piling up of block buildings, agglutinant, a feature uniquely of the north and with a long architectural continuity in the area since the Neolithic. The Middle Uruk (LC3) seems to be “the real and main expansion” period in the Euphrates. Both (Ubaid and Uruk) expansions existed for a long time, and the interest local northern and southern populations showed in certain products or commodities that could be traded meant that cultural items could quickly be transferred from one area to the other. Between the Late Uruk and the EB, there is strong continuity. But was this only a local phenomenon in this area? For a long time, these features have appeared to have been a result of migration from other areas. 8 An additional comment: after our current research in the Birecik area, it seems that the truly big crisis took place late in EB I, during the transition from EB I to EB II, but this is another topic. In terms of architecture itself, during the fourth millennium in the Syrian and Turkish Euphrates, there was a very conservative approach to building plans and layouts that. As noted, the presence of empty, non-built areas between buildings reveals that the conception of land differed between northern and soutern Mesopotamian settlements. This may imply that there were different social or clan relationships and reflects different social organization. Or, perhaps it is just evidence that settlements were controlled by the temples and others in the secular/private management sphere. A curious fact is that, during the PPNA, monumental and separate buildings appeared in the Middle Euphrates region, but only after the PPNB until the mid-Uruk period, piled blocks of buildings began to appear in this region, the agglutinant. Maybe this is a reflection of different social conceptions held by the northern societies. New, distinct buildings like the Aruda and Kannas temples appear again in the southern Late Uruk/Northern LC 4–5. 8.  A member of our team, Alev Earaslan, suggests that there was an indigenous southeast Anatolian exchange network; see “Emergence of Local Trajectories In Southeastern Anatolia at the Fourth and the Early Third Millennium b.c.,” Akkadica 130 (2009) 189–210.

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At times, the Uruk-South Mesopotamian culture of the Middle Euphrates controlled the local Anatolian network and the “host” communities. The Late Uruk should be seen more as the climax than the start of south Mesopotamian history in the Syrian and Turkish Euphrates for the fourth millennium. It was not a swan’s song but a period when the interaction between the local culture and the southeners proved to be extensive.

Bibliography Algaze, Guillermo 2004 El sistema-mundo de Uruk. Barcelona: Bellaterra. Boese, Johannes 1996 Ausgrabungen in Tell Sheikh Hassan 1: Vorläufige Berichte über die Grabungskampagnen 1984–1990 und 1992–1994. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Esin, Ufuk 1998 “Die Tempel von Degirmentepe während der Chalkolitischen Obedperiode.” Pp. 659–76 in D.v.T.Y.K. Atatürk Kültur (ed.), XXXIV Uluslarasi Assirioloji Kongresi: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari XXVI, Dizi, 3.Sa. Ankara. Finet, André 2002 “Les avatars de Tell Kannas.” P. 83 in Olivier Rouault and Markus Wafler, eds., La Djèzire et l`Euphrate syriens: de la protohistoire a la fin du IIe millenaire av.C. Subartu VII. Turnhout. Fuensanta, Jesús Gil 1995a “Uruk en el norte: ¿Una expansion cultural “colonial” del sur de mesopotamia, o una cultura regional en el Oriente Proximo durante el IV milenio a.C.?” Boletín Asociación Orientalistas 31: 147–69. Madrid, Universidad Autonóma/AECI, Madrid. 1995b “Un E-GAL à Djebel Aruda?” Orient Express 14 (1995): 5–7. Lupton, Alan 1996 Stability and Change: Socio-Political Development in North Mesopotamia and SouthEast Anatolia, 4000–200 b.c. BAR Int. Series 627. Oxford. Stein, Jeremy Gil et al. 1996 “Uruk Colonies and Anatolian Communities: An Interim Report on the 1992–1993 Excavations at Hacinebi, Turkey.” AJA 100: 205–60. Stein, Gil 1999 Rethinking World Systems: Diasporas, Colonies, and Interaction in Uruk Mesopotamia. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Özbal, Hadi, and Turan, Ümit 2002 “Tilbes Höyük ve Surtepe: M.Ö. 3. Binyılda Güneydoğu Anadolu Metalurjisi,” 17.Arkeometri Sonuçları Toplantısı, pp. 59–70. Rothman, Mitchell S. (ed.) 2001 Uruk Mesopotamia and Its Neighbors: Cross-Cultural Interactions in the Era of State Formation. Santa Fe: SAR Press. Van Driel, G. 1982 “Tablets from Jebel Aruda.” Pp. 12–25 in Zikir: Šumim: F. R. Kraus, ed. G. van Driel et al. Leiden: Brill. Yamazaki, Yayoi 2010 “An Aspect of the Ubaid Intrusion in the Syrian Upper Euphrates Valley.” Pp. 311ff. in Beyond the Ubaid. Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East, ed. R. Carter and G. Philip. SAOC 63. Chicago: Oriental Institute.

Further Considerations on the Ankara Silver Bowl Federico Giusfredi M ü n c h e n /P av i a

0. Premise The so-called Ankara Silver Bowl is a small, precious item belonging to the Hittite collection of the Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi in Ankara. It carries a Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription that mentions three obscure historical figures. Emmanuel Laroche saw it in the 1950s and included it in his list of unpublished hieroglyphic texts (in his book Les hiéroglyphes hittites, p. xxx, which appeared in 1960). Since the late 1990s, scholars have been discussing the date, provenance, and meaning of the inscribed bowl. In this paper, I will try to provide a new interpretation that should resolve some of the interpretive problems that still persist. Before starting, however, it is necessary to address a preliminary point, the importance of which I was made aware of by some of the questions raised at the end of my presentation at the Barcelona RAI on Tuesday, July 27, 2010. Is the Ankara Silver Bowl an original item? All the specialists who have discussed the artefact and its hieroglyphic inscription seem to agree on its authenticity. Nonetheless, the problem has never been addressed in a published paper and, therefore, it would be useful to try to discuss it briefly. Without the aid and support of the natural sciences, it is virtually impossible to demonstrate that the bowl is a truly historical item. Nonetheless, there are some observations that can be made by a philologist: If the bowl is the same one that Emmanuel Laroche saw at the end of the 1950s, we can assure the sceptics that, at that time, it would have been impossible for anyone (including specialists of worldwide renown) to falsify such a complex Luwian inscription. In the 1950s, the script and language were deciphered only in part, and some features of the text obey rules of a grammar that were still unknown. 1.  If the bowl is not the one seen by Laroche, then it is impossible to guarantee its authenticity, although one could wonder where the other bowl—the one Laroche saw—is now, and why the hypothetical counterfeiter decided to invent new historical figures, such as Asmaya (written with initial-a-final!) Author’s note: The present work is part of the PRIN-Project “Formazione e modi di funzionamento dei sistemi di ‘governo centrale’ in Anatolia e nell’Egeo: dalle società pre- e protostatali allo Stato imperiale, e alla sua disgregazione. Analisi comparativa e degli aspetti evolutivi” (2008, co-financed by the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione, Università e Ricerca and directed by M.  Frangipane—general director, Università La Sapienza di Roma—and M. Giorgieri—director of the Pavia Research group, Università degli Studi di Pavia). I also wish to thank C. Mora and Zs. Simon for the useful observations and remarks.

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and Mazi-Karhuha, instead of using the names of officials and kings who were already known to historians. 2.  The bowl could be the same one that Laroche saw, but part of the text (for instance, one of the two inscriptions) could have been added or modified by a counterfeiter.

All in all, the likelihood of counterfeiting is very low. The first picture of the bowl was published by A. Toker in 1992, and this date represents the terminus ante quem for the work of an alleged counterfeit. At the beginning of the 1990s, only very few specialists would have been able to compose such a complex text, and this appears to be a conclusive argument in favor of the authenticity of the item and of the text it carries.

1.  The Inscription The first mention of the Ankara Silver Bowl in scientific literature can be found in the above-mentioned book by Laroche (1960: xxx). The entry by Laroche reads as follows: “Coupe en argent, provenant de Kargamis(?).—Inédite.” In 1993, a picture of the bowl, published for the first time in a catalogue of the Ankara Museum (Toker 1992), drew the attention of the British philologist J. David Hawkins to the existence of the item. Shortly afterward, Hawkins published an edition of the text in the journal of the Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi of Ankara (1997: 7–24); eight years later, the same edition, with some minor changes, was republished in the 15th volume of Studia Troica (2005: 193–204). Before discussing the previous studies dedicated to the bowl, it is necessary to present its Hieroglyphic Luwian text, which runs as follows: Inscription 1: (1) za/i-wa/i-ti CAELUM-pi *a-sa-ma-i(a) REGIO.HATTI VIR2   (*273)i(a)-sa5-za/i-tá REX maza/i-kar-hu-ha REX PRAE-na (2) tara/i-wa/i-za/i-wa/i(REGIO) REL+ra/i MONS.[tu] IUDEX!+la   hu-la/i-i(a)-tá (3) *a-wa/i-na *a-pa-ti-i(a) ANNUS-i(a) i(a)-za/i-tà Inscription 2: za/i CAELUM-pi SCRIBA 2 pi?-t[i?]-x[. . .] *414 Inscription 1: (1) This bowl Asmaya himself, man of the land Hatti, donated in front of the    king Mazi-Karhuha (2–3) when [Tu]dhaliyas the Labarna smote the land    Tarwiza, in that year he made it. 1 Inscription 2: This bowl Pit(?). . . , the “second rank” scribe . . . 1.  The presence of a clitic pronoun -an, generis communis, seems to imply that the word for “bowl,” CAELUM-pi, was generis communis as well. This fact would represent a problem if the phonetic complement -pi represents the nominal ending of the word. However, I see no problem in assuming that the writing represented some kind of rebus-rendering of a word close to tapis(a)na (cf. Hawkins 2005: 196). Simon’s (2009: 248f.) observation, that the word for sky, tapis(a), hidden behind the logogram CAELUM, was actually a neutral stem, is no real problem: there are several cases of logograms that had a generalised phonetic value that did not depend on the original semantic meaning. For instance, the writing tara/i-pi-° in the inscription Tünp 1 (3.§5) employs the logogram “3”, but the use is merely phonographic and there is no connection between the verb tarpi and the numeral 3.

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Fig. 1.  Ankara Silver Bowl, Inscription 1 (Courtesy of J. David Hawkins).

2.  Previous Studies One may say that the Silver Bowl was discovered three times: in 1960 by Laroche, in 1992 by Toker, and finally in 1997 and 2005 by Hawkins. As a matter of fact, it was only after its “third discovery” that the scientific community realized its potential historical meaning. In the last five years, several articles have appeared attempting to provide an interpretation of the inscription and identification of the figures mentioned by the text. In his aforementioned editions, Hawkins (1997: 2005) provided the first transcription and translation of the text(s) and pointed out the central problems that need to be solved in order to identify the geographical provenance of the bowl, as well as the date and the meaning of the inscription(s). Regarding the date, the British scholar formulates two different hypotheses. From the point of view of epigraphy, he suggests that an identification of the Tudhaliyas mentioned in the text with Tudhaliyas IV appears to be likely, because the writing system is extremely developed—meaning that the phonetic rendering of the words prevails in the logographic and ideographic forms. On the other hand, Hawkins proposes a historically-oriented reconstruction according to which the city of Tarwiza could be identified with the Tarwiša mentioned in the cuneiform sources of the time of Tudhaliyas I/II (KUR URUta-ru-i-ša in KUB 23, 11 ii 19; KUR [URUt]a-ru-u-i-š[a] in the duplicate KUB 23, 12 ii 13 2), and, therefore, he assumes a Middle-Hittite date. 3 In conclusion, the British scholar states that, if forced to take a position, he would lean toward the latter interpretation. 4 2.  Text in Carruba 1977 (SMEA 18): 156ff. The toponym occurs in a list of locations and cities conquered (or simply reached?) by Tudhaliyas. 3.  Hawkins (1997: 2005) also bases his hypothesis of a date to the reign of Tudhaliyas I/II based on the possible comparison with a cuneiform inscription on metal, the so called bronze sword of Tudhaliyas (on which see Ertekin and Ediz 1993: 719ff.; Salvini and Vagnetti 1994: 215ff.; and recently van den Hout 2009: 90 for further references). The inscription runs as follows (Ünal 1993: 727ff.): i-nu-ma mDu-ut-hali-ya LUGAL.GAL KUR URUA-aš-šu-wa ú-hal-liq GÍRHI.A an-nu-tim a-na DIŠKUR be-lí-šu u-se-li “When the Great King Tudhaliyas destroyed the land of Assuwa, he donated these swords to the Stormgod, his lord.” It is vaguely similar to the one on the Ankara Silver Bowl, but the comparison is not precise. The sword inscription is written in Akkadian and probably by a native speaker or by someone competent enough. Moreover, the sword is a dedication by the Hittite king, found in Hattuša, and not a celebration of the deeds of the Labarna sent to a foreign king as a secular gift. 4. The on-line Konkordanz of the HPM (URL: http://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/hetkonk– vers. 1.80—January 7, 2011) lists the Ankara Silver Bowl (called there “Kargamis Silberschale”) under the CTH-number 142, implicitly accepting the second suggestion made by Hawkins. Looking at the entry, one tends to get the following wrong impressions: (1) that the date is sure, while to my knowledge Hawkins and Carruba are the only scholars who have supported it in a published work; (2) that the provenance is certainly Karkemiš; (3) that the text carved on the bowl belongs to the Annals of Tudhaliyas I/

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A couple of years later, Clelia Mora (2007: 515–21) published a paper in the Festschrift for Belkis and Ali Dinçol in which she acknowledged Hawkins’s hypothesis, adding at the same time some further considerations and a new hypothesis regarding the date. The Italian scholar observes that the bowl may not come from Hatti but rather from the Syrian area of Karkemiš/Emar. The extra-Anatolian provenance would be indicated by the presence of the title “REGIO.HATTI VIR2,” which, in Mora’s opinion (2007: 518), would have been omitted, unless the bowl was composed in a country other than Hatti. Mora does not reject the identification of Tarwiza and the cuneiform city of Tarwiša (see above), but she also mentions a possible connection with the TAR-WI ?/WU ?/PI ?/YU ? troops attested in some texts from the Late Bronze age city of Emar (Mora 2007: 519). Moreover, Mora points out the existence, in the 13th-century Emar archives, of an administrative text from the 13th century in which a personal name occurs that contains the rare segment Mazi (Mazi-Teššup; see below, §5). Even though no identification of this figure with the king Mazi-Karhuha is conceivable or suggested, the identity of the initial segments can be seen as a sign of the Syrian origin of the Silver Bowl. Regarding the identity of Tudhaliyas, Mora emphasizes the problems that the highly developed writing system would represent in the case of a Middle Hittite date. At the same time, she takes into consideration the option of a postHittite hypothesis and mentions the existence of an Iron Age Luwian king from Karkemiš who bore the name Tudhaliyas. 5 In 2008, two works appeared, by Ilya Yakubovich and Onofrio Carruba, respectively, which, although being dedicated to problems wider and other than the bowl itself, included extensive commentaries on the inscribed item. Carruba (2008: 143ff.) simply emphasizes the historical importance of the data that point to a Middle Hittite date, proposing that the city of Tarwiza be identified either with Trysa or with Troy itself. Yakubovich (2008: 14ff.), on the other hand, interprets the form PRAE-na i(a)-za-i-tà as a variant of the verbal construction CUM-ni i(ya)sa-, “to buy from.” 6 According to the Russian linguist, the bowl would have been physically forged at the time of Tudhaliyas I/II but would have been bought and inscribed by Asmaya from Mazi-Karhuha at the time of Tudhaliyas IV. 7 Unfortunately, the alternation of the two prepositions, CUM-ni and PRAE-na, is nowhere to be found in the entire remaining Luwian corpus. Moreover, the historical interpretation the scholar proposes is hardly conceivable: the commercial transaction that Yakubovich thinks took place in Karkemiš 8 implies the existence of some kind of antiquarian market of former royal gifts during the 13th century on the periphery of the Hittite Empire. II, which would not be the case even if the early date were correct. Generally speaking, I find the choice of attributing CTH-numbers to the Hieroglyphic Luwian texts (and especially to those of the Iron Age, such as Karatepe I, listed under CTH 215) quite confusing. 5.  On the Great King Tudhaliyas of Karkemiš, see Hawkins 1995: 2000; F. Giusfredi 2009b, 2010: 45ff. 6.  On the construction CUM-ni i(ya)sa, see Davies and Hawkins 1982. 7.  Yakubovich also argues that, if Asmaya is in fact the subject of the sentence—the person who buys the bowl—then the presence of the medial-reflexive pronouns -ta would be explained, since he bought the bowl “for himself.” However, Yakubovich also notes that several reflexive pronouns had lost their original function in some specific constructions of Hieroglyphic Luwian; I therefore prefer to interpret the -ta as a generically emphatic element, as Simon (2009) does, “Asmaya . . . selbst” and not “Asmaya für sich selbst.” 8.  The reason why Yakubovich assumes that the purchase had taken place in Karkemiš is, again, the presence of the sign KAR. However, as of 2008, the inscription Tell Ahmar 6 was already known: a Dark Age text from a state close to but different from Karkemiš, in which KAR also occurs.

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In 2009, finally, a paper was published in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie by Zsolt Simon, who, on the basis of the convincing hypothesis formulated by Seeher (2001) that the city of Hattuša was abandoned by the Hittite court at the end of the 13th century, suggests recognizing in Tudhaliyas a direct (or almost direct) successor of Suppiluliuma II, to be henceforth indicated by the name Tudhaliyas V (Simon 2009: 259ff.). The author exhaustively lists and criticizes the previous proposals (except Carruba 2008), providing several, although not always conclusive, arguments and presents parallel cases of diplomatic gifts in support of the hypothesis that the bowl was sent to Mazi-Karhuha on the occasion of a special event that took place in his kingdom (Simon 2009: 249).

3.  The Inscription in the Context of the Anatolian Historical Production In order to begin discussion of the meaning of the inscription carved on the Silver Bowl, it is necessary to try to understand the position of the document in the context of later Anatolian textual production. Because the item on which the text is inscribed is a precious Trinkschale (thus Simon 2009: 249), it would perhaps be natural to compare it to the so-called Kastamonu Vase, a gold inscribed vase from the age of Tudhaliyas IV who, according to Hawkins, Mora, and Yakubovich, could be the very king who also had the Silver Bowl inscribed. However, the analogies are only superficial. The text carved on the Kastamonu Vase contains a religious dedication, 9 while the Silver Bowl inscription seems to refer to historical events. Moreover, the Kastamonu Vase does not contain any date formula, while the Silver Bowl apparently does. Therefore, as Mora (2007: 519) observed, it would probably be more convincing to compare our text with some post-Hittite historical Luwian inscriptions, such as the Karahöyük stele. That the Silver Bowl contains a date formula is a very astonishing fact. Date formulas are completely absent from the Hittite cuneiform production, since the Hittites apparently had no thing like the Assyrian eponyms lists, nor did they explicitly count the throne-years of their rulers (which makes the reconstruction of absolute chronologies an excruciating work for modern historians). Accordingly, even the Hieroglyphic Luwian occurrences that may be interpreted as date formulas are anything but the result of a systematic chronological record. 10 As apparently already implied by Simon (2009), the incipit of the Karahöyük stele (§§1–2) 11 is not properly a date formula but rather the historical record of an event that took place in the city (or area) where the text was composed in the very year in which the stele was erected. The same can be said of the other allegedly parallel passages, such as, 9. Cf. Mora 2007: 516 for further references. The inscription on the Kastamonu Vase runs as follows: zi/a CAELUM-pi DEUS.SCRIBA BONUS2.VIR.*254 LEPUS+ra/i-mi BONUS2.VIR2.*254 PONERE “This bowl (to the?) God-Scribe Taprammi, the BONUS2.VIR2, the *254, placed.” 10.  The absence of a systematic chronological record of the historical events in the Hittite culture can be counted as a further argument against the interpretation by Yakubovich (see above, §2), who assumes that the text on the silver bowl was inscribed during the reign of Tudhaliyas IV, but it refers, with extreme chronological precision, to events that took place during the reign of Tudhaliyas I/II. 11. Karahöyük §§1–2 (DEUS)TONITRUS POCULUM.PES.*67(REGIO) STELE LUNA.PRATER, PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS || la-mi-ni-’ PRAE PONERE MAGNUS.REX i(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS MAGNUS. REX REL+ra/i-i(a) || POCULUM.PES.*67(REGIO) PES+ra/i “(To) the Storm-God of the land POCULUM (this) stele Armananis, Lord of the Pithos-Men, dedicated, at the time when Ir-Tesub, the Great King, came to the land POCULUM.”

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for instance, Karkemiš A11B+C: 12 all the occurrences of sentences that apparently date a text of the Hieroglyphic Luwian corpus always discuss events that directly involved the ruler or the official who had the inscription composed or, at least, they discuss events that took place not far from their country, city, or region. This unquestionable feature of the Hieroglyphic Luwian corpus necessarily establishes a connection between the location in which the text of the Silver Bowl was composed (or the kingdom ruled by the sovereign who received it as a gift) and the events mentioned in the formula “when [Tu]dhaliyas the Labarna smote the land Tarwiza, in that year he made it.” Therefore, if it is possible to show that the text was very likely composed in Syria (see below), then the early date suggested by Hawkins (1997; 2005) would automatically become very unlikely: the annalistic texts by Tudhaliyas I/II do not mention any Syrian allies of the king during his western campaigns (and the contrary would be historically surprising).

4.  The Provenance of the Inscription Because the Silver Bowl was probably bought from a private owner, or at least because there are no data about its provenance, the only way to investigate the geographical origin of the item is to examine the internal evidence. A first attempt at understanding the provenance of the Silver Bowl was made by Hawkins (2005: 196; followed by Yakubovich 2008: 15), who observed that the Karkemiš origin (originally suggested by Laroche) is in fact plausible due to the occurrence of the sign KAR in the name of the god Karhuha, a feature that occurred— until 2006—in the Karkemiš texts only. Naturally, in this reconstruction, the cultural area of Karkemiš would be only the location where the bowl was inscribed: Hawkins and Yakubovich remain convinced that the bowl is a Hittite artefact and that the text refers to a Hittite king Tudhaliyas. Regarding the epigraphic argument, however, it is worth noticing that the sign KAR is now attested also in the recently found inscription Tell Ahmar 6 (Simon 2009: 254). 13 Naturally, given the location of Tell Ahmar in northern Syria, it can still be argued that the KAR sign was a graphic peculiarity of the Syrian documentation, but its occurrence in the Silver Bowl can no longer be regarded as a conclusive argument about the provenance of the silver artefact. At any rate, a Syrian origin is also suggested by Mora (2007: 518), who, as already said, interpreted the sequence “REGIO.HATTI VIR2” as an exonymic designation, indicating that the bowl was not forged and inscribed in Hatti. Simon (2009: 256f.) proved that this statement is not conclusive, showing that the argument is made invalid by the several occurrences of the logogram HATTI in the hieroglyphic documentation from the archives and deposits of the capital city Hattuša, which show that the use of the substantive Hatti in the Anatolian documentation always has the function of a Selbstbezeichnung. 12. Karkemiš A11B+C §7, §15 a-wa/i |REL-a-ti-i |(ANNUS)u-si-i ka-wa/i-za-na(URBS) |(CURRUS) wa/i+ ra/i-za-ni-ná |PES2-za-ha (. . .) za-zi-ha-wa/i-mi-i (DOMUS.SUPER)ha+ra/i-sà-tá-ni-zi pati-i-’ (“ANNUS”)u-si |AEDIFICARE-mi-ha “In the year in which I carried (in) the city Kawa’s chariot(ry) (. . .) these upper floors in that year I built myself.” 13.  The epigraphic argument, that the KAR sign is not attested outside of Karkemiš, was originally presented by Hawkins 2005: 196. Mora (2007: 518) and Yakubovich (2008: 15) also mention this fact, although the inscription Tell Ahmar 6 was already published when their works were published.

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All in all, none of the arguments provided in support of a Syrian or Karkemiš origin of the Ankara Silver Bowl has been successfully invalidated, but all of them have been proved inconclusive. There is, however, a further kind of information that may be helpful in investigating the provenance of the bowl: the linguistic identity of the personal names of the characters mentioned by the text. The name of the king Mazi-Karhuha is formed from a Luwian theonym preceded by an element, mazi-, which is also present in the name of the father of a witness mentioned in the 13th-century Emar text ME 120: Mazi-DIŠKUR-ub. 14 Naturally, for chronological and onomastic reasons, the two figures cannot have anything to do with each other, but the parallelism of the two mazi-segments unquestionably testifies to the Hurrian origin of both names. 15 In the very same text, by an incredible coincidence, another witness is mentioned who bears the name Asmiya. According to Regine Pruzsinszky (2003: 249) and Mauro Giorgieri and Stefano De Martino (2008 s.v. ažm), Asmiya is also a Hurrian name, a well-attested formation on the Hurrian root ažm. Therefore, it seems to me safe enough to assume that the personal names of both the characters mentioned in the Ankara Silver Bowl indicate that they belonged to a Hurro-Luwian region. Once again, it is impossible to speak of conclusive arguments, but several different data seem to point to a northern Syrian provenance of the inscribed precious bowl.

5.  Mazi-Karhuha King of Tarwiza? Regardless of the geographical origin, however, it is a fact that the bowl registers some sort of interaction between a labarna Tudhaliyas and a local king named Mazi-Karhuha. Understanding the occasion on which this interaction took place is a crucial problem that cannot be neglected. Simon (2009: 249f.) was well aware of it, because he dedicates some portion of his work to the discussion of this very point. He correctly observes that the historical occasion coincided with the actual donation of the bowl, an event that he analyzes as follows: Da die Schale anhand ihrer Größe (Dm. 20,2 cm; H. 7,3 cm) als Trinkschale zu identifizieren ist, kann es sich statt einer Weihung eher um eine Gabe von Tudhaliya an Mazi/a-Karhuha handeln, da Silbergefäße, besonders Trinkschalen, typischerweise zu den königlichen Geschenken im Alten Orient gehören. Die Anlässe für solche Ehrengeschenke waren diplomatische Geschenke an Ausländer, besondere Taten, Feste, Vertragsabschluss, Geburt, Hochzeit, Tod und im allgemeinen königliche Festmahle und Bankette (Sallaberger 1999: 250–52; 14.  The name is misquoted as Mazi-DU by Mora 2007: 518f. and Simon 2009: 251f.; a similar name, Mazi-DIŠKUR, also occurs in RPAE VI/2 212. 15. The name of the king mentioned by the Ankara Silver Bowl contains the Luwian theonym Karhuhas as its second element. This fact, however, does not disprove the Hurrian origin of the name. Theonyms can appear in several languages and be included in double names. Moreover, compound names can easily be created using words that come from a different tradition. Akkadian and Sumerian segments, for instance, appear in several personal names from the Babylonian King List, for instance Enlilnadin-ahi, Ninurta-nadin-shumi and many others. The hypothesis, recently supported by Carruba (2008: 1443), of a conncection of mazi to Luw. masani-, “god,” is graphically unparalleled and phonetically unconvincing. Carruba’s (2008: 146) attempt at a Luw. analysis of the name of Asmaya (which he compares to Eseimiyu) is equally to be rejected, because it simply complicates a problem that can easily be solved comparing cuneiform Hurrian Asmiya.

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F ederico G iusfredi 2003: 602). Beispiele können eigentlich aus jeder Zeit und Region erwähnt werden, wie z.B. Ur III-Zeit (Sallaberger 1999: 250–52), Ebla (Sallaberger 2003: 602), Mari (Guichard 1994: 237–40), Amarna-Zeit (Cochavi-Rainey 1999: 68– 69), neuassyrische Zeit (Radner 1999–2001: 21–22) und achämenidische Zeit (Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1989: 131–35). Der Anlass wäre hier der Sieg über Tara/ i-wa/i-zi/a (sonst gäbe es keinen Grund, dies anzuführen), und Asamaya wäre der Überbringer der königlichen Gabe. §2–3 wären also nicht nur eine bloße Datierung, sondern auch die Formulierung von Anlass oder Grund (das Subjekt des §3 ist also Asamaya).

Even though one may want to note that none of the parallel cases provided by the Hungarian scholar actually come from the Hittite and Luwian world, it is evident that these kind of diplomatic donations did exist. And regardless of the kind of event or celebration that may or may not have taken place at the court of MaziKarhuha, one can be certain that the sending of the bowl must be historically close to and connected with the siege of Tarwiza mentioned by the text. 16 Because the text refers to a military expedition, one can naturally assume that Mazi-Karhuha could have taken part in Tudhaliyas’s campaign. The Syrian ruler, perhaps, was an ally of the labarna, and the labarna may have sent the precious gift as a reward to the friendly and collaborative ally. This interpretation, however, is not unproblematic. In fact, the inscription contains no mention whatsoever of the name of the kingdom ruled by Mazi-Karhuha, which is the kind of information I would expect a diplomatic text to contain. There is, indeed, a second possibility. The name of the kingdom of Mazi-Karhuha may be actually present in the text if we assume that the king ruled, in fact, the city of Tarwiza itself. One may wonder: why would Tudhaliyas have sent a gift to the king of the city he had just besieged? I can suggest two possible scenarios: either Mazi-Karhuha, after the defeat, became an ally of Tudhaliyas, or, even more likely, he was the new king of the city, enthroned by Tudhaliyas after the victory. This second option seems more convincing to me: the enthroning of a friendly ruler after the conquest of a city or region was standard military and diplomatic policy in the ancient Near East. One can compare, for instance, the rulers enthroned by the Hittite kings in northern Syria during the late Bronze Age 17 or the Assyrian kings of the late 8th century b.c.e., who put friendly rulers on the thrones of the formally independent little states of Cilicia and Tabal. 18

6.  Identity of Asmaya All of the solutions that have so far been proposed for the date of the Ankara Silver Bowl and for the interpretation of its meaning depend on the identification of the Tudhaliyas mentioned in the text with one of the already-known historical figures who bore the same name. 19 The only exception to this tendency is put for16.  Thus Simon (2009: 249): “Der Anlass wäre hier der Sieg über Tara/i-wa/i-zi/a (sonst gäbe es keinen Grund, dies anzuführen), und Asmaya wäre der Überbringer der königlichen Gabe.” 17.  One can mention, for instance, the enthroning of Piyassili and Talmi-Sharruma in Karkemiš and Aleppo at the time of Suppiluliuma I. 18.  On the several cases of Tabalite and Cilician rulers enthroned by the Assyrians, see the historical overview in Giusfredi 2010: 60ff. 19. The kings considered thus far are Tudhaliyas I/II (proposed by Hawkins 2005 and Carruba 2008), Tudhaliyas IV (proposed by Hawkins 2005, Mora 2007, and Yakubovich 2008) and the post-Hittite

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Figure 2 (far left).  A sign HATTI from the Yalburt Inscription (left) and a sign DOMINUS from the Inscription Karkemiš A3 (right).

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Figure 3 (left).  Asmaya’s title in the ANKARA SILVER BOWL (left) and the title REGIO.DOMINUS in the Inscription KARKEMIŠ A27c (right). Note that the apparent “flower-like” divergence of the vertical lines is more evident in the published drawings than in the actual inscription and likely depends on the fact that the scribe was writing very small signs on a curved tri-dimensional surface of metal and not on a flat surface of stone.

ward by Simon, who preferred to hypothesize the existence of a fifth Hittite sovereign named Tudhaliyas, who would have ruled shortly after Suppiluliuma II. MaziKarhuha, on the contrary, was generally considered to be a king of Karkemiš or a local king of another small state, and the date of his reign always depends on which Tudhaliyas the different scholars chose for the identification of the labarna. The identity of the third person named in the text, Asmaya, on the other hand, has been neglected. In my opinion, however, understanding his role and provenance may be the key to a different interpretation of the inscribed bowl. Generally speaking, all we know about Asmaya is that he bears a title that Hawkins transcribed REGIO.HATTI VIR2. This reading is not unproblematic. First of all, the sequence itself is unattested; moreover, the position of the ideogram/determinative REGIO is unique: normally, it occurs right after the toponym, and not before it. As a matter of fact, REGIO.HATTI VIR2 is not the only possible reading of the sequence. The sign here transcribed HATTI is a logogram used for the writing of the names of the Hittite country, of the city Hattuša and of the personal name of the Hittite king Hattušili III. There is a logogram that occurs in several seals during the Bronze Age, as well as in several stone inscriptions during the Dark and the Iron Ages, the shape of which is very similar to HATTI, to the point that in some cases the differences in the two signs are hardly discernible: the sign DOMINUS (see the caption to fig. 3 for further details). If one agrees that the correct reading is DOMINUS, not HATTI, several problems disappear. First of all, it is not necessary to assume that the text had anything to do with the Bronze Age Hittite court. As a consequence, it becomes futile to try to fit the events into the historical scenario of the reign of a specific Hittite king—an attempt that would become very difficult if someone tried to identify Mazi-Karhuha with a king of Karkemiš during the reign of Tudhaliyas IV, something that would be virtually impossible. Last, but not least, the philological problem presented by the position of the logogram/determinative REGIO would be automatically solved: REGIO would not be a determinative but, rather, a logographic component of a widely attested Hieroglyphic Luwian compound title. Tudhaliyas from Karkemiš (Mora 2007). Two figures have been neglected: a Tudhaliyas from Alalah (on which see Yener 2002–3: fig. 7) and a mysterious Tudhaliyas mentioned in the text KBo. 3, 3 iv 3, 6 (on which see D’Alfonso 2005: 5816, Miller 2007: 4). However, both of these indistinct figures are not convincing candidates for an identification, the former probably being simply a prince.

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The first post-Hittite occurrences of REGIO.DOMINUS appear in Karkemiš and Malatya during the Dark Age and the early Iron Age. As Hawkins (1995; cf. also Giusfredi 2009b and 2010: 45ff., 97ff.) argued, the title, originally an official designation probably corresponding to cuneiform EN.KUR (udniyašha-), became the main indicator of the monarchic power of the ruling dynasties of the two cities. In Karkemiš, furthermore, the sovereigns who used this title (along with the other “new” Luwian royal designation tarwanis) 20 belong to the so-called House of Suhis, a family of officials and priests that—during the 10th century b.c.e.—managed to dethrone the old dynasty of the Great Kings and became rulers of the Syrian state. In the Ankara Silver Bowl, in addition to REGIO.DOMINUS, we also read an occurrence of the sign L 386. In the present context, there are two possible explanations for its meaning. It may be read VIR2, being a second title borne by Asmaya, but it may also be read as a rather common word divider, frequently used to accompany important words and logograms in the Hieroglyphic Luwian corpus until the end of the Neo-Hittite tradition (on this sign, cf. Poetto 1993: 29). According to the reading I am suggesting here, the text of the Ankara Silver Bowl should be read as follows (I do not repeat the transcription and translation of Inscription 2, which is simply a scribal signature and remains unvaried): Inscription 1: (1) za/i-wa/i-ti CAELUM-pi *a-sa-ma-i(a) REGIO.DOMINUS VIR2 (Or:    REGIO.DOMINUS |) (*273) i(a)-sa5-za/i-tá REX maza/i-kar-hu-ha REX   PRAE-na (2) tara/i-wa/i-za/i-wa/i(REGIO) REL+ra/i MONS.[tu] IUDEX!+la   hu-la/i-i(a)-tá (3) *a-wa/i-na *a-pa-ti-i(a) ANNUS-i(a) i(a)-za/i-tà Inscription 1: (1) This bowl Asmaya himself, the REGIO DOMINUS, the VIR2(?), dedicated in front of the king Mazi-Karhuha (2–3) when [Tu]dhaliyas the Labarna smote the land Tarwiza, in that year he made it.

7.  The Identity of Tudhaliyas Although the epigraphic argument of the occurrence of the sign KAR is not conclusive any longer, there are elements that point to a Syrian provenance of the Silver Bowl: the Hurrian names of two of the characters involved and the presence of the Luwian god Karhuha. If one assumes that the title of Asmaya was REGIO. DOMINUS, Karkemiš becomes, once again, an ideal location for the production of the bowl and for the composition of the text. Because a local dynasty of REGIO. DOMINUS’s existed at the beginning of the Iron Age, and because this dynasty had ruled the city not earlier than the 10th century b.c.e., it is natural to assume the family already existed in the centuries immediately before. During the Dark Age, it is likely that the REGIO.DOMINUS of Karkemiš served as a high official at the court of the Karkemiš Great Kings. Accordingly, if the transcription and translation presented above are correct, the Hittite Empire would have nothing to do with the inscription on the bowl. As20.  On the title tarwanis, see Giusfredi 2009a, 2009b, 2010. The family of Suhis in Karkemiš bore both titles, tarwanis and REGIO.DOMINUS, and its members continued using them once they became rulers of the city.

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maya was an official, entitled REGIO.DOMINUS, who was sent with a diplomatic gift by a king of Karkemiš to a city—Tarwiza—ruled by an otherwise unknown king named Mazi-Karhuha, who had probably been enthroned by Tudhaliyas himself after a military siege. In order to complete my reconstruction, I will now take into consideration the possibility that the Tudhaliyas mentioned by the text was in fact a king of Karkemiš. Mora (2007: 518f.) has already considered a similar hypothesis. She suggested identifying the Labarna who had the text inscribed, with a 10th-century ruler of the Syrian capital city. The MAGNUS.REX Tudhaliyas Mora refers to is mentioned in the inscriptions Karkemiš A16c, Karkemiš Frgm. a/b, and Kelekli 21. Unfortunately, if one sticks to the traditional chronology of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms, this suggestion is unacceptable. The writing system employed for the Ankara Silver Bowl is necessarily earlier than the 10th century, and this fact is unquestionably proved by the twofold value of the sign ZA/I, which is not present in the other texts from the Iron Age corpus. However, in two recent works (Giusfredi 2009b, 2010: 45ff.) I have proposed a different chronology for the 11th–10th century rulers of Karkemiš in order to solve the historical problems posed by the presence of two contemporary dynasties during the first half of the tenth century. According to my reconstruction, the Tudhaliyas mentioned in the inscriptions of Kelekli and Karkemiš A16c and the one named by the Karkemiš Frgm. A/B were two different rulers. The former, who never appears to be entitled MAGNUS.REX, was the last member of the family of the Great Kings. He tried to rule as king and—with no success—to protect his throne from the emerging family of the Suhides by marrying a daughter of Suhis I. His life and his attempts to keep the power his family traditionally had should therefore be dated to the first half of the 10th century: 22 not early enough to make him a candidate for the bowl’s inscription. The latter Tudhaliyas, on the other hand, must have ruled in Karkemiš not later than the 11th century b.c.e. An identification of this Great King with the Tudhaliyas mentioned in the Ankara Silver Bowl is consistent with the level of development of the writing system employed. There is also a further argument in support of this hypothesis. The title borne by the Ankara Silver Bowl’s Tudhaliyas is IUDEX[+la], to be read Labarna, and it is probably also borne by his 11th-century Karkemiš homonym in the Karkemiš Frgm. A/B. 23 The title Labarna was not used by any Luwian ruler of the Iron Age, but the Karkemiš provenance of the inscription A/B makes it very likely that the Great Kings of Karkemiš started bearing it during the Dark Age, along with the title Great King (MAGNUS.REX). In other words, the identification of the king who had the Ankara Silver Bowl sent to Mazi-Karhuha with the Dark Age Great King Tudhaliyas of Karkemiš is not only consistent with the level of development of the writing system used in the Hieroglyphic Luwian 21.  Texts in Hawkins 2000: 82, 92f., 590f. 22.  In Hawkins’s reconstruction, on the other hand, there would have been only one Tudhaliyas, to be dated to the time of Suhis II, two generations after Suhis I. Dating the inter-dynastic marriage to the time of Suhis II, however, poses a huge historical problem as the Suhides had already taken over power at the time of Astuwatamanza I, two generations earlier (see Giusfredi 2009b, 2010: 45ff.). 23.  See the text in Hawkins 2000: 590f. The shape of the sign is actually quite irregular, and it probably represents a Dark Age transitional phase of the sign LABARNA/IUDEX (but cf. also Simon 2009a: 255, for a different interpretation).

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inscription but also with the internal history of the Syrian city and with the titles the Great King bore.

7. Conclusion I am aware that it is currently impossible to prove or disprove with certainty any of the theories formulated about the origin and the date of the Ankara Silver Bowl. Even though a Middle Hittite date seems extremely unlikely due to the development of the syllabic values of the signs, one cannot definitely exclude it: future discoveries may show that the Hieroglyphic Luwian syllabary was older than scholars currently think. The same can be said about the theories that date the bowl to the reign of Tudhaliyas IV. The number of syllabic writings is definitely higher in the bowl inscription than in Yalburt, and the use of the isolated title labarna in the inscriptions by Tudhaliyas IV is unattested (thus Simon 2009a: 255f.). Nonetheless, these counter-arguments are far from being conclusive. Finally, the hypothesis of a successor to Suppiluliuma II, named Tudhaliyas, cannot be excluded, although no other evidence can be found pointing to the existence of this king, and one may say that reges non sunt multiplicandi praeter necessitatem. On the other hand, the existence of one or more post-Hittite kings named Tudhaliyas is proved by the aforementioned inscriptions from Karkemiš (Mora 2007: 519), and it is highly likely that one of these kings actually ruled during the Dark Age (Giusfredi 2009b, 2010: 45ff.), a phase that would be consistent with the structural development of the hieroglyphs used in the bowl inscription. Carruba’s criticism of the idea of a post-Hittite date, based on the lack of importance the Italian scholar attributes to the Iron age Luwian kingdoms, is severe in tone but is unfounded, when one considers the evidence. 24 If, however, the reading of the title of Asmaya is REGIO.DOMINUS, as I am suggesting in this paper and as would be reasonable to assume for philological reasons, the post-Hittite Karkemiš cultural environment would definitely be an optimal solution. The problem of the inverted order of determinative and substantive in the unattested sequence REGIO.HATTI would be solved. Furthermore, it would be possible to identify the occasion on which the bowl was donated as during a diplomatic expedition. The bowl was brought to Mazi-Karhuha, who was perhaps a king of the very city of Tarwiza, by Asmaya, an official entitled REGIO.DOMINUS. Asmaya, coming from a city in which this title was actually used, delivered the gift, acting on behalf of a king Tudhaliyas, who bears the title labarna. This Tudhaliyas is already known from other sources and he actually ruled in Karkemiš, probably during the 11th century b.c.e.

*    *    *    *    * [Post scriptum: This article is current as of July, 2010, when I read my paper in Barcelona. In December, 2010, a new article was published by P. Durnford (“How Old Was the Ankara Silver Bowl When Its Inscriptions Were Added?” in Anatolian 24.  Carruba 2008: 147. Commenting on the two suggestions presented by Mora, namely a date for Tudhaliyas IV or a date for an Iron Age Luwian Tudhaliyas, the scholar dismisses the post-Hittite option by writing simply: “Il secondo scenario che deve mettere in scena una guerricciola ancora più piccola ci sembra irrealizzabile”.

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Studies 60 2010: 51–70), who suggests that the two inscriptions on the bowl could have been written by the members of the family of Asmaya, a Hittite man whose descendants lived in Karkemiš, and that the references to events that possibly took place at the time of the Hittite kingdom would represent an attempt to connect the origins of the family to Bronze Age Anatolian history. The hypothesis presented by Durnford is interesting and will certainly be discussed in future publications, and the author deserves the gratitude of fellow scholars. However, in my opinion, some of the arguments he proposes are flawed by some unclear assumptions and ill-defined statements. For instance, Durnford neglects the paper by Simon (2009a) and still assumes that the sign KAR is only attested in Karkemiš (p.  59), which was already proved wrong by the publication of the stele of Tell Ahmar 6 in 2006. Moreover, his approach to palaeography is not completely convincing, because he does not properly distinguish between hieroglyphs written on stone and hieroglyphs written on metal (pp. 59f.). Also, some of the historical observations are unclear: the definition of the Hittite society as “heroic” (p. 67)—which the author leaves almost unexplained—and the excursus about Western Anatolia (pp. 62ff.)—which lacks references to the rich scientific literature that has appeared in the last twenty years (for instance, but not only, the series Studia Troica [Tübingen 1991ff.] with 18 published volumes 25)—are a couple of examples. Finally, the comparison between the hieroglyphic sign *273 and a modern(!) goldsmith’s anvil (p. 60) is worth considering but is not supported by any discussion of Iron Age material culture, and the article does not provide a convincing explanation for some of the several meanings of such an ideogram.] 25.  Recently—and, to be fair, too recently for the author to quote them–two monographs appeared, dedicated to the historical and geographical problems related to the most important Western Anatolian regions: R. Fischer, Die Ahhijawa-Frage: Mit einer kommentierten Bibliographie (DBH 26), Wiesbaden 2010; and M.  Gander, Die geographischen Beziehungen der Lukka-Länder (TH 29), Heidelberg, 2010. Both books contain detailed and rich bibliographies on the western peripheries of Hittite Anatolia.

References Carruba, O. 1977 “Beiträge zur mittelhethitischen Geschichte, I.  Die Tuthalijas und die Arnuwandas II. Die sogenannten „Protocoles de succession dynastique I.–II.” Studi Micenei ed EgeoAnatolici 18: 175–95. 2008 Annali Etei del Medio Regno. Studia Mediterranea 18. Pavia. Cochavi-Rainey, Z. 1999 Royal Gifts in the Late Bronze Age Fourteenth to Thirteenth Centuries b.c.e.: Selected Texts Recording Gifts to Royal Personages. Beer-Sheva. D’Alfonso, L. 2005 Le procedure giudiziarie dell’amministrazione ittita in Siria (XIII sec.a.C.). Studia Mediterranea 17. Pavia. Ertekin, A., and Ediz, I. 1993 “The Unique Sword from Boĝazköy/Hattusa,” Pp. 719–26 in M. J. Mellink, E. Porada, and T. Özgüç (eds.), Aspects of Art and Iconography: Anatolia and its Neighbors. Studies in Honor of Nimet Özgüç. Ankara. Giorgieri, M., and De Martino, S. 2008 Literatur zum hurritischen Lexikon I. Florence.

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Giusfredi, F. 2009a “The Problem of the Luwian Title tarwanis.” Altorientalische Forschungen 2009: 40–45. 2009b “Astuwatamanza 0: Some Thoughts on the Family of Suhis in Karkemiš.” Forthcoming in the proceedings of the 55th RAI, Paris 2009. 2010 Sources for a Socio-Economic History of the Neo-Hittite States. Texte der Hethiter 28. Heidelberg. Guichard, M. 1994 «Au pays de la Dame de Nagar». Pp. 235–72 in D. Charpin and J.-M.  Durand (eds.), Florilegium marianum II: Recueil d’études à la mémoire de Maurice Birot. Paris. Hawkins, J. D. 1995 “ ‘Great Kings’ and ‘Country Lords’ at Malatya and Karkamiš.” Pp. 73–86 in T. P. J. van den Hout and J. de Roos (eds.), Studio historiae ardens. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Philo H.J. Houwink ten Cate on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Leiden. 1997 “A Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription on a Silver Bowl in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.” Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi 1996 Yıllıgı: 7–24. 2005 “A Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription on a Silver Bowl.” Studia Troica 15: 293–304. 2000 Corpus of the Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Volume I: Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Berlin. Hout, T. P. J. van den 2009 “Reflections on the Origins and Development of the Hittite Tablet Collections in Hattuša and Their Consequences for the Rise of Hittite Literacy.” Pp. 71–96 in F. Pecchioli Daddi, G. Torri, and C. Corti (eds.), Central-North Anatolia in the Hittite Period— New Perspectives in Light of Recent Research. Acts of the International Conference Held at the Uiversity of Florence (7–9 February 2007). Florence. Laroche, E. 1960 Les hiéroglyphes hittites, Paris. Miller, J. L. 2007 “Mursili II’s Dictate to Tuppi-Teššub’s Syrian Antagonists.” Kaskal 4: 121–52. Mora, C. 2007 “Three Metal Bowls.” Pp. 515–21 in M. Alparslan, M. Dogan-Alparslan, and H. Peker 2007 Vita: Belkıs Dinçol ve Ali Dinçol’a Armagan. Festschrift in Honor of Belkıs Dinçol and Ali Dinçol. İstanbul: 515–521. Morpurgo Davies, A., and Hawkins, J. D. 1982 “Buying and selling in Hieroglyphic Luwian.” Pp. 91–105 in J. Tischler (ed.), Serta indogermanica. Festschrift für Günter Neumann zum 60. Geburtstag. Innsbruck. Poetto, M. 1993 L‘ iscrizione Luvio-Geroglifica di Yalburt: Nuove Acquisizioni Relative Alla Geografia Dell‘Anatolia Sud-Occidentale. Studia Mediterranea 8. Pavia. Pruzsinszky, R. 2003 Die Personennamen der Texte aus Emar. Studies on the Civilization of Nuzi and the Hurrians 13. Bethesda. Radner. R. 1999–200  “Eine Bronzeschale mit neuassyrischer Inschrift.” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 13: 17–25. RPAE VI/2 = D. Arnaud 1987 Recherches au pays d’Aštata: Emar VI: Les textes sumériens et accadiens. Vol. 2. Paris. Sallaberger, W. 1999 “Ur III-Zeit.” Pp. 119–390 in W. Sallaberger and A. Westenholz, Mesopotamien: AkkadeZeit und Ur III-Zeit. Annäherungen 3. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/3. Freiburg and Göttingen. 2003 “Nachrichten an den Palast von Ebla. Eine Deutung von níg-mul-(an).” Pp. 600–625 in P. Marrassini (ed.), Semitic and Assyriological Studies Presented to Pelio Fronzaroli by Pupils and Colleagues. Wiesbaden. Salvini, M., and L. Vagnetti 1994 “Una spada di tipo egeo da Boĝazköy.” La Parola del Passato 49: 215–36.

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Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H. 1989 “Gifts in the Persian Empire.” Pp. 129–45 in P. Briant and P.-C. Herrenschmidt (eds.), “Le tribut dans l’Empire perse”, in Actes de la Table ronde de Paris, 12–13 Décembre 1986. Paris. Seeher, J. 2001 “Die Zerstörung der Stadt Hattuša.” Pp. 623–34 in G. Wilhelm (ed.), Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie, Würzburg 4.-8. Oktober 1999. Studien zu den Boĝazköy Texten 45. Wiesbaden. Simon. Z. 2009 “Die ANKARA-Silberschale und das Ende des hethitischen Reiches.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 99: 247–69. Toker, A. 1992 Metal Vessels. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, İstanbul. Ünal, A. 1993 “Boğazköy Kılıcının Üzerindeki Akadca Adak Yazısı Hakkında Yeni Gözlemler.” Pp. 727–30 in M. J. Mellink, E. Porada, and T. Özgüç (eds.), Aspects of Art and Iconography. Anatolia and its Neighbors. Studies in Honor of Nimet Özgüç. Ankara. Yakubovich, I. 2008 “Hittite-Luvian Bilingualism and the Origin of Anatolian Hieroglyphs.” Acta Linguistica Petropolitana 4: 9–36. Yener, K. A. 2002–3 “Amuq Valley Regional Projects.” Chicago Oriental Institute Annual Report 2002–2003. (available at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/02-03_Amuq.pdf)

The Evolution of the Side Court House in Late MB Central and Southwestern Anatolia Fabrizio Giovannetti

U n i v e r s i t à L a S a p i e n z a , R o ma The starting point of this article is the analysis of the planimetric correlations between the Burnt Palace of Beycesultan Level V, the so called LB I House from Gözlü Küle/Tarsus, and one of the houses from Kültepe/Karum Ib, which was part of the presentation of a poster about the reconsideration of the chronology of Beycesultan Level V at the last ICAANE held in London in 2010. Revisiting the architectural and the ceramic data from this site, it was possible to propose a sensible change in the chronological assignment of the settlement of Beycesultan level V in Anatolian history. This level has, therefore, been lowered in date and correlated to Hissarlik Level VI, initial phase and to Level Ib of the Karum of Kültepe, both on architectural and ceramic grounds. 1 The presence in some of the buildings of the MB Anatolian settlements of a type of plan characterized by the side position of the inner court, surrounded on three sides by different and independent sectors of the house, seems to develop in Anatolia in the second part of the MB, in a period during which the Anatolian trade opens its commercial horizons toward the Syrian borders. Syrian influence reached the Cilician plain as well as the inner Anatolian plateau, as the material and iconographical relationships between the MB settlements of Kültepe and Tell Mardikh show, and determined the diffusion of several cultural models from Syria to Anatolia. The identification of an identical architectural principle in the three buildings here considered represents the attempt of the Anatolian architects to assimilate a non-Anatolian model. The Burnt Palace of Beycesultan Level V (fig. 1) shows an inner planimetric development consisting of three distinct and independent planimetric units, all connected to a side inner open court. The single planimetric articulation of the three building units suggests a substantial differentiation of their functions within the building itself. The palace does not seem to be neatly closed to the surrounding space and, on the contrary, there is evidence of its development toward the northwest and east, following the natural evolution of this area of the hill. Moreover, the supposed central open court seems not to be really centrally placed but to be moved to a position very close to the northern edge of the presumed limit of the building on this side of the eastern citadel. As to its walls structures, the average thickness 1. See F.  Giovannetti, “Beycesultan: A Reconsideration of the Chronology of the Burnt Palace Level V According to a New Architectural and Ceramic Analysis.” Poster Presented at the 7th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (London 12th–16th April 2010), in press.

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Fig. 1.  The Burnt Palace from Beycesultan Level V, reconstruction after Lloyd and Mellaart 1965: fig. A.3.

Fig. 2.  The so-called LB I House from Gözlü Küle/Tarsus LB I level, reconstruction after Goldman 1956: plan 21.

of the walls ranges from 0.80 to 1.0 m but the foundation trench is almost 2.0 m wide, suggesting a strong vertical evolution of the building, with the presence of at least one upper floor. In general, the aesthetic appearance of the palace does not indicate its predominant position within the geophysical conformation of the citadel but rather reflects an attempt to adapt to the natural development of the hill. 2 Little can be said about the LB I House from Gözlü Küle/Tarsus because of its poor state of preservation and the lack of information about it (fig. 2). But, indeed, its plan is described by H. Goldman as consisting of “rather small rooms arranged 2.  In this respect, the erection of a terrace foundation was used to render the soil on which the building was built more homogeneous; see S. Lloyd and J. Mellaart, “Beycesultan Excavations. Second Preliminary Report, 1956,” AnSt 6 (1956) 101–35.

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Fig. 3.  The House from Kültepe/ Karum Ib, reconstruction after Özgüç and Özgüç 1953: plan A.P1.

around three sides of a court.” 3 The excavator also suggests the presence of at least one stairway to the eastern part of the house. The importance of this building lies, on one hand, in its particular position within the LB I settlement—that is, in the same area where the so-called Hittite temple of the following period will be erected—and, on the other hand, in the presence of a hoard of bronze objects that the authors refer to as belonging to a foundation deposit. In this hoard was found a lugged axe of Maxwell-Hyslop type 2—that is, exactly the same type found in Trench E of the Burnt Palace of Beycesultan V. This discovery increases very much the importance of this building for the argument here discussed. 4 A last matter of importance is the evidence of a bulla with an incised inscription, which is translated: “Išputaḫšu, the Great King, the Son of Parijawatri.” 5 The third building here discussed is one of the houses from Kültepe/Karum Ib (fig. 3). This building was considered by T. and N. Özgüç to represent a new house type within the domestic architecture of the lower town, showing a multifunctional inner development, with at least two wings of the building connected to an inner open court. Nevertheless, the Turkish archaeologists do not refer to the role of this open court as characterizing a principle of centrality. 6 Moreover, the planimetric 3.  See H. Goldman, Excavations at Gözlu Küle, Tarsus II: From the Neolithic Through the Bronze Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956) 44. 4.  This typical practice is thought by Matcheld J. Mellink to be of Syrian origin; see ibid., p. 281; for the lugged axe found at Beycesultan, see D. Stronach in S. Lloyd and J. Mellaart, “Beycesultan Excavations: Second Preliminary Report, 1956,” AnSt 6 (1956) 88, fig. 21:2. 5.  See H. Goldman, Excavations at Gözlu Küle, 46 and 246–47, fig. 405:1. The notice found in another bulla from Boğazköy referring to a man named Išputaḫšu who was the King of Kizzuwatna led to the assumption that this building could have been used as an important residence by the LB I rulers of the town during the rule of the political entity of Kizzuwatna in Cilicia. 6.  See T. Özgüç and N. Özgüç, Ausgrabungen in Kültepe 1949 (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlarindan no. 12, 1953) 123.

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Fig. 4.  The so called Batiment Centrale from Kültepe citadel, after B. Hrozný, “Rapport preliminaire sur le fouilles tchecoslovaques du Kültepe 1925,” Syria 8: fig. 1.

development of the building is very similar to the other two buildings here considered. The construction of the foundations of this house was with a simple row of andesite stone for an average thickness of ca. 0.50 m and, therefore, would not be strong enough to support upper development of the structure. Anyway, the evidence of a possible stairway on the northern side of the house suggests the presence of one upper floor, at least on this side of the building. An interesting item for discussion is the presence of three stone bases along the northern side of the open court, which led the authors to presume that this side would have been covered with a portico. 7 A last curious bit of evidence from this house is the presence of a monolith found in the room to the east of the stairway, in the northern part of the building. This very interesting stone object was found close to the northeastern corner of the room, along with some fragments of clay tablets, which are found only in this context. Actually, nothing can be said about the meaning and the function of the monolith but, certainly, it can be hypothesized that because of its presence the northeastern part of the house could have been reserved for a specific practice within the activities of the building and that this practice was clearly connected with the specific role of this separate sector of the house. 7.  The evidence of porticoes along the inner sides of the court is an architectural feature characterizing the LB public Hittite architecture of Boğazköy and Alaca Höyük but could also have been characterized the court of the Burnt Palace of Beycesultan V; see S. Lloyd and J. Mellaart, Beycesultan 2: Middle Bronze Age Architecture and Pottery (London: Occasional Publications of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara 8, 1965) 66.

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Fig. 5.  The Palace 5059 from Megiddo level XI, after L. Nigro, “Ricerche sull’architettura palaziale della Palestina nell’età del Bronzo e del Ferro,” CMAO: Contributi e Materiali di Archeologia Orientale 5: fig. 14.

When a closer planimetric comparison of the three buildings is considered, it is possible to observe at least three common architectural peculiarities that seem to link them very closely. These are: 1.  The evidence of a side court, with both the functions of distribution of part of the inner circulation and of a light well (a). 2.  The presence of an L-shaped planimetric unit placed in a position to the side of the building and used as a stairway (b). 3.  The presence of an inner planimetric unit consisting of three rooms with axial development and reserved for a particularly significant area of the building (c).

It is, indeed, important to note that the architectural characteristics of these three buildings seem to be quite distant from those of the most representative MB central Anatolian official buildings—that is, the Palace of Waršama from Kültepe citadel Level 7 and the Sarikaya Palace from Acemhöyük Level III, whose architecture is characterized by: 1.  A plan mainly based on a neat subdivision of the inner space into similarly functional storage rooms around four sides of a central open court. 2.  Clearly regular profiles, which give the buildings a particularly impressive form in the context of urban space.

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Fig. 6.  The Western Palace from Tell Mardikh IIIA–B, after P. Matthiae, La storia dell’arte del vicino oriente antico, vol. 2: Gli stati territoriali. Milan: Electa.

3.  A central court not used for the distribution of the inner circulation, being separated from the rest of the building by the presence of surrounding corridors.

The evidence of this still quite uncommon planimetric typology in the buildings here shown allows a reconsideration of some of the architectural examples coming from domestic and non-domestic contexts, in some of the most important Anatolian settlements during the second part of the MB. In fact, among houses coming from Kültepe/Karum Ib and from the lower town of Boğazköy IVc–a, it is possible to observe a type of house characterized by a side court usually placed in a corner of the building and often linked to a street. When the inner court is directly connected to the main entrance, it is clear that it had a role as a passage between the outer

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space and the inner sectors of the house placed around two or three sides of it. 8 At Kültepe, the same architectural principle of the buildings here considered seems also to be applied to the so called Batiment Centrale, discovered by B. Hrozný during the Czech archaeological mission in 1925 (fig. 4). This building was found at a depth of ca. 3 to 8 m from the soil level and was built on a 6-m-high massive earth-andstone terrace foundation. The remaining part of the building measures 62 × 58 m but must have developed at least southward and westward. The average thickness of its stone and brick structures ranges from 1.50 to 2.30 m, without any apparent use of timber beams inside the walls. Although the information about this building is very limited, it is possible to determine that its general plan is very reminiscent of the buildings reported here. In fact, assuming the presence of the main entrance to the east of the inner court—that is, to the outer urban space of the citadel looking toward the Karum area—the plan is composed of a side open court on the east side and is surrounded on the other sides by various building sectors, the northern one perhaps used for storage purposes and the southern one for other daily activities. Regarding its chronological position within the history of the site, the excavator proposed a period immediately preceding the end of the site, which he referred to generically as Hittite and placed between the 15th and the 12th centuries b.c.e. It seems, anyway, much more appropriate to assign to this building a chronology roughly corresponding to the end of the citadel Level 7 and possibly related to a period parallel to Level Ia of the Karum. 9 In analyzing this type of planimetry and the position of the court as a side room within the planimetric articulation of some of the pre-Hittite and Hittite houses, R. Naumann proposed a non-Anatolian matrix, in contrast with the typical development of MB Anatolian domestic architecture, as it is possible to see especially in the Karum of Kültepe. Referring to the specific role of the court itself, Naumann proposed a foreign influence and looked toward Egyptian and Palestinian architecture (in contrast with the Mesopotamian architecture), which is characterized by buildings set on an inner and multifunctional court around which the rest of the building develops in a radial manner. 10 In this regard, a comparison could be made with one of the better known MB Palestinian settlements, at Megiddo, whose Palace 5059 of Level XI 11 shows an inner planimetric development with at least two separate and independent building sectors connected to a side open court, whose function seems exclusively to be providing a means of inner circulation. The same planimetric outlines can also be seen in the official buildings of Tell Mardikh during the IIIA–B phases, especially in the case of the so-called Western Palace of the lower town and the main palace of the citadel, Palace E, where the most recent excavations have revealed the pres8.  In many of the architectural examples of domestic buildings from the lower town of Boğazköy, the usual presence of an L-shaped room, either used as a court for horizontal passage or as a stairway for vertical passage, supporting inner circulation, is a very common architectural feature of levels IVc–a; see D. Gabarrini, “Una particolare tipologia planimetrica nell’Anatolia del II millennio,” CMAO 6 (1996). 9. This hypothesis could be suggested by the observation that the building was found immediately under the refuse of the Roman period; see B. Hrozný, “Rapport preliminaire sur le fouilles tchecoslovaques du Kültepe 1925,” Syria 8 (1927) 2–3. 10.  See R. Naumann, Architektur Kleinasiens von ihren Anfängen bis zum Ende der Hethitischer Zeit (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1971) 381. 11.  The chronology of the Palace 5059 is assigned to the 18th century b.c.e.; see L. Nigro, “Ricerche sull’architettura palaziale della Palestina nell’età del Bronzo e del Ferro,” CMAO 5 (1994) 49–50.

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ence of rooms also along the eastern side of the inner court. 12 Three interesting architectural elements seem to be remarkably consistent in the official buildings of the Syrian and Palestinian traditions here reported during the first half of the 2nd millennium b.c.e., very much like the eventual similarities with the planimetric features of the three Anatolian buildings considered here. These are: 1.  The absence of an exterior predetermined regularity of the outer external facades, which seem to adapt to the original urban conformation of the area on which they were built. 2.  The independence of the distinct building sectors around the sides of the side inner court. 3.  The direct opening of the court to an outer urban space or to a street on one of its sides.

In conclusion, the evolution and diffusion of the side-court house in Anatolia seems to developed in a period—that is, the late MB—during which an increase of commercial activities toward a more southeastern route resulted in a possible cultural influence on the central and southwestern Anatolian settlements from both the Syrian and, partially, the Palestinian and Levantine areas. This cultural exchange was certainly favored by the Syrian towns under the territorial and political kingship of Ebla, particularly during the settlement of Tell Mardikh IIIA–B, when commercial relationships with the Anatolian rulers became much closer and determined the transmission from the Syrian area to Anatolia of several models, especially in ceramic and the glyptic production. 13 The presence in Anatolia of an architectural model that was well developed in the MB architectural tradition of the Syrian and the Palestinian areas represents the best example of the strong connections between central and southwestern Anatolia and the Syrian and Palestinian cultures during the second part of the MB. 14 12.  From the paper proposed by P.  Matthiae at the 7th ICAANE in London 2010, still in press. Palace E seems, therefore, to have been composed of an open court surrounded by independent building units on the northern, western, and southern sides and directly open to the outer space on the southern side. 13.  For the ceramic transmission, see P. Matthiae, “Jugs of the North-Syrian/Cilician and Levantine Painted Wares from the Middle Bronze II Royal Tombs at Ebla,” in Anatolia and the Ancient Near East (ed. K. Emre et al.; Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1989) 303–13; for the glyptic and iconographical transmission, see, respectively, N.  Marchetti, “Workshops, Trading Routes and Divine figures: On the Early Middle Bronze II Syro-Anatolian Lead Figurines,” Orientalia 35 (2003) 390–420, and F. Pinnock, “Some Thoughts About the Transmission of Iconographies between North Syria and Cappadocia, End of the Third-Beginning of the Second Millennium b.c.,” in Proceedings of the 1st International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ed. P. Matthiae, A. Enea, L. Peyronel, F. Pinnock; Roma: Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, 2000) 1397–1406. 14.  An alternative southeastern route connecting the Syrian and the southwestern Anatolian territories has been considered by J. Mellaart; see his “Archaeological Evidences for Trade and Trade Routes between Syria and Mesopotamia and Anatolia during the Early and the Beginning of the Middle Bronze Age,” Studi Eblaiti 5 (1982) 31.

The Role of the Saĝĝa in Ur III Based on the Puzriš-Dagān Texts Jorge Hernández

Universidad Complutense

de

Madrid

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of the saĝĝa in Ur III based on evidence found in the Puzriš-Dagān documents, paying particular attention to the so-called “mu-kux(DU)” texts for livestock delivery. It will focus on the relationship between the deliveries made by these officials and their importance within the social structure in Ur III, highlighting the most relevant aspects. The saĝĝas, 1 as temple administrators, were one of the key figures within the provincial administrative structure. Their influence extended beyond the temple into the economy and society itself. In this regard, Puzriš-Dagān provides an excellent context for an analysis of their activities.

1. Sources The main sources employed in the study of the activity of the saĝĝa are those of Puzriš-Dagān/Drehem (hereafter PD). 2 This place was the main accounting center Author’s note: The abbreviations used in this article can be found at: http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/abbreviations_for_assyriology and W. Sallaberger, “Ur III-Zeit,” in Mesopotamien: Akkade und Ur III-Zeit. OBO 160/3 (ed. P. Attinger and M. Wäfler; Freiburg / Göttingen, 1999) 393–402, with the addition of the following: CRRAI 45/2 = W. Hallo and I. J. Winter (eds.) Proceedings of the XLV e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part II: Yale University. Seals and Seal Impressions (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2001); Durham = unpublished tablets of the Cuneiform Collection of the Oriental Museum, Durham; FS Hruška: L. Vacín, ed., U4 du11-ga-ni sá mu-ni-ib-du11: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Blahoslav Hruška (Dresden, 2011); FS Lipiński = K. van Lerberghe and A. Schoors, eds., Immigration and Emigration within the Ancient Near East. OLA 65 (Leuven, 1995); Nasha = S. B. Nelson, Nasha: A Study of Administrative Texts of the Third Dynasty of Ur (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1972); SMM = Science Museum of Minnesota: http://www.smm.org/anthropology/cuneiform/catalog/; DN = divine name, E = envelope, GN = geographical name, PD = Puzriš-Dagān, PN = personal name, S = seal. I wish to thank M. Such-Gutiérrez for assistance and encouragement and also for allowing me to include the unpublished tablets of the Cuneiform Collection of the Oriental Museum, Durham. I am also grateful to P. Paoletti for her comments and suggestions and to R. Dorado, who kindly improved my English. 1.  For the office of s a ĝ ĝ a in general, see Sallaberger and Huber-Vulliet 2003–2005: 628–29 and Henshaw 1994: 20–24. The studies in Ur III are those of Schneider 1930: 73–76 and 1947: 139–42, Jean 1931: 197–200, Falkenstein 1957: 155, Grégoire 1962: 12–13 and Sallaberger 1999: 194–95; in PuzrišDagān: Sigrist 1992: 218–19. For Nippur in the third millenium, see Such-Gutiérrez 2003: 36, 43–44, 98–99; Tab. 54; and Wang 2011: 75–76, 127–29, 189–93, 240. Early Dynastic period: Maekawa 1973–74: 137–38 and Monaco 2011: 4–9. Old Babylonian period: Renger 1969: 104–21, Harris 1975: 155–60, 179– 81, 183–87, and Tanret 2010. 2.  For a summary of Puzriš-Dagān and references, see Sallaberger 1999: 238–73. I will focus on the livestock archive. However, in some cases, references from other archives can be used to substantiate the evidence of the activities and duties that the s a ĝĝ as manage in the administrative center.

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for livestock entry within the central administrative system and was directly controlled by the crown. The documentation of the archive dates from the beginning of the foundation in Š 43 until IS 2, a period of higher administrative development. The PD archive contains a detailed record of large parts of the economic activity in Ur III. The center administrates the deliveries of animals and the subsequent distribution to the temple, festivals, offices, elites, persons, and provinces, for multiple purposes. Thus, this archive is a unique source for an analysis of how key members of the elite and high ranking political and religious figures take part in the state organization. In PD, the archive allows us to recognize the administrative role played by the saĝĝas in the Ur III period from a global perspective. Within the archive, there is evidence of the activities of temple administrators in the main documented typologies of texts of the center. 3 Briefly, I will now describe the categories of documents in which the saĝĝas are recorded. Being an administrative center, a specific terminology is used to refer to the different activities developed that determine the typology of the documents. In the corpus, there are mainly three categories of texts: deliveries to the center of PD, designated with the term mu-kux(DU) (delivery); 4 the transfer of animals between different offices, or to several individuals, noted with the terms šu ba-ti and i3dab5; and the expenditure/disbursement of animals from the center, designated with the term ba-zi or zi-ga. In particular, for the study of the saĝĝa, a special type of document should be noted, dealing with the immediate withdrawal of the mu-kux(DU). In these documents, livestock deliveries, especially in small numbers, are recorded. They are made by elite members, usually identified by their name, family relationship, office, location, or deity to whom they are bound. These entries were to be delivered on the same or the following day and were made in honor of a particular deity, the e2-uzga, members of the royal family, high-ranking positions, or for human consumption. Withdrawal documents indicate the name of the person making the delivery and to whom or whereto it was made, thus providing detailed information about some of the key dignitaries of the Ur III period. Other documents recording the activity of the saĝĝas are those that deal with the bala duty, 5 the kaš-de2-a, 6 and the maš-da-ri-a. 7

Citation of sa ĝ ĝ a in Document Sources In general terms, it is possible to identify five different ways of indicating the figure of the temple administrators in PD texts: (a) PN s a ĝ ĝa: this option seems to be almost exclusively reserved for the temple administrator of Enlil in Nippur (Šeš-Dada, Ur-tilla, and Watārum), nearly always identified simply as saĝĝa. 8 3.  There are different proposals for typological classification of the PD texts. I follow that of Sallaberger 1993: 26–36 and 1999: 262–73. One of the latest proposals with reference to previous studies is Tsouparopoulou 2008: 86–109. 4.  For the value kux of the sign DU, see Krecher 1987 and Sallaberger 1994: 307–8. 5.  See Sallaberger 1993: 32–34. 6.  See Sallaberger 1993: 35–36. 7.  See Sallaberger 1993: 162–64. 8.  See table 1. With the exception of Watārum, as s a ĝ ĝ a of Marda: CST 80 = MVN 12 97 r. 5 (Š 44/x 29), MVN 13 590: 11 (Š 44/[  ]); and Ur-Niĝar: SAT 3 2035 r. 7 ([ / ] 5); Lugal-azida is attested as s a ĝ ĝ a of Enlil: JCS 19 28–29 S ii 1–3 (IS 1/-).

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(b) (PN) s aĝĝa DN: to use the name of the deity as an identifying element of the saĝĝa is certainly the most frequent way to recognize a person used by the temple administrators in Ur III. 9 (c) PN s a ĝ ĝa DN + GN: a combination of the name of the deity and the geographical name. It is used in cases where the origin of the officials needs to be explicited, such as when the main local deity is shared by two or more cities, such as Utu, shared by Sippar and Larsa. 10 (d) (PN) s aĝĝa GN: a limited number of saĝĝas are identified by using the name of the city where they hold the role of temple administrators. These are those from Marda and URU×KAR2. 11 (e) PN [s a ĝĝa]: a group of references to saĝĝas who are not explicitly cited as such in the documentation. Because of the functional character of the PD texts, in many cases there is no other information than the name of the individuals making such deliveries. By analyzing the onomastics and the context, it is possible in some cases to infer when the temple administrators are being referred to without their office title.

2.  Context and Role in Puzriš-Dagān There are at least 22 individuals identified as saĝĝa in the published PD corpus who take an active role in the administrative center. 12 The presence of this official in PD extends from the beginnig of Š 43 until IS 1. 13 These activities comprise the delivery and receipt of cattle for offerings to deities and to the temple, contributions to festivals and banquets (kaš-de2-a), and collaborating in the management of the bala.

Texts of Entry and Immediate Withdrawal of the “m u -k ux(DU)” The main contribution comes from this type of documentation. As Sallaberger (2003–4: 48) noted, despite being a small part of the PD activity, this corpus is a good reflection of the immediate needs that the crown considers expense preference. It should be stressed that the greatest part of the activity attested is related to Šeš-Dada and the offerings to Enlil and Ninlil, in spite of the presence of other individuals of lower status that substantiate the administrative character of the officials in Ur III. In Nippur, saĝĝas deliveries are usually made as offerings to Enlil and Ninlil. Other records register offerings made to Utu, 14 Nanna, 15 and Inanna. 16 Offerings to

9.  See table 2. 10.  See table 2 nn. 18–20. 11.  See table 2 nn. 5–7 and 17. 12.  See tables 1 and 2. The sa ĝ ĝ as of Ištarān and Ninĝirsu do not have any role in PD: see table 3 nn. 8–10. 13.  Whereas the presence of the s a ĝ ĝ a in PD is attested virtually during the entire life of the center (Š 43 – IS 2), most references belong to the first period, during the reign of Šulgi, while during the reign of Šu-Suen there are only two references, and just one with Ibbi-Suen. 14.  OIP 115 215: 2–4 (Š 43/i 10), MVN 5 97: 1–2 (Š 44/ii 9), Nik. 2 529: 4–5 (Š 44/iii′′ 6). 15.  OIP 115 217: 8–10 (Š 43/ii 6), Or SP 18 5 17: 4 (Š 48/ix 9). 16.  OIP 115 217: 8–10 (Š 43/ii 6).

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establishments are likewise attested, such as e2-uz-ga, 17 ḫur-saĝ-galam-ma, 18 and ĝiškiri6-maḫ. 19 Evidence of more unusual deliveries are those made by Šeš-Dada and the saĝĝa of Ninpumuna 20 to two members of the elite: Usaga 21 and the well-known Naplānum, 22 the Amorite, respectively. In the PD texts, there are multiple types of saĝĝa livestock offerings. There are records of deliveries of oxen (gu4), cows (u8), lambs (sila4), sheep (udu), different types of goat (maš2, maš2-gal, and munusaš2-gar3) and gazelles (maš-da3). Although lamb is the most common overall, the type of animal chosen varies according to the recipient. For example, gazelles are used for deliveries to the e2uz-ga and the ĝiškiri6-maḫ, and lamb tends to be used for joint offerings to Enlil and Ninlil. According to the analysis of the texts of immediate withdrawal of the “mukux(DU)” in AS 4 by Sallaberger (2003–4: 48), the greater part of the animals given as presents were given to individuals in order to establish a system of loyalty among numerous individuals of the elite and those in charge of diverse offices, while the lesser part were allocated to the cult of deities. However, the saĝĝa does not receive any gift. 23 If the main intention of these gifts is to strengthen the bonds of dependence between the king and the individuals of the elite and high-ranking positions, the official should receive the same kind of presents, although in a different manner. However, these were not registered in PD or were kept in a different, unknown (to us) archive.

Ba la 24 The taxation system known as the bala broadly consisted of the fees to be provided by each province to the state. The administration of the bala of each province was each ensi2’s responsibility, as provincial governors. Exception to this are Uruk 17.  AAICAB 1/1 Ashm. 1910–761 r. 1–2 (AS 2/i 22), MVN 8 116: 1–3 (AS 2/i 27), AUCT 2 147: 1–3 (AS 4/xii 26), Or SP 47/49 30 (AS 6/xi 11), Rochester 70: 1–3 (AS 7/iii 4), AUCT 2 117: 1–3 (AS 8/ii 4), AUCT 1 169: 1–3 (AS 8/ix 21). 18.  CST 80 (Š 44/x 29), CST 374 (AS 8/ii 6). 19. AUCT 1 710: 1–3 (AS 8/ii 18). 20.  Cf. Cavigneaux and Krebernik 1998–2001: 507 and Staiger 2010: 225–26. 21. OIP 115 216: 5–7 (Š 43/i 21). Usaga is attested in PD only by his name, without any mention of the office or duties that he performs in Ur III. This individual participates in activities related to birds in PD: AAICAB 1/2 Ashm. 1935–561: 1-r. 5 (Š 40/v 19–20), receives “provisions” (i g i - k a r2): Rochester 11: 6-r. 10 (Š 40/vii 30) and is documented in the livestock archive: PDT 1 69: 11–r. 14 (Š 43/vi 28), BCT 1 35 r. 29–32 (Š 45/iv). Despite having no attestation of any office or responsibility in the Ur III system, Usaga is an individual that belongs to the elite of society closer to the king, maybe part of the royal family. This follows from Philips 13 = BPOA 10 479–88 ([Š 26?]/xii), a banquet in Šarru-ilī’s house including Šulgi, the queen Šulgi-simtī, consorts, entourage, the en of Nanna and Inanna, and other individuals (see Paoletti 2012: 316–24). During the act, different gifts are given to the attendants: Usaga receives golden rings, garments, and ointments. Other documents that mention Usaga in PD are those related to the activity of his son, Ur-Suen: CUSAS 16 291: ii 33; r. v 105 (Š 48/ii), AAICAB 1/1, Ashm. 1932–529: iii 15–20 (AS 1/ vii–viii), PDT 2 959 r. v? 19 ([AS/ ] 13), TRU 400 = ASJ 7 183: 1–4 ([ / ]), AUCT 2 356: 1–2 ( / ). 22.  Nisaba 8 79 r. 2–3 (Š 47/vi 13). On Naplānum and his attestations in Ur III, see Fitzgerald 2002: 18–25, Appendix 2; Sallaberger 2003–4: 55; Steinkeller 2004: 37–40; Michalowski 2006: 59. 23.  Cf. Sallaberger 2003–4: 58. Recently, Paoletti (2012: 288–92) has shown that the e n s i 2s also receive presents from the treasure archive. 24.  About the ba l a system, see Sharlach 2004.

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and Ur, in which, due to their being Ur III capitals, their bala was paid by the šabra and the saĝĝa. 25 In this sense, an exceptional case is registered in a payment of cattle for the bala by the saĝĝa of Marda in Š 46. 26 This fact does not imply that the temple administrator of Marda in Ur III had the task of collecting and paying the bala, since it is well attested that this would have been normally done by the ensi2. These attestations should be understood as exceptional, due to circumstances that remain unclear, in which the second offical in rank of the province of Marda performs this function. Despite a clear distinction between the two officials, the saĝĝa of the city of Marda makes contributions with the ensi2 to a greater extent than those of other provinces. 27

Contributions to the Ur Festivals and Banquet (k aš -d e2- a) The temple administrators of Enlil and Marda share the same responsibilities as their respective ensi 2s in regard to contributions to festivals across the Ur region. Specifically, the documents record a contribution for the first (a2-ki-ti šeKIN-ku5) 28 and sixth (a2-ki-ti šu-numun) 29 months. The provisions follow the standard ratio of 10 cattle to one sheep. There is only one attestation of a banquet made to Šeš-Dada. 30

3.  Activity of the Enlil s a ĝ ĝ a 31 The number and importance of deliveries made by the saĝĝa of Enlil makes them particularly significant. As mentioned above, they represent the biggest saĝĝa activity and are a clear example of the great importance attached to their role within the Ur III society. The PD documents mainly provide written evidence of activities by three different temple administrators of Enlil: Šeš-Dada, Ur-tilla, and Watārum. Their activities extend from the first month of Š 43 until the end of the reign of Amar-Suen. The activity of the saĝĝa of Enlil is a regular component in the PD administrative system, like the ensi2 of Nippur or the en of Inanna. The systematic nature of their deliveries is confirmed by the high frequency of offerings, in which the number of animals and the recipient remain constant. Regular deliveries have also been documented in the offerings by the ensi2 of Nippur. While the saĝĝa provides a pair of lambs for the sacrifice to Enlil and Ninlil, the ensi2 systematically provides another couple of lambs for the sacrifice to Nusku and Ninurta. Given that there are offerings from other officials and individuals not related to the temple of Ninlil, this fact does not imply that the saĝĝa of Enlil was the temple 25.  See Sharlach 2004: 9–11. 26.  TCL 2 5577: 1–5 (Š 46/iii 10), TRU 294 r. 11 (Š 46/iii 27). 27.  Cf. Rochester 12 = YOS 15 170: 10–11 (Š 43/v); TPTS 2 1: iv 8–14 (Š 43/v). 28.  S aĝĝa Marda: SAT 2 362: 7–9 (Š 44/iii 2), MVN 5 98: 7–r. 9 (Š 44/iii 2). S a ĝ ĝ a Enlil: Amorites 18: iii 14–18 (AS 5/xii 5–24). 29. AUCT 1 794: 1–4 (AS 4/iv 11). 30.  CST 182 = MVN 12 102: 9–r. 13 (Š 47/viii 9). 31.  For the sa ĝ ĝ a of Enlil in Ur III, see Such-Gutiérrez 2003: 98–99.

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administrator of Ninlil. Rather, it should be understood in the sense that both deities recieve the offerings jointly. The fourth saĝĝa attested is Lugal-azida, known from a unique text where his royal gift seal is impressed upon, 32 with the title “ša13-dub-ba-lugal saĝĝa dEn-lil -la .” 2 2 Having ended his office as saĝĝa of Enlil, Šeš-Dada continues to take part in the administrative activities of PD as a member of the elite, 33 as well as in Nippur. 34 Watārum probably performed the duty of saĝĝa first in Marda during the reign of Šulgi before becoming the temple administrator of Enlil in Nippur with AmarSuen. 35 This is based on the fact that no more than one contemporary official of the same city is found in PD, although it is also possible that they are two different individuals. In any case, it is difficult to justify the presence of two simultaneous administrators of Enlil. In favor of the first argument is the reference of an only case, where the temple administrator of Enlil is attested as “saĝĝa Nibruki,” in a possible text from PD. 36 This attestation evidently denotes the existence of the concept of a main saĝĝa of the city, although this official is normally attested with the name of the divinity he represents.

4.  S aĝĝa as the Local Temple Leader The deliveries for offerings in PD were registered by a single religious representative of the temple. As mentioned above, in PD there is no evidence for the existence of more than one saĝĝa per city at the same time, although the existence in some temples of more than one administrator is well-known. 37 Obviously, some officials of specific places never fulfill any role in PD. This confirms that there was a developed system in the PD administration that regulated which officials of the temple were allowed to provide and receive livestock as a representative of the local temple. At the same time there was also a local official—mainly the ensi2—acting on behalf of the province. It should be stressed that the appearance in PD of a specific temple official—en, lu2-maḫ, saĝĝa, or šabra—depending on the place of origin, implies that the deliveries could not be as individual as Schneider (1947: 122) proposed. Cases in which an official was identified by the name of the city that they represented (Marda and URU×KAR2 38) would be the temple administrator of the main god or goddess of the city, rather than the sole saĝĝa official of the province. 39 The same principle applies where a saĝĝa is identified with the god or goddess of his temple. Each deity is associated with a specific location, since every god or goddess would represent the dominant deity in the city.

32.  JCS 19 28–29 E r. 8; S ii 1–3 (IS 1/-). On the royal gift seal or i n a b a seal, see Mayr and Owen 2004. 33.  Ontario 1 69 r. 11 (AS 3/ix 4), PDT 1 137:4–5 (AS 5/ix 4). 34.  MVN 10 153 r. 9 (AS 3/vii 17). 35.  As s aĝĝa in Marda, he is attested during the period between Š 44 and Š 45, while as s a ĝ ĝ a of Enlil between AS 4 and AS 9. See table 1 n. 3 and 2 n. 7. 36.  RA 74 47 116: 11 (-/- 13). 37.  Cf. Heimpel 1995: 76–77 and Sallaberger 1999: 292; Such-Gutiérrez 2003: 98. 38.  The form sa ĝ ĝ a+GN of URU×KAR2 attested in PD in a single text (BPOA 6 290 r. 6 [-/ix]) is confirmed by a text from Girsu (SAT 1 21 [ŠS 5/i]: A b - b a - k a l - l a s a ĝ ĝ a URU×KAR2ki). 39.  See also the reference to the s a ĝ ĝ a of Nippur (RA 74 47 116: 11 [-/- 13]).

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The fact that temple officials of an identical divinity are found in similar documentation does not necessarily imply that they belonged to the same temple. This is clearly confirmed in the case of the officials of Utu in Sippar and Larsa. There is evidence of the same phenomenon occurring with different officials, such as the šabra and the saĝĝa of Nanna 40 or the en and the saĝĝa of Inanna, something which implies the existence of another city beside Uruk where the latter divinity was revered as main local deity. Despite all of the above, the temple administrators are generally identified with the god or goddess of their temple. An exception is the saĝĝa of Enlil, who is only identified by his role. No mention is made of his deity or city of origin. As Schneider (1930: 76) suggested, this can be attributed to the fact that the administrator of Enlil was very well known in the context of PD, which would mean that there was no need to use the name of the god. Indeed, the proximity of Nippur and the relevance of the office justify the absence of the deity or local name. However, this could also be due to the fact that the saĝĝa of Enlil was considered to be the quintessential saĝĝa, perhaps because he was the first one. The temple administrator has members of his staff working in PD. There are references to two individuals related to the saĝĝa office. Engardu 41 works as “man of the temple administrator” for Šeš-Dada, while Ur-saga 42 is attested in a document as kurušda of the saĝĝa.

5.  Characteristics of the Office There is no direct evidence of transmission or election of the saĝĝa office in PD. However, there are numerous texts in which individuals are named “son of saĝĝa” (see table 3). •  Ur-Suen: the most significant of the saĝĝa relatives in the PD administration, son of the Enlil saĝĝa Šeš-Dada. This can be inferred from the large number of deliveries between Š 43 and Š 48, offering livestock to be sacrificed to Enlil and Ninlil, in addition to other gods and goddesses such as Inanna, Ninsun, Lugalbanda, Nusku and Ninurta. Although this shows he was part of the Nippur community, he is independent from the activities of the saĝĝa or, at least, he does not fulfill any activities on his behalf. 43 His actual role or occupation is still unknown. •  Ur-Eanna and Šeš-Kalla: also sons of Šeš-Dada, mentioned once in Š 43 and Š 48, respectively. •  Idua: son of Issu-arik, saĝĝa of Ištarān, who performs an administrative role in PD (Š 48). •  Intaea and Ur-Eninnu: sons of the Ninĝirsu saĝĝa Lu-duga, fulfilling administrative roles as civil servants within PD in AS 9 and ŠS 6 respectively. 40.  dN anna - k i- aĝ2 š a b r a (Ur) see references in Goetze 1963: 26 (Note Or SP 47/49 81 = OA 17 39 r. 15 [AS 4/ix]), also: MVN 15 80: 5 (AS 4/ix 26), BIN 3 95: 4 (AS 4/xii), SAT 2 788 r. 8 (AS 4/xii), BIN 3 538 r. 14 (AS 5/i 8), Torino 1 145 r. 1 (AS 5/ix), Nik. 2 501 r. 6 (AS 5/x). S a ĝ ĝ a dN a n n a D a b2- ru - u mki see table 2 n. 9. 41.  Enga r-du10 lu2 s a ĝ ĝ a: OIP 115 365: 2 (Š 44/xi -), OIP 115 325: 9 (Š 47/i -), AUCT 1 425 r. 7 (AS 1/vi -). 42.  U r-sa6-g a: YOS 4 318: 2–3 (-/-). 43.  The cases in which both are recorded together show that Ur-Suen does not perform the functions of his father but makes a parallel activity in PD: MVN 13 706: 1–5 (Š 44/ix 29), TRU 109: 5–r. 12 (Š 47/xii 8), Nik. 2 464: 5–r. 1 (Š 48/vii 15), TLB 3 19: 3–8 (Š 48/vii 15), Nik. 2 474: 13–r. 1 (Š 48/ix 6), Or SP 5 54 19: 13–29 (Š 48/ix 7).

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The title “son of saĝĝa” indicates a high-ranking, prestigious family. This is further proved by the numerous examples where individuals are referred to only as “son of saĝĝa,” ignoring any further details regarding their roles or any other aspects. Although the participation in PD of individuals recorded as sons of the temple administrator is very relevant, there is no proof that these were subsequently elevated to saĝĝa, which seems to suggest that they never fulfilled this role. Thus, following Such-Gutiérrez (2003: 99), the absence of any links between the three saĝĝas of Enlil supports the theory that the role was elective. Given the relevance of this role, probably it was left to the king himself to select the appropriate saĝĝa. The significance of the election is illustrated by the fact that two temple administrators of Enlil, Lugal-azida and Saĝ-Nannazu, received the royal gift seal from Ibbi-Suen. 44 The appointment of the saĝĝas by the king might indicate an intention to keep the temples under royal control. Similar situations occur in other areas of the society, such as the army, where generals marry princesses or are the king’s sons. 45 It is not attested that the individuals that held the saĝĝa office belonged to a local family where they carried out their duties, although they were indeed members of the elite. The case of Puzur-Erra, son of the šakkanakku of Mari and related to the family of Amar-Suen, 46 indicates that members of the royal family were placed in the administration of some temples. The presence of individuals with a foreign provenance is probably also attested with Nūr-Dagān, in a parallel condition with Puzur-Erra in the temple of Utu. The office must have been an occupation of limited duration, as opposed to offices held for life, such as the en and the lukur. 47 This is related to the existence of a promotion system concerning the main offices within the temple and provincial administration in Ur III. In this system, the saĝĝa office is never mentioned as held for life, whereas in some cases upgrades to other offices in Ur III and earlier periods are well known. 48 An example of this is Nūr-Dagān in Sippar: he became consecutively saĝĝa and ensi2, 49 or Bēlī-bāni attested as saĝĝa and later as gudu4. 50 In other circumstances, the promotion of individuals is not known, although they are present in the references due to the relevance that they have, such as Šeš-Dada after holding the saĝĝa office. No relationship exists between the origin of the name and the deity of their temple. As for a possible “profession name,” there is no evidence of this in the PD documentation. It can be stated that, after holding the saĝĝa office, the individuals continue to appear in PD with the same name, as attested for Šeš-Dada and Nūr-Dagān. 44.  See Mayr and Owen 2004. Lugal-azida: JCS 19 28–29 E r. 8; S ii 1–3(IS 1/-). Saĝ-Nannazu: PBS 13 5 S (-/-) and HSAO 9 168 2. 45.  See Sallaberger 1999: 185, 194 and Sharlach 2001: 65–66. 46.  Sharlach 2001: 65–66. 47. For the appointment of e n and l u k u r as life roles and particularly the second, see SuchGutiérrez 2012 with discussion of previous scholarship.  48.  For earlier periods, see, for example, in Nippur, Lugal-niĝzu (RIME 2.6.2), in Adab, Lugal-aĝu (Pomponio 2006: 55), and in Umma (Pomponio 1989: 30). 49.  See Goetze 1963: 26, Pettinato and Waetzoldt 1985: 251, Owen 1988: 116 n. 13, and Frayne 1997: 276. It should be added to the list of the following texts: MVN 13 640: 7 (AS 5/v 29), MVN 11 140 r. 24 (AS 5/ix 9), BJRL 64 112 72: 4 (AS 8/v). 50.  Cf. table 2 n. 4. BIN 3 546: 4 (AS 9/x 7), Ontario 2 215 r. 5 (ŠS 3/ix 15). For a plausible seal of Bēlī-bāni, see Tsouparopoulou 2008: Appendix 25 59.

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6. The saĝĝa within the Administrative Structure The saĝĝa plays a particularly significant role within the structure of civil servants and public officers in PD. Since they are among the highest-ranked positions in the province, this importance affects not just their power but also the sphere in which it was fulfilled. This can be examined by analyzing the hierarchy of roles as described in the administrative documentation of the livestock center. These documents allow us to establish the position that the saĝĝa held inside the provincial administrative structure. It should be noted that there were some criteria to register the movements of goods in PD. The scribe, responsible for recording the differents activities, when registering the individuals would take into account the criteria according to which the officials and individuals should be organized, such as number of provisions and their rank. It is safe to assume that these criteria would be commonly taken into consideration in the PD texts, although it is not possible to establish whether they were always correctly applied or whether the criteria were always kept the same. As regards the saĝĝas, their ranking is reflected in the position they hold in texts where another official from the same province also appears. In such cases, the ensi2s are the most easily identifiable element. Only in two cities, Nippur and Marda, have we any evidence of both roles being fulfilled at the same time. Where both the ensi2 and the saĝĝa of Marda are documented, the ensi2 seems to have a more active role, while the saĝĝa is always cited afterwards, with a lower number of deliveries. The situation in Nippur, however, is much more complex. As regards the deliveries they both make, the saĝĝa frequently makes more and larger deliveries than the ensi2 (or, at least, the temple administrator is cited before the provincial governor in the texts). This could be related to the character of Nippur as religious capital of Ur III, suggesting the importance of the role of the saĝĝa compared with the other officials during this period. In general terms, the saĝĝa of the main city temple would rank second within the overall ranking of the provincial administration.

7.  S aĝĝa and š a b r a Among the individuals registered in the documents, particularly striking are those who seem to be attested with the roles of saĝĝa and šabra at the same time. This matter was initially pointed out by Goetze (1963: 21, 26) and developed by Sharlach (2001: 65), and Sallaberger and Huber-Vulliet (2003-5: 628). From the preceding studies and the current documentation, some general aspects of this matter can be stated: (a) saĝĝa and šabra stand at the top of the temple administration in Ur III; (b) each religious center is under the control of one or more administrators; (c) normally both officials do not coexist in the same temple. In PD, however, both officials are present as taking part in the administrative system. Analyzing the data of the center, a difference in the number and the duties that each official develops can be noted. While the saĝĝa group is made up of a limited number of individuals, representing a temple or divinity, mainly focused in the offerings for the temples, the šabra, in contrast, belongs to a larger group

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that not only deals with the temple management but also with other spheres of the administration. 51 This saĝĝa–šabra coexistence is related to some specific deities and individuals. In perspective, the individuals who hold both offices are a minority, but they represent a specific situation. As will be shown below, each case should be treated separately. For this question, the primary documentation available is that of PD and Ĝirsu. •  Enšakuge: under this PN 52 there are references of activity in the PD archive during the reigns of Šulgi and Amar-Suen. This PN is found contemporary in the sources in four different ways: without any reference to office, as saĝĝa or š a b r a of Ninĝišzida and as en of Nanše. The fact that one PN holds severals offices does not necessarily imply that they were the same individual. In the en of Nanše’s case, the connection with the other officials cannot be demonstrated, considering that probably this office is related to NINA, located in a different province. The administration of the temple of Ninĝišzida in Gišbanda is traditionally controlled by the saĝĝas, as can be noted in the documentation of Ĝirsu. Office Enšakuge

Date

––

Š 45/ix

– AS 8/x

s a ĝ ĝ a Ninĝišzida

Š 44/iii

– Š 48/ix

š a b r a Ninĝišzida

Š 47/v

– AS 5/vi

e n Nanše

Š 46/ix

– AS 5/vi

•  Ninsun: the administrators related to this deity are well attested from the reign of Šulgi until the first year of Ibbi-Suen. PD registers the activities of LuNanna as saĝĝa and šabra, 53 Ku-Ningal 54 and an unknown PN 55 as šabra, while in Ĝirsu there are references of Ur-Bau as saĝĝa. 56 •  Utu of Larsa: in Larsa two different officials dealing with the cult of Utu are attested, Dugaĝu as šabra 57 and Puzur-Erra as saĝĝa and šabra. 58 •  Saĝ-Nannazu: present in PD as šabra. 59 A document from Nippur registers an individual with the same PN as saĝĝa of Enlil holding the royal gift seal, given by Ibbi-Suen. 60 For this individual Goetze (1963: 21) and Sharlach (2001: 65) proposed that both offices were held in the same period. Nevertheless SuchGutiérrez (2003: 99) demonstrated that it was in fact a case of promotion in which the individual changed his office. 51.  For the activity and attestations of the š a b r a in PD, see Sigrist 1992: 219–21. 52.  See table 4. 53.  See table 2 n. 12. Lu-Nanna is also attested in an text from Ur as š a b r a: UET 3 12: 3 (Š 40/-). 54.  BIN 3 457: 5 (ŠS 7/vii), MVN 13 487: 5 (ŠS 8/ii), SAT 3 1859: 5 (ŠS 8/v), PDT 1 506 r. 5 (ŠS 8/ ix 10). 55.  CST 164 = MVN 12 101: 7 (Š 47/ii 16). 56.  ITT 2 2730: 1 (ŠS 8/-), TCTI 2 4099: 4 (IS 1/-), BJRL 64 98 1: 2 ([ ]/viii). Other references without PN: TPTS 2 228: 2 (AS 9/-), ASJ 17 224 114 r. i 24 ( [ / ]), ASJ 17 231 119: i 5′ ([ / ]), TCTI 1 624 r. i 7 ([ / ]). 57.  OIP 115 7 r. 6 (Š 46/viii). 58.  See table 2 n. 20. 59.  NYPL 13: 7 (IS 2/viii 26), CT 32 19 BM 103398 r. viii 5′ (IS 2/iv 29). 60.  PBS 13 5 S (-/-).

The Role of the Saĝĝa in Ur III

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•  Šulgi: there are attestations of saĝĝa 61 and ša b ra 62 officials related to the cult of Šulgi. Their connection cannot be demonstrated.

There are two basic models in the cases previously mentioned: that of Ninĝišzida, in which there seems to be a brief disruption of the saĝĝa office, and the cases of Ninsun and Utu in Larsa, characterized by a prolonged duration. The presence of both officials in the activities of PD and other centers demonstrates that, even though they have in some cases similar duties, they are definitely different officials. The distinction between both seems to lie in local traditions and specific duties. What could have possibly motivated these particular changes is difficult to explain without a deeper understanding of the processes that take place in temple, local, and state levels.

8. Conclusions Puzriš-Dagān, as an administrative center of the state, was directly controlled by the crown rather than by the provincial archives. Its archive allows us to recognize the administrative role played by the saĝĝas in the Ur III period from a global perspective. The saĝĝa role was performed by an individual belonging to the elite. This official played a key role in the delivery of livestock for sacrifice. This occurred at the same level as the ensi2 or en, acting on behalf of the city and temple, and mainly making deliveries to the divinities of Nippur. Given the relevance of the saĝĝa office, it was rather an elective and temporal role and was most likely appointed by the king himself in order to control the main office of the temple. A more detailed study of the different archives currently known, along with an exhaustive prosopographical analysis of the period, should lead to advances in the understanding of the features of the saĝĝa’s role, as well as the economic and social implications associated with this offical in Ur III. 61.  See table 2 nn. 15–16. 62.  Ur-sa6-g a: AUCT 1 637: i 7 ([-/-]); without PN: AUCT 1 315: 12 (Š 45/ix).

700

J orge H ernández Table 1: saĝĝa of Enlila Office

Name

Texts

sa ĝĝa 1

Š e š- da- da

PDT 1 102 = OA 14 155: 5 (Š 43/i 18), Nik. 2 487 r. 4 (Š 43/ii 3), Nisaba 9 278: 3 (Š 43/vii), TCS 328 r. 1 (Š 43/x), CST 79 = MVN 12 97: 2 (Š 44/x 2), TRU 256: 5 (Š 44/iii′′ 4), Nisaba 8 376: 3 (Š 45/ vi 26), Ontario 1 30: 5 (Š 45/ix 24), Durham U10728: 3 (Š 45/ix 27), Torino 1 13: 2 (Š 45/xii 21), OIP 115 198: 2 (Š 46/iii 10), CDLB 2010: 1 4: 1 (Š 46/xii 3), OIP 115 274: 3 (Š 47/ii 21), OIP 115 275: 2 (Š 47/iv 29), JMEOS 12 45 3503 = RA 76 11: 3 (Š 47/iv 29), Orient 16 43 13 r. 12 (Š 47/v 5), MVN 15 312: 4 (Š 47/v 6), BPOA 6 678: 4 (Š 47/v 6), OIP 115 210 r. 37 (Š 47/vi 18), AAICAB 1/4, Bod. S 412: 7 (Š 47/ix 15), Nisaba 8 93: 8 (Š 47/x 21), RO 11 96 2: 10 (Š 47/xi 1), Nasha 50 Smith 514: 3 (Š 47/xi 26), BPOA 7 2628: 5 (Š 47/xii 18), Nasha 21 SIF 2: 3 (Š 47/xii 20), SMM 12 r. 17 (Š 48/vi 16), MVN 8 15 = RA 75 78: 2 (Š 48/vi 21), CST 212 = MVN 12 104 r. 12 (Š 48/x 5), BPOA 7 2876: 3 (Š 48/xii 22), BPOA 7 1595 r. 9 (Š 48/[ ] 11), BPOA 7 1859: r. 9 ([ / ] [ ]+6)

2

Ur - t illa3/5

Santag 7 133: 9 (AS 1/ix 12), BPOA 7 2839: 3 (AS 1/xi 13), OIP 121 75: 5 (AS 2/iii 17), OIP 121 77: 2 (AS 2/vii 24), FS Levine 115: ii 13; iv 30′; vi 38 (AS 2/xi 6–16), BPOA 7 2874: 3 (AS 4/vi 18), BPOA 6 83: r. 5 (AS 4/vi 22), Nisaba 8 21: ii′ 6; r. iii′ 12 ([ / ] 29?), CUSAS 16 295 = AulaOr 31: 4 ([ / ])

3

Wa-ta2- ru-um

CST 501 = MVN 12 116 r. 3 (AS 4/v 9), BPOA 7 1742: 6 (AS 4/viii 11), BPOA 6 31 r. 10 (AS 5/ii), Durham U10729: 2 (AS 5/ii 20), PDT 1 9 = OA 14 154: 2 (AS 5/iii 10), NYPL 297 r. 2′ (AS 5/iii / AS 6/x), OIP 121 84: 3 (AS 5/iii 29), OIP 121 197: 3 (AS 5/iii 29), OIP 121 86: 3 (AS 5/iv 26), OIP 121 89: 9 (AS 5/v 7), Nisaba 8 382: 2 (AS 5/v 27), OIP 121 292: 3 (AS 5/x 3), OIP 121 312: 3 (AS 5/xi 28), Nisaba 8 91: i 13 (AS 7/ix 4), AUCT 1 710: 3 (AS 8/ii 18), SACT 1 186 = OA 20 131 r. 31 (AS 8/- 20), PDT 2 1229: 2 (AS 9/xi 10), OIP 121 110 r. 10′ ([AS / ] 22), YOS 15 158: ii 14, 21; iii 10; iv 1; r. v 26 (AS [-/-] 5–20+[ ])

4 sa ĝĝa Lug al- a2dEn-lil -la 2 2 zi- da

JCS 19 28–29 E r. 8; S ii 1–3 (IS 1/-)

5 sa ĝĝa N ibruki

RA 74 47 116: 11 (-/- 13)

a.  For the complete list of attestation of the s a ĝ ĝ a of Enlil see Such-Gutiérrez 2003: Table 54. Corrections and new attestations are listed in the table.

The Role of the Saĝĝa in Ur III

701

Table 2: other saĝĝa Office

Name

Texts

 1

sa ĝĝa

Ur - niĝ arĝar

SAT 3 2035 r. 7 ([ / ] 5)

 2

sa ĝĝa dGa -t um -d u 2 3 10

–

BPOA 6 290: 4 (-/ix)

 3

sa ĝĝa dĜIŠ?-RA?

–

MVN 3 385: 3 (-/-)

Be-li2-ba-ni

MVN 13 472: 6 (AS 8/x 5)

 5

–

Rochester 12 = YOS 15 170: 11 (Š 43/v), TPTS 2 1: iv 14 (Š 43/v), SAT 2 362: 8 (Š 44/iii 2), MVN 5 98: 8 (Š 44/iii 2), TCL 2 5577: 5 (Š 46/iii 10), TRU 294: r. 11 (Š 46/iii 27)

 6

Lu-lu-ba-ni!

Nebraska 3: 5-r. 7, S (Š 44/iv)

 7

Wa-ta2-ru-um

CST 80 = MVN 12 97 r. 5 (Š 44/x 29), MVN 13 590: 11 (Š 44/[ ]), AUCT 2 140: 6 (Š 45/xii)

 4

d

sa ĝĝa Inan na sa ĝĝa Mar2- daki

 8

sa ĝĝa dMes-lam-ta-e -a 3

Lu2- diĝ ir - r a

OLP 8 6 1: 4–5(Š 45/vii 22), MVN 13 514: 4 (Š 46/v 29), Nik. 2 524 r. 1–2 (Š 47/vii 9)

 9

sa ĝĝa dNan na Dab2-ru-umki

Lu2- bala- sa6- g a

Or SP 47/49 127 = OA 17 40: 4–5 (-/vii 25)

10

sa ĝĝa dNin- a- zu

Ur-Nin-ĝiš-zi-da Nik. 2 529: 5 (Š 44/iii′′ 6)

11

sa ĝĝa dNin-ĝi š-zi - da

En- ša3- k u3-g e

See Table 4

12

sa ĝĝa dNin-sun2

Lu2-dNanna

OIP 115 149 r. 13 (Š 43/iii 22), BPOA 7 2882 r. 5 (Š 44/xii), OIP 115 278: 7 (Š 47/v 22), AAICAB 1/4, Bod. S 576: 3 (Š 47/vi 25), MVN 10 140: 3 (Š 48/ix 11)? šabra dNin-sun2: SAKF 46 r. 1 (AS 1/viii), TRU 88: 6 (AS 2/ix), PDT 2 1304 r. ix 26 (AS 3/ix – AS 4/xii), PDT 2 893: 5 (AS 6/ix 1), Or SP 18 3 10: 8–9 (-/-)

13

sa ĝĝa dNin- t u

–

MVN 3 385: 4 (-/-)

14

sa ĝĝa dNin-pu -m un- na 2

Lug al- K A- g i- na

Nisaba 8 79 r. 3 (Š 47/vi 13), AAICAB 1/4 Bod. S 584: 16 (Š 47/x 8)

15

dNanna- lu

NYPL 398: 6–7 (Š 44/viii 1)

16

–

BPOA 6 290: 5 (-/ix)

–

BPOA 6 290 r. 6 (-/ix)

18

En-um-i3-li2

TRU 29: 2 (Š 44/viii 20), MVN 2 159 r. 1 (Š 46/viii 1), CTNMC 13: 7 (Š 47/viii 15), Or SP 47/49 127 = OA 17 40: 6 (-/vii 25)

19

Nu-ur2-dDa-gan

TrD 30: 4 (AS 3/ix 17)

Puzur4-Er3-ra

BPOA 6 702: 3–4 (AS 2/x), SAT 2 798 r. 8 (AS 4/ viii), CRRAI 45/2 64: 3–4, S (AS 5/ix), OIP 121 289 r. 8 (AS 5/ix), UDT 91: v 107 ([AS/ ] 11) šabra: MVN 8 28 = RA 75 78: 4 (AS 1/x), PDT 1 144: 2 (AS 5/vii 14)

sa ĝĝa dŠul - g i

17

2- du10

saĝĝa URU×KAR2ki dUt u

sa ĝĝa Sipparki

20

sa ĝĝa dUt u Lars amki

21

[ ] s aĝĝa

OIP 115 282 r. 15 (Š 48/vi 12), UDT 112 r. 12 (AS 9/ iii [ ])

702

J orge H ernández Table 3: Individuals related to the saĝĝa Office

Name

Text

sa ĝĝa  1

Ur -dS ue n dum u Š e š- D a- da

OIP 115 148 r. 10 (Š 43/i 29), Nik. 2 466: 9 (Š 43/vi 21), BIN 3 4: 3 (Š 43/xi 5), MVN 13 706: 4 (Š 44/ix 29), OIP 115 234: 8 (Š 44/iv′′ 12), SAT 2 442: 3–4 (Š 45/viii 18), MVN 13 127: 3 (Š 45/viii 30), BIN 3 499 r. 14 (Š 46/v 19), Ontario 1 34: 18 (Š 46/vi 15), MVN 5 102: 3 (Š 46/viii 7), BIN 3 508: 1 (Š 47/ iv 28), OIP 115 259: 2 (Š 47/vii 28), NYPL 242: 6–7 (Š 47/viii 4), MVN 2 309: 3 (Š 47/ix 13), Nisaba 8 93: 13 (Š 47/x 21), OIP 115 266: 3 (Š 47/xi 12), TRU 109: 6 (Š 47/xii 8), OIP 115 284: 3 (Š 48/vi 27), Nik. 2 464 r. 1 (Š 48/vii 15), TLB 3 19: 8 (Š 48/vii 15), Amorites 12: 10 (Š 48/vii 19), Nik. 2 474 r. 1 (Š 48/ix 6), Or SP 5 54 19: 28–29 (Š 48/ix 7), OIP 115 291: 11 (Š 48/ix 17)

 2

Š e š- K al- la dum u Š e š- D a- da saĝ ĝ a

FS Hruška 83: 8 (Š 48/xii 19)

 3

U r-dD um u- zi- da dum u saĝ ĝ a

AAICAB 1/1 Ashm. 1910–741: 11 (-/-)

 4

I-din-DIĜIR sag i saĝ ĝ a

AUCT 1 287 = JAOS 107 155 r. 7 (Š 46/iii)

 5

Ur - sa6- g a k ur ušda saĝ ĝ a

YOS 4 318: 2–3 (-/-)

 6

Eng ar - du10 lu2 saĝ ĝ a

OIP 115 365: 2 (Š 44/xi -), OIP 115 325: 9 (Š 47/i), AUCT 1 425 r. 7 (AS 1/vi)

 7

Ur - e2-an- na dum u saĝ ĝ a

BIN 3 491: ii 20 (Š 43/v),

 8 sa ĝĝa dIštaran

I-du-a dum u I-su2a-ri2-ik saĝ ĝ a

TCL 2 5499 r. iii 8 (Š 48/-)

 9

I n- t a- e3- a dubsar dum u Lu2du10- g a saĝ ĝ a

MVN 13 477 S (AS 9/vii)

10

Ur - e2- ninnu dubsar dum u Lu2du10- g a saĝ ĝ a

AUCT 3 267 S (ŠS 6/viii)

s aĝĝa

dEn-l il

s aĝĝa

2-l a2

dNin-ĝir

2-su

Table 4: Enšakuge Name

Office

Texts

En-ša3-ku3-ge –

PDT 1 410 r. 3 (Š 45/ix 7), SET 2 r. 19 (Š 45/ix 2), SACT 1 7: 2 (Š 45/xii 27), OIP 115 205: 4 (Š 46/v 29), OIP 115 278 r. 20 (Š 47/v 22), BIN 3 519: 10 (Š 48/ix 13), AUCT 1 783: 2 (AS 1/x 4), PDT 2 958: ii 9 (AS 2/i 30), PDT 2 1273: 8 (AS 4/i 11), MVN 13 472: 3 (AS 8/x 5)

saĝ ĝ a dNin- ĝ iš- zi- da OIP 115 168: 1 (Š 44/iii 8), AAICAB 1/4 Bod. S 584: 11 (Š 47/x 8), Or SP 18 5 17: 4–5 (Š 48/ix 9) šabr a dNin- ĝ iš- zi- da TRU 112: 5 (Š 47/v 27), AOAT 25 55 W 2/13: 9′([Š 47/v] 27), JCS 23 113 25: 3 (AS 5/vi 28) e n dNanše

ASJ 14 102 4: 9 (Š 46/ix 6), Or SP 47/49 1: 7-8 (Š 48/ix 9), Nik. 2 474: 4 (Š 48/ix 6), FS Lipiński 215 r. 37 (AS 5/vi 27), UDT 91: v 135 ([AS/ ] 11), Nisaba 8 21 r. iii 1 ([ / ] 23)

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Life Extension Secondary Burial and the Making and Unmaking of Self in EB IA

Rick Hauser

T h e I n t e r n at i o n al I n s t i t u t e f o r M e s o p o tam i a n A r e a S t u d i e s (S a i n t P a u l , MN) These are the imposing slopes and rills of the Early Bronze Age cemetery of Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ (BeD), Jordan. Here, the burial shafts—marred by the work of looters— show as black holes. 1 Each opens onto multiple chambers cut into the marly limestone hills.

Eventually, these shaft tombs hollowed out from the landscape would contain more than half a million burials. 1.  I am grateful to photographer Daniel Contreras for this picture of the cemetery at BeD. He and his colleague, Neil Brodie, are innovators in the use of publicly available satellite imagery of archaeological sites. Here is their recent article: http://works.bepress.com/daniel_contreras/12/) .

705

706

R ick H auser

The cemetery rose above the Dead Sea Plain, a wall containing the dead of the people who lived in the cities below, an ever-present reminder of how the world of the living ends. Up close, among the burial chambers and assaulted by the clamor of multiple burials all going on at once, a community must have seemed perilously close to the edge of its very existence.

Secondary Burial, Self-Actualization, and Figurines This paper seeks to link three areas of archaeological interest within an anthropological perspective—clay models of the human figure, the subject-centered biography (as Dobres might say) that gives social resonance to the manufacture of these objects, and the mortuary practice of secondary burial in EB 1A levels of the great cemetery at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ on the Jordanian Plain southeast of the Dead Sea. I suggest that ritual gave resonant social meaning to secondary interment. Making, unmaking, and remaking of clay figurines reflexively informed disarticulation and re-articulation of skeletal material in the burials, offering an intact representation of the deceased and, in a provocative formulation, of the mourners themselves. As the dead are manipulated, so are the living.

Secondary Burials Secondary burial is frequently encountered in the mortuary practices of the Early Bronze Age in the Middle East, although it may be counted as only one practice among a variety of funerary traditions (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 49). A workable definition of secondary burial is ‘the regular and socially sanctioned removal of the relics of some or all deceased persons from a place of temporary storage to a permanent resting place.’ (Hertz, in Metcalf and Huntington 1991: 97) Generally speaking, the second burial terminates the cycle of mortuary rites that follows upon the first burial. (Heessels and Venbrux 2009: 121)

At Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ on the Jordanian Plain southeast of the Dead Sea (also known by its Arabic name Ghôr [Rast 2003: 319]), secondary burial is for the better part of 200 years the preferred form of interment. In EB IA (3300–3200 b.c.e.), secondary burials are encountered in shaft tombs; they are found in transitional context (EB IA/IB) (Rast and Schaub 1981: 57–58); and in EB IB (3200–3100 b.c.e.), they also may be found above ground in charnel houses (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 2). The shaft tombs were the exclusive burial structure at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ in EB 1A (ibid., 46; Schaub and Rast 1989: 33–203) and are unique for the time period in the Southern Levant (Early Bronze Age I Tombs, 50, citing Bloch-Smith 2003). The cemetery at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ is vast (> .75 k2 ) (Rast and Schaub 1978: 26; Schaub and Rast 1989: 32–203). Lapp estimates that there are over half a million burials (1968: 5–6). The shaft tombs and secondary burials of EB IA at Bâb edhDhrâʿ accumulated more than half again as many burials as there are at Arlington National Cemetery in a period of time half again as long (something like a century—Arlington was founded in 1864). Presently, Arlington must perform about thirty funeral services a day to keep pace with its inhumation rate (Metzler 2010). So, by any accounting, the BeD cemetery in Early Bronze times was intensively used, a striking fact since clear evidence

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of permanent settlement appears only in EB IB (Frohlich and Ortner 2000: 123)/ EB II (Schaub and Rast 1989: 17, 20). In the absence of such evidence, Chesson postulates that “people gathered the defleshed remains of the dead from their primary burial site, bundled up the remains carefully, and travelled to the site of Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ to bury the dead once again” (Chesson 2001: 105). 2 Such a vast array of mortuary evidence obviously affords ample opportunity for investigation and analysis. Only time and financial resources (and now, looting) set limits to the research. 3 Secondary burials required a considerable investment of resources both human and physical (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 299). The excavators maintain that the tradition of secondary burial persisted through major cultural changes such as the change from early nomadism to sedentarism. Lapp would surely concur. “What remains to be determined is why secondary burial continued to be practiced as the society became more sedentary. One possibility is simply a continuation of a cultural tradition in the context of a different settlement pattern” (ibid., emphasis mine).

Cemeteries There is some reason, I think, to consider burial grounds as spaces of transition, rather than a “final resting place,” an end, a static embodiment of what remains 2.  Jacob Klein asks me, “Why Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ? Why did the Peoples of the Plain come here—only here—to bury their dead?” Perhaps the landscape itself served as marker. And this, because of the very fact of repeated inhumation that modified the profile of the landscape. Perhaps also the frenzied pace of excavation itself served as visible sign. The excavators say this: The comprehension of the function and significance of the Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ site in and for the life patterns of the populations of the Early Bronze Age necessitates obtaining the widest environmental perspective possible. Such studies are particularly critical for this site. The environment in this case includes that immediately around the site itself and ultimately the entire southern Ghôr. (Rast and Schaub 1978: 29) In the penultimate section of this essay, I provide a provisional (not to say cursory) study of placement of one kind of grave goods—the figurines and associated objects. A finer-grained analysis will, I believe, prove to be important in subsequent studies of the cemetery and the mortuary practices that define space at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ. I use the locution advisedly, for I feel that in the same way the figurines in the burial chambers were manipulated, so was the landscape of the marly limestone slopes of the site—this habitus of the dead—reconfigured by the charged activities that took place there. So, in our day, is Arlington National Cemetery reconfigured (and some burials—come to find out!—are lost). So do the tombs of another celebrated burial-ground, Père Lachaise, elbow into crevices and clamber over one another and tumble into communal spaces. [T]he very richness of the data challenges anthropological archaeologists to incorporate actively the large body of ethnographic studies of mortuary practices and the construction of social identity with the analysis of the archaeological material culture found in the cemeteries. (Chesson 1999: 138) 3.  Initially excavators imagined, as at Kenyon’s Jericho, a sequence of burial practices that might trace the evolution and progress of the settlement from a period of distinct pastoral groups to one of sedentary occupation. It was thought that secondary burials, often cited as evidence of an unsettled nomadic population on the move, would be a key to this analysis. This was not to be. The Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ evidence is deposited without interruption over a millennium. Burial practices and artifactual traditions belong to two or more of the cemetery phases. Also, excavators have documented clear typological progression throughout the period, not a series of discontinuous manufacturing practices (Lapp 1968: 17).

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to us of our ancestors. 4 It is my estimation that, in EB I, this period of transition served as a stage for ritualization of the burial process itself. The practice may take different forms, but it can involve “reburial and sorting of the bones after decarnation, . . . cleaning the body of decaying flesh, beautifying it, sorting the bones and/or removing one or more parts of the body” (Larsson 2003: 162). Larsson calls this time “a liminal period,” underlining its transitory “neither/ nor” nature. 5 Again, echoing Van Gennep (1960: 146), he emphasizes the social nature of this transition, involving “a period of disaggregation in a temporary grave”; after which, “society recreates itself ” (Larsson 2003: 163). 6 David Ilan, in his discussion of mortuary practices in Early Bronze Age Canaan, notes that [s]uch ordering is found in many tombs and it may have just as much to do with the human penchant for symmetry and creating order out of chaos. Death, after all, creates a gash in the fabric of society and an emotional chaos that demands redress (Ilan 2002: 95).

Whatever physical, active manifestation occurs during this period, the secondary ritual may impart to the living a feeling of control, sometimes manifested, I take it, in improvised mortuary ritual— In the case of reburial, not only the grave is adjusted. Relations among the mourners, and between mourners and deceased, are also transformed. . . . Reburial . . . automatically affects relations with and among the living (Heessels and Venbrux 2009: 127).

Heessels and Venbrux tell us (2009: 123) that, in the Netherlands of the present day, the disturbance of the remains of the deceased after a decade or so to allow decomposition has stirred civic protest and in general is the subject of troubled consideration. In EB I, the reburial of human remains appears to have been equally worthy of attention. We shall see signs that those in attendance at the reburial went to some lengths to “put things in order,” bringing a long sequence of activities surrounding interment to a definitive close. 7 4.  This concept was explored with profit in an essay by Meike Heessels and Eric Venbrux (2009), although to their mind at least one major transition in question (death, itself; and primary interment) occurred prior to the secondary interment, thus leaving to the living “room . . . to create their own rituals” (119). Following Van Gennep (1960: 146), they note that the period of time between exhumation of a primary burial and inhumation of the secondary burial “may achieve a certain autonomy” (2009: 121). I take this to mean that the transition was in itself a “phase” defined by displacement and the re-settling of skeletal materials in a different setting. Today, in the Netherlands, this intermediary period is secured by national law, primarily because it allows time for the body to decompose (2009: 122). 5.  It may be useful to think of this liminal landscape as a neutral space, not dissimilar from the “safe space” projected between patient and therapist in psychoanalytic analysis, a place where—as we will see—the self is made, unmade, and reconstituted. For Homo ludens—humankind at play, in an essential sense—the burial-ground becomes another kind of neutral space, a terrain de jeux, where a complex sort of social geometry is played out, and where the outcome is in question, dependent on the skill with which the secondary burial is managed. 6.  Chesson proposes that changes in burial tradition at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ reflect changes in fundamental societal structures and mark the progress of urbanization itself (Chesson 1999: 160). 7. David Mullin has written provocatively about the “invention of tradition” as it may relate to secondary burial in the Early Bronze Age round barrows of the Cheshire Basin, England. This concept, which he in fact addresses only fleetingly, involves remembering and forgetting in equal measure, a

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Exemplars of Process Consider three diminutive figurines from Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ, right. The British Museum catalog describes them as “very crude.” I suggest that far from being inept discards of a heedless cognitively-advanced adult being or human, or the tentative mash-ups of a child in the distant past, these objects are in fact sophisticated exemplars of process in a past time. They document—repeatedly, it appears—an on-going process, the making and unmaking of an image that must have had performative purpose in the lives of those who modeled the figures. The process is documented in the clay residue that fortuitously survives and remains for us. The three exemplars from the British Museum are not baked. They have been unbaked, unfired, as if some primal fixative process had not been invoked. They have come down to us, only a few steps removed from their originary state—mere clay. Discard? No. Deposit, yes. But only after this human image had played out a singular few moments in its life history. We can only guess at the intensity of the interaction between the object and its maker; but as surely as the little representation was reworked, so was the life of the modeler re-calibrated. The passage of the action, its extension and existence in time, is documented in the clay, once malleable and now rigid and dry. The objects themselves are telling us a great deal about what they did, that whatever that action might have been, it was repeatedly practiced, and it had meaning for the maker. Not “crude.” Rather, “sophisticated”—a direct witness to the lifeways of the very ancient past.

Figurines Reconsidered It is worth asking the degree to which the word “crude” influences the way we imagine a given artifact could be used and with what implications for social standing. Would a “crude” figurine, for example, indicate that the family of the deceased particularly dynamic formulation that links individual and community in shared commemoration (Mullin 2001: 537). Mullin’s observation calls attention to signs that are manifest in the landscape selected for burial, in the monuments that surmount the graves, in grave goods and in the burials themselves that recreate in memory the presence of a departed loved one (this is my reformulation of his thesis, reproduced here as a reminder that interment is not a simple activity devoid of cultural resonance; it is rather a commemoration that has temporal resonance, past and present). One novel form this commemoration might take is the subject of the present paper.

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was of inferior status, not being able to afford a finer representation? What if the figurine were found in a context that under ordinary circumstances would imply that the deceased individual was a member of the elite? Is the representation thereby less “crude?” Do we imagine ritual usage would be more likely to occur in an elite context, rather than in an impoverished milieu? In order to understand the investment of energy in this term and how it appears to inhere in a given artifact, I will next explore how subjectivity and enactment come to be intertwined. This will inform my ultimate stance regarding the ritual usage of figurines in mortuary context at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ.

The Embodied Object The artifact we recover does not come to us unalloyed. It is tainted by our attention. 8 Think how our own prejudices become holy writ. My favorite example is drawn from the classical canon as defined by Henri Frankfort, the preeminent interpreter of near Eastern Art and architecture. I would be the first to acknowledge my interpretive debt to this fine critic. But I balk when I read this: The prehistoric clay figurines of men and animals do not differ in character from similar artless objects found throughout Asia and Europe. A history of art may ignore them, since they cannot be considered the ancestors of Sumerian sculpture (Frankfort 1970: 18).

A corrective has never been issued. And those who interpret figurines for the rest of us swallow the dictum whole, without pausing to consider that the classical canon (“symmetry,” “balance,” “the beauty of the human form” and so on) may simply have no relevance in prehistory. Now, acts are “transformed into representations, and become archaeological data” (Tomášková 2003: 502). Tomášková demands that we acknowledge “[this] practice embedded in data”; a remark that is most meaningful as it may indict our own research methods, themselves part of a larger historical context. We see through “a modern-day lens,” she says. We bring to the laboratory our own culturally specific way of seeing. [O]bjects in so far as they are targets of epistemic activity, are unstable concatenations of representations (Tomášková, 2003: 500; citing Rheinberger, 2000: 274).

At a first level of consideration, this is one way objects can become imbued with cultural meaning. Note, however, that this particular content, as articulated here, is reflexive; that is, an aspect of self returned upon self. The researcher is foregrounded and not the object. How this meaning might adhere to the object, redefining form and essence and be transferred along with its host to other observers, is not yet clear. In “An Outline of a Theory of Practice” (Bourdieu 2006: passim), Bourdieu shows us that it is necessary for the anthropologist researcher to disentangle per8.  Tomášková argues that “the context of discovery cannot be separated from the context of justification” (2003: 501). The researcher is obliged to fill in gaps in the record, projecting aspects of self onto objects and structures and at the same time bringing what may be transnational aspects of a given site into a purely local sphere, that of the researcher’s own preconceptions and observation.

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sonal bias from interview and observed behavior. Only then is there any hope of pinpointing the intersection in the past of the life way of an individual and the life (the “biography”) of the object. If we are successful in abstracting self (our own) from the observations we make of objects and the way they “live” in ancient times, we shall be a step closer to identifying what I see as the performative aspect of artifacts. From the outset, I think we have always suspected that the images we conjure of past lifeways—which objects anchor, presumably—are ghosts projected on a screen of our own imagining. People have realized that objects do not just provide a stage setting to human action; they are integral to it. . . . This new focus directs attention to the way human and object histories inform each other. . . . The central idea is that, as people and objects gather time, movement and change, they are constantly transformed. (Gosden and Marshall 1999: 169)

We can agree, I think, that objects are invested with meaning through association with their human or human-like companions. . . . [M]eaning must be enacted. It must be both performed and witnessed [in an] act of showing. (Gosden and Marshall 1999: 175, 176)

For my purposes, this process of enactment is more pertinent as it might have occurred in the distant past, among members of a community. 9 “Making,” Rheinberger says (allying himself with Kant), is “the ultimate horizon of knowing” (2000: 410). If this is so, we have reason to conclude that if we were to determine that a figurine were “crudely” made, it would be in a way a rejection of knowledge, a deliberate refusal to refine and burnish the intellectual lode potentially contained within the clay, something like leaving a diamond in the rough. In mortuary processes evident at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ, such a rejection of certainty is untenable. It is my belief that each of the figurines excavated at BeD displays volition and an adequate level of skill to produce such certainty as a mourner, an invested spectator, or a family member might require. “Crude,” they are not. For the moment, however, we accept that objects are given a measure of meaning in the past through interaction with human beings, or human-like beings. There is no one way of experiencing an object; and in fact, the variability in the artifact and its discontinuous presence is a part of its vitality, its life and “hold” on cognitively aware beings. We can also recognize, I think, that artifacts exhibit signs of variability, that they differ one from the other. Stones may be stones and they all may to one extent or another be the raw materials for flintknapping, but a nodule is not a tablet, nor is it a block, but we might identify it as a cobble or a pebble and not a “stone” per se. And once cognitive agency is applied, the principle of least difference enables the researcher with some certainty to identify flake “landmarks,” various percussive 9. In a rebuttal to criticism of his volume, “Toward a History of Epistemic Things”, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger comments on the making of epistemic things: he first characterizes them as being invested with meaning; and then he states, as Tomášková (Tomášková) noted above, that there is no a priori fixed relation between concept and reference—rather, there is an inherent polysemy of knowledge-bearing artifacts (Rheinberger 2005: 408), a matter that contributes to his observation that science is an exploratory attitude toward knowledge about the world (p. 409). Such a fluid conception of the object and its multiple facets obviously relates to my concerns, tentatively outlined in this essay.

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strikes, and so on (see Debénath and Dibble 1994 for a complete repertory). That this is “typology” of a sort is unavoidable; we simply need to be aware that our observations are culturally determined, different at each stage of the chaîne opératoire and not absolutely inherent in the artifact. We need also to be aware that our own research agenda may limit the manner in which we perceive artifacts. In a way, we block our own sight, stepping in the way of a full apprehension of the performative nature of objects. In order to understand how this might be so, I will examine in detail some artifacts of a type with which I am most familiar, namely, figurines.

“Crude” and Terms that Convey Primitive Execution At Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ, vessels recovered from Early Bronze levels—34th century to the 31st century b.c.e.—bore painted, modeled, and incised human representations that evidently were part of accustomed iconography. These are among the very first finds recovered at this site that may have served as repository for the dead of the Cities of the Plain (Lapp 1968: 25). From the start, even before the exemplary excavations of Lapp and his colleagues, excavators characterized the human figure at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ in terms that convey the idea of primitive workmanship. As an example, Saller writes about the “club-like” termination of the arms of a human figure at the top of the strap of a vessel (Saller 1964–65: 166, fig. 19; also fig. 18.5). No single commentator (including van Buren) has more insightfully commented on the multifarious nature of figurines than the late P.R. S. Moorey; his unflagging devotion to the study of these diminutive artifacts spanned a career of some sixty years, dating from his apprenticeship to Dame Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho and culminating in an online catalogue of Ancient Near Eastern figurines held by the Ashmolean Museum, where he was Keeper of Antiquities. A Note for the Reader that prefaces this study, his last research endeavor, is instructive and indicative of his insightfulness: There is little if any specialist literature . . . on methods of manufacture and decoration of ancient Near Eastern terracottas. Morales (1983; 1990) is almost alone in bringing personal experience of clay modelling to bear on her study of prehistoric figurines. Even in the rare cases when contemporary pottery has been the subject of scientific analysis, this has not extended to contemporary figurines (Moorey 2001: 13). 10

Now Moorey, for all his analytical acuity, remains surprisingly blind to variation in production technique and volition of the makers. In a scant seventeen pages, introductory to the Ashmolean catalogue, Moorey uses the descriptive “crude” thirteen times; a number of other references imply that he considers workmanship to be shoddy. His general query informs the entire study: “Why,” Moorey asks, “are so many anthropomorphic figurines so schematic and crudely modelled, to the point where they are barely recognizable as human?” (2001: 14) 10.  Moorey is right about Morales; her study of the figurines from Saraband and Çayönü (Morales 1990) is a model of calm inspection and unadorned commentary. I have scanned the work in vain for the word “crude”; and I am unable to find it. She simply doesn’t consider the category. In fact, one of the defining characteristics of her study is its refreshingly positive aspect; Vivian Broman Morales doesn’t judge; she obviously cares for her diminutive charges.

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He does not supply an answer. Remarking on the occurrence in graves as “a significant feature of their use,” Moorey reviews the figurines from Samarra: These figurines are considerably removed from the mass-produced, crudely hand-made, often tiny and relatively featureless examples found in earlier contexts in the lowlands of the Near East (2001: 23).

He might have paused to consider the implications of being “mass-produced,” in itself a comment on manufacture, but he did not. This is rather unusual, and surprising, from the author of “Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries” (1994), a masterwork that attests to the acuity of Moorey’s critical commentaries in general. He pauses to identify . . . [c]rudely made clay animals [that] were also found, as at other Hassuna settlements, some clearly bovids (1994: 24).

Apparently, not only human characteristics can be clearly identified, although it would be interesting to know what prompts the judgment—horns? Body conformation? Genitals far forward in the belly? 11 Regarding Yarim Tepe III, Moorey is similarly credulous: [O]ver thirty crudely made animal figurines, including cattle, sheep and dogs were found in an ash-filled pit associated with a model of a stone hoe . . . (1994: 25)

As I observe elsewhere in this essay, locus may be singularly important in ascertaining the biography of artifacts. 12 The fugitive nature of the clay representations themselves belies the fact that the objects are “poorly modeled”. In some cases, I would say, they are like an acute observer’s sketchpad, a notation that such-and-such animal is present. Moorey, allowing only the possibility that the particular representation was an object that should look like a given animal, familiar to the researcher, notes that [i]n Halafian contexts animal figurines of unbaked or lightly fired clay are recurrent, but often so crudely modelled that it may be doubted that representation of a specific species was foremost in the modeller’s mind. (1994: 25)

Moorey’s litany continues at Bâb Edh-Dhrâʿ 13— . . . crude, hand-modelled, unbaked standing, nude female figurines (1994: 30). 11. These secondary characteristics are significant in identifying animal types. They are crucial markers in the typology I propose in my study of animal representations at Urkesh (2008 [2007]). 12.  It should be considered an aspect of the chronotope, applying terminology from Bakhtin’s work on literature (as in, for example, 1981), the intersection of time and space in a specific topological detail of the historical landscape. 13.  The word itself is encountered in the excavators’ site reports. For example, in Rast and Schaub 1981 (50) where “crude, unbaked clay figurines” are noted amongst bones in Tombs A 78 NE and A 78 SE. Also in Schaub and Rast 1989 (277: “a crude vertical slash” [figurine F-3/Tomb A 5E], 278: “Breasts are large clay lumps, crudely modeled with the torso“[figurine F-4/Tomb A 5E]), 288: “the simplicity and even crudeness of the forms” [similar comparanda]) The word must have had little or no negative valence for the excavators, for they chose to emboss a line drawing of figurine F-3 on the cover of the volume (“cute,” as I note in a forthcoming essay [2011]). I have always been puzzled by this but speculate that an anthropomorphic representation may have seemed a more appealing emblematic usage than skeletal remains, however close to anatomical correctness they may appear.

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R ick H auser Contemporary pottery is well-made, emphasizing the crude manufacture of these figurines which were presumably for the occasion (1994: 30)

In comparison to contemporaneous artifacts, the “crude” exemplars suffer; they seem not to conform to some unspoken—seldom made explicit—aesthetic code. One calls an artifact “crude” because it just looks that way. 14 Clearly, a lack of skill is exhibited in “crude” figurines. Else, why would the workmanship appear so shoddy? The Valeryan, supremely insightful sense of critical dissociation that permits the atomization of a very complex process or production/manufacture is seldom, if ever, applied to the production of figurines. They are, I guess, just transparent; we need not remark on their manufacture, it is so very obvious. This predisposition—this oversight—of the research community informs the vast majority of figurine studies today, no less so at Bâb Edh-Dhrâʿ. For the moment, it suffices to remark that an important aspect of the life history of figurines is seldom considered: Morales (1990: 57) pointed out that here, as at Jarmo and Sarab . . . in the Zagros mountains, “clay figurines were deliberately fired after manufacture, which insured a short-term existence but did not constitute a preparation for permanence. . . . Permanence could have been obtained by the manufacture of figurines in stone.” This was not an option to many in the lowlands, where suitable stones were often absent. In all places, to some degree, manufacturing from stone required specialist rather than household skills and possibly male rather than female artisans. Even baking indicates a degree of permanence. Unbaked or sundried terracottas are, for obvious reasons, archaeologically elusive. Their absence may often be more apparent than real (Moorey 1994: 17).

Two matters are of import in this citation: secondarily, here, the emphasis on specialized skills required in the manufacture; and first of all, the impermanence of the medium as a direct result of the conditions of manufacture. Moorey remarks elsewhere, regarding the figurines at Hajji Firuz Tepe, A majority of the figurines have no significant wear on their surface (73%, or 8 of the 11 figures specifically examined for wear) (Moorey 1994: 8).

Why does he not pause to conflate certain observations, so that impermanence, no significant wear, short-term existence, unbaked, casual manufacture might all be brought to bear upon the matter of function, and of readable life-history of the individual artifact? He simply does not. However, to his supernal credit, in his summary Moorey touches on the unique nature of figurine manufacture:

14.  Tobler evidently shared unspoken criteria, whatever they may be, with Moorey (and Frankfort and others, on and on, too numerous to mention): Tobler (1950: 165) believed that casually manufactured quadrupeds were children’s toys on the grounds that: “if these objects had been made with a view to substituting them for actual animals in religious rites or practices it would most certainly be expected that enough skill would have been exercised to differentiate the model of a sheep, for example, from that of a goat, cow, or other animal” (Moorey 1994: 28).

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(viii) There are indications that clay images were made, used and discarded in many cases during “discrete episodes of activity” (McAdam 1997: 136), particularly when crudely hand-made. Their social roles may then have been short-term and transitory. . . . (Moorey 1994: 47)

He goes on to say that figurines “were evidently not an essential aspect of mortuary rites, save in specific places and periods.” Two steps forward. One, back. These considerations are important as we try to trace the (mostly invisible) sequence of manufacturing steps from amorphous clay glob to finished (“crude” discard or not) figurine. And this analysis is here pertinent for I next raise the concept of the chaîne opératoire, that manner of sequencing that permits the archaeologist to “read” the record for traces of ancient lifeways.

Chaîne Opératoire Bleed reminds us that the chaîne opératoire is about artifact production, use, and repair (Bleed 2001: 106). Originally conceived as an aid to understanding the production of stone tools, the theoretical construct has been applied to innumerable other activities—human processes, Bleed so deems, that bring artifacts from raw materials and recycling to a useable form (Bleed 2001, citing Vidale et al. 1992). This, I seek to do in this paper. But I would rephrase Bleed’s paradigm to read making, unmaking, and remaking. Think back to the three clay figurines in the British Museum and how sequencing of the steps in manufacture represents no more nor less than the life history of these humble artifacts, unfolding in “lived time,” as Dobres would say (2000: 161)— [Sequential models] address topics of archaeological moment—artifact diversity, change through time, and historical events. Second, because they deal with the operation of activities, they offer a specific means of addressing the static things of the archaeological record in dynamic terms. Finally, they offer a conceptual basis for linking apparently diverse objects into patterns that can themselves be studied in behavioral, cultural or cognitive terms (Bleed 2001: 122). 15 15.  Is it possible, then, to place the Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ figurines in time? And, rather than slapping an arbitrary function on these otherwise mute objects, may we divine an actual process, the very ritual that involves them and gives charge and meaning to certain burial practices in EB I? Follow the eminent craft aesthetician Phillip Rawson’s reasoning— The basis of expression in ceramics—as in the other arts—is the way the forms of a pot implicate in their presence a wide range of the spectator’s personal experience (Rawson 1984: 15). By “spectator,” I mean to implicate the active participants in prehistoric graveside ritual. Rawson goes on to explore the idea of . . . memory-traces based on our sensory experience. These remain in our minds charged, it seems, with vestiges of the emotions which accompanied the original experiences (1984: 15–16) Without venturing further with these ruminations—except to say that I concur with Dobres, who sees each choice as “a category of personhood,” a “means of self-actualization” (Dobres 2000: 160), I would ask the reader to hold these concepts in mind while we consider together the meaning of an otherwise inaccessible ritual.

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It is far beyond the scope of this paper to describe the full panoply of manufacturing activity that encompasses the biography of the BeD figurines. They are, after all, no less complex in their manufacture than the vessels that accompany them in the BeD tombs. We need, nonetheless, to remember that implied in their final form is their beginning as a blob of clay scooped from a pit on the Jordanian Plain. Each juncture in the process of manufacture is poignant for the human choices that have been made—consciously, with purpose, an end in sight. This manufacture assumes diachronic reality as the chaîne opératoire that links separate events in the process. Whatever we may feel to be the cultural reality behind the terra-cotta figurines that were deposited in the burial chambers at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ, we have to acknowledge the centrality of their presence among the leavings of what appears to have been a complex, layered mortuary process. Their insistent presence is far from accidental; but rather, I would say, integral to the process itself. The very patterns that we may read in their relationship to other artifacts in the burial chamber are testimony to the fact that they played a role in the laying to rest (although this is likely a modern concept) of the dead. I would prefer to say that they are part and parcel of the mourning process, that they are integral players in the drama of bereavement that must needs accompany every burial—particularly these secondary—and thus most heedful of all—burials. Sapir advises us that “it is only through a minute and sympathetic study of individual behavior in the state in which normal human beings find themselves, namely in a state of society, that it will ultimately be possible to say things about society itself and culture that are more than fairly convenient abstractions” (in Mandelbaum 1951: 576). Since it is in fact this very “state of society” that is of interest here, we would in the first instance do well to consider variation in placement and location of the various figurines that are deposited in the burial chambers. Beyond this basic documentation, there is a general process that links each figurine to all the other figurines—namely, the production not only of the object itself, but also of the medium from which it is made. This is necessarily a technological consideration; thus, I need to investigate not only the making of all the artifacts individually, but also taken as an ensemble. The so-called chaîne opératoire that contains and gives meaning to individual processes within the larger making of the artifacts must necessarily elicit the question, “Where did the process begin?” even while we acknowledge that there may be some essential and reiterative modification of each object that does take place in the proximate past—on this day or on very recent days. No, we must look backwards in time, prior to the act of interment. This is the way an object lives and dies at BeD. A blob of clay is scooped from a pit on the Jordanian Plain, formed and repeatedly refashioned next to skeletal remains they represent. Making, unmaking, and remaking. Each juncture in the process of manufacture is poignant for the human choices that have been made— consciously, with purpose, an end in sight. What links the successive diachronic instances of “making”? Clearly, if A precedes B (presuming we are able to determine temporal sequence), then in a sense A is a prerequisite to the very existence of B—the relationship is causative. And, as Sapir tells us, “causation implies continuity, as does personality itself ” (in Mandelbaum 1951: 576). He further invites us to consider the fact that the world of reality is sometimes expressed in discontinuous terms. It is only when the various phenom-

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ena that make up this world are translated into “the underlying facts of behavior” that we can hope to achieve some understanding of the overall framework in which these phenomena exist. Such is the case with the figurines deposited in the burial chambers at Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘. To the extent that we can similarly speak of causative sequences in social phenomena, what we are really doing is to pyramid, as skillfully and as rapidly as possible, the sorts of cause and effect relations that we are familiar with in individual experience, imputing these to a social reality which has been constructed out of our need for a maximally economical expression of typically human events (Mandelbaum 1951: 576)

These “human events” will specify and to an extent characterize at least in provisional manner the individuals involved in the process of interment. It is through such considerations that we will begin to understand the overall patterning of human behavior and social movement that made the very special landscape that is Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘. This brings us to a crucial point. The artifact seems to be finished, in final form, but it can be altered, still. At this point, we could adumbrate further steps in the process (“three degrees of wetness,” and so forth; Rawson 1984: 25). But the illustrative purpose has been served. Our scenario picks up somewhat prior to this point, where the manufacturer is no other than the individual community member at gravesite. My contention is that this person is in a position to manipulate the medium of which the artifact—in this case, a human representation in clay—is made. (S)he receives it as an amorphous form. And then refashions it so as to make a simulacrum of the deceased. Before venturing further, we need to consider each type of grave goods in turn, considering their performative power and if they might in fact play a role in the reestablishment of social order that several of our commentators have referenced. “How,” we might ask, “do these grave goods enculturate?”

Enculturating Elements in Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ Burials Statistical analysis may bring us closer to an understanding of how various elements that repeatedly occur in the BeD burials play a role in enculturation of the populace. This is an appropriate area for analysis as we have in a preliminary way at least begun to investigate operational sequences that are at play in mortuary practices. As Leroi-Gourhan reminds us, human choice is involved at every important juncture in the chaîne opératoire, and the ultimate impact of the technological process we trace is socialization—a cumulative enculturation, the effect of the actions of technology in the real world. As we do things, we internalize certain values or practices of the culture of which we are a part. 16 16.  Here are some questions that are generated when we reconsider in detail how the figurines in the burials were made—and unmade. • Which enculturation elements are more frequently present in this sample? Fine Ware, Plain   Ware, Fine and Plain Ware, Basalt Bowls, Ceramic Imitations, Figurines. • How often do figurines occur in the BeD burials? • How frequently does Fine Ware, a prestige item presumably, occur? • How often are Basalt Bowls found in conjunction with Fine Ware? • With what frequency are Basalt Bowls and figurines found together?

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Thanks to Schaub’s exhaustive and very clear catalog of ceramic ware, however, it is possible to propose a tentative correlation between the quality of the ceramic ware—found in great quantity in many of the tombs in EB I—and the presence of figurines. Researchers have determined that there are two basic ware families in the EB IA “A” Cemetery assemblage: fine and plain. The fine wares . . . were produced with excess clay trimmed and had thin walls. Rims were elegantly formed. In surface finds, they were usually slipped and burnished. Surface decoration, if used, was often carefully done, producing regular bands of punctuate (sic) or more often raised bands, which were artistically slashed.   Plain wares had thicker walls without the signs of finishing techniques

of the fine wares. Fabrics of the plain ware used a coarser wadi sand. In form they were often asymmetrical, with slumping rims or walls. Most of the plain wares did not use slip or burnish and the decorative techniques, mostly punctate, were uneven in their application (Schaub 2008: 31). EB IA Figurines of “A” Cemetery Excavated by the Expeditions to the Dead Sea Plain 17 Tomb A78SW(W)

A100E

Figurines Location 3 N of skulls & postcranial bones, W of broken stone tool; under ceramic vessel (contact?) Among fragments, under long bones, central

21 (Schaub)

2 (3?: p. 94, Ortner & Frohlich) S of skull 3, NW of skull 4, among pots and long bones; reed matting; 2 burial episodes? Stacked ceramic vessels.

48 (Schaub)

A110NE

1 between child’s partly articulated skeletal elements (transverse cut on femur)

A110NW

2 between fragmentary skulls, W of bone pile & reed matting under partly articulated lower long bones, ceramic vessel overlays figurine

A111E

Ceramic Ware Fine Plain

2 W of two adult articulated skeletons (2 disarticulated infants, 1 fetus)

13

7

26

14

18

6

22 (Schaub) 16 10

9 5

Of course, the inferences we draw from answers derived from statistical analysis of the burial artifacts are the important aim of this strategy of analysis. Speculation it may be, but at least our thinking about the production process has brought us to consider these very questions. As Moorey so pungently reminded us (above) in his catalog to the Ashmolean Museum figurines, analysis of the methods of production of figurines is seldom a matter for consideration. Recently, a dissertation in progress (Darby 2010) addresses the fact that how figurines were created is almost never addressed in the inscriptual corpus; the author was able to uncover only one such reference in her extensive search of inscriptions in the Assyrian period. Dina Katz (2003) may have discovered other instances, but she cites them in only a preliminary way. How miniature representations were deployed is rather more frequently encountered (as, three clay “models” of seated dogs that served as foundation deposits and returned protection for their masters’ favors [Hauser 2008, citing van Buren (1931: 71–72), 204]). 17.  Compilation from Tables 4.1 and 4.8 (Schaub in Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 28, 39) and burial plans of the tombs.

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Although the correlation is not as definitive as I had hoped, the ratio of fine to plain ware in burials containing figurines is high—1.85, 1.86, 3, 1.78, 2 times as many fine ware vessels as plain ware in these five EDSP burials.

Figurines as Prestige Items In all, of some 37 burials containing more than 20 ceramic vessels, 17 (46%) also contained at least one basalt bowl and fine ware predominated, usually by a large margin, over the plain ware. Additionally, in only 3 (15%) of 20 other burials containing over 20 vessels but no basalt bowl did plain ware predominate. There is thus a reason, I believe, to investigate further the link between prestige items and EB IA secondary burials, particularly as it may inform our understanding of the presence of figurines and other mortuary goods. Stated otherwise, is it possible that secondary burial is a mortuary process that is in itself a practice reserved for an elite stratum of the population? If this were to be true, the occasional presence of figurines among grave goods is all the more striking.

Figurines and Ceramic Vessels It is true that figurines have been infrequently found among the ceramic ware of the BeD tombs; in the EDSP excavations, for example, Schaub identifies only five tombs of some fifty that contain figurines. We need only remind ourselves that if the ratio of figurine to burial were to remain constant, as in the tally provided us by Straub following Lapp—say, ten figurines for every fifty burials; and were we to extrapolate this ratio to the presumed 500,000 burials of the cemeteries of BeD taken together (Lapp’s estimate), then the number of cases in which figurines would in every likelihood be encountered is truly enormous (something approaching 100,000 exemplars!). Were we able to excavate the entire cemetery, we would have in hand documentation of statistical significance. As it is, we must be content with less than two dozen or so such examples of one to four figurines in a given burial; and our reflections must be based on this limited sample. A hazardous enterprise. That said and whatever the case, pots of varying dimensions are far more frequently encountered than figurines, reaching a high number of 53 in Tomb A80W; no other cultural artifacts are present. Lapp makes an important point when he refers to the manner in which the ceramic vessels are deployed in the different tombs—the pots are stacked, thus they were presumably not intended as containers for food (Lapp 1968: 19) In more recent excavations, by contrast, Ortner and Frohlich (2008: 92–93) have identified sealed jars with dried food residues adherent to the jar wall (see figs. 6.52a and b), as well as a small juglet (fig. 6.51) containing dried grapes. This pottery dates to EB 1B, replacing tomb “gifts” (?) associated with an earlier EB IA burial, which was swept away. Below, I consider in detail the placement of one of the figurines in tomb A78S, in close association if not actually touching a ceramic vessel which seems to be atop it. Since silting was not present and this vessel could not have “floated” into its present position; and since the contents of the tomb were presumably undisturbed throughout the millennia, the possibility that there is close association between the vessel and the figurine below it is reasonable. I venture that the ceramic vessel, polished so as to be impermeable to liquid, could have been used as a vessel of levigation for the ceramic medium of the figurine

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itself. Thus, in the process of making and remaking that I have hypothesized, this vessel would have contained just enough water to enable renewed malleability of the figurine, allowing one more incarnation and remodeling before final deposition in the tomb next to the skeletal remains. It may stretch credulity to claim that each and every pot in a tomb played a small role in this process of making and unmaking, but it certainly would account for the overweening quantity of vessels in the tombs, at least in those where there are figurines deposited. Still, other artifacts may have played a more decisive role.

Basalt Bowls and Figurines Exclusive of ceramic gifts, the object most often placed in the EB IA shaft tombs was a bowl made from basalt. (Schaub and Rast 1989: 294–302) Left, an example of a basalt bowl from EB IA tomb A6E. (Schaub and Rast 1989: fig.168, 295) Schaub devotes considerable space to discussion of these bowls. Almost half of all EB IA shaft tombs contain one or more examples. There is some thought that stonewares in this medium “had special, perhaps ritualistic, significance” (Amiran and Porath 1984, cited in Schaub and Rast 1989: 299). Other excavators have listed them as “mortars,” but such a use “seems unlikely since signs of interior wear are not apparent” (1989: 300). Further evidence that the bowls were prized is their frequent imitation in terra cotta (in some 13 chambers) (Schaub 2008: 39). I see them as aids to levigation of the partially dried clay figurines. Three of the five EDSP (Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain) excavated tombs with figurines also contained one basalt vessel. This is a rather high frequency of occurrence, compared with 15 of 56 tombs excavated (one out of four tombs, as compared with one of every two tombs containing figurines). 18 In my investigations, it did indeed prove to be the case that these vessels are causally connected with the figurines in the burials at BeD. Fisher’s First Test (exact calculations in situations where sample sizes are small) tells us that in 90% of the instances where basalt bowls and figurines are recovered together (excluding imitation vessels), the association cannot be by chance. The basalt bowls testify therefore to a possible link in the chaîne opératoire governing ritual usage of the artifacts. Now, we must ask ourselves, what is the nature of this link? I argue that clues abound in the visible archaeological record, regarding the association of grave goods and their possible causal bonds. Below is one approach to this analysis, although it would require revisiting the photographic record of each and every burial in the search for clues. 18.  This is to be compared with Schaub’s and Rast’s calculation that of some 2,500 vessels excavated by Lapp (1965–1967) from burials in both Cemeteries A and C, the majority are examples of fine ware (Schaub 2008: 25); slightly less than half contained a basalt vessel (47%); if imitations in terra cotta are counted, the proportion is even greater (60%) (Schaub and Rast 1989: 294). Schaub noted early on that their use in EB IA burials may mark the end of a Late Chalcolithic tradition (Schaub and Rast 1989: 302).

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“Care” in Secondary Burials It is certainly within the realm of possibility that some ritual accompanied the secondary burials, tending to define the very boundary between self (selves) and community (Larsson 2003). 19 Of all possible communal gestures, that simple care, of and by itself, might be taken as a sign of ritual activity is most interesting. Evidently, considerable expenditure of human effort went into the practice, beginning with the preparation and clearing away of the “stage” that contained the burials and presumably framed the events that accompanied interment. Secondary burial itself was both complicated and complex, and questions of interpretation of the archaeological record abound: Secondary burials pose multiple problems for the archaeologist. Among the most significant of these are 1) multiple burials typically occur in a tomb and skeletal elements from different burials are mixed together; 2) it is not always possible to associate cranial with postcranial bones; 3) breakage of skeletal elements during recovery from the primary burial site and transportation to the secondary site; and 4) skeletal elements are often not recovered from the primary burial site or are lost during movement to the secondary site (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 300).

“Care,” in its various manifestations, is one response to such complexity. By paying attention, attendants created a roadmap to the process of interment, modeling correctness for observers, perhaps family members, who may not have been directly involved in the laying out of skeletal remains. At Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ, “care” is everywhere apparent, except it is more than basic housekeeping in a mortuary context. This attention to detail might better be characterized as control; a singular response reflected, for the general population, in landscape modification that Rast points to in his essay in Richard’s Near Eastern Archaeology (Rast 2003: esp. 325, 327–28). The inhabitants of the city, because of the very nature of their surroundings, were in a constant state of alert, 20 building structures to halt the inevitable advance of an inhospitable landscape. When soft tissue adhered to skeletal remains at the time of secondary burial, the bones would still be partly articulated, so attendants and family members literally had in hand a partial road map to the human frame. The resultant burial bore a comfortable resemblance to what was once a living being (Frohlich and Ortner 2000: 124). In instances where disarticulated bones accompany bones that have been held in place, “an attempt [was] made to place these in the correct anatomical position (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 48). 19. This possibility is now being investigated by the excavators of five chamber tombs at Ayia Sotira, a cemetery in the Nemea Valley in Greece (1350–1200 b.c.e.) (Agade listservNotice 2010). There are signs, for example, of care being taken in the way skulls were “displayed at a higher level than the rest of the skeleton,” suggesting that the bodies were “carefully placed in this pit.” The team also discovered pieces of obsidian and flint debris in the tombs and believed that these tools would have been used to cut up bodies as part of a secondary burial procedure. It is notable that this debris was found within the tombs themselves, perhaps signaling de-fleshing as part of secondary interment. 20.  And, as I noted at the very outset of this paper, the vast cemetery was visible—always present in the mind’s eye—from the Plain. We will all come to this.

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To all appearances, great care was taken in the placement of the fragments of skeletons in secondary burials (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: fig. 6.6, 55; see here, right) Since it was not always possible to determine exactly where a given bone fragment belonged in the skeleton’s final disposition, they were swept up together and kept—in one case, at least—in the broken skull vault of the défunt (the departed). Another striking example is the East chamber of A102 (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: fig. 8.4, 150; see left.). The excavators call the arrangement of the postcranial bones “careless.” To tell the truth, the “arrangement” (A term used elsewhere by the excavators [2008: fig. 6.38, 205]) appears rather in tidy disarray. There would appear to be, from my vantage point, intent in the arrangement of the fragments; they were not simply tossed to one side. Repeatedly, there are examples that show the careful arrangement of the disarticulated skeleton, not necessarily in imitation of the human anatomy. Any number of examples could be given, none more orderly than the central bone pile of tomb chamber A86SW (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: fig. 6.33, 75; see right).

Breakage Skeletal remains at Bâb edhDhrâʿ suffered damage in the process of transporting them from primary to secondary place of rest. Or perhaps afterward. Here left, a detailed view of the broken long bones in A78S (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: fig. 6.9, 57). To what extent can we imagine that the breakage we see on the bones (left) was the product of accident in transport or during redeposition?

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Such fracturing is not infrequent in dry long bones, it appears. John Soderberg and Martha Tappen, prehistoric faunal analysts and tophonomists, have separately informed me that the A78S long bones might just have easily fractured on their own as having been broken on purpose (personal communications, 2010). Breakage does occur despite “remarkable” care taken in transport—witness the skeletal material in many of the Bâb-ed-Dhrâʿ burials—a number of which were as much as 95% complete!—testifying to the care taken by the EB IA people in recovering and interring the remains of individuals of all ages and sexes at the secondary burial sites. (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 230). Elsewhere, the excavators seem troubled by the nature of the breakage and how it might have come about: It is not clear what conditions in the primary burial site would have degraded bone . . . very quickly. Bone is normally a tough material, and breakage of the type that occurs in some of the human burials would not have occurred in the relatively short interval between primary and secondary interment without unusually rapid degradation of the tissue in the primary burial site. . . . Breakage of bone between primary and secondary burial sites is not a common condition of the EB IA human remains and primarily occurs in major long bones. We cannot rule out the possibility that these bones were intentionally broken to facilitate transportation to the secondary burial site (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 47–48, my emphasis).

Intentional breakage that might have occurred during the re-interment process should also be considered, particularly as it might relate to ritual disarticulation and re-articulation of the deceased. Inevitably, the Ghôr would be reduced to “a wasteland during the second millennium” (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 328). It is not therefore surprising that burials might also exhibit a deep-seated need for control—epitomized by the manner in which the disarticulated skeletal remains are carefully reassembled (?) in the secondary burial—the body as inscribed palette of social concern. This is a matter for future research, as the tophonomic processes that may distort (Dibble’s term in Dibble et al. 1997) the evidence of interment practices at both primary and secondary sites are not clear (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 48­– 49).

Figurine Placement One cannot fault the excavators of the cemeteries at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ for lack of zeal and rigor. By my count, they have over the years excavated and published something like 65 tombs; not to enumerate the number of burials within the multichambered shaft tombs. The achievement is exemplary; yet, if full excavation of the cemeteries were to be pursued, some 499,935 such exemplars remain to be uncovered. Clay figurines (not fired) were found in only three (perhaps four) of the chambers excavated by Lapp (Schaub and Rast 1989: table 5; 186) and five of the EDSP chambers (Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain, the most recent series of excavations) (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 27). That there are few such finds renders the artifacts all the more precious. The very scarcity of finds suggests that when figurines were placed in tombs, it was done so with purpose. We should examine these burials to see what distinguishes them from the preponderant number of other types of burials in the

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excavated tombs. Schaub and Rast speculate that some the figurines may have “decomposed through weathering” (Schaub and Rast, Lapp Excavations 1989: 289), but it is difficult to see how this might have occurred, since the tombs are not exposed to the elements. Perhaps the excavators are referring only to natural depositional processes that might, if marked enough, alter the contents, not to say the findspot, of mortuary artifacts. It seems to me most unlikely that these artifacts would be subject to what Nilsson calls “displacement,” a taphonomic process (Nilsson 1998: 5), for it would appear that reburied skeletal material was all de-fleshed; thus decomposition of soft tissue would not have allowed shifting of the bones. However, the proximity of the figurines to skeletons that appear to have been carefully placed where they lay and that themselves do not appear to have been drastically repositioned post-deposition is noteworthy. Their place of deposition is likely the same as it was originally. How else might they have been placed? If they were set down within the skeleton, completing it, as it were—what might that mean? We shall see below. For the moment, we might think that, not unlike a discard on a rubbish-heap, their use-life were at an end. The figurines, too, were being buried with the individual laid down in the tomb. Tomb A78S (Also identified as Tomb A78W) provides a case study. The photos from the excavation report are almost cinematic in their complexity. I take it the excavators meant first to convey a sense of the layout of the burial in general; and then, in medium detail; finally in close-up. Let us consider each “shot” in turn. The over-all shot (right) includes a pile of disarticulated bones, a skull, and a medium-sized ceramic vessel. Coarse sand all about, but no evidence of siltation (Ortner and Frohlich 2008: 56). Only when we are presented with a closer shot, do we notice the broken stone tool in the lower right corner of the frame (photo, below). If contrast were lessened, we might also see the upraised arm of a human representation in terra cotta, just above the truncated long bone in the lower right. It is covered by the vessel and lost in its shadow in the photo. In order to photograph the figurine in situ, the excavators have evidently removed the vessel. I must emphasize that this is my reading of these photos; as the excavators have not provided notes regarding spatial deposition, removed the vessel. Now the figurine can be clearly seen (photograph, next page, reoriented to conform to previous images). Since silting did not obtrude in this tomb, it could not have moved the objects in this burial. Barring other more-or-less drastic depositional processes such as roof

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collapse, the grave goods must be in something very like their original positions. Were pot and figurine touching? Was there contact association? Equally interesting, although not documented in the text or photograph (but see fig. 6.3), is the placement of two figurines in A78SE (East) (fig. 6.3, 53 [see here, p. 728]; but included in the count of A78SW (Table 4.1, 28). They lie among the collected skeletal remains in the center of the chamber; one just outside the pile and between it and the entrance to the tomb; and one, similarly aligned, atop the pile of disarticulated bones. This placement would indicate to my mind late deposition in the varying processes of burial. One might argue similarly for the two figurines in A111E, which have been placed side-by-side between the skeletal remains and the entrance-way (fig. 9.19, 207 and fig. 9.20, 208 [see here, pp. 729–26]). Evidence of careful deposition is also evident in A110NW (fig. 9.7 [plan] [see here, p. 729], 191 and fig. 9.8 [photograph], 192), where two figurines have been placed between two (of four) fragmentary skulls along the NNW wall. As this process plays itself out, so does another drama—the deposition in the tomb.

Deposition The three burials (a male, a female and a child) in A110NE are from 90–95% complete. The child (Burial 1) was placed between the entrance and Burial 3, a female skeleton, with the skull resting on the female’s right arm. An unbaked clay figurine has been placed between the child’s vertebrae and mandible, as if to complete the spinal column (fig. 9.1 [plan], 185 and fig. 9.3 [photograph], 187). Notable also is a transverse cut in the distal and posterior end of the right femur. (Ortner and Frolich 2008: fig. 9.3 [cropped], 187) The excavators suggest that . . . the bones had been disarticulated either by natural means or by intentional removal of the extremities from the trunk. . . The latter option

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This is no less than the unmaking of the dead. Or perhaps a commemoration of a way of living in death. What this may mean in terms of spiritual resonance, I do not really know. But I do know that this re-presentation of a recognizable human relationship must have had meaning for the attendants at the moment of reburial. The child’s body appears to have been actively remade (in, I suppose, somewhat violent acts of cutting, scraping, tearing apart) by attendants and carefully arrayed in relationship to the two other burials in Tomb A100NE; this is another reflection of the care and the cost in human terms of secondary burial. That a clay figurine completes in a way the articulation of the child’s vertebral column, lying at the very heart of the (once living) body is worthy of note.

Ritual It is to my mind clear that the very presence of unbaked clay figurines in the tombs at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ is central to some sort of ritual re-enactment at the moment of reburial. This action, the continuation and eventual culmination of the manufacturing process epitomized by the chaîne opératoire of the figurines themselves echoes the re-articulation and the disarticulation of the skeletal remains. It brings grave goods and skeletal remains together in a performative act and allows some sort of accommodation of the living with the dead. Embodiment of the human representation plays a part in this ritual and family members are central to the making, unmaking and remaking that takes place. It will be important, I believe, to look again at the spatial relationships of grave goods and human remains within the tombs. We would not be amiss to consider these relationships as akin to the “living floors” that may determine function and sometimes practice in architectural remains. 21 21.  It is certainly within our rights to ask if the changes that we believe we observe in the disposition of skeletal remains and in the placement of other artifacts in the burials are part of one and the same behavioral incident. The study of living floors is of “such interest for archaeologists ... [because] it permits them to use the spatial patterning of artifacts to analyze hominid behaviors across the site” (Dibble et al. 640). In our analysis, we must recognize that (1) an understanding of taphonomic history will involve increased attention to both the disposition and the composition of archaeological material. It will be important to devise tests or measures to determine this; and these tests must be incorporated into the excavation strategy, lest evidence be lost. (2) Satisfactory analysis of deposition will involve consideration of the geological context, as well as the archaeological material. (3) multiple tests and a cross-disciplinary perspective should inform the study. Finally (4), as Dibble reminds us “there is always a very high probability that any site has suffered some degree of post depositional disturbance” (Dibble et al. 1997: 647). We shall be looking for signs of human intervention, abundantly the case with secondary burial. First of all, there is the deposition and rearrangement of the skeletal remains. One should account for the disposition of the ceramic vessels, and other archaeological artifacts, within the burial; as I see it, this matter remains to be studied. By my lights, the relationship of vessels to figurines is of interest, particularly since I maintain that the on-site levigation of the figurines found in the burials would require moisture, presumably contained in either the basalt vessels or the fine ware ceramic vessels (see table of figurine deposition, above). Whatever we may decide indicates human intervention upon these burials, it is sure that these traces must be assigned their place in the chaîne operatoire, the production sequence of the figurines, as we have them. Assuredly, they form part of the life history of these artifacts; and quite probably they

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Sequence and Time Visual inspection of the manner in which the unbaked clay human representations were deployed/deposited may prove instructive. It is in this tentative posture that I offer the images that follow. I have not exhaustively played out the relationships amongst these diagrams. I am myself in the first stages of a preliminary analysis that may lead to theory. Second, future expeditions may exhume evidence that will cause these images to crystallize around a common pattern. Arrows indicate a trajectory of movement. I tried to see in what order the exemplars that have been recovered were deposited/left within the tombs. Usually— at least as I now see it, the family member or his/her agent would first deposit a reworked figurine somewhere in the tomb. In order, other exemplars would be laid down in the burial. The last figurine to be deposited is the exemplar nearest the entrance. 22 I offer the tentative images on the following pages (not to scale, all oriented north), then, as a first approach to an exceedingly complex problem, in hopes that the exercise may further extend the chaîne opératoire so that it encompasses the technology that is the making, unmaking and remaking of the representations, the very ritual that attends burial. Burial A5E, as excavated by Lapp (see next page). Note that the entire assemblage of figurines is surmounted by a large ceramic vessel. The figurine just below the pot would of course be the last of the representations to be deposited. The first avatar laid down seems to be on the floor of the tomb itself, on the layer below the Lisan marl from which the tomb is carved. A long bone lies atop it. Whether this artifact was deposited by an attendant who then followed with the long bone athwart the figurine; or by a family member, is open to question. Were kin permitted “within” occur at an important time in the total production sequence, that is at the moment when the ritual manipulation of these objects is most telling. 22.  In this section, I call attention to the order of deposition of the anthropomorphic representations in the burial chamber. Here, I surmise that the figurine encountered closest to the entrance—the threshold of the chamber—is that representation that was last deposited. That the figure is found at the border between inner and outer—a liminal space where (I wonder) the very relationship between living and dead was negotiated—invites us to consider that it served as a marker, signaling the division between self and the défunt. It’s a poignant reminder of the familial/affective relationship that did obtain—“I am leaving now,” as the lyrics of one popular rengaine announces. Dina Katz, at the RAI 56, challenged me vehemently on the identity of the self that was portrayed by the miniature terra-cotta representations at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ. Did the representations belong to the realm of the living or the dead? I have not come to a decision on this matter, although I would opt for the former, while sometimes maintaining the latter (in this paper), since I see the BeD figurines as the end-result of a complicated performative chain that began prior to the burial ritual (if such it is) itself. The last stages of this causative progression clearly have to do with a present, as opposed to a past reality. In the interim, it is important and salutary to consult and to commend Dr. Katz’s study (Katz 2003), most notably, her consideration of figurines and ritual. As an aid to the researcher, I list here several pertinent pages that made me rethink my own position (xviii bottom of page; p. 42 (inhabitation of the object), p. 47 (symbolic representations), p. 203 (figurine as messenger), her section 4.1.3 Conclusions (the use of figurines in funeral ritual). I have found crucial her remarks regarding whether the figurines were baked or not (p. 211). If baked, she surmises that the figures were to be used “over a long period of time ” (See her caution in n. 46.) If the objects were not baked, she regards possible usage as “ephemeral” (p. 211 n. 44)—just so. Consider, then, how manipulation and change of the unbaked terra-cotta humanoid representations might have played a part in the mortuary practices of Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ.

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the burial itself? Or did they remain outside the entrance, watching or directing the movements of specialists? Burial A7S. Three figurines, seemingly accessible and not intermingled with skeletal remains. The depositional pattern appears rather straightforward, possible to execute in short order, uncompromised by levigation or other burial processes. Burial A78SE The number of figurines excavated here is in question; tabulation differs from table to text; and from text to text. The depositional order thus is open to question. If a figurine is recovered outside the bone pile, is it necessarily deposited first? Or last?

Burial A78SW Note that both exemplars are overlaid; one by a bone fragment; another by a ceramic vessel. How significant is this association? Why, we must ask ourselves, would a figurine be placed beneath a ceramic vessel? Were they part and parcel of the same ritual action? The same dramatic “beat”?

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Burial A100E (previous page). The proximity of skulls to figurines invites speculation, as will the insertion of a clay representation between mandible and vertebral termination in another burial (A110NE). Why were not these exemplars deposited in the ceramic vessels, for instance? Or at the periphery of the skeletal remains? Burial A110NW. Once again, the careful (no other word will suit) placement of miniature clay human representations next to skulls—in this case, a symmetrical spatial distribution—invites speculation. Is there any significance in that figurines are not the same size? Sexual dimorphism? Parent/child? What is the relationship? Is the manufacture nuanced enough to permit us to make these discriminations? Burial A110NE. This burial, startling in its poignancy (at least to a modern sensibility) has been discussed supra. What I mean to highlight here is the depositional order, as evidenced by the artifacts, and the apparent order in which the figurine and vessels had to have been deposited in the tomb. Whereas we see in the final publication a figurine easily accessible; as found, the relationship must have been somewhat more complex. How many vessels had to be removed before the relationship ceramic vessel/ figurine/ skeletal remains became clear? Burial 111E (next page). Excavators note that the figurines are placed in line with the entrance to the tomb; as if they somehow barred access to the (articulated) skeletal remains. Do they

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R ick H auser not rather mark a manner of leaving? A processual order to ritualized action? The gathering together of remains, moving with care from primary to secondary burial site, coupled with willful re-presentation of the body, intact as humanly possible (and as remaining soft tissue might dictate; or defleshing/excarnation might permit), links burial attendants to those whose skeletal remains they manipulate. Arranged in something like someone known in life—possibly a family member—constitutes what we might call a collective habitus—a way of being that has social and cultural resonance. The excavators speculate that the distribution of males, females and subadults in each tomb and each chamber may represent members of the same extended family (Ortner and Frolich 2008: 236).

While acknowledging low values for a positive evaluation of the hypothesis that family groups are buried together (except in one instance), they state that [w]hen individual tombs are examined for the distribution of specific traits to see if these might cluster together, there is greater support for family groups to be buried in the same tombs (2008: 290). 23 23.  Earlier (1977 season), Rast and Schaub unequivocally stated that figurines from the earliest stages of EB IB suggest “related population groups rather than a new people or culture” (Rast and

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So much, in a preliminary assessment, for placement. Typological analysis must await another study.

The Performative Power of Figurines A number of studies intersect at this point in this paper, shining a resolute cross-disciplinary light on the matter of the effective power of the grave goods in the burials at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ. For my purposes, it is imperative to affirm that something more than reburial happened at gravesite, within or at the entrance to the tombs themselves. This happening was surely implemented by grave attendants, but seconded by family members and kinfolk, participants in the reburial. As intimated at the outset of this paper, the “gash” in society (Ilan 2002: 3), the rent in the community fabric that calls out for mending, changes the living as well as the dead. I argue that the rent in the social fabric is mended by the action of those attendant on the burial, both family and community members. This change is not cosmetic hollow ritual. It is profoundly human. The excavators, in an extraordinary passage that passes almost unnoticed, say that the Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ way of death—care, disposition, association of infant, subadult and adult remains—is “indicative of a society that places a relatively high value on all members regardless of age” (Frohlich and Ortner 2000: 131). 24 At this juncture, I do wish respectfully to consider whether the “gestating female” model invoked by the excavators has pertinence to the burial context we here consider (as, Schaub 2008: 39–40). I believe that it does not. Santos-Granero, who studies “materiality and personhood” in Amazonia, turns this formulation on its head, and invites us to consider how making and unmaking—that is to say, craftsmanship—rather than childbearing—“provides the model for all creative acts.” He continues If this is true, it could then be asserted that the artifactual mode of production/ reproduction is not only prior to the genital model but also the paradigmatic mode of creation (2009: 8).

Schaub 1981). They later affirm that, since there is little or no variation among figurines within a single chamber, “these objects were made either by the same person or by persons in close touch with each other” (Schaub and Rast 1989: 284). This of course, is to say only that there was a societal link amongst the people attendant on the interment. Lynn Meskell, in a most insightful essay about the figurines of Çatal Höyük, speaks of “material habitus,” a relationship of artifacts and locale that is indissoluble from a population. Just so. “Inherent cultural cohesion,” in her words (Meskell et al. 2008: 157), a place for being that eminently suits the remembered body, forgotten for a time. But recalled in ritual reenactment, in memory, in the tomb itself and now in fact. 24.  For Chesson, this mending (in a later time, it is true), epitomized in burial structures, lends a “more communal nature to the mortuary rites” ((Chesson 1999: 160) and reflects “a broadening of the kinship units to include related households and, therefore, more than one extended family” (1999: 160). In EB I, we may wish to reformulate the observation, as it might relate to one family and their kinfolk. The refashioning of the miniature human representations that are made, unmade, remade and finally deposited next the skeletal remains in the tombs is nothing more nor less than the complex ritual of repair and “reweaving” of the social fabric, as Chesson would have it.

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This formulation lends new meaning—urgency—to the presence of supposedly “crude” figurines in the tombs. And who is to say that women are not the makers in this paradigm as much as men? In their work, Schiffer and Skibo seek to tie objects to human agency in order to find a behavior-based rationale that affords a new standard for explanation for otherwise opaque artifact variability (1997: 43, 44, 45). “Artifacts have politics,” as they put it (1997: 42). The figurine makers, whether nomadic or not, cannot hope to escape societal strictures. In “making” reality, they bind themselves to the body politic. Agency is at work in mortuary practices. Here, Schiffer and Skibo join LeroiGourhan (as, 1943, “L’homme et la matière: Évolution et Techniques”; 1993, “Gesture and Speech”), who reminds us that human choice forges the links that constitute the chaîne opératoire. Variability as encountered at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ is far from simple. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, in her work on magic texts in the Near Eastern Tradition and the eloquent figurine assemblage(s) recovered at ʿAin Ghazal, poses the central issue: In some cases, the most important role of . . . figurines was not so much their creation but their destruction. (forthcoming, p. 16. Pre-publication draft, used by permission.)

In our own time, in the early days of psychoanalysis, Sabina Spielrein irrefutably tied the impulse for “bringing into being” to unmaking—the destructive impulse (Spielrein 1994: 155–86). Basing herself on biological models, she identifies correlative antagonistic drives in human beings—a destructive drive indissociable from the life force. She arrives at this conclusion in a closely-reasoned essay, the most salient point summarized as follows: Death is horrible; yet death in the service of the sexual instinct, which includes a destructive component, is a salutary blessing since it leads to a coming into being (Spielrein 1994: 183).

I do not mean to sexualize figurine manufacture at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ; for Spielrein, life itself is imbued with creative sexual energy (libido, in Freud’s formulation). Spielrein’s essay is remarkably useful, not least in that it calls to attention the destructive underbelly of the performative act of making. In a manner of speaking, to make it is to destroy it—elementally. Artaud, the great theoretician of theatrical performance, said it this way: Tout ce qui agit est une cruauté./Life itself is a kind of death. (Artaud “Le théâtre et la cruauté”, in Thévenin 1987: 132. My translation.)

He meant to say that any human moment is rife with contradiction. And that we die in the very act of living. So the clay representations embody antagonistic forces—life and its inverse, death. That powerful dualism is what I mean to underline in this study. Terese Svoboda, the fine experimental poet-dramatist, offers this succinct formulation:

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Happiness has no god, just wonder. How she wonders at this beauty, how it mimes birth, her only template for loss. (Svoboda 2009: 62)

Lest it not be clear, I mean to underline the unspoken, undiscovered power of the “crude” figurines that have been excavated at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ. Far from being mute avatars somehow deprived of performative power, I believe these human representations in unbaked clay have yet to deliver to investigators their full measure of meaning. We archaeologists trained as anthropologists shall have to keep at the work of analysis, imparting human resonance where none has been heretofore acknowledged. 25

Acknowledgments I am indebted to generous colleagues for guidance in crafting this paper, notably Drs. Gilliane Monnier and Gilbert Tostevin, husband and wife, anthropological archaeologists. Thanks are also due, in the first instance, to the recent excavators of Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ—Messrs Lapp, Rast, Schaub, Frohlich, and Ortner. Their meticulous work is a model for all of us, not least in that their research is published in timely fashion. My wife, Nancy Mason-Hauser, has repeatedly reviewed these pages and suggested emendations. This cannot have been easy for a would-be ballerina. I thank her heartily here. I am also pleased to acknowledge the following publishers and copyright-holders, for permission to reproduce images or text in this essay. Abbreviated bibliographic reference accompanies each image.

25.  Postlude: In this paper, I have suggested (and in one case demonstrated a tenuous connection) that there is a causal relationship among certain grave goods in secondary burials at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ. This hypothesis can be further tested by revisiting field notes and by new excavation, with especial, mindful attention to spatial displacement of artifacts within the tombs and by re-examining excavation techniques. It is impossible to credit highly enough the scrupulous excavation techniques of the present team of excavators and their predecessors. One wonders how it would be possible to be more thorough, insightful, or meticulous. Still, they themselves leave the door open for new approaches to their data. I am uncertain where the new clues will be found, but I feel strongly that they must in fact be present. It is a matter of knowing how to look afresh. As far as the manipulation and remaking of the figurines themselves is concerned, simple visual inspection will not do the trick. The artifacts must be examined using technology to reveal what may in fact be embedded in the fabric of the figurines. I have been directed to the work of Andrew Middleton and his colleagues by Dr. Pamela VanDiver (personal communication 2010). Specifically, she suggests that certain tools that are available at the British Museum in the laboratories supervised by Dr. Middleton might be useful. Fortuitously, Andrew Middleton’s book, Radiography of Cultural Material, contains a section on how to recognize secondary processing in ceramic artifacts. The unfired vessel is often subject to secondary processing, in order to modify such properties as surface appearance, wall thickness and porosity. These secondary processes, which include operations such as beating, scraping, trimming and turning, are discussed fully by Rye (1981) and also by Rice (1987). In many instances these processes obscure or modify both the visual and the radiographic features which are characteristic of the primary-forming technique; they may also generate a new set of distinctive features (see Rye 1981). (Lang and Middelton 2005: 88) I will next investigate these methods, hoping further to substantiate the hypothesis here proposed.

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AltaMira Press From Ortner, D. J. and B. Frohlich (2008). The Early Bronze Age I Tombs and Burials of Bâb edhDhrâʿ, Jordan. Lanham, MD: AltaMira. •  Figure 6.6, 55 bone fragments in skulls •  Figure 8.4, 150 “neat” disorder •  Figure 6.33, page 75 orderly bone pile •  Figure 6.9, page 57 broken long bones •  Figures 6.10, 6.11, 6.12, pages 58­–59 long-shot to close-up re-oriented (3 views) •  Figures 9.3, 9.4 (photograph), page 187 figurine completes vertebral column, and close-up of long bone (2 views) Also used as transparent overlay later in narrative. SERIES of plans of burial chambers showing figurine placement DETAILS •  Burial A78SE (Figure 6.3, page 53) •  Burial A78SW (Figure 6.3, page 53) •  Burial A100E (Figure 6.47, page 89) •  Burial A110NW (Figure 9.7, page 191) •  Burial A110NE (Figure 9.1, page 185) •  Burial 111E Figure 9.19, page 207 American Schools of Oriental Research From Rast, W. E. and R. T. Schaub, Eds. (1981). The Southeastern Dead Sea Expedition: An Interim Report of the 1977 Season. The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Cambridge, MA, American Schools of Oriental Research. •  Fig. 1. Sketch contour of cemetery area with location of tombs excavated from 1965–78 (46). University of Arkansas Press From Svoboda, T. (2009). Weapons Grade: Poems by Terese Svoboda. Fayetteville, Arkansas. Excerpt from “Flaw.” Reprinted with permission of the University of Arkansas Press. URL: http:/www. uapress.com Trustees of The British Museum From British Museum On-line Catalog of the Collections (1998,0713.32. AN111893001. Three human figurines Proto-Urban period (3300–3100 BC) from Bâb Edh-Dhrâʿ, southern Jordan. Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities. London, © Trustees of The British Museum. Daniel Contreras, photographer Photograph of the BeD cemetery. Attribution: DSC 4658  (URL: http://www.stanford.edu/group/chr/drupal/content/bab-edh-dhra) Eisenbrauns Winona Lake, IN From Schaub, R. T., and W. E. Rast (1989). Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ: Excavations in the Cemetery Directed by Paul W. Lapp (1965–67). Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. •  Detail, Figure 168, page 295: rendering 3, cross-section of a basalt bowl •  Detail, Figure 15, page 48: Burial A5E, contents of burial chamber •  Detail, Figure 27, page 63: Burial A7S, contents of burial chamber •  Figure 165, page 285: four figurines from Tomb A5E. From Frohlich, B. and D. J. Ortner (2000). Social and Demographic Implications of Subadult Inhumations in the Ancient Near East. The Archaeology of Jordan and Beyond: Essays in Honor of James A. Sauer, ed. L. E. Stager, J. A. Green and M. D. Coogan. Winona Lake, Indiana, Eisenbrauns: 122–32. •  Figure 2, page 124: in overlay, Tomb chamber A110NE.

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The Offering for the Ritual of King Seleucus III and His Offspring Yasuyuki Mitsuma

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of

London

1. Introduction Ever since the publication of the Late-Babylonian chronicle BM 35421 = ABC 13b (now known as BCHP 12) in 1975, the offering recorded in this chronicle has been the most controversial topic in the study of the cuneiform historical texts from Seleucid Babylonia. This offering was conducted in the city of Babylon on Nisan 8, 224/223 b.c.e., at the beginning of the second full Babylonian year in the short reign of Seleucus III Ceraunus. 1 The offering was ordered and patronized by the king, and its purpose was designated by the unique phrase ana dulli ša Siluku šarri u mārēšu “for the ritual of Seleucus the king and his sons/descendants/offspring.” 2 Some scholars have regarded this offering as a celebration of the cult of Seleucus I Nicator, the founder of the Seleucid dynasty, and his descendants, 3 while others have identified Siluku šarru with Seleucus II Callinicus, the late father of the ruling king, and have regarded the offering as the equivalent of the offering “for the wellbeing of ” the king, his relatives, and high officials of the empire, which was often conducted in Seleucid and Arsacid Babylonia. 4 Author’s note: My thanks go to T. Boiy (Louvain, KU Leuven) for discussing the chronology of Seleucus III at the 56th RAI and sending his paper, which was in preparation, to D. Shibata (Tsukuba) and D. T. Tsumura (Tokyo) for commenting on my presentation for the RAI, and to S. Tsumura (Tokyo) for correcting my English manuscript. My thanks also go to the Japan Science Society (Sasakawa Grants for Science Fellows) for supporting my participation in the Rencontre, and to the Trustees of the British Museum for allowing me to study the tablet BM 35421. In this paper, a Babylonian year is indicated by two (partly) corresponding b.c.e. year numbers. “-n” is the text number of the astronomical diaries published in A. J. Sachs, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (ed. H. Hunger; vols. 1–3; Vienna: VÖAW, 1988–96). Most abbreviations follow the list in RlA. The abbreviation not used in RlA is: BCHP = I. Finkel and R. J. van der Spek, Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period (scholarly ed.; J. Lendering, 2004) http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/chron00.html (accessed February 5, 2011). 1.  He acceded to the throne in 226/225 b.c.e., and his first full year was 225/224 b.c.e. (see T. Boiy, “The Reigns of the Seleucid Kings According to the Babylon King List,” JNES 70 (2011) 1a–12b, esp. 3a–7b; cf. G. R. F. Assar, “The Inception and Terminal Dates of the Reigns of Seleucus II, Seleucus III and Antiochus III,” NABU [2007] n° 45). 2.  For the meaning of the word mārēšu, see “māru” in CAD M/1: 308a–16a. 3. G.  J. P.  McEwan, Priest and Temple in Hellenistic Babylonia (FAOS 4; Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1981) 161–62; R. J. van der Spek, “The Babylonian Temple during the Macedonian and Parthian Domination,” BiOr. 42 (1985) cols. 541–62, esp. cols. 558–61. 4.  S. M. Sherwin-White, “Ritual for a Seleucid King at Babylon?” Journal of Hellenic Studies 103 (1983) 156a–59b; R. J. van der Spek, “The Astronomical Diaries as a Source for Achaemenid and Seleucid

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However, some features of the offering “for the ritual” support the identification of “Seleucus the king and his sons” with the reigning ruler Seleucus III and following Seleucids and indicate the inclusion of the offering in the traditional New Year Festival, 5 in which kingship was newly legitimized or annually renewed before Marduk, the patron deity of Babylon. These points will show Seleucus’ intention to reinforce his kingship in the city.

2.  Record of the Offering First, let us look at the record of the offering, which extends from obv.  3′ to rev. 10′ of BCHP 12. Transliteration obv.  3′ [M]U-⸢60⸣+28-KAM mSi-lu-ku LUGAL ITU BAR ITU BI U4-8-KAM 1-en DUMU Eki lúŠÀ-TAM É-sag-gíl  4′  [ḫi]-pi šá É-sag-gíl ina KA LUGAL lìb-bu-ú kušši-piš-tum šá LUGAL šá ina IGI-ma iš-šá-a  5′  [K]I?? KÙ-BABBAR TA É LUGAL TA É ⸢rama-ni-šú⸣ 11 GU4ḫá ma-ru-tu 1-me UDU-NÍTA  6′  [m]a-ru-tu 11 mušenUZ-TUR ma-ru-tu a-na NIDBA ina lìb-bi ⸢É⸣-[s]ag-gíl  7′  a-na dEN dGAŠAN-ia u DINGIRmeš GALmeš ù ⸢a⸣-[n]a dul-⸢lu⸣ šá mSi-[lu]ku LU[GAL]  8′  u Ameš-šú il-ta-kan ḪA-LAmeš šá GU4[meš] u SISKURmeš MU-a-⸢tim a-na⸣ rev. 9′ ⸢lúGALAmeš ù lúŠÀ-TAM iq⸣-bi a-na lúDI-KUDmeš šá LUGAL u DUMU-DÙ-⸢i⸣ 10′ [a-na] ⸢muḫ-ḫi⸣ uruSi-lu-⸢ki-ia⸣-a-am ul-te-bil (vacat) Comments   4′ The second sign of this line is PI. This leads us to restore the word [ḫi]-pi in this place. This word indicates that the original word in this place was in a break when the text of BM 35421 was copied from one or more materials. The original word is probably another title or an epithet of the šatammu, ‘the chief-priest’ of Esagil, who is mentioned at the end of the last line (see also van der Spek and Finkel, “Seleucus III Chronicle [BCHP 12]: Commentary”).   5′ For the reading [K]I??, see ibid.      É ⸢rama-ni-šú⸣, “his own estate,” was the estate belonging to the main subject of the sentence, the chief-priest of Esagil. On this point, see ibid.   7′ For the transliteration dul-⸢lu⸣, see R. J. van der Spek, review of Del Monte, Testi cronografici, Or. 69 (2000) 433–38, esp. 438; cf. van der Spek, “The Astronomical Diaries,” col. 101 n. 34.   8′ The verb šitkunu is often used with šuzzuzu for describing presentations of offerings in the chronicles and the astronomical diaries from the Seleucid History,” BiOr. 50 (1993) cols. 91–101, esp. cols. 100–101; G. F. Del Monte, Testi cronografici (Testi dalla Babilonia ellenistica 1; Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1997) 205; T. Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (OLA 136; Louvain: Peeters, 2004) 281–82; M. J. H. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practises (CunMon. 25; Leiden: Brill-Styx, 2004) 127–28; R. J. van der Spek and I. Finkel, “Seleucus III Chronicle (BCHP 12): Commentary,” in BCHP, http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-seleucus_iii/seleucus_iii_02.html (accessed February 6, 2011). 5.  The possibility of the inclusion in the New Year Festival has been discussed by some scholars (see ABC, 277b–78b; Sherwin-White, “Ritual for a Seleucid King,” col. 159a).

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and the Arsacid periods. In the pair, šuzzuzu indicates the arrangement of the animal offerings, and šitkunu, their presentation (see e.g., -178C ′rev. 18′–21′; BCHP 19 ′rev. 7′–10′).     The sign SISKUR designates niqû, a word that can indicate various animal offerings. In this case, however, the present author believes it must refer to sheep, because SISKUR is often modified by the determinative for sheep or written together with the sign for sheep in the diaries from the Seleucid and the Arsacid periods (-187A ′rev. 5′, 17′; -137D rev.′ 23, 27). For niqû, see also Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon, 158–59. 10′ The restoration [a-na] was proposed in R. J. van der Spek and I. Finkel, “Seleucus III Chronicle (BCHP 12): Description, Text and Translation,” in BCHP, http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-seleucus_iii/seleucus_iii_01.html (accessed February 6, 2011). Translation   3′ Year 88 (according to the Seleucid Era, 224/223 b.c.e.), Seleucus (was) the king. Month Nisan. In this month, on the eighth day, one of the citizens of Babylon, the chief-priest of Esagil,   4′ [-bro]ken- of Esagil, by order of the king, according to the document of the king, which he had sent in advance,  5′ with(??) silver from the royal treasury, from his own (the chief-priest’s) estate | 8′ presented (sing.) | 11 fat oxen, 100 sheep,   6′ which were fattened, (and) 11 fat ducks as offerings, within Esagil,   7′ to Bēl (Marduk), Bēltiya (Ṣarpānītu), and the Great Gods, and for the ritual of Seleucus the king  8′ and his sons/descendants/offspring. | 9′ He (the chief-priest) allotted | portions of these oxen and sheep to  9′ lamentation-priests and the chief-priest (himself and) | 10′ sent | | 8′ (other portions) | to judges of the king and free men 10′ toward Seleucia.

As shown in obv. line 3′, the offering was conducted in the Year 88 according to the Seleucid Era. This year covered twelve standard lunar months plus one intercalary month, starting from the spring of 224 b.c.e. The name after the year number, Seleucus, designates the ruler of Babylon at that time, Seleucus III. The remainder of line 3′ and the first part of line 4′ show that the offering was conducted on the eighth day of the month Nisan by the chief-priest of Esagil temple, the residence of the god Marduk. The remaining part of line 4′ shows that the king had ordered the offering in advance. The first half of line 5′ shows that the chief-priest provided the animals presented in the offering, but that the payment for them was disbursed from the royal treasury. The latter half of this line and the first half of the next line show the number of the animals, 11 oxen, 100 sheep, and 11 ducks. This is about ten to twenty times as many as that in the other presentations in Babylon which were conducted or patronized by members of the Seleucid family or high officials of the Seleucid Empire. 6 In those cases, not more than eight animals were presented at one time. Several of those cases were presentations “for the well-being of the king,” and in the ordinary case of such an offering, not more than six animals were presented. 7 The latter part of line 6′ shows that the offering was held in Esagil. Ac6.  Cf. e.g., BCHP 5 obv. 11–12; -273B obv.′ 11–12; -144 rev.′ 18–19. 7.  See, e.g., -187A ′rev. 5′–10′; -178C ′rev. 18′–21′; -171B ′rev. 1′–7′.

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cording to the first half of line 7′, the recipients of the offering were Marduk, his divine consort Ṣarpānītu, and “the Great Gods.” The latter half of line 8′ and rev. lines 9′ and 10′ show a part of the animals was allotted to lamentation-priests and the chief-priest of Esagil himself in Babylon and another part was sent to judges of the king and free men in Seleucia on the Tigris, the Seleucid administrative center in Babylonia. The purpose of this offering is shown in the last part of line 7′ and the first part of line 8′ by the phrase “for the ritual of Seleucus the king and his sons.” This phrase shows that the offering was conducted for the actualization or completion of “the ritual of (in other word, for) Seleucus the king and his sons.”

3.  Identification of “Seleucus the King and His Sons” To understand the purpose of the offering, it is necessary to firmly identify the referents of the phrase Siluku šarru u mārēšu, “Seleucus the king and his sons” in lines 7′–8′. The possible referents of Siluku šarru are the reigning ruler of Babylon at that time Seleucus III, his late father Seleucus II, or the founder of the Seleucid Dynasty, Seleucus I. Previous studies have identified the Siluku šarru as one of the two deceased rulers, but the present author prefers to identify him with the reigning ruler, Seleucus III, for the following reasons. First, if Siluku šarru designates a deceased ruler, there is no clear reference to the title of the reigning ruler Seleucus III in the phrase in question. In this case, he is not termed “the king” but is simply one of the “sons” of his father Seleucus II or one of the “descendants” of his great-great grandfather Seleucus I. However, the reigning ruler is usually referred to as “PN the king” in the descriptions of the offering for his bulṭu, ‘well-being,’ conducted in Seleucid Babylonia. 8 A diary for 172/171 b.c.e. attests the phrase “for the well-being of the kings,” without their names. 9 They are the reigning ruler Antiochus IV and his young nephew and nominal co-regent Antiochus. 10 We must pay attention to the fact that even the nominal co-regent is one of “the kings” in this case. In comparison with these cases, it is strange if the ruler Seleucus III is merely referred to as one of the “sons” of a diseased king in the description of the offering made under his rule. Second, the designation Siluku šarru in BHCP 12 obv. 7′ is the simple repetition of that in line 3′ of the same chronicle. The Siluku šarru in line 3′ is a part of the date formula, “Year 88, Seleucus (was) the king,” and designates the reigning ruler at that time, that is, Seleucus III. If a deceased Seleucus were mentioned in line 7′, it is reasonable to think that his name would be distinguished from that of the living ruler, who had been mentioned just a few lines earlier in the same chronicle. There 8.  YOS 1 52 (at Uruk, for the well-being of [?] the late king Antiochus II and the reigning ruler Seleucus II); S11-894 (at Cutha, for the well-being of Seleucus III; This text was published in L. T. Doty, “A Cuneiform Tablet from Tell ʿUmar,” Mesopotamia 13–14 [1978–79] 91–98); -204C rev. 17–18 (Babylon, Antiochus III); ADFU 3, 6–7 (Uruk, Antiochus III); -187A ′rev. 5′–10′ (Babylon, Antiochus III); YBC 11633 (Uruk, Antiochus III and his co-regent Seleucus IV); -178C ′rev. 18′–21′ (Babylon, Seleucus IV); -160A ′obv.′ 2′–3′ (Babylon, Demetrius I). 9.  -171B ′rev. 1′–7′ (Babylon). 10.  For the duration of their joint kingship and its sources, see Del Monte, Testi cronografici, 208–9, 239, 258. The nephew Antiochus is called “his (Antiochus IV’s) son” in the cuneiform sources. For the nephew, see J. D. Grainger, A Seleukid Prosopography and Gazetteer (Leiden: Brill, 1997) 37.

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is an example of such a distinction in another chronicle, BCHP 10. 11 This chronicle distinguishes between Seleucus II and III by the use of their patronymics. Seleucus II is referred to as “son of Antiochus (rev. 7′),” and Seleucus III as “son of Seleucus (rev. 8′).” 12 In short, the lack of such a distinction in BCHP 12 leads us to identify “Seleucus the king” in its line 7′ with the reigning ruler referred to in its line 3′, that is, Ceraunus. Third, Seleucus III’s bachelorhood does not prevent the identification with the Siluku šarru mentioned with mārēšu, “his sons” in lines 7′–8′. Scholars have rejected the possibility of this identification, because Seleucus III had no sons as of Nisan 8, 224/223 b.c.e. 13 Certainly he did not have a son at that time, and never did, due to his premature death in 222 b.c.e., but the word mārēšu can be interpreted as referring to his desired and expected “offspring.”

4.  Inclusion in the New Year Festival in Babylon According to the description in BCHP 12, “the ritual of (for) Seleucus (III), the king, and his (expected) offspring” was actualized or completed by the performance of the offering “for the ritual” on Nisan 8, 224/223 b.c.e. in Esagil temple. Some features of this offering indicate its inclusion in the traditional New Year Festival of Babylon, which functioned as a scene of legitimization or renewal of the kingship. First, various evidence from the first millennium b.c.e. shows that the New Year Festival was conducted yearly in Esagil at the beginning of the month of Nisan. 14 A diary from the Seleucid period, -204C, attests the celebration of the New Year Festival at Esagil on Nisan 8, 205/204 b.c.e., just 19 years since the offering “for the ritual.” On this day, the king Antiochus III himself conducted the ḫarû ritual at Kasikilla, the great gate of Esagil, and then entered the Day-One Temple (É-U41-KÁM) and performed the offering for his own well-being (-204C rev. 14–18). The ḫarû ritual formed a part of the annual New Year Festival. 15 Second, the exceptional number of animals presented in the offering “for the ritual” (11 oxen, 100 sheep, and 11 ducks) indicates that they were not merely a day’s supply of food to the divine recipients of the offering, Marduk, his consort, and the “Great Gods,” but the supply for the whole period of the New Year Festival, which was annually conducted from Nisan 1 to 11. 16 The number of the oxen and ducks can easily be explained as the supply for the 11 days of the festival. 11.  R. J. van der Spek and I. Finkel, “The Seleucid Accessions Chronicle (BCHP 10): Description, Text and Translation,” in BCHP, http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-dynastic/dynastic_01. html (accessed February 6, 2011). 12.  R. J. van der Spek and I. Finkel, “The Seleucid Accessions Chronicle (BCHP 10): General Commentary,” in BCHP, http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-dynastic/dynastic_02.html#General (accessed February 6, 2011). 13.  Sherwin-White, “Ritual for a Seleucid King,” 157a–57b; van der Spek and Finkel, “Seleucus III Chronicle (BCHP 12): Commentary.” 14.  For the ritual, see A. Zgoll, “Königslauf und Götterrat: Struktur und Deutung des babylonischen Neujahrsfestes,” in Festtraditionen in Israel und im alten Orient (ed. E. Blum and R. Lux; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006) 11–80. 15.  Zgoll, “Königslauf und Götterrat,” 34–37. 16.  For the duration of the festival, see B. Pongratz-Leisten, “Neujahr(sfest). B,” RlA 9:294a–98a, esp. 295a–95b; Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon, 84–86; Zgoll, “Königslauf und Götterrat,” 17–18.

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Third, the offering’s concern for “Seleucus (III), the king, and his (expected) offspring,” that is, the present and future Seleucids at that time, indicates its inclusion in the New Year Festival, in which the status of the king was newly legitimized or annually renewed. 17 Rituals of this kind often included prayers for the security of the reigning and coming dynasts. A Middle-Assyrian coronation ritual text attests a prayer for the security of the šangû-ship of the king and his sons (offspring), that is, the security of the status of the reigning and coming kings as the representative of the god Aššur. 18 KTU 1.161, the Ugaritic text describing the royal funerary ritual of the king Niqmaddu IV, attests a prayer for the peace of the new king Ammurapi and bnh, “his sons.” 19 The word can be interpreted as referring to “his heirs, offspring.” 20

Concluding Remarks As shown in the text (BCHP 12 obv. 4′–5′), the king Seleucus III ordered the performance of an offering on Nisan 8, 224/223 b.c.e. and paid for the animals presented in the offering. The discussions in section 3 shows that the offering was conducted for the completion or actualization of “the ritual” for Seleucus III himself and his expected offspring. As shown in section 4, the offering was included in the traditional New Year Festival of Babylon, a scene of the legitimization or renewal of the kingship. These points indicate Seleucus’ positive effort to turn the traditional Babylonian festival to good account and reinforce his kingship in Babylon. His brother and successor, Antiochus III, also behaved in a similar way. He participated in the New Year Festival of Babylon and performed the offering for his own “wellbeing” on Nisan 8, 205/204 b.c.e. As a follow-up to the present study, the author is planning to explore the attitudes of the other Seleucid and Arsacid kings toward the traditional Babylonian festivals and their keepers, that is, the Babylonian temples. It is to be hoped that this exploration will shed new light on the decline of the ancient Babylonian culture which started from the Seleucid period and continued until the virtual demise of that culture in the mid-Arsacid period. 17.  Pongratz-Leisten, “Neujahr(sfest). B,” 295b–96a. 18.  KAR 135+137+216 col. 2:30–36; see also K. Fr. Müller, Texte zum assyrischen Königsritual (Das assyrische Ritual 1; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1937) 35–38. 19.  KTU 1.161:31–32. For the text, see D. T. Tsumura, “The Interpretation of the Ugaritic Funerary Text KTU 1.161,” in Official Cult and Popular Religion in the Ancient Near East (ed. E. Matsushima; Heidelberg: Winter, 1993) 40–55; idem, “Kings and Cults in Ancient Ugarit,” in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East (ed. K. Watanabe; Heidelberg: Winter, 1999) 215–38, esp. 224–28. 20.  For the meaning of bnh, see G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartín, “bn (I),” A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition (ed. W. G. E. Watson; 2nd ed.; HdO 1.67; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 224–27. This entry, however, translates the bnh in KTU 1.161:32 by “his family.”

Some New Light on Pre-Sargonic Umma Salvatore F. Monaco Rome

Among the several thousand cuneiform tablets of the Rosen Collection, now at Cornell University, about 600 ED III tablets can be safely provenanced to the Umma province on the basis of internal evidence. More than half of these tablets belong to the category of the so-called “mu-iti” texts—that is, they include a date formula in the format “so many years, so many months.” This evidence provides a completely new perspective, because until recently it was believed that this date system was adopted in Umma only after the time of Lugalzagesi. It should be noted that about 50 ED III tablets, probably from Zabalam, have been recently published in two volumes edited by Pomponio, Stol, and Westenholz, together with several hundreds of tablets from various periods and provenance, all belonging to the Banca d’Italia. Twenty small tablets from the private collection of M. Baldacci have been published by M. E. Milone. 1 A few ED III tablets from the Umma province, scattered in different publications, were cited by Powell in his study of the texts from Lugalzagesi’s times. 2 Mu-iti texts of the Sargonic period have appeared on the antiquities market since 1911 and have been acquired by various museums. The majority of them were published by Nikolskij, 3 Hackman and Stephens, 4 Gelb, 5 and Foster, 6 whose study of the whole corpus of 487 tablets was the subject of his doctoral work. It is well known that he divided the tablets into three groups, corresponding respectively to the reign of Rimush, Naram-Sin, and Sharkalisharri. Abbreviations: BdI - Banca d’Italia, Tavolette Cuneiformi di varia provenienza delle Collezioni della Banca d’Italia, vol. II CDLI-Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative CUNES-Cornell University (Department of) Near Eastern Studies CUSAS-Cornel University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology B. R. Foster ,“Umma in the Sargonic Period,” Hamden, 1982, p. 7. 1.  Sefarad 65 (2005) pp. 327-351. 2.  M. A. Powell, “Texts from the time of Lugalzagesi,” HUCA 49 (1978) 1-58. 3. 82 texts were published by M. V. Nikolskij in Dokumenty hozjajstvennoj . . . Epoha dinastii Agade. . . (Moscow, 1915). 4.  50 texts were published by G. Hackman and F. Stephens in Sumerian and Akkadian Administrative Texts . . . (BIN 8; New Haven, 1958). 5.  117 texts were published by I. J. Gelb in Sargonic Texts in the Louvre Museum” (MAD 4; Chicago, 1970). 6.  75 texts published by B. R. Foster, op. cit.

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The bulk of the corpus of tablets at Cornell University, those dealing with cereals, are represented by more than 270 texts, 7 followed by those dealing with sheep, goats, and cattle with some 120 texts. Numerous texts deal with field and personnel, while provisions of textiles, oil, beer, as well as contracts for the sale of plots of fields or houses are also represented. We know that small cities such as Zabalam, KI.AN, and Apisal were under the control of the governor of Umma during the period of the III Dynasty of Ur. The textual analysis of the documentation at the Cornell University provides clear evidence that the same situation existed during the ED IIIb period, at least for the cities of Zabalam and KI.AN. Indeed, no governors are recorded in the texts for these cities, where the highest authority in the town administration appears to be the sanga-officer. A number of documents provide the evidence for this statement, in particular for Zabalam, by recording in the colophon the name of the governor of Umma in conjunction with the name of the sanga-administrator of Zabalam. The formulas, in chronological sequence, are: CUNES 52-10-002 CUNES 52-10-005 CUNES 52-17-024 BDI I-1 CUNES 48-09-111 CUNES 48-10-043

ur-lum-ma ensi2 lugal-DU sanga/ dinanna il2 ensi2 ummaki mes-du7-na2 sanga zabala6 il2 ensi2 ummaki mes-du7-na2 sanga zabala6 u4-ba il2 ensi2 ummaki mes-du7-na2 sanga zabala6 u4-ba usarx.HI ensi2 ummaki salah sanga zabala6ki u4-ba usarx.HI ensi2 ummaki ama-bara2-si sanga zabala6

2 mu 1 iti 5 mu 8 iti 5 mu 8 iti 4 mu 4 mu

(The reading of usarx for the compound LAL2×DUR2 is only conjectural, being based on the assumption that such sign is just a variant of LAL2×LAGAB.) It is worth noting that many tablets record the name of the goddess Inanna in the colophon, 8 sometimes together with the sign for Zabalam 9 or the name of the sanga-administrator. 10 This circumstance is a key factor in provenancing the tablets from Zabalam. With regard to the city of KI.AN, most of the occurrences are from tablets dealing with cereals, where the city or the city-sanga are among those receiving regular amounts of barley products. 11 Unless all the archives of the Umma province were centralized, one tablet dealing with onions probably comes from KI.AN itself, since the toponym occurs in the colophon. 12 The city is cited by the short form, AN, with or without the presence of the determinative ki, which in these ED III texts is often omitted in the toponyms. It is worth noting that KI.AN and Zabalam are listed together in texts dealing with ritual offerings of goats or butter in selected festivals, 13 with the offerings of KI.AN always recorded before those of Zabalam. 7.  Published by the author in volume 14 of the CUSAS series. 8.  CUNES 51-02-006, 51-09-085, 51-10-049, 52-04-003, 52-18-056, 52-18-061 (dinanna), 52-10-007 (inanna). 9.  CUNES 50-08-003, 50-08-059, 50-10-004, 51-05-001, 52-04-123 (dinanna / zabala6). 10. CUNES 51-05-001 (dinanna / zabala6 / a m a r - k u ʾ a r a s a n g a), 51-08-009 (mes-du7-na2 s a nga ⸢i na nna⸣), 52-10-002 (l u g a l-DU s a n g a / din a n n a). 11.  CUNES 51-08-015, 51-08-041, 51-09-088, 51-10-038, 52-17-014, 52-17-026, 52-18-044 (s a n g a AN, sanga ANki); CUNES 51-07-054, 51-08-001, 51-08-035, 51-09-021, 51-09-031, 51-09-077, 51-09-078, 52-10-007, 52-17-041, 52-18-060, 53-01-033, 53-01-037 (ANki); CUNES 52-18-051 (g e m e2 AN), 51-09-074 (a -ša3-mah AN). 12.  CUNES 52-10-031 (ANki). 13.  CUNES 51-08-001 (goats), 51-09-034, 52-10-007 (oil).

Some New Light on Pre-Sargonic Umma

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What we know so far about the rulers of ED IIIb Umma is based on their own inscriptions or on inscriptions of the rulers of Lagash. Most of the information about the governors’ family tree, reported in the table below, comes from the inscription of Barairnun, 14 daughter of Ur-Lumma and wife of Giššakidu. 15 The synchronisms with the rulers of Lagash are mostly recorded in the famous inscription of Entemena, which summarizes several steps in the history of the long-lasting border dispute, from the time of the intermediation of Mesilim, all seen obviously from the Lagashite point of view. 16 Due to the short rulership of the last three ensis of Lagash, 23 years altogether, it was taken for granted that Uʾu, father of Lugalzagesi, succeded Giššakidu in the government of Umma. 17

** Alternative readings for the Lagashite rulers are: en-me-te-na for en-te-me-na, en-en3-tar-zid for en-li-tar-zi, and uru-inim-gi-na for uru-KA-gi-na. Alternative readings for u2.u2, governor of Umma, are: bu11-bu11, wa3-wa3, wu-wu. 18

The new evidence from the tablets of the Rosen Collection changes this vision and fills up what indeed was a gap left in the sequence of the rulers of Umma. The following table summarizes some of the synchronisms assessed from the textual 14.  AO 19225 (= FAOS 5, II Giš. 1). 15.  I have followed F. Pomponio (“La rivale di Lagaš,” RSO 63 (1989) 25–37) for the interpretation of the term dumu -KA as nephew (son of the brother), rather than grandson, when referred to the kinship between Ila and Enakalle. 16.  AO 3004 (= FAOS 5, I Ent. 28), NBC 2501 (= FAOS 5, I Ent. 29). 17.  J. Bauer, OBO 160/1, p. 493. 18.  Ibid, pp. 469, 473, 475, 493.

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evidence by also including a governor, Meannedu, so far attested only in two tablets of the Schøyen Collection 19 and probably in a tablet of a private collection: 20 CUNES 52-10-002 CUNES 52-17-021 CUNES 52-17-028 CUNES 52-04-001 CUNES 52-17-024 CUNES 52-18-059 BdI I-46 CUNES 50-08-024 CUNES 51-09-066 CUNES 52-10-005 CUNES 53-01-007 MS 3791/28 MS 2824 CUNES 48-09-111 CUNES 48-10-043

Lugal-DU sanga Zabalam Ila sukkal-mah Ila sukkal Ila sanga Zabalam Edin sukkal Mesduna sanga (Zabalam) Mesduna sanga (Zabalam) Mesduna sanga (Zabalam) Mesduna sanga (Zabalam) Mesduna sanga Zabalam Giššakidu dumu-ensi2 Salah sanga Zabalam Salah sanga Zabalam Salah sanga Zabalam Amabarasi sanga Zabalam

Ur-Lumma year 2 (Ur-Lumma year 9, month 5) (Ur-Lumma year 9, month 11) (Ur-Lumma year 12) Ila year 5, month 8 (Ila year 2, month 9) (Ila year 4, month x+2) (Ila year 5) (Ila year 5, month 3) Ila year 5, month 8 (Ila year 12) (Meannedu year 26, month 13) Meannedu year ? Usar-HI year 4 Usar-HI year 4

In addition, the following occurrences provide some useful information about length of rulerships, identity of local administrators and their family relationship. CUNES 51-07-016 CUNES 52-17-026 CUNES 48-09-132 CUNES 51-05-001 CDLI P271237

Giššakidu ensi2 Umma Uremah dumu-ensi2 Edin* ensi2 Amar-Kuara sanga Zabalam Azuzu

CUNES 52-04-142 CUNES 52-04-149 CUNES 51-07-032 CUNES 48-09-111 BdI D 35

Entarsi Entarsi Ur-Ninildum, Azuzu Ur-Ninildum, Ur-Saman sukkal šeš-ni Azuzu, Ur-Saman sukkal, Salah (?)

3 mu 12 iti 12 mu 9 iti 6 mu 6 mu 8 iti (Meannedu ? year 28, month 8)** 28 mu 4 iti 31 mu 7 iti 32 mu 6 iti Usar-HI year 4

*⸢edin⸣ (?); ** me-an-[ ] ensi2 reported in the colophon It should be stated that presently there is not enough evidence to establish with absolute certainty the correct sequence of the rulers following Giššakidu. Nonetheless, on account of the fact that Edin was already sukkal at the time of the rulership of Ila and Salah was the sanga-administrator of Zabalam both in the 26th year of Meannedu and in the fourth year of Usar-HI, it seems quite likely that Edin should have been the predecessor of Meannedu, and Usar-HI his successor. Based upon the available documentary evidence, a reconstruction of the sequence of the ED IIIb Umma governors, together with the contemporary high officials in the city administration, as well as the sanga-administrators of Zabalam, is reported in the table below. Synchronisms are indicated in brackets by the year of rulership of the relevant governor. 19. MS 3791/28 and MS 2824 (photos available in the CDLI respectively under P252822 and P251871). 20.  cf. P271237 in the CDLI.

Some New Light on Pre-Sargonic Umma

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One should note that members of the ruling family were usually appointed to the highest offices, as ministers (sukkal) in the administration of the city of Umma, as well as sanga-administrators of the urban centers controlled by Umma. The career of Ila, prior to becoming governor, shows that the position of sangaadministrator of Zabalam was considered more important than the office of chiefminister (sukkal-mah) in the Umma administration. The evidence from Lagash, where Enlitarsi is recorded to have been sanga-administrator of Ningirsu in the 19th year of Entemena, 21 confirms that this practice was common during the ED IIIb period. It is also worth noting that the date formula reported in the text has the same format as those seen for Umma: RTC 16

u4-ba en-te-me-na ensi2 lagaški en-li-tar-si sanga dnin-gir2-su-kam (year) 19

This confirms that the chief-sanga officer of Ningirsu was the highest authority in Girsu, reporting directly to the governor of Lagash. It shall be noted that texts 52-04-149 and 51-07-032 provide the maximum lengths of rulership so far attested, 31 and 32 years, respectively, which should be compared to the already known occurrences of datations to the 28th, 29th, and 30th year of rulership. 22 Although the name of the ruler is not reported in these texts, nonetheless, it seems reasonable to attribute such long rulership to Mean­ nedu on account of his ascertained dates, as well as the occurrences of the names 21.  RTC 16. 22.  Respectively SAKF 3, NBC 10235, and BIN VIII 63.

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of prominent functionaries in both these texts and in texts dated to the following governor, Usar-HI. This allows us to adjust the synchronism among the governors of Umma and Lagash, taking into account that, as a consequence of the long duration of Meannedu’s rule, Enannatum II would have ruled for about 10 years and Entemena for at least 27 years 23 in order to maintain the synchronism of the early years of Entemena’s with the last years of Ila’s rule. 24

In conclusion, it is now clear that the mu-iti system of datation was already adopted in the administrative documentation from the Umma province at least from the time of Ur-Lumma and remained in use throughout the Sargonic period. Apparently, during the first years of Lugalzagesi’s rule, the mu-iti system was replaced by a notation similar to that in use at Lagash—that is, with the numerical signs for the years crossed by a horizontal line. This circumstance raises the question regarding what political implications should be envisaged behind this change. We are not in a position today to postulate a hypothesis; the matter deserves a study of its own. 23.  Cf. ITT 5, 9236 dated to the 27th year of an unknown governor of Lagash. 24.  F. Pomponio (personal communication) expressed the opinion that one of the new discovered ensi2 could have been a governor of Zabalam, ruling in the period between Ila and Lugalzagesi. Under this hypothesis there would be no need for long rulerships of Entemena and Enannatum II. However, it should be noted that all the texts, which can be provenanced with certainty to Zabalam, report in their colophons the name of the sanctuary of Inanna, implying that the main town archive was located in a building belonging to the sanctuary itself. Indeed, there is no mention in the texts from Zabalam of the residence for a governor (e2- g a l), with the exception of CUNES 50-08-005, which clearly refers to the Umma palace (the colophon reports “Usar-HI ensi2 Umma”). Similarly, the text BdI I-46 records the delivery of a number of spears from the e2- g a l to Mesduna, the sanga-administrator of Zabalam at the time of Ila’s rule (the date formulas in CUNES 52-10-005, CUNES 52-17-024, and BDI I-1 obviously exclude the contemporary existence of a Zabalam’s governor).

Settlement Patterns and Interactions in the West Bank Highlands in the Iron Age I Period: A New Approach Alessio Palmisano

U n i v e r s i t y C o ll e g e

of

London

1.  Iron Age I Settlements In the short transition period between the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, the southern Levant was characterized by socio-political processes that marked a revolutionary transformation of the whole region. In fact, in this period, the Hittite Empire collapsed, many Syrian (Alalakh, Ugarit) and Canaanite cities (Hazor, Lachish) were destroyed, and the Egyptian power declined by losing the control of Canaan. In the Iron Age I period, new populations settled throughout the Levant and brought changes that are particularly recognizable in the material culture (Mazar 1992). These populations are conventionally called “Sea People,” and their presence is recorded in the archaeological data and in the Egyptian written sources. Thus, the political scenario drastically changed in Palestine when the former Egyptian domination was replaced by the arrival of the new settlers. The following populations inhabited the area in the Iron Age I period: •  The Philistines and Tjekel, respectively, lived on the Southern and Northern Coastal Plain; •  The Canaanite city-states were distributed on the Coastal Plain, in the Shephelah, and in Jezreel Valleys; •  Group of settlers were located in the regional frontiers of the West Bank highlands (fig. 1), in Galilee, the Beersheba Valley, and on the Transjordan plateau.

The term Iron Age conventionally covers a period starting from the end of the Late Bronze Age (about 1200 b.c.e.) until the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 b.c.e.. Various subdivisions of the Iron Age period have been proposed in the last few years. In 1958, after the Hazor excavations, Aharoni and Amiran divided it into two parts: Iron Age I (1200–1000 b.c.e.) and Iron Age II (1000–586 b.c.e.). In this work, we will follow the relevant schema by regarding the further subdivision of Iron Age I stipulated by Mazar (1990: 296): •  Iron Age IA (1200–1150 b.c.e.) •  Iron Age IB (1150–1000 b.c.e.)

The Iron Age I settlements were located in the hill country region, which can be divided into two separate geographical units: northern and southern West Bank. This 751

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Fig. 1.  Map of Iron Age I sites in the West Bank highlands.

area (coordinates: 32°00′N 35°15′E) has a total area of 5,860 km² and an average altitude of 600 m. The highest and best-known peak is Tall Asur (1,016 m), a hill located 10 km northeast of Ramallah, while the lowest point is located in the Dead Sea (–408 m). Distinctive features of the Iron Age I settlements have emerged from the archaeological excavations and the surveys carried out during the past decade throughout the West Bank. The distinctive aspects emerging from this fieldwork will be discussed as follows.

1.1.  Site Size Most settlements were relatively small and with a population size averaging from a few dozen up to 250–300 inhabitants (Dever 1997: 27). The average size of

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Fig. 2.  “Four-room” houses and silos at Izbeth Sartah (from Finkelstein 1988, 78).

Iron Age I settlements in the central hill country was around 1 hectare, and only some sites, such as Hebron, Tell en-nasbeh, Tell el-Farʿah, and Gibeon, were larger than 3 hectares.

1.2. Architecture The settlements were not fortified; only a few sites, such as Giloh, Tell Dothan, Khirbet ed-Dawwara, and Tell en-Nasbeh had fortifications (Mazar 1981: 16–18; Ahlstrom 1984: 170–72). The most widespread domestic architectonic structure was the pillared building, also called “four-room house”: a building composed of a broad latitudinal room and three parallel longitudinal rooms, separated by two rows of stone or wooden pillars (fig. 2). Dozens of stone-lined silos, perhaps used to store agricultural products such as wheat, dug into the ground were found in many Iron Age I settlements. The silos most likely were used to store agricultural products such as wheat and are characteristic of societies in the initial process of settling down (Finkelstein 1988: 30). The village layout was characterized by several clusters of pillared dwellings sharing common walls and courtyards and the lack of elite buildings, such as temples or palaces.

1.3.  Technological features In many sites were found many plastered cisterns that, most likely, were used to collect water. Some scholars have erroneously assumed that this technological innovation was the cause of the widespread presence of Iron Age I settlers in the West Bank highlands. Nevertheless, plastered cisterns clearly had been adopted previously in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (Finkelstein 1996: 201). Agricultural small-scale terracing was another man-made feature widespread in the West Bank highlands. Terraces were built to ensure a horizontal surface and to provide additional ground for the cultivation of fruit trees and other crops. Iron Age I settlements were characterized by a simple and relatively meager pottery that did not have painted decoration, but in certain regions had incisions and impressed decorations (Mazar 1992: 290). Large storage jars (pithoi), called

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“collared-rim jars” represented the most prominent and a considerable proportion of the whole pottery repertoire, which was accompanied by other vessels such as bowls, kraters, and jugs. The collared-rim pithos, unlike the jars of the Late Bronze Age, had an increased size and a pronounced collared-rim shape. This kind of vessel started being produced in the late 13th–12th century b.c.e. until the mid of the 10th century b.c.e. and spread in an area from the Coastal Plain in the west until the Transjordanian plateau in the east and from Galilee in the north until the Judean Hills in the south (Wengrow 1996: 312–16).

2.  Various Proposed Models for the Origin and Distribution of Iron Age I Settlements in the West Bank Highlands In the history of the study of Iron Age I, many hypotheses and “models” have been proposed to explain the origin and spread of settlements in the Palestine highlands. In this debate, many biblical archaeologists have thought that the Iron Age I settlers can be identified as “proto-Israelites” just by considering the archaeological data together with the biblical text. This is due to the fact that the text of the Merenptah Stela (erected during the 5th year of this pharaoh’s rule, in 1207 b.c.e.) recounts the military campaign carried out by the Egyptian army in Palestine and mentions Israel among the populations and cities defeated by pharaoh. In this stele, the term “Israel” is followed by a determinative indicating “people,” not “cities” (Finkelstein and Naʾaman 1994: 247; Hasel 1994: 45–46). This drew many scholars to identify the Iron Age I settlers as “proto-Israelites” who inhabited the Palestine highlands during the “Judges period” (Dever 1992: 26–56; Thompson 1992). The oldest theory is that the settlements are due to military conquest, proposed by Albright in the 1930s (Albright 1939: 11–23). According to this model, the Israelite tribes conquered Canaan by destroying many Canaanite city-states. Two other scholars, Alt and Noth, elaborated the “peaceful infiltration” model, proposing that groups of pastoral-nomad proto-Israelites coming from Transjordan and Syria gradually settled peacefully in Canaan in Iron Age I. In the 1960s–1970s, two American scholars of the socio-anthropological school, Mendenhall and Gottwald, proposed an alternative model that is commonly known as the “peasants’ revolt” theory (Mendehall 1973; Gottwald 1979). According to them, the people living in the villages rebelled against the power and heavy taxation imposed by the Canaanite city-states. Many scholars have identified the Iron Age I settlers in the Canaan highlands as proto-Israelites in order to corroborate what was written in the biblical text by interpreting the archaeological data according to a biblical point of view (Dever 1995: 200–213). This seems to me to be a circular argument and incapable of explaining the Iron Age I settlements in the Palestine highlands. In other words, there is absolutely no way to distinguish the ethnic entity in the highlands of Cisjordan from the people living in the Canaan lowlands on the basis of an analysis of the archaeological data (Finkelstein 1996: 200; Shennan 1989: 15). The rise of so many new settlements in the West Bank highlands in Iron Age I is not due to the infiltration of a new ethnic group but can be explained as a part of a long and complex cyclical alternating process of sedentarization and nomadization, settlement peaks and demographic crisis, which took place in response to the sociopolitical and economic changes occurring throughout the West Bank as early as the Early Bronze Age (Finkelstein 1998: 33–34).

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In the end, I would conclude by pointing out that in this work I will generally speak about Iron Age I settlers because, as I have previously explained above, it is impossible to distinguish ethnic boundaries on the basis of archaeological data.

3.  Specific Goals of the Research In this study, I will consider the settlements patterns of Iron Age I settlers without assuming any ethnic boundary but will attempt to correlate site locations with environmental-cultural factors. One of the tasks is to detect how the material culture and the architectonic features were related to environmental factors and what kinds of interactions there were between people living in our study area. In addition, the West Bank highlands represent a geographical unit different from the surrounding areas, characterized by a fertile plateau in the west and desert fringes in the east. Therefore, it will be interesting to assess how in this “frontier region” the environmental features, related to cultural-social-economic factors, could have affected the human decision-making process and the settlement distribution of Iron Age I people. In considering these issues, these questions will guide the process: •  What are the environmental factors that could have affected the location of Iron Age I settlements in the West Bank highlands? •  Which settlement patterns are recognizable in the study area, and what factors are involved? •  Is there evidence suggesting different kinds of interactions among the Iron Age I settlers?

I will answer those questions by using a computational and quantitative approach consisting of an extensive range of sophisticated spatial and statistical analyzes. First, I will implement a site-location model in order to investigate what environmental factors may have affected the distribution of sites in the landscape. Then, I will carry out point-pattern analysis in order to investigate phenomena of attraction or repulsion among the settlements distributed throughout the West Bank highlands.

4.  Site Location Modeling Site Location Modelling (also known as archaeological predictive modeling) is a tool that permits us to assess how past site location has been affected by a complex interplay of environmental factors (Conolly and Lake 2006: 179–80). 1 It is possible to create an empirical site location model for any study area if our data come from archaeological surveys, which consistently distinguish between locations where sites are present and locations where sites are absent (Asch and Warren 2000: 6). The purpose of the relevant model is to identify the environmental variables that significantly discriminate between the site and non-site locations. The best statistical technique for comparing the value distributions of each variable for site and non-site locations is linear logistic regression (Asch and Warren 2000: 8–9). Therefore, at the end of the whole procedure, we can assess what are the sig1.  In this paper we will use the term “site location modeling” instead of “predictive modeling” to stress that the model target is used for archaeological explanation purposes and not for cultural resource management.

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Fig. 3.  Map showing the West Bank boundaries (dark line) and the total surveyed area.

nificant environmental factors that could have affected the location of sites in our study area. Nevertheless, the results of a site-location model have to be accurately evaluated, because we cannot analyze the sites’ distribution without considering the socio-cultural aspects. The real danger of site location modeling is that it reduces the human actors “to automata who behave according to a rule that connects their behaviour to their environment” (Wheatley 1993: 135; Wheatley 2004). Several

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Fig. 4.  2D and 3D views of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the West Bank.

scholars have noted that socio-cultural phenomena and the presence of preexisting settlements could have influenced the human decision-making process concerning the use of space (Bell and Lock 2002: 174). Despite the above critique, in this essay I will try to identify, step by step, the primary and derived environmental factors that could have affected settlement locations in the West Bank highlands and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the site location model.

4.1.  Data Collection and Transformation The first step in site location modeling consists of gathering data concerning the dependent and independent variables to include in the multivariate logistic regression. These data, including both vector shape-file (points, polyline, polygon) and raster ESRI GRID, were prepared and elaborated by using various software packages such as ArcGIS, GRASS GIS, QGis, Landserf, R and OpenOffice calc. Before beginning to generate the site location model, I will describe, step by step, what variables were used and how each of them was created and elaborated. The coordinate system and geographic projection of my entire dataset was set on WGS 1984 UTM, zone 36N. A polygon of my window of analysis was created by digitizing the maps of the regional surveys carried out in the late 1960s and 1980s by Zertal (2004), Finkelstein (Finkelstein and Lederman 1997; Finkelstein and Magen 1993), and Kochavi (Kochavi 1972). The spreadsheet containing the site coordinates and other attributes was realized by using data from the published surveys. These publications report both Old Israel Grid (OIG) coordinates and UTM coordinates. The archaeological survey publications allowed me to identify 270 settlements distributed over the West Bank highlands in Iron Age I (fig. 3). An Aster Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) of the West Bank was download from NASA’s official website (fig. 4). 2 A digital elevation model is a digital map that provides a three-dimensional model of elevation (or part) of the earth’s surface. 2.  The current ASTER Digital Elevation Model (DEM) product was implemented using new production software at the Land Processes DAAC starting on May 24, 2006. This is the final validated

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Fig. 5.  Slope map (a), Aspect map (b), and TWI map (c) of the study area.

Several surfaces, such as slope, aspect, ridges, and Topographical Wetness Index (TWI) maps, were derived from the Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The slope map is a continuous surface, derived from the DEM, measuring the steepness of terrain slope in degrees transformed into logarithmic values (range = 0 – 1.749) (fig. 5a). The aspect map is a continuous grid, derived from the DEM, measuring (in absolute values) the direction in which a slope faces (range = 0–180) (fig. 5b). The Topographic Wetness Index map is a continuous variable showing, for each raster cell, the sum of the Topographic Wetness Index (TWI) values within a circular neighborhood (r = 1.6 Km) (fig. 5c). The ridges map is a raster file showing, for each pixel, the probability values of ridges presence in our study area between 0 and 1 (fig. 6a). The geology was analyzed because it represents an important factor that may have affected the distribution of the settlements in the landscape. A series of geological maps (scale 1:50,000) were downloaded from the official website of the “Israel Geological survey” and digitized in order to get a polygon vector file of the West Bank geology (fig. 6b). 3 Then, for my purposes, I reduced all rock typologies into the following three geological features: (1) alluvium, (2) dolomite, 4 and limestone. We carried out a chiversion of the DEM product derived using bands 3N and 3B from an ASTER Level-1A dataset (https:// wist.echo.nasa.gov/~wist/api/imswelcome/). 3.  The Geological Survey of Israel (GSI), founded in 1949, is a government institute operating under the Earth Science Research Administration within the Ministry of National Infrastructures (Israel government) and is involved in earth science research with the objective of documenting, studying, and conducting research in all aspects of the country’s geology (http://www.gsi.gov.il/Eng/). 4.  In this paper I will use without differentiation the term dolomite/dolostone. Nowodays, there is still a debate concerning the use of term dolomite to indicate only the mineral and dolostone to indicate the rock.

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Fig. 6.  Ridges map (a), geology map (b), and distance into dolomite and out of dolomite map (c).

square test to assess if the correlation between the Iron Age I settlements and the geology types is statistically significant. This statistical technique is used for data classified into different categories and for evaluating the correspondence between distributions (Shennan 1997: 104–5). In this test, we specified our null hypothesis: settlement distribution is not in relation to geology types. 5 After carrying out the test, we get the following p-value: 0.02813. In this case, we have only a 2.8 % chance of falsely rejecting the null hypothesis. Thus, the chi-square test gives us two important results: there was correlation between settlement distribution and the geology type; and more sites than were expected were located in the dolomite geological regions. After considering the chi-square test’s results, we assessed the possible relationship between the distance of sites from dolomite by carrying out a linear regression analysis showing a positive correlation between the sites’ density and the distance into the dolostone. For this reason, I created a raster surface indicating the distance of each pixel into and out of dolomite (range = –10,562 –6709 m) (fig. 6c).

4.2  Analyses and Results In our study area, we created our site location model by using 270 site and nonsite locations as dependent variable and environmental attributes (elevation, slope, aspect, distance from dolomite, ridges, wetness index) as independent variables. The 270 non-site locations were created by using a specific algorithm that randomly generates points within the study area. 5.  The formula for chi-squared is given by : Where k is the number of categories, Oi is the observed number of cases in category i, Ei is the expected number of cases in category i, and X2 is the symbol repK resenting chi-squared. (O - E ) 2 2          

X =Â i =l

i

Ei

i

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For the purposes of our site location model, we carried out univariate logistic regression analyses in order to assess the relationship between the dependent variable and each independent environmental variable. The resultant two-tailed p‑values (Pr >|z|) of this analysis give us a preliminary assessment of how useful the covariate may be as a predictor. If the p-value is much larger than 0.05, we can consider the variable useless for prediction. Table 1. P(r) and p-values from univariate logistic regression of the settlement distribution Independent variables

Pr (>|z|)

p-value

Elevation

0.267

0.2654711

Slope

1.21e-09

1.936202e-10

Aspect

0.527

0.5270893

Distance from dolomite

0.367

0.3651802

Ridges

2.73e-14

2.109424e-15

Wetness index

0.000642

0.0005015214

The results of the logistic regression analysis for each independent variable (table 1) tell us that slope, ridges, and Topographic Wetness Index, have a significant relationship with the site location at a confidence level lower than 0.05 and that can be considered good predictors as environmental factors that may have affected Iron Age I settlement distribution in the West Bank highlands. We can finally state that the slope, the TWI, and the ridges played an important role in the distribution of Iron Age I settlements in our study area. Then, I assessed whether visibility was an environmental factor affecting settlement location by comparing the sites view-shed sizes and non-sites view-shed sizes using a Kolgomorov-Smirnov test in order to accept or reject the null hypothesis stating that there is no statistical difference between sites’ view-shed sizes and background population view-shed sizes. The view-shed size is a quantitative datum recording the number of pixels visible from each viewpoint (archaeological site). Before performing the K-S statistical analysis, the data were converted into a cumulative distribution. This test allowed us to measure the maximum difference between the cumulative distribution of view-shed sizes of sites and random locations and compare this difference with the difference predicted if the samples were drawn from the same distribution: D = max |S1(x) – S2(x)|

where D indicates the K-S statistic, and S1(x) and S2(x) represent the two cumulative distributions. The resultant maximum difference observable between the cumulative distributions is 0.27 (fig. 7). The p-value (3.111e-09) tells us that the probability of erroneously rejecting the null hypothesis that the two samples are drawn from the same population is only 3.111e-09 or 3.111e-07 % . The results of this test reveal that the distribution of the Iron Age I settlements in the West Bank highlands was related to the visibility.

4.3. Discussion The site location model created has revealed that the slope, the Topographic Wetness Index, the presence of ridges, and visibility are environmental variables

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Fig. 7.  Cumulative proportion distribution of view-shed sizes for sites (gray) and random locations (black).

that played an important role in distribution of Iron Age I settlements in the West Bank. The multivariate logistic regression has showed that ridges have the most significant relationship with site location (p-value = 3.41e-12). This is confirmed by the fact that 183 (ca.70 %) of 270 sites are located on ridges. At this point, if we analyze all environmental variables detected as good predictors by our site location model, we can observe that they are deeply interconnected. The results of the analysis that we have previously carried out leads us to think that the sites’ location on the tops of hills was related to the need to have commanding views of the landscape and available water sources. Considering the rugged topography of the landscape, where cultivation without terracing is almost impossible, there are many reasons to think that Iron Age I settlers privileged hilltops as sites for their settlements in order to dominate the landscape, spreading out across the slope to create agricultural terraces. The extensive terracing of this period was the outcome of pressure on the population to locate available land and water resources. So, location on the ridges was excellent strategically and allowed agricultural communities to have substantial control of the surrounding territory. In addition, considering the proximity of the settlements to water sources and the presence of many plastered cisterns, we can state that Zertal is wrong when he states that Iron Age I settlers stored water in the “collared-rim storage jars” because they lived far from water sources (Zertal 1988). At this point, I would like to point out that this type of large pithoi was most likely used for gathering horticultural products such as wine and oil (Wengrow 1996: 321– 22; Finkelstein 1996: 201).

5.  Settlement Pattern Analysis In this section, I will try to detect possible phenomena of repulsion or attraction among the Iron Age I settlements distributed in the West Bank highlands by carrying out point pattern analyses.

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Fig. 8.  The modified K-distribution (L) for Iron Age I settlements.

The homogeneous Global Ripley’s K function describes the second-order properties of a point pattern by using measures based on distances between all events in the study area (Lloyd, 2007: 175–76). The K function for distance d is given by the following formula:

K (d ) =

# (C ( x, d ) λl

where #(C(x,d)) indicates the number of events in the circle C(x,d), with radius d centered on location x and λ is the average intensity (M= N(a)/A) of the process. This global function examines spatial dependence over small spatial scales by assuming homogeneity and isotropy over the scale of analysis (stationary point process) (Lloyd 2007: 177). The K function is obtained by counting the number of points within radius d of an event and calculating the mean count for all events; then, the mean count is divided by the overall study area event density. We can repeat the same procedure over various scales by modifying the values of the radius r around each event. The local K function is similar to the global K function, but only pairs of points that have a given point i as one of the members of the pair are included (Lloyd 2007: 186–87). A local K function of distance d is defined by the following formula:

K (d ) =

| A | N (C ( xi , d ) λl n

where counts are of all points within distance d of point i and |A| indicates the area of the window analysis. Unlike the Global Ripley’s K function, the local K function

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Fig. 9.  Local Rypley’s K values for all Iron Age I settlements at bandwidth 2 (a), 5 (b) and 10 km (c).

allows us to show the spatial distribution of clustering at each spatial scale by plotting the K value for all artefacts at each bandwidth in turn.

5.1.  Analyses and Results I carried out point pattern analyses by using a dataset composed of 270 Iron Age I settlements. I carried out a univariate global Ripley’s K function for all 270 settlements by using an interval of 60 meters (the minimum nearest distance between neighbor settlements) and a maximum bandwidth of 20 km. I would like to stress that in my plots the distances are expressed in decameters instead of meters because R’s ads package tool was not able to import the UTM coordinates in meters. The resultant K function plot shows the cumulative frequency distribution of average point intensity at set increments (equal to 60 m) of r. We used Monte Carlo simulations of points’ random distributions to estimate local confidence limits of the null hypothesis of complete spatial randomness (CSR) and obtained a 99% confidence interval by carrying out 1,000 iterations (Bevan and Conolly 2006: 220). These estimates are, then, compared to the observed values of K (L) in order to provide a statistically robust measure of a clustered or regular point distribution in our study area (Conolly and Lake 2006: 166). The Ripley’s K plot (fig. 8) shows a strong positive deviation from the confidence interval and indicates that from a distance (r) greater than 1 km sites cluster into

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statistically significant groups (p < 0.01) indicating that there are more neighbors than expected at almost all distances r (fig. 8). Unlike the univariate or bivariate Global Ripley’s K function, the local K function allows us to show the spatial distribution of clustering at each spatial scale by plotting the modified K-distribution (L) function value for all settlements types at each bandwidth in turn. At this point, we created different plots of all 270 settlements (Appendix A, fig. 3.1) at bandwidth 2, 5, and 10 km in order to detect different local patterns. In our plots, the dimensions of black circles represent the degree of aggregation of a site, while the white circles represent the degree of segregation of each point. So, the greater a black circle, the more clustered are the corresponding sites. If we look at the local clusters of all sites at bandwidth equal to 2 km (a r distance slightly larger than the average nearest neighbours distance (= 1.6 km) between the settlements), we can see that some small clusters are distributed mainly on the eastern and northwestern ridges of the West Bank (fig. 9).

5.2. Discussion In this section, we have analyzed how environmental and socio-cultural factors may have affected the distribution of Iron Age I settlements in the West Bank highlands. The results of the global and local univariate homogenous Ripley’s K function indicate that our settlements are clustered at almost all scales. In fact, I have identified some clusters spread along eastern and northwestern edges of the West Bank.

6. Conclusions This paper has proposed some statistical analyses and has defined a methodology for assessing the spatial patterns of Iron Age I distribution in the West Bank. The first step of this research, the creation of a site location model, has showed us the environmental variables that could have affected the settlement distribution of our sites: slope, Topographic Wetness Index, ridges, and visibility. The last analyses focused on investigating how the environmental factors and the direct interaction among the settlements may have influenced settlement patterns in the West Bank highlands during Iron Age I. The results of these integrated analyses indicate that both environmental and socio-cultural factors could have affected the distribution of Iron Age I settlements. As we have previously pointed out in the first section, we cannot speak about unique ethnic groups in the West Bank highlands, the protoIsraelites, but we should generally speak about settlers organized in several various small, local communities. It is interesting to note that about 70% of the settlements were located on the ridges, suggesting that this environmental feature was the preferred location for settlement. Our analysis leads us to conclude that settlements were located on the hilltops for a number of reasons, such as the building of agricultural terraces and visibility. Therefore, archaeological features such as plastered cisterns, pillaredroom houses, and agricultural terraces mirror the socio-economic conditions of Iron Age I settlers as they adapted and exploited the hilly landscape; these features are not the cause that promoted peak of settlement throughout the region. Another important aspect is that we identified several clusters distributed on the western and eastern edges of our study area and in some intermountain valleys in the central highlands. These clusters are mostly composed by settlements not

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located on the ridges but mainly distributed over intermountain valleys (central and western West Bank) and steppes (eastern West Bank). This could suggest that the position of settlements on the ridges reflected the need to segregate the “highlanders,” while the settlements located in the valleys and in the steppes tended to be more clustered. The vacuum of power following the advent of the Sea Peoples and the end of Egyptian domination may have enabled the relationships of various groups within the highlands to turn to a form of competition between villages, resulting in the raise of “totemic” and “local” identities (Faust 2006: 229). This determined the proliferation of many rural and small communities spread over large areas and divided into several local “factions.” In the end, the results obtained from the series of analyses carried out disproves the hypothesis that the “proto-Israelites” represented a unique ethnic group in the highlands. Most likely, they were just one of several groups that inhabited the highlands in the Iron Age I.

References Ahlstrom, G. W. 1984 Giloh: A Judahite or Canaanite Settlement? Israel Exploration Journal 34: 170–72. Albright, W. F. 1939 The Israelite Conquest of Canaan in the Light of Archaeology. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 74: 11–23. Asch, D. L., and Warren, R. E. 2000 A Predictive Model of Archaeological Site Location in the Eastern Praire Peninsula. In Practical Applications of GIS for Archaeologists, ed. R. J. Brandon and K. L. Westcott. London: Taylor & Francis. Bell, T., and Lock, G. 2002 Topographic and Cultural Influences on Walking the Ridgeway in Later Prehistoric Times. Pp.  85–100 in Beyond the Map: Archaeology and Spatial Technologies, ed G. Lock. Amsterdam: IOS. Dever, W. G. 1992 How to Tell a Canaanite from an Israelite. Pp. 25–56 in The Rise of Ancient Israel, ed. H. Shanks. Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society. 1995 Ceramics, Ethnicity, and the Question of Israel’s Origins. Biblical Archaeologist 58: 200–213. 1997 Archaeology and the Emergence of Israel. Pp. 20–50 in Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation, ed. J. R. Bartlett. London: Routledge. Conolly, J., and Lake, M. W. 2006 Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faust, A. 2006 Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance. London: Equinox. Finkelstein, I. 1988 The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement. Jerusalem : Israel Exploration Society. 1996 Ethnicity and Origin of the Iron I Settlers in the Highlands of Canaan: Can the Real Israel Stand Up? The Biblical Archaeologist 59: 198–212. 1998 The Rise of Early Israel Archaeology and Long-Term History. Pp. 7–39 in The Origin of Early Israel: The Current Debate, ed. A. Shmuel and E. D. Oren. Jerusalem: Posner & Sons Ltd. Finkelstein, I., and Naʾaman, N. 1994 From Nomadism to Monarchy. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.

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Finkelsteain, I., and Lederman, Z. 1997 Highlands of Many Cultures: The Southern Samaria Survey. Jerusalem: Graphit Press. Finkelstein, I., and Magen, Y. 1993 Archaeological Survey of the Hill Country of Benjamin. Jerusalem. Gottwald, N. K. 1979 The Tribes of Yahweh. New York: Continuum. Hasel, M. G. 1994 Israel in the Merenptah Stela. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296: 45–61 Kochavi, M. 1972 Juda, Samaria and Golan. Archaeological Survey 1967–68. Jerusalem: Carta. Lloyd, C. D. 2007 Local Models for Spatial Analysis. London: Taylor & Francis. Mazar, A. 1981 Giloh: An Early Israelite Settlement Site Near Jerusalem. Israel Exploration Journal 31: 1–36. 1990 Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. New York: Doubleday. 1992 The Iron Age I. Pp. 258–80 in The Archaeology of Ancient Israel, ed. A. Ben-Tor. West Hannover, MA: Arcada Graphics. Mendehall, G. E. 1973 The Tenth Generation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Shennan, S. J. 1989 Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity. London: Unwin Hyman. 1997 Quantifying Archaeology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Thompson, T. L. 1992 Early Hystory of the Israelite People from the Written and Archaeological Sources. Leiden: Brill. Wengrow, D. 1996 Egyptian Taskmasters and Heavy Burdens: Highland Exploitation and the CollaredRim Pithos of the Bronze–Iron Age Levant. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 15: 307–26. Wheatley, D. 1993 Going over Old Ground: GIS, Archaeological Theory and the Act of Perception. Pp. 133– 38 in Computing the Past: Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 1992, ed. J. Andresen, T. Madsen, and I. Scollar. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. 2004 Making Space for an Archaeology of Place. Internet Archaeology 15. http://intarch. ac.uk/journal/issue15/10/dw4.html Zertal, A. 1988 The Water Factor during the Israelite Settlement Process in Canaan. Pp.  341–52 in Society and Economy in the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 1500–1000 b.c.e.), ed. M. Heltzer, and E. Lipinski. Leuven: Peeters. 2004 The Manasseh Hill Country Survey. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill.

Computational and Spatial Approaches to the Commercial Landscapes and Political Geography of the Old Assyrian Colony Period Alessio Palmisano

U n i v e r s i t y C o ll e g e L o n d o n

1.  The Old Assyrian Trade Network 1.1.  The Structure of the Trade The Old Assyrian trade network was a long-distance socio-economic system with the city of Ashur as its center and trade links to the south (Babylonia), north (Anatolia), east (Elam, the Zagros area), and west (northern Syria and lower Jezira). The activities of Assyrian merchants are well documented by the archaeological levels II and Ib at the Assyrian trade colony (karum) at Kanesh and by the recovery of their private correspondence recording trade transactions, contracts, and letters (about 23,000 recovered tablets; see Veenhof 1995: 860–62; Forlanini 2008; Barjamovic 2008: 88–89). The nature of the relationships between the Assyrian traders and the Anatolian rulers was based on trading pacts in which the colonies were enclaves that guaranteed the interests of rich elites (Bryce 2005: 24–25). We can subdivide the history of the trade into two main phases: •  1950 – 1835 b.c.e. (phase I): the Assyrian merchant established a network of permanent agencies in Northern Syria and Anatolia. •  1832 – 1718 b.c.e. (phase II): around 1832, the Assyrians resettled at Kanesh. Around 1718 the systems collapsed definitively.

The Assyrian colonial system was characterized by two kinds of commercial settlements: karum and wabartum. The first represented the main core of the Assyrian presence in Anatolia, while the latter had a subordinate role in relation to the first, even though it enjoyed certain fiscal and juridical powers. The word karum is a term of Mesopotamian origin, indicating a quay or harbor where it was possible to offload goods (e.g., agricultural products, imports from abroad, etc.) transported by boat to cities located on rivers and canals (Veenhof 1995: 866–67). This concept was taken by the Assyrians and applied to Anatolia, even though harbors and traffic by boat did not play any role. The term soon acquired the meaning “trading, business quarter,” a commercial quarter in which Anatolians, Assyrians, and other foreign businessman lived and worked. Although not all wabartums were attached to minor towns, the distinction between two kinds of commercial settlements and their distribution may reflect a pattern of trade. 767

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Fig. 1.  Distribution of karums and wabartums in the Old Assyrian Colony period.

The texts from Kanesh tell us that the Assyrians established about 40 commercial settlements in Upper Mesopotamia and Anatolia (fig. 1), but they do not explain the choice of these towns nor the reasons for the different status between the colonies or how their roles changed across time. Undoubtedly, there must have been specific commercial and strategic reasons for the settling down of groups of merchants in particular towns. Those towns may have been way-stations strategically located near particular geographical features (such as mountain passes, river crossings, road junctions), and/or marketplaces, important cities, and production centers of particular goods. One of the most crucial aspects of trade was the establishment of political and economic treaties between the Assyrians and the Anatolian city-states. These bilateral treaties allowed each local ruler to impose taxes and fiscal control on the goods imported by the merchants in exchange for protection of caravans traveling in his land. For this reason, a stable political situation was an important factor in the development of trade favoring the interests both of Assyrians and Anatolian rulers. It is possible, thanks to the official letters found in Kültepe, to reconstruct the substance of the commercial treaties between the Assyrians and the local rulers. The Assyrian colonial system was hierarchical, with karum Kanesh as its administrative center and a sort of extension of the city of Asshur (Larsen 1976: 247), and its leaders could be called by Anatolian rulers “our lords, fathers.” Karum Wahshusana, according to one text, tells the ruler of Washania that “Karum Kanesh is our master” (Veenhof and Eidem 2008: 181). It is extremely difficult to map the development of the settlement patterns of the Assyrian colonies across the Middle Bronze Age, especially if we want to detect the differences and the changes that occurred between the first and the second phase of trade. Most references concerning the commercial settlements come from official documents such as judicial texts, depositions, and verdicts that are still undated. In addition, the quantity of texts (about 500) coming from level Ib of Kültepe is incomplete and poor when compared with the huge amount of tablets (about 23,000) found in level II.

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Fig. 2.  Old Assyrian Trade schematic model.

1.2.  Goods and Production The Old Assyrian trade was mainly based on two commodities, tin and textiles, which were carried by donkey caravans from Asshur to Anatolia, and then sold in exchange for silver and gold. Tin most likely was imported to Asshur from Iran and Afghanistan by Susa (Dercksen 2005), while the textiles were both produced locally in Asshur and imported from important production centers located in Babylonia such as Sippar and Babylon (fig. 2). Assyrian merchants did not import any subsistence goods or essential raw materials needed in Asshur, because the main targets of the trade were gold and silver. While Anatolian gold could not circulate commercially because there was an Assyrian legal prohibition on selling and exchange it in Mesopotamia, silver was universally accepted as a means of payment in all of Mesopotamian trade (Veenhof 1997: 339–40). In Asshur, silver was used for promoting new commercial enterprises or for purchasing different kinds of goods such as houses, barley, wool, etc. The economic status of Anatolia was characterized by a different supply-anddemand situation and by a different system of equivalences and rates of exchange, allowing the Assyrian merchants to get cheap silver, which then could be invested for further profit. In fact, in Anatolia, tin cost at least twice as much as it did in Asshur (in Asshur, one could buy 14 shekels of tin with 1 shekel of silver, while in Anatolia, 7 shekels of tin could be sold for 1 shekel of silver), while the various qualities of textile could yield triple their purchase price (10–25 shekels of silver

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against 3–7 shekels of silver). Thus, with two round trips an Assyrian trader could earn a net profit of about 50%–100% a year. Therefore, the Assyrians established a trade network neither based on the procurement of subsistence goods nor on the export of native goods, but “on purely commercial exchange resulting in ‘profit’ by acquiring much more silver than originally invested, hence a much more ‘monetarian’ economy than anywhere else in the ancient near East” (Veenhof 1997: 340). Unlike the other important cities in Mesopotamia, Asshur played a predominant role for its strategic location, which linked the city to the south (Babylonia), north (Anatolia), east (Elam, the Zagros area), and west (northern Syria and lower Jezira). The trade was entirely a private enterprise carried out by several family firms in which other citizens (including the rulers of the city of Asshur) and the temples invested. Nevertheless, this long-distance socioeconomic activity was made possible in Upper Mesopotamia and Anatolia thanks to the support and the official commitment of all of the political and public institutions of Asshur. In addition, the Assyrians not only exported textiles and tin to Anatolia but were also able to control the internal market for wool and copper in central Anatolia. The clients interested in trade for wool and copper were the rulers of the Anatolian city-states, the native merchants that could sell the copper throughout Anatolia, the blacksmiths, and the cities’ elites. Thus, Assyrian merchants played an important role as mediators among the various Anatolian kingdoms.

2.  Research Methods and Objectives From the mid-20th century onward, consolidated study of the merchant archives from the Old Assyrian trading colony at Kanesh (Kültepe) has not only transformed our understanding of the social, economic, and political dynamics of the Bronze Age Near East but also overturned many preconceived notions of what constitutes premodern trade. Despite this intensive study and archaeological investigation at Kültepe and elsewhere, our understanding of this phenomenon has remained largely text-based and therefore of limited analytical scope, both spatially and contextually. The time is now right to reconsider it from a wider series of perspectives, and this research project aims to do so via a combination of archaeological and computational approaches. In this paper, I will offer a general overview of the importance of adopting a new methodology in order to reassess the Old Assyrian trade network in Central Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia during the early Middle Bronze Age by reconsidering the archaeology of the region both on its own terms and via a range of computational approaches (including GIS, remote sensing, and spatial statistics). In recent years, digital technologies have been used in archaeology for the documentation, management, and representation of archaeological data. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) represent the most powerful tool for the organization of archaeological data in relation to the corresponding spatial information. Sophisticated databases exist for organizing and recording archaeological data in the field, for creating links among finds and their spatial context, and for mapping study areas investigated by archaeological surveys and excavations. In addition, GIS can by used by archaeologists not only for data management but also for analyzing data and their spatial references.

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Thus, scholars can detect particular patterns from the archaeological data collected by archaeological surveys or excavations by carrying out statistical spatial analysis. Statistical and quantitative methods are used in several scientific branches such as ecology, palaeontology, sociology, biology, and so on. Unfortunately, the division of the sciences into positive and theoretical puts archaeology in the latter category. Therefore, archaeologists generally do not have a robust background in mathematics and statistics and they lack a rigorous scientific methodology. It is important to point out that statistics and spatial analysis have the power to detect and explain even the most vague and complex aspects of the world (Shennan 1997: 3). Quantitative methods are based on assumptions deriving directly from the information originating from the data with the purpose of revealing and understanding the actual nature of the archaeological data. Scholars, by using statistics, can discern the presence or absence of any pattern in the archaeological data and detect the relationships between the spatial and the attribute datasets (Conolly and Lake 2006: 122). To summarize, the key word for the current project is “holistic approach”; by this word I refer to the importance of integrating and framing three different kinds of data, such as the written sources, the archaeological data, and the geographical and spatial data into a quantitative methodological approach able to offer a more complete and clear understanding of the Old Assyrian trade network in Upper Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia in the Middle Bronze Age.

3.  Data Sources and Topography I now turn to these three sources of data. The written sources come mainly from the karum of the archaeological site of Kültepe. Level II has yielded ca. 23,000 clay tablets, while in level IB around 500 clay tablets were found. 1 Moreover, smaller groups of texts have been discovered at other sites in Central Anatolia such as Boğazkale (72 texts), Acemhöyük, Kaman Kale-Höyük, and Alisar. Other written sources, contemporary with archaeological layer IB of Kültepe, were found at the site of ancient Mari and at Tell Leilan (500 texts). The archaeological data come from sites that were investigated in the past decades by excavation and extensive surveys. In addition, by study and analysis of the published archaeological surveys reports, I have also created a spatial database composed of 1,720 archaeological sites distributed throughout Northern Iraq, Syria, and Turkey in the Middle Bronze Age (fig. 3). 2 An Aster Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) of the whole study area was download from the NASA’s official website (fig. 4). 3 A digital elevation model is a digital map that provides a three-dimensional model of elevation (or part) of the earth’s surface. 1.  The two levels of Kültepe are dated according to the following chronology:            Level II (ca. 1950 – 1835 b.c.e.);            Level Ib (ca. 1832 – 1718 b.c.e.). 2. For a complete list of published archaeological surveys carried out in Syria and Turkey, see Wilkinson (2000: 223–24), and Glatz (2006: 539–41). 3.  The current ASTER Digital Elevation Model (DEM) product was implemented using new production software at the Land Processes DAAC starting on May 24, 2006. This is the final validated version of the DEM product derived using bands 3N and 3B from an ASTER Level-1A dataset (https://wist. echo.nasa.gov/~wist/api/imswelcome/).

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Fig. 3.  Distribution of archaeological sites located in Northern Iraq, Syria, and Central Turkey in the Middle Bronze Age.

Several surfaces, such as slope, aspect, ridges, Topographical Wetness Index (TWI), and visibility can be derived from the Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The slope map is a continuous surface, derived from the DEM, measuring the steepness of terrain slope in degrees. The aspect map is a continuous grid, derived from the DEM, measuring (in absolute values) the direction in which slope faces (range = 0–360 degrees). The Topographic Wetness Index map is a continuous variable showing, for each raster cell, the sum of the Topographic Wetness Index (TWI) values within a circular neighborhood. This map is useful for detecting moisture patterns in the landscape and for creating hydrological models. The ridges map is a raster file showing, for each pixel, the probability values of the presence of ridges in the study area between 0 and 1. The visibility map shows the portion of landscape visible from each viewpoint (archaeological settlement). I have also created a database containing spatial and attribute data of minerals resources (gold, silver, copper, etc.) and geographical features (rivers, mountain passes, etc.) In fact, the landscape may have played an important role for the location of settlements, roads, and trade routes, and a regional study should be undertaken, taking into consideration the topography, the environment, and the distribution of natural resources. Mountains and rivers could have a duplex meaning and be considered both topographical and political boundaries. Thus, the fragmented political situation occurring in Anatolia in the Middle Bronze Age may be a consequence of the difficult topography of the region, characterized by the presence of numerous intermountain valleys, high mountain chains, and rivers that could have played a role as physical and political boundaries between the territories.

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Fig. 4.  2D and 3D views of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of Northern Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

In fact, the development of a significant territorial consciousness among the Anatolian rulers was one of the most remarkable consequences of the Old Assyrian trade network (Bryce 2005: 33). The definition of specific political boundaries was important for a number of practical implications, such as the determination of which local administration had the jurisdiction over the merchants at a particular stage of the journey in order to exercise the right to impose taxes upon them. In

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addition, the local authorities, as specified in several texts, had to guarantee the safety of Assyrians donkey-caravans and the full accessibility of roads within their territory. The trade routes used by the merchants created a communication network in Anatolia that favored both commercial and political links between the local kingdoms and the Assyrian colonies involved in the trade. The Old Assyrian colony systems, by developing the importance of the political boundaries as administrative units for dealing with practical procedures realted to trade, may have indirectly favored competition among the Anatolian kingdoms. In this perspective, the mountain passes also may have provided a very important strategic role. In fact, the control of a mountain pass could guarantee the control of specific trade routes and of the goods traded along those routes.

4.  Cost Surface Analysis and Its Archaeological Applications 4.1. Introduction Movement through the space is an important socio-spatial component that archaeologists can investigate by using GIS capabilities. In fact, human-movement analysis can reveal important information on some aspects of past life such as commercial routes, territorial organization, trade networks, and so on. For this reason, the number of scholars involved in analyzing human movement in the past is increasing in recent years. Thus, in this paper I will examine how GIS applications can help the archaeologist to model past movement and its consequences for the “social-use” of past landscapes. We can model time and energy expenditure from a place to a specific destination by generating topographic regions derived from cost-surfaces (Conolly and Lake 2006: 214). A cost-surface, or accumulated cost surface, is a landscape computer-generated model in which each part (pixel within the raster structure) of the surface has assigned a cost of moving from an origin to one or more destinations (Bell and Lock 2000: 86). A cost-surface map is generated by applying an algorithmic spreading function to a cost-of-passage map in which each raster cell has an assigned value for the cost of travel through that cell. In the end, after creating an accumulated costsurface, it is possible to calculate the least-cost path from defined starting points to specific destinations. At this point, we can state that GIS represents a powerful tool able for combining different factors and criteria in order to model past movement in landscape and its social consequences. Combining different factors allows archaeologists to generate more realistic past movement models where the travel cost is not determined by a single factor such as elevation or slope but also by multiple criteria that an analyst can select in order to investigate diverse temporal, social, and regional settings (Howey 2007: 1831). Before showing how we can create cost surfaces and least-cost paths in more detail, I would like to point out the difficulties that a GIS analyst can encounter when he is modeling past movement in landscape. In fact, if it is possible to assign travel-cost values to each cell of a friction grid by considering quantifiable factors (such as slope, elevation, land cover, etc..), it is much more difficult to model sociocultural variables (taboo zones, attraction to or repulsion from burial mounds, space perception, etc.). For this reason, an archaeologist approaching the study of human

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past movement has to explore how to integrate cultural factors with the energy cost of traversing terrain (Harris 2000: 120). For a fully comprehension of costsurface analysis in archaeology, we will focus on a more detailed and technical description of the following spatial models: •  Cost of passage maps or friction surfaces •  Accumulated-cost surfaces •  Least-cost pathways

Then, we will examine how cost-surface analysis has been used in archaeology by considering its strengths and weaknesses and will show ways for assessing the reliability of a generated past movement model.

Fig. 5.  Representation (black pixels) of linear terrain features (eg. Rivers, defensive walls, territorial boundaries, etc.) in a raster friction surface.

4.2.  Cost-of-Passage Maps A cost-of-passage map, or friction surface, is a grid in which each cell has a value reflecting the cost of traversing that cell. This kind of map is important because it represents the base data for generating accumulated cost surfaces and least-cost pathways. Therefore, we need to point out that a scholar should carefully select the factors or criteria to be relevant to the cost of movement before creating a friction surface. In fact, in terms of friction, we can divide the natural features that may affect human movement into two categories: isotropic friction (independent of the movement direction), such as vegetation density, soil typology, wet or snowy areas; and anisotropic friction (dependent on the movement direction), such as slope or streams (Silva and Pizziolo 2001: 280). In this section, we will focus on the different factors that should be considered in order to generate realistic cost-of-passage maps. Thus, when we create a vegetation land-cover friction map, we have to assign a unique cost value to each of the land-cover categories. For instance, in a land-cover map, we may have cells representing forested land, which have a cost of traversing higher than pixels indicating grassland. If we are interested in investigating how some factors such as defensive earthworks, territorial boundaries, or sacred areas affected the movement, we can generate a friction surface containing cells impossible to traverse. We can include these barriers in a cost-of-passage map by inserting cells having exceptional high values (fig. 5). The opposite of including barriers is modeling features, such as roads or rivers, which may have favored the movement in a landscape. This is possible by inserting within a friction surface a series of pixels having low movement-cost values. In this case, we are able to create past movement models containing ancient routes that are known or are thought to have been used in the past (Conolly and Lake 2006: 217). In the end, we can combine the different friction grids (e.g., vegetation land cover map, waterways map, modified slope map, etc.) reflecting the selected factors that may have influenced the past human movement into a total cost grid (Howey

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Fig. 6.  Cost of passage map of Upper Mesopotamia.

2007: 1836). This resulting map may represent a good base dataset in order to create anisotropic accumulated cost surfaces and least-cost pathways. The cost of moving over a cell depends on the attributes of the cell and on the transport mode. For instance, a friction grid pixel that falls in a river could be costly to cross on foot but cheap to traverse by boat (Conolly and Lake 2006: 215). For modeling past movement in the landscape from Asshur to Kanesh, scholars may use as cost-of-passage map (or friction surface) the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of Upper Mesopotamia (fig. 6). In fact, elevation and slope represent two important factors affecting movement. In addition, it is possible to create a more complete and sophisticated cost-of-passage map by combining and integrating different friction grids, such as vegetation land-cover maps, waterways maps, and so on. Therefore, it is very important to select the environmental and socio-cultural factors carefully in order to have a realistic model for reconstructing past movement in the landscape.

4.3.  Accumulated Cost Surfaces and Least-Cost Paths Applying an algorithmic spreading function to a friction surface generates an accumulated cost surface. This function is designed to model the minimum movement cost from a specific starting point to the specified destinations (Tomlin 1990). Thus, an accumulated cost surface is a raster map in which each cell contains the lowest cost of traversing the space between a specific cell and the user-specified points (fig. 7). For creating an anisotropic cost surface, it is necessary to use a definite algorithm, which incorporates both the magnitude and the direction of a force in order to create a cost surface dependent on movement direction across various forces from a point A to B (Bell and Lock 2000: 89–90). Therefore, we will have the maximum resistance to movement when the traveler’s direction across slope is uphill and the

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Fig. 7.  Cost surface spreading function from the grid cell having as value 0.

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Fig. 8.  Example of least-cost path generated from an accumulated cost surface map.

least resistance to movement when the traveler’s direction across slope is perpendicular to the slope direction. In this case, we need a magnitude friction surface (slope map) and a direction friction surface (aspect map) to produce an accumulated cost-surface raster grid in which travel direction is calculated by considering both the steepness and the aspect of the slope. The creation of accumulated cost surface can be useful for delimiting site catchment and assessing how relevant factors such as vegetation land-cover, soil typology, slope, etc., may have affected the size of the area that a site could exploit. Thus, movement cost not simply based on the distance but also on the slope can help the scholar delimit discrete regions such as site catchments and territories (Gaffney and Stancic 1998). An accumulated cost surface represents the base map to derive least-cost paths, which are useful to identify ancient transport routes and reconstruct past trade networks between sites on a small or large scale. We can also use least-cost paths to predict past routes, which can be compared with known routes in order to assess the reliability of the movement models created. We need an accumulated cost surface and a path-finding algorithm to trace one or more least-cost paths (fig. 8) from a user-provided location(s) to the raster cell having the lowest movement cost value (Stefanakis and Kavouras 1995: 243–47). Nevertheless, many least-cost pathways created by using GIS could be problematic, either because they cannot replicate known routes or because they trace routes that are unlikely. Therefore, it is important to point out that the reliability of a least-cost path depends on the accumulated cost-surface previously generated and on the path-finding algorithm employed (Conolly and Lake 2006: 252). In my case study, It is possible to model past movement from Asshur to Kanesh and vice-versa by generating two accumulated cost surface maps: one starting from Asshur and the other one starting from Kanesh (figs. 9 and 10). Then, it is also possible to create the least cost-paths starting from both the cities in order to reconstruct the trade and communication routes used during the Old Assyrian colony period.

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Fig. 9.  Accumulated cost of surface map and least-cost paths from Asshur.

Fig. 10.  Accumulated cost surface map and least-cost path from Kanesh.

Nevertheless, the paths generated from Asshur and Kanesh (fig. 9–10) appear unrealistic, and they contradict what scholars have understood by studying the written sources, because they cross Cilicia, a region that, according to the opinion of most scholars, was outside the area of Old Assyrian trade. It is important to notice that in the two examples shown I have not included in the model the river Euphrates as a physical and political boundary. In fact, by inserting the Tigris and Euphrates as physical boundaries, the results are completely

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Fig. 11.  Least-cost path from Assur by using the Euphrates as linear barrier.

different, and they respect the common opinion shared by most scholars about the trade routes from Asshur to Kanesh (fig. 11). With this example, I want to point out that any scholar should carefully select the factors to include in the model in order to avoid huge misunderstandings deriving from mistakes such as the low quality and unreliability of the dataset and the choice of environmental and socio-cultural factors.

4.4.  Archaeological Applications Accumulated cost surfaces and least-cost paths are two outputs derived from friction surfaces and represent two important GIS applications to apply in archaeology. In fact, the use of GIS has renewed and made more possible the study of important archaeological phenomena such as site-catchment, territorial boundaries, and ancient route replication. Consequently, the number of scholars approaching this kind of analysis is increasing in recent years, thanks to the multiple capabilities and applications offered by Geographical Information Systems. At this point, I will explain strengths and weaknesses of past-movement models in site catchment analysis and in route-reconstruction and prediction. GIS capacity of extracting a variety of information about the landscape and delimiting discrete topographical regions such as site catchments or territories has significantly improved the sophistication and reliability of site-catchment analysis. In fact, scholars previously based their analyses only on the distance from a site as criterion for estimating site territories and exploitation areas without taking account of the nature of the terrain surrounding the site. Consequently, some factors (vegetation, slope, rivers, taboo areas, etc.) that may have made the areas of some estimated “territories” more accessible than others have not been considered. For this reason, Gaffney and Stancic used GIS to generate an accumulated cost surface not only based on the distance but also on the slope (Gaffney and Stancic 1991).

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This process takes into account that traversing a steep slope requires more energy expenditure than moving across a flat plane. Therefore, a site located in a mountainous zone will have a smaller catchment area than a site located on flat land because it requires a higher travel cost to move in a varied terrain characterized by downslopes and up-slopes. At this point, Gaffney and Stancic, after generating a cost surface and using the time taken to walk 5 km across the Stary Plain on the Island of Hvar, were able to produce site catchments for prehistoric hill-forts on the island. Then, the relative proportions of the different soil types and other landscape factors occurring in that zone were tabulated and compared for each hill-fort. This study demonstrates how a cumulative cost surface based on topographical data such as slope and aspect maps can be considered quite reliable because these kinds of data are not subject to significant changes across time and are the most unchanging and static landscape elements. Instead, other factors, such as land-cover vegetation, waterways, and taboo zones can change in a short time: forests can be felled, rivers can be drained or diverted, roads can be replaced by newer roads, etc. Because social and cultural factors in a landscape are difficult to quantify, scholars prefer to ignore or consider these aspects as archaeologically ephemeral (Bell et al. 2002: 174). At this point, I would like to stress that it is not wise to underestimate the impact of social factors on human movement in the landscape, because people do not respond like automata to external environmental stimuli (Wheatley 1992: 135). In this case, it is important to consider peoples’ environmental perception and the human behavior related to landscape features such as religious buildings, necropolises, and so on. Human behavior can determine three different movements related to landscape features (Llobera 2000: 72): 1.  repelling movement: an individual avoids moving near specific features (taboo zones, burial mounds, etc.) 2.  attracting movement 3.  being neutral

Therefore, it would be more appropriate to combine socio-cultural and environmental factors to generate a more realistic and reliable accumulated cost-surface analysis. In the end, let us summarize the applications in using accumulated cost surfaces: 1.  delineate site catchments 2.  determine the quantity and the kind of sources available within a site territory in order to find out the subsistence mode of its inhabitants 3.  determinate if the location of a site was affected by the availability of resources 4.  trace the settlement influence sphere (political or economical) in a region 5.  investigate the socio-political links among sites sharing common areas 6.  identify political boundaries

The generation of least-cost paths generated from an accumulated cost surface by a path-finding algorithm represents an important GIS application for archaeologists interested in analyzing possible past networks and transport routes. In fact, archaeologists often do not know ancient routes, for two reasons: 1.  transportation did not need the construction of specialized and sophisticated infrastructures such as roads, bridges, or waterways 2.  ancient infrastructure may not have been preserved

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At this point, a scholar can use GIS and specific software packages such as GRASS GIS, Idrisi, or ArcGIS both to replicate and predict past routes. Before speaking about the practical use of GIS least-cost-path application, I would like to point out an important concept: least-cost-path algorithms trace a pathway from a site’s accumulated cost surface. Therefore, if we want to investigate a series of routes between different sites in a defined region, we need to create a single cost surface for each site. We can summarize that replicating routes is useful for the following purposes: •  Understand the factors that affected the location of ancient routes •  Assess the reliability of the movement model created by comparing known paths and the generated least-cost paths •  Find out privileged routes •  Test the accessibility of sites

5. Conclusions Cost surface analysis represents a powerful tool for reconstructing past movement in landscape and for understanding socio-economic networks. Because accumulated cost surfaces and least-cost paths are important for understanding archaeological phenomena, it is important to stress that a GIS analyst has to think carefully about the factors used in generating a friction surface, which represents the first step, and the base dataset for modeling cost surfaces. At this point, I would like to point out that a GIS user should generate a total friction surface by integrating and merging environmental and cultural factors. Unfortunately, archaeologists often focus on the first kind of factors, while they ignore or underestimate the latter because is not quantifiable and thus difficult to implement in a cost-surface analysis. Therefore, “the use of GIS modules may lead to the unwitting exposition of an environmentally deterministic viewpoint” (Wheatley 1993: 135). A scholar interested in analyzing ancient routes in a defined region should carefully consider the human perception of the landscape and of the space. It would be wise to create a friction surface by also considering the degree of attraction or repulsion that an archaeological feature (sanctuary, burial mounds) could exert on human behavior. I would like to conclude that in the study of the Old Assyrian trade network it is important to integrate the written sources, the archaeological, and geographical data in order to have a more complete understanding of the phenomenon in the Middle Bronze Age. The environmental factors and the availability of natural resources may have affected the distribution of the settlement in the landscape but also the spatial organization of each Anatolian kingdom. In the end, it is important carefully to select the environmental and the sociocultural factors to include in the model intending to reconstruct past movement and the settlement pattern in Upper Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia.

References Barjamovic, G. 2008 The Geography of Trade: Assyrian Colonies in Anatolia c.1975–1725 bc and the Study of Early Interregional Networks of Exchange. Pp. 87–100 in Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian Period, ed J. G. Dercksen. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten.

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Bell, T., and Lock, G. 2000 Topographic and Cultural Influences on Walking the Ridgeway in Later Prehistoric Times. Pp.  85–100 in Beyond the Map: Archaeology and Spatial Technologies, ed. G. Lock. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Bell, T., Wilson, W., and Wickham, A. 2002 Tracking the Samnites: Landscape and Communications Routes in the Sango Valley, Italy. American Journal of Archaeology 106: 169–86. Bryce, T. 2005 The Kingdom of the Hitites. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Conolly, J., and Lake, M. 2006 Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dercksen, J. G. 2005 Metals according to Documents from Kültepe-Kanish Dating to the Old Assyrian Colony Period. Pp. 17–34 in Anatolian Metal III, ed. U. Yalshin. Bochum: Der Anschnitt. Forlanini, M. 2008 The Historical Geography of Anatolia and the Transistion from the Karum-Period to the Early Hittite Empire. Pp. 57–86 in Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian Period, ed. J. G. Dercksen. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten. Gaffney, V., and Stancic, Z. 1991 GIS Approaches to Regional Analysis: A Case Study of the Island of Hvar. Ljubliana, Znastveny institute Filozofske fakultete. 1998 GIS Approaches to Regional Analysis: A Case Study of the Island of Hvar. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.archaeology.usyd.edu.au/VISTA/gaffney_stancic. Glatz, C. 2007 Contact, Interaction, Control: The Archaeology of Inter-Regional Relations in Late Bronze Age Anatolia. Ph. D. diss., University College of London. Harris, T. 2000 Session 2 Discussion: Moving GIS: Exploring Movement within Prehistoric Cultural Landscapes using GIS. Pp. 116–23 in Beyond the Map: Archaeology and Spatial Technologies, ed G. Lock. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Howey, M. C. L. 2007 Using Multi-Criteria Cost Surface Analysis to Explore Past Regional Landscapes: A Case Study of Ritual Activity and Social Interaction in Michigan, ad 1200–1600. Journal of Archaeological Science 34: 1830–46. Larsen, M. T. 1976 The Old Assyrian City-State and Its Colonies. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. Llobera, M. 2002 Understanding Movement: A Pilot Model Towards the Sociology of Movement. Pp. 65– 84 in Beyond the Map: Archaeology and Spatial Technologies, ed. G. Lock. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Tomlin, C. D. 1990 Geographic Information Systems and Cartographic Modelling. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Shennan, S. 1997 Quantifying Archaeology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Silva, M. D. and Pizziolo, G. 2001 Setting Up a “Human Calibrated” Anisotropic Cost Surface for Archaeological Landscape Investigation. Pp. 279–86 in Computing Archaeology for Understanding the Past. Proceedings of the CAA2000 Conference, ed. Z.  Stancic and T.  Veljanovski. Oxford: Archaeopress. Stefanakis, E., and Kavouras, M. 1995 On the Determination of the Optimum Path in Space. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 988: 241–57.

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Veenhof, K. R. 1995 Kanesh: An Assyrian Colony in Anatolia. Pp. 859–72 in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. J. Sasson. New York: MacMillan. 1997 “Modern” Features in Old Assyrian Trade. Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 40: 336–66. Veenhof, K. R., and Eidem, J. 2008 Mesopotamia: The Old Assyrian Period. Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg. Wilkinson, T. J. 2000 Regional Approaches to Mesopotamian Archaeology: The Contribution of Archaeological Sites. Journal of Archaeological Research 8: 219–67. Wheatley, D. 1993 Going Over Old Ground: GIS, Archaeological Theory and the Act of Perception. Pp. 133–38 in Computing the Past: Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 1992, ed. J. Andersen, T. Madsen, and I. Scollar. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.

Eunuchs in Hatti and Assyria: A Reassessment Ilan Peled

B a r -I la n U n i v e r s i t y This paper examines certain aspects of the roles fulfilled by eunuchs throughout the ancient Near East in the Late Bronze Age by focusing on evidence provided by Hittite and Assyrian bureaucracies. First, Hittite and Assyrian royal records referring to eunuchs will be compared. Subsequently, the evidence about several individual Hittite eunuchs will be presented, and their role in the Hittite bureaucracy will be evaluated and several new suggestions in this regard will be offered.

Introduction:  Eunuchs in the Ancient Near East The study of eunuchs throughout the history of the Ancient Near East is more than a century old and by now well established. 1 The general opinion is that the title lú.sag/ša rēši designates a palace eunuch. 2 Evidence for the high-positioned Author’s note: The first part of this paper is partially based on my Ph.D. dissertation, The Third Gender in the Ancient Near East, which was completed in 2012 at the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages in Bar-Ilan University. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisors, Dr. Kathleen Abraham of Bar-Ilan University and Dr. Yoram Cohen of Tel-Aviv University, from whose guidance and support I have benefited greatly during the years. I would further like to express my gratitude to the Bar-Ilan University President’s Scholarship for Outstanding Doctorate Students, for its financial support of my doctoral research as well as its contribution to my travel to the Rencontre. I further thank the Shlomo Moussaieff Program for the Study of Cuneiform Tablets for additional financial support of my participation in the Rencontre. The following people deserve my sincere gratitude for kindly reading earlier versions of this paper and making valuable comments on it: Victor Hurowitz, Stefan Jakob, and Jared L. Miller. I further thank Reinhard Pirngruber for graciously sending me a pre-print version of his article dealing with the question of castration in Mesopotamia (see below). Any errors that might appear in this paper, needless to say, are entirely my own. * Abbreviations used in this paper are in accordance with those appearing in the RlA. 1.  See already Zimmern 1889: 116 n. 2. Later major discussions of this topic include Grayson 1995, Deller 1999, Hawkins 2002, and Tadmor 2002. For a brief discussion of eunuchs in Mesopotamia, see most recently Ambos 2009. On the title ša rēši in the Neo-Assyrian period, see recently Siddall 2007. 2.  However, for an opinion rejecting the view of ša rēši as a eunuch, see Dalley 2001. For an alternative suggestion for the origins of the title, see Dalley 2002. Pirngruber (2011) also doubts whether the ša rēši was a eunuch, at least in the first millennium b.c.e. He points to the fact that the only texts that might support this possibility are from the Middle Assyrian period and a few omens from the Old Babylonian era. The meaning of the term ša rēši, according to Pirngruber, could have changed over time, so that even if at certain periods ša rēši indeed designated a eunuch, it was not necessarily so in other times. Pirngruber suggests that research into the ša rēši figures has been biased: modern scholars were influenced by the derogatory perspectives expressed by Greek historians (such as Ctesias) regarding the

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roles of eunuchs in the royal court is found as early as the Old Babylonian period, but most of it derives from the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. The l ú.sag/ša rēši continues to appear in Mesopotamian records even in the Persian period, 3 and its biblical equivalent, the sārîs, is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible several times. 4 In this survey, several ideas are assumed as a starting point: the Sumerian title lú.sag and the Akkadian ša rēši were synonymous terms, 5 translatable as “(he) of the head,” 6 and denote castrated 7 palace attendants. 8

The Hittite-Mesopotamian Connection: Loyalty Oaths and Palace Decrees It is commonly accepted that the custom of employing eunuchs as palace attendants in Hatti was borrowed from Mesopotamia. 9 The most informative of all Hittite texts concerning eunuchs are two royal oaths demanding their loyalty. They can be evaluated in comparison with the Middle-Assyrian so-called Palace Decrees. Already in the earliest edition of the Palace Decrees, Weidner (1954–56: 258) drew attention to their similarity to the Hittite Royal Oaths. Weidner was very general in his observation and did not offer an analysis or a comparison between the texts, although he maintained that the two were so closely related that they could hardly have been composed independently. Weidner proposed that the Hittite oaths should be regarded as the result of Semitic influence on Hittite culture, through the mediation of the Assyrians. In his publication of the Hittite oaths, von Schuler (1967: 5–6) addressed the same topic, asserting that these texts originated in Babylonian eastern cultures they met. Pirngruber’s view can be summarized by the following quotation: “Auch die Argumentationen dafür, dass ša rēši immer Eunuch bedeutet, basieren, wie gesehen, auf wenigen, schwierig zu interpretierenden Quellen und sind methodisch fragwürdig; zumeist wird nur mit Verweisen auf frühere Werke eine Position eingenommen” (Pirngruber 2011). 3.  See Brinkman 1968: 311. 4.  For a discussion of eunuchs in the Hebrew Bible, see Everhart 2003: 96–169. For attestations of sārîs in the Hebrew Bible, see Everhart 2003: 255–64. For a discussion of sārîs and the Mesopotamian ša rēši, see Tadmor 1995 and 2002: 605. 5.  See “lú.sag = šá ri-šu” in line 232 of the i g i . t u h lexical list (Landsberger and Gurney 1957–58: 83). As demonstrated by Hawkins (2002: 225–26), the final confirmation of this equation is found in two seal impressions of Hittite officials, one found in Hattuša (Niş. 305; see Herbordt 2005: Tafel 24 no. 305a and b), the other in Ugarit (sealing text RS 17.231; see Laroche 1956: 55, figs. 76 and 77). In each one of these seal impressions the same Luwian hieroglyphic sign (L.254 = EUNUCHUS2) appears, paralleled with a different term (l ú . s a g in Niş. 305; ša rēši in RS 17.231). 6.  See Brinkman 1968: 310 n. 2068, who explains the phrase as “presumably referring to the position of an attendant standing at the head of or near an individual,” and Grayson 1995: 90, who suggested the meaning “Chief,” “an important functionality.” 7.  Hawkins (2002: 220) commented in the past that “our Akkadian dictionaries adopt a skeptical approach to the interpretation of ša rēši as ‘eunuch’.” Similar comments were made by Deller (1999: 304) and Tadmor (2002: 605). Indeed, the question of castration in the Ancient Near East is still a matter of debate among scholars. However, because it is not the focal point of the present paper, this issue will not be addressed any further. 8.  See CAD R: 279, AHw: 973. 9.  See among others Grayson 1995: 97, Hawkins 2002: 232. This view contradicts Deller (1999: 309), who suggested that the Assyrians learned the practice from what he referred to as “the culture of the Late Hittite city states,” based on depictions of beardless attendants in reliefs from several NeoHittite sites, suspected by Deller to be eunuchs. However, Deller’s suggestion seems improbable, because he himself pointed to the existence of eunuchs in Assyria from as early as the 13th century during king Tukulti-Ninurta I’s reign.

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models, even though only Assyrian exemplars are to be found. Roth (1997: 195–96) demonstrated that characters typical of the Palace Decrees could be found already in a Nuzi text from the 14th century. The Hittite term for the title lú.sag is still unknown, because only the Sumerian term is used for designating the title throughout the Boğazköy texts. The major sources of information about the lú.sag officials in the Hittite bureaucracy are two sets of loyalty-oaths to the king, CTH 255.1 and 2. 10 The first text is designated by its colophon as follows (CTH 255.1, KUB 26.1 iv 54–56): 11 54 DUB.1.KAM ŠA MA-ME-TI 55  I-NA URU u-uš-ša 56  ŠA LÚ.MEŠ.SAG 54  First tablet of the oath, 55  in the city of Ussa, 56  of the eunuchs.

The two oaths show that the eunuchs were closely related to the king and were part of his innermost circle, as is shown below. The following passages are the most significant for our discussion (CTH 255.1, KUB 26.1 iv 29–45 // KUB 26.8 iv 16–32) 12: 29 [(INA ÉMEŠ-KU-N)U-m]a-aš-ma-aš ku-it MUNUSMEŠ tar-na-an e-eš-du 30 [(ki-i-ma ku-i)t INA] É.LUGAL na-aš ma-a-an ku-iš im-ma ku-iš 31 [(MUNUS-TUM ŠA)] LUGAL ma-a-na-aš MUNUS.SUHUR.LAL ma-a-na-aš 32 [(EL-LU nu-za)-ká]n ša-ak-ta ku-iš-ki ku-in-ki 33 [(ki-nu-un-n)]a-kán Ú-UL EGIR GAM kar-aš-zi 34 [(na-an-š)i-kán] ar-ha iš-dam-ma-aš-ša-an-zi 35 [(na-at) iš-du-wa-r]i ki-e-iz-za-kán UD.KAM-za ar-ha ta-me-e-da-ni 36 [(A-NA) MUNUS-TI ŠA L]UGAL ma-ni-in-ku-wa-an 37 [(pa-i)z-zi ki-e INIMM]EŠ GAM NI-EŠ DINGIR-LIM GAR-ru 38 [ma-a-an LÚ]a-ra-an-ma ku-iš Ú-UL ha-an-t[i-i] 39 [ti-ia-zi] dUTU-ŠI-ma-at iš-dam-ma-aš-mi 40 [na-at pu-nu-u]š-mi na-at-mu-kán li-e ša-an-na-a-i 41 [ma-a-n]a-at ša-an-na-a-i-ma GAM NI-EŠ DINGIR-LIM GAR-ru 42 [na-aš-m]a ma-ni-in-ku-wa-an-ma ku-iš-ki 43 [ku-e-da-n]i-ik-ki pa-iz-zi LÚa-ra-aš-ma-an-kán 44 [ku-iš an]-da a-uš-zi na-an-kán ha-an-ti-i 45 [Ú-UL] ti-ia-zi na-at GAM NI-EŠ DINGIR-LIM GAR-ru 29  In you[r] houses, any women may be allowed for you. 30  But this which is [in] the king’s house: if whichever 31  woman of the king – whether she is a kezretu, 13 whether she is 32  free – anyone knew any (of them) to himself, 33  (and) now does not break it off, 14 10. Starke (1995, 1996) interpreted these texts rather differently from Güterbock (1957: 361), Hawkins (2002), and the present writer (see below). According to Starke, the Hittite l ú . s a g officials were not castrates and the term itself was not an equivalent of Akkadian ša rēši. 11.  See von Schuler 1967: 17. 12. See von Schuler 1967: 16. For a recent translation and commentary on these passages, see Hawkins 2002: 223–24. Restorations mostly follow von Schuler (1967: 16) and Hawkins (2002: 223). 13.  The term kezretu denoted a woman sometimes understood as a type of a prostitute (see CAD K 314–15, Lambert 1992: 132, 136–37, Leick 1994: 163). 14.  That is, does not end his relations with the woman.

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I lan P eled 34  and they hear (about) him (regarding) her, 35  and it [becomes exposed], (or) from this day on, to another 36  [woman of the k]ing he approaches sexually: 15 37  may [these matter]s be placed under divine oath! 38  [If] (he) who does not [con]fron[t] 16 (his) friend 39  and I My Majesty, hear it, 40  [and] I [investiga]te [it], may he not conceal it from me. 17 41  [If] he does conceal it: may (it) be placed under divine oath! 42  [O]r (if) anyone approaches sexually 43  [any]one (=of the aforementioned women), and a friend 44  [that] sees him 45  [does not] confront him: may it be placed under divine oath!

In spite of the unclear wording of certain parts of the oaths, it is apparent that among the primary occupations of the eunuchs was supervising the harem women. They were obliged to prevent any man from conducting sexual intercourse with these women, even if that man was one of their own social peers (Hittite ara-), that is, a eunuch himself. 18 Indeed, a further clue to the capability of the eunuchs for performing sexual relations appears in line 29 of the text, where women are said to be allowed in the eunuchs’ own houses. The second oath (CTH 255.2) is broken, so that its introduction and colophon are missing. The instructions specified in this text are mostly concerned with the well-being of the king and the eunuchs’ obligation to safeguard him. One clause, however, relates to the term é.šà ša lugal, ‘bedroom’ or ‘inner chamber’ of the king (CTH 255.2, KUB 21.42 iv 3–4): 19 3  m[a-a-a]n-kán ŠÀ É.ŠÀ ŠA LUGAL GÙB-an ut-tar ku-it-ki 4  a-u[t-t]e-ni 3–4 I[f] inside the inner chamber of the king [y]ou (pl.) se[e] anything wrong. . .

As was noted by Güterbock (1957: 361), the access granted these officials to the king’s inner chamber, together with the nature of connection of these persons with the harem women, gives us evidence of the range of their duties and activities as royal eunuchs in the Hittite administration. An interesting comparison can be drawn between the Hittite oaths and the socalled Palace Decrees of the Middle-Assyrian period, which detail rules of conduct for the personnel of the Assyrian palace and royal harem. In two of these decrees, an official entering the harem is termed a marrur(u), a word not easily understood. The first attestation of marruru is found in the decree of king Tukulti-Ninurta I (Palace Decree no. 8:50–51): 20 50  ki-i ma-zi-iz pa-nimeš i-hi-ru-ú-ni lu-ú šá sa g luga l lu-ú ma-zi-iz pa-ni ša    la-a mar-ru-ru-ni i-qa-bi-ú ša ša-nu-ut-[te-š]u 51  a-na ma-zi-iz pa-nu-ut-te id-du-nu-uš 15.  The phrase maninkuwan(t) pai-, literally, ‘go near’, bears on occasions a sexual sense; see CHD M 172. 16.  hanti tiyazi, literally, ‘approaches in front’. 17.  Literally, ‘to me’ (⸗mu⸗kán). 18.  Castration does not necessarily involve the complete removal of the male genitals, so in practice eunuchs could have been sexually active, although sterile. 19.  See von Schuler 1967: 27. 20.  See Weidner 1954–56: 276.

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50  When they inspect the courtiers, 21 they shall declare whether a eunuch of    the king or a courtier is not checked. For a second time, 51  they shall give him for “courtier-ship.”

The same regulation reoccurs in a later decree, from the reign of king Tiglath-Pileser I (Palace Decree no. 20:98): 22 98  šúm-ma la-a mar-ru-ur ša ša-nu-ut-te-šu a-na ma-zi-iz pa-nu-ut-te ú-ta[r-r]   u-šu 98  If he is not checked, for a second time they shall turn him for “courtier-ship.”

It is commonly, though not unanimously agreed, that the term marrur(u) was a euphemism for “checked,” that is, a castrated person. 23 Furthermore, the term “courtier-ship” was usually understood by scholars as pointing to castration. 24 It seems that the above passages expressed the instruction that an official entering the royal harem had to be castrated. In case his castration was found to be inadequate, he was required to undergo a second procedure of castration. However, it appears that even castration was not enough. In a decree of king Ninurta-apil-Ekur (Palace Decree no. 9), a royal eunuch (ša rēš šarre) was forbidden to enter the harem before receiving the permission of the palace commander (rab ekalli). The women residing in the harem had to be absent while he stayed inside, and the palace commander was obligated to stay at the entrance during the entire time. Further, in a decree issued by king Tiglath-pileser I (Palace Decree no. 21), royal eunuchs (šá sag manmeš), together with ordinary court attendants (mazziz panūte and širkū), were threatened with the punishment of 100 blows and the cutting off of one ear in case they are caught eavesdropping on the harem women. Here we find a fundamental difference between the Assyrian and Hittite practices, because the Hittite eunuchs were themselves guardians of the harem women, and it was their responsibility to prevent any man from gaining access to the harem. An important similarity between the Middle Assyrian and Hittite eunuchs involves their differentiation as a distinct group from other palace servants. In several clauses of the Palace Decrees (nos. 3, 21, and 22), a distinction is made between the ‘king’s eunuchs’ (ša rēš šarre) and other court attendants (mazziz panūte and širkū). Similarly, the second Hittite oath deals with the ‘Princes and Lords’ (dumumeš l ugal, bēluhi.a), and separately with the palace eunuchs, who received their own set of instructions. The evidence shows that the Assyrian Palace Decrees were mainly concerned with stipulating the regulations of the palace and royal harem. The Hittite oaths, on the other hand, were meant to secure the well-being of the king by obliging his closest servants with a binding vow. We will now turn to discuss several individual eunuchs in the Hittite court, and consider the possibility that some of them held the office of ‘Chief-Eunuch’. 21.  mazziz pani, literally, ‘one who stands in front’. In the CAD (M/1 440), the term is translated ‘court attendant, eunuch’, and similarly by Roth (1997: 200): ‘court attendants’. 22.  See Weidner 1954–56: 286. 23. For marruru = ‘checked’, see Oppenheim 1973: 330 n. 17, and similarly AHw: 609 (‘scharf, genau prüfen’), CAD M/2 223, and Roth’s (1997: 200) translation of marruru as ‘castrated (lit.: who is not checked)’. 24.  For the interpretation of these passages as referring to castrates, see explicitly CAD M/1 440– 41, s.v. mazziz pani and mazziz panuttu, and similarly Roth’s (1997: 200–201, 205) translations of the term mazziz panutte in these passages as ‘(castrated) court attendant’. However, for a differing view, see Dalley 2001: 202 and Pirngruber 2011.

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Fig. 1.  Taprammi’s Seal (Laroche 1956: 55, figs. 76 and 77).

Chief-Eunuchs in the Hittite Court? One of the most prominent palace eunuchs in Hatti was the official Taprammi. His high status in the Hittite bureaucracy is evident from his documentation in several texts from Hattuša and Ugarit, as well as his attestation as having dedicated a stele base (BOĞAZKÖY 1) and a bronze bowl (KINIK) to the Hittite king. He is further attested in several seal impressions found in the Nişantepe archive in Hattuša. Taprammi is designated lúša rēši ekalli, 25 ‘eunuch of the palace’, twice in a text from Ugarit that also bears his seal impression 26 given in fig. 1. One of the key Hieroglyphic Luwian titles ascribed to Taprammi appears at the left part of the inner circle (see fig. 1):

The former reading of this title by Laroche (1956: 149, 151) as HOMME, X, PALAIS was corrected by Hawkins (2002: 225–26) to PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS, EUNUCHUS2, as the Hieroglyphic Luwian equivalence of the Akkadian title lúša rēši ekalli. I would further draw attention to the title appearing at the bottom-right part of the central area of the seal ( ), read by Hawkins (2002: 225) as “great x (unidentified sign).” The sign Hawkins left unidentified ( ) looks quite similar to L.474 ( ), (as will be discussed in detail below) a sign transcribed by Hawkins as EUNUCHUS, functioning as a determinative designating eunuchs in Neo-Hittite inscriptions. If my observation is correct, then Taprammi, ‘eunuch of the palace’, also held the Hieroglyphic Luwian title *MAGNUS.EUNUCHUS, ‘Chief Eunuch’, parallel to the rab ša rēši known from Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian texts, and to the biblical rab-sārîs. If my interpretation is accepted, this would be the earliest 25.  Miller (2004: 318–19) suggested that this writing weakens the possibility that LÚ in Sumerian lú.sag was an equivalent to ŠA in Akkadian ša rēši and was instead a determinative of the phrase. 26.  RS 17.231:9, 16; see Nougayrol 1956: 238, and recently Lackenbacher 2002: 294–95. For the seal photograph and drawing, see Laroche 1956: 55, figs. 76 and 77.

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Fig. 2.  Stylistic Analysis of Taprammi’s Seal. The writing “PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS, EUNUCHUS2” does not appear here.

example of such usage of the sign L.474, otherwise unattested before the 11th century. 27 It could be assumed, then, that Taprammi’s position in the Hittite administration was similar to that of his first-millennium counterparts, even if his duties and activities were not necessarily the same. Hawkins (2002: 231) rightfully commented in the past that no term parallel to the Akkadian rab ša rēši was ever identified in the Hittite texts. However, I suggest that, at least in the glyptic medium, this office can be recognized in Hittite documentation. A parallel title is actually attested several centuries later in the Neo-Hittite Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription MARAŞ 14, where a man named Astiwasus refers to himself as a “Chief Eunuch.” 28 Later in the inscription, this person relates to his future descendants as follows: “(He) who shall be made/become 29 my son, or grandson, or great-grandson. . .”. 30 Hawkins (2000: 266; 2002: 231–32) interpreted the fact that Astiwasus’ sons are to be ‘made’, or ‘become’, instead of simply ‘be’ his sons, as evidence that they were adopted rather than biological progeny. This interpretation naturally reinforces the view of Astiwasus as a eunuch. In this case, this person was a “Chief-Eunuch.” Returning to Taprammi, I believe that the Hieroglyphic motifs representing his three titles reoccur several times in his seal, as shown in fig. 2. Following my analysis, it can be observed that the sign previously unidentified ( ), or actually L.474 (= EUNUCHUS), appears twice again in the outer circle of the seal: , with the upper sign reconstructed as follows: , ⸢MAGNUS⸣.EUNUCHUS,‘ChiefEunuch’. It has to be noted, based on the photograph of the seal impression, that

27.  The fact that, thus far, this sign has only been found in post-imperial contexts does not overrule its possible use in previous periods as well, especially since even in the first millennium it is attested only rarely. The absence of evidence should not be regarded as an evidence for absence. 28. �������� (“*474”)u-[si]-na-SU MAGNUS+RA/I-sa, see Hawkins 2000: 265, 266, and 2002: 231. 29.  According to Hawkins (2000: 266 and 2002: 230), the form i-zi-i-ia+ra/i, iziyari, is the 3 sing. pres. med.-pass. inflection of iziya-, ‘make’. For a recent study of this term, see Rieken 2007. 30.  MARAŞ 14, §5 (see Hawkins 2000: 266): a-wa/i |mi-i-sa |INFANS-ni-i-sa |REL-sa (A) |i-zi-iia+ra/i NEG2-pa |(“INFANS.NEPOS”)ha-ma-si-sa NEG2-pa-wa/i-sa|| |“INFANS.NEPOS”-REL-la-sá

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Fig. 3.  Stylistic Variants of L.474; from left to right (all from Hawkins 2000): KARKAMIŠ A6 (pls. 32, 33); MARAŞ 4 (pls. 108, 109); MARAŞ 14 (pls. 114, 115); ANCOZ 4 (pl. 174); ASSUR f (pls. 312, 313).

Fig. 4.  Stylistic Variants of L.438 (from left to right: Niş. 66, 235, 247 (2×), 248, 353, 412, 645 and 646).

these signs are poorly preserved. Those in the outer circle could hardly be traced, and the one in the central area is either badly imprinted or eroded away. It has to be admitted that a comparison to parallel attestations of L.474 from Neo-Hittite inscriptions shows noticeable differences (see fig. 3). However, the discrepancies shown in fig. 3 could be explained by stylistic changes that might have occurred during the centuries separating Taprammi’s seal impression and the Neo-Hittite inscriptions. On occasion, we can even observe such stylistic variations among different occurrences of the same sign in different seal impressions within the Nişantepe corpus itself. 31 We must also bear in mind that the method of execution of Hieroglyphic Luwian signs in seals was radically different and much more cursive than that of monumental rock inscription, a fact that could result in additional differences of the sign’s appearance. It should be noted, too, that no sign from the repertoire found in the Nişantepe corpus resembles the sign under investigation. The closest parallel sign is perhaps L.438, PASTOR, 32 ‘Herdsman’, which is depicted on the Nişantepe bullae as in fig. 4. However, as could be observed, this sign is always executed with the upper two lines prominently depicted, while in the Ugarit impression they are not apparent. This makes the identification of the elusive title under discussion with MAGNUS.PASTOR quite improbable, especially since no evidence ever points to Taprammi holding the office of “overseer of the herdsmen.” In three other seal impressions (Niş. 408 and 409; SBo II no. 92), Taprammi is titled SCRIBA and EUNUCHUS2, exactly the two other titles that appear in his Ugarit impression. To conclude, there is no evidence, glyptic or textual, of any other title held by Taprammi beside “scribe” and “eunuch.” Therefore, it seems likely that the hitherto unidentified third title denotes a profession similar to one of the two already known, namely, “Chief-Eunuch.” 31.  The examples are numerous. For the list of these signs and their variations, see Herbordt 2005: 398–425; for a commentary on the list, see Hawkins in Herbordt 2005: 426–36. 32.  Three eunuchs are documented in the Nişantepe archive as holding the title MAGNUS.PASTOR: Armawalwi (Niş. 66), Sariya (Niş. 353), and Tarhu(nta)nani (Niş. 412). Three other individuals, who were not eunuchs but held the titles of PASTOR or MAGNUS.PASTOR, were: Matunata (Niş. 235), Mizrimuwa (Niş. 247 and 248) and Ali(?)muta (spelled L.416-mu-tá, Niş. 645 and 646). The title further appears in two seal impressions from unknown owners (Niş. 763 and 765), and perhaps, however doubtfully, in three more (Niş. 386, 422 and 766).

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What do we know about Taprammi’s career that could illuminate his high position in the Hittite court, given that he held the role of head of the palace eunuchs? The letter bearing his seal impression (RS 17.231) details a transaction in which Taprammi sold a slave to the queen of Ugarit. The fact that he owned slaves and was in such relations with the queen of Ugarit that he was able to sell her one of them is clear evidence for Taprammi’s high status. A certain Taprammi, presumably the very same person, appears in two other texts, one from Ugarit and one from Boğazköy. RS 17.337 details a legal claim laid by Taprammi against the king of Ugarit, ruled by Ini-Tešub, king of Karkamiš. This lawsuit, which was eventually decided in Taprammi’s favor, provides a synchronism between him and Ini-Tešub, the mid-late 13th-century viceroy of Karkamiš, who was contemporary with the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV. Taprammi’s very ability to lay charges against the king of Ugarit testifies again to his high rank in the Hittite imperial administration. The fact that he actually won the case further emphasizes it. It is possible that the same person (written Ta-pa-ra-mi) appears twice in KBo 18.161; 33 however, the context is too broken as to allow us to adduce more about this individual or his status. How meaningful is Taprammi’s title PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS, EUNUCHUS2, understood by Hawkins as “Palace Eunuch”? I propose that this title is equivalent of the title Chief-Eunuch; hence, Taprammi held a higher status than other royal eunuchs. A closer examination of this title reveals an interesting picture. The title PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS 34 is shared by three other dignitaries of the Hittite court, two of whom were also eunuchs: Alalime and Pihamuwa. In Niş. 299, Pihamuwa bears exactly the same title as Taprammi, while Alalime is titled PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS and EUNUCHUS2 in different seals, Niş. 3 and 4, respectively. Hence, since Alalime is not designated as PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS, EUNUCHUS2, he cannot be regarded as a Palace Eunuch and therefore not as a Chief-Eunuch. His documentation as PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS could indicate that he performed a high-ranking role in the palace, regardless of his role as eunuch, since eunuchs could perform a variety of tasks and professions. Indeed, Alalime is documented in certain seal impressions as a scribe (SCRIBA, in Niş. 8 and 9) and cup-bearer (URCEUS, in Niş. 7). This could be the case as well of the third person, Tiwatamuwa, who was also titled PITHOS.VIR.DOMINUS (in Niş. 460). However, since he was never documented as a eunuch, he cannot be considered to be a possible Chief-Eunuch. Thus, out of these three Hittite dignitaries, Pihamuwa is the only one who is documented as holding a title similar to Taprammi’s, which could represent a Chief-Eunuch. Although the name Pihamuwa appears in several texts, we cannot be sure that all these attestations belong to the very same person. In KUB 38.37, 35 for example, a certain Pihamuwa is documented as a blacksmith, not an occupation with which a distinguished palace official would usually be involved. On the other hand, in a text from Emar, 36 a certain Pihamuwa is identified as a prince, son of Kilia. It is doubtful that this person is one and the same as the official under discussion. Our 33. ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� KBo 18.161 Rev. 17, 18, CTH 242.13, an inventory of metal objects, see Siegelová 1986: 184. 34.  Literally, “Lord of the Pithos-men,” equivalent with the Assyrian title of the Chief-Cupbearer, rab šaqe and biblical rabšaqe. For the meaning of this title, see Hawkins in Herbordt 2005: 305–6, Title no. 3 35. ������������������������������������� KUB 38.37 iii 20, CTH 295.7, written mpí-ha-A.A. 36.  Msk. 73.1019, unpublished, see Beyer 2001: 109–10 and 441. For Pihamuwa’s seal impression that appeared on the tablet, see Beyer 2001: pl. 25b, A109.

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Pihamuwa is probably documented in text KBo 12.95, 37 a small colophon fragment. Here Pihamuwa appears as a scribe, a much more prestigious occupation than a blacksmith, fit for a high official in the royal court. Further attestations of this person, or his homonyms, are not helpful in attempting to reconstruct his career: a list of families 38 and an inventory of metal objects. 39 It is hard to date Pihamuwa with any accuracy. His documentation in the Nişantepe archive suggests that he may have lived roughly at the same time as Taprammi, but it cannot be determined whether he preceded or followed Taprammi as the Chief-Eunuch. In addition to Taprammi, one more dignitary is attested in the texts from Ugarit as holding the title of lú.sag: Taghulinu. 40 This person was a high official in the court of Ugarit, even though he was a foreigner, probably arriving from Alalah. 41 He officiated in the posts of a royal envoy, 42 an “overseer of the palace,” 43 and eventually a “governor” 44 of Ugarit. In the earlier stages of his career, Taghulinu acted as the envoy of the king of Ugarit in the Hittite court and in Karkamiš, and later on he settled in Ugarit, receiving land grants from the king. Taghulinu appears in the witness-list of RS 18.20+17.371, where he is designated as a eunuch. 45 Nougayrol (1956: 203:13′) suggested restoring [ekallim(?)] next to Taghulinu’s title, so that the complete reconstructed title would have read “eunuch [of the palace(?)].” However, Singer (1983: 11) rejected this restoration, as nothing seems to support its validity. Hence, it appears that there is no evidence to support the possibility that Taghulinu, high-ranking eunuch 46 though he was, assumed the office of Chief-Eunuch. Even though the material from Ugarit contributes further information pertaining to the issue of human castration, 47 it adds nothing more to the matter of eunuch officials.

Conclusions As was argued on the base of the comparison between the Middle-Assyrian Palace Decrees and Hittite “oaths of the eunuchs,” some resemblances exist between the 37. ��������������������� KBo 12.95 2, CTH 825. 38. ������������������������������������ KUB 31.59 ii 10, CTH 233.2, written mpí-ha-A.A. 39.  KUB 40.95 ii 4, 12, CTH 242.4, see Siegelová 1986: 268–69. 40.  For a prosopographical survey of this person, see Singer 1983: 6–18. For a recent translation and commentary on the texts from Ugarit relating to Taghulinu, see Lackenbacher 2002: 91–92, 311–15. 41. �������������������� See Singer 1983: 13�. 42.  lúkartappu, originally ‘charioteer’, in RS 16.273:3. 43.  lúm aš ki m ekallim, in RS 15.114:7. 44.  šākin māti, in the famous letter found at Tel Aphek (on which see Owen 1981). 45. igi mTa-gu-uh-li-nu lú ša s a g, see Nougayrol 1956: 203:13′. 46. Even though a reference to Taghulinu’s “sons” (d u m u . m e š mTák-hu-li-na) appears in RS 16.353:23, Cohen (2003: 876) rejected the possibility that these are Taghulinu’s natural sons and suggested that the term stood for “members of one of the crown’s professional services . . . like the “sons” of the queen . . . or the “sons” of the marzahu . . .” (see in this regard also Lackenbacher 2002: 228–29 n. 767). Cohen drew attention to the fact that Taghulinu’s property was not inherited by any heir of his but rather by the “son” of Taghulinu’s successor, Amutarūnu. In Cohen’s view, this could serve as another evidence that the ša rēši officials were childless, and indeed castrates. 47.  See RS 17.144:13–17, a passage from a letter mentioning a young boy being sent to Ugarit in order to be castrated there: ù a-nu-ma a-na šeš-ia 1 anše . ku r. ra . mu n u s . a l . l á ù 1 d u mu . n i ta ul-te-bí[l] ù aš-ra-nu-ma a-na lú. sag-ut-tim [l]i-pu-šu-šu, ‘I herewith sen[d] to my brother one mare and one boy; May they make him to l ú . s a g-ship there’. For a discussion of the content of the letter and its relation to the question of eunuchs, see Oppenheim 1973 and 1974. For a recent translation and commentary on this text, see Lackenbacher 2002: 196–98 (see especially p. 197 n. 666, for literature on the question of lú.sag being a eunuch).

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functions and status of Hittite royal eunuchs and their counterparts of the Middle Assyrian kingdom. It appears that in both kingdoms individual eunuchs could gain a prestigious position and stand above their own class. A new reading proposed here, for a sign previously unidentified, from a seal impression of the Hittite eunuch Taprammi implies that the office of Chief-Eunuch existed in Hatti. It was suggested that the cases of Taprammi and Pihamuwa were examples of officials functioning as Chief-Eunuchs in one of the highest roles in Hittite administration. Similarly, in the Middle-Assyrian kingdom eunuchs could occasionally rise to prominent roles, as we know of at least two “eunuchs of the king” who held eponyms: Uṣur-namkūr-šarri, and Libūr-zānin-Aššur. 48 This paper demonstrated that the parallels and similarities between eunuchs officiating in palace bureaucracies in different parts of the ancient Near East were even greater than previously assumed. 48.  On these two individuals, see Jakob 2003: 88–90.

Bibliography Ambos, C. 2009 Eunuchen als Thronprätendenten und Herrscher im alten Orient. Pp. 1–7 in M. Luukko, S. Svärd, and R. Mattila (eds.), Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars: Neo-Assyrian and Related Studies in Honour of Simo Parpola. Helsinki. Brinkman, J. A. 1968 A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia: 1158–722 b.c. Rome. Beyer, D. 2001 Emar IV:  Les sceaux. Mission archéologique de Meskéné-Emar. Recherches au pays d’Aštata. Fribourg. Cohen, Y. 2003 Review of “S. Lackenbacher, Textes akkadiens d’Ugarit: Textes provenant des vingt-cinq premières campagnes (Littératures anciennes du Proche-Orient, vol. 20).” JAOS 123: 873–76. Dalley, S. 2001 Review of “R. Mattila, The King’s Magnates (State Archives of Assyria Studies XI).” BiOr 58: 197–206. Dalley, S. 2002 Evolution of Gender in Mesopotamian Mythology and Iconography with a Possible Explanation of ša rēšēn, “the man with two heads.” Pp. 117–22 in S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (eds.), Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2–6, 2001. Helsinki. Deller, K. 1999 The Assyrian Eunuchs and Their Predecessors. Pp. 303–11 in K. Watanabe (ed.), Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East: Papers of the Second Colloquium on the Ancient Near East “The City and its Life,” held at the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan (Mitaka, Tokyo), March 22–24, 1996. Heidelberg. Everhart, J. S. 2003 The Hidden Eunuchs of the Hebrew Bible: Uncovering an Alternate Gender. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Denver. Grayson, A. K. 1995 Eunuchs in Power: Their Role in the Assyrian Bureaucracy. Pp. 85–98 in M. Dietrich and O. Loretz (eds.), Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament: Festschrift für Wolfram Freiherrn von Soden zum 85. Geburtstag am 19. Juni 1993. Neukirchen-Vluyn.

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Güterbock, H. G. 1957 Review of “Johannes Friedrich, Hethitisches Wörterbuch: Kurzgeffasste kritische Samm­lungen der Deutungen hethitischer Wörter.” Oriens 10: 350–62. Hawkins, J. D. 2000 Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Volume I: Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Berlin. Hawkins, J. D. 2002 Eunuchs among the Hittites. Pp. 217–33 in S. Parpola and R.  M.Whiting (eds.), Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2–6, 2001. Helsinki. Herbordt, S. 2005 Die Prinzen- und Beamtensiegel der hethitischen Grossreichszeit auf Tonbullen aus dem Nişantepe-Archiv in Hattusa. Mainz am Rhein. Jakob, S. 2003 Mittelassyrische Verwaltung und Sozialstruktur. Leiden. Lackenbacher, S. 2002 Textes akkadiens d’Ugarit: Textes provenant des vingt-cinq premières campagnes. Paris. Lambert, W. G. 1992 Prostitution. Pp. 127–57 in V. Haas (ed.), Aussenseiter und Randgruppe: Beiträge zu einer Sozialgeschichte des Alten Orients. Konstanz. Landsberger, B., and Gurney, O. R. 1957–58 i gi-duh-a = tāmartu, short version. AfO 18: 81–86. Laroche, E. 1956 Documents hiéroglyphiques hittites provenant du palais d’Ugarit. Ugaritica 3: 97–160. Leick, G. 1994 Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature. London. Miller, J. L. 2004 Studies in the Origins, Development and Interpretation of the Kizzuwatna Rituals (StBoT 46). Wiesbaden. Nougayrol, J. 1956 PRU 4 (MRS 9). Paris. Oppenheim, A. L. 1973 A Note on ša rēši. JANES 5: 325–34. 1974 Notes brèves. RA 68: 95. Owen, D. I. 1981 An Akkadian Letter from Ugarit at Tel Aphek. Tel Aviv 8: 1–17. Pirngruber, R. 2011 Eunuchen am Königshof: Ktesias und die altorientalische Evidenz. Pp. 279–312 in J. Wiesehöfer, R. Rollinger, and G. B. Lanfranchi (eds.) Die Welt des Ktesias: Ctesias’ World. Classica et Orientalia 1. Wiesbaden. Rieken, E. 2007 Hieroglyphen-luwisch i-zi-ia-: ein Beitrag zur Rekonstruktion der urindogermanischen Kulturgeschichte. Pp. 263–75 in W. Hock and M. Meier-Brügger (eds.), DARБ SLOVESЬNY: Festschrift für Christoph Koch zum 65. Geburtstag. Munich. Roth, M. T. 1997 Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Atlanta. Schuler, E. von. 1967 Hethitische Dienstanweisungen für hohre Hof-und Staatsbeamte: Ein Beitrag zum antiken Recht Kleinasiens. Osnabruck. Siddall, L. R. 2007 A Re-examination of the Title ša reši in the Neo-Assyrian Period. Pp. 225–40 in J. J. Azize and N. K. Weeks (eds.), Gilgameš and the World of Assyria: Proceedings of the Conference Held at Mandelbaum House, the University of Sydney, 21–23 July, 2004. Leuven.

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Siegelová, J. 1986 Hethitische Verwaltungspraxis im Lichte der Wirtschafts- und Inventardokumente. Praha. Singer, I. 1983 Takuhlinu and Haya: Two Governors in the Ugarit Letter from Tel Aphek. Tel Aviv 10: 3–25. Starke, F. 1995 Zur urkundlichen Charakterisierung neuassyrischer Treueide anhand einschlägiger hethitischer Texte des 13. Jh. ZABR 1: 70–82. Starke, F. 1996 Zur “Regierung” des hethitischen Staates. ZABR 2: 140–82. Tadmor, H. 1995 Was the Biblical sārîs a Eunuch? Pp. 317–25 in Z. Zevit, S. Gitin, and M. Sokoloff (eds.), Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield. Winona Lake, Indiana. Tadmor, H. 2002 The Role of the Chief Eunuch and the Place of Eunuchs in the Assyrian Empire. Pp. 603–11 in S. Parpola and R.  M.Whiting (eds.), Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East:  Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2–6, 2001. Helsinki. Weidner, E. 1954–56 Hof- und Harems-Erlasse assyrischer Könige aus dem 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. AfO 17: 257–93. Zimmern, H. 1889 Über Bäcker und Mundschenk im Altsemitischen. ZDMG 53: 115–19.

Eridu Texts Giovanni Pettinato† Università

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Cari Colleghi, vorrei iniziare il mio contribuito scusandomi con tutti voi per non essere qui presente. Il forte caldo previsto per questi giorni, caldo che avrebbe influenzato il mio attuale stato di salute—sono in convalescenza—mi ha convinto a non venire anche per non rischiare di essere per tutto voi un peso. Ho perciò chiesto al collega Jaume Llop di leggere al mio posto questo breve intervento, il cui soggetto sono i testi scoperti ad Abu Shahrain, l’antica Eridu, nel marzo del 2006, più precisamente il primo giorno della nostra vista al sito archeologico che, secondo quanto sostiene la comunità scientifica, conobbe il suo massimo splendore e potenza nel periodo preistorico. Di questi testi ebbi già modo di parlarne alla Recontre Assyriologique di Müenster del 2006, solo che allora decisi di mantenere il più stretto riservo sulla natura dei documenti rinvenuti, in quanto mi ero accorto di non riuscire a comprendere l’esatta natura di alcuni di questi. Non volevo creare polemica su polemica annunciando ipotesi di lettura. Come ben ricorda il Report stilato dal British Museum nel 2008, relazione stilata a seguito di un’ispezione di alcuni siti archeologici del sud dell’Iraq e che probabilmente tutti voi conoscete: . . . on 20 or 21 March 2006, Professor Giovanni Pettinato and Professor Silvia Chiodi had discovered at Eridu a tablet covered with bitumen. They had looked further and found 500 tablets “disturbed by an explosion.” The tablets were said to be literary, historical and lexical. The historical tablets dated from the time of Eannatum, and the latest tablets were from the time of Amar-Suen. This information, or variations of it, was also circulated on various Italian and international websites. Following these revelations, Dr Donny George, then Chairman of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, sent inspectors to Eridu, who reported back that there were no tablets on the surface of the site, but only fragments of stamped bricks from the site of Eridu itself and from sites surrounding Eridu such as Ur. On 19 July 2006, at the 52ème Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Münster, Professor Pettinato reported that he had actually only found some 70 stamped bricks at Eridu. It seems, then, that what Pettinato and Chiodi actually found were stamped bricks at Eridu. It seems, then, that what Pettinato and Chiodi actually found were stamped bricks used to build the modern Eridu dig-house. 1,  2 1. http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Iraq%20Report_with%20images.pdf. 2.  P. 6.

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Diverse le affermazioni qui contenute, Andiamo con ordine partendo dalla fine. I documenti non furono rinvenuti nella dig-house costruita dagli archeologi per condurre gli scavi ad Eridu con i mattoni della casa costruita da Wolley ad Ur, come racconta Fuad Safar, Mohammad Ali Mustafa e Seaton Lloyd nel volume Eridu del 1981: The problem of finding material for the construction of the expedition house also presented some initial difficulty, since sufficient broken brick did not exist at the site, and the soil adjoining the mound was in certain ways unsuitable for making liben bricks. It was eventually decided to demolish the surviving ruins of Leonard Woolley’s expedition house at Tell Muqayyar (Ur), and to re-utilize the material of which it was built. It is somewhat important to mention here that this material consisted to a large extend of inscribed bricks from the templebuildings at Ur, in order that the presence of such bricks at Tell Abu Shahrein, may not, in future time, prove confusing to archaeologists or other visitors. In any case, the sound structure provided by the use this material, proved indispensable during the violent dust-storms and spells of bitterly cold weather, to which the excavating staff have continually been subjected. Most of the complete bricks of this house were transferred to Ur in 1962 to be used in the restorational work, according to its stamped inscriptions.

Allora neppure sapevamo della presenza di mattoni di Ur ad Eirdu. In ogni caso, non ci avvicinammo neppure alla cosiddetta dig-house in quanto dedicammo il nostro breve tempo a disposizione, un’ora, a quello che ci parve essere il tell principale. A ciò si aggiunga che i mattoni iscritti lì rinvenuti, come i testi di pece, appartengono al terzo re della III Dinastia di Ur, Amarsuena, e ricordano la costruzione, da parte dello stesso, dell’Abzu. Non ci risulta che tale tempio fosse presente ad Ur. Ricordo che si tratta del tempio di Enki ad Eridu. Nelle maggior parte dei testi fotografati, infatti. si legge:  1 damar-dsuena    den-lil2-le    nibruki-a    mu-pa3-da  5 sag-us2    e2-den-lil2- // ka    lugal-kal- // ga    lugal-uri2ki-ma     lugal an-ub-da- // limmu4-ba-ke4 10  den-ki    lugal- ki-ag2-ga2-ni-ir    abzu-ki-ag2-ga2-ni    mu-na-du3

Veniamo ora al contenuto dei testi ritrovati ed in sola piccola parte frettolosamente fotografati. Ciò, come è noto, ha fatto sì che il risultato fosse per la maggior parte dei casi foto di pessimo livello. La maggior parte di testi, effettivamente, contengono dirette iscrizioni del re Amarsuena, di cui sopra. Rispetto a quanto in un primo momento affermato e riportato dal British Museum, ovvero che The tablets were said to be literary, historical and lexical. The historical tablets dated from the time of Eannatum, and the latest tablets were from the time of Amar-Suen, allo stato attuale dei miei studi posso ora

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affermare con ragionevole certezza, innanzittutto, che i testi storici sembrano di fatto ristetti al solo Amarsuena, contrariamente a quanto inizialmente affermato. Oltre a questi testi sono state fotografate altre tipologie di documenti, chiaramente antecedenti al periodo della III Dinastia di Ur, di cui alcuni indubbiamente risalenti al periodo di Fara: di questi alcuni sono facilmente identificabili come testi di scuola, mentre altri sono ipoteticamente attribuibili allo stesso periodo anche se le fotografie scattate non permettono una chiara identificazione. Riportiamo qui di seguito le tipologie identificate con i relativi numeri di catalogazione della fotografia. 16 testi di Eridu del periodo di Fara di questi alcuni con parziale lettura:    6 a Carattere letterario IMG 2255, IMG 2256, IMG 2262, IMG 2277, IMG 2304,     IMG 2309    2 testi Letterari simili ai testi di scuola IMG 2223, IMG 2263    1 Testo di scuola, vocabolario pratico: IMG 2286–IMG 2287    1 Lessicali: IMG 2260 – 2261;    2 presumibilmente lessicali: IMG 2264, IMG 2276.

I testi, in questione, erano quelli che mi avevano portato al silenzio in quanto non li capivo, tanto che non speravo neppure di riuscire a decifrarli, ora però sono convinto che essi siano stati redatti nel linguaggio ud-gal-nun. Sono tutti in via di pubblicazione, anche se il loro studio non è ancora terminato. Spero di presentarli al pubblico entro la fine del 2011. Il condizionale è dettato dal mio stato di salute, attualmente sono in convalescenza e non so quando potrò riprendere a pieno regime il lavoro. Il volume sarà redatto oltre che da me anche da Silvia Chiodi, Mauro Mazzei e Paolo Gentili—farà parte della serie Materiali per il Vocabolario Sumerico rientrante nel progetto Dizionari Sumeri–Assiri dell’Unione Accademica Nazionale che da quest’anno è codiretta da Pettinato-Chiodi. Prima di chiudere, rimane da chiarire un terzo ed ultimo punto accennato nel resoconto del British Museum: They had looked further and found 500 tablets “disturbed by an explosion.” Nel volume la pietra nera di Nassiriya 3 e in La pietra nera e il guardiano di  4 Ur abbiamo avanzato l’ipotesi che il tell fosse stato bombardato, chiaramente con bombe leggere tipo grappolo e presumibilmente durante la prima Guerra del Golfo, più precisamente durante l’Operation Desert Storm. Tale ipotesi fu avanzata a seguito della presenza, in cima al tell principale, di una piccola piattaforma in cemento e sparsi intorno diversi sacchi pieni di sabbia; una postazione antiarea che aveva chiaramente subito un bombardamento come dimostrava, tra le altre cose, la posizione dei sacchi di sabbia. Ci trovavamo dunque, si legge ne libro la Pietra nera di Nassiriya, in un sito archeologico che era diventato, anche in epoca moderna, luogo di battaglia nonostante le convenzioni internazionali tutelino i luoghi archeologici. Le piccole bombe non avrebbero provocato evidenti danni, ma solo parziali questi, però, col tempo avrebbero permesso infiltrazioni d’acqua che a loro volto hanno provocato parziale smottamento del tell. In attesa di studiare quanto emerge dalle foto satellitari, altre due ipotesi sono state avanzate nel corso di quest’anno. La 3.  S. M. Chiodi, M. Mazzei, and G. Pettinato, “La pietra nera di Nassiriya. In margine alla missione di ricognizione archeologica effettuata ad Ur ed Eridu (Iraq meridionale),” in Atti dell’Academia Nazionale dei Lincei, Serie IX, volume XXII, Fascicolo 2, Roma, 2007, p. 421. 4.  S. M. Chiodi and G. Pettinato, La pietra nera e il guardino di Ur, Editrice San Raffaele, Milano, 2009.

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prima, avanzata da un esperto militare, è che gli smottamenti possono anche essere stati provocati dalle vibrazioni trasmesse dai cingolati dei numerosi mezzi bellici operanti nell’area – ricordo che l’autostrada si trova non molto distante da Eridu. Terza ed ultima ipotesi, forse la più banale ma stranamente a nessuno è balenata alla mente e mi è stata sottoposta dalla dott.ssa Chiodi, è che i testi letterati ritrovati insieme ai mattoni iscritti facciano parte delle cosiddette “biblioteche morte” come ad esempio quelle rinvenute a Mari. Come scrive Philippe Clancier, in Les Bibliothèques en Babylonie dans la duexième moité du Ier millénaire av. J.-C., 5 talvolta testi letterari e sapienziali o documenti economici sono stati trovati in contesti secondari, sia di smaltimento sia di reimpiego, ad esempio per la formazione di nuova pavimentazione di edifici. Si tratta in questi casi di archivi morti e si può anche parlare di biblioteche morte. Impossibile allo stato attuale comprendere che cosa sia veramente successo, ma quello che possiamo affermare è che il sito abbia subito uno smottamento di terreno che ha permesso l’emersione di testi letterari. Rimane da stabilire se questi facciano o meno parte di una vera e propria biblioteca. Questo potrà essere stabilito solo quando verranno ripresi gli scavi. 5.  Philippe Clancier, in Les Bibliothèques em Babylonie dans la duexième moité du Ier millénaire av. J.-C., AOAT 363 (2009), p. 18 e p. 196.

Les particularités d’emploi des signes cunéiformes à différentes périodes de la langue hittite

L’U n i v e r s i t é

Olga Popova

d ’É tat d e

M o sc o u L o m o n o ss o v

Dans l’histoire de la langue hittite, on dégage trois périodes : le vieux hittite, le moyen hittite et le néo-hittite. L’écriture hittite cunéiforme utilise les types de signes suivants: des syllabogrammes de types CV, VC et CVC, des déterminatifs et des idéogrammes. Tous les types de signes sont employés plus ou moins fréquemment dans les textes de toutes les périodes. Pourtant, chaque période a ses particularités dans l’emploi des signes cunéiformes. Par exemple, l’emploi des sumérogrammes s’accroît dans les textes néo-hittites. Dans l’emploi des signes de type CVC, on peut aussi observer quelques particularités en rapport avec l’emploi de combinaisons de syllaborgammes de type CV et VC.  Dans le choix des signes des paires sourde/sonore, on peut aussi révéler quelques tendances de leur emploi avec le temps. Le but de cette recherches est de faire ressortir les changements d’emploi des signes cunéiformes avec le temps et d’essayer de trouver les régularités de ces changements. Il y a donc trois cas à examiner: la question d’emploi des signes pour les consonnes occlusives, la question d’emploi des signes de type CVC et la question d’emploi des idéogrammes. En ce qui concerne l’emploi des idéogrammes, V.Vs. Ivanov (Ivanov 1980) remarque que l’écriture hittite cunéiforme a été quelque peu transformée vers l’époque de l’empire (période néo-hittite de la langue), parce que les Hittites à cette période étaient en contact permanent avec d’autres peuples d’Asie Mineure qui utilisaient l’écriture cunéiforme akkadienne pour le courrier diplomatique et pour d’autres buts politiques et culturels. L’emploi des idéogrammes dans l’écriture hittite (qui la différencie de l’écriture hourrite) augmente dans les textes néo-hittites en comparaison avec quelques textes vieux hittite. Dans les textes hittites, on ne voit pas d’opposition entre les consonnes sourdes et sonores. Les signes pour les consonnes sourdes et sonores s’alternent. En ce qui concerne les changement d’emploi des signes des consonnes occlusives, il est intéressant de se rapporter aux recherches de Dg. Hart (Hart 1983). Elle essaye d’expliquer l’emploi ou l’absence d’ emploi de certains signes par une mode qui existait au moment de la création du texte. Dans plusieurs systèmes de l’écritures cunéiformes apparentés au système cunéiforme hittite il existait une tendance à diminuer la quantité de signes en choisissant un signe d’une paire sourde / sonore. 803

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Dg. Hart a examiné, entre autre, la paire de signes tu/du et est arrivée à la conclusion que le signe tu prédomine considérablement dans les textes vieux hittite, et le signe du dans les textes plus tardifs. Cette tendance, à son avis, commence à la période du moyen hittite. Toutefois, quelques mots conservent tu malgré cette tendance, comme par exemple : tu‑uk / tu-e-el acc./gen. de «toi, tu», tu-e-ik-ka «la personnalité, soi-même», uk-tu-u-ri «dur, ferme, déterminé», pít-tu-li «la gène, la peur, l’effroi», hatu-ga- «effroyable», Ha-at-tu-ša-aš. Les recherches effectuées sur le matériel de six textes hittites se rapportant aux différentes périodes du Royaume Hittite (L’inscription du roi Anitta (KBo 3.22) et Le mythe anatolien d’Illuyanka (KBo 3.36) pour le vieux hittite, Le rituel de contremagie aux dieux du sang (Ziplantawiya) (KBo 15.10 + KBo 20.22) et Madduwatta (KUB 14.1) pour le moyen hittite, L’Autobiographie de Hattušili III (KBo 3.7) et la Chanson d’Ullikummi (KUB 17.7 + KUB 33.87 + KUB 33.106) pour le néo-hittite) a permis de faire les constatations suivantes : Il ne s’agit pas ici de s’arrêter d’une manière détaillée sur l’emploi des sumérogrammes dans les textes hittites, dont la quantité augmente avec le temps, mais de donner au moins un exemple pour le mot appa «derrière, après, de nouveau». Ainsi dans les textes du vieux hittite ce mot est écrit en hittite. Dans l’Inscription du roi Anitta ce mot apparaît 11 fois en hittite, et une seule fois écrit à l’aide du sumérogramme EGIR. Dans le Mythe d’Illuyanka, de 5 emplois du mot appa, une fois seulement il est écrit à l’aide d’un sumérogramme. Dans les textes du moyen hittite on commence à observer une variation dans l’orthographe. Ainsi dans le texte Madduwatta le mot appa est écrit 16 fois en hittite et 10 fois à l’aide d’un sumérogramme. Dans le texte Ziplantawiya, on trouve le mot 16 fois, uniquement écrit en sumérogramme. Dans les textes néo-hittites, ce mot n’est pas une seule fois écrit en hittite, mais toujours écrit par sumérogramme: dans l’Autobiographie de Hattusili III 16 fois et dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi 24 fois. En ce qui concerne les signes de type CVC, il est peu probable que l’on puisse parler d’une tendance de leur emploi plus fréquent avec le temps. Tous les types de signes sont employés à toutes les périodes du Royaume Hittite. Et pourtant il y a quelques particularités dans l’emploi des signes de ce type-là. Je n’examine pas dans cette étude les cas de variation liés à «l’écriture pleine» (Pleneschreibung), comme par exemple, les mots comme uttar «le mot, la parole», tekan- «la terre» (ta-ga-a-an, ta-kán-zi-e-pi; ud-da-a-ar, ut-tar (on peut trouver les deux formes dans la quasi totalité des textes)). En générale, l’orthographe des mots fréquemment employés comme kat-ta «en bas», nam‑ma «plus loin», pa-ra-a «là-bas» est uniforme à toutes les périodes (certains mots sont toujours écrits avec un signe CVC, d’autres—toujours avec une combinaison de signes CV+VC). La situation est identique avec certaines enclitiques, par exemple, la particule -kan qui est toujours écrite à l’aide d’un signe CVC.  Il existe des mots typiques pour chaque texte, notamment quelques noms propres. En général, leur orthographe est uniforme dans la totalité du texte, cependant il y a certains cas intéressants, comme par exemple, le nom de la déesse du Soleil DHebat (le nom houritte) pour la Chanson d’Ullikummi, que l’on retrouve orthographié de la façon suivante : DHé-pa-du-un, DHé-pa-du-uš (2 fois), DHé-bad-du-uš (3 fois), DHé-bad-du, DHé-bat (2 fois), DHé-bad-du-un-na. Également, le nom propre mAttarš(š)iyaš pour le texte Madduwatta, que l’on retrouve orthographié de la façon suivante : mAt-ta-ri-is-si-ya-aš/an (10 fois), mAt-tar-ši-ya-aš/ša/ø (9 fois).

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Et pourtant, il y a quelques mots, morphèmes, affixes que l’on trouve presque dans tous les textes, dont l’orthographe varie. Ainsi, il est intéressant de faire attention à l’orthographe de la ville Hattuša. Dans cette désignation elle se rencontre dans les textes examinés orthographiée URUHa-attu-uš-ša (dans les textes d’Anitta et de Hattušili III). Quand la ville est désignée comme URUHatti «la ville des Hattis», en général le nom du peuple est aussi écrit avec des signes CV+VC, c’est-à-dire URUHa-at-ti (2 fois dans le texte d’Anitta, 16 fois dans le texte de Hattušili III, 10 fois dans Madduwatta).On trouve uniquement cette orthographe dans les textes d’Anitta et Madduwatta. Le seul texte où on observe une variation est celui de l’Autobiographie de Hattušili III. Dans ce texte on trouve 4 fois l’orthographe URUHat-ti et 16 fois l’orthographe URUHa-at-ti. C’est un texte néo-hittite. Dans un autre texte néo-hittite, La Chanson d’Ullikummi, le nom de la ville n’apparaît pas. Pour le moment, on voit que dans les textes du vieux hittite et du moyen hittite où on trouve le nom de la ville, il n’y a pas de variation de l’orthographe. Mais dans le texte néo-hittite des variations existent. Cette remarque est intéressante mais ne suffit pas pour en tirer des conclusion. Dans les textes étudiés, on trouve également des variations dans les cas suivants: Le cas de la terminaison -ten (2ème personne du pluriel de l’impératif), que l’on ne trouve qu’une seule fois dans le texte vieux hittite Le Mythe d’Illuyanka, est orthographié à l’aide d’une combinaison de signes CV-VC: ti-i-ya-[o-a]t-te-en «venez, entrez». En ce qui concerne les textes moyen hittite, dans le texte Ziplantawiya on trouve uniquement l’orthographe ‑te‑en (8 fois). Dans le texte Madduwatta 6 fois on trouve l’orthographe -ten et 2 fois seulement l’orthographe -te-en (a-ak-te-en «mourrez», wa-al-ah-te-en «attaquez» (on trouve dans Madduwatta la même forme mais avec l’orthographe -ten)). Quant aux textes néo-hittites: dans l’Autobiographie de Hattusili III on ne trouve pas cette forme-là. Dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi on trouve uniquement l’orthographe -ten à 15 reprises. Peut-être s’agit-il là, de préférences individuelles des scribes. Si l’on examine le cas du mot kišan «ainsi»: on trouve l’orthographe kiš-an 2 fois dans l’Autobiographie de Hattusili III et une fois dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi. Par contre l’orthographe ki-iš-ša-an se trouve beaucoup plus souvent (17 fois dans Ziplantawiya, 27 fois dans Madduwatta, une fois dans le Mythe d’Illuyanka, 1 fois dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi). Le mot šal-li-iš (šalli- «grand, puissant») et de ses dérivés comme šal-li-iš-kiiz-zi-ya-aš «grandir, devenir adulte»  : ils se rencontrent 11 fois dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi et 2 fois dans l’Autobiographie de Hattusili III et sont toujours écrits avec le signe CVC. Dans le Mythe d’Illuyanka, on trouve 1 fois l’orthographe šal-lieš-ta-ma et 1 fois l’orthographe ša-al-li-iš. En ce qui concerne le cas de la combinaison de la dernière consonne du thème + la terminaison -ir de la 3ème personne du pluriel de l’accompli (-p + ir/er; -k + ir/er; -š + ir/er): Dans le texte l’Autobiorgraphie de Hattusili III la forme de la 3ème personne du pluriel de l’accompli du verbe eš- «être» ešir se rencontre dans l’orthographe e-šir, c’est-à-dire écrit avec un signe CVC. Dans le Mythe d’Illuyanka on trouve l’orthographe e-še-ir. De même, on trouve l’orthographe e-še-er 1 fois dans l’Autobiographie de Hattušili III. La même forme du verbe ep- «prendre» epir se trouve orthographié e-ip-pir 1 fois dans l’Autobiographie de Hattušili III, 1 fois dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi et 2 fois dans Madduwatta. L’orthographe e-ep-pi-ir ne se trouve qu’une seule fois dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi. D’autres verbes sont écrits

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avec une combinaison de signes CV - VC, comme par exemple, ha-aš-pí-ir (hašpa«anéantir» (dans Madduwatta)) ou kar-pí-ir (karp- «lever»(3 fois dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi)). Les verbes dont le thème se termine par -k + la terminaison de la 3ème personne du pluriel de l’accompli -ir témoignent aussi d’une variation de l’orthographe dans les textes de Hattusili et dans Madduwatta. Dans l’Autobiographie de Hattusili on note les exemples suivants: e-kir (2 fois) (3 pl. acc. ak(k)-, ek(k)- «mourir»), har-kir (3 pl. acc. har-, hark- «tenir»); dans Madduwatta: wa-a]l-ha-an-ni-iš-kir (walhanšk«frapper, atteindre»). On peut comparer cela avec les orthographes ga-an-ki[-ir] ( gank- «peser») dans Ziplantawiya et wa-aš-ta-an-ni-iš-ki-ir  et ni-ni-in-ki-ir  dans Madduwatta. Cela veut dire que dans de pareilles combinaisons on observe des variations de l’orthographe. On peut donc faire la remarque suivante. Il est reconnu que l’écriture hittite avait le principe morphologique de l’orthographe ce qui montre notamment l’orthographe de la particule -kan qui est toujours écrite avec un signe. Néanmoins on peut trouver des arguments pour le principe phonétique de l’orthographe. Notamment, l’orthographe de la terminaison de la 2ème personne du pluriel de l’impératif qui n’est pas toujours écrite par un seul signe -ten, ce qui aurait été logique s’il y avait eu le principe uniquement morphologique de l’orthographe hittite, mais assez souvent, surtout dans le texte Ziplantawiya, comme le font apparaître mes recherches, dans l’orthographe -te-en, qui atteste plutôt du principe phonétique. A mon avis, on peut parler de quelques éléments d’orthographe phonétique dans les textes hittites. La variation de l’orthographe peut témoigner que dans l’écriture hittite cunéiforme il y avait, au moins en partie, le principe phonétique de l’orthographe, et non pas seulement les règles d’orthographe bien éloignés de la prononciation. Cela nous permet d’envisager une reconstruction du système phonétique hittite plus précise en partant de l’écriture. L’orthographe différente dans les cas où il y avait un choix entre l’emploi d’un signe CVC ou d’une combinaison des signes de type CV+VC ne peut pas être traitée comme une faute de scribe, mais comme un choix conscient en fonction de la prononciation. Les mots et les morphèmes écrits toujours de la même manière, comme le cas de la particule -kan, peuvent être écrits ainsi juste à cause des règles d’orthographe. C’est-à-dire que dans ces cas-là, nous affrontons l’orthographe standardisée. Seulement on ne sait pas quelle était la prononciation de la particule en réalité. Si un mot ou un affixe est écrit d’une manière différente, cela signifie que les scribes visaient principalement à rendre la prononciation du mot. En ce qui concerne les signes des consonnes occlusives, les recherches statistiques de l’emploi des signes par périodes permettent de faire les constatations suivantes : D’une paire pa/ba le signe ba s’emploie très rarement à toutes les périodes (dans les textes étudiés on ne le trouve que 2 fois). Les signes ta/da sont employés à toutes les périodes à peu près dans les mêmes proportions l’un que l’autre, c’est pourquoi dans ce cas-là je doute que l’on puisse parler de préférence pour l’un ou l’autre signe à une période. Quoique Dg. Hart affirme qu’il y avait une préférence pour le signe da dans le moyen hittite et dans le néo-hittite, les recherches ont montré que dans un texte moyen hittite Madduwatta 3.5 fois plus souvent était employé le signe ta. A savoir, dans Madduwatta on trouve

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le signe ta 255 fois, et le signe da que 75 fois. Dans l’Autobiographie de Hattusili III le signe ta est employé 115 fois, le signe da -110; dans la Chanson d’Ullikummi, ta -167 fois, da – 210 fois; dans Ziplantawiya, ta – 43 fois, da – 84 fois; dans le texte d’Anitta, ta – 17 fois, da – 19 fois; dans le Mythe d’Illuyanka, ta – 44 fois, da – 27 fois. Comme nous pouvons observer, deux textes du moyen hittite donnent des résultats différents en rapport avec ces signes parce que dans Ziplantawiya, au contraire, c’est le signe da qui prédomine, comme l’affirme Dg. Hart. Dans les textes du vieux hittite et du néo-hittite la différence quantitative de l’emploi n’est pas aussi importante. Dans la paire ti/di, le signe ti a été employé plus souvent, ce qui correspond tout à fait aux conclusions de Dg. Hart. Dans les textes étudiés le signe ti se rencontre 205 fois, et le signe di – 22 fois. Dans la paire de signes tu/du, on peut parler d’une mode. Dans le texte la Chanson d’Ullikummi, il est évident que prédomine le signe du. Dans les textes du vieux hittite étudiés, cette paire de signes est rare. Pourtant, dans l’Inscription du roi Anitta le signe tu est employé 7 fois et seulement 1 fois le signe du. Le signe gu de la paire ku/gu ne se rencontre pas du tout dans les textes étudiés. Les signes ka/ga/qa sont employés à peu près en même quantité. On peut seulement faire attention au fait que dans le Rituel de contre-magie aux dieux du sang (Ziplantawiya) on ne trouve pas du tout le signe ka (dans ce texte ne sont employés que les signes ga et qa). Au contraire, dans le texte Madduwatta, on ne trouve pas une seule fois le signe qa, et le signe ka, quant à lui est assez souvent employé, de la même manière le signe ka prédomine dans le Mythe Anatolien d’Illuyanka. Alors en ce qui concerne ces signes il est raisonnable de parler d’effet de mode. Bien sûr il faut toujours garder en tête que le choix des signes d’une paire sourde/ sonore peut être expliqué non pas par effet de mode, mais par quelques changements phonétiques. Quoique personnellement je trouve l’explication par effet de mode ou par les choix personnels des scribes dans la plupart des cas la meilleure. Comme on peut voir, à toute période de la langue hittite il y avait certaines particularités de l’emploi des signes. Pour les conclusions plus précises les recherches doivent être élargies à un plus grand nombre de documents.

Bibliographie Beckman, G. 1982 The Anatolian Myth of Illuyanka // The Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 14: (1982) 20–25. Eichner, H. 1980 Phonetik und Lautgesetze des Hethitischen: Weg zur Entschlüsselung // Pp. 120–65 in Lautgeschichte und Etymologie. Akten der VI.  Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Wien, 24.-29. September 1978. Edited by M.  Mayrhofer, M.  Peters, and O. E. Pfeiffer. Wiesbaden, 1980 Götze, A. 1933 Die Annalen des Muršiliš. Leipzig, 1933, pp. 267–74. 1968 Madduwattas. Darmstadt, 1968 Güterbock, H. G. 1952 The Song of Ullikummi. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 5 (1951), 6 (1952) no. 1. Hart, G. R. 1983 Problems of Writing and Phonology in Cuneiform Hittite. Transactions of the Philological Society (1983) 100–154. Oxford, 1983.

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Ivanov, В.В. Иванов Хеттский язык. Москва, 1980 Kassian, A. S. 2000 Two Middle Hittite Rituals Mentioning fZiplantawija, Sister of the Hittite King mTuthalija II/I. Moscow, 2000. KBo Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi KUB Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi Melchert, H. C. 1994 Anatolian Historical Phonology. Amsterdam, 1994. Neu, E. 1974 Der Anitta-Text // StBoT, 18. Wiesbaden, 1974. Oettinger, N. 1979 Stammbildung des hethitischen Verbums. Nürnberg, 1979. Otten, H. 1981 Die Apologie Hattusilis III. StBoT 24. Wiesbaden, 1981. Rosenkranz, B. 1959 Zur hethitischen Orthographie und Lautlehre. Pp. 417–26 in Festschrift J.  Friedrich zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet. Heidelberg, 1959. Sommer, F. 1947 Hethiter und Hethitisch. Stuttgart, 1947. Sturtevant, E. H. 1932 The Development of the Stops in Hittite. Journal of the American Oriental Society 52 (1932) 1–12. Sturtevant, E. H., and Hahn, A. A. 1951 Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language, Vol.1. New Haven, 1951.

Recent Researches in the Erbil Region: 2010 Excavations in Kilik Mishik (Iraqi Kurdistan) Olivier Rouault

Lyons2 University

and

CNRS-UMR 5133

0. Introduction The history of Erbil—Hawler in Kurdish—now capital of the autonomous province of Kurdistan in the Iraqi Republic and famous for its Citadel, corresponds also, at least partially, to the history of ancient Arbela, Arbaʾil, which was an important Northern Mesopotamian center especially during the Neo-Assyrian period. 1 The cult and the temple of the local city goddess, a form of Ishtar, are often quoted in the royal inscriptions and in the archives of the last Neo-Assyrian kings, for whom they clearly held a special place. 2 However, the archaeological documentation concerning Arbela is scanty, at least for the moment: The presence of a monumental level of Ottoman period buildings on the tell of Erbil, the Citadel mound, makes the exploration of more ancient levels quite difficult, and the extent of such exploration has been limited. In recent years, some archaeological discoveries and projects have taken place, not only on the Citadel itself but also in the modern urban area around it, and resulted in important information. 3 The researches carried out in spring 2010 by the French team working at the site of Kilik Mishik, close to the city center of Erbil, have produced some new evidence for the reconstruction of the ancient occupational sequence in the region, highlighting the presence in this tell of Iron II–III levels overlying Middle Bronze II–III ruins. Located in the northeastern part of Mesopotamia, between the Tigris Valley and the Zagros Mountains, the Erbil administrative region, delimited by the two Zab rivers, presents a large variety of climates and environments. The high mountains of the Zagros, oriented NW/SE, yield to a series of limestone hills as they descend to the broad plain of the Tigris, itself characterized by important agricultural potentialities thanks to the richness of its soil and the presence of water coming from the mountains. While seasonal rains do allow dry agriculture, artificial irrigation is and has been also used in order to improve crop yield. It is well known that this area played a crucial role in all the stages of development of ancient Near Eastern civilization, from the Paleolithic—well attested at the site of Shanidar 4—the Neolithic and Chalcolithic, with the Pre- and Protohistoric 1.  Hunger 1928, Nováček 2008. 2.  Porter 2004. 3.  Nováček 2008. 4.  Solecki, Solecki & Agelarakis 2004.

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Fig. 1.  General view of Erbil.

cultures such as Hassuna, Samarra, Halaf, and Ubaid. 5 Cities and, undoubtedly, states appeared in this region from the beginning of the historical record, in close contact with other Mesopotamian, Elamite, and Iranian cultures, but their importance and their relevance for the evolution of Mesopotamian civilization were for a long time misunderstood, and even denied, by historians and Assyriologists who, focusing their attention on the southern Mesopotamian, Sumerian landscape, considered the north a peripheral area, colonized and integrated only later. 6 Now such a vision has changed profoundly, and while this region is seen as an integral part of the Mesopotamian, later cuneiform, world, it is equally evident that the local societies were marked by the presence of non-Sumerian and non-Semitic populations, for example the Lullubi, Gutians, or Hurrians. Since the end of the third millennium b.c.e., the importance of the Hurrian component cannot be underestimated in the constitution and the evolution of the large regional kingdoms of the Amorite time, and, later, in the organization of the great Mitannian confederation that then held way over Northern Syria. The region eventually became part of the core of the Assyrian kingdom and empire, Arbaʾil being then one of the capital cities of Assyria. From an archaeological point of view, the first researches and surveys in this area were carried out by Layard 7 in the mid-nineteenth century. During his travels, he organized the first excavations there, recovering a certain amount of ar5.  Forest 1996. 6.  See, for example, Rouault and Wäfler 2000. 7.  Layard 1853.

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Fig. 2.  General view of the central part of the tell, from the east.

chaeological information as well as making finds of cuneiform texts. But later on, for different reasons, the Erbil area remained outside of major scientific programs in comparison with the situation in other regions. An Italian mission, directed by Giuseppe Furlani, worked in 1932 in Qasr Shemamok, around 28 km SW of Erbil, identified since Layard’s passage as Kakzu/Kilizu, and a campaign of survey and soundings in the Makhmur Plain, toward the Tigris valley, was carried out by El Amin and Mallowan 8 in 1948. In 1968, Abou al Soof excavated the Chalcolithic site of Qalinj Agha, close to the Erbil Citadel. 9 Some survey operations conducted by the Iraqi Antiquities Services, and more recently by the Erbil Directorate of the Antiquities, have not yet been published, while a program of excavations carried out by the Department of Archaeology of Salahaddin University at a site in Ainkawa, a suburb northwest of Erbil, have given interesting information revealing an almost continuous occupation on the small tell since the Chalcolithic down to the Neo-Assyrian period. Finally, the recent archaeological researches conducted by a Czech team directed by K. Novacek, in cooperation with the local authorities, must be cited as being especially complete and useful with regard to the reconstruction of the occupational history of the of the Citadel itself. 10

1.  The French Excavations in Kilik Mishik Thanks to an invitation from our colleagues from Salahaddin University and to a favorable development of the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan, in spring 2009 we were able to visit Erbil in order to evaluate the opportunity of organizing a regular mission, as the local authorities strongly encouraged us to do. As a first project, we chose a site in the urban area of Erbil free of modern construction where we could hope to find a situation actually mirroring, or at least similar to, what we could expect to find in the Citadel itself (fig. 1). The site of Kilik Mishik, situated less than 4 km southwest of the Citadel itself, is very close to the large ring road called Peshawa Gazy. Recently integrated in the city limits by rapid urban growth, the site is not far from the campus area of Salahaddin University, a situation that was helpful for the development of the scientific and didactic collaboration between the 8.  El Amin and Mallowan 1949. 9.  Abou al Soof 1969. 10.  Nováček et al. 2008

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Fig. 3.  General plan of the site.

French Mission and the Department of Archaeology. The tell is of relatively modest size, around seven hectares, with a maximal height of about ten meters (fig. 2). Its northern side has been cut by a wadi, before more recent reductions of its surface and height. The sherd scatter visible on the surface of the tell prior to the commencement of excavations attested to an occupation from at least the Middle Bronze until the Iron II–III periods—as well as later periods—corresponding well to our research agenda. After having obtained the authorization of the Directorate of the Iraqi Antiquities in Baghdad and of the local Kurdish Archaeological authorities, with the help of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Baghdad and of the French Consulate in Erbil, the members of the French Archaeological Mission in Kilik Mishik 11 arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan in mid-April 2010 and worked there for one month. 12 11.  The team was composed of O. Rouault, Director, professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology in Lyons2 University, UMR 5133 Archéorient, M.G. Masetti-Rouault, archaeologist and epigraphist, professor in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne University, Paris, UMR 8167, Orient et Méditerranée, and of the Ph.D. students in archaeology and Assyriological studies S. Salmon, I. Calini, D. Pevear, F. Defendenti, and R. Prévalet. 12.  The French Mission, funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been welcomed by the archaeological authorities of the Kurdish Ministry of Municipalities and Archaeology, in charge of the Kurdish National Heritage and we would like to thank especially in this respect Ms. Gouhar Shemdin for her advice and the interest taken in our work. We thank also all the academic staff of Salahaddin University: Dr. Ahmed Dezaye, President of the University, and Prof. Ahmed Mirza, Head of the Archaeological Department have always shown their entire support for all our activities. The help, the competence and the personal engagement of Prof. Narmin Ali Mohamed Amen (associated member of the French CNRS team UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée,” Paris) from Salahaddin University must be gratefully acknowledged, not only in the field, but also in the administrative aspects of the work. We have to thank warmly also the French General Consul in Erbil, Dr. Frederic Tissot, and the Director of

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Fig. 4.  Area A, plan showing Islamic period remains.

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Fig. 5.  Area B, general plan, (square of 10x10 m, oriented north).

Because establishing scientific and pedagogic cooperation was one of the goals of our project, Prof. Yusuf Khalaf and his students from Salahaddin University were invited to work with us in the field. H. Y. Al-Hadad and K. W. Mahmood of the Geography Department of Salahaddin University prepared the topographic plans of the site, which we used for all our subsequent work. To get a comprehensive view of the stratigraphy of the site, we established a long trench on a north/south axis crossing the tell, comprising two sections: a 35-m-long stretch on the northern side of the tell (Area C) and a 50-m-long stretch on the southern slope (Area A). On the same axis, between areas A and C, a 10 × 10 m square was opened on the top of the tell in the area where Prof. Khalaf chose to work (Area B) (fig. 3). These three complementary operations have allowed us to establish a first reconstruction of the history of the site, as well as to give precise archaeological contexts for the most important occupation periods attested there. The preliminary report concerning these excavations will be published in the series Akh Purattim (Ministère Français des Affaires Etrangères et Européennes and Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée).

2.  The Medieval and Parthian Levels Even though some ceramics found on the surface of the tell, and the discovery of ancient coins, clearly indicated sedentary occupation of the site since the the early Islamic and Abbasid periods, no real architectural structures for these periods the Center Culturel Français, Ms. Amélie Banzet, who have been extremely helpful in the contacts and negotiations with the local authorities.

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Fig. 6.  Area C, the southern part, plan.

could be identified during the course of our work. Nevertheless, in Area B, as well as in the lowest part of Area A—in the locus k6, quite close to the surface of the mound—we found remains of an Islamic-period occupation, perhaps of a domestic nature, with a well-built floor (e57, elevation 393.83) and a tannur (fig. 4). Obviously, the surface of the tell has always been used for occasional occupation, perhaps of a semi-nomadic type, as one can see through the presence of many pits, fireplaces, and remains from the consumption of food. Surrounded by a watercourse, in an agricultural plain, it is easy to understand this kind of exploitation of the site by the local population. On the other hand, an ancient use of the highest part of the tell as a cemetery is documented by the presence of a number of Islamic graves in Area B (fig. 5), the pits of which have intruded significantly into more ancient levels.

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Fig. 7.  Area C, the southern part, phase 3, photo.

One must also mention the probable existence of a pottery workshop on the site, at a time when there was no other sedentary occupation, as indicated by a quantity of slag and of fragments of poorly baked pottery scattered on the surface. The pollution associated with such craft production explains the installation of workshops in less inhabited zones, but still close to sources of water and clay. While it is not yet possible to date exactly this pottery production, some elements seem to point to an early Islamic period. A Roman–Parthian level, indicated by a certain quantity of sherds found on the surface as well as by several pits in Area B, has been better studied in Area C (figs. 6 and 7), even if it has suffered greatly from erosion. The architecture, showing several construction phases, is quite poor, with domestic areas and walls of small size. These structures are oriented in a different direction from those of the Iron II–III period habitat, even though a form of continuity in the construction techniques from earlier periods can be deduced through the use of the same quality and shape of the mudbricks.

3.  The Iron II–III Levels The period best documented by our excavations at this site is probably Iron II– III. Through a general comparison of the Kilik Mishik Iron II–III material culture with the documentation of the imperial cities of the Tigris Valley, and knowing the political situation of the area during that time, we have chosen to call this level “Neo-Assyrian,” but it is clear that the culture attested here has a local aspect, possibly evidence of the continuity of an ancient tradition. It is true that the ceramic typologies best known for this period are very often identified through comparison with the material found in Assyrian capitals and in palatial contexts (fig. 8). Nevertheless, it does not seem reasonable to reduce the most characteristic, idiomatic aspects of the local Kilik Mishik ceramic production of this period only to a mere functional or social difference, or to a chronological discrepancy, with respect to the

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“Assyrian” models. On the other hand, the pottery attested here corresponds quite well to what Mallowan and El Amin had already described, with the same chronology, in the sites of the Makhmur plain, and we have not yet had the possibility of comparing it with the “urban” typologies probably used in Erbil. Concerning the habitat of the Iron II–III period, excavations carried out in the northern part of Area A (figs. 9 and 10) seem to show that it was established on the top of a more ancient tell, probably at a time when it was no longer occupied. This position allowed the population to exploit local resources, especially the watercourse, without suffering the consequences of its floods. In order to enlarge the surface supporting the settlement, a series of thick walls was built, for example e29+e39 as well as others lower down the slope. These walls were often doubled and re- Fig. 8.  Parthian and Iron II–III ceramic. inforced by abutting clay blocks, which probably had the function of supporting these terracing levels. The lines of these walls seem to correspond quite well to the variation of the current contour plans, thus suggesting that they may have been in a circular layout, surrounding the site. The elevation of both these features and the terraces that they supported was in time completely eroded, although they were partially reused in later occupations. The relative importance of these constructions, which must have required a high level of competence in the carrying out of building programs as well as a broad vision of urban organization, can be interpreted as a sign that the local society that had decided on the foundation of these structures was fully able to plan and carry out such an advanced project. We can then perhaps imagine a socio-political context where the control of the rural landscape was managed by the nearest city, where the administrators, or the landlords, lived. In this case, the Kilik Mishik Iron II–III settlement would have been built in order to improve the agricultural exploitation of the Erbil plain rather than the living conditions of its inhabitants. However, the substantial erosion that destroyed the entire occupational phases of this period makes it difficult at this point to offer a general interpretation of the function and nature of the site, its evolution, or its relationship to Arbela and the Assyrian capital cities. We must underline that we did not manage to identify any clear domestic occupation and dwelling spaces for the Iron II–III period except for a few remains in Area B (fig. 5) and in Area C. The notable rarity of fine and even common pottery for domestic use also in these contexts could in fact support the function of the site as essentially a place of agricultural production and storage, which would in turn explain the importance of these constructions as limits and defences of the main structures. There was probably in due course an evolution in the organi-

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Fig. 9.  Area A, the northern part, plan.

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zation and use of the settlement, and some living quarters were established on the slopes of the tell as well as in the area beyond the main wall e36 (A, k6, k12). Unfortunately, in the area exposed in the trench, erosion has made study of these very difficult, a circumstance that has also deprived us of any kind of associated material other than the few complete ceramic profiles found in the pits.

4.  The Middle Bronze II–III Levels On the other hand, the almost complete erosion of the Iron II–III period level, at least in the area excavated, has allowed us to identify the remains of the occupation that preceded the Neo-Assyrian farm/village in Kilik Mishik, for which a few finds suggest a date going back to the Middle Bronze Age II–III. Actually, in addition to the erosion, the heavy terracing operations preceding the foundation of the Neo-Assyrian settlement have also eliminated the possibility of studying the intermediate phase between the two main construction and occuFig. 10.  Area A, general view from south. pational levels of the site. The presence of Middle Bronze Age levels on the site had already been indicated by the discovery, in various surface and wash layers, of a quantity of sherds with a painted decoration, quite typical of a ceramic typology attested in all northern Mesopotamia, called Khabur Ware, and also, possibly, of its more recent and finer version, Nuzi Ware. Almost completely destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian operations, levels of the Middle Bronze II–III period—more or less of the first half of the 2nd millennium b.c.e.—have been identified in Area A, at quite high elevations. In a very perturbed context, with no built structures clearly belonging to this level associated with it, we found a small foundation or offering deposit arranged with a fine small goblet covered by a cup, closely reminiscent of Old Babylonian shapes (fig. 11); next to it was a fragment of a clay model of a chariot, while a small clay model of a bed had already been found on the surface. The position of these finds and of the associated levels, rather high up in the stratigraphy on the slope of the tell, and sealed by the Neo-Assyrian structures, might again indicate

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Fig. 11.  Area A, foundation or offering deposit.

Fig. 12.  Area C, the northern part, with remains of a working platform.

that the Middle Bronze II–III occupation was not the first one on the site: apparently, it could have been established on an already existing tell.

5.  A Chalcolithic Level ?, and Conclusions A small quantity of badly preserved painted Chalcolithic (late Ubaid) sherds was found on the surface of the tell and also, possibly still in context, in a sounding in Area C close to the river bed. Almost at the level of the virgin soil we found a level characterized by the remains of a possible working platform built out of clay and mud brick (fig. 12), with some small painted sherds, possibly fragments of a cup, belonging to the Ubaid typology. This context seems to witness a prehistoric occupation, as is found in most sites of this region, here however very eroded. In this area, nothing between the first Neo-Assyrian and the possible Ubaid levels seems to be preserved. The study of these ancient settlements which go back to proto- and prehistoric times deserves a much more detailed investigation, together with extensive excavations. 13 To sum up, I would like to emphasize that our work on Kilik Mishik has confirmed the important potential of archaeological research in the region and its occupation over the long term. Even if Kilik Mishik is certainly a good example of this long history, the erosion and changes on the site, as well as its long periods of abandonment, have destroyed most of the archaeological levels that we have examined. For these reasons, as far as our mission research strategy is concerned, we believe this site may not be the best place for this study, in a region so rich in important archaeological remains. While the French team is now exploring other opportunities—an archaeological program on the site of Qasr Shemamok-Kilizu—the excavations on the tell of Kilik Mishik will continue under the responsibility of Salahaddin University within the continued framework of the didactic project for the training of students, adding new information for the understanding of the evolution of the occupation and exploitation strategies of the Erbil area in the longue durée. 13. ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� These levels have already been extensively exposed in the area of Erbil, with well preserved architecture, in Qalinj Agha (Abou al Soof 1969).

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References Abou al Soof, B.A. 1969 “Excavations at Tel Qualinj Agha (Erbil), Summer, 1968. Interim Report.” Sumer 25: 3–42. El Amin, Mahmud, and Mallowan, M. E. L. 1949 “Soundings in the Makhmur Plain.” Sumer 5: 145–53. Forest, Jean-Daniel 1996 Mésopotamie: L’apparition de l’Etat. Ve–IIIe millénaires. Milan: Jaca-Book / Paris: Méditerranée. Furlani, Giuseppe 1934a «Sarcofagi partici di Kakzu». Iraq 1: 90–94. 1934b «Gli scavi italiani in Assiria (Campagna del 1933)». Giornale della Società Asiatica Italiana N.S. 2 (1934) 265–76. Hunger, Eckhard 1928 “Arbailu.” Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archaeologie 1: 141–42 Layard ,Austen Henry 1853 Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. London. Nováček, Karel et al. 2008 “Research of the Arbil Citadel, Iraqi Kurdistan, First Season.” Pramátky Archeologické 99: 259–302. Porter, Barbara Nevling 2004 “Ishtar of Niniveh and her collaborator, Ishtar of Arbela, in the Reign of Assurbanipal.” Iraq 6 ­­ 6: 41–44. Rouault, Olivier, and Wäfler, Markus (eds.) 2000 La Djéziré et l’Euphrate syriens de la Protohistoire à la fin du IIe millénaire av. J.-C. Tendances dans l’interprétation historique des données nouvelles. Subartu VII. Turnhout: Brépols. Solecki, Ralph S. et al. 2004 The Proto-Neolithic Cemetery in Shanidar Cave. Texas A&M University Press,

Wer war Großkönig I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS der KARAHÖYÜK-Inschrift? Zsolt Simon Budapest

1.  Die Vorschläge Eine der ältesten eisenzeitlichen hieroglyphen-luwischen Inschriften, KARAHÖYÜK (ELBİSTAN) ist bis heute durch viele ungelöste Probleme belastet. Diese Tatsache ist darum besonders unbequem, weil diese Inschrift zu denjenigen äußerst wenigen schriftlichen Quellen gehört, die in die Zeit unmittelbar nach dem Zerfall des hethitischen Reiches einen historischen Einblick bieten könnten, vor allem dadurch, dass sich diese Inschrift um den Besuch eines Großkönigs, I(a)+ra/iTONITRUS in der Region POCULUM.PES.*67 handelt—leider ohne den Namen seines Königtums zu nennen. Verschiedene Identifizierungen dieses Herrschers wurden von manchen Forschern vorgeschlagen. Hawkins 1988: 105–7, 1998: 77, 2000: 283. 287–88. 429, der den Namen als IrTeššub liest, hat darauf hingewiesen, dass man diesen Großkönig, weil die Inschrift nachhethitisch ist, offenbar als einen Großkönig von Karkamiš einstufen könnte, wenn die Paläographie der Inschrift nicht dagegen sprechen würde: die Schrift ist nämlich sehr archaisch, aber schon die ersten Inschriften aus Malatya (GÖRÜN, KÖTÜKALE, İSPEKÇÜR, DARENDE), aus der Zeit der Enkel, bzw. späterer Nachkommen von Kuzi-Teššub, dem ersten Großkönig von Karkamiš zeigen diese Archaismen nicht mehr. Damit würde Ir-Teššub nur die Generation des Sohnes von Kuzi-Teššub übrig bleiben, aber es ist nicht wahrscheinlich, so Hawkins, dass sich die Schriftgebräuche während einer Generation verändern. Daraus folge, dass IrTeššub kein König von Karkamiš war. Da es zu jener Zeit nur eine andere Linie der Großkönige, die von Hartapu und den späteren Großkönigen in Tabal gab, soll man Ir-Teššub dieser in ihren Inschriften ausgeprägt archaischen Linie, bes. der KARADAĞ—KIZILDAG-Gruppe von Hartapu (Hawkins 1993: 277, so auch Strobel 2010: 51) zuordnen (Elbistan kann von beiden Regionen aus ohne weiteres besucht werden). Dieser Hypothese stehen mehrere Probleme gegenüber. Die Polemik über eine andere Linie der Großkönige in der zentralen Region ist noch nicht abgeschlossen, es gibt einige Forscher, die deren Existenz bis heute bezweifeln (z. B. Freu 2005; Giusfredi 2010: 71; Strobel 2010: 5466). M. E. bieten aber die Inschriften aus Tabal und ihre Eigentümlichkeiten genügend Beweise, um eine solche Linie anzunehmen, was jetzt auch durch die ANKARA-Silberschale unterstützt werden kann, falls meine Interpretation zutrifft (Simon 2009, bes. 262–64, gefolgt von Strobel 823

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2010: 49–50; für weitere Argumente aus der Analyse ihrer Inschriften s. Simon 2011: 237). 1 Auch die Ähnlichkeit zu den Inschriften von Hartapu ist problematisch, weil wenn er noch während der Großreichszeit lebte (wie immer mehr Forscher annehmen, vgl. Singer 1996: 68–71; Jasink 2001; Bryce 2007: 123–28), würde dann diese Ähnlichkeit nur den archaischen Charakter und nicht die geographische Position des Großkönigs der KARAHÖYÜK-Inschrift zeigen. Es wäre besser, wenn man KARAHÖYÜK mit einer ungefähr zeitgleichen Inschrift aus der zentralen Region vergleichen könnte, es stehen aber solche Inschriften nicht zur Verfügung, und dementsprechend kann man über die Paläographie der Inschrift aus dieser Sicht nichts sagen. Eine mögliche ungefähr zeitgleiche Inschrift könnte die ANKARASilberschale darstellen, wenn meine oben erwähnte Neudatierung zutrifft. Die Inschrift der Schale scheint aber einen fortgeschritteneren Duktus zu zeigen, was das Verhältnis der syllabischen Schreibungen (besonders im Falle von Verben) betrifft. Dies würde gegen eine Herleitung aus der zentralen Region sprechen. Ein anderer Umstand ist aber wirklich problematisch. Aus dem Inhalt der Inschrift geht eindeutig hervor, dass dieser Großkönig der Herr von Elbistan war: 2 er besucht die Region, findet sie verödet, so ordnet verschiedene Baumaßnahmen und ähnliches an (§3–§9). Aber Elbistan bildet einen Teil des Königtums von Malatya: Karahöyük wird in der Inschrift POCULUM.PES.*67 genannt, dessen Wettergott auch in einem Graffito des ungefähr gleichzeitigen Königs PUGNUS-mili von Malatya erscheint (MALATYA 9: (DEUS)TONITRUS |POCULUM.CAPERE/tà(URBS) : PUGNUS-mili REX.*462; Jasink 1994: 80–81, Hawkins 1993: 275, 2000: 284 und Anm. 22., 291, s. schon Güterbock 1949: 102). Es ist klar, dass nur der Herrscher der Region solche Anordnungen treffen kann. Es gibt zwei Möglichkeiten: Erstens, dass die Siedlung auch zu dieser Zeit zu Malatya gehörte. Die Beziehungen zwischen Malatya und Karkamiš sind nicht ganz klar, da aber die Könige von Malatya (zumindest die Dynastie von PUGNUS-mili) aus der Herrscherdynastie von Karkamiš als Sekundogenitur hervorgekommen sind und keine Beweise dafür stehen, dass Malatya den eventuellen Großkönigen der zentralen Region Untertan war, kann man diesen Großkönig nur mit einem Großkönig aus Karkamiš identifizieren (was dementsprechend bedeuten würde, dass der Herrscher von Malatya zumindest noch zu dieser Zeit den Königen von Karkamiš Untertan war). 3 Zweitens (vgl. Jasink 1995: 19), dass diese Region erst später durch Malatya erobert wurde. In diesem Fall könnte der Großkönig sowohl aus Karkamiš, als auch aus der zentralen Region sein. Gerade letzteres wird von Strobel 2010: 51 angenommen, der in Ira-Tarhunta / Ir-Teššup (wie er den Namen liest) „mit einiger Sicherheit“ den Sohn des von mir vorgeschlagenen Tudhaliyas V., Nachfolger von Šuppiluliuma II., d.h. einen Großkönig der zentralen Region sieht (vgl. schon Stro1.  Auch Gander 2010: 25114 ist mit meiner Ablehnung der Datierung der ANKARA-Silberschale in die Zeit von Tudhaliya I/II. (Hawkins 1997/2005; gefolgt auch in der on-line Konkordanz der hethitischen Texte von S. Košak (Version 1.81, sub CTH 142 (!)) einverstanden, aber meinen Vorschlag (Tudhaliya V.) lehnt er leider ohne Begründung („nicht einleuchtend“) ab. In Simon 2009 wurde Carruba 2008: 143–49 leider außer Acht gelassen, da aber auch er der Datierung von Hawkins folgt, ist die in Simon 2009 ausführlich beschriebene Kritik an dieser Datierung auch in seinem Fall gültig. Für die Auffassung von Durnford 2010 s. den Exkurs. Für einen anderen Vorschlag s. jetzt Giusfredi in diesem Band. 2.  Ähnlich Giusfredi 2010: 41, der aber hinzufügt, „although he [Armananis, der Inschriftenherr— Zs. S.] does not explicitly declare to be his [sc. des Großkönigs—Zs. S.] vassal“. 3. Die Beziehungen von Malatya mit Karkamiš hängen auch von der genauen Analyse des Herrschertitels in Malatya (REGIO.DOMINUS) ab, den ich anderswo ausführlich zu diskutieren vorhabe.

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bel 2008: 9–10). Den auf Karkamiš hinweisenden Herrschernamen (-Teššup/Tarhunta, Simon 2009: 26431) erklärt er mit der Annahme einer dynastischen Heirat seines Vaters (Tudhaliya V.) mit der Linie von Karkamiš. Obwohl man über die politischen Ereignisse dieser Periode praktisch nichts weiß, scheint es unwahrscheinlich, dass eine Sekundogenitur (Malatya), die entweder unabhängig oder noch Untertan war, eine wichtige lokale Stadt entweder von Karkamiš oder von der zentralen Region erobern konnte. Somit bleibt die erste Möglichkeit, ein Großkönig aus Karkamiš, was übrigens den karkamišischen Namen des Herrschers einfacher erklärt als die Annahme einer Heirat, für die kein Beweis zur Verfügung steht. Was den Archaismus der Inschrift betrifft, geschieht die Einstufung von Hawkins als „archaisch“ anhand der folgenden fünf Eigenschaften (Hawkins 1988: 105, 1998: 6944): (1) die zweideutigen Zeichen i(a) und zi/a wurden nicht unterschieden; (2) die Satzkonnektiven sind oft weggelassen; (3) die Verben erscheinen oft logographisch, ohne Endungen; (4) viele Zeichenformen sind archaisch (für ihre Liste s. Hawkins 1998: 6944); (5) einige Zeichen erscheinen im 1. Jt. nicht mehr. Mora 1992: 388–389 hat schon versucht, diese Eigenschaften anders zu erklären (gefolgt von Jasink 1994: 80–81, 1995: 19 mit Anm. 18, aus historischen Gründen scheint ihr diese Lösung wahrscheinlicher). Sie verweist darauf, dass, trotz der Auffassung von Hawkins, komplexe Veränderungen innerhalb kurzer Zeit tatsächlich möglich waren, vgl. z. B. die langen, detaillierten Inschriften von Tudhaliya IV. nach den kurzen Angaben von Hattušili III., Muwattalli II. oder Talmi-Šarruma von Aleppo (vgl. Yakubovich 2008: 13). Zum Punkt (1) erwähnt sie, dass man zi/a in KARAHÖYÜK immer als zi lesen soll, man kann also nicht entscheiden, ob der Schreiber das Zeichen za kannte oder nicht—leider das ist nicht der Fall bei i(a), deshalb muss Mora keineswegs überzeugend annehmen, dass diese Zeichen nicht zur gleichen Zeit eindeutig gemacht worden sind. Zuletzt betont sie, dass das Zeichen L 202 nur hier und in İSPEKÇÜR erscheint. 4 Zusammenfassend kann man sagen, dass die Argumente von Mora die Interpretation von I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS als Großkönig von Karkamiš nach Kuzi-Teššub ermöglichen. Doch diese Archaismen können noch präziser untersucht werden. Die allgemeine Entwicklung der hieroglyphen-luwischen Schrift ist nämlich komplizierter, als Hawkins angenommen hat: neben der neuernden Traditionen (die zentrale Region [ANKARA] und Malatya) gab es eine dritte, lokale Tradition, die Hawkins außer Acht gelassen hat: die von Karkamiš selbst. 5 Obwohl man Inschriften aus Karkamiš zwischen dem Zusammenbruch des hethitischen Reiches und der sog. Archaischen Gruppe (irgendwann zwischen 1100 und 870) nicht kennt (abgesehen der problematischen Fragmente von KARKAMIŠ frag. a/b. und KARKAMIŠ A18d), 4.  Sie erwägt noch, dass die graphischen Unterschiede zu Malatya der unterschiedlichen Kompetenz und Erlebnis, bzw. der unterschiedlichen Herkunftsort und Bildung des Schreibers zuzuschreiben sind, weil die Inschrift von einem Beamten des Großkönigs ergestellt worden ist. Aber gerade deshalb würde man eine Malatya-ähnliche Tradition, zumindest was die Herkunftsort und die Bildung betrifft, erwarten. Zwar sind unterschiedliche Kompetenz und Erlebnis a priori nicht auszuschließen, sollte man zuerst die Existenz solcher Unterschiede beweisen. 5.  Man kann über die Schrifttradition der nach dem Zusammenbruch neu entstandenen Entitäten von Hiyawa und W/Pala/istin(i) derzeit nichts sagen: Aus Hiyawa kennt man Inschriften aus dieser Zeit nicht. Aus W/Pala/istin(i) [= die Regionen von Amuq und Aleppo] sind die Inschriften einerseits nur teilweise veröffentlicht, andererseits ist ihre Chronologie höchst problematisch, die hier nicht behandelt werden kann (für eine detaillierte Diskussion s. Simon demnächst). Sie hatten aber jedenfalls keine Großkönige.

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zeigt noch die früheste Inschrift (KARKAMIŠ A4b) der Archaischen Gruppe, die zumindest mit zwei Generationen später als 1100 entstanden ist (es ist eine Gedenkinschrift der Taten von Großkönig Ura-Tarhunzas, Sohn von Großkönig Sapazitis), zwei aus diesen fünf Eigenschaften (logographisch geschriebene Verben, bzw. teilweise fehlende Satzkonnektiven). Sogar die Inschrift KARKAMIŠ A14b von Astuwalamanzas, Sohn von Suhis I. aus der gleichen (oder nächsten) Generation zeigt immer noch archaische Zeichenformen, bzw. echte Ligaturen i+a, bzw. zi+a statt ia, bzw. za. Hier muss man erwähnen, dass auch die Inschriften von Malatya zu dieser Übergangsphase gehören, weil zi+a Ligaturen auch in KÖTÜKALE und İSPEKÇÜR erscheinen. Mit anderen Worten entwickelte sich die hieroglyphenluwische Schrift in Karkamiš viel langsamer als in Malatya. Dementsprechend kann man die Inschrift aus KARAHÖYÜK als eine frühe Inschrift der KarkamišTradition einstufen. Es passt vollkommen zu den politischen Ereignissen, weil die Archaische Gruppe schon den Untergang des Großkönigtums in Karkamiš bezeugt. Giusfredi 2010: 41–42 erwägt drei Möglichkeiten für die Identifizierung des Großkönigs. Erstens, dass Armananis der Inschrift gleich mit dem Prinzen Armananis, der aus einem Brief, bzw. aus mehreren Siegeln aus Emar und Boğazköy, bzw. einem hethitischen Orakeltext bekannt ist (für die Belege und Diskussion über seine Identität s. Mora 2004: 433–34, 2010: 173 (mit Lit.); vgl. noch Imparati 1987: 195, Beyer 2001: 107). 6 Daraus würde eine Gleichsetzung von I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS mit Ini-Teššub, dem hethitischen Unterkönig von Karkamiš folgen, jedoch mit einem Schreibfehler des Schreibers. Da die Paläographie der Inschrift seines Erachtens lieber auf die 12–11. Jh. statt des 13. Jh. hinweist, hält er selbst diesen Vorschlag für „possible, although very unlikely“. 7 Abgesehen vom Problem des Duktus und von der methodologisch problematischen Annahme eines Schreibfehlers, wurde die Stele in situ in der ersten nachhethitischen Schicht in Karahöyük gefunden (Özgüç—Özgüç 1949: 69–72). Sogar, dieser Ini-Teššub den Rang eines Großkönigs nie erreicht hat (vgl. Hawkins 1988: 104). 8 Die andere Möglichkeit wäre eine Identifizierung mit Ini-Teššub, König von Hatti (d.h. Karkamiš) um 1100, der Tiglat-pileser I. Tribut brachte (A.0.87.4: 28–30 ~ A.0.87.10: 33–35, Grayson 1991: 42, 53). Laut Giusfredi steht einer solchen Identifizierung die Tatsache gegenüber, dass es aus geographischen Gründen wahrscheinlicher ist, dass Elbistan zu Malatya gehörte, aber Malatya ist zu jener Zeit schon unabhängig, weil der gleiche Tiglat-pileser I. einen König von Malatya namens Allumaru(/i) erwähnt (A.0.87.4: 31, Grayson 1991: 43). Daraus folgt aber noch nichts, weil den assyrischen Königen die komplizierten luwischen Machtverhältnisse nicht immer bewusst waren: sie nennen sowohl die Großkönige von Tabal als auch die kleineren Könige einfach als König. D. h., wenn Tiglat-pileser I. einen König in Malatya und einen anderen in Karkamiš nennt, können beide voneinan6.  Damit hat der Einwand von Hawkins (1988: 10536: „formation unparalleled“) seine Gültigkeit verloren. 7. Die identische Schreibform des Namens (LUNA.FRATER2), was Giusfredi betont (2010: 42), beweist die Identität der verschiedenen Armananis noch nicht, weil es eine reine orthographische Frage ist. 8.  Die Unterkönige von Karkamiš nennen sich immer nur als Könige und werden nie als Großkönige genannt. Der wahrscheinlich auf die Könige von Hatti und Karkamiš bezogene Ausdruck „große Könige“ in RS 18.06 + 17.635 Z. 21’ (Nougayrol 1956: 137–138)—aus dessen Zeile sonst nichts erhalten ist—beweist einen großköniglichen Rang noch nicht (trotz Haas 1994: 35, vgl. Klengel 1965: 83 mit Anm. 138, 86).

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der unabhängig sein, aber Malatya kann auch von Karkamiš abhängig sein. Somit bleibt hier nur die unüberzeugende Annahme eines Schreibfehlers als einziger Einwand. Die dritte Möglichkeit ist natürlich ein sonst unbekannter Großkönig IrTeššup im 12. Jh. 9

2.  Ein Vorschlag Für die Datierung der KARAHÖYÜK-Inschrift stehen verschiedene Mittel zur Verfügung. Die archäologische Datierung (in situ in der ersten nachhethitischen Schicht in Karahöyük, Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: 69–72) beschränkt das mögliche Zeitalter auf die nachhethitische Zeit. Was die jüngere zeitliche Grenze betrifft (wobei die archäologische Datierung leider nicht eng genug ist, Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: 82–83): falls die Inschrift aus der Überlieferung von Malatya stammt, gehört dann in die Generation nach KuziTeššub; falls aus der von Karkamiš, ist sie dann früher als die sog. Archaische Gruppe, d.h. älter als das 11. Jh. (wie oben gesagt, scheint eine Herkunft aus der zentralen Region paläographisch gesehen nicht wahrscheinlich zu sein). Für weitere Präzisierung kann man den Inhalt zu Hilfe nehmen. Da es Großkönige zu jener Zeit nur in Karkamiš und wahrscheinlich in der zentralen Region gab, muss der Großkönig dieser Inschrift diesen Dynastien angehören. Hier gewinnt die oben in Detail diskutierte Beobachtung eine Bedeutung, dass Elbistan / POCULUM.PES.*67 wahrscheinlich auch zu jener Zeit zu Malatya gehörte und der Großkönig der Herr dieser Region war, d. h., der Großkönig der KARAHÖYÜK-Inschrift kann nur mit einem Großkönig von Karkamiš identisch sein. Fasst man diese Angaben zusammen, kann man festhalten, dass I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS ein Großkönig von Karkamiš nach Kuzi-Teššub (um 1175) und vor der sog. Archaischen Gruppe (frühestens um 1050) war. Dies wird auch dadurch unterstützt, dass unter den späthethitischen Herrschern nur die von Karkamiš Teššub-Namen (bzw. Tarhunta-Namen) als Thronnamen benutzt haben (Simon 2009: 26431). Leider kennt man nur einen einzigen Herrscher aus dieser Periode, und zwar den um 1100 dem Tiglat-Pileser I. Tribut bringenden Ini-Teššub, neben dem es noch genug Zeit gibt, noch weitere Herrscher für die vermutliche Periode der KARAHÖYÜKInschrift anzunehmen. Mit anderen Worten, hängt alles andere von der Lesung des Namens I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS ab: (1) Folgt man die Lesung von Hawkins, Ir-Teššub (so auch Masson 1979: 233– 34, vgl. Nowicki 1981: 254, Jasink 1995: 18 [Ir(i)-Teššub]; Giusfredi 2010: 41–42), muss man dann einen Großkönig Ir-Teššub von Karkamiš, wegen der archaischen Gestaltung vermutlich noch vor Ini-Teššub annehmen. (2) Eine hurritische Lesung des Namens ist aber nicht zwingend. Das Argument von Hawkins (1988: 10538, mit Lit.), „if we can confidently accept Ir-Tešub as a commonly occurring name (. . .) the Hurrian reading of the KARAHÖYÜK Great 9.  Millard 1970: 171–72 (einem mündlichen Vorschlag von K. A. Kitchen folgend) hat ihn wegen der zu jener Zeit üblichen Lesung des anlautenden hieroglypen-luwischen Zeichens mit Ariteššup, König von Subartu identifiziert und vor Ini-Teššub aber nach dem Zerfall des hethitischen Reich in das 12. Jh. datiert. Obwohl diese Lesung seit langem als veraltet gilt, wird es (zusammen mit der Datierung von Millard) von Woudhuizen 2002: 212–13 widerhallt, der noch hinzufügt, dass lokale Könige nur während der Periode der Schwäche der assyrischen Könige den Rang eines Großkönigs erreichen konnten. Das ist natürlich nicht der Fall, weil die Großkönige in Karkamiš diesen Rang von Kuzi-Teššub ererbt hatten, was nichts mit der Situation in Assyrien zu tun hat.

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King’s name may be preferred to the Luwian“ ist stichhaltig, so lange man diese Hieroglyphen mit einem echt luwischen Namen nicht gleichsetzen kann. Doch erlauben die Zeichen I(a)+ra/i auch eine Lesung Yarri-Tarhunzas, d.h. einen komponierten Namen aus zwei bekannten luwischen Götternamen, welche Bildung gut belegt ist (Nowicki 1981: 254, s. z. B. Arma-Tarhunta), diese wurde schon von Hawkins selbst (1974: 78, 1998: 68) überlegt (Yarra/Yari-Tarhundas), bzw. von Nowicki 1981: 254 (Yarri-Tarhunt/zas) und Jasink 1994: 80 (Yara-Tarhunzas) vorgeschlagen. 10 Ob auch die Lesung Tarhunzas in Karkamiš möglich war, zeigt der Name von gerade zu dieser Dynastie gehörendem Großkönig Ura-Tarhunzas (geschrieben MAGNUS+ra/i-TONITRUS, aber mit den phonetischen Komplementen tá, bzw. ta in KARKAMIŠ A11b+c §4, §30) aus der Archaischen Gruppe. Wählt man diese Lesung, muss man dann einen Großkönig Yarri-Tarhunzas von Karkamiš, wegen der archaischen Gestaltung vermutlich noch vor Ini-Teššub annehmen. 3) Es gibt jedoch eine dritte Möglichkeit, der von Tiglat-pileser I. erwähnte Ini-Teššub selbst. Die Erklärung für den Unterschied zwischen Ini-Teššub und IriTeššub ist aber nicht der von Giusfredi vorgeschlagene Schreibfehler, sondern der sog. n-Rhotazismus. Selten, aber bekanntlich wandelt sich ein /n/ in das sog. „flap r“ in intervokalischer Position, gleich wie das /d/ und /l/, s. SULTANHAN §36 maruha ‘’ aus manuha; AKSARAY §5 ta+ra/i-ma-za /tanimants/ ‘alle’ (Melchert 2003: 180). Ini-Teššub wäre dann die offizielle, Iri-Teššub die gesprochene, bzw. umgangssprachliche Form (obwohl die assyrischen Quellen normalerweise die gesprochene Form widerspiegeln, ist es nicht überraschend, wenn die Assyrer sich während den diplomatischen Kontakten einer offiziellen Aussprache begegnet sind). Obwohl nur diese späten und tabalischen Beweise für den n-Rhotazismus zur Verfügung stehen, muss man darauf betont hinweisen, dass der Rhotazismus als solcher in dem hieroglyphischen Schrifttum seit Hartapu (tupi+ra/i [tubiri] ‘er soll zerschlagen’ oder [tubira] ‘er hat zerschlagen’ BURUNKAYA §3? (aus /d/, Hawkins 2000: 438, Melchert 2003: 172); vgl. noch á-sa-tu-wa/i+ra/ima-za- ‘PN’ MARAŞ 8 §1 (aus /l/, 1000–950, Hawkins 2000: 253); in dem keilschriftlichen seit dem mittleren Duktus (ungefähr 15. Jh., tiwariya ‘Epitheton der Pflanze des Sonnengottes’, KBo 39.8 IV 17 [CTH 404.1], aus /d/ oder /l/) erscheint (für die neueste chronologische Untersuchung s. Goedegebuure 2010: 76–78). Eine Entscheidung zwischen diesen drei Möglichkeiten zu treffen ist wirklich schwer, da alle die oben genannten Kriterien erfüllen (wie gesagt, die Erwähnung von König Allumaru(/i) von Malatya bedeutet noch nicht die Unabhängigkeit von Malatya von Karkamiš). Doch spricht noch ein Umstand für die Gleichsetzung von I(a)+ra/i-TONITRUS mit Ini-Teššub: das allgemeine methodologische Prinzip entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, bzw. dass es vorteilhafter zu sein scheint, eine Inschrift zu einem schon belegten König zu binden, statt einem herausgefundenen, bis auf den Fall, wenn man darauf gezwungen ist. Es gibt jetzt aber keine solchen zwingenden Umstände. Es handelt sich also m. E. im Fall der KARAHÖYÜK-Inschrift um eine Inschrift des Königs Ini-Teššub von Karkamiš, der auch von dem assyrischen König Tiglatpileser I. erwähnt wurde und der zu seiner Zeit noch sowohl über Karkamiš, als auch über Malatya herrschte. 10.  Die von Strobel 2010: 51 benutzte Form Ira-Tarhunta ist nicht wahrscheinlich, weil dann der Vorderglied Luwisch uninterpretierbar ist.

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3.  Exkurs zu Durnford 2010 über die ANKARA-Silberschale Der Aufsatz von Durnford 2010 schlägt eine neue Übersetzung und Datierung der Inschrift auf der ANKARA-Silberschale. Seine Übersetzung lautet wie folgt (Durnford 2010: 68, vgl. 55 [Table 1]): „A-sa-ma-(i)a the Hittite forged this bowl for himself during the reign of king Ma-zi/a-Karhuha. He made it in the year that Tudhaliya labarna smote the land of Tara/i-wa/i-zi/a“. Diese Übersetzung ist aus mehreren Gründen problematisch. Zuerst der Sitz im Leben: es ist unwahrscheinlich, dass ein spätbronzezeitlicher Schmied eine Silberschale nur für sich macht, obwohl man das Pronomen der Inschrift (-ti) statt „for himself “ auch als „selbst“ übersetzen kann, was dieses Problem lösen würde. Es löst aber die andere Frage nicht, dass es nicht besonders wahrscheinlich ist, dass die ganze Inschrift sich nur um die Tätigkeit eines einfachen Schmiedes handelt (statt einer Votiv- oder Besitzerinschrift, oder der Beschreibung eines festlichen Anlasses). Was die philologische Seite betrifft, hängt die ganze Übersetzung von der Interpretation des Verbs *273 i(a)-sa5-zi/a-tá und der Postposition PRAE-na ab. Seine Übersetzung für PRAE-na („during“) beruht ausschließlich auf dem hethitischen Gebrauch des etymologisch verwandten Wortes, da dieses Gebrauch in der luwischen Sprache bisher unbekannt ist (Durnford 2010: 61): d. h. man kann die Durnfordsche Übersetzung weder ausschließen—noch beweisen. Seine neue Übersetzung hat aber eine wichtige Rolle, weil die traditionale Übersetzung mit seiner neuen Übersetzung des Verbs zu einer nicht besonders sinnvollen Bedeutung führt („forged in front of king Mazi-Karhuha“). Durnford (der den sehr ähnlichen Vorschlag von Carruba 2008: 1432 [„„incidere, scolpire“, o „battere, sbalzare“ detto di metalli (to emboss)“] nicht erwähnt) schlägt diese neue Bedeutung des Verbs ausschließlich anhand des Determinativs *273 vor, und zwar wegen seiner Eigenschaft, dass es auch vor tupi- ‘schlagen’, warpa/ī‘Kenntnis, Fähigkeit’, huta(i)li- ‘’, muwa- ‘erobern’ (Hawkins 2005: 196) erscheint und auf seiner Form, die er mit einem modernen (!), von Gold- und Silberschmieden benutzten speziellen Amboss gleichgesetzt (Durnford 2010: 56 [Table 2], 60–61 [mit Fig. 5]). Die bei feinen Juwelierarbeiten verwendeten hethiterzeitlichen Handambosse, „Prelleisen“ sehen aber vollkommen anders aus (vgl. Müller-Karpe 1994: 159 mit Taf. 64: 6–10). Also weder ein moderner Amboss, noch diese Wörter, aus denen ‘Kenntnis, Fähigkeit’ und ‘erobern’ kaum mit dem Begriff des Schmiedens zu vereinbaren sind, stützen eine solche Übersetzung, die auch sowohl von dem Sitz im Leben, als auch von der Postposition PRAE-na widerlegt wird. Was die Datierung betrifft, wenn ich die Argumente und den Vorschlag (vgl. bes. Durnford 2010: 68–69) recht verstanden habe, 11 würde die ANKARA Silberschale einen ererbten Objekt darstellen, wo die Inschrift in der späthethitischen Zeit in oder um Karkamiš zustande gekommen ist, deren Inhalt auf die Kampagne von Tudhaliya I/II. gegen Āššuwa (und darunter Tarwiša) hinweist. Diese Datierung des Inhalts wurde in Simon 2009: 250–59 ausführlich diskutiert und widerlegt (vgl. 11.  Das Verständnis dieses Aufsatzes wird durch viele Banalitäten (wie z. B. eine Einführung in die Regeln der Umschrift der Keilschrift und der anatolischen Hieroglyphen [54]; die Regeln der akkadographischen Schrift im Hethitischen [61]); unnötige, aber lange Exkurse (über die Geschichte von Wiluša [62–63], über die Hurriter [66], über das Runenkästchen von Auzon [67–68]); naive und der Fachliteratur entbehrende Vorstellungen (über das Record Management im hethitischen Reich [63–64], über die Rolle von Troia [65]); sowie oft nebelhafte Formulierungen der Argumente, Spekulationen und Selbstwidersprüche erschwert.

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bes. die sechs Argumente gegen Tudhaliya I/II., Simon 2009: 258), hiermit möchte ich nur darauf (wieder) betont hinweisen, dass die Identifizierung von Tara/i-wa/izi/a mit Tarwiša, auf dem Durnfords Hypothese beruht, phonologisch unmöglich ist (für Details s. Simon 2009: 251). 12 Seine Erklärung (2010: 65)—vermutliche zeitliche, geographische und mundartliche Unterschiede—ist vollkommen ad hoc und lässt die Ergebnisse der luwischen Mundartenforschung außer Acht (die bisher keinen intervokalischen š/z-Wandel zeigt, trotz Carruba 2008: 1443). 12.  Seine Feststellung, dass „a king Ma-zi/a-Karhuha is difficult to fit in alongside any post-Empire Tudhaliya“ (Durnford 2010: 62) beruht auf der Annahme, dass Ma-zi/a-Karhuha aus Karkamiš sein sollte, weil die Gottheit Karhuhas nur in Karkamiš bekannt war und das Zeichen kar ebenfalls auf Karkamiš beschränkt ist (Durnford 2010: 56 [Table 2], 59). Diese Annahme ist aber falsch, für Karhuhas in Masuwari s. TELL AHMAR 6 §2 (Hawkins 2006: 12. 19, dieser Aufsatz wird übrigens auch von Durnford zitiert) und für kar aus Malatya s. GÜRÜN §1b (Hawkins 2000: 296). Vermutlich aus Zeitgründen konnte Durnford Simon 2009 nicht mehr in Betracht ziehen, s. dort 254 für diese Fragen.

Literatur Beyer, Dominique 2001 Emar IV. Les sceaux. Mission archéologiques de Meskéné-Emar. Recherches au pays d’Aštata. OBO Series Archaeologica 20. Fribourg: Universitaires Fribourg / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Bryce, Trevor 2007 The Secession of Tarhuntašša. S. 119–29 in Tabularia Hethaeorum: Hethitologische Beiträge Silvin Košak zum 65. Geburtstag, Hg. Detlev Groddek und Marina Zorman. DBH 25. Wiesbaden. Carruba, Onofrio 2008 Annali del Medio Regno eteo. StMed 18. Series Hethaea 5. Pavia: Italian University Press. Durnford, S. P. B. 2010 How old was the Ankara Silver Bowl when its inscriptions were added? AnSt 60: 51–70. Freu, Jacques 2005 Des Grands Rois de Tarhuntašša aux Grands Rois de Tabal. RANT 2: 399–418. Gander, Max 2010 Die geographischen Beziehungen der Lukka-Länder. THeth 27. Heidelberg: Winter Giusfredi, Federico 2010 Sources for a Socio-Economic History of the Neo-Hittite States. THeth 28. Heidelberg: Winter Goedegebuure, Petra M. 2010 The Luwian Demonstratives of Place and Manner, in Singer 2010: 76–94. Grayson, A. Kirk 1991 Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium bc I. (1114–859 bc). RIMA 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Güterbock, Hans-Gustav 1949 Die Stele mit hethitischer Hieroglyphenschrift, in Özgüç and Özgüç 1949: 102–3. Haas, Volkert 1994 Geschichte der hethitischen Religion. HdO 15. Leiden: Brill. Hawkins, J. David 1974 Assyrians and Hittites. Iraq 36: 67–83. 1988 Kuzi-Tešub and the „Great Kings“ of Karkamiš. AnSt 38: 99–108. 1993 The Historical Significance of the Karahöyük (Elbistan) Stele. S. 273–79 in Aspects of Art and Iconography. Anatolia and its Neighbors. Studies in Honor of Nimet Özgüç. Nimet Özgüç’e Armağan, Hg. Machteld J. Mellink, Edith Porada und Tahsin Özgüç. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.

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A Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription on a Silver Bowl in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara. Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi 1996 Yıllığı: 7–24. 1998 Hittites and Assyrians at Melid (Malatya). S. 63–77 in XXXIV ème Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. XXXIV. Uluslararası Assiriyoloji Kongresi. XXXIV. International Assyriology Congress. 6–10/VII/1987—İstanbul. Kongreye sunulan bildiriler, Hg. Hayat Erkanal, Veysel Donbaz und Ayşegül Uğuroğlu. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu. 2000 Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions I: Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 2005 A Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription on a Silver Bowl. Studia Troica 15: 193–204. 2006 The Inscription. S. 11–31 in Guy Bunnens, A New Luwian Stele and the Cult of the Storm-God at Til Barsib—Masuwari. Louvain: Peeters. Imparati, Fiorella 1987 La politique exterieure des Hittites: tendances et problemes. Hethitica 8: 187–207 (=  Acta Anatolica E. Laroche oblata. Colloque anatolien, Paris, 1–5 juillet 1985, Hg. René Lebrun). Jasink, Anna M. 1994 Il Medio Eufrate: continuità e innovazioni tra il secondo e il primo millennio A.C. Mesopotamia 29: 73–88. 1995 Gli stati neo-ittiti. Analisi delle fonti scritte e sintesi storica. StMed 10. Pavia: Iuculano 2001 Šuppiluliuma and Hartapu: two „Great Kings“ in Conflict? S. 235–40 in Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie, Würzburg, 4.–s8. Oktober 1999. StBoT 45. Hg. Gernot Wilhelm. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Klengel, Horst 1965 Geschichte Syriens im 2. Jahrtausend v. u. Z. I. Nordsyrien. Berlin: Akademie. Masson, Emilia 1979 La stèle de Karahöyük—Elbistan: un nouvel examen. S. 225–41 in Florilegium anatolicum. Mélanges offerts à Emmanuel Laroche. Paris: De Boccard Melchert, H. Craig 2003 Language. S. 170–210 in The Luwians. HdO 68. Hg.C. H. Melchert Leiden: Brill. Millard, A. R. 1970 Fragments of Historical Texts from Nineveh: Middle Assyrian and Later Kings. Iraq 32: 167–76. Mora, Clelia 1992 Regarding Some Inscriptions of Post-Hittite Kings and „Great Kings“. S. 385–90 in Hittite and Other Anatolian and Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Sedat Alp. Sedat Alp’a armağan. Festschrift für Sedat Alp, Hg. Heinrich Otten et al. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 2004 Sigilli e sigillature di Karkemiš in età imperiale ittita I. I re, I dignitari, il (mio) Sole. Or 73: 427–50. 2010 Seals and sealings of Karkamiš, Part III. The Evidence from the Nişantepe-Archives, the Digraphic Seals and the Title EUNUCHUS2, in Singer 2010: 170–81. Müller-Karpe, Andreas 1994 Altanatolisches Metallhandwerk. Neumünster: Wachholtz Nougayrol, Jean 1956 Le Palais Royal D’Ugarit IV. Textes accadiens des archives sud (archives internatio­ nales). Mission de Ras Shamra IX. Paris: Klincksieck Nowicki, Helmut 1981 Bemerkungen zur hier.-luw. Inschrift von Karahöyük-Elbistan. ZVS 95: 251–73. Özgüç, Tahsin, und Özgüç, Nimet 1949 Türk Tarih Kurumu Tarafından Yapılan Karahöyük Hafriyatı Raporu 1947. Ausgrabungen in Karahöyük. Bericht über die im Auftrag der Türkischen Geschichtskommission im 1947 durchgeführten Ausgrabungen. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Simon, Zsolt 2009 Die ANKARA-Silberschale und das Ende des hethitischen Reiches. ZA 99: 247–69.

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Hethitische Topoi in der hieroglyphen-luwischen Historiographie. Bemerkungen zur Frage der Kontinuität, in Hethitische Literatur: Überlieferungsprozesse, Textstruk­ turen, Ausdrucksformen und Nachwirken. Akten des Symposiums vom 18. bis 20. Februar 2010 in Bonn. AOAT 391.Hg. Manfred Hutter Sylvia Hutter-Braunsar. Münster: Ugarit demnächst  Remarks on the Anatolian background of the Tel Rehov bees and the historical geography of the Luwian states in the 10th c. bc, in Economic History and Economic Theory in the Ancient Near East. Papers Dedicated to the Memory of Péter Vargyas. ANEMS 2. Hg. Zoltán Csabai, Tibor Grüll und Gábor Kalla. Pécs: Department of Ancient History, University of Pécs / L’Harmattan. Singer, Itamar 1996 Great Kings of Tarhuntašša. SMEA 38: 63–71. Singer, Itamar (ed.) 2010 ipamati kistamati pari tumatimis. Luwian and Hittite Studies Presented to J. David Hawkins on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. Tel Aviv: Insitute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. Strobel, Karl 2008 Neues zur Geographie und Geschichte des alten Anatolien. Eine Einführung mit einem Beitrag zur hethitischen Geographie des westlichen Anatolien. S. 9–61 in New Perspectives on the Historical Geography and Topography of Anatolia in the II and I Millennium b.c. Eothen 16. Hg. id. Firenze: LoGisma. 2010 Altphrygische Religion und Königsideologie—Eine weitere Brücke zur hethitischen Großreichszeit? CollAnat 9: 29–85. Woudhuizen, F. C. 2002 The Luwian Hieroglyphic Inscription on the Stele from Karahöyük-Elbistan. AWE 2: 211–24. Yakubovich, Ilya 2008 Hittite-Luvian Bilingualism and the Development of Anatolian Hieroglyphs. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana 4: 9–36.

Identification of an Unfinished Statue Found in a Quarry at Karakiz, Yozgat, Turkey İlknur Taş, Ömer Yılmaz, and Özlem Sir Gavaz

H i t i t Ü n i v e r s i t e s i , Y o z g at M u s e u m , H i t i t Ü n i v e r s i t e s i Over the centuries in Anatolia, Turkey, the skill of stone masonry has been passed from generation to generation so that it has almost become a part of the inhabitants’ nature. The best example of the stone mason’s skill can be seen in the artifacts of Hittite stone architecture that, in addition to those found at Hattuša, the capital of the Hittite Empire, can be found across Anatolia. Threshold stone door arches can be found in several Hittite sites: Alacahöyük, Ortaköy-Šapinuwa, Maşathöyük, Kuşaklı-Šarišša, and Boğazköy-Hattuša (Seeher 2009: 120). Chipped stone blocks first appear in Anatolian architecture during the second millennium b.c. At Kültepe (Kanesh), the earliest examples are exposed in levels I and II, approximately 2000/1950–1700 b.c. (Seeher 2009: 120). These can be dated to the Assyrian Trade Colonies Age. These colossal sculpted stone blocks were used in Hittite sanctuaries, city gates, and some buildings. While many quarries were used during the Hittite Period, only some have been located as of yet. One site is the Çıradere quarry, located 5 km from Hattuša, where gabbro-blocks used in various sanctuaries in Boğazköy-Hattuša were quarried (Neve 1995–96: 55). The site of Kalınkaya quarry is located several kilometers northeast of Alacahöyük, where andesite blocks used in the Sphinx Gate of Alacahöyük were quarried (Arık 1937: 21–23). The basalt and andesite stone blocks used in the sacred rock monument of Eflatunpınar were taken from a quarry located 5.5 km from Eflatunpınar (Bachmann and Özenir 2004: 94; Kohlmeyer 1983: 34). Furthermore, the stone blocks used in the Hittite walls in Gavurkalesi were transported from a quarry 5 km from this site (Lumsden 2001: 115; Kühne 2001). This quarry, which is the focus of this study, contains volcanic-origin granite rock blocks that shape the hills and outcrops in the vicinity of the town of Karakız and Hapis Boğazı (fig. 1). Here it is possible to find a large amount of evidence related to ancient stonework on the granite rock blocks exposed at ground level. The town of Karakız is located to the north of Central Anatolia, within the provincial borders of Yozgat province. The slope to south of the town opens to a flat plain; the settlement is located in the east in an area between rock masses to north and northeast and Sivrikaya hill, which is the highest in the region. Hapis Boğazı is a narrow, deep valley lying to the north of Karakız, through which runs a small tributary of the Çekerek river. The total area over which traces of ancient stone working and quarrying can be seen measures approximately 2.5 km from the northeast to the southwest and more than 1 km in the other direction. 833

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İ lknur T aş , Ö mer Y ılmaz ,

and

Ö zlem S ir G avaz

Fig. 1.

Summers and Summers carried out intensive research in the Karakız area from 2001 to 2002 and created a photographic record of the area. 1 According to the results of the research carried out by the Summerses, the remains of a rather large settlement dating to the early Middle Byzantine Age straddle both sides of the road extending from Karakız to Çatal Çeşme. 2 On the other hand, the pottery that they collected from a single mound in the area cover an era from the Late Chalcolithic Age to the Early Bronze II and Iron Ages. A pithos grave dating to the Early Bronze Age can be seen opposite the mound, on the eastern side of the road (Summers and Özen 2011: 2). It is possible to trace the abundant examples of finished and unfinished stonework, some hidden beneath algae, and even the evidence of statue workshop activities that were carried out in Karakız and Hapis Boğazı. The colossal stone blocks are remarkable, with the most distinct examples being lion pedestals (figs. 2–3), a drum (fig. 4), and a fragment resembling an architectural frieze (fig. 5). Another interesting artifact is an architectural fragment that was more than half buried in the ground (fig. 6). A salvage excavation was carried out by the archaeologist, Ömer Yılmaz from Yozgat Museum and under the scientific leadership of the İ. 3 The arti1.  The article written by Geoffrey D. Summers and Erol Özen regarding this reconnaissance and the Stone and Statue Quarry dating to the Hittite Period in Karakız Town and Hapis Boğazı is in press. We would like to extend our thanks to Geoffrey G. Summers for sharing his unpublished article and information. We would also like to thank both Geoffrey and Françoise Summers for the hospitality they showed us in Kerkenes when we visited them during the excavation. 2.  There are springs called Çatal Çeşme 2.5 km northeast of Karakız town, at the junction of Hapis Boğazı, where the Sengen river flows into Söğütlü stream. 3.  We owe thanks to Hasan Kerim Şenyurt, the Yozgat Museum Director; Durmuş Yılmaz, the Mayor of Karakız; Şahin Doğan, the Museum Researcher who participated in the excavation team and

Identification of an Unfinished Statue

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

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fact was found in an illicit excavation pit approximately 1 m deep and 4 m wide on the northern side of the area being investigated. Before the excavation began, the colossal granite statue artifact was lying in a north–south orientation in a pit and it had been disturbed by dynamite that had been exploded on its upper side (fig. 7). During preliminary work, it was observed that the artifact in question was in 5 large fragments. Two small fragments were removed; however, the Fig. 6. other three fragments were left in their original state, although they had large cracks (fig. 8). As a result of preliminary work, it was decided that a 6 × 4 meter trench would be dug around the artifact. In the first phase, leveling was carried out to 5‑cm depths. In order to find any archaeological remains in sections where there was virgin soil, it was possible to carry out leveling work to depths of 10 cm. The stone fragments exposed after the trench base had been leveled were examined. Measurement was carried out on the standing part of the artifact and the other fragments inside the pit. The diameter of the round part of the artifact that was at the ground level was 2.20 m and the height was 2.5 m. Some stone fragments with no features supported us during the excavation work carried out between 08.07.2009 and 10.07.2009.

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and

Fig. 7.

Fig. 8.

Fig. 9.

Fig. 10.

Ö zlem S ir G avaz

were discovered and taken from the pit during earth-clearing work. Several pottery sherds and fragments (Bohrkernen) (Seeher 2009: 140; Seeher 2005) of a stone that was similar to items found in the Hattuša excavations were collected from the northwest side of the trench at the level of 1.75 m (figs. 9–10). As the trench was further excavated, the shape of the statue was revealed as being round, with the top being round and flat forming a circle; moving downward, the shape is still round and in the mesial, a rounded leveled constriction is followed by a flat section. There is a bulge in the shape of a handle 30 cm wide and at a height of 40 cm starting from 10 cm below the round part in the southeast corner of the statue. The place where another identical bulge is located on the opposite side has been damaged by a dynamite explosion. The excavation was carried out to a level of 1.9 m in the illicit excavation pit on the northern side of the trench, 1.75 m on the west side, and an average of 1.50 m on the eastern side. On the southern side, the excavation was no deeper than 1 meter in order to prevent the colossal statue from falling over and disrupting the fragments. Earth-clearing work was carried out on a large scale after the artifact was exposed at this level. The height of the artifact, measured from its north point is 2.9 m (fig. 11). The round statue that was exposed as a result of the excavation is in the second stage of workmanship; after being cut from the basalt rock and shaped as a coarse cylinder (first stage), the first work on the three main parts of a human statue had been started on the block: the preliminary preparations had been made for the head,

Identification of an Unfinished Statue

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Fig. 12 (right).

Fig. 11 (left).

arms, and chest in the upper part, for the lower body and legs in the mesial, and the feet in the lower part. The bulges in the form of handles, already mentioned, were probably left on purpose. The assumption is that the stone was shaped this way in consideration of the transportation of this large, heavy piece. In order to prevent the artifact from moving out of control during transport, therefore, the finishing on parts of the statue was not completed and thus it is not fully round. Parallels to these round statues with unfinished workmanship can be seen in Yesemek Quarry, Zincirli (ninth century b.c.), Gerçin (ninth century b.c.), and Karatepe (eighth century b.c.) (Alkım 1974: 42). More than 32 relief statues have been exposed in Yesemek Quarry (fig. 12) (Alkım 1974: 42). From the other statue artifacts found at the same site as the colossal statue, it is possible to observe the traces of the hammering of the stone tools. The shaping of stones by hammering or spouting (hitting by a sharp tool) appears to be a method unique to the Hittite Empire period. Evidence indicates that a similar method of working stone was found in the Late Bronze Age level of the Fasıllar settlement located in the lakes region and the Iron Age levels of Yesemek and Zincirli settlements in Islahiye Plain. Accordingly, the methods related to stone quarrying and stonework can be dated to the second millennium b.c. Summers and Özen date the Karakız stone quarry to the Hittite Empire, approximately between 1600 and 1200 b.c. (Summers and Özen 2011: 7). If this quarry does belong to the Hittite period, then the question arises as to which Hittite city this colossus was to be transported. The nearest Hittite settlements in the vicinity of Karakız are Alişar, 23 km to the south, and Kuşaklı Höyük, 28 km to the west. However, when the sizes of the architectural artifacts collected in Karakız and the elaborate work is considered, it could be that these artifacts were prepared to be transported to the capital, Hattuša. However, considering the distance of 68 km between Karakız and Hattuša and the conditions of the period, it is very unlikely that the artifacts were transported to the

838

İ lknur T aş , Ö mer Y ılmaz ,

and

Ö zlem S ir G avaz

capital of the Hittite Empire. Another hypothesis is that there was another large Hittite settlement not far from Karakız. Additional archaeological data from the increase of multidisciplinary work in Yozgat and its vicinity may prove this hypothesis to be correct. The stele of ÇALAPVERDI 3 collected in the vicinity of Çalapverdi associated with Boğazlayan of Yozgat Province may point to an undiscovered large Hittite settlement in the vicinity of Yozgat (Taş and Weeden 2011). However, there is still a lack of concrete evidence as to whether this quarry does actually belong to the Hittite period and, thus, it is necessary to be cautious about the issue of dating. It is hoped that future archaeological exploration of Karakız will yield new information about its quarry and its colossal statue.

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