Flesh and Bones: The Individual and His Body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin (Semitica Et Classica: Supplementa) (Semitica & Classica: Supplementa, 2) 9782503590387, 2503590381

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EMITICA & CLASSICA

Supplementa 2

La collection Semitica & classica Supplementa accueille des monographies et des dossiers thématiques portant sur la Méditerranée et l’Orient ancien, depuis le second millénaire avant l’ère chrétienne jusqu’aux premiers siècles de l’Islam. Couvrant le champ interdisciplinaire de la philologie, de l’épigraphie, de l’archéologie, de la philosophie, de l’histoire et de la linguistique, Semitica & classica Supplementa privilégie les études transversales et les démarches scientifiques novatrices qui tentent de mettre en valeur les rapports et les influences réciproques entre les mondes classiques et orientaux.

Directrice de la collection Cécile DOGNIEZ Comité de rédaction Katell BERTHELOT, Aix-en-Provence Matthieu CASSIN, Paris José COSTA, Paris Cécile DOGNIEZ, Paris Maria GOREA, Paris Renée KOCH-PIETTRE, Paris Francesco MASSA, Fribourg Sébastien MORLET, Paris Alice MOUTON, Paris Christian ROBIN, Paris Hedwige ROUILLARD-BONRAISIN, Paris Jérémie SCHIETTECATTE, Paris Guy STROUMSA, Jérusalem Madalina VÂRTEJANU-JOUBERT, Paris

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EMITICA & CLASSICA

Supplementa 2

FLESH AND BONES The individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin

edited by Alice MOUTON

Cover: Neo-hittite relief at Ivriz (Konya province, Turkey). The body of the Storm-god (left) is represented twice bigger than the king’s body (right). Photograph by Klaus-Peter Simon - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4041383

Model and cover model Luigi FABII and Emmanuelle CAPET Page layout Alice MOUTON

© 2020 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-2-503-59038-7 E-ISBN 978-2-503-59039-4 DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120778 Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper D/2020/0095/212

FOREWORD

This volume gathers the papers presented during an interdisciplinary research seminar entitled “The individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin.” This monthly seminar, which took place between September 2016 and December 2018 at the CNRS building in Ivry-sur-Seine and, at the same time, through a video-conferencing program, hosted 22 presentations in total:1 1. Rune Nyord (Cambridge University), “Conceptions and experiences of the body in Ancient Egypt” *2. Youri Volokhine (Geneva University), “The human face and its relationships with identity in Ancient Egypt” *3. Julie Masquelier Loorius (CNRS UMR 8167), “The postures of the king’s body in Ancient Egyptian religious iconography” *4. Alice Mouton (CNRS UMR 8167), “The involvement of the individual’s body in the ritual and ceremonial process in Hittite Anatolia” *5. Sylvie Vanséveren (Brussels University), “The vocabulary of body parts in Hittite” 6. Mauro Giorgieri (Pavia University), “The body and its parts in Hurrian” *7. Laura Puértolas Rubio (Sorbonne University-UMR 8167), “The body in Hittite witchcraft” *8. Valeria Zubieta Lupo (Mainz University), “The body in the Hittite medical texts” 9. Alice Mouton (CNRS UMR 8167), “The body as a symbol of social belonging in Hittite Anatolia: the example of clothing” 10. Carole Roche-Hawley (CNRS UMR 8167), “The body and its legal implication in second millennium Elam” *11. Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel (Strasburg University), “Human senses in Akkadian texts” 12. Ulrike Steinert (Berlin University), “Concepts of the female body in Mesopotamian medical texts” 13. Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault (EPHE-UMR 8167), “The king’s body in Ancient Mesopotamia, and the literary construction of space and time: history and ideology” 14. Karina Croucher (Bradford University), “Treatment of the dead: a reinterpretation of Neolithic plastered skulls” *15. Luc Renaut (Grenoble University), “Tattooed bodies in Ancient Egypt and Nubia” *16. Stéphanie Anthonioz (Catholic University of Lille-UMR 8167), “The divine face in Biblical texts: religious assets and contexts” *17. Johanna Erzberger (Cardiff University), “When purity rules become literature—cultic purity in the text and behind the text of the Hebrew Bible”

1.

Papers provided by the authors for this volume are marked with an asterisk.

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Foreword

18. Mireille Lee (Vanderbilt University), “Mirroring femininity: the body and the mirror in Ancient Greece” *19. Yannick Muller (Strasburg University), “Mutilating the body in Ancient Greece: perception, vocabulary and practices” 20. Véronique Dasen (Fribourg University), “Roman discourse on magical stones: vulnerability and strength of the feminine body” 21. Robert Hawley (EPHE-UMR 8167), “Corporeal fear and corporeal delight: body-based metaphors for expressing emotion in Ugaritic song” 22. Christian Laes (Manchester and Antwerpen Universities), “Writing the history of fatness and thinness in Graeco–Roman Antiquity.”2 This seminar and its publication benefitted from the financial support of the following institutions: Labex RESMED, UMR 8167, the “Mondes sémitiques” team of UMR 8167, École Doctorale 1 of Sorbonne Université, and the Conseil Général du Val-de-Marne. I am grateful to all the contributors and regular attendants at this seminar, who committed themselves in the discussions and thus contributed greatly to this enterprise. My thanks also go to Ruadhan Hayes, whose scrutiny and friendly professionalism were of great help for preparing this publication. I am also grateful towards the whole team of Semitica et Classica Supplementa, especially towards Cécile Dogniez, Maria Gorea and Emmanuelle Capet for their thorough proofreading and their kind support. Alice Mouton Ivry-sur-Seine October 2019

2.

Since this paper had already been published, this author offered another text related to the body for this volume.

ABBREVIATIONS

Akk. Arm. Av. BD CHD CLuw Coffin Texts CTH DB DELG DELL Dendara VI Edfou I EDG EDHIL EDL EDPC EDSIL EWAI Fr. GED Germ. Goth. Gr. Grundriss HED HEG Hitt.

Akkadian Armenian Avestan Book of Dead = NAVILLE E., Das Aegyptische Todtenbuch der XVIII. bis XX. Dynastie aus verschiedenen Urkunden zusammengestellt, Berlin, Verlag von A. Asher, 1886. GÜTERBOCK H. G. et al. (eds), The Hittite dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1989–. Cuneiform Luwian DE BUCK A., The Egyptian coffin texts I-VII, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1935–1961. LAROCHE E., Catalogue des textes hittites, Paris, Klincksieck, 1971. Inscription of Darius I at Bisutun CHANTRAINE P., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, Paris, Klincksieck, 1968–1980. ERNOUT A., MEILLET A., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, Paris, Klincksieck, 1959. CHASSINAT E., DAUMAS F., Le temple de Dendara VI (Publications de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire), Cairo, IFAO, 1965. CHASSINAT E., Le temple d’Edfou I (Mémoires publiés par les membres de la Mission archéologique française au Caire 10), Cairo, IFAO, 1984. BEEKES R. S. P., Etymological dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10), Leiden – Boston, Brill, 2010. KLOEKHORST A., Etymological dictionary of the Hittite inherited lexicon (Leiden IndoEuropean Etymological Dictionary Series 10), Leiden – Boston, Brill, 2008. DE VAAN M., Etymological dictionary of Latin and the other Italic languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7), Leiden – Boston, Brill, 2008. I R., Etymological dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European M Etymological Dictionary Series 9), Leiden–Boston, Brill, 2009. DERKSEN R., Etymological dictionary of the Slavic inherited lexicon (Leiden IndoEuropean Etymological Dictionary Series 4), Leiden – Boston, Brill, 2008. MAYRHOFER M., Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen (Indogermanische Bibliothek I/2), Heidelberg, Winter, 1986–2001. French LEHMANN W. P., A Gothic etymological dictionary, Leiden, Brill, 1986. Germanic Gothic Greek GRAPOW A. (ed.), Grundriss der Medizin der Alten Ägypter I-VIII, Berlin, AkademieVerlag, 1954–1963. PUHVEL J., Hittite etymological dictionary (Trends in Linguistics Documentation), Berlin – New York – Amsterdam, De Gruyter – Mouton, 1984–. TISCHLER J., Hethitisches etymologisches Glossar (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 20-), Innsbruck, Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität, 1977–. Hittite

8 Abbreviations HW2 IBoT IE IG KBo KUB Lat. Latv. LEW Lith. LNS Luw. M.Ir. MS NS O. OCS. OE. OHG. OIr. OIsl. OP. OPrus. OSax. Osc.-Umbr. OSl. Pyr SEG Sk. Sum. Tokh. Urk. VBoT W. Wb

FRIEDRICH J., KAMMENHUBER A., Hethitisches Wörterbuch: zweite, völlig neubearbeitete Auflage auf der Grundlage der edierten hethitischen Texte, Heidelberg, Winter, 1975–. İstanbul arkeoloji müzelerinde bulunan Boğazköy tabletleri, Istanbul, Millî Eğitim Basımevi. Indo-European Inscriptiones Graecae, Berolini, Reimer, 1873–. Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi, Leipzig – Berlin, J. C. Hinrichs – Gebr. Mann. Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi, Berlin, Vorderasiatische Abteilung der Staatlichen Museen. Latin Latvian FRAENKEL E., Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Indogermanische Bibliothek I/2), Heidelberg – Göttingen, Winter – Universitätsverlag, 1962–1965. Lithuanian Late New Hittite Script Luwian Middle Irish Middle Hittite Script New Hittite Script Ostracon Old Church Slavic Old English Old High German Old Irish Old Icelandic Old Persian Old Prussian Old Saxon Osco-Umbrian Old Slavic SETHE K., Die altaegyptischen Pyramidentexte nach den Papierabdrucken und Photographien des berliner Museums I-II, Leipzig, J. Hinrich, 1908–1910. Supplementum epigraphicum Graecum, Amsterdam, Gieben, 1923–. Sanskrit Sumerian Tokharian SETHE, K. et al. (eds), Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums, Leipzig – Berlin, Hinrichs, 1903–1957. GÖTZE A., Verstreute Boghazkoï-Texte, Marburg, Im Selbstverlag des Herausgebers, 1930. Welsh ERMAN A., GRAPOW W. (eds), Das Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1926–1931.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Stéphanie Anthonioz is Professor of Biblical Studies at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Lille. She has published four monographs on Babel, prophetism, idolatry, and water in the Biblical texts. Since the time of her doctoral dissertation, she has combined Biblical studies with Assyriology. She has published several articles from such a perspective, among them some dealing with the concept of the divine in both corpora. Clémentine Audouit is an Egyptologist associated with the Montpellier III University (ENiM UMR 5140 and Paul Valéry University). In 2017, she defended her doctoral dissertation, entitled Représentations et fonctions du sang en Égypte pharaonique. Johanna Erzberger is Dean of the Jerusalem School of Theology and holder of the Laurentius Klein Chair for Ecumenical and Biblical Theology. She defended a PhD in Theology in 2009 at Salzburg University. She published her doctoral dissertation as a monograph in 2010 on the rabbinic reception of the Book of Genesis and co-wrote in 2008 a sociological study on the reception of the Bible in various milieux of contemporary Germany. She has also published a review article on the concept of man in ancient Israel and given a paper on the prophet’s body in the Book of Jeremiah. She is currently studying the Book of Jeremiah in a sociological perspective. Christian Laes is currently Professor of Ancient History both at Antwerp University and Manchester University. He has published extensively on the social and cultural history of Roman and Late Antiquity, and especially on childhood, youth, family, sexuality, and disabilities. Julie Masquelier-Loorius is a Research Assistant in Egyptology at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research; CNRS UMR 8167 “Orient & Méditerranée” and Sorbonne Université Labex RESMED). She defended a doctoral dissertation on palaces and temples of the New Kingdom in Egypt. She studies, among other things, the religious performances taking place in some parts of the temples. She also publishes extensively on iconographic and textual evidence from the Akhmenu, a section of the Karnak temple. Alice Mouton is a CNRS scholar (Directeur de Recherche) in Paris (UMR 8167 “Orient & Méditerranée”). She teaches Hittite language at the Catholic University of Paris and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. Her research is focused on Hittite religious practices and beliefs and on religious anthropology applied to Hittite Anatolia. Yannick Muller teaches Ancient Greek History at Strasburg University (UMR 7044). He defended his doctoral dissertation in September 2016 on body mutilations in Ancient Greece. He has published several articles on this particular topic.

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List of contributors

Laura Puértolas Rubio is a new doctor in Hittitology (Sorbonne University and UMR 8167 “Orient & Méditerranée” Paris). From 2015 till December 2019, she has been working on her doctoral dissertation on Hittite and Luwian witchcraft under Alice Mouton’s supervision at the Sorbonne. Luc Renaut is a Lecturer in History of Art of Antiquity at Grenoble University (Grenoble-Alpes University; Research Laboratory: LUHCIE). In 2004, he defended his doctoral dissertation, entitled Marquage corporel et signation religieuse dans l’Antiquité, in which he studied more specifically tattooing, body painting, and scarifications. He has also published several articles on tattooing in Antiquity. He is currently preparing a book which takes a more theoretical approach to body adornments in ancient and traditional societies. Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel is a Lecturer in Assyriology at Strasburg University (UMR 7044ArcHiMedE). She defended her doctoral dissertation in Geneva in 2011. From her dissertation, a book entitled Les Chants du monde. Le paysage sonore de l’ancienne Mésopotamie was published in 2016. While she was a post-doc at Toulouse University, she launched the Synaesthesia project together with Adeline Grand-Clément. This project was an interdisciplinary research on the senses and experiencing the divine in the ancient world. Sylvie Vanséveren is Professor of Classical Linguistics at Brussels University (Université Libre de Bruxelles). She teaches Latin and Greek, as well Hittite for beginners. She published a two-volume grammar of Hittite in the French language in 2006 and 2014. She studies more specifically morphology and semantics of the Hittite language. Youri Volokhine is a Lecturer in History of Religions and Egyptology at Geneva University. One of his research focuses is on the cultural usages of the body in Ancient Egypt. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the human face in the texts and iconography of Ancient Egypt. In 2000, he published a monograph entitled La frontalité dans l’iconographie de l’Égypte ancienne. He is also studying religious taboos in Ancient Egypt. In 2014, he published another monograph, entitled Le porc en Égypte ancienne. Valeria Zubieta Lupo is a Hittitologist who defended her doctoral dissertation in 2017 at Mainz University. Her work was entitled Konzepte hethitischer Heilpraktiken. In the context of that research, she has published several Hittite therapeutic texts on the “hethiter.net” website.

ALICE MOUTON

Introduction

Although the body is the one thing which connects human beings, since it is the main element shared by all,1 it has long been neglected in several areas of the Humanities. As shown by David Le Breton,2 among other authors, this can be partly explained by the body–mind dichotomy predominantly entertained in Western societies since the Renaissance. Since that time, Western civilizations have had the greatest difficulties in dealing with corporeality. This is particularly visible in the way these societies deal with defective bodies during illness and death. Through the denial of the defective body, one attempts to forget one’s own mortality. Yet each person is a body (hence in English somebody), with its limitations and capacities. It is through the body that a person feels, sees, hears, interacts with others.3 At the same time, a person’s body distinguishes him from another person; the body reveals individuality. By “individuality” I do not mean “individualism,” but rather “self-identity.”4 Contrary to individualism, the concepts of individual and individuality imply that a person defines himself as a unique agent.5 However, this does not prevent him from belonging to a community. In this definition, an individual is both a whole and the part of a whole; as the latter, the concept partly overlaps the anthropological concept of “person.”6 Anthropologists sometimes distinguish three bodies: the personal/biological, the social, and the political.7 These are cultural meanings attributed to one and the same entity. Anthropological research shows that such meanings vary greatly from one place to another; the human body is not perceived in the same way all over the world.

1.

BOWIE 2006², p. 36: “[...] all peoples and cultures have one object to hand which, because of its ubiquity and malleability, carries a particularly heavy symbolic load—the human body. It is simultaneously experienced subjectively and objectively; it belongs both to the individual and to the wider social body.”

2.

LE BRETON 1991, p. 12.

3.

MERLEAU-PONTY 1976². For a summary of the main philosophical theories on the body, see for instance KALFON 2015.

4.

As pointed out by BOWIE 2006², p. 64: “Identity is defined by the other.”

5.

RAPPORT 20023. On agency, see for instance AHEARN 2001.

6.

In anthropology, a “person” is a member of a human community. See for instance JAMES 20012, p. 111.

7.

SCHEPER-HUGHES & LOCK 1987.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 11-16 PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120934 BREPOLS

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Although it is ubiquitous in the Ancient Near Eastern sources, the human body has very seldom been studied in the corresponding fields. Aside from just a few exceptions,8 the most numerous studies related to the body are lexicographic studies,9 and lexicography is indeed the best starting point for exploring the emic concepts of the body. Language reflects thought. However, many other aspects of the body can also be analyzed. This is precisely the aim of this volume—namely, to provide a supplementary picture of the anthropology of the body for the Ancient Near East.10 Excursions to neighboring civilizations can help enrich the picture.11 Although the papers of this volume are ordered according to chronology, they have many traits in common.

I. THE HUMAN BODY AND LANGUAGE The body is the most ubiquitous classificatory system in human languages.12 It is used for expressing not only spatiality (the head for designating the top, the feet for the lower part) but also many other aspects through metaphors. Robert Hertz13 studied in depth the right–left opposition, which is based on the body’s asymmetry. The wealth of the vocabulary of the body in a particular language illustrates the deep interest of the speakers of this language in understanding their own bodies. Sylvie Vanséveren (this volume) studies the semantic field of the human body in Hittite and other ancient Indo-European languages. She shows the complexity of identifying body parts in those languages. The vocabulary of the human body reflects the indigenous conceptions of the body. For instance, the simple fact that Hittite tuekka- “body” can also be translated as “person”14 in several contexts illustrates the overlap between the two concepts. Similarly, Akkadian ramānu means both “body” and “self.”15 The human body is also the seat of language. Non-verbal communication is expressed through body postures, gestures, even mimicry. For this reason, studying body postures and movements in ancient sources may help elucidate ritual discourse. This is illustrated by Julie Masquelier-Loorius’s paper (this volume) on the bodily postures of the Egyptian pharaoh in iconography, which reflect royal ideology.

8.

NYORD 2009; STEINERT 2012.

9.

See also MOUTON 2017 (with prior bibliography). For assyriology, see the pioneer study of HOLMA 1911.

10. Although many contributions in this volume deal with ancient texts, others are based on iconography. For the usefulness of the anthropology of the body in archaeology, see for instance HAMILAKIS, PLUCIENNIK & TARLOW 2002. 11. Especially Classical studies, which are far more advanced on the anthropology of the body applied to ancient civilizations: see BODIOU, FRÈRE & MEHL (eds) 2006 on classical iconography of human gestures and body postures; DASEN & WILGAUX (eds) 2008 on the body and language in the Classical world; GUISARD & LAIZÉ (eds) 2015 on several aspects of the human body through Classical iconography and texts. 12. TURNER 1991, p. 5. 13. HERTZ 1909. 14. See my contribution to this volume. 15. STEINERT 2012, p. 511.

Introduction

13

II. THE BODY, PERCEPTIONS, AND SOCIETY The body is the receptor of perceptions. Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel (this volume) analyses the ways the Sumero-Akkadian texts describe human senses. She proposes that the ancient Mesopotamians thought they had at least seven senses, instead of our current five. These senses are sometimes defective. In traditional societies, body failures are often interpreted as signs of divine anger. To quote Andrew Strathern, “immoral acts cause sickness, and thus, the body, by definition, becomes mindful.”16 Valeria Zubieta Lupo (this volume) shows how therapeutics and ritual healing intertwine in Hittite Anatolia. This can be partly explained by the importance of divine agency in each sickness: according to Hittite sources, severe sickness was a divine punishment. Therefore, curing someone was not only about “fixing” his body; it was also about restoring the normal social order. In other words, it was necessary to restore a peaceful relationship between a person and his society, including his gods. In this respect, ritual was considered more efficient than therapeutics. In his turn, Christian Laes (this volume) examines the concept of the disabled body in Late Antiquity, showing how such a concept is deeply embedded in social norms.

III. THE BODY AS A SYMBOL OF SOCIAL BELONGING Through how it adorns itself (dress, jewelry, skin alterations, hairstyles), the body displays a person’s identity: its social status, age, gender.17 In particular, the skin—be it tattooed, scarified, or temporarily painted—is often exploited for expressing social belonging. As the external surface of the body, the skin constitutes the obvious choice, together with facial and head hair. In this volume, both Luc Renaut and Youri Volokhine illustrate the social discourse displayed by the skin (Renaut) and the face (Volokhine). More generally, body adornments reflect someone’s belonging to a particular social group; every member of the same community would be capable of identifying him as such. 18 To quote Mireille Lee, “Dress is the medium through which the individual, biological body becomes a social body.”19 This holds true cross-culturally both for living bodies and for corpses, since the body of dead individuals also displays the same social discourse in the ways it is dealt with: it is sometimes buried and adorned with garments and jewels as an imitation of the living body, sometimes buried but stripped naked as a reflection of religious beliefs, sometimes abandoned in the open field or incinerated, and so on. In truth, any body modification, be it temporary or permanent, is a part of social discourse. It differentiates the human body from that of other living creatures; in other words, it displays human culture. Yannick Muller (this volume) shows that the ancient Greeks considered drastic body alterations, such as mutilations, to be foreign customs. In traditional societies, drastic body alterations

16. STRATHERN 1996, p. 18. 17. TURNER 1991, p. 5. This is valid both for traditional and post-industrial societies: DEMELLO 2007, p. xii. For Ancient Greece, see LEE 2015. 18. See for instance CORDWELL & SCHWARZ (eds) 1979. 19. LEE 2015, p. 230.

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often accompany rites of passage.20 They frequently imply physical pain which, in its turn, goes together with an extraordinary emotional state: they anchor these rites of passage in the person’s memory. The human body is also a political tool: it displays power (for the elite) or, on the contrary, powerlessness and marginality (for servants and slaves). Whatever the body wears distinguishes members of a community; it illustrates social hierarchy. In ancient monarchies, the royal body constitutes an important concept: it reveals the very special status of the king in those cultures. 21 For instance, the “body politic” is a royal privilege which illustrates the king’s immortality.22 Theo van den Hout and Herbert Niehr showed that such a concept also existed in the Ancient Near East.23

IV. THE BODY AS A MEDIUM FOR RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE Ritual actions embody ritual discourse. In other words, whatever a person’s body is doing during a ritual is part of the ritual discourse. These actions include communicative strategies, such as hand movements and postures which are immediately understandable by the local audience. In truth, ritual bodily actions are “techniques of the body.”24 My paper on Hittite rituals and cultic ceremonies (this volume) shows that a person’s body takes part in the ritual process. A person’s body can also be held hostage through ritual: this could be one of the many definitions of ancient witchcraft, as Laura Puértolas Rubio (this volume) demonstrates for the Hittite evidence. In a religious experience, not only the human body is involved; often also the divine body is present. Stéphanie Anthonioz (this volume) focuses on the divine face in the Book of Isaiah, thus arguing that the motif of the hidden divine face originates from an Ancient Near Eastern background. Ancient Near Eastern texts show that, in order to venerate a particular deity, one needed to provide a body to that deity. The statue or effigy of a deity was not viewed as a lifeless object but rather as that deity’s embodiment. In traditional societies, physical cleanliness entertains a narrow relationship with the concept of religious purity. As shown by Mary Douglas,25 body boundaries reflect social rules. Johanna Erzberger (this volume) studies the passage of the Book of Leviticus in which the rules related to purity are described. In fact, the human body as a microcosm not only reflects social rules; it often reflects a macrocosm—namely, the natural environment.26 This is illustrated by Clémentine Audouit’s paper on Ancient Egyptian texts (this volume).

20. For body alterations during rites of passage in the Ancient Near East, see for instance MOUTON & PATRIER 2014, p. 8. 21. For the king’s body and its relationship with royal ideology in the Ancient Near East, see LANFRANCHI & ROLLINGER (eds) 2016. 22. KANTOROWICZ 20164. 23. VAN DEN HOUT 1994 (Hittite Anatolia) and NIEHR 2015 (Ancient Syria). 24. On this notion, see my contribution in this volume. 25. DOUGLAS 1966. 26. For Antiquity, see for instance WEE (ed.) 2017.

Introduction

15

Thus, thinking about the human body—one’s own and that of others—is a way to think about human existence itself. As Judith Farquhar and Margaret Lock put it, “[t]o make bodies a topic for anthropological, humanistic, sociological, and historical research is to ask how human life can be and has been constructed, imagined, subjectively known—in short, lived.”27

REFERENCES AHEARN L. 2001 “Language and agency”, Annual Review of Anthropology 30, pp. 109-137. BODIOU L., FRÈRE D., MEHL V. (eds) 2006 L’expression des corps: gestes, attitudes, regards dans l’iconographie antique (Cahiers d’histoire du corps antique 2), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. BOWIE F. 2006² The anthropology of religion: an introduction, Malden, Blackwell. CORDWELL J. M., SCHWARZ R. A. (eds) 1979 The fabrics of culture: the anthropology of clothing and adornment, The Hague, Mouton. DASEN V., WIGAUX J. (eds) 2008 Langages et métaphores du corps dans le monde antique (Cahiers d’histoire du corps antique 3), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. DEMELLO M. 2007 Encyclopedia of body adornment, Westport – London, Greenwood Press. DOUGLAS M. 1966 Purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. FARQUHAR J., LOCK M. 2007 “Introduction”, in Beyond the body proper: reading in the anthropology of material life, ed. by J. FARQUHAR & M. LOCK (Body, Commodity, Text), Durham – London, Duke University Press, pp. 116. GUISARD P., LAIZÉ C. (eds) 2015 Le corps (Cultures antiques), Paris, Ellipses. HAMILAKIS Y., PLUCIENNIK M., TARLOW S. 2002 “Introduction: thinking through the body”, in Thinking through the body: archaeologies of corporeality, ed. by Y. HAMILAKIS, M. PLUCIENNIK & S. TARLOW, New York, Springer Science+Business Media, pp. 1-21. HERTZ R. 1909 “La prééminence de la main droite: étude sur la polarité religieuse”, Revue Philosophique 68, pp. 553580. HOLMA H. 1911 Die Namen der Körperteile im Assyrisch-Babylonischen: eine lexikalish-etymologische Studie, Helsinki, Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Kustantama. JAMES W. 2001² “For the motion (1)”, in Key debates in anthropology, ed. by T. INGOLD, London – New York, Routledge, pp. 105-112. KALFON J. -L. 2015 “Prélude”, in Le corps, ed. by P. GUISARD & C. LAIZÉ (Cultures antiques), Paris, Ellipses, pp. 3-34. KANTOROWICZ E. H. 20164 The king’s two bodies: a study in mediaeval political theology, Princeton – Oxford, Princeton University Press. 27. FARQUHAR & LOCK 2007, p. 2.

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LANFRANCHI G. B., ROLLINGER R. (eds) 2016 The body of the king: the staging of the body of the institutional leader from Antiquity to Middle Ages in East and West (History of the Ancient Near East 16), Padova, S.A.R.G.O.N. Editrice e Libreria. LE BRETON D. 1991 Corps et sociétés: essai de sociologie et d’anthropologie du corps (Sociologies du quotidien), Paris, Klincksieck. LEE M. 2015 Body, dress, and identity in Ancient Greece, New York, Cambridge University Press. MERLEAU-PONTY M. 1976² Phénoménologie de la perception, Paris, Gallimard. MOUTON A. 2017 “L’individu et son corps en Anatolie hittite: un nouveau projet”, in Hittitology today: studies on Hittite and Neo-Hittite Anatolia in honor of Emmanuel Laroche’s 100th birthday, ed. by A. MOUTON (5e Rencontres d’Archéologie de l’IFÉA), Istanbul, IFÉA, pp. 101-111. MOUTON A., PATRIER J. 2014 “Introduction”, in Life, death, and coming of age in Antiquity: individual rites of passage in the Ancient Near East and adjacent regions, ed. by A. MOUTON and J. PATRIER (Publications de l’Institut Historique-Archéologique Néerlandais de Stamboul 124), Leiden, NINO, pp. 1-22. NIEHR H. 2015 “The king’s two bodies: political dimensions of the royal cult of the dead at Ugarit, Byblos and Qatna”, in Qaṭna and the networks of Bronze Age globalism, ed. by P. PFÄLZNER and M. AL-MAQDISSI (Qaṭna Studien Supplementa 2), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, pp. 157-177. NYORD R. 2009 Breathing flesh: conceptions of the body in the Ancient Egyptian coffin texts (Carsten Niebhur Institute Publications 37), Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press. RAPPORT N. 20023 “Individualism”, in Encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology, ed. by A. BARNARD and J. SPENCER, London – New York, Routledge, pp. 450-455. SCHEPER-HUGHES N., LOCK M. 1987 “The mindful body: a prolegomenon to future work in medical anthropology”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1, pp. 6-41. STEINERT U. 2012 Aspekte des Menschseins im Alten Mesopotamien: eine Studie zu Person und Identität im 2. und 1. Jt. v. Chr. (Cuneiform Monographs 44), Leiden, Brill. STRATHERN A. 1996 Body thoughts, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press. TURNER B. S. 1991 “Recent developments in the theory of the body”, in The body: the social process and cultural theory, ed. by M. FEATHERSTONE, M. HEPWORTH & B. S. TURNER (eds), London – Newbury Park – New Delhi, Sage Publications, pp. 1-35. VAN DEN HOUT T. 1994 “Death as a privilege: the Hittite royal funerary ritual”, in Hidden futures: death and immortality in Ancient Egypt, Anatolia, the classical, biblical and Arabic-islamic world, ed. by J. M. BREMER, T. VAN DEN HOUT & R. PETERS, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 37-75. WEE J. Z. (ed.) 2017 The comparable body: analogy and metaphor in Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman medicine (Studies in Ancient Medicine 49), Leiden – Boston, Brill.

YOURI VOLOKHINE

The human face and its relations to identity in Ancient Egypt: an overview*

For almost 25 years, I have been studying the topic of the face in Ancient Egypt, which was the subject of my PhD thesis defended in 1998.1 The core of this work is a lexicographical examination of the numerous uses of the word ḥr “face” in Ancient Egyptian. Studies on the body—which have currently acquired a sustained interest not only in anthropology but also in the history of religions and of ancient cultures—were not in the limelight when in 1989, as a student, I decided to work on the topic of the face in Ancient Egypt. Choosing this subject came as a direct consequence of my reading of two texts: La mort dans les yeux by Jean-Pierre Vernant, and a seminal article by Dimitri Meeks, who offered for the first time a discussion on the concept of the face in Ancient Egypt.2 These texts, which adopted different perspectives, shared an anthropological vision of culture; they led me to work on the frontal view, in a Master’s thesis defended in 1991. Then I began a PhD dealing with a far broader subject: “The face in Ancient Egypt.” Upon working on iconography, I quickly realized that I could not grasp the face’s representation without understanding what the concept of face meant to an Ancient Egyptian. I would first have to analyze the meaning of the word in the language. This work led me to think about the concept of “individuality,” even if we must be very cautious when dealing with such a topic in the field of ancient societies.3 This particular theme is now in expansion. See, for example, The individual in the religions of the Ancient Mediterranean,4 a body of work connected to an important German research group—namely, the Religious Individualization in Historical Perspective (DFG). On the other hand, the history of the human face is also, for a number of years, the object of numerous studies.5

* I wish to thank Alice Mouton for inviting me to contribute to this exciting research program on the body and the individual in the ancient Mediterranean world. 1. VOLOKHINE 1998. 2. VERNANT 1985; MEEKS 1986. 3. ASSMANN 1982. 4. RÜPKE (ed.) 2013. 5. For an overview, see BELTING 2013. Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 17-26

HPUBLISHERS

BREPOLS

DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120935

18 Youri Volokhine It is important, before starting to build an articulate anthropology, to try to understand how people talked about themselves. In order to do this, we must start with the texts, their language, and also their grammar; in short, we must engage in philology. To come back to my doctorate again, I had to try and gather the occurrences of the word “face” in Ancient Egyptian and to do this with no boundaries, for they would have been arbitrary. I therefore searched and rummaged diachronically in documents ranging over 3,000 years, up to the Coptic era. Thousands of references were found that required sorting. In 1998, I wrote two volumes (total 1,000 pages) on the question. Publishing this large body of work has been my concern ever since. In 2000, I published a small monograph on the frontal view, exploring the iconography of the head (its features) facing the beholder.6 Parallel to this project, I decided to publish separately everything that had in one way or another something to do, even peripherally, with this topic. Thus, a paper was published in 2001 on the gods’ “faces” on figureheads,7 as well as several studies on Bes, a true master of grimace.8 There were other publications closely or more remotely related to the face.9 Now I intend to write a monograph entitled Le visage des dieux: aspects de la religion pharaonique. This will be my main and final contribution on this subject, and the following sections derive from it, emphasizing the question of identity.

I. THE HUMAN FACE A quick philological examination of the uses of the word “face” reveals several significant facts. A thorough study of the usual phrases m-ḥr “before the face,”10 r-ḥr “towards the face,”11 and n-ḥr “at the face”12 shows that the term belongs to a vocabulary of perception. The face is the sensitive part par excellence. If one wants to say that a mission is assigned to a civil servant, one will say that the mission is “placed before his face” (dj m-ḥr); thence “to place before the face” comes to mean, in a frozen way, “to assign a mission,” “to give an order.” Therefore, we quickly notice the tight bond between perception and intellection. The study of the m-ḥr phrase shows that the physical acceptation (“in the face”) gives way to the intellectual meaning (“in order to”). The phrase even means “in appearance.” m-ḥr “with the face”: in “to see with the face” (m33 m-ḥr), m-ḥr means “see with (one’s) own eyes.” m-ḥr “before the face,” with a notion of visual contact, means “to place (something) before the face.” m-ḥr can sometimes be translated as “in sight”; it means “visible.” m-ḥr also takes abstract meanings, such as “in the sense of,” “in the idea of,” “in the mind,” “in memory.”

6.

VOLOKHINE 2000.

7.

VOLOKHINE 2001.

8.

VOLOKHINE 1994; 2003; 2010; 2017.

9.

VOLOKHINE 2019 (with previous literature).

10. Wb III, 128. 11. Wb III, 129.12-14. Here, the Wb indicates only the adverbial uses of the locution r-ḥr, and does not cite any example prior to XXIIth Dynasty; the expression is however current before, since from the Texts of the Pyramids. 12. Wb III, 128.17-20, 129 1-2.

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The semantic field of ḥr implies a certain involvement of man in space: in anthropological terms, if we look at the phrases in detail, however frozen or trite they may be, this brings in the elements of a scattered puzzle. Phrases such as m-ḥr, n-ḥr, r-ḥr, or ḫft-ḥr “in front of”13 immerse us in a dimension within which the word related to the body expresses better than any other how man stands in space. The face—that is, the gaze—is deeply rooted in the vocabulary of orientation. At the level of semantics, the respective frozen form of these phrases leads, along a chain of lexicalization, to erasing the physical applications of the term—however recurrent—and becomes connected not only to the spatial domain (n-ḥr “at the face” > n- ḥr “forward”), but also to the mind (m-ḥr “in sight of” > “in the idea of”). The examination of m-ḥr is particularly telling: this phrase relates both to the strict visual domain and to the world of appearance, impressions, or imagination. For example, in the instrumental level, one can see “with his face” (i.e. with his own eyes);14 something could be “unknown” (št3) “in the face” of somebody”;15 the syntagm could also mean “under the supervision of”: “I spent 13 years in the face of (my) father.”16 Thus, we have the expression “to be far from the face” (w3j m- ḥr), which means “to escape from the mind.”17 In the corpus of the Instructions and moral texts (Merikara, Amenemhat, Ipuwer, etc.), the expression m-ḥr is frequently used with the sense of “in your mind,” “in your opinion”:18 “I will act so that you like the writings more than your mother; I will make penetrate their excellence ‘in your face.’”19 However, we should note that the basic meaning “in the face” / “with the eyes” is always a potential meaning of the expression, particularly in the so-called Solar Hymns from the New Kingdom, where the expression is often used. Therefore, there is a significant shift from the visual to the mental. It is appropriate to think that this is no coincidence: the face intrinsically reveals an appearance because, on the one hand, it gives Man his recognizable appearance and, on the other hand, it is through the face that Man takes notice of the world. The discourse in which the face takes place also accounts for body language, attitudes, postures: the head—whose face is the perceptive zone—dominates the body; bearer of sight, the face acts as a “control tower” for the body. Ancient Egyptian texts introduce us to a face play, a body language, that of gaze, up or down, annoyed or sharp. In gathering eyes, mouth, and ears, the face metonymically expresses the perceptive man as a whole. The use of ḥr clearly shows that the face is not only a part of the somatic body; it really is a sensory organ. Texts provide explicit examples, where the facial prerogatives are distinctly defined. Sight, hearing, speech—and in a lesser measure, smell and taste— conjoin to bestow a prominent status on the face in the realm of corporeality. Thus, the face combines emission and reception of signs and information. It bears in itself this reciprocity of hearing and saying, looking and displaying, that in Egypt, as in other societies in antiquity, constitute the poles of the social fabric.

13. Wb III, 275.8-23, 276 1-11. 14. Coffin Texts I, 334 c; Coffin Texts V 43 b. 15. GARDINER, PEET & CERNY 1952, no. 90 l. 5. 16. REYMOND 1981, p. 142 and 148 pl. X no. 18 l. (BM 886). 17. Wb I 245.12; see Ptahhotep Papyrus 91; Urk. IV, 1920.18. 18. POSENER 1956, pp. 154-155. 19. HELCK 1970, p. 28 IIIc (Sallier II).

20 Youri Volokhine

II. FACE, “HEART,” EMOTIONS In the sphere of the body, both the face and the inside-jb (the “heart”) act hand in hand and share certain sensory but also mental and emotional prerogatives. We are accustomed to consider that the heart-jb is, in Ancient Egypt, the seat of thought. Nevertheless, it is difficult to draw a strict line between the inner being—that of the “heart”—and the outer one that presents itself with the face and benefits from sight and hearing. Indeed, without the face-ḥr, the heart-jb would be partially deaf and blind, for it is the face that opens Man to the surrounding world; it is via the face that impressions are conveyed to the heart. If the heart-jb is the “center” of Man, then the face is its top. Certainly, the heartjb plays an even more acute psychological role than the face: it is the organ of desire and will. But as seat of the impressions, as a sign of Man’s inclinations, the face is also involved in these notions. Therefore, we will acknowledge that the heart-jb is associated with the face and its components— namely hearing, sight, and speech—and both are bound together in the sensory and mental fields. Face and heart have their own prerogatives—whose binding remains essential, whose differences are indeed intrinsic—but their simultaneous action brings them together. The importance of these functions confers on the face a considerable status in the corporeal sphere. It is an expressive witness: the being’s first sign, mark of his individuality, it functions as a barometer for feelings. From the most extreme to the most mundane, the face reflects the inner Man: tears, fear, anger, but also laughter, smiling, joy, surprise infallibly print themselves on the face. Dozens of phrases confirm this.20 There is a wide array of frozen phrases which the autobiographical and literary genres—among others—often use: the appositional compounds (nfr-ḥr paradigm)21 which, in terms of meaning, are distributed primarily in a few categories connected to the mental faculties, but also to behavioral modes. These compounds are but a few: I have inventoried approximately thirty cases. In addition, we will observe that this type of adjectival compound is widely attested in theonymy, especially in demonology, where over one hundred such names are used in a programmatic way. As for the human sphere, quite a few compounds describe qualities such as attention, bravery, indulgence; others describe faults we are defending ourselves from, such as discouragement, fear, fury, arrogance. On the diachronic level, these compounds are unevenly distributed. Certain phrases appear only in the Middle Kingdom, sometimes with very few examples, whereas others are very frequent during the New Kingdom and are but sporadically attested later (spd-ḥr); others still are known only in the later periods. Let us first note that several terms call forth prerogatives to which Man cannot usually pretend and are exclusive to the faces of gods. On the synchronic level, we must observe the way the value of some of these compounds is conditioned by the level of language and the nature of the text. In the funerary context, some facial qualities, such as “brightness” or “clarity” of the face (ḥḏ-ḥr), bear witness to other intentions than in autobiographical texts; for instance, in the social sphere, “facial brightness” marks generosity, whereas in the other world, the term is not only metaphorical but actually expresses illumination. The qualities and faults pointed to by these compounds lead to a stereotyped definition of Man. This frozen range of expressions is fully conventional. It shows an ideal, not a real-life experience. It 20. I will publish the results of my research upon this question in a collective work about the emotions (IFAO seminar entitled “Visualiser les émotions en Égypte ancienne”). 21. JANSEN-WINKELN 1994.

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belongs to a moral vocabulary accounting for social ethics that expresses itself mostly in the area of funerary autobiography, a self-justification where a Man celebrates and claims his adhesion to the norm. We can therefore make nothing out of this gallery of clichés with regard to the intimate individual, for only the model-individual is shown. The sense of the self is expressed here, but only within the framework of the sense of belonging to the group. However, the intrinsic interest of these compounds including the word “face” lies in the status adopted by ḥr. These “model-faces” are psychological facets. They refer to behavior, but also to feelings. They are genuinely echoed in statuary; this “expressive realism” expresses the ideals of wisdom, of the individual’s self-control, and consequently does not correspond to actual portraits.

III. IDENTITY Ancient Egyptian society can be defined as a sensorial society.22 Here, the face is at the same time what links together and what distinguishes. It connects, because it emits signs; it distinguishes, because every face bears in itself the intrinsic specificity of a human being, his or her peculiarity. “Any face” (ḥr-nb) and “faces” (ḥrw) are metonymies which refer to a population united in a shared vision and hearing. Thus named, this frontal humanity states that it is ocular, attentive, centered on reciprocity. The prime rooting in the visual is not without links to the fact that this civilization is precisely based on a solar theology, whose benefits—light, gift of sight—are continuously praised. Therefore, the face is the sign of the being par excellence, bearer of its distinctive identity: it is what one shows, what one displays of oneself. From it follows an implicit hierarchy of faces. The pharaoh’s is at the top of the edifice; it escapes the norm and it can claim characteristics solely devoted to the gods: a “perfect” (nfr) face is one of them, granted by the bearing of the crowns, which mark the divine essence of the pharaoh’s power. For the rest of society, the social position states the liberty one can make use of in terms of face language, which is that of the gaze. Finally, we must also mention the fact that the ablation of the nose or the ears,23 two terrible forms of mutilation, are two commonly applied punishments: the criminal loses his face, is defaced. The face, in its social implications, also calls forth a whole world, that of finery, cosmetics, and other body “techniques”: hair, wigs, the beard, but also make-up and facial cleansing, are all elements connected to the face. These should also be taken into consideration, in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the panorama of themes related to the face and head. Space prevents me from discussing the faces of the deceased. This undoubtedly is an important aspect of the face in Ancient Egypt; but in order to stick to the essential, we must choose. I wish to tackle another important issue, that of divine faces.

IV. THE FACES OF THE GODS There is an Egyptian discourse about the bodies of the gods; in this regard, the divine face bears important qualities. It is the head which often allows one to recognize the god, not only by his or her face, be it animal or human, but also by the wearing of crowns as a display of power. In addition, the divine face is directly involved in the votive vocabulary employed in the worship of the gods, in that of prayer, and—as we will see shortly—in the cult itself. In the Daily Ritual, the god is actually present 22. According to ASSMAN 1989, pp. 44-45 (about the Egyptian concept of homo auditor). 23. LOKTIONOV 2017.

22 Youri Volokhine because he is incarnated in his statue. The priest literally has a face-to-face relationship with the god. Among the texts in use during these sequences, we notice the notion of “opening of the face” (wn-ḥr), which corresponds ritually to the disclosure of the divine image concealed in the naos. Simultaneously, this concept of “opening of the face” is also at stake in the funerary tradition, so that several meanings are conveyed: “to give back the sight” (in the funerary ritual), but also “to reveal the face (of the statue)” (in the daily ritual). In this situation the phrase takes on a frozen meaning: “opening the face” then means “to officiate,” “to worship.” As far as the funerary cult is concerned, we always gain from placing the texts precisely in their archaeological context—in this case the Amenemhat III pyramid (1843–1797 BC) in Dashur. The phrase “opening of the face” is engraved on the eastern side of the pyramidion, kept in the Museum of Cairo: “Saying the words: may the face of the king of Higher and Lower Egypt Nymaâtra be opened; may he see the master of the horizon, may he cross the skies (…).”24 This formula is also attested in the Coffin Texts,25 as well as on numerous private steles of the twelfth dynasty. Upon looking at the Dashur pyramidion, one can only be struck by the configuration of hieroglyphic and graphic elements forming a rebus: two eyes, three nfr signs, the solar disc. This can be read as “mââ neferou Râ,” “looking at Ra’s perfection”; now, surmounted by a royal wig, these signs unquestionably form an image of a face. It is therefore a divine vision, or more precisely a vision of a divine face. While dealing with the daily ritual, we will see that the notion of “divine vision” is also at stake. The priest “beholds the face” of the god: (Formula) To see the god’s face: “My face! Beware of the god (and vice versa). The gods have made the path (on which) I walk. The king sends me to behold the god.’26

Here we are dealing with a face-to-face encounter, placed under the sign of a certain caution. “Seeing the gods,” “beholding the face of the gods” is by no means innocuous. In later traditions, in Ptolemaic texts for instance, still another theme is elaborated, which was already known in the New Kingdom: revealing the statue is analogous to sunrise, an illumination of the world. Revelation of the face: worshipping the face, uttering words: Stand on the ground, as you come out of the Noun! May your beams illuminate the world (...)!27

The sight of the divine face is a lightning bolt, in a cosmic sense of the term. According to the theology of the temple of Edfu, the “physical” appearance of the god’s face when the naos is being opened equates with the appearance of the god in the world. The “revelation of the face” is thus an epiphany pertaining to worship, parallel to the cosmic manifestation of the god as a shining celestial body. Let us pay particular attention to the discourse about the face of Ra—that is, of the demiurge, the supreme being in a way. In a nineteenth-dynasty hymn on papyrus, this entity is evoked as follows: Chapter three hundred. It is a triad formed by all gods, Amun, Ra, Ptah: They are unequalled. His name is concealed as Amun, he is Ra as face (or “for the sight”); his body is Ptah.28

The sentence could have three distinct meanings: “He is Ra by the face,” or “He is Ra as a face,” or we can understand the m-ḥr phrase in the sense of “visible”: “He is Ra to the sight.” As opposed to Amun, whom we do not see, Ra reveals himself to the gaze. This visual concept is deeply rooted in the 24. LOHWASSER 1991; ARNOLD 1987, pp. 14-16, pl. 38. 25. Coffin Texts VI, p. 414 (spell 785). 26. CALVERLEY 1933, pl. 4; cf. GUGLIELMI & BUROH 1997, p. 124. 27. Edfou I, 40.16. 28. ZANDEE 1948; MATHIEU 1997.

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royal cult. The supreme being invoked here presents himself as a face. Other scant attestations confirm this association. The most remarkable dates from the Middle Kingdom. There is but one illustration on one sarcophagus. Here is the text surrounding the central image: The front side of Mehen, that circles the seat of Ra who shines, guarded by these doors—that is to say, the millions of millions after millions (and) the doors that mislead. Protection of the great starboard of Mehen that circles the paths of fire and the seat of Ra who shines and keeps the protection paths of the Mehen starboard that circles millions after millions (...).29

I think that this divine entity is also evoked on a Tutankhamun chapel. There too, the god is surrounded by the Mehen, here in its well-known form of the ouroboros, biting its own tail. This image does not use frontality, but if we look into Ramses VI’s grave (twentieth dynasty), several unusual representations also show a god surrounded by the Mehen, sometimes in frontal view.30 This face which reveals Ra in the netherworld is also sometimes described as a shining epiphany. Thus, in the eleventh hour in the Book of the Gates: You are mighty, Ra, with you face (var.: your head); you are great, you are fulfilled by your secret face (var.: your head); the face of Ra is opened, the eyes of Akhty are opened, so that he chases out darkness westwards, so that he spreads the light with them (the eyes), that shed light in the darkness for him.31

It should be noted that the phrase used to describe this epiphany is precisely wn ḥr, the “opening” of the face, the revelation, the key phrase of the daily ritual. At the cosmic level, the face of Ra recalls a parousia of light triumphing over darkness. The revealed face of Ra is synonymous with the radiance of the star that defeats darkness, during this eleventh hour of the night. The image’s legend is explicit: It is about “The face of the disc” (ḥr itn / ḥr pw n itn), a designation identically found in a crypt of the temple of Dendera.32

V. THE PERFECT FACE This divine face is what we want to “see every day,” as is confirmed by numerous formulae. In the votive vocabulary employed for the worship of the gods, it will often be said that this face is “perfect” (nfr). This qualifier (nfr-ḥr) is also of great importance.33 Briefly, it expresses: (1) a complete and perfect god, yet an accessible one; (2) in the cosmic sphere, the theme of the “perfect face” can relate to the solar disc’s radiance, bearing witness, by means of this anthropomorphic designation, to benevolent and invigorating presence; (3) on the metaphoric level, and especially in prayer vocabulary, nfr-ḥr is used to qualify a benevolent deity: it is the attentive face of the well-disposed god, listening to his flock. The “perfection” of the divine face therefore establishes the fulfillment of the god’s “facial” values, insight, and listening; (4) the qualifier “beautiful/perfect-of-face” may be applied to the god wearing the crown, the sign of his power. It is a “complete,” “fulfilled,” “perfect” face accounting for a god in full possession of his regalia. We should also note that nfr-ḥr is an epithet especially in connection with the Memphite god Ptah, at the point where “Neferher” alone can be a designation of

29. Coffin Texts VI, p. 387 f-m. Mehen is the snake-god who coiled around the sun. 30. VOLOKHINE 2000, p. 76 and 85. 31. HORNUNG 1979–1980, scene 73, vol. I, p. 363 and vol. II, pp. 254-256. 32. Dendara VI, pl. DLXXIX. 33. ZANDEE 1992, vol. 3, pp. 1032-1037; GERMOND 1980; VOLOKHINE 2014.

24 Youri Volokhine this god.34 In Ptolemaic/Roman periods, the name Nepheros/Pnepehros, attested mainly in Greek Fayoumic documentation, is a personification of the propitious aspect of the god.35 The benevolent god is a well-known pattern in so-called “personal piety.” A simple prayer, on an ostracon, is as follows: Amun come (to me), favorably disposed, so I can see the perfection of your face. The perfect face of Amun, as the whole world sees it, Men look at him until exhilaration, more than any beautiful color.36

This face-to-face relation thus appears as an experience: (...) May you illuminate me, so that I see them (sic: you); your ka continues, your perfect and beloved face continues: you will come from afar, and you will act so that this servant sees you (...).37

On the occasion of funerary laments, the wish for the face-to-face relation is even more emphasized: (...) May you come back to me in haste, for my desire is to behold your face, (since) I have not seen your face in a long time: darkness remains with us here, to my sight (lit. “in my face”), even when Ra is in the sky.38

To come back to the facial attribute “perfect face,” it bears a notion of fulfillment and thus leads to the notion of triumphant vitality: notably with the deceased’s “perfect” face—that is, the funerary mask.39

CONCLUSION Be it in the human or divine spheres, the Egyptian speech about the face makes this part of the body a particularly sensitive question. The face, human or divine, is at the same time where feelings are expressed, the ultimate mark of the individual, of the person, of the human being.

REFERENCES ARNOLD G. 1987 Der Pyramidenbezirk des Königs Amenemhet III (Archäologische Veröffentlichungen 53), Mainz, von Zabern. ASSMANN J. 1982 “Persönlichkeitsbegriff und -bewusstsein”, Lexikon der Ägyptologie IV, col. 963-978. 1989 Maât, l’Égypte pharaonique et l’idée de justice sociale (Conférences, essais et leçons du Collège de France), Paris, Julliard. 1994 “Ocular desire in a time of darkness: urban festivals and divine visibility in Ancient Egypt”, in Ocular desire, ed. by A. R. E. AGUS & J. ASSMANN (Yearbook for Religious Anthropology 1), Berlin, Akademie Verlag, pp. 13-29.

34. SANDMAN-HOMBERG 1946, pp. 111-112; BERLANDINI 1995, p. 37. The designation is attested since the Old Kingdom in anthroponymy; see Coffin Texts VI 267 1-j for an Egyptian etiology of the epithet, cf. BICKEL 1994, p. 137. 35. QUAEGEBEUR 1982; QUAEGEBEUR & WAGNER 1973; VOLOKHINE 2000, pp. 100-101. 36. Ostracon Caire CG 1202 v°, cf. POSENER 1975, p. 202, pl. 19; cf. ASSMANN 1994, p. 25. 37. GARDINER 1928, p. 11, l. 21-22; RAGAZZOLI 2017, p. 369. 38. FAULKNER 1933, 12.14-13.2 (7.1-7.3.). 39. MEEKS 1991.

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BELTING H. 2013 Faces: Eine Geschichte des Gesichts, Munich, Beck. BERLANDINI J. 1995 “Ptah-démiurge et l’exaltation du ciel”, Revue d’Égyptologie 46, pp. 9-41. BICKEL S. 1994 La cosmogonie égyptienne avant le Nouvel Empire (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 134), Fribourg – Göttinger, Éditions universitaires – Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. CALVERLEY A. 1933 The temple of King Sethos at Abydos I: the chapels of Osiris, Isis and Horus, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. FAULKNER R. O. 1933 The papyrus Bremner-Rhind (British Musuem n°10188) (Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca 3), Brussels, Éd. de la Fondation égyptologique Reine Elisabeth. GARDINER A. H. 1928 “The graffito from the tomb of Pere”, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 14, pp. 10-11. GARDINER A. H., PEET T. E., CERNY J. 1952–1955 Inscriptions of Sinai (Egypt Exploration Society), London – Oxford, Egypt Exploration Society – Oxford University Press. GERMOND P. 1980 “A propos de l’expression hr nfr ‘beau-visage’: une lecture au second degré?”, Bulletin de la Société d'Égyptologie Genève 4, pp. 39-43. GUGLIELMI W., BUROH K. 1997 “Die Eingangssprüche des Täglichen Tempelrituals nach Papyrus Berlin 3055 (I,1-VI,3)”, in Essays on Ancient Egypt in honour of Herman Te Velde, ed. by J. VAN DIJK (Egyptological memoirs 1), Groningen, Styx, pp. 101-166. HELCK W. 1970 Die Lehre des Dw3-Ḫtii (Kleine ägyptische Texte 1,2), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. HORNUNG E. 1979–1980 Das Buch von den Pforten des Jenseits (Aegyptiaca Helvetica 7,8), Geneva, Belles-Lettres. JANSEN-WINKELN K. 1994 “Exozentrische Komposita als Relativphrasen im älteren Ägyptisch”, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 121, pp. 51-75. LOHWASSER A. 1991 Die Formel “Öffnen des Gesichts” (Beiträge zur Ägyptologie 11), Vienna, Afro-pub. LOKTIONOV A. 2017 “May my nose and ears be cut off: practical and ‘supra-practical’ aspects of mutilation in the Egyptian New Kingdom”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 60, pp. 263-291. MATHIEU B. 1997 “Etudes de métrique égyptienne, IV: le tristique ennéamétrique dans l’Hymne à Amon de Leyde”, Revue d’Égyptologie 48, pp. 109-164. MEEKS D. 1986 “Zoomorphie et image des dieux dans l’Egypte ancienne”, Le Temps de la réflexion 7, pp. 171-191. 1991 “Dieu masqué, Dieu sans tête”, Archéo-Nil 1, pp. 5-15. POSENER G. 1956 Littérature et politique dans l’Egypte de la XIIe Dynastie (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études. Sciences historiques et philologiques 307), Paris, Honoré Champion. 1975 “La piété personnelle avant l’âge amarnien”, Revue d’Égyptologie 27, pp. 195-210. QUAEGEBEUR J. 1982 “Nepheros”, Lexikon der Ägyptologie IV, col. 456-457. QUAEGEBEUR J., WAGNER G. 1973 “Une dédicace grecque au dieu égyptien Mestasytmis de la part de son synode (Fayoum – époque romaine)”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 73, pp. 41-60.

26 Youri Volokhine RAGAZZOLI C. 2017 “Présence divine et obscurité de la tombe au Nouvel Empire: à propos des graffiti des tombes TT 139 et TT 112 à Thèbes”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 117, pp. 357-407. REYMOND E. A. E. 1981 From the records of a priestly family from Memphis (Ägypologische Abhandlungen 38), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. RÜPKE J. (ed.) 2013 The individual in the religions of the Ancient Mediterranean, Corby, Oxford University Press. SANDMAN-HOLMBERG M. 1946 The god Ptah, PhD Lund University. VERNANT J. -P. 1985 La mort dans les yeux: figures de l’Autre en Grèce ancienne (Pluriel 25), Paris, Hachette littératures. VOLOKHINE Y. 1994 “Dieux, masques et hommes: à propos de la formation de l'iconographie de Bès”, Bulletin de la Société d’Egyptologie Genève 18, pp. 81-95. 1998 Le visage dans la pensée et la religion de l’Egypte ancienne, PhD Geneva University. 2000 La frontalité dans l’iconographie de l’Egypte ancienne (Cahiers de la Société d’Égyptologie), Geneva, Société d’Égyptologie. 2001 “Une désignation de la face divine”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 101, pp. 369-391. 2003 “Une représentation d’un Bès armé”, Bulletin de la Société d’Egyptologie Genève 25, pp. 153-164. 2010 “Bès dans les temples égyptiens de l’époque gréco-romaine”, in Isis on the Nile: Egyptian gods in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, proceedings of the IVth international conference of Isis studies, Liège, November 27–29 2008, ed. by L. BRICAULT & M. VERSLUYS (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 171), Leiden – Boston, Brill, pp. 233-255. 2014 “Le visage du roi”, Egypte, Afrique & Orient 74, pp. 23-30. 2017 “Du côté des ‘Bès’ infernaux”, in Entre dieux et hommes: anges, démons et autres figures intermédiaires. Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 19 et 20 mai 2014, ed. by T. RÖMER et alii (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 286), Fribourg – Göttinger, Éditions universitaires – Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, pp. 60-87. 2019 “Barbe et barbus en Egypte ancienne”, in Barbe et barbus: symboliques, rites et pratiques du port de la barbe dans le Proche-Orient ancien et moderne, ed. by Y. VOLOKHINE, B. FUDGE and T. HERZOG (Études genevoises sur l’Antiquité), Bern, Peter Lang, pp. 59-87. ZANDEE J. 1948 De Hymnen aan Amon van Papyrus Leiden I 350, Leiden, Brill. 1992 Der Amunhymnus des Papyrus Leiden I 344, Verso (Collections of the New-York Historical Society 7/1-3), Leiden, Rijksmuseum van oudheden.

JULIE MASQUELIER-LOORIUS

The postures of the king’s body in Ancient Egyptian iconography

A posture can be a “position or attitude of limbs or body,” or “a characteristic manner of bearing the body.”1 Both definitions express the idea of movement or gesture. There are other definitions that do not describe the body physically; the posture can be “a mental attitude or a frame of mind,” “a state, situation or condition,” and finally, “a false or affected attitude, pose.”2 The study of the Egyptian king’s body postures highlights the relationship between the physical definition of posture and what should come to mind when we look at the arrangement of the king’s limbs. Thus, we can speak of “body language” when we examine Ancient Egyptian iconography, because it is about “talking without words” and making some thoughts visible.3 Non-verbal communication associated with the body comprises body language and body movements. Body movements include gestures, postures, head and hand movements, and movements of the whole body. These movements of the body can emphasize what a person is saying;4 in this case study, such movements may either reveal what the Ancient Egyptian king was supposed to be “saying” or they confirm his speech, given that visual and textual evidence is always combined.5 They also provide information about his emotions and attitudes, even if these images make up performances and relate events that may have happened; they bring something into being.6 There are several categories of body movements, which we can also observe in the case of the Egyptian king: gestures that serve the same function as a word, and postures that can reflect emotions, attitudes, and intentions. As the Sed-festival is the paragon of all Ancient Egyptian religious ceremonies and contains many examples of royal postures—with the largest range—these gestures and postures can be explored through the study of its iconography and corresponding inscriptions.7 These include the king standing 1.

The Collins Free Online Dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/posture.

2.

The Collins Free Online Dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/posture.

3.

On the emotional charge of body language, see BAINES 2017, p. 271. For studies on this subject in various civilizational groups, see MÜLLER et al. 2013 and MÜLLER et al. 2014.

4.

On the relationship between epigraphy and iconographic elements in ancient Egypt, see VERNUS 1985, pp. 45-66, and pl. I-II; FISCHER 1986, pp. 24-46; TEFNIN 1991.

5.

For a semiotic analysis of ancient Egyptian iconography, see TEFNIN 1991.

6.

BAINES 2017, p. 274.

7.

This study is part of a project initiated by Mélanie Flossmann-Schütze and myself: AFRITS – Ancient Feasts and Rituals – Iconographic and Textual Studies, and its main tool DESERTS Database of Egyptian Sed-Festival and Ritual Texts and Scenes (Ancient Egypt and Nubia). Two international conferences were held: in Munich, Institute of Egyptology and Coptology (10–11 November 2017), and in Cairo, Institut français d’archéologie orientale (20– 21 April 2018).

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 27-38 PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120936 BREPOLS

H

28 Julie Masquelier-Loorius (“static posture”), moving (“dynamic posture”), and performing rites. In the latter case, the king is both in a static and a dynamic posture, since he is “acting” and/or “receiving,”8 referring to the titles of the scenes. These titles distinguish “static offerings/offerings of presentation” on the one hand, and “dynamic offerings/offerings of motion” on the other hand.9 Through an examination of the king’s body as the main subject of iconography, we can further analyse each scene and come away with renewed insight into the iconography of Ancient Egyptian rituals.

I. THE MAIN “ACTOR” IN ICONOGRAPHY: THE KING STANDING, MOVING, AND PERFORMING RITES The relevant iconographic scenes can be classified according to the state of the king’s body— “static” or “dynamic”—and according to our perception of the movement of his body.10 We can find a number of relevant matters related to the attitude of the pharaoh, which can be sorted by type of activity or position: I.1. the king plays sports or moves his body; I.2. the king in the scenes of the Sedfestival; I.3. the “static” position of the king.11 I.1. The king plays sports or moves his body Sports can be defined as “an individual or group activity pursued for exercise or pleasure, often involving the testing of physical capabilities and taking the form of a competitive game.”12 The Ancient Egyptian pictorial sources may represent games (open-air and board), horsemanship and charioteering, archery, hunting, even acrobatics, wrestling, dancing, and water sports. While the king can be represented exercising and moving his body, he is neither a dancer nor a singer. This can be attributed to the decorum of the king, as defined by John Baines, as a set of rules that can be applied to the iconography of the king, and more broadly, to the representation of the proper order of the world.13 Indeed, we must note that the king is never represented playing music or dancing: these are the manifestations of the festivities. The Ancient Egyptians show their rejoicing through playing music during festivals, in honour of the king and/or divinities. Music and dance accompany rituals and feasts,

8.

TEFNIN 1984, p. 63: the two parties present, namely the king and the deity/deities, function simultaneously as objects and subjects of the offering; they are interchangeable, so we are able to consider the king to be either in a “static” or in a “dynamic” posture at the same time.

9.

EATON 2013, p. 68: “These observations are supported by patterns of verb used in the titles of the most common offering scenes.”

10. Proprioception is a little different, since it concerns the static position, the perception of the position and posture of the body; also, more broadly, it also includes the motion of the body. The proprioception would have been required when the king wanted to have a good sense of balance, and to improve his physical performance, including suppleness and strength. 11. Until today, three main studies concern the postures or gestures of the body in ancient Egypt: DOMINICUS 1994; DECKER & HERB 1994 (this two-volume work comprises a comprehensive collection of the iconographic sources related to sports in Pharaonic Egypt, including some representations of the king, and covering all periods); EATON 2013 (in this book, a chapter is dedicated to the topic “gesture, posture, and movement”). On the human body in Ancient Egyptian iconography and statuary, see also TEETER 2000, pp. 149-170. 12. DECKER & HERB 1994, pp. 31-123. 13. BAINES 1990, p. 20; BAINES 2007, pp. 15 and 23.

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but the king himself does not contribute to these entertainments.14 Some human postures/gestures are never used for royal images, so we can talk about “non-royal postures.”15 But when the king is performing a rite as a god—for example, when the king takes the place of Iunmutef—then he can be identified as the god, including his gesture and the clothes usually worn by the deity. I.2. The king in the scenes of the Sed-festival The best illustrations of static and dynamic representations of the king’s postures are the scenes linked with the Sed-festival of the king (the royal jubilee). This ritual is closely linked with kingship,16 since the aim of the ceremony is the renewal of the king’s power, the regeneration of his body, and the confirmation of his crowning. It was intended to be celebrated by the king only after the completion of a thirty-year reign. However, evidence of the celebration of Sed-festivals for kings who did not reign thirty years has been found. The step-pyramid complex of Djoser at Saqqara probably includes the earliest surviving monument built for the performance of the Sed-festival. In the courtyard, archaeological remains of the boundary markers required for the running of the king were found, and some reliefs on the walls show the king Djoser running between two sets of boundary markers. Many kings did not wait until their thirtieth year of reign to celebrate the jubilee once or several times, such as Amenhotep III (three festivals: years 30, 34, and 37 or 38) or Ramesses II (14 jubilees in 67 years). However, we do not know whether the physical performance of the pharaoh actually took place or whether these representations of the running king are only symbolic in nature.17 The dynamic of the king’s body is expressed by the running features, which are relatively common scenes depicted on temple walls. Some of these can be interpreted as episodes of specific rituals. There are five main kinds of running features:18 1/ the king running with a hap and an oar (Figure 1); 2/ the king running with bird(s); 3/ the king running with hes-vases—this feature is commonly linked with the daily ritual, and the king running with hes-vases is certainly to be interpreted as a libation to the god; 4/ the king running while holding a flail in one hand and a papyrus roll in the other; the pharaoh is especially featured in this way in the iconography related to the Sed-festival; 5/ the king running with a bull. The “king” Hatshepsut—in fact a queen represented as a king— appears as a man with a beard, no developed breasts, with broad shoulders, defined muscles, and a trim waist. This is an idealized image of the man with many physical capabilities—that is, the king. Indeed, if we may refer to “the survival of the fittest,” the king of Egypt is shown as the fittest through metaphors including powerful and often wild animals (“as strong as a bull,” “as strong as a lion,” etc.) in the royal epithets mentioned in many texts throughout the Pharaonic period and beyond.

14. DECKER & HERB 1994, pp. 689-854. 15. After MEYER-DIETRICH 2010. 16. Concerning the divine and human dimensions of ancient Egyptian kingship, see FRANDSEN 2008, pp. 47-73; VALBELLE 2004, pp. 84-89. 17. For general comments on Sed-festival, see HORNUNG & STAEHELIN 2006. About the Sed-festivals that did happen: HORNUNG & STAEHELIN 2006, pp. 33-38. 18. DECKER & HERB 1994, pp. 31-123; MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming b.

30 Julie Masquelier-Loorius Through the performance of rites,19 the king satisfies only the gods by being the heir of himself,20 and realizing the cosmos order.21 This is particularly true for the Sed-festival, during which his rule is symbolically renewed. As already mentioned, we do not know whether these physical performances really did occur and whether the king actually took an active part in them, but we can see that the king’s body is represented as fitted for such physical achievements: his muscles are well defined in the pictures.22 Thus, the ritual produces, once again, an ordered and connected universe. I.3. The “static” position: the most common royal attitude in iconography In many monuments, such as Pharaonic temples, the king is primarily depicted in a “static” position: the standing posture, which is the most common royal attitude. However, we must consider that this renders a static moment. Other postures, such as the splayed-knee posture or the running (cf. supra), are less easy to fit with the sequence of scenes and vary from one monument to another, even from one reign to another. The differences in royal postures are not linked with the status of the divinity facing the king. For instance, on a relief from a temple gateway, Osorkon II, as king of Lower Egypt, is seated in a Sed-festival kiosk. Two men are running on the right side of the king; just at the foot of the kiosk’s stairs, we can see the priest reciting an offering formula that can be identified by his gesture.23 “Static” and “dynamic” postures of the king’s body can also be found on the walls of private tombs. The “static” gestures are also favoured in the king’s enactments in private Theban tombs—even if some examples show the pharaoh performing rites, especially for harvest in the temple granary.24

II. THE KING (OR KING’S BODY) AT THE CORE OF THE RITUAL PROCESS Through a series of rituals, the king acquired and renewed his divine status. The structure of the Ancient Egyptian rituals is not fixed, even if some of these sets of rites can be identified in some temples and tombs.25 II.1. Regarding the Ancient Egyptian rituals … and the sequence of the rites At this stage of the study,26 the Ancient Egyptian rituals do not seem to be based on an elaborate set of theological principles, insofar as there are no canonical writings, even if a “book of the temple”—a 19. DUNAND & ZIVIE-COCHE 2006, pp. 139-140. 20. KROL 2005, p. 90. 21. On the Egyptian figurative discourse, see TEFNIN 1991, p. 70. 22. For instance, we can observe the well-muscled legs of the king on the reverse of the Narmer Palette, BARD 2008, p. 107 fig. 5.5. Note that the rendering of the muscles in iconography—and even in statuary—is not specific to the image of the king and divinities; it also appears in the representation of “human” bodies. 23. RUSSMANN 2001, pp. 214-215 (cat. 113). 24. DAVIES 1929, pp. 46-48, and fig. 7-10; MASQUELIER-LOORIUS 2017b, pp. 58, 54 fig. 3, and 55 fig. 6. 25. See, for instance, the feasts and rituals attested in the “Sokarian rooms,” a set of rooms erected in the precinct wall of the temple of Amun-Ra by Thutmosis III (XVIIIth Dynasty) at Karnak: MASQUELIER-LOORIUS 2017a, pp. 396397. In Theban Tombs: HARTWIG 2004, pp. 38-41. 26. MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming b; MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming c.

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manual that describes in detail what the ideal temple should look like—has been identified.27 While many Ancient Egyptian rituals have been identified, the sequence of the rites, both in terms of iconography and in practice, is not well known, in particular for the Sed-festival, during which the king interacts with deities and mortals.28 We should bear in mind that a single scene may refer to different rituals; therefore, identifying a scene and assigning it a number in the sequencing of the ritual imply that a single scene title can refer to several stages and rituals.29 However, due to space constraints, some episodes would usually be depicted only once, even if they were repeated many times, as expressed in the associated title (e.g. “purifying the king by incense, four times”). Some episodes refer to a longer series of rites which has not survived. This can explain the jigsawed aspects of the stages of each ritual, since many sequences of ritual scenes depicted on temple and tomb walls were not organized, on the logic of performing acts, in a single image (divine or royal). An embedded ritual can be interrupted by a ritual in which it is embedded, to be continued or completed afterwards, and some episodes may overlap or intertwine rather than exist as completely separate units. II.2. Gathering the material about feasts and rituals, and highlighting of parallel scenes By gathering all data about feasts and rituals in Ancient Egypt, we can attempt to elaborate a comprehensive collection of material linked with ritual texts and scenes, in which the king is omnipresent. This study covers both Ancient Egypt and Nubia, from prehistory to late antiquity. The relationship between ritual inscriptions and iconographic data ensures the identification of the scenes thanks to a full description. We can also draw parallels between some scenes from the earlier periods and late iconography. A brief collation of sources shows that, even in Pre-Dynastic times,30 we can find images of the king in a specific position; some features are preserved until the Graeco-Roman period, as a fixed iconography of the pharaoh; they show the king smiting his enemies (Figure 2), running with a hap and an oar, and so on. Examination of the ritual scenes of different temples, from either the same or different centuries, can also yield valuable information for comparison and contrasts. This research would add significantly to our ongoing knowledge of Ancient Egyptian rituals. II.3. The king as a deity, the king as a human being? Specific postures of the king’s body during rituals King and deity are interchangeable in scenes of rites being performed.31 This is exemplified by some items and activities which are related to the senses, and especially to smell. The senses must have had a real impact on the effectiveness of Ancient Egyptian rites. For example, incense was used during rites of purification (Figure 3), and some items, such as scepters, were presented to the nose of the king (as noted by some texts).

27. QUACK 2004, pp. 9-25. 28. For examples at Karnak, see MASQUELIER-LOORIUS 2017a and MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming a. 29. The decorative program is organised in multiple embedded levels, see TEFNIN 1984, pp. 59-60; MASQUELIERLOORIUS forthcoming b; MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming c. 30. HORNUNG & STAEHELIN 2006, pp. 12-15. 31. TEFNIN 1984, p. 63.

32 Julie Masquelier-Loorius Can we distinguish non-royal and royal postures? Some of the postures of the king’s body seem to be also adopted in representations of priests, such as the posture of running.32 In the representation of non-Egyptians, as potential enemies, the postures/gestures are exaggerated. Body postures are forced and never look natural. From this iconography comes the idea not only of pain, but also of submission to the Egyptian king. Furthermore, the king’s body postures can be exaggerated too, the best example being the splayed-knee pose, which is very rare before the reign of Sety I (beginning of the XIXth Dynasty). Also, when the king is represented as running, the distance between the toes of both his feet does not meet the usual standards. If standing and kneeling poses can be differentiated only by the degree of inclination of the king’s torso, they are both interpreted as honorific bowing.33 In the way he is represented in private tombs, the king appears to be a living king, though seen in a static posture. The most common image is that of a seated king, though he is sometimes shown standing when he is represented performing rites (see I.3.).34 In royal tombs, the king is represented as static most of the time, offering to the god or receiving symbols of life and authority. Therefore, at this stage of our study, there is no reason to think that the features of the king’s body differ in temples and tombs. Some postures seem to be associated with specific images of the king: royal deification affects the king’s body. For example, he is sometimes represented as a sphinx with a human face, and sometimes as a seated king looking like Osiris. Many scenes are linked with an action or sentiment, such as adoration or jubilation, even in statuary. Beyond active and passive postures, we can find a goddess suckling the king (Figure 4). Whenever the king is nursed by a goddess—often a form of Hathor—as a child or an adult, he is standing, sitting, or in many other postures. The king’s body posture depends on the form of the goddess herself and varies according to whether she is featured in an anthropomorphic form or as an animal.35 Moreover, the posture of the king’s body may indicate the initial location of a scene or relief, and it is, therefore, a key for understanding the latter. The king is always represented in front of the main entrance of the sanctuary, where the image of the deity is kept. Behind his back lies the external part of the temple. This is true in many cases, but there are a few exceptions, such as the two scenes featured in the Akhmenu of Thutmosis III in the Karnak temple. In one of these scenes, one can observe a unique posture of the king’s body: represented as an adult, he is being helped to bow and is accompanied by a god.36 No other example of such a scene can be found in pictorial sources, from prehistory to late antiquity.37 Some scenes are visible, for example, on the exterior wall of a temple, as is the case of the king smiting his enemies. Such a scene appears to deliver a message to people—namely, that the king is the fittest. It can be compared with an advertisement. When the scenes refer to rituals, they illustrate a privileged relationship between the king and the deities. 32. For instance, on the relief from a Sed-festival gateway of King Osorkon II (XXth Dynasty): RUSSMANN 2001, pp. 214-215. 33. BRAND 2000, pp. 9-19 and 37-38; EATON 2013, pp. 155-157. 34. In private tombs, the king can be represented standing both in rewards scenes as well as in ritual scenes, e. g. at Tell el-Amarna (DAVIES 1903, plate XXX). 35. MASQUELIER-LOORIUS 2016, pp. 44-45. 36. MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming a; MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming b. 37. MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming a.

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The king’s statues are created to “embellish the temple,” according to the textual sources. However, both statuary and iconography play a role in the performance of rituals, and the fact that statues were connected with iconography undoubtedly improved the effectiveness of the rites, although these statues and these scenes were not necessary for performing the cult.38 The location of the king’s statues depends on the iconography in some cases. Statues do not reveal “static” forms of the king’s body: some of them show the king in running. Many statues were offered to the king for the New Year’s day, and perhaps each posture was supposed to be represented by one statue or more (Figure 5). Some specific body postures of the king are linked with particular cultic scenes. The position of each limb of the king, even the clothes and crowns he wears, takes part in the metamorphosis of the ruler’s body from human to divine (Figure 6).39 The king’s face is always represented in the same way, whereas other parts of the royal body reveal a static or dynamic posture.40 This emphasizes the relationship between texts and images: the epigraphic sources are strengthened by the posture of the king’s body in the scenes. Moreover, I have highlighted the close ties existing between iconographic sources and royal statuary, which both participate in the effectiveness of rituals by confirming the king’s legitimacy as the ruler of Egypt. The king’s postures in a single monument differ every time, since they depend on the iconographic program. The temple of Sety I at Abydos is the monument which contains nearly all the examples of a king’s body postures.41 It is remarkable that the ruler also acts as if he were his own successor, especially for those sources connected with the Sedfestival.42 One of the aims of the rituals seems to be the renewal of his power over his people, since he is responsible for the balance of the cosmos.

REFERENCES ANDREWS C. A. R. 2000 Egyptian treasures from the British Museum, Santa Ana, The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art. BAINES J. 1990 “Restricted knowledge, hierarchy, and decorum: modern perceptions and ancient institutions”, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 27, pp. 1-23. 2007 Visual and written culture in Ancient Egypt, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 38. See the three kneeling figures in jubilation (the king and two gods, Late Period, British Museum EA11498): ANDREWS 2000, pp. 70-71. 39. Note the importance of washing and fumigation (purification by water and incense), and also of clothing (even the colours of the clothes—coat, loincloth, headband, etc.—and linen used), the divine (royal) body in ancient Egyptian rituals, all of this marking the change of state in ritual context; see for instance MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming a. About the daily temple ritual, see DAVID 1981, pp. 58-60. 40. Note that the facial expression remains unchanged—rather the absence of facial expression, as the bodily movements do not affect it. There is no iconography showing the king smiling—and even more so laughing; such an expression may have been too difficult to render graphically. Smiling is a very sophisticated facial expression and requires specific anatomic movements of the mouth. Some minor exceptions dating from the first half of the reign of Ramesses II could be interpreted as the king smiling; it is rendered thanks to the special position of the labial commissures of the mouth, although we cannot see the teeth. I thank Cédric Gobeil for this information. 41. All the postures of the king are illustrated in DAVID 2016. 42. On this concept, see KROL 2005, p. 90; MASQUELIER-LOORIUS forthcoming c.

34 Julie Masquelier-Loorius 2017 “Epilogue: on ancient pictorial representations of emotion. Concluding comments with examples from Egypt”, in Visualizing emotions in the Ancient Near East, Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale 61, Genève-Berne, ed. by S. KIPFER (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 285), Fribourg – Göttingen, Academic Press – Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 263-285. BARD K. A. 2008 An introduction to the archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Malden – Oxford – Victoria, Blackwell Publishing. BRAND P. J. 2000 The monuments of Seti I: epigraphic, historical and art historical analysis (Probleme der Ägyptologie 16), Leiden – Boston – Cologne, Brill. DAVID R. 1981 A guide to religious ritual at Abydos (Modern Egyptology), Warminster, Aris & Phillips. 2016 Temple ritual at Abydos, London, The Egypt Exploration Society. DAVIES N. de G. 1903 The rock tombs of El Amarna. Part I: the tomb of Meryra (Archaeological Survey of Egypt Memoir 13), London, The Egypt Exploration Fund Kegan Paul. 1929 “The graphic work of the expedition. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Egyptian expedition 1928-1929”, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 11/ II, pp. 35-49. DECKER W., HERB M. 1994 Bildatlas zum Sport im alten Ägypten: Corpus der bildlichen Quellen zu Leibesübungen, Spiel, Jagd, Tanz und verwandten Themen (Handbuch der Orientalistik I/14), Leiden – New York – Cologne, Brill. DOMINICUS B. 1994 Gesten und Gebärden in Darstellungen des Alten und Mittleren Reiches (Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 10), Heidelberg, Heidelberger Orientverlag. DUNAND F., ZIVIE-COCHE C. 2006 Hommes et dieux en Égypte, 3000 a. C. – 393 p. C.: anthropologie religieuse, Paris, Cybele. EATON K. 2013 Ancient Egyptian temple ritual: performance, pattern, and practice (Routledge Series in Egyptology 1), New York, Routledge. FISCHER H. G. 1986 L’écriture et l’art de l’Égypte ancienne: quatre leçons sur la paléographie et l’épigraphie pharaoniques (Collège de France Essais et conférences), Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. FRANDSEN P. J. 2008 “Aspects of kingship in Ancient Egypt”, in Religion and power: divine kingship in the ancient world and beyond, ed. by N. BRISCH (Oriental Institute Seminars 4), Chicago, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, pp. 47-73. HARTWIG M. 2004 “The Functioning Image”, in Tomb painting and identity in ancient Thebes: 1419-1372 BCE, ed. by M. HARTWIG (Monumenta Aegyptiaca X), Turnhout, Brepols, pp. 37-52. HORNUNG E., STAEHELIN E. 2006 Neue Studien zum Sedfest (Aegyptiaca Helvetica 20), Basel, Schwabe. KROL A. A. 2005 “Origins of the Sd-festival: on the history of a hypothesis”, in Modern trends in European Egyptology: papers from a session held at the European association of archaeologists ninth annual meeting in St. Petersburg 2003, ed. by A. -A. MARAVELIA (Bar International Series 1448), Oxford, Archaeopress, pp. 87-90. MASQUELIER-LOORIUS J. 2016 “The role of Renenutet in New Kingdom temples: a reassessment of the archaeological evidence for a cult of this divinity in economic compounds”, Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology 2, pp. 41-54.

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2017a “The Akh-menu of Thutmosis III at Karnak: the sokarian rooms”, in Proceedings of the XIth international congress of Egyptologists, ed. by G. ROSATI & M. C. GUIDOTTI (Archaeopress Egyptology 19), Oxford, Archaeopress, pp. 394-398. 2017b “Les dispositifs de stockage des céréales au Nouvel Empire d’après l’iconographie”, in Les céréales dans le monde antique: regards croisés sur les stratégies de gestion des cultures, de leur stockage et de leurs modes de consommation, ed. by A. BATS, Nehet 5, pp. 49-69. forthcoming a L’Akh-menou de Thoutmosis III à Karnak. Les salles méridionales: relevés épigraphiques et étude égyptologique, Travaux du CFEETK, Cairo, Institut français d’archéologie orientale. forthcoming b “Jigsawed rituals: deciphering the significance of acts and gestures in the temple decorative program features”, forthcoming in Proceedings of the international AFRITS conference held in Munich, Institute of Egyptology and Coptology (10–11 November 2017), ed. by M. FLOSSMANN-SCHÜTZE, J. MASQUELIER-LOORIUS & F. RELATS MONTSERRAT. forthcoming c “Jigsawed rituals: rebirth, crowning, regeneration. Combined ritual or junction points between rituals?”, forthcoming in Proceedings of the international AFRITS conference held in Cairo, Institut français d’archéologie orientale (20–21 April 2018), ed. by M. FLOSSMANN-SCHÜTZE, J. MASQUELIERLOORIUS & F. RELATS MONTSERRAT. MEYER-DIETRICH E. 2010 “Recitation, speech acts, and declamation”, in UCLA encyclopedia of Egyptology, ed. by W. WENDRICH, Los Angeles [http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz00252xth]. MÜLLER C., CIENKI A., FRICKE E., LADEWIG S., MCNEILL D., TESSENDORF S. 2013 Body – language – communication: an international handbook on multi-modality in human interaction (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 38/1), Berlin – Boston, de Gruyter. 2014 Body – language – communication: an international handbook on multi-modality in human interaction (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 38/2), Berlin – Boston, de Gruyter. QUACK J. F. 2004 “Organiser le culte idéal. Le manuel du temple”, Bulletin de la société française d’égyptologie 160, pp. 9-25. RUSSMANN E. R. 2001 Eternal Egypt: masterworks of ancient art from the British Museum, London, The British Museum Press. TEETER E. 2000 “The body in Ancient Egyptian texts and representations”, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 37, pp. 149-170. TEFNIN R. 1984 “Discours et iconicité dans l’art égyptien”, Göttinger Miszellen: Beiträge zur ägyptologischen Diskussion 79, pp. 55-72. 1991 “Éléments pour une sémiologie de l’image égyptienne”, Chronique d’Égypte 66/131-132, pp. 60-88. VALBELLE D. 2004 “La royauté pharaonique, la nature du pouvoir”, in Pharaon: exposition présentée à l’Institut du monde arabe à Paris, du 15 octobre 2004 au 10 avril 2005, ed. by C. ZIEGLER, Paris, Institut du monde arabe, pp. 84-89. VERNUS P. 1985 “Des relations entre textes et représentations dans l’Égypte pharaonique”, Écritures 2, pp. 45-66 and pl. I-II.

36 Julie Masquelier-Loorius

Figure 1 - Thutmosis III running with a hap and an oar in the Akh-menu; temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak (© J. Masquelier-Loorius).

Figure 2 - Sety I smiting his enemies in the hypostyle hall, north exterior wall; temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak (© J. Masquelier-Loorius).

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Figure 3 - Sety I making purification by water and incense (libation and censing); temple of Sety I at Abydos (© J. Masquelier-Loorius).

Figure 4 - A goddess, most probably Hathor as a cow, suckling Ramesses II; temple of Ramesses II at Abydos (© J. Masquelier-Loorius).

38 Julie Masquelier-Loorius

Figure 5 - Priests holding statues of Thutmosis III in the Akh-menu; temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak (© J. Masquelier-Loorius).

Figure 6 - Thutmosis III with the Sed-festival coat, preceded by Iunmutef, in the Akh-menu; temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak (© J. Masquelier-Loorius).

CLÉMENTINE AUDOUIT

Bodily fluids in Ancient Egypt: vital waters but dangerous flows. Concerning an ongoing research project

This preliminary investigation follows a doctoral thesis entitled “The representations and functions of blood in Pharaonic Egypt.”1 After the completion of this study, I am launching a new project on the perception of bodily excretion in Ancient Egypt.2 Indeed, all of these bodily fluids are dealt with in very different ways depending on cultural contexts. All substances emanating from the body (human or animal) are ambivalent in nature. They are specific to an individual but can be visible in the social space. These matters have the ability to cross the boundaries of the body and, in this liminal state, they are loaded not only with specific meanings, but also with power. Thus, they distinguish not only the living from the dead, the pure from the impure, but also the male from the female and the human from the divine.3 This paper will discuss the concept of liquidity. Bodily fluids belong to the sphere of liquids; they are “waters.” Many ancient civilizations (China, Mesopotamia, Egypt) were born on the banks of a river and thrived in fields fertilized by silts.4 Therefore, they established “hydraulic societies.” Water was managed not only through economic and political instruments, but also through the adoption of specific social and religious representations. In the Ancient Egyptian mind, there was a real analogy between “the image of the body” and “the image of the world.” The body and the universe were considered intertwined and made of the same materials as the surrounding environment (earth, water,

1.

Conducted at the Paul-Valéry University, Montpellier under the supervision of L. Gabolde (director CNRS) between 2012 and 2017 and defended on the 30th of June 2017. The publication is in preparation.

2.

Pertaining to fluids, see most recently CORREAS AMADOR 2013; PEHAL & PREININGER-SVOBODOVA 2018; AUDOUIT forthcoming. In the framework of the project, an international symposium on “Body fluids in Egypt and the Near East” was organized in Montpellier University (September 5-7, 2019); it was supported by the Labex Archimede. Furthermore, an Encyclopaedia of the body (limbs, organs and fluids) has just been launched by the UMR 5140 team of Montpellier and is also supported by the Labex Archimede.

3.

See DOUGLAS 1966, pp. 115-130 (chapter “External boundaries”); PEHAL & PREININGER-SVOBODOVA 2018, p. 114.

4.

BOUGUERRA 2007, p. 17.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 39-67 PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120937 BREPOLS

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winds).5 Thus, the perception of bodily fluids was inspired by the image of the Nile, which flowed through the country. The Nile remained deeply positive in Ancient Egyptian thought, but its waters were also considered dangerous. The power and uncontrolled movements of the Nile created fear, as did the flows of bodily fluids. The lexical (signs, expressions, metaphors) and functional analogy between bodily fluids and the flow of the Nile will be examined in the new research project. The very principle of liquid as a moving and changing substance, in contrast with the inertia of death and nothingness, will be at the project’s centre.

I. NILE AND BODILY FLUIDS: WATERS UNDER CONTROL The notion of liquidity was necessarily bound to that of vitality for an Ancient Egyptian man. As we will see below, life was considered liquid in Ancient Egypt; any biological fluid could act as did the Nile that crossed and fed the country. Flowing from an unknown source,6 the water filled the ponds and ran through the canals, to be absorbed by surrounding areas that had previously dried up. I.1. The category of liquidity in Ancient Egyptian writing In order to understand how liquids were perceived in Ancient Egyptian thought, this study will focus not only on the vocabulary but also on the hieroglyphic signs called “determinatives” (or “classifiers”). Placed at the end of a word, these determinatives are not read. Their function is to specify the semantic category of the word. Thus, we can more easily evaluate the deep significance of a word and refine its interpretation.7 If we examine the many signs associated with water and with bodily fluids, we can observe a variety of semantic groups.8 All these groups seem to overlap. In the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system, all the concepts relating to liquidity are expressed or Gardiner N35A), read mu, which means classified by a sign representing three small waves ( “(natural) water, liquid, fluid.” They define the words linked to the actions and uses of water. Water, in iteru-river, the Nile, and more particularly to the annual Ancient Egypt, refers primarily to the Hapy.9 The wave sign is also found in terms relating to and divinized flood called nbi “to swim,” mehi “to drown”) and to navigation activities (such as swimming (

5.

In comparison to the concept of macro-microcosm, which takes various forms: 1/ the frequent correlation between natural elements (sky, earth, mountains or trees) and the bodies of the gods (BILLING 2002; KOEMOTH 1994); or 2/ the belief in a “doctrine of signatures” (GUERMEUR 2015). Concerning the relationship body-nature and the analogical ontology in anthropology, see DESCOLA 2005.

6.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that these waters were similar to the primordial ocean (Nuu). From the Middle Kingdom onwards, texts describe the flood as gushing from two springs near the first cataract of Elephantine. The arrival of waters is linked to the local god Khnum. This god is the guardian of the springs; he opens the cave in which the Flood (Hapy) resides, see PLAS 1986, pp. 171-179.

7.

Many studies have been devoted to “determinatives” over the past twenty years; see for example GOLDWASSER 2002; GOLDWASSER & GRINEVALD 2012. See also the extensive bibliography compiled by THUAULT 2018, p. 7. However, the study of this classificatory system has its own limitations. D. Meeks writes that “le corpus hiéroglyphique s'est créé, a évolué et s'est enrichi de façon aléatoire.” This author also insists on the fact that neither the lists of signs nor the available examples are exhaustive: see MEEKS 2012, pp. 517-518.

8.

LOPRIENO 2005; FRANCI 2005. For the all written forms discussed in this article, see Wb; FAULKNER 1962; Véga (Vocabulary of Ancient Egyptian; http://vega-vocabulaire-egyptien-ancien.fr/).

9.

About the personification of the Nile, see BONNEAU 1964; BAINES 1985; PLAS 1986.

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begau “shipwreck”). The substantive hy “flood” and the verb houj “to flood, to flow, to irrigate” is close to another uncontrollable water phenomenon: hou.t/hj.t “rain,” which , but also by the waves .10 The same sign of can be determined not only by the rainy sky the three waves can be observed in hydrographical vocabulary, such as in the words sunenu “pond,” or dny.t “canal.” In the latter examples, the wave weben “spring,” N36) and/or a small plot of irrigated land sign is often accompanied by the sign for a canal (mer N23). Sometimes, we also find the artificial basin (she ). Whenever these signs are used, (ta they designate “man-controlled” waters. Thus, there is an opposition between natural waters and tamed waters, the latter being subjected to man.11 Water is also associated with the notions of cleanliness and purity in both daily life and religious ia or nepa, which can spheres.12 The acts of washing are expressed through the verbs wâb “pure,” and sometimes mean “to be clean.” The cult imposes a requirement on priests to be the offerings that are brought into the temple also need to be wâb. The determinative necessarily involves the contact with water, and this act of ablution/lustration engenders purification of men and things. These operations will also be carried out during embalming in the “purification tent” (wâbet). qebeh, originally meaning “fresh, cold water,” is significant too, because it refers to The term the act of pouring water on the sacred furniture. Some other determinatives are used in addition to the is three waves, in order to emphasize the notion of purity: water that is poured from a vase sometimes placed at the top of a leg or at the top of a man’s head . Here, liquidity is a culturally manipulated instrument. Liquidity is also imagined in the physiological actions of the living body. In Ancient Egyptian, there is no specific term to designate the entire category of “biological liquids.” Medical texts simply mention the body’s mu “water,”13 just as they mention elsewhere the plant’s or the tree’s mu to designate sap.14 For humans and animals, several types of bodily liquids can be determined by these urine-muyt, waves. For example, the terms mu / muyt “water” can also designate semen-muyt, and even saliva-muyt-ro (lit. “mouth water”). Very abundant sweat can be described as “large and important water-mu” by the physician.15 Other words used for designating bodily fluids are associated with this sign, especially whenever one describes abundant and fedet “sweat” covering a sick spontaneous secretions. They are difficult to control, as is 16 patient’s face: his face is wet because of an infected head injury. Similarly, some animal pathologies hesa “(sort of) mucus”; this liquid must may lead to a lump filled with a viscous liquid called 10. Wb III, 48, 16-49, 4. 11. LOPRIENO 2005, p. 26. 12. Cf. infra, pp. 51-53; MEEKS 1976, pp. 434-435. 13. Like in the Ebers papyrus formula n°855c (99, 18-19): “(The vessel) which brings mu in the heart,” Grundriss V, 8; BARDINET 1995, p. 94. 14. The “sap and water” parallel is quite natural: it is well known that trees live and grow only if the soil on which they stand is soaked with water. See LE GUÉRER 2002², pp. 143-148. 15. BARDINET 2018, pp. 197-198. 16. See Papyrus Smith n°3, 10 and 19 (in the expression “his forehead is clammy with perspiration”); see Grundriss VII/1, p. 309; BARDINET 1995, p. 498; SANCHEZ & MELTZER 2012, pp. 71-76.

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be drained.17 The same determinative is also used for senefu “blood” in some depictions of the afterlife in the royal funerary texts from the New Kingdom. Individuals deprived of rebirth live in a frightening, blood-filled environment (“Their blood is on their flesh, while they are slaughtered”).18 Therefore, bodily fluids are included in the category of “natural liquids” that cannot always be controlled. Many words relating to bodily fluids are determined by a more specific sign: the profile of a spitting Gardiner D26). This designates liquid exiting the body, either from a wound or from an mouth ( orifice, using the mouth as a referent. This sign is a kind of prototype for the entire category. However, it is mainly used in the very rich vocabulary of sputum: there are some twenty words for water evacuated through the mouth and the action verbs relating to this.19 The diverse meanings are not yet understood, and it is difficult to know how the Ancient Egyptian language distinguishes between drool, saliva, spit, and vomit. Words intermingle and only their contexts allow us to interpret the vocabulary. Examples include the terms beshi “spit, vomit” and its causative sebeshi “to make vomit, to peseg “to spit,” ishesh “to spit,” and make it flow” and sometimes “to make bleed,” nekh / nesh “to spit/vomit/cough.” Vomiting is often defined by the words qis (or qâa), seryt. and wet cough is called However, the sign of the spitting mouth determines not only the liquids evacuated through the mouth; terms linked to blood, which are also very numerous, are also preceded by this determinative. senefu, of “red-desheru,” and of “red ochre-tjeru.” This is the case of the generic word These last two words are often used as a chromatic metaphor to talk about blood in religious or funerary corpora. The addition of the spitting mouth determinative makes it clear to the reader that we are dealing with a “red liquid,” which can only be blood. The open bloody wound is called ubenu, which literally means “what comes out.” The sign can then refer to the lips of the neshut “nasal discharge, snot” and resh “cold” should also be wound. The terms mentioned.20 The spitting mouth determinative does not always designate specific upper body fed “to sweat”21 and in redju “morbid moods / discharges, since we also find it in 22 humours.” If this sign seems to be the prototype for all bodily fluids, we can observe the graphic similarity and the image of the pot from which a liquid flows (Gardiner W54), the latter is between associated with the religious function of water as an instrument of purification.23 R. K. Ritner24 insists 17. Papyrus Kahun [UC 32036] (line 12, 13). See the veterinary part in COLLIER & QUIRKE 2004, pp. 54-55; Grundriss VII/2, pp. 632-633. 18. See PIANKOFF 1944, p. 27 and pl. XXXV-XXVI, VII; HORNUNG 1972, pp. 353-354. This example comes from the funerary corpus called “The Book of the caverns,” theme of which is the nightly journey of the sun god through the netherworld (HORNUNG 1999, pp. 83-95). During his journey, the sun god meets doomed creatures considered as enemies. They are bound, sometimes beheaded, and wander in the dark. Blood is regularly present in these descriptions; see AUDOUIT 2017. 19. See the extensive list already established by RITNER 1993, p. 74. 20. Grundriss VII, p. 533. 21. Papyrus Smith n°3, 19; see BARDINET 1995, p. 498; SANCHEZ & MELTZER 2012, pp. 72-73. 22. In BD 63B. 23. LOPRIENO 2005, p. 25. 24. RITNER 1993, p. 75.

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on the fact that the two signs and the two associated categories are complementary and overlapping. Thus, the sign of the spitting mouth could imply (at least at the origin) that by excreting these substances, the body undergoes some sort of cleansing or even purification. I.2. The same divine nature? Some etiological myths even tell us that these waters, so important to Ancient Egypt, are the result of divine bodily secretions.25 The annual flood of the Nile can be described as “a god’s sweat.”26 In the Coffin Texts, the god Hapy, personification of the benevolent flood, says: “The Emergence-season is the sweat which is produced from my flesh.”27 In this context, it is more precisely the vegetation that is considered the god’s excretion. This image also appears in texts from the Graeco-Roman periods—for example, in the Esna temple, the god Khnum is described as follows: “All plants grow from his sweat.”28 The parallel between sweat and river waters is also present in a hymn to the divinity SobekRe at the Kom Ombo temple: “The Nile flows like its living sweat and fertilizes the fields.”29 This soothing, refreshing sweat appears in the driest and hottest period of year; therefore, the image seems well chosen.30 Divine secretions are similar to each other and have the same properties, the same nature. The rest of the text illustrates the sweat = sperm equivalence: “He (the god) acts with his phallus to submerge the Double Country in what he has created.” Thus, the flow is also like male seed. P. Koemoth31 demonstrated that this image is very old, since a formula of the Pyramid Texts states that the king is like the crocodile-god Sobek, carried by the great flood. He “made green again the plants on either shores of the horizon,” and further on he is “lord of seed who takes women from their husbands.”32 Thousands of Hapy figurines and female statuettes of Hapy’s ‘wife’ were thrown into the Nile yearly, perhaps to awaken the sexual fervour of the Flood and encourage fecundity.33 Elsewhere, the Nile is more like the spitting of the gods that spreads over the earth. In the Hymn to the Nile,34 Hapy spits out or vomits the fertilizing waters of the flood (“He spits (on) the arable land, he waters the field”).35 One of the genies of the afterlife, thought of as an aquatic world, is also known as “The One Who Spits the Flood.”36 The metaphor is also found in the Opet temple at Karnak, during a procession 25. In their paper, PEHAL & SVOBODOVA 2018, pp. 116-119 have already discussed the analogies between the Nile and the main resurrection fluids: menstrual blood, milk, semen and redju. See also AUDOUIT forthcoming. 26. KOEMOTH 1994, pp. 1-2. 27. Coffin Texts IV, 142a [TS 318]; FAULKNER 1973-1978, p. 246; BARGUET 2012², p. 86. 28. SAUNERON 1968, p. 169. 29. JUNKER 1931, pp. 55, 2-4; BARUCQ & DAUMAS 1980, p. 431; KOEMOTH 1994, p. 1. 30. Divine sweat always has a pleasant and captivating scent. The flood has a “sweet fragrance” (nedjem setji) in the Hymn to the Nile; see PLAS 1986, 27. Conversely, human sweat is considered to be an unpleasant smell. There are remedies to neutralize perspiration (“to remove the smell-khenéch from the man’s body in the summer” in Papyrus Hearst n°150 (10, 11-12); see Grundriss V, p. 525; BARDINET 1995, p. 394). 31. KOEMOTH 1994, p. 1. 32. Pyr 509 a-b and 510c-d. ALLEN 2015², p. 64. 33. GRANDET 1994, fn. 619. The figurines are called répyt hémet Ḥâpy “(feminine) effigies of Hapy’s wife.” 34. PLAS 1986. The author provides a bibliography about this hymn, p. 3. 35. Section VII, 5-6. PLAS 1986, p. 35. 36. Coffin Texts VII, 347 [TS 1076]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 146; BARGUET 2012², p. 639.

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of genies of the Nile. One of them is “The One who spits flood by his sweat.”37 In the Edfu temple, the flood inundates the country and the fields with its germinating saliva: “It opens the earth for you while it spits (besh) for you on its places”; “it spits (qis) for you on the field (so that it may be overgrown) under the plants.”38 In other texts, the river is interpreted as the god Osiris’s putrid secretion (“the humour that comes redju.40 This out of Osiris, the putrefaction that comes out of Osiris”).39 The Egyptian word is designates elements of the body that decompose after death and turn into humours, into dissolved substances.41 The determinative ( Aa3) represents a suppurative pustule or perhaps the post-mortem incision on the left side of a corpse that two fingers clasp on both sides.42 The liquid that flows from it emphasizes the notion of dangerous, viscous, and smelly secretions. However, unlike the process of human decay, Osiris’s redju are not destructive but highly creative, because they fall in the Nile and represent the divine black silts that fertilize the fields. Indeed, after his murder and dismemberment, Osiris becomes the god of death but, most of all, he becomes the divinity of cyclical regeneration. He will always be reborn, as vegetation through the liquid element. When Isis and Nephthys, the god’s two sisters, found his corpse, they decided to reassemble all his bones and limbs. As during mummification, they drained fluids from the abdomen: “Flow out redju! Come out from this Blessed, fill the canals and create the names of rivers.”43 The god, identified with Hapy, dies, rots, and periodically rises again. Each time, he brings a new abundance (“The river is filled (with) plants as (is) the flood with redju coming from Osiris”;44 “Osiris, you are Hapy the Great (…) Gods and men live thanks to the humours that come out of you.”45 As with other fluids, this type of metaphor continues during the GraecoRoman periods. In a text relating to the offerings placed in the temple of Opet, it is specified: I (the king) have brought you all things that came out of the flood, that the fruit trees created from your humours ... You are the one who supplies the altar of the gods and goddesses in your name of Osiris.46

Thus, all kinds of waters seem to be a part of Osiris, and T. Oestigaard wrote that “the Nile was the most important water body.”47 In these examples, the germinative fluid mainly comes from male beings. Nevertheless, the link between the flood and female blood is also well known. In the myth called Distant goddess or the Return of the goddess, a young female deity who is the daughter of the sun disappears from Egypt and goes to Nubia, where she retires to solitude. The languishing land needs her to return. Upon returning,

37. WIT 1958, p. 193. 38. CAUVILLE & DEVAUCHELLE 1990, p. 252:2 and 243:16-17. 39. Pyr 788 a-b; Pyr 1291a-b, Pyr 1360 a-b; Pyr 2007 a-b; 2031a. 40. About these effluxes: PANTALACCI 1981, pp. 57-61; KETTEL 1994; KOEMOTH 1994, pp. 5-8; WINKLER 2006, pp. 125-136; NYORD 2009, pp. 462-467. 41. KETTEL 1994, p. 323. 42. PEZIN & JANOT 1995. 43. Coffin Texts I 307 [TS 74], see FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 69; BARGUET 2012², p. 119; PEHAL & PREININGERSVOBODOVA 2018, p. 118. 44. BD 149; see ALLEN 1974, p. 146, BARGUET 1967, p. 212; QUIRKE 2013, p. 363. 45. KITCHEN 1983, p. 22 (12-13). 46. WIT 1958, p. 220. 47. OESTIGAARD 2011, p. 44.

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she becomes successively enraged, in the shape of a lion, and then appeased, like a peaceful cat, thanks to the action of a mediating figure, often the moon god Thoth.48 Her arrival in Egypt is the occasion of joyful festivities and popular jubilation. In this allegorical myth, the goddess embodies the flood,49 and her leaving is synonymous with dry seasons during which there is no water. At the same time, some elements of this myth seem to refer to a woman’s menstrual period,50 and in particular to the exclusion of menstruating women from the community.51 The text alludes to the transformation of an enraged lioness (whose “back has the colour of blood”52) into a cat. This animal is known for its fertility in Ancient Egypt and for its link with sexuality and birth.53 In this myth, the flood is not really considered to be the blood poured by the goddess, but rather the sign of a finished cycle that restores a period of fertility (in the fields / in women’s bodies). The association lion goddess – blood – flood is also found in the story of the Destruction of mankind. Men are hunted down and slaughtered by Ra’s daughter. In order to stop the carnage, the sun god pours a stream of red beer into the valley to soothe the young goddess (“The fields became filled (to a height of) three palms with the liquid”).54 In some other mythological narratives, the flood can also be perceived as an amniotic secretion from a woman’s womb. Again from the Great hymn of the Nile, a passage explains the feminine and maternal part of water which is now “pregnant with Sobek, she gives birth to the flow.”55 Thus, the Nile can be linked both to the putrid humours of a male god and to the uterine secretions of a goddess. Before the flood, first comes the smelly Green Nile, which arrives from the stagnant waters of the Bahr el Ghazal marshes. Then the waters become a dark and opaque red, a tint that they take when they flow down from the plateaus of Abyssinia (mostly in Ethiopia).56 I.3. Creative and fertile power The terrestrial waters that inundate the country every year are often perceived to be like divine secretions. All of these liquids are imagined as a deeply germinative element, a source of life, in all aspects of the universe. Fertility is their primary function, and this refers to the waters which exist before the origins: the origin of the world and that of all creatures. It seems that dynamism, agitation, eddies, and transformation of liquids are at the origin of their creative role: fluids will always be in movement, thus alive. In the Ancient Egyptian cosmogony, the demiurge becomes conscious of himself as he is immersed in a magmatic world. At first, this primitive formless mass is not described as liquid, but over time a

48. Sometimes Shu or Onuris. 49. Metaphor already discussed by TE VELDE 1982, p. 136. More recent interpretations link this myth to the movements of the sun and to the heliacal rising of Sirius; see JØRGENSEN 2015, p. 134 and note 7-8. 50. Theories by TE VELDE 1982, p. 136; LEITZ 1994, pp. 99-200, note 19; JØRGENSEN 2015. The latter goes further in his interpretation. He refers to menarche, i.e. a young girl’s first loss of blood. 51. Cf infra, p. 59. 52. In the demotic version; see HOFFMANN & QUACK 2007, pp. 215-216. 53. GUERMEUR 2015, pp. 180-181. 54. SIMPSON (ed.) 20033, p. 291. 55. PLAS 1986, p. 35. 56. PALANQUE 1903, p. 21; OESTIGAARD 2011, pp. 48-51; PEHAL & PREININGER-SVOBODOVA 2018, p. 117.

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semantic evolution occurs and it becomes aquatic.57 The liquid element is the basis of all existence, and the waters were there at the beginning of the world. These primordial waters, this unique ocean is Nuu.58 The universe before existence is described as follows: “Before the water appeared, called before the Nuu appeared.”59 The aqueous nature of the pre-world is also sometimes referred to as Hehu “the (first) flow” since the Coffin Texts.60 This water, as the place of origin of life, is also considered the environment where the dead return for a new gestation period. Immersion symbolizes regression to the foetal state and therefore announces a new birth.61 M. Eliade writes: “The waters symbolize the primordial substance from which are born all forms and in which they return by regression or by cataclysm.”62 In the texts devoted to the afterlife, the deceased describes himself resting in the waters of the primordial ocean that protects him as a new matrix: “The protection of Nuu is around me [as] the protection of Nuu is around the egg from which I came out.”63 This Nuu is linked to the notion of inertia and obscurity: as in the womb, the creatures “who are in the Nuu”—namely, the sleeping demiurge and the dead—float passively, numb and blind, in its waters.64 Regarding the womb, few Ancient Egyptian texts explain the phenomenon of embryonic development and the nature of the amniotic fluids.65 When a woman becomes pregnant, her uterus closes so that menstrual blood no longer flows. The latter stays inside and its role is to “model” the embryo and make it strong and solid (“This will strengthen the egg”66). The woman’s uterus is often serves to evoke the prenatal compared to an egg.67 Moreover, the use of the sign of the egg environment and the gestation. It represents life in its initial phase in a protective envelope. Thus, both embryos and dead people (before rebirth) are immersed in fluids that are identified with the white sefes) and yolk ( senefu “blood”) of the egg (“I appeared as an egg, I flowed into the sefes ( 68 and slipped on his senefu”). Physiologically, it corresponds to the amniotic fluid, all around the baby, and blood which is at the centre.69 Blood is the most active bodily fluid in the process of development,

57. Comments from Bernard Mathieu, who informs me that in the Pyramids Texts, Nuu never has the determinative of the waves. This formless mass seems to receive liquid properties since the Middle Kingdom. However, it is only during the New Kingdom that a ‘normalized’ writing including the three waves determinative is fixed: see ZIVIECOCHE 1992–1993, p. 112; ZIVIE-COCHE 1993–1994, pp. 129-130. For a recent study on the nature of Nuu, see CARON 2018. 58. To name this primordial element, some authors use the term “Nun.” However, this designation is only attested from the New Kingdom on, see POURILLE 2000. 59. Coffin Texts VI 280t-u [TS 660]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 230; BARGUET 2012², p. 408. 60. ALLEN 1988, p. 20; BICKEL 1994, pp. 24-29 and 46 (Coffin Texts II 8a [TS 76]). 61. PÉPIN 1989; BICKEL 1994, p. 25; ARNETTE 2020. 62. ELIADE 1949, p. 198 (translated from French). 63. Coffin Texts VII, 21m [TS 820]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 11; BARGUET 2012², p. 279. 64. SAUNERON & YOYOTTE 1959; PÉPIN 1989, pp. 340-342; BICKEL 1994, p. 27; ARNETTE 2020. 65. BARDINET 1995, pp. 139-153; SPIESER 2007; MATHIEU 2012. 66. London medical Papyrus [BM 10059] formula n°28 (IX, 12-14), LEITZ 1999, p. 69. 67. SAUNERON & YOYOTTE 1959, pp. 59-62; BICKEL 1994, pp. 233-241; SPIESER 2007. 68. Coffin Texts IV, 181e-181l [TS 334]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 257; BARGUET 2012², pp. 504-505. 69. ARNETTE 2020.

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as it binds male and female fluids before giving shape to and “cooking” the new being.70 As for the hebebet,71 which seems to refer to the Nuu, waters of gestation and birth, texts also use the term the Nile (or perhaps its spring),72 and the amniotic liquids at the same time. The god Ra says: “I am Ra, who came into existence alone, whose waters-hebebet formed the egg”;73 “(Ra), the one who cut through the water, who emerges from waters-hebebet.”74 The exit of the uterine liquids repeats the first manifestation of the demiurge, the awakening to life, always in an aquatic atmosphere. Childbirth, the dilatation of the birth paths and the loss of amniotic fluids, can be described metaphorically through the image of the opening of canals; the latter provided irrigation for the land in the afterlife and the rebirth of crops: The Nurse Lake is opened up, the Winding Canal is inundated, the Fields of Reeds fill with water, and my ferrying is ferried on them to that eastern side of the sky, to the place where the gods give me birth, and I am fully reborn there, new and rejuvenated. 75

Finally, in Egyptian beliefs, Nut, the goddess of the sky, gives birth every morning to the sun: it is then said that the newborn baby “swims in the red,”76 in the blood of his birth. Moreover, a magical incantation in the Berlin 3027 Papyrus mentions a “red woman” who gives birth to a child called kheperu. According to S. Donnat,77 he and his mother could be linked to the image of the young sun emerging from a red and bloody horizon. Once the creator god appeared in the Nuu he decided to procreate alone; the female component is, at the origin, absent. The funerary texts describe multiple modes of creation associated with the expulsion of a bodily fluid. First, through masturbation: “He put his penis in his fist so that he might make orgasm with it, and the two twins were born, Shu and Tefnut.”78 Second, through saliva which can also be a fertility vehicle too, and its loss can be compared to ejaculation. The demiurge Atum’s spit gives birth to the same first couple, in another formulae (“O Atum-Khepri … you spat out (ishesh) Shu and you expectorated (tef) Tefnut”).79 There is an obvious homophonic similarity between the names of the gods and the verbs. The eye of the solar god also creates life through its secretions. Indeed, the tears of

70. Blood inside the uterus performs a kind of cooking; see BARDINET 1995, pp. 128-135 and 147-149; AUDOUIT 2017. The uterus is also compared to a jar in Ancient Egypt, and the creator god Khnum often models creatures with his potter’s wheel; see SPIESER 2006, pp. 219-221. 71. Wb III, 63.1-5; see WARD 1978, pp. 103-105. 72. For example, “He will drink at the hebebet of the river” in BD 165 (ALLEN 1974, pp. 161-162; BARGUET 1967, p. 238; QUIRKE 2013, pp. 401-402); BD 164 (ALLEN 1974, pp. 160-161; BARGUET 1967, p. 237; QUIRKE 2013, p. 400) or BD 136 (ALLEN 1974; BARGUET 1967, p. 179; QUIRKE 2013, p. 303). The translation as “spring” is adopted by Quirke. 73. Coffin Texts VI, 270m-n [TS 648]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 224; BARGUET 2012², p. 217. 74. BD 101 (ALLEN 1974, p. 83; BARGUET 1967, p. 138; QUIRKE 2013, p. 226). 75. Pyr §343a-344b [TP 264]; translation by ALLEN 2015², p. 82; ARNETTE 2020. 76. Text E (§16); LIEVEN 2007, p. 377. 77. DONNAT 2012. 78. Pyr §1248a-d [TP 527], translation by ALLEN 2015², p. 168. 79. Pyr § 1652 [TP 600] (ALLEN 2015², p. 265).

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the One as they flow give birth to the race of Men (“Men are the tears of my eye”).80 The last-quoted sentence is preceded by another statement relating to the creation of deities: “I have made the gods born of my sweat.” Most of the texts point to the generating power of all divine excretions, whatever it may be. However, these metaphors also have a linguistic value. The phonetic connection between remit “tears” and remetj “man” has often been discussed,81 and we can add the graphic and the determinative of an eye crying . S. Sauneron similarity between the hieroglyph of the sun and J. Yoyotte wrote: “These cases of genesis by physical emanation describe the materialization of remu “tears” ‘substantives’ as a spontaneous process.”82 There is also a kind of pun between remu “fish.” A passage in the Carlsberg papyrus states: “Their remu -tears (those of the and stars) fell to the ground and became remu-fish.”83 With such puns, it is difficult to determine whether these divine outpourings are related to any emotion; the gods often seem to remain impassive whenever they create, with the exception, perhaps, of the case that we are going to examine below. Most divine secretions, when they fall to the ground, also create various environmental elements, such as trees, plants, minerals, and other substances.84 Like water, bodily fluids have a strong germinative power and help nature to grow. The best example can be found in the papyrus Salt 825,85 which describes the consequences of Osiris’s murder among the divine community. After his assassination, the entire Egyptian pantheon was overwhelmed by sadness. Most gods began to secrete fluids that, as they fell to earth, generated many things: Horus cried ... that’s how the dry oliban was produced … blood fell from his nose (Geb’s), it germinated and pines grew … Shu and Tefnut cried ... that is how the terebinth resin was produced. Ra cried again. The water in his eye fell to the ground. She turned into a bee … the sweat of his body (Ra) fell ... it turned into linen … He (Ra) spat, he vomited and that is how the bitumen was created.

Divine liquids are therefore never lost and prolong the demiurgic act by generating new elements. Man can then use them, especially during funeral rites, which function is to recreate a living and unalterable body in the afterlife. Indeed, the various elements derived from the divine flows are required for the embalming and mummification of Osiris’s body. These rituals will have the effect of reducing the threat to the balance of the world that was caused by his death. After the creation of the world, the fertile liquid becomes either male or female. In the human world, the texts clearly establish a link between the sexual union between a man and a woman, pregnancy, and then birth of a new being. Fluids are at the centre of the distinction between male and female beings, since each sex produces specific fluids. The liquid substance in general can be linked to desire, sexuality, and lasciviousness—as we can read in most of the extant Egyptian love songs.86 Each sexual liquid is necessary for the procreation process, as specified in a religious hymn in the temple of Hibis at Kharga:87 “He (the god) separated their nature (their sex) in order to give birth to males

80. Coffin Texts VII 465a [TS 1130], FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 167; BARGUET 2012², p. 663. 81. MATHIEU 1986; CARON 2015. 82. SAUNERON & YOYOTTE 1959, p. 39 (translated from French). 83. LANGE & NEUGEBAUER 1940, pl. 25* and pl. 26*, VI, 9-16. 84. AUDOUIT forthcoming. 85. DERCHAIN 1965, p. 137. The ellipsis corresponds to passages that we have cut out. 86. LANDGRAFOVA 2005, pp. 74-79. 87. SAUNERON 1960, p. 20; MATHIEU 2012, p. 500.

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fertilizing females, shaping their secretions and pouring their seed into the bones.” It seems that the man and his sperm are the active and dominant element of the sexual act. Often Egyptian texts use the metut. Late inscriptions determination of a phallus from which a liquid flows, to evoke the seed: mu / mui “water, liquid” (as a primary source of life), augmented with the prefer the generic word sign of the excretory phallus, to designate sperm. The majority of terms referring to sexuality and utjetet “to engender,” nehep “to procreation are determined by the male organ ejaculating: nek “to make love,” rekh “to know (sexually),” sedjam “to copulate, to mate,” setji “to impregnate.” Thus, man is considered more active in sexuality unite, to fertilize,”88 and than woman. It is his virility and his ability to inseminate that are emphasized by the lexicon.89 However, in Egyptian minds, each parent transmits half of the biological elements required for a child’s successful development in the womb. The father transmits the bone elements to his child through his seed, which itself comes from his own bones.90 It provides the body’s solid, rigid, and durable elements: bones and also probably teeth, nails, and hair.91 Conversely, the elements commonly called “soft”—skin and flesh—are seen to come from the mother and more particularly from the mother’s milk: irtjet. In the Jumilhac papyrus, the god Ânti is described as follows: “His flesh and skin, his mother gave birth to them from her milk; his bones are due to his father’s seed.”92 Milk provides these elements in utero, even before breastfeeding.93 Milk, previously present in the mother’s body, is considered a true “maternal semen component” similar to sperm, with which it shares not only its white colour but also its creative and regenerative functions.94 The term metut “semen” is not always masculine; it can also refer to the seminal fluids of women or goddesses, while keeping the sign of the phallus.95 Therefore, metut can designate not only vaginal secretions and menstrual blood,96 but also milk as a sort of female semen. Maternal milk also has other names that provide a better understanding of the important functions it is given. For example, the milk of some nurse goddesses is described as mu besau “the protective liquid” (“Get for yourself this besau liquid that comes out of your mother Isis’s two breasts”).97 From the Hellenistic period on, we also find the expression ânkh-was “(liquid of) Life and Strength,” which clearly shows the intrinsic qualities of this food.98 In medicine, “the milk of a woman who has given birth to a male child” is considered to have greater healing powers than others.99 Milk, vector of health and purity, also seems to rejuvenate. It should also 88. This term could also be used to refer to the fertilization of cultivable land and fields. 89. AUDOUIT & THUAULT 2019, p. 18. 90. SAUNERON 1960; YOYOTTE 1962. 91. MATHIEU 2012, p. 500. 92. Papyrus Jumilhac XII, 24-25; see VANDIER 1961, p. 124. 93. About milk, see LEFEBVRE 1960 (both human and animal milk). 94. JEAN & LOYRETTE 2010, p. 99; VOLOKHINE 2017, pp. 86-88. 95. PEHAL & PREININGER-SVOBODOVA 2018, p. 116. 96. The hypothesis of menstrual blood is also possible; see O’ROURKE 2007; O’ROURKE 2010. 97. Pyr. 1873 a-b [TP 661]. See also Pyr. 32b [TP 42] where Isis is qualified as besat “milk women/producer” (and protective woman). On the double meaning of besa as “breastfeeding” and “protection,” see LECLANT 1951, p. 127. 98. DAUMAS 1958, p. 204. 99. JEAN & LOYRETTE 2010, pp. 136-140; BARDINET 1995, p. 574 (index).

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be noted that, as metut can be female, milk can also be male in the world of the gods, since it can be produced by Anubis, Min, or Horus.100 I.4. Fluids, vectors of purification G. Bachelard wrote: “The ideal of purity cannot be put anywhere ... Clear water is a permanent attempt for the easy symbolism of purity ...”101 Water is very often used in ancient medicines, magical practices, and religions for its therapeutic qualities, its purity, and its power to drive away evil.102 It dissolves everything, removes the impure, and encourages regeneration. In Ancient Egypt, water is the primary vector of purity.103 The Nile, which mythically has its source in the primitive waters of the Nuu is linked with this initial holiness and cleanliness. At the time of the flood, when the water floods the country with its freshness, “the purity is spread throughout the country by the water from the beginning of the inundation which comes from the Nuu.”104 However, liquid purity is not systematic; it has nothing to do with hygiene. Waters are ritually pure because they are consecrated.105 It seems that bodily fluids could also have been potential vectors of purification when the context in which they appeared was under control (time, place, actors). Medical spittle is well documented in medical–magical papyri: contact with mouth water forces corrupted elements to leave the patient’s body (“Say this formula while spitting ...”; 106 “Expel the ukhedu (disease agent) by spitting on infected flesh”).107 Sometimes a physician recommends that the sick person makes himself vomit in order to evacuate the agents of the disease, in particular venom.108 Spitting on or licking a wound is a reminder of the instinctive tendency to lick wounds to remove blood, a common practice among animals.109 In addition, females also lick their newly born babies to clean them and activate the mother–child bond (“The limbs of the god have been licked (by the cow), so that the king may enjoy life”).110 The purifying function of the spittle is clear in religious texts: “My purification is the purification of the spittle which issued from the mouth of Re-Atum;111 I salve your body with the water of your mouth.”112 The deceased king is cleansed, purified with salt and natron that correspond to “the saliva which issued from the mouth of Horus, the spittle which issued from the mouth of Seth … through which Horus became clean... through which Seth became clean... this Pepi becomes clean through it.”113 As R. K. Ritner wrote,114 saliva/spittle is like a libation and constitutes a 100. SPIESER 2014, p. 282. 101. BACHELARD 1942, p. 182 (translated from French). 102. KOENIG 2005. 103. MEEKS 1976, pp. 434-435 and supra, p. 43. 104. LEITZ 1994, p. 13. 105. Theory supported by BACHELARD 1942, pp. 184-188; TAROT 2007, pp. 70-72. 106. Papyrus Louvre [E 32847] Rx+1,5; BARDINET 2018, pp. 48-49. 107. Papyrus Ebers, formula n°131 (30, 16); Grundriss V, p. 25; BARDINET 1995, p. 50. 108. SAUNERON 1989, p. 186. 109. ZIBELIUS 1984, p. 399; RITNER 1993, p. 80. 110. BEAUX 2015, p. 64. 111. Coffin Texts VI, 119 [TS 527]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 152; BARGUET 2012², p. 110; RITNER 1993, p. 78. 112. JANKUHN 1972, p. 24. 113. Pyr 850 a-e; Translation from ALLEN 2015², p. 115. The ellipsis corresponds to passages that we have cut out. 114. RITNER 1993, pp. 78-79.

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ritual washing. This can be in opposition to the Ancient Egyptian practice of spitting on hated individuals, liars, robbers, or criminals. Indeed, this act is well documented and surely common; people do not hesitate to report, in their biography, whether they have been spat upon or not (“Not one spits in front of my eyes because my speech is perfect, my advice wise.”115 “No one accused me, no one spat in my face, no reproach was heard (about me)”).116 Thus, the spitting can also have an insulting nature: one spits to offend someone, and even more so to condemn. In fact, R. Nyord117 has clearly demonstrated that the notions of justice/injustice and purity/impurity are intertwined. Spitting on someone refers to him as “an impure person, to be purified.” In many contexts, blood loss is related to the notion of purity or impurity. The very first iconographic and textual references to blood in Ancient Egyptian civilization refer to animal sacrifice. In this context, blood must be abundantly poured and collected in vases by officiants. A priest controls the liquid to establish its purity: “‘Inspect this blood!,’ said the butcher. ‘It is pure’ said the priest doctor.”118 The purity of blood establishes contact with the supernatural entities and makes the offering efficient. The funerary texts also highlight the purification of the deceased through the use of the blood of cosmic enemies, which in its turn corresponds to the blood of animals slaughtered at the funeral (“He will purify himself in your blood, he will bathe in your red blood, assailants and female assailants”).119 Blood can also be associated with another term that was already mentioned—namely, qebeh “freshness.” Initially, this term refers to a libation of pure water (“Blood in libation (is spilled from) fresh wounds (at) union with the ground (funeral)”).120 Drought or simply the expectation of the next flood also calls for a bloody sacrifice. In order to bring the pure and benevolent waters of the Nile, the blood of consecrated animals is shed (“We will sacrifice cattle for you, we will bring a great slaughter”).121 Milk helps the newborn to live and to thrive. For this reason, this liquid is naturally considered beneficent and pure, full of vital dynamism and protective virtues. It is also consumed by the gods and the dead, who enjoy its taste. Moreover, its regenerating power helps to transcend impurities generated by death.122 Many texts describe the deceased king being breast-fed by anthropomorphic deities or a divine cow. The ruler thus initiates a new life cycle; he is perceived as a small child in need of a nursemaid.123 This absorption of milk by the deceased king is often associated with purification (“Isis rocks him, Nephthys nurses him, Horus receives him for his two fingers,124 so that he can purify (king’s

115. The stela of Merer from Gebelein, now in the museum of Cracow [MNK XI-999], line 4; NYORD 2003, p. 73. 116. Conte de Sinouhe, passage B40, translation by SIMPSON (ed.) 20033, p. 57. 117. NYORD 2003. 118. In the offering room of Ptahotep; see most recently HARPUR & SCREMIN 2008, p. 41 (fig. 56). 119. BD 134; see ALLEN 1974, p. 109; BARGUET 1967, p. 176; QUIRKE 2013, pp. 298-299. 120. BD 64; see ALLEN 1974, p. 57; BARGUET 1967, p. 103; QUIRKE 2013, p. 155. 121. PLAS 1986, p. 146. 122. MEEKS 1976, p. 435. 123. LECLANT 1951. 124. We should understand that he receives him in his arms to rock him.

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name) in the Chacal Lake”).125 It seems that milk is specifically associated with the purification of the mouth: “Osiris has washed my mouth with the milk of a red cow coming out of the sunlight.”126 “I am a bull, pure of mouth, the one who lives by the milk of the god’s mother.”127 As a newborn child, the deceased’s speech becomes virgin, innocent again, when the divine liquid flows into his mouth. Purification by milk removes all a mortal’s failures (“Your sweet milk takes to you in order to purify you from sins”).128 In religious ceremonies, such as the Opet festival celebrated at Thebes, milk is also used to purify the road along which the procession passes (“Purifying the road in front of the god. Be pure! Be pure!”).129 The same kind of rites appears in burial descriptions; in the tomb of Djehuty, we can read: “Sprinkling the way with milk for your arrival at the door of your tomb.”130 Thus, in egyptology, bodily fluids are to be studied through the prism of liquidity. They are considered “natural waters” inside a body, which could be conceived as a microcosm, with the same elements found in the Egyptian environment. This environment is, in turn, created by the bodies of the gods. Man seeks to normalize, organize, and control all his fluids. Like primordial waters, fluid necessarily has a creative power (all fluids for the gods / sexual fluids for men). It can also become a vector of purity if it is poured and manipulated by man in specific ritual contexts.

II. LIQUIDS OUT OF CONTROL: DANGEROUS CHAOS If the Nile remains deeply positive in the Ancient Egyptian mind, any liquid can be just a dangerous. The Nile is a killer: with its powerful waters, it carries and damages everything in its path. On the other hand, without the annual flood, or whenever its waters flow too slowly, people die of thirst and hunger because vegetation cannot grow. Moments of stagnation are very risky as well, because waters become foul and corrupt. Vermin and demons also develop in the liquid. This ambivalent nature of liquidity is also reflected in the perception of bodily fluids. They are subject to the same transformations, because they have an identical nature: sometimes they overflow, sometimes they flow slowly, sometimes they stagnate. Here again, the vocabulary indicates the parallel between microand macrocosm, the body and the land. II.1. Waves of destruction Many texts clearly highlight the very dangerous nature of liquid elements that are unpredictable. High floods could have a negative effect, breaking dams, sinking ships, drowning people and livestock, and over-flooding fields. These do not produce anything, and the consequences are therefore as damaging as with an insufficient flood. The fear of drowning or shipwrecking is constantly present in Ancient Egyptian literature, such as the well-known Shipwrecked sailor story: “A wave of 8 cubits was in it. / As for the mast, I grasped it. / Then the ship died, and of those who were in it / There did not remain a single one.”131 In another narrative, called The eloquent peasant, the narrator wishes that the 125. Pyr 371c-372c [TP 268]; ALLEN 2015², p. 52. 126. Coffin Texts II, 81-83 [TS 96]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 94; BARGUET 2012², p. 237. 127. Coffin Texts V 177e-177f [TS 402]; FAULKNER 1973–1978, p. 46. 128. JUNKER 1913, p. 13 (Phot. 338). 129. EPIGRAPHIC SURVEY 1994, p. 37 pl. 99 (see also 5); IVANOVA 2009, p. 12. 130. From a relief in the Theban tomb TT 110; see DAVIES & GARDINER 1915, p. 56; IVANOVA 2009, p. 31. 131. Translated by SIMPSON (ed.) 20033, p. 48.

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Chief Steward descend to the Lake of Maât (it is a metaphor, he wishes for himself to be just132) and if he does, he will “not taste the perils of the river.”133 Some religious texts often insist on the fact that Osiris was murdered by his brother in the river (“because Osiris drowned in its water”).134 The danger represented by drowning is one of the most feared forms of death for an Ancient Egyptian, because it deprives him of body treatment (mummification), funeral cults, and hence of rebirth in the beyond.135 Blood is the body fluid most easily compared to a negative flood. Its excessive release can lead to a lethal situation. The London medical Papyrus [BM 10059] draws a parallel between a miscarriage and a destructive flood. Then, the formulae refer to deities capable of protecting the woman (“Anubis will come out to repel the inundation (which) will flow over what is pure: the land of Taït.”136 “The flood arrives on Taït’s sandals”).137 Taït is the goddess of weaving: her sandals correspond to the linen tampon with which physicians tried to stop haemorrhages. Anubis, as a god in charge of protecting the corpse by bandaging it, comes to help the physician. It becomes necessary to “seal the entrance to the uterus ... as the entrance to the valleys was sealed.”138 Sometimes, a cornelian amulet is put into the vagina to block the blood from overflowing. The stone is then described as a real dam (“Let the red blood, that just came out, be repelled. Are you unaware of the dam?”).139 The threat of miscarriage seems to be interpreted as a harmful and massive wave that takes all life with it. The unexpected blood flow that comes out of a pregnant woman’s body is extremely apt for this type of metaphor. Yet, the word Hapy usually refers to a form of idealization of the divine flood. In the Louvre’s medical papyrus [E 32847], haemorrhage following tumour surgery is described in similar terms: While the flood was inundating the primordial sanctuary, the one who hurries up and carries away the two chapels140 and the gods of the banners (?) appeared (crocodiles) as well as those who plunder the earth.141

Blood is compared to the flood that overflows into the temple of the creator god, as if the Nuu once again covered the surface of the earth. The metaphor is very precise, since the rest of the passage also

132. Maat is a well-known Egyptian concept that corresponds to the idea of justice, truth, respect of laws and rules. Here, sailing on the Lake of Maat means being fair and honest. 133. Translated by SIMPSON (ed.) 20033, p. 29. 134. In the Monument of Memphite theology (line 62); see SETH 1928, pp. 72-73 and HAWARY 2010, p. 137. Osiris’s drowning appeared before in the Pyramid Texts; see Pyr 24d [TP 33], Pyr 615c-d [TP 364], Pyr 766d [TP 423] “(the place) where you have become immersed” (ALLEN 2015², pp. 83, 106 and 257). 135. GRIMM 1989; LOPRIENO 2005, p. 29. 136. Papyrus of London [BM 10059] formula n°29 (IX 14-X1): Grundriss V, p. 482; BARDINET 1995, p. 489; LEITZ 1999, p. 69. 137. Papyrus of London [BM 10059] formula n°30 (X, 1-2): Grundriss V, p. 482; BARDINET 1995, p. 489; LEITZ 1999, p. 70. 138. Papyrus of London [BM 10059] formula n°33 (X.8-9); BARDINET 1995, p. 490; LEITZ 1999, p. 71. 139. Papyrus of London [BM 10059] formula n°25 (IX, 1-3); Grundriss V, p. 279; BARDINET 1995, p. 488; LEITZ 1999, p. 67. 140. The expression designates all the sanctuaries of Egypt, those of Upper and Lower Egypt. 141. Papyrus Louvre [E. 32847] formula Rx+22, 5-22, 7; BARDINET 2018, p. 145.

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describes the consequences of this return to chaos. The emergence of evil creatures is the result of postoperative complications, just as the division of the country could correspond to the dissolution of the flesh.142 “Those who plunder/pillage the ground” are the miasma that develops inside the wound. External bleeding is, of course, the most impressive situation. However, it also happens that the inside of the body is submerged by waves of bodily fluids. They are perceived as potentially “rebellious”: sometimes, they take the wrong path. While so doing, they create total disorder in the body. Some formulae describe patients whose internal blood is out of control. All the vessels and the main organs can be flooded by this excess of liquid, which no longer knows where to go. For example, a passage from the Ebers papyrus explains that several vessels enter the liver. These usually provide the liquids and air necessary for the functioning of the organ. However, in this case, they bring disease when the quantity of blood arriving is excessive: “They create any alteration that develops against it (the liver) because it is drowned in blood.”143 Blood is not the only fluid that sometimes overflows: another extract from the Ebers papyrus describes a patient who suffers because his saliva has spread everywhere in his body. The description resembles that of a real flood that drowns the organs and limbs: “The jb-organ is submerged because of the humidity of the mouth; the different parts of the human body are completely soaked.”144 Finally, a formula in the same papyrus alludes to the threat of excreta that can rise from the anus to the various parts of the body. According to Ancient Egyptian physicians, faeces have a pathogenic role. If the anus is too submerged in waste, the situation becomes toxic (“The anus opens on each vessel that is on the right and left side of the arms and legs, while it is drowned in excrement”).145 II.2. Fluids leak, sign of morbidity Ancient Egyptian medical texts clearly show that the unwilling loss of bodily fluids illustrates the seriousness of the patient’s situation. It is a symptom that is always highlighted when the doctor declares the diagnosis. In these contexts, the loss of fluids is not considered a flood but rather a “leak.” Failing to retain fluids inside, letting them flow through the orifices, is a sign of death. For example, the tears that continuously run down a painfully tensed face are evidence of the gravity of some head injuries (“Many tears are dripping from his eyes”; “His face is like the face he has when he weeps”).146 The blood that comes from open and visible wounds is not always considered dangerous; its flow is just a consequence of the opening of the flesh.147 However, losing blood through body orifices without being able to stop the bleeding and without knowing its origin is a bad sign and the outcome can be fatal (“He (the patient) loses blood through his nostrils and ears and suffers from stiffness in his neck ...

142. BARDINET 2018, p. 144. 143. Papyrus Ebers, formula n° 854l; Grundriss V, p. 4; BARDINET 1995, p. 99. Note the importance of the verb ibeh “to soak, to moisten” and its determinative here: the three waves for uncontrolled water and a man with a stick for the notion of strength, combat, violence. 144. Papyrus Ebers formula n° 855b (with the verbs bâhi “to be submerged” and amed “to be soaking”); Grundriss V, p. 8; BARDINET 1995, p. 94 (with a discussion about amed). 145. Here is the same verb ibeh; Papyrus Ebers formula n° 854o; Grundriss V, p. 4; BARDINET 1995, p. 99. 146. Papyrus Smith (obverse 8,1 and 3,12); Grundriss V, pp. 322 and 307; BARDINET 1995, pp. 505 and 499; SANCHEZ & MELTZER 2012, pp. 149 and 74. 147. AUDOUIT 2017.

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An evil that cannot be treated”).148 Saliva dripping slowly from a half-open mouth also characterizes disease. Saliva has a strong creative function, as already shown,149 because mouth water is useful not only for talking (and therefore for creating, through speech and social relationships), but also for eating and breathing. Losing control of saliva means no longer having the power to perform these vital actions.150 When the goddess Isis finds her son poisoned by an animal in the marshes, she describes his appearance: “He had moistened the banks with liquid of his eye and saliva of his lips.”151 The drool is also related to the infirmity of old age even for the solar god Ra (“The divine aged one’s mouth drooped, and he let his saliva drip to the ground”),152 and the saliva residues will be cleaned up from the mouth during embalming (“I bring you incense and natron that I may remove the saliva”).153 When foods taste like saliva, it is also a sign of impending death (“Beer tasted like saliva”).154 Finally, the poison released by large malignant lymph nodes in the throat, while spreading through the patient’s body, seems to be the cause of a rapid fever (“It made him red and caused abundant sweating”).155 The poisoning after a snake bite often causes a weakening of the sphincters, which then release urine and excreta; the patient cannot do anything to stop it (“He expels through the anus which remains open because of the pain he feels”).156 A series of bodily fluids is also linked to the sphere of disease and even death. This group refers to ryt, which refers to the pus of infected the idea of deteriorated and rotting materials such as wounds. Pus is perceived as a deeply harmful liquid that often appears after a blood failure. It lacks dynamism, stagnates, and no longer transforms food into new flesh (“The blood made pus”).157 In other words, pus is considered to come from the partly failed transformation of organic substances. In many circumstances, it is the demons that are at the origin of the problem (“You produce blood and form pus, sš,159 is gnawing things, and dirty water in ukhedu marshes”).158 The image of marshes, called important here, because stagnant liquids and very humid areas (in the body and the land alike, including wells, ponds, and lakes) create a microclimate that favours the emergence of diseases and malevolent creatures.160 Many diseases are said to be caused by “blood marshes” or “ukhedu marshes.” 148. Papyrus Smith (formula obverse 2, 12-15), see Grundriss V, p. 304; BARDINET 1995, p. 497; SANCHEZ & MELTZER 2012, p. 61. 149. Supra, pp. 44, 50 and 51. 150. The following examples are also discussed in RITNER 1993, p. 83. 151. KLASSENS 1952, pp. 54 and 84. 152. BORGHOUTS 1978, p. 51. 153. BD 79, ALLEN 1974, p. 69; BARGUET 1967, p. 117; QUIRKE 2013, pp. 188-189. 154. Papyrus Vandier col.1/4; POSENER 1985, p. 40. 155. Papyrus Louvre [E 32847] (reverse 11,3); BARDINET 2018, p. 197. 156. Papyrus of Brooklyn [47.218.48 and 85] § 92; SAUNERON 1989, pp. 124 and 179. 157. Papyrus Louvre [E 32847] (obverse x + 30, 1-5); BARDINET 2018, p. 164. 158. BARDINET 2018, p. 163. 159. The word sš also means “nest,” but in this context this translation does not reflect the wet and fluid aspect of organic substances. However, this word also refers to the idea of a stagnant teeming area: BARDINET 1995, pp. 130132; NYORD 2017, p. 30; BARDINET 2018, p. 163. 160. LACOSTE-DUJARDIN 2007, pp. 152-155.

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Therefore, the body is marked by stagnant water places, similarly to the land. These spots have a strong germinative power, but if the creation process does not work properly, pathogens can proliferate. “âaâ-liquid.” Brought by demons Other pathogenic factors can attack the body, such as the and gods, this kind of pathogen fertilizer can transform itself into a variety of parasites. Its creation is due to the penetration into the body of a kind of divine semen that is not adapted to a human organism.161 Texts speak of remedies to evacuate, “the aâa of a god, a goddess and/or the metut-semen of a dead male or a dead female.” Initially, the linguistic root âaâ is related to the act of “pouring, spilling, spreading” (also used for venom) and has a connection with hydrography and still waters.162 It can refer not only to artificial basins or cisterns, but also to the natural spillways of the river .163 Although this liquid is viewed as fertile, its presence and stagnation in the human body are inappropriate. It is deemed to create dangerous phenomena, such as worms and parasites (“The man who has vermin in the body, it is the aâa that forms this”).164 Apparently, this liquid could also stagnate in a kind of lake at the neck level, according to the Ebers papyrus: Four vessels divide at the head and pour into the neck. It forms a reservoir. A source of aâa is what they form externally (at the head).165

Sebum/natural hair oils, which spread to the hair, could be considered one of the facets of the aâaliquid. II.3. Dirty secretions, dirty waters The period of decreasing and stagnating waters is a moment of utmost danger in Ancient Egypt. It brings mosquitoes, worms, rats, and diseases such as plague and malaria.166 It should also be pointed out that people living near a water area often tend to throw all their waste into it. Therefore, the river banks and the large marshy areas are not always well perceived by society. They are marginal spaces, intermediate between land and water. The individuals who frequent these zones are at the lowest levels of the social scale.167 In several examples, the proximity to these waters is associated with prolonged contact with some excreta of the body. In the Satire on the trades (or Instruction of Dua-Khety), in which manual trades are listed from the most to the least favoured, we find the water-related occupations at the bottom of the scale: the fowler and the fisherman. These are considered half-wild individuals, on the fringes of civilization. Then comes the launderer. This occupation, which is also practiced at the river bank, is considered poorly, because man is in contact with dirt, bodily fluids, and other people’s waste. The dirty secretions mix with dangerous waters. The whole passage in the Satire on the trades is interesting for our purpose:

161. Grundriss VII, p. 132; BARDINET 1995, pp. 121-125; BARDINET 2018, p. 37. 162. WALLE 1972, pp. 74-75; WARD 1978, p. 106; BARDINET 1995, p. 122. 163. Wb I, 166:15. 164. Papyrus Ebers formula n° 62; Grundriss V, p. 195; BARDINET 1995, p. 124. 165. Papyrus Ebers, formula n° 854d; Grundriss V, p. 2; WARD 1978, p. 108 followed by BARDINET 1995, p. 121. 166. BICKEL 2005, p. 192. 167. MATHIEU 2006, p. 163.

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The washerman launders at the riverbank in the vicinity of the crocodile. I shall go away, father, from the flowing water, said his son and his daughter, to a more satisfactory profession, one more distinguished than any (other) profession. His food is mixed with filth, and there is no part of him which is clean. He cleans the clothes of a woman in menstruation. He weeps when he spends all day with a beating stick and a stone there.168

In this passage, his food is full of waste and secretions.169 The worst of all infamies is long-term contact with the blood of menstruating women, which will be discussed below.170 The reference to crocodiles not only shows the arduousness of the work but also suggests the profoundly deleterious nature of the man’s situation. The launderer, in close contact with the flowing water and the secretions, is badly perceived even by his own children. Some other occupations, linked with the liquid element, provide a shabby picture; men seem dirty and pathetic, as is the gardener. The latter goes back and forth between the waterfront (or the well/cistern) and his vegetable plot all day long, and the storyteller says that “by carrying his rod, he is a victim of blister full of fat on his neck.”171 A similar list also appears in the Lansing’s papyrus [BM 9994] and, in that case, other particularly dirty labour is described: the “leather workers” (tjebu),172 including tanners who work animal skins. These different activities can be practiced only near an important source of water, because skins must undergo several operations in water. In addition, all the waste is removed from the carcasses and the affected area must be thoroughly washed with an enormous amount of water. Then, the emptied animal corpses are described as constantly smeared with dirty, soiled, or dangerous substances (“The tjebu mixes with the tanks. Its smell is bad. His hands are red with the madder, like the one anointed with his blood”).173 The tanner is in permanent contact with animal carcasses, and he is, therefore, himself perceived as carrion, a putrefied corpse. The emphasis is placed on the smell he releases; it is a nauseating death scent that sets him apart from others. He is also frightening, because he is daubed with red dye, especially on his hands. It is surprising to note that no text describes the profession of butcher in a pejorative way. However, the butcheries had to be located not far from the tanneries and also close to an important water reservoir (if not to the Nile itself). In addition, the butcher is in constant contact with the blood, fat, and other bodily fluids of animals, as well as with contaminated water. II.4. Fluid infertility: religious prohibition In other religious or mythological texts, liquids are no longer considered as pure but as but. This Egyptian word is often translated as “abomination, abominable (thing),” and it refers, according to

168. Translation by SIMPSON (ed.) 20033, p. 435; QUIRKE 2004, p. 124. 169. He is like a damned dead, see infra, p. 58; MATHIEU 2006, p. 163. 170. Infra, p. 59. 171. Papyrus Sallier II, VI, 5-6; SIMPSON (ed.) 20033, p. 434 (he translates: “a swelling is on his neck and it festers”); QUIRKE 2004, p. 123 (he translates “blister on his neck, oozing puss”); VERNUS 2010², p. 246. 172. It initially refers to the “shoe maker.” 173. VERNUS 2010², p. 253 (English version by the author, with minor changes).

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P. Montet,174 to prohibitions, religious taboos. However, D. Meeks provides a more precise definition of this term: “[The but is] an attitude of the divinity toward certain acts, which—because they wound her in her benevolent expectation—pushes her to act, or rather to react.”175 Some bodily secretions called but in the Ancient Egyptian sources have been identified; these are related to digestion or problematic procreation. In these cases, impurity is caused by the abnormal infertility of these substances. This sterility goes against the deeply creative nature of liquids. Their presence disturbs and threatens the regeneration processes. usesh (or ushesh) “urine” and hesu “faeces.” First of these dangerous body secretions are 176 In Ancient Egypt, people were repelled by excrement, a symbol of rejection and dirt. This is one of the most important arguments used to encourage the respect due to Ancient Egyptian mothers by their sons: “Your excrement was repugnant, but she felt no repugnance there.”177 Excrement is considered sterile, “useless,” even dangerous. Archaeology has highlighted this aspect, with the discovery of personal latrines hidden behind folding walls (no public places, unlike in Rome).178 Besides this Ancient Egyptian aversion to excrement, there may be not only a fear of contamination but also a fear of jeopardizing the world order through the spreading of a sterile fluid in the social space. In the descriptions of the afterlife, excreta and urine are frequently mentioned as the most significant but.179 Texts emphasize the toxicity of these substances, which the dead must neither touch (“I will not touch it with my fingers, I will not tread on it with my toes”) nor eat (“I will not eat excrement for you and I will not drink urine for you”).180 The damned dead (whose resurrection is impossible) are condemned to walk upside down and feed on excrement and urine. Their body orifices are reversed. hesemen Another example of but may be menstrual blood, which was more precisely called 181 “purification.” The menstruating woman needs to perform purification in order to restore her usual status; she needs to eliminate this negative blood.182 Transitions are always moments during which one can fall into chaos and hence into impurity.183 Menstruation is qualified as a but only in cult monographs, dating from the Graeco-Roman periods. This is the case in only three specific Egyptian provinces: the 17th and 18th provinces of Upper Egypt (Cynopolite region) and the 10th province of Lower Egypt (Athribis).184 In these regions, menstruating women are “hated by the gods.” They must have been excluded from places of worship and even segregated (“His abomination is the woman in 174. MONTET 1950. 175. MEEKS 1976, p. 434 (translated from French). See also FRANDSEN 2007, p. 87; VOLOKHINE 2014, pp. 115-117. 176. LIEVEN 2011, pp. 292-296. 177. In Ani teaching, translation by VERNUS 2010², p. 324 (English version by the author). 178. GRÄZER 2011. 179. For the Coffin Texts, see KADISH 1978–1979; ROBINSON 2007; NYORD 2009, p. 327. 180. These examples are in Coffin Texts III, 47-59 (Spell 173); FAULKNER 1973–1978, pp. 147-148; BARGUET 2012², pp. 378 and followings. 181. See Wb III, 163, 2-6 and 8; WILFONG 1998, p. 422; FRANDSEN 2007, pp. 82-87; PEHAL & PREININGERSVOBODOVA 2018, p. 116; AUDOUIT 2017. 182. FRANDSEN 2007, pp. 82-84; WESTENDORF 1966, p. 148. 183. MEEKS 1976, p. 443. 184. Several sources describe these prohibitions of menstruation: the bedrock of the western wall of the Edfu corridor, the geographical papyrus of Tanis, the geographical papyrus of Tebtunis (Calsberg 182 + PSI I 77), and the Jumilhac papyrus; see FRANDSEN 2007, pp. 88-89; AUFRÈRE 1998.

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menstruation in his (entire) city”).185 Menstruation seems not to be called but before the Graeco-Roman periods. However, a form of exclusion was already applied in some circumstances during the New Kingdom. In the village of Deir el Medina, inhabited by the workers who built the royal tombs, a man did not go to work if one of his female family members had her period.186 On the registers that record absenteeism, we can read: “(Absent) wife in menstruation” or “daughter in menstruation.”187 It seems that this impure state could affect male relatives. The risk was too great to bring impurity or death into funerary areas through this bad blood. This could partly be explained by the fact that the tombs, or even the entire necropolis, were conceived as real spaces of gestation, similar to a woman’s uterus. It is likely that women were forced to isolate themselves to reduce such danger;188 they may have taken shelter in a collective place located outside the city, in a kind of red tent called “the place of women where they have their menstruation.”189 They may also have stayed in a specific area at the perimeter of their home.190 In all the cases mentioned above, bodily fluids were considered to be spread unproductively. It should be noted that the chaotic god Seth, lord of the deserts, possesses and spreads a semen that never fertilizes. In the Contending of Horus and Seth, he tries to abuse his nephew but finally ejaculates in the hands of young Horus. Horus’s mother Isis, when she discovers this, feels a violent and sudden disgust, a repugnance towards Seth’s sperm. She is also afraid that the offence will be revealed (“She screamed, grabbed his knife and cut off his hands”).191 Seth’s rape attempt failed, and his seed was thrown into the stagnant waters of a marsh. Later, Isis, in order to take revenge, makes Seth swallow her son Horus’s sperm, and Seth is then considered “to be pregnant with Horus’s sperm.” Attempting rape and discharge of seed in order to dominate an opponent is considered to be but in an old Memphite hymn: “Their abomination is for the hand of the god to fall on them, and for the shades of the god to abuse them sexually. His seed shall not enter into them.”192 Finally, a myth of the Jumilhac papyrus states that the god also tries to rape Isis herself. He expels his seed too early and it spreads onto the ground. Isis then talks about the liquid with the very same wording: “It is an abomination (but) to have ejaculated, you bull!”193 In this context, Seth’s sperm is not totally lost: it spreads and makes the bededu-ka plant grow.

185. In Edfu temple, CAUVILLE & DEVAUCHELLE 1987, p. 332:17. 186. FRANDSEN 2007, p. 90. 187. For example, an ostracon from the British Museum [BM 5634]; an ostracon from the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York [O. MM 14.6.217]; another ostracon from the Egyptological museum of Turin [O. Turin 57388], see the list in FRANDSEN 2007, pp. 90-96. 188. FRANDSEN 2007, p. 96; WILFONG 1998. 189. In an ostracon from the Oriental Institute Museum of Chicago [O. OIM 13512], TOIVARI-VIITALA 2001, pp. 163164. 190. The latter assumption seems to be accepted for later periods; see COLIN 2001. 191. Papyrus Chester Beatty I (11, 4); GARDINER 1932, pp. 51-52; BROZE 1996, pp. 90-91. 192. KEES 1922, p. 110. 193. VANDIER 1961, p. 114.

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CONCLUSION While focusing on liquidity, I have attempted to show the Nature/Body analogy that the Ancient Egyptians constantly made in their system of thought. The human body was considered a microenvironment, and the Ancient Egyptian landscape was itself the product of a divine body. Fluids (blood, tears, semen, milk, pus, saliva, etc.) create rivers, canals, marshes, and springs. Men need to control liquids; this control is based on the mythological narrative that explains the divine nature and creative function of fluids. Control is also about establishing a form of fluid purity during worship (it can even replace clear water). However, man cannot completely control the river or his bodily fluids. This leads him to consider them as wild and therefore dangerous materials. Whenever fluids escape control and spread without order, they become destructive, dirty, dangerous. In such circumstances, they are hated by the gods ... and by people.

REFERENCES ALLEN J. P. 2015² The Ancient Egyptian pyramid texts, translated with an introduction and notes (Writings from the Ancient World 23), Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature. ALLEN T. G. 1974 The Book of the Dead or going forth by day: ideas of the Ancient Egyptians concerning the hereafter as expressed in their own terms (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 37), Chicago, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 1988 Genesis in Egypt: the philosophy of Ancient Egyptian creation accounts (Yale Egyptological studies 2), New Haven, Yale University. ARNETTE M. -L. 2014 “Purification du post-partum et rites des relevailles dans l’Égypte ancienne”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie orientale 114, pp. 19-71. 2020 ‘Regressus ad uterum’: la mort comme nouvelle naissance dans les grands textes funéraires de l’Égypte pharaonique (Ve-XXe dynasties) (Bibliothèque d’étude), Cairo, IFAO. AUDOUIT C. 2017 Le sang en Égypte ancienne: représentations et fonctions, Unpublished doctoral dissertation Montpellier III University. AUDOUIT C., THUAULT S. 2019 “Écrire la femme en Égypte ancienne”, Volumen 19-21, pp. 1-32. Forthcoming “The perception of bodily fluids in Ancient Egypt”, forthcoming in Proceedings of the current research in egyptology 2019 (Alcalà de Henarez). AUFRÈRE S. H. 1998 “Les interdits religieux dans les monographies en Égypte”, in L’interdit et le sacré dans les religions de la Bible et de l’Égypte, ed. by J. M. MARCONOT & S. AUFRÈRE (Orientalia Monspeliensia), Montpellier, Université Paul Valéry, pp. 68-113. BACHELARD G. 1942 L’eau et les rêves: essai sur l’imagination de la matière, Paris, Librairie José Corti. BAINES J. 1985 Fecundity figures: Egyptian personification and the iconology of a genre, Warminster, Aris & Philips publishers. BARDINET T. 1995 Les papyrus médicaux de l’Égypte pharaonique: traduction intégrale et commentaire (Penser la médecine), Paris, Fayard. 2018 Médecins et magiciens à la cour du Pharaon: Une étude du papyrus médical Louvre E 32847, Paris, Éditions Louvre – éditions Khéops.

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LUC RENAUT

Tattooed women from Nubia and Egypt: a reappraisal

INTRODUCTION The ancient female1 tattooing practices in Egypt and Nubia are a rich and fairly complex subject that cannot be treated here in an exhaustive way. In this article, questionable documents and secondrate academic contributions are deliberately set aside, but all essential primary sources are taken into account in the analysis. By a work of examination and reordering, I would like to clarify several obscure points and bring, also, a little bit of newness. I propose to draw a distinction between two tattooing traditions, one called geometric (type A) and the other called emblematic (type B). I characterize both repertoires in general terms and, for each of them, I resume the analysis of several problematic motifs. Finally, I bring to light a tattoo representation that has gone unnoticed until now, engraved on a statuette kept in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow).

I. TATTOOING OF TYPE A: GEOMETRICAL In this first section, I will define the main characteristics of tattooing of type A, update the list of its known human representatives, and comment on some of its repertoire’s particularities. Then, after referring to the Nubian roots of this body-marking tradition, I will open a discussion on the identity of the three women buried in Deir el-Bahari, a central issue for the history of tattooing in the Nile regions. I.1. Main characteristics In tattooing of Type A (henceforth TA), tattooed decoration is monopolized by women. It consists of small, simple, and non-figurative motifs (dots, dashes, lines, zigzags). These motifs are multiplied and juxtaposed to obtain geometric and rhythmic patterns that can be endlessly extended on the surface by concatenating their building blocks, a method very similar to that used in wickerwork, ceramic, and textile decoration. With the exception of the face, all body parts can potentially be extensively tattooed: arms, legs, hands, feet, and torso. Outside Africa, we know of ancient tattoo traditions that share similar criteria, mainly embodied by Daunian2 and Thracian3 women.

1. The question of male tattooing, which seems to concern primarily the ancient “Libyans,” is not addressed here. 2.

Southern Italy, documented from 700 BC (NORMAN 2011).

3.

Balkans, documented from 550 BC (RENAUT 2011).

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 69-87

HPUBLISHERS

BREPOLS

DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120938

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I.2. Human remains At the present time, we know of twenty female representatives of this tradition (TA1-20): TA1–3

TA4–6 TA7

TA8–9 TA10–20

Middle Kingdom (TA1–7) Three women buried at Deir el-Bahari (Thebes, Upper Egypt), next to the funerary temple of Mentuhotep II (ca. 2064–2013 BC), in the north triangular court: a middle-aged woman named Amunet, whose tomb was probably located in pit 25; a young woman buried in pit 23; and an older woman buried in pit 264 (pl. I). Three women buried in a Nubian cemetery at Hierakonpolis (Upper Egypt) ca. 1900 BC (cemetery HK27C, graves 9, 10 and 36).5 A woman buried in Kubban (Nubia) between 1700 and 1500 BC (cemetery 110, grave 271).6 Meroitic period (TA8–20) One or two women buried in Semna (Nubia, ca. 100 BC – 150 AD, grave 247).7 Nine or ten women buried in Aksha (Nubia, first century BC, graves AM 4, 12, 32, 36, 38,8 43, 45, 62, 65, 77;9 pl. III)

I.3. Special features of the repertoire In the Nile countries, a recurring and specific TA pattern is the lozenge (or diamond) made up of nine, twelve, or sixteen dots. 10 Lozenges are often concatenated to form lines or checkers. These patterns remain fairly consistent over a very long period, more than two millennia (from ca. 2000 BC to 100 AD), and have very close parallels in C-Group11 and Meroitic12 pottery decoration (pl. II). Another striking feature of TA is the specific treatment given to the sub-pubic zone. On two women buried 2000 years apart, TA1 (Amunet) (pl. I.1) and TA15 (Aksha AM 43; pl. III.2a), the pubic triangle has been extended to the lower abdomen by an area tattooed in large dashes organized in rows more (TA1) or less (TA15) vertical, and delimited in the upper part and on the sides by one (TA1) or two (TA15) horizontal rows of dashes.

4.

KEIMER 1948; ROEHRIG 2015.

5.

FRIEDMAN 2017.

6.

FIRTH 1927, p. 54 and pl. 25, fig. 1d. During the first half of the twentieth century, this fragment of skin was kept at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (London), subsequently destroyed by bombardments during World War II (KEIMER 1948, p. 16; FIELD 1958, p. 55).

7.

ALVRUS, WRIGHT & MERBS 2001.

8.

Mummy of indeterminate sex but, given her tattoos, most certainly female.

9.

VILA 1967, pp. 368-369 and pl. XII-XIX.

10. R. Friedman suggests that the four rows of dots that form the pattern could have been made using a kind of comb with four sharp tips (FRIEDMAN 2017, p. 27). In fact, a careful examination of the photographs shows that dots and dashes are not always evenly aligned and spaced and that their number per row (3 or 4) may vary. 11. Faras, cemetery 2, grave 110, burnished cup decorated with checkers of lozenges filled with white dashes, ca. 1900–1550 BC (MET inv. 13.125.28a). During the Middle Kingdom, some Upper Egyptian pottery workshops imitated Nubian decoration by using lines and checkers of lozenges (RZEUSKA 2010). 12. Meroe, West cemetery, grave W102, n. 22-1-522a, black-ware globular jar decorated with patterns of fourdiamonds checkers, ca. 150–300 AD (DUNHAM & REISNER 1963, pp. 192 and 348, fig. L).

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Figuration is essentially absent from the TA repertoire. However, three exceptions can be reported, all dating from the Meroitic period: 1/ On the upper abdomen of TA15 (= AM 43; pl. III.2a), a symmetrical composition of six schematic birds (ostriches?) facing each other, on both sides of an axial plant-shaped motif (see below).13 Animals and rows of animals and cattle are frequent in Meroitic decoration.14 2/ A plant-shaped motif tattooed in axial position on the upper abdomen and in lateral position on the lower back of TA15 (= AM 43), and in axial position on the upper abdomen of TA14 (= AM 38; pl. III). This same motif is also punctuated in axial position on the abdomen of a clay female figurine from Karanog cemetery (Aniba, see below MF2; pl. II.5 and pl. IV.4). This motif, also echoed in Meroitic pottery (pl. IV.5-8), 15 consists of three fundamental elements, all made of dots: (a) a triangular, rhomboidal, or round base (= “the ground”); (b) a vertical row of diamonds whose outer corners extend laterally in broken lines (or chevrons) (= “stem and leaves”); (c) a top element that can be either the last diamond in the row or a downward-pointing triangle, very reminiscent of the stereotypical way in which papyrus umbels are represented in Egyptian art (= “inflorescence”). 3/ Another motif, reproduced four times on the lower abdomen of TA14 (= AM 38; pl. III.1 and pl. V.1-3), has erroneously been identified as a stylized representation of the god Bes.16 This pattern also consists of three elements: (a) a lozenge-shaped base; (b) two horizontal lines; (c) a lozenge flanked by two vertical lines slightly inclined outwards and whose upper end is broken in the shape of a small chevron. It was these vertical lines that led observers to recognize a human figure with arms raised on both sides of a head, potentially that of Bes. However, the entire pattern is, in fact, best understood as a variant of another motif appearing on different Meroitic artifacts and media (pl. V).17 In its elaborate forms, it is found modeled or etched on bronze objects deposited in royal tombs18 (pl. V.10-11) and, in its more schematic forms, incised or painted on pottery, engraved on the boulders of the Fourth Cataract or on the walls of the temple complex of Musawwarat.19 Its recurring base-form consists of two horizontal lines placed on two splayed lines, a design that resembles the Chinese ideogram 天 tiān (“sky”). This bottom part, sometimes interpreted as a schematic offering table, may not be further developed; otherwise, it supports a central element, most often a circle or a penannular. This circle may remain empty or contain an identifiable symbol or motif such as, on the most elaborate items, either the ankh-sign, the Wadjet-eye, the Isis knot (tyet), the was-scepter, an acanthus-leaf, or a lotus flower. It is important to note that the central element is often flanked by two was-scepters, a composition which is reflected in the motif tattooed on TA14, but with alterations: the was-scepters

13. VILA 1967, p. 369. 14. WILLIAMS 1991, pp. 41-43, 49, 57-58. 15. Gammai, cemetery 100, grave 115, 3 and 15, jars of coarse black ware decorated by wet-incised punctures (DUNHAM & BATES 1927, pp. 41-42, pl. XXIV, 3 and 4; pl. LXIII, 22 and 26); Meroe, West cemetery, grave W13, neck and shoulder of a black ware jar decorated with chevron patterns impressed in white lines of small dashes, ca. 200–100 BC (DUNHAM & REISNER 1963, p. 218 and fig. 154.2). 16. See the confusing comment of VILA 1967, p. 369 about TA.15 (= AM 43) and hazardous statements of BIANCHI 1988, p. 25 from an upside down (!) reproduction of TA.14 (= AM 38) tattoos. This error is still found in AUSTIN & GOBEIL 2017, p. 24. 17. First studied by DUNHAM 1965 and TÖRÖK 1972. KLEINITZ 2009 convincingly demonstrates that it is not a property mark, but an emblem or symbol having many variants. 18. SAKOUTIS 2009. 19. KLEINITZ 2009.

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were simplified in broken lines, and the central element replaced by a lozenge with no symbol inside. The two horizontal lines of the lower element were preserved on TA14, whereas the two divergent lines below were again substituted with a lozenge. In its general and basic form, as a support topped with two horizontal lines, the motif can recall the djed-pillar (“stability”),20 a symbol often used as an amulet. In its elaborate forms, with meaningful symbols such as either ankh-sign (“life”), was-scepter (“power”), Isis knot (“magic”, “welfare”), or Wadjet-eye (“protection”), it can be considered as a powerful amulet. Has this amuletic value been preserved in Aksha’s tattooed repertoire? It is possible but not certain: in line with the tradition of TA, the deployment of extensive decorative patterns by concatenation of dotted motifs seems to prevail over the depiction of symbols made up of specific figurative elements. As noted above, in Aksha (on TA14; pl. III.1), the two main components of the original amuletic motif were replaced by lozenges, and the resulting design was repeated to form an ornamental row that, if the gap is filled, may have counted up to seven identical motifs. I.4. The Nubian background The majority of TA representatives are of obvious Nubian descent. TA4-7 women (Hierakonpolis and Kubban) came from a cultural group conventionally called “C-Group” (ca. 2200–1500 BC). This cultural ensemble consisted of small communities of farmers and pastoralists scattered in Lower Nubia along the banks of the Nile. C-Group people were in constant contact with neighboring Egypt, but their level of political stratification was much lower. C-Group cemeteries of Toshka (pl. II.1-2), Adindan, Aniba, Areika, and Kubban (among others) have provided numerous terracotta female statuettes, marked with dotted lozenges and others motifs that represent, without any doubt, human tattoos.21 Close patterns reproducing actual tattoos were still punctuated on little-known Meroitic figurines (MF): MF1

MF2

MF3

Meroe, West cemetery, grave W323, n. 23-2-34: headless and armless unfired clay female figurine, with a dotted lozenge on each shoulder and dotted curved lines on buttocks and lower back, ca. 100 BC – 40 AD.22 Aniba, cemetery of Karanog, male grave of low rank G 300, dromos: clay female figurine with the plant-shaped motif (see above) punctuated in axial position on the abdomen, ca. 3rd century AD (pl. II.5).23 Mouweis, dump site of a pottery workshop: unfired clay female figurine, with punctuated decoration on the abdomen, including a triangle, ca. 1st – 5th century AD.24

I.5. The three women of Deir el-Bahari Despite this strong Nubian background, doubts have been maintained concerning the ethnicocultural origin of the three tattooed women buried at Deir el-Bahari (TA1-3). 25 One of them,

20. KLEINITZ 2009, p. 195. 21. For a complete inventory of C-Group anthropomorphic figurines, see BUTTERWORTH 2016. 22. DUNHAM & REISNER 1963, pp. 258 and 259, fig. 168.9. 23. WOOLLEY & RANDALL-MACIVER 1910, p. 169, pl. 96, n. 7662. 24. MILLET & BAUD 2014, p. 176. 25. This issue is not even addressed in ROEHRIG 2015.

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Amunet (pl. I.1), had, among other titles, that of “Priestess of Hathor,” a title also carried by six other women buried in the temple of Mentuhotep.26 Hathor is the goddess of feast, love, and motherhood, and the famous divine mother of the Pharaoh. Her cult involved musical, choreographic, and acrobatic performances. By analogy, it has been considered that the two tattooed women, occupying pits 23 and 26, played the same role as Amunet. According to Ellen Morris,27 they could have belonged to a troupe of dancers (khener) responsible, after the model Hathor, for celebrating, satisfying, and reviving the king through music, dance and, perhaps, sexual exhibition. We must also take into consideration several female figurines28 found in the Theban necropolis (for the most part) and elsewhere in Lower Egypt (for example at Lisht South) near dynastic places of worship. Some of them were decorated with the typical dotted lozenges of TA (pl. II.3-4). These tattooed figurines have been believed by E. Morris to represent the same category of Hathoric dancers: their role in funerary deposits would have been to delight and revive the deceased, as did for the king, in their lifetime, khener-dancers and Amunet, “Priestess of Hathor.” From this perspective, one could consider tattooing as a body decoration specifically required to perform ritual actions and, therefore, label it as Egyptian rather than Nubian. However, there are several arguments to defend a competing hypothesis—namely, that these three women are of Nubian origin and were tattooed in their original culture before entering the royal court of Mentuhotep II. The two female occupants of pits 23 and 26 have, tattooed above the pubis, a line of lozenges connected to one another by angles (pl. I.2-3). Above this, a long horizontal scar, running across the abdomen, “extends round to the gluteal region and terminates below the crest of the ilium on each side in a large leaf-like abrasion.” 29 It is not a surgical incision—the muscles of the abdominal cavity remained intact—but a large keloid scar affecting only the epidermis. This scar never appears on Egyptian figurines, whereas it can be found on Nubian ones. As J. R. Butterworth observed, more than thirty C-Group figurines show, worn around the waist, a “belt” often represented by two parallel incisions. Its extremities do not meet in the back: they end in the lumbar region as rounded or square tabs. Butterworth interprets these “belts” as pieces of clothing for the reason that, in some cases, a pubic covering seems to hang and extend from them (pl. II.2).30 However, it can be noted that, at least in one case (pl. II.1),31 this truncated “belt” is placed above a row of tattooed lozenges, a layout very reminiscent of that of the mummies. That, combined with the fact that the abdominal scar worn by the two women of Deir el-Bahari never appears on Egyptian figurines, can bring us to consider this particular mutilation as a foreign rather than Egyptian custom. African ethnography provides several examples of epigastric and peri-genital scarifications whose meanings and functions are related to

26. ROTH 2012, pp. 3-5 on the so-called harem of Mentuhotep II. Specialists do not agree on the exact meaning of the honorary title ẖkrt nsw w‘tt (“sole ornamented one of the king”) also given to Amunet, a title which does not necessarily imply the status of concubine. 27. MORRIS 2011. 28. Blue faience truncated figurines (sometimes intentionally broken) and wooden “paddle dolls,” all with strong emphasis on their sexual characteristics, and all modeled, sculpted, and painted in Egypt from the 11 th Dynasty to the early 13th (ca. 2030–1650): PINCH 1993; MORRIS 2011; TOOLEY 2017. 29. DERRY 1935, p. 493 and DERRY (additional information dated 31 December 1938) apud KEIMER 1948, pp. 14-15. 30. BUTTERWORTH 2016, p. 75. 31. Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, inv. 7326 (Toshka, Cemetery C = figurine C-33 in BUTTERWORTH 2016, pp. 224 and 319).

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women’s sexual maturity (beauty, sex appeal, fecundity). These markings can sometimes be an integral and mandatory part of the girls’ initiation supervised by older women.32 Even if optional, the meaning of these markings often falls within the same semantic field.33 As a result, I can argue that the two women of Deir el-Bahari most likely received their abdominal scarifications in Nubia or within a Nubian group living in Egypt. If this practice had been Egyptian, and especially if it had concerned women of the Egyptian royal court, it would be known to us by Egyptian images and texts. The same thing can be said about the tattoos. Another argument is provided by the title of “Priestess of Hathor” given to Amunet. Hathor had, among other attributions, that of sponsoring foreign lands and the rich imported products (incense, turquoise, gold). In a famous hymn carved in the Ptolemaic temple of Medamûd, the return of “Hathor the Gold” from southern countries is celebrated by various Libyan and Nubian dancers.34 The presence of tattooed Nubian girls performing rites for the “Distant Goddess” in Deir el-Bahari seems perfectly suited to such a mythical context 35 —a favorable but not indispensable context: in Ancient Egypt, foreign dancers in native costumes were a usual component of parades performed for other deities.36 We also know that, since the Old Kingdom, foreign princesses and noblewomen regularly joined the ranks of the king’s and his relatives’ secondary wives. Alongside the importation of exotic goods, these international alliances demonstrated the control that Egypt exercised over foreign lands. Similarly, Egyptian policy at the southern frontier implied alliances (and struggles) with Nubian leaders, which may explain the presence of tattooed Nubian women at the Egyptian court. Thus, the three women of Deir el-Bahari, assuming they were Nubian, could have been either forcibly taken as war booty, offered to the king by a Nubian ally, or lastly, born on Egyptian soil in Nubian families settled there to work, to trade, or to fight in the Egyptian army. The latter hypothesis implies that Nubian body markings were still practiced in Nubian communities settled in Egypt, as was the case in Hierakonpolis. In any event, Amunet and her two tattooed fellows could be regarded as living trophies offered to Hathor in order to increase the prestige of the king and his court. From an Egyptian point of view, their noticeable tattoos even gave them an added value, as a strong guarantee of their exotic provenance. These are the very same concepts that must have motivated the Egyptians to make and manipulate female effigies tattooed in the Nubian fashion (pl. II.3-4). They probably thought that these figurines were capable of embodying special values and powers attributed to Nubian women, including their role in the Hathoric cult alongside other khener dancers and musicians. The context of Egyptian colonial domination over Nubia may have favored such inventive phenomena of cultural re-appropriation.

32. BASTIN 1999, p. 77: “The [female] instructor lengthens the small lips (misundo) [of the vulva] and then makes the incisions of the pubic tattoos (mikonda), an operation which every Tshokwe woman must undergo when she reached puberty. […] The mikonda tattoos are horizontal bands that ornament the lower abdomen. An incision is first made in the skin with a small, sharp knife (tewula). The incisions are rubbed with charcoal (makala) to stop the flow of blood, and then they are rubbed with ricinus/castor grains (mono), which have been pealed and roasted on the fire. These procedures result in raised scars. These marks are the most sensitive points on the female epidermis, and will be caressed in an erotic fashion by the husband.” 33. GEGENBACH 2005, who transcribes interviews conducted in 1995 with women over 70 years of age about tinhlanga, the female epigastric tattoo (Mugabe, Mozambique). 34. DARNELL 1995. 35. MORRIS 2011, p. 81. 36. PANAITE 2016.

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II. TATTOOING OF TYPE B: EMBLEMATIC II.1. Main characteristics The tattooing of Type B (henceforth TB), primarily documented in Egypt, is once again monopolized by women. Compared with Nubia, Egypt offers a very different context. Here, we are dealing with a real state characterized by a high level of complexity, a centralized power, written language, a sophisticated administration, and a very elaborate division of labor. It is in this context that appeared a tattooing characterized by more isolated and more figurative designs with close parallels in the iconographic repertoire and hieroglyphic writing. II.2. Human remains The oldest preserved emblematic tattoos are exemplified by two naturally preserved mummies from Upper Egypt, a woman and a man, both kept at the British Museum since the end of the nineteenth century and recently investigated with infra-red photographs by Renée Friedman. TB1 TB2

Pre-Dynastic (TB.1-2) Gebelein (Upper Egypt, ca. 3300–3200 BC): a woman with a Γ-shaped tattoo on her upper right arm, and a row of four S-shaped motifs tattooed on her right shoulder joint (pl. VI.1).37 Gebelein (Upper Egypt, ca. 3300–3200 BC): a man tattooed, on his upper right arm, with two wild animals, one above the other: a wild goat (on top) and, in the lower part, a bovine (perhaps an aurochs; pl. VI.2).38

The Γ-shaped tattoo is paralleled by R. Friedman with crooked staves and other symbols of power carried by male figures painted on Pre-Dynastic pottery. Rows of S-shaped motifs also have close parallels on pottery, but their meaning remains obscure. The man’s tattoos, related to hunting, could express bravery, strength and, more broadly, power and mastery over the wild. It is worth noting that, already at that time, hunting represented almost nothing in diet and in economic trade. But, like war, it had a great symbolic significance for emerging elites.39 These two people from Gebelein bear witness to an extremely old tradition which is very difficult to contextualize and may have been interrupted during the Old Kingdom. The following discussion will focus only on more recent sources documenting a custom that appears to be exclusively female. For the Dynastic Period, we know five representatives of emblematic tattooing (TB3-7) that have only very recently come to light:

37. British Museum BM EA32752 (FRIEDMAN 2017, pp. 12-17). 38. British Museum EA32751 (FRIEDMAN 2017, pp. 12-17). 39. EYCKERMAN & HENDRICKX 2015.

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TB3

TB4

TB5-7

Middle/New Kingdom (TB3-7) El-Asasif (Thebes), tomb 1008: a woman tattooed, between her right shoulder and elbow, with a small motif consisting of two birds facing each other on both sides of a stylized plant. The dating of the tomb is uncertain: ca. 1600 BC (according to 1920s excavators) or ca. 1975 BC (according to D. Arnold and E. Morris; pl. VI.3).40 Deir el-Medina, Theban Tomb 290 (plundered): incomplete female mummy from an assemblage of various human remains, dating from the Ramesside Period (ca. 1300–1070 BC). This woman was tattooed on her throat, shoulders, upper arms, upper back, and lower back with about thirty motifs consisting of hieroglyphic and figurative designs (see below; pl. VI.4).41 Deir el-Medina, Theban Tombs 290 and 298 (plundered): female (?) human remains of various provenance with isolated tattoos identified by Anne Austin (unpublished): a floral pattern on a thigh (TB5; ref. 290.15.097); a lioness located on a forearm (TB6; ref. 298.19.003); a geometric belt on hips (TB7; ref. 298.19.004).42

II.3. Motifs painted on “paddle dolls” Before the discovery of these human remains, knowledge of tattooing of TB was only indirect, through images and artifacts. As mentioned above, some paddle dolls and faience figurines dating back to Dynasties 11 and 12 (ca. 2000–1800 BC) were decorated with concatenated dotted lozenges (tattooing of TA), which should be interpreted as a Nubian trait. Some other paddle dolls, this time devoid of lozenges, have small isolated animal motifs of different types, sometimes painted in color: bird, crocodile, greyhound chasing a lion, antelope, goat, etc. Louis Keimer listed four paddle dolls bearing a figuration of Taweret (“the Great One”), a deity that has the appearance of a female hippopotamus standing on a lion’s feet. But his overall impression was that “in most cases […] the representations of deities and animals are purely and simply decorative additions.”43 Although partly true, this statement must be tempered by taking into consideration the bird tattoo of TB3 (pl. VI.3), which has a close parallel in a paddle doll from the same cemetery (Asasif) where a punctuated bird, standing in a ground line, is painted black on the reverse.44 II.4. The Bes tattoo L. Keimer and other specialists are more confident about the existence of Bes tattoos. Bes, a popular god who usually takes the form of an obese, bearded, thick-lipped dwarf with a high feather headdress, is sometimes depicted blue or black on the thighs of nude or semi-nude girls. At present, eight such representations are known:

40. This female mummy was found in the 1920s during the Metropolitan Museum’s excavations at Thebes, but it was never published before MORRIS 2011, pp. 82-83, who gets her information from the Museum’s archives (photo M5C-153, tomb cards 3284 and 3287). 41. AUSTIN & GOBEIL 2017. 42. I have not seen these motifs. Descriptions and reference numbers have been kindly provided to me by Anne Austin (personal communication, 25 October 2019). At least three more tattooed remains have been identified by Anne Austin. Further analyses have to be carried out in their respective tombs before the results can be published. 43. KEIMER 1948, p. 25. 44. Asasif, tomb 818, MMA inv. 31.3.43 (MORRIS 2011, p. 82).

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G2

G3

G4-5

G6

G7

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Images of girls with tattoos of Bes (G1-8) Wall paintings Deir el-Medina, private house SE VIII, room 1, front panel of a stepped domestic altar, 45 polychrome painting (Dynasty 19, ca. 1292–1189 BC): A nude girl (pubic hair visible), carrying a red bag and wearing a large collar and bracelets, is dancing and playing flute. She has a Bes motif painted in dark blue on each of her thighs.46 Thebes, Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, tomb of Nakhtamon (TT341), room 2, polychrome painting depicting the Nehebkau festival (Dynasty 20, ca. 1189–1077 BC): On the right, two female musicians. The first one, clothed, is playing the harp. The second one, now very damaged, is playing the lyre. She is smaller, nude (pubic hair visible), and has a Bes motif painted in blue on each of her thighs. 47 Small objects Wine bowl in blue glazed faience (14 x 4.5 cm), without provenance, end of Dynasty 18 / beginning of Dynasty 19 (ca. 1300 BC): A seated nude girl playing the lute, with a Bes tattoo visible on her right thigh. Behind her, a little monkey is having fun untying her belt. 48 Buhen (Nubia), Egyptian cemetery H, tomb H25 (Dynasty 18, ca. 1550–1292), chamber A: two wooden statuettes (height 29.2 and 25.4 cm), probably from a wooden box or other piece of furniture, in the form of two nude girls wearing a wig and a high headgear (in basketry?) and carrying a small object (perhaps a fruit) in their left hand. Both are adorned with necklace, belt, and bracelets and bear an engraved Bes motif on each of their thighs. 49 Buhen (Nubia), temple of the Egyptian fort, bronze mirror (27.7 x 16 x 3.5 cm), Dynasty 18 (ca. 1400 BC): As a handle, a nude girl holding a little cat in her left hand, wearing a belt and having on each of her thighs an engraved Bes motif inlaid with electrum. 50 Unprovenanced bronze mirror (22.2 x 12.2 cm), second half of Dynasty 18 (ca. 1400–1292 BC): As a handle, a nude girl wearing a necklace, bracelets, a belt, and crossbands on the chest. She holds a bird in her right hand and has, on each of her thighs, an engraved Bes motif, and, on her lower back, an engraved zigzag that could also be a tattoo (see below; pl. VII.1).51

45. WEISS 2009. The decoration of these altars is related to fertility and regeneration. Among the motifs preserved on other altars: figure of Bes (five times), childbirth scene, girl standing on a papyrus boat, small banquet or offering scene. 46. VANDIER D’ABBADIE 1938; CHERPION 2011. 47. DAVIES 1948, pl. XXVIII; KEIMER 1948, p. 41 and pl. XXI.1. 48. Leiden, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, inv. AD14. 49. Philadelphia, Penn Museum, inv. E10349A and E10349B; RANDALL-MACIVER & WOOLLEY 1911, vol. I, pp. 131, 149-150, 225 and vol. II, pl. 64, n. 10349 (the authors report a blue paste inlay but do not situate it on the carving). 50. Khartoum, National Museum, inv. 18595 (WILDUNG 1997, p. 132, n. 136). 51. New York, Brooklyn Museum, C. E. Wilbour Fund, inv. 60.27.1.

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Unprovenanced cosmetic spoon in the shape of a swimming girl holding a lotus flower on her extended arms (16.5 x 5.5 x 5 cm), ivory (body and lotus container) and ebony (black wig), reign of Amenhotep III (ca. 1400–1350 BC): The girl is entirely nude except for a broad collar of triangular lotus petals filled with a blue material. 52 Her collar is attached to the neck by two cords represented in a very realistic manner, hanging down on the back. The Bes motifs etched on the thighs are filled with a black pigment, like the pubic triangle. On her lower back, a different and more elaborated pattern could be interpreted as a tattoo (see below; pl. VII.2).53

The Bes tattoo is not attested on human remains. The legs of the woman from Deir el-Medina (TB4) are missing; therefore, one can only speculate in a very hazardous way that TB4 was tattooed on her thighs with the Bes motif. In any event, TB4 remains an exceptional case and seems at first sight without any parallel in the Egyptian images representing tattooed women. However, we will see that two of her tattoos can be compared to one or even two images of the tattooed girls listed above. II.5. The “marsh tattoo” On her lower back, just above the buttocks, and on her hips, TB4 was tattooed with a horizontal pattern consisting of a zigzag dotted line connecting two lotus flowers (pl. VIII.4). On the published reproductions of the swimming girl of Moscow (G8), I also noticed a pattern engraved on the same area of the body (pl. VII.2, VIII.1). Although, unlike the collar, it is without any fastener, this pattern is commonly referred to as a belt. As the published photographs were not satisfactory, I asked and obtained from the Pushkin Museum more close-up views that allowed me to reconstruct the whole pattern (pl. VIII.2-3). The central part consists of a papyrus thicket emerging from a zigzag that could conventionally represent either the thicker scale leaves of the rhizome 54 or the water ripples, as paralleled in the Egyptian iconography and in the hieroglyphic writing where the triple zigzag is for mw “water.” The papyrus umbels are stylized into inverted triangles, and all are erect on their stems, except for the two lateral ones which are bent towards the ground. This general layout is that of the crown worn by Hapi, the god of the Nile’s inundation, and that of the hieroglyph M15, a sign used as determinative for nouns relating to papyrus, marsh, and flood, and for the verbs wȝḫj “to be flooded, submerged, covered, delighted” and ȝḫȝḫ “to green, to grow, to increase.” A very significant parallel is the tattoo that TB4 has on her left upper back, which consists of the hieroglyph M15 above a triple zigzag (hieroglyph mw “water”). On G8, the two lateral papyrus do not fold by themselves but are bent by the front legs of two goats standing on their hind legs. The shape of their horns makes it possible to identify them with the ibex (Capra Nubiana). Egyptian belts are always fastened around the waist and none of them have this peculiar appearance. We can therefore consider the pattern etched on G8 as a representation of a tattoo. Like the

52. This pattern may intend to represent a collar of real flowers or a more durable one, made of faience beads and cloisonné enamels. 53. Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, inv. I,1a 3627 (HODJASH 2005, p. 89 n. 326). 54. Cf. the papyrus clump next to Ani’s tomb chapel in the Book of the dead of Ani (ca. 1250 Museum EA 10470.37.

BC),

frame 37, British

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one on B14, the lower back tattoo of G8 extends horizontally by connecting two symmetrical lateral motifs. In both cases, plants emerge from a zigzag that evokes the water surface waves. In this regard, it is worth noting that a zigzag pattern is also engraved on the lower back of G7, providing a possible additional occurrence of the “marsh-tattoo.” The semantic fields induced by these lower back tattoos are also close to each other. They combine notions of blossoming, plenitude, humidity, coolness, and delight. In addition, the beautification of this anatomical area has highly probable erotic connotations that have already been noted in the literature about the Bes tattoo.55 Assuming they are male, the two rearing-up ibex that assault the papyrus bush above the buttocks of G8 can give even more weight to this reading. However, does this sexually charged atmosphere correspond to reality? It was visibly sought after by manufacturers and painters who did the images of tattooed naked girls, but if we go back to the TB4 woman from Deir el-Medina, the overall picture is no longer so unequivocal. II.6. The tattooed woman from Deir el-Medina (TB4) TB4 is tattooed with about thirty motifs, mainly hieroglyphs and symbols, part of which resemble those found on amulets. Her most impressive tattoo, placed on the throat, combines the three following motifs in a symmetrical composition (pl. VI.4): 1/ Wadjet-eye (x 3), the divine eye connected with amuletic protection in general. Three are on the throat, but six others are tattooed elsewhere, especially on the shoulders (on each of them, two wadjeteyes facing each other with three nefer-signs between). 2/ Nefer-sign (x 2), a hieroglyph whose meaning is “to be good, pleasant, beautiful, well-doing,” and which is very common in jewelry, serving as beads or pendants for necklaces. 3/ Seated baboon (x 2), an animal related to the god Thoth and sometimes figured on apotropaic and magical objects. On the right upper back, another baboon is presenting a wadjet-eye. The other noticeable motifs tattooed elsewhere on her body are: on arms, a large cross-shaped motif with rounded ends (one motif on each upper arm),56 eight snakes (mostly cobras, often associated with the solar disc), a pair of cows wearing menat necklaces (related to the goddess Hathor), and, on the left upper back, a papyrus clump (hieroglyph M15, see above). Since the burial context and personal effects of TB4 have been irretrievably lost, nothing is known about her social status and occupations. Anne Austin and Cédric Gobeil are of the opinion, however, that her tattoos identify her as a ritual performer, either in the Hathoric temple of Deir el-Medina,57 and/or as a supplier of wise advice, a maker of amulets, or a magico-medical healer. This hypothesis, which finds no parallel in the ethnography of tattooing, is very unconvincing. In a state-organized society, a musician, a civil servant, or a craftsman may wear similar tattoos, which may indicate that they have common cultural interests or even practices, but without predicting their profession. A good

55. CHERPION 2011. 56. On this motif, the meaning of which is unknown, see AUSTIN & GOBEIL 2017, pp. 29-30. 57. This highly questionable hypothesis is based on the fact that some of the motifs tattooed on TB4—especially the wadjet-eye with a nefer-sign (x3) and the clump of papyrus (x1)—are found among the graffiti engraved by workmen on the front pavement of the Ramesside Hathor temple in Deir el-Medina (BRUYÈRE 1952, pl. IX). But these graffiti precisely demonstrate that the motifs in question, widespread and commonly used by workers and/or visitors for votive or amuletic purposes, were in no way linked to a specific religious charge.

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example is provided by subcultural tattooing in early medieval China.58 From early modern times, European pilgrims could return from the Holy Land with various tattoos representing, among others motifs, the arms of Jerusalem, holy names, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension.59 At the sanctuary of Loreto, Italy, the proposed repertoire was even more varied.60 But all these religious and votive tattoos were never related to a specific ritual function that their bearers would have performed. An exception to this rule is of course possible. But it seems very hazardous to interpret the tattooed set of TB4 as a necessary equipment for performing magical or medicinal rites. By itself, the marsh-tattoo worn above the buttocks seriously weakens this assumption. Indeed, it is not clear what kind of rite this tattoo could have been helpful for, unless coming back to the tenuous hypothesis mentioned above about the exhibition of the female body in Hathoric dances. TB4 tattoos are exceptional in their quantity, not their repertoire. Most motifs are common and can be understood basically as positive amulets likely to protect, bring good fortune, and strengthen their wearer. 61 In this regard, one can refer to Alfred Gell, who defines Polynesian tattooing as both “affirmative” and “paranoid.” 62 These tattoos also have, complementary to the previous ones, an aesthetic function, which is demonstrated by a global (but not systematic) search for symmetry and by the presence of a “marsh tattoo” on the lower back.

CONCLUSION Both tattooing traditions TA and TB have distinctive features and are quite well correlated with the two Nubian and Egyptian cultural areas. From the Meroitic period onwards, it was noted that the repertoire of TA, formerly essentially abstract, underwent a slight tendency to emblematization. But the symbolic intelligibility of the new motifs was neglected, or even blurred, in favor of the ornamental function that characterizes TA. For the attested use of an isolated symbolic tattoo in Nubia, it is necessary to wait for the Christian era.63 The latter custom, corresponding to TB, has been documented in Egypt for a very long time, but it was probably not very widespread. TB tattooing does not have the semi-mandatory nature of a TA tattooing, which may, in a given community, be imposed on all representatives of the same sex. The paintings and artifacts depicting pretty tattooed girls might suggest that TB tattooing was fashionable in Egypt only among female musicians, dancers, and/or courtesans.64 Does the heavily tattooed woman of Deir el-Medina (TB4) formally invalidate this assertion? This is what her discoverers thought, as they interpreted her amuletic tattoos as a specific instrument to be

58. REED 2000. 59. LEWY 2003. 60. PIGORINI-BERI 1889, pp. 289-304. 61. On funerary amulets and on amuletic jewelry worn during lifetime, see ANDREWS 1994. 62. GELL 1993, p. 56. 63. Fourth Nile Cataract, et-Tereif, site 3-J-23, grave 50, body of a woman excavated in 2005, the inner side of her right thigh tattooed with the monogram of the archangel Michael, ca. 655–775 AD (VANDENBEUSCH & ANTOINE 2015). Other emblematic tattoos were used by Christians from the peripheral areas of the Empire: in North Africa, ca. 480 AD, the names of Mani and Jesus Christ (VICTOR OF VITA, History of the Vandal Persecution, II, 1, 2); in Palestine, ca. 500 AD, the sign of the cross and the name of Christ (PROCOPIUS OF GAZA, Commentary on Isaiah, 44). 64. On correlations between dance, music and reproductive or recreational sexuality, see CHERPION 2011.

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used for “embodying the divine” and thus playing an active and privileged role in the cult of Hathor and/or in the adjacent fields of magic and medicine. Rather than this strong religious-oriented interpretation, I prefer a more balanced view: for reasons that escape us, TB4 chose to multiply tattoos on her skin that other women wore in much smaller numbers. The papyrus clump tattooed on her back and the lotus flowers above her buttocks belong to a repertoire that was also shared by the tattooed girls depicted on paintings and statuettes. The latter, with the Bes tattoo, were looking for lucky charms forever engraved in their skin, as TB4 immoderately did with many other symbols. But they all, including TB4, also considered tattooing as an appropriate way to enhance their carnal beauty.

REFERENCES ALVRUS A., WRIGHT D., MERBS C. F. 2001 “Examination of tattoos on mummified tissue using infra-red reflectography”, Journal of Archaeological Science 28, pp. 395-400. ANDREWS C. A. R. 1994 Amulets of Ancient Egypt, London, British Museum Press. AUSTIN A., GOBEIL C. 2017 “Embodying the divine: a tattooed female mummy from Deir el-Medina”, Bulletin de l’Institut français d’Archéologie orientale 116, pp. 23-46. BASTIN M. -L. 1999 “Ukule, a iniciação dos adolescente / Ukule, the initiation of the adolescents”, in Escultura Tshokwe / Tshokwe sculpture. Exposição, Fundação Dr. António Cupertino de Miranda, 8 de Julho - 8 de Agosto de 1999, ed. by M.-L. BASTIN, Porto, Faculdade de Letras das Universidade do Porto, pp. 71-88. BIANCHI R. S. 1988 “Tattoo in Ancient Egypt”, in Marks of civilization: artistic transformations of the human body, ed. by A. RUBIN, Los Angeles, Museum of Cultural History, pp. 21-28. BRUYÈRE B. 1952 Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir el Médineh (1935–1940), fasc. II : trouvailles d’objets (Fouilles de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire 20/2), Cairo, IFAO. BUTTERWORTH J. R. 2016 Lower Nubian C-group figurines: corpus and context, Ph.D. Thesis Emory University. CHERPION N. 2011 “La danseuse de Deir el-Medina et les prétendus ‘lits clos’ du village”, Association des Archéologues et Historiens d’Art de Louvain. Revue 4, pp. 11-34. DARNELL J. C. 1995 “Hathor returns to Medamud”, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 22, pp. 47-94. DAVIES N. de G. 1948 Seven private tombs at Ḳurnah (Mond Excavations at Thebes 2), London, The Egyptian Exploration Society. DERRY D. E. 1935 “Note on five pelves of women of the eleventh Dynasty in Egypt”, Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology 42, pp. 490-495. DUNHAM D. 1965 “A collection of ‘pot-marks’ from Kush and Nubia”, Kush. Journal of the Sudan Antiquities Service 13, pp. 131-147. DUNHAM D., BATES O. 1927 “Excavations at Gammai”, African Harvard Studies 8, pp. 1-121. DUNHAM D., REISNER G. A. 1963 The Royal cemeteries of Kush, V: West and South cemeteries at Meroe, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

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EYCKERMAN M., HENDRICKX S. 2015 “Les animaux sauvages dans l’Égypte prédynastique”, Les Cahiers Égypte Nilotique et Méditérranéenne 11, pp. 197-210. FIELD H. 1958 Body-marking in Southwestern Asia, Cambridge, Peabody Museum. FIRTH C. M. 1927 The archaeological survey of Nubia: report for 1910–1911, Cairo, Government Press. FRIEDMAN R. 2017 “New tattoos from Ancient Egypt: defining marks of culture”, in Ancient ink: the archaeology of tattooing, ed. by L. KRUTAK and A. DETER-WOLF, Seattle – London, University of Washington Press, pp. 11-36. GEGENBACH H. 2005 “Boundaries of beauty: tattooing and changing landscapes of women’s community”, in Binding memories: women as makers and tellers of history in Magude, Mozambique, ed. by H. GEGENBACH, New York, Columbia University Press [Electronic Book: http://www.gutenberge.org/geh01/frames/fgehnot.html]. GELL A. 1993 Wrapping in images: tattooing in Polynesia (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology), Oxford, Clarendon Press. HERMANN A. 1966 “Magische Glocken aus Meroë”, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 93, pp. 79-89. HODJASH S. I. 2005 Ancient Egyptian vessels in the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Baltimore, Halgo. JUNKER H., ANTONIUS O., GRUBER-MENNINGER G. 1926 Toschke: Bericht über die Grabungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien auf dem Friedhof von Toschke (Nubien) im Winter 1911–12 (Denkschriften – Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien 68/1), Vienna, Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky. KEIMER L. 1948 Remarques sur le tatouage dans l’Égypte ancienne (Mémoires de l’Institut d’Égypte 53), Cairo, IFAO. KLEINITZ C. 2009 “Meroitic ‘property marks’ in fourth Nile cataract rock art? A re-evaluation of an enigmatic class of graphic markings”, in Pictograms or pseudo script? Non-textual identity marks in practical use in Ancient Egypt and elsewhere. Proceedings of a conference in Leiden, 19–20 December 2006, ed. by B. J. J. HARING & O. E. KAPER (Egyptologische uitgaven 25), Leiden – Leuven, NINO – Peeters, pp. 179-198. LEWY M. 2003 “Jerusalem unter der Haut: zur Geschichte der Jerusalemer Pilgertätowierung”, Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 55, pp. 1-39. MILLET M., BAUD M. 2014 “Mission archéologique 2012 à Mouweis (Soudan): temple, habitat et culture matérielle”, in La recherche au musée du Louvre, 2012, ed. by J.-L. MARTINEZ, B. ANDRÉ-SALVINI and J. DURAND, Paris – Milan, Musée du Louvre – Officina Libraria, pp. 175-177. MORRIS E. F. 2011 “Paddle dolls and performance”, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 47, pp. 71-103. NORMAN C. 2011 “The Tribal Tattooing of Daunian Women”, European Journal of Archaeology 14, pp. 133-157. PANAITE E. 2016 “La présence d’étrangers lors des fêtes égyptiennes”, in Le sacré dans tous ses états: actes du colloque organisé par l’AEPOA le 21–22 avril 2016 à l’UQAM. 32–45, ed. by P. POIRON, J. BOUCHARD and C. CARON [Electronic Book: https://www.aepoa.uqam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Colloque.pdf]. PIGORINI-BERI C. 1889 Costumi e superstizioni dell’Appennino marchigiano, Città di Castello, S. Lapi Tip. Editore.

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PINCH G. 1993 Votive offerings to Hathor, Oxford, Griffith Institute – Ashmolean Museum. RANDALL-MACIVER D., WOOLLEY L. 1911 Buhen, vol. I (Text) and vol. II (Plates) (Publications of the Egyptian Department of the University Museum), Philadelphia, The University Museum. REED C. E. 2000 “Tattoo in Early China”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 120, pp. 360-376. RENAUT L. 2011 “‘Mains peintes et menton brûlé’: la parure tatouée des femmes thraces”, in Parures et artifices: le corps exposé dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine, ed. by L. BODIOU, F. GHERCHANOC, V. HUET and V. MEHL (Histoire, textes, sociétés), Paris, l’Harmattan, pp. 191-216. ROEHRIG C. 2015 “Two tattooed women from Thebes”, Bulletin of the Egyptian Seminar 19, pp. 527-536. ROTH S. 2012 “Harem”, in UCLA encyclopedia of egyptology, ed. by E. FROOD and W. WENDRICH, Los Angeles, UCLA, pp. 1-16. RZEUSKA T. 2010 “Zigzag, triangle and fish fin: on the relations of Egypt and C-Group during the Middle Kingdom”, in Between the cataracts, Part 2, fasc. 1: proceedings of the 11th conference for Nubian studies, Warsaw University, 27 August - 2 September 2006, ed. by W. GODLEWSKI and A. ŁAJTAR (Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 2,2/1-2), Warsaw, Warsaw University Press, pp. 397-419. SAKOUTIS S. 2009 The origins of three Meroitic bronze oil lamps in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Thesis Georgia State University. TOOLEY A. 2017 “Notes on type 1 truncated figurines: the Ramesseum ladies”, in Company of images: modelling the imaginary world of Middle Kingdom Egypt (2000-1500 B.C.), ed by G. MINIACI, M. BETRÒ & S. QUIRKE (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 262), Leuven, Peeters, pp. 421-456. TÖRÖK L. 1972 “A special group of Meroitic property marks from the 1st to 2nd centuries A.D.”, Meroitic Newsletter / Bulletin d’informations méroïtiques 10, pp. 36-44. VANDENBEUSCH M., ANTOINE D. 2015 “Under Saint Michael’s protection: a tattoo from christian Nubia”, Journal of the Canadian Centre for Epigraphic Documents 1, pp. 15-19. VANDIER D’ABBADIE J. 1938 “Une fresque civile de Deir el-Médineh (avec planche III)”, Revue d’Égyptologie 3, pp. 27-35. VILA A. 1967 Aksha II: le cimetière méroïtique d’Aksha (Aksha 2), Paris, Klincksieck. WEISS L. 2009 “Personal religious practice: house altars at Deir el-Medina”, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 95, pp. 193-208. WILDUNG D. 1997 Sudan: ancient kingdoms of the Nile, Paris, Flammarion [English translation of Sudan: Königreiche am Nil, 1996]. WILLIAMS B. 1991 Excavations between Abu Simbel and the Sudan frontier 8: Meroitic remains from Qustul cemetery Q, Ballana cemetery B, and a Ballana settlement, part 1: text and figures (Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition 8), Chicago, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. WOOLLEY L., RANDALL-MACIVER D. 1910 Karanòg: the Romano-Nubian cemetery (Publications of the Egyptian Department of the University Museum), Philadelphia, The University Museum.

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Plate I - Women from Deir el-Bahari 1: TA1 from Deir el-Bahari (Amunet, Pit 25 [?]), drawing by the author; 2: TA2 from Deir el-Bahari (Pit 23), drawing by C. K. Wilkinson (1923), Metropolitan Museum of Art, AM 1628; 3: TA3 from Deir el-Bahari (Pit 26), drawing by C. K. Wilkinson (1923), Metropolitan Museum of Art, AM 1631.

Plate II - Punctuated figurines 1: Toshka (Nubia), Cemetery C, C-Group figurine, 14.9 x 4.5 cm (C-33 in BUTTERWORTH 2016), Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, inv. 7326, drawing by JUNKER, ANTONIUS & GRUBER-MENNINGER 1926, fig. 413; 2: Toshka (Nubia), Cemetery C, C-Group figurine, 7.1 x 3.5 cm (F-13 in BUTTERWORTH 2016), Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, inv. E7324, drawing by JUNKER, ANTONIUS & GRUBER-MENNINGER 1926, fig. 414; 3: Faience figurine (H. 13 cm) from el-Asasif (Thebes), tomb of the archer Neferhotep (TT316), Dynasty 11 (Cairo, Egyptian Museum, JE 47710), drawing by the author; 4: Faience figurine (13.7 x 4.7 cm), provenance unknown, acquired by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung) by 1899 (inv. n. 9583), drawing by the author; 5: MF2 clay figurine from the cemetery of Karanog (Aniba), grave G 300, ca. 3rd century AD, drawing by the author based on a photography in WOOLLEY & RANDALL-MACIVER 1910, pl. 96, n. 7662.

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Plate III - Women from Aksha 1: TA14 (Aksha AM 38), anterior part of the torso, drawing by VILA 1967, pl. XV; 2a and 2b: TA15 (Aksha AM 43), anterior and posterior part of the torso, drawings by VILA 1967, pl. XVI-XVII.

Plate IV - Plant-shaped motifs 1 and 2: Motifs tattooed on TA15 (Aksha, AM 43), drawing by VILA 1967, pl. XVI-XVII; 3: Motif tattooed on TA14 (Aksha, AM 38), drawing by the author based on a photograph in VILA 1967, p. 150, fig. 124; 4: Motif punctuated on a female figurine from Karanog (MF2), drawing by the author; 5 and 6: Motifs punctuated on a jar from Gammai, cemetery 100, grave 115, item 15, drawing by DUNHAM & BATES 1927, pl. LXIII, 26; 7: Motif punctuated on a jar from Gammai, cemetery 100, grave 115, item 3, drawing by DUNHAM & BATES 1927, pl. LXIII, 22; 8: Motif impressed on a jar from Meroe, West cemetery, grave W13, drawing by DUNHAM & REISNER 1963, fig. 154.2.

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Plate V - Meroitic motifs 1-3: Motifs tattooed on TA14 (Aksha, AM 38), drawing by VILA 1967, pl. XV, slightly reworked by the author; 4-7: Motifs from Meroe, drawings by TÖRÖK 1972, fig. 1, 5-8 slightly reworked by the author, based on original publications; 4: Meroe, Beg. N. 29, reign of Takideamani (150–167 AD), bronze bell with incised decoration, RCK IV, fig. 110, pl. LVI.I; 5: Meroe, from unknown site, bronze beaker with incised decoration, RCK V, fig. 242.3 and fig. 243; 6: Meroe, from unknown site, bronze bell with incised decoration. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, inv. 4372, drawing by HERMANN 1966, p. 81, fig. 1; 7: Meroe, from unknown site, bronze bell with incised decoration. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, inv. 4382, drawing by HERMANN 1966, p. 81, fig. 2; 8-9: Motifs from Meroe, drawings by TÖRÖK 1972, fig. 2, 9 and 10; 8: Meroe, West cemetery, grave 126, amphora, motif stamped on a plaster seal, RCK V, 164, fig. 119b; 9: Meroe, West cemetery, grave 458, amphora, motif stamped on a plaster seal, RCK V, 188; 10: Meroe, Beg. N. 29, reign of Takideamani (150–167 AD), emblem incised in a bronze lamp (Boston Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 24.959), drawing by the author after a photograph in SAKOUTIS 2009, p. 15, fig. 2.2; 11: Meroe, West cemetery, Beg. W. 122 (ca. 184–317 AD), emblem incised in a bronze lamp (Boston Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 24.966), drawing by the author after a photograph in SAKOUTIS 2009, p. 27, fig. 2.14.

Plate VI - Human representatives of TB tattooing 1: TB1 (woman from Gebelein), drawing by the author; 2: TB2 (man from Gebelein), drawing by the author; 3: TB3 (woman from el-Asasif), drawing by the author; 4: TB4 (women from Deir el-Medina), drawing by the author.

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Plate VII - Modeled girls with Bes and lower back tattoos 1: G7 (handle of a bronze mirror, Brooklyn Museum, inv. 60.27.1), drawing by the author; 2: G8 (cosmetic spoon, Moscow, Pushkin Museum, inv. I,1a 3627), drawing by the author.

Plate VIII - The “marsh tattoo” 1: G8 (cosmetic spoon, Moscow, Pushkin Museum, inv. I,1a 3627), ornamentation of the back: collar with residues of blue filling and lower back tattoo, drawing by the author based on a photography provided by the Pushkin Museum; 2: Lower back tattoo of G8 (Moscow) as incised on the ivory statuette, drawing by the author; 3: Lower back tattoo of G8 (Moscow) as interpreted by the author; 4: Lower back tattoo of TB4 (Deir elMedina), as interpreted by the author.

ANNE-CAROLINE RENDU LOISEL

Beyond the five senses: human senses according to Akkadian cuneiform texts (2nd–1st millennium BCE)*

In our Western cultures, the way we perceive the surrounding world has been profoundly affected by the pentasensory model which goes back to the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (4th century BCE), according to which our body receives various types of information, involving a small set of organs—viz. the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the skin—in a more or less passive way.1 Nowadays, whether it is in philosophical, neuro-psychological, or anthropological works, scholars urge us to define perception on a broader footing. Our body is a complex structure which interacts with its environment in more than five ways. The sensation of temperature, pain, locomotion, and so on may also be added to the list of sensory information a body can receive. 2 Also, the sensory experience, far from being an individual person’s one, is a collective thing which involves the whole community the person belongs to. Bodily perception constitutes an active dimension with which a society gives sense to, translates, and interprets its daily environment. In her study of the sensory phenomena in the Bible, Yael Avrahami underlines the fact that “body is where self and culture are embodied.”3 Perception and related concepts may vary from one culture to another, deeply rooted in a system of customs, values, and representations, where the sensory effects are all intertwined.4 The individual should be considered as a sensorially embodied subject, even in an ancient society that is accessible to us only through archaeologic, iconographic, or textual artefacts. The topic challenges scholars to cross the traditional boundaries of their own disciplines and to question it with a comparative and interdisciplinary approach across humanities and social sciences (anthropology, sociology, linguistics …). The topic is not a new one in historical research. Already in the 1940s, Lucien Febvre highlighted its importance to better understand social interactions in a given society. Since the 1980s, Alain Corbin, a historian of the senses, has pioneered new vistas in social and cultural history, focusing on the history of sensations of France. For instance, hearing a church’s bell had a specific political meaning after the *

I would especially like to thank Henry Stadhouders for reading the paper and making numerous valuable suggestions for improving it.

1.

Aristotle’s sensory model concerns not only European culture, but also Arabic and Jewish philosophy: JÜTTE 2005, p. 36.

2.

HAWTHORN & RENDU LOISEL (eds) 2019, pp. 1-5.

3.

AVRAHAMI 2012, p. 51.

4.

Here, I refer to the seminal works in anthropology of the senses: STOLLER 1989 and HOWES & CLASSEN 2014.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 89-102 PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120939 BREPOLS

H

90 Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel French Revolution; or, perfumes and awful smells had impacts on the social hierarchy and interactions inside a society. For Antiquity, the topic has been widely explored in the last few decades by historians and archaeologists. Yannis Hamilakis5 reminds us that an archaeologist, inevitably, is physically engaged with the material traces of the past she/he is studying. Using Bronze Age Crete as a case study, Hamilakis illustrates how sensorial memory can help us rethink various questions (production of ancestral heritage, social change, and cultural significance of monuments and artefacts, etc.). Colors, sounds, smells are also questioned for their cultural values and meanings, whether it is in Ancient Greece or in Rome.6 In the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies, the historian Elena Cassin investigated in 1968 the visual world of the divine luminosity, this “splendeur divine” emanating from gods and goddesses.7 In her study, humans are shown to be sensory beings moving around in a luminous and noisy environment, whereas the divine assembly seeks for obscurity, inactivity, and silence. In recent years, quite a few works of Assyriologists and archaeologists of the Ancient Near East have been devoted to the subject of the senses in Mesopotamia, focusing each time on one sense in particular.8 The subject has also been explored for its implications in medical history: a modification of a sensory faculty may be symptomatic of an illness.9 In Akkadian and Sumerian literature, bodily experience is characterized by its multisensory dimensions. Sensations mingle and interact with each other to produce a unified experience of the world. Anthropologists have already insisted on the importance of studying concepts, values, and practices of a given community from a multisensory approach.10 In Akkadian literature, a number of sensory phenomena frequently feature together by virtue of their interrelationship. For instance, in the Gilgameš epic of the 1st millennium BCE, visual, auditory, and tactile experiences are all brought into play to describe death: “no one sees death, no one sees the face of death, no one hears the voice of death; but it is savage death that smashes humanity.”11 Now, if the senses appear to interlock, is there a hierarchy among them? How many senses can we identify in Akkadian cuneiform sources? To what extent can the Aristotelian pentasensory model be applied to the societies of the Ancient Near East? To answer these questions, I will focus on Akkadian literary texts of the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE. I will first expose some general methodological considerations regarding the reconstitution of a sensory model for a society which has left no philosophical texts such as those we have for Ancient Greece. Moreover, in several Akkadian literary compositions, the senses seem to play a crucial role in 5.

HAMILAKIS 2013.

6.

See for example GRAND-CLÉMENT 2011; BUTLER & PURVES (eds) 2013; BRADLEY (ed.) 2015; VINCENT 2016.

7.

CASSIN 1968.

8.

For assyriological works, see for example DICKS 2012, RENDU LOISEL 2016, and HAWTHORN & RENDU LOISEL (eds) 2019; for archaeological works on the Ancient Near East, see MACMAHON 2013 and SHEPPERSON 2017. For iconography, WINTER 2000 interrogated how visual experience is represented in Mesopotamian texts and images and coded as the principal sensory conduit for both religious and aesthetic experience.

9.

FINCKE 2000; SCURLOCK & ANDERSEN 2006, pp. 184-207, among others.

10. CANDAU & WATHELET 2013. 11. ˹ul ma˺-am-ma mu-u2-tu im-mar / ul ma-am-m[a ša mu-ti i]m-˹mar˺ pa-ni-šu2 / ˹ul ma-am-ma˺ ša mu-ti rig-˹mašu2˺ [i-šem-me] / ag-gu ˹mu-tum˺ ḫa-ṣi-pi LU2-ut-tim (GEORGE 2003, p. 696).

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describing the inner affects of an individual, or the social changes he is going through. Such descriptions show us that, for Mesopotamia, we cannot limit the human experience of perception to the classical five senses. With a multisensory approach, we can widen our investigation to seven senses at least, and probably even more than that.

I. HOW CAN WE PROCEED? SOME METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS One of the main issues at stake in this inquiry is how we can reconstruct the sensorium as described in ancient cuneiform texts. The task would have been much easier if we had, like we plentifully have for Ancient Greece, a text written by some Babylonian scholar in which he clearly exposes his theories on what perception means for him and his society, how he understands the human body functions, what parts of the body and what impressions play a role, and, finally, how many senses there actually are. However, this observation should not discourage us from undertaking the task, for the cuneiform records in fact abound with evidence relating to the senses—albeit in an unsystematic manner, as it happens to lie scattered throughout the entire corpus; our enterprise therefore needs to depart from both lexicographical and literary studies. I.1. The five senses in Akkadian The lack of an Akkadian generic term such as “sense” makes it difficult to define a human experience or action as sensorial. A way out of this dead-end may be to start from actions/sensations that are undeniably and universally described as sensory: such as sight or hearing. We have then to trace the vocabulary employed to express these sensory experiences. Language is not just a means of expression. It is a cultural tool for understanding and constructing the environment, but at the same time, it is indistinguishable from experiencing the surrounding world.12 Several philological works published recently focus on the semantic field of one sense. Whether it is for sight or hearing, the Akkadian vocabulary appears to be quite extensive and cannot be limited to a single Semitic root.13 There are several modes of seeing and of hearing, and there is no reason to assume that the other senses would be less complex, as the body may be involved in various ways. Here I will just give an overview of the richness of the Akkadian vocabulary relating to the traditional five senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste—before extending this list to encompass other perceptual abilities. In general, a sensory experience is expressed by a conjugated verb. But the Akkadian language possesses also lexical forms to convey an abstract concept, grafted upon a Semitic root: a case in point are, for example, the so-called PiRS pattern-based nouns.14 1/ sight: the most frequent verb is amāru “to see,” but we also find palāsu (naplusu), naṭālu (abstract term: niṭlu), dagālu (abstract term: diglu): all these verbs and terms suggest a different way of

12. AVRAHAMI 2012, p. 44. 13. For the Akkadian vocabulary, many research studies have been conducted, for the most part devoted to one of the senses in particular: for example, with regard to visual experiences, see MOUTON 2019 for Hittite texts; DICKS 2012 and HAWTHORN 2019; MANASTERSKA 2019; FRIEDRICH 2019 (for Akkadian vocabulary). Regarding auditory experiences in Akkadian texts, see RENDU LOISEL 2016. 14. SODEN 19953, p. 71, §55 2a.

92 Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel seeing, depending on the cultural contexts, the period, and the types of sources. These lexemes may appear in the same composition, and while their respective semantics may overlap to quite a degree, they definitely do not coincide. they saw (amāru) the strong hero, and their sight (niṭlu) became blurred/changed.15 if a man’s sight (diglu) is weak16

As is exposed in the Prologue of the Gilgameš epic, vision appears to be related to the concept of knowledge: he (learnt) the totality of wisdom (nēmequ) about everything. / He saw (amāru) the secret and uncovered the hidden, / he brought back a message from the antediluvian age.17

2/ hearing: the verb šemû (and its derived stems) “to hear, to listen” is the most frequently employed verb of hearing in Akkadian literature, but there are also other roots in this semantic field which have come to especially convey such transferred meanings as “to be wise” and “to understand”—for example, hasāsu “to remember, to be pious, to (be) understand(ing).” My ears are open but I cannot hear (šemû).18 listen (šemû), reed fence; heed (ḫasāsu), wall!19

3/ touch: the verb lapātu (abstract term: liptu) has a large semantic field, describing various positive or negative actions made by the hand. It can be translated as “to touch” but also as “to hurt, to touch someone with bad intention, to smear, to fashion an object, etc.” It is an abomination (ikkibu) unto Enki, do not touch (lapātu) (it) with your hands (qātu)20 he touched (lapātu) his (Enkidu’s) heart, it did not beat anymore21

Touch is related to the power and authority someone may have over someone else. For instance, the “hand > touch of a god” (qāt dX) is an expression for illness. 4/ the sense of smell is probably the least developed regarding the vocabulary. We find the verb eṣēnu, frequently employed in expressions built with the substantive erēšu/erīšu: My lord has touched the edge of my clothes with his hands, (and now) I smell (eṣēnu) the good fragrance of my lord (eriš bēlīya ṭābam).22

15. Enūma eliš IV l.70, LAMBERT 2013, p. 90. 16. THOMPSON 1923, text 17,4, l.8. 17. [nap-ḫa]r ne2-me-qi2 ša ka-la-a-mi ˹i˺-[ḫu-uz?] / [ni]-ṣir-ta i-mur-ma ka-tim-ti ip-˹tu˺ / [u]b-la ṭe3-e-ma ša2 la-am abu-b[i] (Gilgameš I, l.6-8, GEORGE 2003, p. 538). 18. pi-ta-a-ma ul i-šim-ma-a uz-na-a-a (Ludlul II, l.74, LAMBERT 1996, p. 42). 19. ki-ik-ki-šu ši-me-ma i-ga-ru ḫi-is-sa-as (Gilgameš XI, l.22, GEORGE 2003, p. 704). 20. GURNEY & FINKELSTEIN 1957, n° 28, l.106. 21. il-pu-ut lib3-ba-šu-ma ul i-nak-ku-u[d mimmāma] (Gilgameš VIII l.58, GEORGE 2003, p. 654). 22. be-li2 qa-te9-šu / i-na qa-ra-an TUG2-ia u2-˹ša˺-ak-ki-il-ma / e-ri-iš be-li2-ia ṭa3-ba-am i-na E2-ia / e-ṣi2-in, ZIEGLER 1996, pp. 480-485 (see the online edition, Archibab website, last consulted in May 2019: http://www.archibab.fr/4DCGI/listestextes7.htm?WebUniqueID=132187464).

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below them (the seven flasks) I heaped up reed, cedar and myrtle, the gods smelled (eṣēnu) the fragrance (erēšu), the gods smelled (eṣēnu) the pleasant fragrance (erēša ṭāba)23

5/ the sense of taste is the most difficult to identify lexicographically. We cannot limit our investigation to the verbs denoting eating (akālu) and drinking (šatû), as they may not always imply an aesthetic value or a social judgment. But we can learn more about this sense, when we study what is eaten, and the adjective applied to it. As suggested by Henry Stadhouders,24 one may find in the pharmacopoeial handbook šammu šikinšu the expression ṭēm X šakin, which might have to be translated as “it (the plant-X) has the taste of …”: [The plant whose appearance is like] (that of) the nīnû-vegetable, whose fruit has a goldish color, which has the taste (ṭēmu) of the ša[kirû-plant]—[that plant] / is called look-alike of the nuṣabu-plant. [(To be applied) likewise?]25

Stadhouders surmises that the Akkadian term ṭēmu “report, order, decision, plan, intention, reason, intelligence” may also have gained the meaning “taste,” perhaps under Aramaic influence. He points to a parallel in Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae (X, 240), where this encyclopedist shows a “vivid awareness of the relationship between the physical sense of taste and the faculty of mental discernment.”26 Taste may then be involved in an intellectual experience of the surrounding world, which is not implied by such basic verbs as akālu and šatû. I.2. Hierarchy and aesthetic values After this brief overview of the sensory vocabulary in Akkadian, one may wonder what kind of aesthetic values are associated with each sense.27 The question remains difficult to answer; the adjectives qualifying these experiences are indeed too general and not specific to the experience itself. ṭabu (DUG3) “good” or lemnu (HUL) “bad” are the most frequently employed, both characterized by a wide semantic field. If the flood water comes in Ayaru, and the odor (irīšu) of the river is unpleasant (NU DUG3.GA, lit. “not good”) to smell (eṣēnu), Adad will wreak havoc in the land and the land’s surface will smell bad (or “spread a (pungent) odor”; eṣēnu is employed here in verbal theme-D).28

In a letter from Mari, the sender of the letter says that he has eaten the kamāru-fish he has received, and “they were very tasty to me,” literally “very good in my mouth” (mādiš ina pīya ṭābu).29 It remains difficult to determine why something produces a bad sensation and what is the nature of it: is it unpleasant? Is it unbearable? Is it inappropriate? One may notice the expression X ul naṭû “to be not appropriate for,” which may be predicated of sensory experiences, such as hearing a song or

23. i-na šap-li-šu2-nu at-ta-bak GI GIŠ.EREN u ŠIM.GIR2 / DINGIR.MEŠ i-ṣi-nu i-ri-ša2 / DINGIR.MEŠ i-ṣi-nu i-riša2 DUG3.GA (Gilgameš XI, l.159-160, GEORGE 2003, p. 712). 24. STADHOUDERS 2011. 25. §16’, transl. STADHOUDERS 2011. 26. STADHOUDERS 2011, p. 3, n. 16. 27. The topic has been widely explored very recently; I hereby refer to the fascinating contribution of ZORZI 2019, focusing on negative judgments associated with sensory perceptions, especially bad smells. 28. DIŠ ina ITI.GU4 A.KAL DU-ma ID2 A-ša2 ana e-ṣi-in-ni i-ri-is-su-nu NU DUG3.GA dIM ina KUR KU2-ma KUR pu-us-sa uṣ-ṣa-an (Šumma ālu 61, l.18, FREEDMAN 2017, p. 143). 29. [a]-ku-ul-ma / [ma]-di-iš i-na pi2-ia ṭa3-bu (Archives Royales de Mari vol. 28, text 88, l.8: transcription on the Archibab website, last consulted in August 2019: http://www.archibab.fr/4DCGI/listestextes3.htm?WebUniqueID=140943519).

94 Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel smelling a perfume.30 The following examples belong to the Old Babylonian Period. The first example is taken from a prayer addressed to the goddess Ištar; the second one is a quote from a letter: her heart’s desire, her song of pleasure (zamār lalēša) is fitting (naṭû) for his (the king’s) mouth.31 the filtered oil (šamnu) you sent me was not fit (ul naṭû) to smell (eṣēnu).32

The expression ul naṭû presupposes norms shared by the members of the same community regarding bodily sensations an individual may experience. In the twelfth tablet of the Gilgameš epic, Gilgameš warns Enkidu against drawing attention to himself when he goes down to the Netherworld. The sensory effects he emits/produces must not disturb the social rules down there: If you go down to the Netherworld, you should pay attention to my advice! You must not wear a clean garment; they will identify you as a stranger! You must not anoint yourself with sweet oil from the flask; at its smell, they will gather around you! You must not hurl a throw-stick in the Netherworld; those struck by the throw-stick will surround you! You must not carry a staff in your hand; the shades will tremble before you! You must not wear sandals on your feet; you must not make noise in the Netherworld! You must not kiss the wife you love, you must not strike the wife you hate, you must not kiss the son you love, you must not strike the son you hate, the outcry of the Netherworld will seize you.33

Enkidu should not wear clean clothing that the spirits will see, noisy sandals that the spirits will hear, or use aromatic perfume that the spirits will smell. If he does, he will be recognized as a stranger by the community of the dead. In ancient Mesopotamia, appearance, sound, and odor belong to specific codes that define the living human being; a person is a sensory entity who can be seen, heard, and smelled. There is a hint here at the aesthetic values associated with senses: a “good” sensory experience should be appropriate, in accordance with the cultural codes of the community the individual belongs to. The abundance of attestations for terms belonging to the lexical field of sight may lead us to consider this sense the most important in the hierarchy of perception. But frequently, sight is mentioned in relation to other senses, such as hearing. The notion of hierarchy may thus not be that relevant for Akkadian texts. Senses correlate with specific values, which are equally important. As mentioned above, sight is connected to knowledge: at the beginning of the epic, Gilgameš is presented as someone who learnt the totality of wisdom, who saw the secret from the antediluvian age.34 The king of Uruk acquired this knowledge thanks to a long and hard journey. In Akkadian literature, hearing is also a way to become wise and to establish a close relationship with the gods. The king may present himself as someone that can hear the divine will, because he has a uznu rapaštu “large ear”—for instance, here with the Assyrian king Aššurbanipal (7th century BCE): 30. See ZORZI 2019, p. 219 for other Akkadian terms on the topic of disgust (such as ba’āšu “to stink,” or masāku (“to be visually unpleasant, to be ugly”). 31. THUREAU-DANGIN 1925, p. 171, l.54. 32. LUTZ 1917, text n°58, l.9. 33. šum-ma a-na KI-tim [tur-rad] / a-na a-ši-ir-ti-˹ia˺ [lu-u2 ta-šad-da-ad] / ṣu-ba-ta za-ka-a [la tal-tab-biš] / ki-ma u2ba-ra-ta-ma u2-a-˹ad˺-d[u-ka] / ša-man pu-u2-ri ṭa-a-ba la tap-pa-ši-i[š] / a-na i-ri-ši-šu ˹i˺-pah-hu-ru-ka / til-pana a-na KI-˹tim˺ la ta-na-suk / ša i-na til-pa-na mah-ṣu i-lam-mu-ka / šab-bi-ṭu a-na ŠU.II-ka la ta-na-aš2-ši / eṭem-mu i-ar-ru-ru-ka / še-e-ni ina ĜIR3.MIN-ka la ta-še-ni / ri-ig-mu ina KI-tim la ta-šak-kan / aš2-šat-ka ša2 taram-mu la ta-na-ši[q] / aš2-šat-ka ša2 ta-ze-ru la ta-mah-haṣ / ma-ra-ka ša2 ta-ram-mu la ta-na-šiq / ma-ra-ka ša2 ta-ze-ru la ta-mah-haṣ / ta-az-zi-im-tu4 KI-tim i-[ṣ]ab-bat-ka (Gilgameš XII, l.11-27, GEORGE 2003, p. 728). 34. Gilgameš I, l.1-8. See above.

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(The great gods) endowed me with a large ear > broad understanding (uznu rapaštu).35

Going back to ṭēmu, the term employed in relation to gustatory experiences, it is worthy of note that its semantic field relates to reflection and thought, frequently translated as “understanding, reason, plan …” This reveals the interrelations existing between affective state, sensory effect, and cognitive interpretation. Learning supposes a unified bodily experience of the surrounding world, in such a way that both concrete and abstract events make up the mind/spirit of the individual.36

II. BEYOND THE PENTASENSORY MODEL In literary texts, metaphors are of the utmost importance for our inquiry, as they contain the cultural values associated with a sensory experience. One may add the recurrent associative pattern between senses and other human actions and experiences: reoccurring word pairs demonstrate the speaker’s associations.37 These associations may be a clue that enables us to reconstruct the sensory model in Akkadian texts. Ludlul bēl nēmeqi “I will praise the Lord of Wisdom” is a classic Akkadian poem that deals with one of the most fundamental human issues: suffering. Ludlul focuses specifically on the relationship between a suffering human and his deity, in this case the great god Marduk. It was a well-known, widely diffused, and highly valued poem.38 In the second tablet of Ludlul, two sections describe the suffering state of the protagonist in terms of physical illness, which afflicts his entire body and his sensory abilities. 70

ki-i u2-lil-te an-na-bi-ik bu-pa-niš an-na-di

71

a-lu-u2 zu-um-ri i-te-di-iq ṣu-ba-ti ki-ma šu-uš-kal-li u2-kat3-ti-man-ni šit-tu2 pal-ṣa-a-ma ul i-na-aṭ-ṭal i-na-a-a pe-ta-a-ma ul i-šem-ma-a uz-na-a-a kal pag-ri-ia i-ta-ḫaz ri-mu-tu2 mi-šit-tu im-ta-qut UGU UZ.MEŠ-ia man-gu iṣ-ṣa-bat i-di-ia lu-u’-tu2 im-ta-qut UGU bir-ki-ia ma-ša2-ma na-mu-ši-ša2 še-pa-a-a [mi-i]ḫ-ṣu šuk-šu-du u2-nap-paq ma-as-tiš2 [šu]-du-ut mu-tu i-te-rim pa-ni-ia [i-ḫa]-˹sa˺-sa-ni-ma ša2-’i-li ul ap-pal

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86

[u8]-a i-bak-ku-u ra-ma-nu ul i-ši ˹ina pi˺-ia na-aḫ-[b]a-lu na-di-ma ˹u3˺ nap-ra-ku se-ki-ir šap-ti-˹ia˺ [b]a-bi e-di-il pi-ḫi maš-qu-u-a

I was thrown like a dried fig. I was cast down on my face. A malevolent demon clothed my body as a garment, Sleep covered me like a net. They were staring, but my eyes could not see, They were open, but my ears could not hear. Numbness had seized my entire body, Paralysis had fallen upon my flesh. Stiffness had seized my arms, Impotence had fallen upon my loins, My feet forgot mobility, [A bl]ow overtook me, I was choking like one fallen. The edict of death had covered my face. If my inquirer [took n]otice of me, I would not answer, “[Wo]e!” they would cry, I did not possess myself. A trap was laid on my mouth, and a bolt barred my lips. My [g]ate was bolted, my watering place sealed up,

35. STRECK 1916, p. 92 I 7. 36. AVRAHAMI 2012, p. 96. 37. AVRAHAMI 2012, pp. 56 and 67. 38. Over fifty tablets or fragments, dating from the 1st millennium BCE, from seven different ancient cities have preserved its text. Several critical editions have been edited: LAMBERT 1996, and more recently, ANNUS & LENZI 2010. My paper is based on the last-named edition.

96 Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel 87 88 89

[a]r2-kat bu-bu-te ka-tim ur-[u2-d]i aš2-na-an šum-ma da-ad-da-riš a-la-˹’u˺-ut d ŠIM nab-laṭ UN.MEŠ UGU.MU im-tar-˹ṣu˺

My hunger was [pro]longed, my thr[oa]t closed up. If it was grain, I would swallow it like stinkweed, Beer, the sustenance of people, had become displeasing to me.” (Ludlul II, l.70-89)

And also in Tablet III: 80

la-az-zu GIG SAG.DU ša2 [su]-u2-iš kab-t[u]

81

is-suh ˹ki˺-ma na-al-ši mu-[š]i UGU-ia uš-te-es[si] te-e’-a-ti IGI.2-a-a ša2 uš-teš2-[b]i-iḫ ši-bi-iḫ mu-u2-[ti] u2-šat-bi IM KASKAL.GID2 u2-nam-mir niṭ-[li]

82

83

84

85

86

87

88 89 90

91 92 93 94

95

96

GEŠTU.2-a-a ša2 uṭ-ṭa-am-mi-ma us-sak-ki-ka ḫa-šik-kiš it-bal a-mir-šin ip-te-te neš-ma-a-a ap-pi ša2 ina ri-di um-mi u2-nap-pi-qu ni-[pi-issu] u2-pa-aš2-ši-iḫ mi-ḫi-iṣ-ta-šu-ma a-nap-pu-uš [x x x] šap-ta-a-a ša2 il-lab-ba il-qa-a KAL-x-[x] ik-pur ul-ḫat-si-na-ma ki-ṣir-ši-na ip-[ṭur] pi-ia2 ša2 uk-ta-at-ti-mu ṣa-ba-riš aš2-[ṭu] im-šu-uš ki-na qe2-e ru-ša2-šu2 uš-[x x] [šin]-na-a-a ša2 it-ta-aṣ-ba-ta 1-niš in-ni-i[b-ṭa] ip-ti bi-rit-si-na-ma ir-da-šin uš-tam-[x x x] li-ša2-nu ša2 in-ni-ib-ṭa šu-˹ta˺-bu-lu [l]a i-[le’u] im-šu-uš ṭu-pu-˹uš˺-ta-ša2-ma ˹iḫ˺-da-ad2 atmu-u-[a] ur-u2-du ša2 in-ni-is-ru u2-nap-pi-qu la-gab-biš

97

uš-ṭib-ma i-ra-tu-ša2 ma-li-liš uḫ-ta[l]-l[il]-ša2

98

lu-i’i-i ša2 u2-tap-pi-qu la [i-ma]ḫ-˹ḫa-ru˺ [akla] la-ga-ša2 i-ši-ir-ma i-dil-taš ip-ti

99

Constant headache, which was hea[vy] as a [grind]ing stone, He withdrew like the dew of ni[gh]t, he dr[ove] it away from me. My blurred eyes, which were cov[er]ed with the pall of de[ath], He removed it far, far away, he brightened my vis[ion] (niṭlu). My ears, which were clogged, stopped up like a deaf man’s, He removed their wax, he opened my hearing (nešmu). My nose, [whose br]eathing was blocked with the onset of fever, He relieved its illness so that I could breathe [freely]. My lips, which were raging and took … he wiped away their fear, he rel[eased] their bond. My mouth, which was closed up so that speaking was diff[icult], He polished like copper, its dirt … My [tee]th, which were clenched, bo[und] together, He opened their binding and … their base/jaw? My tongue, which was bound so that it was [no]t a[ble] to move about, He wiped away its thickness so that [my] speech became clear (?). My throat, which was constricted, blocked as with a lump, He made well and c[aus]ed it to sound its songs like a reed flute. My gullet, which was swollen, would not [acc]ept [food], Its swelling went down, and he opened its stoppage. (Ludlul III, l.80-99)

To these literary quotes, I would add another example, taken from the Corpus of anti-witchcraft rituals: it is an incantation addressed to the sun-god Šamaš. The tablet was found in Assur and goes

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back to the Neo-Assyrian Period. It contains several ritual procedures in which incantations are recited and figurines of the client’s witch and warlock are burnt.39 68

ÉN Šamaš ṣalmī annûti ša kaššāpīya u kaššāptīya ša yâši īteneppušūninni

69

attā ((dayyānu)) tīdēšunūti-ma anāku ul īdēšunūti ša šīrīya uzaqqitū((ninni)) pūtātīya uṣabbitū šerʾānīya iksû piṭrīya utabbikū aḫīya uṣṣilū (var.: uzzirū) nīš libbīya iṣbatū ruʾtī(ya) ubbilū mangu luʾtu eli šīrīya itbukū akal kaššāpūti ušākilūninni mê kaššāpūti išqûninni (73a): [rimk]ī l[u]ʾʾ[ût]e urammikūninni

70

71

72

73

74

napšalti šammī lemnūti ipšušūn[i]nni

75

qibīt pîya iṣbatū egerrâya ulamminū eṣenṣērī ((kīma unqi)) ikpupū

76

irtī idʾipū šidaḫ pānīya itablū

77

((bunnannêya unakkirū)) liptīya udaʾʾimū

78

ḫasīsīya iṣbatū diglīya ušamṭû melammêya išdudū

79

Šamaš ina maḫrīka aqallūšunūti upaṭṭar napḫar lemnētīšunu upaṭṭar kiṣir kipid libbīšunu Šamaš ((ina pîka)) Girra tappûka lītallil idāya

80 81

82

KA.INIM.MA ṣalmī qalî

UŠ11.BÚR.RU.DA.KAM

ša

Incantation: “Šamaš, these figurines are those of my warlock and witch, who constantly perform (witchcraft) against me. You, ((judge)), know them, but I do not know them, who have stung my flesh, (who) have seized my forehead, have tied my sinews, have poured out my ... , (who) have immobilized my arms, have seized my potency, have dried up my spittle, (who) have poured out stiffness (and) decay over my body, have fed me bewitched bread, (who) have given me bewitched water to drink, (73a) (who) have bathed me with d[i]r[t]y [wash wate]r, (who) have anointed me with an ointment containing bad herbs, (who) have disabled my ability to speak, have slandered me, have bent my spine ((like a seal ring)), (who) have pressed my chest, have taken away the healthy glow of my face, (who) ((have disfigured my features)), have dulled my sense of touch (liptu), (who) have impaired my sense of hearing (hasīsu), have weakened my ability to see (diglu), have dragged off my glow of health (melammu). Šamaš, before you I burn them, I dispel all their evils, I untie the knot of their heart’s plan! Šamaš, ((by your order)), may Girra, your companion, be fixed at my side!” Wording (of the incantation) to undo witchcraft, for burning figurines.

These three texts all present the suffering individual in the same way: his physical illness reflects his mental state, his pain and distress. The expressions are rather general, but they insist on the fact the patient has lost—or rediscovered in the case of Ludlul III—his sensory abilities. These abilities are of the utmost importance, as they are the ways for the body to interact with its environment, whether it is a natural, a social, or a religious one. What interests me here is the list of these abilities. The observation that they are put on the same level indiscriminately is an aid for us to reconstruct the sensory model. Sight and hearing are mentioned on a par with other sensory abilities beside them.

39. I follow here the online edition of the text one can find at http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cmawro/corpus (8.4.1), last consulted in May 2019.

the

following

address:

98 Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel Senses are intertwined and the body has to process bits of information of a varying nature simultaneously. Sensations mingle and interact with one another to produce a unified experience of the world. Before putting the emphasis on three sensory experiences described in these texts, one may notice that the lists are different from one text to another. I consider them just a clue to widening the research regarding the sensory model in Akkadian society. taste: In addition to sight and hearing, we can clearly identify taste (text 1): eating bread/grain and drinking beer should be a pleasant experience. If it was grain, I would swallow it like stinkweed (daddaru), Beer, the sustenance of people, had become displeasing (marāṣu) to me (Ludlul II, l.88-89)

It is interesting to note that in literary texts, the tasty quality of something may be used to describe another pleasant sensation. In a hymn addressed to the great god Marduk, one of the wishes made is that the words the god pronounces for the benefit of the human community should be as sweet and pleasant as honey.40 What is heard with the ears is as sweet as honey on the tongue. Honey is an interesting substance to consider, as it implies multiple sensory experiences at the same time. Honey evokes not only a sweet taste; it is also a substance with visual features, as if it were liquid gold. It is luminous, brilliant, and precious. kinesthesia: In these lists, one may notice the close relation between the senses and locomotion: They were staring, but my eyes could not see, / They were open, but my ears could not hear. / Numbness had seized my entire body, / Paralysis had fallen upon my flesh. / Stiffness had seized my arms, Impotence had fallen upon my loins, / My feet forget mobility (Ludlul II, l.73-79)

Feet, legs, and arms stand for the ability to move. To our list, we can add the verb alāku. This ability to move is considered a sense in itself, called kinesthesia, which would appear to be bound up with sight and hearing. In the following example, motion is connected with sight: I seized your watching eyes (naṭālu), I seized your walking feet (alāku).41

Avrahami has highlighted the link between kinesthesia and hearing, as well as sight,42 especially when the acquiring of knowledge is concerned. speech/language: In our Akkadian literary texts, it is interesting to note that speech appears on the same level as the other senses: My tongue, which was bound so that it was [no]t a[ble] to move about, / he wiped away its thickness so that [my] speech became clear (?) (Ludlul III, 94-95) (who) have disabled my ability to speak, have slandered me, have bent my spine (like a seal ring) (CMAwR 8.4.1, l.75)

As the anthropologist Constance Classen has noted, the inclusion of speech in the same category as the senses seems odd to us—from a Western and modern perspective—only because

40. zikir š[ap-ti-šu] kīma lal3-la-ri eli abrāti li-ša2-ṭib “May the statement of his (Marduk’s) lips be as sweet (lit. ‘good’) as honey for humanity” (PINCHES 1882, p. 16 rev. l.3). 41. aṣbat īnēki na-ṭi-la-a-ti aṣbat šēpēki allakāti (Maqlu III, l.95, also II l.32; ABUSCH 2015). 42. AVRAHAMI 2012, p. 77.

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we conceive of the senses as passive recipients of data, whereas speech is an externalization of data. It is also because we think of the senses as natural faculties and speech as a learned acquirement.43

The anthropologist David Howes44 reminds us that the idea of speech/language as a sense—that is, as a natural faculty, akin to sight or touch—has surfaced repeatedly in the history of the Western sensorium (from Antiquity to the Middle Ages). For the late 20th century, Noam Chomsky argued that the human capacity for language is innate and that a “language organ” may exist in the human brain. Avrahami45 has also persuasively argued that representations of sensory experience in the Hebrew Bible are also based on a paradigm of seven senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, kinesthesia, and speech. It is not surprising then to find speech described in our texts as a sensory ability just like sight, touch, and hearing.

CONCLUSION At the end of this inquiry, we can affirm that the pentasensory model is not fully applicable to ancient Akkadian texts. A total of seven senses—at least!—appear to exist in our cuneiform sources: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, kinaesthesia, and speech, suggesting a septasensory model. Of course, the list is not a fixed one. Yet more sensory experiences should be taken into account, such as time,46 balance (equilibrioception), temperature (thermoception), pain (nociception), and internal sense (interoception), as it is suggested by neuroscientific works for our modern societies.47 Establishing a list of sensory experiences as noticed and recorded by the ancient Babylonians will help us understand how they explored and conceived the world around them, even though we lack such philosophical texts as explicitly reflect on the issue.

REFERENCES ABUSCH T. 2015 The magical ceremony Maqlû, a critical edition (Ancient Magic and Divination 10), Boston – Leiden, Brill. ANNUS A., LENZI A. 2010 Ludlul bēl nēmeqi: the Standard Babylonian poem of the righteous sufferer (State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts 7), Helsinki, Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. AVRAHAMI Y. 2012 The senses of scripture: sensory perception in the Hebrew Bible (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 545), New York, T. & T. Clark. BRADLEY M. (ed.) 2015 Smell and the ancient senses, London – New York, Routledge – Taylor & Francis Group. BUTLER S., PURVES A. (eds) 2013 Synaesthesia and the ancient senses (The Senses in Antiquity), Durham, Acumen.

43. CLASSEN 1993, p. 2. 44. HOWES (ed.) 2009. 45. AVRAHAMI 2012. 46. NEUMANN 2019a and NEUMANN 2019b. 47. Recent scientific work on the subject has proposed that human beings have at least 10 distinct senses, and up to as many as 33 (HOWES (ed.) 2009, pp. 22-25).

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CANDAU J., WATHELET O. 2013 “Considérations méthodologiques en anthropologie sensorielle: pour une ethnographie cognitive des perceptions”, in Paysages sensoriels: essai d’anthropologie de la construction et de la perception de l’environnement sonore, ed. by J. CANDAU and M. -B. LE GONIDEC (Orientations et méthodes), Paris, Éditions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, pp. 213-239. CASSIN E. 1968 La splendeur divine: introduction à la mentalité mésopotamienne (Civilisations et sociétés 8), Paris – The Hague, Mouton & co. CLASSEN C. 1993 Worlds of sense: exploring the senses in history and across cultures, London – New York, Routledge. DICKS A. A. 2012 Catching the eye of the gods: the gaze in Mesopotamian literature, PhD New Haven University. FINCKE J. C. 2000 Augenleiden nach keilschriftlichen Quellen: Untersuchungen zur altorientalischen Medizin (Würzburger medizinhistorische Forschungen 70), Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann. FREEDMAN S. M. 2017 If a city is set on a height, the Akkadian omen series Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin. Volume 3: tablets 41-63 (Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 20), Philadelphia, Samuel Noah Kramer Fund. FRIEDRICH E. 2019 “Toward a classification of Akkadian verbs of perception”, in Distant impressions: the senses in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. HAWTHORN and A. -C. RENDU LOISEL, Philadelphia, Eisenbrauns, pp. 149-158. GEORGE A. R. 2003 The Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, introduction, critical edition, and cuneiform texts, Oxford – New York, Oxford University Press. GRAND-CLÉMENT A. 2011 La fabrique des couleurs: histoire du paysage sensible des Grecs anciens (VIIIe-début du Ve s. av. n. è.) (De l’archéologie à l’histoire), Paris, De Boccard. GURNEY O. R, FINKELSTEIN J. J. 1957 The Sultantepe tablets (Occasional Publications of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara 3), London, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. HAMILAKIS Y. 2013 Archaeology of the senses: human experience, memory, and affect, New York, Cambridge University Press. HAWTHORN A. A. 2019 “The shifting gaze: looking and seeing in the Neo-assyrian royal inscriptions”, in Distant impressions: the senses in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. HAWTHORN and A. -C. RENDU LOISEL, Philadelphia, Eisenbrauns, pp. 105-121. HAWTHORN A., RENDU LOISEL A. -C. (eds) 2019 Distant impressions: the senses in the Ancient Near East, Philadelphia, Eisenbrauns. HOWES D. (ed.) 2009 The sixth sense reader (Sensory Formations), Oxford – New York, Berg. HOWES D., CLASSEN C. 2014 Ways of sensing: understanding the senses in society, London – New York, Routledge. JÜTTE R. 2005 A history of the senses: from Antiquity to cyberspace, Cambridge – Malden, Polity Press. LAMBERT W. G. 1996 Babylonian wisdom literature, Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns [1st ed.: 1969]. 2013 Babylonian creation myths (Mesopotamian Civilizations 16), Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns.

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LUTZ H. F. 1917 Early Babylonian letters from Larsa (Yale Oriental Series Babylonian Texts 2), New Haven – London, Yale University Press – Oxford University Press. MACMAHON A. 2013 “Space, sound, and light: toward a sensory experience of ancient monumental architecture”, American Journal of Archaeology 117, pp. 163-179. MANASTERSKA S. 2019 “Looking and seeing in the Neo-assyrian letter”, in Distant impressions: the senses in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. HAWTHORN and A. -C. RENDU LOISEL, Philadelphia, Eisenbrauns, pp. 93-104. MOUTON A. 2019 “Representing the senses in Hittite religious texts: the case of sight”, in Distant impressions: the senses in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. HAWTHORN and A. -C. RENDU LOISEL, Philadelphia, Eisenbrauns, pp. 159-187. NEUMANN K. 2019a “Sensing the sacred in the Neo-assyrian temple: the presentation of offerings to the gods”, in Distant impressions: the senses in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. HAWTHORN and A. -C. RENDU LOISEL, Philadelphia, Eisenbrauns, pp. 23-62. 2019b “Laying foundations for eternity: timing temple construction in Assyria”, in Sounding sensory profiles in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. SCHELLENBERG and T. KRÜGER (Ancient Near East Monographs 25), Atlanta, SBL Press, pp. 253-278. PINCHES T. G. 1882 Texts in the Babylonian wedge-writing, autographed from the original documents; with a list of characters and their meanings: Pt. 1. Texts in the Assyrian language only, London, Society of Biblical Archaeology. RENDU LOISEL, A. -C. 2016 Les chants du monde: le paysage sonore de l’ancienne Mésopotamie (Tempus), Toulouse, Presses Universitaires du Midi. SCURLOCK J., ANDERSEN B. R. 2006 Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian medicine: ancient sources, translations, and modern medical analyses, Urbana – Chicago, University of Illinois Press. SHEPPERSON M. 2017 Sunlight and shade in the first cities – a sensory archaeology of early Iraq (Mundus Orientis 1), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. SODEN W. (VON) 19953 Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik, 3. Ergänzte Auflage (Analecta Orientalia 33), Rome, Pontificio Instituto Biblico. STADHOUDERS H. 2011 “The pharmacopoeial handbook Šammu šikinšu – an edition”, Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 18, pp. 3-51. STOLLER P. 1989 The taste of ethnographic things: the senses in anthropology (Contemporary Ethnography), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. STRECK K. M. 1916 Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh's, vol. 2. Texte; die Inschriften Assurbanipals und der letzten assyrischen Könige (Vorderasiatische Bibliothek 7), Leipzig, J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung. THOMPSON R. C. 1923 Assyrian medical texts from the originals in the British Museum, London, Oxford University Press. THUREAU-DANGIN F. 1925 “Un hymne à Ištar de la haute époque babylonienne”, Revue d’Assyriologie 22, pp. 169-177. VINCENT A. 2016 Jouer pour la cité: une histoire sociale et politique des musiciens professionnels de l’Occident romain (Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 371), Rome, École française de Rome.

102 Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel WINTER I. J. 2000 “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. by R. S. NELSON, Cambridge – New York, Cambridge University Press, pp. 22-43. ZIEGLER N. 1996 “Ein Bittbrief eines Händlers”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 86, pp. 479-488. ZORZI N. (DE) 2019 “‘Rude remarks not fit to smell’: negative value judgements relating to sensory perceptions in Ancient Mesopotamia”, in Sounding sensory profiles in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. SCHELLENBERG and T. KRÜGER (Ancient Near East Monographs 25), Atlanta, SBL Press pp. 217-252.

VALERIA ZUBIETA LUPO

Concepts of the human body in the Hittite medical prescriptions (CTH 461): the diseased body*

I. INTRODUCTION It is undeniable that certain basic viewpoints and concepts about the nature of human beings, their suffering, and its cure were shared among civilizations of the Ancient Near East. However, the significant influence of local cultural traditions and factors created a distinct Hittite perspective on the body, as well as on illness and healing. In my opinion, in the Hittite world a human being was perceived as the concurrence of two macro components: the body and an inner/ethereal component. The first is expressed with the Hittite term tuekka- “flesh, body.” The second, the essence of an individual, is defined by the conceptual unity of ištanza(n)- “spirit, soul; will, mind, desire”1 and karat- “heart, body interior (Leibesinnerem).”2 The deterioration and eventual dissolution of the body will eventually lead to their separation, which, for a mortal human being, means death. After death, the soul,3 without a body grounding it to the mortal realm, begins its journey to the Netherworld.4 Though the soul’s fate is inevitable, it is also terrifying, because it reflects an intangible reality. The fragility of the mortal’s body is, on the other hand, very tangible and hence portrayed across the Hittite documents: Life is bound up with death for me, and death is bound up with life for me. A mortal does not live forever; the days of his life are counted. If a mortal were to live forever, (even) if also the evils befalling man, illness, were to remain, it would not be a grievance for him. (KUB 30.10 Obv. 20’-23’)5

*

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Alice Mouton for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this project.

1.

For further literature and more detailed information, see KAMMENHUBER 1964 and KAMMENHUBER 1965.

2.

Concerning the German translation “Leibesinnerem,” see KAMMENHUBER 1965, pp. 177-178. The heart was conceived of as the “seat of a person’s soul”; see ARCHI 2007, p. 183 fn. 12ff. with literature.

3.

The term “soul” will be used in this paper in reference to the metaphysical elements of an individual.

4.

For the soul’s journey into the Netherworld, see ARCHI 2007.

5.

For this translation and a critical edition of these texts, see STEITLER & SCHWEMER 2015, p. 8*.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 103-118

HPUBLISHERS

BREPOLS

DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120940

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From illness my house has become a house of anguish, and from anguish my soul is seeping away from me to another place. Like someone ill for years is, so I too have become. And now illness and anguish have become too much for me, and I keep telling it to you, my god. (KUB 30.10 Obv. 43’-46’)6

From the above-mentioned paragraphs of Kantuzili’s prayer,7 we learn that illness is a terrible grievance for mortals, not only because it means physical and mental suffering, but also because it is a reminder of the body’s ephemerality. Diseases and their symptoms, in the Hittite conceptual framework, represent a disruption of the natural order, caused by witchcraft, attacks of demons, and, mostly, by divine retaliation due to deliberate or unconscious human wrongdoing: The god that has become terribly … angry [with hi]m, has turned [aside his eyes] els[ew]here and does not give to Kantuzili ability to act, [whether that] god [is in heaven] or whether [he is] in the netherworld, you, O Sun-god, will go to him. Go, speak to that deity of mine [and] convey [to him] Kantuzili’s words: “O my god, since my mother gave birth to me, you, my god, have raised me. Only you, my god, are [my name] and my bond. Only you, [my god] joined me up with good people, and only you, my god, taught me doing (well) in a strong place. My god, you have called [me], Kantuzili, servant of your body (and) your soul. My god’s mercy that is (with me) since childhood I would not know? And I would n[ot] acknowledge it? And ever since growing up, I have exemplified all my god’s mercy (and) wisdom. I never swore by my god (falsely) nor did I ever break an oath. I have never eaten what is holy to my god (and hence) not permitted for me to eat. I have not defiled my own body.” … “At night sweet sleep does not seize me in my bed, and so no favor(able divine message) is revealed to me (in a dream). But now, [m]y [god], harness together (divine) Strength and the Strong Deity (attaching them) to me! But whether you ordained [th]is illness for me from (my) mother’s womb, I have never even investigated by means of a dream interpretess.” (KBo 30.10 Obv. 1’14’; 47’-50’)8

In other words, illness is a negative physical or mental alteration of the mortal’s body, conceptualized as a) various evils that affect earthly life on a spiritual level, and as b) evil originating in earthly events and human actions. Both abstractions are intertwined and codependent, thus acquiring this multifaceted profile which is reflected not only in the attested therapeutic means (pharmacological texts, rituals of various natures, prayers, oracles, vows, etc.), but also in the designation of every detail thought of as the healing process—for example, physicians and materia medica: The plant to apply, that the daughter of Naya, Memiya, and among the others that the physicians know: (there are) many plants, so I will interrogate the oracle (about it). Because the plant will have to be designated by oracle, I will (also) question the oracle (about) the physician. The physician who will be designated to me (i.e. whose identity will be determined) by oracle will apply this remedy (lit. plant) in the eyes of my Sun (the king); ditto, let the KIN oracles be favorable. (KUB 22.61 Obv. 14’-19’)9 6.

STEITLER & SCHWEMER 2015, p. 9*.

7.

This prayer belongs to a group of prayers (CTH 372-374) addressed to the Sun-god, who is asked to transmit a plea to the supplicant’s angry personal god. These prayers are influenced by the Babylonian Utu-Šamaš hymns and by the Akkadian language of prayers (STEITLER & SCHWEMER 2015, p. 1* with literature). This begs the following question: did the Hittites believe in this vision? I believe so, because: a) Hittite religion is characterized by a number of interconnected elements from various different religious traditions, present in Anatolia at the time, which were integrated and adapted to the Hittite world; b) Babylonian religious texts and concepts were translated and adapted to fit in. The elements which were foreign to the Hittites were modified (e.g. vocabulary, social and religious concepts, etc.): see METCALF 2011, pp. 173-174.

8.

STEITLER & SCHWEMER 2015, p. 9*. For discussion on the origin of this hymn, see footnote 7.

9.

For an edition of this text, see MOUTON 2006.

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Since disease is a constant danger that threatens the health of the human being, many texts within the Hittite archives are devoted to it. But what about the diseased body? How is it described in the Hittite written sources? How was it perceived within Hittite society? With this paper I aim to provide a portrait of the diseased mortal body as delineated by the Hittite medical prescriptions, and simultaneously to provide a glimpse into the perceptions of the body within the Hittite world.

II. THE SOURCES: HITTITE MEDICAL PRESCRIPTIONS (CTH 461) AND TAFELKATALOGUE Among all the attested healing rites and procedures in Hittite Anatolia, the tablets listed in Laroche’s catalogue as “Hittite medical texts”10 are the ones dealing par excellence with the healing of the physical and/or metaphysical components of a sick individual. Each tablet of the corpus is a collection of medical prescriptions targeting one or various maladies. The prescriptions are formulated on a case-by-case basis (starting with a condition, the instruction then follows) and sorted by ailment or by affected body part. The condition of the patient is described in the protasis of the conditional sentence (mān…), at the very beginning of each prescription, with a specific set of physical symptoms (diagnosis). Here, ailments and affected body parts are identified (see Table 1). The apodosis (nu…) acts as the introductory formula of the therapy instructions. This is followed by a detailed description of the ingredients, their preparation, and the application of the finished medicament (therapeutic instructions). These actions are all in the third person singular, and the subject is most probably the physician. Moreover, there is neither an incantation nor an obvious divine involvement mentioned in the texts.11 The next two components of the Hittite medical prescriptions introduce the results of the cure—and hence the change of the state of disease into a healing state. The first, a short description of how the patient will react to the cure (effects of the cure), is present only in some prescriptions. Finally, the standardized formula SIG5-ri “(the diseased) will recover/recovers” ends every prescription (prognosis). Moreover, the beginning of a new prescription, for the same or for a new ailment, is usually marked by a paragraph line.12

10. Most tablets of CTH 461 have been transliterated and translated in BURDE 1974. 11. For an example, see Table 4. 12. An exception being KUB 44.63 + KUB 8.38: the diagnosis is given in the first paragraph (II 1’-3’) and the treatment is described in the second (II 4’-31’).

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Diseased body KUB 44.61 Obv. 1-2

Symptoms

[mān=kan antuḫše a]ndurza inanaš šāt[ar tiyazi … [If] the disco[mfort] of (a) disease [sets in i]nside [a person],

…]-ti nu NINDA=an ŪL edzi […]. he/she […]s, and he/she cannot eat … […]

Diseased body part KUB 44.61 Rev. 19´

Symptoms

[mā]n=kan antuḫše IŠTU IŠARI=ŠU If a man (lit. person) from his penis UZU

z[appiya …] d[rips

Ailment KUB 44.64 Rev. III 10´-11´

mān=kan antuḫšaš pariparitari If a person has gas Table 1 - The content of the diagnosis.

The documents in this corpus were most likely destined for the use of medical practitioners for healing their patients. As such, they do not portray an individual’s perception of suffering or pain, but rather culturally established and codified concepts of the experience of sickness. Within this context, two aspects of the human body can be observed: the diseased body and the healing body. In addition to the tablets from CTH 461, evidence of additional collections of prescriptions has come down to us in two Tafelkataloge: KUB 8.36 and KBo 22.101. The Hittite Tafelkataloge are “Inventare vom Typ abgeschriebener und im Laufe der Zeit unterschiedlich bearbeiteter Dokumente. Es handelt sich dabei also um Textlisten, die den Bestand, den Konservierungszustand oder einfach die Verfügbarkeit von Teilbereichen der Tafelsammlungen feststellen sollen. Diese Tatsache könnte wenn auch indirekt - bestätigen, dass die Tafelkataloge gerade für jene Texte als Inventare dienten, die für einen langen Zeitraum aufbewahrt und im Laufe der Zeit mehrfach abgeschrieben und bearbeitet wurden. Daher ergab sich offenbar die Notwendigkeit, ein Inventar für diese Dokumente zu erstellen.”13

Diagnosis

§1 Obv. 1-9

KUB 44.61

1 2

3

[If] the disco[mfort] of (a) disease [sets in i]nside [a person], he/she […]s, and he/she cannot eat … […] […]

13. DARDANO 2007, pp. 193-194 with literature. For detailed information about these types of documents, see DARDANO 2006.

Concepts of the human body in the Hittite medical prescriptions

5 6 7

Subsequently, he/she (the diseased) yayā-s and lets it (?) downwards by himself,

th[en he/she recovers].

§2 Obv. 10-16

9

Alternative prescription against the illness displayed in §1 (diagnosis): Preparation of a potion; to be administered during fasting and regularly for seven days (therapeutic instructions). The patient will yayā-s and lets it (?) downwards by himself (effects of cure). (The patient) recovers (prognosis).

§3 Obv.17-24

Effects of the Therapy

8

He (the physician) takes these plants: seed of the ZAG.AḪ.LI,… […], […-plan]t, NU.LUḪ.ḪA plant and AN.TAḪ.ŠUM.-plant a lot (from each) [he takes?]. In addition, he also takes [½ (amount) of the (white) ḫark]i plant. For seven days, he [giv]es it (the body) that (the medicine) [to eat] [reg]ularly. (Afterward,) one day will pass by. That (the medicament), [it…] he [gi]ves regularly. As long as he will give it (the body) these plants (medicament) regularly for seven days [to eat]: ½ (Amount) of the (white) ḫarki plant, but before, he takes the same, […].

Prognosis

Therapy Instructions

3 4

107

Another alternative prescription against the illness displayed in §1 (diagnosis): Preparation of a medicament; to be administered orally (therapeutic instructions). Until (the patient) recovers … (prognosis). Left side and bottom of the tablet’s obverse are fragmentary; thus, part of this prescription and additional prescriptions could not be recovered.

Table 2 - KUB 44.61: Example of a Hittite tablet with a collection of prescriptions and its standardized layout.

In KUB 8.36 and KBo 22.101 are listed the diagnosis of various prescriptions collected in tablets stored inside one of the archives of the Hittite capital, Ḫattuša. Here too, it is possible to distinguish characteristics of the diseased body. KUB 8.36 Obv. II

§6

§7

12’ 13’

mān=kan antuḫšan SAG.DU=SU ištara[kzi] [n=]an naššu apēniššan ištarakzi

14’

[na]šma=šši putkiškitta…

15’

[m]ān antuḫšan SU’ĀLU ē[pzi] (§6) If (a disease) makes a person’s head (lit. a person, his/her head) si[ck], (the disease) makes him/her (the person) sick either in this manner, [o]r it (the head) keeps swelling up for him/her. (§7) [I]f cough [s]eizes a person

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III. THE DISEASED BODY IN THE MEDICAL PRESCRIPTIONS The Hittite written documentation is full of terms describing the sufferings of human beings. In the medical prescriptions, the diseased body is introduced in the diagnosis with the purpose of identifying the source of physical suffering—that is, the diseased body part or malady; often a more accurate symptomatology of the sickness follows the introductory diagnosis.14 The process of healing the diseased body begins during the cure. In the Hittite prescriptions, the healing begins in the section named “therapeutic instructions.” The body remains passive, similarly to the above discussed concepts; the physician applies the prepared medication to the body, and the patient does not interact with this process. After the prescribed procedure has been applied to the patient, the immediate changes that occur to the diseased body in its transition to a healthy body are occasionally described in the texts (this section is named “effects of the cure”). Finally, in the positive prognosis, we notice the use of a formula (SIG5ri “he/she recovers”) that opposes the diagnosis formula used in alternative prescriptions (mān=ma=aš apēz ŪL SIG5-ri “if he/she does not recover with this medication (the aforementioned)”); in my opinion, this detail displays the conceptualized dialectic between diseased body and healing body within Hittite therapeutics. KUB 44.61 Obv.

§1

9

… n[=aš SIG5-ri] (positive prognosis)

§2

10

mān=ma=aš apēz ŪL SIG5-ri … (diagnosis) (§1) … he/she recovers. (+) (§2) if the he/she does not recover with the aforementioned (medication), …

I will now analyze three of the four sections of a prescription (diagnosis, effects of the cure, and prognosis) in order to further explore the concept of a diseased body within the Hittite process of healing. III.1. The body in diagnoses After a first survey of all the attested diagnoses within the corpus of CTH 461 and the related Tafelkatalogue, it becomes clear that the Hittite word antuḫša- “human being, person” is used, in these texts, with reference to the physical dimension only—hence to the body and its physical suffering (e.g. see below KUB 44.64 and KBo 21.76). Such equivalence is more noticeable in those diagnoses where the diseased body part is explicitly mentioned (e.g. see below KUB 44.61 and KUB 8.36). KUB 44.64 Rev. III

10’

mān=kan antuḫšaš

11’

pariparitari … If a person has gas…

KBo 21.76 Rev. III?

16’

14. See diagnosis in Table 2.

mān UN-ši KAŠ-eššar piyan If beer (is) given to a person, …

Concepts of the human body in the Hittite medical prescriptions

KUB 44.61 Rev.

19’

109

[mā]n=kan antuḫše IŠTU UZUIŠARI=ŠU z[appiya …] If a man (lit. person) d[rips] from his penis…

KUB 8.36 Obv. II?

12’

mān=kan antuḫšan SAG.DU=SU ištara[kzi]… if (a disease) ma[kes] a person’s head (lit. a person, his/her head) sic[k] …

The most important section of the Hittite prescriptions for the study of the diseased body is, without a doubt, the diagnosis. The way diseased bodies were perceived may be observed primarily thanks to the variegated group of verbs and expressions (see Table 3) used to isolate and describe the conditions of the body that are considered to be abnormal. Moreover, these provide information about the local perception of disease, its type of influence over the patient’s body, and the sense of individual contagion. A wide range of verbs and expressions used in the Hittite prescriptions can be observed in the Tafelkatologue: body/body part

Obv. II 3’, 12’, 13’ Obv. 14’

SAG. DU “head” antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (acc.); parninki- (nom.)

Obv. II 5’ Obv. II 6’; Rev. III 15 Rev. III 12 Rev. III 14 Rev. IIII 13-14 KUB 8.36

Obv. II 7’, 17’ Obv. II 10’-11’ Obv. II 18’-19’; Rev. III 7-8 Obv. II 9’-10’ Obv. II 16’ Rev. III 1-2 Rev. III 2-3 Rev. III 6

antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (acc.); auli(nom.) auli- (nom.); antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (dat.) antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (dat.); ŠÀ-i auleš “inside the auli-” antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (acc.); IGIḪI.A “eyes” antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (dat.); IGIḪI.A “eyes”

Rev. III 3

andurza UZU[…] “inside the …” UZU genzu-“womb” ḫu(wa)ḫḫurti-“throat”

antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (acc.)

Rev. III 4, 11 Rev. III 5

verb or expression ištark- “to make sick“ putkiya- “to swell” a/ep(p)- “to seize” a/ep(p)- “to seize” EGIR peššiya- “to fall off” a/ep(p)- “to seize” kattan šara tiya- “from down upwards to come” ištark- “to make sick” para ešḫar araš- “blood to flow out” KALA.GA ḫarki kiš- “to become strong white” a/ep(p)- “to seize” ištark- “to make sick” a/ep(p)- “to seize” SŪALU nuḫḫari- “to cough”15 SŪALU a/ep(p)- “cough seizes” memiya- NU.GAL “to have no voice” tarmiš16 walhazi “a t. strikes” šuḫulzinai- “to have hiccup?”17

15. CHD L-N, p. 471a; HEG N, p. 344. 16. The Hittite word tarmi- occurs only twice in the same text (see Table 3). It remains unclear whether it is related to Hittite (GIŠ)tarma- “nail, peg, pin.” See EDHIL, pp. 844-845 with literature. 17. For more information about this verb, see DARDANO 2006, p. 230 with literature.

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Rev. III 18 Rev. III 18

antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (dat.)

Rev. III 16

KAxU “mouth” -a- “it (lit. him/her) (the body)” (sg. acc. comm.) SAG. DU “head” IGIḪI.A “eyes” andurza antuḫša- “inside the body (lit. person)” (acc.)

Obv. II 4’ Rev. 5’ Rev. 8’ KBo 22.101

Rev. 9’

ḫaḫlima- a/ep(p)- “yellow seizes”18 ŠAḪAR.ŠUB.BA kišari “will become leprous”19 ištark- “make sick” lappiya- “to have fever” ištark- “to make sick” ištark- “to make sick” ištark- “to make sick”

Rev. 10’

antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (acc.)

paripari- “have flatulence” (acc.)

Rev. 11’

antuḫša- “body (lit. person)” (acc.)

sieššar piya- “to give beer”

Table 3 - Verbs and expressions used to describe bodies in the Hittite prescriptions.

The attested actions and expressions can be divided into two groups. The first describes the physical effects of the illness on the diseased body (e.g. “to swell” in KUB 8.36 Obv. II 14’, “blood flows out” in KUB 8.36 Obv. II 10-11’, “to have gas” in KUB 44.64 Rev. III 10’-11’, etc.). NINDA ŪL ed- “not to eat bread” putkiya- “to swell”20 EGIR peššiya- “to fall off”21

KALA.GA ḫarki kiš- “to become strong white”

nu NINDA-an ŪL ezzazi he/she (the diseased) cannot eat bread (KUB 44.61 Obv. 2) [na]šma=šši putkiškittar[i] or it (the head) keeps swelling up for him. (KUB 8.36 Obv. II 14’) [m]ān antuḫši auleš EGIR-an peššiyazi If the auli- of a body (lit. person) falls off (KUB 8.36 Rev. III 12) [m]ān antuḫši IGIḪI.A -waš p[eran KAL]A.GA ḫarki kiša[ri] If to a person in [front] of the eyes strong white becomes. (KUB 8.36 Rev. III 7-8)

The elements of the second group emphasize the external and/or the physical sense of individual contagion (e.g. “from down upwards to come” (KUB 8.36 Rev. III 13-14), “to seize” (KBo 21.74 Rev. (III?) 6’, “to make sick” (KBo 22.101 Rev. 8’), etc.). I will now focus on the analysis of the two most frequently mentioned actions: ištark- “to make sick” and a/ep(p)- “to seize,” which are both linked to the idea of a passive body (the “diseased body” and the “seized body”).

18. DARDANO 2006, p. 230. 19. DARDANO 2006, p. 230. 20. For this verb as well as the translation of this line, see CHD P, pp. 402b-403b with literature. 21. For the use of this verb as a technical term for behavior of internal organs, see CHD P, p. 322a-b and HEG P, pp. 582-583.

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III.1.1. The “diseased” body

Among all the Hittite verbs describing a diseased individual, ištark- is the verb par excellence; as such, it is documented in almost all possible contexts. In spite of its frequency, it is not easy to translate: tu[k=m]a [i]štarakkit nu irmaliyattat (A) disease attacked you (lit. not possible to translate into English) and you became sick. (KBo 5.9 Obv. I 14-15)

The verb “to fall sick, to be sick, to become sick” in English—as well as in German, Spanish, and Italian—is intransitive and therefore the agent is the diseased. Thus, it implies that the diseased has some agency. In Hittite, on the other hand, the idea of disease as the work of an external supernatural power is reflected in the transitivity of the verb ištark-.22 For instance, in KUB 5.6+, ištark- is used in an impersonal sentence in which the direct object is characterized by the anaphoric enclitic personal pronoun -a-, while the subject of the verb is the deity of the previous sentence: mān=wa DINGIRLUM UN-ši menaḫḫanda TUKU.TUKU-anza ištarkzi=war=an If a deity (is) angry at a person, he/she(the person) will become sick. (KUB 5.6+ I 45-46)

The English verb “to sicken”—as in “to become ill,” and not its more common meaning “to make (someone) feel disgusted or appalled”—might be a better fit for translating the Hittite verb ištark- into English: If a deity (is) angry at a person, (the deity) will sicken him/her (the person). (KUB 5.6+ I 45-46)

Such impersonal constructions with this verb have, as a direct object (accusative), either the patient or the diseased/affected body parts. The latter is often found in contexts where the physical or visible symptoms of sickness are recognizable. For example: mān=kan antuḫšan IGIḪI.A-wa ištar[kzi n]u kī wašši dāi If to a person, (something/someone) makes sick the eyes, then he/she (the physician) gives him/her (the diseased) this medicine (lit. plant). (KUB 8.36 Obv. II 7’8’)23

The impersonal character of this verb makes it difficult to identify the agent of the sentence. However, thanks to KUB 14.15 Obv. II 4-6, it is possible to establish that the grammatical subject of the verb is the disease: 24 nu GIŠkalmišnaš pait=pat [nu URUA]paššan ŠA mUḫḫa-LÚ URU-an GUL-aḫta mŪḫḫa-LÚ-inn=a GUL-aḫta n=an idāluš GIG-aš ištarkta. And a thunderbolt went and struck Apašša, Uḫḫaziti’s city; it struck Uḫḫaziti, and a serious (lit. “bad”) illness befell him.

In summary, the disease acts as the agent of the sentence and the diseased body or body part as the patient (e.g. see KUB 8.36 Obv. II 12’-14’). This pattern becomes clear in Table 4, in which the occurrences of diseased bodies within the Hittite recipes are examined.25 22. The same behavior is observed in ištarni(n)k-, e/irmaliya-, and a/e/irmaniya-, all verbs used to describe the diseased individual. 23. For the edition of the text, see DARDANO 2006, pp. 224-225. 24. See HW² I, p. 5; HOFFNER & MELCHERT 2008, p. 250. 25. Whenever the agent and/or patient are not recognizable because of the fragmentary state of the tablet, the interrogation mark (?) is used.

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KBo 21.16 Rev. 7 KBo 21.21 Rev. 3’-4’26 KBo 21.74 Rev. III 3’ KUB 44.63 + 8.38 Rev. III 8’ KUB 44.63 + 8.38 REV. III 9’ KUB 44.6428 Rev. IV 3’ Bo 3379 Obv. 8’9’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 3’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 7’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 12’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 13’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 16’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 17’ KUB 8.36 Rev. III 16 KBo 22.101 Obv. 4’ KBo 22.101 Rev. 5’ KBo 22.101 Rev. 8’ KBo 22.101 Rev. 9’

Agent ?

Patient ?

Specification (OI) --

?

?

--

disease (implicit)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

--

disease (implicit)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

IGIḪI.A=ŠU “his eyes”27

disease (implicit)

-a- “him/her” (Sg. acc.c.)

apēniššan- “thus/ in this manner”

?

?

--

?

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

--

disease (implicit) disease (implicit)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.); SAG.DU “head” (acc.)29 antuḫša- “person” (acc.); IGIḪI.A “eyes”(acc.)

---

disease (implicit)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

SAG.DU=SU “his head”

disease (implicit)

-a- “him/her” (Sg. acc.c.)

apēniššan- “thus / in this manner”

disease (implicit)

UZU

antuḫša- “person” (acc.); genzu- “abdomen, lap”

--

disease (implicit)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

IGIḪI.A=ŠU “his eyes”

disease (implicit)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

KAxU=ŠU “his eyes”

?

?

--

disease (implicit) disease (implicit) disease (implicit)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.); SAG.DU “head” (acc.) antuḫša- “person” (acc.); IGIḪI.A “eyes”(acc.) antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

--andurza- “inside” (adverb)30

Table 4 - Evidence of “diseased bodies” in the Hittite medical prescriptions.

26. DARDANO 2006, p. 250. 27. This part of the text is fragmentary; it was completed by parallelism to KUB 8.36 Obv. 12’-13’. 28. The fragmentary state of the tablet does not allow us to gather more information about this passage; we can read only the verb. 29. For the accusative form SAG.DU-an in Hittite, see HEG A-K, pp. 184-185; HED H, pp. 11-12 and 187-190; HW² Ḫ, pp. 16a-b and 344b-357a. 30. For andurza- as an adverb with ištark-, see JOSEPH 2000, pp. 123-131.

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In the table, we can see that, in the Hittite medical prescriptions, ištark- is the most common verb used to describe bodies that became sick. Its use seems to be very broad and general, because it is attested in various prescriptions for different types of maladies, and without further specifications of their severity. For example: KUB 8.36 Obv. II

6’

[mā]n antuḫšan IGIḪI.A -wa ištar[akzi] [if] to a person (the disease) makes the eyes s[ick]

KUB 8.36 Obv. II

12’ 13’

mān=kan antuḫšan SAG.DU=SU ištara[kzi] [n=]an naššu apēniššan ištarakzi

14’

[na]šma=šši putkiškitta… if (a disease) makes a person’s head (lit. a person, his/her head) sick, and (to) him/her either in this manner (the disease) makes sick, or (the disease) him/her swells.

KBo 22.101 Obv.

9’ 10’

[mān antu]ḫšan andurza ištarak[zi našma … p]aripareškatari [ [if] (a disease) makes [a person] sic[k] inside, [… continually farts…

, or …] he/she (the diseased)

In the light of the aforementioned linguistic construction of the verb, we observe that, in the process of becoming ill, human beings have no control over their own bodies and will suffer passively the actions of the disease. Accordingly, the attested “diseased body or body parts” in the medical prescriptions are equally powerless; they experience the actions of the disease and those of the physician without self-intervention. III.1.2. The “seized” body

The Hittite verb ep(p)-/ap(p)- is amply attested in all the Hittite periods. It has a wide range of meanings, which often express violent physical possessions and/or impositions: translated into English as “to take, to seize, to grab, to pick, to capture”;31 and into German as “ergreifen, nehmen.”32 The verb ep(p)-/ap(p)- is often found in political or military contexts, meaning capturing or seizing prisoners, enemies, cities, and booty. When a refugee from Ḫattuša goes to Kizzuwatna, Šunaššura should seize him (and) give him back to My Majesty (CTH 41.II.1 §5 13-15)33

ep(p)-/ap(p)- is also used to indicate the capture of animals: When they seize a living eagle, they bring it here (CTH 416 §21 96-97)34 31. HED E-I, pp. 273-274 and EDHIL, pp. 242-243. 32. HW² E, p. 44. 33. For the edition of this text, see FUSCAGNI 2012 with literature. 34. For the editing of this text, see MONTUORI 2015 with literature.

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In the case of the medical prescriptions, the relevant entries concerning the diseased body emphasize a physical sense of contagion; hence they are usually translated as “to seize”35 (German “ergreifen”).36 The use of this verb conveys the concept not only of contact as the path of contagion, but also of a rapid and violent possession: KBo 21.74 Rev. (III?)

6’

[mā]n UN-an auliš kuitki AŠRA ē[pzi] [I]f the auli- sei[zes] the body (lit. person) somewhere

KUB 8.36 Rev. III

1 2

[mān] antuḫš[an] ḫuwaḫḫ[urtin] paḫḫuenaš ēpzi našma SŪ’[ALU]

3

nuḫḫaritti memiyaš=ma=šši=kan [If] an inflammation (lit. “that of the fire”)37 seizes a per[son’s] throat or cou[gh] convulses(?)38 (him/her), and he/she loses his/her voice.

The first example describes the physical and unexpected attack of the ailment. In this case, the body part (auli-) acts as the agent of the verb, and the target of the attack is a person (antuḫša-)—more specifically, any “place” in his/her body that it (the auli-) “touches.” This and the nature of the verb reinforce the image of a physical imposition. It could be compared to the image of an epileptic seizure that suddenly starts “somewhere in the body” and takes hold of its victim: the patient becomes sick because the auli- seized a part of his/her body. By analogy to the following sentence, auli- can be interpreted here as an ominous manifestation or an evil entity: [m]ān antuḫšan SU’ĀLU ē[pzi] [I]f cough [s]eizes a person. (KUB 8.36 Obv. II 15’)

However, this sentence’s construction (body part / body = agent) could also imply a sudden pain in the auli- (as body part) that affects either the whole body (see KUB 8.36 Obv. II 6’) or other parts of the body (see KBo 21.74 Rev. (III?) 6’ and KUB 8.36 Rev. III 14-15). If this is the case, it can be compared to the use of the Akkadian verb ṣabātu:39 [If a ma]n, his head continually seizes him (DAB.DAB-su), he continually has vertigo, his bo[dy] continually devours him, he spra[ys] his spittle, (…).(KAR 80, II 1-2)40

In the second example, a metaphor is used to describe the sudden and violent nature of the disease that takes hold of the patient’s throat as a fire takes hold.41 In this case, both the person (antuḫša-) and the throat (ḫuwaḫḫurti-) are the patients of the verb. Although the agent is described (paḫḫuenaš “of fire” or “that of fire”) in this passage, it is not specifically mentioned. Nevertheless, it can be easily 35. HED E-I, p. 275. 36. HW² E, pp. 54b-55a. 37. See CHD P, p. 16a for the meaning of paḫḫur- as “inflammation.” This use of fire for describing pain offers a glimpse into the patient’s experience of physical pain because, even if it is a socially codified concept, it is not rooted in the specialist’s observations but in the description of an experience that only the sufferer can be aware of. 38. For the translation of the verb nuḫḫari-, see CHD L-N, p. 471 with relevant literature. 39. For the use of the Akkadian ṣabātu in the context of Mesopotamian medicine, see COUTO FERREIRA 2007, pp. 1617 and SALIN 2015, pp. 325-328. 40. See SALIN 2015, p. 326 with further literature. 41. This metaphor is probably rooted in the collective experience of this kind of suffering, namely sore throats, fever, and other inflammations. For the association of metaphors with fire in the Hittite texts, see TORRI 2003, pp. 32-33.

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identified as the inflictor of pain; our agent is thus “(the disease/the feeling) of fire”. Interestingly, in the pertinent attestations of ep(p)-/ap(p)-, the affliction (i.e. disease, demon, pain, angry divinity, etc.) seems to act always as agent, although sometimes it is absent from the text. The patient, on the other hand, is always the sick person. KBo 21.74 Rev. (III?) 6’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 5’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 6’ KUB 8.36 Obv. II 9’10’43 KUB 8.36 Rev. III 1-2 KUB 8.36 Rev. III 6 KUB 8.36 Rev. III 14-15 KUB 8.36 Rev. III 18

Agent

Patient

Specification (OI) (dat.-loc.) kuitki AŠRA “some place”

auli- (nom.)

UN “person” (acc.)

parninka/i-42 (nom.)

-a- “him/her” (Sg. acc.c.)

--

auli- (nom.)

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

--

[ḪUL]-anza GIG?anza “an evil disease”

antuḫša- “person” (acc.)

andurza UZU[…] “inside the [...]”

disease or feeling (implicit subject) of fire

antuḫša- “person” (acc.); ḫuwaḫḫurti- “throat” (acc.)

--

Ac. su’ālu “cough”

-a- “him/her” (Sg. acc.c.)

--

auli- (nom.)

-a- “him/her” (Sg. acc.c.)

ḫaḫlimma-45 “jaundice?”

[kuit imma kui]t44 pēdan “[whateve]r place”

antuḫša-

--

Table 5 - Evidence of “seized bodies” in the Hittite medical prescriptions.

From the attested use of “seized bodies” within medical prescriptions unfolds the image of bodies being attacked by violent and distressing maladies or pains. This, together with the underlining connotations of contact and imposition, portrays the idea of disease as an overlying evil that captures, subjugates, and quickly colonizes the human body. In this manner, the physical body becomes a vessel enslaved by suffering. As a consequence, it is also safe to assume that even if the inflictor attacks physically a specific body part, its wickedness will not necessarily be restrained to it but will most probably spread all over the essence of the individual (body and soul). Moreover, if we take into consideration the above-discussed possibility of a harming body part, then we might be facing a veiled perception of a self-sabotaging body: the malfunction of a body’s component is described the same way as other hostile inflictors, such as diseases or demons, that are foreign to the body. III.2. Diseased body healing: The effect of the cure and the prognosis In contrast to “diagnosis” and “cure,” in the blocks “effect of the cure” and “prognosis” the sick individual regains control of his/her body; hence the healing body is introduced. 42. For discussion of this term, see HEG P, pp. 488-489 with literature and SOYSAL 2002, pp. 315-337. 43. For transliteration, see DARDANO 2006, p. 224. 44. See DARDANO 2006, p. 226. 45. See HW² Ḫ, p. 12a.

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Effects of therapy KUB 44.61 Obv. 9

namma yayai katta=ya=an=za=kan tarnai… Subsequently, he/she yayā-s and lets it (?) downwards by himself/herself, …

Prognosis KUB 44.64 Rev. III 7’

UDKAM ḪI.A-ma ŪL kuitki duqqari kuitman=aš SIG5-ri The days are irrelevant, he/she recovers.

KBo 21.76 Obv. II 19’

… n=aš SIG5-ri he/she recovers.

In the example KUB 44.61 Obv. 9 (effects of the cure), the first signs of a healing body appear; the diseased individual is now the subject of the verb. The reflexive particle -za reinforces, in fact, the idea of the individual gaining control over his body, which, in conjunction with a transitive verb and a direct object, may indicate that the indirect object is equal to the subject (to/for himself). 46 Moreover, the common-gender accusative of the third person enclitic personal pronoun -an probably refers to something that the healing body gets rid of; this could be the disease or some bodily fluid.47 In the prognosis, finally, the complete repossession of the individual’s faculties is marked by SIG5-ri “he/she recovers.” Moreover, the enclitic personal pronoun at the third person common-gender nominative singular -aš reinforces the idea, in my opinion, that this last action is executed by the cured person.

IV. CONCLUSION The purpose of this contribution was to offer an insight into the perception of the human body within the Hittite medical prescriptions. From the study of diseased bodies in the prescriptions, two states of the human body are present in this corpus: the diseased body and the healing body. Both are described with terms and expressions that reflect Hittite social constructs surrounding the concepts of disease and healing. The diseased body is often described with two expressions: “been seized by the disease” or “made sick by the disease.” Healing bodies, on the other hand, are referred to briefly with a standardized formula. The therapeutic process described in the Hittite prescriptions can be divided into four sections: diagnosis, therapeutic instructions, effects of the cure, and prognosis. In the first two sections, the body has been subdued by an external supernatural power that seized it or made it sick. Thus, the person becomes diseased and suffers. The diseased body awaits, without interfering, the treatment that the physician applies. Within this frame, the individual is no longer in control of his or her physical components. The effects of the cure and the prognosis, on the other hand, are the final phase of the healing process: the diseased body is no longer powerless—it is a healing body now. At the end of each 46. See HOFFNER & MELCHERT 2008, p. 258 §28.21. 47. “lässt ihn herabhängen” (BURDE 1974, p. 19); “and lets him (the patient) down (at the end of a treatment)” (ROSE 2006, pp. 439-440); “and he (the patient) lets it go/releases it downward (from himself)” (MELCHERT 1983, p. 137); “sich absetzen” (NEUMMANN 1976, pp. 313-316); “…and lets the sputum go/release downward” (KASSIAN 2008, p. 475).

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prescription, the individual goes back to his or her initial and normal state. With this recovery, the physical sense of antuḫša-, noticed at the beginning of each prescription, seems to vanish, and the word seems to be used again to designate a whole “human being” (body and soul). The entire process is summarized below (Figure 1).

Figure 1 - Healing process of the diseased body in the Hittite prescriptions.

REFERENCES ARCHI A. 2007 “The soul has to leave the land of the living”, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 7, pp. 169195. BURDE C. 1974 Hethitische medizinische Texte (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 19), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. COUTO FERREIRA E. 2007 “Conceptos de transmisión de la enfermedad en Mesopotamia: algunas reflexiones”, Historiae 4, pp. 123. DARDANO P. 2006 Die hethitischen Tontafelkataloge aus Ḫattuša (CTH 276-282) (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 47), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. 2007 “Die hethitischen Tontafelkataloge aus Hattuša: Inhalt und Funktion”, in Atti del VI congresso internazionale di ittitologia. Roma, 5-9 settembre 2005, Parte I, ed. by A. ARCHI et al., Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 49, pp. 171-194. FUSCAGNI F. 2012 “Vertrag Tutḫaliyas I. mit Šunaššura von Kizzuwatna (heth. Fassung) CTH 41.II.1”, hethiter.net/:CTH 41.II.1 (INTR 2012-08-08).

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HOFFNER H. A., MELCHERT H. C. 2008 A grammar of the Hittite language. Part 1: reference grammar (Languages of the Ancient Near East 1), Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns. JOSEPH B. D. 2000 “Hittite andurza ‘inside, indoors’ and the Indo-Hittite hypothesis”, in The Asia Minor connexion: studies on the Pre-Greek languages in memory of Charles Carter, ed. by Y. L. ARBEITMAN (Orbis Supplementa 13), Louvain – Paris, Peeters, pp. 123-131. KAMMENHUBER A. 1964 “Die hethitischen Vorstellungen von Seele und Leib, Herz und Leibesinnerem, Kopf und Person 1”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 56, pp. 150-212. 1965 “Die hethitischen Vorstellungen von Seele und Leib, Herz und Leibesinnerem, Kopf und Person 2”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 57, pp. 177-222. KASSIAN A. 2008 “Hittite yaya- ‘to expectorate (phlegm)’”, Ugarit Forschungen 40, pp. 471-476. KÜHNE H. M. 1986 “Hethitisch auli- und einige Aspekte altanatolischer Opferpraxis”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 76, pp. 85-117. KÜMMEL H. M. 1967 Ersatzrituale für den hethitischen König (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 3), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. MELCHERT H. C. 1983 “Puduhenda hethitica”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 35, pp. 137-145. METCALF C. 2011 “New parallels in Hittite and Sumerian praise of the Sun”, Die Welt des Orients 41, pp. 168-176. MONTUORI C. 2015 “Quattro ritual antico-ittiti per la coppia reale (CTH 416)”, hethiter.net/:CTH 416 (INTR 2015-03-03). MOUTON A. 2006 “KUB 22,61 (CTH 578): comment traiter les yeux de Mon Soleil?”, Die Welt des Orients 36, pp. 206216. NEUMANN G. 1976 “Review of C. Burde, Hethitische medizinische Texte (1974)”, Indogermanische Forschungen 81, pp. 313-316. ROSE S. R. 2006 The Hittite -hi/-mi conjugations: evidence for an early Indo-European voice opposition (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 121), Innsbruck, Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität Innsbruck. SALIN S. 2015 “When disease ‘touches,’ ‘hits,’ or ‘seizes’ in Assyro-Babylonian medicine”, KASKAL 12, pp. 319-336. SOYSAL O. 2002 “Zur Herkunft eines gemeinsamen Wortes in Altanatolien: parninka/i-”, in Silva Anatolica: Anatolian studies presented to Maciej Popko on the occasion of his 65th birthday, ed. by P. TARACHA, Warsaw, Agade, pp. 315-337. STEITLER C., SCHWEMER D. 2015 “A glossary of the Hittite prayers to the Sun-god (CTH 372-374) (critical edition of CTH 372-374 by D. Schwemer), addendum (on join KBo 38.203 (+) KUB 31.135)”, apud M. JAQUES, Mon dieu qu’ai-je fait? Les diĝir-šà-dab(5)-ba et la piété privée en Mésopotamie (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 273), Fribourg – Göttingen, Academic Press – Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 421-457. TORRI G. 2003 La similitudine nella magia analogica ittita (Studi Asiana 2), Rome, Herder.

ALICE MOUTON

The involvement of the individual’s body in the ritual process in Hittite Anatolia

In this contribution, I wish to show that, in Hittite Anatolia, the person’s body is deeply involved in the ritual and ceremonial process through the person’s physical movements, gestures, postures, and facial expressions. This involvement of the body is meaningful in itself, but its meaning may vary according to the context. As Claude Lévi-Strauss has argued,1 ritual gestures are a substitute for words. David Le Breton writes, “Be it transmitter or receptor, the body continuously produces meaning, and while doing so it inserts the human being inside a specific social and cultural space. The body is the human condition itself, the first vector of meaning.”2 I would add that, through its senses, the human body constitutes a medium for experiencing both the ritual itself and, whenever relevant, the divine. We can logically expect the degree of involvement of the body to be even higher when the ritual deals with impurity and/or sickness, as the body then becomes one of the main focal points of the ritual process. But in the same ritual contexts, one can also observe what anthropology calls “institutionalized movements”3—that is, ritual movements and gestures that are part of the ritual discourse itself; they constitute a language of their own. Although religious in character, they are a vivid illustration of what Marcel Mauss4 would have called the “techniques of the body” or habitus—that is, the ways members of a particular human community use their own bodies. I chose to study various Hittite religious ceremonies in order to try to determine the body’s functions in each of them. The first two texts are ritual texts and the third one is a text of a cultic festival.

1.

LÉVI-STRAUSS 1971.

2.

LE BRETON 1991, p. 19: “Qu’il soit émetteur ou récepteur, le corps produit continuellement du sens, et ce faisant il insère l’homme à l’intérieur d’un espace social et culturel donné. Le corps est la condition même de l’homme, le premier vecteur de sens.”

3.

BRIL 20043, p. 178.

4.

MAUSS 1968, pp. 365-386.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 119-136 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120941

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I. PAŠKUWATTI’S RITUAL AGAINST SEXUAL IMPOTENCE (CTH 406) Let us first examine Paškuwatti’s ritual treating sexual impotence. In the context of such an intimate matter, one could reasonably expect the involvement of the patient’s body to be at its highest degree. Note, however surprising this may sound, that this involvement has never been studied in depth until now. My analysis of this composition is based on the new edition I included in my anthology of Hittite religious texts.5 Here is a synopsis of this ritual text, with an emphasis placed on each action of the patient’s body: - The text first introduces the ritual (§ 1), specifying that it comes from a woman called Paškuwatti, who is from Arzawa (western Anatolia). § 1 of the text also describes the context in which the ritual is performed: “If a man does not have reproductive power or (if) he (is) no[t] a [m]an toward a woman.”6 - The ritual expert makes several offerings to the goddess Uliliyašši, who is the unique divine addressee of this ritual (§ 2). The offerings consist in foodstuffs, wine, wool, and “[the BAR.TE clothes] or the tunic of that man, (who is) the lord of the ritual [i.e. the ritual patron].” 7 This passage shows a first indirect involvement of the patient’s body through his personal clothes. Indeed, the Hittite religious texts often associate a person’s clothing with his identity: his status as a ruler or a priest, for instance, but also his and her gender. What is striking is that the patient’s clothes are deposited on a “soldier bread,” which itself serves as a kind of receptacle for the offerings to the goddess. 8 Thus, the patient’s clothes represent both the patient himself and an offering to Uliliyašši, as if through them the patient consecrates himself to the goddess. Note that these same clothes will serve as a consecrated bed later on in the ritual. - A procession led by a “daughter of the sacred purity” (Hittite DUMU.MUNUS šuppeššaraš; usually understood as a virgin) is mentioned afterward (§ 3). The girl carries the offerings mentioned before. The patient’s body is directly referred to for the first time, as the text indicates: “The ritual patron (has) [b]athed and he walks behind (her).”9 Two different types of bodily involvements are briefly mentioned here: 1/ The patient’s body is washed. This type of physical cleansing is widespread in Hittite ritual texts. This is quite expected when a person attempts to contact his gods. This is shown by the text of instruction to the temple personnel in which rules of purity are described in detail not only for the priests and priestesses, but also for all the other members of the temple personnel. A passage of this text states: 5.

MOUTON 2016, pp. 230-251. All abbreviations related to Hittitology can be found in CHD L-N, pp. xxi-xxix; CHD P, pp. vii-xxvi and CHD Š, pp. vi-viii.

6.

MOUTON 2016, pp. 232-233, § 1, 2-3: mān LÚ-ni kuedani haš[š]atar NU.GÁL našma=aš MUNUS-ni menahhanda U[L L]Ú-aš.

7.

MOUTON 2016, pp. 232-233, § 2, 11-12: appel=(l)a LÚ-aš ŠA BĒL S[Í]SKUR [TÚGBAR.TEH]Á-aš našma TÚG.GÚ.È.A.

8.

MOUTON 2016, pp. 232-233, § 2, 12-13: n=at=šan [AN]A NINDA.ÉRIN.MEŠ [ki]tta “(All of) it is [pl]aced [o]n a soldier bread.”

9.

MOUTON 2016, pp. 234-235, § 3, 14-15: EN.SÍSK[UR=m]a [wa]rpanza n=aš EGIR-an iyattari.

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Furthermore, those who make the daily bread should be pure. They should be washed and groomed. Their hair and na[ils] should be trimmed and they should have worn pure clothes. 10

Through purification of the body, one aims at purification of the whole person. The relationship between physical cleanliness and ritual purity is a central concept within the religious system of Hittite Anatolia, a system that involves several degrees of purity and impurity.11 In Hittite rituals, the protagonists might either bathe their entire body or wash only one or several body parts. In the case of our ritual, the patient seems to have had a bath, because of the presence of the Hittite verb warp-, which is most often connected to the whole body.12 2/ The patient walks behind the girl. The girl is sufficiently pure to carry the offerings, whereas the patient is not fit for such a task. However, as his body has been washed, he is allowed to follow the girl in her procession. Processions are often part of the ceremonial process. They symbolize the passing of time and thus the progression of the ritual itself; indeed, they associate spatial movement with the length of the ritual. In the context of our ritual, the procession allows the patient to go to the first ritual place—namely, the place of purification. This place is mentioned immediately after the last excerpt quoted above: it is an uncultivated place, the perfect liminal space where the purification rites can safely take place without contaminating other persons. In this place, the ritual expert builds a vegetal gate. - In the next step of the ritual (§ 4), the patient’s body is even more present. The text states: I put a spindle and a distaff in the [hand of] the ritual patron. He comes through the gate. When he steps out of the gate, I take the spindle and the distaff away from him and I [g]ive him a bow (and) [arrows]. At the same time, I say: “I have just removed your femininity and I have given (your) virility back to you. [You have] rejected again [woman’s] behavior and [you have taken] (back) man’s be[ha]vior.”13

The physical passage through the gate symbolizes the transformation that the ritual expert wants to achieve through the ritual itself: the patient’s sexual behavior is transformed from female to male behavior so that the patient can be a man again. Such an abstract concept is materialized in the ritual by the use of gendered objects—namely, a spindle and a distaff to represent women and a bow and arrows to represent men. Harry Hoffner14 has shown that these objects are associated with gender not only in Hittite Anatolia, but also in the Old Testament, in Ugaritic literature, and in the Homeric epics. The other good illustration of this in the Hittite corpus of texts comes from a text describing a ritual for Ištar of Nineveh, in which we read:

10. KUB 13.4 i 14’-16’ and duplicates (MILLER 2013, pp. 248-249): namma NINDA.[GU]R4.RAHÁ U4-MI kuiēš ēššanzi n=at par[k]uwaiš ašandu war[p]antiš=at kartanteš ašandu išhīniuš=(š)maš=kan UM[BIN=y]a dān ēsdu parkuwa=ya TÚGHÁ waššan harkandu. 11. MOUTON 2015a. 12. MOYER 1969, p. 47. 13. MOUTON 2016, pp. 234-235, § 4, 20-29: [nu AN]A EN.SÍSKUR GIŠhūišan GIŠhūlali=y[a ŠU-i] anda tehhi n=aš=kan KÁ.GALHÁ-TIM kattan [arha] uizzi n=aš=kan GIM-an KÁ.GALHÁ-TIM [par]ā tiyazi nu=(š)ši=(š)šan GIŠ hūeša[n GIŠ]hūlali=ya arha dahhi nu=(š)ši GIŠPAN [GIHÁ p]ihhi n=ašta anda kiššan memahhi kāša=wa=ta=(k)kan MUNUS-tar arha dahhun nu=wa=(t)ta EGIR-pa LÚ-tar pihhun nu=wa=[za MUNUS-aš] šaklin arha [n]amma pešši[yat] nu=wa=za šarā LÚ-aš š[ak]lin [datta]. 14. HOFFNER 1966.

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Remove from the men [i.e. the enemies] virility, strength, health and courage, (as well as their) weapons, bows, arrows (and) knife and bring them to Hattuša! Put in those ones’ hands the woman’s distaff and spindle! Clothe them like women! Put the kureššar headdress on them! Remove your favor from them! 15

Here we see that gender is symbolized both by clothes and by the same objects as in Paškuwatti’s ritual. In Paškuwatti’s ritual, both groups of gendered objects have to be in physical contact with the patient’s body before (for the female objects) and after (for the male objects) his passage through the gate, so that these objects are no longer simple items that could represent anyone but are somehow customized to the patient’s personality. In Hittite rituals, the simple act of touching an object or an animal is a way of representing the personal involvement of someone in a rite. I will briefly return to this aspect below. Furthermore, this rite, consisting in holding symbols of one’s own gender, can be understood as analogical magic. About such ritual gestures, Pierre Bourdieu wrote: A rite, a performative practice that strives to bring about what it acts or says, is often simply a practical mimesis of the natural process that is to be facilitated.16

In our case, receiving and then getting rid of female objects and then receiving and retaining male objects in his hand is a way for the patient to imitate the “natural” process that the ritual is trying to achieve—namely, the patient getting rid of his femininity and receiving back his virility. As for the physical crossing of a vegetal gate, this is always perceived in Hittite rituals as the symbolization of the person’s transformation from female to male—as here—or more frequently from a state of impurity to purity.17 Note also the ostentatious character of the gesture of the patient who receives the gendered objects into his hand. This character is very frequent for ritual gestures and illustrates their role as parts of the ritual discourse. The gesture not only needs to be performed; it has to be seen, just as the ritual speech has to be heard, because it serves as an “intensifier of meaning and intention,” as Strathern and Stewart18 put it. - There are several paragraphs after this describing the words that the ritual expert then pronounces (§ 5-10). - In § 11, the patient places bread in his mouth and drinks three times to the goddess Uliliyašši. The text more specifically states: I take a piece of the broken bread loaves that lay on the soldier bread,19 and I give it to the man, (namely) the ritual patron. He places it in his mouth and he drinks three times (in honor of) the goddess Uliliyašši. 20 15. KBo 2.9+ i 53-58 (FUSCAGNI 2012a, § 8): n=ašta ANA LÚMEŠ arha LÚ-natar tarhuilatar haddulatar māl=(l)a GIŠ TUKULHÁ GIŠPANHÁ GIŠGAG.Ú.TAG.GAHÁ GÍR dā n=at INA URUHATTI uda apedaš=ma=kan ŠU-i ŠA MUNUS-TI GIŠhūlali GIŠhuišan=(n)a dāi n=uš MUNUS-nili weššiya nu=šmaš=kan TÚGkureššar šāi nu=šmaš=kan tuel aššul arha dā. 16. BOURDIEU 1990, p. 92. 17. MOUTON 2014a. 18. STRATHERN & STEWART 2011, p. 390. 19. Itself deposited on the divine table, immediately before this passage. 20. MOUTON 2016, pp. 242-243, § 11, 40’-44’: nu=(š)šan paršiyanduš NINDA.GUR4.RAHÁ kuiēš ANA NINDA.ÉRIN.MEŠ kianta n=ašta tepu dahhi nu LÚ-i BĒL SÍSKUR pihhi n=at=za=kan išši dāi ekuzi=ya 3=ŠU D Uliliyaššin.

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What is interesting here is the mention of placing bread in his own mouth. Does that mean that the patient does not actually eat the bread? It might be so, because one would expect to simply read “he eats the bread,” instead of this expression. I found one clear parallel to such a rite in another Arzawa ritual—namely, a ritual for the tutelary deity of the hunting bag and the seven deities (CTH 433.2). I will provide the excerpt of that other text, because it provides the complete ritual sequence relevant to our present case, and it may therefore help us better understand our Paškuwatti ritual. This other text states: The Old Woman [i.e. the ritual expert] takes a small loaf of sweet bread; she breaks it in her own hand and mixes it with sheep fat. She makes it into a fat bread. The Old Woman takes a piece of the fat bread with her hand and places it back (in front of) the tutelary deity of the hunting bag. She also places the fat bread into the augurs’ mouths and says: ‘Tutelary deity of the hunting bag and the Divine Seven, cast away again the evil anger (and) rage and let the fat bread be back in your mouths! Let the fat flow out of your mouths! If some augur has uttered bad word(s) in front of the deity or if someone has made you angry, let your mouths and those of the augurs be wiped clean by (this) fat bread!’ The Old Woman takes the fat bread that lay before the tutelary deity of the hunting bag and she throws it into the hearth. They [i.e. the augurs themselves] also take out the fat bread that was in the augurs’ mouths and they throw it into the hearth. 21

Let me highlight the successive phases of this ritual sequence and match where possible the whole with the sequence of Paškuwatti’s ritual. First, the bread is broken, which is the usual way of preparing it for divine or human consumption. Then it is placed before the divine effigy. Note that in the context of Paškuwatti’s ritual, the text specifies that the bread lay on a soldier bread, the same soldier bread that itself lay on the divine table, as I have mentioned already. In both cases, a piece of the same bread is placed into the mouth of an important protagonist of the ritual (the augurs in CTH 433 and the patient in Paškuwatti’s ritual). Although such a gesture is not explained in Paškuwatti’s ritual, CTH 433 accompanies this sequence with a nice explanatory incantation. Let us look at it again as a whole: Tutelary deity of the hunting bag and the Divine Seven, cast away again the evil anger (and) rage and let the fat bread be back in your mouths! [So the fat bread that has been placed before the tutelary deity serves as a kind of substitute for the anger that the ritual expert is trying to expel from the divine entities. It is supposed to take the place of that anger in the divine mouths.] Let the fat flow out of your mouths! If some augur has uttered a bad speech in front of the deity or if someone has made you angry, let your mouths and those of the augurs be wiped clean by (this) fat bread!

This section mentions both the piece of bread that lies in front the deities and the piece that lies in the augurs’ mouths. It clearly expresses the wish to use that bread as an absorbing material that will wipe clean the mouths of the deities and those of the augurs. In the case of the deities, the bread

21. BAWANYPECK 2005, pp. 88-91, 26’-42’: nu 1 NINDA.KU7 TUR MUNUSŠU.GI dāi n=an=za=kan kiššarī paršaīzzi n=an IŠTU Ì.UDU šalkezzi n=an NINDA.Ì.E.DÉ.A iēzzi n=an=za=kan MUNUSŠU.GI NINDA.Ì.E.DÉ.A kiššaraz tepu dāi nu=(š)šan ANA DLAMMA KUŠkuršaš EGIR-pa dāi ANA LÚ.MEŠMUŠEN.DÙ=ya=kan NINDA.Ì.E.DÉ.A PŪ-ī=šmi dāi nu kiššan memai DLAMMA KUŠkuršaš DIMIN.IMIN.BI-aš=(š)a § idālun kardimiyattan šāuwar arha namma peššiyaten nu=šmaš=kan PŪ-iya=šmi NINDA.Ì.E.DÉ.A namma kittaru n=ašmaš=kan KAxU-az parā Ìan arašdu mān LÚMUŠEN.DÙ kuiški PANI DINGIR-LIM idālu uttar memian harzi našma=du=kan kardiminuwan kuiški harzi § n=ašta LÚ.MEŠMUŠEN.DÙ=ya UZUKAxU=ŠUNU IŠTU NINDA.Ì.E.DÉ.A arha ānšanteš ašandu nu NINDA.Ì.E.DÉ.A kuiš ANA DLAMMA KURkuršaš peran kitta n=an MUNUSŠU.GI šarā dāi n=an=kan anda haššī peššiēzzi ANA LÚ.MEŠMUŠEN.DÙ=ya=kan kuiš NINDA.Ì.E.DÉ.A KAxU-i=šmi kitta n=an=za parā danzi n=an=kan anda haššī peššiyanzi.

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replaces their anger in their mouths; in the case of the augurs, it replaces the bad speech—the bad omen?22—that the augurs might have uttered in the presence of the deities. Thus, in Arzawa, the bread placed into a person’s mouth apparently functions as a sort of substitute with absorbing power. What is striking is that, in both cases, the bread is first consecrated to the divine and then shared between the deity and the human protagonist. Through this rite, the patient’s mouth is in physical contact with the divine food. This may be a way to draw him closer to the divine participant. This proximity between the patient and the deity is precisely what the ritual expert is trying to achieve in Paškuwatti’s ritual. Similarly, Paškuwatti had deposited on the divine table a pitcher together with the broken bread. Therefore, it seems plausible that the patient drinks the beverage of that same pitcher parallel to the bread that he places in his mouth. As for the absorbing power of the bread that is clearly expressed in CTH 433, it may be the case that it is implied in Paškuwatti’s ritual: that cleansing rite would serve as a preventive measure that would participate in the patient’s purification. Note that the text of Paškuwatti’s ritual does not specify what happens next to the bread, whereas CTH 433 states that the augurs take out the bread that was in their mouths and throw it into the hearth, a gesture that completes the substitution rite: once the bread has absorbed the augurs’ bad speech as a substitute, it is destroyed by fire. The next section of Paškuwatti’s ritual states (§ 11-12): When the evening (comes), the ritual patron lies down in front of the (divine) [ta]ble itself; they place his bed in front of the table itself. § Every night, he spreads the BAR.TE clothes [or] the tunic that had been deposited on the soldier bread.23

The fact that the patient has to sleep every night during the ritual in front of the divine representation can be easily explained by the necessity for him to receive a particular dream, as the continuation of the text shows. The physical involvement of the patient who symbolically tries to sleep “together with” the goddess’s representation is at its highest in this nocturnal phase of the ritual. This nocturnal rite constitutes the culmination of the whole ritual process; all the preceding rites are in fact preparing the patient—in his spirit and in his body—for the divine encounter: 1/ the patient’s “bed”—namely, his own clothes—has been consecrated to the goddess (§ 1); 2/ the patient has washed himself (§ 3); 3/ he has “transformed” his sexual behavior back to that of a male (§ 4); 4/ he has symbolically shared the goddess’s food and drink, and he may also have wiped clean his mouth from evil speeches through the bread rite that we have just examined (§ 11); 5/ and he has slept “together with” the goddess. He should be ready for receiving the dream he needs for his cure. - Indeed, after the description of several rites performed by the ritual expert (§ 12-16), the text states (§ 17-18): 22. This interpretation was proposed by Elisabeth Rieken during the ‘Luwian in Cuneiform’ workshop (Paris, 10 July 2019). I tend to agree with her. As a parallel, one can mention the expression “bad dream,” which in Hittite Anatolia designates various sorts of unpleasant dreams, including unfavorable omens seen in dreams; see MOUTON 2007, pp. 54-62. 23. MOUTON 2016, pp. 242-243, § 11-12, 45’-50’: m[a]hhan nekuzzi nu=za BĒL SÍSKUR GIŠ[BA]NŠUR=pat peran šešzi G[IŠN]Á-aš=ši GIŠBANŠUR=pat peran katta tiyanzi § AN[A NINDA.ÉRI]N.MEŠ=ya=(š)šan šer kue TÚG BAR.TEMEŠ n[ašm]a TÚG.GÚ.È.A kitta n=[at=z]a išpandaz katta išpareškezzi.

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They spread again his bed in front of the table. The BAR.TE clothes or the tunic that had been deposited on the soldier bread, those too, they spread for him. § The ritual patron sleeps. (Then, he will tell) whether he sees in a dream the goddess in her body, (if) she comes to him and sleeps with him. During the three days during which I in[voke] the goddess, he reports the dreams that he sees (and tells) whether the goddess shows him (her) eyes (or) whether the goddess sleeps with him. 24

This section describes the function of the incubation rite. The ritualized sleep of the patient in front of the goddess’s table, together with all the rites for preparing the patient that I have listed before, is supposed to induce a particular dream in which the patient sees the goddess or, even better, has sexual intercourse with her. This passage has long been compared with the Greek evidence of the Asklepeion.25 Just like extreme treatments of the body (ritual beating, piercing of the flesh, etc.),26 sleep is a way to access an altered state of consciousness so that the individual is drawn closer to the divine. In this excerpt, two bodies are directly involved, that of the patient through the ritualized sleep and the dreamt sexual intercourse and that of the goddess herself. The content of the dream even specifies the degree of personal involvement of the goddess through the way she appears to the dreamer. If she shows only her eyes—that is, if she shows herself to him but remains at a distance—it is good, because it means that she agrees to approach the patient physically. This shows that the ritual has managed to sufficiently purify the patient to convince the goddess to physically meet with him. The fact that this meeting occurs in a dream does not make it less real. But if the goddess agrees to go further—namely, to sleep with the patient in his dream—this is even better for the patient, because it shows that the goddess agrees to become intimately involved with him and then cure him of his sexual impotence. This implies an even higher degree of purification of the patient. This passage shows that the body’s involvement, be it the body of a person or even of a deity, illustrates the personal involvement of someone. Here I would like to specify that the Hittite term for body (tuekka-) can also often be translated as “person.” This simple observation seems to be confirmed by the ritual text we have just examined. Note that, as expected, the involvement of the patient’s body also includes his senses through which he experiences his ritual treatment. In this respect, the use of the expression -za=kan auš- (lit. “to see for oneself”) in relation to the dream could more appropriately be translated as “to experience,” as I have shown elsewhere.27 Through his dreamt sensory experience, the patient can actually report the degree of efficacy of his own healing ritual.

24. MOUTON 2016, pp. 246-249, § 17-18, 46’-iv 10: nu=(š)ši GIŠNÁ namma=pat GIŠBANŠUR peran katta išparranzi INA NINDA.ÉRIN.MEŠ=ya=(š)šan kue TÚGBAR.TEMEŠ našma TÚG.GÚ.È.A šer kitta nu=(š)ši apē=ya kattan išparranzi § nu=za BĒL SÍSKUR šešzi nu=za=kan mān DINGIR-LUM zašhiya tuēkki=(š)ši aušzi katti=(š)š[i] paizzi n=aš=ši katti=ši šešzi kuitman=ma DINGIR-LUM INA U4.3.KAM mug[āmi] nu=za=kan zašhimuš kuiēš uškezz[i] n=aš memiškezzi mān=ši DINGIR-LUM IGIHÁ-wa parā tekkušnuškezz[i] nu=(š)ši mān DINGIR-LUM katti=(š)ši šešzi. 25. HOFFNER 1987. 26. MOUTON 2015b. 27. MOUTON 2019.

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II. MAŠTIGGA’S RITUAL AGAINST FAMILY STRIFE (CTH 404.1) The second example is the ritual of Maštigga against family strife. It comes from Kizzuwatna (southern Anatolia). I have provided a new edition of it in my anthology.28 - The beginning of the text explains the main function of the ritual (§ 1): If a father and a son, a husband and his wife, or a brother and a sister quarrel, I treat them (ritually) in the following way.29

- After a long list of paraphernalia (§ 2-5), the ritual expert called the Old Woman starts the ritual by preparing the two ritual patrons (father and son, husband and wife, or brother and sister) for the ceremony (§ 6). She takes some foodstuffs and holds them toward the patients so that they place their hand on them.30 This reminds us of the placing of the gendered objects in the patient’s hand in Paškuwatti’s ritual. The gesture is slightly different, however: the patients are not supposed to take the foodstuffs but only to place their hand on them while the ritual expert holds them. This most probably has to do with the forthcoming dedication of these foodstuffs to the divine. The ritual expert is the most adequate intermediary for offering them to the deity, but the patients’ placing of the hand—or in some specific circumstances, the indirect placing of the hand at a distance—illustrates that this offering actually comes from the patients themselves. In other words, it is a piece of non-verbal communication meaning: “I am the one offering you this.” This gesture of hand placement was studied in 1986 by David Wright,31 who showed that it was also attested with a similar function in the Old Testament. - After the ritual expert has offered the same foodstuffs to the Sun god (§ 7), she takes figurines made of paste and two figurines made of wood (§ 8). The two wooden figurines are clearly anthropomorphic, because the text specifies: “they (are) clothed and their heads (are) covered.”32 The ritual expert apparently places the two wooden figurines at the feet of the two patients, but she places the paste figurines on the patients’ heads. The text specifies that these paste figurines consist of two figurines in the shape of hands and two other figurines in the shape of tongues. A visual correspondence is established between the anthropomorphic wooden figurines and the patients when these figurines are placed in front of the patients, but no physical contact is mentioned. It is quite different with the four paste figurines which are placed on the patients’ heads, so that, this time, a physical contact really occurs. Although the text does not explain it, this distinction likely has something to do with the function of each group of figurines. In the context of Hittite anti-witchcraft rituals, anthropomorphic figurines represent either the male or female bewitcher, so that he or she is symbolically present during the ritual and can therefore be neutralized more easily; or they represent the bewitched himself, so that the 28. MOUTON 2016, pp. 374-419. 29. MOUTON 2016, pp. 376-377, § 1, 1-3: mān=ašta [(ABU DUMU-RU=ya našma ŠEŠ N[(I)]N=ya [(halluwanzi n=aš kiššan)] aniyami.

MUDU DAM=SU=ya n)]ašma

LÚ

30. MOUTON 2016, pp. 378-379, § 6, 19-21: nu MUNUSŠU.GI 1 [(NINDA.GUR4.RA EM)]ṢA ŠA UPNI 1 GA.K[(IN).AK] 1 DUGKUKUB GEŠTIN dāi n=at ANA BĒL SÍSKUR-TIM parā [(ē)]pzi nu=(š)šan QĀTAM tianzi “The Old Woman takes one loaf of thick and sour bread of (a) handful, one chees[e] (and) one pitcher (of) wine. She holds them toward the ritual patron(s) and they place (their) hand on (them).” 31. WRIGHT 1986. 32. MOUTON 2016, pp. 380-381, § 8, 27-28: TÚG waššanda n=at=kan SAG.[(DUHÁ)]=ŠUNU kariyanteš.

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figurine constitutes his substitute. Here, there would be no clear logic in representing the bewitchers in the shape of figurines, because in this particular case, the bewitchers are present in the flesh during the ritual: the bewitchers are the patients themselves who have cursed each other. For this reason, I believe that these two wooden figurines constitute ritual substitutes for the patients themselves. The identification between these figurines and the patients is achieved through the positioning of the figurines immediately in front of the patients. We know that the Old Woman takes these wooden figurines back later on, but the text does not specify what she does with them. As for the paste figurines in the shape of hands and tongues, we will see later that they clearly symbolize the evil speeches that have been uttered by the patients. Their direct physical contact with the patients’ heads is a way to customize them for them. - Then the ritual expert intertwines threads of blue and red wool, and then she places the colored plait on the patients (§ 9). The continuation of the text (§ 15-16) shows that this plait is afterward removed from the patients’ bodies, and I suspect that it is the same blue and red plait that is wrapped around the salamander(?)-substitute later on as a symbol of the “evil mouth and tongue” (§ 28-29). After she has placed the blue and red wool plait on the patients’ bodies, the ritual expert takes some red wool and she cuts it on top of the patients’ heads with a knife (§ 10). The accompanying incantation uttered by the Old Woman says: As you have been quarreling on that day, now the deity Andaliya has just severed the tongues of those days with a knife for you.33

The incantation shows that the expert’s gestures symbolize those of the deity. It is not the only case in which a Hittite ritual practitioner represents the deity through his or her ritual actions.34 In a way, the ritual expert embodies the deity in these specific instances. Just as in the case of the wooden figurines, there is no physical contact but only a visual connection that is made between the patients and the red wool symbolizing the “tongues of the days”—that is, the malevolent speeches that have been uttered between the two family members. What is noticeable here is that, just as in the case of the paste figurines, the heads of the patients are chosen for representing the patients themselves. It is quite frequent in the Hittite texts that the head symbolizes the whole person through synecdoche. Many examples of this phenomenon could be quoted. One is in CTH 41, which is the treaty between the Hittite Great King Tudhaliya I and King Šunaššara of Kizzuwatna. In that text, they count persons as “heads”: “He will give twelve ‘heads’ [i.e. persons].”35 After she has cut the red wool over the patients’ heads, the ritual practitioner throws it into the hearth, so that the “evil tongues” are symbolically destroyed by fire. - As a single ritual gesture is deemed insufficient, a similar rite then occurs with a fish (§ 11). The Old Woman waves the fish over the patients’ heads and, after an incantation identifying the fish with the “evil tongues” and, the text adds, the curses uttered by the patients, she throws the fish into the hearth as well.

33. MOUTON 2016, pp. 380-383, § 10, 34-36: apedani=wa=šmaš=kan U4-ti kinun=a=wa=šmaš=kan kā[š]a apedaš U4-aš EMEHÁ DĀndāliyaš IŠTU GÍR karaš[t]a. 34. MOUTON forthcoming. 35. FUSCAGNI 2012b, § 5’, 18: [n=aš?] 12 SAG.DUHÁ pāi.

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- Other ritual items are either waved over the heads of the patients or held toward them in a similar manner (§ 12-14). Then the Old Woman removes from the patients’ bodies the plait of colored wool and the paste figurines. She also removes the wooden figurines that lay at their feet—although the text here is confused and calls them paste figurines as well—(§ 15). She breaks the four paste figurines in the shape of hands and tongues (§ 16). She waves them over the patients’ heads and says (§ 17): “May the tongues of that day be separated (from the patients)! May the curses of that day be separated!”36— which clearly identifies the hand and tongue figurines with the evil speeches and curses uttered by the patients. Then she throws the broken paste figurines into the hearth. - Later on in the ritual (§ 20), someone brings a sheep and the Old Woman “holds it over the ritual patrons.”37 This has been understood in different ways by scholars, most of the time symbolically. It might be a mistaken translation into Hittite of a Hurrian or Luwian expression.38 Once more, an item would be placed in visual correspondence with the patients’ heads for creating an identification between them. In Kizzuwatna, waving or holding an item over a person’s head is a widespread technique for identifying that item as a substitute for that same person.39 This is quite clearly illustrated by our text: while she “holds” the sheep “over” the patients, the Old Woman says: Here (is) your substitute. May it be the substitute for your persons/bodies!40 (May) the curses (be) in (its) mouth (and) tongue!41

Then both patients spit into the sheep’s mouth, and the Old Woman says (§ 21): “You have spat the evil curses!”42 Then the substitute sheep is slaughtered in a hole in the ground and buried with food offerings. There is no need to emphasize the physical transfer of miasma induced by the spitting of the patients into the animal substitute’s mouth. This illustrates that, as expected, the bodily fluids are as meaningful as the rest of the body for representing the person. Spittle not only represents the miasma that is being expelled by the patients’ bodies, but also the curses that they have uttered themselves against each other and that have polluted them. In another contribution, I have shown that such a rite consisting in spitting miasma into a living substitute’s mouth seems specific to both Kizzuwatna and the Lower Land, the neighboring region of Kizzuwatna.43 - After this sequence, someone brings a black sheep (§ 22). The Old Woman “holds it over the patients,” states the text (this is the same problematic expression as before). The Old Woman says:

36. MOUTON 2016, pp. 388-389, § 17, 13-14: [tuh(š)]aru apel U4-aš EMEHÁ tuhšaru=wa [(apel)] U4-aš [h]ūrtāuš. 37. MOUTON 2016, pp. 390-391, § 20, 26-27: nu UDU ūnnanzi n=an=kan MUNUSŠU.GI ANA 2 BĒL SÍSKUR šer ēpzi. 38. MILLER 2004, pp. 111-112. 39. STRAUß 2006, pp. 72-76. 40. I.e. the Hittite term tuekka-, meaning both “body” and “person.” 41. MOUTON 2016, pp. 390-391, § 20, 27-29: kāša=wa=šmaš tarpalliš nu=wa=šmaš tueggaš tarpalliš ēštu KAxU-i EME-i hūrtāuš. 42. MOUTON 2016, pp. 392-393, § 21, 31: idālauēš=wa=kan hūrtāuš parā allapahten. 43. MOUTON 2015c.

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For your heads (and) your whole persons/bodies [tuekka-], the substitute (is) a black sheep. The curses (are) also behind (its) mouth and tongue. 44

This seems very similar to the preceding substitution rite with the other sheep. This time also, the patients spit into the sheep’s mouth, but then the black sheep is not buried but dismembered and cremated. - The continuation of the text consists of other analogous substitution rites, with also water sprinkled over the patients at some point (§ 23-31). The ritual sprinkling of water or other liquids over a person or an object is a well-known purification technique in Hittite religious texts. There is no need to emphasize the clear parallel between purifying and cleaning in this particular rite. Then “the Old Woman holds it [i.e. an išnuri-vessel filled with oil, red wool, and wheat] under the patients’ šeknu-garment.”45 (§ 32). A person’s šeknu-garment, usually interpreted as a cloak or a robe,46 apparently is a significant symbol of the person, because it is quite often mentioned in various religious contexts. The sequence that we observe in our ritual text—namely, the išnuri-vessel being placed under the patients’ šeknu-garments—does not seem to have any parallel in the Hittite texts. The incantation that accompanies this rite states (§ 33): Here (is) the goddess Šaušga’s išnuri-vessel. May it release (the evil away) from you, for (your) well-being and (your) life! May it, likewise, hide (it away) from you in an evil affair! 47

This incantation seems to indicate that by hiding the išnuri-vessel under the patients’ garments, the Old Woman illustrates the symbolic event that she wants to witness—namely, evil hiding away from the patients. The whole sequence is not entirely clear, but it might be one more rite of analogical magic, as such rites are very frequent in Hittite ritual texts. - After other rites involving various items (§ 34-38), someone lights a hearth on one side and another hearth on the other side, and then they set seven huwaši-stones in the middle (§ 39). The Old Woman holds some foodstuffs and the patients place their hands on them. Then the Old Woman sacrifices those foodstuffs and says (§ 40): Now, the huwaši-stones (or) stelae that someone has erected are falling over. Likewise, what came from the mouth (and) tongue against the two ritual patrons on that day; may those speeches fall over!48

- The two ritual patrons might then be described as kicking the huwaši-stones with their feet and then walking between the two hearths (§ 41). Then they throw away the clothes they were wearing. Several elements of this sequence are remarkable. First, we notice that the patients walk between two 44. MOUTON 2016, pp. 392-393, § 22, 36-37: SAGHÁ=a=šmaš tueggaš hūmandāš tarpalliš UDU GE6 KAxU-i EME-i hūrtauš=(š)a EGIR-an. 45. MOUTON 2016, pp. 402-403, § 32, 24-25: n=at MUNUSŠU.GI ANA 2 BĒL SÍSKUR TÚGšeknuwaš kattan ēpzi. 46. All the references can be found in CHD Š, pp. 360-363. 47. MOUTON 2016, pp. 402-403, § 33, 26-28: kāša=wa ŠA D[(IŠT)]AR išnūriš nu=wa=šmaš āššui TI-anni parā tarnan hardu idālaui=ma=wa=šmaš=kan uddanī QĀTAMMA munnāiddu. 48. MOUTON 2016, pp. 412-413, § 40, 1-4: [(kuiš=war=at uetešket NA4huwāšiHÁ tānita kinun=a=war=at=kan kāša lagāri nu=wa=kan ANA 2) BĒL (SÍSKUR apēdani U4-ti kuit KAxU-az EME-az uit)] nu=wa=[(kan a)]pē udda[(r QĀTAMMA lagāru)].

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hearths. This rite is quite widespread in the Hittite ritual texts, as I have already shown elsewhere. 49 It is clearly a purification rite during which fire has the power of absorbing the patients’ impurity. This technique is usually performed when more than one patient is supposed to be purified. The two hearths generate an area that all the persons in need of purification can conveniently cross one after the other, their impurity being absorbed in the process. The setting of two hearths is often combined with the setting, in the same places as the two hearths, of the two halves of one or several severed animal bodies; these half bodies reinforce the absorbing power of this purifying zone by their status as ritual substitutes. Note that we know of one example of a human body being severed in such a context, human substitutes constituting the most efficient substitutes of all.50 The second noticeable element of this passage consists of the clothes that the patients remove from their own bodies and throw away. This gesture also occurs in other ritual contexts. I think that it symbolizes the removal of a certain state by the patient himself, as social anthropology shows that changing clothes has much to do with changing status. I therefore suggest that this ritual removal of someone’s clothes could be a borrowing of the rites of passage imagery for symbolizing the removal of someone’s previous state. Finally, the possible kicking of the huwaši-stones by the patients is worth studying, although the verbal form is only partly preserved in the text.51 The Hittite term huwaši- is traditionally translated as “stele.” It is doubled here by the Luwian noun tanit-, also traditionally translated as “stele.” One element is unusual: the text clearly states that the stelae represent “what came from the mouth and tongue against the two ritual patrons”—namely, the evil speeches and curses. This is quite surprising when one compares this passage with the other occurrences of the term huwaši-. Usually, this term designates a deity’s representation, such that it is considered to be a cultic or even a sacred object. This unusual use of huwaši- has not yet been explained and no clear parallel seems to exist.52 I wonder whether this does not result from a mistaken translation of the Luwian concept of tanit-, the probable original term that the Hittite scribe actually retained in the text. The Hittite rendering of tanit- into huwaši- might actually be a mistake in this very context. Perhaps the tanit-stone was not always viewed as a cultic representation of the deity, unlike the huwaši-, but had a broader use in ritual contexts. Be that as it may, it is striking that in our ritual text the patients possibly kick seven stones that represent their miasma in order to symbolize the “fall down” of the latter. This provides symbolic power to the patients over their own purification process, a concept that is not very frequent in Hittite rituals. Through the movement of their feet, the patients take control of this section of the ritual process. - This pattern is repeated immediately after this sequence in the text (§ 42). The Old Woman places a basin at the patients’ feet and says: Here (is) a large basin. You are going to break all the (evil) speeches with your feet!53 49. MOUTON 2014a. 50. MOUTON 2014b. 51. MOUTON 2016, pp. 412-413, § 41, 5: nu=kan 2 BĒL SÍSKUR NA4h[(uw)]a[(š)]iHÁ GÌRHÁ-az [šuen(zi)?]. 52. MICHEL 2014, p. 165 does not really explain this case. He indicates only that these stones materialize something intangible—namely, the evil speeches. 53. MOUTON 2016, pp. 414-415, § 42, 11-13: k[(āša=wa)] GÌRHÁ=KUNU ar[(teni)].

DÍLIM.GAL nu=wa=š[m]aš hūmanda uddār IŠTU

DUG

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Then the patients actually break the basin with their feet while the Old Woman says: May they break, all the (evil) speeches and curses!54

Once more, the patients have the power to neutralize their own impurity through the combination of their physical action with the expert’s incantation. The symbol of kicking or breaking the evil with one’s own feet is quite compelling. I should add that in this second sequence the Old Woman is also physically involved, as she also breaks a pot that she has identified as a substitute for the patients. Her gestures intensify her words and make them even more real. Thus, while the patients are symbolically breaking the evil speeches that have contaminated them, the Old Woman is destroying their substitute (that has symbolically absorbed their impurity) at the same time. - After this phase of ritual destruction, a “therapeutic” phase begins (§ 43). The Old Woman takes “a plant of the Sun god,” states the text, and she calls it tiwariya.55 This is clearly a Luwian term based on the Luwian name of the Sun god, Tiwat. The Old Woman rubs the body of each of the patients with this plant and says: “May the evil speeches of the mouth and tongue be rubbed off of you!” 56 We do not know this plant of the Sun god, but we can imagine that it is a medicinal plant used for curing someone. This would not be the only example of a therapeutic gesture inserted in a ritual context, the two concepts of therapeutic and ritual practice being closely related in Hittite Anatolia. One of the most striking examples of such a proximity can be found in the text of Bappi’s curative ritual, as I have already mentioned in another contribution.57 In that text, we read the following passage in the context of the patient’s cure: In front of the altar, they tie the hands of the person who is sick with a loop of wool (and) then they strike him with this very loop of wool before the deity [so t]hat he cries for mercy. 58

In our text, while being rubbed over the patients’ body parts, the tiwariya plant is supposed to “rub” the “evil speeches” off of the patients and thus “cure” them from themselves. - The next phase of Maštigga’s ritual is a cleansing of the patients’ heads, hands, and eyes (§ 44). Water is mixed with natron, a sort of natural mixture of salts that the Egyptologists know well as a cleaning substance. The patients themselves pour this liquid on their own heads; then they wash their hands and eyes.59 This sequence clearly stands for a symbolic cleansing of the patients’ bodies, using actual cleaning substances. Once more, the patients are the actors in their own purification, as they wash themselves. 54. MOUTON 2016, pp. 414-415, § 42, 15-16: tuwarnattaru=war=at hūmanda ud[(d)]ār hurtāuš=(š)a. 55. MOUTON 2016, pp. 414-415, § 43, 17-18: nu MUNUSŠU.GI DUTU-aš uelku dāi n=at=za tiwariya halziššai. 56. MOUTON 2016, pp. 414-415, § 43, 19-20: katta=war=ašmaš=kan : waršan ēštu idālu uddār KAxU-aš EME-aš. 57. MOUTON 2015b. 58. MOUTON 2015b, p. 74: nu GIG-zi kuin antuhšan n=an PANI ZAG.GAR.RA namma=an SÍGpittūlit=pat PANI DINGIR-LIM zāhanzi [n]u duddu halzāi.

SÍG

piddulit ŠUHÁ=[Š]U išhiyanzi

59. MOUTON 2016, pp. 416-417, § 44, 21-25: nu MUNUSŠU.GI wātar GAL-az našma hūpparaz ANA 2 BĒL SÍSKUR parā ēpzi NA4nitri=ya=kan anda šuhhan nu=za=kan 2 BĒL SÍSKUR wātar INA SAG.DU=ŠUNU šarā lāhuwanzi ŠUHÁ=ya=za=kan IGIHÁ arranzi “The Old Woman holds toward the two ritual patrons water from a cup or a huppar vessel—natron (has) also (been) poured inside—and the two ritual patrons pour water onto their heads. They also wash their hands (and) eyes.”

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III. THE HAŠŠUMAŠ FESTIVAL (CTH 633) The last text that we will briefly examine is the text of a cultic festival called the haššumaš festival. I published a new edition of this text in 2011.60 I have chosen this text for two reasons: 1/ this festival text is less standardized than many. Indeed, many festival texts repeat only the same two or three patterns over and over—namely, the king toasting to a particular deity while standing or sitting, his receiving objects that he gives to several palace or temple personnel members, etc.; 2/ in this festival, a royal prince is personally involved in the ceremony, because he seems to be the main focus of the ceremony itself. Indeed, I have suggested that this haššumaš festival was an installation ritual for a prince as the heir to the royal throne. - The beginning of the text (§ 1) is fragmentary, but we understand that some foodstuffs are given to the king, who eats them. This is the only sequence of the ceremony where the king actually appears. - Then it is time for the prince to be fed (§ 4). The meal itself is ritualized: the prince asks for food in the house of the temple cook, and twelve priests sit in front of him.61 Each priest represents a different deity: a storm-god, the goddess Katahha (closely associated with kingship), etc. The text specifies that before this meal occurs, the priests consecrate the door of the house of the temple cook where the prince will eat.62 Then the prince toasts to three different deities. The priests celebrate the deities one by one. Then the prince sits down to eat and probably gives some of his food to the gods. Afterward, the prince goes to a particular building called arzana-; I believe that this is a part of the temple where meals take place. There, the prince celebrates the gods one by one and toasts again. - Then he stands up and goes to the temple of the goddess Katahha (§ 5), where he asks for food and then gives food to the gods. A similar sequence occurs again later on in the text (§ 10). - The fact that this ceremony is inserted in a larger cultic frame is clearly illustrated by the sequence that takes place later on (§ 13’): someone brings a millstone and places it in front of the hearth. Then the prince, together with several individuals of the temple—namely, a tazelli-priest, an administrator, a barber, and minalleš people—makes use of this millstone by grinding something, probably grain although the text does not specify this.63 Such milling rites can be found in seasonal ceremonies,64 especially in fall festivals. What is striking here is that the prince acts just like any regular temple personnel member, as if his royal rank was temporarily ignored.

60. MOUTON 2011. 61. MOUTON 2011, pp. 5 and 12: nu DUMU.LUGAL kuwapi INA É LÚMUHALDIM adanna u[ēkzi (nu per)]an 12 LÚ SANGA ešanda “While the prince as[ks] for food in the cook’s house, twelve priests sit down before (him).” 62. MOUTON 2011, pp. 5 and 13: nu=(š)šan kuitman adanna n[āui ešant]ari āšga ANA KÁ É MUHALDIM LÚtaziliš LÚ.MEŠ SANGA šup[p]iy[ahhanz]i “As they are n[ot yet sitt]ing for eating, outside, the tazili-man (and) the priests perform consecration rites on the door of the cook’s house.” 63. MOUTON 2011, pp. 9 and 15: ta NA4ARA5 DUMU.LUGAL 1 tazelliš LÚŠÀ.[TAM] LÚŠU.I LÚ.MEŠminallēš mallanzi “The prince, one tazelli-man, the administrator, the barber (and) the minalleš men grind (with) the millstone.” 64. CHD L-N, pp. 125-126.

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- The continuation of the ceremony also seems to place the prince at the same level as the individuals mentioned before. Altogether, these persons collect the “consecrated meat” (i.e. the sacrificial meat), they hold it, turn themselves toward the hearth, and sing in Hattian language (§ 14’).65 The prince may then go home before returning to the arzana-building to ask for food and celebrate the gods again. - On the fourth day of the ceremony, a blind man is undressed and beaten (§ 15’). I suggested in my edition that he may serve as a human substitute for the royal prince, as similar ritualized beatings are attested for the king himself in the Hittite festival texts. In 2015, I showed that in cultic contexts such royal beating rites can combine three distinct functions: purification, mortification, and self-offering.66 The choice of a blind man as a princely substitute is not explained in the text. In other Hittite rituals, blind and deaf men serve as substitutes in the context of what one could call conditional curses—that is, curses that are uttered during an oath-taking ritual but are effective only in cases of perjury. Here is an example of this in the text of a military oath-taking ritual: They bring a woman, a blind man (and) a deaf man before them and you say: “Here (are) a woman, a blind man (and) a deaf man. May the deities of oath seize whoever plots (something) evil against the king (and) queen. May they make him, (that) man, a wo[man]! May they bl[ind] him like a blind man! May they [deafe]n him like a deaf man! May they [des]troy him, (that) mortal, together with [his] wiv[es, children] (and) relatives!”67

In the context of our festival, the choice of a blind man as a substitute for the prince is without any parallel. Is there an implied conditional curse in case the future king does not fulfill his duties toward his land? - The prince goes to the temple of the goddess Katahha again and asks for food. He offers at least part of that food, as well as beverages, to the gods. - Then he goes back to the arzana-building and asks for food again (§ 16’). Instead of priests or other male characters, this time twelve KAR.KID women sit in front of him, where they eat and drink. The text specifies that after this meal and at night the prince is consecrated and then put to bed.68 Several loaves of bread are placed on both sides of his head and feet, and then someone traces a circle

65. MOUTON 2011, pp. 9 and 15-16: nu šuppa šarā danzi § šuppa karpan harkanzi n=ašta GUNNI uehantari nu kiššan SÌR-RU alāiya DAriniddu alāi[ya] DAriniddu “They collect the consecrated meat. § They hold the consecrated meat, they turn themselves toward the hearth and they sing: ‘Alāiya the deity Ariniddu, alāiya the deity Ariniddu.’” 66. MOUTON 2015b. 67. KBo 6.34+ iii 2-11 and duplicates (TORRI 2003, pp. 165-166): nu=šmaš=kan MUN[(US LÚIGI.NU)].GÁL LÚ Ú.HÚB peran arha [(pē)]hudanzi nu=šmaš kišan [(teši)] kāša MUNUS LÚIGI.NU.GÁL LÚÚ.HÚB nu=wa=kan [(k)]uiš ANA LUGAL MUNUS.LUGAL HUL-lu takkišz[(i n)]=an NĪŠ DINGIRMEŠ appandu n=an LÚ-an M[UNUS-an iya]ndu n=an LÚIGI.NU.GÁL-[aš] iwar da[šuwahha]ndu ŠA LÚÚ.HÚB=ma=an iwar [duddumiy]andu n=an=kan DUMU.LÚ.U19.LU QADU DA[MMEŠ=ŠU DUMUMEŠ]=ŠU pankur=šit ištarna [arha harn]inkandu. 68. MOUTON 2011, pp. 11 and 17: [nu ap]ēdani GE6-ti DUMU.LUGAL QĀTAMMA šuppiahhanzi [namma]=an šaššanuanzi “On that night, they consecrate the prince in that way. [Afterward], they make him lie down (for sleeping).”

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around him with beer. After a small lacuna, the text states that the KAR.KID women come.69 Unlike the first editor of this text, I do not believe that the prince had sex with the KAR.KID women in the context of a very hypothetical sexual initiation of some sort. Instead, I believe that the prince performed an incubation ritual—that is, a ritualized sleep—as is clearly illustrated by the many offerings placed around his bed, as well as by the circle of beer. These rites actually occur in the context of incubation rituals elsewhere in the Hittite ritual corpus.70 Then, perhaps only in the morning, the KAR.KID women would arrive. In this phase of the ceremony, the prince’s body is strongly involved through this incubation ritual. The prince probably attempts to communicate with the deities through his dreams. It happens quite frequently in cultic festivals that the king himself sleeps in the god’s own bed, called “sacred bed,” in order to receive a message-dream from him.71 As in many other traditional societies, in Hittite Anatolia sleep is clearly viewed as a near-to-death state allowing communication between the human sleeper and his divine masters. The fact that this haššumaš festival combines several functions—namely, an installation ritual of the royal prince with a calendar event of some sort—explains the fact that the prince’s body is only sporadically involved in the ceremony. One should probably wonder why meals are so present in the text, why it is precisely those moments of the ceremony that are described. Certainly, the text illustrates a particular form of commensality: the prince eats with other actors of the community, but he also gives food and drinks to the gods every time he eats. By so doing, the prince shares his meal both with his future human subjects and with his divine lords. This constitutes a strong symbol of social belonging that is particularly important at that stage of the prince’s life, as—if my interpretation is correct—he is preparing himself to become the official intermediary between the human inhabitants of his land and the gods. By eating with both social categories, men and gods, in the context of his supposed installation ritual, the heir to the Hittite throne is showing himself to be the future link between the two. Indeed, the importance of commensality as a social and communicative act of bonding is quite well known.72 Sharing a meal with others is also the occasion to reaffirm the community’s rules of hierarchy and solidarity. In the case of our Hittite prince, these meals allow him to show not only his belonging to the community but also his very special rank within the local hierarchy.

CONCLUSION This analysis of three Hittite religious texts illustrates the importance of persons’ bodies in the ritual and ceremonial process. I have highlighted several levels of bodily involvement, both for the human

69. MOUTON 2011, pp. 11 and 17: nu=(š)ši IŠTU SAG.DU=ŠU [kēzza 2 NINDA.GUR4.R]A kēzzi=ya=(š)ši 2 NINDA.GUR4.RA tianzi [IŠTU] GÌRMEŠ=ŠU=ya=(š)ši kēzza 2 NINDA.GUR4.RA kēz[zi=ya 2 NINDA.GUR4.RA] tianzi namma=aš=kan šieššanit [arahza]nda gulšanzi mahhan=ma ku-[... nu=kan anda MU]NUSKAR.KID arnuwanzi “They place [two loaves of thick brea]d [on this side] and two loaves of thick bread on that side of his head. They place two loaves of thick bread on this side and [two loaves of thick bread] on that side of his feet. Afterward, they trace (a circle) with beer [arou]nd (him). When [...], they let the KAR.KID women in.” 70. MOUTON 2007. 71. MOUTON 2003. 72. CHEE-BENG 2015.

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and the divine participants. Starting with two ritual texts in which the degree of personal involvement of the ritual patrons is quite high, we have seen that: 1/ their bodies can be bathed or cleansed by water or other substances; 2/ their heads and hands are often solicited for taking or being in physical contact with ritual items that will thus become either their offerings or their substitutes; 3/ they may spit their impurity into a living substitute’s mouth, or place sacrificial food in their own mouths, etc. The physical movements of the patients are also very meaningful: the ritual crossing of a purifying zone and the kicking or breaking of a ritual item with their feet are dynamic rites that take part in the purification process. The body can also be ritually put to sleep so that the dreamer can approach the divine sphere both in ritual and cultic contexts, as we find also in the haššumaš festival. In that third text, we have observed a lesser degree of involvement of the participant’s body, which I explained by the broader function of the haššumaš festival. It combines an installation ritual for the royal prince with a political and a seasonal ceremony. Even so, the prince’s body is involved through the many meals that the prince shares with the gods and the men and through an incubation ritual. This study could easily be broadened to other Hittite religious texts. I have selected just a small sample to illustrate how important a person’s body is in the religious discourse. I also showed the bodily involvements of the ritual expert and even those of the divine participants that also contribute to the ritual or ceremonial process. In this regard, the two different types of bodily involvements of the goddess Uliliyašši in the dream of Paškuwatti’s patient are quite compelling, as they illustrate, in my view, two distinct degrees of the patient’s purity.

REFERENCES BAWANYPECK D. 2005 Die Rituale der Auguren (Texte der Hethiter 25), Heidelberg, Winter. BOURDIEU P. 1990 The logic of practice, Cambridge, Polity Press [English translation by Richard Nice; original title: Le sens pratique, Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1980]. BRIL B. 20043 “Corps (technique du)”, in Dictionnaire de l’ethnologie et de l’anthropologie, ed. by P. BONTE and M. IZARD, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 177-178. CHEE-BENG T. 2015 “Commensality and the organization of social relations”, in Commensality: from everyday food to feast, ed. by S. KERNER et al., London, Bloomsbury, pp. 13-30. FUSCAGNI F. 2012a “Rituale di evocazione per Ištar di Ninive celebrato dal LÚḪAL insieme ai LÚ.MEŠNAR (CTH 761.1)”, hethiter.net/:CTH 716.1 (INTR 2012-03-05). 2012b “Vertrag Tutḫaliyas I. mit Šunaššura von Kizzuwatna (heth. Fassung; CTH 41.II.1)”, hethiter.net/:CTH 41.II.1 (INTR 2012-08-08). HOFFNER H. A. 1966 “Symbols for masculinity and femininity: their use in Ancient Near Eastern sympathetic magic rituals”, Journal of Biblical Literature 85, pp. 326-334. 1987 “Paskuwatti’s ritual against sexual impotence (CTH 406)”, Aula Orientalis 5, pp. 271-287. LE BRETON D. 1991 Corps et sociétés: essai de sociologie et d’anthropologie du corps (Sociologies du quotidien), Paris, Klincksieck.

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LÉVI-STRAUSS C. 1971 Mythologiques 4: l’homme nu, Paris, Plon. MAUSS M. 1968 “Les techniques du corps”, in M. MAUSS, Sociologie et anthropologie, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 365-386. [essay initially published in 1936]. MICHEL P. M. 2014 Le culte des pierres à Emar à l’époque hittite (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 266), Fribourg – Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. MILLER J. 2004 Studies in the origins, development and interpretation of the Kizzuwatna rituals (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 46), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. 2013 Hittite royal instructions and related administrative texts (SBL Writings from the Ancient World 31), Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature. MOUTON A. 2003 “Usages privés et publics de l’incubation d’après les textes hittites”, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 3, pp. 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), Leiden – Boston, Brill. 2011 “Réflexions autour de la notion de rituel initiatique en Anatolie hittite. Au sujet de la fête haššumaš (CTH 633)”, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 11, pp. 1-38. 2014a “Liminarité, impureté et franchissements rituels en Anatolie hittite”, in Life, death, and coming of age in Antiquity: individual rites of passage in the Ancient Near East and adjacent regions, ed. by A. MOUTON & J. PATRIER (Publication de l’Institut Historique-Archéologique Néerlandais de Stamboul 124), Leiden, NINO, pp. 441-452. 2014b “Rituels de ‘boucs émissaires’ en Anatolie hittite”, in Proceedings of the eighth international congress of hittitology, ed. by P. TARACHA, Warsaw, Agade, pp. 558-587. 2015a “The sacred in Hittite Anatolia: a tentative definition”, History of Religions 55, pp. 41-64. 2015b “Violence ritualisée en Anatolie hittite”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 105, pp. 69-85. 2015c “Les rituels de la Vieille Femme Tunnawiya: témoignages du Bas Pays hittite?”, in La Cappadoce méridionale de la préhistoire à la période byzantine, ed. by D. BEYER et al. (3e Rencontres d’Archéologie de l’IFEA), Istanbul, IFEA, pp. 79-89. 2016 Rituels, mythes et prières hittites (Littératures Anciennes du Proche-Orient 21), Paris, Le Cerf. 2019 “Representing the senses in Hittite religious texts: the case of sight”, in Distant impressions: the senses in the Ancient Near East, ed. by A. HAWTHORN and A.-C. RENDU LOISEL, Philadelphia, Eisenbrauns, pp. 159-187. forthcoming “How to legitimize the ritual practitioner’s performance and other related matters: agency in the Hittite ritual texts”, in Legitimising magic, ed. by N. HEEßEL and E. ZOMER. MOYER J. C. 1969 The concept of ritual purity among the Hittites, PhD Brandeis University. STRATHERN A. J., STEWART P. J. 2011 “Personhood. Embodiment and personhood”, in A companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment, ed. by F. E. MASCIA-LEES, Malden – Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 388-402. STRAUß R. 2006 Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna: ein Beitrag zur Erforschung hethitischer Ritualtradition und Kulturgeschichte, Berlin – New York, W. de Gruyter. TORRI G. 2003 La similitudine nella magia analogica ittita (Studia asiana 2), Rome, Herder. WRIGHT D. 1986 “The gesture of hand placement in the Hebrew Bible and in Hittite literature”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 106, pp. 433-446.

LAURA PUÉRTOLAS RUBIO

The body in Hittite witchcraft*

The body is frequently mentioned in Hittite texts dealing with witchcraft. Expressions including some body parts are used to refer to specific manifestations of witchcraft, namely, “evil tongues”1 and “evil eyes.”2 In the same way, figurines of body parts appear among the objects that form the ritual paraphernalia, such as hands and tongues, which are manipulated by the ritual expert.3 These figurines have been interpreted as representations of the gestures and words of the bewitcher.4 However, the involvement of the body reaches its peak in the descriptions of the negative effects that witchcraft has on the bewitched person. These effects are usually defined as symptoms of different illnesses. The “ritual of the watercourse,” one of the rituals of Tunnawiya, provides a useful example. In this text, the “evil tongues” are mentioned among the possible causes of miscarriages and the dysfunction of body parts (probably the reproductive organs).5 Another example comes from the ritual of Hebattarakki, where the bewitched suffers from fever.6 Finally, witchcraft can also cause the death

*

This study is part of a broader doctoral research project on the practice of witchcraft in Hittite Anatolia and is funded both by a two-year grant from the Fundación Bancaria “la Caixa” (2016–2018: ID 100010434; code LCF/BQ/EU16/11560012) and by a one-year Ingénieur de recherche contract supported by the Luwili Project (2018–2019: ANR-17-FRAL-0007-01).

1.

About this manifestation of witchcraft, often associated with curses, see MOUTON 2010, pp. 112-114.

2.

About the “evil eyes” in Hittite and Mesopotamian texts, see MOUTON 2009.

3.

This is the case, for instance, in the ritual against Ziplantawiya’s witchcraft, where the “evil tongues” are represented by figurines of tongues made of dough (CTH 443.1; GÖRKE 2013, § 1 and § 5). In the ritual of Maštigga against a family quarrel, figurines of hands and tongues are also manipulated by the ritual expert (CTH 404.I; MOUTON 2016, pp. 378-381).

4.

HAAS 1994, p. 884.

5.

KUB 7.53+ i 4-6 (CTH 409.I.A; NS; GOETZE 1938, pp. 4-5): (…) našma=(š)ši=kan UZUšarhūwanda=ma mauškizzi naššu LÚ-ni našma MUNUS-ni paprannaš uddananza UZUÚRHÁ-ša arha šarran “(…) or (if) her foetuses fall one after the other, (or if) a man’s or a woman’s body parts (are) disabled (lit. “separated off”) by the matter of impurity.” See also MOUTON 2012a, p. 80.

6.

KUB 24.14 i 20-21 (CTH 397; NS; GÖRKE & MELZER 2016, § 4): ANA SAG.DU=KA=ma=(d)du=(š)šan pahhur [k]ištanunun “I have [ex]tinguished the fire on your head.”

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 137-150

HPUBLISHERS

BREPOLS

DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120942

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of the bewitched, as shows a prayer of Great King Muršili II. In this text, the king accuses the queen mother, Tawannanna, of causing the death of his wife by cursing her day and night before the gods.7 These examples illustrate not only that body and witchcraft are closely related, but also the multiple ways in which the study of the body in the context of Hittite witchcraft can be approached. This paper focuses on the analysis of two types of human bodies present in these texts: that of the bewitched and that of the bewitcher.

I. THE BODY OF THE BEWITCHED PERSON The body of the bewitched is a central topic in most of the texts of anti-witchcraft, the main group of Hittite texts among those dealing with witchcraft. This is not surprising, considering that these rituals aim not only to neutralize the bewitchment, but also to treat the effects of witchcraft on the patient.8 Therefore, the body of the patient is at the core of many ritual actions. The purification of the patient, an important part of rituals treating bewitchments, usually involved the cleaning of the patient’s body by the ritual expert or by the patient himself. For example, in the text of the ritual of Allaiturahhi, the hierodules wave two mineral substances over the patient in order to purify him. 9 In the same way, in the substitution ritual for Great King Tudhaliya, the patient bathes himself.10 The patient’s body can also take part in ritual actions whose goal is to remove the bewitchment from the patient. One example comes from the text of Hebattarakki’s ritual against witchcraft, where the Old Woman (the ritual expert) prepares a mixture of dough with other ingredients, makes two figurines of this mixture, and places them on the patient’s shoulders. Then, she takes more mixture and presses it against the patient’s body while she pronounces a conjuration to remove his bewitchment.11 In addition to the descriptions of rites involving the patient’s body, Hittite texts also provide descriptions of the bewitched body itself. The terms used for describing the bewitched body can be divided into two main groups. On the one hand, besides the word alwanzahhant- “bewitched,”12 a 7.

KUB 14.4 iii 18-20 (CTH 70.1.A; NS; MILLER 2014, pp. 521 and 526): n=aš U4-ti GE6-ti=ya DINGIRMEŠ-aš peran artari nu DAM=YA DINGIRMEŠ-aš peran hurzakezzi n=an=kan x x x x x hinkan uwakkezzi aku=war=aš “She stands day and night before the deities, she curses my wife before the deities and she asks for the death of […] (saying): ʽMay she die!ʼ”

8.

However, witchcraft can also affect the gods and the belongings of the bewitched, as in the ritual of Pupuwanni (CTH 408; BAWANYPECK 2005, pp. 273-289), a house (or more exactly a household) as in the “ritual for the purification of a house” (CTH 446; COLLINS 1997, pp. 168-171), and even a whole city as indicated in the socalled “Apology of Hattušili” (CTH 81, KUB 19.61 II 78-79; OTTEN 1981, pp. 16-17).

9.

KUB 27.29 i 53-54 (CTH 780.II.Tf06.A; NS; HAAS & WEGNER 1988, p. 129): [n=ašta] INA É.DU10.ÚS.SA {x} ANA EN.SISKUR MUNUS.MEŠSUHUR.LA5 [NA4hūppann]in hūštan=(n)a šer arha wahnuwanzi “In the washing house, the hierodules wave [a hūppann]i-mineral and hūšt- over the ritual patron.”

10. KUB 24.12(+) iii 27’-28’ (CTH 448.4.9a; LNS; TARACHA 2000, pp. 92-93): n=aš warpūwanzi paizzi “He (i.e. the ritual patron) goes to bathe.” 11. KUB 24.14 i 11-17 (CTH 397; NS; GÖRKE & MELZER 2016, § 3): nu anniškemi kuin UN-an nu=(š)ši=(š)šan ZAG-za UZUZAG.UDU-az 1 šēnan tehhi GÙB-anzi=ya=(š)ši=(š)šan 1 šēnan tehhi ŠA ZÌ.DA ŠE=ma išni kuedani menahhanda waššiHÁ immiyan n=at dahhi n=at=šan UN-ši anda tamašmi nu kiššan [h]ukkiškemi “I put one figurine on the right shoulder of the person that I am treating (ritually). I also put (the other) figurine on his/her left (shoulder). I take the dough of barley flour to which the (other) ingredients (have been) mixed. I press it against the person and I [c]onjure in the following way.” 12. HW² I, p. 63b; HED I/II, p. 45; HEG I, p. 20; EDHIL, p. 171.

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group of words whose meanings are related, even synonyms, refer to the body as “tied,” “bound,” “taken,” “seized,” or “held.” On the other hand, the body is described as “nailed down.” I.1. The “seized” and “tied” body I.1.1. The “seized” body

The text of the ritual against Ziplantawiya’s witchcraft describes one of the manners in which bewitchment attacks its target, in the following way: [Now,] we reconcil[e h]ere the Sun-god of blood and the Storm-god. [These] e[v]il tongues (are) dried out.13 May they hold back Zi(plantawiya) [toge]ther with [h]er children! Above, may they hold her head! May they hold her heart, her entrails, her [k]nees, her hands (and) her feet! 14

According to this passage, the evil tongues seize and take control over the body parts of the bewitched person. The text uses the Hittite verb (appa) hark- “to hold (back)”15 for expressing such an idea. The verb ep(p)-/ap(p)- “to seize”16 is used in a similar way in the context of a curse in the text of King Muršili II’s prayer about the misdeeds of Tawannanna. In his prayer, the king accuses Tawannanna of cursing him and his family before the goddess Išhara from Aštata and quotes Tawannanna’s alleged words as follows: (…) Whoever has your divinity’s silver, whoever has filled his [own] house (with this silver), will you not seize him, O goddess? Will you [not] seize his [wif]e (and) his children? Will you seize me, the innocent one? Seize [h]im! Or seize his wife (and) his children! But do [n]ot seize me, [the innocent one]!17

In this case, the deity, angry against the king because of Tawannanna’s words, is the one who seizes the victim of the curse as well as his family. This choice of verbs to refer to the action that harms the victim of a bewitchment corresponds with the descriptions of the bewitched body as “seized” (appant-, the participle of the verb ep(p)-/ap(p)- “to seize”). An example of such a description of the bewitched person is recorded in the following extract from a ritual text against witchcraft, which states: He (is) seized with respect to his feet, he (is) bou[nd, he cannot] walk. He (is) seiz[ed] by his [ent]rails/[he]art. (He is) seized […]. He (is) seized with respect to (his) eight body parts. 18

Later in the text, the ritual expert addresses the Storm-god, a Sun deity, and a Tutelary deity, saying: 13. For this translation, see CATSANICOS 1991, p. 64 n. 4. The possible connection between this word and the root hat“dry” was already pointed out by J. Puhvel (HED III, p. 265). 14. KBo 15.10+ Ro i 22-25 (CTH 443.1; MS; GÖRKE 2013, § 4): [kinuna? k]āša išhanaš DUTU-un DIM-an=(n)a EGIR-pa lilāriškiwan[i kē] i[d]ālauēš EMEHÁ hateišdānteš nu EGIR-pa fZi. [QAD]U DUMUMEŠ=[Š]U harkandu šer SAG.DU=ZU harkandu ŠÀ=ŠU genzu=šet [k]ēnuš=šet QATI=ŠU GÌRHÁ=ŠU harkandu. 15. HW2 III/1, p. 280a; HED III, p. 145; HEG I, p. 169; EDHIL, p. 304. 16. HW2 II, p. 44b; HED I/II, p. 273; HEG I, p. 107; EDHIL, p. 242. 17. KUB 14.4 iv 18-22 (CTH 70.1.A; NS; MILLER 2014, p. 527): (…) tuel=wa ŠA DINGIR-LIM KÙ.BABBAR kuiš harzi [nu=wa apēl] É=ŠU kuiš šunnišket nu=wa DINGIR-LUM apūn ŪL ēpti [ŪL=wa DA]M=ZU DUMUMEŠ=ŠU ēpti nu=wa ammuk niwallin ēpti [nu apū]n ēp našma=wa DAM=ZU DUMUMEŠ=ŠU ēp ammuk=ma=wa [niwallin l]ē ēpti. 18. VBoT 111 iii 3-5 (CTH 412.4.7; NS; GIORGIERI 1990, pp. 207 and 209): GÌRMEŠ=ŠU=war=aš appa[n]za nu=war=aš išhiy[anza nu=war=aš UL] iyannizi IŠTU [Š]À=ŠÚ=war=aš appa[nza …] appanza 8 UZUÚR=war=aš appanza.

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Whatever bewit[ching people] (have bewitched) the ritual patron, so that he (is) [seized] in these body parts, remove (from) him the blood-red (things), the bla[ck (things) (and) the yellow/green (things)]! Wrap them around the [evil] men! 19

The same incantation refers later to red, blue, and yellow/green wool that will be used to render the bewitchers red, blue, and yellow/green in turn.20 Despite the fragmentary context, this sequence strongly reminds us of a passage from the ritual of Allī (from Arzawa) against witchcraft. In this ritual, the Old Woman wraps threads of different colored wools around a figurine representing the bewitcher. Meanwhile, she pronounces an incantation, explaining that she is removing the patient’s bewitchment and sending it back to its owner. One of these sequences states: [Afterwa]rds, she treats in the same way a thread of white wool and says: “Whoever has bewitched him, whoever has bound21 him, now, here, I remove (that) from all his body parts (the duplicate adds “of the ritual patron”) and I give it back to its owner.” She wraps the thread (of wool) around the figurines. 22

Whether the ritual action recorded in these texts is the same or not, both examples show the bewitchment represented by threads of colored wool wrapped around the target, materializing the image of the bewitched body as “seized” and “bound” by the bewitchment. Finally, the participle of the verb da- “to take”23 is also used to describe the bewitched body in the incipit of the text of Allaiturahhi’s ritual against witchcraft, which says: [Thus (speaks) Allaiturahh]i, woman of the city of Mukiš: If a per[son (is) bewitched and h]is members (are) taken, [I cure] him. [I do the following], I [t]ake this: (…)24

I.1.2. The “tied” body

In other examples, the bewitched body is described as “tied” or “bound.” This type of description adds the notion of restriction to the idea of capturing the victim’s body. The following extract from the text of the ritual against witchcraft, previously quoted, clearly illustrates this meaning: “He (is) seized with respect to his feet, he (is) bou[nd, he cannot] walk.”25 19. VBoT 111 iii 7-11 (CTH 412.4.7; NS; GIORGIERI 1990, pp. 207 and 209): EN.SISKUR kuiēš alwa[nzeneš UNMEŠ?] nu=war=aš=kan apēdani ANA UZUÚRHÁ [appanza?] išharnuwanda=wa=(š)ši=kan dankunuwa[nda hahliuwanda] arha datten nu=war=at=kan ANA LÚ[MEŠ HUL anda?] hūlaliyatti. 20. VBoT 111 iii 14-16 (CTH 412.4.7; NS; GIORGIERI 1990, pp. 207 and 209): IŠTU SÍG SA5=ya=aš SÍG ZA.GÌN SÍG SIG7 SIG7 aw[an išhiyanza? ešdu?] išharnuwanteš dankunuwanteš hahl[iwanteš] ašandu “[May] he/she (i.e. the bewitcher) [be bound] with red wool, blue wool (and) yellow/green wool. May they (i.e. the bewitchers) be rendered red, black (and) yel[low]/gr[een]!” 21. For this translation, see HW² I, p. 385a. 22. KUB 24.9+ i 50-54 (CTH 402.A; NS; with dupl. KUB 41.1 7’-10’; CTH 402.H; LNS; MOUTON 2016, pp. 200201): [EG(IR)-an]da=ma (dupl. [EG]IR=ŠU ŠA) SÍG BABBAR kāpinan QĀTAMMA iyazi nu tezz[i k(uiš)]=(š)an alwanzahhišket kuiš=an (dupl. UH7-hešket kuiš=(š)an) ašarešk[(et kinun=(n)a)]=(š)ši=kan (dupl. kinun=(n)a=š[i=kan]) kāša (dupl. adds ANA EN.SISKUR) hūmandaz (dupl. hūmandaza) UZUÚR-na[z] (dupl. NÍ.TEMEŠ-za) [(daškem)i n=(at EGIR-p)]a išhaš=ši piškemi (dupl. išheš=ši SUM-eškemi) kāpinan IT[(TI ALAMMEŠ) hūlal]ēzz[i] (dupl. hal[iyanzi?]). 23. HEG III, p. 5; EDHIL, p. 803. 24. KUB 59.71 i 1-3 (CTH 780.II.Tf01.A; NS; HAAS 2007, pp. 11 and 23): [UMMA fAllaiturahh]i MUNUS URUMukiš mān antu[hšaš alwanzahhanza nu=(š)š]i NÍ.TEMEŠ-uš danza n=an EGIR-pa [SIG5-ahmi n=ašta kišsan iyami d]ahhi=ma kī. 25. VBoT 111 iii 3-4 (CTH 412.4.7; NS; GIORGIERI 1990, pp. 207 and 209): GÌRMEŠ=ŠU=war=aš appa[n]za nu=war=aš išhiy[anza nu=war=aš UL] iyannizi.

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The motion of the “bound” body is limited, impeding its normal operation. To express such an idea, Hittite texts can use the participle of the verb išhiya-/išhai- “to bind, to wrap,”26 as in the former example. The same participle describes the bewitched body in this passage from the text of Allaiturahhi’s ritual against witchcraft: They have released [the nailed down from the wood(en peg)27]. We have untied [him, the bound, from the bond. Inside] the gate, [I have untied (him)]. They have [rele]ased [the perso]n (who is) na[i]led down by the wood(en peg?). We have untied him (omitted in the duplicate), the bound, from the bond. (The duplicate adds “Inside”) the gate, as they have bewitche[d] (him), we have untied him from (his) bewitchment (duplicate: “from the bewitcher”).28

In this extract, the bewitchment itself is defined with the noun išhiyal- “bond,”29 constructed from the same root as the verb išhiya-/išhai- “to bind, to wrap.” Similarly, the choice of the Hittite verb la/lai- “to unbind, to untie”30 to describe the action that the ritual expert accomplishes in order to neutralize the bewitchment reinforces the conception of witchcraft as a bond. The same image, expressed with the same words, appears in the text of the ritual of Šalašu from Kizzuwatna against witchcraft, which is recorded in a Hittite–Hurrian bilingual tablet: From this [ti]me on, untie the bound! [R]eleas[e] the man (who is) [nai]led down by the wood(en peg?). Inside [the gate], untie the [bewi]t[ched] woman! [Inside the gate, relea]se the [bewitch]ed man! 31

The beginning of this tablet describes a rite of analogical magic including a bilingual incantation in Hurrian and Hittite. In this incantation, the Old Woman lists different kinds of evils that she wants to neutralize: I wave the hūp[uw]āi-vessel o[v]er him (i.e. the patient) and I speak in the following way: ʽMay they be broken like the hūpuwai-vessel! The (evil) words, the evil bond, the bad evil, the discord, the anger and the fury of the deities. May they be broken like the hūpuwai-vessel!ʼ I [s]trike the hūpuwai-vessel [with] a stone and I break it completely. 32

Hittite texts contain several examples of this rite consisting in waving a vessel over a patient before smashing it33—for instance, the text of Maštigga’s ritual against a family quarrel, where the vessel is

26. HW2 IV, p. 112a; HED I/II, p. 398; HEG I, p. 384; EDHIL, p. 391. 27. Translation by Alice Mouton (personal communication 20 March 2017). 28. KBo 12.85+ iii 21-27 (CTH 780.II.Tf06.A; NS; with dupl. KBo 33.119 2’-7’; CTH 780.II.Tf06.B; NS; HAAS & WEGNER 1988, p. 138): [… GIŠ-ruwandan? GIŠ-ruza? a(rha tarnir i)šhiyantan=ma=an išhiyalaz (arha lāuēn āški=ma=k)an anda lānun antuhša]n (dupl. UN-an) GIŠ-ru[wa]nda GIŠ-r[(uwaz)] arh[a tarn]ir išhiyantan=ma=an=kan (dupl. išhiyandan=ma=kan) išhiyalaz arha lāuen āški=ma=kan kuit (dupl. anda kuin) alwanzahheški[r] n=a[(n=ka)]n [(a)]lwanzahhaz (dupl. alwanzenaza) arha lāuēn. 29. HW2 IV, p. 142a; HED I/II, p. 400; HEG I, p. 388; EDHIL, p. 392. 30. CHD L-N, p. 1a; HED V, p. 28; HEG II, p. 1; EDHIL, p. 509. 31. KBo 19.145 rev. 44’-50’ (CTH 788.1.A; MS; HAAS & WEGNER 1988, p. 215; HAAS 2003, p. 430): ki[tp]andalaz išhiyandan [l]ātten LÚ GIŠ-[ruwa]ndan=ma=kan GIŠ-ruwaz [arh]a tarnat[ten āšk]i=kan anda [alwanz]ah[anda]n MUNUS-an latten [āški=kan anda alwanzahh]andan LÚ-an arha [tarnatt]en. 32. KBo 19.145 i 1-6 (CTH 788.1.A; MS; with duplicates KBo 11.19(+); CTH 788.2.A; NS; and KBo 19.141; CTH 788.3; NS; GIORGIERI 1998, pp. 72-73; HAAS 2003, pp. 751-752): [nu]=(š)ši=kan DUGhūp[uw]āi š[e]r arha wahnumi n=ašt[a (QATAMMA=pat memahhi)] hub(=)?l=ē=ž hūb(=)uv[a=š]še=ne=nna tije? su/ol=ō=bad=e āri nir(i)=ubād?=e āri kad=ugar=ni kōri kōrgorē=mā ēn(i)=n(a)=āž[=(v)e] hub(=)?l=ē=ž hūb(=)uva=šše=ne=[nna] nu=(š)šan NA4-[it? (DUGhūpuwai) w]alahmi n=at [(arha duwarnahhi)]. 33. For examples of this rite, see HAAS 2003, pp. 751-753.

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designated as a substitute for the patients.34 We can suppose a similar context here. As a ritual substitute, the vessel supposedly absorbs the miasmas of the bewitched, so that when the vessel is destroyed, the miasmas are destroyed too. In addition, the incantation provides the Hurrian term “evil bond” (sul=ō=bad=e āri), which seems to express the same idea as the Hittite designation of witchcraft as a bond. The verb hamenk-/hamik- “to tie, to bind,”35 a quasi-synonym of išhiya-/išhai- “to bind, to wrap,” is also used to describe the body affected by a magical bond, but this time as a conjugated verb, usually in the medio-passive voice. An example comes from an incantation recorded in a compilation tablet together with four more rituals.36 All these compositions have in common that they deal with a problem affecting a child, perhaps a newborn. The colophon of the incantation in question calls it “incantation (against) the bo[nd].”37 It starts with a mythological account that describes several natural elements and animals as bound.38 This situation is announced to Kamrušepa, the goddess of magic,39 who starts conjuring up the bound elements, thus untying them one by one. Further in the text, the myth gives way to the ritual prescription. At this point, a child is described as follows: The young child who (is here), he is bound with respect to his consecrated hair, he is bound downward with respect to (his) skull, he is bound with respect to (his) nose, he/she has bound his ears, he/she has bound (his) mouth, he/she has bound his tongue, he/she has bound (his) w[indpipe], he/she has bound (his) oesophagus,40 he/she has bound (his) chest downward, he/she has bound (his) lung, he/she has bound (his) liver, he/she has bound (his) entrails, he is bound with respect to his bladder,41 he is bound with respect to his anus, he is bound with respect to his knees, he is bound with respect to his hands upward. 42

34. KBo 39.8 iv 9-11 (CTH 404.1.I.A; MS; with dupl. KBo 44.18(+) iii 5’-7’; CTH 404.1.I.C2; MS; MILLER 2004, pp. 100-102; MOUTON 2016, pp. 412-415): [nu]=šmaš=kan DUGÚTUL šer arha wahnuzi (…) nu kiššan memai [(kāša)]=wa (dupl. kāša=wa=šmaš=[ma=aš]) DUGÚTUL SAG.DU=KUNU tarpalliš “She (i.e. the Old Woman) waves a pot over them. (…) She speaks in the following way: ʽHere, the pot (is) a substitute for your (pl.) person (lit. “head”).ʼ” 35. HW2 III/1, p. 111b; HED III, p. 64; HEG I, p. 142; EDHIL, p. 278. 36. For an edition of these rituals, see KRONASSER 1961 and FUSCAGNI 2017. 37. ŠIPAT hami[nkuwaš] (KUB 7.1+ iii 62; CTH 390.A; NS; FUSCAGNI 2017, § 46). However, in the colophon of the compilation tablet, the title of this ritual does not appear, probably because of a scribe’s omission. On the other hand, we have two catalogues where this ritual is recorded. One of them (KUB 30.48; CTH 390.D) includes the title, while the other (KUB 30.49+; CTH 277.2) reproduces the omission of the former scribe. On this subject, see KRONASSER 1961, pp. 164-167. 38. Norbert Oettinger interprets this passage as a description of a drought, because the river flow is also defined as bound (OETTINGER 2004, p. 352). 39. About this goddess, see HAAS 1971, pp. 419-424; KELLERMAN 1987, pp. 229-231; BECKMAN 1993, p. 33; HAAS 1994, pp. 438-441; HUTTER 2003, pp. 230-231. 40. For this translation, see CHD P, pp. 100b-101a; HED VIII, p. 183; HEG II, p. 425; EDHIL, p. 628. 41. For this translation, see CHD P, p. 95. HED VIII, p. 94 translates “belly, gut, stomach,” and HEG II, p. 418 records both possibilities. 42. KUB 7.1+ iii 32-42 (CTH 390.A; NS; FUSCAGNI 2017, § 41): [ku]eš=a DUMU-aš huelpiš n=aš šuppiš tetanuš [h]amiktat kattan=ma=aš hupallaš hamiktat [n=aš] tītitan hamiktat n=aš UZUGEŠTUHÁ=ŠU hamikta n=aš UZU KAxU-iš hamik[t]a n=aš UZUEME=ŠU hamikta n=aš UZUhu[hhurti]n ha[mi]kta n=aš UZUpappaššalan hamikta kata=ma=aš UZUGABA hamikta n=aš hahri hamikta n=aš UZUNÍG.GIG hamikta n=aš genzu hamikta n=aš UZU pantūhan=šan hamiktat n=aš UZUarran=šan hamiktat n=aš UZUginuš=šit hamiktat šer=ma=aš ŠUHÁ=ŠU hamiktat. Note that this paragraph mixes the active and the passive voices of the verb hamenk-/hamik- “to tie, to bind.”

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To counteract the bond that affects the child’s body parts, the Old Woman pronounces the following incantation in order to free each body part of the child one by one: I have untied him upward with respect to (his) skull, I have untied him with respect to (his) consecrated hair, I have untied him with respect to his ears, I have untied (his) nose, the same (i.e. I have untied) with respect to his mouth, the same with respect to his tongue, the same to (his) oesophagus, § the same with respect to his chest, the same with respect to his lung, the same with respect to his entrails, the same with respect to (his) upper part of the leg, the same with respect to (his) anus. I have untied him with respect to (his) knees, the same with respect to his hands upward. 43

Once again, the verb used to illustrate the Old Woman’s action is la-/lai- “to unbind, to untie.” This incantation against a bond is enriched by the mythological narrative, which corresponds, in Norbert Oettinger’s opinion,44 to the basic structure of the “vanishing gods” myths. According to this scholar, the ritual expert added it in order to improve the effectiveness of her incantation, thus intensifying its psychological effect. However, this is probably not the only aim of this mythological narrative. More than its alleged psychological effect, this incantation rather seems to serve as a way to involve directly the mother-goddess in the child’s cure. The ritual expert asks the goddess for help, and the goddess answers by providing instructions for curing the patient.45 Unfortunately, the text does not explain the origin of this magical bond. However, witchcraft could probably be behind it, considering that such an effect is well attested elsewhere, in contexts of witchcraft. Furthermore, the third ritual of the same compilation tablet is an incantation against (evil) tongues.46 The verbal substantive dammenkuwar is also attested in association with the bewitched mouth. It derives from damenk- “to join, to fix, to tie”47 and can be translated literally as “the fact of being fixed or attached.” It appears in the text of Allaiturahhi’s ritual against witchcraft, which states: I have taken the ʽbindingʼ of the mouth away. Let them take the dimness of the eyes away from you. 48

This “binding” of the mouth recalls the Hittite expression KAxU-uš anda hamenk-/hamik- “to tie the mouths,” which has been interpreted by Paola Dardano as “to force (someone) to silence.”49 This expression occurs, for instance, in the text of Muršili II’s prayer about the misdeeds of Tawannanna. In this text, the king accuses Tawannanna of ruining his father’s state as well as of buying the complicity

43. KUB 7.1+ iii 54-60 (CTH 390.A; NS; FUSCAGNI 2017, § 44-45): šēr=an UZUhupallaš lāūn n=an šuppauš tetanuš lāūn n=an UZUGEŠTUHÁ=ŠU lāūn UZUtititan lāūn n=an UZUKAxU=ŠU KI.MIN n=an UZUEME=ŠU KI.MIN UZU pappaššalan KI.MIN § n=an UZUGAB KI.MIN n=an UZUhahhari KI.MIN n=an UZUgenzu KI.MIN n=an UZU ulan KI.MIN n=an UZUarran KI.MIN n=an UZUgēnu lāūn šer=ma=an ŠUHÁ=ŠU KI.MIN. 44. OETTINGER 2004, pp. 352-355. 45. About myths in ritual context, see POLVANI 2004. For a similar use of incantations in birth rituals from Central Anatolia, see PUÉRTOLAS RUBIO 2019, pp. 223-224. 46. KRONASSER 1961, pp. 154-156; FUSCAGNI 2017, § 33-35. 47. HEG III, p. 77; EDHIL, p. 824. 48. KUB 24.13 ii 5-6 (CTH 780.II.Tf05.B; NS; HAAS & WEGNER 1988, p. 109; CHD P, p. 68): iššaš=(š)ta dammenkuwar arha dahhun IGIHÁ-waš=ma=ta=(k)kan kammaran arha dandu. 49. DARDANO 2002, p. 344. In the same way, SINGER 2002, p. 79 n. 5. This interpretation is also followed by MILLER 2014, p. 524, against BIN-NUN 1975, pp. 186-187, who connects this passage with Muršili’s aphasia.

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and the silence of the members of the court.50 In the context of witchcraft, a mouth bound by bewitchment would probably be unable to speak, thus putting the victim in a situation of helplessness.51 I.2. The nailed-down body The bewitched body may also be defined as “nailed down” or “stricken down.” The first term appears in the ritual texts of Allaiturahhi and Šalašu, as shows this passage from Šalašu’s ritual: We have untied him, the bound one. We have released the man (who was) nailed down. Inside the gate, I have untied the bewitched woman. Inside the ga[t]e, I have untied the bewitched man. 52

This expression is rendered by GIŠ-ruwant-, the participle of the verb taruwai-, which is itself derived from taru- “wood, tree.”53 Two translations have been suggested for this term. Volkert Haas and Hans Thiel54 have translated it as “geholzten” (wooden) or “gepflockten” (pegged), and most scholars have followed this translation, which renders the idea of being “nailed down.”55 On the other hand, the Chicago Hittite Dictionary suggests to translate this verb as “to cage(?).”56 They base their argumentation on the rituals of Allaiturahhi and Šalašu and argue that this translation fits better considering the verb arha tarna- “to let out”57 and the parallelism with “tied up.”58 However, while the description of the bewitched as “nailed down” is attested in other texts, the concept of a “caged” person, if confirmed, would be unique in the Hittite corpus dealing with witchcraft.59 A passage from the text of the ritual of Ānnā from Kaplawiya is useful to understand what the nailing down of a person could mean. This ritual is prescribed in order to treat a vineyard that does not

50. KUB 14.4 ii 10’-12’ (CTH 70.1.A; NS; DARDANO 2002, p. 345; MILLER 2014, pp. 519-520 and 524-525): apāš=ma KAxUHÁ-uš anda hamanakta nu UL=ya kuit iyan ēšta apāš=ma=at=ta=(k)kan parā pešta nu=kan É ABI=YA harnikta “However, she has tied mouths. Nothing has been done (against her), but she has delivered that to you, so that she has ruined my father’s state.” 51. A similar concept exists in Mesopotamian texts dealing with witchcraft, where a kind of witchcraft called kadabbedû (KA.DAB.BÉ.DA) “seizing-of-the-mouth” can be found. In Tzvi Abusch and Daniel Schwemer’s opinion, this witchcraft “made its victim helpless and unable to defend himself before judges and superiors generally” and it is also related to speech disorders (ABUSCH & SCHWEMER 2011, p. 3). 52. KBo 19.145 Obv. 39’-43’ (CTH 788.1.A; MS; HAAS & WEGNER 1988, pp. 214-215): išh[i]yantan=war=an arha lāuen LÚ GIŠ-[r]uwandan=ma=kan arha tarnumen āški=kan anda alwanzahhandan MUNUS-an lānun āšk[i=k]an anda alwanzahhandan LÚ-an lānun. 53. HEG III, p. 230; EDHIL, p. 849. 54. HAAS & THIEL 1978, pp. 42-43. 55. See for example HAAS & WEGNER 1988, p. 127; HEG III, p. 244; STRAUß 2006, p. 19; EDHIL, p. 849; MOUTON 2010, p. 115. 56. CHD P, pp. 239-240. 57. HEG III, p. 192; EDHIL, p. 846. 58. CHD P, p. 240. 59. Apart from these examples, there is another composition where this verb is mentioned: an incantation against evil tongues in the text of a Luwian birth ritual (BECKMAN 1983, pp. 176-199). Here, the verb refers to a lion, which will be attacked by the evil tongues together with a wolf that is described as “fettered” (Luwian patalhai-). The CHD (P, p. 239) suggests the following translation: “We (the evil tongues) are going to the lion to cage (it); we are going to the wolf to fetter(?) (it)… Let him who prepares evil for this child … see the lion caged, the wolf fettered(?).” However, the translation “nailed down” as a symptom of witchcraft also fits in this context.

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flourish because of witchcraft. The text explains that the ritual expert digs the ground, places three pegs of wood (probably of hawthorn),60 and says: May the evil person, the evil tongue (and) the evil eyes be nailed down by means of the hawthorn!61

This extract uses the verb katta tarmai- “to nail down”62 to describe a gesture which is frequently attested in purification rituals as a way of securing impurity in the Dark Earth.63 The text of Allī’s ritual against witchcraft provides a close parallel. In this ritual, the Old Woman also digs a hole in the ground, puts the ritual paraphernalia inside, covers the hole with clay and flattens it. Then, she nails some pegs down and utters an incantation stating that she has removed the bewitchment from the patient, she has put it inside the earth, and she has secured it in there.64 The use of pegs, which can be made of wood, to accomplish this ritual action may be at the origin of the expression “to be released from the wood”65 that is present in both Allaiturahhi’s and Šalašu’s ritual texts.66 Someone that has been nailed down by a wooden peg is to be released from the wooden peg.67 Another term is also used in ritual contexts describing the same action of nailing down pegs in the ground, the verb katta walh- “to strike down.”68 In addition, it is attested in an oracular text where a woman has been stricken down. The passage says: [As] they have again asked 69 Hepamuwa (about) this matter of Pattiy[a’s com]pensation, when Hepam[uwa comes], they ask her. [If Hepam]uwa speaks [as follows]: “Pattiya (has been) cursed.” [They put down] the

60. KUB 12.44+ iii 2’-5’ (CTH 392; LNS; HAAS 1988, pp. 138-139): nu KÁ-aš EGIR-an kēz kēz(z)=ya tēkan paddahhi n=ašta kēz kēz(z)= pattešni anda 3 GIŠhatalkiš tittanummi “I dig the ground behind the gate from one side and from the other side. I place on both sides three (pegs) of hawthorn wood in the hole.” 61. KUB 12.44+ iii 6’-9’ (CTH 392; LNS; HAAS 1988, pp. 138-139; MOUTON 2009, p. 428): idāluš=wa=(š)šan antūwahza idāluš EME-aš idālawa IGIHÁ-wa GIŠhatalkišnit katta tarmān ēšdu. 62. HEG III, p. 186; EDHIL, p. 844. 63. About this ritual action, see MOUTON 2012b, pp. 73-74. 64. KBo 12.126+ ii 18’-25’ (CTH 402.A; NS; with dupl. KBo 52.26+ ii 15’-20’’; CTH 402.C; LNS; and KBo 51.31 3’-5’; CTH 402.K; NS; MOUTON 2016, pp. 206-209): n=aš arahza paizzi maninkuwahhi (omitted in dupl.) tēkan paddāi nu=kan aniuraš KINHÁ anda dāi pūrut šer išhuwai nu ištalakzi nu=za GIŠGAGHÁ walahzi nu kišan tezzi kuiš kūn (dupl. adds U]N-an) alwanzahhišket kinun=a apēl alwanzata EGIR-pa dahhun n=at=kan taknai kattanda tēhun n=an tarmānun nu alwanzata idalauēš tešhuš tarmānteš ašandu n=at=kan namma šarā lē [u]izzi n=at dankuīš daganzipaš (dupl. daganzipāš) hardu. “She goes out. Next, she digs the ground and puts the ritual paraphernalia inside (the hole). She throws clay over (it) and flattens it. She strikes the pegs (down) and says: ʽWhoever has bewitched this one (dupl. adds “person”), now I have removed his bewitchment, I have put it into the ground, and I nailed it (down). May bewitchment (and) bad dreams be nailed (down)! May they not come back up! May the Dark Earth hold them back!ʼ” 65. GIŠ-ruwaz arha tarna-. 66. For examples of this sentence in context, see the passages of these ritual texts quoted in I.1.2. 67. This idea was pointed out to me by Alice Mouton (personal communication 20 March 2017). 68. HEG IV, p. 241; EDHIL, p. 945. For this use of this verb, see, for instance, the passage of Allī’s ritual against witchcraft quoted in the previous paragraph. 69. Lit. “they have put down again.”

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clothes th[ere], where Pattiya’s curse occurred. (If) Hepamuwa says: “Pattiya (has been) stricken down.” They put down the clothes there, where [Pattiya’s strike] dow[n occu]rred.70

This extract places in parallel two actions: to curse someone and to strike down someone. This has led Alice Mouton to suggest that “striking down a person” belongs to the category of witchcraft. In her opinion, this gesture is the same that appears in other ritual contexts, consisting in nailing down a peg. According to her, any belonging of Pattiya’s or a figurine representing her could have been nailed down, with the aim of bewitching her.71 As this scholar explains, that could be an argument in favor of the translation of GIŠ-ruwant- as “nailed down,” which could reflect the result of this type of ritual practice.72 Therefore, “to nail down” or “to strike down” a person would serve as a way of connecting directly the bewitched with the underground, which entails putting him in danger and closer to his death.

II. THE BODY OF THE BEWITCHER Contrary to what happens with the patient’s body, Hittite texts of anti-witchcraft rituals provide very little information about the bewitcher’s body. The main reason is the absence of the bewitcher in these rituals. Furthermore, with some exceptions, such as the ritual against Ziplantawiya’s witchcraft that has already been quoted (see I.1.1), the texts do not indicate the identity of the bewitcher in most of the cases, because they do not know who the bewitcher is. This explains why they use expressions such as “if (it is) a man (who) [ha]s treated this person (ritually) (…) [i]f (it is) a woman (who) has treated hi[m] (ritually) (…).”73 Nevertheless, many anti-witchcraft rituals require the bewitcher’s presence to make him participate in the ritual or to make him undergo different ritual actions. In these cases, the bewitcher can be materialized in the shape of a figurine, as in the ritual of Pupuwanni. In this text, two groups of figurines are made out of clay representing, on the one hand, the bewitched and his household and, on the other hand, the bewitcher and his household. These figurines will be involved in a trial, where the bewitcher will probably be found guilty and bewitched in turn.74 Regarding the second group of figurines, the text says: 70. KUB 22.70 rev. 13-16 (CTH 566; NS; ÜNAL 1978, pp. 84-87; MOUTON 2015, p. 77): kūn=ma=kan INIM fPattiy[a kuit šar]nikzilaš ANA fHepamūwa EGIR-pa tīer mahhan=ma fHepam[ūwa uizzi?] n=an punuššanzi [mān? kiššan f Hepam]uwaš memai fPattiyaš=wa hurtanza nu fPattiyaš hurtiyaš k[uedani INA] pedi ari TÚGMEŠ=ya apiy[a katta tiyanzi] fHepamuwaš=ma memai fPattiyaš=wa=kan katta GUL-anza nu [fPattiyaš] kuedani INA pedi kat[ta GULwar ar]i TÚGHÁ=ya apiya katta tiyanzi. 71. MOUTON 2015, p. 77. 72. MOUTON 2015, p. 77 n. 43. 73. Ritual of Allī from Arzawa against witchcraft KBo 12.126+ i 13 and 16 (CTH 402.A; NS; MOUTON 2016, pp. 194197): nu kūn UN-an mān LÚ-iš iyan [har]zi (…) [m]ān=a[n MUNUS-z]a=ma iyan harzi. 74. KUB 7.2 i 24-30 (CTH 408.A.1; NS; BAWANYPECK 2005, pp. 278-279): nu=kan kuitman DUTU-uš nawi uizzi nu=za EN.SÍSKUR É-ri!(HU) ištarniya ešari nu=(š)ši 1 LÚ-LUM katti=(š)ši tiyazi EN.SÍSKUR=ya kuiš ALAM IM ienzi nu=(š)ši 1 LÚ kattan tiyazi alwanzeni [x x?] ŠA IM UN-ši 1 LÚ-LUM tīzi nu EN.SÍSKUR kišan halzāi DU D UTU DLAMMA DGUL-šeš D[Tarauš=(š)a] kī=wa=za ammuk PANI DINGIRMEŠ parkuiš kuit […] “While the Sun deity has not yet risen, the ritual patron sits down inside the house. A man stands with him. (Among) those who made the ritual patron (as) a clay figurine, one man stands with him. One man stands […] for the bewitcher, the person of clay. The ritual patron calls in the following way: ʽStorm-god, Sun deity, Tutelary deity, GULšešgoddesses [and] [Tarawa] dei[ties]! As for the fact that I (am) innocent before (you), the gods, […] that!ʼ”

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[They make] as well the evil person (as) a clay figurine. They also make his gods, his servants, his chariots (and) his hor[se]s (out) of clay.75

This scant description does not provide any information about the bewitcher’s body. Unfortunately, the end of the ritual is lost, and the text does not explain what happens with these figurines after the trial. The text of the ritual of Allī against witchcraft is more explicit when describing the figurines of the bewitchers: Five figurines of clay, two of which (are) male (figurines) carrying a kurša- hunting bag (…), three female (figurines) wearing a kureššar headdress.76

The description puts the stress on the gendered elements that the figurines wear. Once again, the manipulation of both male and female figurines shows that the identity of the bewitcher is unknown and the Old Woman is covering all the possibilities. Afterwards, the text includes curses against the bewitchers and some ritual actions that aim at sending back the bewitchment to its author. This is a central topic in anti-witchcraft rituals, which actually means to bewitch the bewitcher. At this point, the bewitcher’s body becomes a bewitched one and fits into the same categories that have already been commented on in the previous section of this paper. For example, the bewitcher’s body is nailed down in the text of Ānnā’s ritual for a vineyard (see I.2.). Moreover, the sequences from the ritual of Allī where the ritual expert wraps a thread of wool around the bewitcher’s figurine recall the idea of the “bound” body (see I.1.1.). In the same ritual text, a curse against the bewitchers describes the way in which bewitchment can affect the body as follows: If a man has treated (ritually) this person, here, he carries that (i.e. the tongues) on (his) back. May he take them back (for himself)! He carries (duplicate: “May he carry”) that on (his) back. [I]f [a woman] has treated (ritually) hi[m] (i.e. the patient) and (if) you, Sun-god, you recognize her (as the bewitcher), may it be (her) kurešsar! May she put it on her head! May she take [it] back (for herself)! May it be her belt! May she put [i]t on! May it be her shoe! May she put it on!77

This extract identifies bewitchment, on the one hand, with a load that is transported on the victim’s back and, on the other hand, with the clothes of the female bewitcher. In both cases, bewitchment is in direct contact with the victim’s body, burdening it. Furthermore, the image of the bewitcher wearing the patient’s bewitchment under the shape of clothes reminds us of the concept of witchcraft as a bond wrapping the body of the bewitched.

75. KBo 15.22+ i 15-17 (CTH 408.B.1; NS; with dupl. IBoT 4.14+ Obv. 4’-6’; CTH 408.B.2; NS; BAWANYPECK 2005, pp. 285-286): HUL-lun=(n)a UN-n=a ALAM IM [ienzi] DINGIRMEŠ=ya=(š)ši ÌRMEŠ=ŠU GIŠ GIGIRMEŠ=ŠU ANŠE.K[UR.RAM]EŠ=ŠU ŠA IM=pat ienzi. 76. KBo 12.126+ i 2, 4 (CTH 402.A; NS; MOUTON 2016, pp. 192-193): 5 ALAM IM ŠÀ.BA 2 LÚ nu karpan harkanzi; i 4: 3 MUNUSMEŠ n=at TÚGkurišnanteš.

KUŠ

kurša[š]

77. KBo 12.126+ i 13-19 (CTH 402.A; NS; with dupl. KBo 11.12+ i 15-22; CTH 402.D; MS; KBo 52.27+ i 12-15; CTH 402.G; NS; MOUTON 2016, pp. 194-197): nu kūn UN-an (dupl. ant[uhšan]) mān LÚ-iš iyan harzi (dupl. LÚaš iēt) [(n)]=at kāša iškišaz karpan harzi n=e=za EGIR-pa tāu (dupl. dāu) [n]=at iškišaz karpan harzi (dupl. hardu) [m]ān=a[n MUNUS-z]a?=ma iyan harzi n=an (dupl. [n]=at) zik DUTU-uš šakti [(n)]=an TÚGkureššar ēšdu n=at=šan INA SAG.DU-ŠU šiyan hardu [(n=e)]=za EGIR-pa dāu išhuziš=at=ši ēšdu (dupl. [ēš]tu) [(n)]=e=z išhuziddu (dupl. n=e=za išhu[zziddu]) KUŠE.SIR!(MUŠ)=ma=at=ši ēšdu (dupl. [ē]štu) n=at=za (dupl. n=e=za) šarkuddu.

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CONCLUSION Hittite texts evidence the close relationship between the body and witchcraft. Firstly, the way in which witchcraft affects a person is by seizing and taking control over his body. In addition, the descriptions of the two human bodies involved in anti-witchcraft rituals—namely, the bewitched and the bewitcher—highlight various concepts of witchcraft. The bewitched body described as “tied” or “bound” reveals the concept of witchcraft as a bond, already pointed out by some scholars.78 This bond not only joins the bewitcher and the bewitched79 but also “ties” the victim in a symbolic paralysis of some sort.80 The extracts commented on in this paper show that the expression “bound body” is used to describe either the whole body or one or several body parts affected by witchcraft. Although it is tempting to try to connect this state of binding with a specific witchcraft technique, such as the wrapping of colored wool around a figurine representing the victim, the texts do not confirm this possibility. On the contrary, they associate the “bound body” with different types of witchcraft, such as curses or evil speech.81 Therefore, it seems that this expression does not refer to an effect of a specific technique of witchcraft, but rather that it describes a possible symptom of the bewitched person. On the other hand, the descriptions of the body as “nailed down” can be interpreted as the result of a specific bewitching technique, which explains why this expression seems to appear exclusively in witchcraft contexts. This bewitching technique consists in nailing down someone (perhaps represented by any of his belongings or by a figurine) by means of one or many pegs. As a consequence, the “nailed down” body would be irresistibly attracted to the underground and the world of the dead.82

REFERENCES ABUSCH T., SCHWEMER D. 2011 Corpus of Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft ritual I (Ancient Magic and Divination 8/1), Leiden – Boston, Brill. BAWANYPECK D. 2005 Die Rituale der Auguren (Texte der Hethiter 25), Heidelberg, Winter. BECKMAN G. 1983 Hittite birth rituals (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 29), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. 1993 “From cradle to grave: women’s role in Hittite medicine and magic”, Journal of Ancient Civilizations 8, pp. 25-39. BIN-NUN S. R. 1975 The Tawananna in the Hittite kingdom (Texte der Hethiter 5), Heidelberg, Winter.

78. HAAS & THIEL 1978, p. 40; HAAS 1994, p. 887; MOUTON 2010, pp. 120-121. 79. MOUTON 2010, pp. 120-121. 80. HAAS & THIEL 1978, p. 40; HAAS 1994, p. 887; MOUTON 2010, p. 120. In this sense, not only humans but also gods and natural elements can be affected by this paralysis, as the “Incantation of the bond” (CTH 390.A) shows. In this context, the “bond” entails the absence of fertility and the reversal of the cosmic order (HAAS & THIEL 1978, p. 40; OETTINGER 2004, pp. 353-355). 81. Besides, this concept is not only associated with witchcraft, but can appear also related to illness, as in KBo 12.100 (CTH 765.3; LNS; STARKE 1985, pp. 244-245), a Luwian incantation against illness, where many elements are described as “bound.” 82. MOUTON 2010, p. 121.

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CATSANICOS J. 1991 Recherches sur le vocabulaire de la faute: apports du hittite à l'étude de la phraséologie indoeuropéenne (Cahiers de N.A.B.U. 2), Paris, SEPOA. COLLINS B. J. 1997 “Purifying a house: a ritual for the infernal deities”, in The context of scripture I: canonical compositions from the Biblical world, ed. by W. W. HALLO, Leiden – New York – Cologne, Brill, pp. 168-171. DARDANO P. 2002 “ʽLa main est coupableʼ, ʽle sang devient abondantʼ: sur quelques expressions avec des noms de parties et d’éléments du corps humain dans la littérature juridico-politique de l’Ancien et du Moyen Royaume Hittite”, Orientalia NS 71, pp. 333-392. FUSCAGNI F. 2017 “Rituale der Ayatarša, Wattitti und Šušumaniga (CTH 390)”, hethiter.net/: CTH 390 (INTR 2017-0306). GIORGIERI M. 1990 Il rituale di Zuwi (CTH 412), PhD Pavia University. 1998 “Die erste Beschwörung der 8. Tafel des Šalašu-Rituals”, in General studies and excavations at Nuzi 10/2, ed. by D. OWEN & G. WILHELM (Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 9), Bethesda, CDL Press, pp. 71-86. GOETZE A. 1938 The Hittite ritual of Tunnawi (American Oriental Series 14), New Haven, American Oriental Society. GÖRKE S. 2013 “Zwei Rituale zur Besänftigung von Sonnen- und Wettergott mit der Erwähnung von Ziplantawiya, Tuthaliya und Nikkalmadi (CTH 443)”, hethiter.net/: CTH 443.1 (INTR 2013-12-19). GÖRKE S., MELZER S. 2016 “Das Ritual der Ḫepatarakki aus Zuḫaruwa (CTH 397)”, hethiter.net/: CTH 397 (INTR 2016-03-22). HAAS V. 1971 “Ein hethitisches Beswörungsmotiv aus Kizzuwatna, seine Herkunft und Wanderung”, Orientalia NS 40, pp. 410-430. 1988 “Magie in hethitischen Gärten”, in Documentum Asiae minoris antiquae: Festschrift für Heinrich Otten zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. by E. NEU & C. RÜSTER, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, pp. 121-142. 1994 Geschichte der hethitischen Religion (Handbuch der Orientalistik I/15), Leiden, Brill. 2003 Materia magica et medica hethitica, Berlin – New York, W. de Gruyter. 2007 “Notizen zu den Ritualen der Frau Allaituraḫi aus Mukiš”, Altorientalische Forschungen 34, pp. 9-36. HAAS V., THIEL H. J. 1978 Die Beschwörungsrituale der Allaituraḫ(ḫ)i und verwandte Texte (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 31), Kevelaer – Neukirchen-Vluyn, Butzon und Bercker – Neukirchner Verlag. HAAS V., WEGNER I. 1988 Die Rituale der Beschwörerinnen SALŠU.GI (Corpus der hurritischen Sprachdenkmäler I/5), Rome, Multigrafica editrice. HUTTER M. 2003 “Aspects of Luwian religion”, in The Luwians, ed. by H. C. MELCHERT (Handbuch der Orientalistik I/68), Leiden – Boston, Brill, pp. 211-280. KELLERMAN G. 1987 “KUB XVII 8 IV: un mythe du feu”, Hethitica 8, pp. 215-235. KRONASSER H. 1961 “Fünf hethitische Rituale”, Die Sprache 7, pp. 140-167. MILLER J. L. 2004 Studies in the origins, development and interpretation of the Kizzuwatna rituals (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 46), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. 2014 “Mursili II’s prayer concerning the misdeeds and the ousting of Tawannanna”, in Proceedings of the eighth international congress of hittitology, Warsaw, 5-9 September 2011, ed. by P. TARACHA, Warsaw, Agade, pp. 516-557.

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MOUTON A. 2009 “Le ‘mauvais œil’ d’après les textes cunéiformes hittites et mésopotamiens”, in Pensée grecque et sagesse d’Orient: hommage à Michel Tardieu, ed. by M. A. AMIR-MOEZZI et al. (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études sciences religieuses 142), Turnhout, Brepols, pp. 425-439. 2010 “Sorcellerie hittite”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 62, pp. 105-125. 2012a “Les rituels de la Vieille Femme Tunnawiya: témoignages du Bas Pays hittite?”, in La Cappadoce méridionale de la préhistoire à la période byzantine, ed. by D. BEYER et al. (3èmes Rencontres d’archéologie de l’IFEA), Istanbul, IFEA, pp. 79-89. 2012b “Le concept de pureté/impureté en Anatolie hittite”, in How purity is made, ed. by P. RÖSCH & U. SIMON, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, pp. 69-87. 2015 “Violence ritualisée en Anatolie hittite”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 105, pp. 69-85. 2016 Rituels, mythes et prières hittites (Littératures Anciennes du Proche-Orient 21), Paris, Le Cerf. OETTINGER N. 2004 “Entstehung von Mythos aus Ritual: das Beispiel des hethitischen Textes CTH 390A”, in Offizielle Religion, lokale Kulte und individuelle Religiosität, ed. by M. HUTTER & S. HUTTER-BRAUNSAR (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 318), Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, pp. 347-356. OTTEN H. 1981 Die Apologie Hattusilis III (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 24), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. POLVANI A. M. 2004 “Relations between rituals and mythology in official and popular Hittite religion”, in Offizielle Religion, lokale Kulte und individuelle Religiosität, ed. by M. HUTTER & S. HUTTER-BRAUNSAR (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 318), Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, pp. 369-376. PUÉRTOLAS RUBIO L. 2019 “La comadrona y la Anciana: el papel profesional de la mujer en los rituales de nacimiento de Anatolia central en época hitita”, in Género y mujeres en el Mediterráneo antiguo: iconografías y literaturas, ed. by P. D. CONESA NAVARRO, R. M. GUALDA BERNAL & J. J. MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA, Murcia, CEPOAT Publicaciones, pp. 217-234. SINGER I. 2002 Hittite prayers (SBL Writings from the Ancient World 11), Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature. STARKE F. 1985 Die keilschrift-luwischen Texte in Umschrift (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 30), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. STRAUß R. 2006 Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna: ein Beitrag zur Erforschung hethitischer Ritualtradition und kulturgeschichte, Berlin – New York, W. de Gruyter. TARACHA P. 2000 Ersetzen und Entsühnen: das mittelhethitische Ersatzritual für den Groẞkönig Tutḫalija (CTH *448.4) und verwandte Texte (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 5), Leiden – Boston – Cologne, Brill. ÜNAL A. 1978 Ein Orakeltext über die Intrigen am hethitischen Hof (KUB XXII 70 = Bo 2011) (Texte der Hethiter 6), Heidelberg, Winter.

SYLVIE VANSÉVEREN

The vocabulary of the body parts in Hittite in the perspective of Indo-European comparison

We know more than eighty words for body parts in the Hittite language. Several studies have been devoted to this vocabulary,1 or to specific terms,2 but a general synthesis is still missing at the present time. Since it is necessary to impose limits on this paper, it will be devoted primarily to the vocabulary of the parts of the human body, not of animals.3 The following pages present an overview of this vocabulary, with a focus on some words to illustrate the issues and questions that it raises.4 I do not claim to have been able to collect all the terms pertaining to body parts, but I hope at least to provide a fairly complete overview. Generally speaking, the identification of the body parts can be either easy or very difficult. Several factors are involved in the understanding of words and in the identification of the body parts referred to by a particular name. In some cases, the word is attested in different types of texts and clear enough in context to make identification possible. As a matter of fact, the problem of identification is in many cases caused by the lack or the vagueness of context. Many body parts are found in rituals in lists of body parts that provide no context and no indication of the appearance or the function of the body part. These lists usually give the body parts from the top to the bottom, in a more or less precise order, which often serves as a clue to identify them. Nevertheless, the number of body parts (from 9 to 12, or even 15 or 16) and the order in which they are mentioned vary from one series to another, even within the same ritual (examples will be given below). Some other body parts are very poorly attested or in a damaged context. For some parts, we have flawless Indo-European etymologies, and the body part is clearly identified in the other languages. Motivated forms are also more easily identifiable. But for many words, we do not have such etymologies, or the comparison raises problems pertaining to form or meaning. Furthermore, semantic discrepancies can exist among connected words for body parts in the Indo-European languages. A key 1.

ALP 1957, pp. 1-47; HOFFNER 1996; DARDANO 2002.

2.

SCHINDLER 1966, pp. 77-78; NEU 1972; PUHVEL 1976; PUHVEL 1988; PUHVEL 2002.

3.

Several terms are therefore excluded in this overview, such as auli- (probably an animal body part, but a disease in human context; see KÜHNE 1986 and Zubieta Lupo’s contribution in this volume); UZUekunant- (comestible animal body part); kaddu- n. (body part of an eagle?); UZUlapruwa- n. (body part of a goat); (UZU)maḫrai-; etc. On the body parts of animals, see MOUTON 2004 and MOUTON 2005.

4.

For interesting remarks on Sanskrit, see JAMISON 1987.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 151-169

HPUBLISHERS

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DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120943

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example is the case for words with very different meanings, such as Lat. coxa “hip bone,” Sk. kákṣa“armpit,” OIr. coss “foot.” In this case, we can explain the morphological connection only with the rough idea of “limb, joint” (*koḱs-h2-).5 Another way to identify a body part is found in the Sumerian and/or Akkadian equivalents. These can be very helpful but can also raise some issues if the context remains ambiguous and seems to refer to another body part (see below). Body parts can be identified by the use of the determinative UZU, but it is not systematically used. The metaphorical uses of the names of body parts may also be useful to confirm the identification (e.g. ḫaštai- “bone” and “(defensive) force”; ešḫar “blood” and “murder, bloodshed”). It must be stressed that this vocabulary is often said to be conservative in the sense that it is not, or quite rarely, influenced by language contact and borrowing. But at the same time, it is affected by semantic and morphological change linked to taboo, to shift from one body part to another (because of their similar appearance or because they are found in the same “area” of the body). We also have to keep in mind that the names of body parts can be a mixture of technical and popular terms, of terms for human and animal anatomy, or a mixture of terms for parts of a living body or a dead body. Synonyms are always confusing. Finally, when we try to identify a body part, we use our modern conception of anatomy, but we cannot be sure that every word has a perfect match in Hittite, in the other ancient Indo-European languages, and in our modern languages. With this in mind, we can now proceed to the Hittite vocabulary of the body parts. I do not intend to go through a list of body parts (it would be impossible to discuss each word) but instead to focus on some questions and problems. This study is still a work in progress, and I will provide only preliminary results and remarks.

I. IDENTIFIED BODY PARTS IN HITTITE I.1. Body parts identified thanks to the context and etymology Among some eighty names referring to body parts in Hittite, less than fifteen have a clear meaning and an airtight Indo-European etymology. Table 1 provides the list of them, with the Indo-European cognates in some languages.6 Hittite arki- (c.) “testicle”

Indo-European languages

Gr. ὄρχις, Arm. orji-k‘, Av. ǝrǝzi; Hitt. ark- “to mount, to cover, to copulate,” M.Ir. virge arra- (c.) “anus, arse” OHG. ars, Gr. ὄρρος (UZU) GUD.DU ēšḫar (n.) “blood” Gr. ἔαρ, Lat. sanguis, Sk. ásr̥ k, asnás, Latv. asins, Tokh. A ysār, Sum. ÚŠ B yasar

Root *h3(e)rǵh*Hors-o*h1esh2-r, *h1sh2-en-s

5.

See EDL, s.v. coxa.

6.

The general information has been collected in the main etymological dictionaries: for Hittite HEG, HED, EDHIL; for Greek DELG, EDG; for Latin DELL, EDL; for Indo-Iranian EWAi; for Germanic GED; for Baltic and Slavic LEW, EDSIL; for Celtic EDPC.

The vocabulary of the body parts in Hittite

ḫant- (c.) “forehead, face” Sum. SAG.KI, Akk. PŪTUM išḫiyani-, išḫeni- (c.) “hair, beard hair” ḫaštai- (n.) “bone” karātt- (c.) “entrails” Sum. ŠÀ (UZU) ker, kard(i)- (n.) “heart” Sum. ŠÀ, Akk. LIBBU (UZU)

genu- “knee”

genzu- (n.) “abdomen, lower belly, womb” keššar(a)- “hand” Sum. ŠU, Akk. QĀTU (UZU) paltana- (c.) “shoulder, shoulder blade” Sum. (UZU)ZAG(.LU) (UZU)

pata- (c.) “foot” Sum. GÌR, Akk. ŠĒPU *kar “head” (kit-kar “at the head”)

Gr. ἀντί “against,” ánta “face to face,” Lat. ante “in front of,” Sk. ánta“end, limit, boundary,” ánti “before”

153

*h2ent-

cf. Hitt. išḫiye/a- “to bind, wrap” *seh2Lat. saeta “bristle, animal hair” *h3esth1Sk. ásthi-, Gr. ὀστέον, Lat. os, ossis Gr. χορδή “gut,” Sk. hirā́ - “vein,” Lat. haru-spex, lit. žárnos “bowels” *ǵhorHGr. κῆρ, Lat. cor, cordis, Arm. sirt, Sk. hā́ rdi, Lith. širdìs, OIr. cride

*ḱēr, *kr̥ d-

Lat. genū, Gr. γόνυ, Sk. jā́ nu-, Tokh.A kanw-, Goth. kniu-, OHG. kniu, *ǵenu-, *ǵonukneo, Arm. cunr *ǵenh1Gr. γίγνομαι “to be born,” Sk. jan-, Lat. gignō “to engender,” nātus “born” Gr. χείρ, Arm. jeṙn, Sk. hásta-, Av. zasta-, OP. dasta-, Tokh.A tsar, B ṣar Sk. pr̥ thá- “palm,” Gr. πλατεῖα, “palm,” παλάμη “palm, hand; strength, skill,” ὠμοπλάτη “shoulder blade,” Lat. palma, OHG. folma “palm,” OIr. lám “hand,” cf. Sk. pr̥ thú-, Gr. πλατύς “wide, flat”

*ǵhes-r

Lat. pēs, pedis, Gr. πούς, ποδός, Goth. fōtus, OHG. fuoz, Sk. pád-, Arm. otn, Lith. pėda.

*ped-, *pod-

Gr. ἐπὶ κάρ “on its head,” ἀνὰ κάρ “upwards,” κάρᾱ “head,” Sk. śíras

*ḱr̥ h2-, *ḱr̥ h2-s-n-

*pl(e)h2-, *pl(e)th2-

Table 1 - Body parts identified by meaning and etymology.

Among these terms, some are poorly documented, mainly in lists of body parts in rituals (arki-, arra-, genzu-). The remaining terms are somehow exceptional in the sense that they are attested in various kinds of contexts: clear contexts, that they have known Sumerian or Akkadian equivalents, and finally, that they have good cognates in other Indo-European languages. I will focus on two words, keššar and paltana-, because they can serve as good examples for the questions of meaning and etymology. The first one, keššar, is well attested and is clearly the name of the hand—for example, in the expression “to give the hand” (kišširan or ŠU-an pai-), in KUB 20.88 i 5-7 (CTH 647):7 5. LÚSANGA DIŠKUR A-NA LÚSANGA DTe-li-pí-nu Š[U-an] 6. pa-a-i nam-ma-aš UŠ-GE-EN nu A-NA LÚSANGA D[Ka-at-taḫ-ḫa] 7. ki-iš-ši-ra-an 3-ŠU pa-a-i nam-ma-aš UŠ-G[E-EN]

7.

DE MARTINO

1988, pp. 57-59.

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The priest of the Storm God gives the hand to the priest of Telipinu and he bows; he gives three times the hand to the priest of the goddess Kattaḫḫa and he bows.

The term has cognates in other Indo-European languages, with the meaning “hand,” which makes it possible to reconstruct an old root-noun (*ǵhes-r-) for “hand.” Interestingly, this name is lacking in several languages: Latin, Umbrian, and Germanic languages have words for “hand” that are based on forms such as *mon-u- (Lat. manus), *mon-i- (Osc.-Umbr. mani, manim), or *mn-t- (OE. mund). They are probably cognate with Hittite maniyahh- “to distribute, to govern,” with the general idea of “to handle, manipulate.” Germanic languages also know another word for “hand,” such as in Goth. handus, OE. hant (without any etymology). Other terms for “hand” or related to it in the sense of “palm” are still attested in several languages: Lat. palma “palm,” Gr. παλάμη “palm,” OIr. lām “hand,” W. llaw “hand,” OE. folm “hand, palm,” OHG. folma “hand, palm.” For these words, we can postulate a root with the meaning “wide, flat,” as in Sk. pr̥ thú- or Gr. πλατύς (*pl(e)h2-). This case is interesting and reveals many of the developments pertaining to the vocabulary of body parts: while the old root-noun has been preserved in the oriental part of the Indo-European area, it has been replaced in the occidental part by new formations based on the ideas of “to handle, manipulate” or “wide, flat.” This may be due to linguistic taboo, although no substantial evidence can be provided to demonstrate it. Significantly, the root *pl(e)h2- is used for another body part in Hittite—namely, the shoulder: paltana- (c.) “shoulder, shoulder blade.” The term is attested in the ritual for Labarna-Ḫattušili (CTH 412), where the body parts are matched with those of an animal. The general formulation is “x matches x” (with the verb dāk-), and the list proceeds by contiguity, from top to bottom: (UZU)

KUB 43.53 i 1’-15’8 [his appearance] matches his appearance; his head matches his head (SAG.DU); his nose matches his nose (KIR14); his eyes match his eyes (IGI.ḪI.A); his ears match his ears (GEŠTU.ḪI.A); his mouth matches his mouth (aiš, KAxU); his tongue matches his tongue (EME); his kapru- matches his kapru-; his meli- matches his meli-; his back matches his back (iškiš-); his shoulder matches his shoulder (paltana-); his breast matches his breast (GABA); his entrails match his entrails (ŠÀ); his liver matches his liver (UZUNÍG.GIG); his lung matches his lung (ḫaḫri-); his loins match his loins (UZUÉLLAG.GÙN.A); his lower abdomen matches his lower abdomen (genzu-); his stomach matches his stomach (KARŠU); his penis matches his penis (UZUÚR); his meura- matches his meura-; his knee matches his knee (genu-); his feet match his feet (GÌR.MEŠ); his toes match his toes (ŠU.ḪI.A).

The fact that lists proceed in a contiguous order often provides some indications for the identification of a body part, as in this case, where paltana- “shoulder” is found between “back” and “breast.” Hittite paltana- is also attested in other kinds of texts, and also in vocabulary where it is given as the equivalent of Sumerian UZUZAG(.LU), Akkadian IMITTU, but also of Sumerian GÚ, Akkadian AḪU “arm.” Despite this, the meaning of paltana- as “shoulder” is quite clear from the context, as in the following passages:9 KBo 3.1 ii 29-30 (CTH 19):10 29. nu-uš LUGAL-uš kar-š[a-uš]

8.

GIORGIERI 1992.

9.

See CHD P, pp. 79-80.

10. GILAN 2015, pp. 137-177.

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30. [LÚ.MES]APIN.LÀ i-ya-nu-un GIŠTUKUL.ḪI.A-uš-šu-uš-ta ZAG.LU-za da-aḫ-ḫu-un I, the king, made them good farmers, I took their weapons from their shoulder. KUB 45.32 iii 6 (CTH 713):11 [MUNUS.L]UGAL UŠ-KE-EN n[a]-an TÚGŠÀ.GA.DÙ UZUpal-ta-ni-iš-[ši iš-ḫa-i] [The que]en bows and she puts the scarf on her shoulder.

As a matter of fact, the meaning of “shoulder blade” is not apparent from the texts, but it is foremost deduced from the etymological facts. On the other hand, the name for shoulder blade in Greek shows the same root: ὠμο-πλάτη. It is therefore possible that paltana- refers to a larger part of the body, comprising shoulder and shoulder blade. It is also possible to consider a semantic (metonymic) shift from shoulder blade to shoulder. Beside paltana-, two other words can also refer to the shoulder or the shoulder blade: ḫalḫaldana/i-, and gakkartani-.12 paltana- refers not only to the shoulder of human beings, but also to that of animals or statues, while the two other words are restricted to the human body.13 The first one, ḫalḫaldana-, is poorly attested and raises some serious issues:14 the term has two forms, ḫalḫaldana- and ḫalḫalzana-, which could be variants but remain unexplained. It seems to refer to the shoulder in association with the idea of strength, together with other terms referring to the vital attributes of a strong man, as in the ritual for the Sun Goddess of the earth: KUB 24.12 ii 30-33 (CTH 448)15 30. ŠA mtu-ut-ḫa-li-ya-ma-mu 31. ŠA LÚGURUŠ ḫa-aš-ti-ri-ya-tar ḫa-aš-ta!-a-i [ḫal-ḫ]a-an-za-na-an! 32. i-in-na-ri-in la-ap-la-ap-pa-an [za-ma-an-kur] 33. ša-ra-a tar-ne-eš-tén Send up the heroism, the bone, the ḫalḫalzana-, the eyebrow, the eyelash, the beard of me, Tudḫaliya, as a youth.

We find possibly the same kind of allusion in the mythological text about the disappearance of the sun, in a broken context: KUB 36.44 iv 7’-8’ (CTH 323)16 7’. nu-za a-ru-na-aš DUGḪAB.ḪAB-a[n ... ] 8’. [ ... ]x ḫal-ḫal-da-a-ni-iš-ši da-iš The Sea put a jug on his (own) shoulders.

11. WEGNER 1995, pp. 88-91 (n. 13). 12. ḫalḫaldana- and gakkartani- are reduplicated formations. The etymology is difficult: ḫalḫaldana- could be connected with the name of the “corner” (ḫalḫaltumar(i)-) and the verb “to kneel, to bend” (ḫaliye/a-). The shoulder could therefore be “that which bends:” PUHVEL 1988, pp. 255-258. On the other hand, gakkartaniremains obscure. 13. See HED, s.v. ḫalḫalzana-, gakkarta(n)ni-. 14. See HW² H for attestations. 15. TARACHA 2000, pp. 86-94. 16. RIEKEN et al. 2009b.

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Here ḫalḫaldana- can refer to the shoulder, as it is an appropriate place to put a vessel. According to Melchert, it is also possible that the term refers to another body part associated with the idea of strength, such as loins or thigh.17 The last word for this area of the body is gakkartani-. It is found only in the ritual of Zuwi. In this case, the identification is based solely on the fact that gakkartani- appears between shoulder (UZUZAG.UDU) and back (iškiš), hence leading to the possibility that the term refers to the shoulder blade:18 KUB 35.148 iii 14-19 (CTH 412)19 14’. na-an-ši-pa an-da ZAG-az e-ep-mi UR.TUR-aš-za ma-aḫ-ḫa-an 15’. 9 UZUḫa-ap-pé-eš-˹šar˺-še-et li-ip-zi 16’. nu-kán an-tu-uḫ-˹ša˺-an ŠUM-ŠU ḫal-zi-iḫ-ḫi 17’. ki-i-el-la ḫa-˹ap˺-pé-eš-na-aš i-na-an QA-TAM-MA 18’. li-ip-du UZUZAG.UDU-aš i-na-an li-ip-du 19’. ga-kar-ta-an-ya-aš-ša-aš i-na-an li-ip-du 20’. na-an-ši EGIR-pa iš-ki-ša-az ḫu-i-nu-mi I take it (the puppy) with the right (hand) (and say): “Just as the puppy licks its own nine body parts—then I call the person by name—in the same way let it lick the illness of his members. Let it lick the illness of the shoulder! Let it lick the illness of the shoulder blade.” And I make it (the puppy) run on his back.

I.2. Body parts identified thanks to the context only For other names of body parts, the facts are different. The identification is unambiguous, through the contexts, and/or in accordance with Sumerian or Akkadian equivalents. An Indo-European etymology is postulated—with serious issues, however. Table 2 includes these forms, with the cognates in other Indo-European languages. The third column indicates the main problems that arise. As can be seen, they relate chiefly to the semantic or to the phonetic aspect of etymology. Hittite aiš, išš- (n.) “mouth” Sum. KAxU, Akk. PŪ ḫarganau- (c.,n.) “palm of the hand, sole of the foot”

ḫaršar (n.) “head” Sum. SAG(.DU) iškiš- (n.) “back” ištaman- (c.,n.) “ear” Sum. GEŠTU, Akk. UZNU

(UZU) (UZU)

Indo-European languages Lat. ōs, ōris, Sk. ā́ s, Av. āh-, OIr. á, CLuw. āaš-, OPrus. austo, OCS. usta “mouth” Gr. ὀρέγω “stretch,” Sk. r̥jú“straight,” Av. ǝrǝzu- “straight; finger” Sk. śíras, śīrṣnás Gr. ὄρος “mountain,” Sk. r̥ṣvá“high” cf. DUGḫarši “pithos” Gr. ἰσχίον “hip, hip bone” Gr. στόμα “mouth,” Av. staman “maw,” OHG. stimma “voice”

17. MELCHERT 2003, p. 286 and n. 14. 18. POETTO 1979. 19. For this passage, cf. TORRI 2003, p. 86.

Issues *h3eh1-e/os phonetics: initial *h3 in Hittite (lost)? *h3reǵphonetics: initial *h3 in Hittite (preserved)? *ḱr̥h2-, ḱr̥h2-s-nphonetics: *ḱ > Hitt. ḫ (instead of regular k)? *h3er- “to be high” (head = which is high) cf. Lat. testa “jar” > Fr. tête semantics; no etymology *stemh1- (?) semantics: “mouth” vs “ear”

The vocabulary of the body parts in Hittite

kuttar (n.) “(nape of the) neck, top of the shoulders” Lat. guttur “throat” Sum. GÚ Gr. φῦσα “breath,” Sk. phuphusapuri- (c.) “lip” “lung,” Arm. p‘uk‘ “breath, wind”

(UZU)

Lat. oculus, Sk. akṣī́ , akṣṇás, Gr. ὤψ, ὄμμα, Lith. akìs, šakui-, šakuwa- (n.) “eye(s)” OCS. oko, Goth. augo, Arm. akn Sum. IGI, Akk. ĪNU “eye”

šankuwai- (c., n.) “nail” Sum. UMBIN zama(n)kur- (n.) “beard” and šamankurwant“bearded”

Goth. saihwan “to see,” OSax. seggjan “to show” Lat. unguis, Gr. ὄνυξ, OIr. ingen, OCS. nogŭtĭ, Lith. nagùtis, nãgas, OHG. nagal Sk. śmaśru- (n.), Arm. mauru-k’ “beard,” Lith. smãkras, OIr. smech “chin”

157

*gout-r/gut-nsemantics: “neck” vs “throat” *pu- “to swell” + suffix -ri root? (*bh(e)u-?) *h3ekʷ- “eye” with s-mobile in Hittite only? phonetics: *kʷ > Hitt. ku?

*sekʷ- “to see” *h3n(o)gh-u-, *h3n(o)gh-lwith s-mobile in Hittite only? *smoḱ-ur, *smoḱ-ru phonetics: initial z-, š- in Hittite

Table 2 - Body parts identified by meaning, with etymological issues.

Hitt. aiš, išš-20 “mouth” and ḫarganau-21 “palm of the hand, sole of the foot” are connected with formations that imply initial *h3. For these two words, *h3 would be in one case lost (aiš) and in the other (ḫarganau-) preserved. But the treatments of *h3 remain very complex, particularly in the initial position.22 In the case of iškiš, the comparison is made to Gr. ἰσχίον solely on semantic grounds. The meaning also emerges from the figurative uses of the word—for example, iškiš lagan ḫar(k)- “to bend the back” as a sign of reverence, iškiša pai- “to go on the back” (i.e. “to mount”). In addition to (kit-)kar as a name for “head” (see Table 1), Hittite also presents ḫaršar, which is quite well attested.23 The meaning is confirmed by the equivalent SAG.DU, and it is also clear from the contexts. It refers to the head as a body part, especially when it is used with words referring to disease, and to the person as a whole24 (as also can tuekka- or ešri-)—for example, in the myth and conjuration of the fire: KUB 17.8 iv 7 (CTH 457)25 nu-wa ḫar-ša-na-aš-ša-aš GIG-aš kam-ma-ra-a-aš ki-ša-ru na-at ne-pí[-ša] pa-id-du May the illness of his head become smoke and may it go to the sky.

20. EDHIL, s.v. postulates *h1eh3-e/os. 21. WEITENBERG 1984, pp. 223-224; HED, s.v. contra KLOEKHORST 2006, pp. 93-94. 22. Cf. KIMBALL 1999, pp. 384-387 and 393-394, KLOEKHORST 2006. Consider also arki- and ḫaštai- in Table 1. Cf. also EDHIL, s.v. 23. See HW² H for examples. 24. Cf. SAG.DU aggatar/ÚŠ-tar “capital punishment, death penalty” (lit. death of the head); cf. DARDANO 2002, p. 361 n. 113. 25. Cf. FUSCAGNI 2012; cf. SOYSAL 2017.

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As seen above, a name for head (*ḱerh2s-r-) can be reconstructed on the basis of Sk. śíras, Gr. κάρᾱ, and Hitt. kit-kar. It is very tempting to put ḫaršar together with these formations, but the comparison is very difficult, since the palatal *ḱ does not normally develop into an aspirated in Hittite26—unless the phonetic facts are forced on the basis of a semantic connection. Yet there are other possibilities: one of them is to see the head as “that which is high” and to compare Greek ὄρος “mountain,” ὄρνυμαι “to arise” (*h3er-). This would fit quite well with the use of the head as the top in expressions such as “main towns, main countries” (e.g. SAG.DU.MEŠ KUR.KUR.MEŠ) or “capital sin” (SAG.DU-aš waštul).27 As a third possibility, ḫaršar could be a Hittite formation, related to the word for “pithos” (DUGḫarši), as in Latin testa “jar” and French tête.28 The names for “eye” and “ear” are also interesting for etymological issues. The following passage shows that both terms are semantically clear in Hittite: KUB 12.21 10’-11’ (CTH 438)29 10’. nu ku-it IGI-it uš-ke-ši (cf. KBo 20.31 18 nu ku-it ša-a-˹ku!-it˺ uš-ke-š[i]) 11’. ku-it-ta-ia iš-ta-ma-an-ta iš-ta[-ma-aš-ke-ši] What you see with your eyes, what you hear with your ears

The forms for the “eye” in the Indo-European languages are related to two roots. On the one hand, an old root-noun (h3ekʷ-) is well attested in several languages: Lat. oculus, Sk. akṣī́ , akṣṇás, Gr. ὤψ, ὄμμα, Lith. akìs, OSl. oko, Goth. augo, Arm. akn. If Hitt. šakuwa- is to be connected with it, the problem is to explain the initial s-, which is missing in all the other forms. The only possible explanation would be to postulate a root with s-mobile, which would be attested only in Hittite šakuwa-. Although this is not impossible, it is neither satisfactory nor economical from a linguistic point of view. On the other hand, Gothic saihwan, modern German sehen, provides another root—namely, *sekʷ-. This connection seems less uncertain, but leaves Hittite šakuwa- quite isolated and disconnected from the important and consistent group of words for “eye.”30 The word for “ear” is also noteworthy from the semantic point of view of etymology. Hittite diverges from other languages, which have old root-nouns (*h2eus/h2ous: Gr. οὖς, Lat. auris, OIr. áu, Av. uši (dual), Lith. ausìs, Goth. auso), or formations derived from the well-attested root *ḱlew- “to hear” (OIr. clúas “ear,” OE. hlyst “hearing,” hlystan “to listen,” Goth. hliuma “hearing,” Sk. śrótra- (n.) “ear, hearing”). Hitt. ištaman- has been connected with the name for “mouth,” as in Greek στόμα “mouth,” Avestan staman- “maw.” The comparison has been generally accepted despite the semantic discrepancy. To justify the connection, we have to postulate a root pertaining to production and perception of sounds.31 26. See HED, s.v.; EDHIL, s.v.; KIMBALL 1999, p. 266. 27. The first possibility is retained by Puhvel, while it is rejected by Kloekhorst who favors the comparison with ὄρος. 28. Cf. NUSSBAUM 1986, p. 21 and n. 4. Cf. also Lat. caput, OIr. cúäch “cup” (*kapuko-), for which we can reconstruct a root *keh2p- (Lat. capiō “to grab”). RIEKEN 1999, pp. 310-311 retains this connection and assumes the following development: *h2ers- “head, ball” → *h2ers-i- (adj.) “round” → round container, round bread, big bread → *h2ers(r̥ )/h2ersn- “head.” 29. ÜNAL & GÖRKE 2016. 30. Both etymologies raise another issue, pertaining to -ku- which corresponds to *gʷ or *gʷʰ rather than to *kʷ (cf. EDHIL, s.v. with the discussion). 31. HED, s.v. istamas(s)- and especially pp. 460-461. The reconstruction is difficult (Puhvel postulates *stemh1-n̥ , *stomh1-n̥ ; EDHIL and EDG assume *steh3mn-).

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The vocabulary of body parts also contains many words which have a clear or quite clear meaning, but which are isolated and have no cognates in other Indo-European languages. Some of these show typical features of body-part vocabulary, such as reduplicated, onomatopoeic, or expressive formations and also variation in forms. Table 3 provides an overview of these terms, with their characteristics. The third column indicates whether a name for the body part can be reconstructed from the data in other Indo-European languages. Hittite Morphological characteristic ener(a)-, inir(a)-, innari-, inniri- (n.) “eyebrow” variation Akk. ŠUR IGI, ŠU-ÚR E-NI reduplicated

no IE name

ḫala- (c.) “head, skull” Sum. SAG.DU

cf. *kar “head,” ḫaršar “head,” tarna- “skull”

*ḱr̥ h2-, ḱr̥ h2-s-n-, cf. Hitt. *kar (Table 1)

gaga- (c.) “tooth” Sum. ZU9

reduplicated

*h3d-(o)nt-: Gr. ὀδών, ὀδόντος, Sk. dánt-, Lith. dantìs, OHG. zan(d), Goth. tunþus, Lat. dēns, OIr. dét

kalulupa- “finger, toe”

reduplicated

no IE name

lāla- (c.) “tongue” Sum. EME, UZUEME

reduplicated, onomatopoeic

lalu- (n.) “penis” Voc. Akk. išāru, mušāru

*dnǵh-u- (?): Lat. lingua, dingua, OIr. tengae, Goth. tuggo, OHG. zunga, OIsl. tunga

onomatopoeic, child language

no IE name

laplippa- (c.), laplapa(c.), laplipa- (c.), laplapi- (n.) “eyelash”

variation reduplicated, onomatopoeic

(UZU)

ḫaḫ(ḫa)ri- “lung”

Other Indo-European languages IE root-noun *h3bhreuH- “eyebrow, eyelash:” Gr. ὀφρῦς, Sk. bhrū́ -, OIr. °bru-, Lith. brùvė, OCS. brŭvĭ, OE. brú “eyelash”

(UZU)

lišši- “liver” Sum. UZUNÍG.GIG, Akk. KABITTU tapuwašš- “rib, side” Sum. UZUTI tarna- (c.) “skull” Voc. Akk. muḫḫu tetana- (c.) “hair” (UZU)

titita- (n.) “nose”

secondary formation (?, cf. tapuš“side” with adverbial use) cf. *kar “head,” ḫaršar “head,” tarna- “skull” reduplicated, onomatopoeic reduplicated, onomatopoeic

IE root-noun *h3bhreuH- “eyebrow, eyelash” : Gr. ὀφρῦς, Sk. bhrū́ -, OIr. °bru-, Lith. brùvė, OCS. brŭvĭ, OE. brú “eyelash” *(H)yekʷ-r/n-: Gr. ἧπαρ- ατος, Lat. iecur, Sk. yákr̥ t, yaknás, Av. yākarǝ no IE name *ḱr̥ h2-, ḱr̥ h2-s-n-, cf. Hitt. *kar (Table 1) no IE name *(H)neh2s-: Lat. nāsus, Sk. nas, OP. nāh-, Av. nā̊ŋha (dual), Lith. nósis, OHG. nasa

Table 3 - Body parts identified, without Indo-European cognates.

Generally speaking, the meaning of the words can be deduced from the clear, or relatively clear, contexts in which they appear. Some examples: laplippa- and enera- often appear together. The meaning of laplippa-, enera-, and tetana- is quite clear, especially in the following passage: Hitt. enera- remains isolated and without etymology. Other languages have an old root-noun: *h3bhreuH-: Gr. ὀφρῦς, -ύος (f.), Sk. bhrū́ - (f.), OIr. °bru-, Lith. brùvė, OCS. brŭvĭ, OE. brú (and in the modern

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Germ. languages eye-brow). There are no Indo-European names for “hair” or “eyelash,” the forms being very different from one language to another. In all likelihood, Hitt. laplippa- and tetana- are onomatopoeic and reduplicated forms. The meaning of titita- “nose” is deduced from its place in the list of body parts given in the ritual and conjuration of Ayatarša, Watti(ti), and Šuššumaniga. It appears among terms referring to parts of the face or head: KUB 32.8 iii 6-8 (CTH 762)32 6. ku-it-ma-an-ma-za-an BE-EL SÍSKUR 7. IŠ-TU SAG.DU-ŠU te-e-ta-an la-ap-li-e[-pa-an] 8. e-ni-e-ra-an-na ḫu-u-i-it-ti-ya-an-na-i While the ritual patron pulls from his head a hair, an eyelash, an eyebrow KBo 3.8 iii 32-34 + KUB 7.1 iii 1-2 (CTH 390)33 32. na-aš šu-up-pí-iš te-e-ta-nu-uš 33. ḫa-mi-ik-ta-at kat-ta-an-ma-aš ḫu-pal-la-aš ḫa-mi-ik-ta-at 34. [na-aš] ti-i-ti-ta-an ḫa-mi-ik-ta-at na-aš UZUGEŠTU.ḪI.A-ŠU 35. = KUB 7.1 iii 1: 1. [ḫa-mi-i]k-ta na-aš UZUKAxU-iš ḫa-mi-ik-ta na-aš UZUEME-ŠU 2. ḫa-mi-ik-ta His sacred hair is bound, his skull is bound, his nose is bound, his ears are bound, his mouth is bound, his tongue is bound.

A name for “nose” is widely represented in the Indo-European languages (*(H)neh2s-): Lat. nāsus (and nāris; pl. nāres also “nostrils”), Sk. nas (f.), OP. nāham (acc.sg.), Av. nā̊ŋha (dual), Lith. nósis, OHG. nasa. Greek has replaced this old name with ῥίς (ῥῑνός, pl. ῥῖνες “nostrils, nose”), which seems specific to this language and remains without a satisfying etymology. The “tongue” in Hittite very often appears in the expression “evil tongue” in reference to a type of curse. It can also refer to the tongue of statues or to models used in rituals. KBo 2.3 iii 42-44 (CTH 404)34 42. kat-ta-wa-ra-aš-ma-[aš-kán] 43. wa-ar-ša-an e-eš-tu i-da-a-la-u-wa ud-da-⌈a⌉-[ar] 44. KAxU-aš EME-aš Let them be removed from you, (namely) the evil words of the mouth and tongue! KBo 39.8 iii 6-7 6. ke-e-da-ša-wa-aš-ša-an 7. i-da-a-lu-uš la-a-la-aš QA-TAM-MA tu-e-ek-ki le-e pa-iz-zi Likewise, let the evil tongue not go onto the body of these ones!

32. STARKE 1985, p. 118. 33. OETTINGER 2004, pp. 348-352. 34. MILLER 2004, pp. 61-124 (80, 103 for the two passages); MOUTON 2016.

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The name for “tongue” is attested in several Indo-European languages: Lat. lingua, formerly dingua, OIr. tengae, Goth. tuggo, OHG. zunga, OIsl. tunga. For Latin, lingua is explained by the influence of lingō “to lick.”35 The forms present divergences (especially in vocalism) while being etymologically connected (*dnǵh-u- has been postulated), which indicates specific evolution, the influence of other forms, taboos, or popular etymologies. The Hittite name of the tongue is certainly onomatopoeic and remains isolated.

II. AMBIGUOUS NAMES OF BODY PARTS The identification and analysis of a term designating a part of the body requires a sufficient number of attestations in a clear enough context, as the meaning is required to perform morphological analysis. If meaning remains ambiguous or obscure, this can seriously affect any investigation attempt. This is the case for many words pertaining to body parts in Hittite, as listed in Table 4. Several words are attested only in body-part lists in rituals. In this case, the contiguous ordering of the lists often provides the only clue to identify the body part (as seen above with gakkartani- “shoulder” and titita- “nose”). The second column in the table provides the sequence in which the words occur in body-part lists in rituals. Some terms are also attested in other texts, but the context is often ambiguous or broken. Possible meaning anašša- “low part of the back, back”

antaka-, antakitti- “loin” ekdu-, ikdu- (n.) “leg” ḫalanta “head” Voc. Akk. RĒŠU “head,” Sum. GÚ “neck” ḫalḫald/zana- (c.) “shoulder” see commentary on paltana- (Table 1)

List of body parts in ritual ZAG.UDU “shoulder,” iškiš- “back,” anašša-, arra- “arse”

UZU

ḫaštai- “bone,” ḫalḫalzana-, innari- “eyebrow”

ḫapuš-, ḫapuša(š)- (n.) “penis,” “shinbone” cf. GI ḫapušaš “arrow rod” ḫu(wa)ḫḫurti- (c.), ḫurḫurta- (n.) “throat, trachea” cf. ḫu(wa)ḫḫu(wa)rtalla- (n.) “necklace” ḫupallaš- (n.) “skull,” “scalp”

ḫupparti- “pelvis(?),” tašku- “scrotum(?),” ḫapuš-, GÌR “foot” UZU KAxU “mouth,” UZUEME “tongue,” ḫuḫḫurti-, UZU pappaššala- “oesophagus(?)” tetana- “hair,” ḫupalla-, titita- “nose”

išḫunau- (c., n.), išḫunauwar “arm,” “sinew”

UZU

kapru- (n.) “throat,” “nose”

ZAG.UDU “shoulder,” išḫunau-, kalulupa“finger”/ŠU “hand” UZU ZAG.UDU “shoulder ,” gakkartani-, iškiš “back” EME “tongue,” kapru-, meli-

meli- (c.,n.) “ganglion(?)”

EME “tongue,” kapru-, meli-, iškiš “back”

gakkartani- (c.?) “shoulder blade”

35. The same relationship is assumed in Armenian (lezow, cf. lizanem “to lick”) and Lithuanian (liežuvìs, cf. liẽžti “to lick”).

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meni/a- (n., c.) “face,” “cheek” panduḫa- “stomach,” “bladder” Akk. KARŠU paršena-, paršna- “cheek,” “loins, hip, buttock” patalḫa- (c.) “sole of the foot; ankle” used with GIŠ to designate a wooden item worn on the foot or leg šakutt(a)- (n.) “hip, thigh, buttock” taggani- (c.?) “breast” Sum. GABA, Akk. IRTU taršna- (c.) “throat” tašku- (c.) “testicle,” “scrotum,” “thigh bone”

(UZU)

(UZU)

teta(n)- (n.) “breast, udder”

genzu- “abdomen,” pantuḫa-, arra- “arse” genu- “knee,” [...], paršnaGÌR.MEŠ “feet,” patalḫaÉLLAG “loin,” auli-, šakutt(a)-, genu- “knee” taggani-, NÍ.TE “body,” EME “tongue” SAG.DU “head”, taršnaḫupparti- “pelvis(?),” tašku- “scrotum(?),” ḫapuš-, GÌR “foot”

Table 4 - Ambiguous words for body parts in Hittite.

Hittite anašša- is a good example of the tension that can exist between meaning and morphology from the perspective of etymology. This difficult word is attested in the ritual of Zuwi in a list of body parts: KUB 35.148 iii 24 (CTH 412)36 21. U[R.TUR SAG.DU-aš] 22. i-na-an li-ip-du me-li-ya-[aš-ša-aš] 23. i-na-an KI.MIN UZUZAG.UDU-aš iš-ki-ša-a[š?-ša-aš (?)] 24. i-na-an KI.MIN a-na-aš-ša-aš-ša-aš i-n[a-an KI.MIN] 25. ar-ra-aš-ša-aš i-na-an KI.MIN Let the puppy lick the illness of (his) head, the illness of his meli- likewise, the illness of (his) shoulder and back likewise, the illn[ess] of his anašša- [likewise], the illness of his arse likewise!

anašša- is found between back (iškiš) and arse (arra-). It could therefore refer to the lower part of the back, perhaps the hip or the buttock. The context is so laconic that it is impossible to be more precise. Nothing can be said regarding the etymology, unless we consider that the list does not proceed by contiguity and that anašša- can refer to another body part. In this way, the word has been connected with some names of the shoulder in other languages (*h3/h2om-s-o-: Lat. umerus, Sk. áṁsa-, Gr. ὦμος, Goth. ams, Arm. ows).37 Aside from the phonetic issues regarding the Hittite word, no element can be put forward to support this hypothesis. ḫu(wa)ḫḫurti- (c.), ḫurḫurta- (n.) most likely refers to the throat or trachea. The derivative ḫu(wa)ḫḫu(wa)rtalla- (n.) “necklace” provides an additional element in favor of the meaning “throat.” The term, probably expressive and reduplicated, remains without an etymology. Besides body-part lists, the word is attested in another context, in connection with ḫalwammar “cheerful laugh” (vel sim.):38

36. See EDHIL, s.v. anašša- for the text. 37. HED, s.v. anašša-. Contra EDHIL, s.v. anašša-. POETTO 1979, p. 205, points out that the text does not make it possible to know a priori whether anašša- belongs to a man or a woman, to a human or an animal. The author proposes a comparison with lat. ānus, and a general sense of “orifice” for Hittite. 38. See HW², s.v.

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KBo 12.96 i 9-10 (CTH 433)39 9. na-aš-ta an-da QA-TAM-MA-pát me-ma-aḫ-ḫi a-iš-za-kán Ì-it 10. ˹šu˺-u-wa-an-za e-eš UZUḫur-ḫur-ta-ma-za-kán ḫal-wa-am-na-az šu-wa-an-za [e-eš] Then, at that same time, I speak in the same way, (namely): “Mouth, be filled with oil! ḫurḫurta, be filled with a cheerful laugh!”

Hitt. kapru- is discussed semantically. Poorly attested, it is found in the ritual of Zuwi and in the Decree of Ḫattušili I on the banning of Tawananna: KBo 3.27 Obv. 6-10 (CTH 3)40 6. ˹UR˺-RA-AM ŠE-RA-AM fTa-wa-na-an-na-aš [ŠUM-ŠU] 7. le-e ku-iš-ki te-ez-zi ŠA DUMU.MEŠ-ŠU [DUMU.MUNUS.MEŠ-ŠU] 8. ŠUM-ŠU-NU ˻le˼-e ku-iš-ki te-ez-zi tak-ku DUMU.M[EŠ] 9. kap-ru-uš-še-˹et˺ ˻ḫa˼-at-ta-an-ta-ru na-an a-aš-k[i-iš-ši] 10. kán!-kán-du In the future, let no one say Tawananna’s [name]; let no one say the names of her sons (and) [daughters]. If one of the children (pronounces her name), let them cut off his kapru- and hang him41 on [his] door.

The word is often understood as “throat,” and therefore for this passage, “cut someone’s throat” (then hang that person at his door).42 But other designations are also identified for the throat (ḫu(wa)ḫḫurti- (c.), ḫurḫurta- (n.); taršna- (c.) “throat”); hence the possibility that kapru- refers to another part of the body that can be cut (e.g. the nose).43 This last interpretation finds little support, since the “nose” and kapru- are mentioned as two different parts of the body in the ritual of Zuwi.44 For meni/a, the meanings “face” or “cheek” are generally retained. The first one can be justified by the use of the word with nai- “to turn,” as in the following passage: KUB 20.38 vo 15’-17’ (CTH 650)45 15’. me-e-ni-eš-mi-it LUGAL-i n[e-ya-an-ta] 16’. iš-ki-i-ša LUGAL-i ˹na-at˺-[ta] 17’. ne-ya-an-ta (The women) turn their faces towards the king, they do not turn their backs on the king.

The sense “cheek” is deduced from this passage: KUB 29.9 i 9-11 and 14-15 (CTH 532)46 9. ták-ku an-tu-wa-aḫ-ḫa-aš GIŠNÁ-aš 10. še-eš-zi nu-uš-ši-kán iš-ša-al-li 39. BAWANYPECK 2005, pp. 72-84. 40.

DE MARTINO

1991; GILAN 2015, pp. 99-103.

41. Line 9 n=an refers to one of the sons and not the cut organ, which is gender neutral (kapru=ššet). 42. So GILAN 2015, p. 100 (“Kehle durchschneiden”); HED, s.v. kapru-. 43. HEG, s.v. kapru-. 44. KUB 43.53 i 1-6, cf. HAAS 1971, pp. 410-430 (pp. 415-416 for this passage); GIORGIERI 1992, pp. 47-98 (63 for this passage). 45. GRODDEK 2004, p. 66. 46. GÜTERBOCK 1957–58, pp. 78-80.

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11. pa-ra-a ZAG-ni mi-e-ni ar-ši-ya-az-zi If a man sleeps in his bed and saliva flows on his right cheek 14. nu-uš-ši-kán KAxU-az iš-ša-al-li 15. [pa-r]a-a GÙB-li mi-e-ni a-ar-ši-ya-zi and saliva flows out of his mouth on his left cheek

As the cheek is a part of the face, it is difficult to distinguish between the two possibilities, especially since the contexts are not varied. One might also consider the idea of the term referring to the cheekbone, or a zone including the cheek and the cheekbone, as a place located below the eyes. This could explain the expression “turn the face” (the cheekbone, i.e. to look at someone). The etymology of the term remains difficult, and several hypotheses have been put forward: the root *men“think” (cf. Sk. manyate, Gr. μέμονα, Lat. meminī, and also Luw. manā- “see”); or a root *men“surpass, protrude,” seen in Lat. ēmineō, promineō and perhaps also mentum “chin,” Goth. munþs.47 To close this overview, there are a number of terms that remain unexplained. It is not even always clear whether they refer to body parts. addiḫuwarlaišgaranda kušili luntarniš, body part? marai-, body part? menu-, body part? meri(t)-, body part? meura-, miura, body part? miyanišši, body part? miniu-, body part? mištipandatti-, body part? pattarta- “entrails”? purgauniniu-, ḫarniu-, ḫurniu- “arm”? zuntišta, body part? Table 5 - Obscure words, perhaps related to body parts.

Among these words, some are often discussed. For example, ḫarniu-, ḫurniu- is an extremely difficult term, obscure in its form and meaning. It is attested only in the Hittite version of Gilgameš, where the hero’s appearance is described: KUB 8.57 6-9 (CTH 341)48 6. š[a-am-né-er-ma] 7. šal-la-uš DINGIR.MEŠ-uš DGIŠ.GIM!.MAŠ-un ALAM-ši p[ár-ga-aš-ti]

47. See HEG, s.v. with the references. 48. RIEKEN et al. 2009a.

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8. 11 AM-MA-TUM GABA-ma-aš-ši pal-ḫa-a-aš-ti 9 w[a-ak-šur?] 9. [U]ZUḫar!?-ni-uš-ma-aš-ši da-lu-ga-aš-ti ⌈3?⌉[ ... ]

The great gods c[reated] Gilgameš. His size (was) 11 cubits in h[eight], his torso (was) 9 w[akšur] in width, his ḫarniu- (was) 3 (...) in length.

The reading can be ḫarniu- or ḫurniu-. The term comes after ALAM “waist, silhouette, shape” and GABA “chest, torso,” which provide no good clue for the identification of the body part. “Arm” or “penis” have been postulated.49 For addi-, the possibility of a body part is deduced from the fact that it precedes tuekka- “body,” aiš “mouth,” and EME “tongue.”50 But, apart from that, the text gives no hint of what the term can refer to: KBo 15.10 i 16-18 (CTH 443)51 16. ki-nu-na-wa A-NA fZi. ad-di-eš-še-eš pal-ḫa-a-e-eš 17. [tu-]⌈e-ek⌉-ke-e-eš-še-eš SIG5-an-te-eš mi-iš-ri-wa-an-te-eš a-iš a-pé-el 18. [SIG5-]⌈in⌉ EME a-pé-el SIG5-an-za Now the addi- are broad for Zi(plantawiya), her limbs are good and perfect, her mouth is good, her tongue is good.

Finally, as an example of a rather desperate case, the word :mišti is thought to refer to a body part,52 but the context is damaged: KUB 36.35 iv 14-19 14. [ ... SAG.DU]-⌈za⌉ te-e-⌈da⌉-na-an [ ... ] 15. [ ... IGIḪI.A-Š]Ú?-⌈ši⌉-kán ú-wa-a-tar da-a-a[š] 16. [ ... ] iš-ta-ma-aš-šu-wa-ar da-⌈a⌉-[aš] 17. [ ... -a]m?-⌈ma⌉-al-li da-a-aš IŠ-T[U ... ] 18. [ ... ] ⌈:mi⌉-iš-ti-in d[a-a-aš]

He took a hair from his head; he took sight from his eyes; he took hearing from his ears; he ...; he took mištifrom his ...

The word may refer to a part of the body (cf. hair), but also to a faculty, such as hearing or sight. “Wink” or “glance” from eyelids or “fluttering” of eyelashes have been suggested.53 The other instance of the word appears in a figurative use to denote something of little importance.54 Besides this, the text does not give any further evidence. A few words, finally, on some characteristics that emerge on the morphological level. Motivation is often an important element for the analysis of the words pertaining to body parts, in Hittite as well as in other languages. Although some suffixes seem to be distinctive, we cannot go much further in the analysis. Several formations seem to have a suffix -ana/i- (paltana-, gakkartani-, ḫalḫaldana-, 49. WEITENBERG 1984, p. 44, proposed to read mi-ni-uš, but the term is still isolated and obscure. 50. See HED, s.v. adda-, addi-. 51. GÖRKE 2013. 52. So CHD, s.v. mišri-. 53. See HED, s.v. maišt-, takes mišti- as connected to maišt(a)- “fiber, flock of wool” (cf. the expression mašiwantan “as much as a fiber of wool” for something nugatory).

SÍG

maištan

54. KBo 16.62 + KUB 13.35 iv 19-19a: ki-nu-un-ma z[i-la-d]u-wa :mi-iš-ti-in li-e da-at-te-eni “But from now on, do not take (even) a mišri-.” (WERNER 1967, pp. 12-13).

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išhiyani-, taggani-). Others have a suffix -ri-:55 ešri- “physical appearance” is best explained as a derivative with the suffix -ri- on eš- “to be,” which we also find in puri- “lip,” (UZU)ḫaḫ(ḫa)ri- “lung.” A root meaning “to blow” seems likely for puri-, but ḫaḫ(ḫ)ari- remains unexplained. Hitt. ḫappeššar “joint, limb, body part” is obviously based on ḫapp- “to join, to attach.” The connection between ḫalḫaldana- “shoulder” and ḫaliye/a- “to kneel,” išḫiyani- “hair,” and išḫai/išḫiya- “to bind, to wrap” is less explicit. ešri- “shape, physical appearance” ḫalḫaldana- “shoulder” ḫappeššar, ḫappešnant- “joint, member, body part” ḫaršar “head” ḫu(wa)ḫḫurti- “throat” ḫupallaš- “skull”

eš- “to be” ḫaliye/a- “to kneel” (i.e. to bend) ḫapp- “to join, to attach” cf. DUGḫarši- “pithos” cf. ḫu(wa)ḫḫu(wa)rtalla- “necklace” cf. ḫuppar(a)- “jar, bowl, pot”

ḫupparatt-, ḫupparti- “pelvis”

cf. ḫuppar(a)- “jar, bowl, pot”

išḫiyani-, išḫeni- “hair” išḫunau- “arm” puri- “lip”

išḫai/išḫiya- “to bind, to wrap” išḫuwa- “to throw” *pu- “to swell” Table 6 - Motivated words for body parts in Hittite.

CONCLUSION To conclude this overview in a few words, I hope to have been able to highlight some distinctive features of the vocabulary of the body parts in Hittite as well as in the other Indo-European languages. This vocabulary raises many issues, due in particular to replacement and renewal of forms. The crucial elements are provided, on the one hand, by the context and, on the other hand, by the etymology (Tables 1 and 2) and the motivated aspect of the terms involved (Table 6). Contexts are in many cases incomplete or laconic, which often complicates the identification of a body part (as in the examples of ḫalḫald/zana-, kapru-). The case of lists of body parts in rituals is quite representative in this respect, since it is the order of the elements alone that allows the identification to be deduced (as in most of the words in Table 4). Several body-part names are quite well preserved in the Indo-European languages: head, eye, nose, hand, foot, knee, mouth, blood, heart, testicle, bone (Tables 1, 2, and 3). Most of these are old unmotivated root-nouns. They are sometimes preserved in a small area of Indo-European languages and have been replaced in several languages, including Hittite (Table 3, tooth: Hitt. gaga- vs IE *h3d(o)nt-; nose: Hitt. titita- vs IE *(H)neh2s-; liver: Hitt. lissi- vs IE *(H)yekʷ-r/n-; eyebrow: Hitt. ener(a)-, inir(a)- vs IE *h3bhreuH-). A number of etymological connections are probable, but give rise to serious phonetic or semantic problems (see Table 2). Semantic discrepancy appears especially in motivated formations, as in the root *pl(e)h2- “being flat, wide,” attested in Hitt. paltana- “shoulder” next to the names of the palm or the hand in other languages. For some parts of the body, it is not possible to reconstruct an Indo-European name (this is the case for leg, back, belly, breast, hip, forehead, face, lips, hair).

55. Cf. NEUMANN 1957, pp. 87-90.

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REFERENCES ALP S. 1957 “Zu den Körperteilnamen in Hethitischen”, Anatolia 2, pp. 1-47. BAWANYPECK D. 2005 Die Rituale der Auguren (Texte der Hethiter 25), Heidelberg, Winter. DARDANO P. 2002 “‘La main est coupable’, ‘le sang devient abondant’: sur quelques expressions avec des noms de parties et d’éléments du corps humain dans la littérature juridico-politique de l’Ancien et du Moyen Royaume hittite”, Orientalia NS 71, pp. 333-392. DE MARTINO S. 1988 “L’atto di ‘baciare’ nel culto e nella vita quotidiana degli Ittiti”, in Studi di storia e filologia anatolica dedicati a Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, ed. by F. IMPARATI (Eothen), Firenze, ELITE, pp. 57-65. 1991 “Alcune osservazioni su KBo III 27”, Altorientalische Forschungen 18, pp. 54-66. FUSCAGNI F. 2012 “Mythos und Beschwörung des Feuers (CTH 457.1)”, hethiter.net/:CTH 457.1 (INTR 2012-12-19). GILAN A. 2015 Formen und Inhalte althethitischer historischer Literatur (Texte der Hethiter 29), Heidelberg, Winter. GIORGIERI M. 1992 “Un rituale di scongiuro antico ittita per Labarna-Ḫattušili”, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 29, pp. 47-98. GÖRKE S. 2013 “Zwei Rituale zur Besänftigung von Sonnen- und Wettergott mit der Erwähnung von Ziplantawiya, Tuthaliya und Nikkalmadi (CTH 443)”, hethiter.net/:CTH 443.1 (INTR 2013-12-19). GRODDEK D. 2004 Hethitische Texte in Transkription KUB 20 (Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie 60), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. GÜTERBOCK H. G. 1957–58 “A Hittite parallel”, Archiv für Orientforschung 18, pp. 78-80. HAAS V. 1971 “Ein hethitisches Beschwörungsmotiv aus Kizzuwatna, seine Herkunft und Wanderung”, Orientalia 40, pp. 410-430. HOFFNER H. A. 1996 “Form head to toe in Hittite: the language of the human body”, in“Go to the land I will show you”: studies in honor of Dwight W. Young, ed. by J. E. COLESON and V. H. MATTHEWS, Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, pp. 247-259. JAMISON S. 1987 “Linguistic and philological remarks on some Vedic body parts”, in Studies in memory of Warren Cowgill, ed. by C. WATKINS (Studies in Indo-European Language and Culture 3), Berlin, de Gruyter, pp. 66-91. KIMBALL S. 1999 Hittite historical phonology (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 95), Innsbruck, Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. KLOEKHORST A. 2006 “Initial laryngeals in Anatolian”, Historische Sprachforschung 119, pp. 77-108. KÜHNE C. 1986 “Hethitisch auli- und einige Aspekte altanatolischer Opferpraxis”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 76, pp. 85-117. MELCHERT H. C. 2003 “Hittite antanka- ‘loins’ and an overlooked myth on fire”, in Hittite studies in honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr. on the occasion of his 65th birthday, ed. by G. BECKMAN et al., Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, pp. 281-287.

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MILLER J. L. 2004 Studies in the origins, development and interpretation of the Kizzuwatna rituals (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 46), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. MOUTON A. 2004 “Anatomie animale: le festin carné des dieux d’après les textes hittites I. Les membres antérieurs”, Colloquium Anatolicum 3, pp. 67-92. 2005 “Anatomie animale: le festin carné des dieux d’après les textes hittites II. Les membres postérieurs et d’autres parties anatomiques”, Colloquium Anatolicum 4, pp. 139-154. 2016 “Rituel de Maštigga de Kizzuwatna contre des querelles domestiques (CTH 404.1.I)”, hethiter.net/:CTH 404.1.I (INTR 2016-03-23). NEU E. 1972 “Hethitisch genu-/ganu- ‘Knie’”, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 86, pp. 288-295. NEUMANN G. 1957 “Hethitische Etymologien I”, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 75, pp. 87-90. NUSSBAUM A. 1986 Head and horn in Indo-European (Studies in Indo-European Language and Culture NS 2), Berlin – New York, de Gruyter. OETTINGER N. 2004 “Entstehung von Mythos aus Ritual: das Beispiel des hethitischen Textes CTH 390A”, in Offizielle Religion, lokale Kulte und individuelle Religiosität: Akten des religionsgeschichtlichen Symposiums “Kleinasien und angrenzende Gebiete vom Beginn des 2. bis zur Mitte des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr.” (Bonn, 20-22. Februar 2003), ed. by M. HUTTER (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 318), Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, pp. 347-356. POETTO M. 1979 “Some parts of the body and secretions in Hittite”, in Hethitisch und Indogermanisch, ed. by E. NEU and W. MEID (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 25), Innsbruck, Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, pp. 205-208. PUHVEL J. 1976 “‘Finger’ in Greek, Latin and Hittite”, Indogermanische Forschungen 81, pp. 25-28. 1988 “‘Shoulder’ and ‘corner’ in Hittite”, in A linguistic happening in memory of Ben Schwartz: studies in Anatolian, Italic, and other Indo-European languages, ed. by Y. L. ARBEITMAN (Bibliothèque des Cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 42), Louvain-la-Neuve, Peeters, pp. 255-258. 2002 “Latin guttur and Hittite kuttar: an amicable separation”, in Donum grammaticum: studies in Latin and Celtic linguistics in honour of Hannah Rosén, ed. by L. SAWICKI and D. SHALEV (Orbis Supplementa 18), Leuven – Paris – Sterling, Peeters, pp. 295-297. RIEKEN E. 1999 Untersuchungen zur nominalen Stammbildung des Hethitischen (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 44), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. RIEKEN E. et al. 2009a “CTH 341.III.1 - Gilgameš: Erste Tafel der hethitischen Version”, hethiter.net/:CTH 341.III.1 (INTR 2009-08-12). 2009b “CTH 323.1 - Vom Verschwinden und der Wiederkehr der Sonnengottheit”, hethiter.net/:CTH 323.1 (INTR 2009-08-12). SCHINDLER J. 1966 “Hethitisch lišši ‘Leber’”, Die Sprache 12, pp. 77-78. SOYSAL O. 2017 “A new join KUB 17.8 + Bo 6172: mythological description of a natural disaster in ancient Anatolia?”, NABU 2017/46. STARKE F. 1985 Die keilschrift-luwischen Texte in Umschrift (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 30), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz.

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TARACHA P. 2000 Ersetzen und Entsühnen: das mittelhethitische Ersatzritual für den Groβkönig Tuthalija (CTH *448.4) und verwandte Texte (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 5), Leiden, Brill. TORRI G. 2003 La similitudine nella magia analogica ittita (Studia Asiana 2), Rome, Herder. ÜNAL S., GÖRKE S. 2016 “Ratschläge für einen König (CTH 438)”, hethiter.net/:CTH 438 (INTR 2016-06-27). WEGNER I. 1995 Hurritische Opferlisten aus hethitischen Festbeschreibungen. Teil I: Texte für IŠTAR-ŠAUŠKA (Corpus der hurritischen Sprachdenkmäler I/3), Rome, Bonsignori. WEITENBERG J. 1984 Die hethitischen u-Stämme (Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur 52), Amsterdam, Rodopi. WERNER R. 1967 Hethitische Gerichtsprotokolle (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 4), Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz.

STÉPHANIE ANTHONIOZ

The divine face in the Book of Isaiah: religious contexts and challenges

The Ancient Mesopotamians did not distinguish the body from the person.1 Contrary to the Platonic and Cartesian traditions of the dichotomy between a body—anatomic, material, and temporal but mainly fragile—and a spirit—intellectual, spiritual, universal, and infallible—both Sumerians and Akkadians understood the person as the assemblage of its parts, which are not only bodily parts but also names, functions, and images. As there is no dichotomy, no separation between the physical and psychic functions, bodily parts are endowed with cognitive functions and may symbolically represent the whole person. In biblical studies, this renewed approach has permitted us to give back, so to say, to the physical person all its importance.2 Moreover, this conception of the unity of the person, widespread in the Ancient Near East, applies also to the divine world:3 gods are to some extent present in their objects, their places, and their attributes. Within the frame of this project, which aims at revisiting the body and its conceptions whether on linguistic, social, or ideological grounds, I would like to pursue a question that has long been debated about the divine face in biblical texts: does not one seek in the divine face all that a divinity is, whereas the arm reflects only power, for example? Indeed, among all the bodily parts, the face represents the unique site which constitutes an interface between the interior and the exterior of the person, the being rather than the appearance.4 As a consequence, the face may refer to the divine statue in many cultic and religious contexts.5 1.

WESTENHOLZ 2012, pp. 459-477; PONGRATZ-LEISTEN 2011, pp. 137-187. Also DHORME 1923, p. 6. The author speaks of a “répugnance à séparer le corps de l’âme qui le vivifie.”

2.

See the works of SCHROER & STAUBLI 1998; more recently SCHROER & STAUBLI 2013, pp. 5-19; STAVRAKOPOULOU 2013, pp. 532-553.

3.

WAGNER 2014; WAGNER 2010.

4.

“Remarquons d’abord que les anciens ont surtout considéré le visage comme la partie du corps qui voit et qu’on voit. Pour reconnaître un homme, c’est le visage qu’on regarde, et pour savoir ce qu’il éprouve c’est à son visage qu’on demande la réponse. C’est par le visage, notamment par les yeux qui en sont l’élément le plus expressif, que l’homme manifeste ses états d’âme. (…) Le visage étant ce qui apparaît et le cœur ce qui n’apparaît pas, c’est au visage qu’on demande de servir d’interprète. Qu’il s’agisse de l’état physique ou moral de l’individu, c’est par son visage, autrement dit par sa mine ou sa physionomie, qu’on peut le diagnostiquer.” DHORME 1923, pp. 43 and 51. See also GILLMAYR-BUCHER 2004, p. 306.

5.

VOLOKHINE 2001, pp. 369-391; DHORME 1923, pp. 48-49. In biblical studies, this question opens a difficult debate regarding the material representation of the divinity Yhwh. See HARTENSTEIN 2008; BALENTINE 1984; NÖTSCHER 1924.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 171-183

HPUBLISHERS

BREPOLS

DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120944

172 Stéphanie Anthonioz From a linguistic point of view, in Hebrew, one has to note the particularity of the substantive “face,” since the verbal root (‫פנה‬, *pnh, “to turn”) serves different usages, among which the prepositional one is the most common (‫)פני‬. The nominal use is always plural, ‫פנים‬, and spreads over a large lexical field from the “forehead” to the “surface.”6 The substantive also designates the “presence.” The meaning of the face thus reflects the common stylistic device of a synecdoche, designating the whole by the part. Yet, the use of the root is so often prepositional7 that translations usually opt for the expression “before x” rather than “before the face of x.” However, this choice in religious contexts is highly ideological; and by removing the face of the divinity, have not translators of the biblical texts opted for a divinity with no physical representation, thus conforming to the Deuteronomic law and ban on images? In the Book of Isaiah, the first occurrence of the word is symptomatic: “When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more” (1:12). The translation of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible conceals the difficulty in Hebrew, since the Masoretic Text has obviously been corrected: the sequence “When you come to appear,” which is literally “to be seen” or “to show oneself” (nifal infinitive), is followed immediately by “my face” as an object (‫ )לראות פני‬even though nifal forms bear no object in Hebrew.8 This seems to indicate that not a passive nifal but an active infinitive qal lir’ôt was read, followed immediately by its object, as other witnesses testify, so that one should understand the original text to have been: “When you come to see my face.”9 This correction of the vocalization is a sign that at one point the reading tradition could no longer accept the idea of contemplating the divine face in the temple. The Masoretic re-vocalization obviously meant to deny any possible and material representation of the divinity and thus asserted the absence of any cultic statue in the sanctuary. The aim of this contribution is to present the different references to the substantive “face” in the prophetic Book of Isaiah—it would be impossible here to embrace every biblical book in its own literary and historical context—and to show how these references not only confirm the essential function of this bodily part in a context of religious communication but also give an opportunity to apprehend major diachronic evolutions both in the composition of the book and the religious context and to try to grasp the challenges of representing or not representing the divinity.

6.

In Akkadian, the substantive panu opens up a wide lexical field: according to the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), 1. forehead and frontal part; 2. surface; 3. appearance; 4. rank, position; 5. past; 6. choice, intention, plan, opinion; 7. reciprocal (math.); 8. panū (pl.), face; 9. panū (pl.), dignity, prestige. The adjective panû (paniu, fem. panītu) signifies 1. before; 2. first, following; 3. preceding, past; 4. designation of an official. Finally, the verb panû (panā’u) signifies 1. to advance; 2. to turn towards someone; 3. to transfer, to turn back. The plural is thus, as in Hebrew, reserved for the notion of face and by extension that of presence in the sense of dignity or prestige. See DHORME 1923, pp. 42-67.

7.

See the different uses in BROWN et al. 201214.

8.

The rest of the line goes on as quoted except for the verb “to trample,” since the Hebrew notifies the hand not the feet trampling the courts of God. One would have expected the feet rather than the hands, unless some exercise of veneration implying prostration is considered.

9.

This is shown by different Hebrew manuscripts and the Syriac version. This is also indicated by the Masoretic vocalization, since one would expect the form lehérâ’ôt rather than lérâ’ôt for the nifal infinitive construct. P. Joüon proposes a syncope of the consonant h, but also indicates that the vocalization could be faulty. See JOÜON 1996, § 51b. For P. Dhorme, there is no doubt that the verb was primitively an active form and that seeing God meant presenting oneself in the temple where the divinity dwelt as one would present oneself before a king for service. DHORME 1923, p. 49. See also CHAVEL 2012, p. 17.

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Within the frame of this introduction, it is therefore necessary to review all the occurrences of the root (‫ )פנה‬in the Masoretic Text. This review will also provide an outline for this study. The prepositional usage is, unsurprisingly, the most common one in the Book of Isaiah. The verbal usage is attested with the meaning of “turning (oneself)” (8:21; 13:14; 45:22; 53:6; 56:11) or “preparing” in the sense of “putting out of the way” in the piel or intensive form (40:3; 57:14; 62:10). Among the occurrences of the substantive (‫)פנים‬, one may note diverse expressions or constructions.10 And those concerning the divine world are numerous enough to be divided into three distinctive groups: 1. the hidden face; 2. the divine presence; and 3. the divine absence. 1/ The hidden face 1a. the face hidden by the wings of the Seraphs, since the Hebrew allows such an interpretation— we will return to this (6:2); the angel before the divine face (63:9) 1b. Yhwh’s face hidden from the house of Jacob (8:17; 54:8); the divine face hidden by the sins of men (59:2; 64:6). 2/ The divine presence 2a. Yhwh before / in the face of men (45:2; 52:12) 2b. before / in the face of Yhwh (62:11; 65:6; 66:22) 2c. man before / in the face of Yhwh (48:19; 53:2; 57:16; 65:3); the mountains before Yhwh (63:19; 64:2); the nations (64:1) 2d. those who dwell before / in the face of Yhwh (23:18); Hezekiah before Yhwh in his house—that is, the temple that the king has come up to (37:14); Hezekiah with his face turned to the wall in prayer (38:2); Hezekiah before the face of Yhwh in truth (38:3); all flesh in worship (66:23) 3/ The divine absence 3a. those who on the contrary have gone away from his face (26:17); a people unceasingly provoking him to his face and sacrificing in the gardens (65:3) 3b. those who want to keep him away (30:11)—literarily, to make him cease. The review of the occurrences of the word offers a great frame to the book in the expression of the “hidden face” (6:2 / 8:17 // 54:8 / 64:6). Two different semantic groups are identified: the divine presence and absence. Moreover, the development of these references seems to follow closely the development of the book. Indeed, the first part of the book, also called First-Isaiah (1–39), does not develop the image of the face in any way except in its final section 36–39 (// 2 Kgs 18–20), which may be considered an extremely late contribution to the whole book, aimed at including not only the Deutero- (and Trito-) Isaiah but also the whole book in the library of the Neviim.11 The image of the face develops in Deutero-Isaiah (40–55) and in the last part, Trito-Isaiah (56–66). It is therefore 10. For instance, the dignitary (‫ונשוא פנים‬, 3:3; 9:15); of their own accord (‫ונגד פניהם‬, 5:21); the face of the poor ( ‫ופני‬ ‫עניים‬, 3:15); faces of men (13:8; 25:8; 36:9; 50:6.7; 53:3); the aspect of their face (3:9); the face of the world (14:21; 27:6); of the earth (24:1; 28:25); the face of the veil that veils all peoples (25:7); the face of Jacob (29:22). See GRUBER 1983a, pp. 252-260; DHORME 1923, pp. 46-47. 11. ANTHONIOZ 2013, pp. 113-144.

174 Stéphanie Anthonioz necessary to study in detail these two sections, one after the other. However, our examination will begin with First-Isaiah in order to grasp the divine portrait in these chapters and the ideology at work there. It is indeed at the threshold of this part that the prophet has the vision of God in his temple.

I. FIRST-ISAIAH I.1. Historical context and the Isaianic Memoir If First-Isaiah is rightly considered the oldest section of the book, bearing the traces of the prophet’s own intervention in the political scene, it seems appropriate to recall briefly its historical and international context. During the summer of 734, Damascus and Israel, now governed by Peqah (737– 732), seek to force the king of Judah, Ahaz, into an alliance against Assyria. This is the famous SyroEphraimite crisis. When Ahaz refuses to join the revolt, the northern allies invade Judah with the intention of replacing its king (2 Kgs 16:5; Isa 7:1–8.15; 17:1–6; Hos 5:8–14; 8:7–10). Contrary to the advice of the prophet, Ahaz asks Assyria for help. As a consequence, the following year, TiglathPileser III annexes Galilee and Transjordan and creates the provinces of Megiddo and Gilead.12 It is in this dramatic situation of lost national and royal autonomy that First-Isaiah may be contextualized—not all of the book, of course, but its core around chapters 6–8 or 9, also called the “Book of Emmanuel,” “Mémoire d’Isaïe” or “Denkschrift.”13 It is usually agreed that, in this Memoir, a collection of oracles belong to the prophet himself, as he was interfering with the royal authorities during the crisis.14 Isaiah would have come and met the Judean king Ahaz and urged him not to fear (Isa 7:4), to trust in Yhwh (7:9), and even to dare to ask him for a sign (7:11). That is, Isaiah asks Ahaz precisely not to turn to the Assyrian king for help. According to U. Berges, the verses that should be dated to this time are 1:21–25; 2:12–17 and 6:1– 8:18, whereas the promises concerning the southern dynasty and Emmanuel (7:14; 9:1–6; 11:1–9) would better fit a postexilic context with the democratization of the notion of kingship and the importance of the role of Zion, as heir to the Davidic promises.15 If exegetical hypotheses may remain uncertain concerning the detail of the verses, there is no doubt that however old the verses may have been, their meaning becomes fully intelligible in the new context they have been inserted in. This is precisely the demonstration that K. Schmid has provided for the Isaianic Memoir.16 The harsh mission that is imposed on the prophet of hardening the people’s hearts and ears and eyes (6:9–11) reflects the strategy of the book: to show its content to have been rejected by its contemporary hearers so as to be all the more accepted by the following generations of readers.17 Consequently, it is precisely the failure of the mission that led to scribal activity—the writing of the Memoir—in the hope that later generations would not forget but change their mind and behavior, thus proving that the words of the prophet were right. This analysis is particularly illuminating. It highlights (without denying the historical dimension of the prophecy) the scribal processes of writing and rewriting.

12. Cf. 2 Kgs 15:19–20. See TADMOR & YAMADA 2011; COGAN & TADMOR 1979, pp. 491-508. 13. See MARTI 1920, pp. 113-121; and, more recently, WAGNER 2006; PROKHOROV 2015. 14. VERMEYLEN 1977–1978. 15. BERGES 2012. 16. SCHMID 2014a, pp. 123-124. Also SONNET 1992, pp. 208-239. 17. SCHMID 2014a, p. 124.

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I.2. The architecture of First-Isaiah and divine anger Other collections of oracles from the same prophetic milieu would have been edited later at the time of Manasseh (697–642) or Josias (640–609);18 and, beyond divine threats, promises would have been added concerning the Davidic dynasty and the protection of Zion. During the Exile, these collections would have been gathered in a scroll and form what we call the First-Isaiah, with its eschatological structure. Thus, its architecture is clear. Chapters 1–12 represent the sin and woe of Juda. These are followed by the divine judgement against the nations (13–27) in the hope and expectation of the final victory of Jerusalem (28–35).19 First-Isaiah is clearly built as an arch from divine judgement and anger to salvation. The theology of the Memoir is thus conceived against the backdrop of divine judgement and wrath. This wrath may not be silenced, in spite of the salvation announced in Isa 35, and is coherent with the recurrence of this theme in biblical texts in general.20 Indeed, it is very much in accord with the vision which the prophet receives at the dawn of his mission and the divine hidden face (Isa 6). I.3. The hidden face of the prophetic vision The substantive “face” is not found in the inaugural prophetic vision, because the divine face is hidden. Let us take a closer look at the narrative of the vision. According to the fiction, the prophet speaks in the first person “I saw” (6:1). Date and place are specified (in the year that King Uzziah died, in the temple), so the vision is clearly historicized. What has Isaiah seen in his function of an (obviously) cultic prophet? He has seen “the Lord” himself (‫אדני‬, 6:1), even if the divine name is not pronounced. This time, the verbal form is not a nifal. The action of seeing and looking at the divinity is fully assumed. But what is in fact observed? If the divinity sits on the throne and the hem of the robe fills the temple, the divine face is not contemplated. Indeed, the Seraphs stand above, each with six wings by which they conceal two particular bodily parts, the face and the feet, the highest and lowest points—that is, the whole person. One may ask whose face and whose feet the divinity or the Seraphs conceal, since the Hebrew allows for both interpretations. However, since the Seraphs also fly with their wings, it goes without saying that all translations have understood the Seraphs to conceal their own faces and feet. However, symbolically the Seraphs hide the divine grandeur.21 Thus, the vision proceeds in the glory of the Lord thrice repeated: it is the Seraphs who call one another and call on the name of God, this time “Yhwh of hosts.” His grandeur is then measured out: “the whole earth is full of his glory” (6:3). Not only is the glory and holiness thrice repeated but also the root of plenitude and fullness (‫)מלא‬. The prophet speaks again, this time to cry out his unworthiness (6:5). He also formulates his vision more clearly, as he uses the same verb of seeing but this time names the divinity revealed by the Seraphs as Yhwh (6:5). It is his eyes that have seen and witnessed the divinity. Then comes a small interlude during which one of the Seraphs takes a live coal from the altar and touches the prophet’s mouth in order to purify him (6:6–7). The prophet does not see but 18. CLEMENTS 1987, pp. 50-61. 19. In detail, VERMEYLEN 2010, pp. 17-71. 20. See the large lexical field of divine wrath (‫“ אף‬wrath,” 5:25 and ‫כעס‬, 65:3, ‫“ חמה‬furor”; ‫“ חרון‬divine ardor,” 13:9.13; ‫“ קצף‬irritation,” 8:21; 34:2; 47:6; 54:8; 57:16; 60:10; 64:4.8; ‫ זעם‬and ‫“ זעף‬indignation,” 10:5.25; 13:5; 26:20; 30:27; 66:14) and their recurrence in the Prophets and the Psalms. 21. According to S. Z. Aster, the inaugural vision would fundamentally constitute a polemic against the omnipotence that the Assyrian ideology attributed to kingship and that the spatiality of the throne room was supposed to convey. See ASTER 2015, p. 21. Also HARTENSTEIN 2007, pp. 155-188.

176 Stéphanie Anthonioz hears now the voice of the Lord asking “whom shall I send, and who will go for us?,” and he answers immediately the famous “Here am I; send me!” (6:8). This is followed by the complex mission of which we have written previously: hardening the ears and eyes of those to whom the prophet is sent so that his audience may neither comprehend nor understand and so that the mission will be a failure: Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed (6:10).

Interestingly, it is precisely the verbs of the prophetic vision—to see and to hear—that are used, as if what the prophet had himself received could not be shared. The prophet speaks again to ask until when this must go on (6:11) and receives the enigmatic oracle of the destruction of the land, its desolation and the Exile (6:12–13). When the disaster will have occurred, people will remember the words of Isaiah and that they had understood nothing of it; otherwise, they would have acted upon it and would have been saved. The prophet’s words were true in that the hidden face and representation of the vision are not in contradiction with the prophetic oracle. On the contrary, the vision announces both divine wrath and imminent desolation. The motif of the hidden divine face is certainly not insignificant in the context of the final redaction of the vision—that is, the destruction and desolation which can be none other than Exile. Indeed, divine wrath is commonly represented in the ancient Near East by the image or metaphor of the hidden divine face.22 This hidden face is the sign of wrath and also of divine absence in the temple.23 If one looks into the corpus of Mesopotamian lamentations24—the liturgical corpus concerning the leveling of temples and appeasing of the gods—the hidden face or bowing down of the face is an important motif. It also makes clear the absence of the statue during the renovation of the place, the covering of the head clearly referring to part of the ritual. The divinity goes away from his or her place, covers his or her face—and thus hides it. In this sense, there is no doubt that the text of the vision of Isaiah in its final state is marked by the exilic crisis and the imminent question concerning the absence/presence of the divinity Yhwh in the temple of Jerusalem. The Memoir as the inaugural vision makes sense at the time of the final redaction of the book. For now, let us remember that the Seraphs veil and conceal the face of the Lord Yhwh and only unveil and reveal his wrath.

II. DEUTERO-ISAIAH Deutero-Isaiah proceeds to demonstrate that this wrath is not final but only temporary and that joy, consolation, and salvation are at hand. The ideological logic at work in this new addition to the book of Isaiah leaves no doubt about its historical context, as it looks at the Exile behind. II.1. Historical context and exegetical hypotheses According to traditional exegesis, Deutero-Isaiah (40–55) contains the collection of an anonymous prophet or prophetic milieu, some of which is contemporary with Cyrus (539–530). While the 22. See HEINTZ 1979, pp. 427-437. The author examines the expression of God hiding (‫אל מסתתר‬, Isa 45:15) and in light of a letter of Mari (ARM X 50 1–14) describing the absence of the statues of the goddess and other divinities in the temple of Bēlet-ēkallim during a prophetic dream. For the author, the Isaianic interpretation can only be polemical: whereas the gods of the nations hide themselves in the exile of their statues, the God of Israel hides himself on purpose. 23. ANTHONIOZ 2010, pp. 21-39. 24. COHEN 1988.

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delimitation of the historical kernel is not commonly agreed upon, there is consensus about the structure of this second book, since the style and the themes of the book are so meaningfully recurrent and chapter 48 forms a caesura.25 It is notable that the references to the substantive “face,” according to the review of occurrences provided in the introduction, are located in the second part of Deutero-Isaiah, after Isa 48 and more precisely after Isa 52. These references concern an encounter between the divinity and man. This conclusion seems in harmony with the new divine portrait that is outlined in the preceding chapters (40–48). Let us analyze this representation. II.2. The face of the creator God From the first chapter (Isa 40) on, a spiral structure evolves and provides the main ideological message of the book.26 A series of rhetorical questions call for meditating on the divine grandeur and its power of creation. Yhwh is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth (40:28). The expression “ends of the earth” (40:28; 41:5.9)—with its variants “from the end of the earth” (42:10; 43:6) and “to the end of the earth” (48:20; 49:6), as well as the mention of the isles and the seas (41:1.5; 42:4.10.12; 49:1; 51:5)—delimit the earth as the universal domain of the creator God. Yhwh is the God of all the earth, and this is his name (54:5b).27 Here is the new representation of the Judean divinity: not a divinity confined in a temple as in the inaugural vision, but a divinity whose temple has become the whole earth. If creation is poetically revisited in the book of Deutero-Isaiah, so is the place and status of man (Isa 41:17–20). The creator is certainly all-powerful, but his power is present and active in a human way. History and creation are newly articulated. Yhwh is not only the creator of the universe but indeed the creator of the individual—and particularly of Jacob/Israel. He is also his savior (43:1–7). The definition of creation is radically reinterpreted in the notion of salvation: the one who saves (43:3; 47:15; 49:26; 60:16)28 can only be the one who creates; and if the one who creates is both first and last, then there can be no salvation except in him.29 The divine attribute of creation is found again and again until Isa 48. The following chapters refer to it more rarely (51:9.13.16; 54:16). However, they leave place for a relation between the divinity and man that only the new definition of God as creator and savior has made possible: Yhwh stands before / in the face of men (45:2; 52:12), and men also stand before / in the face of Yhwh (48:19; 53:2; 57:16; 65:3). Let us consider now this new face to face, both divine and human, in the context of DeuteroIsaiah and its cosmic setting. II.3. The divine face revealed The divine attribute of creation having been demonstrated, the second section of the book concentrates on this new relation involving the face, both divine and human: 25. R. G. Kratz reconstitutes a primitive stratum covering chapters 40–48* (+ 52:1–7) but without the mentions of Cyrus. He proposes a complement concerning Zion in Isa 49–54*, followed by an edition around 520 (KyrosErgänzungsschicht) by which Cyrus is introduced and becomes the archetype of the Persian sovereign wanted by God, before the final edition during the Vth c. Indeed, new hope would have come with Darius. See KRATZ 1991, p. 175. 26. ANTHONIOZ 2011, pp. 77-92; GOLDINGAY 2005. 27. ANTHONIOZ 2011, p. 98. 28. Also Jer 30:10. 29. FIRTH 2014, pp. 31-51.

178 Stéphanie Anthonioz 1b. Yhwh’s face no longer hidden from the house of Jacob (54:8), yet still hidden by the sins of men (59:2; 64:6) 2a. Yhwh before / in the face of men (45:2; 52:12) 2c. man before / in the face of Yhwh (48:19; 53:2; 57:16; 65:3) A closer look at the references of the substantive shows that one cannot speak exactly of a face-toface relation, for the divinity does not come to face man frontally but to show him the path and lead him along the way. Is the divine face still hidden? The answer is no if one considers Isa 54:8, since the moment of wrath has passed (‫)בשצף קצף הסתרתי פני‬. Still, is the divine face seen? From what has just been said above and because of the polemical view that is developed against idols in Deutero-Isaiah, it may be asserted that the divine face is revealed in and through the work of creation.30 The only possible divine representation is that which comes from the vision of and meditation on the works of creation. The divinity has accordingly no other image than that which can be found in the works of creation and salvation in history. Deutero-Isaiah takes for granted the disappearance of a material representation of the divinity. It is from now on to be represented differently, as the whole earth is a temple: only through the acts of creation and salvation may the divinity be seen and heard. The divine face has become cosmic. There is no question about any cultic setting, nor any privileged relationship between the deity and its cultic prophet.

III. TRITO-ISAIAH III.1. Historical context and exegetical hypotheses In the logic of Deutero-Isaiah and its ideology of consolation, it is often argued that Trito-Isaiah was added as a sort of finale (56–66). Though the exegetical debate is far from being closed,31 different editorial strata are often and diversely argued.32 Isa 60–62, with its concentric structure, could constitute the core of the collection. Dated to the Vth c., it may be considered as a re-interpretation of Isa 49:1–6.12–26. The oracles refer to the imminent restauration of Zion/Jerusalem, but in a new context, since obviously a first return has not yielded the fruits awaited. Later on, these chapters as well as 54–55 would have been framed and re-interpreted, on the one hand, by Isa 56:9–59:20, insisting that the restauration is the outcome of a trial between Yhwh and the community and, on the other hand, by Isa 63–66 + 56:1–8, in the course of the IVth c., abandoning the perspective of a collective return for a more sectarian point of view. The eschatological trend becomes more preeminent and goes through an eschatological renewal: only those surviving the judgement will be able to walk to and enter Jerusalem. If vengeance and judgement recall the face and divine anger in First-Isaiah, the eschatological dimension, on the other hand, focuses on a universal divine face for which Deutero-Isaiah has prepared. Trito-Isaiah thus invites one to grasp together the different Isaianic divine faces. To this end, it develops a certain number of new metaphors attached to the divinity, such as the image of the father (63:16; 64:7) and the spouse (62:4–5 cf. 54:5–10), but also the mother (66:13–14, cf. 44:2.14–16.24;

30. ANTHONIOZ 2011, p. 93. See also SCHAPER 2014, pp. 145-158. 31. See TIEMEYER 2014, pp. 13-25; BARSTAD 2014, pp. 71-82. 32. NIHAN 2012, pp. 201-228.

The divine face in the Book of Isaiah

179

46:3–4; 49:15–16).33 Can the analysis of the different occurrences of the face reviewed in the introduction help us in identifying the divine face in the third and last section of Isaiah? III.2. Isaianic faces of God Surprisingly, most occurrences of the face in Trito-Isaiah are located in its final section 63–66. The hidden divine face is twice stated: first, by the angel that stands before the divinity (63:9); and, second, because of the sins of humanity (64:6). Eschatological judgement is indicated in the humanity present before the divine face (65:3, insisting on human sins as well as cultic ones) but also by the mountains present before God (63:19; 64:2) and by the nations (64:1). If this eschatology is apocalyptic in the etymological sense of unveiling, then Trito-Isaiah is clearly revealing a face to face between man and the divinity in the glorious judgement and sovereignty of the just. This revealing or unveiling must not conceal, however, that the divine face that is seen is very Isaianic in its association of wrath/judgement and consolation/restauration: the divinity Yhwh judges before he saves. Trito-Isaiah is thus fully coherent with the preceding two sections and re-interprets both of them in a theological synthesis where both divine wrath and divine salvation are the foundation for the definition and representation of the divinity. It is to be noted that in this last section, the relation between God and man that was particularly developed in Deutero-Isaiah is not the object of any new development. And the new heaven and the new earth that are awaited correspond better to a renewal of creation rather than to new creation.34 The landscape is quite similar except that life, justice, and peace are now part of life (65:17– 25).35 III.3. Once more on the expression of the hidden face The expression of the hidden face delineates a frame to the book, as we noted, so that it is difficult to think that the editorial work upon Trito-Isaiah was independent from the rest of the formation of the book. One could argue that the expression belongs to the oldest stratum.36 However, as we have shown, the image is common in ancient Near Eastern ideology to describe the wrath or absence of the divinity from its temple. The expression in biblical texts and particularly in Deutero-Isaiah naturally supposes the context of the Exile—all the more so because it leaves greater freedom for theological interpretation: if Yhwh hides his face, then one does not know whether he has abandoned Jerusalem or is still dwelling in his city. Furthermore, one does not know what kind of representation such a metaphor implies: iconic or not, anthropomorphic or not? This is indeed a unique and original way, particular to the Book of Isaiah, to solve the thorny question of the absence/presence of Yhwh: “I will wait for Yhwh, who is hiding his face (‫ )המסתיר פניו‬from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him” (Isa 8:17, cf. 54:7)—for, as Yhwh sits on his throne in heaven, the question of his absence and presence 33. BRETTLER 1993, pp. 97-120; GRUBER 1985, pp. 75-84; GRUBER 1983b, pp. 351-359. 34. As A.S.H. Oh underlined, the eschatology from Trito-Isaiah must be understood as hope for Israel. The images concerning Zion and the new creation are central to the eschatology of the book and represent the accomplishment of the expectations of First and Deutero-Isaiah. The vision of future Zion is also the realization of diverse traditions: Abrahamic, Mosaic and Davidic. So Isa 56:1–8, 59:15b–21, 60:1–22, and 65:13–25 demonstrate how much the theology of Trito-Isaiah is coherent when understood as the establishment of a new covenant “which is the eschatological reapplication of the past.” See OH 2014, p. 220. 35. SCHMID 2014b, pp. 175-194. 36. K. Schmid, to justify a pre-exilic date, proposes an argument from the history of religions—that is, that the divinity dwells in its temple and not its name or glory. SCHMID 2014a, pp. 123-124.

180 Stéphanie Anthonioz naturally resolves itself. The face of Yhwh is blurred in his universalism, as it is before his face that the world dwells (Isa 63:10–19), before his face that the people ceaselessly provoke him (Isa 65:3). His face is also confused with his name, as it is his face that saves (Isa 63:9); and, finally, it is before his face that all flesh will come and bow down (Isa 66:18–24). The motif of the divine cosmic face fully develops in the final phase of the book (Isa 56:11; 57:1.14.16; 58:8; 59:2; 62:10; 63:9.12.19; 64:1.6; 65:3.6; 66:22). The motif of the hidden face is not trivial in light of the hope of a return of the divine statue in the Jerusalem temple. This point should not be too quickly forgotten, even though through the scribal editorial processes and re-interpretations and through the religious evolutions of Second Temple Jerusalem, a new representation of the divine, both immaterial and universal, became in certain milieux the norm. The theological evolution of Trito-Isaiah makes clear that the statue of Yhwh (or any physical and material representation) was never restored and that this very non-representation allowed for the development of a new theology: the face of Yhwh does not refer to his material representation in the temple but to his universal and cosmic presence.

CONCLUSION Different uses of the root ‫ פנה‬have been analyzed, and diverse faces of the divinity Yhwh have been encountered in the Book of Isaiah and its re-interpretations. First-Isaiah revealed the wrath of Yhwh, associated with the motif of the hidden and veiled face, sign and metaphor for the Exile. One has to note the privilege of Isaiah in the role of cultic prophet to have had access to the holy of holies in the service of Yhwh. Deutero-Isaiah marked the transition from wrath and judgement to consolation and salvation. The prophet as a person disappears before his voice: the divine face may no longer be contemplated in the temple, but creation becomes its place as Yhwh the sole creator is universally present. The divine image is found in creation and also in history as it unfolds the salvation announced. One may note there the democratization of the prophetic privilege, as everyone is allowed to contemplate and hear the divinity present all over the earth. The relation with God becomes more human and announces the final face to face in Trito-Isaiah. But this last face to face is a matter of eschatological judgement, and the face of Yhwh is consequently more cosmic than human. Obviously, eschatology developed as consolation did not suffice and hope had been disappointed. The book as a whole offers an interesting historical trajectory from specific and cultic representation of the divinity to cosmic presence. In itself these two modes of existence for a divinity are not new if we come back to our introduction and the works quoted there. It leaves no doubt that following the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and of the cultic representation of the divinity Yhwh, whatever this may have been, scribal milieux tended to reflect upon their understanding of the divine and respond to the new historical situations. The book of Isaiah is only one answer offered in the biblical library: the face of Yhwh remained the locale of the encounter of the divinity, its identity in its deepest and fullest sense; however, it turned from a material significance (the cultic representation) to a cosmological one (the cosmic action of Yhwh in creation and salvation). In a sense, it may be argued that this turn or evolution was possible only because of the very grammatical and particularly prepositional use of the root ‫פנה‬.

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181

REFERENCES ANTHONIOZ S. 2010 “Crise et théologie de l’exil chez les trois grands prophètes”, Transeuphratène 39, pp. 21-39. 2011 À qui me comparerez-vous? (Is 40,25): la polémique contre l’idolâtrie dans le Deutéro-Isaïe (Lectio divina 241), Paris, Le Cerf. 2013 Le prophétisme biblique: de l’idéal à la réalité (Lectio divina 261), Paris, Le Cerf. ASTER S. Z. 2015 “Images of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Calah in the throne-room vision of Isaiah 6”, in Marbeh Hokmah: studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East in loving memory of Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, ed. by S. YONA et al., Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, pp. 13-42. BALENTINE S. E. 1984 The hidden god: the hiding of the face of God in the Old Testament (Oxford theological monographs), Oxford – New York, Oxford University Press. BARSTAD H. M. 2014 “Joseph Blenkinsopp as an interpreter of ‘Third Isaiah’”, in The Book of Isaiah: enduring questions answered anew. Essays honoring Joseph Blenkinsopp and his contribution to the study of Isaiah, ed. by R. J. BAUTCH et al., Grand Rapids, W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 71-82. BERGES U. 2012 The Book of Isaiah: its composition and final form, Sheffield, Sheffield Phoenix Press. BRETTLER M. Z. 1993 “Incompatible metaphors for Yhwh in Isaiah 40–66”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 78, pp. 97-120. BROWN F. et al. 201214 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English lexicon, Peabody, Hendrickson Publishers. CHAVEL S. 2012 “The face of God and the etiquette of eye-contact: visitation, pilgrimage, and prophetic vision in ancient Israelite and early Jewish imagination”, Jewish Studies Quarterly 19, pp. 1-55. CLEMENTS R. E. 1987 “The unity of the Book of Isaiah”, in Interpreting the prophets, ed. by J. L. MAYS et al., Philadelphia, Fortress Press, pp. 50-61. COGAN M., TADMOR H. 1979 “Ahaz and Tiglath-Pileser in the Book of Kings: historiographic considerations”, Biblica 60, pp. 491508. COHEN M. 1988 The canonical lamentations of ancient Mesopotamia: volume I-II, Potomac, Capital decisions. DHORME P. 1923 L’emploi métaphorique des noms de parties du corps en hébreu et en akkadien (Revue Biblique), Paris, Victor Lecoffre. FIRTH D. G. 2014 “Spirit, creation and redemption in Isaiah”, in New studies in the Book of Isaiah: essays in honour of Hallvard Hagelia, ed. by M. ZEHNDER (Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures 21), Piscataway, Gorgias Press, pp. 31-51. GILLMAYR-BUCHER S. 2004 “Body images in the Psalms”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 283, pp. 301-326. GOLDINGAY J. 2005 The message of Isaiah 40–55: a literary-theological commentary, London – New York, T. & T. Clark. GRUBER M. I. 1983a “The many faces of Hebrew ‫‘ נשא פנים‬lift up the face’”, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 95, pp. 252-260. 1983b “The motherhood of God in Second Isaiah”, Revue biblique 90, pp. 351-359. 1985 “Feminine similes applied to the LORD in Second Isaiah”, Beer Sheva 2, pp. 75-84 [in Hebrew].

182 Stéphanie Anthonioz HARTENSTEIN F. 2007 “Cherubim and Seraphim in the Bible and in the light of Ancient Near Eastern sources”, in Angels: the concept of celestial beings. Origins, development and reception, ed. by F. V. REITERER et al. (Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook), Berlin, W. de Gruyter, pp. 155-188. 2008 Das Angesicht JHWHs: Studien zum seinem höfischen und kultischen Bedeutungshintergrund in den Psalmen und in Exodus 32–34 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 55), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck. HEINTZ J.-G. 1979 “De l’absence de la statue divine au ‘Dieu qui se cache’ (Esaïe 45.15): aux origines d’un thème biblique”, Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 59, pp. 427-437. JOÜON P. 1996 Grammaire de l’hébreu biblique, Rome, Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico. KRATZ R. G. 1991 Kyros im Deuterojesaja-Buch: redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Entstehung und Theologie von Jes 40–55 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 1), Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr. MARTI K. 1920 “Der jesajanische Kern in Jes 6.1–9.6”, in Beiträge zur alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft Karl Budde: zum siebzigsten Geburtstag am 13. April 1920 überreicht von Freunden und Schülern und in ihrem Namen, ed. by K. MARTI (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 34), Giessen, A. Töpelmann, pp. 113-121. NIHAN C. 2012 “L’histoire rédactionnelle du ‘Trito-Esaïe’: un essai de synthèse”, in Les recueils prophétiques de la Bible: origines, milieux, et contexte proche-oriental, ed. by J. -D. MACCHI et al. (Le monde de la Bible 64), Geneva, Labor et fides, pp. 201-228. NÖTSCHER F. 1924 Das Angesicht Gottes schauen nach biblischer und babylonischer Auffassung, Würzburg, Becker. OH A. S. H. 2014 ‘Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!’: the eschatological theology of Third Isaiah (Isaiah 56–66), Eugene, J. Clark & Co Ltd. PONGRATZ-LEISTEN B. 2011 “Divine agency and astralization of the gods in Ancient Mesopotamia”, in Reconsidering the concept of revolutionary monotheism, ed. by B. PONGRATZ-LEISTEN, Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, pp. 137-187. PROKHOROV A. V. 2015 The Isaianic Denkschrift and a socio-cultural crisis in Yehud: a rereading of Isaiah 6,1–9,6(7) (Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 261), Göttingen – Bristol, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. SCHAPER J. 2014 “Divine images, iconophobia and monotheism in Isaiah 40–66”, in Continuity and discontinuity: chronological and thematic development in Isaiah 40–66, ed. by L. S. TIEMEYER et al. (Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 255), Göttingen – Bristol, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 145-158. SCHMID K. 2014a “De la prophétie orale à la prophétie écrite: les origines littéraires du livre d’Ésaïe”, in Comment devient-on prophète?, ed. by J.-M. DURAND et al. (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 265), Fribourg – Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 121-137. 2014b “New creation instead of new exodus: the innerbiblical exegesis and theological transformations of Isaiah 65:17–25”, in Continuity and discontinuity: chronological and thematic development in Isaiah 40–66, ed. by L. S. TIEMEYER et al. (Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 255), Göttingen – Bristol, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 175-194. SCHROER S., STAUBLI T. 1998 Die Körpersymbolik der Bibel, Darmstadt, Wiss. Buchges. 2013 “Bodily and embodied: being human in the tradition of the Hebrew Bible”, Interpretation 67, pp. 5-19. SONNET J. -P. 1992 “Le motif de l’endurcissement (Is 6,9–10) et la lecture d’Isaïe”, Biblica 73, pp. 208-239.

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STAVRAKOPOULOU F. 2013 “On body modification and religious materiality in the Hebrew Bible”, Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2, pp. 532-553. TADMOR H., YAMADA S. 2011 The royal inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BC) and Shalmaneser V (726–722 BC), kings of Assyria (The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 1), Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns. TIEMEYER L. S. 2014 “Continuity and discontinuity in Isaiah 40–66: history of research”, in Continuity and discontinuity: chronological and thematic development in Isaiah 40–66, ed. by L. S. TIEMEYER et al. (Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 255), Göttingen – Bristol, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 13-25. VERMEYLEN J. 1977–1978 Du prophète Isaïe à l’apocalyptique: Isaïe I-XXXV, miroir d’un demi-millénaire d’expérience religieuse en Israël (Études Bibliques), Paris, J. Gabalda. 2010 “Isaïe le visionnaire: la montée vers l’accomplissement de l’ordre du monde dans le livre d’Isaïe”, in Les prophètes de la Bible et la fin des temps, ed. by J. VERMEYLEN (Lectio divina 240), Paris, Le Cerf, pp. 17-71. VOLOKHINE Y. 2001 “Une désignation de la ‘face divine’: ḥȝwt, ḥȝwty”, Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale 101, pp. 369-391. WAGNER A. 2010 Gottes Körper: zur alttestamentlichen Vorstellung der Menschengestaltigkeit Gottes, Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus. WAGNER A. (ed.) 2014 Göttliche Körper – Göttliche Gefühle: was leisten anthropomorphe und anthropopathische Götterkonzepte im alten Orient und im Alten Testament? (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 270), Fribourg – Göttingen, Academic Press – Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. WAGNER T. 2006 Gottes Herrschaft: eine Analyse der Denkschrift (Jes 6,1-9,6) (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 108), Leiden – Boston, Brill. WESTENHOLZ J. G. 2012 “The body and the mind in Mesopotamian traditions”, in Menschenbilder und Körperkonzepte im alten Israel, in Ägypten und im alten Orient, ed. by A. BERLEJUNG et al., Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, pp. 459477.

JOHANNA ERZBERGER

When purity rules become literature: cultic purity in the text and behind the text of the Hebrew Bible

Earlier research1 compared the collection of purity laws in Lev 12–15 to parallels from elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. More recent studies2 have focused on reading Lev 12–15 as literature. This paper will discuss the role and transformation of purity rules within a literary setting, arguing that this transformation is incomplete. The analysis will concentrate on the purity rules in Lev 12–15 that deal with cult and sexuality. It will begin with Lev 15, which deals with natural and unnatural discharges of both men’s and women’s sexual organs, and then continue on to Lev 12, which deals with a woman in childbirth and presupposes regulations concerning menstruation like those that appear in Lev 15. Lev 13–14, which deal with impurity due to skin disease as a subcategory of impurities due to surface alterations, will be touched on briefly.

I. LEVITICUS 12–15 I.1. Context and structure The collection of purity laws in Lev 12–15 is embedded in the narrative of Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. This narrative covers several biblical books. Israel’s journey is interrupted at Mount Sinai, where God makes a covenant with the people of Israel and promises to live in their midst. At Sinai, Israel receives instructions for the construction of a portable sanctuary and the appointment of priests (Exod 24–31). This is followed by the story of the breaking and renewal of the covenant (Exod 32–34), which functions as a retarding moment, after which the sanctuary is constructed and God moves into it in order to live in the midst of Israel (Exod 35–40). A collection of laws about sacrifices in the sanctuary (Lev 1–7) precedes the story of the appointment of Aaron and his sons as priests (Lev 8–10) in fulfillment of the instructions given earlier. This is followed by a collection of purity rules (Lev 11–15), which refer to the sanctuary and participation in the cult. Lev 16 describes the ritual of Yom Kippur, the annual day of atonement, at the sanctuary. It is followed by the so-called Holiness Code (Lev 17–26), which lays out standards for Israel’s everyday and cultic life, which it grounds in the holiness of Israel’s god. After an appendix that closes the book of Leviticus

1.

MILGROM 1991.

2.

DOUGLAS 1999; ERBELE-KÜSTER 2008; LISS 2010.

Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 185-197 PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120945 BREPOLS

H

186

Johanna Erzberger

(Lev 27) and a description of Israel’s constitution as a holy community (Num 1–10), the story of Israel’s journey through the desert resumes and continues through the book of Numbers. Preceded by dietary regulations (Lev 11) and followed by the ritual of Yom Kippur (Lev 16) and the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26), Lev 12–15 forms an integral part of the narrative of the inauguration of Israel’s cultic system.3 It comprises a collection of purity rules: Lev 12:1–8: Cultic impurity and cultic reintegration of a woman after the birth of a child Lev 13:1–46: Cultic impurity due to skin alterations Lev 13:47–59: Impurity of clothes due to surface alterations Lev 14:1–32: Cultic reintegration of a person who previously suffered from skin alterations Lev 14:33–57: Impurity of houses due to surface alterations and their reintegration Lev 15:1–33: Cultic impurity due to bodily discharges vv. 2–15: cultic impurity due to abnormal bodily discharges of men vv. 16–17: cultic impurity due to normal bodily discharges of men (semen) v. 18: cultic impurity of a man and woman after sexual intercourse vv. 19–24: cultic impurity due to normal bodily discharges of women (menstruation) vv. 25–30: cultic impurity due to abnormal bodily discharges of women Leviticus 12–15 is marked by several concentric, alternating, and repetitive structural elements that mark the collection as a literary work. Leviticus 12:1–8, which deals with cultic impurity and cultic reintegration of a woman after the birth of a child, and Lev 15:19–24, which deals with cultic impurity due to normal bodily discharges of women, create a frame for the laws, since both deal with natural discharges of a woman that occur in the normal course of life.4 However, the literary structure of the text is imperfect, since it is Lev 15:25–30, which deals with abnormal bodily discharges of women, that closes the collection of purity rules. Leviticus 12:1–8 presupposes and refers to regulations concerning menstruation. Rules relating to impurity due to surface alterations of skin (13:1–46), clothes (13:47– 59), and houses (14:33–57) form a sequence that is interrupted by a passage about the cultic reintegration of people who previously suffered from skin alterations (14:1–32), which follows not the passage about the cultic impurity of people with skin alterations but that about the impurity of clothes due to surface alterations.5 The result is an alternation between regulations concerning animate (13:1–46; 14:1–32) and inanimate objects (13:47–59; 14:33–57).6 In 15:1–33, regulations concerning abnormal bodily discharges of men (vv. 2–15) and women (vv. 25–30) frame regulations concerning normal bodily discharges of men (vv. 16–17) and women (vv. 19–24), creating a concentric pattern, with verse 18, dealing with sexual intercourse between a man and woman, at its center.7 Alternatively, verse 18 may 3.

LISS 2010, p. 205.

4.

NIHAN 2007, p. 281.

5.

Parallels between the laws concerning impurity due to skin alterations (13:1–46) and those concerning the impurity of clothes due to surface alterations (15:47–59) argue in favor of the latter complementing the former. ‫בקרחת או‬ ‫בגבחת‬, “on the bald head or on the bald forehead,” in 13:42 clearly serves as an example for the use of the same expression (‫ )בקרחתו או בגבחתו‬with regard to clothes in 13:55 (NIHAN 2007, p. 273).

6.

Nihan assumes that 14:1–32, which deals with the cultic reintegration of people who previously suffered from skin alterations, is a secondary insertion (NIHAN 2007, p. 280).

7.

WHITEKETTLE 1991, p. 36; HIEKE 2014, p. 527.

When purity rules become literature

187

be read as part of the regulations concerning normal bodily discharges of men (vv. 16–17), resulting in a chiastic structure.8 The uneven distribution of these structural elements and Lev 12:1–8’s presupposing regulations found in Lev 15:19–24 argue that the collection developed gradually. The final form of Lev 12–15 is usually attributed to a priestly redactor who made use of earlier laws and law collections and contributed relatively little in substance.9 There is no agreement regarding the prehistory of these laws or which of them comprised earlier collections. However, Lev 15 is usually considered to have constituted a distinct collection prior to being put into its present context.10 I.2. Discharges of the sexual organs (Leviticus 15) Leviticus 15 deals with discharges from sexual organs. A man who has a flow from his flesh (‫)בשר‬11 and a woman with “blood [that] is a flow at her flesh” (‫)בשר‬12 are both declared unclean. The basic meaning of ‫ בשר‬is “flesh” or “meat,” but it can also refer to the body (Lev 13:2, 3, 4; 16:4, 24, 26, 28; 22:6; Num 8:7; 1 Kgs 21:27; 2 Kgs 4:34; Job 7:5; Koh 2:3). ‫כל בשר‬, “all flesh,” refers metaphorically to all living beings (Gen 6:12, 17, 19; Joel 3:1). Being “someone’s flesh” means belonging to that person’s family (Gen 29:14; 37:27; Lev 18:6; Judg 9:2; 2 Sam 5:1). In Gen 6:3; Job 10:4; 78:39, ‫בשר‬, which is never used in reference to God, signifies mortality. ‫ בשר‬is frequently used as a euphemism for a human’s, particularly a man’s, sexual organ (Exod 28:42; Ezek 16:26; 23:20).13 The foreskin is called ‫בשר ערלה‬, “flesh of the foreskin” (Gen 17:11, 14; Lev 12:3), or simply ‫( בשר‬Gen 17:13); uncircumcised men are referred to as ‫( ערלי בשר‬Ezek 44:7, 9). The use of ‫ בשר‬in the context of menstrual blood and its parallelization with ‫ בשר‬as a reference to a man’s sexual organ in the context of seminal discharge indicates that in this text, ‫ בשר‬refers to the sexual organs of both men and women. The regulations regarding abnormal bodily discharges of men and women that frame Leviticus 15 follow roughly the same pattern: Verses 2, 25 declare that these discharges cause uncleanness. Verses 4–12 and 26–27 each present a list of possible cases of contamination, which elaborate on the consequences of this uncleanness. In the event that the discharge ceases, purity is regained (v. 13: ‫ וְ כִ י־י ְִטהַ ר‬/ v. 28: ‫ )וְ ִאם־טָ ה ֲָרה‬after a seven-day period of purification. In the case of abnormal bodily discharge of a man, this purification process is completed by the washing of clothes and body; in the case of abnormal bodily discharge of a woman, no such requirement is stated. In both cases, a purification offering (‫ )חטאת‬and a burnt offering (‫ )עלה‬are made on the affected person’s behalf by the priest at the sanctuary on the eighth day. Based on other regulations regarding the purification offering (‫)חטאת‬, which according to other priestly texts is offered in cases of

8.

MILGROM 1991, p. 930. Milgrom points to the fact that there is no grammatical marker of a new beginning. According to ELLENS 2003, p. 35, v. 18 is paralleled by v. 24, regarding sexual intercourse during menstruation, which is part of the passage about normal bodily discharges of women. However, whereas sexual intercourse during menstruation is to be avoided, sexual intercourse in general is permitted and necessary, notwithstanding the fact that it results in impurity. HIEKE 2014, p. 527 presents both possibilities but favors the concentric structure.

9.

NIHAN 2007, pp. 299-300.

10. NIHAN 2007, pp. 299-300; HIEKE 2014, pp. 444, 477-478, 528. 11. ‫איׁש כי יהיה זב מבׂשרו זובו‬, “a man, when there is a flow from his flesh, his flow.” 12. ‫ואׁשה כי־תהיה זבה דם יהיה זבה בבׂשרה‬, “a woman, when there is a flowing of blood, there is a flow at her flesh.” 13. LEVINE 1989, p. 93; GERSTENBERGER 1993, p. 182; HIEKE 2014, p. 528.

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unintended transgression (Lev 4–5),14 it seems likely that the purification offering is meant to precede the burnt offering. The purification offering (‫ )חטאת‬reestablishes the relationship between a human being and God when it has been disrupted, laying the groundwork for the burnt offering.15 In other places where the purification offering (‫ )חטאת‬is described (Lev 4), the formula ‫וכפר על‬, “and he [the priest] makes atonement for,” referring to the purpose of the sacrifice, is followed by ‫ונסלח ל‬, “and he will be forgiven.” In Lev 15, there is no reference to the sacrifice’s effect. In both cases of abnormal bodily discharge, the purification ritual follows the statement that purity has been regained. The sacrifices’ position at the end of a lengthy, two-stage process and following the statement of regained purity indicates that their function is neither apotropaic nor therapeutic.16 They simply indicate the end of a fixed phase of impurity and ritually reintegrate the man or woman into the cultic community. The regulations regarding normal bodily discharges of men (semen) that follow the regulations regarding abnormal bodily discharges of men comprise two verses. There is no explicit introductory statement about the uncleanness of a man who has an emission of semen comparable to those in verses 2 and 25 regarding abnormal bodily discharges of both men and women. The man’s impurity is mentioned in the context of its duration. A man who has had a normal discharge of semen is impure for one day, just like someone who has been contaminated by another person who has had an abnormal bodily discharge. While the latter is required to wash his clothes and bathe, only bathing is mentioned here. The terminology used to refer to normal bodily discharges of men differs from that used for abnormal bodily discharges of both men and women—but also from that used for normal bodily discharges of women. Neither ‫זוב‬, “flow,” nor ‫בשר‬, “flesh,” is used in reference to normal bodily discharges of men. As mentioned above, verse 18, which deals with impurity from sexual intercourse, can be understood as a subcase of the regulations regarding a man’s natural discharges. The one-day impurity of both the male and female partners is in keeping with the case of a man affected by a normal discharge of semen. As in the case of a normal discharge of semen, the man is required to wash his body. The same is required of the woman. If verse 18 is understood as a subcase of the regulations regarding normal bodily discharges of men, the woman involved in sexual intercourse might be understood as contaminated. There is no discussion of contamination of other people or objects. According to an alternative reading, verse 18 figures as the center of a concentric structure. The common terminology used in verse 18 and verses 16–17, in contrast to that of the rest of the passage, argues for verse 18 having originally been introduced as a subcase of verses 16–17. However, in its current position, preceding the bodily discharges of women, verse 18 might well be read—or may even be intended to be read—as constituting the center.

14. Leviticus 4:2 defines the ‫ חטאת‬as a sacrifice that is offered in cases of unintended transgression. HIEKE 2014, p. 444 assumes that this is the sacrifice’s original function. For a more general discussion of the ‫חטאת‬, see MILGROM 1991, pp. 253-292. 15. LEVINE 1989, p. 96; HIEKE 2014, pp. 446 and 456. MILGROM 1991, p. 926, on the other hand, does not distinguish between the two sacrifices other than to note that the purification offering is the priestly prebend, whereas the burnt offering is entirely burnt on the altar. 16. HIEKE 2014, p. 458.

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The regulations regarding normal bodily discharges of women are similar to those regarding abnormal bodily discharges of both men and woman as far as language and structure are concerned. They are built on and frequently referred to in the regulations regarding abnormal bodily discharges of women, which as a result can be considerably shorter. This occurs in references to the woman’s state of uncleanness ( ‫כל־ימי זוב טמאתה כימי נדתה‬, “all the days of the issue of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her separation”), the state of contaminated objects (‫כטמאת נדתה‬, “as in the uncleanness of her impurity”), and the purification ritual (the washing of body and clothes) that a person who is directly or indirectly contaminated has to undergo. These references allow the list of possible contaminations to be far shorter than in the case of abnormal bodily discharges of men. In some respects, the regulations regarding a woman’s normal bodily discharge differ from those regarding abnormal discharges of either men or women. No purification (as in the case of a man’s abnormal bodily discharge) or reintegration ritual (as in the case of both a man’s and a woman’s abnormal bodily discharge) are mentioned (although they are often considered implicit).17 Furthermore, the woman is not declared clean when the flow comes to an end but rather after a fixed period of seven days, which are called her ‫נדה‬. If the menstruation lasted longer than seven days, it would presumably have been considered a case of abnormal discharge.18 ‫ נדה‬is considered to derive from the root ‫( נדד‬qal: “to flee,” “wander around”; hifil: “to drive out”; hofal: “to be banished”) or ‫“( נדה‬to exclude”). The noun is usually understood as having the basic meaning “menstruation” (in addition to Lev 15, see Ezek 18:6; 22:10; and 36:1). It also has a secondary meaning, referring to anything abhorrent, which is understood as a metaphorical extension of its basic meaning.19 In Lev 20:21, ‫ נדה‬refers to sexual intercourse between a man and his brother’s wife. In 2 Chr 29:5, ‫ נדה‬refers to items discarded from the temple. In Ezra 9:11, ‫ נדה‬describes the state of the land due to the presence of foreigners. In Lam 1:7, ‫ נדה‬refers to Jerusalem’s bad reputation among the nations. In Ezek 7:19, 20, ‫ נדה‬is used to describe images of foreign gods that are discarded. Zechariah 13:1 uses ‫ נדה‬as an equivalent of “sin.” However, another use of the term does not fit this pattern. In Num 19:9, 13, 20, and 21, as well as in 31:23, the “waters of the ‫ ”נדה‬are part of a purification ritual, and the phrase is usually translated “waters of purification.” In Lev 15, ‫ נדה‬does not simply mean “menstruation.” It refers to both menstrual blood and the temporary segregation of the woman who is menstruating. In Lev 15:19, the menstrual discharge itself is described as “blood [that] is a flow at her flesh.” In 15:19, 20, ‫ נדה‬refers to the seven days during which the woman is considered unclean, not the menstruation as such. It has often been noted that the

17. In light of narrative traditions such as 2 Sam 11:2–4 and later halakhic traditions (e.g., m. Miqw. 8:1, 5), the necessity of a washing ritual is often assumed for the woman as well (HIEKE 2014, p. 539). It is sometimes suggested that the mention of the washing ritual with regard to bodily discharges of a man also applies to discharges of a woman (ELLENS 2003, p. 141; ELLENS 2008, pp. 60-62). Others understand the different instructions as gender markers (e.g., PHILIP 2006, pp. 50-51). However, other rituals—in particular the sacrifices on the eighth day—are mentioned twice, with regard to both men and women. Mishnaic parallels cannot resolve the matter, as they are considerably later. 18. WHITEKETTLE 1996, p. 382. 19. MILGROM & WRIGHT 1987.

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seven days of ‫ נדה‬are not necessarily identical to the duration of menstruation.20 Only in 15:24 ( ‫ותהי‬ ‫נדתה עליו‬, “and her niddah is upon him”) does ‫ נדה‬refer to menstrual blood itself. In all four cases, the incidents of contamination have in common that a contaminated object has potentially come into contact with the discharge and that a contaminated person has come into contact either with such an object or with the unclean person him- or herself. As a general rule, a person who has been contaminated remains unclean for one day and must undergo purification. He or she is required to wash his or her clothes and body. However, there are some exceptions to this rule: - In the case of an abnormal bodily discharge, a man who becomes unclean only passes on his impurity by touching someone only if he has not washed his hands (15:11). - In the case of an abnormal bodily discharge of a man or a normal or abnormal bodily discharge of a woman, even a second-order contamination results in uncleanness for one day and requires the washing of clothes and body (15:5, 6, 10, 21, 22, 23, 27). However, whoever comes into contact with a menstruating woman herself simply remains unclean for one day. No purification rites are mentioned (15:19).21 - The washing of clothes and body, which is required of every person contaminated by a man or woman affected by abnormal discharge, is not required of a woman suffering from an abnormal discharge herself. - A man who has sexual intercourse with a woman who is menstruating remains impure for seven days (15:24). The full duration of her impurity is transferred to him, regardless of how many days of impurity remain for her. I.3. After childbirth (Lev 12:1–8) After the birth of a child, the mother remains impure for seven days if it is a boy but for fourteen days if it is a girl. The period of impurity is followed by 33 days of purification in the case of a boy and 66 in the case of a girl, during which she is prohibited from touching anything sacred or visiting the sanctuary. Only here—not later, in the context of bodily discharges—is this consequence of her impurity explicitly mentioned. After this period, she is required to bring sacrificial animals to the sanctuary, where a purification offering (‫ )חטאת‬and a burnt offering (‫ )עלה‬are made on her behalf. 20. The fixed time span of seven days has puzzled exegetes. WHITEKETTLE 1996, p. 377 suggests that the authors of the text assume that the functionality of the reproductive system would have been reestablished at that point. HIEKE 2014, p. 538 proposes that the fixed time period shows consideration for the woman’s privacy, in that she would not have to publicize when she was menstruating. However, as the beginning of the period still depends on a physical process, the beginning of her period would be known, and her privacy would be limited only to the end of her impurity. Furthermore, a fixed time span of seven days might end before the end of the physical process, though a blood flow that lasted longer than seven days might have been considered an abnormal discharge like those in Lev 15:25–30. 21. MILGROM 1991, p. 936; HIEKE 2014, p. 539. Milgrom and Hieke propose a graduated system of impurity. As coming into contact with the woman herself does not necessarily entail coming into contact with anything that has come into contact with the blood of menstruation, the degree of impurity might be lower. Hieke also refers to the case of a man suffering from an abnormal discharge, where the contamination is restricted to contact with his hands, suggesting that while a man’s hand might have touched his penis while urinating, other parts of his body would not have been in contact with the discharge. In the case of a menstruating woman, Hieke suggests that no part of her body would have come in contact with the blood, including her hands, but this seems questionable. In addition, in the case of a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman who is menstruating, the degree of impurity would clearly be higher. Nevertheless, no purification rites are mentioned.

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After childbirth, a woman is said to be impure as in the days of ‫נדת דותה‬, “the ‫ נדה‬of her illness” (12:2), or simply as during her ‫( נדה‬12:5). That ‫ נדה‬in Lev 12 refers to the flow of blood just as in Lev 15 is evident in verse 7, which states that the woman will be clean ‫ממקר דמיה‬, “from the spring of her blood,” after sacrifices have been offered on her behalf at the end of the purification period. Leviticus 12 presents a two-stage procedure. There is no indication of how the end of the first period of seven or fourteen days is marked.22 In the case of a boy, the uncleanness is terminated by the circumcision of the child. Afterward, the mother remains excluded from the sanctuary. The second period of 33 or 66 days of purification is terminated by an offering. As in the case of menstruation dealt with later in Lev 15, these time periods are fixed and do not depend on the actual termination of the bodily discharge. Whereas details are given regarding what a woman is not allowed to do during the 33 or 66 days of her purification (entering the sanctuary or touching anything sacred), the instructions regarding the first seven days of her impurity are limited to a reference to regulations concerning the ‫נדה‬. If regulations like those in Lev 15 are presupposed, it can be assumed that her interaction with family members was limited or prohibited (particularly as far as sexual intercourse with her husband was concerned). ‫ונסלח ל‬, “and he will be forgiven,” which follows the formula ‫וכפר על‬, “and he [the priest] makes atonement for,” in the description of the purification offering (‫ )חטאת‬in Lev 4, is here replaced by ‫וטהרה‬ )‫(ממקר דמיה‬, “and she shall be clean [from the flow of her blood]”—a phrase that is missing in Lev 15. This underscores that this is not a transgression, even an unintentional one, though it is still something that has to be rectified in order to reestablish a state in which the woman can take part in the cult. In contrast to Lev 15, where the sacrifices follow the statement that the person has become pure, in Lev 12, the statement that the person has become pure occurs after the sacrifice, indicating that it happens as a result of the sacrifice. I.4. Parallels elsewhere Some of the individual regulations in Lev 12–15 have parallels in other biblical and extra-biblical texts. - Similar regulations regarding the handling of fungal infestations in houses can be found in Mesopotamian as well as Anatolian contexts.23 - A temporary separation of the mother from the household during pregnancy as well as during and after childbirth is attested in Egypt.24 Purification periods and rites after childbirth, which sometimes vary in length depending on the child’s gender, are also attested in other Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures.25 22. HIEKE 2014, p. 449 argues from the parallel case of normal bodily discharges of a man that the same purification rites would be required here, even though they are not mentioned. However, other rituals, such as the sacrifices on the eighth day, are mentioned with regard to both men and women, as noted in n. 17. 23. NIHAN 2007, p. 274. For examples, see: MILGROM 1991, p. 864; MEIER 1989, pp. 184-192. 24. BRUNNER-TRAUT 1989, p. 53. 25. MILGROM 1991, p. 750. Milgrom quotes several Greek examples, where, however, the length of the purification period does not differ depending on the sex of the newborn child. In a Hittite source (KBo 17.65+ obverse 31-36 and reverse 39-44), the purification period is longer if the child is a girl: MOUTON 2008, pp. 73-74 and 116-119. HIEKE 2014, p. 452 objects that several of Milgrom’s examples stem from cultures that were not in contact with the ancient Mediterranean world, such as Native American cultures. None of them offer explanations for the

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- Sexual intercourse results in cultic impurity among the Hittites, Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks.26 There is one biblical narrative text that mirrors these regulations: - According to 1 Sam 20:26, David’s absence during the first—but not the second—day of a cultic meal on the occasion of the new moon (‫ )חדש‬is excused on the assumption that “an accident happened—he is not clean” (‫)מקרה הוא בלּתי טהור הוא‬. A one-day impurity would be consistent with the rules for normal discharge, contamination by someone else’s normal or abnormal discharge, or sexual intercourse. Some particularities distinguish the biblical regulations under discussion from their parallels in the ancient Near East. In Lev 15, it is not the sexual intercourse as such but the discharge of semen that results in impurity.27 The Egyptian parallels testifying to a separation and temporary isolation of a woman during pregnancy and after childbirth refer to pregnancy and birth, not—as in the biblical case—primarily to bodily discharge. With regard to the time frame, the separation of the mother in the Egyptian context is more in keeping with the lengthier period of purification that excludes her from the temple than with the preceding shorter period that limits her contact with other members of the household in the biblical case.

II. ILLUSTRATING THE MADE-UP WORLD: CULTIC REINTEGRATION OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE RECOVERED FROM SKIN ALTERATIONS

The priestly texts develop a spatial concept of concentric circles with the sanctuary at the center. The sanctuary is the center of both Israel and creation. The world consists of distinct spheres that must be kept apart. Holy objects are to remain in the sphere of the sanctuary, whereas impurity must be kept outside of it.28 The opposite of impurity is not purity, which is the absence of impurity, but holiness. Whereas purity cannot be transmitted by contact, both impurity and holiness can (see Lev 6:20). The transmission of both impurity and holiness must be prevented.29 In Lev 12–15, the concentric spatial concept is most obvious in the example of the three-stage ritual that reintegrates someone who has recovered from a skin alteration (14:1–32). Whereas regulations concerning possible contamination in the case of bodily discharge imply that the concerned party is not spatially separated from the community, though he is kept from the sanctuary, someone impure due to skin alterations has to leave the community—or, to stay within the literary setting of the text, the camp in the desert. If he recovers, the priest meets him outside the camp, declares him recovered, and purification period being doubled in the case of a girl. Some exegetes assume that the time period is doubled in the case of a girl because she is another potential source of menstruation and postnatal impurity (HIEKE 2014, p. 452, 457; MÜLLNER 2015, p. 139). However, the text gives no indication that the newborn him- or herself would be considered impure. GERSTENBERGER 1993, p. 140 proposes that whereas discharges from sexual organs are considered powerful, discharges from a female put her in double opposition to the male-coded sanctuary. 26. See MILGROM 1991, pp. 932-933; HIEKE 2014, pp. 536-537. 27. MILGROM 1991, p. 934; GERSTENBERGER 1993, p. 186; HIEKE 2014, p. 737. 28. LISS 2010, p. 208. 29. With regard to purity and impurity, see MÜLLNER 2015, p. 133; FREVELAND & NIHAN 2013. With regard to holiness, see LISS 2010, p. 207.

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performs an initial ritual during which a bird is sent into the desert. The bird symbolically carries the impurity into the wilderness. After having washed his clothes and body and shaved his hair, the concerned party is allowed to reenter the camp but not yet his tent. After a period of seven days and additional rituals on the eighth, which once again include the shaving of hair and the washing of clothes and body, as well as several sacrifices in the sanctuary, he is once again admitted to his tent and the sanctuary. Leviticus 12–15 is a literary text. Which individual aspects of the text reflect practices in the world behind the text and which are literary features that refer to the world behind the text only by expressing their authors’ worldview is often unclear. In the broader textual context, the period of seven days with specific sacrifices on the eighth day, which is also part of the reintegration of a man or woman who has recovered from abnormal discharge from his or her sexual organs (15:13–15, 27–29), has a close parallel in the priestly ordination of Aaron and his sons in Lev 8–9.30 Though the seven-plus-one-day structure has parallels in narrative texts and other rituals described in priestly literature,31 it is impossible to say whether the number seven was chosen as a symbolic number in order to create references between different texts and regulations that were worked into one literary unit, or whether it—at least in some cases—has a reference point in the world behind the text. It is likely that the ritual connects features that can be explained by its literary context with features relating to the world behind it.32 The question of the degree to which the literary concept intersects with a reality behind the text also arises on a more general level. The concentric setup with the sanctuary as its sole center may be the literary expression of a concentric worldview. But it may also mirror a world behind the text, in which Jerusalem is the only center of a particular territory.

III. IN SEARCH OF AN IDEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK Several explanations have been offered to connect and explain these regulations as part of a clearly structured textual unit within a larger narrative frame: 1/ The loss of blood implies closeness to death.33

30. In Lev 8–9, sacrifices are also offered during the first seven days. Those on the eighth day differ and are specifically highlighted. The regulations regarding the ordination of priests in Exod 29 testify to the seven-day period but not to any specific rituals on the eighth day. 31. In addition, the forty days of purification after childbirth (made up of the seven- and thirty-three-day periods) constitute a symbolic number that creates intertextual links (MILGROM 1991, p. 750; HIEKE 2014, p. 453). Milgrom states that a period of forty days plays a significant role in purification rites in Greek sources. 32. A similar effect might be observed with regard to the rituals that serve to reintegrate someone who previously suffered from skin alterations. The required sacrifices combine all four types of offerings that have expiatory effects according to the priestly writings: the ‫( אשם‬guilt or reparation offering), the ‫( חטאת‬sin or purification offering), the ‫( עלה‬burnt offering), and the ‫( מנחה‬grain or cereal offering). What might be understood as originating from a tendency toward completion—most likely on a literary level—is at odds with regulations concerning the ‫ אשם‬elsewhere. Elsewhere in priestly writings, the ‫ אשם‬is a private offering that is not combined with other offerings (NIHAN 2007, p. 278). The initial rite with the birds (Lev 14:2–8) has a close parallel within the passage about the reintegration of houses previously declared impure due to surface alterations (Lev 14:33–57) but no other parallel in priestly writings or elsewhere in the Bible. 33. MILGROM 1991, pp. 767-768; HIEKE 2014, pp. 446 and 456.

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2/ The body is considered a closed system. Everything transgressing its border is considered impure.34 3/ The waste of semen or menstrual blood implies temporary dysfunction and infertility, which is incompatible with participation in the cult.35 4/ The temporary and partial separation of the woman after childbirth or during her menstruation has a protective function.36 However, none of these explanations is sustainable. 1/ There is no indication that blood loss other than that of menstruation and childbirth, even in the context of life-threatening injuries, prevents participation in the cult.37 2/ All contaminating transgressions of the body’s boundaries are discharges from reproductive organs.38 Blood (with the exception of menstrual blood), saliva, and excrement do not cause impurity.39 3/ Though reproduction is impossible during menstruation and for a period of time after childbirth, the parallel with a man’s bodily discharge does not accord with the explanation that the impurities relate to infertility. While the involuntary loss of semen might be understood as waste from the standpoint of reproduction, 15:18 describes the process of reproduction itself.40 Furthermore, a man or woman who is permanently infertile, such as a postmenopausal woman, is not considered unfit for participation in the cult. 4/ The protection of a woman in childbirth might serve as an explanation for this particular regulation. However, it does not explain her continued exclusion from the sanctuary after the initial seven days of impurity, nor does it explain why the impurity of a menstruating woman sets the standard for the impurity after childbirth and contaminates to the same degree.

34. ERBELE-KÜSTER 2003, p. 102; See also ERBELE-KÜSTER 2008, pp. 157-160, where the author modifies this explanation by limiting it to discharges from sexual organs. 35. WHITEKETTLE 1996, p. 380; HIEKE 2014, pp. 446 and 542. 36. GERSTENBERGER 1993, p. 136; HIEKE 2014, p. 446. 37. See LISS 2010, p. 201; WHITEKETTLE 1991, p. 37; ERBELE-KÜSTER 2008, p. 159. 38. WHITEKETTLE 1996, p. 377; LISS 2010, p. 203. 39. ERBELE-KÜSTER 2008, p. 159. The most comprehensive explanation of both dietary rules (not dealt with in this paper) and purity rules was offered in DOUGLAS 2005 (1st ed. 1966) and DOUGLAS 1999. Douglas’s earlier writings influenced Jacob Milgrom. Douglas defines “impure” as “out of place” and argues that the physical purity, i.e., physical integrity, of the individual mirrors the purity, i.e., integrity, of the community. However, rules of impurity that have developed over time are unlikely to fully mirror any given society. Though Lev 15 clearly reflects a desire to systematize, that desire is constantly undermined by individual rules that do not fit the system (the parallelization of men and women is undermined by several differences in detail) as well as by the system’s incompleteness (blood other than menstrual blood does not defile). DUHAIME 1998 suggests that Milgrom was able to adapt Douglas’s idea to the book of Leviticus by highlighting that Lev 15 is referring to discharges that represent the forces of life and death. However, blood, which would clearly meet that definition and plays a central role in both the cult and the dietary rules (which prohibit it), does not defile. 40. WHITEKETTLE 1991 seems to assume that the sexual intercourse described in Lev 15:18 is compromised due to the context in which it is discussed.

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A common characteristic of the regulations in Lev 12 and 15 is the incompatibility of discharges from sexual organs with cult participation.41 It has been repeatedly proposed that the sphere of sexuality and reproduction and participation in the cult are considered mutually exclusive.42 The text, however, gives no clear indication of why discharges from sexual organs are considered incompatible with cult participation.

IV. SYSTEMATIZING INTERESTS UNDERMINED None of the suggested explanations cover and explain all the regulations. However, the authors’ orientations are apparent in the systematizing interest that characterizes the literary unit. The individual cases’ order and juxtaposition introduce two major distinctions: one between male and female, and the other between normal and abnormal. Normal and abnormal: Though it distinguishes between normal and abnormal bodily discharges, Lev 12–15 is not interested in the difference between pathological and non-pathological phenomena as such. Leviticus 12–15 is not concerned with healing the sick. It is interested only in identifying the condition and eventually stating that it has terminated. Abnormal discharge is simply a subcase of the wider category of bodily discharges that make a person unclean. Though only abnormal discharges and those connected with the birth of a child require a sacrifice, both normal and abnormal discharges prevent participation in the cult. The necessity of a sacrifice may depend on the frequency of the condition. The determining factor of frequency may be underlined by the fact that uncleanness after childbirth, which clearly has a natural cause, requires the same kind of sacrifice, following the same schedule, as uncleanness due to abnormal discharge, though the offering itself is different (and more valuable). Male and female: The overarching concentric or chiastic structure creates a somewhat artificial equality between the sexes. ‫בשר‬, used as an euphemism for the sexual organs of both men and women, overwrites the distinction that the categorization introduces. If the primary meaning of ‫ נדה‬is the woman’s segregation rather than the menstrual blood, the sexual as well as the physical aspects retreat behind the exclusion from the cult. In the case of ‫נדה‬, however, the primary meaning may be exclusion. The creation of a somewhat artificial equality between the sexes contradicts the differences in detail, which may have been part of older regulations. In a text in which the human body is paramount as in few others, the body still retreats fully behind a systematizing interest.

V. LITERATURE THAT BUILDS ON AND IS UNDERMINED BY OLDER TRADITIONS The equality between opposing categories both underlines and levels the distinction that is created by these categories. The systematizing structure of the literary unit is further undermined by its drawing from older traditions that undermine its equalizing tendency. It should be assumed that 41. This, however, would not cover Lev 13–14, which deal with surface alterations of houses and clothes, and skin diseases. 42. GERSTENBERGER 1993, p. 140; HIEKE 2014, pp. 457 and 526.

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different rules with different origins expressing different orientations have been only incompletely adjusted to the guiding principles of the compilation of regulations of which they are now part. The authors’ worldview includes both the orientations that are expressed by the systematizing interest evident in priestly literature and the preservation of older regulations, even where they undermine that systematizing interest. This paper has read Lev 12–15 as a work of literature that is informed and at the same time partly undermined by the material it uses. Both the systematizing interest of priestly literature and the individual regulations, with their partially contradictory orientations, can and should be subject to further comparisons with the wider context of the Mediterranean world.

REFERENCES BRUNNER-TRAUT E. 1989 Altägyptische Märchen: Mythen und andere volkstümliche Erzählungen, Munich, Eugen Diederichs. DOUGLAS M. 1999 Leviticus as literature, Oxford, University Press. 2005 Purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo (rev. ed.), London – New York, Routledge. DUHAIME J. 1998 “Lois alimentaires et pureté corporelle dans le Lévitique. L’approche de Mary Douglas et sa réception par Jacob Milgrom”, Religioliques 17, pp. 19-35. ELLENS D. 2003 “Menstrual impurity and innovation in Leviticus 15”, in Wholly woman, holy blood: a feminist critique of purity and impurity, ed. by K. DE TROYER (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity), Harrisburg, Trinity Press International, pp. 29-43. 2008 Women in the sex texts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy: a comparative conceptual analysis (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 458), New York – London, T. & T. Clark, pp. 60-62. ERBELE-KÜSTER D. 2003 “Hat dieser Körper ein Geschlecht? Die Bestimmungen über die Wöchnerin in Lev 12”, in Theologie des Alten Testaments aus der Perspektive von Frauen, ed. by M. OEMING (Beiträge zur Verstehen der Bibel 1), Münster, Lit, pp. 101-108. 2008 Körper und Geschlecht: Studien zur Anthropologie von Leviticus 12 und 15 (Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 121), Neukirchen-Vluyn, Neukirchener. FREVELAND C., NIHAN C. 2013 “Introduction”, in Purity and the forming of religious traditions in the ancient Mediterranean world and ancient judaism, ed. by C. FREVELAND and C. NIHAN (Dynamics in the History of Religions 3), Leiden – Boston, Brill, pp. 13-14. GERSTENBERGER E. S. 1993 Das dritte Buch Mose: Leviticus (Das Alte Testament Deutsch 6), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. HIEKE T. 2014 Levitikus 1–27 (Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament), Freiburg – Basel – Wien, Herder. LEVINE B. 1989 Leviticus (Jewish Publication Society Torah Commentary 3), Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society. LISS H. 2010 “Of mice and men and blood: the laws of ritual purity in the Hebrew Bible”, in Literary construction of identity in the ancient world: proceedings of the conference literary fiction and the construction of identity in ancient literatures. Options and limits of modern literary approaches in the exegesis of

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ancient texts. Heidelberg, July 10–13, 2006, ed. by H. LISS and M. OEMING, Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, pp. 199-213.

MEIER S. 1989 “House fungus: Mesopotamia and Israel (Lev 14:33–53)”, Revue Biblique 96, pp. 184-192. MILGROM J. 1991 Leviticus 1–16: a new translation with introduction and commentary (The Anchor Bible 3), New York, Doubleday. MILGROM J., WRIGHT J. L. 1987 “‫”נדה‬, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament 5, pp. 250-254. MOUTON A. 2008 Les rituels de naissance kizzuwatniens: un exemple de rite de passage en Anatolie hittite (Études d’archéologie et d’histoire ancienne), Paris, De Boccard. MÜLLNER I. 2015 “Konstruktionen von Geschlecht in regulativen Texten der Tora”, in Mehr als Zehn Worte? Zur Bedeutung des Alten Testaments in ethischen Fragen, ed. by C. FREVEL (Quaestiones Disputatae 273), Freiburg, Herder, pp. 115-152. NIHAN C. 2007 From priestly Torah to Pentateuch: a study in the composition of the book of Leviticus (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck. PHILIP T. S. 2006 Menstruation and childbirth in the Bible: fertility and impurity (Studies in Biblical Literature 88), New York – Washington, P. Lang. WHITEKETTLE R. 1991 “Leviticus 15.18 reconsidered: chiasm, spatial structure and the body”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 49, pp. 31-45. 1996 “Levitical thought and the female reproductive cycle: wombs, wellsprings, and the primeval world”, Vetus Testamentum 46, pp. 376-391.

YANNICK MULLER

Mutilating the body in Ancient Greece: perception, vocabulary, and practices*

The Ancient Greek civilization is well known for its art, characterized by the enhancement of the beauty of the body. For instance, one might think of the kouroi of the Archaic period or the statues of gods, heroes, and sportsmen of the Classical period.1 The texts themselves, since Homer, tend to emphasize the beauty of youth and the perfection of bodily integrity, without flaw or missing part. Indeed, the mutilation of the body, so significant in modern cultures, was viewed among the ancient Greeks as a mark of non-Greek culture (i.e. Barbarian in its original sense) or as a symbol of punishment and slavery. Although the scope of this word is difficult to apprehend, I have chosen to consider “mutilation” as any kind of permanent body modification, following the French anthropologist Claude Chippaux.2 A definition is all the more important because there is apparently no generic word of common use in Ancient Greek to express the type of definitive alteration of the body implied by the English term “mutilation.”3 On the other hand, the texts inherited from Antiquity testify to several cases of mutilations perpetrated by Greeks. I will discard examples from mythology, which should be studied separately, for they follow a very different logic from historical practices. In order to present an overview of the corporal mutilations in Ancient Greece and to understand how the Greeks viewed and were tempted to perform punitive amputation or other kinds of mutilation, I propose to expose the main results of my research, using some paradigmatic cases. First of all, I will show with a few examples how the Ancient Greek literature and culture emphasized the beauty of the complete body and rejected * This paper summarizes some of the results of my PhD dissertation and introduces some aspects I did not have the chance to discuss in it, such as the Greek practices. In the Dictionnaire du corps dans l’Antiquité (L. Bodiou and V. Mehl, eds), see also my entry on “Mutilation” (MULLER 2019), which states synthetically the perception the Ancient Greeks had of mutilation, their testimonies of non-Greek and of their own, although rare, practices. All the references and quotations of the Classical texts can be found in the Loeb Classical Library (https://www.loebclassics.com/view/tyrtaeus-fragments/1999/pb_LCL258.39.xml). 1. There were even beauty contests organized in Greek poleis; for a general study on these, see GHERCHANOC 2015. 2. CHIPPAUX 1982, p. 258: he defines ethnical mutilations as “les modifications de tout ou une partie du corps par tatouage, scarification, brûlure, perforation, étirement, amputation, limage, compression, etc., voire aussi l’engraissement, afin d’obtenir à terme une image corporelle différente de celle à laquelle on est habitué”; see also CHIPPAUX 1990, p. 484. 3. “Mutilation” and “mutilate” come from Latin mutilus, which qualifies a hornless animal; see ERNOUT & MEILLET 19594, p. 425. Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 199-222 PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120946 BREPOLS

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all kinds of body modification. Secondly, I will focus on the Greek vocabulary used to express mutilations: despite the absence of a single word to render it, a large range of compound verbs and substantives exists. Finally, I will present a few passages illustrating Greek practices taken from the literature.

I. GREEK PERCEPTION OF MUTILATION I.1 The perfect complete body I will not go into great detail, but I would like to give a few examples to illustrate the importance of bodily integrity in Greek thought and culture. This idea is already expressed in the poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which date back to the 8th century BCE and represent the most ancient entirely preserved Greek works. They reveal both that beauty of the young body is valued4 and that old age, which marks the body,5 and infirmity are despised or rejected.6 Moreover, the same texts show the Greek aversion to mutilation of the corpse. Several passages emphasize the fear of seeing one’s dead body devoured by dogs and birds of prey,7 and the famous mutilation of Hector’s corpse by Achilles is supposed to provoke horror amongst the audience.8 It is also noticeable that the gods protect the physical appearance of their beloved ones. This is the case with Hector’s body protected by Apollo, as well as with Sarpedon, another Trojan hero. For instance, in Iliad 24, 18-21:9 Howbeit Apollo kept all defacement from his flesh, pitying the warrior even in death, and with the golden aegis he covered him wholly, that Achilles might not tear his body as he dragged him.

As for Sarpedon, his corpse being defiled by his enemy, it is taken away by the same Apollo following Zeus’ orders.10 In historical times, several texts and inscriptions report the importance of physical integrity and perfection in relation to the sacred realm. Indeed, we have some epigraphic evidence expressing the 4.

One may think of the frequent use of καλός or its derivatives in association with heroes in both Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. As shown by SMOTHERS 1947, p. 1 and more recently by RIEGEL 2011, this adjective with multiple meanings was mainly associated with beauty in Archaic poetry.

5.

For instance, in Iliad 22, 76-76, Priam, who is lamenting about his death and emphasizes the corpse of the young warrior compared with that of the old one; see also Tyrtaeus fr. 10, 21-30 West = fr. 6/7 Diehl2 = Lycurgus, Against Lerocrates, 107. For other negative perceptions of old age, see five fragments of Mimnermus of Smyrna fr. 1, 5-10 West = Stobaeus, Anthology, 4, 20, 16; fr. 3, 1-2 West = Stobaeus, 4, 50, 32; fr. 5, 4-8 West = Stobaeus, 4, 50, 69.

6.

See Iliad 23, 396-397 and Odyssey 8, 308-312 about Hephaestus or Iliad 2, 214-219 about Thersites; see also the character of Philoctetes in the eponymous play of Sophocles.

7.

The numerous recurring passages in the Iliad speak for themselves (Iliad 4, 237; 8, 379-380; 11, 161; 453-454; 13, 232; 831-832; 15, 345-351; 17, 126-127; 272-273; 557-558; 18, 179; 271-272; 22, 42; 66-67; 89; 335-336; 348; 354; 23, 21; 183; 24, 211; 408-409; 411). The same fear is also expressed in Classical tragedies.

8.

On this question, see SEGAL 1971, pp. 12-17. The outrage of Hector’s body is not a mutilation per se, but it is the term used by most of the historiography.

9.

Translation, A. T. Murray, Loeb, Cambridge, 1924: […] τοῖο δ᾽ Ἀπόλλων / πᾶσαν ἀεικείην ἄπεχε χροῒ φῶτ᾽ ἐλεαίρων / καὶ τεθνηότα περ: περὶ δ᾽ αἰγίδι πάντα κάλυπτε/χρυσείῃ, ἵνα μή μιν ἀποδρύφοι ἑλκυστάζων.

10. Iliad 26, 667-683.

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necessity for a priest to have a complete body, without any missing part. An inscription from the Greek city of Chalcedon states the requirements to acquire a priesthood: The one who purchases [a priesthood] must be healthy and complete in all parts.11

In another inscription, from Cos, dating from the 2nd century BCE, it is the priestess of Aphrodite Pandemos who “must be healthy, complete in all parts and fully constituted.”12 Literary sources confirm these through testimonies such as Anaxandrides’, who opposes Greek and Egyptian practices about priesthood: It’s a custom here for priests to have all their parts, / whereas in your country, apparently, a piece of them’s offered as a sacrifice.13

Finally, in some Byzantine lexica, the entry ἀφελές (“intact”) is defined thus: The kings and the priests were approved fit to office in Athens if intact and complete in all parts. 14

The last example—where it is question of the basileus, which has to be understood as the archon basileus, one of Athens’ most prominent magistrates—shows that corporal integrity was a rule also applied to other categories. Indeed, Photius, a Byzantine patriarch and scholar from the 10th century CE, states in his Lexicon: “The archons are approved to office if they are complete.”15 Moreover, a passage from the orator Lysias, who wrote judicial speeches, seems to confirm such a statement. He wrote a plea for someone in the late 5th century BCE who was accused of wrongly receiving the special allowance reserved for maimed and crippled citizens. The accused individual makes clear that if he were to be considered as able-bodied, nothing could prevent him from becoming an archon: So utterly has he [the prosecutor] surpassed the whole human race in impudence that he tries with his single voice to persuade you all that I am not classed as disabled. Yet if he should persuade any of you on this point, what hinders me from drawing a lot for election as one of the nine archons. 16

It is possible that the archons were subjected to the same rule as the priests, since they had among their responsibilities certain religious obligations. Indeed, they performed different kinds of sacrifices according to their area of competence. It is noteworthy that such regulations also apply to sacrificial victims, as stated in several texts. For instance, Aristotle asserts in his lost Banquet, “that nothing is to be brought with a missing part to the gods but offerings fully constituted and complete.”17 The same 11. IK Kalchedon 12, 10 (personal translation): ὁ πριάμενος [or ἁ πριαμένα when it is question of a priestess] ἔστω ὑγιὴς καὶ ὁλόκλαρος [...]. See WILGAUX 2009 for an overview concerning the physical integrity of priests in Ancient Greece. 12. IG XII, 4, 1, 302, 7 (personal translation): ἔστω ὑγιὴς καὶ ὁλόκλαρος καὶ τελέα. 13. Anaxandrides, Cities fr. 39, 10-11 Kock = Athanaeus, Deipnosophists, 7, 300a, 3-4 (translation S. D. Olson, Loeb, Cambridge, 2008): τοὺς ἱερέας ἐνθάδε μὲν ὁλοκλήρους νόμος εἶναι / παρ’ ὑμῖν δ’, ὡς ἔοικ’, ἀπηργμένους. 14. Etymologicum Magnum, Etymologicum Genuinum, Etymologicum Segueriana, s.v. ἀφελές (personal translation): οἱ βασιλεῖς καὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς ἐδοκιμάζοντο Ἀθήνῃσιν, εἰ ἀϕελεῖς καὶ ὁλόκληροι. 15. Photius, Lexicon, s.v. ὁλόκληρος (personal translation): οἱ ἄρχοντες ἐδοκιμάζοντο, εἰ ὁλόκληροι εἰσίν. 16. Lysias, On the refusal of a pension 13 (translation W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb, Cambridge, 1930): Τοσοῦτον δὲ διενήνοχεν ἀναισχυντίᾳ τῶν ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων, ὥστε ὑμᾶς πειρᾶται πείθειν, τοσούτους ὄντας εἷς ὤν, ὡς οὔκ εἰμι τῶν ἀδυνάτων ἐγώ· καίτοι εἰ τοῦτο πείσει τινὰς ὑμῶν, ὦ βουλή, τί με κωλύει κληροῦσθαι τῶν ἐννέα ἀρχόντων […].

17. Aristotle fr. 101 Rose3 = Athanaeus, Learned Banqueters 15, 674-675 (personal translation): ὅτι οὐδὲν κολοβόν προσφέρομεν πρὸς τοὺς θεούς, ἀλλὰ τέλεια καὶ ὅλα.

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principle is mentioned by Pollux in his Onomasticon, a dictionary of Classical Greek written in the 2nd century CE: one must bring victims proper to sacrifice suitable, uncut, complete in all parts, healthy, unmaimed, with all their limbs, limbs exactly fitted, neither truncated, neither impaired, neither with an extremity amputated, neither distorted.18

Epigraphy confirms the same requirements, as shown by the regulations concerning the mysteries of Andania19 or the sacred law of Magnesia.20 These few examples demonstrate the importance of corporal integrity in Greek thought and culture, which suggests that naturally Greeks were bound to reject mutilative practices. This fact is also clearly expressed in the texts themselves. I.2. The rejection of permanent body modification I cannot cite here all the references in the Ancient Greek texts which express the profound rejection of any permanent body modification. I will concentrate on three examples: one dealing with the mutilation of the corpse, one illustrating Greek disdain of decorative mutilation practices, and lastly an example showing that Greeks were not too keen on using mutilation as a punishment, unlike the case in numerous cultures they had encountered. I.2.1. The Spartan Pausanias by Herodotus

The archetypical example of the Greek perception of mutilation is found in Herodotus’ Histories and concerns the mutilation of the enemy’s corpse. This practice, well known in several cultures, was encountered by the Greeks on many occasions, according to the ancient texts,21 but one occasion deeply marked their minds. In 480 BCE, Xerxes king of the Persian Empire, decided to launch a largescale invasion of continental Greece. Some Greek cities allied themselves to resist the invasion. It was decided to try and delay the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae. This is the famous episode where 300 Spartans and some allies perished after a heroic fight. Herodotus writes that Xerxes, walking through the fallen Greek hoplites, ordered the decapitation of the dead Spartan king Leonidas and the subsequent exposure of his head on a stake.22 A year later, the Greek allies defeated the land army of Xerxes, commanded by Mardonius, his cousin. The latter died during the battle and the Greeks discussed what fate should befall his corpse. A certain Lampon, from the island-city of Aegina, proposed to outrage the corpse as was done to Leonidas:23 Son of Cleombrotus, you have done a deed of surpassing greatness and glory; by heaven’s favour you have saved Hellas, and thereby won greater renown than any Greek known to men. But now you must finish what

18. Pollux, Onomasticon 1, 29, 4, 6 (personal translation): προσακτέον δὲ θύσιμα ἱερεῖα ἄρτια, ἄτομα, ὁλόκληρα, ὑγιῆ, ἄπηρα, παμμελῆ, ἀρτιμελῆ, μὴ κολοβὰ μηδὲ ἔμπηρα μηδὲ ἠκρωτηριασμένα μηδὲ διάστροφα. 19. IG V, 1, 1390, 70: τὰ θύματα εὐίερα καθαρὰ ὁλόκλαρα, “the victims fit for sacrifice pure, complete” (personal translation). 20. IG IX, 2, 1110 and SEG XXV, 687: λευκὰ ὁλόκληρα [καθαρὰ], “white, complete, pure,” or τέλεια λευκὰ ὁλόκληρα, “fully constituted, white, complete” (personal translations). 21. For an overview of Greek accounts of Barbarian practices in the Classical period, see MULLER 2014. 22. Herodotus 7, 238. On this peculiar episode and its possible meaning in the light of other Persian practices, see MULLER 2016. 23. Herodotus 9, 78-79 (translation J. Henderson, Loeb, Cambridge, 1925).

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remains to do, that your fame be yet the greater, and that no foreigner may hereafter make bold unprovoked to wreak his mad and wicked will on the Greeks. When Leonidas was slain at Thermopylae, Mardonius and Xerxes cut off his head and set it on a pole; make them a like return, and you will win praise from all Spartans, and the rest of Hellas besides; for if you impale Mardonius you will be avenged for your father’s brother Leonidas.

The Spartan regent Pausanias, victorious in the battle, answered firmly, as Herodotus reports:

Sir Aeginetan, I thank you for your goodwill and forethought; but you have missed to the mark of right judgement; for first you exalt me on high and my fatherland and my deeds withal, yet next you cast me down to mere nothingness when you counsel me to outrage the dead (ἐς τὸ μηδὲν κατέβαλες παραινέων νεκρῷ λυμαίνεσθαι), and say that I shall win more praise if I so do; but that were an act more proper for Barbaroi than for Greeks (τὰ πρέπει μᾶλλον βαρβάροισι ποιέειν ἢ περ’ Ἕλλησι); and one that we deem matter of blame even in those ones.

Indeed, as it will be shown later, we have almost no example of Greeks mutilating corpses in the historical records, whereas Greeks have testified to numerous such cases amongst Barbarian cultures.24 I.2.2. The story of the Greek with a pierced ear

Two other literary examples show that other types of body modification were also rejected. Xenophon, a classical author from the first half of the 4th century BCE, wrote about the adventure of an army of Greek mercenaries, who were hired by Cyrus the Younger and led by him to Mesopotamia. This Cyrus, not to be confused with the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, was the brother of the king Artaxerxes II, whom he challenged for the throne. Unfortunately, he died at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 BCE and his Greek troops were stuck in the middle of a foreign and hostile land. The Greek officers tried to figure out what to do. Most were inclined to escape, but one of them, a supposed Greek from Boeotia, urged the others to surrender. Xenophon opposed him in a speech emphasizing the profoundly un-Greek attitude of the officer and added in conclusion: Then Agasias, a Stymphalian,25 broke in and said: “For that matter, this fellow has nothing to do either with Boeotia or with any part of Greece at all, for I have noticed that he has both his ears pierced like a Lydian’s.”26

The fact he had pierced ears was enough to conclude that he was no Greek at all. Other types of body modification practices, such as tattooing, were also seen as non-Greek or more suited to slaves.27 Traditionally, only the slaves were physically marked in Ancient Greece—either for disobedience28 or because of flight.29 Amongst Barbarians, the Thracian women—and perhaps also men—used decorative tattoos which had been interpreted by some Ancient Greek authors as the

24. The last part of the present paper will focus on some of the rare Greek temptations to mutilate an enemy or an adversary. 25. Another Greek city in the Peloponnese. 26. Xenophon, Anabasis 3, 1, 31 27. For tattooing in Antiquity, see JONES 1987; JONES 2000; RENAUT 2004, pp. 357-367; and RENAUT 2014. 28. Herodas, Mimes 5, 77-79. 29. Aristophanes, Birds 760 evokes a bird marked for having tried to flee (δραπέτης ἐστιγμένος).

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covering up of a slave mark applied upon them as a punishment30 for killing Orpheus.31 Moreover, the already mentioned Xenophon describes on his journey two tribes named the Mossynoeci, whose children had their bodies covered with tattoos and whose people he qualifies as “the most Barbarian (βαρβαρωτάτους)” and “the most distant from Greek customs (πλεῖστον τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν νόμων κεχωρισμένους).”32 These few examples show that decorative mutilations were also considered as non-Greek. I.2.3. The Arrian commentary on Bessus’ punishment

Mutilation as a punishment was also viewed as a Barbarian—and barbaric—practice. Herodotus, Ctesias, and other Greek historians have recorded many examples of the Persian custom of mutilating rebels, usurpers, or common criminals by amputating body parts.33 Alexander the Great captured the last Persian noble who resisted him, Bessus, who had even taken the Persian crown after having murdered the last king Darius III. According to some traditions, Alexander left it to Darius’ family to punish the usurper or deal with him according to their wishes. The Greek historian Arrian from Roman Imperial times reports this severe punishment:34 Then Alexander summoned a council of those present, brought Bessus before them, and accusing him of treachery towards Darius, commanded that his nose and ear-laps should be cut off (τὴν ῥῖνα ἀποτμηθῆναι καὶ τὰ ὦτα ἄκρα ἐκέλευσεν), and that he should be taken to Ecbatana, to be put to death there in the assembly of Medes and Persians.

This particular punishment is typical of usurpers among Persians, as shown by the monumental inscriptions of Darius I at Behistun. Indeed, concerning two of the local kings who had rebelled, the text relates that Darius ordered that their nose, tongue, and ears were to be cut off and one eye ripped out.35 Although Alexander deliberately chose to sentence Bessus according to Persian law, he is condemned by Arrian, following the Greek attitude towards such punitive mutilation: For my part, I do not approve this excessive punishment of Bessus; I regard the mutilation of extremities as Barbarian (ἀλλὰ βαρβαρικὴν εἶναι τίθεμαι τῶν ἀκρωτηρίων τὴν λώβην), and I agree that Alexander was carried away into imitation of Median and Persian opulence and of the custom of Barbarian kings not to countenance equality with subjects in their daily life.

This statement speaks for itself and is very close to the one expressed by the Spartan Pausanias in Herodotus: the Greeks were reluctant, if not opposed, to the mutilation of the enemy, whether dead or alive.

30. This tradition is found in Clearchus of Soles fr. 46 Wehrli = Athenaeus 12, 524d-e. Clearchus was a peripatetic philosopher of the 4th century BCE and a disciple of Aristotle. See also Phanocles, Ἔρωτες ἢ καλοί, fr.1, 9-10-2327 = Stobaeus, Anthology 54, 14 and Plutarch, Moralia 557d. 31. According to the myth, the Thracian women killed him and cut off his head because they were jealous or felt rejected; see GANTZ 2004, pp. 1271-1273 for sources and the figurative motif of his death on ancient vases. 32. Xenophon, Anabasis 5, 4, 32 and 34. 33. On this particular question, see MULLER 2016; MULLER forthcoming; and MARI 2014. For the sources, see Xenophon, Anabasis 1, 9, 13 and 1, 10, 1; Ctesias, F16, 64 Lenfant = Photius, Library, 43b37-39; Ctesias F20, 13, 2 = Plutarch, Artoxerxes 13, 2; Strabo, Geography 15, 3, 17 (C 733, 21-22). 34. Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 4, 7, 3-4 (translation P. A. Brunt, Loeb, Cambridge, 1976 with minor corrections). 35. DB §32–3 in LECOQ 1997, pp. 199-200 or KUHRT 2007, pp. 145-146.

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I.3. The philosophical definition by Aristotle In order to understand better how the Greeks viewed mutilation, I will lastly consider the philosophical approach by Aristotle. His natural history treatises deal with many aspects of the animal kingdom. In several of them, he studies the question of physical integrity and its opposite: he uses then the adjective κολοβός. This word as its synonym κόλος originally denotes an animal “without horn,” as Pierre Chantraine points out.36 In most translations, the word has been rendered as “mutilated.” One must remain cautious, however, because the Greek language is subtle and it is not possible to equate perfectly κολοβός with “mutilated.” A more literal translation would be “truncated” or “chipped.” For instance, Aristotle uses the word to express a principle which appears several times in his treatises or those from his followers. In Generation of animals he states that “from truncated parents, truncated children are born.”37 Not only the horns are considered here, but all body parts. Moreover, this principle applies to acquired as well as hereditary characteristics. Indeed, in the History of animals, using the same syntactic construction, Aristotle evokes also humans and asserts: “And from maimed parents are born maimed children, in the same way from lame parents, lame children, from blind parents, blind children.”38 He then adds the story of a child who bore the same mark as the stigma of his grandfather. Stigma is often considered as the Greek word for tattoo,39 and there is no reason to think otherwise in this instance. Unfortunately, I cannot discuss further this very interesting anecdote, but it is clearly considered an acquired characteristic, as another passage explains.40 In Metaphysics, the philosopher defines precisely how he conceives the principle which lies behind the Greek word κολοβός. The following explanation could be considered the only Greek definition of mutilation: We do not describe any chance quantity as “mutilated” (κολοβόν); it must have parts, and must be a whole. The number 2 is not mutilated (κολοβά) if one of its 1’s is taken away—because the part lost by mutilation (κολόβωμα) is never equal to the remainder—nor in general is any number mutilated; because the essence must persist. If a cup is mutilated (κολοβός), it must still be a cup; but the number is no longer the same. Moreover, not even all things which have dissimilar parts are mutilated; for a number has in a sense dissimilar as well as similar parts—e.g. 2, 3. But in general of things whose position makes no difference, e.g. water or fire, none is mutilated;—to be mutilated, things must be such as have their position according to their essence. Further, they must be continuous; for a musical scale is composed of dissimilar parts, and has position; but it does not become mutilated (κολοβός). Moreover, even things which are wholes are not mutilated ( κολοβά) by the removal of any of their parts; the parts removed must be neither proper to their essence nor in any chance location. E.g., a cup is not mutilated (κολοβός) if a hole is made in it, but only if the handle or some projection is broken; and a man is not mutilated if he loses flesh or his spleen, but if he loses some extremity; and not every extremity, but only such as cannot grow again when completely removed. Hence bald people are not mutilated (κολοβοί).41

36. CHANTRAINE 2009, p. 536. 37. Aristotle, Generation of animals 1, 17, 721b, 17-18: τὸ ἐκ κολοϐῶν κολοϐὰ γίνεσθαι (personal translation). 38. Aristotle, History of animals 7, 6, 585b, 29-35: Γίνονται δὲ καὶ ἐξ ἀναπήρων ἀνάπηροι, οἷον ἐκ χωλῶν χωλοί καὶ ἐκ τυφλῶν τυφλοί (personal translation). 39. JONES 1987, pp. 140-141; JONES 2000, pp. 4-5. 40. Aristotle, Generation of animals 1, 17, 721b, 34. 41. Translation H. Tredennick, Loeb, Cambridge, 1933.

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This definition is very interesting and may be understood by bearing in mind the opposite principle of completeness, defined by ὅλος or τέλειος, two words we have already encountered when dealing with the corporal integrity of priests and sacrificial animals. However, the main flaw of this definition lies in the fact that it is hard to relate it to bodily mutilation practices. Indeed, outside Aristotle’s work, κολοβός and its derivations—such as the verb κολοβόω—have been used only very rarely to express mutilation of human bodies, as I shall explain in the next section. We shall now turn to the vocabulary of mutilation in Ancient Greek.

II. THE VOCABULARY OF MUTILATION IN ANCIENT GREEK As I have already stated in my introduction, there is no strict Greek equivalent to our word “mutilation,” which comes from Latin. Indeed, it derives from the word mutilus, which originally described a domestic animal without horns. A study of Greek literature from the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods allowed me to collect all the main vocabulary used to express mutilations. I have discovered that the Greek authors preferred colourful words indicating either the manner of cutting a body part, or the body part involved, or simply words expressing a physical insult towards a person. The Greek language allows a variety of subtleties through the use of compound verbs. II.1. The compounds of τέμνω and κόπτω The most frequently encountered terms are formed from the verbs τέμνω and κόπτω. The reading of the ancient texts shows us the multiple range of compounds of these two verbs: ἀποτέμνω, ἐκτέμνω, κατατέμνω, διατέμνω, περιτέμνω, ἀποκόπτω, ἐκκόπτω, κατακόπτω, περικόπτω, διακόπτω, and all substantives and adjectives which are derived from these terms. But it would be mistaken to think that they are all equivalent. The study of all the occurrences allowed me to draw some conclusions concerning their usages.42 First, there is an important difference between τέμνω and κόπτω themselves. The former suggests a longer and more precise process involving cutting, whereas the latter implies more of a single, rapid blow. Thus, according to the context or the type of mutilation, either verb is used to form a compound along with prefixes which are usually prepositions and sometimes substantives: ἀπο-, ἐκ-, περι-, κατα-, δια-, and even ἐπι-. All parts of the body may be concerned, but the tool and the gesture may be of importance. Thus, the compounds formed with κόπτω tend to suggest the use of an axe or a sword, whereas the compounds of τέμνω tend to apply more to an ablation made with a knife. Let us take a few examples. First of all, ἀποτέμνω is used more in relation to the cutting off of the nose or the ears and the beheading of a corpse. Herodotus, who recounted in his Histories numerous anecdotes involving mutilations, uses this verb eight times for a beheading,43 four times for the cutting off of a 42. This lexical study represents the second chapter of my PhD dissertation. 43. Herodotus 3, 79 (ἀποταμόντες [...] τὰς κεφαλἀς): beheading of the Magi by the Persian King Darius; 4, 103 (ἀποταμὼν τὴν κεφαλήν): beheading of fallen enemies by the Scyths; 5, 114 (ἀποταμόντες τὴν κεφαλήν): beheading of Onesilaos of Salamina after he was killed; 7, 35 (ἀποταμεῖν τὰς κεφαλάς): beheading of engineers ordered by the Persian king Xerxes; 8, 90 (τὰς κεφαλὰς ἀποταμεῖν): beheading of fleet commandants after the defeat by the same Xerxes; 8, 118 (ἀποταμεῖν τὴν κεφαλήν): beheading ordered by Xerxes of the pilot of his vessel; 7, 238 (ἀποταμόντας τὴν κεφαλήν) and 9, 78 (ἀποταμόντες τὴν κεφαλήν): the beheading of the corpse of Leonidas, king of Sparta, by Xerxes.

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nose and/or ears,44 twice for the ablation of breasts,45 once for the hand,46 once for the foot,47 and once for the arm.48 In almost every instance, the gesture involved suggests a knife: for the ears, the nose, or the breast, a knife is the best tool.49 For the foot, the text mentions a piece of metal used to cut.50 The beheadings, however, are more puzzling: all except three are clearly perpetrated on corpses, which is conclusive with ἀποτέμνω,51 but the decapitation ordered by the Persian king Xerxes on several of his subordinates (engineers, Phoenician commanders, or one pilot) is more striking. The decapitation appears here as a means of execution for real or supposed disobedience and implies a single blow with a sword or an axe. A more suitable verb would have been ἀποκόπτω. Indeed, for the cutting off of a hand during battle or as a punishment, the more commonly used verb is ἀποκόπτω, as well as for a decapitation in the same context. In the Iliad, the only two true beheadings during battle are expressed by Homer using ἀποκόπτω: in Book 11, when Agamemon “cuts off the neck of Hippolochos (ἀπό τ’ αὐχένα κόψας)” or the head of Coon (κάρη ἀπέκοψε) and in Book 13 when Ajax, Oileus’ son, “cuts the head off Imbrios’ delicate neck ( κεφαλὴν δ’ ἁπαλῆς ἀπὸ δειρῆς κόψεν).”52 To go back to Herodotus, the historian of Halicarnassus twice uses this verb to express the amputation of hands: once about the supplicant whose hands are severed while holding the doors of a temple,53 and once about the brother of the poet Aeschylus, whose hands are cut off with an axe as he is trying to board a Persian ship.54 In later writings such as in Xenophon, in the Hippocratic treaties, and in Polybius, ἀποκόπτω is used mainly for the amputation of the head, the hands, or the feet.55 These two verbs are the most common to express the ablation, violent or not, of a body part. However, the difference in meaning seems to decrease at the end of the Hellenistic period: for instance, Diodorus almost always uses ἀποκόπτω, regardless of the context.56 44. Herodotus 3, 69 (τὰ ὦτα ἀπέταμε); 3, 118 (τά τε ὦτα καὶ τὰς ῥῖνας) and 3, 154 (ἀποταμὼν ἑαυτοῦ τὴν ῥῖνα καὶ τὰ ὦτα); 4, 71 (τοῦ ὠτός ἀποτάμονται). 45. Herodotus, 4, 202 (τοὺς μαζοὺς ἀποταμοῦσα); 9, 112 (τούς τε μαζοὺς ἀποταμοῦσα). 46. The amputation of servants by pharaoh Mykenrinos’ wife Mykérinos (Herodotus 2, 131: ἀπέταμε τὰς χεῖρας). 47. Herodotus, 9, 37 (ἀπτέταμε τὸν ταρσόν). 48. Herodotus 4, 62 (δεξιοὺς ὤμους [...] ἀποταμόντες). 49. Other occurrences of this verb in relation to mutilation in the Classical period confirm this assertion: Lysias (Against Andocides 26) uses it to evoke the severing of extremities as a punishment; Aeschines (Against Timarchos 172) for the ablation of the tongue; Plato (Symposium 205e) for the cutting off of both hands and feet. 50. Herodotus 9, 37 (σιδηρίου). 51. It is very difficult to decapitate a corpse with a single blow: it requires a proper cutting of the bones around the neck. French anthropologists tend to differentiate the two actions, using “décapitation” meaning to put to death an individual or “décollation” for the severing of the head on a corpse. See for instance TESTART 2008, p. 41: “On parle de ‘décapitation’ lorsque la tête est tranchée, ce qui suppose l’usage d’un instrument relativement lourd et tranchant tel que hache, guillotine ou sabre [...]. Le terme de ‘décollation’ est plus général en ce qu’il indique seulement que le cou a été coupé pour séparer la tête.” 52. Homer, Iliad 11, 146 and 261; 13, 202-203. 53. Herodotus 6, 91 (hands). 54. Herodotus 6, 114 (hand). 55. Xenophon, Hellenica 2, 1, 31-32; Hippocrates, On joints 68 (= vol. IV, p. 82 Littré); Polybius 1, 80, 11; 1, 80, 13; 1, 81, 3-4; 21, 38, 5. 56. He uses ἀποτέμνω only twice and ἀποκόπτω fourteen times to express the ablation of heads, arms, genitals, hands, and feet, or other unspecified body extremities. Diodorus, Library of history 1, 78, 4: genitals: 2, 58, 4:

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Apart from these two compounds, the multiple prepositions known in Ancient Greek allow numerous compositions and each can be linked to a certain type of mutilation. Thus, the removal of genitals is rendered by ἐκτέμνω,57 but also sometimes by ἀποτέμνω.58 The verb ἐκτέμνω is also used for the ablation of the tongue.59 On the other hand, ἐκκόπτω is used almost exclusively for blinding.60 Again, we find the two nuances already evoked: the term for castration suggests an act perpetrated with a knife, whereas blinding is usually carried out in one blow. For sexual mutilations the most common verb is περιτέμνω both for male (circumcision) and female (excision),61 although for the latter ἐκτέμνω is also used.62 Περιτέμνω can also be employed to express other types of amputation performed with a circular gesture, such as the cutting off of the ears of an individual,63 scalping, or ritual incisions.64 Its pendant περικόπτω is almost exclusively encountered in relation to an episode called the mutilation of the herms.65 In 415 BCE, the Athenians were about to launch a huge invasion of Sicily. On the eve of the expedition, two sacrilegious acts were performed: one of them was the mutilation of almost all quadrangular pillars with a bust of Hermes on top. These structures were street and crossroads’ shrines. The verb used by all contemporaneous authors is περικόπτω, suggesting that the statues had been hit with single blows. The substantive ἡ περικοπή is also frequently encountered, which is always translated as “mutilation.”66 Lastly, certain compounds are used more rarely or sometimes in a metaphorical sense. I will give here two examples: κατατέμνω or κατακόπτω, which often appear in a culinary context, but also to express the total annihilation of an adversary or even the effective cutting into pieces of a body. The hand; 4, 59, 5: extremities; 10, fr. 41, 2 Cohen-Skalli = fr. 19 Oldfather = Excerpta De Sententiis, 95, p. 297 Boissevain: extremities of the face; 14, 80, 8: head; 14, 115, 5: head; 14, 116, 6: hand; 17, 20, 7: hand; 17, 58, 5: arms; 17, 59, 4: extremities; 19, 103, 4: hands; 20, 30, 3: head; 23, fr. 18, 3 Goukowski = fr. 14 Walton = Excerpta De virtutibus et vitiis, 317, vol. 1, p. 298 Büttner-Wobst & Roos: hands and feet; 34, fr. 29 Goukowski = 34/35, fr. 8 Walton = Excerpta De virtutibus et vitiis, 335, vol. 1, p. 306 Büttner-Wobst & Roos: hands. 57. For instance Herodotus 6, 32 or 8, 108; Xenophon, Cyropaedia 4, 3, 8; 7, 5, 62. And numerous occurrences in all natural history books of Aristotle; see for instance Aristotle, Generation of animals 1, 2, 716b, 5; 1, 4, 717b, 2; 5, 7, 787b, 19 and 788 a, 7; History of animals 3, 1, 510a 2-3; 3, 9, 516a 25; 26-27; 5, 14, 545a, 20 and 22; 6, 21, 575a, 32; 9, 50, 631b, 21-26; 9, 50, 632a, 4-21; 9, 50, 632a, 32. 58. Herodotus 8, 106; Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4, 986; Apollodorus, Library 1, 1, 4. 59. Herodotus 2, 2 and 9, 112; Ctesias of Cnidus, Persica, F 16, 58 Lenfant = Photius, Library, 43b, 6-7; Diodorus 1, 78, 3. 60. The occurrences are too numerous to cite extensively; see for instance Aristophanes, Acharnians 92; Clouds 24; Birds 583 and 1613; Demosthenes, Against Timocratos 139-140; Aeschines, Against Timarchos 172; Polybius 15, 33, 9; Ctesias F1b, 6, 10 Lenfant = Diodorus 2, 6, 10; Diodorus 12, 17, 4, etc. but also in epigraphy (IG II², 46, 15 = SEG XIII, 38). 61. Herodotus 2, 36 and 104; Diodorus 1, 28, 3; 1, 55, 5; 3, 32, 4; 3, 39, 9 and several occurrences in Strabo, Philo of Alexandria, and Josephus. 62. For instance, Strabo 17, 2, 5 (C 824, 9) 63. Herodotus 4, 71: scalping; 4, 71: ritual incisions; 2, 162: nose and ears. 64. For instance, Herodotus 2, 162 and 4, 71. 65. Thucydides, The history of the Peloponnesian war 6, 28, 1 and 2; Andocides, On the mysteries 34; 37; 39; 62; Aristophanes, Lysistrata 1094; Lysias, Against Alcibiades (1) 42. 66. For instance, Thucydides 6, 28, 2

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correct translation is therefore “to cut into pieces,” which can be metaphorical but also literal. The context often helps to understand the meaning, but not always. One example of the latter will suffice to illustrate this: Diogenes Laertius relates that Zeno of Elea was condemned to “be thrown into a mortar and cut into pieces (εἰς ὅλμον αὐτὸν βληθῆναι καὶ κατακοπῆναι).”67 I must add that sometimes the compounds of τέμνω and κόπτω are formed with substantives such as καρατομέω (kara, “head”), χειροκοπέω (cheir, “hand”), γλωσσοτομέω (glôssa, “tongue”), and μελοκοπέω68 (melos, “limb”), but these terms appear quite late in our sources except for the first one. II.2. The other compounds Other words can express in Greek the severing of something such as a body part. This is one use of the verb αἱρέω or its compounds such as ἀφαιρέω. The Athenian orator Aeschines evokes the threat by Demosthenes to excise the tongue of Anaxinus of Oreos whom he had tortured.69 It is also used by Diodorus of Sicily to express the practice by the Gauls “who sever the heads of the fallen enemies.”70 Medically speaking, the term serves as a synonym of ἀποτέμνω to express amputation, such as in Hippocrates: “to separate at the joint.”71 Lastly, another derivation of αἱρέω—προσδιαιρέω with a double preposition prefixed—is found in the description of an imaginary island, Iamboulos, by Diodorus of Sicily: It is peculiar to them on the one hand to have the tongue doubled up to a certain length and on the other hand to sever the inner parts in order to make it double up to the root.72

There are many other examples of the use of compounds of αἱρέω, which are quite common to express mutilations. There are also terms coming from other lexical fields but which are used rather metaphorically to express mutilation: σπράσσω, σπάω, and μελίζω, each of them having derivations. All these verbs express the action of tearing someone or something into pieces.73 Usually, it is not employed to express mutilation on humans, but in a few instances ancient authors have chosen one of these terms to illustrate the ripping apart of the body by animals, weapons, or even machines. We find these verbs in numerous mythological episodes involving dismemberment. For instance, Pentheus, king of Thebae, is torn limb from limb by his mother and aunts, who have been driven mad by Dionysus. To recount this

67. Diogenes Laertius, Lives and opinions of eminent philosophers 10, 27. 68. Euripides, Rhesus 586; Alcestis 118 (καρατομέω); Philo of Alexandria, De specialibus legibus 2, 247, 1 (χειροκοπέω); [Plutarch], Lives of the Ten Orators, 14, 849c (γλωσσοτομέω); Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos 4, 9, 2 (μελοκοπέω is associated with another rare verb for designating beheading ἀποκεφαλίζω). 69. Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 229: τὴν γλῶτταν [...] ἐάν τις ἀφέλῃ. 70. Diodorus, 5, 29, 4: τῶν δὲ πεσόντων πολεμίων τὰς κεφαλὰς ἀφαιροῦντες. 71. Hippocrates, On joints 69: ἀφαιρεῖν κατὰ τὸ ἄρθρον. 72. Diodorus 2, 56, 5 (personal translation): Ἴδιον [...] δίπτυχον μὲν γὰρ αὐτοὺς ἔχειν τὴν γλῶτταν ἐπὶ ποσόν, τὰ δ’ ἐνδοτέρω προσδιαιρεῖν, ὥστε διπλῆν αὐτὴν γίνεσθαι μέχρι τῆς ῥίζης. 73. See CHANTRAINE 2009, pp. 997-998; 657-658.

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gruesome episode, Euripides uses several compounds of σπαράσσω, whereas Pausanias prefers ἀποσπάω, and the pseudo-Apollodorus uses μελίζω:74 Euripides: “I am bringing his body, for I discovered it in the folds of Kithairon, torn apart.” 75 Pausanias: “When the women detected Pentheus, they immediately dragged him down, and joined in tearing him, living as he was, limb from limb.” 76 Pseudo-Apollodorus: “and coming to the Cithaeron to spy on the Bacchanals, he was torn limb from limb by his mother Agave in a fit of madness.” 77

All these terms are sometimes used purely metaphorically.78 It is also the case with rarer verbs such as ἀπαμάω, which usually means “to harvest” but is also used to express a mutilation. Thus, Hesiod uses it to render the castration of Uranus by Cronus: Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly harvested his own father’s members (φίλου δ᾽ ἀπὸ μήδεα πατρὸς ἐσσυμένως ἤμησε) and cast them away to fall behind him. 79

It is also the case with θερίζω, which has the same meaning. Sophoclus, Euripides, and Philemon employ it to express the severing of the head or the tongue.80 Other terms could be evoked here, but this short overview provides the general idea of how the Greeks liked to express mutilation with verbs and words not normally assigned to this type of gruesome act. However, more specific terms were also in use which later became understood as equivalent to our “mutilate.” II.3. Specific terms II.3.1. ἀκρωτηριάζω

The first of these specific terms is ἀκρωτηριάζω, a verb appearing in the literature during the Classical period, gradually becoming used to express amputation of extremities and later on “to mutilate” on a more general basis. It is still the verb used today in modern Greek and understood only as “to mutilate.”81 The other meanings of the word are:

74. On this peculiar mythological episode, see GANTZ 2004, pp. 850-854. On the ritual dismemberment of animals (diasparagmos or sparagmos) associated with the Bacchic cult and suffered here by Pentheus whom his aunts, maddened by Dionysos, mistook for a lion, see HALM-TISSERANT 2004. 75. Euripides, Bacchae 1219-1220 (translation T. A. Buckley, London, 1890): φέρω τόδ᾽, εὑρὼν ἐν Κιθαιρῶνος πτυχαῖς / διασπαρακτὸν. 76. Pausanias, Description of Greece 2, 2, 7 (translation W. H. S Jones, Loeb, Cambridge, 1918): τὰς δέ, ὡς ἐφώρασαν, καθελκύσαι τε αὐτίκα Πενθέα καὶ ζῶντος ἀποσπᾶν ἄλλην τοῦ σώματος. 77. [Apollodorus], Library 3, 5, 2 (translation Sir J. G. Frazer, Loeb, Cambridge, 1921): καὶ παραγενόμενος εἱς Κιθαιρῶνα τῶν Βακχῶν κατάσκοπος ὑπὸ τῆς μητρὸς Ἀγαυῆς καὰ μανίαν ἐμελίσθη. 78. One example is a passage from Strabo (1, 2, 25 = C 32, 23) where he uses διασπάω to express the image of the Nile severing Libya and Asia into two pieces. 79. Hesiod, Theogonia 178-182 (translation H. G. Evelyn-White, Loeb, Cambridge, 1914). 80. Sophocles, Ajax 238-239; Euripides, The Trojan women 715-717; Palatine anthology 9, 451. 81. Already in the Byzantine period, see Suda, s.v. ἀκρωτηριάζω (α 1030 Adler): αἰτιατικῇ. Τέμνω τὰ ἄκρα. Καὶ ἀκρωτηριασμός “With the accusative case. To cut the extremities.” Also ἀκρωτηριασμός (personal translation).

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- To rip off the akrotèria (i.e. “the extremities” of a ship). This is the main meaning in the Classical period; the akrotèria should be understood as the metallic pieces of the ship, such as the prow.82 - To form a promontory, which appears mostly in geographical treaties, such as in Strabo’s Geography. As I have shown elsewhere,83 this verb sometimes came to be used to illustrate the amputation of extremities in the Hellenistic period, probably after this type of punishment had become better known in Greece through practices used all over the Barbarian world. The first preserved instance of this meaning is found in Polybius in the second century BCE, and it concerns the punishment exercised by rebellious mercenaries of Carthage towards Carthaginian prisoners: When they had cut off their hands, they amputated the extremities of the miserable men, and having thus mutilated them and broken their legs, they threw them still alive into a trench. 84

Polybius employs the same verb three other times with the same meaning.85 The extremities should probably be understood as the prominences of the human face. My hypothesis is that the amputation of extremities became widely known as a punishment through contact with the Persian Empire and motivated the Greeks to use a specific word instead of the usual ἀποκόπτω or ἀποτέμνω.86 It is notable that other authors tried earlier to find a better expression. For instance, Lysias, a metic specializing in writing speeches for others, wrote a judicial plea against a certain Andocides. He relates the fear of the latter to face an amputation of extremities as a punishment in Cyprus because of some treachery. Here is how he put it in his own unique words:

82. Example: Herodotus 3, 59 (translation A. D. Godley, Loeb, Cambridge, 1921): “But in the sixth year came the Aeginetans and Cretans and overcame them [the Samians] in a sea-fight and made slaves of them; moreover they cut off the ships’ prows, that were shaped like boar’s heads, and dedicated them in the temple of Athena in Aegina (Ἕκτῳ δὲ ἔτεϊ Αἰγινῆται αὐτοὺς ναυμαχίῃ νικήσαντες ἠνδραποδίσαντο μετὰ Κρητῶν, καὶ τῶν νεῶν καπρίους... ἐχουσέων τὰς πρῴρας ἠκρωτηρίασαν καὶ ἀνέθεσαν ἐς τὸ ἱρὸν τῆς Ἀθηναίης ἐν Αἰγίνῃ).” 83. MULLER 2013 with a general study of all the occurrences and an analysis of the evolution in meaning. 84. Polybius 1, 80, 13 (translation E. S. Shuckburgh, London, 1889 with a few personal modifications): ἐπειδὴ δὲ τὰς

χεῖρας ἀπέκοψαν, ἠκρωτηρίαζον τοὺς ταλαιπώρους· κολοβώσαντες δὲ καὶ τὰ σκέλη συντρίψαντες ἔτι ζῶντας ἔρριψαν εἴς τινα τάφρον.

85. Polybius 8, 21, 3 relates the death sentence of the usurper Achaeus condemned by the royal council of Antiochus III ordering “that his extremities should be cut off, his head severed from his body and sewn up in the skin of an ass, and his body impaled” ( πρῶτον μὲν ἀκρωτηριάσαι τὸν ταλαίπωρον, μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα τὴν κεϕαλὴν ἀποτεμόντας αὐτοῦ καὶ καταρράψαντας εἰς ὄνειον ἀσκὸν ἀνασταυρῶσαι τὸ σῶμα) (translation E. S. Shuckburgh, London, 1889). In 5, 54, 10, he reports that Hermeias, minister of the same Seleucid king in the second half of the 3rd century BCE,“amputated extremities, murdering and torturing, he put to death many inhabitants of Seleuceia” (ἀκρωτηριάζων δὲ καὶ ϕονεύων καὶ στρεβλῶν πολλοὺς διέϕθειρε τῶν Σελευκέων). After him Diodorus (13, 57, 3; 17, 69, 3; 25, fr. 3, 3 Goukowski = fr. 3, 1 Walton = Excerpta De virtutibus et vitiis, 210, t. 1, p. 262 Büttner-Wobst & Roos 34, fr. 35 Goukowski = 34/35, fr. 14 Walton = Excerpta De virtutibus et vitiis, 339, t. 1, p. 309 Büttner-Wobst & Roos) and many others in the Imperial period. 86. MULLER forthcoming and the examples of Persian practices evoked in the present paper.

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After this he took ship and went to the king of Citium; and being caught by him in an act of treachery he was imprisoned, and was in fear, not merely of death, but of daily tortures, expecting to be docked alive of his extremities.87

A few decades earlier, the poet Aeschylus, describing the torments of places where written law did not yet exist, had written: No, your place is where the punishments are beheading, gouging out of eyes, cutting of throats, and where young men’s virility is ruined by destruction of seed; where there is mutilation and stoning, and where those who are impaled beneath their spine moan long and piteously.88

One should note the way the language’s habit progressively evolved towards ἀκρωτηριάζω, even though ἀποτέμνω went on being used. II.3.2. Κολοβός and its derivations

We have already encountered the adjective κολοβός and its cognate κόλος. These are interesting words, for their original meaning, “hornless,” is very close to the Latin etymology of our “mutilation.”89 It is thus not surprising that it has been chosen by Aristotle to express the concept of mutilation. However, it was probably too abstract a word to be widely used among Greek authors. Only a few instances concerned mutilation of humans, such as Polybius in the passage I quoted in the preceding section. One instance, however, is quite interesting, for it involves a people from Ethiopia who are called Κολoβοί, the “Mutilated”: both Diodorus of Sicily in the first century BCE and Strabo a few decades later report that the men of this tribe practiced a sexual mutilation. Let us read what Diodorus explains: “They cut with a razor the part that is circumcised, among others.”90 We can notice also the substantive ἡ περιτομή which comes from περιτέμνω, the verb used to express the act of circumcision. II.3.3. Μασχαλίζω: an obscure Archaic ritual mutilation?

The verb μασχαλίζω is very strange and appears only in two verses of Classical tragedies, in exactly the same circumstances.91 Formed with the substantive μασχάλη (“armpit”) and the 87. Lysias, Against Andocides, 26 (translation W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb, Cambridge, 1930): μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἔπλευσεν ὡς

τὸν Κιτιῶν βασιλέα, καὶ προδιδοὺς ληφθεὶς ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐδέθη, καὶ οὐ μόνον τὸν θάνατον ἐφοβεῖτο ἀλλὰ καὶ καθ’ ἡμέραν αἰκίσματα, οἰόμενος τὰ ἀκρωτήρια ζῶντος ἀποτμηθήσεσθαι.

88. Aeschylus, Eumenides 186-190 (translation H. Weir Smyth, Loeb, Cambridge, 1926): οὗ καρανιστῆρες ὀϕθαλμωρύχοι / δίκαι σϕαγαί τε, σπέρματός τ' ἀποϕθορᾷ / παίδων κακοῦται χλοῦνις, ἠδ' ἀκρωνίαι / λευσμοί τε, καὶ μύζουσιν οἰκτισμὸν πολὺν / ὑπὸ ῥάχιν παγέντες.

89. See above fn. 3. 90. Diodorus 3, 32, 4 (personal translation): ξυροῖς ἀποτέμνονται πᾶν τὸ τοῖς ἄλλοις μέρος περιτομῆς τυγχάνον. See also Strabo 16, 4, 5 (C769, 21-22); 16, 4, 9 (C771, 25); 16, 4, 10 (C771, 31); 16, 4, 13 (C773, 2); 16, 4, 17 (C 776, 7). 91. Aeschylus, Libation-Bearers 439-444: “Yes, and I would have you know he was arm-pitted. And even as she buried him in this way, she acted with intent to make the manner of his death a burden on your life past all power to bear. You hear the story of the ignominious outrage done to your father” ( ἐμασχαλίσθη δέ γ’, ὡς τόσ’εἰδῇς, / ἔπρασσε δ’, ἅπερ νιν ὧδε θάπτει, / μόρον κτίσαι μωμένα / ἅφερτον αἰῶνι σῷ·/ κλύεις πατρῴους δύας ἀτίμους) (translation H. Weir Smyth, Loeb, Cambridge, 1926 with a slight personal change). Sophocles, Electra

442-446: “Consider whether you believe that the dead in his tomb will welcome this tribute with affection towards her, by whose hand he died dishonoured and was arm-pitted like an enemy? She, who, as if to wash herself clean,

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suffix -ίζειν, it could be translated as “arm-pitting.”92 In both instances, it expresses the fate of Agamemnon, killed by Clytemnestra on his return from Troy. Several scholia and Byzantine encyclopaedias define the word as the action of cutting off the extremities of a murdered victim and of stringing together the body parts around the neck of the corpse or the murderer—the testimonies diverge—in order to atone for the murder or to prevent the dead from avenging himself.93 Some of these Byzantine lexica explain the mutilation perpetrated using the verb ἀκρωτηριάζω. I have tried to demonstrate that it is probably an incorrect interpretation of the verb by ancient scholars who had forgotten its real sense.94 First of all, there are no other occurrences of this verb even at the time of the first lexicographers, who quote only the two passages from Aeschylus and Sophocles still at our disposal: this is evidence that no other known example existed at the beginning of the Hellenistic period. Secondly, a sacred law from the early Hellenistic times evokes the substantive μασχαλισμάτα, which must be understood as the first-fruits of the sacrificed animal.95 I have concluded that it is possible that μασχαλίζω designates not a ritual mutilation of Agamemnon’s corpse but rather a corrupted sacrifice, typical in tragedies and myths, as shown by Froma Zeitlin.96 This latter case has drawn the attention of historians who saw an indication that Greeks had practiced, perhaps in the Archaic period, corporal mutilations.97 Despite the fact that the maschalismos may never have been a ritual practice, it does not overshadow the Greek temptation—fantasized or not—towards otherwise rejected practices, as the ancient sources indeed show.

III. THE GREEK TEMPTATION TO MUTILATE THE BODY III.1. A self-fantasized means of punishment of Archaic times Whereas the Classical Greeks considered that mutilation as a punishment was un-Greek and typical of Barbarians,98 they did think that, back in Archaic times, there were also such punishments in their wiped off the bloodstains on his head” (Σκέψαι γάρ εἴ σοι προσφιλῶς αὐτῇ δοκεῖ / γέρα τάδ’ οὑν τάφοισι δέξασθαι νέκυς, / ὑφ’ ἧς θανὼν ἄτιμος ὥστε δυσμενὴς/ ἐμασχαλίσθη κἀπὶ λουτροῖσιν κάρᾳ / κηλῖδας ἐξέμαξεν) (translation Sir R. Jebb, Cambridge University Press, 1894 with a slight personal change). 92. As KITTREDGE 1885 for the word ἡ μασχάλη lies in its stem. 93. A scholia to Sophocles, Electra 445, reproduced in Byzantine lexica: Hesychius, Lexicon, s.v. μασχαλίσματα; Photius, Lexicon, s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη and μασχαλίσματα; Suda, s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι, ἐμασχαλίσθη and μασχαλίσματα; Etymologicum Μagnum, s.v. μασχαλιζω; Etymologicum Genuinum, s.v. Etymologicum Symeonis, [Zonaras], Lexicon, s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη; Michael Apostolios, Lexicon, s.v. μασχαλισθήσῃ ποτέ. For the detailed list, the Greek texts, and translations, see MULLER 2011. 94. Surprisingly, more recently DUNN 2018 develops almost the same hypothesis but without quoting my article of 2011. 95. SEG XXXV, 113. See LUPU 2003 and LUPU 2005, pp. 159-170. The first who started to have doubts about the meaning of μασχαλίζω but without developing the question is PARKER 1984. 96. ZEITLIN 1966. 97. For instance, ROHDE 1928, pp. 599-603; GOTSMICH 1955; HALM-TISSERANT 1998, 30; CEULEMANS 2007. See MULLER 2011, p. 279 fn. 34–36 for the other references. 98. The Near Eastern world testifies to numerous corporal punishments, including amputations of body parts. The bestknown examples come from Hammurabi’s Code (§192-197; 200; 205; 226; 253; 282; see ROTH 1997, pp. 120-

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own law codes. For instance, in diverse Classical and Hellenistic authors, we find the trace of a law from the Greek city of Locris in southern Italy attributed to the semi-legendary lawmaker Zaleucus.99 This law mandates the ripping out—ἐκκόπτω—of the two eyes of someone guilty of blinding a oneeyed man, in order for the sentence to equal the crime.100 This verb formed on κόπτω could designate not only a medical enucleation, but also a blinding. One of the texts specifies that it was a modification of an existing law based on a strict retaliation: “an eye for an eye” writes Diodorus: “If a man put out the eye of another, he should have his own eye put out.”101 It is possible that the law, as well as the lawmaker himself, was retroactively exaggerated. However, such a stipulation recalls the Roman law of the XII Tables (c. 450 BCE), from which the very notion and word talio originate: “If a person has maimed another’s limb, let there be retaliation in kind, unless he agrees to make compensation (talio) with him.”102 There is an interesting variant in a fragment from Aristotle: “If someone is apprehended flagrante delicto stealing, the eye is gouged out.”103 It is not a talio any more, but in this lost Constitution of the Locrians, enucleation was presented as the penalty established by Zaleucus in cases of theft. Aelian, who writes much later in the Imperial times, asserts the so-punished crime was adultery,104 but such an emendation is not surprising, for the Greek collective imagination often associates blinding and castration.105 Another Aristotelian fragment reports that there was an Archaic law from Tenedos in which decapitation was the punishment for adultery.106 In Herodotus’ Histories, a shepherd from the city of Apollonia in Asia Minor is blinded by his cocitizens because he failed in his task to keep the sacred sheep of the sanctuary of Apollo.107 The body part involved in the crime is punished following a logic expressed perfectly by Dante in his Divine Comedy, which he calls contrapasso.108 A mirror punishment—or the punishment of the organ responsible for the crime—is well known in Mesopotamian law codes of the second millennium BCE and is a principle that is recurrent also in Greek literature. However, the laws from Locris are usually considered legendary: even if they suggest some kind of talio in Greek pre-Classical law, nothing in the preserved sources corroborates it, despite what has been thought.109 This is all the more true since we know today that there is no evolution in

132) and the Biblical law “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus, 21, 24; Leviticus, 24, 20; Deuteronomy, 19, 21). 99. According to the different testimonies, there are slight differences: Diodorus states that the lawmaker is Charondas and the city Thourioi, whereas Diogenes Laertius (I, 57) attributes the law to Solon. 100. Demosthenes, Against Timocrates 139-141, Aristotle, Rhetoric 1, 7, 1365b, 16-19; Diodorus 12, 17, 4-5; Diogenes Laertius 1, 57. 101. Diodorus 12, 17, 4-5 (translation C. H. Oldfather, Loeb, Cambridge, 1989): ἔαν τίς τινος ὀφθαλμὸν ἐκκόψῃ, ἀντεκκόπτεσθαι τὸν ἐκείνου. 102. Personal translation: Si membrum rupsit, ni cum eo pacit, talio esto. 103. Aristotle, Politeia fr. 611, 61 Rose3: ἐὰν ἁλῷ τις κλέπτων, τὸν ὀϕθαλμὸν ἐξορύσσεται. 104. Aelian, Historical miscellany 13, 24. 105. See DEVEREUX 1973. 106. Aristotle, Politeiai fr. 593 and 611, 24 Rose3. 107. Herodotus, 93-94. 108. Dante, Divine comedy 28, 142. 109. For instance, MÜHL 1933, pp. 45-51.

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jurisprudence from corporal punishments to fines.110 Indeed, the judicial corpus from Mesopotamia shows that financial compensation predates the first testimonies of mirror punishments. Actually, these few examples illustrate more the ideas the Ancient Greeks had about their own judicial past than the account of real practices. The few verses of the Eumenides I have quoted above could be added to this perception. III. 2. Mutilation as expression of street or war violence The Locrian law reveals the degree of personal violence that was sometimes known in Ancient Greece. Another hint about this particular kind of violence is given by a symbola between Athens and Troezen dating from the 4th century BCE. A symbola is a convention between two cities which guarantees the rights of citizens from each city and regulates the conflicts between them. The inscription is fragmentary, but it is possible to read: “If someone blinded or gouged out one of the eyes, one mina each.”111 One might notice that enucleation or blinding was fined quite heavily,112 showing that this type of violence was actually occurring and had to be discouraged. Indeed, different ancient authors relate the story of the Archaic Spartan lawmaker Lycurgus, who had one of his eyes blinded by a young fellow citizen unhappy with the reforms he was conducting.113 Moreover, some vase representations show two wrestlers in fighting position, one of them trying to put a finger in his opponent’s eye.114 These testimonies must not be underestimated when bearing in mind a passage from Aeschines, the 4th century Athenian orator. He reports the murder of Nicodemus of Aphidna by a certain Midias: “The miserable one perished of violent death, both his eyes ripped out and his tongue cut off.”115 This testimony within a judicial discourse would have been easy to refute if the story was a lie. All these examples show that during brawls and street fights, the eyes were a target of choice, as were the nose and the ears. Indeed, Demosthenes, another 4th century BCE orator, evokes analogous violence, but this time it is the tip of the nose which is bitten off and eaten116 during a scuffle between two individuals in prison. Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher from the late Hellenistic period, testifies also to these types of injuries during brawls and drinking binges.117 During war time, collective violence was omnipresent: but Greeks, as we saw, were not too keen on mutilating their enemies. They rather preferred to cut their throats or reduce them to slavery.118 However, at the end of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), the Athenians voted an atypical 110. OTTO 1991; WHITMAN 1996. 111. IG II2, 46, 15 = SEG XIII, 38: ἐκτυφλ[ῶσηι ἢ τὸν ἕτερον ὀφθ]αλμὸν ἐκκόψηι, μνᾶν ἑκα[τέρου]. 112. The monetary unit, mina, corresponds to 100 drachms, compared with the one drachm day-wage of a worker. 113. Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 11, 2; Laconian apophthegms [Lycurgus, 5] 227 A; Aelian, Historical miscellany 13, 23; Pausanias, Description of Greece 3, 18, 2. 114. See the Attic red-figured kylix of the Fondry Painter, British Museum, E 78, c. 490–480 204342.

BCE,

Beazley archive

115. Aeschines, Against Timarchos 172 (personal translation): τετελεύτηκε βιαίῳ θανάτῳ, ἐκκοπείς ὁ δείλαιος ἀμφοτέρους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ τὴν γλῶτταν ἀποτμηθείς. 116. Demosthenes, Against Aristogiton 1, 6: τὴν ῥῖν’... ἐσθίων κατέφαγεν. 117. Philo of Alexandria, De vita contemplativa 44. 118. See PAYEN 2012, pp. 117-127.

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decree.119 The contemporaneous Athenian historian Xenophon reports in his Hellenica that they intended “to cut off the right hand of every man taken alive.”120 This decree seems never to have been put into practice, but Xenophon qualifies it as contrary to the common law: “They had acted unlawfully (παρενενομήκεσαν).”121 The same anecdote is related by Cicero, Plutarch, and Aelian,122 but the amputation is limited to the thumb and is perpetrated by the Athenians on the Aeginetans. In all three cases, it is presented as an exceptional measure, but still properly voted by the Athenian assembly. The purpose is clear: to deprive the rowers or the soldiers of the limb required to fight. We must remember that this decree passed at the end of the war, when Athens was in a very difficult position and was attempting everything possible to regain the upper hand. Thus, the measure had a double goal: to prevent a prisoner from becoming a soldier or a rower again and to discourage others from joining the battle. According to our sources, the Athenians were not the only ones to perform such an “un-Greek” act. Diodorus reveals that the Syracusans perpetrated an equivalent punishment on the Carthaginians.123 But in this case, it was an act of retaliation intended to educate the Barbarians of Carthage.124 Indeed, Carthaginian ships had boarded commercial Athenian boats, whose crew members had had their hands amputated.125 It has never been considered, but it is possible to bring closer these two accounts, for it concerns in both cases prisoners. Lastly, Xenophon, who took part in a mercenary venture in the Near East as an officer, reports a unique yet horrible episode in the retreat of his troops. Pursued and harassed by the Persians, Xenophon’s soldiers committed an act that shocked their officer: And the Greek troops, unbidden save by their own impulse, disfigured the bodies of the dead, in order that the sight of them might inspire the utmost terror in the enemy. 126

The verb αἰκίζω is often translated as “to mutilate” or “to disfigure” in modern times,127 even though it relates to physical insult in a large sense.128 But still, the act must have involved substantial damage to inflict terror. All these examples show that despite the aversion of the Greeks in our literary sources to all forms of mutilation, the reality may have been different, especially in extreme situations. It is even more true when we look at some anecdotes concerning tyrants or Greeks from the borders of the Barbarian world.

119. On this episode, see COUVENHES 2011 and MULLER 2014, pp. 58-59. 120. Xenophon, Hellenica 2, 1, 31: τὴν δεξιὰν χεῖρα ἀποκόπτειν τῶν ζωγρηθέντων πάντων. 121. Xenophon, Hellenica 2, 1, 32. 122. Cicero, On duties 2, 11; Plutarch, Life of Lysander 9, 5; Aelian, Historical miscellany 2, 9. 123. Diodorus 19, 103, 4-5. 124. CUSUMANO 2011, pp. 122-128. 125. Diodorus 19, 103, 4. 126. Xenophon, Anabasis 3, 4, 5 (translation C. L. Brownson, Loeb, Cambridge, 1922): Τοὺς δὲ ἀποθανοντας αὐτοκελευστοι οἱ Ἕλληνες ᾐκισαντο, ὡς ὅτι φοβερωτατον τοῖς πολεμιοις εἴη ὁρᾶν. 127. See MASQUERAY 1930, p. 147 for the former and BROWNSON 1921, p. 467 for the latter. 128. On the meaning of the verb, see GERNET 1917, pp. 211-221; PEIGNEY 1981, pp. 138-158; VERNANT 1996, pp. 388390.

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III.3. The tyrants and Greeks at the fringes of the Greek world If the Barbarians of Classical literature often amputate parts of their enemies’ bodies, it was viewed as a typical characteristic of despotism among the Near Eastern monarchs and more particularly of the Persian kings.129 They are regularly compared to tyrants and, by some sort of mirror effect, we observe an inverse phenomenon when it comes to Greek kings and tyrants. Some commit all kinds of violence outside what was considered lawful, even sometimes corporal mutilation. For instance, it has been noticed in Greek tragedies with mythological rulers, but also for individuals in historical times. According to Aristotle, the king Pantaleo from Pisa—a city of Greece—who lived in the 7th century BCE, had the gruesome habit of emasculating any messenger and having them eat their testicles.130 Plato in his Gorgias describes the tortures that opponents to tyrants often suffered: […] if a man be caught criminally plotting against a tyrant, and he be straightway put on the rack and castrated and have his eyes burnt out, and after suffering himself, and seeing inflicted on his wife and children, a number of grievous torments of every kind.131

In 307 BCE, among other torments, Diodorus reports that the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles had the breasts of the women of Segesta amputated to make them reveal the hiding place of their wealth: As for the wealthy women, he tortured some of them by crushing their ankles with iron pincers, he cut off the breasts of others, and by placing bricks on the lower part of their backs of those who were pregnant, he forced the expulsion of the foetus by the pressure.132

We can notice the proximity with known mutilation perpetrated by Persian royals: castration is regularly mentioned,133 and the wife of Xerxes 1st (486–465 BCE) orders multiple mutilations on her rival’s mother, among which was an ablation of the breasts.134 In these examples, mutilation is only one form taken by tyrannical violence, yet the others go beyond the scope of this paper. More explicit are the cases where Barbarian influence is direct—among some Greek monarchs from the fringes of the Greek world in close contact with the Barbarian cultures, or among Macedonian rulers from the Hellenistic period who are at the head of mixed Greek–Barbarian societies. We do find in texts typical Barbarian punishments associated with these two categories. For instance, Herodotus writes about the queen Pheretime of Cyrene, who decides, at the end of the 6th century BCE, to avenge

129. See HALL 1996, p. 136: “Unpleasant physical punishments are hallmarks of the barbarian tyrant in Greek thought” (also HALL 1989, pp. 158-159); BRIDGES 2015, p. 23: “the meeting out of violent and arbitrary punishment in the form of bodily mutilation came to be associated with the idea of barbarian tyranny in Greek thought in the fifth century B.C.”. 130. Aristotle, Politeia fr. 611, 21 Rose3. 131. Plato, Gorgias 473c (translation W. R. M Lamb, Loeb, Cambridge, 1967 slightly modified): ([...] ἐὰν ἀδικῶν ἄνθρωπος ληϕθῇ τυραννίδι ἐπιβουλεύων, καὶ ληϕθεὶς στρεβλῶται καὶ ἐκτέμνηται καὶ τοὺς ὀϕθαλμοὺς ἐκκάηται, καὶ ἄλλας πολλὰς καὶ μεγάλας καὶ παντοδαπὰς λώβας αὐτός τε λωβηθεὶς καὶ τοὺς αὑτοῦ ἐπιδὼν παῖδάς τε καὶ γυναῖκα [...].

132. Diodorus 20, 71, 2-3 (translation R. M. Geer, Loeb, Cambridge, 1954): τῶν δὲ γυναικῶν τῶν εὐπόρων τινῶν μὲν καρκίνοις σιδηροῖς τὰ σφυρὰ πιέζων συνέτεινε, τινῶν δὲ τοὺς τιτθοὺς ἀπέτεμνεν, ταῖς δ´ ἐγκύοις πλίνθους ἐπὶ τὴν ὀσφῦν ἐπιτιθεὶς τὸ ἔμβρυον ἀπὸ τοῦ βάρους ἐξέθλιβεν.

133. Herodotus 6, 9 and 32; Xenophon, Cyropedia 5, 2, 28; Arrian, FGrHist 156 F79 and F80. 134. Herodotus 9, 112.

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her son Arcesilas III by punishing the population of Barca.135 Even though located in Libya, Cyrene and its colony Barca were Greek cities. However, the punishment Pheretime exercises towards the women resembles very much what I have already mentioned about the Persian world. Indeed, she orders that the women have their breasts amputated, which are to be hung from the walls: When they were delivered to her by the Persians, Pheretime took the most guilty of the Barcaeans and set them impaled around the top of the wall; the breasts of their women she cut off and planted around the wall in like manner.136

Modern scholars have viewed this anecdote more as a literary device rather that an historical event, employed in order to portray Pheretime as a cruel queen, thus justifying her terrible end.137 However, to regain power, Pheretime had to call the Persian king Cambysus for help:138 client of the Persians, she might also have picked up some of their penal practices. For the Hellenistic period, our sources testify to numerous Barbarian punishments practiced by Macedonian rulers. It starts with the punishment by Alexander the Great of the satrap Bessus mentioned above.139 It is also the case with the punishment of Achaeus, a Seleucid usurper captured and handed over to Antiochus III (222–187 BCE). Among other torments, he also had his extremities amputated: Finally, it was resolved that his extremities should be cut off, his head severed from his body and sewn up in the skin of an ass, and his body impaled. 140

This phenomenon increases towards the end of the period, with numerous exactions committed by diverse Seleucid and Lagid monarchs:141 the frontiers become then very thin between the Barbarian and the Graeco–Macedonian world.

CONCLUSION The issue of the corporal mutilations in the Greek world is complex and cannot be comprehensively addressed in a short paper. However, I hope to have managed to present an overview of its ramifications, starting with the perception of the practices involved, which in Greek narratives is unquestionably negative. Secondly, the lexical summary shows some of the variety of terms used by ancient authors to express all kinds of body modification. I must add that the vocabulary section in this paper provides just a hint at the wealth of Greek words to express mutilation of the human body. What appears underlined in the present study is the number of Greek accounts of non-Greek practices. Indeed, many examples given show that numerous so-called Barbarian cultures were using 135. Herodotus 4, 202. 136. Translation A. D. Godley, Loeb, Cambridge, 1920: Τοὺς μέν νυν αἰτιωτάτους τῶν Βαρκαίων ἡ Φερετίμη,

ἐπείτε οἱ ἐκ τῶν Περσέων παρεδόθησαν, ἀνεσκολόπισε κύκλῳ τοῦ τείχεος, τῶν δέ σϕι γυναικῶν τοὺς μαζοὺς ἀποταμοῦσα περιέστιξε καὶ τούτοισι τὸ τεῖχος.

137. For instance, ALY 1921, p. 135. 138. Herodotus 4, 165-167 and 200 139. Curtius, History of Alexander 7, 5, 40 and Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 4, 7, 3. 140. Polybius 8, 21, 3 (translation E. S. Shuckburgh, New York, 1889); see n. 84 for the Greek text. 141. Polybius 5, 54, 10; 15, 33, 7-10; Diodorus 34, fr. 35 Goukowski = 34/35, fr. 14 Walton = Excerpta De virtutibus et vitiis, 335 and 339, t. 1, p. 309 Büttner-Wobst & Roos; Justin, Epitome of Trogus’ Philippic histories 38, 8, 13.

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mutilation to adorn their bodies, outrage their enemies, or punish their outlaws. An inevitable question is therefore to confront literary sources and realia in order to identify or not a possible Greek bias towards these foreign cultures.142 In any case, the same sources also clearly illustrate that despite their disdain for altering the body, Greeks themselves thought that they had in their distant past practiced mutilation143 and were still tempted to do so in historical times. These expressions of Archaic law and street or war violence allow us to conclude that the perception of a practice may sometimes be different from its cultural reality.

REFERENCES ALY W. 1921 Volksmärchen, Sage und Novelle bei Herodot und seinen Zeitgenossen: eine Untersuchung über die volkstümlichen Elemente der altgriechischen Prosaerzählung, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. BRIDGES E. 2015 Imagining Xerxes: ancient perspectives on a Persian king, London – New York, Bloomsbury. BROWNSON C. L. 1921 Xenophon, volume 2: Hellenica, Books VI-VII-Anabasis, Books I-III, London – Cambridge, Harvard University Press. CEULEMANS R. 2007 “Ritual mutilation in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica: a contextual analysis of IV, 477-479 in search of the motive of the μασχαλισμός”, Kernos 20, pp. 97-112. CHANTRAINE P. 2009 Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots (Série Linguistique 20), Paris, Klincksieck. CHIPPAUX C. 1982 “Sociétés et mutilations ethniques”, Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris 9/13, pp. 257-265. 1990 “Des mutilations, déformations, tatouages rituels et intentionnels chez l’Homme”, in Histoire des mœurs. Tome 1: les coordonnées de l’Homme et la culture matérielle, ed. by J. POIRIER (Folio Histoire 109), Paris, Gallimard, pp. 481-600. COUVENHES J. -C. 2011 “Le décret des mains coupées (Xénophon, Helléniques, II, 1, 31-32) et la mutilation des extrémités sur les prisonniers de guerre”, in Corps outragés, corps ravagés de l'Antiquité au Moyen Âge, ed. by L. BODIOU, V. MEHL and M. SORIA (Culture et société médiévales 21), Turnhout, Brepols, pp. 419-434. CUSUMANO N. 2011 “Gérer la haine, fabriquer l’ennemi: Grecs et Carthaginois en Sicile entre les Ve et les IVe siècles av.J. -C.”, in Diodore d’Agyrion et l’histoire de la Sicile: actes de la journée d’étude à Lyon du vendredi 24 avril 2009, ed. by S. COLLIN BOUFFIER (Dialogues d’histoire ancienne Supplément 6), Besançon, Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, pp. 113-133. DEVEREUX G. 1973 “The self-blinding of Oidipous in Sophokles: Oidipous Tyrannos”, The Journal of Hellenic Studies 93, pp. 36-49.

142. See for instance MULLER 2014. 143. Some modern authors (for instance HALM-TISSERANT 1998, p. 23; COUVENHES 2011, p. 426), following GERNET 1917, pp. 216-217, have overestimated the existence of an Archaic form of punishment they called ἀκρωτηριασμός. This term appears only in an Imperial medical text. See MULLER forthcoming.

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DUNN F. M. 2018 “The mutilation of Agamemnon (A. Ch. 439 and S. El. 445)”, Mnemosyne 71, pp. 195-208. ERNOUT A., MEILLET A 19594 Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, Paris, Klincksieck [1st ed.: 1932]. GANTZ T. 2004 Mythes de la Grèce archaïque (L’Antiquité au présent), Paris, Belin. GERNET L. 1917 Recherches sur le développement de la pensée juridique et morale en Grèce: étude sémantique (Bibliothèque de la Fondation Thiers), Paris, Ernest Leroux. GHERCHANOC F. 2015 Concours de beauté et beautés du corps en Grèce ancienne: discours et pratiques (Scripta antiqua 81), Bordeaux, Ausonius éditions. GOTSMICH A. 1955 “Der Maschalismos und seine Wiedergabe in der griechischen Kunst”, in Monumentum Bambergense, Festgabe für Benedikt Kraft, ed. by H. NOTTARP, G. HEIS, H. PFEIL and F. SAUTER (Bamberger Abhandlungen und Forschungen 3), Munich, Kösel-Verlag, pp. 349-366. HALL E. 1989 Inventing the Barbarian: Greek self-definition through tragedy (The Oxford Classical Monographs), Oxford, Clarendon press. 1996 Aeschylus Persians (Classical Texts), Warminster, Aris and Phillips. HALM-TISSERANT M. 1998 Réalités et imaginaire des supplices en Grèce ancienne (Collection d’études anciennes série grecque 239), Paris, Belles Lettres. 2004 “Le sparagmos, un rite de magie fécondante”, Kernos 17, pp. 119-142. JONES C. P. 1987 “Stigma: tattooing and branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity”, The Journal of Roman Studies 77, pp. 139-155. 2000 “Stigma and tattoo”, in Written on the body: the tattoo in European and American history, ed. by J. CAPLAN (Critical views), London, Reaktion, pp. 1-16. KITTREDGE G. L. 1885 “Arm-pitting among the Greeks”, The American Journal of Philology 6, pp. 151-169. KUHRT A. 2007 The Persian Empire: a corpus of sources from the Achaemenid period, London – New York, Routledge. LECOQ P. 1997 Les inscriptions de la Perse achéménide, traduit du vieux perse, de l’élamite, du babylonien et de l’araméen (L’Aube des peuples), Paris, Gallimard. LUPU E. 2003 “Μασχαλίσματα: A Note on SEG XXXV 113”, in Lettered Attica: a day of Attic epigraphy, proceedings of the Athens symposium 8 March 2000, ed. by D. JORDAN and J. TRAILL (Publications of the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens 3), Toronto, Athenians Research Project, pp. 69-77. 2005 Greek sacred law: a collection of new documents (new Greek sacred law) (Religions in the GraecoRoman World 152), Leiden – Boston, Brill. MARI F. 2014 “La main infidèle: le Grand Roi et la mutilation de Cyrus le Jeune”, in Corps au supplice et violences de guerre de l’Antiquité, ed. by A. ALLÉLY (Scripta antiqua 67), Bordeaux, Ausonius, pp. 79-94. MASQUERAY P. 1930 Xénophon, Anabase. Tome I: Livres I-III (Collection des universités de France), Paris, Belles Lettres. MÜHL M. 1933 Untersuchungen zur altorientalischen und althellenischen Gesetzgebung (Klio Beiheft 29), Leipzig, Dietrich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.

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MULLER Y. 2011 “Le maschalismos, une mutilation rituelle en Grèce ancienne?”, Ktèma 36, pp. 269-296. 2013 “Démosthène, Sur la couronne 296 et le vocabulaire grec de la mutilation corporelle”, Erga-Logoi 1, pp. 61-86. 2014 “La mutilation de l’ennemi en Grèce classique: pratique barbare ou préjugé grec?”, in Corps au supplice et violences de guerre de l’Antiquité, ed. by A. ALLÉLY (Scripta antiqua 67), Bordeaux, Ausonius, pp. 42-72. 2016 ‘Religion, empire and mutilation: a cross-religious perspective on Achaemenid mutilation practices”, in Religion in the Persian period: emerging judaisms and other trends, ed. by V. EDELMAN, A. FITZPATRICK and P. GUILLAUME, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, pp. 197-227. 2019 “Mutilation”, in Le dictionnaire du corps dans l’Antiquité, ed. by L. BODIOU and V. MEHL (Histoire), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, pp. 417-420. forthcoming “L’amputation des extrémités dans les sources grecques: approches modernes et perceptions anciennes”, in Corps en morceaux: démembrer et recomposer les corps dans l’Antiquité classique, ed. by F. GHERCHANOC and S. WYLER, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. OTTO E. 1991 “Die Geschichte der Talion im Alten Orient und Israel”, in Ernten, was man sät: Festschrift für Klaus Koch zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. by D. R. DANIELS, U. GLEßMER and M. RÖSEL, Neukirchen-Vluyn, Neukirchener Verlag, pp. 101-130. PARKER R. 1984 “A note on φόνος, θυσία and μασχαλισμός”, Liverpool Classical Monthly 9, p. 138. PAYEN P. 2012 Les revers de la guerre en Grèce ancienne (L’Antiquité au présent), Paris, Belin. PEIGNEY J. 1981 Intégrité physique et altérations du corps dans la pensée et la littérature grecques antiques d’Homère à Démosthène, PhD Paris-Nanterre University. RENAUT L. 2004 Marquage corporel et signation religieuse dans l’Antiquité, PhD EPHE Paris. 2014 “Le tatouage dans l’Antiquité”, in Tatoueurs, tatoués: catalogue de l'exposition organisée au Musée du Quai Branly, ed. by S. GALLIOT and P. BAGOT, Paris, Actes Sud, pp. 22-26. RIEGEL N. 2011 Beauty, τὸ καλόν, and its relation to the good in the works of Plato, PhD Toronto University. ROHDE E. 1928 Psyché: le culte de l’âme chez les Grecs et leur croyance à l’immortalité (Bibliothèque scientifique), Paris, Payot. ROTH M. 1997 Law collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. 2nd edition (SBL Writings from the Ancient World 6), Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature. SEGAL C. P. 1971 The theme of the mutilation of the corpse in the Iliad (Mnemosyne Supplementum 17), Leiden, Brill. SMOTHERS E. R. 1947 “Kalos in acclamation”, Traditio 5, pp. 1-57. TESTART A. 2008 “Des crânes et des vautours ou la guerre oubliée”, Paléorient 34, pp. 33-58. VERNANT J. -P. 1996 “Les semblances de Pandora”, in Le métier du mythe: lectures d’Hésiode, ed. by F. BLAISE, P. JUDET DE LA COMBE and P. ROUSSEAU (Cahiers de philologie Série apparat critique 16), Paris, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, pp. 381-396. WHITMAN J. Q. 1996 “At the origins of law and the state: monopolization of violence, mutilation of bodies, or fixing of prices?”, Chicago-Kent Law Review 71, pp. 41-84.

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WILGAUX J. 2009 “Ὑγιὴς καὶ ὁλόκλαρος: le corps du prêtre en Grèce ancienne”, in La norme religieuse en Grèce ancienne: actes du XIe colloque du CIERGA (Rennes, septembre 2007), ed. by P. BRULÉ (Kernos Supplément 21), Liege, Centre international d’étude de la religion grecque antique, pp. 231-242. ZEITLIN F. I. 1966 “The motif of corrupted sacrifice in Aeschylus’ Oresteia”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 96, pp. 463-508.

CHRISTIAN LAES

How does Graeco-Roman Antiquity fit in the long history of the body and disabilities in the Western world?

This chapter only intends to offer some reflections, which may serve as temptative conclusions to the book volume. By a ‘practical’ focus on daily life anecdotes, I want to show how (conceptions of) disabilities impacted the way individuals viewed their and other people’s bodies. The comparison with the present or the more recent past in no way suggests that the subject of disabilities in the Ancient Mediterranean is mainly a history of the (very) longue durée. In the last section, I suggest possible turning points in the way people with impairments were either viewed or treated.

I. THREE STORIES I present three stories. In all three, the theme of disability and coping with bodily deformity immediately comes to the fore. While the first tale is known from British songs and ballads from the seventeenth century on, the second goes back to American literature from the last decade. The third is invented by myself, though very much inspired by words and thoughts—in this case a sermon—I heard in a nearby parish. I.1. Lady Skinker When Lady Skinker, during her pregnancy, was confronted with a beggar and his accompanying children who knocked at her door, she brutally chased them away, adding the harsh words that the beggar should remove his “dirty pigs” from her sight. At that point, the angry beggar cursed the haughty lady, and as a consequence she begot a baby with a human body and the head of a pig. In great despair, the parents consulted an astrologist, who told them that the girl—she was named Tannakin— could only be relieved from her pig face when she got married. The poor girl spent most of her childhood hidden away. When she got out, she was veiled or driven around in a coach. When she reached marriageable age, a whole cohort of suitors from all over the world presented themselves as a potential husband. This was unsurprising, since a reward of 40,000 pounds was offered to whomever was able to look her in the eyes and accept her as his bride. Among the suitors were some most ridiculous and despicable characters. One claimed that he could easily cope with a pig-faced wife, since a grunting lady would be preferable to a wife who constantly yelled at him. Another believed that Tannakin would hardly cost him anything in terms of required food. A butcher was convinced that he Flesh and bones: the individual and his body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, ed. by Alice MOUTON (Semitica & Classica. Supplementa 2), Turnhout, 2020, pp. 223-229

HPUBLISHERS

BREPOLS

DOI 10.1484/M.SUPSEC-EB.5.120947

224 Christian Laes was the best candidate, since he knew all there was to know about pigs. Even gentlemen, dressed up in their best clothes, arrived. Some stories focus on the literally thousands (!) of suitors, who all competed for her ... in vain, since all of them eventually were unable to look her right in the eyes when she had lifted up her veil and revealed her pig face. So, Tannakin remained unmarried and passed her life carried around in a coach and hiding herself from curious gazes by means of her veil.1 I.2. Markos Varvaris When Markos Varvaris for the first time met Thalia Ganiakos, who together with her mother Madaline came to visit him and his mother Odelia on the Greek island of Tinos in 1967, he could barely hide his awe and fascination at the sight of the twelve-year-old girl. At the age of five, Thalia had been the victim of a terrible accident: attacked by a dog, the underside of her face had been almost literally bitten away, and a failed surgery had caused permanent brutal facial injury, forcing her to carry a mask that made basic functions such as eating and speaking a challenge. On seeing her, young Markos managed to drop a plate with cups; then, lying on the ground, he vomited. During Thalia’s first days at the house, he just could not manage to behave in a proper way, eventually crying out that “she is a monster.” At that point, his mother Odelia, who was a dedicated schoolteacher, intervened. Thalia was just a girl who had had an unfortunate accident; she was also a strong character, with outspoken interests in natural science and mechanics (she built her own sundial, and on Tinos she would construct her own black box to develop photographs). The two kids should get along well. And so it happened. Markos and Thalia passed the summer of 1967 on Tinos, roaming the countryside, swimming and sunbathing at the nearly deserted beaches, and frequenting the only photography shop in the little capital in order to develop their self-made pictures. At the end of summer, Markos could not bear the thought that Thalia would leave, but this did not happen. Her mother Madaline, a beautiful and promising actress, left the island leaving her daughter with Odelia and Markos, claiming that she would soon be back when the shooting of her film in Athens had finished. In reality, the filming of the movie lasted forever, and Madaline never returned to pick up her daughter—an event Thalia herself and wise Odelia had foreseen and reckoned on from the moment she departed. They just accepted the fact, and so Odelia, Markos, and Thalia formed a new family unit on Tinos. From a societal point of view, things were difficult mainly at the very beginning. In order to spare Thalia the trouble of attending school, mother Odelia had decided to teach both children at home: they could do their homework during the day, when she was teaching at school. By then, the news of Thalia’s deformity had spread through the island (since her mother had left, she did not wear her mask anymore). Every day, the villagers would come from all over, just to knock at the door and see a glimpse of “the monster.” The children were the worst; they kept on staring through the windows, so that Markos and Thalia were forced to study with the curtains covering the windows, or in the rooms in the upper part of the house. One day, a friend of Markos offered some coins to get access and watch “the prodigy,” as if he were in a circus. Odelia then took a drastic decision. One morning, she took the two children to her school, ignoring the staring faces, the open mouths, and the screaming girls, who watched them on their journey or when they were in the schoolyard. There, Odelia climbed on a little bench and addressed her pupils. From now on, Thalia Ganiakos was a pupil like all of them. As their teacher, she would not tolerate any staring, mocking, or bullying behavior. Thalia had to be treated in a nice and decent way. And so it happened. Thalia would never again wear her mask, neither in public nor in the house. She 1.

BONDESON 2006, pp. 67-91 for the story; GEVAERT 2013, pp. 587-588.

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grew up to become a respected member of the community of Tinos. In fact, she stayed there for the rest of her life, while her technical genius helped the island through the process of modernization which went together with the development of tourism. Markos would always remember her and stay in contact. Thalia’s company during most of his childhood years surely was a decisive factor in his decision to become a plastic surgeon.2 I.3. Sarah Helping people and taking care of those in need were a constant motivation in Sarah’s daily life. When she was offered to participate in catechetical work for a village of disabled people, this was the opportunity she had dreamt of to combine social work with her strong interests in liturgy and religion. Profoundly embedded in the democratic tradition, she looked after the well-being and participation of the members of her community, whom she regularly consulted by means of questionnaires. At a certain moment, the mobility impaired objected to the many occasions that require good functioning of the limbs: kneeling, standing up, or coming to receive Communion. Sarah decided to yield to their wishes. From now on, nobody would stand up for solemn moments, no kneeling would be required, and Communion would be administered while the receivers sat on benches. Little did Sarah know that by taking such measures, celebrating liturgy would soon become impossible in her community. When the blind protested against the use of solemn and beautiful robes and the many appeals to the visual, these elements also had to disappear. After similar complaints by the hearing impaired, the role of chants and music was reduced. And problems arose again when people realized that the readings from the Scripture as well as the sermons not only presuppose some intellectual capacity in order to be understood, but are also invariably uttered by people with the ability to read and speak in an articulate way. In all, it seemed almost contradictory to take into account the special needs of each category, in the context of a religion in which miracle stories about healing and restoring to a “normal” condition are very much at the centre.3

II. HOW DO THESE STORIES RELATE TO ANTIQUITY? The story of the pig-faced lady (I.1.) is obviously a metaphor, from a world that is in many ways different from the Ancient Mediterranean. While the people who told it in all likelihood did not believe that a pig-faced human being had ever existed, the tale is revealing of all sorts of concepts and beliefs concerning disability as we encounter them in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Historians have repeatedly asserted that disability is all in the gaze.4 Personal guilt and faults as an explanatory factor are mentioned rather often, as are the mocking and ridiculing of the persons involved.5 A comparison with animals, so-called animalization, appears in the case of the intellectually impaired and those with speech impairments.6 Physiognomical readings and interpretations caused aesthetical looks to be of a 2.

The touching and telling story of Thalia Ganiakos is told in the eight chapter of the novel by HOSSEINI 2013.

3.

For disabilities and the Bible, see mainly MOSS & SCHIPPER (eds) 2011. KELLENBERGER 2011 offers interesting thoughts on catechetical work with the intellectually challenged. Various contributions in GRÜNDSTÄUDL, SCHIEFER FERRARI & DISTELRATH (eds) 2017 deal with the healing and restoring aspect, which is strongly present in Christian thought. See particularly GRÜNDSTÄUDL 2017 for “ideal” bodies in Augustine’s De civitate dei.

4. 5. 6.

See, most recently, HUSQUIN 2020. LAES 2018a, p. 113 (guilt), p. 185 (ridiculing). LAES 2018a, pp. 8 and 57.

226 Christian Laes certain importance.7 Ancient writers were aware of how persons tried to hide their deformity, though at the same time such concealment reveals how people just do not manage to cope with and accept their condition. In the case of the Pig-Faced Lady, all characters behave in a way they should not: the suitors are mainly driven by their greed and do not behave properly when they are faced with their future bride; but also Tannakin herself does not help the situation by hiding her face from the public gaze. It is also possible to understand the tale of the Pig-Faced Lady as a metaphor for a whole society coming to good health, when people would accept their own condition and come to terms with their own vices such as hypocrisy and greed. As such, Gevaert has aptly applied the Pig-Faced Lady tale to the Stoic principle that not accepting a bodily condition and trying to handle it in the wrong way is a major vice.8 The chapter on Thalia Ganiakos in Hosseini’s novel in many ways comes close to the experience of being disabled in the ancient world. Again, mockery and disgust strongly come to the fore, while we may suspect that it was a sense of unease and guilt that induced her mother to leave her behind on Tinos, far from the fashionable scene in Athens. Also, the story offers an eminent application of the interactional perspective and the fact that the way one’s impairment is perceived and experienced can change over time and space. As such, it is somewhat problematic to bluntly label a person as “permanently disabled.” Thalia’s case also provides an excellent example of the so-called community concept. Despite her impaired condition, after an initial phase of social integration, she was no longer labeled as a homo dolorosus with special needs.9 As in the story about Sarah, religion and faith in divine providence or miraculous healing intervention figured predominantly in Antiquity, though intellectual disabilities seem to be an exception to the rule. Also, demonic possession is adduced as an explanatory factor for disabilities, both in the pagan and the early Christian tradition. But there always seems to have been a somewhat difficult relation between the actual existence of disabilities and the divine masterplan. If God is the builder of the universe, one ought to treat all creatures with due respect. In the theology of Grace, disabilities are viewed as faults permitted by God. One can understand how disease and impairment came to the fore in the Christian monotheistic tradition, since God’s goodness was directly challenged. Such challenges could be explained away by consolatory strategies, such as the knowledge of the soul being more important than what is offered to the eyes, or the appeal to evil forces of lesser power being responsible for what happened. However, these strategies should not detract us from the fact that, in everyday life, a lasting disorder would often involve lasting exclusion, unless an already elevated status or the ability to function well at work meant otherwise. Be this as it may, both the focus on diversity as the real norm of any human society and the idea of radical inclusion (as demonstrated by Sarah’s desperate attempts) are very recent turns, which emerged in the nineties of the previous century. They belong to contemporary Western thinking and prosperous socio-economic conditions that make integration and inclusion possible.10 Or to put it simply: in the pre-modern past, people had other worries to take care of.

7.

LAES 2018a, pp. 176-179.

8.

GEVAERT 2013, pp. 587-588. See also GEVAERT 2017 for disabilities and Stoicism.

9.

The monograph by ROSE 2003 places strong emphasis on the community concept and the interactional perspective. Also GRAHAM 2020 focuses strongly on interactional perspectives.

10. NEUMANN 2017; ROSE 2017.

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III. DISABILITIES IN ANTIQUITY AND THE (VERY) LONGUE DURÉE The term “disability” is indeed a present-day concept, revealing our worries, values, and preoccupations. “Disabled persons in Antiquity” are rather to be found in categories such as the infirm, the weak, or even the blighted and disparate bodies.11 Ancient disability was very much an instrumental problem, with the potential to place a person at a disadvantage at certain moments and in particular situations. In all, disability was used ad hoc by the ancient writers whenever it seemed appropriate to their aim and purpose.12 Only in discussions on office holding, personal rights, and the selling of slaves was infirmity viewed as a legal problem, thus causing a certain category of people to be labelled “disabled.” Disability became a social issue during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Thinkers were concerned about society being turned upside down and the right and just way to deal with charity and welfare. With the progress of medical sciences in the nineteenth century, disability increasingly became a medical issue. All this led to the modern system of diagnosing, labelling, and remedying individuals who are existentially approached as “the disabled.” When the “caring modern state” took over, the charitable in combination with the existential approach gave rise to the modern Western concept of disability. Indeed, the principle of solidarity in modern states requires their citizens to be sound and healthy in order to be able to contribute to the social welfare system. Individuals who are not are entitled to certain benefits, after careful medical consideration and categorization. In a way, this grants them a special and protected status, though at the same time the system goes to great lengths to integrate them into society as much as possible. Exclusion in the form of special status and inclusion thus seem to be two sides of the same coin.13 Such approaches are far away from the ancient world and pagan thought. However, disability probably became an existential problem in early Christianity and beyond, when tolerance and equality were directly challenged in encounters with “different others,” such as the disabled. The Christian concept of equality was far removed from the pagan vision and established the highly demanding ethical requirement of treating all fellow-Christians as children of God. Everyday practice was often different, and Christian authors went to great lengths to explain to their audience the imperfection of human society, regardless of its aspirations, in contrast with the Christian divine order.14 The miracles performed by Jesus caused certain categories of disabilities to become canonized. The category of the possessed received proper attention much more than it had done before. Madmen attending sanctuaries were a relatively new phenomenon, as the possessed were commonly kept away from pagan sanctuaries and their defects were rarely the object of divine healing. Charity was greatly stressed in Christianity and gave rise to institutions such as hospitals.15 Finally, Christianity stressed the moral responsibility and personal belief of the healed. In fact, not being healed could be viewed as proof of

11. RICHARDSON 2012 reaches the same conclusions for disabilities in early Islam. 12. This is the red thread in monographs by ROSE 2003, GARLAND 2010² and LAES 2018a. 13. LAES 2018b. A comparative history of disabilities is now facilitated by the publication of ANDERSON & HAYDON (eds) 2020; GABBARD & MINTZ (eds) 2020; HSY, PEARMAN & EYLER (eds) 2020; HUFF & STODDARD HOLMES (eds) 2020; LAES (ed.) 2020; MITCHELL & SNYDER (eds) 2020. 14. UHALDE 2012. 15. LAES 2019.

228 Christian Laes lack of personal belief.16 As such, the charitable, the instrumental, and the existential approaches have their origin in the ancient world and in early Christianity. Disability in Antiquity should not be studied just because it has not been studied before or because the topic looks new and fashionable. In fact, properly understanding ancient disabilities provides the key to unraveling our modern charitable system of diagnosing and labeling, and performing remedial actions for, the disabled. Testing the claim that disability became an existential problem in the early Christian tradition means tracing the roots of the problem of disability back to the ancient world—that is, to much earlier than has been commonly assumed. It is indeed an ambitious claim, which requires confirmation from various sides and specialists of history: first, from classicists and ancient historians, who sketch the Graeco-Roman background and the wider Mediterranean in which early Christian ideas on disabilities developed; second, from disability historians of other periods of the pre-modern era— the Middle Ages up to the long eighteenth century; finally, from regionally diversified studies of various forms of early Christianity and the way they put into practice different approaches to disability. While such studies still remain a desideratum, I hope to have pointed to their large potential—more will emerge in the flourishing new branch of disability history of (late) Antiquity.

REFERENCES ANDERSON S., HAYDON L. (eds) 2020 A cultural history of disability in the Renaissance (A Cultural History of Disability 3), London, Bloomsbury. BONDESON J. 2006 Freaks: the pig-faced lady of Manchester square & other medical marvels, Stroud, Tempus Publishing. GABBARD D. C., MINTZ S. B. (eds) 2020 A cultural history of disability in the long eighteenth century (A Cultural History of Disability 4), London, Bloomsbury. GARLAND R. 2010² The eye of the beholder: deformity and disability in the Graeco-Roman world (Bristol Classical Paperbacks), London, Bloomsbury. GEVAERT B. 2013 Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis: deformitas in de epigrammen van Publius Valerius Martialis, Brussels, unpublished doctoral dissertation. 2017 “Roman perfect bodies: the stoic view”, in Disability in Antiquity, ed. by C. LAES (Rewriting Antiquity), London – New York, Routledge, pp. 213-221. GRAHAM E.-J. 2020 “Mobility impairment: identifying lived experiences in Roman Italy”, in A cultural history of disability in Antiquity, ed. by C. LAES (A Cultural History of Disability 1), London, Bloomsbury, pp. 31-45. GRÜNDSTÄUDL W. 2017 “Decus und deformitas: zur Rezeption neutestamentlicher Heilungserzählungen und der Konstruktion idealer Körperlichkeit in De civitate dei”, in Verzwecktes Heil? Studien zur Rezeption neutestamentlicher Heilungserzählungen, ed. by W. GRÜNSTÄUDL, M. SCHIEFER FERRARI and J. DISTELRATH (Biblical Tools and Studies 30), Leuven, Peeters, pp. 143-161. GRÜNDSTÄUDL W., SCHIEFER FERRARI M., DISTELRATH J. (eds) 2017 Verzwecktes Heil? Studien zur Rezeption neutestamentlicher Heilungserzählungen (Biblical Tools and Studies 30), Leuven, Peeters.

16. See HORN 2013 for the particular case of those healed and those not healed in the sanctuary of Thecla.

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HORN C. 2013 “A nexus of disability in Ancient Greek miracle stories: a comparison of accounts of blindness from the Asklepieion in Epidauros and the shrine of Thecla in Seleucia”, in Disabilities in Roman Antiquity: disparate bodies, ed. by C. LAES, C. GOODEY and M. L. ROSE (A Capite ad Calcem, Mnemosyne Supplements 356), Leiden – Boston, Brill, pp. 115-143. HOSSEINI K. 2013 And the mountains echoed, New York, Bloomsbury. HSY J., PEARMAN T. V., EYLER J. R. (eds) 2020 A cultural history of disability in the Middle Ages (A Cultural History of Disability 2), London, Bloomsbury. HUFF J. L., STODDARD HOLMES M. (eds) 2020 A cultural history of disability in the long nineteenth century (A Cultural History of Disability 5), London, Bloomsbury. HUSQUIN C. 2020 L’intégrité du corps en question: perceptions et représentations de l’atteinte physique dans la Rome antique, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes. KELLENBERGER E. 2011 Der Schutz der Einfältigen: Menschen mit einer geistigen Behinderung in der Bibel und in weiteren Quellen, Zurich, Theologischer Verlag Zürich. LAES C. 2018a Disabilities and the disabled in the Roman world: a social and cultural history, Cambridge – New York, Cambrige University Press. 2018b “Review of J. N. Neumann, Behinderte Menschen in Antike und Christentum: zur Geschichte und Ethik der Inklusion (2017)”, Plekos 20, pp. 299-311. 2019 “Mental hospitals in pre-modern society: Antiquity, Byzantium, Western Europe and Islam. Some reconsiderations”, in Gender, memory, and identity in the Roman world, ed. by J. RANTALA (Social Worlds of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages), Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 301-324. LAES C. (ed.) 2020 A cultural history of disability in Antiquity (A Cultural History of Disability 1), London, Bloomsbury. MITCHELL D. T., SNYDER S. L. (eds) 2020 A cultural history of disability in the modern age (A Cultural History of Disability 6), London, Bloomsbury. MOSS C., SCHIPPER J. (eds) 2011 Disability studies and Biblical literature, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. NEUMANN J. N. 2017 Behinderte Menschen in Antike und Christentum: zur Geschichte und Ethik der Inklusion (Standorte in Antike und Christentum 8), Stuttgart, Anton Hiersemann. RICHARDSON K. 2012 Difference and disability in the Medieval Islamic world: blighted bodies, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. ROSE M. L. 2003 The staff of Oedipus: transforming disability in Ancient Greece (Corporealities Discourses of Disability), Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. ROSE S. F. 2017 No right to be idle: the invention of disability, 1840s–1930s, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press. UHALDE K. 2012 “Justice and equality”, in The Oxford handbook of Late Antiquity, ed. by S. F. JOHNSON, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 746-788.

ABSTRACTS

STÉPHANIE ANTHONIOZ p. 171

The divine face in the Book of Isaiah: religious contexts and challenges

Abstract Contrary to the Platonic and Cartesian traditions of a dichotomy between body and spirit, both Sumerians and Akkadians understood the person as the assemblage of its parts. In biblical studies, this approach has permitted us to give back to the physical person all its importance. This conception of the unity of the person, widespread in the Ancient Near East, also applies to the divine world: the gods are also their objects, their places, and their attributes. This paper pursues a reflection that has long been engaged about the divine face and its representation in biblical texts. Among all the bodily parts, the face represents the interface between the interior and the exterior of the person; however, it also stands for the statue of the deity. My aim is to examine the various references to the face in the prophetic Book of Isaiah and to show how they not only confirm the essential function of the face in religious communication, but also enable us to seize major diachronic evolutions and understand the historical assets of representing, or not, the deity in its temple. Résumé Contrairement aux traditions platonicienne et cartésienne d’une dichotomie entre corps et esprit, les Sumériens et les Akkadiens comprenaient la personne comme l’assemblage de ses parties. Dans les études bibliques, cette approche nous a permis de redonner à la personne physique toute son importance. Cette conception de l’unité de la personne, répandue au Proche-Orient ancien, s’applique aussi au monde divin : les dieux sont aussi leurs objets, leurs lieux et leurs attributs. Cette contribution poursuit une réflection qui a été engagée depuis longtemps sur le visage divin et sa représentation dans les textes bibliques. Parmi toutes les parties du corps, le visage représente l’interface entre l’intérieur et l’extérieur d’une personne ; toutefois, il représente aussi la statue de la divinité. Mon objectif est d’examiner les différentes références au visage dans le livre prophétique d’Isaïe et de montrer comment ces références non seulement confirment la fonction essentielle du visage dans la communication religieuse, mais nous permettent aussi d’appréhender des évolutions diachroniques majeures et de comprendre les apports historiques du fait de représenter ou non la divinité dans son temple. Keywords Mots-clés

Hebrew Bible, Book of Isaiah, divine face, Ancient Near Eastern texts Bible hébraïque, Livre d’Isaïe, visage divin, textes du Proche-Orient ancien

CLÉMENTINE AUDOUIT p. 39

Bodily fluids in Ancient Egypt: vital waters but dangerous flows. Concerning an ongoing research project

Abstract This paper aims to explore both linguistic and functional analogies between body fluids and the Nile. Indeed, Egyptian texts (medical, literary, and religious) emphasize similar perceptions between the waters that flow in the body and those that circulate in the land. Both categories of fluids are not only divine gifts of life, fertility, and purity, but also violent and uncontrollable vectors of diseases and death. The present paper is part of ongoing

232

Abstracts

research that attempts to highlight the existence of a system of representation of the body dependent on the space in which Ancient Egyptian society evolved. Résumé Cet article a pour objectif d’explorer les analogies linguistiques et fonctionnelles entre les liquides corporels et le Nil. Les textes égyptiens (médicaux, littéraires et religieux) mettent l’emphase sur les perceptions similaires entre les eaux qui coulent dans le corps et celles qui circulent dans le pays. Ces deux catégories de fluides sont non seulement des dons de vie, de fertilité et de pureté de la part des dieux, mais aussi des vecteurs violents et incontrôlables de maladie et de mort. La présente contribution fait partie d’une recherche en cours, qui essaie de mettre en évidence un système de représentation du corps dépendant de l’espace dans lequel la société égyptienne ancienne évoluait. Keywords Mots-clés

Ancient Egypt, bodily fluids, the Nile, lexicography Égypte ancienne, fluides corporels, le Nil, lexicographie

JOHANNA ERZBERGER p. 185

When purity rules become literature: cultic purity in the text and behind the text of the Hebrew Bible

Abstract In the so-called priestly texts in the Hebrew Bible, which may constitute one of the earliest continuous textual levels of the Torah, purity rules play an essential role. In their literary context, they are closely connected to a utopian constitution of a people who, at the likely time of the utopia’s origin (after the conquest of Judah and Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE), lacked a cultic as well as a political center of power. These purity rules imply ideas of the human body that may have parallels in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures and are only partly transfigured by their literary context. They have been understood either as an expression of an understanding of the human body predating the literature that makes use of them or as a purely literary device. I assume that both approaches have shortcomings. Utopian concepts (including underlying body concepts) have roots in a reality behind the text. This paper attempts to understand body concepts underlying the priestly purity rules in this multidimensional context. Résumé Dans les textes dits sacerdotaux de la Bible hébraïque, qui pourraient constituer l’un des niveaux textuels continus les plus anciens de la Torah, les règles de pureté jouent un rôle essentiel. Dans leur contexte littéraire, ces règles sont étroitement liées à la constitution utopique d’un peuple qui, au moment probable de l’origine de cette utopie (après la conquête de la Judée et de Jérusalem par Nabuchodonosor en 587 av. J.-C.), n’avait ni centre cultuel ni centre politique du pouvoir. Ces règles de pureté impliquent des idées du corps humain qui pourraient avoir des parallèles dans d’autres cultures du Proche-Orient ancien et ont été en partie tranfigurées par leur contexte littéraire. Elles ont été comprises soit comme une expression de la compréhension du corps humain prédatant la littérature qui les utilise, soit comme un pur artifice littéraire. Je pense que ces deux approches ont leurs limitations. Les conceptions utopiques (y compris les concepts du corps qui y sont associés) ont leur origine dans une réalité se trouvant derrière le texte. Cette contribution cherche à comprendre les concepts de corps qui sont véhiculés par les règles sacerdotales de pureté dans ce contexte multidimensionel. Keywords Mots-clés

Hebrew Bible, Leviticus, purity, priestly rules Bible hébraïque, Lévitique, pureté, règles sacerdotales

Abstracts

CHRISTIAN LAES

p. 223

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How does Graeco-Roman Antiquity fit in the long history of the body and disabilities in the western world?

Abstract Starting from three concrete stories, this paper explores how Graeco-Roman Antiquity fits into the broader history of disability. It proposes that disability in Antiquity should not be studied just because it has not been studied before or because the topic looks new and fashionable. In fact, properly understanding ancient disabilities provides the key to unraveling our modern charitable system of diagnosing and labeling, and performing remedial actions for the disabled. Indeed, testing the claim that disability became an existential problem in the early Christian tradition means tracing the roots of the problem of disability back to the ancient world. Résumé Débutant avec trois histoires concrètes, cet article explore la façon dont l’Antiquité gréco-romaine s’inscrit dans l’histoire plus large de l’infirmité. Il argue que l’histoire antique de l’infirmité ne doit pas être étudiée seulement parce que cela n’a pas été fait auparavant, ni parce que le thème paraît nouveau et à la mode. En réalité, une compréhension adéquate des infirmités anciennes constitue une clé pour décrypter notre système moderne charitable de diagnostic et de catégorisation et pour réaliser des actions de réhabilitation des personnes handicapées. En effet, tester l’idée que l’infirmité est devenue un problème existentiel dans la tradition chrétienne ancienne revient à retracer les racines du problème de l’infirmité dans le monde ancien. Keywords Mots-clés

Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Early Christianity, disability, social norms Antiquité gréco-romaine, christianisme ancien, infirmité, normes sociales

JULIE MASQUELIER-LOORIUS

p. 27

The postures of the king’s body in Ancient Egyptian iconography

Abstract By observing images of the pharaoh in temples and tombs, we can notice that some specific postures of kings cannot be found in common human positions. These royal body positions must have had a role to play in the efficiency of festivals and rituals, especially during the Sed-festival (heb-sed, i.e. the jubilee of the king). This paper presents the first considerations of our study on the different physical configurations that can be adopted by the king’s body. Résumé En observant les images du pharaon dans les temples et les tombes, nous pouvons remarquer que certaines positions spécifiques des rois ne se retrouvent pas parmi les positions des autres êtres humains. Ces positions corporelles royales doivent avoir eu un rôle à jouer dans l’efficacité des fêtes et des rituels, en particulier pendant la fête Sed (heb-sed, c’est-à-dire le jubilé du roi). Cette contribution présente les premiers éléments de notre étude sur les différentes configurations physiques que le corps du roi peut adopter. Keywords Mots-clés

Ancient Egypt, the king’s body, body positions, religious iconography Égypte ancienne, le corps du roi, positions corporelles, iconographie religieuse

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ALICE MOUTON

p. 119

The involvement of the individual’s body in the ritual process in Hittite Anatolia

Abstract Through the in-depth study of three religious texts from Hittite Anatolia, this paper highlights the functions of a person’s body during religious ceremonies. The body of the ritual patron often constitutes both a central point of focus in the ritual discourse and a natural instrument of non-verbal communication. The body of the ritual expert, as well as that of the divine participants, is also involved in various degrees. These observations are also valid for cultic festivals, although the nature of the bodily actions may differ. Résumé À travers une étude détaillée de trois textes religieux de l’Anatolie hittite, cette contribution met en lumière les fonctions du corps d’une personne pendant des cérémonies religieuses. Le corps du commanditaire du rituel constitue souvent à la fois le centre du discours religieux et un instrument naturel de communication non-verbale. Le corps de l’expert(e) rituel(le), de même que celui des participants divins, sont aussi impliqués à des degrés divers. Ces observations sont également valides pour les fêtes cultuelles, même si la nature des actions corporelles peut différer. Keywords Mots-clés

Hittite Anatolia, involvement of the body, rituals, cultic festivals Anatolie hittite, implication du corps, rituels, fêtes cultuelles

YANNICK MULLER

p. 199

Mutilating the body in Ancient Greece: perception, vocabulary, and practices

Abstract The Ancient Greek civilization is well known for its art, characterized by the enhancement of the beauty of the body. The texts themselves, since Homer, tend to emphasize the beauty of youth and the perfection of the body’s integrity without flaws or missing parts. The mutilation of the body was viewed among the Ancient Greeks as a mark of “barbaric” (i.e. non-Greek) culture or as a symbol of punishment and enslavement. In this paper, I will call “mutilation” any kind of permanent body alteration, following the French anthropologist Claude Chippaux. I present the main results of my research, dwelling on some paradigmatic cases. Firstly, I show how Ancient Greek literature and culture emphasized the beauty of the complete body and rejected all kinds of body modification. Secondly, I focus on the Greek vocabulary of body mutilation; despite the absence of a single word to express it, a large range of compound verbs and substantives exist. I also present a few passages illustrating Greek mutilation practices. These will show that, despite their disdain for altering the body, Greeks themselves thought they had practiced mutilation in their distant past, and they were still tempted to do so in historical times. Résumé La civilisation grecque ancienne est bien connue pour son art, qui se caractérise par l’embellissement du corps. Les textes eux-mêmes, depuis Homère, ont tendance à insister sur la beauté de la jeunesse et sur la perfection d’un corps intègre sans défaut ni lacunes. La mutilation du corps était vue par les anciens Grecs comme une marque de culture « barbare » (c’est-à-dire non-grecque) ou comme un symbole de punition et d’asservissement. Dans cette contribution, j’appellerai « mutilation » toute forme d’altération corporelle permanente, suivant ainsi l’anthropologue français Claude Chippaux. Je présente les principaux résultats de ma recherche, en m’arrêtant sur quelques cas paradigmatiques. D’abord, je montre comment la littérature et la culture grecques anciennes mettaient l’accent sur la beauté du corps complet et rejetaient toute forme de modification corporelle. En second lieu, je me concentre sur le vocabulaire grec de la mutilation corporelle ; malgré l’absence d’un mot unique pour

Abstracts

235

l’exprimer, un grand ensemble de verbes composés et de substantifs existent. Je présente également quelques passages illustrant des pratiques grecques de mutilation. Ces pratiques montreront que, malgré leur dédain des altérations corporelles, les Grecs eux-mêmes pensaient avoir pratiqué la mutilation dans un lointain passé, et qu’ils étaient encore tentés de le faire dans les temps historiques. Keywords Mots-clés

Ancient Greece, mutilation, body integrity, Barbarians Grèce ancienne, mutilation, intégrité corporelle, Barbares

LAURA PUÉRTOLAS RUBIO p. 137

The body in Hittite witchcraft

Abstract Two types of human bodies are present in the Hittite texts dealing with witchcraft: that of the bewitched and that of the bewitcher. The body of the bewitched person is described several times as “tied” and/or “nailed down.” In this paper, I study these examples, analyzing each expression in its context, with the objective of better understanding their meaning and the conception(s) of the bewitched body. The body of the bewitcher will also be referred to, as a complementary approach. Résumé Deux types de corps humains sont présents dans les textes hittites relatifs à la sorcellerie : celui de l’ensorcelé et celui de l’ensorceleur. Le corps de la personne ensorcelée est décrit plusieurs fois comme « entravé » et/ou « cloué (au sol) ». Dans cette contribution, j’étudie ces exemples, en analysant chaque expression en contexte, avec pour objectif de mieux comprendre leur signification et les conception(s) du corps ensorcelé. Le corps de l’ensorceleur sera également mentionné, en guise d’approche complémentaire. Keywords Mots-clés

Hittite Anatolia, witchcraft, bewitched body, rituals Anatolie hittite, sorcellerie, corps ensorcelé, rituels

LUC RENAUT

p. 69

Tattooed women from Nubia and Egypt: a reappraisal

Abstract In the urbanized states of the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, free men and women never had to be tattooed. In surrounding areas, however, tattooing was deeply rooted and institutionalized among quite a significant number of human groups or tribes. In this regard, a remarkable case study is provided by Ancient Egypt and Nubia, two contrasted but intertwined neighboring cultures that offer a vivid picture recently enhanced by new discoveries. Even now, specialists do not agree on the interpretation of the various archaeological and anthropological remains related to tattoo practices. I propose to clarify the issue in identifying two major types: a first one, customary tattooing, which tends to cover the skin surface with replicated geometrical patterns; and a second one, sub-cultural tattooing, characterized by more isolated pictographic designs. Through the study of these two tattooing practices, it will be shown that, in the states of the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, the legal authorities never considered human skin to be a suitable material for registering positive rights and privileges.

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Abstracts

Résumé Dans les États urbanisés de l’ancien Bassin méditerranéen, hommes et femmes libres n’avaient jamais besoin d’être tatoués. Dans les zones alentour, en revanche, le tatouage était profondément ancré et institutionalisé parmi un nombre significatif de groupes ou de tribus humaines. À cet égard, un cas d’étude remarquable est fourni par l’Égypte et la Nubie anciennes, deux cultures voisines contrastées mais imbriquées qui offrent une image saisissante grâce à de nouvelles découvertes. Même aujourd’hui, les spécialistes ne s’entendent pas sur l’interprétation des différents vestiges archéologiques et anthropologiques relatifs aux pratiques de tatouage. Je propose de clarifier ce problème en identifiant deux types principaux : un premier, le tatouage coutumier, qui a tendance à couvrir la surface cutannée avec des motifs géométriques redupliqués ; et un second, le tatouage subculturel, caractérisé par des formes pictographiques plus isolées. À travers l’étude de ces deux pratiques de tatouage, il sera montré que, dans les États de l’ancien Bassin méditerranéen, les autorités légales ne considérèrent jamais la peau humaine comme un matériau adapté à l’inscription de droits positifs ou de privilèges. Keywords Mots-clés

Ancient Egypt and Nubia, tattooing, social groups Égypte et Nubie anciennes, tatouage, groupes sociaux

ANNE-CAROLINE RENDU LOISEL p. 89

Beyond the five senses: human senses according to Akkadian cuneiform texts (2nd–1st millennium BCE)

Abstract Through the prism of bodily perception, a society gives sense to, translates, and interprets its surrounding environment. For more than twenty years, Anthropology of the senses has stimulated scholars to consider a society through the human body and its sensory dynamic: perception and related concepts may vary from one culture to another, for they are deeply rooted in each system of customs, values, and representations. For instance, our Western and contemporary societies have been deeply marked by Aristotle’s theoretical model, which is based on five major senses: to see, to hear, to touch, to smell, and to taste. However, this pentasensory model is not equally relevant for the societies of the Ancient Near East, especially according to the Akkadian texts. How many senses can be identified? Are there aesthetic values associated with specific sensory experiences? What consequences might a sensory loss have for the individual and his relationships to his social and natural environment? Trying to answer these questions, I will investigate Akkadian texts of various nature, focusing on ritual, divination, and literary contexts. Résumé À travers le prisme des perceptions corporelles, la société donne un sens, traduit et interprète son environnement. Pendant plus de vingt ans, l’anthropologie des sens a encouragé les chercheurs à considérer une société à travers le corps humain et ses dynamiques sensorielles : la perception et les concepts associés peuvent varier d’une culture à l’autre, car ils sont profondément ancrés dans chaque système de coutumes, de valeurs et de représentations. Par exemple, nos sociétés occidentales contemporaines ont été profondément marquées par le modèle théorique d’Aristote qui est basé sur les cinq principaux sens : voir, entendre, toucher, sentir et goûter. Cependant, ce modèle pentasensoriel n’est pas toujours pertinent dans les sociétés du Proche-Orient ancien, selon les textes akkadiens. Combien de sens peuvent être identifiés ? Des valeurs esthétiques sont-elles associées des expériences sensorielles spécifiques ? Quelles conséquences pouvaient avoir la perte d’un sens pour un individu et ses relations avec son environnement social et naturel ? Cherchant à répondre à ces questions, j’examinerai des textes akkadiens de diverses natures, en me concentrant sur les rituels, la divination et les contextes littéraires. Keywords Mots-clés

Ancient Mesopotamia, Akkadian texts, human senses, literature Mésopotamie ancienne, textes akkadiens, sens humains, littérature

Abstracts

SYLVIE VANSÉVEREN

p. 151

237

The vocabulary of the body parts in Hittite in the perspective of Indo-European comparison

Abstract We know about eighty words for body parts in the Hittite language. They are attested in different types of texts, especially in conjurations and purification rituals, which often contain lists of body parts. The identification of the various body parts is often difficult, due to the vagueness of contexts. This vocabulary also raises some particular problems both in Hittite and in the other Indo-European languages, such as the mixture of technical and popular terms, semantic and morphological changes, taboo replacements, and shifts from one body part to another. Résumé Nous connaissons environ quatre-vingt mots désignant des parties du corps dans la langue hittite. Ils sont attestés dans différents types de textes, en particulier dans les conjurations et les rituels de purification qui contiennent souvent des listes de parties du corps. L’identification des différents membres est souvent difficile, en raison du caractère vague des contextes. Ce vocabulaire pose en outre des problèmes particuliers à la fois en hittite et dans les autres langues indo-européennes, tels que le mélange de termes techniques et populaires, les changements sémantiques et morphologiques, les euphémismes et les déplacements d’une partie du corps à une autre. Keywords Mots-clés

Hittite, Indo-European, vocabulary of the body parts, etymologies hittite, indo-européen, vocabulaire des parties du corps, étymologies

YOURI VOLOKHINE

p. 17

The human face and its relations to identity in Ancient Egypt: an overview

Abstract In Ancient Egypt, the human face appears to be particularly important for the discourse on the being or identity. The relationship of a person’s face (Egyptian her) with his perceptions (hearing, vision), his emotional states, or his identity reflects a significant role of the human face (together with the heart-jb) in society. In the religious sphere, the notion of divine face is also central, especially in ritual and mythological texts. In this paper, I deal with these two aspects of the face, which I have been investigating for many years. Résumé En Égypte ancienne, le visage humain est particulièrement important dans le discours sur l’être ou l’identité. La relation entre le visage d’une personne (égyptien her) et ses perceptions (ouïe, vision), ses états émotionnels ou son identité reflète le rôle significatif du visage humain (ensemble avec le cœur-jb) dans la société. Dans la sphère religieuse, la notion de visage divin est aussi centrale, en particulier dans les textes de rituels et mythologiques. Dans cet article, je traite de ces deux aspects du visage que j’ai étudiés pendant de nombreuses années. Keywords Mots-clés

Ancient Egypt, human face, divine face, identity Égypte ancienne, visage humain, visage divin, identité

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Abstracts

VALERIA ZUBIETA LUPO p. 103

Concepts of the human body in the Hittite medical prescriptions (CTH 461): the diseased body

Abstract The purpose of this contribution is to offer an insight into the notion of the human body in the so-called Hittite medical texts. The diseased body or body part is described as “being seized by the illness,” and this concept will be used as a starting point for the paper. Moreover, the physical symptoms that accompany illness and that are briefly described in the (medical) indications of the prescriptions will be analyzed and discussed. Finally, the healing treatment applied by the physician to the affected body parts will be examined to gain an insight into the dichotomy of diseased body vs. healing body in the Hittite prescriptions. Résumé L’objectif de cette contribution est d’offrir un aperçu de la notion de corps humain dans les textes hittites dits médicaux. Le corps ou les parties du corps malades sont décrites comme « étant prises par la maladie » et ce concept servira de point de départ à cet article. En outre, les symptômes physiques qui accompagnent la maladie et qui sont brièvement décrits dans les prescriptions (médicales) seront analysés et discutés. Enfin, le traitement curatif appliqué par le guérisseur sur les membres affectés par la maladie sera examiné afin d’appréhender la dichotomie opérée, dans les prescriptions hittites, entre le corps malade et le corps guéri. Keywords Mots-clés

Hittite Anatolia, medical texts, illness, diseased body Anatolie hittite, textes médicaux, maladie, corps malade

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD....................................................................................................................... 5 ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................................................... 7 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS................................................................................................... 9 INTRODUCTION: ALICE MOUTON....................................................................................

11

YOURI VOLOKHINE - The human face and its relations to identity in Ancient Egypt: an overview................................................................................................................ 17 JULIE MASQUELIER-LOORIUS - The postures of the king’s body in Ancient Egyptian iconography................................................................................................................ 27 CLÉMENTINE AUDOUIT - Bodily fluids in Ancient Egypt: vital waters but dangerous flows. Concerning an ongoing research project........................................................ 39 LUC RENAUT - Tattooed women from Nubia and Egypt: a reappraisal.........................

69

ANNE-CAROLINE RENDU LOISEL - Beyond the five senses: human senses according to Akkadian cuneiform texts (2nd–1st millennium BCE)............................................. 89 VALERIA ZUBIETA LUPO - Concepts of the human body in the Hittite medical prescriptions (CTH 461): the diseased body............................................................. 103 ALICE MOUTON - The involvement of the individual’s body in the ritual process in Hittite Anatolia........................................................................................................... 119 LAURA PUÉRTOLAS RUBIO - The body in Hittite witchcraft...........................................

137

SYLVIE VANSÉVEREN - The vocabulary of the body parts in Hittite in the perspective of Indo-European comparison.................................................................................... 151 STÉPHANIE ANTHONIOZ - The divine face in the Book of Isaiah: religious contexts and challenges............................................................................................................ 171 JOHANNA ERZBERGER - When purity rules become literature: cultic purity in the text and behind the text of the Hebrew Bible.................................................................... 185 YANNICK MULLER - Mutilating the body in Ancient Greece: perception, vocabulary, and practices............................................................................................................... 199 CHRISTIAN LAES - How does Graeco-Roman Antiquity fit in the long history of the body and disabilities in the western world?............................................................... 223 ABSTRACTS......................................................................................................................

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