Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner's Archive 9781575065229

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Time at Emar

General Editor Jerrold S. Cooper, Johns Hopkins University Editorial Board Walter Farber, University of Chicago Marvin Powell, Northern Illinois University Jean-Pierre Grégoire, C.N.R.S. Jack Sasson, University of North Carolina Piotr Michalowski, University of Michigan Piotr Steinkeller, Harvard University Simo Parpola, University of Helsinki Marten Stol, Free University of Amsterdam Irene Winter, Harvard University 1. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur Piotr Michalowski 2. Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf! Mesopotamische Baby-Beschwörungen und -Rituale Walter Farber 3. Adoption in Old Babylonian Nippur and the Archive of Mannum-mesu-lißßur Elizabeth C. Stone and David I. Owen 4. Third-Millennium Legal and Administrative Texts in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad Piotr Steinkeller and J. N. Postgate 5. House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia A. R. George 6. Textes culinaires Mésopotamiens / Mesopotamian Culinary Texts Jean Bottéro 7. Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts Joan Goodnick Westenholz 8. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography Wayne Horowitz 9. The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Reliefs John M. Russell 10. Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death Shlomo Izre'el 11. Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner’s Archive Daniel E. Fleming

Time at Emar The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner’s Archive

Daniel E. Fleming

Eisenbrauns Winona Lake, Indiana 2000

ç Copyright 2000 by Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fleming, Daniel E. Time at Emar : the cultic calendar and the rituals from the diviner’s archive / Daniel E. Fleming p. cm. — (Mesopotamian civilizations ; 11) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57506-044-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Emar (Extinct city)—Religion. 2. Rites and ceremonies—Syria— Emar (Extinct city) 3. Religious calendars—Syria—Emar (Extinct city) I. Title. II. Series. BL1640.F55 2000 299u.2—dc21 00-048461 CIP

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

for William Moran sa . . . nißirta imuruma katimtu iptû

I dedicate this book to my adviser, William Moran, with respect and affection. During my years of study, he set a standard for rigorous thought, sensitivity to literature and life, and unalloyed intellectual delight that I can never match but will always imitate.

Contents

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xi

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xii

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv Chapter 1 Emar and the Question of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emar in Syria 2 The Ritual Archive and the Calendar Texts

1

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Chapter 2 The Diviner’s Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

The Collection of a Generalist 13 The Range of Interest 14 The Chronological Range 21 The Diviner Who Does Not Divine 26 The Diviners as Scribes 26 The Diviner as Cult Supervisor 29 The Diviners of Zu-Baºla’s Family 32 The Building M1 as the House of the Gods 35 The Gods and the House of the Gods 36 The City and the House of the Gods 38 The Achievement of Zu-Baºla 43

Chapter 3 The Zukru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Festival Text 49 Text Construction with Concurrent Calendars 50 King and Calendar: The Expansion to Festival Form 54 The Last Expansion: Separate Preparatory Days 57 The Middle Expansion: The Seven-Year Cycle 63 The First Expansion: The Seven-Day Feast 68 The Main Event: At the Stones outside the City Walls 76 The Feast for All Emar: The People, the Gods, and the Sassabeyanatu Spirits 78 vii

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Contents The Anointing of the Stones 82 The Procession of Dagan between the Stones 87 The Return to the City with the City God dnin.urta 93 The Center of the zukru 96 The Old Syrian zukru: Invoking the Chief God 98 Emar’s Alternative Tradition 99 The Alternative Text 100 The zukru in Its Annual Format 105 Emar 375 as an Archaic Local Text 109 Mari and the Yaminite zukrum 113 The Essential zukru: A Spoken Offering 121 The zukru and the Axes of the Year 126 The Problem of Year and New Year 127 A Year with Two Axes 130 The zukru at the Axis of the Year 132 Leaving the City: The akitu, the Hittite Festivals, and the Emar zukru 133 The á - k i - t i/akitu 134 The Hittite Festivals 136 The Emar zukru in Context 138

Chapter 4 The Annual Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 The Ritual Text for Six Months 143 The Orientation of the Text 143 The Tablet 143 The Calendar 144 The Season 145 The City and the Diviner 146 The Syrian Setting 150 Six Months in the Emar Ritual Calendar 152 (Zarati) 152 dnin.kur.ra 161 dAn-na 162 dA-dama 164 Mar-za-ha-ni 165 d Hal-ma 168 Two Related Texts for Individual Months 173 Emar and Ugarit: A Syrian Text Tradition 174 The Month of Abî 175 The Text and the Frame 175 The Middle of the Month 181 The 25th–27th Days 184

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The Month of Halma (Hiyar) 190 The New Moon of Dagan and the Rite for Barring and Opening Doors 192

Chapter 5 Calendrical Time in Ancient Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 The Emar Calendars 196 Definition of Three Emar Calendars 197 Dated Legal Documents: The Tablet Types 198 Dated Legal Documents: Calendar Patterns 203 Calendar Tradition and Innovation 208 The Turning of Time: Calendrical Issues in Emar Ritual 211 Annual Ritual and the Seasons 211 Intercalation: The Problem of Seasonal Adjustment in a Lunar Calendar 214 The Nature of Ritual Time 218 Emar in the Ancient Near East 222 Emar and Early Urban Society 222 Emar in Syria 225

Appendix Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes . . . . . . . . 233 A. B. C. D.

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+ 234 The Annual zukru: Emar 375 (/448/449) 258 The Text for Six Months: Emar 446, Msk 74280a+74291a 268 The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452, Msk 74146b; and Emar 463, Msk 7468 280 1. Emar 452, Msk 74146b 280 2. Emar 463, Msk 7468 290 E. Collation Notes 294 1. Join of Msk 74297c (formerly Emar 376) to Msk 74292a+ (Emar 373, the zukru festival) 294 2. Join of Msk 74287b (formerly Emar 428) to Msk 74298b (Emar 375, the annual zukru) 294 3. Selected collations for the zukru festival, Emar 373 295 4. Selected collations for the text with the annual zukru, Emar 375 300 5. Selected collations for the text for six months, Emar 446 303 6. Selected collations for the text for the month of Abî, Emar 452 307 7. Selected collations for the text for an unnamed month, Emar 463 309

x

Contents 8. Selected collations for the installation of the nin.dingir priestess, Emar 369 310

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312 Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 Index of Authors 331 Index of Divine Names 334 Index of Akkadian Words 336 Index of Sumerian Words 339 Index of Texts from Emar 341

List of Figures

1. 2. 3. 4a. 4b. 4c. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Emar Palace Scribes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find-Spots of Building M1 Tablets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Principal Festival Tablets and Find-Spots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diviners in Lexical Text Colophons (Emar 604) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Senior Diviners in Divination Text Colophons (Emar 604) . . . . . . . . Scribes in Colophons of Literary Texts (Emar 604) . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Records of the Diviner’s Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scribal Divisions for the zukru Festival Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The zukru Festival in Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supplies for the zukru Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Animals for the Consecration of the zukru Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emar Texts Related to zukru Celebration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Annual zukru in Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outline of the Diviner’s Account of Rites for Six Months . . . . . . . . . Processional Rites in the Text for Six Months . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Month of Abî in Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Days of the Month Observed in the Emar Ritual Calendar . . . . . . . . The Unnamed Month (Halma/Hiyar) in Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emar’s Local Calendars, Listed by Primary Institutional Association . Dated Documents Associated with Emar Finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Month Names Associated with Emar Finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dated Documents Created under the Yaßi-Dagan Dynasty . . . . . . . . . Emar Year Eponyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xi

17 19 20 27 28 28 33 51 55 58 66 99 101 148 151 176 179 191 198 199 200 204 205

Acknowledgments

I will only be able to acknowledge directly a fraction of those who have contributed in some way to the current volume. I would like to thank Jerrold Cooper for including this book in the Mesopotamian Civilizations series, and I appreciate especially his willingness to commit himself to the project at an early stage, while considerable work remained. Gary Beckman read two drafts, gave me advance access to his edition of the Rosen Emar tablets, and provided invaluable response and support throughout. His detailed check of my zukru festival edition contributed greatly to a better presentation of all of these primary texts. Jack Sasson reviewed the penultimate draft, and his incisive critique in particular has helped shape the final form. Only those who have worked directly with Jim Eisenbraun and Beverly Fields will appreciate fully the extent to which this book was improved by their expert labor. I can only hope for more such careful readers. I have received useful feedback from several others who read all or part of the manuscript: Nancy Woodington, my colleague Baruch Levine, my student Marjorie Gursky, and my father. Barbara Milligan contributed professional advice on style and structure. Olof Pedersén responded to my reconstruction of the diviner’s archive, and John Huehnergard always answered my etymological questions. Gernot Wilhelm helped me arrange to give lectures at the universities of Würzburg, Tübingen, and Heidelberg, and my contacts with faculty and students at all three places provided important feedback. This volume has benefited immeasurably from two opportunities to collate the Emar ritual tablets at the Aleppo National Museum. My work in Aleppo would not have been possible without the generous help of the Syrian Department of Antiquities at every level, and I would especially like to thank Dr. Sultan Muhesen, Dr. Ali Abou-Assaf, Dr. Adnan Bounni, and Dr. Kassim Toueir at Damascus, and Dr. Wahed Khayata, Mr. Hamido Hammade, and Mr. Anwar Ghafour at Aleppo. These trips were funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (Summer Stipend, 1991) and the New York University Research Challenge Fund (1995). In addition, Joan Westenholz and her colleagues provided a prepublication edition of one tablet from the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, and Dr. Westenholz kindly sent me the text of her 1995 talk at the Leuven RAI. Jun Ikeda gave me a copy of his unpublished dissertation, along with other, more recent xii

Acknowledgments

xiii

articles. He also helped me keep up to date with recent Japanese scholarship, including work by Masamichi Yamada, who generously provided me with copies of his work. I also appreciate greatly the continuing support of my colleagues and students at New York University. These acknowledgments cannot be complete without two more. First, while this book has been improved vastly by the assistance of so many, the flaws and errors that remain are all my own. Finally, no book is written in a vacuum. Without the love and unflagging confidence of my wife, Nancy, I would not have had the endurance to complete such an effort. In the end, every book is hers.

Abbreviations A. AAAS AASOR ABD ABL AbrN AcOr AEM AEPHER AfO AHw AION AM AnOr AOAT AOATS AoF ARET ARM(T) AS Asb. ASJ ASJ 10 ASJ 12, 13, 14 AT AuOr AuOr 5 AuOrS AuOrS 1 BA BaghMitt BASOR BDB

Louvre Museum siglum Annales archéologiques arabes syriennes Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research David Noel Freedman (ed.). The Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992 W. R. Harper (ed.). Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Belonging to the Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum. 14 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1892–1914 Abr-Nahrain Acta Orientalia Archives Epistolaires de Mari Annuaire. École pratique des hautes études; V e section—sciences religieuses Archiv für Orientforschung W. von Soden. Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965–81 Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli A. Götze. Die Annalen des Mursilis. Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischägyptischen Gesellschaft 38. Leipzig, 1933 Analecta Orientalia Alter Orient und Altes Testament Alter Orient und Altes Testament—Sonderreihe Altorientalische Forschungen Archivi Reali di Ebla, Testi Archives Royales de Mari (Textes) Assyriological Studies Assurbanipal Acta Sumerologica Akio Tsukimoto. “Sieben spätbronzezeitliche Urkunden aus Syrien,” 1988 Akio Tsukimoto. “Akkadian Tablets from the Hirayama Collection (I, II, III),” 1990–1992 Alalakh Tablet(s) Aula Orientalis Daniel Arnaud. “La Syrie du moyen-Euphrate sous le protectorat hittite: Contrats de droit privé,” 1987 Aula Orientalis Supplementa Daniel Arnaud. Textes syriens de l’âge du Bronze Récent. Barcelona: AUSA, 1991 Biblical Archaeologist Baghdader Mitteilungen Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907

xiv

Abbreviations BiOr BLM BMECCJ BSA BSNEStJ CAD CAH CHD CRAIBL CRRAI CT CTH DamM Emar VI/1–4 FM GLH HALOT HSS HTR HUCA IEJ IOS JA JANES JAOS JBL JCS JEN JEOL JESHO JNES JNSL JSOT JSS KAR KBo KTU KUB LAPO LAS M. MA M.A.R.I. MB

xv

Bibliotheca Orientalis Siglum for tablets in the Bible Lands Museum (Jerusalem) Bulletin of the Middle Eastern Cultural Center in Japan Bulletin of Sumerian Agriculture Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan I. J. Gelb et al. (eds.). The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1956– Cambridge Ancient History Hans G. Güterbock and Harry A. Hoffner (eds.). The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1980– Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Compte rendu de la Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum E. Laroche. Catalogue des textes hittites. 2d ed. Paris, 1971 Damaszener Mitteilungen D. Arnaud. Recherches au pays d’Astata: Les textes sumériens et accadiens. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1985–87 Florilegium Marianum E. Laroche. Glossaire de la langue hourrite. Paris: Klincksieck, 1976–77 L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–99 Harvard Semitic Studies Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Israel Exploration Journal Israel Oriental Studies Journal asiatique Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Cuneiform Studies Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal of Semitic Studies E. Ebeling. Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915– 19, 1920–23 Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartín. Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit. AOAT 24/1. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976 Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi Littératures Anciennes du Proche-Orient Simo Parpola. Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. 2 vols. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970/1983 Siglum for tablets from Mari Middle Assyrian (Akkadian) Mari: Annales de recherches interdisciplinaires Middle Babylonian (Akkadian)

xvi MDOG MDP Msk MSL NA N.A.B.U. NB OA OA OAkk OB OLZ Or PAPS PEQ PRU RA RB RE RHA RHR RLA RS RSNEStJ RSO SBLWAW SCCNH SEL SEPOA SMEA SMEA 30 StBoT Syria TCL TDOT TIM TM. UDBD UF Ug 5 VAT VE VO VT YOS ZA ZAW

Abbreviations Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft Mémoire de la Délégation Perse Siglum for tablets from Meskene/Emar Materialien zum sumerischen Lexikon Neo-Assyrian (Akkadian) Nouvelles assyriologiques brèves et utilitaires Neo-Babylonian (Akkadian) Old Assyrian (Akkadian) Oriens Antiquus Old Akkadian Old Babylonian (Akkadian) Orientalistische Literaturzeitung Orientalia Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Palestine Exploration Quarterly Le Palais royal d’Ugarit Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale Revue biblique Gary Beckman. Texts from the Vicinity of Emar in the Collection of Jonathan Rosen. History of the Ancient Near East / Monographs 2. Padua: Sargon, 1996 Revue hittite et asianique Revue de l’histoire des religions E. Ebeling et al. (eds.). Reallexikon der Assyriologie. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1928– Ras Shamra excavation/tablet number Review of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan Ras Shamra—Ougarit Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians Studi epigrafici e linguistici Société pour l’Étude du Proche-Orient Ancien Studi micenei ed egeo-anatolici D. Arnaud. “Tablettes de genres divers du moyen-Euphrate,” 1992 Studien zu den Bogazköy-Texten Syria: Revue d’art oriental et d’archéologie Textes cunéiformes du Louvre G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.). Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974– Texts from the Iraq Museum Siglum for tablets from Tell Mardikh/Ebla E. F. Peiser. Urkunden aus der Zeit der dritten babylonischen Dynastie. Berlin: Wolf Peiser, 1905 Ugarit-Forschungen J. Nougayrol et al. Ugaritica 5 Siglum for tablets in the collections of the Staatliche Museen, Berlin Siglum for “Il Vocabolario di Ebla.” Published in G. Pettinato et al. Testi Lessicali Bilingui della Biblioteca L.2769, Parte I. Materiali Epigrafici di Ebla 4. Rome: Herder, 1982 Vicino Oriente Vetus Testamentum Yale Oriental Series Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Chapter 1

Emar and the Question of Time

The ancient town of Emar was excavated from 1972 to 1976, and the Akkadian cuneiform tablets found there were published between 1985 and 1987. 1 The 1. General accounts of the excavations and finds appear elsewhere. For early presentations, see Daniel Arnaud, “Traditions urbaines et influences semi-nomades à Emar, à l’âge du bronze récent,” 245–64, and Jean-Claude Margueron, “Emar: Un exemple d’implantation hittite en terre syrienne,” 285–312, in Le Moyen-Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges (ed. J. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980). Additional bibliography for related publications by the excavator Margueron and the epigrapher Arnaud appears in the back of D. Fleming, The Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992). More recent reviews include: John Huehnergard, “Meskene (Imar*/Emar), A: Philologisch,” RLA 8 (1993) 83; J. Margueron, “Meskene (Imar*/Emar), B: Archäologisch,” RLA 8 (1993) 84–93; idem, “Emar, Capital of Astata in the Fourteenth Century b.c.e.,” BA 58 (1995) 126–38; and on the rituals: D. Fleming, “The Rituals from Emar: Evolution of an Indigenous Tradition in Second-Millennium Syria,” in New Horizons in the Study of Ancient Syria (ed. Mark W. Chavalas and John L. Hayes; Malibu, Calif.: Undena, 1992) 51–61; idem, “More Help from Syria: Introducing Emar to Biblical Study,” BA 58 (1995) 139–147; and M. W. Chavalas (ed.), Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1996). So far, Arnaud has published the SumerianAkkadian tablets as Recherches au pays d’Astata: Emar VI/1–4 (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1985–87). The Hittite and Hurrian texts have not yet been published, but are described briefly by E. Laroche in “Emar, étape entre Babylone et le Hatti,” in Le Moyen-Euphrate, 241–244. See also idem, “Documents hittites et hourrites,” in Meskéné-Emar: Dix ans de travaux, 1972–1982 (ed. Dominique Beyer; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1982) 53–60, for selected translations. The Hittite letter Msk 731097, pictured and translated in the Beyer volume, is transliterated and translated from that photograph as no. 23 in A. Hagenbuchner, Die Korrespondenz der Hethiter (Texte der Hethiter 16; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1989) 40–44. The inscriptions from the accompanying seal impressions are given special treatment in E. Laroche, “Les hiéroglyphes de Meskéné-Emar et le style ‘Syro-Hittite’ ” (Akkadica 22 [1981] 5–14); further

1

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Chapter 1

interpretation of this new evidence has barely begun. Perhaps the most unusual texts are the rituals, which present local practice in novel text frameworks. I undertook a first probe of Emar rituals in The Installation of Baal’s High Priestess (1992), which examined the most complete of three long festival texts. 2 This festival celebrated the storm-god’s nin.dingir priestess when she took office as a young woman, and the event was evidently not repeated until her death required a successor. Emar’s collection includes several large tablets for rites that were observed on a more regular basis, linked to the calendar. In spite of the fragmentary record, these offer an unusual opportunity to reconstruct part of the seasonal cycle of public ritual in a Syrian city. The ritual demarcation of stages in the year was the foundation of relations between the townspeople and their gods. All of the regular needs of the community were brought with regularity before the deities responsible for them. This study examines the major calendar texts found at Emar in order to consider what can be known about the web of religious concerns that they represent.

Emar in Syria Discovery of cuneiform writing has transformed our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia and the lands adjacent to it. The durable clay tablets on which it was most often inscribed continue to be found at sites across the ancient Near East, and as a result, Assyriological studies are continually transformed by fresh evidence. In recent years, the importance of early Syria has increased considerably, due to new excavations and text finds across the northern part of the country. The archives at Ebla showed that Mesopotamian cuneiform had spread as far as western Syria by the middle of the third millennium b.c.e. Mari was a major city situated on the Euphrates River between the western Syrian centers of Ebla and Aleppo and the Akkadian-speaking world of the east, including Assur, work on Emar seal impressions is included with S. Dalley and B. Teissier’s publication of tablets from outside the French excavations (see n. 10, below). So far, see Hatice Gonnet, “Les légendes des empreintes hiéroglyphiques anatoliennes,” in Arnaud, AuOrS 1 (1991) 198–211. Additional literature will be cited in the notes, as appropriate. 2. The text addressed was Arnaud, Emar VI/3, no. 369. The other two long festivals are the installation of the masªartu priestess (no. 370) and the zukru festival (no. 373). Texts from Arnaud’s publication (Emar VI/3–4) will be cited hereafter simply as Emar 369, etc. Manfried Dietrich (“Das Einsetzungsritual der Entu von Emar [Emar VI/3, 369],” UF 21 [1989] 47–100) offers an independent new edition of text 369, with focus on translation and the copying process rather than the execution of the event and its implications.

Emar and the Question of Time

3

Esnunna, Babylon, and the old Sumerian cities. The palace archives of early second-millennium Mari preserve an enormous diplomatic correspondence that reflects a network of political and cultural connections through all of Syria and Mesopotamia. New texts continue to be unearthed at the late-second-millennium coastal city, Ugarit; both the common Mesopotamian cuneiform and a rare alphabetic adaptation that scribes used for composition in their local West Semitic dialect have been found there. The importance of archaeological sites tends to be measured first by their size and by finds that catch the popular imagination, especially if the remains are preserved well enough to attract visitors. Sites with major historical significance but less impressive visual credentials only receive wider attention after extended study proves their value. Emar falls into the second category. Excavations at Meskeneh-Qadimeh on the great bend of the Euphrates River revealed a large town that had been built on a site with no prior occupation in the late 14th century and then destroyed violently at the beginning of the 12th, at the end of the Bronze Age. 3 Early text finds confirmed that the town was Emar (earlier Imar), an emporium that served the Euphrates both upstream and downstream as well as overland from the Mediterranean and points south. 4 Emar had been known mainly from early second-millennium texts, including repeated mention in documents from Mari, whose dealings with the west brought frequent contact with the smaller city upstream. The excavated town belongs instead to the Late Bronze II period, when the Hittite empire ruled northern Syria from its regional capital in Carchemish. Emar’s cuneiform texts are contemporary with those from Ugarit, another Hittite vassal, as well as with the bulk of tablets from the Hittite capital, Hattusa. Although both the tell and the texts reveal a substantial Hittite presence, 5 3. See the general accounts mentioned earlier. The historical context is sketched by Laroche, “Emar, étape entre Babylone et le Hatti,” 235–44. See also H. Klengel, “Die Keilschrifttexte von Meskene und die Geschichte von Astata/Emar,” OLZ 83 (1988) 645–53. J. Margueron (“Rapport préliminaire sur les 3e, 4e, 5e, et 6e campagnes de fouille à Meskéné-Emar,” AAAS 32 [1982] 242) observes that the excavated tell is roughly 1000 meters long by 700 meters wide. 4. D. Arnaud, “Emar,” RA 67 (1973) 191. 5. The best evidence for this may be the construction of the tell itself, which involved a massive manipulation of the landscape that probably was manageable only with imperial resources; see Margueron, in Le Moyen-Euphrate, 287–90. The origins of architectural styles are less certain. Margueron identified a public building as a hilani-type palace with Hittite architectural affinities, but he has dropped an earlier claim that house construction follows a Hittite pattern; see BA 58 130–34. The texts are explicit about the presence of Hittite officials such as the ugula.kalam.ma Mutri-Tessub (see G. Beckman, “Hittite Administration in Syria in the Light of the Texts from Hattusa, Ugarit, and Emar,” in New Horizons in the Study of Ancient Syria [ed. Mark W. Chavalas and John

4

Chapter 1

Emar stood at the fringe of the empire, and its institutions betray little Hittite interference. Most of the buildings found at Late Bronze Emar were made of mud brick and were not well preserved, even before winter rains destroyed most of what the excavations laid bare. A modern visitor can easily miss an important negative feature—the absence of a proper palace on the northern and western promontories. The public building that Margueron has identified as a hilani probably served as an administrative center, but the cache of texts found inside this modest structure does not prove that the building was a palace. 6 Emar’s king either occupied a surprisingly small palace at one of the two dominant heights of the city mound or could only build a larger structure in a less impressive location that has not yet been discovered. 7 The more striking finds from Emar derive from its religious institutions. The high point of the tell at its western extreme is occupied by parallel temples devoted to the storm-god and his Canaanite consort Astart. 8 Two more sacred buildings are located in a more crowded residential district near the center of town. Temple M2 is in the classic Syrian style, constructed along one axis, with thick walls, and unadorned with any extraneous rooms. Margueron’s “temple M1” is smaller and set downhill from temple M2, but it yielded the most remarkable find from Emar. 9 Several hundred tablets survived in L. Hayes; Malibu, Calif.: Undena, 1992] 48), and even the rituals include local versions of procedures for Hittite gods (Emar 471–90). 6. Margueron bases his identification of this structure as a palace on the location and the frequent references to the royal family in the texts (Emar 1–22); see BA 58 130. In fact, none of the texts deals with palace or royal property, and the royal interest is mainly indirect. J.-C. Margueron treats the building at length in a separate article, “Un ‘hilani ’ à Emar,” AASOR 44 (1979) 153–76. Thomas L. McClellan (“Houses and Households in North Syria during the Late Bronze Age,” in Les maisons dans la Syrie antique du IIIe millénaire aux débuts de l’Islam [ed. Corinne Castel et al.; Beirut: Institut Français d’Archéologie du Proche-Orient, 1997] 30–31) argues that this building is neither a palace nor a proper hilani, based on a variety of details. It has the basic structure of a sideroom house, smaller than any known hilani, and is not associated with any adjacent large public space. I would like to thank Dominique Charpin for directing me to this reference. 7. The latter might be true if no large palace was incorporated into the original city plan and a palace had to be accommodated to available space at a later stage. Emar’s zukru festival demonstrates the significant wealth of the king in what may be the last period of Bronze Age occupation. The evidence for employment of scribes suggests that royal wealth and influence may have increased during the period of Hittite hegemony. 8. See J.-C. Margueron, “Rapport préliminaire sur les deux premières campagnes de fouille à Meskéné-Emar (1972–1973),” AAAS 25 (1975) 77; D. Arnaud, “Catalogue des textes cunéiformes trouvés au cours des trois premières campagnes à Meskéné qadimé Ouest (Chantiers A, C, E, et trouvaille de surface),” AAAS 25 (1975) 92. 9. See the plan of chantier M in Fleming, BA 58 141 (figure by Margueron).

Spread is 1 pica long

Emar and the Question of Time

5

the debris left from the collapse of rooms above the main sanctuary, though many of the texts sustained severe damage. Unlike the three other sacred structures excavated at Emar, building M1 displays elements of a temple but also has three rooms attached on the east side of the long main hall, and this has given rise to some doubt about Margueron’s identification of the structure as a “temple.” In his monograph on sacred architecture in northern Syria and southeast Asia Minor, Werner proposes that the M1 building be regarded as a house. 10 He gives the following reasons: • The three extra rooms on the side do not fit the standard “in antis” temple form (built symmetrically along one axis). • The walls are thinner than those of normal in antis temples. • The layout resembles that of houses at Tell Munbaqa (Ekalte), especially house O, with an entrance on the short wall of the main room. • The altar in the main room does not prove that Emar’s building M1 is a temple, because several Munbaqa houses have installations for private cult. A priest might be expected to have a home installation that resembles those of temples. Indeed, Emar’s building M1 is different from other Emar temples, but this does not settle its character. The religious leader housed there shows no affiliation with any single cult at Emar and cannot be identified as the “priest” of some other shrine (see chapter 2). While most axial temples have thicker walls, Tell Fray’s “south temple” has 0.8-meter walls, closer to the thickness of Emar’s building M1. 11 Emar’s structure need not be viewed as the temple of a prominent individual deity. Werner refers to the similarity of various features in several Munbaqa houses, but three architectural elements of the Emar building indicate at least a modified public sacred space. 12 • The long hall has full in antis shape, with a porch for the entrance. • The entrance is centered to match the porch, in one axis. • The altar also stands in the proper place for a sacred structure, along the same axis. None of the Munbaqa houses shares these features. 10. Peter Werner, Die Entwicklung der Sakralarchitektur in Nordsyrien und Südostkleinasien vom Neolithikum bis in das 1. Jt. v. Chr. (Munich: Profil, 1994) 70–71. 11. Ibid., 109–10. 12. See house F: Dittmar Machule et al., “Ausgrabungen in Tall Munbaqa 1985,” MDOG 119 (1987) 75 fig. 1; house Q: Machule et al., “Ausgrabungen in Tall Munbaqa/ Elkate 1989,” MDOG 123 (1991) 84 fig. 11; houses O and T: Machule et al., “Ausgrabungen in Tall Munbaqa/Elkate 1990,” MDOG 124 (1992) 31–32 figs. 13–14. Werner provides a helpful list of all long-room temples (pp. 83–93) and all in antis temples (pp. 94–115).

6

Chapter 1

I prefer the recent treatment of Emar’s building M1 by McClellan, who includes it among his “side-room houses” because of its size, plan, and the thickness of its walls but also recognizes the impact of the cultic features. He concludes that “we may ask whether it was a temple that served as a residence or a residence that doubled as a cultic structure.” 13 In general, I will avoid calling the structure a “temple,” but given the prominence of the sanctuary component, the building is not best described as a “house.” 14 The contents of the M1 archive treat a wide range of affairs, individuals, and institutions that are not immediately related. Several languages are represented: Akkadian first of all, but also Hurrian and Sumerian, along with a few Hittite letters. Whoever gathered this collection had eclectic interests. A large number of tablets record transactions and events from local religious life, not restricted to one primary deity and temple cult. Many texts mention rites never previously known, and the documents themselves do not copy familiar templates. They are composed in Akkadian but evidently account for the practices of Emar and its environs. Although some rites claim participation by the whole town and all its gods, the texts show only a secondary interest in the king, and this temple was not an arm of palace administration. Although the large majority of Emar texts come from this building, the excavations produced more than one hundred tablets from other sites (Emar 1–136). Numerous tablets from outside the authorized excavations have found their way into private collections and have been published as they have become available to individual scholars. These texts must be used with caution, but they expand the base for Emar study considerably. 15 13. McClellan, “Houses and Households,” 30. 14. Richard S. Hess (“A Comparison of the Ugarit, Emar and Alalakh Archives,” in Ugarit, Religion and Culture [eds. Nicholas Wyatt et al.; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1996] 77) compares Ugarit’s “libary of the high priest” and the “Hurrian priest’s house” with regard to the phenomenon of archives collected by religious specialists, but does not argue for any close architectural parallel. For basic description of these house archives from Ugarit, see Olof Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500–300 b.c. (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1998) 73–76, with Plans 32 and 33 for the layouts of each building. Both are on a larger scale than Emar’s building M1, with little architectural similarity. 15. The list offered here is not likely to be complete: D. Arnaud, “La Syrie du moyen-Euphrate sous le protectorat hittite: L’Administration d’après trois lettres inédites,” AuOr 2 (1984) 179–88; idem, “La Syrie du moyen-Euphrate sous le protectorat hittite: Contracts de droit privé,” AuOr 5 (1987) 211–41; idem, Textes syriens de l’âge du Bronze Récent (AuOrS 1; Barcelona: AUSA, 1991; most if not all from Emar); idem, “Une correspondance d’affaires entre ougaritains et émariotes (no 30–36),” in Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville (ed. Pierre Bordreuil; RSO 7; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991) 65–78; idem, “Tablettes de genres divers du moyen-Euphrate,” SMEA 30 (1992) 195–245; idem, “Mariage et remariage des femmes chez les syriens du moyen-Euphrate,

Emar and the Question of Time

7

Late Bronze Emar offers a vantage for study of ancient Syria that is unlike the more familiar sites in several respects. Above all, the large archive stands at an unusual distance from people and institutions beholden to the king, in particular contrast to Ebla, Mari, and Ugarit. This distance allows a more direct view of other interests. Some aspects of society and religion that appear in this setting may reflect very old alternatives to domination by kings and their palace governments. For instance, when the priestess of the storm-god was enthroned, the elders rather than the king represented the town. 16 As the map of ancient Syria is gradually filled in, regional distinctions become more visible as well. Emar provides an inland counterpoint to Ugarit, separated by over one hundred miles and possessing a very different West Semitic dialect. 17 Although the cultures of Syria and Mesopotamia shared many elements à l’âge du Bronze Récent d’après deux nouveaux documents,” Semitica 46 (1996) 7–16; Gary Beckman, “Three Tablets from the Vicinity of Emar,” JCS 40 (1988) 61–68; idem, Texts from the Vicinity of Emar in the Collection of Jonathan Rosen [hereafter RE] (Padua: Sargon, 1996); Stephanie Dalley and Beatrice Teissier, “Tablets from the Vicinity of Emar and Elsewhere,” Iraq 54 (1992) 83–111; Frederick Mario Fales, Prima dell’alfabeto: La storia della scrittura attraverso testi cuneiformi inediti (Venice: Erizzo, 1989) text nos. 65–68, pp. 201–7; John Huehnergard, “Five Tablets from the Vicinity of Emar,” RA 77 (1983) 11–43; J.-W. Meyer and Gernot Wilhelm, “Eine spätbronzezeitliche Keilschrift urkunde aus Syrien,” DamM 1 (1983) 249–61; David I. Owen, “Pasuri-Dagan and Ini-Tessup’s Mother,” in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield (ed. Z. Zevit, S. Gitin, and M. Sokoloff; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995) 573–84; Marcel Sigrist, “Seven Emar Tablets,” in kinattutu sa darâti (Kutscher memorial volume; ed. Anson F. Rainey; Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, 1993) 165–87; Akio Tsukimoto, “Eine neue Urkunde des TiliSarruma, Sohn des Königs von Karkamis,” ASJ 6 (1984) 65–74; idem, “Sieben spätbronzezeitliche Urkunden aus Syrien,” ASJ 10 (1988) 153–89; idem, “Akkadian Tablets in the Hirayama Collection (I),” ASJ 12 (1990) 177–259; II, ASJ 13 (1991) 275–333; III, ASJ 14 (1992) 311–15; idem, “A Testamentary Document from Emar: Akkadian Tablets in the Hirayama Collection (IV),” ASJ 16 (1994) 231–36; idem, “By the Hand of MadiDagan, the Scribe and apkallu-Priest: A Medical Text from the Middle Euphrates Region,” in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East (ed. Kazuko Watanabe; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1999) 188–200; Joan Westenholz et al., Emar Tablets from the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem; M. Yabroudi, “Une tablette d’Emar au Musée Nationale de Damas,” AAAS 36–37 (1986–87) 87–93 [Arabic]; Mamoru Yoshikawa and Eiko Matsushima, “Bilingual Lexical Tablet,” BSNEStJ 23 (1980) 1–19 (republished by Arnaud as Emar 575). Masamichi Yamada (“Preliminary Remarks on the Ekalte Texts,” N.A.B.U. [1994] 1–2 [no. 1]) demonstrates that ASJ 13, nos. 32 and 42 are likely from Munbaqa/Ekalte instead of Emar (also perhaps Arnaud, SMEA 30, no. 11, at least).

16. Emar 369:44. 17. See D. Arnaud, “Contribution de l’onomastique du moyen-Euphrate à la connaissance de l’émariote,” SEL 8 (1991) 23.

8

Chapter 1

of a common substrate and extensive contacts throughout the third and second millennia contributed to this base, local patterns always evolved. 18 These patterns can only be discerned as more sites are explored. The building M1 archive combines both familiar and unfamiliar religious features, resulting in a novel portrait. Myth and ritual from Ugarit, Mesopotamia, and Hatti supply only sporadic assistance and broad analogies for interpreting Emar religion. The archive itself comes from an elusive institution that has no known counterpart. Ancient Syria was a conduit for cultural exchange across the Near East, as well as to Asia Minor and the Aegean. The unusual perspective of the Emar texts should attract specialists from other areas—not only Syrian history and culture— because relevant comparisons may be established with Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Palestine, at least. The preliminary research undertaken here must address philological problems that may not interest non-Assyriologists, but I have attempted to keep the broader horizon in view. Someday, Emar will be recognized as a key piece in the puzzle of ancient religion.

The Ritual Archive and the Calendar Texts The communities of ancient Mesopotamia and Syria shared a long tradition of dividing the year into a calendar of named months. Most often, these calendars identified individual months by the most prominent religious rites shared by the community during that season and lunar cycle. 19 Over time, traditional month names outlasted the priority of the rites first linked to them, while political and commercial forces led to standardization of regional calendars. Nevertheless, the Mesopotamian calendar bound administrative need to a ritual framework for time. The turn of seasons was not merely a counting tool but the very substance of life’s rhythm, especially in wresting sustenance from the land. Ritual observance of the changing seasons preceded the creation of calendars and continued after those calendars lost their link to living religious practice. 18. See further discussion in chapter 5, below. 19. Added (“intercalated”) months commonly compensated for the discrepancy between lunar and solar cycles. The calendars of Mesopotamia and Syria are most recently treated by Mark E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1993). This work updates the classic by Benno Landsberger, Der kultischer Kalender der Babylonier und Assyrer (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915). See also the Schweich lectures by Stephen Langdon, Babylonian Menologies and the Semitic Calendars (London: The British Academy, 1935). Walther Sallaberger (Der kultische Kalender der Ur III-Zeit [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993]) has addressed the evidence for the Ur III period in great depth.

Emar and the Question of Time

9

Most of the evidence for practice of ritual in ancient communities before the first millennium comes from records of disbursements for those events. These records are particularly rich for late third-millennium Ur and early second-millennium Mari. 20 Mesopotamia and Syria are represented by relatively few texts that contain a more expanded description of procedure, in contrast to the vast numbers of Anatolian rituals in the texts found at Hattusa. 21 Ugarit has produced a much smaller collection of such ritual texts, which also were composed in the native language. 22 Emar’s temple archive preserves dozens of fragments and a smaller number of long descriptions of rituals, along with a variety of lists of offerings and deities (Emar 369–535 in Arnaud’s transliterations of the Akkadian texts). 23 This collection includes at least three types of calendar-based texts. Only one text (Emar 373) treats a single event, the zukru ‘festival’ (Sumerian ezen), celebrated for seven days every seven years at the full moon of a month called ‘the head of the year’ (sag.mu). The zukru festival text also records preparatory rites that took

20. For the Ur III period, now consult Sallaberger, Der kultische Kalender. For Mari, see Jack M. Sasson, Dated Texts from Mari: A Tabulation (Malibu, Calif.: Undena, 1980); idem, “The Calendar and Festivals of Mari during the Reign of Zimri-Lim,” in Studies in Honor of Tom B. Jones (ed. Marvin A. Powell and Ronald Sack; AOAT 203; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979) 119–41. 21. See Laroche, CTH nos. 390–500, “rituels,” and 591–720, “fêtes et cultes.” Each numerical entry represents a separate text, often attested in many tablets and fragments. Note that the Hittite rites include far more magical material than any other group of texts (nos. 390–470). For recent bibliography and systematic discussion, see Volkert Haas, Geschichte der hethitischen Religion (Leiden: Brill, 1994). 22. The ritual from Ugarit has received extensive systematic treatment in recent years. See Gregorio del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion according to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1999); Jean-Michel de Tarragon, “Les rituels,” in Textes ougaritiques, Tome II: Textes religieux et rituels (ed. André Caquot et al.; Paris: du Cerf, 1989) 128–227; idem, Le culte à Ugarit d’après les textes de la pratique en cunéiformes alphabétiques (Paris: Gabalda, 1980); Paulo Xella, I testi rituali di Ugarit, I: Testi (Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 1981); and works by Baruch A. Levine, including: “Ugaritic Descriptive Rituals,” JCS 17 (1963) 105–11; “The Descriptive Ritual Texts from Ugarit: Some Formal and Functional Features of the Genre,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. Carol L. Meyers and M. O’Connor; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983) 467–75; Levine and J.-M. de Tarragon, “The King Proclaims the Day: Ugaritic Rites for the Vintage (KTU 1.41//1.87),” RB 100 (1993) 76–115. The Middle Assyrian rituals are most accessible as texts 1–6 in Brigitte Menzel, Assyrische Tempel (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1981) II, T 1–7, texts 1–6a. 23. Arnaud has added numbers 451bis and 451ter as an appendix to volume VI/4 (pp. 399–400).

10

Chapter 1

place one year in advance of the festival during the same month and during a second month named Niqali. A second unique text (Emar 446) focused not on one event but on one ritual participant, ‘the diviner’ (lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd). This text records rites for many deities and events, with notable attention given to the human beneficiaries of offerings. Several individuals and groups are mentioned, but the diviner, identified without further qualification, appears repeatedly. The organizing principle of the text is the calendar. More than half of the tablet deals with the full moon of a “first month,” and the reverse is completed with five named months, apparently in sequence (I will sometimes refer to this tablet and text in this book as “the text for six months”). Although other texts contribute valuable evidence for Emar’s ritual calendar, it is not possible to put in order more than two consecutive months without this essential text. To my knowledge, there is no close parallel in cuneiform literature for its combination of systematic calendar and ritual description. The potential for development from focus on a single day is evident in a second zukru tablet (Emar 375), which likewise describes several rites for the full moon of a single month. In this case, the zukru occupies the great majority of the text, but four lines near the end treat unrelated concurrent events. The third category of calendar evidence derives mainly from two tablets that systematically list rites for individual months in chronological order (Emar 452 and 463). These tablets are not concerned with daily care for one sanctuary cult but describe offerings and rites for a range of deities and sites, at significant times through the month. Ugarit has produced similar texts in alphabetic cuneiform and in the local dialect, but there is no sign that either Ugarit or Emar borrowed a Mesopotamian paradigm. Neither these tablets nor Emar’s ritual calendar as a whole has received sustained attention to date. Arnaud published brief discussions soon after the discovery of the texts, and Cohen’s chapter on Emar follows Arnaud’s readings with little elaboration. 24 Before publication of the temple archive, Sapin touched on the zukru briefly in a long study of interactions between religion and society in second-millennium Syria. 25 Sigrist included short reflections on the longest cal24. See D. Arnaud, “Religion assyro-babylonienne,” AEPHER 85 (1976–77) 209– 15, on the zukru and other calendrical rituals. He addresses Emar ritual elsewhere in: AEPHER 84 (1975–76) 221–28; “Traditions urbaines. . . ,” in Le Moyen-Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges (ed. J. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980) 253–55, 258–60; and “La bibliothèque d’un devin Syrien à MeskénéEmar (Syrie),” CRAIBL (1980) 375–87. Cohen (Cultic Calendars, 346–61) includes translations of the zukru festival (Emar 373) and other annual rites (446, 447, 452). 25. J. Sapin (“Quelques systèmes socio-politiques en Syrie au 2e millénaire avant J.-C. et leur évolution historique d’après des documents religieux [légendes, rituels, sanctuaires],” UF 15 [1983] 188–89) relies on Arnaud’s preliminary report.

Emar and the Question of Time

11

endar texts (373, 446, and 452) in a sweeping review of ritual at Emar, without lingering on any of them. 26 Emar’s calendar-oriented texts represent one of the most important components of the ritual archive from building M1. Because they are linked by both the calendar and their temple compiler, these documents demand to be treated together and offer the possibility of coherence. In fact, the unusual breadth of the diviner’s administrative interests allows us to evaluate what kind of coherence may be encountered in the public ritual life of one town. The two versions of the zukru are not identical and by themselves indicate a variety of practice that is not always anticipated. I have built this book around the major texts just described. Elsewhere, evidence for ritual in masses of disbursement records may lend itself to organization by topic—the divisions of the year, events celebrated individually or by type, or the deities honored. At Emar, the evidence is more detailed than that from other sites but also more uneven and idiosyncratic, derived mainly from a handful of long texts. Other small fragments appear to be related to calendar events, and month names show up occasionally in administrative and legal documents, but the framework for interpretation still derives from the long ritual texts. It is necessary to bear in mind that all of these ritual tablets were found in one archive and seem to have been created there. We have inherited the cultic calendar known by one institution in Late Bronze Emar, not a universal Emar calendar in absolute terms. I address this problem in chapter 2 before investigating the texts; there I attempt to identify the proprietor of building M1 as well as his circle of interest and influence. Although all calendar texts follow the “annual cycle” described in chapter 4, the zukru stands apart from the rest and deserves first attention. The zukru festival text is by far the longest in the ritual archive, and the festival is the only event whose cycle of observance extends beyond one year; it was celebrated every seventh year. Only the zukru appears in two separate versions, and only the shorter annual zukru is found in multiple copies. This festival was evidently the premier event in the ritual calendar preserved at the temple. I have addressed the idea of “new year” ritual and the seven-year interval in my discussion of the zukru festival, but other issues of calendar, time, and religion relate to all of the ritual texts and are treated at the end of the book. The full range of evidence for Emar month names is presented only after the discussion of the rituals because the order of calendar depends on the text for six months, and the main evidence for parallel calendars comes from correlations between rites from separate ritual texts. The relation of ritual to fixed seasons depends on consistent 26. Marcel Sigrist, “Gestes symboliques et rituels à Emar,” in Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (ed. J. Quaegebeur; Leuven: Peeters, 1993) 381–410, especially pp. 404–5 (zukru, Emar 373) and p. 408 (Emar 446 and 452).

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Chapter 1

location of the ritual in the same month and adjustment of the whole calendar by periodic intercalation; the latter remains an unresolved problem at Emar. The book concludes with reflections on the place of Emar in the larger history of ancient society and religion. While the texts themselves provide the best framework for study of Emar’s calendrical ritual, this study is not a commentary. Many details are explored when appropriate to investigation of individual rituals, but I have not attempted systematic description beyond the calendar itself. Analysis of the texts and collation of the tablets yielded significant progress in reading the rituals, but I have placed my new editions in an appendix in order to minimize obstacles to following a discussion that is already technical. 27 For the same reason, I have prepared the manuscript in two levels, with much of the supporting detail reserved for the notes. Most of the material in this book is not published elsewhere, so full documentation is unavoidable. Placement of this information in footnotes is intended to make it optional but readily accessible. In the end, the large gaps in the evidence for Emar’s ritual calendar will block satisfactory answers to many specific questions. For instance, it appears that one major text spans the six months of autumn and winter, when the rains come and go. This starting point suggests a possible anchor for the other principal texts in fixed seasons, but I cannot prove that the activities of the six-month record remained constant from year to year, though there is scattered evidence for general continuity. We do not have the disbursement receipts to establish the patterns of practice over time. It is my hope that the thorough investigation undertaken here, along with the improved text readings, will at least provide a foundation for future work on these intriguing if sometimes intractable problems. 27. I would like to thank Baruch Levine for suggesting this construction. Collations were carried out in May–June 1991, funded by a Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for Humanities, and June 1995, supported by a grant from the New York University Research Challenge Fund.

Chapter 2

The Diviner’s Archive Despite the luxury of a single archive from a known archaeological context, the variety of our archive’s contents prevents easy identification of the proprietor and purpose. The common thread in the texts turns out to be a figure who calls himself a “diviner” and shows some interest in the Mesopotamian traditions of divination but whose professional responsibilities do not reflect the original meaning of the title. As supervisor of a wide range of Emar shrines and rituals, he maintained a connection with many gods and identified himself with the gods of Emar as a group. The structure itself may be “the House of the Gods” that is mentioned frequently in the ritual texts. This House of the Gods and an institution named only “the city” are suppliers of offerings not provided by the king and the palace, and the diviner also appears to serve a domain outside of direct royal administration. Emar’s largest archive reflects activities with some claim to represent the entire city but they also remain separate from the palace. This rare perspective makes the discovery much more valuable.

The Collection of a Generalist Mesopotamian “archives” are sometimes reconstructed from the business affairs of a single family or institution, identified only by evidence internal to each text, the tablets now often held in separate collections and without archaeological context. Our Emar archive is defined by the location of the finds, jumbled as they are, in a single building and occupational stratum. Taken as a whole, the tablets form an unexpected collection, one that would be impossible to recreate from the written contents alone. The archive contains three broad categories of material, whose associations are not limited to one institution or interest. I will first discuss the collection’s diversity of content and setting and then address the span of time possibly represented by the texts. 13

14

Chapter 2 The Range of Interest

A large fraction of the collection is devoted to texts familiar from Mesopotamian scribal education. There are numerous copies of lexical lists, various compendia for divination, and a selection of incantation, ritual, and literary texts from mainly Mesopotamian sources. 1 Arnaud has published the Sumerian and Akkadian tablets that comprise the bulk of this group, but there remains a significant set of Mesopotamian omen and medical treatises in Hurrian translation. 2 The rest of the temple archive has to do with local matters and the texts are written in Akkadian. Roughly two thirds of these derive from cult affairs in the vicinity of Emar. Many tablets and fragments track the performance of and outlay for ritual, while inventories, memoranda, and other administrative texts reflect the range of records necessary to a religious bureaucracy. 3 Not all of the Akkadian texts from life at Emar serve the administration of the cult. There are a small number of Akkadian and Hittite letters and also a variety of legal documents. 4 The texts from local life are diverse in every category. The rituals and other administrative records concern many separate deities, shrines, and financial sources. Some tablets even list Emar deities and their provision systematically, in 1. The Sumerian-Akkadian texts appear in Arnaud’s publication as Emar 536–603 (lexical lists), 605–728 (divination), and 729–93 (incantation, ritual, and literary). 2. See E. Laroche, “Emar, étape entre Babylone et le Hatti,” in Le Moyen-Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges (ed. J. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980) 241–44, for a brief description, and translation of one or two examples in idem, “Documents hittites et hourrites,” in Meskéné-Emar: Dix ans de travaux, 1972–1982 (ed. Dominique Beyer; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1982) 53–60 (no. 15 and perhaps no. 16). These have not yet been published. 3. Arnaud published the ritual texts, including lists for offerings, as text nos. 369– 535, with 451bis and 451ter added at the end of volume VI/4. The other administrative texts are numbers 274–368. 4. The Akkadian letters have been published as Emar 258–73. Although the publication team has not yet completed the Hittite texts, preliminary versions of Msk 731097, to Zu-Baºla from the Hittite king, appear in Laroche, “Documents hittites et hourrites,” 54 (no. 1), and A. Hagenbuchner, Die Korrespondenz der Hethiter (Texte der Hethiter 16; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1989) 40–44. Masamichi Yamada (“The Family of Zu-Baºla the Diviner and the Hittites,” in Past Links: Studies in the Languages and Cultures of the Ancient Near East [Israel Oriental Studies 18; ed. Shlomo Izre'el et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998] 325 n. 6) observes that Hagenbuchner’s transliteration ignores three out of four lines on the lower edge, citing CHD L–M, p. 91b. According to Yamada, BLM 37 (unpublished) is another Hittite letter on the same topic from a king of Carchemish to the same Hittite official named Alziyamuwa. The legal documents include real estate sales (137–75), wills (176–98), and other financial and family arrangements (252–57; cf. 227–51 fragments). Texts 199–226 include all types and will be treated separately.

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the context of occasions that are often left unspecified. Several god-lists account for offerings at unknown events, while the zukru festival text provides the most complete elaboration found in the archive. 5 The legal documents belong to Emar residents who are not connected in any consistent way. Moreover, the texts were drawn up in several locations. Several were composed to be witnessed by the Hittite viceroy at Carchemish, surely with the assistance of a court scribe. 6 Many more were evidently produced at the palace of the local Emar king. Documents with a list of witnesses headed by the king were evidently created in the palace. Within this group, real estate transactions indicate that the penalty for any attempted claim was to be paid to the palace rather than to the city god dnin.urta and the elders or others. 7 Five scribes stand out as regular employees of the palace during the reigns of several Emar kings (see fig. 1). 8 The correlation of these scribes and the royal witnesses sometimes illuminates the progress of the local dynasty. 9 Abi-kapi was a venerable figure whose service lasted from 5. The separate god lists are published with the rituals as Emar 378–84, and the zukru list fills Emar 373:76–162, with the last section broken away. 6. See Emar 177, 201, 202, and 207. For a study of the language of all of the Carchemish texts associated with Emar, see Jun Ikeda, “The Akkadian Language of Carchemish: Evidence from Emar and Its Vicinities,” ASJ 20 (1998) 23–62. There are 18 in all. 7. The right only goes to dnin.urta and the Emar elders when the property is sold d by nin.urta, as in Emar 139. 8. These scribes are presented here in connection with the king who is listed as first witness. Other scribes occasionally work for the king, but there is no accumulated data to suggest that they had a continuing relationship. These include Dagalli (Pilsu-Dagan, ASJ 12, no. 16; Elli, ASJ 12, no. 1); Baba (Pilsu-Dagan, RE 30); Dagan-belu (Yaßi-Dagan, AuOrS 1 1); Adda (Abbanu, AuOrS 1 5); Masru-hamis (Pilsu-Dagan, AuOrS 1 47); Abda (Baºla-kabar son of Yaßi-Dagan, AuOrS 1 86). See below for Dagan-belu’s service to an earlier royal family. Based on the texts surveyed here, only Masru-hamis produced a tablet without royal witness: AuOrS 1 50. He does not appear to serve as a regular employee. On scribes and palace service, see also Jun Ikeda, A Linguistic Analysis of the Akkadian Texts from Emar: Administrative Texts (Ph.D. diss., Tel-Aviv University, 1995) 11–13. Ikeda (“Scribes in Emar,” in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East [ed. Kazuko Watanabe; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1999] 180) offers an independent list of all texts produced under this royal dynasty (table 5). 9. See RE (p. xii) for a sketch of the dynasty that ruled Emar during the end of the Late Bronze Age. Reigning kings are known to include Yaßi-Dagan, Baºla-kabar, ZuAstarti, Pilsu-Dagan, and Elli, in succession. On the basic scheme of Emar kings, see Arnaud, “Les textes d’Emar et la chronologie de la fin du Bronze Récent,” Syria 52 (1975) 89–90; he comes to similar conclusions with regard to the royal scribes. It is not clear whether Abban ever actually became king, though his priority as a witness suggests it. His appearance after Zu-Astarti in texts such as Emar 17 and 256 and the fact that PilsuDagan regularly follows Abbanu as witness indicates the order of succession among the

16

Chapter 2

the reign of Yaßi-Dagan, the first known king, through his grandson Pilsu-Dagan. This scribe is never named in a document associated with Pilsu-Dagan’s older brother Zu-Astarti, the previous king who claims once to have survived a rebellion. 10 On the contrary, Zu-Astarti retained the service only of a man named Imlik-Dagan. 11 It seems that Zu-Astarti, the firstborn, never inherited his father’s scribe, who instead was attached to the younger brother. If the repeated appearance of the same five scribes indicates permanent employment, no Emar king could afford the expense of more than one scribe until Pilsu-Dagan, who was served by four at various times. That four scribes are associated with Pilsu-Dagan may indicate that he had a longer reign. Elli, the son of Pilsu-Dagan, is attested with two regular scribes, though his principal scribe seems to be Is-Dagan. Other factors add to the evidence for several separate origins for the collection of legal documents. The tablets from the Yaßi-Dagan dynasty are written in a characteristically local style across the shorter dimension of the tablet, with lengthy witness lists frequently concluded by the scribe’s own name. Arnaud designates this type “Syrian,” in contrast to “Syro-Hittite” tablets, which are written across the longer dimension. 12 Many Syrian-type documents involve neither these Emar kings nor their official scribes, and some of them suggest the existence of an earlier dynasty (see below). The tablets from Carchemish are composed in the Syro-Hittite style, and a fourth point of origin is suggested by texts that are in the same foreign form but that lack the royal signature and seal of Carchemish. 13 Every aspect of this archive indicates a remarkable breadth of interest and influence. The perspective is all the more striking because the palace appears only three sons of Baºla-kabar. On the place of Zu-Astarti and the implications of text 17, see Frederick Mario Fales, “Notes on the Royal Family of Emar,” in Marchands, diplomates et empéreurs (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991) 84–86, 90. 10. The text is Emar 17, a royal grant. Only the brothers Zu-Astarti and PilsuDagan are identified as kings directly in the Emar documentation. A middle brother named Abbanu appears as the first witness in some texts, without being designated as king, a common practice with individuals proven to have been rulers as well. Abbanu is a transitional figure because documents he appears in as first witness include the future king, Pilsu-Dagan, among other witnesses, but he is also listed after Zu-Astarti in documents from the latter’s reign. 11. One exception may be SMEA 30, no. 2, where Imlik-Dagan writes a document in which Yaßi-Dagan son of Pilsu-Dagan is first witness. Yaßi-Dagan does not belong to the best-known faction of the royal family. 12. See Arnaud, AuOrS 1, pp. 9–10. Syro-Hittite tablets tend to lack the long witness lists, and witnesses, if present, are identified only by their seals. 13. See for example Emar 205, 209, 211, 212, and 252, all of which mention the Hittite “overseer of the land” Mutri-Tessub.

Spread is 12 points short

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Figure 1. Emar Palace Scribes Scribe Abi-kapi a

Royal Family Served

Texts Produced

Yaßi-Dagan

RE 16

Baºla-kabar, son of Yaßi-Dagan

Emar 14, 156, cf. 144; RE 14, cf. 52; AuOrS 1 3

Abbanu, son of Baºla-kabar

Emar 126; RE 71; AuOrS 1 6

Pilsu-Dagan, son of Baºla-kabar

Emar 4, 157, 159; AuOrS 1 9; ASJ 12, no. 7

Imlik-Dagan

Zu-Astarti, son of Baºla-kabar

Emar 17, 256; RE 8, 9, 79; AuOrS 1 55; ASJ 12, no. 8; ASJ 12, no. 7

Ea-damiq

Pilsu-Dagan

Emar 146, 147, 253, cf. votive text 42; RE 29

Elli, son of Pilsu-Dagan

RE 15, 24; Kutscher no. 4

Pilsu-Dagan

Emar 10, 125, 180, 183, cf. 137; RE 3, 21; AuOrS 1 35, 54

Baºla-kabar, son of Elli

RE 81; AuOrS 1 13

Pilsu-Dagan

Emar 138

Elli

Emar 94, 97, 139, 140, 141, 142, cf. 96; RE 23, 59, 86; AuOrS 1 10, 11, 12, 59, 60 , 62, 82; ASJ 12, no. 10; ASJ 13, no. 25

Belu-malik

Is-Dagan

Attested Emar Kings: b Yaßi-Dagan Baºla-kabar, son of Yaßi-Dagan Zu-Astarti, son of Baºla-kabar Pilsu-Dagan, son of Baºla-kabar Elli, son of Pilsu-Dagan (Baºla-kabar, son of Elli, not attested with royal title) a. The text published by Tsukimoto in ASJ 14 311–15 was executed by a scribe called Abikapi, with witnesses led by Baºla-kabar son of Elli, as if contemporary with the last generation at Emar. Based on this text, Jun Ikeda (“Linguistic Identification of an Emar Scribe,” RSNEStJ 28 [1992] 37–40) proposes a second scribe by this name. Beckman (Texts from the Vicinity of Emar, 26 n. 26) admits the problem with the royal names but considers the linguistic evidence unconvincing and this text inadequate to prove the existence of a separate person. More recently, Ikeda notes that the two Abi-kapis can be distinguished by paleography (“Scribes in Emar,” 175–76), though he admits that the witnesses for the proposed second scribe are similar to those known for the first (pp. 180–81). b. For a more complete genealogy, see Beckman, Texts from the Vicinity of Emar, xii.

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Chapter 2

as one indirect client, without a major role. 14 Before destruction, the diverse interests of the collection may have been illuminated in part by the organization of the texts. Unfortunately, the tablets were badly jumbled both in the initial collapse of the building and in subsequent disturbance, 15 but noticeable patterns do survive (see fig. 2). Area III, in the western part of the temple cella and nearby, accounts for by far the largest portion of the archive. 16 Here were found most of the tablets dealing with Mesopotamian scribal arts (520 of 614), along with more than half of the texts for cult rites and administration (165 or 276). By contrast, only nine fragments of legal documents were found in area III. Area I, essentially “room 3” at the back of the temple along the eastern side, contained a much smaller collection, perhaps stored in smaller space on the ground floor. 17 Disturbance of the remains prevents strict differentiation of the contents from those in area III, but at least two contrasts stand out. A repository for private documents was located here, 18 and the ritual texts designated by the scribes as “festivals” come from area I almost exclusively (see fig. 3). 19 The festival texts are marked by separate storage as well as by the distinctive festival label. The remaining ritual texts from Emar are divided between areas I and III, as are the major calendar texts that form the core of this study. Along with the zukru festival tablet, three of four copies of the shorter zukru text were found in area I. 20 The unusual script of the tablet that describes the rites for six months (Emar 446) 14. Arnaud calls Emar 137–42 “les archives de la famille royale,” but the property documented belongs to no member of the royal line of succession. The overseer of the temple shows a likely acquaintance with Ißßur-Dagan, a brother of the king, Pilsu-Dagan, but the affairs of the immediate royal family do not appear in his archive. Texts 137–41 come from the private records of Ißßur-Dagan. 15. J.-C. Margueron, “Les fouilles françaises de Meskéné-Emar (Syrie),” CRAIBL (1975) 209. 16. The cella probably was not the original storage space for these tablets. Their discovery here most likely is a result of the collapse of a work and storage space above the cella and does not imply scribal activity in the cella. 17. This is my conjecture and awaits confirmation or correction by publication of the final excavation report. 18. The nine fragments found in area III probably arrived there as a result of destruction and disturbance of the temple, not because they were stored there. 19. Figure 3 lists the largest tablets and pieces. Emar 394:39 mentions ‘these festivals’ (ezenmes an-na-ti), but texts 371, 372, and 393 are situated here on the basis of ritual idiom. Sector III-NE contained one small kissu fragment (N) and three unidentifiable splinters with festival vocabulary, Emar 389, 390, and 404. 20. Text 375A consists of Msk 74298b+74287b, with the new join, from I-SW and I-SW+I-SE respectively. Copy C is defined as the two fragments 74303f (+) 74303c. Both these and text D (74289b) were found in sector I-SW. Only the small fragent Msk 74146l (text B) came from area III(-SE).

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Figure 2. Find-Spots of Building M1 Tablets a Text Categories

I-SW/ I-SW/ I-NW II-NW I-SE III-SE III-NE IV-SW

Und.

I-SE

I-SW

I-NE

63

7

23

3

5

9

2

1

8

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

15

–

14

1

10

3

–

3

1

16

49

–

Ritual

7

5

43

–b

4

5

14

12

88

1

Lexical

28

–

1

1

15

1

–

58

274

3

Divination

21

–

1

2

4

–

–

29

86

10

3

–

1

1

1

–

–

22

51

1

84 52

13 0

76 3

6 4

10 20

17 1

17 0

29 109

160 411

1 14

Legal-economic Letters Cult administration

Incantation/(Mesop.) ritual/literature Totals: Application Scribal Arts

a. The text categories combine groups in Arnaud’s Emar VI/3: legal/economic (137–257); letters (258–73); cult administration (274–368); ritual (369–535); lexical (536–603); divination (605–728); incantation/(Mesopotamian) ritual/literature (729–93). The unidentified fragments 786–93 are tentatively assigned to the last cluster. The phrase “scribal arts” refers to the collected body of texts copied for training and reference in the scribal craft and divination. “Application” covers the use of these skills for conduct of law and exchange, correspondence, administration, and ritual. The columns are labeled by find spot: the Roman numerals indicate field squares and SE, SW, NE, and NW are the four quadrants within each square. Undifferentiated (Und.) tablets come from the first discovery by Ory and Paillet during their work on the Roman-Byzantine-Islamic town, then called Balis (JA 262 271–78). These were reassigned 1973 Msk catalogue numbers as 731000–731095 (see Arnaud, Emar VI/1, p. 7), and join only to finds from squares I and II: I-SE, 731035 + 74316b, 731057 + 74237b, 731076 + 74319; I-SW, 731036 + 74329, 731070 + 74333; I-NW, 731064 + 74249a; II-NE, 731061 + 74274. Excavation began where these discoveries were made. Find spots are listed by Arnaud at the beginning of Emar VI/1, and some details of the excavation scheme are from Olof Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500–300 b.c. (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1998) 62–63. I would like to thank Dr. Pedersén for providing access to his manuscript before publication. b. I-NE, Emar 369D (nin.dingir installation).

closely resembles that of the primary tablet for the shorter zukru, and this text also comes from area I. 21 In contrast, the two related tablets that deal with the ritual for the individual months of Abî and Halma (Hiyar) were retrieved in 21. Text 446 was found in area I-SW.

20

Chapter 2 Figure 3. Principal Festival Tablets and Find-Spots

Festival

Text and Length

Find-Spot

nin.dingir installation

369A 369B 369C 369D

94 lines, large tablet 60 lines 38 lines, large tablet 34 lines

I-NW Und. I-SW II-NE

masªartu installation

370

117+ lines, large tablet

I-SW

zukru festival

373+376 374

200+ lines, large tablet 21 lines

I-SW + I-SE, I-SW I-SW + I-SE

kissu festival

A C E F G/395 H J K M

39 lines 19 lines 30 lines ca. 65 lines 22 lines 28 lines 24 lines 69 lines 17 lines

I-SW + I-SE Und. I-SW I-SW “NE” (no area) I-SW I-SE I-SW I-NW

Other

371 372 393 394

17+ lines 18 lines ca. 29 lines 44 lines

Und. I-SW I-SW Und.

area III. 22 For reasons that are not clear to us, their shared preference for comprehensive description of one month’s ritual is reflected in their place of storage. 23 Because the very isolation of individual rites as festivals demonstrates their importance, the smaller assemblage of area I cannot be judged by size alone. Nevertheless, the larger group found in area III marks the activity of the temple most closely and matches the sacred architecture. Practical administration of the local cult is joined to idealized preoccupation with foreign texts for divining the plans of the gods in the contents of the tablets found here. The two religious 22. Texts 452 (Abî) and 463 (Halma/Hiyar) come from area III-SE and NE, respectively. 23. Other calendar fragments are likewise divided: Und., 454, 455; I-SW, 447, 451ter, 458, 459; I-SW+I-SE, 453; I-SW+II-NW, 456; versus III-NE, 450, 451, 457, and 467.

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interests meet only in storage, because the archive includes no evidence for actual practice of Mesopotamian divination. There, identification of the collection as a diviner’s archive begins by noting the joint storage of these tablets. The Chronological Range Skaist has proposed a radical revision of the historical framework for all of the texts from Emar by identifying an entire dynasty of local kings who ruled before the dynasty of Yaßi-Dagan, the royal line that was introduced in the previous section. 24 At first, this idea seems intrinsically unlikely, because the excavation results point to a period of occupation confined to the 13th century, more or less. Texts that involve the Hittite vice-regency at Carchemish likewise belong to the 13th century. 25 In spite of the fact that the period of Hittite rule dominates the finds from Late Bronze Age Emar, I find Skaist’s reasoning persuasive. A newly published text from outside the French excavations identifies a king of Emar who is not known from the dynasty of Yaßi-Dagan, Baºla-kabar, and so on. 26 King Liªmisarru belongs to a network of witnesses, found in various legal documents, that overlap with and precede those from the previously identified dynasty. Skaist observes that no text documenting land sold by dnin.urta has a first witness from outside the acknowledged dynasty or the group related to Liªmi-sarru. Four generations from Liªmi-sarru’s family make an appearance before Yaßi-Dagan even appears on the scene, and this earlier royal family shows no link to the period of Hittite sovereignty. The one foreign presence appears in acknowledgment of a huge ransom paid for the king’s daughters to “the Hurrian king,” in the same text. 27 Skaist logically locates this earlier royal dynasty in the 14th century, before the Hittites set up permanent provincial governance over Emar and its environs. The change of dynasties appears to reflect Hittite imperial initiative. 24. Aaron Skaist, “The Chronology of the Legal Texts from Emar,” ZA 88 (1998) 45–71, especially pp. 60–64. 25. Recent estimates of the Emar archives’ duration confine them mainly to the 13th century; see Masamichi Yamada, “An Introduction to the Chronology of the Emar Texts: Absolute Chronology and Synchronisms,” BSNEStJ 37 (1994) 17, from 1290 to 1180; Murray R. Adamthwaite, “New Texts from the Middle Euphrates: A Review Article,” AbrN 32 (1994) 24–25, as 70–80 years. Yamada assembles the synchronisms between the Yaßi-Dagan dynasty, the royal family at Carchemish, and the family of Zu-Baºla the diviner. Skaist himself arrives at a similar range for all of the Syro-Hittite texts from Emar (pp. 47–57). 26. Text no. 6 in Marcel Sigrist, “Seven Emar Tablets,” in Kutscher Memorial Volume (ed. Anson F. Rainey; Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, 1993) 165–87. 27. See Skaist, “Chronology of the Legal Texts,” 61.

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With the new text published by Sigrist (Kutscher no. 6), Liªmi-sarru’s identity as a king is unavoidable, and he anticipates the pattern of kings from the later dynasty, who lead the witnesses to legal documents, though they appear without royal title. Because this historical interpretation is new and important, I would like to offer another formulation of arguments in favor of Skaist’s hypothesis. Starting with texts produced under the kingship of Baºla-kabar, it is possible to trace, step by step, a series of changes to the witness lists that include these two royal families. The generational shifts indicate a period that must occupy several decades. 28 (1) The scribe Abi-kapi wrote several texts that have King Baºla-kabar (dimgal), son of Yaßi-Dagan, as the lead witness. These include Emar 144, RE 14 and 52, and AuOrS 1 2, 3, and 4. Several other witnesses appear repeatedly: • • • • •

Addiya son of Dada (all texts) Ikun-Ra son of Rihßi (RE 14; AuOrS 1 2 and 4) Hinnu-Dagan grandson of Tekisi (same) Abu-Da son of Abi-Saggar (same) Rasap-abu son of Abi-kapi (Emar 144; RE 14, 52; AuOrS 1 2)

(2) The same scribe, Abi-kapi, is also responsible for RE 16, a text with witnesses led by Yaßi-Dagan, followed by his son Baºla-kabar and familiar associates: Addiya son of Dada, Ikun-Ra son of Rihßi, Hinnu-Dagan grandson of Tekisi, and Rasap-abu son of Abi-kapi, among others (compare especially RE 14). (3) AuOrS 1 1 was also drawn up under King Yaßi-Dagan and involves similar witnesses but a different scribe, Dagan-belu (dDa-gan-en), a figure known mainly from documents produced under the earlier dynasty. The overlapping witnesses include: • • • • • •

Yaßi-Dagan (patronym lost) Baºla-kabar (dim-gal) his son Addiya son of [Dada] Ikun-Ra son of Rihßi Abu-Da son of Abi-Saggar (also AuOrS 1 2) Rasap-abu son of Abi-ka (= Abi-kapi)

The chronological step is represented by one more familiar witness, HinnuDagan son of Yahßi-Dagan, who was identified as the grandson of Tekisi in RE 14 and AuOrS 1 2 and 4 (‘son of the daughter of Tekisi’). It appears that HinnuDagan was identified by his mother’s father after his father died and that AuOrS 1 1 is the earliest of these texts. The presence of the scribe Dagan-belu also sug28. In order to streamline the discussion, I do not include line numbers and full transliteration except where necessary.

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gests that the text is earlier and demonstrates that the Liªmi-sarru texts are oriented to the beginning of the Yaßi-Dagan dynasty. (4) The next step back in time is found in RE 34, an intermediate text that displays no role for Yaßi-Dagan or his royal family but that does list a son of King Liªmi-sarru named Ili-abi as the third witness. A date in the general period of Yaßi-Dagan is indicated by the overlap of two witnesses that appear in documents from his reign: Addiya son of Dada (AuOrS 1 1, RE 16, and all of the Baºla-kabar texts cited in no. 1 above), and Abda son of Liªmi-Dagan (AuOrS 1 1). RE 34 provides a crucial chronological link between the two dynasties, and as a son of Liªmi-sarru, Ili-abi confirms that his family preceded that of Yaßi-Dagan as kings of Emar. The first witness in RE 34, Yaßi-Rasap (Ya-ßí-dgìr) son of Baºla-malik, is linked to neither dynasty. It is not clear whether his priority in the list of witnesses comes from his status as king or is derived from another role. 29 (5) AuOrS 1 19 is the first text, moving back in time, that makes a descendant of Liªmi-sarru named Zu-Baºla the first witness, the pride of place that goes to reigning kings. Zu-Baºla is the son of Isbi-Dagan, who is the son of Liªmi-sarru and the first witness in Emar 148. Other members of the family join him: RihßiDagan and Ili-abi, sons of Liªmi-sarru, and another grandson by a different father, Um(?)-bi-[x-x(-x)]-ub son of Amursa-Dagan. 30 Both AuOrS 1 19 and RE 34 were inscribed by Alal-abu. Yaßi-Dagan son of dim-malik is the fourth witness in AuOrS 1 19, but he shows up as the first in RE 2, a document drawn up by Daganbelu (dDa-gan-en), the scribe of the earlier Emar 150 and RE 91. RE 2 shares with RE 34 the witness Tukul, brother of Yaßi-Dagan, 31 Ikun-Da(gan) son of HinnuDagan, and Abda son of Liªmi-Dagan. 32 (6) Only one text has witnesses led by Isbi-Dagan, the father of Zu-Baªla and evidently the oldest son of Liªmi-sarru. Emar 148 then includes three more sons 29. Skaist (“Chronology of the Legal Texts,” 59 n. 35) argues that the name should be read Ya-ßí-d[Da]-ªgan!º, to match the name at the start of RE 2, but Beckman’s copy allows neither the space nor traces to support this suggestion. Ya-ßí-dDa-g[an] is indeed clear in RE 2:24, as the first witness. Skaist wants to reduce all of these references to the name Yaßi-Dagan to a single person, the father of King Baºla-kabar, but AuOrS 1 19 appears to place a Ya-ßí-dD[a-ga]n son of dim-malik as the fourth witness amid descendants of Liªmi-sarru. This man need not be understood as the future king of the succeeding dynasty. 30. The name does not fit any recognizable Emar pattern, but I cannot offer anything better based on Arnaud’s copy. Theophoric names with Tessub are not generally found in local Emar families. For Amursa-Dagan son of Liªmi-sarru, see Emar 148. 31. Without changing the reading of Yaßi-Rasap in RE 34, a family connection would still be preserved by the apparent equation between Tukul in RE 2:25 and TukultiDagan in RE 34:30, both identified as ‘his brother’ after Yaßi-Dagan and Yaßi-Rasap in the preceding lines. Perhaps collation would clarify the situation. 32. See Beckman (Texts from the Vicinity of Emar, 55–56) for this overlap.

24

Chapter 2

of Liªmi-sarru as witnesses: Rihßi-Dagan, Amursa-Dagan, and Sadi-Dagan. The document was written by Ehli-kusa, Liªmi-sarru’s scribe (see no. 7 below). (7) A large number of documents then place Liªmi-sarru himself at the head of their witness lists, including Kutscher no. 6, the text that mentions a king of Emar. Liªmi-sarru is consistently followed by his brother Rasap-ili, and all of the texts in which he is the first witness were written by the same scribe, Ehli-kusa: AuOrS 1 16, 17, 18, and 87; RE 22; and Emar 149. 33 (8) Before the Liªmi-sarru documents would come the texts that give priority in the witness lists to a brother of Liªmi-sarru named Igmil-Dagan, who is often followed by Liªmi-sarru himself: Emar 150 and 153; ASJ 12, no. 2; AuOrS 1 15; and RE 91. 34 33. The witness list for Emar 149 can be almost completely restored from AuOrS 1 16 and 17, as follows: 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

igi L[i-mi-l]ugal dumu I[r-ib-dim] igi [Ra-sa-a]p-ì-[lí ßeß-su] igi A[b-ba dumu Ya-ri]-ªimº-[en] igi I-d[in-dDa-gan dumu Ir-a-am-dDa-gan] igi Mil-k[i-dDa-gan] dumu Hi-in-[na-dim] igi Mil-ki-d[Da-gan dumu Hi-in-nu-dDa-gan] igi A-bi-dx[ ] igi A-bi-dR[a-sa-ap] lúha-za-an-nu [igi] Eh-li-ku-sa lúd[ub.sar]

Two of the Liªmi-sarru texts include a remarkable coincidence involving the god Nergal. The primary purpose of Kutscher no. 6 is to install its protagonist Irªib-dim and his posterity as the sangû priests for the temple of nè.iri11.gal sa ki.lam (Nergal of Trade) because he paid a ransom for the king’s daughters. The zukru festival god-list shows that this temple was among the most prominent in Emar during the later period, because it was placed in the first of three tiers, ranked by quantities of offerings (Emar 373:84; cf. line 14; 378:10). The subject of AuOrS 1 87, on the other hand, is the permanent foundation of a new shrine for nè.eri11.gal sa na4 (Nergal of the Stone), with its builder Pilsu-Dagan (not the king) and his posterity as sangû priests forever. This shrine is not mentioned in the zukru festival list, and its small scale is suggested by the fact that it was constructed by its own priest, as well as by the fact that it was associated with a stone, which recalls the cult of the sikkanu. Both of these documents were witnessed by similar groups during the reign of the same king, during the same month and year (the month of Baºla Halab in the year Son of Hamsi). One wonders whether Pilsu-Dagan set up his shrine in honor of Irªib-dim’s deed and the reward granted to him. 34. Skaist (“Chronology of the Legal Texts,” 65 n. 45) adds Emar 153 to this list; he restores the witness list by comparing the other texts.

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(9) The earliest text has Irib-dim at the head of its witnesses. AuOrS 1 14 requires that a fine for future claims be paid to the palace as well as to dnin.urta and to the city, another confirmation that a king stands among the witnesses. 35 Both AuOrS 1 14 and three of the texts in which Igmil-Dagan appears first mention massive payments owed by the city a-na a-ra-na lugal. dnin.urta and the city of Emar are selling land in AuOrS 1 14 to raise funds toward a sum of 30,000 shekels of silver and 700 of gold (lines 19–26), while the later texts seem to envision an even larger amount, the same amount of silver and 2,000 shekels of gold. 36 Skaist has proposed that a-ra-na is ‘tribute’, a word of Hurrian origin. 37 Another solution is that the term might be a West Semitic form cognate with Akkadian arnu ‘offense, punishment’, with the implication that a foreign power demanded restitution for supposed disloyalty: ‘for the offense of the king’. 38 If we return to Skaist’s initial proposal, that the king in Kutscher no. 6 is Liªmi-sarru, the preceding exercise at least precludes any attempt to date the text during the dynasty of Yaßi-Dagan. Liªmi-sarru, regardless of whether the references to him are prior to his rule or during his kingship, was several chronological steps earlier than the first rulers of the dynasty of Yaßi-Dagan. If we deny that Liªmi-sarru was king, we must imagine some equally remote figure who stood behind the scenes while this man led the city on his behalf in rewarding someone who ransomed the king’s daughters from the Hurrian king. Skaist’s solution is more efficient and more persuasive. The implications for the Emar calendar are far-reaching. This conclusion extends the chronological scope of the archives of the M1 building considerably. Emar 149, 150, and 153 would come from the reigns of Liªmi-sarru and his predecessors, well back in the 14th century, almost 200 years before the destruction of Emar, about 1180 b.c.e.

35. For this correlation, see ibid., 61. 36. For the new readings that permitted the comparison of these texts, see Yamada, “ ‘ARANA-Documents’ from Emar,” RSNEStJ 29 (1993) 140–41. The later texts are Emar 153; ASJ 12, no. 12; and AuOrS 1 15. 37. Aaron Skaist, “A Hurrian Term at Emar,” in General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 10/2 (ed. David I. Owen and Gernot Wilhelm; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1998) 169– 71. Yamada (“ARANA-Documents”) suggests, less plausibly, that this is a royal name. 38. The genitive could allow the ‘king’ to be either the local offender or the Hurrian superior. Several Syrian Amarna letters use arnu for political offenses (see CAD s.v. arnu 1 a 4u). William L. Moran (The Amarna Letters [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992] 243–44) suggests that arnu is a crime of commission while hi†u is a crime of omission. The verb aranum (D-stem) ‘to give offense’ refers to a political offense in ARM XXVI/2 312:12u and 15u; cf. ARM XXVI/1 39:171 and XXVI/2 313:63; from AEM I/2 p. 72 note c.

26

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The Diviner Who Does Not Divine Divination texts represent a significant part of the Emar temple archive, but they contain no clue regarding whether they served the local practice of divination. The archive does, however, give prime place to an Emar official identified as a “diviner” and who also bears the standard Mesopotamian title barû (most often spelled lú˘al or lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd). Although other diviners are named in legal documents and lists of personnel, the ritual texts treat “the diviner” as though he required no further definition. This individual appears always to be a member of the family of a man called Zu-Baºla, who passed the title of diviner on to son and grandson, who in turn are called diviners in archive documents and scribal colophons. Zu-Baºla and his descendants are our best candidates for superintendents of the temple and its archive, because they assume a prominent place in every category of writing activity. The Diviners as Scribes The Emar building M1 archive provides no evidence that the diviner practiced divination, but it is clear that he was able to read and write. The Mesopotamian lexical and divination texts were copied by and evidently for diviners related somehow to the family of Zu-Baºla. 39 These individuals pursued scribal skills but did not call themselves “scribes.” 40 Professional scribes for employment by the general public apparently were a separate group, because there is no overlap between the copyists named in the colophons of these texts and the persons identified as scribes in witnessed documents. Instead, the colophons claim that the writers were “diviners.” The highest rank seems to be “the Diviner (lú˘al) of the Gods of Emar,” a title borne by ZuBaºla and his grandson Baºla-malik, son of Baºla-qarrad. 41 The relative status of 39. Arnaud gathers the colophons under a separate heading as Emar 604 in volume VI/4. 40. Only in 604 no. 1 (cf. no. 4) does the title lúdub.sar ‘scribe’ appear in conjunction with a diviner. 41. Zu-Baºla appears in Emar 604 no. 6 as the grandfather of Rasap-abu, son of Baºla-qarrad, and also in no. 4. Baºla-malik is found in 604 no. 1, written dim-ma-lik dumu dim-ur.sag. Interpretation of these names is difficult, in spite of evidence that du is used for Addu in seal impressions with both cuneiform and Hittite hieroglyphs; see Laroche, Akkadica 22 5–14, nos. 5 and 6. The seals should not be considered absolutely reliable in regard to the interpretation of names, as shown in the rendition of mzu-Ba-la as Ya-di-ba-li instead of Zu-Baºla ‘Belonging to Baal’ (Laroche, no. 30); see my Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) 215 and n. 37. Clear equation of dim with Baºla is found in a personal document AuOrS 1 28, where fdim-ki-mi (lines 1, 18) is the same as fnin-ki-mi (line 16; cf. 27:4). The same name is written fBa-laki-mi in AuOrS 1 30:3, etc. Further confirmation of the reading Baºla for dim/du in the

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Figure 4a. Diviners in Lexical Text Colophons (Emar 604) a Colophon Number

Diviner and Title

HAR.ra-hubullu Tablets

1

Baºla-malik son of Baºla-qarrad lú˘al of the gods

I, IV, V–VIII, XVIII

2.1

dim-en,

I

4

[Zu]-Baºla, lú˘al of the gods

XI

5

Ismaº-Dagan, ì.zu tur.tur

I

7.2

Ribi-Dagan, ì.zu tur.tur

III, IV, V–VII

8

Saggar-abu, lúmáß.[ßu.gíd.gíd]

V–VII, XIII

11

kab.zu.[zu] ‘student’

V–VII

ì.zu tur

a. Arnaud assembles all of the scribal colophons for separate presentation as Emar 604.

these copyists varied, but it was always defined in some relation to the Mesopotamian title ‘diviner’ (barû). The lexical texts were copied by diviners of every level, including the lowest trainees (ì.zu tur and tur.tur; see fig. 4a). 42 None of the divination texts, on the other hand, is attributed to anyone without full diviner rank (see fig. 4b). 43 This pattern highlights the diviners’ proud identification with diviners’ names may be found in the will of Baºla-qarrad (spelled dim-ur.sag), which lists five sons, the last being den-ur.sa[g] (SMEA 30, no. 7:4). This should be the same son who writes to his father the diviner in Emar 265:4–5, there rendered mdim-ur.sag. den can only mean ‘Lord’ (Baºla). This last equation stands in contrast to the Hittite letter Msk 731097’s identification of Zu-Baºla’s father as Adda-mali(k) (mAn-da-ma-li; see below). Yamada (“ ‘The Chiefs of the Land’ in the Emar Texts,” ASJ 21 [1999] forthcoming) naturally concludes that, at least in this family, dim should be read ‘Adda’, not ‘Baºla’. It is worth noting that all of the evidence for reading dim and du as ‘Adda’ rather than ‘Baºla’ comes from Hittite writing, whether in this letter or in hieroglyphs. I would like to thank Mr. Yamada for generously providing me this manuscript before publication. 42. I have not tried to evaluate the potential relation between scribal ability and colophon rank. Miguel Civil (“The Texts from Meskene-Emar,” AuOr 7 [1989] 5) places the scribal ability displayed in the lexical and literary texts at a generally low level. 43. Undifferentiated rank is written lú˘al (nos. 6, 14, 15) or lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd (nos. 2.2; 8), sometimes paired with a second designation (lú ì.zu, no. 2.2; lúuzú, no. 6). All of these titles would be rendered by the Akkadian barû, but especially where lú ì.zu and lúuzú are paired with lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd and lú˘al, respectively, some nuance was intended. Only the latter titles are used in the ritual texts. Perhaps the former are conceived as applicable to mastery of Mesopotamian divination in particular, whereas lú˘al

28

Chapter 2 Figure 4b. Senior Diviners in Divination Text Colophons (Emar 604)

Colophon Number

Diviner and Title

Text Number and Type

1

Baºla-malik, lú˘al of the gods

611:203–4 698:67

menology sheep at moment of sacrifice

4

[Zu]-Baºla, lú˘al of the gods

653:93–94

astrological omens

8

Saggar-abu, lúmáß.[ßu.gíd.gíd]

708:5u–7u cf. no. 9, d !? 30 -abu, 652:83–85

fragment

astrological omens

Figure 4c. Scribes in Colophons of Literary Texts (Emar 604) Text Number and Type (Arnaud)

Scribe and Title

767:25

“La ballade des héros du temps jadis”

md

ßir-q[a-da]-ad lúa.[zu] ù lúzu.[zu]

768:colophon 1u

“texte littéraire trilingue”

md

ßir-qa-da-a[d] lúuzú

775:26

“Bénédiction sur le roi,” bilingual

tuku-dé.˘ur.sag lúsanga dDa-gan

this prestigious Mesopotamian specialty, since they consistently reserved the unqualified title only for those who copied divination tablets. This scribal interest in divination stands in striking contrast to the fact that divination is not one of the responsibilities attributed to diviners in the texts from Emar cultic life. Unlike the lexical and divination collections, the literary texts preserve the colophons of scribes who did not come from Emar (see fig. 4c). By copying these colophons along with the received texts, the Emar scribes acknowledged the work of scholars outside their own city, at an earlier stage in the transmission of these texts. Neither the names nor their titles are known from the remaining colophons, and no evidence indicates any connection with Zu-Baºla’s family. These names are likewise not Babylonian or Assyrian, however. The “benediction” is said to be recorded in the month of dUr-da, which is not familiar from and lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd refer to the broader ritual responsibilities that accompany the old local role. The “Silbenvokabular” Emar 603 translates ì - z u with both ba-rù-u ‘diviner’, and mu-di ìme[s] ‘expert in (reading) oils’ (lines 97–98). There is some uncertainty about whether the longer writing in colophon 2.2 is the title or part of a name: the text reads ßu mdim máß.ßu.gíd.gíd, which Arnaud corrects to the name mdim-.

The Diviner’s Archive

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either Mesopotamia proper, other Emar texts, or any cuneiform source. 44 That one was a priest of Dagan suggests that he may have come from some place on the middle Euphrates, such as the old cult center Tuttul. The literature itself is Mesopotamian, though it appears in forms that are distinctly and creatively Syrian. 45 Tablets from all of the categories may also have been copied by diviners in training, since they may have copied the colophons of their masters’ texts, as well as colophons belonging to literary texts from scribals centers some distance from Emar. One short exercise tablet may derive from a scribe practicing writing letters or memoranda rather than contracts, because it is marked by notes beginning with assum ‘regarding’. 46 Regardless of what may have been common practice for true diviners from Mesopotamia, the archive at Emar reveals a small community of individuals who claimed the title for a local office that depended heavily on cuneiform literacy for cult administrative tasks. 47 The Diviner as Cult Supervisor A second large category of texts from the archive repeatedly mentions “diviners.” The administrative and ritual tablets for the local Emar cult treat “the diviner” as a prominent supervisor over a wide range of religious affairs. This diviner, described as if there were only one, played a key part in public ritual. Throughout the installation of the storm-god’s nin.dingir priestess, the diviner received various payments and allotted portions for services performed. 48 It was 44. Mark E. Cohen (The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East [Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1993] 345) tentatively identifies this month with dnin.urta, but the foreign priest surely points to a foreign month. 45. See Wilfrid G. Lambert, “Some New Babylonian Wisdom Literature,” in Wisdom in Ancient Israel (ed. John Day et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 38–41. 46. 601:6–10: as-sum 1 gín kù.babbar sa mdkur-en as-sum x mA-bi-i-la-i mKàr-ba ‘regarding the one shekel silver of Dagan-belu, regarding . . . Abi-ilaªi, Karba’. Compare assum in letters 263:38 and 271:8, from the group found in the same archive. Emar 601 begins with a key to writing the pi-sign. Arnaud suggests in his note to the text that the equations wu-u : pu-u, wa-a : pa-a, we-e : be-e, wi-i : bi-i, wu-ú : bu-u treat Hurrian phonemes. Although the opening writing exercise demonstrates that this is a practice text, it cannot be ruled out that the added jottings are informal memoranda with real substance. For Mari memoranda with assum, see Francis Joannès, “Nouveaux mémorandums,” in Miscellanea Babylonica: Mélanges offerts à Maurice Birot (ed. Jean-Marie Durand and JeanRobert Kupper; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1985) 97–113. 47. Jack Sasson (personal communication) thinks that Mari diviners are political figures who do not necessarily possess advanced writing skills. 48. Emar 369:5, 10, 43, 78–83, 84, 93; see my Installation, 89. These payments include a five-shekel fee for participation in general (line 84), which the diviner also receives for the masªartu priestess installation (370:108).

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he who anointed the new priestess. 49 The tablet that records rites for six consecutive months appears to be composed according to the diviner’s interest, shown by his frequent receipt of animal portions (see chapter 4). Three shorter festival texts place the diviner after the king but before the chief scribe (gal dub.sarmes/ lúdub.sar) in a closing statement of responsibilities for “consecrating” the gods and consequent distribution of meat portions to key participants. 50 These ritual texts show the high profile in local ritual of the individual called simply “the diviner,” and the nin.dingir installation even suggests that he had a supervisory role. Most of the cult inventories, memoranda, and other administrative texts do not mention the officials responsible for each record, but a few texts do imply that they come from the same circle of people. One tablet lists bronze and silver items deposited by Baºla-malik the diviner’s son, and four disbursements are administered by men with names associated elsewhere with the family of Zu-Baºla. 51 Another text lists sacred personnel under the supervision of Baºlaqarrad, evidently the same man who is named in the list itself as the son of ZuBaºla the diviner. 52 One more group of tablets reflects the responsibility of Zu-Baºla’s family and their associates for local religious affairs, as well as their affiliation with Hittite imperial officials. 53 A cache of sixteen Akkadian letters frequently names people from the same diviner’s circle. 54 Four letters involve the leaders of the family. In 49. See 369:5, 20–21. 50. Emar 386:22–24, kissu festival for Ea; 394:40–44, henpa of oxen; cf. 385:35–36, kissu for Dagan. On the consecration statements, see my Installation, 160, and pp. 87–92 on the diviner in general, with other references. 51. The deposit is listed in Emar 285. The disbursements are Emar 311 (Baºlamalik), 316 (Ipqi-Dagan), 323 (Himasi-Dagan), and 327 (Saggar-abu). For Ipqi-Dagan as a son of Baºla-malik, see Emar 225 and 226, and in Emar 201 a man named Himasi-Dagan has to cede his inheritance rights to Zu-Baºla’s sons by a woman named Dagan-laªi. 52. See Emar 275:11 and 13, with Baºla-qarrad as ugula ‘overseer’. For discussion of this document and its relation to the nin.dingir, see my Installation, 84–86. 53. On the Hittite connections in the letters, see Yamada, “The Family of Zu-Baºla the Diviner and the Hittites,” 324 n. 3. P. J. J. van Huÿssteen (“Western Peripheral Akkadian Features and Assyrianisms in the Emar Letters,” JNSL 18 [1992] 185–207) gathers the features that these letters have in common with the Akkadian of the region. Stefano Seminara observes in his grammar (L’accadico di Emar [Rome: Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza,” 1998] 96) that in general the Syro-Hittite tablets reflect the Middle Babylonian koine, in contrast to the Old Babylonian of the Syrian-type tablets. Van Huÿssteen’s list therefore supports identifying the letters with the Syro-Hittite group (e.g., gil = kíl, 271:4; and kab = gáb, 266:18, 37). 54. All of these were found in area III (NE). At least one Hittite letter from the archive mentions Zu-Baºla himself, sent by the king at Hattusa to protect the diviner’s interests at Emar. See Msk 731097, in Laroche, “Documents hittites et hourrites,” 54; cf. Hagenbuchner, Die Korrespondenz der Hethiter, 40–44.

Spread is 9 pts long

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31

one, a certain Agal-Simegi requests Zu-Baºla to appoint a priest for the goddess Elsewhere, the diviner Baºla-qarrad receives a plea from his son by the same name to come to perform the sacrifices of Astart-of-the-City, and Baºlamalik complains to a Hittite official named Pirati about a dispute with someone named Kapi-Dagan over ritual materials. 56 A fourth letter does not involve the principal diviners as correspondents but is sent by a man named Saggar-abu in response to an inquiry about the messengers of Baºla-qarrad, son of Zu-Baºla. 57 This Saggar-abu sends three more letters, 58 and he turns out to be the oldest son of the diviner Baºla-qarrad. Someone named Saggar-abu holds the unadorned title “diviner” in two of the colophons, one of which appears to cast him as the instructor of a member of the family. 59 According to Baºla-qarrad’s will, which unfortunately was separated from the excavated archive, Saggar-abu was the oldest son, and the family title would only pass to Baºla-malik after he also died. 60 The name of Rasap-abu, the mysterious “diviner of the gods of Emar” who appears in two colophons, has been misread and is in fact this same Saggar-abu. 61 dnin.kur. 55

55. Emar 268; the term sanga (Akkadian sangû) designates a Mesopotamian temple administrator but is used at Emar for the sole priest of a small shrine. One legal document (AuOrS 1 87) records the establishment of such a shrine for Nergal by a private party, who appoints his own descendants as its priests (sanga) in perpetuity. 56. Emar 265 and 264. 57. Emar 259. The name d30-abu faces the same interpretive uncertainties as dimur.sag and dim-ma-lik, because the Hittite hieroglyphic equivalents cannot be assumed to be correct. In this case, the name d30-abu is directly rendered as Saggar-abu (see Gonnet, AuOrS 1, p. 199, and discussion by Dalley and Teissier, Iraq 54 90–91; cf. Laroche, Akkadica 22 11), but the ritual texts distinguish the syllabic writing Saggar from d30 (see discussion of the text for six months, Emar 446). 58. Emar 258, 260, and 261. 59. Saggar-abu (md30-a-bu) is identified as lúmáß.[ßu.gíd.gíd] in Emar 604 no. 8 (from Emar 708:5u–7u). He seems to be the instructor of a son of Baºla-malik in 604 no. 13, based on comparison with no. 12. Arnaud reads d20-a-bu in the colophon 652: 83, as the separate ‘scribe’ (dub.sar) Samas-abu, but this spelling of the divine element is unexpected in a personal name. The standard writing in Emar names is dutu. Arnaud reads md20-gal in Emar 29:6 and 17, but both copy and comment show md30-gal in line 3 for the same person, and we should probably correct to d30 throughout. A similar correction probably improves 337:2, [d]20-ta-lih (Arnaud); see 32:24; 37:15; 91:10, etc.; 276:5 for d30-ta-lih. Only in the astrological omen text 655 is the writing “20” used for the sun, perhaps because sun and moon are treated together (lines 50, 55, 56). In light of this writing pattern, it is possible that the colophon 652:83 should be added to attestations of the building M1 diviner d30-abu. 60. SMEA 30, no. 7:3, 13–15, 16–19. The clause in lines 18–19 reads ù sum-ma md30-a-bu ba.ug ù mdim-ma-lik lú˘al sa dingirmes su-ú-ut ‘If Saggar-abu dies, then it will 6 be Baºla-malik who is the Diviner of the Gods’. 61. Yamada (“Family,” 328–29) demonstrates that the title must apply to the first name in the colophon (604 no. 6), based on comparison of the two individual texts

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In addition, four more letters plausibly relate to the family business and acquaintances. The archive preserves one letter sent by and one sent to a man named Mutri-Tessub, who joined in Baºla-malik’s above-mentioned complaint to the Hittite named Pirati. 62 Letters that mention a tablet room and ritual provision for the Hittite gods are consistent with the activities of the M1 building. 63 The letters may be categorized as business letters rather than as personal correspondence, and they confirm the essential place that this diviner’s family held in the activities represented by the archive. The Diviners of Zu-Baºla’s Family The legal documents from the M1 archive also give prominent place to diviners descended from Zu-Baºla. As argued already, the legal documents do not serve any single family or institution, and they were not created in a single location. Nevertheless, the family of Zu-Baºla is by far the group most strongly represented. At least seventeen records cover four generations (see fig. 5). 64 Zu-Baºla Emar 538I (Msk 74175a) and Emar 602A (Msk 74121); pace my own idea in Installation, 90 n. 74. This name is read by Arnaud and Yamada as [m]dgìr-ad dumu dim-ur.sag, but the will SMEA 30, no. 7 lists five sons of the diviner without mention of any person named Rasap-abu. Yamada concludes that Rasap-abu and Saggar-abu must be the same person, even though there is no evidence for equating d30 with dgìr. He is right on both counts, and there is another solution. Both colophons should be read d˘ar/Saggar rather than dgìr/Rasap. Msk 74175a is a tablet that lists archaic sign forms alongside their later counterparts, and the colophon is rendered in an older script. The final pair of converging angle wedges take the place of Winckelhakens at the end of ˘ar and have no counterpart in gìr: so read [ßu m]d˘ar-ad. Msk 74121, the second exemplar, shows only the final converging angle wedges before ad and represents the same sign in similar script: so read: [ßu md˘a]r-ad. Both d30 and d˘ar can be used to write the divine name Saggar, though the latter seems to be more archaic at Emar and may have been chosen to match the old-fashioned sign forms. 62. Emar 262 and 263, after the previously mentioned 264. Mutri-Tessub is a Hittite ‘Overseer of the Land’ (ugula.kalam.ma) who appears frequently in Emar texts from this period. In this office he hears the cases of Emar 205 (see lines 1, and 7–8) and 252 (see lines 1–2, 5, and 9). For extensive discussion of all of the Hittite officials with responsibilities at Emar under the titles dumu lugal (‘Son of the King’) and lúugula. kalam.ma, see Yamada, “The ‘Chiefs of the Land’ in the Emar Texts,” forthcoming. 63. Emar 270 and 271, with ‘the house of the tablet’ (é †up-pí) in 270:17. The Hittite gods are known from the ritual texts 471–90. The letters 269, 272, and 273 are too badly broken to evaluate properly. Only Emar 267 offers no obvious connection with the diviners’ affairs, although it also addresses a high Hittite official (dumu lugal). RE 97 (= SMEA 30, no. 1) is a letter from one Zu-Baºla to four men and may originate in the same collection. 64. Arnaud places several more texts in this category, but the names in them do not prove this connection clearly enough (Emar 199, 200, 203, 204, 208, 210, 216, and

Spread is 6 pts long

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33

Figure 5. The Records of the Diviner’s Family Text 201 202

Principal Participants and Occasion Zu-Ba-la is ‘diviner’ (lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd, 4; lú˘al, 24), without patronym. His oldest son is mdim-ur.sag, and he has a wife, fdkur-la-a-i (lines 49–50). Zu-Ba-la lú˘al (line 4) concludes a settlement with the children of a second wife of (line 5, etc.).

f Tar-ßí-pí

205

Two children are taken into the household of Ib-ni-dkur, son of Zu-Ba-la lú˘al (line 2).

206

md

207

The same man buys two kier-ße-tu4 properties.

209

Puzezu enters the service of dim-ur.sag son of Zu-Baºla (lines 2, 7, 8)

211

d

212

md

213

Hudi gives her daughter Battu as wife to dU-ma-lik dumu ˘al (lines 12–14)

214

d

U-ma-lik, son of dim-ur.sag lú˘al (lines 2–3), buys a female slave. a

215

d

U-ma-lik, son of dim-ur.sag lú˘al (line 4), takes a man and his two wives into service.

217

d

218– 220

(three of the four clay prints, with names) b

225

m

Zu-zu son of dU-ma-lik dumu ˘al (lines 1, 5–6) buys part of his brother Ipqi-Dagan’s inheritance.

226

(further arrangement between the same brothers)

im-ur.sag son of Zu-Ba-la lú˘al (lines 12–13) buys a garden.

im-ur.sag son of Zu-Baºla (lines 6–7), diviner (lú˘al, line 15), buys a slave.

im-ma-lik son of dim.ur.sag (line 7, etc.) acts on behalf of the sons of dim-ur.sag (diviner’s son, dumu ˘al, line 3) to refute the claim of Dagan-talih, seller in Emar 211.

im-ma-lik, son of dim-ur.sag lú˘al (line 5), buys four children of Zadamma of Satappi, with footprints recorded in the clay.

a. This text alternates the writings dim and du in the first name. b. Carlo Zaccagnini (“Feet of Clay at Emar and Elsewhere,” Or 63 [1994] 1–4) guesses the age of the children at one and two years, from the size of their feet.

221–24). Emar 246 might be added to the list, with its mention of a diviner named enur.sag (possibly the same as dim-ur.sag). Ikeda (“The Akkadian Language of Emar: Texts Related to a Diviner’s Family,” in Past Links: Studies in the Languages and Cultures of the Ancient Near East [Israel Oriental Studies 18; ed. Shlomo Izre'el et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998] 33–61) discusses the Akkadian of these texts and observes a general influence from the Carchemish and Hittite imperial circle on paleography and orthography. Yamada (“The Family of Zu-Baºla the Diviner and the Hittites, 330, fig. 1) charts the four generations of the family.

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appears first in succession, identified only by title, never by ancestry. 65 The Hittite royal letter (mentioned above), even apart from other evidence, shows ZuBaºla’s extensive contacts with the government of the empire. Two Akkadian documents were drawn up for him at the southern imperial court of Carchemish, with the viceroy Ini-Tessub as witness. 66 As in the colophons, Zu-Baºla is followed by a son, Baºla-qarrad, and a grandson, Baºla-malik, though Baºla-malik’s older brother Saggar-abu is entirely absent. A fourth generation appears in two documents, without inheriting the title of diviner. 67 The rest of the legal documents reflect a range of people and settings without any common thread besides the fact that they were deposited in the same archive, but they seem to be assembled around the diviners’ family documents. All were found in area I, indicating that the diviners’ private records were located with others of the same type rather than with the mass of cultic texts. 68 The family of the diviner Zu-Baºla stands out both in the scribal colophons of the Mesopotamian texts and in the body of local legal documents. Though Baºla-qarrad’s will was separated from the excavated tablets, it treats the diviner’s title as an inheritance to be held by only one member of the family at a time. 69 “The Diviner of the Gods of Emar” from the colophons is the same as “the Diviner of the Gods” in the will, shortened simply to “the diviner” in other family documents. This is surely “the diviner” of the ritual texts who needs no further designation in records dealing with his own cultic accounting. Despite the scattered nature of the evidence, there is little doubt that building M1 served as the administrative center of a religious official who identified himself as “the Diviner of the Gods.” Based on the title alone, we may call the whole set of tablets “the diviner’s archive,” though the place was not a center for 65. The colophons provide a helpful exception. Yamada (“Family,” 326–27) makes a strong case that Zu-Baºla’s father can be identified in both the Hittite letter Msk 731097 and the colophon Emar 604 no. 4. He reads the colophon as follows: 1 [ßu dZu]Ba-la dumu dim-ma-lik 2 [lúdub.sar] lú˘al 3 [sa dingirmes uru]E-mar 4 [ìr dÉ-a-u] dDamki-na 5 [ìr d30 u dutu dumu] dim-ma-lik ‘The hand of Zu-Baºla son of dim-malik, scribe, diviner of the gods of Emar, servant of Ea and Damkina, servant of Sîn and Samas, son of dim-malik’ (my translation). The Hittite letter then speaks of mAn-da-ma-li as Zu-Baºla’s ‘kinsman’ (lú.ishanittaras, lines 6–7); Yamada is surely right that this should be understood as Adda-mali(k), the same name found in the colophon. 66. Emar 201 and 202. These texts offer one reflection of the strong ties between Zu-Baºla’s family and the Hittite administration; cf. Ikeda, “Scribes in Emar,” 165. Seminara (L’accadico di Emar, 123) observes a specific scribal link in the form ileªªe, which is characteristic of Carchemish texts found at Ugarit (see Emar 201:34; 202:12, 16, 24; 207:33; 212:23; 216:22; and 222:5). 67. Emar 225 and 226. 68. I-SW: 200, 213, 216, 218; undifferentiated: 201, 202, 205, 206, 207, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217, 219, (220), 221, 225, 226; III-NE: 209. 69. SMEA 30, no. 7:18–19.

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divination. At this time, there is still no proof that the diviners of Zu-Baºla’s family actually practiced the Mesopotamian craft. The divination texts show that they knew what divining was and pursued at least a collector’s interest. Others from Emar took the title, and one document records a grant from Pilsu-Dagan the king to a diviner named Masruhe after his divination came true. 70 The title claimed by Zu-Baºla and his successors need not be totally dissociated from the practice of divination, but the Emar role must not be equated with the Mesopotamian profession. In the ritual texts, the function of the so-called diviner did not begin with divination but with administration and supervision. His administrative responsibilities required a Mesopotamian-style scribal education, and his acquaintance with classical divination apparently resulted from this education. The use of this title by Emar’s diviners probably reflects a widespread trend, apparent also in the Hittite understanding of the term. 71

The Building M1 as the House of the Gods The building that housed the diviner’s archive has the form of a modified temple. The main entrance and sanctuary are aligned along one axis with the altar, and an alley along the western side appears to lead to an open terrace in back. Both of these features are similar to the arrangement of the two temples for the storm-god and Astart at the western height of the tell. 72 Unlike these, however, the building with the archive includes a three-room annex along its east side. 73 70. ASJ 12, no. 7:28–37. Masruhe is called ‘the diviner of the king and the city’ sa lugal-ri ù uru!ki. The divination was not performed for regular ritual but in crisis, under attack by an army identified as Hurrian. On the historical context for this episode, see Michael C. Astour, “Who Was the King of the Hurrian Troops at the Siege of Emar?” in Emar (ed. Chavalas; 1996) 25–56. 71. See H. G. Güterbock, “The Hittite Temple According to Written Sources,” in Le temple et le culte (CRRAI 20; Leiden: Nederlands historisch-archeologisch Instituut, 1975) 130; René Lebrun, Samuha: Foyer religieux de l’empire hittite (Louvain-la-neuve: Institut Orientaliste, 1976) 43. Walther Sallaberger observes that at Hattusa the divinatory aspect expressed in this title may have been related to fixing the words of the text (review of my Installation, ZA 86 [1996] 142; he cites Volkert Haas, Geschichte der hethitischen Religion [Leiden: Brill, 1994] 689–90). 72. On the chantier E temples for the storm-god and Astart, see Installation, 216– 19. For these M1 features, see Margueron, CRAIBL (1975) 209; Le Moyen-Euphrate, 311; and AAAS 32 237. The open space behind the temples in chantier E is situated at the western extremity of the tell, with only the temples between it and the rest of the town. This flat platform was lined with what Margueron interprets as libation pits; CRAIBL (1975) 208; Le Moyen-Euphrate, 309–10. Very few objects were found on the building M1 floor: Margueron mentions only a bronze hook and small triangular receptacles; CRAIBL (1975) 209. 73. Margueron, CRAIBL (1975) 209; Le Moyen-Euphrate, 310. lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd

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The architecture alone indicates a sacred structure where ritual and offering could take place. Nevertheless, the diviners of the Zu-Baºla family resisted identification with any one god. They participated in rites for many deities and shrines, and their administrative activity touched an equally wide circle. Their chosen title reflects this diversity of influence, since their leader claimed to be “the Diviner of the Gods” (plural). If Zu-Baºla had called himself “the Diviner of Dagan,” it would be natural to expect his temple to be devoted to that god. A temple devoted to the entire pantheon is unexpected, but the diviner’s title makes this the most obvious possibility. In fact, the ritual texts frequently mention a “Divine House” or “House of the Gods” that had an important administrative function, and this named location offers the best hope of matching the excavated structure with a textual reference. The House of the Gods was closely associated with the ritual and legal activities of “the city,” an administrative entity that retained some degree of independence from the palace. 74 The Gods and the House of the Gods When the creator of the temple archive calls himself “the Diviner of the Gods,” he lays claim to a single religious office in the service of Emar’s collective pantheon. At the same time, his title suggests that the pantheon may have been collectively associated with the building that housed the archive. Several lines of evidence appear to confirm this hypothesis and require that, at the least, Emar had a place where offerings were given to “the gods” together. The installation of the nin.dingir priestess occasionally calls for offerings to be distributed to “all the gods of Emar,” with portions of bread and drink expressly limited to “one each.” 75 More often, however, offerings are simply placed before “the gods,” without any hint of distribution. 76 The installation of the masªartu priestess confirms the impression that there was a single sacred site devoted to “the gods” as a group. Over a period of six days, the feast progressed to a 74. This separation is perhaps assumed by the title of Masruhe mentioned earlier, “the diviner of the king and of the city” (ASJ 12, no. 7:28–37). 75. Emar 369:19, 47–48; 1 ta.àm nindanap-ta-nu 1 ta.àm hi-zi-bu, where naptanu is one meal’s serving of bread, and hizzibu is a vessel. The “distribution” is distinguished by the verb zâzu ‘to divide’. See Installation, 125, 140–44. 76. In these cases, the verb is sakanu: 369:11, 12, 28, 49–50, 59, 65, 67. After slaughter of an animal, this verb describes immediate dedication of portions to the honored deity (the storm-god, in line 37). In lines 11–12, 65, and 66–67, “the gods” as a group are given seven, three, and seven servings of the naptanu bread, rather than the “one each” appropriate to one ‘meal’ (naptanu) for individual gods and human participants. Similar language appears in the installation for the masªartu priestess (370:26, 29), the kissu festival set (385:13, 19; 387:12; 388:3, 4), and fragments from related ritual custom (371:4, 6, 12; 395:13; 396:11; 420:4)—all dingirmes except 420:4.

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new shrine each day, honoring Dagan, the storm-god, dnin.urta, “the gods,” Ea, and one more deity whose name is lost due to a break in the tablet. 77 As far as the preserved tablet allows us to see, the same offering sequence was repeated at each location. The first two sites survive as “the temple of Dagan” and “the temple of the storm-god.” 78 Consequently, one would expect to find a location called “the temple of the gods.” Although the archive does not preserve the “House of the Gods” as a place for offerings, the phrase does frequently appear in the ritual texts as a cult supply center. Only the calendar texts consistently register the origin of supplies for rituals, but the House of the Gods (é dingir-lì) is found in every major text treated in this study. 79 Other suppliers include the king, the palace, and the city. The writing é dingir-lì could also be read as ‘the Divine House’ or ‘the Temple’, but the plural reading is more likely. 80 The diviner’s title and the masªartu feast site suggest the existence of a shrine for the gods collectively, and this solution would explain various details in the archive regarding supervision of local cultic affairs. One text actually records the explicitly plural form, é dingirmes. The installation of the nin.dingir priestess mentions the place only as the source of her annual provision, including the thirty parisu of barley (fifteen in a bad year) that constitute her basic sustenance. 81 This allotment resembles a list, found in the diviner’s archive, which accounts for barley disbursements to fifty men and women with probable connections to various cultic institutions. 82 Two letters from the temple’s professional correspondence deal with shipments of materials belonging to the gods as a group. Writing with Saggar-abu, a colleague named Kapi-Dagan complains to a higher official that someone has 77. Emar 370:45–54, 60–68; ‘the gods’ (dingirmes) appear in lines 60–62. 78. Lines 46 and 49, é dDa-gan and é dim. 79. The zukru, Emar 373:18, 21, 25, 47, 48, 50, 53; 375:53; the text for six months, 446:13, 52?, 79; the month of Abî, 452:3, 17, 24, 29, 31, 47, 54; and the month of Halma (Hiyar), 463:12?, 24. See also 372:12–13 and 401:2. 80. The Akkadian noun ilu may be rendered plural by the standard endings -u/-i as well as -anu/-ani. Ugarit attests both; see John Huehnergard, The Akkadian of Ugarit (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 65, 80, 145 and n. 115. The writing dingir-lì may represent the plural, as in dingir-lì eß.ßa-ti u ki.ta ‘upper and lower gods’ (Ug. 5 17:5); see Huehnergard, p. 65. Note that the two versions of Emar 369:12 differ with regard to presentation of bread before the gods: dingir-lì in copy A, against dingirmes in copy C. 81. Emar 369:85–90; the house of the gods also provides her wool, aromatic spices, oil, footwear, and a variety of special foodstuffs. Text A (line 90) has the unusual spelling, while text C (line 85) uses the common é dingir-lì. 82. Emar 279 identifies most recipients by name alone, but the only titles cited represent cultic professions: Zu-Astarti, dumu lú˘al, diviner’s son (20 parisu, line 5); IbniDagan, dumu lú˘al (18 parisu, line 16); Ahi-hami, lúsanga sa dkur, priest of Dagan (4 parisu?, line 21); [. . .]-da, lúsanga d30, priest of the moon-god (less than 5 parisu?, line 48).

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detained “the oil of the gods.” 83 The diviner Baºla-malik objects in turn to another superior that the same Kapi-Dagan has held back a delivery consisting of “the bread, the barley beer, the wine, the sheep, (and) the oil of the gods.” 84 A third letter addressed to the patriarch Zu-Baºla invokes his health by “the gods,” a reference that may allude to the specific sacred affiliation of the man who calls himself “the Diviner of the Gods.” 85 Finally, two texts register vessels of wine that were given simply to “the gods.” 86 Of course, the case outlined here remains inferential. It makes sense that “the Diviner of the Gods” would inhabit “the House of the Gods” and that he would be responsible for the nin.dingir priestess’s annual supplies that come from the House of the Gods. Nevertheless, no direct combination of the person with the place exists to prove their association, though the diviner himself remains the principal link with the excavated building. This provisional solution accounts for one of the major administrative centers mentioned in the ritual texts. Evidently, the king and the palace represented another hub of financial support for Emar religion, but their archives have not been discovered. The relationship between the city and the House of the Gods remains to be explored. The City and the House of the Gods The diviner’s records for cult administration display a significant omission. Although the king is honored with portions from offerings, and the palace contributes to the supplies for ritual, both are almost entirely absent from the administrative texts. None of these texts touches the six palace shrines preserved in the long god-list from the zukru festival. 87 This is particularly striking in one inven83. Emar 261:11–14. The will of the diviner Baºla-qarrad identifies Kapi-Dagan as “my brother,” which could represent either a blood or a merely professional relationship (SMEA 30, no. 7:31). Some connection is reflected again in Emar 285, which records the deposit of precious metals and other valuables by the diviner Baºla-malik. These include silver “sealed with Kapi-Dagan’s seal.” The diviner Kapi-Dagan appears in documents from many excavated sites: a house in chantier A sector V (Emar 24); the stormgod’s temple in chantier E (Emar 43:18); houses in chantier T (93:20) and V (118:11; 122; cf. 128:18); and building M1 (also 277:2, 7, 9; and perhaps 181:22). 84. Emar 264:13–17, nindames kaß.ßemes kaß.geßtinmes uduhi.a ì.giß mes sa dingirmes. These gods stand in uncertain relation to a prior reference in lines 10–12: ‘The gods which my lord mentioned—he refuses to deliver’ dingirmes sa en-ia iq-ta-bi la ú-ma-aggur16 na-da-ni. The gods may be the actual objects held back (so, figurines or statues) or perhaps the beneficiaries of unnamed deliveries (so, an indirect object). 85. Emar 268:4; ‘May the gods keep (you) well’ dingirmes a-na sul-ma-ni pab-ur. 86. Emar 363, four hizzibu and some hubu, a-na dingirmes na-ad-nu; Emar 364, ten hubu total, a-na dingirmes sum-nu. “The treasure (sukutti) of dingir-lì” in 282:16–18 might also refer to the same collective rather than to the god El (Arnaud). 87. Sîn (d30), Samas (dutu), and Dagan sa é.gal-lì (lines 89–91); Ishara sa lugal (line 106); dx-na-na sa é.gal-lì (line 108); and 2 ta-pal dkaskal.kur.rames sa kiri6 é.gal-lì,

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tory of ritual vessels, which lists numerous deities without any palace cults. 88 There is little reason to suppose that the diviners of Zu-Baºla’s family had regular responsibility for royal religious institutions. In spite of this limitation, the colophons propose the sweeping title “The Diviner of the Gods of Emar,” which lays claim to the religious heritage of the city as a whole. The diviner’s association with the city takes another form in the ritual text that tracks six consecutive months under the rubric “[Tablet of ] rites of the city.” 89 Repeated allotments to the diviner betray the interest that inspired the document. These connecting threads lead to a cluster of Emar institutions that operate with apparent independence from the king. First of all, the city and the House of the Gods constitute a hub of support for the rituals associated with the calendar that complements the king and the palace. When the zukru festival tablet lists offerings in fullest form, they are divided between the king on one hand and the city and the House of the Gods on the other. In this arrangement, the city is responsible for the animals, while the House of the Gods provides the bread and the drink. 90 Some close relationship between the two is evident, though the nature of the relationship is not defined. two pair of Balih-River deities of the palace garden (line 141). The missing lines from the broken parts of the list probably included others. See also the related god list 378, lines 14–15 and 19–21. Only one section of Emar 321 treats items belonging to the palace (lines 1–4). 88. Emar 274. Belet-ekalli (dnin.é.gal-lì) represents a special figure who has deeper roots in the region. She is celebrated by offerings from the king, along with the palace cults of sun and moon, in the zukru 373 (see below), but she appears in a wider range of contexts where the redundant palace shrines are excluded, such as this inventory (274:4) and the offering lists 379:2; 380:12; and 382:9. Belet-ekalli is also found in Hittite texts (V. Haas, Hethitische Berggötter und hurritische Steindämonen: Riten, Kulte, und Mythen [Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern, 1982] 27) and is the city goddess of Qatna; see Charles Virolleaud, “Les tablettes cunéiformes de Mishrifé-Katna,” Syria 9 (1928) 91; cf. Jean Bottéro, “Les inventaires de Qatna, “RA 43 (1949) 1–40. Levine and de Tarragon (RB 100–102) suggest that Emar’s dnin.é.gal-lì may be translated ‘queen of the temple’, based on the fact that the cognate Hebrew hêkal can mean both ‘palace’ and ‘temple’. Her particular association with palace gods and supplies in the zukru festival, however, indicates that the second element of her name was understood as ‘palace’ rather than ‘temple’ in this context. In general, the name suggests association with the harem, as was the case at Mari; see J.-M. Durand, “Les dames du palais de Mari à l’époque du royaume de Haute-Mésopotamie,” M.A.R.I. 4 (1985) 386–87. 89. Emar 446:1, [†up-pu/i(?) pár-ß]i sa uru.ki. 90. The city (uru.ki) and animals, Emar 373:18–19, 23, 26, 48, 52, 54; the House of the Gods (é dingir-lì) with bread and drink, lines 21, 24, 27–28, 50, 53, 55–56. Other zukru festival offerings of bread and drink are attributed to the palace, presumably joined to the same royal administration (lines 32, 77).

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Legal documents from Emar show an entity called “the city” to be a wealthy and influential player in local financial affairs. 91 The city frequently appears as the owner of land adjoining the real estate outlined in sale documents. 92 If the temple of the diviner’s archive is indeed the House of the Gods, we should expect further connections between the archive and the city. One hypothetical link may be found in the list of barley allotments discussed earlier. The barley is measured by the sizeable parisu, with quantities that suggest annual rations. 93 We have no record of massive grain purchases by the House of the Gods, and it is easier to imagine that it had a direct supply from city-owned land, with the diviner working as administrative middleman. 94 Two more institutions overlap with the domain of the independent city: the cult of dnin.urta and the bit tukli (‘the house of assistance’?). 95 The land owned 91. Masamichi Yamada (“Division of a Field and Ninurta’s Seal: An Aspect of the Hittite Administration in Emar,” UF 25 [1993] 453–60) reconstructs from Emar 194 and ASJ 14 no. 43 a dispute between the (M1) diviner Zu-Baºla and members of the royal family that was decided at the Carchemish court. Yamada (p. 459) argues, based on difficult but plausible restorations, that Emar 194 acknowledges separate documents sealed by both Emar’s king and the city god dnin.urta, and that Carchemish acknowledges both local authorities equally. Another expression of city administrative standards is found in the legal phrase kima ali ‘according to the city (standard)’, which is applied to terms for repaying debt and to division of inherited property; see Yamada, “kima ali: On the Customary Law of Emar,” BSNEStJ 40 (1997) 18–33. 92. References to the city in boundary descriptions cannot be read consistently as referring only to the city mound, as, for instance, when property also touches the Euphrates River, well below the area known to be part of the tell (see Emar 142:1–7 and AuOrS 1 2:8). One document mentions “the field of the city” (AuOr 5, no. 1:7–8). The city is named in property descriptions in the following sale documents: Emar 2:16; 6:13; 11:6; 137:27; 138:4; 142:4, 7; 146:9; 147:7, 10, 16–19; 169:3; AuOrS 1 2:8; 3:5; 6:6, 8; 7:4, 5; 11:4–7; 12:4–7; 18:5; RE 24:6; 49:4–5; 52:5; ASJ 12, no. 7:26–27; ASJ 12, no. 14:6; ASJ 12, no. 15:5, 8; ASJ 12, no. 16:6; AuOr 5, no. 5:7–8; AuOr 5, no. 6:5; AuOr 5, no. 6: 7–8; Tsukimoto, ASJ 10, text F:7. AuOrS 1 18:5–8 appears to treat “the city” as owner rather than as geographical location when it inserts the preposition ana (‘to/for’) before two personal names along with the city in lines 5, 7, and 8 but omits the preposition in line 7 with kaskal/harranu (the highway), a geographical reference only. For further discussion, see my “Limited Kingship: Late Bronze Emar in Ancient Syria,” UF 24 (1992) 66 n. 47. 93. The largest amount is 30 parisu, which matches the allotment for the nin.dingir priestess in a good year (Emar 279:1–3; 369:85). 94. Most of the land described as belonging to the city borders ‘fields’ (a.ßà/eqlu); again, see UF 24 66 n. 47. 95. For possible identification with Akkadian tuklu ‘help’, see Installation, 115. The consonant g/k/q remains uncertain, and the tentative reading with -k- is adopted without consistent acknowledgement of uncertainty, in part for convenience.

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by the city in property descriptions appears to be the same as that sold by and the elders of Emar in numerous documents found both in and out of the building M1 archive. 96 Documents that record sale of land by dnin.urta and the elders stipulate a prohibitive payment for future claims to dnin.urta and ‘the city’. 97 Although equal division of such fines between these two parties gives the impression that they are separate institutions, occasional variations in the purchase and claim formulas indicate the legal equivalence of dnin.urta, the city, and its elders. 98 dNin.urta’s legal role as city god is also reflected in the use of his seal for city authority. 99 The temple of dnin.urta should not be regarded as an administrative center in the sense that it had employed scribes. Documents that record land sold under the auspices of dnin.urta do not display a consistent set of the same scribes and may even be composed at Carchemish or in the Emar palace. The temple seems rather to exercise only a legal function, while the texts themselves are drawn up by scribes employed by the interested parties. 100 dnin.urta

96. In chantier A, the supposed hilani government building, see Emar 1–4, 9, 11, 12; in a chantier V house, 126; and in building M1, 139, 144–55. 97. For example, Emar 2:28–29; 4:23–24; 9:34–35 (verb baqaru). See UF 24 65. 98. In several texts, the land sold by dnin.urta and the elders is first identified as the property of the god alone. See AuOrS 1 3:10–11; 9:18–19; 10:8–9; 11:15–16; 17:17– 18; 18:9–10; RE 16:14–15; 24:7–9; 71:9–11. Another document identifies all three: “Amur-sa committed a serious offense against his lord and the city of Emar. In accordance with the offense which he committed, he gave (his) houses and fields to dnin.urta” (RE 16:10–14, text and translation from Beckman). The land is now sold by both god and elders (lines 15–16). Other examples of property taken for some breach of law (hi†u) are discussed in UF 24 65 n. 43. For similar interplay, see RE 22:8–9; ASJ 12, no. 2:6–9; and AuOr 5, no. 3:4–5. 99. See Installation, 109, 248–52, for further discussion; also M. Yamada, UF 25 453–60; “The Dynastic Seal and Ninurta’s Seal: Preliminary Remarks on Sealing by the Local Authorities of Emar,” Iraq 56 (1994) 59–62. Relevant texts include legal documents Emar 123:9 and 202:18, and letters AuOrS 1 95:9 and AuOr 2, no. 2:8–10. In general, the “dynastic seal” of Yaßi-Dagan’s family is found on all documents in which a king from this line leads the witnesses. dNin.urta’s seal is then impressed on all records of land sold by the city god and Emar’s elders, whether or not in the presence of the king. The only text bearing dnin.urta’s seal that does not involve land sold by the god and the city is Kutscher no. 6, the text that refers to a king during the time of Liªmi-sarru. This exception should be explained by the early date of the text, before Yaßi-Dagan’s dynasty, when Emar’s kings were identified more closely with the “city” authority. 100. It is therefore inappropriate to treat dnin.urta documents as a distinct scribal category, as does Jun Ikeda, “The Akkadian Language at Emar: Texts Related to Ninurta and the Elders,” ASJ 19 (1997) 83–112. The problem is signaled by the fact that Ikeda’s texts are mostly of Syrian form but include one Syro-Hittite and one Assyrian tablet (p. 84).

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Like the House of the Gods, the bit tukli is named only in the ritual texts, where it displays some relation to both the House of the Gods and the god dnin.urta. The zukru festival implies that the bit tukli is part of the temple of dnin.urta when it describes the two locales in the paired phrases: “they bring out (gods) from dnin.urta’s temple, from the bit tukli.” 101 In text A for the installation of the nin.dingir priestess, the House of the Gods contributes a long list of luxuries, while the bit tukli provides her allotment of barley. 102 According to this ritual tablet, the grain for the priestess is administered through a subsidiary of the city god’s temple, but again the ultimate origin is probably city-owned land. It is tempting to place the House of the Gods and the temple of dnin.urta near each other, which would be possible if temple M2 belonged to dnin.urta. 103 Evidently, the House of the Gods functions as one component in a cluster of related institutions that act in the legal, economic, and religious interests of the city as a whole. None of the institutions is identical to another, and each has its own personnel, most clearly the Diviner of the Gods for the House of the Gods and the elders for the city. 104 Nevertheless, their roles sometimes overlap in the execution of their responsibilities as representatives of the same larger entity, the city. 101. Emar 373:178–79, [i-n]a(?) é dnin.urta i-na é tùk-li ú-se-ßu-ú. Similar definition by temple and precise room or shrine is found in the nin.dingir installation, when tables are set up ‘at the gate of the storm-god’s temple, in the nin.dingir’s residence’ a-na ká é dim a-na é nin.dingir (369:15). 102. Emar 369:85 and 90; text C attributes the barley supply to the House of the Gods. Elsewhere, the bit tukli appears only as a destination for procession and a site for ritual, and this unusual substitution seems inspired by the attention to barley. For the ritual role of the bit tukli, see Installation, 113–15. Against my analysis in Installation is the fact that no other text treats the bit tukli as a source for offering materials. 103. No texts were discovered that could identify the temple M2, an imposing structure with thick walls and entrance toward the back of building M1. A courtyard in front of temple M2 nearly adjoins the cultic terrace behind the diviner’s smaller building; see Fleming, BA 58 141 (figure by J. Margueron). dNin.urta cannot be uniquely identified with the temple of the archive, as proposed by W. F. Leemans, “Aperçu sur les textes juridiques d’Emar,” JESHO 31 (1988) 234–35. Leemans identifies building M1 as dnin.urta’s temple by association with the documents for real estate sold by dnin.urta and the elders, but these are found in chantiers A and V also. The larger number from M1 is in proportion to the larger tablet finds there. Manfried Dietrich (“Die akkadischen Texte der Archive und Bibliotheken von Emar,” UF 22 [1990] 37) observes the relation of building M1 to the whole pantheon but suggests particular attention to the “Hauptgott der Stadt” (Dagan?). 104. It is interesting to find that the House of the Gods provides the personal furniture for the masªartu priestess at her installation, whereas the elders do so for the nin.dingir at hers (see 369:69–70 and 370:12–13). These facts are evidence of one more variation in the cluster of relationships apparent in the diviner’s archive.

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The Achievement of Zu-Baºla Archives by definition comprise the written collections created, used, and preserved as a result of the function of public administrative bodies and their officials, though in the discipline of Assyriology, the term is often applied to private document collections as well. 105 A wealthy family operates much like a public institution, and a neat distinction between private and official archives is not always possible. 106 The temple archive of the diviner Zu-Baºla at Emar illustrates well the range of functions that may develop under one roof in a smaller town. It is possible that Zu-Baºla built the M1 structure. Though Yamada has discovered the name of his father dim-malik, Zu-Baºla is given no patronym in the documents of the family archive, and the relationship with the Hittite empire seems to begin with him, as acknolwedged by the Hittite king in the letter to Alziyamuwa. 107 No predecessor is ever mentioned, and he always appears simply as “the diviner.” 108 If the available building space in the city was not completely used up in the first generation of the city’s occupation, the fact that the diviner’s building is located in the lower center of the city, without any particular geographical advantage, may indicate that building M1 was built some time after the city’s founding. The larger temple M2 stands on higher ground and shares the dominant east–west axis of the paired temples for the storm-god and Astart on the western height, and like them, its entrance faces the sunrise. These three temples occupy desirable sites, and their orientation suggests unencumbered selection, while building M1 faces northeast, not aligned with the sun’s axis. After the Late Bronze site for Emar was established, other temples and shrines were also built. One legal document from outside the excavations, for example, 105. See Klaas R. Veenhof, “Cuneiform Archives: An Introduction,” in Cuneiform Archives and Libraries: Papers Read at the 30 e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Leiden, 4–8 July 1983 (ed. K. R. Veenhof; CRRAI; Leiden Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1986) 9. Benjamin Foster (“Archives and Record-Keeping in Sargonic Mesopotamia,” ZA 72 [1982] 7–10) identifies Sargonic archives entirely by family and household, according to size and sphere of interest. 106. Veenhof, “Cuneiform Archives,” 9–10. Veenhof suggests collections from Old Assyrian merchants in Cappadocia as examples of large private archives. He cautions (pp. 4–5) that the combination of archival records and literary documents (scientific and school) was not standard, though both types may originate from the same spot, and scholars may keep their private archives and professional libraries together, as at the house of Rapªanu in Ugarit (Ug. 5 41–259). The combination occurs more frequently in smaller institutions. 107. Msk 731097, discussed earlier. 108. One colophon even identifies the scribe Rasap-abu by relation both to his father Baºla-qarrad and grandfather Zu-Baºla, with only the last name given the full title “lú˘al of the gods of Emar” (604 no. 6).

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records the foundation of a Nergal shrine by a private citizen who guaranteed the right of his sons to succeed him as its priest. 109 The diviner’s center itself may have been small at first, although our view of the institution is dominated by its eventual success. The increasing wealth of the family can be seen in the growth of the household through three generations. 110 Although our perspective is limited by the bias of all archives toward the latest period of their use, the increased family prosperity shows also in the fact that most of the staff named in the scribal colophons worked for the grandson, Baºla-malik. Zu-Baºla’s background is unknown, but the success of his temple was evidently founded on his acquisition of the city contract for cult administration and ritual leadership. His close relationship with the Hittite leadership indicates that this position depended on imperial approval rather than on any allegiance to the local Emar king. While the cult and its ritual were themselves deeply native, the Hittite arrangement with the family of Zu-Baºla inserted the empire’s interests into the very center of the city’s religious life. 111 The texts themselves show that he had extensive influence, though its precise bounds are impossible to define. His responsibilities touched many shrines, if not all, 112 and he may even have been called on to appoint priests for individual cult sites. 113 This exchange between the diviner and a Hittite superior offers a sharp contrast to the two documents that record the appointment of new sangû priests, 109. AuOrS 1 87, with the title sanga/sangû. The parallel with Zu-Baºla was suggested to me by Jack Sasson. 110. No slaves are mentioned when Zu-Baºla changes his plans for the disposition of his inheritance (201 and 202). His son Baºla-qarrad acquires the service of his debtor Puzezu (209) and buys Salila, his wife, and their five children as slaves (211, 212). Grandson Baºla-malik buys two unnamed women and four children of Zadamma as slaves (214 and 224; 217–20, cf. 216), and Dagan-belu enters the diviner’s household with his two wives, to pay off a debt (215). 111. In my “Emar Festivals: City Unity and Syrian Identity under Hittite Hegemony,” (Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age [ed. Mark W. Chavalas; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1996] 81–121, I emphasized the role of ritual in maintaining local identity under imperial rule. The Hittites’ determination to control this ritual tradition is displayed in their relationship with the M1 diviners. 112. Inventories of divine property, mostly made of metals, pertain to Ishara and dnin.kalam (282), dnin.kur (284 and 287), Dagan (286 and 296), Halma (287), Hebat (288?), Erra bel Sagma (289, Mesopotamian?), and Astart-of-the-Mountain (sa ˘ur. s[ag], 300). Other lists elaborate individual cults by name (especially 274, vessels) or involve personnel from diverse sanctuaries (for example 275, of the storm-god, Dagan, and dnin.urta; cf. 276). 113. One letter begs Zu-Baºla to appoint the sangû of dnin.kur (Emar 268), but the foundation documents for the two different shrines of Nergal (AuOrS 1 87 and Kutscher no. 6) suggest that most priesthoods were inherited. The situation in the case of dnin. kur may have been extraordinary.

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both for Nergal and both under the earlier reign of Liªmi-sarru, when there was a strong role for Emar’s collective “city” authority. 114 From the Hittite point of view, the alliance with Zu-Baºla’s family allowed a second major intrusion into Emar’s administrative affairs. On one hand, the transition of royal dynasties from that of Liªmi-sarru to that of Yaßi-Dagan seems to have occurred in the aftermath of the final Hittite conquest by Mursili II and evidently assumed a bond with Emar’s new lords. Now on the other, by forging a relationship with Zu-Baºla as diviner of the House of the Gods, a role that was responsible for overseeing much of traditional Emar religious custom, the Hittites inserted themselves into another major facet of Emar leadership. 115 The diviner participated in an integrated cult economy. When no deity or site is specified in many administrative texts, the institution associated with the archive is evidently assumed, and these records indicate its involvement in a wide range of concrete exchange. Gold, silver, and bronze sacred vessels; animals such as asses, gazelles, sheep, and goats; and the staples barley and flour passed under the diviner’s supervisory gaze if not through his hands. 116 The diviner was above all an administrator, not a priest. Insofar as he trained apprentice “diviners,” it was to help with the tasks of cult accounting, not to learn divination. The colophons for the many texts from the Mesopotamian scribes demonstrate that young men were indeed learning to read and write cuneiform, like their master. Evidence for actual practice of divination remains elusive, but proof of basic scribal skills is abundant. The ritual texts do assign the diviner a significant ritual role, for which he was compensated handsomely, but his involvement perhaps fell short of being essential. 117 He anointed the nin.dingir priestess, strewed seed in planting rites, and frequently participated in feasts—in short, he had a role only somewhat more active than the king’s. 118 The diviner is not shown in direct interplay with the gods, unlike the nin.dingir and masªartu priestesses and the singers. As observed repeatedly, he did not perform divination, the specialization claimed in his title. The collected texts for cult administration and ritual indicate the diviner’s prominence in public religious life at Emar, and there is no reason to doubt that 114. Kutscher no. 6 and AuOrS 1 87. 115. Emar 446, the ritual text for six months of the year, appears to be older than most of the other Emar ritual tablets. It may well predate Zu-Baºla and, if so, implies that a diviner’s oversight of city ritual was a local custom, not initiated by the Hittites and their clients. (See chap. 4.) 116. The temple itself was not suited for large-scale storage. 117. On the diviner’s activity, see Installation, 89. 118. See the rites in Emar 369:20–21 (anointing) and 446:51 (seed). The general absence of the Emar king from essential roles in rites from the diviner’s archive is discussed in Fleming, UF 24 60–63.

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festivals said to serve the entire city indeed did so, especially in the case of the zukru festival. These same documents, however, define no centralized monopoly. Even while palace cults did not generally fall under the diviner’s purview, his ritual texts record respects paid to the king. The zukru festival especially shows that various city authorities collaborated to support the grandest Emar celebration, which was recorded on ritual tablets found in the diviner’s collection, even though the celebration was funded in greater part by the king. With allowance for texts not found and rites never recorded, the House of the Gods indeed documents the public rites of the gods of Emar. The actual extent of the diviner’s authority at any given time may have shifted with the flux of political contacts, financial conditions, competing institutions, and other factors. On the whole, the archive suggests substantial success. Why the diviner expanded his primary enterprise to include storage of other people’s private documents is an intriguing question. It is not surprising to find a combination of professional texts and private records from the diviner’s family, but most of the legal documents show no immediate connection to either domain. Perhaps this extended use of the archive reflects the fact that he lived in a smaller city. Emar served as one commercial and administrative center in a bustling region that had more than one political hub. 119 Witnessed records of property transactions and inheritance arrangements found in the excavation of Emar proper often involve land in other towns. 120 People who lived outside the city walls or in nearby villages probably came to Emar to transact business understood to belong to this jurisdiction, officially or informally. The diviner’s archive may then have offered a safe repository for such documents, rendered more attractive by the security promised by its strong imperial contacts. The staff could be counted on to handle tablets carefully and could read and retrieve a given document when required. The institution’s location inside the city walls on the main tell and the diviners’ cozy relations with the imperial authorities would have afforded more security than storage in many private homes scattered throughout a wide area. As we embark on an exploration of Emar’s calendar rites, it is essential to remember that we know them only through the texts and their creators. The details of these texts indicate that they are based on current practice, not literary convention, so they should provide evidence for actual Emar ritual in the period of the archives. A real basis for the claim of service to all the gods of Emar is 119. See the discussion in ibid., 66–70, for the contrast to Ugarit. Both of these cities were ruled by the Hittite empire through Carchemish and its king, but this administration was relatively recent and did not replace the traditional structures. 120. These include Rabbân, Sumi, Uri, Kulattu, Eqar, Ar-, and Kusah; see Fleming, UF 24 69.

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provided by the links to city administration. At the same time, the separation of “city” from palace spheres and the absence of royal shrines from the diviner’s cult administration display the dominant perspective of the archive. Calendar and ritual that are introduced by the local king through institutions under his direct sway will tend to be missed unless they encroach on the larger religious life of the city. Zu-Baºla’s House of the Gods provides an invaluable opportunity to view the public cult of a Syrian town from a perspective other than the usual palace archives. Even the diviner’s own ritual archive displays parallel calendars in different texts. The collection is by no means univocal, and the writers appear to have recorded rites as they observed them. Rites are preserved according to parallel calendars that reflect separate administrative streams at Emar. The zukru itself is presented in two distinct traditions. Perhaps the greatest benefit to be derived from the diviner’s unique perspective lies in its genuine variety of interest. Even within the limits of what was recorded and discovered, this archive allows us to acknowledge and examine a complex religious practice that lacked static norms.

Chapter 3

The Zukru

This study is structured around the major texts from the diviner’s archive that refer to rites celebrated according to the calendar. Among these rites, an event called the zukru has pride of place, and I have accorded it corresponding prominence. The zukru is elaborated upon in the longest ritual tablet in the archive (Emar 373), the only calendar text occupied with a single event. A simpler version of the rite dominates a second text (Emar 375). Such attention shows that the diviner held the zukru in high regard, and the recorded detail permits us an unusually thorough acquaintance with the Emar event. Several features suggest that the zukru carried special status in the public religious life of Emar. The long tablet records by far the most expensive local rites, the requirements for which total 50 calves and 700 lambs. 1 Only the grand zukru festival reaches beyond the bounds of annual celebration, in that it took place only every seventh year. Of all the calendar-based rituals from the archive, only the shorter zukru text is preserved in multiple copies. 2 1. These numbers are quite large even in comparison with major rites in the Hittite empire. Volkert Haas (Geschichte der hethitischen Religion [Leiden: Brill, 1994] 649 and n. 89) observes, among the largest numbers given, 1000 sheep in a ritual from Hattusili III (KUB 15.5 rev. III 50u–54u), and 1000 sheep and 50 oxen for the festival for Telipinu in Kasha and Hanhana. This event also is defined by a cycle longer than a year, occurring every ninth year; see V. Haas and L. Jakob-Rost, “Das Festritual des Gottes Telipinu in Hanhana und in Kasha: Ein Beitrag zum hethitischen Festkalender,” AoF 11 (1984) 15–16. 2. I will refer to the unique long tablet as “the zukru festival.” The scribal designation ezen (‘festival’) is omitted in the B text for 375:1, whereas it is used consistently with every reference to the zukru in the long text 373:35, 39, 64, 174, 210. Any other evidence for 375 is lost in the breaks, though Dagan appears in line 17 as the res zukri ‘Head of the zukru’, without ezen determinative.

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Emar’s ritual texts also transform our perspective on the zukrum found in one Mari letter, where it is “given” to Addu as if it were a sacrifice. 3 In this letter, now completed by a new join, Addu and Aleppo claim credit for restoring Zimri-Lim to Mari’s throne, but the full text as published by B. Lafont offers no further illumination on the zukrum. 4 Association with Aleppo and the political importance of its context indicated that the zukrum was no minor event, but until the Emar finds, the word remained essentially a hapax. The rites from Emar and Mari are dedicated to two different gods, who lead the pantheons of two separate regions. The texts come from times separated by centuries and reflect vastly different occasions, but together they reflect a Syrian custom whose importance was unimagined before discovery of the diviner’s archive at Emar.

The Festival Text If frequency of observance provides a basis for defining standard ritual form, the shorter, annual version of Emar’s zukru celebration should be regarded as the norm. Unfortunately, the annual version survives only in text fragments, which preserve valuable information but little reliable structure. The long tablet recording the seventh-year celebration is a magnificent anomaly compared to the other Emar ritual texts, both in the scale of its offerings and in its chronology. The event described in the long tablet is clearly related to the annual zukru of the shorter text, but vastly expanded. This highly repetitive text is likewise damaged, but it is possible to reconstruct most of its contents with some confidence. Analysis of the zukru at Emar must of necessity begin with this unusual festival text. Although the differences between the two texts reflect an obvious diversity in practice of the zukru at Emar, the long text alone suggests that layers of expansion grew around a more modest core. Each expansion extended the calendar and multiplied the outlay. At the center stands a rite that took place outside the city walls at a formation of upright stones, where the assembled populace honored the god Dagan. Throughout the festival, no individual human participant played a role deemed worthy of mention, but the wealth of the palace is evident behind every expansion. The combination of popular involvement and royal interest in a text recorded by the diviner of the city gods demonstrates the inclusive scope of the rite. Emar’s zukru festival shows the town gathered for what may have been its most important celebration, certainly the richest found in our archive. 3. This text was published by Georges Dossin in A. Lods, “Une tablette inédite de Mari, intéressante pour l’histoire ancienne du prophétisme Sémitique,” in Studies in Old Testament Prophecy (ed. H. H. Rowley; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1950) 104–6. Before the join, the tablet lacked the beginning and end of the text. 4. Bertrand Lafont, “Le roi de Mari et les prophètes du dieu Adad,” RA 78 (1984) 7–18.

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Chapter 3 Text Construction with Concurrent Calendars

It is impossible to make sense of the long zukru text without taking into account its unusual construction. After accounting for the extensive offerings that accompany each stage of the festival’s complex calendar, the scribe introduces a second section devoted to the details of the divine processions through the same period. 5 No other Emar ritual text undertakes a full repetition of this sort. 6 The festival tablet, Emar’s longest ritual text, has four columns, two on each side, and all together it originally comprised 260 to 280 lines. 7 The tablet was laid out with care, the columns on each side separated by two parallel rulings roughly one centimeter apart. It is divided into sections by the liberal use of horizontal incisions across the width of the column (see fig. 6). Layout alone suggests that this text’s construction is unique among Emar’s ritual tablets. The scribe left empty a space equivalent to eight lines near the top of column IV, so that the rest of the text is separated by a large gap from the longer first part. 8 A further hierarchy is suggested by the scribe’s occasional preference for double-line horizontal rulings instead of the usual single line. 9 These double lines 5. In his Emar VI/3 edition, Arnaud appears to read the text as maintaining a single chronological progression, and he even emends lines 195 and 197 to fit this pattern. The emendation of the sixth and seventh days in lines 195 and 197 to the sixteenth and seventeenth appears to miss the seven-day period introduced for the zukru proper in line 75. 6. The installation ceremony for the nin.dingir priestess anticipates the later description of the seven-day feast with a brief discussion of tables set for the gods as part of the consecration ceremony (qaddusu, 369:22–28, especially line 26). Like the other festivals, the zukru sets aside a final section for administrative matters, but it is almost entirely lost. See Emar 369:76–94 and 370:108–17, the installations for the nin.dingir and the masªartu; and among the kissu festivals especially 387:17–25, for Ishara and dnin. urta; and 388:60–69, for the kissu rites together. 7. The exact number is difficult to calculate but may be between 260 and 280, depending on how the breaks in Msk 74292a are filled. Collation suggests the following: • 5–7 lines missing at the top of column I; the remaining column has 63 lines • 4–6 lines missing at the top of column II; the remaining column has 69 lines, through line 133 of the god list • column III is preserved only in lines 134–62, 29 visible lines, plus 39–41 missing lines (by comparison with column IV to the left and column I on the obverse) • 14–16 lines missing at the bottom of column IV, after line 205; space for about 8 lines is left unfilled between lines 168 and 169; there are 43 visible lines Counting from these estimates of missing material, the text would include 204 visible lines (not including two on the edges), with 62–70 lines lost, so 266–74 total. These numbers cannot be certain but give a general idea of the length of the text. 8. Lines 1–168 and 169–205. The numbers do not include missing sections. 9. Unlike the vertical strokes that separate the columns, the horizontal rulings are drawn as close together as possible, roughly two millimeters apart.

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Figure 6. Scribal Divisions for the zukru Festival Text Line before Divider 4 9 16 22 24 28 33 37 43 51 53 56 58 (64) (Break) 67 72 74 75 77 95 112 (133) (162)

Contents Distinguished (Double Ruling) Closes the 15th of sag.mu, year 6? Closes the 25th of sag.mu, year 6 Closes the 24th of (Niqali), year 6 After offerings to Dagan, the 25th of (Niqali), year 6 After offerings to dnin.urta, same date After offerings to Sassabetu, same date After summation of consecration offerings, after offerings to palace deities; same date (Double Ruling) Closes the 25th of (Niqali), year 6 Closes the 14th of sag.mu, year 7 After offerings to Dagan, on the 15th of sag.mu, year 7 After offerings (to dnin.urta), same date After offerings to Sassabetu, same date After offerings to palace deities, same date (Bottom of column I) Closes the 15th of sag.mu, year 7? (Unclear) (Unclear) After some summation of offerings Sets apart introduction of full offering list; seven days (starting on the 15th of sag.mu, year 7?) After Dagan Lord of the Offspring, first entry in full offering list, same date Closes the first tier of the pantheon, same date Closes the second tier of pantheon, same date (Bottom of column II) (Last visible line before break. Line 163 begins column IV; seventh day of feast, year 7?)

168

(Double Ruling) Closes Part I Unwritten space of approximately 8 lines, closed with a double ruling 179 Closes the 15th of sag.mu, year 6 185 Closes the (25th) of Niqali, year 6 194 Closes the 14th–15th of sag.mu, year 7 196 Closes the sixth day (of the seven-day feast)

204

(Double Ruling) Closes the seventh day (of the feast), closes zukru festival (break after 205 (lines 59, 206 on right edge)

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create three subdivisions in the first part and two in the second. By this means, the scribe distinguished the annual zukru during the sixth year from the preparations of the next forty days and separated these in turn from his description of the entire seventh year. 10 In the second part, the beginning of an administrative section is ruled off from the ritual proper. 11 Single-line rulings are naturally reserved for subsidiary units. 12 Although several calendar introductions are lost in the longer first part of the text, the 14th and 15th days of the month itisag.mu in the seventh year demonstrate the parallel: 38–39 i-na sa-ni-ti mu.kám ezenzu-[u]k-ra dù i-na [i]tisag.m[u] i-na u4.14.kám During the next year they perform the zukru festival. During the first month, on the 14th day. . . 186

i-na sa-ni-ti [m]u.kám i-na itisag.mu i-na u4.14.kám During the next year, in the first month, on the 14th day. . .

44 187

i-na sa-ni-i u4-mi i-na u4.15.kám i-na u4-mi x [Sa-a]g-ga-ri sa-ni-i u4-mi u4.15.kám Sa-ag-ga-ru the next day, the 15th day, the Saggaru(-day). . .

Most of the remaining calendar for part I can be reconstructed from the intact sequence of the shorter second part. Everything that precedes line 35 plausibly belongs to the sixth year, especially when the first visible date is the 25th of sag.mu (line 5). Offerings for the zukru proper culminate in a seven-day feast that must begin after the 15th of sag.mu in the seventh year, an occasion recalled in the sixth and seventh days of this period in part II. 13 The concurrent calendars of parts I and II also become apparent when part II refers back to events already described in part I. Distribution of “enclosed lambs” on the 14th of sag.mu in the seventh year harks back to the enclosure of 70 10. See the double rulings after lines 4 and 37. 11. See the double ruling after line 204. 12. In the shorter second part, single-line rules only separate units of time, but the greater detail of the first section requires additional division for groups of offerings. Temporal phrases provide the verbal counterpart to section dividers and mark actual movement through the festival calendar, but they rarely appear without a preceding horizontal ruling. In two cases (lines 177 and 188), the phrase ‘on the same day’ (ina umi sâsu) divides rites for a single day into two parts, without a horizontal stroke. In the latter case, it carries less structural weight, since it neither begins a new line nor even the sentence to which it belongs. The phrase istu umi sâsu (line 182) ‘from that day’ envisions an action with effect that continues beyond a single ritual day. Line 41 anticipates some “later day,” perhaps the sixth day mentioned in line 195, based on parallel use of the verb paªadu. Lines 169–71 represent a long introduction to the whole zukru festival. 13. Compare line 75 with lines 195 and 197.

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lambs in lines 39–40 on the same day. 14 Sacrifices for the 15th of sag.mu are supposed to be “just as written on the tablet,” referring to lines 48–58. 15 Rites at the Battle Gate at the end of the same day are defined by the first occurrence of this event on “the consecration day” of the sixth year. 16 Similar references to the earlier text appear in lines 198–99 and 204, for the seventh day. 17 These abbreviations increase in frequency as the scribe reaches the bottom of column IV, perhaps in order to save room for administrative notes at the end. While the long first part sketches ritual procedure only to provide a framework for the accounting of offerings, part II mentions offerings only for orientation or in general terms. 18 The main concern of part II is the conducting of the gods out of and back to the city, especially the passage of Dagan between the upright stones. 19 Procession in the zukru does not concern only the movement of gods from one place to another but also a procession during the rites at the stones themselves, when Dagan passes between the stones and is then joined by the city god dnin.urta in a wagon. The centrality of the zukru processions inspired the unique separate treatment of them in the festival text, but the primary interest remains the materials for distribution, and part I includes more detail than part II. Since certain preparatory days evidently involved offerings without moving the gods, part I mentions three calendar elements that are omitted from part II: the 25th of sag.mu and the 24th of Niqali in the sixth year, and the seven-day zukru feast in the seventh year. Only the preparatory days for the opening and closing of the zukru week itself receive passing mention in the second section, perhaps a salute to the major distribution of offerings to the gods on those dates. 20 14. See lines 186–87, sila4mes pa-a-da-t[i]. The ‘enclosed lambs’ in lines 195–96, on the sixth day of the zukru week in the seventh year, should refer to instructions probably missing from column III. For the phrase ki-i sa i-na ma-hi-ri-im-ma ‘just as earlier’, see CAD s.v. mahrû adv. 1b ina mahrî, OB ina mahrîm ‘formerly, earlier’, and 1c kima (ki sa) mahrî ‘as before’. See pp. 61–63 below for discussion of the unusual use of the terms ‘distribution’ and ‘enclosure’. 15. Lines 189–90, ki-i sa i-na †up-pí sa-a†-ru. 16. Line 193, u4-mi qa-du-si. Niqali 24–25 is identified as the qaddusu consecration in line 33, which summarizes the calves and sheep offered during that period. 17. Both use the phrase ‘just as for the earlier day’ ki sa umi mahirimma. Based on comparison with line 195, this reference is probably not to the preceding day (“le jour précédent”) but to the same day as described earlier. It is not likely that offerings for the seventh zukru day match those for the sixth (see below). 18. Lines 173, 176, 181, 186, 191, 194, 195, and 199; see my Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) 233. 19. Lines 174, 183–84, 192, and 202–3. The stones are identified by the Syrian word sikkanu; for comment and bibliography, see my Installation, 76–79. 20. Part II can only describe one day in the month of Niqali, and that should be the 25th, the consecration day referred to in line 193. Of the preparatory days—the 24th of

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Altogether, the grand zukru festival moves from the month of sag.mu in the sixth year to a consecration rite at the beginning of the next month, Niqali, to its climax on the full moon of sag.mu in the seventh year (see fig. 7). Both parts of the text track this progression through time, in spite of their separate concerns. To my knowledge, this parallel structure has no close counterpart in either Mesopotamia or Hatti; consequently, the text seems to have developed from local, or at least Syrian, traditions. The text is unique to Emar on two more counts: it is the only calendar-based text devoted to a single event and the only such text that belongs to the “festival” category. 21 This is a remarkable text on every count. King and Calendar: The Expansion to Festival Form The zukru festival itself lasted seven days, but the festival text introduces preparations one full year in advance. In spite of the long build-up toward the climactic event, the text suggests no dramatic progression during this period. On the contrary, the text imbeds the important movements of the gods in a lavish matrix of offerings brought to their divine homes, and the occasions for travel repeat the same sequence. Part II describes the same procession of Dagan outside the city four times: on the 15th of sag.mu and the 25th of Niqali in the sixth year, and on the 15th of sag.mu and the seventh day after that in the seventh year. With every repetition, Dagan passed between the upright stones in his wagon, and the city god dnin.urta joined him for the return to the city. 22 Part I has this event in view when it describes the anointing of the stones, the offering at the great gate, and the return to the city for the last three of the four occasions. The rites at the shrine of stones outside the city appear to represent the essential center of the zukru. These processions receive special attention in the second part of the text, and they coincide with the most detailed accounts of offerings in the first part. 23 The isolation of these repeated rites as central suggests Niqali, the 14th of sag.mu, and the sixth zukru day—only the 24th of Niqali is left out of part II entirely (see lines 186–87, 195–96). Perhaps the other days have higher priority by their direct association with the seventh-year zukru proper. Of these two, only the 14th of sag.mu is preserved intact in part I, and its offerings for the whole pantheon (lines 39–40) are more extravagant than the more limited offering to the gods who head the first tier, on the 24th of Niqali (lines 12–16). 21. These two traits appear to be related. That is, the very isolation by the scribe of a single event for extended separate treatment tends to be reserved for rites deemed worthy of the festival designation. See my “Emar Festivals: City Unity and Syrian Identity under Hittite Hegemony,” in Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (ed. M. Chavalas; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1996) 87. 22. The description of the 15th of sag.mu for the seventh year omits reference to dnin.urta (lines 187–94). 23. Offerings for the consecration day (the 25th of Niqali) and the first day of the festival (the 15th of sag.mu) are rendered in very similar terms, only the amounts being

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Figure 7. The zukru Festival in Outline Part I, Offerings A. Month of sag.mu, year 6; lines 1–9 (plus 5–7 lines broken above) 1. 15th of sag.mu?; lines 1–3 (plus 5-7 lines broken above) 2. 25th of sag.mu; lines 4–9

B. Month of Niqali (directly after sag.mu), year 6; lines 10–37 1. 24th–25th, lines 10–33 (the consecration ceremony for the zukru festival) a. 24th of Niqali, lines 10–16 (preparatory to main consecration day; distribution of sheep to principal gods of the pantheon) b. 25th of Niqali, lines 17–33 (procession outside the city), offerings and feasting, for: Dagan dnin.urta Sassabetu Palace gods: Belet-ekalli, moon-god and sun-god sa ekalli 2. After feasting, lines 34–37 (anointing the sikkanu stones, performance of the kubadu ceremony with return to the city)

C. Month of sag.mu, year 7; lines 38–168 (zukru festival proper) 1. 14th day, lines 38–43 (preparatory to the zukru festival; offering of 70 lambs; reference to the sixth feast day?) 2. 15th day (Saggaru-day), lines 44–64 (first day of zukru festival) a. Procession outside the city, offerings and feasting, lines 44–59 (like lines 17–33) b. After feasting, lines 60–64 (anointing the sikkanu stones, evening performance of the kubadu ceremony, with return to the city) 3. Seven-day period of zukru festival, starting with the 15th day of sag.mu, year 7; lines 65–162 a. (Uncertain contents), lines 65–67 b. (Uncertain contents), lines 68–72 c. (Uncertain contents), lines 73–74 (summary of kubadu ceremonies, including consecration-day?) d. Service to all of the gods of Emar, lines 75–162 Heading, as 7 days, line 75 First tier of gods receiving offerings, lines 76–95 Second offering tier, lines 96–112 Third offering tier, lines 113–62 4. Seventh day of zukru festival?, lines 163–68 (plus 4–6 lines broken at top of column II, 39–41 at bottom of column III)

Part II, Procession A. 15th day (= Saggaru-day), month of sag.mu, year 6; lines 169–79 B. 25th day?, month of Niqali, year 6; lines 180–85 C. Month of sag.mu, year 7; lines 186–204 (zukru festival proper) 1. 14th and 15th days, lines 186–94

2. Sixth day of seven-day feast, lines 195–96 (preparatory to closing day) 3. Seventh and closing day of seven-day feast, lines 197–204 Appendix: Administrative notes, lines 205 (plus 14–16 lines broken at column IV bottom), 206

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that when the zukru rite was extended from one journey to the stones into its elaborate festival form, three categories of expansion were involved. 24 Each of these expansions extended the temporal horizon of the zukru and increased its grandeur. The present text identifies only the seven-day celebration of the seventh year as the zukru festival itself, an interval already expanded from what had once been a solitary visit outside the city walls. A second expansion developed the event into a seven-year cycle, repeating the full procession during two days in the sixth year. Further ritual flourishes were added to this frame in a last expansion of offerings on days preparatory to the major movements of the gods. In recognition of this stratification, I have chosen to discuss the calendar of the zukru in terms of core and expansion rather than strictly chronologically, day by day. My treatment traces concentric circles that progressively grow closer to the center of the zukru, the repeated journey to the shrine of stones and return into the city. We cannot tell whether all three expansions were implemented at one time or whether the development occurred in separate stages. The definition of these expansions is based on the ritual logic of the texts and should not be understood as a reconstruction of the festival’s historical evolution, though my analysis may provide a starting point for understanding how observance of the zukru rite at Emar changed through time. Analysis based on a hypothesis of expansion also illuminates the problem of royal participation in the zukru festival. Neither the king nor any other individual is indispensable to the ritual at the stones, but by far the greatest financial burden is borne by the king and the palace. Royal influence is visible in every expansion, especially the last addition of preparatory days for offerings to the gods at their own shrines, which are sponsored entirely by the king. It is not clear whether the seventh-year version of the zukru arose at Emar only when royal sponsorship began. The king dominates provision for the zukru at every stage, but he does share the honor with the city and the House of the Gods during the events at the stones (see fig. 8, pp. 58–59). 25 These occasions

increased on the second occasion. The 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year may not have incorporated every aspect of this core rite at the stones. Part II does not mention the great gate until the consecration day (cf. line 193), and the top of column I has room for ten lines at most. 24. The first day of the seven-day festival makes the best starting point. In the installation of the nin.dingir priestess, her actual enthronement occurs at the corresponding time (369:40); see my Installation, 182–85. 25. Part I indicates the suppliers of most of the offerings: the king (lugal) or the palace (é.gal-lì), the city (uru.ki), and the House of the Gods (é dingir-lì). The suppliers are located consistently at the ends of the lists in Emar 373 and appear to have provided all that preceded their names; see my “Limited Kingship,” UF 24 (1992) 61 n. 21. The combination of palace and city funding in Emar 373 is interesting in light of practice in

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provide the primary framework for the expansion into a seven-year interval, and they preserve a role for independent city support. In the context of annual celebration, the short text of the zukru observes no royal contribution at all. Whatever the king’s precise role was, the expanded zukru of the festival text shows heavy dependence on the beneficence of the king, which cannot be assumed to have been original to the celebration. The Last Expansion: Separate Preparatory Days The final level of expansion added single preparatory days before the zukru festival and before its consecration on the 25th of Niqali in the preceding year. These preparations involved no movement of the gods and were sustained by the palace alone. Due to its emphasis on the procession on the days when activities moved outside the city walls, part II of the festival text gives little space to the 14th day of the month sag.mu in the seventh year and entirely ignores the 24th of Niqali during the preceding year. The description of these days in part I focuses on one activity: recognition of the Emar pantheon by offerings distributed to individual shrines throughout the city. 26 On the 24th of Niqali, all of the gods received barley bread and vessels for beverages. The first 12 deities of the festival hierarchy were also assigned one sheep each. 27 The rites for the 14th of sag.mu were more generous, in anticipation of the festival that began the next day. One sheep was given to every deity, 28 approximated by the stereotypical number 70. 29 Both distributions were

the Mari kingdom. Mari and its king could fix the dates for locally funded rites in lesser towns (see ARM XIV 12:3u; XXVI 109:4–5; where the muskênum are the population not financially dependent on the king). These rites may have coincided with observances at Mari itself, so that both palace and towns could have financed separate celebrations of the same essential event. 26. The procession mentioned in lines 41–42 takes place on the last day of the zukru festival, not on the 14th. 27. See lines 10–16. For comparison of this pantheon to that of 373:76–88 (new lineation) and 378:1–13, see my Installation, 243–44. 28. Dagan received an additional bullock under his special festival title, Lord of the Offspring (bel bukari, line 41). 29. The sheep is specified as a lamb in line 39: udu.sila4. The pantheon of 70 gods appears to be a Syrian convention, attested also in the Ugaritic Baal myth as the 70 children of Athirat (KTU 1.4 VI:46). In the myth of Elkunirsa and Asertu (the same goddess) from Hattusa, Baal proclaims that he has killed Asertu’s 77 children (parallel, eighty-eight), apparently a derivative figure; 1 A i:22–24, see Harry A. Hoffner, Hittite Myths (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 69. The Hittites of the full-fledged empire claimed 1000 gods, by contrast; see Volkert Haas, Der Kult von Nerik (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1970) 1. Two Emar kissu rites now mention offerings by units of 70 at sacred

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Chapter 3 Figure 8. Supplies for the zukru Festival

Date

Item

Quantity

Supplier

24th of Niqali (year 6)

barley bread pihu vessels sheep

1 bán 24 12

king king a (king?)

25th of Niqali (year 6) b

calves sheep

king king city king king House of the Gods king/palace House of the Gods king king House of the Gods king/palace king/palace House of the Gods palace

pihu vessels

4 24(?) 4(?) 1 7 bán 6 qa 2 bán 3 qa 4 bán 6 qa 2 qa 2 pair 3 2 6 4 2 4

14th of sag.mu (year 7)

lambs

70

king (no sources given for other offerings)

15th of sag.mu (year 7) c

calves sheep

12? d 14 > 14 e 1

king city king king

ewe pappasu bread barley bread kerßu bread ˘a vessels kurkurru vessels hubbar vessels

ewe

underwritten entirely by the king. 30 The royal interest in the 14th of sag.mu is also reflected in the mention of the only official personnel found in the entire festival text. Seven lúmes zi-ir-a-ti of the palace are given special attention, in the sites for the underworld queen dereß.ki.gal (perhaps with a local name beneath the Sumerian) and for Ea, 385:33–34; ASJ 14, no. 49:33–34. Anat buries Baal on Mount Íaphon with offerings by seventies: wild oxen, oxen, sheep, and more (KTU 1.6 I:18–28). Emar 385:34 has these 70 portions placed “before them,” which seems to invite the whole pantheon to join dereß.ki.gal, and perhaps all such offerings suggest at least symbolic participation by all the gods. The burial in the Ugaritic setting and dereß.ki.gal’s kissu invites particular association of such offerings with the dead and the underworld, but the Ea text does not appear to sustain this pattern. 30. See lines 11 and 39.

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Figure 8. Supplies for the zukru Festival Date

Recipient

Item

Quantity

Supplier

Seven-day feast (year 7)

first tier gods

calf lambs pappasu bread barley bread ˘a vessel? kurkurru vessel lambs pappasu bread barley bread vessel (˘a or hubbar?) lambs pappasu bread barley bread hubbar vessel?

19 190 19 bán 19 qa 19 qa 19 19 75 7 1/2 qa 15 qa 15 98 49 49 49

palace palace palace palace palace palace f palace (palace) (palace) (palace) g king (palace) (palace) (palace)

second tier gods

third tier gods

a. The verb zâzu should be taken as distributive, so the two each are probably to be multiplied by the twelve major cults mentioned in lines 12–16; on zâzu, see my Installation, 72, 125. b. These numbers include both offerings (to gods) and provisions for the people (unmes). Line 22 gives no supplier and is left out of the figures. (Perhaps it should be added to the House of the Gods; cf. line 51.) c. The breads and beverages are the same as for the 25th of Niqali, except that 1 bán pappasu bread, 4 bán barley bread, and 4 pihu vessels are supplied for the people from the House of the Gods in line 51. Many animals are lost due to breaks. d. All calf sacrifices are lost, but line 59 on the left edge appears to summarize this section and mentions 12. It is not clear whether the 14th of sag.mu is included in that number. All calves appear to come from the king (lines 48, 52, 54, and 57). e. We would expect larger numbers from the king. f. When gods are cited in a single line, they appear to share a sanctuary, as do the moon- and sun-gods (line 81), Alal and Amaza (line 83, cf. 378:9), dnin.kur, Saggar, and Halma (line 86? cf. 378:12). The text apportions one allotment of offerings for each set. g. Line 112 appears to designate some special offering of a dughar-de-e-x to the same group of gods—either referring to the second tier only or to both the first and second tiers.

context of the offering of 70 lambs for the 70 gods of Emar, the reading confirmed by ‘the gods of the seven lúmes zi-ir-a-ti’ in an offering list related to the zukru festival pantheon. 31 31. Compare 373:40 and 378:42. The group may be “the men of the sowing” if the feminine noun is derived from the root zrº ‘to scatter (seed)’. This suggests an agricultural association appropriate to autumn, though the interpretation remains uncertain. Identification of the men with the palace and appearance at a relatively peripheral moment in

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Anticipation of the full moon by rites performed on the previous day reflects a widely observed ritual pattern. KTU 1.109 from Ugarit records purification of the king on the 14th day of an unknown month, before a celebration of Baal at the full moon. 32 The an.ta˘.ßumsar festival at Hattusa, the dominant spring rite, incorporates a similar sequence of preparation and execution on the 14th and 15th days, though this 38-day event is not explicitly scheduled according to lunar cycles. 33 The separate character of these preparatory days is underlined by use of the verb paªadu ‘to enclose’ with sacrificial animals. 34 Passing mention of “the sixth day” in part II likewise probably implies preparation for the important seventh, concluding day of the festival. 35 On the 24th of Niqali, ‘enclosure’ of sheep is distinguished from ‘distribution’ (verb zâzu) of bread and drink for the gods. This the festival’s calendar reduces the likelihood that they belong to an older zukru tradition in which the king held no dominant role. 32. Lines 1–2 (the king), 5 and 9 (Bºl Ípn), and lines 11 and 16 (Bºl ªUgrt). Compare the same royal purification in KTU 1.46:10–11 and 1.87:54. KTU 1.41(//1.87):3–4 and 1.112:15–17 stipulate purification of the king on the 13th, before events focused on the 14th day. “The Lord of Ugarit” in KTU 1.109 cannot automatically be understood as “Baal of Ugarit,” a single cult of the storm-god, but the juxtaposition with Baal Íaphon in this text makes an association attractive. In this case, KTU 1.109 might celebrate Baal especially as Ugarit’s divine king, and the calendar at the full moon of an unspecified month would resemble the key moment of the zukru celebration of Dagan as Emar’s lord. 33. The 15th day involves sacrifice of oxen and sheep in the king’s presence at a huwasi stone of the weather-god, which is located at a tarnu-house in a grove of boxwood trees. On the evening of the 14th day a priest goes in advance to the place of the huwasi, evidently to prepare for the following day’s rites. For outline of the an.ta˘.ßumsar festival, see Hans G. Güterbock, “An Outline of the Hittite an.ta˘.ßum Festival,” JNES 19 (1960) 80–89; cf. O. R. Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) 35–36. If the an.ta˘.ßumsar was not initiated at a new moon, and the basic text does not indicate that it was, perhaps this combination at least imitates full moon ritual conventions. 34. Lines 12, 16, 40, 41, and 186. See AHw s.v. pâdu(m) ‘einschliessen, gefangen setzen’. The ªalep is written in line 43. I translated paªadu as ‘offer’ in my previous work, based on its widespread use: see Installation, 233, 236, with discussion on 121 and n. 173, 237 and n. 140. Arnaud translates ‘on offre’ for 373:12, 16, 40; cf. 186, 195 (and elsewhere); but ‘on livre’ for lines 41 and 43. Mark E. Cohen (The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East [Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1993] 347–51) suggests ‘provide’, without comment. Provision for the seven lúmes zi-ir-a-ti of the palace is described with the verb nadanu and thus distinguishes an allotment to human participants. 35. Line 195, cf. 43. Enclosure for a ‘last’ day in line 43 is prescribed to be identical to (mala allûtima) enclosure for the 14th of sag.mu. The same royal supplier appears to be intended.

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apparently means that the verb paªadu applies primarily to sacrifice. 36 The standard verb for the major offerings outside the city, on the other hand, is naqû ‘to sacrifice, offer’. 37 At least three times in the text for six months the word paªadu is used to designate the separation of animals one day in advance, before the events dedicated to dnin.urta, dnin.kur, and the storm-god. 38 The shorter annual text for the zukru begins with a single sheep offered to Dagan before procession to the upright stones. 39 Other occurrences of the word paªadu in ritual texts do not have this distinct meaning of ‘enclosure’, but they appear in broken contexts that are difficult to evaluate. 40 The verb paªadu occurs at least once at Emar outside the ritual texts, in a private legal document, where it describes the ‘enclosure’ (earmarking?) of silver toward the debt of a slave. 41 The text records payment of 20 shekels of silver to a man who already owes 41 shekels, in return for life service. Various contingencies are provided for in separate clauses, with both parties discouraged from shifting the terms of service. The first condition entertains the possibility of funds earmarked by some outside party for the enslaved man: If in the future someone earmarks (‘encloses’ i-pa-a-da-sú) the silver for Bazila, he must pay Saggar-abu and his wife, and after (payment of) his silver Bazila must (still) serve out the lifetime of Saggar-abu and his wife. 42

No penalty is imposed on either party, so this option assumes normal fulfillment of the agreed terms: service for the master’s lifetime, with repayment delayed to the same date. Apparently, the sum owed by Bazila may be turned over to the creditor Saggar-abu but held until the death of master and wife. Bazila no longer 36. In lines 39–40, the verb paªadu covers both the 70 lambs and accompanying offerings of bread and drink. The verb zâzu is the more seeping term, used with ‘the enclosed lambs’ (silames pa-a-da-ti) of lines 186–87 and 195–96 in part II. It appears that the verb paªadu offers the more specific ritual nuance, like †araªu/pasasu for anointing by rubbing (line 34 versus lines 61 and 167). 37. Lines 20, 22, 24, 28, 31, 50, 56, and 58. The kubadu offerings at the great gate of battle also involve a unique action, expressed by the verb qalû ‘to burn’ (lines 37, 63, and 167). 38. Emar 446:23, 59, and 107. 39. Emar 375:3. 40. See 375:11; 392:4 (the imistu of the king; see Fleming, UF 24 62–63); 446:7, 18. 41. Emar 16 was found in the hoard from the administrative building associated with the local king (in chantier A). The translation of the verb as ‘to earmark’ in this context was suggested to me by Gary Beckman. 42. Emar 16:9–12. The form in line 10 would be normalized as durative ipâdassu, where the final -a- reflects the ventive and a resumptive pronominal suffix refers to the silver. (An indirect object without -m ‘to/for him’ is less likely.)

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has to save or raise funds for his obligation, though he must finish his service. It is not clear whether Saggar-abu may spend the silver or whether the silver must literally be ‘enclosed’ until the day Bazila officially evens his accounts and is released. 43 This use of the verb pâdu/paªadu is not standard to Mesopotamian law, as presently known, but context and spelling make the reading fairly secure. Durand has proposed interpretation of the verb in this text as padû(m) ‘to ransom, buy back’. 44 ‘Release’ seems unlikely in the Emar document, because the next clause covers conditions for release before the death of Bazila’s masters and because the object of the verb pâdu (=paªadu) is evidently the silver, not the man. 45 43. This payment is not a pledge, because the debtor already had taken on the liability without any sign of such a requirement. It is likewise not security, which also occurs at the time when a loan is arranged. On pledge and security (with bibliography), see Meir Malul, Studies in Mesopotamian Legal Symbolism (AOAT 221; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988) from 209 (suretyship) and 286 (pledge); closer to Emar, see J. Hoftijzer and W. H. van Soldt, “Texts from Ugarit concerning Security and Related Akkadian and West Semitic Material,” UF 23 (1991), especially pp. 189 and 196. 44. See J.-M. Durand, Review of Arnaud, Emar VI/3, RA 83 (1989) 174: “verser le prix d’une rançon, racheter.” This meaning follows from the primary meaning ‘to release’ (AHw s.v. padû(m) ‘verschonen, loslassen’). He compares the Mari noun pidûm in ARM XXI 7:7–8, uduhi.a sa pí-di-im sa Ha-na, which Durand translates ‘moutons représentant la “rançon” de Hanâ’. The pidûm would be payment to acquit a debt. Mari itself attests middle-weak pâdum in the idiom maskanam pâdum ‘to confine in chains’ or some similar device. Durand, AEM I/1, pp. 282–83, comments on ARM XXVI 115:7u that use of the verb pa†arum ‘to open, release’ with maskanum should indicate something like a pillory (‘carcan’). The writing ma-as-ka-na-am i-pa-du-ú-su (‘they confined him in chains’, ARM XXVI 312:9u) does not indicate the third-weak verb, since the marking of the long 3 m.p. vowel -u- has Mari precedent: compare especially i-du-ku-ú-su-ªúº-[ma] ‘they killed him’, in ARM XXVI 331:7u, from middle-weak dâkum. The scribe of XXVI 312 sometimes adds a vowel-sign in the penultimate syllable: us-ta-aß-bi-tu-ú-m[a] (6u), ik-susu-ú-ma (8u), and ik-su-us-sí-i-ma (38u). Other examples of the idiom with pâdum show the expected middle-weak spellings: ARM XXVI 363:27, ma-as-ka-nam up-ta-i-du-sunu-ti, D perfect 3 m.p., with 3d m.p. suffix; unpublished A.2550:6u, Durand AEM I/1, pp. 282–83, ma-ás-ka-ni zabar, ú-ul a-pa-as-sú-nu-ti ‘I did not confine them in bronze chains’, G preterite 1 c.s., with 3 m.p. suffix. Durand now suggests that a tax on the tentdwelling Hana, paid to the royal administration, is in view, citing ARM XXI 7:7 and XXII 291:11–122, after collation (“Le sacrifice pîdum et le nom du jeune bouc à Mari,” N.A.B.U. [1995] 71–72 [no. 80]). 45. Carlo Zaccagnini (“téß.bi = mitharu/mitharis at Emar and Elsewhere,” Or 65 [1996] 101 n. 39) translates the passage in question, “In the future, should the (21 shekels of) silver (be available) for the ransom of PN2, he [i.e., PN2] will give it to PN and his wife: after remittance of his silver [i.e., the silver of PN2’s ransom] PN2 will (in any case) take care of PN and his wife as long as they shall live.” This understanding of the

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Neither the legal nor the ritual applications of the term requires the literal shutting up of silver or sheep, but both show a direct relation to the primary meaning. Hittite sacrificial procedure began by requiring that the animals be driven into the temple before consecration. 46 The animals were consecrated and led back outside for slaughter. 47 The last expansion of the zukru festival extends the effect of the major celebrations outside the city by adding preliminary offerings to all of the gods at their home sanctuaries before going out for the feasts at the upright stones. Such additions did not intrude on the traditional procedure for those feasts and were surely appreciated by the personnel of the shrines. Because the offerings were provided entirely by the palace, the preparatory days promoted the king’s stature as a patron of Emar religious life. 48 The Middle Expansion: The Seven-Year Cycle The preparatory days, with their full royal sponsorship, did not greatly alter the structure of the zukru festival. The festival itself was still focused on seven days beginning on the 15th day of a month called sag.mu. Now, however, this zukru is set apart from the normal turn of the calendar as the prodigy of the seventh year, with the whole previous year consecrated by rites on the 25th of Niqali, the month immediately following sag.mu. 49 Because the shorter text for a yearly zukru begins the rite on the 15th of Zarati, evidently the same month, payments and obligations is not essentially different from mine, but I see no warrant for the translation ‘ransom’. The Mari letter ARM XXVIII 159:19u suggests that when a person is the object of the verb paªadu, it is not for release but for capture: is-tu an-né-em ni-pa-d[u] ‘after we detained this (man)’. 46. Haas, Geschichte, 649–50; see the second day of the purulliya-festival for Telipinu in Kasha and Hanhana, when 30 sheep were driven into the temple of Telipinu. 47. It is not clear from the available evidence whether either the legal or the ritual use depends on the other Emar setting. If the original legal convention could involve an animal set aside for future exchange, the description of the ritual treatment of sheep may preserve a closer relationship to the root idea of enclosure. Note the enclosure of an ox in the MB record UDBD 116:6, ú-pi-id (D, pâdu); see AHw s.v. pâdu(m) D. 48. I have not addressed the character of the rites on the 25th of sag.mu in the sixth year. This day does not display any sign of procession, and it may belong to the expansion of the other days discussed here, but the text is too badly damaged to allow more than speculation. 49. The direct sequence is demonstrated by several texts. Emar 364, the one dated text dealing with cult administration, records vessels of wine delivered to the gods in the months of sag.mu and Niqali, with a total that logically depends on consecutive receipts. In the fragment Emar 454, sag.mu is followed by a month ending with -li in a sequence that goes on to include itiha-am-si ‘the fifth’ (lines 2, 3, 6). Niqali is also found in two more ritual fragments, 512:2 (Ni-qa-[li]) and 524:3.

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celebration of the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year may provide a staging point for making a seven-year cycle out of the standard annual event. 50 Both the alternative text and the repeating format of the festival itself show that the seven-year cycle is an expansion of a simpler annual calendar. Like the annual rite from the shorter text, the zukru festival proper lasted only seven days. Expansion beyond the turn of the year introduced a completely new temporal setting, establishing a whole year before the festival for sacred preparation. This change is evident in the unique movement of the consecration day (umu qaddusi) to a point forty days less than a year before the festival. 51 Elsewhere in the diviner’s collection of ritual texts, the day immediately before every festival is designated as the consecration day for preparation of the gods with offerings. 52 Consecration proceeds directly to celebration. When the zukru text shifts this consecration to a point almost eleven months before the festival, however, the entire period is marked by the anticipation that attends this sacred state of readiness. The actual consecration of the zukru was delayed until the 25th of Niqali, but ritual preparations began a full year before the festival, on the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year. Part II of the festival text presents another repetition of the rites outside the city, which may reflect standard observance of the annual zukru rite. 53 Unfortunately, little of part I survives, but some adaptations to a sevenyear cycle appear to have been introduced. Ritual isolation of the sixth year began with purification of herds and flocks and some sort of “release,” most easily understood in reference to the same oxen and sheep. 54 Release of cattle and 50. Emar 373 provides for procession to the stones on this day (lines 171–76) but does not have room for the grand offering and feast presented on Niqali 25 and the next 15th of sag.mu (lines 1–4, with 5–7 lines above). 51. This rite does not seem to require dedication of new images, and the notion of repeated consecration for new occasions may be more western than Mesopotamian. Job prepared his children for festival participation by similar consecration at every sacred occasion (1:4–5, root qds). Direct preparation of Emar ritual one day in advance is still achieved by offerings on Niqali 24, sag.mu 15, and the sixth day of the festival. 52. See Emar 369:6, 22 (nin.dingir installation); 370:2 (masªartu installation); 385:3–4 (Dagan kissu); 385:28–29 (dereß.ki.gal kissu); 386:1–2 (Ea kissu, confirmed by ASJ 14 300, no. 49:20–23); Emar 387:1–2 (Ishara and dnin.urta kissu); 388:1–5 (general kissu); 394:26–28 (henpa rite). Emar 460:5–6 introduces a consecration of Astart-ofBattle without indication of a festival. 53. See lines 171–79. 54. See lines 176 (part II) and 4 (part I). The form [ú-m]as(?)-sa-ru-su-nu-ti, with the plural suffix, would suit this point of reference. Notice that the term gud appears nowhere else in Emar 373 besides line 176 and thus designates entire herds and flocks rather than animals specifically chosen for offering. The difficult reference on Niqali 25 to a release of pure calves and lambs “since that day” (lines 182–83) may hark back to

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sheep assumes prior confinement for a purpose other than sacrifice, most likely the purification. 55 These purified animals, particularly the young ones, will provide the offerings for the zukru and its preparations. 56 The focus of rites during the sixth year is the 25th day of Niqali, the next occasion mentioned in part II and given 21 lines of description in part I. 57 Part I gives this day much more weight than any previous portion of the sixth year, and the procedure for the 25th of Niqali closely matches the procedure for the first day of the zukru in the seventh year, on the 15th of sag.mu. The offerings for the two days are enough alike to permit restoration of the one from the other. 58 Although the rites for the 24th of Niqali were added to the primary 25th day, both days together are treated as “the consecration” in the framework of part I, according to the total of four calves and forty sheep in line 33 (see fig. 9). 59 The timing of the consecration day is somehow linked to the 25th of sag.mu, exactly one month earlier, which in turn is related to the purification of animals on the the same event. The temporal phrase with istu is unique in Emar 373. It appears that the ‘bronze knife’ (gír zabar) associated with this release in the latter text is for the moment of slaughter. Bronze knives are also found in two Emar cult inventories, Emar 190:2 and 285:1 (corrected by Tsukimoto, ASJ 14 298 n. 2, from ßen zabar). See also large and small bronze knives in ASJ 14, no. 48:2–3, a list of items belonging to gods, and SMEA 30, nos. 8:9, 11:9–10 (also read by Arnaud as ßen ‘marmite’). The Hittite cult inventory KBo 2 1:29 and 32 mentions urudugír and urudugír.tur as objects belonging to two deities. H. G. Güterbock (“A Votive Sword with Old Assyrian Inscription,” in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday [AS 16; Chicago: Universiy of Chicago Press, 1965] 197–98) describes a bronze knife dedicated to a god. 55. This should not be conceived as separation from the community, like the scapegoat of Leviticus 16, but rather as reservation for future use by the community, without present obligation. YOS 7 145:2 (CAD s.v. ßenu 3) describes ‘a flock released (to graze) on the other side of the Tigris’ u8.uduhi.a/ßenu musseretu sa ahull⪠sa Idiglat. 56. The zukru festival usually specifies calves and lambs (amar/buru and sila4/puhadu) for sacrifice. The designation amar may apply to animals up to three years old; see CAD s.v. buru A 1, young calf (suckling and up to three years old, without regard to sex). sila4 is used only for one year before classification as an adult; see Martha A. Morrison, “Evidence for Herdsmen and Animal Husbandry in the Nuzi Documents,” in Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians, vol. 1: In Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, April 29, 1981 (ed. M. A. Morrison and D. I. Owen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 273. Nuzi documents use the word hurapu rather than puhadu. 57. See lines 17–37 and 180–85. 58. See lines 17–37 (25th of Niqali) and 44–64 (15th of sag.mu). 59. The actual count of sacrificial animals in the preceding lines appears to restrict this event to the 24th and 25th of Niqali. Part II makes reference to a ‘consecration day’ (u4-mi qa-du-si-ma, line 193) that should reflect the common Emar notion of a single day, surely the 25th.

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Chapter 3 Figure 9. Animals for the Consecration of the zukru Festival Animal amar (calf)

Supplier king

Text Lines 18–19 Line 26 Line 30

city

Total

2a 1 1 0

Total udu (sheep)

Amount

4 king

Lines 12–15 Lines 18–19 Line 23 Line 26 Line 30

city

Line 19 Line 23 Line 26

12 b 6 2 6 10 2? c 1 1 40

a. The calf and the lamb sacrificed in line 22 should come from the animals that go in procession before Dagan in lines 18–19 and are therefore redundant. b. Niqali 24 lists 12 deities for whom one sheep each is ‘enclosed’ or ‘confined’ (paªadu). See below and line 8 for probable supply by the king. (Compare the 12 calves in total from line 59.) c. With 6 sheep from the king in lines 18–19, only 2 sheep are lacking to fill the quota of 40 for Niqali 24 and 25.

15th of sag.mu. Final consecration of the festival in Niqali appears to complete a forty-day period before the sacrifice of these cattle and sheep. 60 All of the most important moments of the zukru festival and its preparations are marked by processions outside the city to a shrine of upright stones, and each occasion is given added attention in the second part of the text. Because the rites for the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year occur on the date of the yearly zukru, they share its usual procedure, but the available space at the broken top of the tablet cannot fit the full round of offerings recorded for the next two visits to the stones. 61 Because this event represents the center of the zukru observance, its 60. The traces of the damaged lines for the 25th of sag.mu do mention “pure” animals (line 7) and prohibition “from its midst” (line 8) of some activity that could be sacrifice or slaughter from the flock. 61. The tablet has 5–7 lines missing above the 4 partially preserved lines for an unnamed date. The parallel parts and the visible reference to the 25th of sag.mu in line 5 make it likely that the 9–11 lines at the start of the text belong to the 15th.

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incorporation into the consecration day gives this distant preparation a strong sense of anticipation. This anticipation is brought to satisfaction with the next performance of the rite on the first day of the zukru itself, the 15th of sag.mu in the seventh year. The offering instructions for the consecration day narrow the focus from the whole pantheon to a limited set of deities. This list and the associated offerings display again the dual influence (royal and municipal) on this major public celebration. Three palace deities bring up the rear, with offerings supplied only by the king: Belet-ekalli, and Sîn and Samas sa ekalli. 62 These cults appear to be introduced purely due to royal interest. 63 In contrast, Dagan, dnin.urta, and Sassabetu of dnin.urta’s temple receive sheep from the city and other offerings from the House of the Gods, along with the royal supply. 64 Dagan is given the largest servings of bread and drink. 65 The similarity between the consecration day and the first day of the zukru proper indicates that timing is the essence of this preparation, not content. The same gods go out to receive the principal offerings for both qaddusu and zukru, because they are the ones who require consecration. 66 The festival text sets apart a whole year as “sixth,” before the “seventh” year of the zukru. This consecrated year both prepares for the zukru and concludes the seven-year cycle itself. In the latter respect, it resembles the Israelite sabbatical year of Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 16. This crossing of ritual trajectories, as 62. Lines 29–31 and 57–58. See chapter 2, pp. 38–42, “The City and the House of the Gods,” on Belet-ekalli and palace deities. 63. In this company, Belet-ekalli belongs specifically to the palace, but the House of the Gods takes responsibility for her cult according to the diviner’s other god-lists, where it has nothing to do with palace shrines in general. Belet-ekalli is the only “palace” deity present in the offering lists of Emar 379–84: 379:2; 380:12; 381:17; 382:9. Arnaud reads 379:8–9, dkaskal.kur sa ki[ri6 é.gal-l]ì and dkaskal.kur sa geßtin. The copy shows no distinction between the two lines except that the second shows the first two wedges of numun. No trace of a final sign is visible in line 8. Read instead dkaskal.kur sa kiri[6. numun(?). . .] and dkaskal.kur sa kiri6.nu[mun(?). . .]. The god is the River Balih (see the note for 373:141). 64. See the text appendix for the consistent spelling distinction between the single goddess who receives offerings (lines 25, 28, 45, 56) and the plural group of associated beings who go out in procession with “the gods” (lines 17, 46, 188, and 197). 65. One bán and one qa of barley bread, one ˘a-vessel and one kurkurru-vessel of wine (line 20) from the king, and the same from the House of the Gods, exchanging a hubbar for the kurkurru vessel. See the text for comparison to dnin.urta and Sassabetu. Animals are more difficult to count because of the break in the text for the 15th of sag.mu, though the 25th of Niqali shows only Dagan with two calves. 66. The offerings for the consecration day are distinguished from those of the first day of the zukru by designating Dagan in line 18 as Lord of the Brickwork (en sig4) rather than with his festival title, Lord of the Offspring (en bu-ka-ri). See the god list 381:6, [den(?)] sig4. The brickwork is the very physical constitution of the city; perhaps the sixth year marked the beginning of renovations for the great celebration to come.

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the zukru festival both sees out the old seven-year cycle and sees in the new, is evident also in the nin.dingir installation (Emar 369). There, the new priestess is consecrated by anointing and proclaimed the nin.dingir of the storm-god, but she cannot take up residence in her temple home until the departed priestess has been properly mourned. 67 No further evidence suggests any nonritual custom by which this sacred year might have been distinguished at Emar. 68 Expansion of the zukru to a seven-year cycle is the most striking feature of the zukru festival calendar, and this expansion plays the largest role in producing the final effect. No other rite took place on such a grand scale, whether we are measuring according to expense or according to time. Similar practices are found here and there throughout the ancient Near East. A Hittite royal ritual was performed every six years, 69 and a Hurrian omen text mentions an offering for Tessub, the head of the pantheon, every seventh year. 70 One administrative document from Ebla lists donations of precious metals toward celebration of “the feast of the stelas” and lists “year 7, year 6,” and so on, for a seven-year period. 71 The preparatory days and the seven-day feast of the other zukru expansions appear elsewhere in Emar ritual, but no other event expands the annual calendar into a broader celebration. The First Expansion: The Seven-Day Feast According to the festival text, the actual zukru lasted only seven days, starting with the 15th of sag.mu in the seventh year. Rites for the sixth year and preparation on the 14th of sag.mu only anticipate the main event. The surviving introduction to the festival in part II declares that the citizens of Emar gave the zukru to Dagan in the seventh year. 72 The central part of the text is dominated 67. See my Installation, 192–95. 68. By tradition, if never in recorded practice, the Bible associates the sacred sabbatical year with manipulation of the social order: release from debts and “rest” for agricultural land. 69. G. Furlani, “Fest bei den Hethitern,” RLA 3 (1957–71) 44; Itamar Singer, The Hittite ki.lam Festival (StBoT 27; 2 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983) 1.48; AM 138, IV:41; AM 162, IV:22. 70. See Gernot Wilhelm, Grundzüge der Geschichte und Kultur der Hurriter, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche, 1982) 96. 71. TM.75.G.1376, n i d b ax n a - r ú; see Giovanni Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981) 72. A second text, TM.75.G.427 (p. 71), lists deliveries for the palace complex over a seven-year period, an administrative interval of unclear inspiration. On the latter, see also A. Archi, “The Archives of Ebla” in Cuneiform Archives and Libraries (ed. Klaas R. Veenhof; CRRAI 30; Leiden: Nederlands historisch-archaeologisch Instituut, 1986) 74. 72. Lines 169–70. Any introduction at the top of the tablet is lost. Part I does narrow the performance of the festival to “the next year” (line 38), further defined to begin on the 15th day (line 44).

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by a long list of deities that is introduced by the heading “For the seven days of the zukru festival they serve all the gods of Emar.” 73 This period began on the 15th of sag.mu, as set forth in line 44. Unfortunately, little more than the god list is preserved from the description of the seven-day feast. 74 Whatever else occurred during this time, the seven days of the zukru systematically recognized every Emar cult with generous offerings that required the largest outlay of any Emar ritual. For the occasion, the pantheon was divided into three tiers. The gods in the highest tier received the largest amount of animals, bread, and drink, and each lower tier received lesser quantities in succession. Three other Emar festivals were constructed around a seven-day period of offering and feasting: the installations of the nin.dingir and the masªartu priestesses and a rite for the kissu festivals together. 75 None of these texts shows any sign that the central ritual drama of each event was integrated into the seven-day period. In each case, the defining activities took place before and after the sevenday feast, not during its course. In the nin.dingir festival, for example, the new priestess moved through several visible steps toward full establishment in the storm-god’s temple. She was selected and anointed, shaved at her first arrival to the temple gate, enthroned as priestess, and shuttled back and forth between the temple and her family home, until a final procession on the last day, after which she took up residence in her new domain. These rites were spread out through two preliminary days and the first and last of a seven-day feast, a temporal structure that itself is static. The same was true of the installation of the masªartu, which only abandoned its schedule of feasts at major temples on the seventh day; the priestess reappeared to participate in the ritual climax that night. 76 The seven days of the installations marked time without advancing the initiate at any point toward her ritual destination. Likewise, expansion of the zukru to seven days added no new development to its basic movement from the city to the shrine of stones and back. Instead, the extended periods of offerings to all of 73. Line 75, u4.7.kám sa ezenzu-uk-ri. The god list occupies lines 76–162. 74. Most of the account would have been located at the top of column II. The eight kubadu rites of line 73 should somehow be related to the same period, but all detail is lost. The new join provides little intelligible information but shows that the text for this section does not simply parrot instructions from the 15th of sag.mu and its offerings for processional days (lines 65–74). 75. Emar 369, 370, and 388 respectively. The kissu rite for Dagan (385:1–27) had a similar three-day feast. The simplest meaningful solution to the difficult term kissu may be to read it as the common Semitic word ‘throne’, rendered with western /i/ and final short vowel. Emar scribes frequently write Akkadian kussû without marking a final long vowel, and the only syllabic spelling of ‘throne’ in the festival texts uses /i/, though with the long vowel marked (370:79, cf. 16). See Installation, 258–60. 76. Damage to the tablet hinders interpretation, but the seventh day receives the most extended treatment (370:69–107).

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Emar’s gods apparently coincided with the feasting of all of the people of Emar, gathering the whole community together for the most important public religious occasions. The festivals that involved presenting the consecration offerings or other distributions to “all the gods of Emar” were the same events that incorporated the seven- and three-day periods. 77 When the zukru was celebrated as a seven-day feast, with offerings to all of the gods, it was placed within a small circle of major holidays at Emar. All of the calendar expansions of the zukru built off the first day of the festival, the 15th or full moon of the month called sag.mu ‘the head of the year’. The procedure for this day closely resembled the procedure for the consecration day, the 25th of Niqali, but the animal sacrifice for the 15th was larger. 78 Dagan was addressed by the unique title “father” on this day. 79 The two installation festivals also counted their seven days from a starting focal point, the actual enthronement of the priestesses on the first day of each feast. 80 This center of the zukru festival calendar, the 15th of sag.mu, has a unique association with a moon-god named Saggar. Saggar appears with every reference to this day, even in the sixth year. 81 The festival text distinguishes between the god himself and the days and offerings identified by his name. The 15th of sag.mu becomes “Saggar day,” and the opening day of the zukru proper even introduces “Saggar loaves.” 82 Saggar is also honored, without any zukru connection, on the 15th of an unidentified month in the text for six months, so he is not bound narrowly to only one event. It is possible that the reference in the text for

77. “All the gods of Emar,” Emar 369:6, 19, 22, 48 (nin.dingir); 370:40 (masªartu); 373:75 (zukru, followed by an extended list); likewise “the gods of Satappi,” 385:11–12, cf. 4 (Dagan kissu); 388:5 (general kissu). 78. Animals for sacrifice on the first day of the main zukru cannot all be counted, due to damage at the left edge of the tablet, but the available numbers show a significant increase on the 15th of sag.mu compared to amounts for the 25th of Niqali. The city provided 10, 2, and 2 lambs for Dagan, dnin.urta, and Sassabetu (lines 48, 52, and 54), versus 2(?), 1, and 1 on Niqali 25 (lines 19, 23, and 26). The summary line 59 appears to count 12 calves for this day, compared with 4 on the 25th of Niqali. 79. Line 190. 80. See 369:29 and 370:20, with the verb malluku ‘to put into office’ (or ‘to make reign’). 81. Lines 44, 171, 178–79, 187, and 190–91. Saggar also appears in the central offering list: a reference to him should be restored in line 86, dnin.kur [dSa-ag-ga-ar ù dHal-ma], cf. 378:12; and probably alone in line 125, dSa-a[g-ga-ar(?)]. 82. Both of these are written without the divine determinative and with the case ending, as an adjective: i-na u4-mi Sa-ag-ga-ri, line 171; cf. 44, 187; nindames Sag-ga-ru, line 190. In procession, the god himself is marked as a deity: dSa-ag-ga-ar, line 178; dSaggàr, line 190.

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six months belongs to a month equivalent to sag.mu, in which case all of his appearances would fall on the same day of the year. 83 In its seven-day form, the zukru follows another typical festival pattern. Active completion of each festival’s particular ritual business was reserved for the final day of the allotted block of days for offering and feasting. It has already been observed that the masªartu priestess returned to action on the final night. On the seventh day of her installation feast, the nin.dingir priestess also left her family home for the last time and was set up in her temple residence, left to a new bed in a prepared room. 84 The account of the seventh day of the zukru feast is obscured by damage to the tablet, but it shows a similar return to the main action of the festival. First of all, the occasion was important enough to merit another visit to the shrine of stones. 85 One distinct rite appears at the conclusion of the zukru. 86 The word ‘return’ (turtu) refers to the final disposition of the offering materials made available during the zukru festival. On each previous visit to the sikkanu shrine, leftover meat, breads, and drink went back up to the city, but on the last day, nothing may do so. 87 Instead, everything must be picked up and placed in ‘return’. 88 Ritual ‘return’ in the zukru festival apparently restored leftover offerings to the institutions that supplied them: the king (also, “palace”), the city, and the House of the Gods, all of whose pens and storehouses may have stood outside the city walls. In the nin.dingir installation, specific paraphernalia were also ‘returned’ (verb turru) to their points of origin after participation in the festival, and 83. See Emar 446:45; the god and the calendar will be discussed at greater length with text 446, when all of the evidence has been introduced. 84. Emar 369:60–75. 85. Fragments of the central rite at the stones are preserved in both part I (lines 163–68) and part II (197, 202–4). Most of the description in the first section would have been found at the bottom of column III, after the offering list. There is room for another rendition of the offering to Dagan, dnin.urta, Sassabetu, and the palace deities. 86. I do not include the phrase in line 201, ki-i-me-e izi ‘after the fire’, though it is unique. Some distinctive seventh-day rite may be assumed, but it appears to receive only passing mention in part II, in the description of the ritual for Dagan’s procession. Unique use of tamarisk (gisßinig) at the end of the offering section (line 168) also indicates a different closing sequence. 87. Line 201, versus lines 37, 64, 179, 184–85, and 194. Note that line 199 adds gabbu ‘all’ to the usual description of meat and breads. 88. Line 200; the verbs are nasû and sakanu, both G stem. This ritual use of the Akkadian noun turtu is unfamiliar and seems to reflect local usage and cult. AHw s.v. turtu(m) ‘Umwendung’ mentions (1) inversion of the eyes as an illness, (2) cancellation? (“Rückgängigmachung,” in MA law), (3) reversion of evil onto another, (4) answer (to a letter), and (5) a technical OB land term, eqel turtim. None of these offers a promising avenue for interpretation of the Emar use.

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the zukru return may have derived from the same activity. 89 The materials for return included “what they eat,” “from the seven(?) days,” and “from between the upright stones.” 90 The eating could refer to the materials provided for the populace, 91 the seven days may refer to unknown offerings described in the column II gap, and “between the upright stones” could indicate the particular offerings that accompanied Dagan between the stones on the processional days. 92 This rite appears also during the month of Adamma in the text for six months and should not be considered unique to the zukru. 93 All of the gods went out of the city to the shrine of stones on the opening and closing days of the zukru, but they remained sedentary during the intervening period. 94 In this respect, the seven-day offering resembles the preparatory days of the last expansion. Like the offerings for the 24th of Niqali and the 14th of sag.mu, the offerings for all seven days are provided only by the king. 95 It is not surprising, then, to find several palace cults that are absent from most god lists of the diviner’s archive. 96 One unusual list displays close association with the zukru festival: it 89. The paraphernalia returned include dnin.urta’s divinatory lots (purû ‘bowl’) to his temple (369:5–6), dnin.kur’s red wool garment to her temple (line 60), and perhaps an ox from the procession slaughtered only later, evidently after return (lines 76–77). 90. The categories are sa ik-ka-lu, sa u4.[7.kám(?)], and sa [be-ra-at] na4si-ka-na-ti (lines 199–200). Restoration of the festival text is aided by comparison with zukru fragment 374:4–9. Breads and meat are mentioned in line 3, perhaps with reference to what went in procession (line 4, [il-l]a-ku). The text then addresses placement in turtu first in terms of ritual participation (lines 4–6), then by supplier (lines 7–9): 4. . . ù gáb-bá [(breads?) . . . mi-im-ma(?)] 5 sa é hi.a ù sa be-ra-[at na4.messi-ka-na-ti] 6 i-na-as-su-ni-ma i-na tu-ur-ti [i-sak-kán-nu(?)] 7 ù sum-ma amar sila4 sa [uru.ki(?) . . . ] 8 sum-ma sa é.gal-lì ù sum-ma [(another animal or supplier)] 9 i-na tu-ur-ti i-sak-kán-nu; ‘and all the (breads?), everything(?) from (“of ”) the temples and from between the sikkanu stones they take up and place(?) in return. And if a calf or lamb (is) from (“of ”) the city(?) . . . , if from the palace, or(?) if (from . . .?) . . .they place (it) in return’. In line 4, mi-im-ma is restored based on 373:199. After this, the sikkanu(?) stones are rubbed with blood and oil, and some turtu ritual is ‘performed’ (ep-pa-su, lines 10–11). 91. Lines 22, 32, and 51. 92. At least these last offerings include sacrificial animals, which are singled out in lines 18–19 and 48–49. The offerings of the great central distribution list may not be affected by turtu ‘return’, since they appear to go directly to the sanctuaries of the named deities. ‘Return’ should apply only to materials brought out of the city to the sikkanu site. 93. Emar 446:85–87. 94. Although the text for part I is incomplete, part II omits this interval from its treatment of the procession. 95. See lines 76–77, 96, and 113, restored by the pattern of the first. 96. The long zukru list rounds out the first tier of the pantheon with cults for Astart (lines 88, 92–94) and palace deities: Belet-ekalli (line 87), Sîn sa ekalli (89), Samas sa ekalli (90), and Dagan sa ekalli (91). In the second and third tiers, palace cults include

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uses Dagan’s title bel bukari (Lord of the Offspring), followed by an initial hierarchy of gods very similar to the zukru order. 97 The zukru festival’s attention to the entire Emar pantheon was the domain of the palace, through its supply of systematic distributions. 98 The text seems to treat the framing seven-day feast as a royal donation, which contrasts with the installations and the kissu festivals, which are always sponsored by a designated clan head (bel biti ‘house-owner’). 99 Although we cannot be sure whether the zukru was ever celebrated for a seven-year cycle without royal support, the impressive outlay for the expanded calendar in this text is strongly linked to the king’s provision. The financial responsibility undertaken by the ruler contrasts with his total absence from the activities of the zukru. 100 Stripped down to its core elements, the festival required only the presence of the town’s populace, perhaps led by elders, as in the installation of the nin.dingir priestess, but without any formal role for the king or the Ishara of the King (106), dx-na-na of the Palace (108), and two pair of Balih-River deities of the palace garden (141). Contrast the lists of Emar 379–84. 97. Compare Emar 378:1–13 with 373:12–16 (for the 24th of Niqali) and lines 76–88. For a full list with comment, see my Installation, 243–44. The one deity missing from the first tier of the zukru and 378 lists who clearly belongs in the first rank, based on other Emar evidence, is Ishara. Ishara joins Dagan and dnin.urta to constitute the three representatives of the heavenly (as opposed to underworld) pantheon in the kissu text 385:8, and she is one of the five deities who receive kissu festivals (387, with dnin.urta). Dagan, dninurta, and Ishara are invoked in a curse in a legal document drawn up at the palace (125:37–39; cf. Ishara and a storm-god cult in AuOrS 1 48:49–50, not proven from Emar). In spite of all this, Ishara makes no appearance in the long zukru list until the second tier, where she is acknowledged in three forms, gaßan uru.ki (‘mistress of the city’, line 105), sa lugal (‘of the king’, line 106), and sa f.mesmux-nab-bi-ia-t[i] (‘of the prophetesses’, line 107). On the last, see my “nabû and munabbiatu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel,” JAOS 113 (1993) 178–79. This goddess holds a venerable place in Emar religion, but her cult appears to have languished somewhat under the 13th-century kings, even when the king sponsored one minor shrine (sa lugal). 98. Breaks in the tablet prevent us from knowing whether the city and the House of the Gods were responsible for any offerings at all during the seven-day period, outside of the visits to the sikkanu stones. The phrase ma-la sa [. . .] of line 67 appears to echo ma-la al-lu-ti-im-ma ‘as much as the others’ of the palace-sponsored rites for the 14th of sag.mu (line 43), and the only other trace of offering supply identifies the king (line 74). 99. On the bel biti and festival supply, see my Installation, 97–98. The annual zukru in Emar 375 recognizes a seventh day but does not clearly require the regular offerings envisioned by the festivals and rendered particularly expensive in the zukru by distribution to every cult. 100. This lack of royal activity stands in contrast to the practice of most neighboring societies, whose kings appeared at the very center of their ritual observances and their description. The attested contemporary neighbors include Hatti to the north, Assyria to the east, and Ugarit to the west. See Fleming, UF 24 61 n. 14; Installation, 99–100.

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diviner. 101 Just as in Emar economic affairs the city, the elders, and dnin.urta functioned in some respects independently of the local king, old local ritual preserved a sacred realm that was not dominated by the king. The festival text suggests that there was at least a potential for tension between royal ambition and the independent city practice. A king who found himself excluded from the key traditional activities of Emar’s most prized calendar event could still enhance his stature by lavishly magnifying the tradition in a special seventh-year observance. Hittite festival celebrations during the imperial period likewise were simpler rites expanded under state aegis, with additional funding from the palace and Hattusa, to show off royal stature. 102 The expansion of the zukru’s core procession into a seven-day festival represents the first enhancement of its effect by extending its duration. 103 Outside of Emar, texts from Syria display the seven-day interval in a variety of ritual and narrative settings. Mari letters mention a seven-day vigil in Dagan’s temple, as well as seven-day sieges and an obscure royal visit to the countryside for seven days. 104 At a much later date, an account from an early Christian writer describes a sevenday pagan festival at Edessa. 105 All of the three long Ugaritic tales make use of the seven-day interval. Baal’s palace is plated with gold and silver refined by seven days of fire; Keret travels to ªUdm for seven days to get a wife and then besieges the city for seven more; and Danªel undertakes two seven-day cycles of service to Baal and the birth goddesses 101. For the elders, see ibid., 103–4. 102. See the comments of Haas, Geschichte, 676–77. The intrusion of royal power into preexisting religious custom can be seen from a greater distance in the improvements that were offered to small local shrines, as recorded in the “cult inventories” that document this royal benevolence; see Charles W. Carter, Hittite Cult Inventories (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1962) 17–19. 103. The number seven was used widely in the ancient world to enhance the significance of an event. For an early survey of the evidence, see Johannes Hehn, Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern und im Alten Testament (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1907). 104. See ARM XXVI 5:7 (Dagan’s temple); I 131:10–16 and XXVI 405:3 (sieges); and XXVI 216:11 (royal visit). Durand discusses the first text and a related unpublished tablet (A.861) in AEM I/1, p. 84. For the separate Mari festival of sebû(t) sebîm, the seventh day of the seventh month, see D. Charpin, “Les mois Uwarum et Sebûtum,” N.A.B.U. (1989) 66 (no. 93). For exploration of the siege references in relation to Ugarit’s Keret legend and the Bible’s tale of Jericho, see my “Seven-Day Siege of Jericho in Holy War,” in Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine (ed. R. Chazan, W. W. Hallo, and L. H. Schiffman; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999) 211–28. 105. H. J. W. Drijvers, “The Persistence of Pagan Cults and Practices in Christian Syria,” in East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period (ed. Nina G. Garsoian et al.; Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982) 39, from the “Chronicle” of Joshua the Stylite, xxx.

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in pursuit of a son. 106 The seven-day periods in Ugaritic storytelling resemble Emar’s ritual block of time in that the action enters a period of stasis that is only released on the powerful final day. Ugaritic ritual texts, however, offer no instance of a continuous sequence of seven feast days. 107 The origin of the seven-day division in ritual time remains obscure. Israel’s adoption of the unit to make the week a new regular division of sacred time more likely derives from occasional ritual use than vice versa, since the ritual interval is older and more widespread in the ancient Near East. The seven days of Emar ritual are not defined by the lunar cycle, and it should not be assumed that the period originated there. 108 More likely, the number seven was already held in 106. See KTU 1.4 VI:24–33 (Baal); 1.14 III:2–4, 10–15; IV:31–33, 44–46; V:3–6 (Keret); 1.17 I:6–17; II:27–40 (Danªel). In a fourth text, the feast of the rpªm lasted for seven days (KTU 1.22 I:21–25). For discussion of the literary effect, see Kenneth T. Aitken, “Formulaic Patterns for the Passing of Time in Ugaritic Narrative,” UF 19 (1987) 1–10. 107. Gregorio del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion according to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1999) 106 n. 77. 108. The Mesopotamian month was divided into regular seven-day quarters only during the first millennium; see Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “The Impact of Month-Lengths on the Neo-Babylonian Cultic Calendar,” ZA 83 (1993) 80; Francesca Rochberg-Halton, “Calendars: Ancient Near East,” ABD 1.812. Observance of the first, seventh, and fifteenth days is much older, but the seventh day was not dominant. These have been treated at length in various studies; see Henri Limet, “L’organisation de quelques fêtes mensuelles à l’époque néo-sumérienne,” in Actes de la XVIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (ed. André Finet; Brussells: Comité belge de recherches en Mésopotamie, 1970) 59–74; William W. Hallo, “New Moons and Sabbaths: A Case-Study in the Contrastive Approach,” HUCA 43 (1977) 1–13; Walther Sallaberger, Der kultische Kalender der Ur III-Zeit (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993) 37–96. Other monthly rites were observed on a local scale, such as Nintinuga’s Bath at the beginning of the month and the Exalted Garden (gisk i r i6-m a h) on the 6th/7th, 17th, and 27th at Nippur; see Sallaberger, pp. 109–13. This cycle survived in modified form as the Akkadian essessu through the second and first millennia, with the true lunar divisions finally preserved in the late Babylonian hitpu rituals. Beaulieu (ZA 83 66–87) concentrates particularly on these and related rites. Ellen Robbins is presently working on the same texts. For first-millennium monthly rites more generally, see the list in Gilbert J. P. McEwan, Priest and Temple in Hellenistic Babylonia (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1981) 171. On observance of the 6th, 16th, 26th/27th, and 28th as regular days for confession of wrong, see René Labat, “Jours préscrits pour la confession des pêchés,” RA 56 (1962) 1–8; Brigitte Groneberg, “Die Tage des sigû,” N.A.B.U. (1989) 7–10 (no. 9). The Roman calendar observed a seven-day period derived from a completely separate source in astrology but from which the seven days of our week were calculated by setting the seven “planets” (including sun and moon) against twenty-four hours of a day; see Lawrence Wright, Clockwork Man (New York: Horizon, 1969) 15–16; Michele R. Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) 13, 31.

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high regard, and such coincidences with natural phenomena were subsequently attached to it. The number’s significance evidently did not derive from a single source. Whatever the origin, celebration of the zukru as a seven-day festival placed it in the company of the most important religious events in the life of the city. The king took advantage of this status to underwrite offerings for every cult place at Emar, defined in the broadest possible terms. 109 The effect was majestic, but at its core, the zukru remained focused on a procedure that was always finished in a single day. The Main Event: At the Stones outside the City Walls At the center of zukru festival activity, we find one repeated event, defined by rites outside the city walls at a place called “the gate of the sikkanu stones.” A complex procedure was performed, with little variation, on the consecration day for the sixth year and on the first and seventh days of the zukru celebration in the seventh year. Comparison with the two installation festivals, where the priestesses took office on the first day of a seven-day feast, suggests that this opening day may also represent the calendrical center of the zukru festival. Unlike the installations, however, the zukru festival replays the core event, as if for emphasis. The best evidence for what inspired the zukru should lie in the processions to these stones. 110 Even the unique addition of part II as a special section to clarify the execution underscores the centrality of these processions. In a collection of ritual texts that are 109. This scope contrasts with the more limited lists from the diviner’s archive and allows the modern reader a much wider perspective on Emar temples and shrines. 110. ká na4.messi-ka-na-ti, lines 25, 29, 47, 172, 181, 188; cf. 163, 203. Stefano Seminara (L’accadico di Emar [Rome: Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza,” 1998] 489) understands the combination i/a-na ká as a compound preposition, without any reference to a gate, based on Emar 394:38, i-na ká gisbanßurm[es]-su-nu i-laq-q[u]. This text certainly does not describe a procession into or out of the city, but the proposed syntax would be awkward with the transitive verb leqû: *‘they receive on their tables’? I prefer to read ‘their tables’ as the direct object of leqû and translate ‘they receive their tables in the gate’, at the time of the feast described in the previous line. Compare the arrangement of tables for feast participants ‘at the gate of the storm-god’s temple’ during the installation of the god’s nin.dingir (a-na ká é dim, Emar 369:15). The priestess is then anointed ‘at the gate of the storm-god’ (line 20). One could doubt the location at an actual gate, but 369:9 has the priestess shaved ‘at the opening of the courtyard gate’ a/i-na pí-i ká (sa) ta-ar-ba-ßi, where ká/babu is separated from the preposition by the noun pî. Surely the entrance represents the real focus of the nin.dingir rite, and this would suggest that the similar configuration of tables in 394:38 is also found at a gate. This, in turn, undermines Seminara’s proposal that i/a-na ká in general should be read as a compound preposition rather than a concrete ritual location.

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preoccupied with the disbursement of materials for offerings, the prolonged diversion from matters of supply and distribution in part II is remarkable. The main part of each day outside the city appears to be occupied with offering and feasting. The text does not narrow the focus to the stones themselves until after the feast is finished, with details divided between parts I and II. 111 Explanation for the journey to this site is found in the following combination of events: the feast for all Emar, anointing of the stones with oil and blood, driving Dagan between the stones, and performance of an offering called the kubadu on arrival at the great gate of the city. The text allows some confusion about the order of these events, in part because the sequence may not have been the scribe’s primary interest, 112 and partly because Dagan’s passage between the stones appears mainly in part II, the feast and the anointing only in part I, and the kubadu in both. The first day of the seven-day festival offers the most coherent sequence and is therefore the best starting point for reconstruction. The anointing of the stones is set “after they eat and drink,” shorthand for the offering and feast described in the previous lines. 113 Then, “just before evening,” the gods are brought back into the city, and the kubadu ceremony is performed at the great gate. 114 Part II inserts Dagan’s passage between the stones before the kubadu. 115 Description of the seventh festival day at the end of part I also places Dagan’s drive between the stones before the kubadu offering, which is made a station in the processional return to the city: “when they reach the Battle Gate, they perform the lesser kubadu ceremony.” 116 A real change in the order of return for this last day would move the stones from outside 111. See lines 34–37, 60–64, and 163–68 (part I); and 171–85, 187–94, and 197– 204 (part II). 112. This can be especially confusing in part II. For instance, general instructions for veiling during the processions out from and back to the city on the 25th of Niqali simply bracket the whole day’s activity (lines 180–82). Discussion of the central procession of Dagan’s wagon is then defined with reference to the release of purified herds and flocks on the previous 15th of sag.mu, but the relation between the two events is unclear. 113. Line 60; cf. line 34. The description in part I of the out-bound procession and subsequent offerings varies slightly, but the variation need not imply that the procedures were truly distinct. The 25th of Niqali distinguishes Dagan and Sassabetu, who simply ‘go out’ (waßû, G, lines 18 and 25), from the palace deities, who are ‘brought out’ (waßû, S, line 30); but the 15th of sag.mu simply lists together all of the (same) gods who receive offerings at the sikkanu stones with waßû, S (lines 44–47). Day 15 makes explicit the actual procedure, with procession necessarily preceding offering, while day 25 breaks up the procession into separate offering events. 114. Lines 61–63. 115. Lines 191–93, also ina pani nubatti. 116. Line 166; cf. 163–67. The verb kasadu describes a similar aspect of procession in the nin.dingir installation; this procession arrives at the storm-god’s temple (369:8).

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the walls into the city gate, which would only be possible if the locations were close enough to allow conflation. Placement of Dagan’s procession “after they eat and drink” on the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year further confirms its general situation following the feast. Regardless of any uncertainty about the degree of variation, the same elements are present in every version, and these elements represent the main event in the zukru celebration. The Feast for All Emar: The People, the Gods, and the Sassabeyanatu Spirits The long first part of the zukru festival text is concerned primarily with distributions for offering and feasting. Column I is the best-preserved section, and it devotes the greatest space to a feast for the consecration of the zukru and a feast on the first day of the festival. The only complete accounts of the rites outside the city that survive in both parts of the text are associated with this opening day. The feast at the shrine of stones takes similar form on both the 25th of Niqali and the 15th of sag.mu. First, it was necessary to bring out of the city the divine population of Emar, divided into two categories: “all of the gods” and “the Sassabeyanatu spirits.” 117 Offerings are then specified for certain individual deities: Dagan, the chief god of the middle Euphrates region; the city god, rendered by the Sumerian name dnin.urta; a goddess Sassabetu, obviously related to the group of spirits; and three palace deities: Belet-ekalli, and Sîn and Samas sa ekalli, treated as a pair. Meanwhile, the human population joins the gods for a feast in which “the people” are supplied with a standard portion of one bán of pappasu bread, four bán of barley bread, and four pihu vessels for drink. 118 It is hard to judge the relationship of these portions to the size of the crowd. This quantity of bread, perhaps baked from roughly one bushel of flour each time, would not feed a cast of thousands or even several hundred. 119 No meat is in117. Lines 17, 46, 188, and 197. The second group is marked with the divine determinative. 118. unmes/nisu, lines 22, 32, and 51. The consecration day appears to envision two servings (lines 22 and 32), as opposed to one at the zukru opening (line 51), though the latter offering and feast should be greater. The first and last servings (lines 22 and 51) are coordinated with the offerings to Dagan, the second time identified with supply from the House of the Gods, while the 25th of Niqali includes a donation from the palace in conjunction with offerings to the palace gods (line 32). 119. Five sutu (bán) of barley and barley mash for bread may approach one bushel total. See CAD s.v. qû B for qa/qû as slightly less than one liter (Babylonian, 0.84; NeoAssyrian 0.823). CAD s.v. sutu A 2b ‘capacity in silas’, includes vessels with volume from four to ten qa/silà per bán /sutu. One (U.S.) bushel equals 35.24 liters, so that 20 to 50 silàs would amount to anywhere from one-half to over one bushel. The ritual measure appears to apply to the grain or mash that has to be allotted from stores to bake the bread rather than to the finished product.

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cluded, however, and community celebration probably involved the sharing of a sacrificial meal. Actual consumption may have included some part of the larger offering as well, so that the specific portions provided for the people may represent a ceremonial allotment for a smaller component of the feast. 120 Feasting by the population of Emar is recorded explicitly only for the zukru, and this provision adds to the inclusive character of the whole event. 121 In contrast, even when “the sons of Emar” are said to initiate the installation of the storm-god’s high priestess, only certain people are invited to feast at the temple. 122 The inclusion of the Sassabeyanatu spirits with “all of the gods” appears to involve a class of divine beings who did not enjoy their own cult among the shrines of the “gods.” None of these spirits is mentioned in the long list of deities, which is introduced as a comprehensive catalog of the service for “all the gods of Emar.” 123 These divine beings are female but are not the goddesses of the offering lists, who are mingled with the male deities. The best comparative phenomenon relative to these spirits may be the Mesopotamian lamassu spirits, female protective daimons that are specially associated with temple doors, a location from which they served as go-betweens for 120. This explanation might account for the repeated allotment on the 25th of Niqali (lines 22, 32). 121. Although the immediate text records only the supply of food for the people, the anointing of the stones in lines 34 and 60 is introduced by the phrase kimê ikkalu isattû ‘after they eat (and) drink’. No other human participants are mentioned. Note that unmes should be read nisu, not kalam/matu. The feast also appears in the shorter text, 375:15. 122. These include “the men of the qidasu,” who are comprised of at least the diviner and the singers, along with other groups even more difficult to define: the hussu, the hamsaªu, the ka-WA-nu, and the tarû (attendants). See especially 369:13, 38–39; and my Installation, 94–97, 102, and 104–5. The masªartu installation describes feasting by “seven men” of several towns (370:56–57), and at the end of the kissu festival for Ishara and dnin.urta ‘every one of the city’s men and women’ (lúmes mímes sa uru.ki gáb-bu atta-ma-an-nu) receives 30 parisu of flour and buckets (gisbuginmes) of bitter and sweet preparations, and of beer. This kissu instruction is astonishing and far exceeds amounts possible for offering remains. Thirty parisu of flour match the nin.dingir’s annual barley allotment for a good year, and here this amount is promised explicitly to each and every (gabbu attamannu) man and woman. Both Ishara and dnin.urta had special associations with the city, and this occasion appears to celebrate an unusual bounty that allowed the city grain stores to be opened for generous and universal distribution. The scope of the allotments suggests a special event that could not have been intended for every year. The mysterious kissu rites are not governed by the annual calendar, and this detail may point to fairly rare celebration, like the installations that they so resemble. On the kissu festivals generally, see my Installation, 255–63; on dnin.urta, pp. 248–52; on Ishara, pp. 252– 53. Ishara is worshiped at one shrine as gaßan uru.ki ‘Lady of the City’ (373:94). 123. Line 75, dingirmes u[ru]ªEº-mar gáb-bá, with verb palahu ‘to revere, serve’.

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deities and humans. 124 Any person, god, place, or object could have a lamassu, and each city could have one as well. Usually they were given physical form as figurines made of precious metals. Northern Syria preserved into late antiquity an expression of the female protective spirit called the Gad in Semitic or the Tyche in Greek. 125 Like the lamassu, the Gaddê are attributed a protective function, in this case over towns, tribes, or individuals. 126 The presence and the absence of the Gad are linked to good and bad fortune in a way that strongly resembles the activity of the personal god and goddess in Mesopotamian thought. 127 The Sassabeyanatu spirits receive no offering in the zukru festival text, and they may have another function. If they share the lamassu’s place at the entrances of shrines and other buildings, they may provide a mobile protection for the gods and the people who have left the security of the city for feasting outside the walls. 128 Any gift to the Sassabeyanatu spirits could only be presented through a single goddess with the related name, Sassabetu. 129 Sassabetu goes out in procession as a resident of the temple of dnin.urta, the city god who is most often

124. See D. Foxvog, W. Heimpel, and A. D. Kilmer, “Lamma/Lamassu. A.I. Mesopotamien. Philologisch,” RLA 6 (1980–83) 446–53: “Although L. came to be conceptualized with the general notion of its agency in good fortune or protection, it appears to have its origins in the supernatural realm of demons, not divinities” (p. 447). Together, the sedu and lamassu would serve as a male/female guardian pair. 125. H. J. W. Drijvers, The Religion of Palmyra (Leiden: Brill, 1976) 13; Javier Teixidor, The Pantheon of Palmyra (Leiden: Brill, 1979) 88. The basis for the equation is inscriptional (p. 94). 126. Ibid., 88. The Gaddê are similar to another type of spirit called the gnyª (ginnayê) or genii, of Arab origin. At Palmyra, the gnyª are protectors over caravans, cattle, and desert villages (p. 78). Their function overlaps with the Gaddê, but perhaps the slight difference in associations reflects their separate origins. 127. Ibid., 94. For Mesopotamia, see A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (2d ed., Erica Reiner; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977) 198–206. See on the religion of “personal gods,” Robert A. DiVito, Studies in Third Millennium Sumerian and Akkadian Personal Names (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1993). 128. Compare also the Hittite female Damnassara-deities, identified with sphinxes and especially associated with doors; see Haas, Geschichte, 335–36; KUB 58.48 obv. III; CTH 408 obv. I:16. Haas (p. 450) also observes lamma-deities (from Mesopotamian lamassu) for palaces, houses, and temples in Hatti. Inar(a) (written dlamma-ra) is the protective deity of the city Hattusa. In general, the city may even provide security in the domain of divine powers. During the rites at the end of the month of Abî, some “doors” are barred throughout the new moon, a time when dangerous powers are at large. These may be the doors of one or more city gates. 129. Lines 25, 28, 45, and 56, always spelled with the short form dSa-as-sa-be-tu4/ti, versus d(.mes)Sa-(as-)sa-be-e/ia-na-tu4/ti/ta in lines 17, 46, 188, and 197. The spelling with -e- instead of -ia- is found in line 17.

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paired with the goddess Ishara. 130 The same association appears outside the zukru festival text in another form, combining dnin.urta and “the gods (spirits) of Sassabittu’s shrine.” 131 Sassabetu is found in one other ritual setting at Emar. One copy of the kissu texts combines the festivals into a set of five, with the last devoted to all of the kissus together. 132 After introduction of consecration rites, the text of this copy reads, “[They set] before the gods four tables as. . . . 133 [dnin.urta(?)] and Sassabitu [go out(?)] from the temple of dn[in.urta(?)], (and) they seat(?) her with dnin.kur.” 134 The verb that I translate ‘seat’ is written i-sa-sa-bu-si, shown to have active and transitive force by the suffix that refers to Sassabitu. Together, the forms of the verb and the deity produce a play of sounds that gives the impression that the words are cognate. Without a known root ssb, it is tempting to consider an unattested causative form of w/ysb ‘to sit, reside’ as the base form, but conclusive evidence remains elusive. 135 The goddess Sassabitu appears once earlier in the same kissu festival tablet, with even less context preserved. In the lead festival for Dagan, only the name is preserved in a section where text A provides no illuminating parallel. 136 130. Lines 25 and 45. Ishara shares dnin.urta’s identification with the city in her shrine for ‘the Lady of the City’ (gaßan uru.ki, 373:105). They share a kissu festival (Emar 387), a table in Dagan’s kissu (385:8), and a place in a royal curse (125:37–38). See my Installation, 249–50, for further comment. 131. The related god list, Emar 378:7–8, has dingirmes sa é-ti dSa-as-sa-bit-ti. The goddess appears in line 8, so one may also read ‘the gods of the temple; Sassabittu’. Given Sassabetu’s association with dnin.urta’s temple in Emar 373, this division seems unwarranted. The scribe makes a play on the divine name that further links her with the “house,” with both lines capable of being read as sa-bit-ti at the end. Sassabittu’s “house” in 378:7 would be part of dnin.urta’s temple. 132. Emar 385–88, text F; Arnaud defines the last kissu festival as Emar 388. 133. The comparison is obscure, though the signs are clear: ki-i nígpiß.ku (or, níggir. ku), with no adequate solution. The ritual texts usually distinguish the number 4 from the níg-sign by alignment of the lower vertical at the left side of the sign. The word I have left untranslated should define the arrangement of the tables. 134. 33 4 gisbanßurmes ki-i nígpiß.ku ana(diß) igi dingirm[es . . . dnin.urta(?)] 34 ù dSa-sa-bi-tu is-tu é dn[in.urta(?) uß-ßu-ma(?)] 35 it-ti dnin.kur i-sa-sa-bu-si [ . . . ] (text F 4 lines ii:33–35). Given the association in the zukru festival, restoration of dnin.urta is much more likely than of dnin.kur. I have added dnin.urta in line 4 to account for the conjunction ù, though perhaps this is unnecessary. The goddess is spelled dSa-sa-bi-tu4. 135. Among the possible analyses suggested by Manfried Dietrich (“Die Parhedra im Pantheon von Emar: Miscellanea Emariana (I),” UF 29 [1997] 120), note especially the parrasit- form (for sassabit-), which applies particularly to adjectives of residence (GAG §56o). Seminara (L’accadico, 355 and n. 49) interprets the verb as a local S durative of wasabu (isasabu, for use/asabu). 136. Arnaud includes the kissu festival for Dagan in his Emar 385. Dietrich (ibid., 118–19) builds a case that Sassabitu is a generic “consort” in part on the basis of this text,

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The temple of the city god may have been an appropriate home for a goddess who represented all the protective spirits of Emar collectively. In later Syria, we may find a similar phenomenon in the Tyches, who sometimes served as city guardians. 137 One late Syrian Tyche had such stature that she could be identified with a major goddess, perhaps Atargatis. 138 The Sassabeyanatu spirits, with the goddess Sassabetu as their representative in dnin.urta’s temple, completed the attendance at the zukru feast of all of the divine beings who cared for the city of Emar. Dagan and dnin.urta led the region and the town, while the remainder of the divine populace was invited in the most systematic fashion possible. The zukru required participation of the entire citizenry as a united community. The Anointing of the Stones The festival text places the feast for all Emar at “the gate of the sikkanu stones,” but the stones themselves receive no direct attention until after the eating and drinking are finished. 139 At this point, the procession back to the city is where he understands the goddess to take the place of text A’s dnin.kur. Text A (Arnaud’s 385:21) reads ªi-na u4º.4.kám dnin.kur ú-se-et-bu-ú! a-na nu-ba-ti 3?! fé.gi4.a i-sarra-qa ‘on the fourth day, (when) they make dnin.kur rise up (from Dagan’s temple), at the evening watch, three(?) brides will play flutes(?). The intransitive verb saraqu is unprecedented in Emar ritual and does not mean ‘to steal’; for this translation, compare the Biblical Hebrew root srq (‘whistle, pipe’). Text F has only the divine name Sassabitu in the first line and then [ . . . f ]ªéº.gi4.a i-sar-ra-qa in the second. Dietrich supposes that Sassabitu replaces dnin.kur, but it is more likely that a completely different ritual act takes place. The reference to dnin.kur in text A completes the period of her “lying down” in Dagan’s temple, and no other divine name is ever associated with this rite (see my Installation, 169–71). Notice that text G of the kissu festival set introduces Sassabitu into an earlier part of the same ritual, in a section devoted to Dagan in text A (lines 10– 20). Two lines in text G (rev. 3–4) have no counterpart in text A and are too broken to allow definite interpretation: dSa-as-sa-[bi-tu4(?) . . . ] i-na é en é it-ti d[ . . . ] ‘Sassabitu . . . in the house of the bel biti, with (the god[dess]). . .’ . 137. H. J. W. Drijvers (Cults and Beliefs at Edessa [Leiden: Brill, 1980] 68) describes the Tyche of Antioch as an archetype of such representations for cities in Syria and Mesopotamia: “The bronze statue showed the goddess sitting on a rock (i.e., Mount Silpius) and supporting herself with her left hand on the rock. A turretted crown on her head symbolized the city wall.” She is simultaneously the city’s protector and its personification. 138. Ibid., 84. Note again Inar(a), the protector of Hattusa. 139. Each procession is directed to this site (lines 25, 29, 47, 172, 181, and 188), which can be seen to have stood outside the city because materials from the feasting are said to “go back up into the city” after each visit (lines 37, 61, 64, 179, 185, 194, and 201). Arnaud (“La religión de los Sirios del Éufrates medio siglos XIV–XII a.c.,” in Mitología y Religión del Oriente Antiguo II/2 [Sabadell: AUSA, 1995] 16) already saw the equation of the sikkanu stones with the unique harßu stones of 373:22, though he had not joined the

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initiated by anointing the stones with oil and blood. 140 This anointing probably does not consecrate the stones as new cult objects, since it is repeated at the end of the festival as well as during the sixth year. 141 In each instance, the anointing immediately precedes the passage of Dagan between the stones and appears to prepare them for this event. The sikkanu stones are not merely a rudimentary form of temple construction. Rather, these upright stones mark the divine presence itself, like statues or figurines, but unformed or partially so. 142 Similar objects are the Hebrew maßßebâ and the Hittite huwasi. 143 Individual sikkanu stones are identified with specific deities in Emar ritual texts. 144 The new nin.dingir priestess anoints the sikkanu harßu text fragment to the larger tablet (see text and notes). 140. The verb †araªu ‘to rub’ (line 34, the 25th of Niqali) specifies the type of anointing assumed by the more general verb pasasu (line 61, the 15th of sag.mu). Note that the stones are defined as sikkanatu only in the second text. 141. See line 167. Notice that Mari records for oil disbursements show the elders of a town anointed just for participating in a rite of Dagan, not as an act of permanent consecration as sacred personnel; FM III 28:2–5, in David Duponchel, “Les comptes d’huile du palais de Mari datés de l’année de Kahat,” in Florilegium marianum III (ed. D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 1997) 219. 142. For discussion and citations of the Syrian word sikkanu (sikkannu), see my Installation, 76–79. Note especially J.-M. Durand, “Le culte des bétyles en Syrie,” in Miscellanea Babylonica: Mélanges offerts à Maurice Birot (ed. J.-M. Durand and J.-R. Kupper; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1985) 79–84. Durand has proposed an etymology from sakanum ‘to dwell’. Sylvie Lackenbacher (“À propos de l’étymologie de sikkanum,” N.A.B.U. [1991] 10–11 [no. 12]) suggests that use of the Akkadian verb naßabu (B) as ‘to settle’ compares to Arabic anßab for similar stones and supports Durand’s etymology. Baruch Margalit (“Akkadian sikkanum and Ugaritic SKN,” N.A.B.U. [1992] 18 [no. 22]) considers the sikkanu a shrine that houses a statue rather than a stele, but various usage of the term at Emar alone makes this unlikely. When the nin.dingir imitates her own anointing by pouring oil on the “head” (top) of Hebat’s sikkanu (369:34–35A, B(31–36)b–c), this is surely the very figure that carries the divine presence. Durand has now extended his discussion of the earlier sikkanum, which he understands to belong to a very old but not uniquely nomadic phenomenon; see J.-M. Durand and M. Guichard, “Les rituels de Mari,” in Florilegium marianum III, 32–37; Durand, “Réalités amorrites et traditions bibliques,” RA 92 (1998) 23–38. On the cult of similar stones at Ebla, even earlier, see Marco Bonechi, “Lexique et idéologie royale à l’époque proto-syrienne,” M.A.R.I. 8 (1997) 508–19. 143. Installation, 77 n. 28; 179 n. 322. J.-M. Durand (“Le nom des Bétyles à Ebla et en Anatolie,” N.A.B.U. [1988] 5 [no. 8]) suggests derivation of the Hittite word huwasi from Semitic humasum/humusum, understanding the term to refer to a deified stone. See also Durand, “Réalités amorrites et traditions bibliques,” 27–30. 144. The sikkanu is also found outside of ritual contexts: Emar 17:39–40; 125:40– 41; MBQ-T 36:14–19; 69:25–29; 73:8–11; in M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and W. Mayer, “Sikkanum ‘Betyle’,” UF 21 (1989) 136–37. These curses promise that a person’s own house

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of Hebat, the storm-god’s divine consort, just as she herself was anointed for service to the storm-god. 145 A sikkanu is set up on the roof of some building and presented with offerings on the night after the masªartu priestess is enthroned. 146 The shorter zukru text identifies another stone as the sikkanu of dnin.urta. 147 Mari texts likewise specify sikkanu stones of individual gods, 148 and Dagan in particular may be associated with some collected sikkanatum. 149 Texts contemporary with Late Bronze Emar point to the same identification of god and stone in the Hittite huwasi, and in some cases one deity has both a proper image inside a city temple and a stele set up outside the city, which the image visits during festivals. 150 The huwasi stones are found both inside city temples house will be lost, marked with a sikkanu, if he ignores a legal decision and its document. Though they are not set up in temples, such stones may not be entirely secular, if they involve the religious sanction assumed by a curse. 145. Emar 369:34–35A; B(31–36)b–c). At the bottom of the long zukru god list are paired cults for dim sa é Gad-dá, a nin.dingir installation site within the storm-god’s domain, and dSi-ka-ni sa dHé-bat (373:158–59). 146. Emar 370:41–43. Franco D’Agostino and Stefano Seminara (“Sulla continuità del mondo culturale della Siria settentrionale: La masªartum ad Ebla ed Emar,” RA 91 [1997] 1–20) understand the masªartu priestess to be uniquely associated with the service of the sacred stones, based on evidence from Ebla. A lexical text equates mas-ar-tù-um and mas-ar-tum with Sumerian na-rú, rendered sí-kà-na-tim elsewhere in the list (p. 2 and n. 4). In an administrative text, a masªartum is defined by her association with the ruler Ebrium rather than with a deity. This connection with stones is intriguing, but it seems inadequate to explain the role of Emar’s priestess a millennium later. A sikkanu stone is part of the masªartu’s enthronement, but another one plays a role in the nin. dingir’s installation, and the masªartu text does not offer any basis for a unique connection, one that defines her relationship to Astart-of-Battle or her ritual function. The Ebla evidence does not by itself explain Emar’s masªartu as a sikkanu-priestess. Note that Eugen J. Pentiuc (“West Semitic Terms in Akkadian Texts from Emar,” JNES 38 [1999] 95–96) suggests that the title is derived from the root tºr ‘to arrange, serve food’ rather than tfr, which he says should be written with -h-. This offers a viable option, though it does not explain her specific function or the association with Astart. 147. Emar 375:16. 148. Durand, “Le culte des bétyles en Syrie,” 79–84. 149. Durand reads ARM XXVI 230:1–2 as follows: i-na su-ut-ti-sa 1 lúßu.gi [i-na síka]-na-tim sa dDa-gan wa-si-ib ‘in her dream an old man was seated at the sikkanu stones of Dagan’. On this set, see Durand, “Le culte des Bétyles,” 81 n. 9, based on ARM XXIII 284, as [s]í-ka-nim, a separate cult object in an event devoted to Dagan. Jack Sasson has suggested to me that [maska]natim (‘threshing floors’) would also provide a satisfactory restoration. 150. A. Archi, “Fêtes de printemps et d’automne et réintégration rituelle d’images de culte dans l’Anatolie hittite,” UF 5 (1973) 20–21; for example, the storm-god in the an.ta˘.ßumsar festival, KBo 10.20 II 30–31. Scribal identification of huwasi with the

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and at shrines beyond the walls, with the shrines being the more archaic setting. Temple huwasis are small models made of precious materials, which recall the large stone originals and bring them into the newer urban sanctuaries. 151 Cult inventories from Hattusa review the condition of sacred sites outside the capital and occasionally describe local religious festivals. 152 In such shrines, cult images in human form were most often an innovation resulting from the king’s benefaction, for which the original divine representation was some symbol or a huwasi. 153 The sikkanu stones of Emar’s zukru festival further extend the scope of divine involvement; the gathering of the gods that already included all of the Sassabeyanatu spirits and all of the divine residents of city shrines is joined by a third group. The stones’ very distinction from all the other divine beings in the festival text indicates a third category, identified above all by separation from the physical bounds of the town. However great the distance, removal outside the city established a critical separation from the domains of the institutional cults based in sanctuaries within the walls. 154 The site itself is not described as a temple or shrine (é/bitu), and the stones were set up to allow passage “between” for a wagon of unknown size. 155 There is no reason to limit the arrangement to two stones. 156 A row of ten upright stones found at Gezer, dated to the last stage Syrian sikkanu appears to be intended by the logogram na4zi.kin for huwasi; see Haas, Geschichte, 507. 151. See ibid., 508; cf. Albrecht Goetze, Kleinasien (Munich: Beck, 1957) 168 on huwasi ‘stones’ of wood or metals. 152. Cult inventories are the subject of the study by Carter, Hittite Cult Inventories. 153. Ibid., passim. Statues perhaps were perceived to represent a more advanced portrayal of the divine presence, with fuller revelatory force. 154. The gate of the sikkanu stones is distinct from the great gate of battle, a separate site in the processional itinerary. The sacred array of stones itself is distinct from the gate, since rites that involve the stones mention no gate; anointing: line 60; cf. 34, 167; passage between the stones: lines 163, 174, 183, 192; cf. 200, 203. 155. Jack Sasson has suggested to me that this vehicle could be a model that is carried, rather than a full-sized wagon. 156. As does D. Arnaud; see “Traditions urbaines,” in Le Moyen-Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges (Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980) 254 and n. 45; CRAIBL (1980) 386. There is no reason to associate two stones, even if there were only two, with dnin.urta and Hebat, who are never linked at Emar. Though it is an argument from silence, I would point out the absence of any reference to “two” or a ‘pair’ (ta-pal), terminology known in the zukru god list, 373:98, 123, 141. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger (No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context [Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995] 120–21) suggests a parallel in the “Stelenstrasse” at Tell Chuera in northern Syria, which is dated to the late third millennium. This consists of two rows of stones, about 70 m long, flanking a carefully paved street, on the plain about 100 m east of the tell. The stones are large and crudely worked,

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of the Middle Bronze Age, appears to have been constructed at a single time and served a ritual purpose, though again the precise function of the stones cannot be discerned. 157 While the stones received no offering as such, the anointing of objects so closely identified with deity must represent a form of cultic care. This is certainly the case when the nin.dingir priestess anoints the sikkanu of Hebat, thus paying her respects to the divine consort of the storm-god she herself must serve. The anointing of the sikkanatu in the zukru festival prepares for the passage of Dagan’s image in his wagon, but it is also probably a form of tribute to the god or gods of the stones. The similarity between the anointings of the stones by the nin.dingir and in the zukru festival goes no further. The stone of Hebat was anointed by pouring oil on its “head,” and the same technique was used to initiate the nin.dingir priestess herself. A more intimate method was employed in the zukru festival, however. Oil and blood together were rubbed on the stones, an action that suggests physical contact with the hands. Anointing with oil is familiar to us from the preparation of divine statues in Mesopotamian and Syrian temple cults, where it was a finishing touch, after the statues were bathed and dressed. 158 In urban life at least, the procedure carried associations with civilization, whether for purity or pleasure. Blood, however, was not a substance commonly rubbed on temple statues, and the inclusion of this element suggests an association with a realm outside the built-up town and its temples, just as the stones themselves derive from religious practices not bound to urban life. 159 Pre-Islamic Arabian religion made the rubbing of blood on sacred stones a central feature of worship. 160 between 2 and 3 m high, with seven on one side and nine on the other. See A. Moortgat, Tell Chuera in Nordost-Syrien: Vorläufiger Bericht über die Grabung 1958 (Cologne: WAAFLNW, 1960) 9, 13, 22 and figs. 4, 9. The comparison is attractive, and surely Mettinger is correct in looking for a site close to the city, but no such place has been found. 157. William G. Dever (“The Gezer Fortifications and the ‘High Place’: An Illustration of Stratigraphic Methods and Problems,” PEQ 105 [1973] 68–70) places the construction at approximately 1600 b.c.e. 158. See Klaas R. Veenhof, “Review of E. Kutsch, Salbung als Rechtsakt,” BiOr 23 (1966) 309. Mari palace records mention oil for the baths of goddesses (ana rummuk DN): e.g., ARM VII 11, XXIII 51; see Georges Dossin, “Tablettes de Mari,” RA 69 (1975) 23–30. 159. A shrine still in use just west of Aleppo is enclosed, along with a courtyard, by a low wall. The stone entry is marked by hand-prints in blood from the clan sheep sacrifices performed there on special occasions. Participants also must leave their village for this site, which is less than an hour’s walk from its confines (now on the outskirts of the major city). I would like to thank Hamido Hammade for showing me this shrine. 160. See Julius Wellhausen, Reste arabischen heidentums (reprinted, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1961) 101–2; Gonzague Ryckmans, Les religions arabes préislamiques (Louvain: Publications

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When the temple image of Dagan goes between the stones set up outside the city, the cults of two domains salute and establish a basis for continuity. The stones are not said to be brought out of the city and need not come from the scores of shrines there. They may constitute a simpler pantheon of Emar, gathered to acknowledge Dagan, or they may embody Dagan’s own cult in a form not bound to his city temple. A precedent for the latter notion can be found in the Hittite huwasi sanctuaries, where the stones are washed and anointed (with oil) before festivals that bring the temple statue out to the site. 161 The stones are anointed in preparation for the moment of meeting, so that the god himself will inhabit not only the statue but the stones. The Procession of Dagan between the Stones The axis of the zukru rites outside the city is the great offering and feast. The festival text mentions no procedures leading up to the feast apart from the outbound procession itself. Although the entire celebration took place at the gate of the upright stones, all special rites at the stones were conducted after the feast, “after they eat and drink.” 162 Direct attention to the stones was divided between two actions, the preparation by anointing and the passage of Dagan “between the upright stones” in a wagon. 163 Dagan’s passage between the stones should not be considered a separate procession but the first movement in the return to the city. Part II addresses two processions for each trip outside the city, most clearly defined in one reference to the veiling of Dagan “for his departure and his return.” 164 After Dagan passes between the stones, he goes to the city god dnin.urta, 165 who is made to mount the Universitaires, 1951) 17; Joseph Henninger, Les fêtes de printemps chez les Sémites et la pâque Israélite (Paris: Lecoffre, 1975) 37–38. René Dussaud (La pénétration des Arabes en Syrie avant l’Islam [Paris: Geuthner, 1955] 113–16) suggests that the tent or cupola that covers the sacred stone in a relief from the Bel temple in Roman Palmyra is red in recollection of the blood that anointed the stone inside. 161. Gurney, Aspects of Hittite Religion, 27; Goetze, Kleinasien, 168 n. 5; e.g. KUB 17.35 obv. II 16u–19u. 162. Lines 34, 60, 173. 163. Lines 163, 174, 183–84, 192, and 202–3, ina berat sikkanati ettiq. The verb etequ appears only here in Emar ritual and affords a more precise image than a general verb, such as alaku ‘to go’. See CAD s.v. etequ A 1d, ‘to march in review, to parade’ (always kings). 164. Lines 181–82, a-na a-ßi-su ù na-ha-si-su. The processional return of the gods is distinguished from return of materials by use of a separate verb—nahasu (gods) versus târu (materials; in turtu). 165. Lines 164, 175, 184, and 203, ana lit dnin.urta illak. This detail is omitted in line 192 of the description of the 15th of sag.mu in the seventh year, perhaps along with other text abbreviations toward the end of part II. Note ana muhhi for ana lit in line 203.

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wagon with Dagan. 166 Only Dagan is honored at the stones, and dnin.urta shares only the next stage of the procession, which leaves the stones for reentry into the city. The festival god list alone shows that Dagan was worshiped in at least fifteen separate cults at Emar, each of which had rights to separate offerings. 167 No other deity received such varied attention. 168 This sort of reverence is not surprising for the chief god of the region, consistently recognized as such in the hierarchies of the zukru lists. 169 Every title of Dagan in the offering lists should represent a separate shrine and resident image or symbol dedicated to him. In its festival form, the zukru is devoted to Dagan under one of these specific titles, en bu-ka-ri ‘Lord of the buka-ri ’. The introduction to part II uses this epithet: “When the sons of Emar give the zukru festival to Dagan Lord of the bu-ka-ri during the seventh year. . . .” 170 This is his standard processional name, 171 and distributions to the whole pan166. Lines 165, 175, and 203, ittisu usrakkabu. This detail is left out of lines 184 and 192, but it should probably be considered part of every procession, since line 184 begins the sequence with the approach to dnin.urta and then omits the act that occasioned the movement. Note that the usual Akkadian S durative should be *usarkabu. The Emar form may then be analyzed as SD, with double -kk-. See also Seminara, L’accadico, 415. 167. The list includes Dagan en bu-ka-ri ‘Lord of the Offspring’ (line 77), Dagan (alone, 79), Dagan sa é.g[al-lì] ‘of the palace’ (91), Dagan en ha-ar-ri (97), (two) Dagan en qu-ú-ni (98), Dagan en kar-se ‘Lord of the Camp’ (100), Dagan en da-ad-mi ‘Lord of the Habitations’ (101), Dagan en am-qí(?) ‘Lord of the Valley Plain?’ (115), Dagan en Su-mi (a town, 116), Dagan en Bu-uz-qa (a town?, 117; cf. 131), Dagan en Ya-bu-ªurº (a town, 118; cf. 132), Dagan en ßa-lu-li pa-sú-ri ‘Lord of Shelter and Protection’ (149), Dagan en ma-aß-ßa-ri ‘Lord of the Fortress’ (150), Dagan en is-pa-a-at ‘Lord of the Quiver’ (154), Dagan en ha-pa-x (155). Titles found in other texts do not need to be listed to extend the point. 168. Compare Astart, 373:88, 92, 94, 102, 104, 119, 145, 160 (nine); the storm-god (dim), 373:78, 128, 139, 143, 158 (five). 169. The long god list in lines 76–162 is divided into three tiers with decreasing allotments. The beginning of this list is nearly identical to the group specified in lines 12– 15 for the 24th of Niqali, as well as the start of the related list 378:1–13. Dagan heads all of these lists. For further discussion, see my Installation, 240–45. 170. Lines 169–70, [e-nu-m]a dumumes kurE-mar i-na mu.7.kámmes ezenzu-uk-ra [a/id na]ª ºkur en bu-ka-ri i-na-an-di-nu. 171. Lines 45, 171, 180, and 187. In later occurrences, the full title is often shortened to Dagan alone (lines 48, 50, 174, 189, and 192). For the 25th of Niqali, part II identifies Dagan as en bu-ka-ri, while part I calls him en sig4 ‘Lord of the Brickwork’ (line 18). The latter title may reflect some old association with the 25th of Niqali and probably does not indicate a separate figure. In lines 19, 20, and 22, the name is reduced to “Dagan” alone. At the end of part II, perhaps out of concern for space, the simple “Dagan” is used even to introduce the seventh day (line 197; cf. 202).

Spread is 6 points long

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theon begin with an offering to Dagan as en bu-ka-ri. 172 Dagan as Lord of the bu-ka-ri does not appear to have been part of the sacred geography of Emar’s permanent shrines and temples. 173 The zukru hierarchy of gods includes, near the head of the list, a second cult for Dagan without title, and it is this Dagan who evidently was the resident of Emar’s principal Dagan temple. 174 It seems that the name “Lord of the bu-ka-ri” would have specially suited the zukru occasion. Whatever the precise meaning and form of the noun bu-ka-ri, it probably derives from the root bkr, associated with offspring. The consistent spelling with -ka- provides a starting point, because this syllabic sign is almost always used to represent the consonant -k-. 175 Emar ritual records many Semitic terms from the 172. Lines 12 and 76–77; cf. 41. 173. It is doubtful that Dagan as Lord of the bu-ka-ri was worshiped apart from the zukru festival itself. The two other texts that invoke the title have close relationship to the festival—Emar 374 by its turtu rite so like the one in 373:199–201, and the god list 378 by its first lines (1–13), roughly equivalent to 373:12–16 and 77–89. The title is missing from the other Emar god lists (379–84; cf. 274) and from Satappi’s kissu festival pantheon, which was also led by Dagan (see 385–88). 174. Compare 373:79 and 378:3. In the latter he is named as dkur gal, a title that recalls the Mesopotamian Enlil title sadû rabû (‘Great Mountain’) and may indicate the origin of the common Dagan writing dkur in identification with the head of the Sumerian pantheon (see my “Mountain Dagan: dkur and (d)kur.gal,” N.A.B.U. [1994] 17– 18, no. 16). The closer link to the Mesopotamian origin of the epithet may be preserved along with the Mesopotamian flavor given to the 378 list (not 373) by the consorts dnin.líl for Dagan en bu-ka-ri and Damkianna for Ea (378:2, 5). 175. Arnaud (AEPHER 85 212) interprets the title as ‘Lord of the Herd’ (‘bovins’), followed by Cohen, Calendars, 346, and Ran Zadok, “Notes on the West Semitic Material from Emar,” AION 51 (1991) 116 (‘cattle’). This interpretation assumes the Hebrew cognate baqar and the reading of the Emar term as bu-qà-ri. Emar 373 almost always reads ka as /ka/ and writes /qa/ with qa, and the ka-sign is never read -qà- in this tablet. Syllabic spellings with ka and qa include the following: si-ka-na-ti (line 29 and passim), (dnin.kur gaßan) ka-ak-ka-r[i] (line 148; cf. 378:16), us-ra-ka-bu-ma (line 175), ik-kalu (line 199); qa-du-si (line 33; cf. 193), qa-ab-li (line 36; cf. 193), i-qa-al-lu-ú (line 37, cf. 63, 167), (den) ªra-qa-tiº (line 160), itiNi-qa-li (line 180, confirmed by Ugaritic Nql), ú-qa-[da-su(?)] (line 205). dnin.kur and a bread share a name that should be derived from kakkaru ‘circle’, not qaqqaru ‘earth’; see my Installation, 74 and n. 20. One divine name might use the spelling -ka4- for qa: dnin.urta sa ma-qa -li (line 142). The other two ritual texts that use the title en bu-ka-ri show the same pattern: 374:9, i-sak-ka-nu; 378:18 and 35, (dingirmes) ka-sa-ra-ti (confirmed by Ugaritic ktrt). The value qà for ka is barely attested in the tablets from daily life at Emar (so, Emar VI/3). Arnaud suggests, in broken context of the masªartu installation, [. . .] i-na qà-aq--ri ßim i-sak-[kán-nu] ‘they place aromatics on the ground’, a ritual act with no precise counterpart but general precedent in 385:9; tables are placed on the ground, i-na kiqa-qa-ri; also 369:24. If some vessel kakru were intended, the dug determinative would be expected. Jun Ikeda (A Linguistic

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local Syrian dialect and, though this specific form is unknown, abundant cognates indicate the meaning ‘child’ or ‘firstborn (child)’. 176 A concern for offspring is echoed in a second Dagan title in the zukru festival. On the opening day of the festival, the calendrical center of the text, Dagan is brought out under the title a-bu-ma ‘the very father’. 177 Not even the festival text records any offering by this title, and the name evidently reflects the specific business of the zukru rather than a fixed Emar shrine. Dagan is above all the father of the gods, not of humanity. Two texts from the turn of the previous millennium explicitly identify him as such: a stone found at the Aleppo citadel and a bilingual (Sumerian/Akkadian) letter from Mari. 178 Both the title and the role are the natural possessions of pantheon heads throughout the ancient Near East, where the gods are regarded as one large family. Enlil is the venerable “father of the gods” in early Mesopotamia, 179 as is Kumarbi for Analysis of the Akkadian Texts from Emar: Administrative Texts [Ph.D. diss., Tel-Aviv University, 1995] 152, 271) observes that the qa-sign is always read /qa/ in his administrative texts from Emar. 176. Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Biblical Hebrew offer the most prominent early Semitic comparisons but do not exhaust all cognates. Akkadian: bukru (‘son, child’), bukurtu (‘daughter’, only goddesses), bakru (‘first-born’, MB, only in personal names). CAD (s.v. bukru) observes that bukru and feminine bukurtu are chiefly poetic terms used primarily for gods. Akkadian bkr shows no hint of meaning ‘early’ or ‘firstborn’, and the plural of bukru refers to children of the same father. Ugaritic: bkr as noun (‘[firstborn?] child’), bkr as verb (‘to treat as firstborn’ or ‘to treat as one’s own child’); see KTU 1.14 III:40; KTU 1.15 III:16. Hebrew: békôr (‘firstborn’, human or animal), bkr as verb (‘to bear early, to make [legally] firstborn’). Eugen J. Pentiuc (Studies in the Emar Lexicon [Ph.D. dissertation; Harvard University, 1997] from draft) proposes a number of examples of anaptyxis, the most persuasive of which is perhaps the mountain Íu-pa-ra-ti (e.g., Emar 452:29), from ßupru (‘claw’, etc.). 177. Line 190; this translation understands -ma to have emphatic force, as expected when attached to a noun. 178. I would like to thank Mr. Hamido Hammade of the Aleppo National Museum for showing me the Aleppo citadel stone and his preliminary decipherment. I have made a copy and further developed Mr. Hammade’s readings. Although the monumental script on basalt may tend toward archaized forms, the stone should be from at least the early second millennium. Nergal, Sîn, Ishara(?), and Samas follow Dagan a-bi dingirhi.a (‘the father of the gods’) in a list of curses. Whatever preceded the curses is entirely lost, and what follows is too broken to read. Mari text A.1258+:9 calls Dagan ‘the great mountain, father of the great gods’ (a - a d i n g i r- g a l - g a l - e - n e, a-bi dingir[mes ra-bu-tim]). This reference was generously pointed out to me by Dominique Charpin and now appears in D. Charpin, “Les malheurs d’un scribe ou de l’inutilité du Sumérien loin de Nippur,” in Nippur at the Centennial (ed. Maria de Jong Ellis; CRRAI 35; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum 1992) 9. 179. Enlil shared this title mainly with the sky-god Anu and was the active pantheon head throughout the middle of the second millennium; see Walter Sommerfeld,

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the Hurrian pantheon, 180 and El carries more than one “father” title west of Emar in contemporary Ugarit. 181 Even under the zukru festival’s royal sponsorship, Dagan is not celebrated as the king of the gods but as their parent. He is not made into a model for the ambitious human institution. 182 The “father” title suggests that the offspring indicated by the term bu-ka-ri may simply be the pantheon, and as “Lord of the Offspring” Dagan is recognized as the ultimate procreative power. Humanity benefits indirectly through the favor of the gods he has begotten but perhaps more directly through the power of fathering itself, necessary for reproduction of human families as well as of their herds and flocks. 183 Although Dagan joins his offspring in many specific responsibilities for human welfare, the zukru festival appears to celebrate his highest calling as the head of the pantheon, the father of the gods. The zukru brings the gods of every Emar temple and shrine outside the city to an arrangement of stones that represents another mode of worship, one not bound to urban forms. Only Dagan is honored at this shrine of sacred stones, with the entire divine and human populace of Emar looking on.

Der Aufstieg Marduks (AOAT 213; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982) 74, 166–67; F. Nötscher, “Enlil,” RLA 2 (1938) 384. Assur appears to borrow this title from Enlil for his parallel status in the north; see E. Ebeling, “Assur, Hauptgott Assyriens,” RLA 1 (1928) 197. Few other deities ever acquired this status: rarely Ea, Sîn, and Samas; see Knut Tallqvist, Akkadische Götterepitheta (Helsinki: Societas Orientalis Fennica, 1938) 1–2. 180. See Haas, Geschichte, 300. 181. El is ‘father of years’ (ªab snm, KTU 1.4 IV:23–24; 1.6 I:35–36; 1.17 VI:48–49) and ‘father of humanity’ (ªab ªadm, KTU 1.14 I:36–37; III:31–32, 46–47; VI:13, 31–32). He is addressed by individual deities as “father”: Anat (KTU 1.3 V:10); Yamm (KTU 1.2 I:16, 33); etc. For the family of El as dr ªil parallel to ªilm ‘the gods’, see KTU 1.15 III.19 (Keret); cf. dr.bn.ªil in the ritual text KTU 1.40:25, 33–34, etc. 182. Ugarit offers an interesting comparison. El, the counterpart of Dagan, remains the paternal chief, while the Baal myth attributes the role of king to Baal instead (KTU 1.1–6). In this office, Baal is not an overpowering figure. As a model for Ugarit’s kingship, he serves more to show how the city’s rulers can stand amidst the distant centers of power than to claim absolute power and glory. This perspective is developed by Mark S. Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (vol. 1; Leiden: Brill, 1994) under “the limited exaltation of Baal,” 96–114, especially 1.104–6. 183. At Ugarit, El is also ªab ªadm ‘father of humanity’. Both the Keret and the Aqhat tales (KTU 1.14–16, 17–19) involve humans who go to El for offspring. In the latter, Danªel goes through Baal as intermediary, but El remains the only one who can provide a son. El’s title “father of humanity” occurs specifically in the Keret story (above), where a human king wants children. Baal brings Danªel’s request to El as ‘bull El my father, . . . creator of creatures’ (tr.ªil ªaby . . . bny.bnwt, KTU 1.17 I:25), and in this context the latter title appears to stress that the head of the pantheon fathers mortal beings as well as gods.

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The administrative focus of our festival text allows us no closer to the intent of the rite at the stones, but the text does pay added attention to the condition of Dagan’s image at various stages in its approach to this central event. One major reason for creation of a separate text section for the procession was concern for the precise times when Dagan’s statue was to be veiled and unveiled. 184 Only at the zukru itself was Dagan presented to the gathered sikkanu stones unveiled. On the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year, the god left the city unveiled, and his face was first draped for the critical journey between the stones and return with dnin.urta to the city. 185 Forty days later, Dagan was veiled for the procession in both directions, perhaps uncovered for the offering alone. 186 At the opening day of the zukru, the god’s face was covered only after he passed between the stones, and the text for the seventh day specifies that he be unveiled before this event. 187 Whether or not veils fully covered the face and blocked eye contact, surely visibility was the issue at stake. 188 Unlike the covering of the priestess’s “head” at the nin.dingir installation, it is Dagan’s “face” that must be veiled. 189 As a metaphor, the face carries cheer and good will when bright and the reverse when dark. 190 When “covered,” it expresses death and desolation, which turns to cheer when the face is “uncovered.” 191 Veiling in the zukru festival would not have 184. The verbs are katamu ‘to cover’ and petû ‘to open, uncover’. 185. See lines 172, 173, and 176. Notice that use of durative verb forms (‘they cover/uncover’) indicates Dagan’s condition for the rite that follows and implies a change (e.g., line 173). Stative forms (‘his face is covered/uncovered’) describe only his condition during the preceding activity (e.g., lines 172 and 176). 186. See lines 181–82, where return encompasses procession between the stones. 187. See lines 192 and 202 (cf. 164). The text for both days already indicates that he was veiled during the procession to the site (lines 189 and 198), and line 202 suggests that he may remain so even through the seventh-day feast. Dagan was always veiled for reentry into the city (lines 182, 192, cf. 204). 188. Karel van der Toorn (“The Significance of the Veil in the Ancient Near East,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom [ed. David P. Wright, D. N. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995] 327–39) discusses the veil as “a symbol of appurtenance,” primarily for women. As such, blocking sight was not the primary purpose of the veil. In the case of Dagan, however, another explanation must surely be sought, and visibility does appear to have been the issue at stake. 189. They cover the nin.dingir’s head (sag.du/qaqqadu) “like a bride” for the final procession from her father’s house to her temple residence (369:61), but this language does not clarify the intent of the covering. 190. See AHw s.v. panu(m) A Pl. Gesicht, 3 and 4. 191. In the Atrahasis tale, in the advanced stages of famine, the people’s faces are covered with the malt-like pallor of the dead (ki-i ße.dim4/buqli me-te pa-nu-si-na kat-ma; Lambert-Millard Atrahasis 112 v:25 and 114 vi:14). Earlier, the goddess Nintu grieved over the dead and asked Enlil to uncover her face (pa-ni-ia li-ip-t[e], 98:51), to restore her

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expressed grief, but it evidently muted the full glory of the god. Like even the severest modern veil, the purpose was not to prevent the veiled person from seeing out but to restrict the view of onlookers. Even if veils do not reach far down the face, they cast a shadow, so that the face’s detail, its beauty, and its glory cannot be distinguished. Regular annual observance of the zukru may not have manipulated the practice of veiling to this end, but the seventh-year festival offered opportunity for presentation of Dagan in stages. The timing shows that the ultimate audience was conceived to be not the people or even the gods but the stones. Full display of Dagan in all his glory before the sikkanu shrine outside the city was reserved for the zukru in the seventh year. By this preference, Dagan’s passage between the stones was made the ritual center of the zukru. The Return to the City with the City God dnin.urta The return from the gate of the stones to the city after the feast always begins with Dagan’s solitary passage between the stones in a wagon. Only after this does dnin.urta join him, and the text describes one more stop along the route, at “the Great Gate of Battle.” 192 This great gate (ká.gal/abullu) appears to be different from an ordinary gate (ká/babu) and probably was the principal point of entry and exit for the city. 193 Emar scribes from the imperial Hittite period always identify the local city god with Sumerian Ninurta. Ninurta was both city god and Enlil’s son at early Nippur, and the scribes seem to have envisioned a similar relationship between their city god and the pantheon head, Dagan. 194 dNin.urta’s involvement in legal affairs as divine representative of the city also follows the role of the Sumerian Ninurta at Nippur. 195 to happiness. The Erra epic has Erra ask Marduk what has befallen his glory that the face of his royal crown is covered (I 128). 192. ká.gal sa qa-ab-li. Arnaud translates ‘la grand-porte centrale’, but qablu as ‘middle’ usually is accompanied by some referent (such as ali ‘of the city’). The meaning ‘battle’ for qablu requires no further identification. I am not aware of good parallels for either gate name. The same location is spelled the same way in the house sale, SMEA 30, no. 6:23 (see Tsukimoto, ASJ 6 65–73). 193. This would make sense by either interpretation of qablu. The common gate (ká) appears in the festival text in the phrase “the gate of the sikkanu stones,” and use of both ká and ká.gal suggests a distinction between the two. 194. Installation, 248–51. 195. Piotr Steinkeller, Sale Documents of the Ur III Period (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989) 73 and n. 209. Sallaberger (Kultische Kalender, 97) observes that Ninurta’s status as local god is also visible in the offerings for Ninurta and Nuska from the mu-du deliveries of Nippur rulers.

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Emar’s dnin.urta, whose name may simply be pronounced Il Imari (‘God of Emar’), 196 was invited to accompany Dagan in his wagon after he passed between the upright stones. 197 This privilege was appropriate to Dagan’s son, as the city god is explicitly labeled in a newly published heirloom seal. 198 The seal in 196. Joan Westenholz (“Emar: The City and Its God,” paper read at the Leuven RAI [1995]) has texts from the Bible Lands Museum that appear to solve the problem of how to read the name of Emar’s city god. BLM 33:8–9 concludes an inventory of cultic vessels, ú-nu-tù an-nu-tu4 sa dingir I-ma-ri ‘these vessels belong to Il Imari’. BLM 28:1– 3 begins an offering list with sheep given to dingir Ha-ma-ri (Il Imari) and dIs-ha-ra sa uru (Ishara of the City). Westenholz explains the writing with Ha- by the writing of Imar at Ebla with the Ì-sign, which represents /˙/, /º/, and /f/. The name Il/Baºla Imari is comparable to the god ªIl/Bºl Hlb at Ugarit. I would like to thank Dr. Westenholz for providing me with a manuscript of her talk at the Rencontre. 197. Lines 175, (184), assumed in 192–93?, 202–3. The ‘wagon’ is an ereqqu (gismar.gíd.da). One legal curse now combines Dagan and dnin.urta alone (RE 15:31– 33). Note that the special relationship assumed in this act is not reflected in the offering lists, where the storm-god (dim) is placed immediately after Dagan (373:13, 82). This represents one more disjuncture of perspective between the core festival and the framework of royal sponsorship. On the idea that dnin.urta is equivalent to dnin.kalam of Emar 282:6, perhaps as Bel mati, see my Installation, 250–51; idem, “Baal and Dagan in Ancient Syria,” ZA 83 (1993) 95, 97–98. I can now suggest a better explanation for the name dnin.kalam. During the Mari period, Emar (or, Imar) was known to have a goddess named Baºalta matim (ARM XXVI 256:15–17), who appears in an episode where 80 of Emar’s “heads of the land” were summoned to the Euphrates sacred site of Hît to face the river ordeal because of silver belonging to this goddess (kù.babbar sa il-tim dBa-ªa -al-ta-ma-tim, line 17). The Mari episode has a remarkable parallel in a much 4 later conflict in the court of the Hittite king Mursili II, whose step-mother was accused of stealing “silver from Astata” (the land of Emar). This silver had belonged to a Hittite mission charged with approaching Ishara of Astata for explanation of divine wrath; see KUB 14.4 IV:1–23, and Emmanuel Laroche, “Emar, étape entre Babylone et le Hatti,” in Le moyen Euphrate: Zone de contacts et d’échanges (ed. J.-C. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980) 240. If we are to envision a long tradition of bringing silver to the city goddess of Emar in return for oracular answers, then the earlier Baºalta matim would appear to be the same as Ishara, the goddess who is associated with the nabû (and munabbiatu) prophets at Emar (see my “nabû and munabbiatu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel,” JAOS 113 [1993] 175–83). If dnin.kalam in Emar 282 is not the male city god who is associated with Ishara, it could instead be an older title for the same goddess, still worshiped under the separate name. In light of the above stories, it is interesting to observe that the treasure recorded for Ishara and dnin.kalam in Emar 282:1–6 consists of gold and silver objects. 198. Dalley and Teissier, Iraq 54 85–87, 98–100, text no. 4. This Old Babylonian seal indicates that the title “son of Dagan” is already old at Emar and reaches far behind the 13th-century competition between Dagan and the western storm-god (pace my Installation, 247). Perhaps, then, the comparable title of Ugarit’s storm-god is carried by his title “Baºlu” and not by the name Haddu. (For Baal as bn.dgn ‘son of Dagan’, see KTU

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question marks a document of the common Emar type involving purchase of land from dnin.urta and the city. No deity other than the city god should possess such a seal, and though it does not name him as dnin.urta, the epithets recorded on it must relate to the deity identified by this name in Late Bronze Emar. 199 The evidence for local origin of the seal comes from its use of the name Lord of Habitations for Dagan, 200 and Westenholz now offers a plausible solution for the first two lines, which may be read with rapsa dadi ‘Expansive of Affection, Son of Dagan’. 201 The first title is comparable to adjective-based epithets like rapsa uzni (‘broad of understanding’), and the character trait dadu also suggests the popular name element meaning ‘uncle’. 202 This epithet should not now be taken as the reading for dnin.urta in the 14th–12th centuries. The seal is identified by Dalley and Teissier as a local copy of a late Old Babylonian or Syro-Mittannian original, and thus it originates from a much earlier time and scribe. 203 Even though the title survives into the later period on a seal used to mark legal documents for the god, it nevertheless represents only one association, one not attested in contemporary texts. In the zukru festival, the city god dnin.urta was inserted into the procession returning from the stones only after Dagan had passed between them and moved on toward the city gate for the kubadu ceremony. The kubadu rite was performed in many ritual contexts at Emar, though the particular sacrifice of a ewe as a holocaust is unique to the zukru. 204 The kubadu rite is described in greatest detail for 1.2 I 19, 35, etc.; cf. Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 1.91.) Westenholz observes that at Ugarit one finds both the titles ªIl and Bºl.Hlb ‘Lord of Aleppo’, and as Il Imari, Emar’s city god takes a similar form as Lord/God-of-GN. At Munbaqa/Ekalte, the city god also takes some form of a “Lord” name, as Baºlaka. One wonders whether this could be an abbreviation and sandhi writing of *Baºla-Eka(lte) ‘Lord of Ekalte’. The city gods of Emar and Ekalte stood in some measure of subordination to the regional god Dagan and might naturally have been titled “son of Dagan,” with a role naturally embodied in the 13thcentury Emar writing dnin.urta, the warrior son of Enlil and city god of Nippur (see my Installation, 248–49). 199. dnin.urta’s seal may be imprinted on legal documents to mark the city god’s witness, and Ninurta at Nippur is said to have a seal. 200. Line 3, lugal da-ad-ªmiº; cf. Dagan as en da-ad-mi, in 373:101; 379:4; 380:20; 381:14; and 382:11. The title ka-si-id za-wa-n[i-(e)] in the last line of the seal should therefore belong to Dagan as well. 201. Ra-ap-sa da-ªdiº dumu dDa-ªganº. 202. Dalley and Teissier’s ‘long-suffering’ seems unlikely. The primary evidence for the rapsa epithets comes from Erica Reiner, “Damqam-Inim Revisited,” Studia Orientalia 55 (1984) 177–82. Prominent personal names include Dada, Zu-Dada, and Dadi-Hadûn from Mari-period Imar. 203. Dalley and Teissier, Iraq 54 85–87. 204. The verb qalû ‘to burn’ appears nowhere else in Emar ritual, and the whole animal appears to be burned. On burnt offering in Hatti, see H. M. Kümmel, Ersatzrituale

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the installation of the nin.dingir priestess, where the central focus was on the moment when the sacrificial animal was presented to the god before slaughter. 205 Sacrificial procedure in Hittite ritual also appears to have had two separate stages, expressed by the verbs sipant- and huek-. Blood was only shed after the second act, the ‘slaughter’, and some texts show the animal still alive after the first, which Gurney suggests may have been ‘consecration’. 206 Perhaps the Hittite rite also involved not so much consecration of a profane animal but presentation before the god for acceptance. The offering by this kubadu method concluded the excursion outside the city to the shrine of stones. 207 At the great gate, Dagan and his retinue reentered the domain of the city, where the gods dispersed to their individual sanctuaries. While the departure from the city extends the interest of the population and its gods beyond the walls and the institutions they enclose, the offering at the great gate honors the benefits of the city. Emar gives the zukru to Dagan at a site outside the city and thus recognizes his larger domain. dnin.urta, in contrast, is identified with the city, perhaps having no intelligible religious role at Emar apart from its foundation. The Center of the zukru Most of the rites unique to the zukru at Emar accumulated around the processions to and from the sikkanu stones. The location of the stones outside the city walls is crucial in itself. Offerings took into account portions designated for “the für den hethitischen König (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967) 24. Syrian burnt offering is probably reflected in the srp sacrifice at Ugarit; see J.-M. de Tarragon, Le culte à Ugarit d’après les textes de la pratique en cunéiformes alphabétiques (Paris: Gabalda, 1980) 60, 62– 63. The ewe was a costly sacrifice, because one ram may service a flock, but every grown ewe is needed to bear new lambs. Apart from this text, see only Emar 424:5 and 469. 205. Installation, 162–69; see Emar 369:9–10, 30–31A; cf. B(31–36)e. Other rites only describe the kubadu as an offering, though they apparently assume this distinctive method. Levine and de Tarragon (RB 100 98–102) suggest that kbd in KTU 1.41:38–40 may possibly be compared with the Emar “honorific offering.” 206. See Gurney, Aspects, 28–29; after A. Goetze, “Hittite sipant-,” JCS 23 (1970) 77, 88–92. The first act is performed by a specified priest, the second by the cook or some indefinite “they.” Like the Emar kubadu, the entire sacrificial procedure is more often described by the characteristic detail, so the term sipant- often represents the whole rite. 207. The ‘lesser’ (tur/ßehru) form of the kubadu (373:62 and 166) is generally associated with ritual closure. Compare also the last day of the abû offerings during the 25th– 27th of Abî (452:43–45). The ‘greater’ (gal/rabû) form typically appears at the beginning of ritual; see 369:9–10, 30–31A and B(31–36)d–g; 452:34–35; and 463:4. Once again, the rites for the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year follow an unexpected order, with a lesser kubadu performed at the gate of the stones, evidently before or during the feast (373:172–73).

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people,” an unusual detail that somehow reflects a unique sacred role for Emar’s citizenry. The stones themselves were attended to by anointing with oil and blood before the pantheon head, Dagan, was driven between them in a wagon. Here was the ritual center of the zukru, the reason for leaving the city for a shrine of upright stones. Dagan and his son, the city god dnin.urta, returned to the city in a wagon, where they entered at the great gate, accompanied by the burnt offering of a ewe. At least on the first day of the festival itself, the climactic return procession took place just before nightfall. 208 When any time of day is specified in the Emar rituals, it is most often evening (nubattu). Among the calendar-based ritual texts, the new moon and the full moon were the only monthly occasions that called for rites in the evening. 209 The hidasu of Dagan on the 3d of Halma was anticipated by offerings on the previous evening. 210 Evening rites were specified for the zukru festival only on the 15th of sag.mu (the full moon), and the text for six months schedules offerings for agricultural success, including the scattering of seed, at the same time. 211 Evening is an important time of daily celestial transition, when the sun disappears and the moon and stars take over dominion of the sky. As a corollary to this transition, evening plays an important part in human observation of the moon’s movement. The new moon can first be observed after sunset, low in the west, 212 and the full moon rises in its glory at evening in the east. The calendrical center of the zukru festival thus stood just before nightfall at the first full moon, when Dagan passed between the upright stones. Under royal sponsorship, this moment was multiplied in the seven-day and seven-year frameworks, with the consecration rite in the sixth year. Together with added preparations marked by generous offerings, topped by a lavish feast that filled seven days, the zukru in its festival form was magnified to a grand stature as the most 208. Lines 61, 191, ina pani nubatti. On the 15th of sag.mu one year earlier, a procession of Saggar is specified for this time (lines 177–79), perhaps to accompany the rise of the moon. This text section is set parallel to Dagan’s procession by the phrase “on that day” and thus says nothing about the timing of other events. 209. Apart from of this group, see 369:20, 40, 62 (nin.dingir); 370:76 (masªartu, as transition to night, the focus of this installation); 385:21 (Dagan kissu); 392:3 (imistu of the king); 471:28; 472:18, 23, 26 (rites for Hittite gods); also, fragments 415:2; 422:9; 426:4; 427:3?; 503:2. The two definitive stages of the nin.dingir’s installation took place at the very turn of evening (ana pani nubatti): the time for her enthronement as high priestess at the start of the seven-day feast (369:40) and again the time of her final procession to make the storm-god’s temple her home (line 62). 210. Emar 446:98 and 463:6. 211. Emar 446:47, with the adverbial accusative nubatte. I will argue that this full moon is probably identical to the date of the zukru. 212. Otto Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (Providence: Brown University Press, 1957) 98; Beaulieu, ZA 83 66.

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expensive rite recorded at Emar. The zukru did not need the king, but it can be no accident that the zukru attracted the king’s generosity and ambition. The explanation for this attraction lies in the moment when Dagan passed between the stones and began his return to the city.

The Old Syrian zukru: Invoking the Chief God The variety of zukru observance at Emar becomes evident in one principal alternative to the festival text and a few fragments (see fig. 10). One shorter text explicitly celebrates a zukru, and this text provides a truly distinct tradition for the event. 213 Most of the fragments appear to be related more closely to the festival version. I have already pointed out the address of Dagan as Lord of the Offspring in one god list and in the fragment with the “return” ceremony. 214 Two more very small pieces mention the ewe of the festival’s kubadu offering in comparable settings. 215 Only one text decidedly resembles the shorter zukru version, by reference to the entry into the House of the Gods. 216 None of these fragments offers an equivalence close enough to prove that it is a duplicate of either principal text. If two principal modes of zukru celebration survive in the Emar archive, they are distinguishable first of all by their calendars. The shorter text shows no hint of observance apart from the annual cycle. Every aspect of the annual zukru suggests a simpler event, and some elements of my hypothetical expansions in the seven-year festival are confirmed by their absence from the shorter zukru text. Identification of a core zukru custom at Emar depends on distilling from the two separate practices what belongs to both. The cluster of references in a Mari letter shows that Emar’s zukru comes from an older and more widespread religious tradition. Because the Mari tablet is not a ritual text, there is bound to be less information about the zukru in it, but even the scant detail found there provides points of both similarity and difference. Definition of a general Syrian practice must both account for this variety and 213. Emar 375:1–44, at least. 214. en bu-ka-ri; see Emar 378, led by this form, and 374:19–20. Emar 378 may represent another offering list for zukru observance in the festival tradition of royal sponsorship. There are 49 entries preserved, more than half the number in the 373 list, and many more missing. The overlap of content is striking throughout. 215. Emar 424:5 reads [ku-b]a-da tur 1 udu.u8. After reference to the ewe (line 2), Emar 425:4 reads [ú-p]á-as-sa-su ‘they anoint’ in a sequence very similar to 373:166–67 (restored), with the same use of the ba-sign. Connection with the festival version is less clear for the latter, since the shorter text 375 also involves both anointing and ewes, though not in close proximity (375:14, 49). 216. Emar 401:2; cf. 375:53.

Spread is 1 pica long

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Figure 10. Emar Texts Related to zukru Celebration The Seventh-Year Festival, 373(+376)

The Shorter Annual Text, 375(+428)

374 (Lord of the Offspring, turtu)

(// 448, 449)

378 (Lord of the Offspring, god list)

401 (enter House of the Gods)

424 (lesser kubadu, ewe) 425 (ewe, anointing)

focus on the small set of commonalities yielded by the comparison. All of the evidence suggests that the zukru was a prominent public rite that attended to the chief god of each region where it was practiced. Emar’s Alternative Tradition The diviner’s archive includes one other text that mentions the zukru by name, and this text is attested in four badly broken copies. The direct reference to the zukru appears at the beginning of each copy’s obverse, and Arnaud treats the contents of the obverse as a separate ritual, which he calls “the beginning of the zukru festival.” 217 He then regards the reverse sides of copies A and C as two completely unrelated ritual texts, which he translates as Emar 448 and 449. None of this multiplication of texts is justified by the texts’ contents, however, and I have defined both the obverse and the reverse sides of all four copies as one ritual text, Emar 375. The one copy (A) that provides an unbroken transition from obverse to reverse ends with the sequential conjunction -ma on the verb inaddû ‘they throw down, and (then) . . .’, so that both sides must be read as one text. 218 The main tablet (A) is extended by a join at the upper edge that fills in missing text from the end of the reverse, which makes it possible to identify the fourth copy of a single document. 219 The copies of this alternative text demonstrate the prominence of this zukru tradition in the diviner’s cult-administration center, but the damaged state of all of the tablets hampers proper reconstruction of the event itself. Differences between the two zukru texts are so substantial that the better-preserved festival text 217. Emar 375, with one primary tablet and two copies in short fragments. 218. See 375:26A. 219. I identified the join of Msk 74287b (previously Emar 428) with Msk 74298b (Emar 375A) in June 1995 (Aleppo) and collated all related tablets. Arnaud identified a separate text 448 based on the reverse of Msk 74298b, and he isolated the reverse of 375 text C (Msk 74303f) as Emar 449. All representatives of the former Emar 375, 448, and 449 should be treated as copies of one text, which I refer to as Emar 375.

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offers little help in restoring the shorter text. At the same time, the shorter text clearly describes the same rite in an independent version that helps us to define what was essential to the zukru at Emar. The Alternative Text Reconstruction of the shorter zukru is hindered by damage to the copies and by the fact that the text is organized much less carefully than the festival tablet. No horizontal dividers are used to distinguish days or ritual units. Even the temporal phrases, which perform the same function as the dividers, are allowed to drift physically, so that new sections are introduced in the middle of lines. 220 In the face of these obstacles, it is difficult to define in a reliable way exactly how much of the tablet deals with the zukru (see fig. 11). Although the word zukru appears only on the front of the tablet, the description of the zukru probably continues through line 44. 221 Lines 28–30 begin the description of a seventh day, with a procession of Dagan and the gods to the sikkanu stones, just as prescribed for the festival. 222 The ensuing feast is followed in the evening by the same “return” ceremony that dominates the seventh day of the zukru festival. 223 One more section continues to focus on Dagan, the god of the zukru, though the details are difficult to track. 224 Involvement of the citizens and leaders would be appropriate to the zukru, which in the festival version gathers all of “the people” for the feast at the stones. In line 45, the time of ritual observance is defined afresh and different gods are mentioned, followed by a 16th day, none of which has any evident connection to the zukru. This section is marked by the unusual phrase i-na iti.kám ‘in the (same) month’, which reorients the text from the seventh day of the zukru back to the full moon of Zarati. 225 From line 49 to the end of the tablet, no 220. See 375:9, 30–31, 35–36. The temporal phrase ina umi suwatima ‘on the same day’ supplies the first words of line 36, but the statement it accompanies starts in the middle of line 35. Earlier in the text, the temporal definition ‘on the seventh day’ appears in the middle of line 28, but the sentence that introduces the new section begins the line by moving the procession’s destination in front of the temporal phrase. 221. The last explicit reference to the zukru is in line 17, where Dagan is called “the head of the zukru.” 222. Compare 373:197. 223. See 375:28–35. Further evidence of a distinct text tradition is found in the word for ‘evening’, lilêtu (nubattu is used in the festival text). 224. See lines 35–44. Dagan appears in line 43. The kubadu offering in lines 40–41 would suit the zukru, though the “greater” type is not found in the festival text. The kubadu is “greater” only if the adjective gal/rabû may be understood to precede the noun it modifies. Because of the preterite verbs of lines 37–38, it is difficult to be sure that what follows does not refer to earlier rites. 225. No month named den BI-ta-ri is otherwise found at Emar, and the writing iti.kám is not appropriate for a month determinative (compare itiZa-ra-tì in line 3, also

Spread is 1 pica long

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Figure 11. The Annual zukru in Outline I. The Annual zukru (lines 1–44) A. Heading (lines 1–2) B. Month of Zarati, 15th day (lines 3–27) 1. Dagan celebration at the sikkanu stones (lines 3–15) a. Enclosure of the lamb for Dagan (line 3) b. Procession of Dagan at stones (lines 4–10) c. Offering to dnin.kur, the gods (line 11) d. kubadu, procession at stones (lines 12–13) e. Anointing stones (line 14) f. Feast for the people (line 15) 2. Further rites for the zukru on the 15th day (lines 16?–27) a. The sikkanu of dnin.urta (line 16) b. Gathering at Dagan’s temple (lines 17?–19) c. Enclosure of oil for every cult (lines 20?–21) d. Second processional event at stones (lines 22–26) e. Rite of casting down (seed?) (line 26) f. Consumption of food and drink before Dagan (line 27) C. Seventh day of the zukru (lines 28–44) 1. Dagan procession at sikkanu stones (lines 28–30) 2. Evening, ceremony of return (lines 31–35) 3. Oath ritual by citizens and leaders, breaking clods (lines 35–36) 4. Recollection of purification rites (lines 37–39?) 5. kubadu offering (lines 40–42) 6. Gathering at Dagan’s temple (lines 43–44) II. Month of Zarati, planting rites (lines 45–48) A. 15th day, Lord of Bitaru, rite of cutting? (lines 45–46?) B. 16th day, Lord of Halab, prohibition of planting (lines 47–48) III. Administrative notes (lines 49–[56]) A. Return of animals, materials, to the House of the Gods (?) (lines 49–50) B. Detail for kubadu rites (lines 51–53) C. Entry in the House of the Gods (line 53) D. Weighing of city shekels (line 54) E. Detail of animals, gods (lines [55]–[56])

text C). den Ha-la-ab (line 47) gives his name to a common month, but text C sets the god at the start of a line without the marker iti. The Babylonian-style legal document Emar 28 derives from a very different milieu, but the month reference in lines 23–24 should confirm this reading. The scribe writes i-na iti.kám sa Ta-as-ri-ti ‘in the month of Tasritu’, using the kám-sign to separate iti from what follows and ensure that it be read as the word warhu (‘month’) rather than the determinative. This necessitates adding sa (‘of ’) before the month name. Cohen’s speculation (Calendars, 326–27) that the writing implies an original identification of the month as Sa tasritu then is unwarranted. The

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specific deities are mentioned, and the text turns to administrative concerns related to the zukru shrine of upright stones. 226 I will call this “the shorter zukru text” for convenience, but the tablet should not be considered a zukru text in the narrow sense of the festival texts that are truly defined by one event. 227 Instead, the basis of connection is the calendar, because the text adds four lines that treat rites with no apparent connection to the zukru apart from an overlapping date. 228 In this respect and others, the text resembles the tablet for six months, which also devotes more than half of its space to ritual focused on one full moon, probably in the month of Zarati again. Both tablets share many features of ritual idiom, orthography, and script that stand out from the norm. 229 Like the zukru text, the tablet for six months does not break spelling with iti.kám in AuOrS 1 49:19 likewise appears to separate the word ‘month’ in order to identify the month named dnin.urta as the date of future payment. Similar use of kám to mark the separate word sattu ‘year’ occurs in 373:38 and 186: i-na sa-ni-ti mu.kám ‘during the next year’. For the name den BI-ta-ri, Pentiuc (“West Semitic Terms,” 86–87) suggests ‘Lord of the sluice’, comparing bi-it-ru sa sá-[me-e] in the lexical text Emar 567:5u. 226. Oxen and sheep are returned between the sikkanu stones to some “house” (of the gods?, lines 49–50). Performance of kubadu offerings is then mentioned, perhaps because it relates again to procession between the stones (lines 51–52). A final entry into the House of the Gods appears to return leftover materials or animals to their point of origin (line 53). This would follow the ‘return’ in lines 49–50, where the verb târu recalls the noun turtu of the main festival text. The last broken lines mention some payment in city-shekels (line 54), plural oxen (55), and perhaps the gods (56). 227. Emar 375 does not begin with the heading,“tablet of rites for the zukru” or the like. Compare 369:1A, ‘tablet of rites for the nin.dingir priestess of the storm-god of Emar’ †up-pu pár-ßi nin.dingir dim sa uru[E-m]ar; cf. 385:1 (the kissu set); 392:1 (the imistu of the king, not a “festival”). Similar headings are expected for the zukru and masªartu priestess festivals, but both tablets lack the opening lines. 228. B. A. Levine (“The Descriptive Ritual Texts from Ugarit: Some Formal and Functional Features of the Genre,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday [ed. Carol L. Meyers and M. O’Connor; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983] 467–75) observes that Ugaritic ritual texts defined by a single month tend to include description of rites for days earlier in the month, to add notes for separate events. Levine and de Tarragon (RB 100 87) note that KTU 1.41//1.87 appears to do this after line 33 for the month of Risyn, also probably in late summer or early autumn (month position VII, counted from a spring axis). Del Olmo Lete interprets the text in the same way but restricts the resumptive block to lines 38–48, “filling in” the days before the full moon (Canaanite Religion, 120). 229. The following is not an exhaustive list in any category. Ritual idiom: date without kám (375:3, 4, 8, 28, 47; 446:2, 8, 45, 58, 59, 83, 84, 86, 87, 91, 100, 102, 107, 118); suwatu/i for sâsu ‘that’ (375:4, 9, 31; 446:11, 47, 90, 106); interest in the divine axe for procession, as haßßinnu sa dingir (375:6, 12, 22?, 29; 446:15, 40, 43, 88, 101, 103);

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up the extensive material for the first month with horizontal dividers and does not confine temporal phrases to the beginning of lines. 230 Two details from column III of the tablet for six months appear to overlap with activities in the shorter zukru. On the day after the full moon, 231 no planter is permitted to go out until after the kubadu offerings are complete. 232 The added lines in our alternative zukru text likewise forbid the one who plants to engage in some activity related to the land on the 16th day. 233 In both zukru texts, the central day of the full moon is linked to the god Saggar. 234 The only other appearance of Saggar in ritual is found in the text for six months, on the 15th of an unnamed month. 235 The conjunction of dates, Saggar, and the concern for planting suggest a time for these events in the same month, which the zukru tablet specifies as Zarati. The focus on planting appears to begin on the same 15th day in the text for six months, when the diviner scatters seed after an offering to Dagan as Lord of the Seed. 236 preposition qadu (375:33; 446:42). Orthography: standard processional departure with verb ú-ßi ‘to go out’ (375:4, 7, 36, cf. 30; 446:12, 24, 57, 87, 103, 108); d˘ar for Saggar (375:4; 446:45); dnin.kur.ra for dnin.kur (375:11; 446:58, 59); syllabic ikkalu isattû for kú nag ‘they eat (and) drink’ (375:15, 30; 446:119, cf. 22); writing /s/ with zu/za/zi, sú/ sà/sí (375:6, 7, 8, 14, 23, 24, 28, 34, 36, 46?, 47?, 51, 52; 446:52); turtu with du/tù in base (375:31, 34; 446:83, 84); te/de4 in ku-ba-de4 (375:40, 51, 52; 446:56). Significant spelling contrasts also appear: an unusual preference for plural ˘i.a in 375 not found in 446 (gud, 10, 49, 55; dingir, 29, 56?; úß, 14; sila4, 18; é, 21; udu/udu.u8, 27, 49; gal, 35; ká.gal, 51); consistent syllabic rendition of Dagan in 375, mixed with dkur in 446 (dDa-gan, 375:2, 3, 10, 17, 19, 27, 43; 446:50, 63?, 97, 110?; dkur, 446:8, 100, cf. 54). Script (based on collation): general tilt of orientation, with vertical heads and winckelhakens slanting down to the right, horizontals rise slightly to the right; ki with four or more horizontals, only one vertical ( ); ma with short middle horizontal ( ); ud with winckelhakens spread left-to-right ( ); ˘a with two winckelhakens ( ). Emar 375 is written more neatly. The ¯i-sign in 375 is intermediate to 446, with a single vertical, and festival texts with double vertical at the end: 375:4, first vertical moved forward ( ). 230. The full moon is extended by the phrase “on the same day” in 446:11 and 47, as well as perhaps 18 and 22. Only in line 11 does the temporal phrase come at the beginning of the line. Other temporal markers for the first month begin midline in lines 6 and 53. The scribe for the zukru text presents parallel material within each larger section with repetition of the given date by the statement “on the same day” (375:4, 9, 31). 231. Emar 446:53, “the next day.” 232. Lines 56–57, ma-am-ma e-ri-si ú-ul ! ú-ßi. 233. Emar 375:47–48, e-ri-su ki er-ßi-tu4 ù-la ªa(?)º-[na(?). . .]. 234. See 375:4, d˘ar-ar, and 373, passim. On the equation of d˘ar and Saggar, see also my Installation, 205 and n. 11; Dalley and Teissier, Iraq 54 90. 235. Emar 446:45–47. 236. Emar 446:50–51, where ‘seed’ is numun (zeru) and ‘Lord of the Seed’ is be-el numunmes. The day is marked in line 45 by the rites for Saggar.

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These activities provide the only direct link to the seasons in the diviner’s ritual collection, and sowing would take place in autumn. 237 Rites related to agricultural efforts are naturally performed in advance, so these Emar rituals probably belong in late summer or early autumn. 238 The zukru of this shorter text was evidently set in the fall, whether or not we can be sure that the association of ritual and season was consistent. 239 Emar ritual 237. Location of these rites in autumn is based entirely on the procedures described, but it is conceivable that the name of the zukru month of Zarati derives from the broadcasting of seed, an activity defined by the common Semitic root drº. The similar noun zirªatu (in lúmes zi-ir-a-ti) found in the zukru festival allows the same possibility, though it would have developed a distinct pronunciation and spelling in its separate use. For another autumn full moon ritual, see, at Ugarit, KTU 1.41//1.87:3–19, on the 14th day of the month Rªis yn. 238. The time of the preparations may have varied, as indicated by the Sumerian s u - n u mu n festival at Nippur. This rite for seeding occured during the fourth month counted from the spring, well in advance of actual plowing and planting; see Cohen, Calendars, 78, 98–99. Ur names the autumn á - k i - t i festival in the seventh month the á - k i - t i s u - n u mu n (pp. 96–97), probably to be identified with actual work in the fields. In Ur III Sumer, plowing began in months IV and V, and planting itself started in months VI to VIII; see Kazuya Maekawa, “Cultivation Methods in the Ur III Period,” BSA 5 (1990) 116, based on mention of oxen for plowing and planting in economic texts. 239. The wider imperial perspective of the Mari ritual disbursements produces few rites with dates consistent enough to define as annual. Three events show a strong link to the same named months: the kinunum for Belet-ekallim on the 8th and 9th of Kinunum (month VII), “Nergal’s wagon” on the 7th of Liliatum (month IX), and the festival of Diritum at Dir after the full moon of Kiskissum (month XI). For the kinunum, see ARM VII 66, in the Upper Mesopotamian monarchy, eponym ˇab-ßilli-Assur; ARM XXIII 350 Zimri-Lim 4u (Throne of Samas). This neat pattern is disturbed somewhat by another Zimri-Lim record for the 18th of the month during Zimri-Lim year 4u (XXIII 490). Jack M. Sasson (“The Calendar and Festivals of Mari during the Reign of ZimriLim,” in Studies in Honor of Tom B. Jones [ed. Marvin A. Powell and Ronald Sack; AOAT 203; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979] 130) observes that there is also a kinunum for Dagan (III 72:rev. 5u, undated letter). For Nergal’s wagon, see ARM XII 272–75 as well as VII 29; IX 212; and XXI 328 (“the day of the wagon,” for Nergal). Disbursement on the 5th may only anticipate the event by two days. ARM XXI 15:14 unexpectedly serves “the wagon” on the 10th, evidently reflecting the same event. The sacrifice of Estar is associated both with the first and the second days of the same month (ARM XII 267, 268, 270, 271, in one year) and with the 7th, the day of Nergal’s wagon (ARM IX 131:11–14; cf. V 25). Sasson (p. 133) suggests that this represents an offering to Estar as part of Nergal’s wagon celebration. It is described exactly as for the first of the month, however, “the sacrifice of Estar.” One more record serves Estar on the 30th of Liliatum (ARM XXIII 228:20), which suggests considerable flexibility for this date. Maurice Birot (“Simahlânê, roi de Kurda,” RA 66 [1972] 135) was the first to piece together evidence for the Diritum festival. For additional discussion, see Sasson, pp. 131–32; Bertrand

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includes three other examples of events that are probably identical but found in separate texts. In each case, the equivalent rites fall into months with different names, but the accumulated evidence suggests that this is due to parallel calendars rather than a rite drifting from one month to another in the calendrical cycle. 240 Parallel calendars provide the simplest explanation for the two versions of the zukru as well, focused on seven days counted from the 15th of months called Zarati in one calendar and sag.mu in the other. It seems that the diviner at Emar envisioned a progression of rituals bound to fixed months, and perhaps days, in local calendars that are still recognizable even with different month names. This identification of ritual and calendar does not require that the months be kept in synchrony with the seasons, which is a separate question. 241 The text dominated by the alternative zukru celebration resembles the tablets that track rites through various blocks of time more than it resembles the festival tablets. Whereas the text for six months completes the reverse side by describing a much longer period, the zukru tablet remains focused on the full moon of Zarati. The zukru in Its Annual Format No detail of the shorter zukru text should be interpreted solely on the basis of the festival text. The name of the ritual anticipates some connection to the long version, but many contrasts between the two stand out immediately. Observation of these discontinuities undermines any inclination to treat the festival text as representing the standard custom at Emar. If anything, the simpler format of the shorter text suggests that it may have been describing the most common practice. The first indication of an independent format in the short zukru text is the distinct calendar, with no hint of the seven-year cycle and its consecration of a full year before the zukru festival itself. The annual zukru began on the 15th of Zarati, with no activity on the preceding day. 242 Preparatory enclosure of a lamb

Lafont, ARMT XXIII, p. 241; and J. M. Sasson, “ ‘Year: Zimri-Lim Offered a Great Throne to Shamash of Mahanum’—An Overview of One Year in Mari, Part I: The Presence of the King,” M.A.R.I. 4 (1985) 439, 445. Evidence for a fixed date is less solid than that for Nergal’s wagon, though the month of Kiskissum seems certain (see ARM VII 263:iv.10u–12u; XXI 33, for offerings to Diritum at Mari; cf. XXI 41 on Kiskissum 18, town not in text). Durand now offers a carefully argued explanation for some of the discontinuities in the dates for major Mari celebrations, based on the notion that ZimriLim changed the calendar upon his accession to the Mari throne and then later had to make adjustments to synchronize it with the seasons (“Les rituels de Mari,” 29–31). 240. For further discussion, see chapters 4 and 5, the Annual Cycle, and Calendrical Time in Ancient Syria. Emar attests more than twenty month names. 241. See chapter 5, pp. 214–18, on the seasons and intercalation. 242. Emar 375:3; compare 373:39–41 and 186 for the 14th of sag.mu.

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was squeezed onto the same opening day. 243 The shorter text mentions the full moon and a seventh day counted from the full moon, but no distribution to the gods filled the intervening period. 244 When we compare the events described in the related text for six months, this more modest zukru still stands out as the only calendar-based rite that lasted seven days. Again the zukru shows itself to have been a major public celebration at Emar. Financial sponsorship of the annual zukru fell entirely to the city and the House of the Gods, both of which only provided supplies for the festival on the major processional days. 245 The shorter text preserves just two references to the suppliers of offerings; both refer to sheep from city flocks. 246 Someone or something enters the House of the Gods at the end of the tablet. 247 This entry and a payment of shekels by city standard appear to apply to materials from rites described in the main body of the text. 248 City provision could not compete with royal extravagance. Calculation of quantities is impossible, given the brokenness of the texts, but the scale is always moderate: only a lamb for Dagan in enclosure, two sheep in initial procession and sacrifice, a total for the first day perhaps meaning “an ox and some sheep” for consumption in Dagan’s presence, and a sheep and a lamb at the turtu return. 249 Only oil is provided as an offering by enclosure for all of the sanctuaries. 250 King and palace never appear, and even the scribes are less ambitious on Emar’s behalf for this event. Emar celebrates this zukru as a ‘city’ only, the town’s name appearing without the kur marker, which is reserved for larger states and regions. 251 Furthermore, the scribes do not present the annual zukru as a festival, a category reserved for events that include consecration rites, in separate texts. 252 Neither this text nor the tablet for six months uses the festival tag at all. 243. Line 3, verb paªadu. 244. In the zukru festival, the feast outside the city for the whole populace also took place only on the first and the seventh days. 245. The account of offerings for the major processional days survives only for the 25th of Niqali and the 15th of sag.mu. 246. Emar 375:5 and 33. Another difference between 375 and 446 is the absence of the nuppuhannu as suppliers of sheep in the zukru text. 247. Line 53, cf. line 50? 248. Line 54, gín uru.ki ú-sa-qí-lu ‘they weigh out (in) city shekels’. 249. Lines 3, 5, 27, and 33. 250. Line 21; the ‘temples’ (éhi.a) likely cover a wide range of shrines that occupied enclosed buildings, rooms, or other structures. 251. uruE-mar ki, uruE-mar, line 1A and C; see Fleming, UF 24 69–70; cf. 373:169, kurE-mar. 252. Text B omits the determinative ezen in 375:1, as does Dagan’s title re-es zu-ukri (line 17A). The epithet with ‘head’ (resu) instead of ‘lord’ (belu) has a more West Semitic than Akkadian ring, though it is rendered in Akkadian form. Compare the Hebrew

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The details of the shorter text do not suggest that the annual celebration was merely a simplified version of the festival, with identical features. The entire ritual idiom is independent in terms of both language and content, with both distinct elements of its own and the absence of important ingredients of the festival text. These differences in detail include the following: An individual sikkanu stone of dnin.urta received some attention, 253 and the goddess dnin.kur played a role not evident in the festival. 254 Sassabetu and the Sassabeyanatu spirits made no appearance, nor did palace deities, let alone pantheon lists. Dagan remained the focus, but not as Lord of the Offspring. Even according to the hierarchy of the gods listed in the festival text, offerings to Dagan under this special festival title are distinguished from separate offerings to the primary temple of Dagan. 255 The festival text never introduces activities at Dagan’s temple, whereas the shorter version ends the rite with a gathering of some kind there. 256 In spite of the noteworthy differences between the two zukru versions, their shared title does indeed reflect a broader continuity. Breaks in the shorter text obstruct our view of zukru procedure, but the shrine of sikkanu stones again stands at the center. The stones cannot be located outside the city wall on the basis of the annual text alone, but a reference to great gates may indicate a similar ritual geography for Dagan’s procession in both texts. 257 The festival placed many events—a feast, the anointing, Dagan’s drive in a wagon, and in one case the kubadu ceremony—at this shrine. 258 All of these events also survive in some form in the damaged shorter text. The account of both the first and the seventh days begins with the procession of Dagan to the upright stones. 259 On the 15th day, use of the cognate, BDB s.v. roªs 3; for use of the word for a man, note in early texts Num 25:14; Judg 10:18, 11:8, etc.; Exod 18:25. See J. B. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word roªs as a Title in the Old Testament,” VT 19 (1969) 1–10. Akkadian resu may be used for a slave but otherwise refers to someone holding a leading role in western texts; AHw s.v. resu(m) F als Person, 3 Ug. ein Funktionär?; 4 Mari, ARM I 10:20, en-ni ra-sa-ni ‘unser Anführer?’ Emar attests the Ugaritic official lúsag (RE 63:25), and the title also is found in the seal for ASJ 14, no. 45. This title is well attested at Boghazköy; see Francesca Pecchioli-Daddi, Mestieri, professioni e dignità nell’Anatolia ittita (Rome: dell’Ateneo, 1982) 513–15. 253. See 375:16, cf. 23–24? 254. Line 11. Line 9b begins the discussion of concurrent rites on the 15th day, for which enclosure of offering for the gods may parallel the enclosure for Dagan in line 3. dnin.kur.ra appears to be associated with this preparation. 255. Emar 373:79, dkur. 256. Emar 375:43, [i/a-na] é dDa-gan ú-pa/pá-ha-ru. 257. Emar 375:51, ká.galhi.a. 258. This is the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year, the occasion that may match the annual performance of the shorter text. 259. Lines 4–7, 28–30; the parallel text for the same time block substitutes the unusual verb tebû (S) ‘to make rise’, with unclear significance.

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Dagan was unveiled, as he was in the festival text during sag.mu of the sixth year, perhaps the regular annual event. The procession on the first day of the zukru brought him between the stones, along with two sacrificial sheep and the divine axe. 260 The following section provides detail not found in the initial description of Dagan’s excursion, and here the procession preceded the anointing of the stones with blood and oil. 261 The people of Emar “eat and drink,” the merism for feasting. 262 At the end of the text, animals that were saved for return proceeded between the stones, and the kubadu offering was even peformed between the stones. 263 The two versions of the zukru prove very similar in regard to the core celebration, already located at the stones by independent analysis of the festival. Even the calendars compare closely, since the festival text defines the zukru itself as lasting seven days, beginning with the 15th, and envisions visits to the stones only on the first and seventh days. Both texts preserve the same idiom for the performance of the ritual: the city of Emar ‘gives the zukru’ to Dagan. 373:169–70

[e-nu-m]a dumumes kurE-mar i-na mu.7.kámmes ezenzu-uk-ra [a/i-na] ªdºkur en bu-ka-ri i-na-an-di-nu When the citizens of Emar give the zukru festival during the seventh year to Dagan Lord of the Offspring, . . .

375:1–2

i-nu-ma uruE-mar ki [zu-uk-r]a i-na dDa-gan i-na-di-nu When Emar gives the zukru to Dagan, . . .

In the annual rite, again, the people of Emar participated in a feast at the upright stones. 264 After the return ceremony on the seventh day, the shorter text mentions a new element: the common people and their leaders broke clods of dirt, a ritual act not generally performed by a group. 265 Clods are broken by individuals in at 260. Lines 5–7; the verb ú-ßi at the end of line 7 should have a singular subject, thus Dagan. 261. Line 14. 262. Line 15, cf. line 30 for the seventh day. The festival specifies that anointing follows feasting, while at least the text of 375 presents the two procedures in reverse order. 263. Lines 49–50, 51–53. Again, only the 15th of sag.mu in the sixth year has a kubadu performed at the sikkanu shrine itself (373:172). 264. See lines 14–15. 265. Lines 35–36, kirbana pussusu. The participants are defined as dumumes ù galhi.a sa uru.ki ‘the citizens and the leaders of the city’. The first word refers to a common group at Emar, as in the zukru festival introduction, but the combination of words here might also be read as ‘the small (turmes) and the great’, with similar intent. The alternative reading was suggested to me by Gary Beckman. Note that one Emar lexical text renders the word for ‘clod’ with a different vowel: ßid:l a g = ku-ur-[b]a-nu, in Åke W. Sjöberg, “Studies in the Emar Sa Vocabulary,” ZA 88 (1998) 253, line 149.

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least two separate legal contexts from other regions, both times representing a clear act of dissolution. 266 At Mari, the kirbanum clod was used for taking omens for a place without the diviner having to be at the place. Durand offers as his best example a text that describes omens taken for the Tuttul region, just downstream from Imar/Emar. A clod from Tuttul was sent to the king at Mari, later followed by clods from nearby towns. 267 As a coroporate act undertaken by the whole population of Emar, the rite appears to bind the city to its chief god. In light of the Mari phenomenon, we would expect Emar’s public ceremony somehow to identify the clods with the land itself; the clods are more than symbols of each individual legal bond. With the clod, each citizen seems to carry his claim to the land, and by breaking it, he threatens himself with the loss of that right. This novel procedure adds to the sense we have from both versions that the zukru celebrated the foundational relationship between the people of Emar and Dagan, whom the city worshiped as its chief god and ultimate patron. We may consider universal to practice of the zukru in Late Bronze Emar only what the two texts share. On several levels the shorter text confirms conclusions about zukru expansion that I derived from evaluation of the festival alone. Without the king’s support, the event was much less costly, but the focus on the people themselves was the same. In its simpler guise, the zukru was still given by Emar to Dagan, and the shrine of sikkanu stones was always the ritual center, the place where the divine and human population gathered around the god who in the shorter text is called “Head of the zukru.” 268

Emar 375 as an Archaic Local Text I have already observed that the annual version of Emar’s zukru shares many features with the tablet that records six months of city ritual. Wilcke’s groundbreaking article on scribal patterns and Seminara’s more recent grammar dedicate extensive space to differences between the horizontally oriented “Syro-Hittite” 266. The idiom attested outside Emar is kirbana hepû. Inheritance documents from Nuzi and Susa record or prescribe the breaking of a dirt-clod identified with a son whose property rights are to be canceled. See HSS 5:7, 21, 67, 73; 19:6, 9, 19, 27, 46; JEN 478, 577, 622, 657 from Nuzi; MDP 22:137; 23:285 from Susa; all cited by Malul, Studies in Mesopotamian Legal Symbolism, 79–80. Old Babylonian loan documents record that the creditor has broken a clod in place of a lost tablet (TIM 4:40 and CT 48 15); see Malul, pp. 319–20. Malul argues that the inheritance rite must somehow symbolize “the abstract system of relationship between father and son” (p. 91), and the clod in the debt ritual takes the place of a tablet, since both are made of earth (p. 320). 267. A.2691, in Durand, AEM I/1, 41. The clods are directly identified with the city; see ARM XXVI 346:17: ki-ir-ba-an a-lim ‘the clod of the city’. 268. Emar 375:17.

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tablets and the vertically oriented “Syrian” tablets. 269 The distinction is based especially on legal documents. In general, the Akkadian of the Syrian-type tablets shows Old Babylonian origins, while that of the Syro-Hittite texts reflects the current Middle Babylonian koine. 270 Seminara comments that almost all of the ritual texts show a strong affinity with the dialect of the Syro-Hittite tablets, with the sole exception of the two texts just compared. 271 For the present study, I have not attempted a complete evaluation of the ritual texts, but it is clear that text A of the annual zukru and the tablet for six months of city ritual preserve both the dialect and the paleography of the Syriantype legal documents, against the bulk of the remaining ritual texts. These other texts include all of the festivals, and though they share much with the SyroHittite-type legal documents, they are sufficiently distinct to represent an independent Emar scribal stream. I present here some specific evidence for the patterns regarding both script and language. The following observations about cuneiform sign-forms are based on comparison with the charts in the article by Wilcke. Syrian sign-forms in text A of the annual zukru (Emar 375): 272 • • • • •

ug in lines 1 and 17 li in lines 10, 31, 33, and 38 al in line 34 il in line 38 ag in line 5

Contrast the Syro-Hittite forms of ug (uk) in line 1B and li in line 33D. Because the Syro-Hittite forms dominate the ritual tablets as a whole, texts B and D apparently represent more recent copies of the older A text. Syrian sign-forms in the text for six months of city ritual (Emar 446): • • • • •

a˘ in line 36 ug in line 62 ag in lines 82 and 112 li in lines 84 and 94 il in line 84

269. Claus Wilcke, “a˘, die Brüder von Emar: Untersuchungen zur Schreibtradition am Euphratknie,” AuOr 10 (1992) 115–50; Seminara, L’accadico di Emar. See also various studies by Jun Ikeda. 270. Seminara, L’accadico, 96. 271. Ibid, 24–25. Seminara identifies these as texts 446 and “448,” the latter more properly defined as part of text 375, the annual version of the zukru. 272. Texts B and D are small fragments but provide specific Syro-Hittite types.

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Syro-Hittite sign-forms in the zukru festival text (Emar 373): • il in lines 19, 30, 164, 184, 203 • li in lines 36, 62, 64, 120, 142, 147, (149), 156, 157, 166, 175, 178, 184, 193, 194 • al in lines 37, 43, 63, 75 • ug in lines 42, 75, 169 • ªa/ªi in lines 43, 156, 157 • a˘ in line 147 • ag in lines 148, 171, 178, 187 • ig in lines 174, 184, 192, 199, 203 Syro-Hittite sign-forms in the text for the month of Abî (Emar 452): • li in lines 37 and 52 (vs. line 32, neither type) • ig twice in line 37 • ag in line 54 Syro-Hittite sign-forms in the text for the month following Abî (Emar 463): • ig in line 1 • a˘ in line 11 The following observations regarding dialect, spelling, and presentation are more eclectic than those for paleography. They respond especially to the traits summarized by Seminara (L’accadico, 13–16), along with occasional comments by Ikeda. I include here only the most distinctive features. 1. The form uruE-mar ki in 375:1 (text A) is characteristically Syrian. 273 2. Emar 446 follows the Syrian pattern in preferring Cv and vC syllabic values to CvC. The other texts do not use CvC spellings systematically, and the preference of Emar 446 appears particularly in the verbs. 274 • • • • •

i-sa-ka-nu (lines 17 and 40; vs. i-sak-kán-nu, e.g., 369:4) i-la-ak (lines 20, 43, 69, 89, 104, and 109; vs. il-lak, e.g., 373:184) i-la-qí (lines 27, 37, 82, 110, 112; vs. i-laq-qì, e.g., 388:63) ú-ga-ma-ru (line 56; vs. ú-gam4-ma-ru, e.g., 369:10) ú-sa-ab (line 101; vs. us-sab, e.g., 369:51)

3. The strong aleph is distinctly Syro-Hittite (Seminara) and appears in the zukru festival text Emar 373: i-pa-ªa-a-du in line 43, and Li-ªi-mi in lines 156 and 157. 273. See Seminara, L’accadico, 49. 274. For this trait, see Jun Ikeda, A Linguistic Analysis of the Akkadian Texts from Emar: Administrative Texts (Ph.D. dissertation; Tel Aviv University, 1995) 26–27. The only CvC sign used in a verb in this text is i-na-an-din-[nu] in line 35, used in the third rather than the second syllable.

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4. The use of ßú instead of ßu in Emar 463:12, the text for the month following Abî, is rare in ritual texts but reflects Syro-Hittite orthography. 275 5. The independent pronoun suwatu is characteristic of Emar 375 (lines 4, 9, etc.) and 446 (line 11, etc.), while sâsu is used universally in the festivals and the other major ritual texts. 276 6. The temporal conjunction i-nu-ma in 375:1 appears to be an older form than the widespread e-nu-ma (e.g., 369:1). 277 7. The uncontracted form ú-ßi-ú in 375:30 (text A) is archaic. 278 8. Several sign values in Emar 375 and 446 are characteristic of the Syriantype legal documents: tù (du) in 375:31A and 31D (different words), 34A; 446:83, 84; sà (za) in 375:34A and D, 36A, 46A and C; 446:52; sa10 (sa) in 446:17, 40, 92, 99, 101, and 119; qà (ka) in 375:37A; 446:42. By contrast, the value pè (bad) in 373:164 and 202 is particularly SyroHittite, in contrast to the use of pi (pi) in 375:4 (all copies). 279 9. Among the ritual texts, the use of the preposition ina for the dative is found only in 375:2 (with nadanu ‘to give’), 375:3 (with paªadu ‘to enclose’), and 446:58–59 (with paªadu) and 94 (with wabalu ‘to bring’). 280 10. The Syro-Hittite legal texts have many more ruled section dividers than the Syrian. Among the rituals, the nin.dingir and masªartu installation festivals (Emar 369 and 370), the zukru festival 373, most of the kissu festival texts 385–88 (but not 388K), and the month-long collections of 452 and 463 all have frequent dividers, like the Syro-Hittite documents. The annual zukru Emar 375 has none, and the collection of city rites for six months (446) includes them only in the last of four columns. 11. The use of Babylonian kalû for ‘all’ (vs. gabbu) in Emar 375:32A is specifically characteristic of the Syrian type. 281 12. The compound preposition ana lit (‘to’) in the zukru festival 373:175 and 184 is found only in Syro-Hittite documents.

275. J. Ikeda, “Scribes in Emar,” in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East (ed. Kazuko Watanabe; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1999) 168. 276. Seminara (L’accadico, 131) regards the form suwatu/i as a survival from an older period (see also pp. 41, 152–53). 277. Ibid., 132. Notice that the direction of change matches that from Imar (Ebla and Mari) to Emar (the Late Bronze Age archive). 278. See ibid., 148–50. 279. The use of these sign-values does not exclude others and is not necessarily shared by both archaic texts. Although only copy A of Emar 375 shows Syrian-style paleography, the orthography of the other fragments often imitates the more archaic values of this tablet. 280. Ibid., 458. 281. Note ga-bu-ma in 446:84.

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While Emar 375 and 446 display a striking concentration of Syrian tablet features, the remaining ritual texts by no means match the Syro-Hittite legal documents. For instance, they do not generally use the ßú-sign, and the conjunction enuma (‘when’) is normally found in the Syrian group. Also, the Syro-Hittite texts show the sound change -st- § -lt-, but all of the rituals retain the older -stin their orthography. 282 The diviner’s scribal tradition in building M1 cannot simply be assigned to a Syro-Hittite school, shaped by Hittite imperial influence. What are we to make of the fact that only two ritual texts share many features with the Syrian-type legal documents? After all, both Syrian and SyroHittite documents were produced concurrently throughout the period when Emar was under Hittite rule. Nevertheless, these two texts appear to be older, because the diviners of Zu-Baºla’s family display a strong preference for forms that betray considerable Syro-Hittite influence. Even the choice of the “festival” (ezen) category for many of the most prominent texts approximates Hittite notions of ritual types, and neither Emar 375 nor 446 uses this designation. As we shall see, the calendars of these two texts are likewise different, and archaic, and point to earlier custom. Mari and the Yaminite zukrum Before the Emar ritual texts came to light, the word zukru was known only from the Mari fragment that has now been republished by B. Lafont, along with a join that completes the letter. 283 The letter is from a person named Nur-Sîn to King Zimri-Lim of Mari, and its well-known second portion recounts prophetic messages from the storm-god Addu to Zimri-Lim on behalf of Aleppo. The construction of the letter, however, makes it clear that the zukrum is related to the prophecies of Addu only in the mind of the writer, Nur-Sîn, perhaps because of the diplomatic circumstances that inspired the communication. A second letter again takes up the question of Zimri-Lim’s obligation to Aleppo and its god, the same subject that dominated the longer second part of the zukrum letter. 284 This 282. On the last, see ibid., 226–28. 283. A.1121+A.2731, in RA 78 7–18. Abraham Malamat (“A Mari Prophecy and Nathan’s Dynastic Oracle,” in Prophecy [Georg Fohrer Festschrift; ed. John A. Emerton; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980] 73) already suggested that the two fragments were related. Dominique Charpin informs me that the text will eventually be reedited in the volume ARMT XXVI/3. 284. A.1968, in Jean-Marie Durand, “Le mythologème du combat entre le dieu de l’orage et la mer en Mésopotamie,” M.A.R.I. 7 (1993) 43–45. This text adds an intriguing new reference to the mythic battle between the storm-god and the sea, previously known earliest from Ugarit (especially KTU 1.1–2). Jack M. Sasson (“The Posting of Letters with Divine Messages,” in Florilegium Marianum II [ed. D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 1994] 314–16) observes the link between the two letters and their author and proposes that A.1968 is the earlier text. In this first text, a prophecy from Addu of

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zukrum pertains to a separate matter, which involves negotiations with a Yaminite (or “Benjaminite”) chieftain named Alpan. Nur-Sîn makes clear in the opening lines that his primary purpose is not to send news but to motivate the king to act on matters he already knows about. There are two: 3 4 5

1-su 2-su ù 5-su as-sum zu-uk-ri-im a-na dim na-da-[nim] ù ni-ih-la-tim sa dim be-el Ka-al-la-su ki [it-ti-n]i ir-ri-su a-na be-lí-ia as-pu-ra-am

As often as five times have I written to my lord about the zukrum to give to Addu and (about) the granted property that Addu, Lord of Kallassu, is requesting (from) us. The body of the letter then addresses these two problems in the same order, the zukrum much more briefly than the granted property for Addu Lord of Kallassu. 285 Because Nur-Sîn cannot afford to irritate Zimri-Lim by simply nagging, he needs fresh developments as an excuse for his renewed appeal to the king. In order to understand the coherence of the god Addu’s role in the letter, we must recognize that he is worshiped as a single deity who receives offering at more than one shrine and in more than one town, as do Dagan and other deities in Emar’s zukru festival god-list. As “Addu of Aleppo,” he is associated with the capital city of Yamhad, a kingdom more powerful that that of Zimri-Lim, based at Mari. Addu serves a lesser town as “Lord of Kallassu,” but any benefit he receives through his worship there is regarded as accruing to Addu, the universal storm-god. In the second instance addressed in Nur-Sîn’s letter, the storm-god Addu has communicated his request through an apilum prophet. 286 Negotiations that touch on the political relationship between Mari and Yamhad, the kingdom of which Aleppo is the center, are played out in the religious domain. Nur-Sîn presents the new development as the result of appropriate diplomatic effort and religious inquiry, not as unexpected news. The message from the apilum was not a random oracle, delivered without warning. Rather, Addu’s statement was solicited by

Aleppo is accompanied by hair and fringe for verification, which are lacking in the repeated reference of A.1121+:46–62. 285. Lines 6–12 versus 13–45; the granted property is represented by the term nihlatum. On this term, see the discussions of Abraham Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) 48; and Bernard Batto, “Land Tenure and Women at Mari,” JESHO 23 (1980) 225–26. 286. See especially lines 30–33. Sasson (Florilegium Marianum II, 316) suggests that comparison with A.1968 shows that the prophecy from Addu of Kallassu is reported here first.

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divination, which determined the moment of divine presence. 287 If Nur-Sîn himself did not initiate the procedure, it was nevertheless part of planned negotiations, with the Mari official as intermediary. Mari’s Nur-Sîn adds to this message two further observations. He knows that Zimri-Lim would never want a divine message to go unreported, a fact that makes solicited prophecy an effective attention-getting device. First, as “Lord of Kallassu,” Addu requests granted property from Mari’s King Zimri-Lim, and then the storm-god validates this request by a direct pronouncement to Zimri-Lim, issued under the authority of his worship as “Addu of Aleppo,” 288 based in the royal seat of the Yamhad kingdom. 289 Both divine messages are mediated by an apilum prophet. From both Kallassu and Aleppo, the storm-god claims in the same terms to have instigated Zimri-Lim’s return to the Mari throne: “Am I not Addu Lord of Kallassu/Aleppo, who exalted him/you . . . , who restored him/you to the throne of his/your father’s house?” 290 Addu of Aleppo only adds a paternal exhortation to do what is right, without further demand. 291 The specific request from Kallassu thus depends ultimately on the religious authority of the predominant Aleppo cult, along with the state’s implied vested interest in the matter. The news of the first topic in the letter is more difficult to establish but crucial for understanding the significance of the zukrum. First, the two negotiations mentioned by Nur-Sîn have no direct connection except as they pertain to his current diplomatic activity on behalf of the Mari court. 292 Nothing in the long report on prophecies from these individual storm-god cult centers links them concretely to the zukrum that Alpan asks for Addu. Neither Alpan nor the individual witnesses to his request appear in the second part of the letter, and neither Kallassu nor Aleppo is assigned any role in the zukrum negotiation. Alpan has no temple or cult affiliation, and his communication invokes no divination or prophecy. Furthermore, the zukrum cannot be explained by any detail from the second part of the letter. There is no indication that it is to be given at Aleppo or Kallassu or that 287. This is indicated by ina teretim ‘by omens’ with the verb izuzzum ‘to stand (present)’. See the discussion and bibliography in Fleming, JAOS 113 180–81 and nn. 40–46. 288. See lines 34–45 and 46–62. 289. Kallassu does appear to be located at some distance from Aleppo itself, in territory somehow under Mari influence or control (Lafont, RA 78 15–16), but this location does not affect the zukrum. 290. See lines 14–17 and 49–51. 291. See lines 52–59. Similar sentiments are expressed by Addu in the related letter, A.1968:9u–10u. 292. He may associate the two affairs in part because both involve the god Addu. Sasson (Florilegium Marianum II, 314) proposes that A.1121+ is in the form of a “diplomat’s dispatch,” longer than the standard letter form for reporting new prophetic statements and reflecting the fact that the letter returns to known subjects.

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the occasion is related in any way to the claim on Alahtum as property for Addu. 293 The entire discussion of the zukrum is contained in seven lines, made difficult by two direct quotations that may possibly be attributed to different characters. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

[as-s]um zu-uk-ri-im a-ªna dim naº-da-nim Al-pa-an igi mZu-Ha-at-nim A-bi-kur-ªi ùº [x]-x-ha-an iq-bé-e-em um-ma-a-mi zu-uk-ra-[am] x [ ] hi.a i-di-in be-lí igi lú.mesx [x (x)] ù áb zu-uk-ra-am na-da-nam iq-bé-e-em um-ma-a-m[i] a-na ur-ra-am se-ra-am la ib-ba-la-ka-ta-an-ni lúmes si-bi as-ku-un-sum be-lí lu-ú i-de

About giving the zukrum to Addu: Alpan said to me in the presence of Zu-Hatnim, Abi-sadî, and (a third person), “Give the zukrum (with?) the . . . and the cattle.” 294 In the presence of the . . .-men, my lord has told me to give the zukrum, (saying) “He must not oppose me at any future time.” I have provided witnesses for him. My lord should be aware. This translation reflects my preference for dividing the report into separate statements by Alpan and by the king, both cited by Nur-Sîn from past negotiation over this issue, which he claims to have raised repeatedly with the king in the past. The two quotations are given parallel form, consisting of the speaker, the witnesses, and the requests by Alpan and the king, respectively. The effect of the parallel is to emphasize that action on this matter is required both by Alpan’s statement and by King Zimri-Lim’s own formal order. Alpan, a man evidently known to the king already, has made his request through the Mari representative Nur-Sîn in the presence of three other senior officials from Mari. 295 He asks that the king sponsor this zukrum for Addu with a 293. This against Lafont’s assumption that the location is Kallassu. 294. abhi.a/littum in line 9 can refer either to cows or to bovines of both sexes. 295. Zu-Hatnim is a fairly well-known servant of the Mari court, author of roughly ten letters still to be published; see ARM XXVI 256 and comment on p. 536. ARM XXIII 238:6 lists a Zu-Hatnim in the company of various officials, including diviners. Birot (ARM XXVII, p. 137) observes that two men of this name are prominent in Mari letters, the second a king of Idamaraß. The letter A.2951:4–8 mentions Zu-Hatnim as Zimri-Lim’s messenger to his official at Tuttul and thus shows the man active in the vicinity of Emar (J.-M. Durand, “L’assemblée en Syrie à l’époque pré-amorite,” Miscellanea Eblaitica 2 (ed. Pelio Fronzaroli; Florence: Università di Firenze, 1989] 34). An Abi-sadî appears in the service of the diviner Erib-Sîn in XXIII 495:9, and a certain Abi-sadî brought a report to Zimri-Lim of divination regarding the future of Atamrum, king of Andarig (XXVI 185bis:14–15).

Spread is 1 pica long

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supply that includes cattle. 296 The king has likewise addressed Nur-Sîn before witnesses, whether the same men or another group. 297 His very speech is cast as an authorization to give the zukrum, and the direct quotation is reserved for one stipulation, that Alpan not oppose the king at any future date. 298 It is equally possible, in grammatical terms, to read these lines as a quotation within a quotation. 299 If we do so, Nur-Sîn would be reporting to the king that he has indeed received from Alpan the king’s command on behalf of this man. This interpretation gives less weight to the persistent initiative of Nur-Sîn claimed in the heading, since the official is merely reporting his response to a royal command. Throughout the rest of the letter, only Nur-Sîn addresses the king as “my lord,” and the contents of the exchange are easier to explain when the writer’s voice is maintained. 300 It is impossible to make sense of these lines without identifying Alpan. Alpan is not a cult professional in service of Addu, but he appears to be a leader among 296. The verb idin ‘give’ applies to the zukrum itself, since the noun appears only with the verb nadanum (lines 3, 6, and 10). The cattle are provided as part of the larger “giving” of the zukrum. 297. If ‘the same men’, read lúmes su-[nu-ti]. Lafont’s copy suggests some other sign just before the break, perhaps lú.messu-[ga-gi]. This is the best of Lafont’s alternatives (‘cheikhs’), better than lú.messu.gi (‘elders’) or lú.mese[b-bi] (‘contrôleurs’); see Lafont, RA 78 12. The sugagu would be leaders of the tribal populations who have been approved by the Mari authorities; see Jean-Robert Kupper, “Les pouvoirs locaux dans le royaume de Mari,” in Les pouvoirs locaux en Mésopotamie et dans les regions adjacentes (ed. André Finet; Brussels: Institut des Hautes Études de Belgique, 1982) 50–51; Philippe Talon, “La taxe ‘sugagutum’ à Mari,” RA 73 (1979) 150–51. Ichiro Nakata, “A Further Look at the Institution of sugagutum in Mari,” JANES 19 (1989) 113–18; Pierre Villard, “Nomination d’un scheich,” in Florilegium Marianum II, 293–95. 298. The form of the royal order is somewhat unusual. ARM XXVI 159:5–9 includes a similar separation of the general command from a more specific stipulation: ‘Yesterday my lord spoke to me about not going on the journey, (saying) “Asqudum should go, but you must stay” ’ ([a]m-sa-li be-lí [as]-sum ha-ra-na-am la a-la-k[a-am i]q-bé-em umma-mi [m]Às-qú-du-um li-li-ik [ù] at-ta na-ak-li). Notice that the commanded action is rendered as an infinitive in the accusative, as in the zukrum text. This construction contrasts with the genitival forms created by the force of assum (‘regarding, about’) in lines 3 and 6, assum zukrim ana Addu nadanim. Compare for this pattern ARM XXVI 323:28–30: ‘My lord wrote to me about my presence (here), and you wrote to me about sending (back) Kirû’ (ªas-sumº wa-sa-bi-ia be-lí is-pu-ra-am ù as-sum fKi-ri †à-ra-dì-im ta-as-pu-ra-am). 299. This is the approach of Lafont (p. 10): Alpân, en présence de Zû-hatnim, Abisadî et [. . .]hân, m’a parlé en ces termes: “Livre le bétail comme il (le) demande, et (même) des vaches (car) mon maître, par-devant les [. . .] m’a ordonné de livrer (ce) bétail en disant: ‘A l’avenir, qu’il n’y ait plus de révolte contre moi!’ ” 300. That is, ‘Alpan said to me’ and ‘my lord has told me’ in lines 8 and 10 both refer to Nur-Sîn in the first person. Compare ‘my lord’ in lines 1, 5, 12, 33, 36, 39, 41, 44, 45, and 62. The prophet says in line 48, ‘Write to your lord’ (belika).

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the Yaminite group known as the Yarihû. Three tablets record transactions involving Yasmah-Addu, son of Alpan, “the leader of the Yarihû.” 301 This YasmahAddu was the king of the Yarihû tribe, one of five divisions under the larger association of the Yaminites, and he is known from a wide variety of Mari texts. 302 The father, Alpan, seems to appear also in the record of an old land dispute between him and another man during the time of Yahdun-Lim. 303 Charpin doubts that our zukrum letter involves the same man, apparently based on the later date, but the name is very rare and the interval need be little more than twenty years. 304 Alpan evidently made his request as a local leader who was affiliated with a tribe that caused Zimri-Lim considerable trouble early in his reign. 305 The king’s fourth year was named for his defeat of the Yaminites, 306 and conflicts may have continued for some time afterward. 307 Against this backdrop, Zimri-Lim’s agreement to give a zukrum at Alpan’s request seems to have been part of a political negotiation designed to consolidate support within a troublesome tribe. By either interpretation of the quoted exchange, Zimri-Lim’s stipulation that ‘he must not oppose me at any future time’ can only apply to Alpan. The phrase 301. lú/awîlum; ARM VIII 37 records a large loan of silver (five minas) to this man, with the full title mostly visible in the seal. The same seal can be restored in the broken VIII 42 and in the receipt of silver and sheep IX 23. These texts are scattered throughout the years 4u, 7u, and 10u in the reign of Zimri-Lim (Throne of Samas, Statue of Hattâ, and Help for Babylon). 302. These texts include ARM II 53–56, letters written by Yasmah-Addu to Mari’s King Zimri-Lim. Perhaps the most colorful portrait is found in A.1146, where he is the butt of a fellow king’s humor; see Pierre Marello, “Vie nomade,” in Florilegium Marianum I (ed. J.-M. Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 1991) 115–25. ARM XXVIII 32:6–7 says that ZimriLim himself installed Yasmah-Addu as king of the Yarihû, not as successor to his father Alpan, but to replace a man named Yaggih-Addu, who was apparently supported by Samsi-Addu and sons of the previous regime. 303. M.8142:16u–30u, in D. Charpin, “Les champions, la meule et le fleuve, ou le rachat du terroir de Puzurrân au roi d’Esnunna par le roi de Mari Yahdun-Lim,” in Florilegium Marianum I (1991) 29–38. 304. Ibid., 33 n. 5. 305. It is worth noticing that this ritual event is given no affiliation with a specific group or place. Unlike Addu as Lord of Kallassu and Lord of Aleppo in the rest of the letter, the zukrum is simply requested for Addu, who is given no further appellation. 306. Year 2u; see D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand, “La prise du pouvoir par ZimriLim,” M.A.R.I. 4 (1985) 305–6, for discussions of year dates. 307. Based on the remaining content, Lafont (pp. 16–17) places the letter A.1121+ in this period, perhaps during year 3u. Durand (AEM I/1, p. 139) distinguishes two stages of Yaminite revolt against Mari rule in the same year, followed by unrest centered in northwest Mesopotamia (Zalmaqum and Harran) which contributed to war with Esnunna in the next year (Zimri-Lim 3u). Anbar (Les tribus amurrites, 193) considers the sequential reconstructions still unproved.

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urram seram does not belong to the normal language of command and response, which usually implies that immediate execution of the order is expected. Urram seram refers to an unlimited period of future time, and the acts defined by it tend to have a sweeping scope. 308 Furthermore, the opposition expressed by the verb nabalkutum is not the refusal to carry out specific orders but an all-encompassing withdrawal of commitment. 309 It is unlikely that Nur-Sîn would respond to an implied charge of disloyalty from the very mouth of the king with a placid assurance that witnesses have been provided for Alpan. On the contrary, these witnesses represent a new development in negotiations with the Yaminite leader. Nur-Sîn reviews the previous statements by Alpan and Zimri-Lim as the requirements of two sides in a negotiation that Alpan is now willing to conclude. It appears that the Yarihû tribe initiated the offer of submission, which the Mari king accepted under standard terms. 310 308. The phrase is fairly common in the Mari correspondence and appears again in A.1121+:40 in connection with an imagined future disaster that would bring ZimriLim’s wrath if the prophetic prediction had not been reported. When used in reference to questions of loyalty between the king and his officials, urram seram covers the full range of possible circumstances rather than a single case. Consider ARM XXVI 326:6u– 8u, ‘Regarding the possibility that I could displease my lord, would not my lord investigate my case eventually?’ (a[s-su]m a-na si-ir be-lí-ia us-ta-ma-ra-ßú [ur]-ra-am se20-ra-am wa-ar-ka-at a-wa-ti-ia [b]e-lí i-pa-ar-ra-ás-ma). This imagined sweep of time may rarely be placed in the past: ‘Perhaps at some time I have not investigated [a report], but [this is] in no way a lie’ (ªpí-qaº-at ur-ra-a[m] se-ra-am wa-ar-ka-[at †e4-mi-im ú-ul ap-t]a-ra-ás-ma mi-im-ma a-wa-tum sà-ar-tu[m ú-ul i-ba-si]); ARM XXVI 302:13–14, according to the restoration of Dominique Charpin. 309. See CAD s.v. nabalkutu 1b ‘to act against an agreement’; and 1c ‘to rebel against authority’. Both uses may have persons as the direct object, as in A.1121+:11. Durand (AEM I/1, 131) observes that at Mari “L’image [de nabalkutum] est généralement celle de la rebellion.” Examples include ARM XXVI 365:8; 382:4u; 385:42u; 392:49; and 412:24, 31. B. Lafont lists several expressions for breaking an alliance, beginning with nabalkutum as most common (“Relations internationales, alliances et diplomatie au temps des rois de Mari,” Amurru II [forthcoming] section III.1, “Le serment par les dieux et le sacrifice de l’ânon.” I would like to thank Bertrand for his help with my Mari studies at many levels, including access to this manuscript before publication. 310. The “protocol of Karana” (M.7259) incorporates a very similar stipulation in a text outlining the commitments of the high officials of a new vassal named Asqur-Addu. “If Asqur-Addu. . . , whom Zimri-Lim . . . has installed to rule over us, does not rebel (la ªib-ba-al-la-ka-atº-ma), I will receive no other king to rule over me.” See J.-M. Durand, “Précurseurs syriens aux protocoles néo-assyriens: considérations sur la vie politique aux Bords-de-l’Euphrate,” in Marchands, diplomates et empéreurs (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991) 49–50. For evidence that the Yarihû did submit in some measure to Zimri-Lim, see the letters ARM II 53, 55, and 56, written by their chief, Yasmah-Addu, to the king of Mari.

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All that remains is for Zimri-Lim to complete the agreement by giving the zukrum to Addu, in this context evidently to be understood as a god worshiped by the Yarihû people. 311 Mari is responding to the request of the Yaminite group. Although the Emar zukru texts come from centuries later, they cast the Yaminite zukrum in an entirely new light. The comparison shows that Alpan was not simply asking that Zimri-Lim give an offering to Addu but that he support the performance of a local rite, expressed as “giving the zukrum.” 312 The later Emar practice makes it more likely that Alpan’s zukrum was a major public celebration. It is not surprising to see the superior party in an ancient Mesopotamian alliance take on the ritual obligations of a subdued people. By this means the victor invited those who submit to recognize the new order, as approved by their own gods. 313 At the same time, Alpan offered this ritual demand for a narrower purpose, to mark the public conclusion of a political bond. This zukrum occupied the same position as the oath that constituted the final verbal commitment in common treaty procedure of the period. 314 Lafont now distinguishes the sacrifice of a 311. We should not imagine in this case one tribal god but rather the worship of the main regional god where the people were settled. Compare the alliance entered into by all the Yaminite tribes during a meeting at Harran, concluded in the temple of the moon-god, the chief god of the city (ARM XXVI 24). Charpin and Durand (“ ‘Fils de Simªal’: Les origines tribales des rois de Mari,” RA 80 [1986] 147) observe that the Yaminites worshiped Dagan at Terqa even during the time when they were at war with Zimri-Lim and the city was under Mari’s rule. 312. The request by Alpan in A.1121+ contrasts with the delivery of sacrificial animals by various towns to Mari, perhaps in some connection with their allegiance to Zimri-Lim. ARM XXIII 504 lists the deliveries (mu - t ù) of cattle and sheep by the elders of [Sun]â, Urgis, and Sinah, northern towns mentioned together as newly submitted to Zimri-Lim in the letter he wrote home, ARM X 121. Alpan’s request reverses the direction of the donation. 313. See the discussion in my “Emar Festivals,” 114–15. 314. When an alliance is formed between acknowledged peers, the final verbal commitment (‘swearing the oath’ nis ili zakarum) is preceded by preliminary promise (‘touching the throat’ napistam lapatum). The two stages are represented by “large” and “small” tablets, ‘the tablet of the oath’ (†uppi nis ili) and ‘the tablet of touching the throat’ (†uppi lipit napistim). See Charpin, AEM I/2, 143–44, and texts (ARM XXVI) 372 and 373, an alliance between Hammurabi of Babylon and Íilli-Sîn of Esnunna. See also ARM XXVI 469 for an alliance between Babylon and Mari. The two idioms that distinguish separate stages in treaty agreements can nevertheless refer to the same alliance ceremony; see D. Charpin, “Un traité entre Zimri-Lim de Mari et Ibâl-pî-El II d’Esnunna,” in Marchands, diplomates et empéreurs (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991) 165 n. 72. When a superior power imposed a vassal treaty on a defeated or submissive people, the final “tablet of the oath” was sent directly without preamble (Charpin, AEM I/2, p. 144). Francis Joannès (“Le traité de vassalité d’Atamrum d’Andarig,” in Marchands, diplomates et empéreurs, 167–78) published a vassal treaty (A.96) that further sustains Charpin’s hypothesis.

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donkey as the Amorrite counterpart of the Mesopotamian throat-touching ritual, both preceding the same core event, the oath of the gods. 315 Nur-Sîn presents every stage of the exchange with Alpan in terms of verbal commitments, always made before witnesses, without any hint of the written records of typical alliances. The zukrum itself was not part of ritual custom at home in urban Mari, and perhaps the underlying political agreement was left without the accoutrements of a full-fledged formal treaty. At any rate, the zukrum should not be understood as the treaty sacrifice itself, which normally involved a donkey rather than cattle. 316 The very fact that the one attestation of the zukru outside of Emar comes from the Mari text A.1121+ may be explained in part by Alpan’s apparent identification with a Yaminite tribe. Emar represented an important Yaminite center during the Mari period, 317 and the kings of Emar still held land in a nearby village called Rabban, which carried the name of the Yaminite tribe associated with the region in the Mari period. 318 The Essential zukru: A Spoken Offering Three separate zukru events are referred to in tablets from Emar and Mari, each noticeably different from the others. The two versions of the zukru performed at Emar have in common a seven-day celebration that begins and ends with a procession to a shrine of stones. All of the people of Emar gather to pay homage to Dagan in a rite ultimately defined as “giving the zukru.” 319 The rites are counted from the 15th day of months identified as sag.mu and Zarati, which are most efficiently explained as names for the same month from parallel calendars. The month-name Zarati is evidently of local Semitic origin, while the Sumerian sag.mu is more foreign, perhaps a scribal innovation. The magnificent festival for the seventh year appears to build on the regular annual practice portrayed in the shorter text. In the existing text, this innovation is joined to the wealth and ambition of the local king, whether or not he was the one who actually instituted the calendar change. In practice, a “seventh-year 315. B. Lafont, in Amurru II [forthcoming] section III.3, “La prestation de serment: Étapes et signification.” 316. Ibid., section III.1, “Le serment par les dieux et le sacrifice de l’ânon”; and idem, “Sacrifices et rituels à Mari et dans la Bible,” RA 93 (1999) 57–78. 317. See Durand, “La cité-état d’Imâr à l’époque des rois de Mari,” M.A.R.I. 6 (1990) 53–55. 318. See my article, “A Limited Kingship: Late Bronze Emar in Ancient Syria,” UF 24 (1992) 64 and n. 34. In Yahdun-Lim’s temple inscription, the Rabbû are said to have their capital at Abattum, just down-river from Imar (see Durand, “La cité-état d’Imâr,” 45–48). 319. Emar 373:169–70 and 375:1–2, zukra nadanu. This verb contrasts with the generic term for ritual performance at Emar, epesu (‘to perform’; see for example 373:38 and 41).

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zukru” might have been initiated after an indeterminate interval, without the inconvenience of precise calculation, since celebration required only one year’s advance warning; in other words, any year could be declared the sixth or preparatory year, thus defining a new cycle for the “seventh-year zukru.” The combination of annual and special observances is also found in Late Bronze Age Hittite ritual. 320 No calendar specific to the zukru is suggested by the Mari letter, and perhaps the timing of the Yaminite zukrum was fixed by no more than the exigencies of diplomacy. Few other details link the evidence from Emar and Mari. Both “give the zukru” in a major public ritual. Addu probably was the chief god worshiped by the Yarihû in that region, comparable to Dagan in the area of the middle Euphrates, and Alpan’s request for cattle is appropriate only for the most costly and prominent of rites. Beneath the very different expressions of the zukru in these distant settings, the constant use of an idiom with the verb “to give” (nadanu[m]) suggests that we are dealing with the with the same ritual act that persisted through time. Definition of an essential zukru common to both the Mari and the Emar texts ultimately depends on the meaning of the word itself, evaluated within the two ritual settings. The most promising derivation of the word zukru is the common Semitic root zkr ‘to name, mention, remember’. 321 Based on this etymology, the 320. Singer (Hittite ki.lam Festival, 1.47–48) points out that there are two types of tablet colophons, one numbered by tablet sequence and the other by days of the festival. The first set refers to the “regular” (sag.uß nim) ki.lam festival, and the second identifies “the great (gal) festival of the ki.lam.” Similar distinctions can be found in a ritual tablet “shelf list” for the hesta-house festival and possibly the autumn purulli, among others. The special events are once called ‘the great festivals of the sixth year’ (ezenmeß galmeß ßa mu6-kam; AM 162, IV:22), and Singer proposes that “regular” festivals by contrast were celebrated annually. Festivals celebrated every eight years are associated with secondmillennium kings of Crete at Minos and Thebes; see R. F. Willetts, Cretan Cults and Festivals (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962) 94–96. 321. Lafont (RA 78 11) follows Dossin’s interpretation ‘un ensemble d’animaux mâles’, based on the other common Semitic root zkr ‘male’. The ritual detail now supplied by the Emar texts renders this solution unsatisfying. From their administrative perspective, the writers of Emar texts scrupulously recorded every significant characteristic of all materials destined for offering, along with the needed quantities. If the word zukru refers to the most important of these materials, we expect to find the specific male animals somewhere in the lists, perhaps linked to the rites at the sikkanu stones. The word zukru, however, is never used for a specific offering, and at no point do the scribes emphasize participation of male animals or male humans. In fact, descriptions of the zukru’s kubadu offerings, which close each processional day, specify sacrifice of a ewe (udu.u8/ lahru), an unusual requirement. (Females were especially important for milk and reproduction and were not usually killed for food.) Dagan’s festival title, bel bukari ‘Lord of the

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zukru is probably a verbal complement to offering, an invocation to the gods. 322 Most ritual acts in the ancient Near East incorporated both a material offering and some form of speech, but the zukru’s title assigns predominance to the spoken component. 323 Other offerings are associated with particular modes of or occasions for prayer. The Akkadian ikribu can indicate a votive offering, both promised and paid in the context of homage (verb karabu). In a West Semitic tradition, we may compare the biblical word todâ for giving thanks. 324 In the beginning of the books of Samuel, the writer portrays the Philistines as “giving glory” to Yahweh when they provide offerings to accompany the now-unwanted ark. 325 Both word and ritual act may likewise be combined in the biblical ªazkarâ, an offering that ‘remembers’ God. 326 In Hittite, approach to the gods with words and Offspring’, combines with the one reference to him as father (a-bu-ma, 373:190) to acknowledge his role as procreator and source of life, not source of male offspring only. Finally, no other combination of consonants from possible readings of the syllabic signs (zu/sú-uk/g/q-ru) offers a promising alternative. Although Arnaud treats Dagan bel offering was ofcombined verb mugai‘tofestival invoke’. The derivative nouns bukari as lord cattle, he in nowthe identifies the Emar as “la fiesta-‘recuerdo’ ”; “La religión de los Sirios del Éufrates,” 15. 322. This use of the verb is preserved in both Akkadian and Hebrew: CAD s.v. zakaru A 2a1u ‘to invoke (the name of a deity)’, A 5 ‘to mention, invoke, name’ (D stem); AHw s.v. zakaru(m) G I 1e, 6; etc. In the Bible, the same verb defines a religious relationship, in which God acknowledges his obligations to his people, ‘remembering’ them (Gen 9:15–16, Exod 2:24, Judg 16:28, etc.), and the people demonstrate their continuing devotion by ‘remembering’ God (Deut 8:18, 2 Sam 14:11, Jer 51:50, Ps 22:28). The Hiphil stem of zkr encompasses the entire verbal aspect of cult, ‘naming’ Yahweh instead of other gods. In Exod 20:24 the word is used in connection with the altar, which represents the concrete aspect of cult, performed by making offerings: ‘in every (sacred) place where I cause my name to be remembered/invoked . . .’ békol hammaqôm ªåser ªazkîr ªet sémî. See also Exod 23:13, Josh 23:7, etc. 323. The West Semitic word zukru could mean ‘invocation’, insofar as the pursu noun form may describe the general activity of a transitive verb: for example, hutnu ‘protection’, ßurpu ‘refining, burning’, and zunnu ‘provision’. 324. Lev 7:12, etc. B. A. Levine (In the Presence of the Lord [Leiden: Brill, 1974] 15– 19) proposes that Ugaritic/Hebrew slmm is related to greeting, which would make it a similar term. Interpretation of this term is vigorously debated; see Jacob Milgrom (Leviticus 1–16 [AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991] 220–21), who argues that its etymology remains unknown. 325. 1 Sam 6:5, natan kabôd. 326. H. Eising (“zkr,” TDOT 4.79–80) explains his translation ‘memorial offering’ by the proposal that Yahweh’s name was pronounced at the same time that the sacrificial portion was burned on the altar. B. A. Levine (Numbers 1–20 [New York: Doubleday, 1993] 199) translates the word ‘token portion’ and compares Akkadian zikru ‘effigy’. The Akkadian comparison derives from the Gilgamesh Epic (I ii:33; cf. 31), in which the goddess Aruru carries out Anu’s decision to create Enkidu. The CAD (s.v. zikru B 1, ‘image,

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mugawar and muke/issar can refer to both speech and concrete materials offered in ritual “invocation.” This combination is found at least twice with the verb ‘to give’ (pai-), which suggests that all of these idioms originated from the combining of gift and verbal commitment or request. 327 The verb zakaru means first of all ‘to name’. When worshipers name a god, they acknowledge divine power and invite the god’s presence in hope of some benefit. In general, this act does not initiate a relationship but assumes an existing one. In both zukru settings, the ritual speech was addressed to the chief god by the full community. 328 The Emar rite would have celebrated a spoken approach to Dagan, a prayer that renewed the link between the people and the god who was ultimately responsible for its survival as a community. Invocation of one or more gods by gathered communities has a precedent in the concluding ceremonies for alliances and in formal acts of submission. Mari alone has provided considerable new evidence for the early second millennium. 329 The final tablet that records the formal bond between the treaty partners is called “the tablet of the oath,” on which “the life of the god(s)” is invoked against any inclination to break the commitment. 330 Written tablets are mencounterpart, replica’) separates a rare independent noun for this context from the usual ‘name, what is spoken’, but the Gilgamesh text is most simply translated ‘Aruru created in her heart what Anu had commanded’ (zikru sa Anim ibtani ina libbisa); see AHw s.v. zikru(m) B 4, ‘Befohlenes’ for these references. The biblical ªazkarâ is taken from a min˙â offering of grain to be burned for Yahweh, while the rest may be consumed by the priests (Lev 2:2–3, 9–10, 16; 5:12; 6:8–9). When oil and bread are provided for standing gifts in the very presence of Yahweh, an ªazkarâ is burned in association with the bread (Lev 24:7). It appears that the ªazkarâ was the offering that produced the fragrance for the direct point of contact between the giver and God. One example of the biblical ªazkarâ occurs in an oath-taking ceremony very similar to the ceremony referred to by the Akkadian idiom nis ili zakaru. At the climax of an ordeal for a woman accused of unfaithfulness, she must drink a bitter potion right after the priest has made her take an oath and has burned an ªazkarâ portion from her grain offering (Num 5:26). 327. See CHD s.v. mugai-, mugawar, muke/issar, and comments. For mukessar as object of pai- ‘to give’, section 1 b 1u, KUB 32.130:6–7; KBo 15.34 ii 22–23. This terminology was pointed out to me by Gary Beckman. 328. When Alpan speaks as a tribal representative, the Yaminite zukrum serves as a negotiation for his people as a whole. 329. See, for general treatment, Durand, “Précurseurs syriens aux protocoles néoassyriens,” 13–72. The same idiom is used in a Leilan treaty; see Jesper Eidem, “An Old Assyrian Treaty from Tell Leilan,” in Marchands, diplomates et empéreurs (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1991) 199, 204, col. III 11–12, 14–18. 330. The tablet is the †uppi nis ili counterpart, replica’) separates a rare independent noun for this context from the usual ‘name, what is spoken’, but the Gilgamesh text is most simply translated ‘Aruru nis ili, sworn with the verb zakarum. An Assyrian variation makes explicit the invocation of the god in the nis ili formula: Streck Asb. 290 rev. 8 Spread is now 12 points long

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tioned only in the context of major formal treaties, whether the treaty is peer-topeer or sovereign-vassal, but oaths are still sworn to seal the submission of lesser parties. 331 One Mari letter describes the district elders and other leadership of a defeated town as ‘swearing an oath’ (verb zakarum) in an act of surrender, apparently an oath of loyalty to the victor. 332 Another letter combines an alliance by oath with a bond by blood: “they are bound (‘have stood’) by blood and indeed I am sworn to him (their chief?) by oath.” 333 Mari texts also provide the only attestations of the noun musazkirum ‘one who causes to swear’, specifically a participant in treaty oath ceremonies. 334 The one use of this idiom in a text probably from Emar involves an oath that is sworn by witnesses regarding a private financial crisis. 335 In the Mari period, when a subgroup of the Yaminite Amnanû tribe (see Bauer Asb. 242 n. 5) mentions the nis zikir Nergal ‘oath (life) of the name of Nergal’; see CAD s.v. nisu A c. 331. Lack of reference to tablets in these instances does not prove that tablets were not used, but legal custom could allow an oath to serve as adequate guarantee, without written record. 332. ARM XIV 64:5–8; cf. XIV 106:rev.11u–15u. Compare M.6060 for an oath sworn (nis ili zakarum) by Haneans to Zimri-Lim, with similar texts gathered in Durand, “Précurseurs syriens,” 50–56. 333. A.2730:11, in Charpin, AEM I/2, p. 33 and n. 24, i-na da-mi iz-zi-zu ù ni-ìs dingir-lim [l]u-ú za-ak-ra-ak-sum. 334. ARM XXVI 469:16; S. Lackenbacher (AEM I/2, p. 395) identifies these figures simply as the “oath-takers,” rather than as ritual officiants. See also ARM XII 143:rev. 4u–5u, 14u–16u. ARM XXVI 469 reports from Babylon on the activities of the king, Hammurabi, who had taken steps toward formal alliance with Mari. 335. RE 96:22–23, at the end of a record of debts: ‘The kinsmen have assembled and sworn an oath concerning his (financial) distress’ (lú.mesah-hu ip-hu-ru-ma ù as-sum dan!-nu-ti-su ni-is dingirmes iz !-ku-ru). This Rosen text belongs to a group of tablets without any formulaic reference to Emar that proves its origin, but it suits the site well. The tablet has “Syrian” form (written across the shorter dimension), common to texts drawn up by native Emar scribes. Names are familiar from Emar: Is-dDa-gan (lines 2, 8) Emar 138:53, passim; dgìr.gal (10), 15:15, 17; Ya-ah-ßi-dDa-ga[n] (11), 52:62, passim; Ig-mu-lu (12), 15:21, passim; He-e-mi (13), 2:35, passim; dDa-gan-gal (14), 75:2, passim; Ab-dama-lik (15) 52:70; Tu-ra-dDa-gan (16), 125:6, passim; A-bi-ka-pí (17) 4:34, passim; A-bili-mu (20), 137:41, passim; Da-i (17), RE 62:27, cf. RE 20:6, neither proven to be from Emar, also AuOrS 1 33:19; for dumu-Da-i, Emar 150:29; AuOrS 1 14:37; 15:14, both explicitly from Emar. Neither Nu-ri-dDa-gan (4) nor I-lí-ia-ni-il (21) is attested; compare Nu-ú-ri, Emar 209:4. The “brothers” are prominent in legal procedures at Emar, especially as recipients of fines stipulated for hypothetical property claims, Emar 14:24; 20:26; 109:26; etc. They initiated documentation of a legal decision in 14:18–20 and received one shekel of silver for overseeing a land sale in 109:20–21; 110:26; 111:23; etc. When someone drew up a will, he or she initiated the process by assembling his or her “brothers,” the suffix perhaps indicating direct relation, Emar 176:3; 180:3; 181:1–2; etc. The sale documents that involve the brothers are consistently of the Syrian tablet type. Guy Bunnens (“Emar on the Euphrates in the 13th Century b.c.: Some Thoughts about

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requested a protective treaty with Zimri-Lim, the oath ceremony involved assembly of the full population of their settlements. 336 Neither the Mari zukrum letter nor Emar’s zukru ritual texts provides a clue to the specific type of “invocation” envisioned for each custom. 337 It is possible that the word itself covers as broad a range as its English translation, and we simply lack evidence for its application in more modest settings. Nevertheless, the two known uses reveal that the zukru involved a formal public offering to the chief regional god in two contexts separated by a considerable distance in time and space. Even the idiom remains constant: “to give the zukru.” Both the Mari and the Emar zukru are public rites for entire communities, but only at Emar did the event clearly belong to the regular cycle of ritual associated with the calendar. At Emar, Dagan was invoked, not for any evident seasonal needs of agriculture or animals, but for some purpose that reflected the identity of the city itself. The entire populace brought its chief god out of the city to invoke him at a shrine of stones in the presence of the whole pantheon. 338 There may have been some more precise nuance to this sacred speech, but the inclusiveness and centrality of the public rite suggests that it involved a sweeping acknowledgment of Dagan’s relation to the city and request for his presence and care. The zukru and the Axes of the Year The scribe of the festival text identifies the month for celebrating the zukru by the Sumerian term sag.mu ‘the head of the year’. Whatever the exact orientation of the month at Emar, the Mesopotamian term is associated with the Newly Published Cuneiform Texts,” AbrN 27 [1989] 30–31) identifies these “brothers” as the institutional expression for the rulers of the kingdom, part of the royal entourage, but in fact they frequent the administrative circles of “the city” and the city god dnin.urta. Nicolletta Bellotto (“i lú.meß.ah-hi-a a Emar,” AoF 22 [1995] 210–28) has now examined the evidence for this group in depth and observed the same city association. 336. ARM XIV 89:11u. Mari’s district governors always addressed Yaminite tribal peoples within their jurisdiction in terms of their settled affiliations, that is, their ‘towns’ (alum). 337. If Emar’s zukru is related to oath language, it would reflect a development somewhat like what Heimpel proposes for the verb hasasum (‘to mention’) at Mari, in the idiom with nis ilim (‘oath’). According to Heimpel, the verb zakarum is associated with the “declaring of an oath, by which the oath becomes operative, while hasasum refers to keeping the oath operative” (“Minding an Oath,” N.A.B.U. [1999] 41 [no. 42]). I am not confident that this represents a viable distinction. 338. I focus on the devotion to Dagan as the chief god of the region because this much is explicit in the texts. This interpretation does not rule out the possibility of another nuance, depending on the specific associations of the stones. Durand (in Durand and Guichard, “Les rituels de Mari,” 36–37) suggests that major celebrations involving stones in the Mari period may be connected with memorials for deceased ancestors.

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spring and fall axes of the year, the two key transitions in the changing seasons. Celebration of the zukru at the full moon of “the head of the year” places the festival in the company of other events discussed as “new year” observances. Earlier scholarly pursuit of patterns in ancient Near Eastern cultures and religions placed celebration of the new year at the center of life, where divine creation, royal stewardship, and the seasonal crises in renewal of life and sustenance all met. 339 At the turn of the year, the order of the cosmos was ritually renewed, so that human society could maintain its place in a world full of unseen powers. Emar’s zukru festival offers considerable detail for a new instance of this ritual and raises again the question of how to understand the turn of the year in the ancient Near East. The Problem of Year and New Year The notions of “year” and “new year” are so familiar to modern life in the West that disengaging from modern concepts for the purpose of evaluating the ancient concepts can be difficult. Because Akkadian, like neighboring languages and dialects, used terms for ‘month’ ((w)arhu) and ‘year’ (sattu) that correspond roughly to our month and year, it is natural to assume that years provide a universal unit for counting time, that each succeeding one might be considered “new,” and that the occasion of the turnover is weighty. In fact, while we have adopted an overarching calendar that begins every January, specific administrative needs give rise to alternative governmental, fiscal, tax, academic, and other calendars. The accounting of years is liable to be more complicated than our initial assumptions may allow. A broad comparison of independent systems for reckoning time suggests that the natural phenomena that recur with the return of the seasons are observed and awaited before they are located in discrete units of time called years. 340 Even when the interval between repeated points in the seasonal cycle begins to be counted, no single starting point is as obvious to the observer as the appearance of the new moon each month. 341 Years need to be assigned beginnings only when 339. See for classic statements Samuel H. Hooke, “The Myth and Ritual Pattern of the Ancient East,” in Myth and Ritual (ed. S. H. Hooke; London: Oxford University Press, 1933) 1–14; idem, “Myth and Ritual: Past and Present,” Myth, Ritual, and Kingship (ed. S. H. Hooke; Oxford: Clarendon, 1958) 1–21; Ivan Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967); idem, “New Year Festivals,” in A Rigid Scrutiny (ed. John T. Willis; Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969) 180–84. Sigmund Mowinckel objected to the idea of a universal pattern but placed great weight on a general ancient Near Eastern new year festival: He That Cometh (New York: Abingdon, 1955) 23. 340. Martin P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1920) 45–47. I am not aware of any more recent study with the breadth of evidence gathered in this remarkable book. 341. Ibid., 91–92.

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the seasons and months that make up each annual repetition are named and counted for more precise administration of human affairs. 342 The influence of the fixed year with fixed beginning spread outward from the administrative concerns that formulated them; consequently, individual ancient Near Eastern traditions for both must be approached cautiously, with a hesitation to universalize. The earliest written records from Mesopotamia and Syria already display the compilation of calendars with named moons (months) that attempted to fit the seasonal rotation of the year. 343 Months could course through the seasons without definition of a first and last, but the administration of loans, payments, and receipts sometimes required being able to count longer periods. Both Sumerian and Akkadian attest the word ‘year’ (mu/sattu(m)) in third-millennium texts, and the customary twelve-month calendar itself suggests that, from a very early time, there was an attempt to approximate the year, even without any adjustment to permit a more stable relationship between the beginning and passage of the year and specific seasons. Mesopotamian writing never uses the phrase “new year,” with its express denotation of turning from what is old and complete to what is just starting. Observance of a “new year” on the first day or for an extended period requires defining one segment of the seasonal cycle as the beginning. 344 Instead of a “new year,” Sumerian and Akkadian texts distinguish particular times as the “border” or “head” of the year. 345 This designation eventually could be used for both the first and the seventh months, according to one first-millennium text. 346 This division

342. Ibid., 267. 343. See chapter 5 on intercalation; consistent alignment with the seasons requires between twelve and thirteen moons; as a result, giving priority to true lunar cycles required continual adjustment, if correlation of moon and season remained essential. 344. On Hittite observance of the new year, see H. Otten, “Ein Text zum Neujahrsfest aus Bogazköy,” OLZ 51 (1956) 101–5; Emilia Masson, Le combat pour l’immortalité: Héritage Indo-Européen dans la mythologie anatolienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1991). 345. For Sumerian z a g - mu and its Akkadian derivative zagmukku as the border of the year, see B. Landsberger, “Jahreszeiten im Sumerisch-Akkadischen,” JNES 8 (1949) 255 n. 39; also CAD s.v. zagmukku; AHw s.v. zagmukku(m); discussion in Cohen, Calendars, 14–15. The ‘head of the year’ (res satti) may be written syllabically or as zag.mu and sag.mu; see CAD s.v. sattu 1 a 3u au, res satti ‘beginning of the year’; and AHw s.v. resu(m) D 1 a. Dominique Charpin suggests to me the possibility that the logographic spelling sag.mu could be phonetic, with a secondary etymology, originally derived from the Sumerian z a g - mu. 346. ARM 16:5, itiße itikin sag mu.an.na ki-i sa itibár itidu6 ‘Addaru (and) Ululu are the heads of the year, instead of Nisannu and Tasritu’. See Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (AOAT 5/1 and 2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970–83) 2.187; Cohen, Calendars, 7 and n. 1.

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of the year into two parts does not necessarily produce a true six-month cycle that would have been regarded as independent of the full year. 347 Discussion of “new year festivals” or celebrations sometimes ignores important nuances of attitudes and practice. An ancient people may count the year and mark its beginning for record-keeping or calculating dates but pay the occasion little or no religious attention. 348 Furthermore, placement of religious rites at an appropriate time in the first month of the year is not necessarily evidence that they were a celebration of the new year as such. Numerous spring rites accumulate at this general time in Hittite religion, for instance, and these should not be treated en masse as new year celebrations. When the year includes significant divisions that are marked by religious rites, only the actual start of the year should properly be called the “new year.” In an early and influential study, Wensinck applied Nilsson’s general comment about new years to the “Semitic” world. 349 Nilsson had said that every harvest brought a “new” year; because grains, fruits, and vegetables ripen at different seasons, there may be several new year festivals. 350 In the ancient Near East, however, where calendar use was well established, the people’s conception of these times as “new years” remains to be proved. Wensinck resorted to rabbinic Judaism of late antiquity for evidence, since the Mishnah identifies separate (literal) “new years” in spring and fall. 351 Jewish definitions from this time, however, were not formulated in direct response to agricultural realities in the way observed by Nilsson for less complex societies. The rabbinic leadership was struggling to reconcile independent strands from their own tradition, which recognized Rosh Hashanah in the fall but numbered months in the Bible according to a Babylonian calendar that began in the spring. Retention of double “new year” terminology surely 347. Cohen offers ARM 16:5 as evidence that Sumerian mu - a n - n a itself originally indicated a six-month period. The Akkadian equivalent is only known as sattu ‘year’, and this text is intelligible with two ‘heads’ for one year (mu.an.na/sattu); identification of an independent six-month counting unit is unnecessary. 348. Sasson (M.A.R.I. 4, 439) observes that, although there is no lack of documentation for the beginning of this official Mari year in the month of Urahum, no celebration manifests any particular religious or popular interest in the turn of a new cycle. The same applies to the last month of Eburum. 349. This cultural definition is somewhat less useful, given increased awareness of interaction in the ancient Near East among language families, between Semitic speakers and peoples who used Sumerian, Hurrian, and Hittite, not to mention Urartian, Elamite, and so on. 350. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning, 270. 351. A. J. Wensinck, “The Semitic New Year and the Origin of Eschatology,” AcOr 1 (1923) 158. He was followed by Henri Frankfort (Kingship and the Gods [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948] 313–14) in discussion of Mesopotamia, but with the same argument.

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reflected, in part, the rabbis’ dependence on a fixed sacred literature in a development that had little in common with earlier Near Eastern situations. Emar’s zukru festival must be evaluated in light of these cautions. A Year with Two Axes The Mesopotamian example of a year with two “heads” reflects a regional phenomenon relevant to discussion of the new year. Ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Israel all celebrated major seasonal rites in both spring and fall, six months apart, though the full calendar generally started in the spring. 352 While the Mesopotamian calendar was constructed around the month and the year, the year was divided into roughly six-month intervals, initiated in spring and autumn. Recognition of the annual turn of seasons inspired observance of yearly ritual, but spring and fall were equally respected as critical transitions in each year. 353 This balance is particularly evident in the akitu festival, the prototypical “new year” celebration. In late first-millennium documentation, the akitu acknowledges the divine rule of Marduk and relates the heavenly to the earthly king. The akitu’s reestablishment of the universal order is founded on the very creation of the world, and Marduk is celebrated as creator-king by intoning the myth Enuma elis. 354 Both the late evidence and Ur-III period Sumerian records from nearly two thousand years earlier document not annual but semiannual rites in the first and the seventh months. 355 A separate Mesopotamian tradition surrounding the popular cult for Dumuzi has him and his sister Gestinanna alternate half-years in the underworld. 356 According to the Sumerian Descent of Inanna,

352. Mesopotamian records show occasional variation, and evidence for Israel is disputed. The numbered months of the priestly law and all accounts of the three major annual festivals count from the spring. 353. Cohen’s treatment of a six-month “equinox year” demonstrates the balance between observances at the first and seventh months; see pp. 6–8, 390, 400–401, etc. E. J. Bickerman (Chronology of the Ancient World [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968] 65) also believes that the original Babylonian “year” had six months, based on the same repeated festivals. Sallaberger (Kultische Kalender, 174–75) speaks of two poles for the Sumerian year, with a city year starting in spring, contrasted to a cultic year starting in autumn. The latter distinction is based on the fact that the autumn á - k i - t i at Ur was longer than the one in the spring. 354. The most recent and thorough treatment of this material is now in Cohen, “The Akitu Festival,” in Calendars, 400–453, with bibliography. 355. Ibid., 140–42, 150–53, for Ur (á - k i - t i). This event will be discussed in more detail below, pp. 134–36. 356. On Dumuzi in popular rather than public cult, see Raphael Kutscher, “The Cult of Dumuzi/ Tammuz,” in Bar-Ilan Studies in Assyriology Dedicated to Pin˙as Artzi (ed. Jacob Klein and Aaron Skaist; Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1990) 29–44.

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Dumuzi died just after the grain harvest in spring, and Gestinanna traded places with him after the grape harvest in autumn. 357 Anatolian religion as reflected in the cuneiform texts from the Hittite capital Hattusa shows an overwhelming concentration of rituals in the spring and fall. The rituals are multiplied for each cult, being repeated for separate deities and towns. 358 The same pattern appears both in the major festivals that occupy king and capital 359 and in the old rites from the countryside, which we know from the Hittite cult inventories. 360 The dominance of spring and fall festivals and their dependence on an agricultural framework is displayed in a common pair of rites that link the two events. During autumn festivals, a pot of emmer was filled and deposited, to be kept for opening and use during spring celebrations. 361 Neither the spring nor the fall rites are described in any terms indicative of new year festivals, and neither time is given priority over the other. 357. Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976) 61–62. This “dying and rising god” tradition should not be conflated with the celebration of kingship that comes to be associated with Marduk in the Babylonian akitu, as in Mowinckel, He That Cometh, 39–41. W. von Soden, “Gibt es ein Zeugnis dafür, dass die Babylonier an die Wiederauferstehung Marduks geglaubt haben?” (ZA 51 [1955] 130–66) removed KAR 143//219 as a basis for this connection. Association of new year with the dying and rising god depended in part on evidence from mainly Greek and Latin sources, which may be used legitimately to reconstruct Phoenician religion; see Edward Lipinski, “La fête de l’ensevelissement et de la résurrection de Melqart,” in Actes de la XVIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (ed. André Finet; CRRAI 17; Ham-sur-Heure: Comité belge de recherches historiques, épigraphiques et archéologiques en Mésopotamie, 1970) 30–58; Richard J. Clifford, “Phoenician Religion,” BASOR 279 (1990) 57–59. Noel Robertson (“The Ritual Background of the Dying God in Cyprus and Syro-Palestine,” HTR 75 [1982] 331–35) covers related material, though with comparisons to Ugaritic religion that depend on interpretations that remain in dispute. 358. Alfonso Archi, “Fêtes de printemps et d’automne et réintégration rituelle d’images de culte dans l’Anatolie hittite,” UF 5 (1973) 10. The entire article explores this phenomenon. 359. Volkert Haas (“Betrachtungen zur Rekonstruktion des hethitischen Frühjahrsfestes [ezen purulliyas],” ZA 78 [1988] 284–85) defines these as the purulliyas and the an.ta˘.ßumsar in spring and the ki.lam and the nuntarriyashas in fall. Singer (Hittite ki.lam Festival, 1.132–33) cautions that this festival cannot be placed with certainty in the autumn. 360. H. G. Güterbock, “Some Aspects of Hittite Festivals,” in Actes de la XVIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (ed. André Finet; CRRAI 17; Ham-sur-Heure: Comité belge de recherches historiques, épigraphiques et archéologiques en Mésopotamie, 1970) 176; Gurney, Some Aspects, 27. 361. Archi, UF 5 14–16; Gurney, Some Aspects, 31; Harry A. Hoffner, Alimenta Hethaeorum: Food Production in Hittite Asia Minor (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1974) 49–50.

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Cohen proposes that there was a six-month Mesopotamian cycle, in part by comparison with the Israelite calendar, which places the feast of Ingathering at “the (circular) turning of the year” in the fall and describes the time for kings to campaign in spring as “the return of the year.” 362 The major festivals were those in spring and autumn, Passover/Unleavened Bread and Ingathering/ Tabernacles. Argument over whether Israel ever observed the start of the year in autumn continues without resolution, mainly because both calendar occasions received equal deference. 363 Israel thus provides evidence for a third, southern region that attested this phenomenon, in addition to the regions east and north of Emar. All three of these regions show less interest in a single new year than in the two axes about which the year revolves. Ancient Mesopotamian specialists came to calculate these axes according to their coordination with the spring and autumnal equinoxes, the times when day and night exchange dominance. 364 The Hittite cult traditions, in contrast, follow the same pattern, but without any apparent celestial interest. As seen in the rite for depositing and opening a pot of grain, these festivals are attuned to the seasons and to the need for the autumn harvest to last through winter until spring allows growth of the new crop. Israel’s two festival axes likewise show no relation to the sun, moon, and stars. In light of the wider pattern, even the Mesopotamian observance of two axes at the equinoxes appears to have originated in the fundamental rhythms of agriculture: the onset of rain and the consequent planting in the fall, and the spring harvest of the grains that they had domesticated for consistent sustenance. Emar’s zukru festival at “the head of the year” (sag.mu) appears to share this widespread recognition of the spring and autumn axes of the year. The zukru at the Axis of the Year By the middle of the first millennium, two “heads” of the year were observed, one in the spring and one in the fall, 365 but apart from Emar, the cuneiform evidence does not associate this terminology with any month name, and neither axis had priority in the calendar. At Emar, “the head of the year” became the name of a month, itisag.mu, which is found only in the diviner’s texts for ritual and cult administration. Although the Mesopotamian use suggests that either 362. Exod 34:22, téqûpat hassanâ; 2 Sam 11:1, tésûbat hassanâ; see Cohen, Calendars, 6. 363. D. J. A. Clines (“The Evidence for an Autumnal New Year in Pre-exilic Israel Reconsidered,” JBL 93 [1974] 22–40) revived the case against any autumn new year, in part by emphasizing the importance of both spring and fall in Israelite life and cult. 364. Cohen (Calendars, 401–2) describes the change in terms of whether sun or moon is visible longer in the skies. Parpola (Letters, 2.187) calls the season when nights are longer the sun’s “six-month stay in the Abyss.” 365. See ARM 16:5, cited earlier. It is not known how old this terminology may be.

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the first or the seventh month could be called the head of the year, limiting the name to one month in the calendar would preclude the label being used for both axes. In the diviner’s system, one month was identified with this Mesopotamian title and therefore gained a de facto priority that could have made it first in his administrative calendar. 366 The shorter text for the zukru places the rite in the month of Zarati, a local Semitic month name not known from Mesopotamia. With creation of a festival text for the extraordinary seventh-year celebration, the scribe adopted the Sumerian term sag.mu for the month when the zukru was given. 367 Emar’s festival was placed at the axis of the year that was considered primary in the accounting of this calendar. 368 The Sumerian term alone does not prove that the calendar and its ritual were synchronized with the seasons. Nevertheless, it does associate the zukru with the seasonal axes that the Mesopotamian systems adjusted by intercalation in order to preserve an approximate alignment with spring and autumn. The timing by itself suggests a comparison with the akitu, the Mesopotamian rite that is linked most strongly to the axes of the year. Neither the zukru nor the akitu are “new year” festivals, but they do represent key public celebrations at the two major transitions in the calendar. 369 Leaving the City: The akitu, the Hittite Festivals, and the Emar zukru The core elements of the zukru, as distilled from comparison of the Emar and the Mari evidence, lead us to believe that it was not a city celebration. The zukrum negotiated by Zimri-Lim and Alpan also shows no sign of celebration at a city temple. Emar’s festival celebration, however, cannot be properly understood without accounting for its movement out of and back into the city. This feature of the zukru belongs to a prominent tradition of rites that remove deities from cities and their urban sanctuaries to sacred sites outside the walls, before their eventual return. Mesopotamia’s á-ki-ti festivals involved the transportation of gods to 366. We have no complete listing for any Emar calendar, but possible confirmation that this was the first month in the diviner’s administrative calendar may be found in the broken ritual fragment Emar 454, which begins the first legible section with itisag.mu and places itiha-am-si in the fifth position (lines 2 and 6). 367. It is impossible to know whether the diviners attached the name to this month because the zukru was celebrated then or whether they accorded this status to the month for other reasons. 368. Comparison with other ritual evidence from Emar suggests that this occurred in the autumn, but discussion of this conclusion is best delayed until the critical material of the text for six months is introduced in chapter 4. 369. Del Olmo Lete calls Ugarit’s KTU 1.41//1.87 a “New Year” liturgy, though without focus on the term as such (Canaanite Religion, 128).

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and from the akitu house (é á - k i - t i or bit akiti), and various provincial Hittite festivals called for visits to shrines constructed around huwasi stones. 370 The á - k i - t i/akitu The name of the Mesopotamian rite in which the god of a city was transported outside its walls is the á - k i - t i, a Sumerian a word of uncertain etymology. 371 All of the earliest references to the word are identified with Sumerian cities in third-millennium texts, and Cohen proposes a precise point of origin in Ur. Two Girsu texts refer to “the á - k i - t i of Ur in Nippur,” and the Ur calendar makes á - k i - t i the name of its seventh month. 372 Ur celebrated an á - k i - t i at the new moon of both the first and the seventh months, with the seventh given greater weight. 373 Given the breadth of early attestation, however, Cohen’s argument appears to attribute more to Ur than can be supported. A Fara period text (mid–third millennium) refers to an á - k i - t i building or celebration in Nippur. Á - k i - t i is a month name in pre-Sargonic Ur and Adab. By the Sargonic and Ur III periods, the á - k i - t i is found in its semiannual form at Ur, Nippur, Adab, and Uruk. 374 370. The Hittite seasonal festivals and the Mesopotamian akitu were compared long ago by B. Landsberger (Samªal: Studien zur Entdeckung der Ruinenstaette Karatepe [Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 1948] 113), with frequent debate thereafter; see Carter, Hittite Cult Inventories, 50. This old discussion was often founded on a narrow base, without attention to equally important differences. Carter himself forces the comparison to march through the six characteristics of the akitu set out by A. Falkenstein (“Akiti-Fest und akiti-Festhaus,” in Festschrift Johannes Friedrich [ed. R. von Kienle et al.; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1959] 147–82), including proximity to water and participation of the king. The akitu houses may have been situated near canals as means of transportation rather than because of any identification with water as such, and Carter’s own evidence indicates that the inventory festivals generally did require the king’s presence. When comparison of these rites focuses on their shared departure from city temples for shrines outside the walls, these precise connections are not necessary. 371. Cohen (Calendars, 405) observes that the earliest attestations all spell the word á - k i - t i, never with a case marker, which would be indicated by spellings such as *á - k i - t u(m) or *a - k i - t u(m). Von Soden (AHw s.v. akitu[m]) suggests that the Sumerian term is an Akkadian loanword, perhaps for want of a persuasive Sumerian etymology. Cohen tentatively proposes, “(the house where the god) temporarily dwells (on) earth,” “a mythological, ancient residence removed from the realm of man, where the god had once resided before choosing his city.” A point of reference on earth seems more likely, but I offer no alternative. The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, s.v. á-ki-ti, offers no etymology, nor does Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender, 123, 160–61, 174–75, etc. 372. Cohen, Calendars, 152, 401. 373. Ibid., 150; the month name, and eleven days instead of five to seven. 374. Ibid., 201, 401.

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Practice of the rite can be traced into the early part of the second millennium in the south, but there is little more evidence until the first millennium, which produced our only known ritual texts for the (Akkadian) akitu. Celebration of the akitu by Samsi-Addu, who ruled Assur and Mari from Subat-Enlil in northern Mesopotamia, does not necessarily represent true native custom, since the feast may have been borrowed from the south, perhaps with adaptation to some similar local event. 375 A Middle Assyrian ritual text describes an akitu procedure without mentioning the title, but worship of Marduk indicates borrowing from Babylon, possibly even on a one-time basis. 376 By the first millennium, many Assyrian cities observed the akitu during various months, 377 and the festival remained the supreme calendar event in various southern cities: Uruk (with Anu), Babylon (with Marduk), Dilbat (with Uras), Nippur (five deities), and Sippar (with BelitSippar). 378 In Seleucid Uruk, for which we have detailed ritual texts, the akitu was still celebrated at the start of the first and seventh months. 379 Although the akitu observance became much more varied during the first millennium, the main feature of the original southern Mesopotamian rite was a correspondence between the dominant city god, the associated city, and the 375. ARM I 50:7, usually interpreted as falling on the 16th of itigud, for Ayarum (the second month in the standard Mesopotamian calendar of the second and first millennia). D. Charpin (“Les archives d’époque ‘assyrienne’ dans le palais de Mari,” M.A.R.I. 4 [1985] 246 and n. 14) corrects the month to ße.gur10(kin).ku5, which he equates to Addarum (month 12); cf. Durand, in Durand and Guichard, “Les rituels de Mari,” 45 n. 159. ARM I 50 mentions that visitors have arrived from Esnunna, a city much closer to Babylonia that named a year during the Old Babylonian period for celebration of an akitu (Cohen, Calendars, 251). 376. F. Köcher, “Ein mittelassyrisches Ritualfragment zum Neujahrsfest,” ZA 50 (1954) 192–202; G. van Driel, The Cult of Assur (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1969) 54; Cohen, Calendars, 418–20. Brigitte Menzel (Assyrische Tempel [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1981] 2) views the akitu as a truly southern Mesopotamian rite, adopted by Assyria as permanent cult only under Sennacherib in the first millennium. The akitu may have replaced an older “day of the city god”; see E. F. Weidner, “Der Tag des Stadtgottes” (AfO 14 [1941–44] 340–42) for Neo-Assyrian references to an um il ali in an omen text. 377. Cohen, Calendars, 425–27; van Driel (Cult of Assur, 162) notes instructions in KAR 177 that the king can celebrate an akitu during eight months of the year. 378. Beata Pongratz-Leisten (“Festzeit und Raumverständnis in Mesopotamien am Beispiel der akitu-Prozession,” Ars Semiotica 20 [1997] 57, 61) observes a difference between the effects of the Babylonian and the Assyrian akitu festivals during this period. In Babylonia, the akitu linked the periphery to the city center, with focus on Marduk and the king. In Assyria, however, the procession of the city god into provincial towns served to bring the king’s presence into this region, to legitimate royal rule. Neither logic seems intrinsic to the older and more local zukru and akitu traditions, and both were evidently developed from the political needs of the larger first-millennium states. 379. Cohen, Calendars, 427.

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á - k i - t i house outside the walls. Details such as the subduing of chaos in creation, 380 reading the Enuma elis myth in support of Marduk’s supremacy, and determination of destinies for the coming year appear to have been relatively late additions. 381 Cohen bases his interpretation of the akitu especially on the fact that in later ritual texts nothing of great importance occurs at the akitu house. 382 The additions describe activities that occur in the city temple, not at the site outside the walls; thus, the key event that lies behind these accretions was the god’s reentry into the city. 383 Cohen concludes that the only reason for the sacred site outside the city was to provide a point from which to return. The Hittite Festivals The Syrian zukru and the Mesopotamian á - k i - t i/akitu are best interpreted together as part of similar ancient Near Eastern customs, and to them now we may add a third from Hittite Anatolia. The ultimate independence of these rites from imperial cult is seen in the fact that the king was not present for the rites described, unlike most celebrations recorded in the texts for individual festivals. The rites therefore reflect established local practice. 384 Many of the local festivals mentioned in the cult inventories from Hattusa involve bringing the god in question out of the temple and town to a nearby huwasi shrine, often by a grove or a spring or on a mountain. 385 One autumn rite for the storm-god had the god (that 380. See W. G. Lambert, “The Great Battle of the Mesopotamian Religious Year: The Conflict in the Akitu House,” Iraq 25 (1963) 189–90, on the battle between Marduk and Tiamat. 381. Idem, “Myth and Ritual as Conceived by the Babylonians,” JSS 13 (1968) 106–8. The Enuma elis shows no sign of being composed for cult use. 382. Cohen, Calendars, 403–4. 383. In the Neo-Babylonian period, the priority of the return can be seen in the fact that the largest offering for Uruk’s spring and fall akitu festivals was made on the eighth day, after the divine statues had reentered their sanctuaries (Ellen Robbins, “Tabular Sacrifice Records and the Cultic Calendar of Neo-Babylonian Uruk,” JCS 48 [1996] 69). Cohen (ibid., 141, 402–6) proposes that all á - k i - t i/akitu celebration may derive from the triumphal reentry of the moon-god Nanna into his city, Ur, at the autumnal equinox, when the moon begins to be seen in the sky longer than the sun. This hypothesis seems to depend on a base that is too narrow—a practice from one city and a lunar cult—to explain a widespread phenomenon. Accepting Cohen’s observation that the notion of return is central to the akitu does not require us to support his explanation for the origin of the rite. 384. Carter, Hittite Cult Inventories, 11–12. 385. Gurney, Some Aspects, 27. Some of these are said to be in a tarnu-house, perhaps only a “temenos wall.” See also Charles Carter, “Athletic Contests in Hittite Religious Festivals,” JNES 47 (1988) 185–87; Archi, UF 5 20–21. The basic source for these texts is Carter, Hittite Cult Inventories. Note that the tarnu-house with huwasi inside also appears apart from the cult inventories, as in the an.ta˘.ßumsar festival. Hittite ritual

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is, his temple image) carried out to the huwasi stone, which was washed and anointed. 386 The god was then set down in front of the stone, and offerings were provided. After a ritual battle between the men of Hatti and the men of Masa, the god was brought back to his temple for more offerings. 387 The spring festival for the mountain-god Halwanna also involved bringing the god to a huwasi on the mountain or, if necessary, by a nearer river, where he received offerings. 388 When the sun set, the god was carried back to the city and set up in his own temple. Archi concludes that the fundamental celebration of the spring festivals consisted of procession to a huwasi stone and offering that included bread made from the pot of grain that had been ritually sealed in the fall. 389 In this custom also, the deity was removed from its temple inside a town to a shrine outside the walls. 390 Like Emar’s sikkanu stones, the Hittite sacred site was defined by stones that marked the divine presence. 391 The local Anatolian cults need not have served the pantheon heads at city centers, so if a processional return celebrated the god’s reentry into the city, we can only infer its existence from continuation of rites in the god’s temple. 392 However, while references to evidently preserved this movement in more than one setting, still visible when a huwasi was involved. On the evening of the 14th day of the an.ta˘.ßumsar, an incantation priest went to the tarnu house to carry out preparations for the storm-god at the huwasi in the boxwood trees, before the king went to the tarnu house on the 15th for sacrifice of oxen and sheep at that huwasi. See Güterbock, JNES 19 86. 386. KUB 17.35 iii 1–19. 387. Gurney, Some Aspects, 27. Archi, UF 5 25–27, prefers to interpret the battle as a fight for life and fertility (after T. H. Gaster and A. Lesky), but Goetze (Kleinasien, 168) suggests the possibility that the battle ritually recalls a Hittite invasion of Anatolia. 388. KUB 25.23 i 8–33. 389. Archi, UF 5 19. 390. In the festival for the Great Spring (KUB 17.35 iii 24–37), the goddess of the Great Spring was brought from her temple, not to a huwasi, but to the site of her primary sacred identity, a spring outside the town (lines 25–29). 391. In the case of the huwasi stones, the deity was not generally rendered in the form of a living being; any carving of human characteristics is secondary. See Archi, UF 5 21; Gurney, Some Aspects, 25. The remarkable sacred site of Yazilikaya offers a special case whose purpose is much debated; see Singer, Hittite ki.lam Festival, 1.101. Because of the large relief of the Hittite pantheon, it was too quickly identified as a site for new year celebration, by association with the bit akiti. Yazilikaya has since been shown to have underworld associations; see Haas, Geschichte, 639. Regardless of what specific rites were performed there and whether it was conceived as a huwasi site, the place itself may illuminate Emar’s sikkanu location. Yazilikaya is outside Hattusa but easily accessible to it. The rock sanctuary is adapted to temple form by construction of an entrance and a forecourt, but the site itself appears to have originated in the central rock formation (Haas, 632). 392. Note that KUB 25.23 i 10–25, 40–50 places return at sunset, and the zukru began this procession ina pani nubatti ‘just before evening’. Evening return is quite common in the inventory festivals; e.g., KBo 2.7 rev. 19–22; KUB 17.35 ii 27.

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the akitu house are ambiguous about what makes its situation sacred, references to the Hittite huwasi shrines offer a definite explanation. They are generally identified with the god who was brought to visit the shrine, and they represent the older cult for this deity in a concrete form that is neither human nor animal. Unlike Cohen’s explanation for the akitu house, it is not possible to claim that destinations outside the city for Hittite processions were chosen only to provide a starting point for return. The Emar zukru in Context The three ritual traditions, zukru, akitu, and local Hittite, display a common thread: the removal of prominent deities from their urban situations to outside shrines, especially at the spring or fall axes of the annual cycle. Comparison of Emar’s zukru with both the Anatolian and the Mesopotamian practices suggests that reentry into the city indeed constituted a key part of the festivities but that Dagan had business at the shrine of stones for its own sake. As in the Hittite rites, the stones belonged to a distinct cult for the god that stood apart from his current residence in an urban temple. When Dagan visited the stones outside the city and was driven between them in a wagon, he was recognized to have a deeper identification with the land and its population, reaching back to a time earlier than the construction of the city. The city itself existed only by approval of the divine landowner and served the interests of the god first of all. 393 The á - k i - t i did not incorporate a shrine of stones, but the zukru and the á-ki-ti shared other significant similarities. Both involved bringing out the chief god of a city to a sacred site where the entire pantheon was gathered and both gave particular weight to the act of return. Although the zukru occurred during the full moon (unlike the á - k i - t i), it was nevertheless still placed at one of the two axes of the ancient Near Eastern year, at the month called sag.mu. The akitu house must have been more than an arbitrary point of departure; it must also have represented a place for worship of the city god outside the physical city. These rites all include a visit to a site devoted to a major deity, whose dominion is recognized to extend beyond the limits of the city. Return to the city may indeed have celebrated the god’s dominion over it and may even recall the deity’s first entry into the city after it was built, as suggested by Cohen. In the zukru festival, Dagan passed in front of the sacred stones at the start of the journey back to his temple. The zukru acknowledged the god’s dominion over the larger countryside but equally celebrated the city as a positive development that provided 393. In the zukrum letter from Mari, the use of the property term nihlatum as granted or inherited land points to the same notion. Addu of Kallassu was demanding the town of Alahtum as a nihlatum. Enuma elis (V 117–30, VI 47–58) attributes the construction of Babylon to the victorious Marduk, who treated the city itself as an extended temple to house him and all of the gods.

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greater safety, comfort, and even grandeur for its divine and human inhabitants, with Dagan as their chief. It should not be surprising that the zukru festival outdoes every other Emar ritual in both duration and expense. No other religious business would be considered more essential than renewal of the bond between the city and its divine head. Emar’s zukru celebrated the dominion of Dagan beyond the confines of the city, but it did require the city as a point of departure and return. The rite could have originated before the emergence of the city but only in a form radically different from the one we know. 394 The processions from and to the city were not simply requirements imposed by the current location of Dagan’s temple but forged an essential link between the two domains. Since both the zukru and the akitu placed special weight on the god’s return, neither could have originated before the movement toward construction of large cities with temples inside their walls. None of these ancient Near Eastern rites must be considered essentially agricultural or seasonal. They were devoted to individual towns or cities and their principal deities. Association with specific points in the calendar is therefore secondary. All such celebrations would have been attracted to moments in the calendar that were already understood to be most crucial, and they may have arrived at the spring and autumn celebration times independently: these cultures belonged to a world with an even more ancient respect for these two axes of the year. It must be remarked in conclusion that none of the above characteristics derives from the etymological origin of the word zukru, namely, as an invocation. The relation between city and outside shrine and the accompanying preoccupation with the sikkanu stones and return from them have nothing to do with the Mari zukrum, and the rite may have been celebrated at Emar for centuries without attaching the zukru name. It is therefore not surprising that the Mesopotamian and Anatolian parallel rites presented above are found under different titles. One unpublished Mari letter may refer to the same event when it mentions “the Entrance of Dagan” at Imar (Emar): “The citizens (of Tuttul?) have gone to Imar because of the silver gifts(?) which they always have given for the (sacred) meals at the occasion of the Entrance of Dagan.” 395 Durand suggests that this “entrance” was the arrival of Dagan from Tuttul, but the divine entrances into 394. Arnaud (CRAIBL [1980] 384–85) dates the origins of the zukru to the late fourth millennium because of its separation from the city cult. 395. A.528 is cited by J.-M. Durand, “La cité-état d’Imâr à l’époque des rois de Mari,” M.A.R.I. 6 (1990) 52–53: 6 dumumes a-lim a-na I-ma-ar ki as-sum sí-ir-qa-tim 7 sa kù.babbar sa i-nu-ma e-re-eb dDa-g[an] 8 a-na nì.gub?hi.a? it-ta-ad-[d]i-nu 9 [i]l-li-ku. The sirqatum are the plural of sirqu, some kind of ritual gift; inuma (‘at the time of ’) is a standard indicator of ritual time; the form of the verb nadanum appears to be a Gtn preterite, since the Ntn is rare and unexpected, and a perfect (N) should not be used in a subordinate clause.

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cities in the zukru, akitu, and relevant Hittite festivals present the return of each god to his or her own urban residence. 396 The zukru ritual itself, without the city framework, must also be ancient, but we are unable to determine from the available evidence when it originated or when it became the center of regular public ritual at Emar. If the Mari letter does refer to the same event, the zukru title was not yet affixed to the city celebration. 396. Participation of Tuttul citizens in an Emar community rite might not be expected in the ritual texts’ definition of the celebrants as Emar citizens, but the two towns venerated the same chief god, and a wider circle of participation may have been common for major events.

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The Annual Cycle

In its more ordinary form, Emar’s zukru is placed simply at the full moon of the month of Zarati, with no reference to a sixth or a seventh year. This calendar appears to indicate annual celebration of the zukru during Zarati, but uncertainties remain. Although the scribe has chosen verbal forms that imply that regular repetition of the ritual is to be expected, 1 it is possible that the specific date applies only to one observance. 2 Even if the calendar date is treated as the regular occasion for celebration, the calendar itself may not have been synchronized with the seasons of the year by intercalation: the rituals may be annual but not strictly seasonal. 3 1. All of the Emar ritual texts use the Akkadian durative rather than the preterite verb form. This choice may reflect the presence of an underlying Syrian Semitic verbal system with somewhat different options, but the distinction between punctive and durative verbal aspects would have been familiar in some form to the scribe from his own dialects. The durative aspect indicates both a completed reality and a norm for future performance. Durand calls this the “temps inaccompli” in the Mari rituals; see Jean-Marie Durand and Michaël Guichard, “Les rituels de Mari,” in Florilegium marianum III (ed. Dominique Charpin and Jean-Marie Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 1997) 23. In the festival texts at Emar, the scribe composed a narrative framework that emphasized method as well as outlay. 2. Some Mari rituals appear to be roughly annual but not bound to a single date. For instance, the kilûtum lamentation(?) rites occur on separate dates but are clustered within a two-month period that might reflect annual observance according to rough seasonal criteria: Kiskissum (XI) 2, ARM XXV 51:rev.12; Eburum (XII) 17, ARM XI 68:8 and XVIII 42:7; Urahum (I) 4, ARM XXV 89:12u. On reading one word for qilasatum, q/kilaªutum, see my “Kilûtum Rites of Mari,” N.A.B.U. (1993) 2 (no. 3). Disbursements from Ur-III period Mesopotamia appear to yield a somewhat more consistent picture. For example, the three major festivals at Ur, the á - k i - t i s e -kin- k u5, the á - k i - t i s u - n u mu n - n a, and the e z e m - m a h, can be fixed within 2–3 days’ variation; see Walther Sallaberger, Der kultische Kalender der Ur III-Zeit (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993) 172. 3. At Mari, the celebration of “Nergal’s wagon” is repeatedly linked to the 7th of Liliatum in actual disbursement records, which suggests a consistent calendar connection. Any seasonal requirement remains less certain.

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The diviner’s collection of ritual texts includes varied uses of the calendar. Two tablets address, respectively, the months of Abî and Halma (Hiyar), with focus not on any single rite and its date but on the whole unit of time (Emar 452 and 463). Another remarkable tablet begins with extended attention to the 15th of a first month but then continues to track rites through five more months (Emar 446). This text shows less systematic interest in the unit of time for its own sake, but it likewise treats an interval of time rather than a single date or rite. The zukru texts, however, do focus on a precise date, revolving around the 15th of Zarati and sag.mu. In the case of the zukru festival, the calendar becomes the primary framework for defining the time for each stage of the celebration. This contrasts with all of the other festival texts from Emar, which offer no specific date for performance. 4 Because Emar ritual texts do not always mention the month and day, the tablets that do provide a specific calendar date appear to represent a separate class of texts—those that define annual events. Whether or not this ritual calendar was kept in rough accord with the seasons, certain rituals were associated with specific months and even days of the month. Together, the regular performance of all of the annual rites invited the gods to remember the regular needs of the community that worshiped them. Valuable as it is, the diviner’s archive preserves only an incomplete portrait of Emar’s ritual calendar. The text for six months provides a starting point, and the two tablets for individual months evidently deal with segments of the same half of the year. A few other fragments mention rites tied to particular months but with too little context to merit separate discussion, and these will be incorporated into the larger treatment of calendar where relevant. All of Emar’s calendar texts and fragments address only annual rites, which are to be distinguished from the monthly rituals that took place with every lunar cycle. 5 4. The installations of the new nin.dingir and masªartu priestesses appear to have been carried out after the death of the previous office-holder. The nin.dingir received annual provision (sa mu.1.kám, 369:90), but there is no indication of a starting date. 5. Arnaud divides the calendar-based ritual into two groups, “les ordo liturgiques annuels” (Emar 446–51) and “les ordo liturgiques mensuels” (452–59). In the first group, Arnaud’s Emar 448 and 449 belong with the zukru text 375. Emar 447:6 begins with rites for the seventh day of the month of itiZe-ra-ti, below a horizontal ruling, but the preceding section is broken at the top and does not preserve a reference to a month. Text 450 provides only the month name dnin.urta, with negligible context, and fragments 451, 451bis, and 451ter (the last two added at the back of Emar VI/4) are of a general type and offer no further month names. In the second group, only Emar 455, 456, and 459 mention specific month names (sag.mu, Abî, and sag.mu, respectively), but all are fragmentary and may also have treated other months. Text 454 appears to mention several months in passing, in a treatment that is very different from 446 but nevertheless with similar interest in a larger part of the year. Gregorio del Olmo Lete (Canaanite Religion

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The Ritual Text for Six Months The diviner’s archive includes one tablet that is unlike any other in the Emar collection and that appears to be unique in cuneiform literature (Emar 446). This text begins with a long elaboration of rites for the 15th day of a month that correlates with Zarati of the annual zukru. Whereas the zukru text revolves entirely around the 15th of Zarati, Emar 446 moves on to a sequence of five more months. No letters or administrative records have supplied lists of sequential months, and the ritual text for six months provides the only basis for reconstructing the order of months for one part of the Emar calendar. The Orientation of the Text Emar’s ritual calendar can be given no coherent form without the text for six months, but the tablet resists easy reading. Although more than half survives, much of it is barely legible. It is impossible to evaluate its ritual contents without first considering how the text is constructed and from what perspective. The Tablet The scribe who composed this text squeezed roughly 160 original lines into four columns on a relatively small tablet, in a cramped, slanted script. 6 The front side is badly broken, with column II largely lost and the top corner of column I missing, including its month name. Damage to the reverse side at the bottom of column III introduces a second potential break in the calendar sequence. Only column IV uses double horizontal rulings to separate the four months presented there; the remaining three columns are left without any clue to structure apart from the content of the text. The surface of the tablet has eroded badly in places, especially at the end of the reverse side. New definitions of date and time are frequently introduced in this tablet in the middle of lines. 7 Concurrent rites are most often marked by the phrase “on the same day,” which is sometimes placed at the beginning of a line and according to the Liturgical Texts at Ugarit [Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1999] 92) cites KTU 1.127 as a true “monthly ordo,” with its heading ‘sacrifice of every month’ (db˙ kl yrh, line 1). 6. The tablet is 130 x 153 x 26 mm (width x length x depth), considerably smaller than the major festival tablets and even Emar 452, which covers only 55 lines: 369A, 240 x 250 x 50 mm; 370, 121 x 220 x 43 mm; 373, 228 x 255 x 59 mm; Arnaud’s measurements for 452 are confused, since the tablet consists of a large and a much smaller piece: 147 x 90 x 33 and 153 x 90 x 33. 7. Compare lines 53, 59, 67?, 84, 90–91, 102, 107, and perhaps line 6. Temporal phrases are found at the beginnings of lines without preceding horizontal dividers in lines 2, 8, 58, 87, 100, and 118. This phenomenon includes column IV.

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sometimes in the middle of a line. 8 Where the text is damaged, this structural fluidity makes reconstruction difficult. Adding to the difficulties, column III even fails to separate the new month of dnin.kur.ra from the preceding entry by the horizontal incisions commonly used in column IV. 9 The text presents rites for five named months, along with material for at least a sixth month, whose name is lost. Because the first named month, dnin.kur.ra, is found halfway through the third column, the reader could incorrectly assume that there was a full cycle of twelve months in the original tablet. 10 The contrast between the use of horizontal dividers in column IV and their absence in the rest of the text should warn against assuming symmetry. 11 All of column I is filled by rites for one month, with the name missing, and dnin.kur.ra is the only new month evident in column III. The descriptions of the rites for four more months, d An-na, dA-dama, Mar-za-ha-ni, and dHal-ma, 12 are then squeezed into the final column, with its demarcated sections. The Calendar The top of column III appears to address not only the same month but the same day as column I. After a brief mention of the 8th day, the first column evi8. The phrase ina umi suwatuma occurs at the beginning of lines 11 and 106 and in the middle of lines 47 and 89–90, and perhaps also 18 and 22. Line 45 is a special case: day 15 is the first date indicated on the reverse side of the tablet, and it may simply renew the 15th day from which all rites were defined on the obverse side. 9. See line 58. 10. Arnaud (AEPHER 85 213; cf. CRAIBL [1980] 384) proposes a twelve-month scheme, which presumably ends with the four months of column IV. He reasons that sag.mu should mark the beginning of the text in spring, and that the top of column III represents the first reference to autumn rites, during the month of Zarati. In his annual report, “Religion assyro-babylonienne” (AEPHER 92 [1983–84] 233), Arnaud interprets the month-name as ‘seeds’ (sémailles), from zrº, though he had earlier connected it with zaratu ‘tent’ (“Religion assyro-babylonienne,” AEPHER 89 [1980–81] 309). Arnaud explains the text’s lack of symmetry as the work of an inexperienced scribe who realized he had run out of room as he reached the last part of the tablet. Mark E. Cohen (The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East [Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1993] 343–45) does not endorse the idea that the text has a full twelve-month cycle; he only mentions the five months in order. The five-month sequence is excluded from months one, two, and twelve, which Cohen fixes as sag.mu, Niqalu, and Zaratu, respectively. Since he guesses that Abaªu is fourth or fifth, the five months in a row appear to belong to the second half of the year. 11. Of course, column II may have used horizontal dividers, though the columns before and after it did not. There are no traces of dividers at the edge of the column, however, and the lack of an incision above the month of dnin.kur.ra suggests that this was the pattern for column II. 12. See lines 58, 77, 83, 86, and 96 for all five months.

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dently elaborates on the 15th day, which was associated with four concurrent ritual events. At the top of column III, rites for the god Saggar are dated to the 15th of a month assumed to be known from the front of the tablet. Saggar is already associated with the zukru full moon in both calendars—the 15th of sag.mu in the festival and the 15th of Zarati in the annual text. 13 The diviner’s archive preserves no other rites for any 15th day, and Saggar has not been found so far in any other rites besides those for the zukru full moon. 14 Columns I and III therefore appear to treat ritual for the full moon of the same month, as does the intervening column II. Sloppy and compressed as it is, the text does not betray signs that the scribe unexpectedly ran short of space. While the months of Anna and Adamma receive little attention, presumably because little happened during their course that was related to the diviner’s work, the last two months, Marzahani and Halma, are treated more extensively. 15 The compressed text may reflect, not an inexperienced student, but administrative notes that are less formal than the texts on the tablets for single rituals. 16 Six months are actually attested, which is a natural unit for a culture in which calendars are so often defined by two axes of the year. 17 The Season I have already commented on various similarities between the shorter zukru text and the text for six months. My placement of both rites during the full moon of the same month is based on the appearance of Saggar in both texts and on the fact that similar restrictions are placed on those who plant in both. The latter correspondence provides an important link to the season of the year. In the text for six months, interest in the planting season is revealed through an offering to Dagan as Lord of the Seed, followed by the scattering of seed by the diviner. 18 Sowing was carried out in autumn to coincide with the onset of the 13. Emar 373:44, etc., and 375:3–4. 14. This refers only to calendar contexts. 15. The four months are dealt with in four, three, ten, and twenty-four lines, respectively. 16. Tablets such as the principal copies of the nin.dingir installation and the zukru are large and neatly inscribed, even leaving space so that the result is not cramped. It is not possible to determine whether this particular scribe is a student. 17. The only place where another month could have been added is the 5–7-line break toward the bottom of column III. The damage to this column extends much further, but any new month name would be visible at the beginning of the remaining lines. 18. See Emar 446:50–51, with be-el numunmes as the title and numun as what the diviner ‘throws down’ (verb nadû). On the next day (line 57), no planter (erisu) is permitted to go out.

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rainy season, so these Emar rites apparently would have taken place in late summer or early autumn. All of these rites address an agricultural necessity. Indeed, the procedures would become incomprehensible if separated from the relevant season. Although the text for six months provides no explanation for how the ritual calendar might be adjusted to suit the seasons in the future, the planting rites evidently give the top of column III a seasonal context, which would also apply to the five named months. 19 This analysis is not affected by the question of how to relate the first two columns. The rituals themselves cannot be separated from the months of the calendar identified in this text, as shown by the conjunction of activity and name in the months of dnin.kur.ra, Marzahani, and Halma. 20 In this cycle, at least, the months of Anna, Adamma, Marzahani, and Halma must have fallen sometime during autumn and winter. The City and the Diviner The organizing principle of the text is set out in the heading: “(Tablet of) rites of the city.” 21 While this heading seems natural for the assembled cults and events that follow, we have seen already that “the city” in ritual texts is an administrative entity. Consequently, we would assume that the text for six months treats the rites that were performed under the auspices of leadership distinct from the king and his palace. 22 In fact, “the city” appears as a prominent supplier of offerings and once even receives a sheep. 23 The text for six months manifests the same set of related terms and institutions discussed above in connection with the archive as a whole. Conspicuous attention is given to the allotment of materials left over after offerings, particularly when the diviner was involved. 24 Materials were allotted to the diviner 19. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to insist that even the specifically agricultural ritual for planting could become so frozen in a drifting calendar that the original context would be ignored entirely. 20. These are discussed below, pp. 161–62, 165–73. The first and last of these months give prominence to celebrations of the named deities, and Marzahani includes a ritual for the marzahu men. 21. Emar 446:1. 22. Neither the king nor the palace is mentioned in the text. 23. Lines 88, 100, and 104, with the receipt in line 80. The other principal suppliers of sheep are the nuppuhannu men: lines 9, 14, 60, 81, 91. They are given a sheep in line 48 in connection with their role as shepherds responsible for sacred supply (cf. line 78). In 452:36 they are paired with another class of shepherds, the lúmes sa im-ma-ri ‘men of the sheep’. For the nuppuhannu in ritual, see also 422:6; 423:3; 452:4, 17, 32, 54?; 458:6; 463:12. 24. The diviner is spelled lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd throughout Emar 446 (lines 28, 39, 26*, 44, 51, 53, 64, 65, 82, 95, 102, 116). Other ritual texts consistently use lú˘al, an

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explicitly, as is clear from the references in the text, but also implicitly in the feasting rights granted to the men of the qidasu (see fig. 12). 25 The House of the Gods served as an occasional source of offerings, and on one occasion a sheep was sacrificed to the abu shrine there. 26 Separate terminology distinguishes the institution from its proprietor, and the allotments apparently belonged to the diviner for his own maintenance and for the maintenance of his circle as he saw fit. The selection of rites for inclusion in the text seems to have been based on the diviner’s personal involvement and on city sponsorship. Most of the rites involved bringing the deity out of his or her private domain into the city at large and beyond. 27 The text is organized in large part around these travels, with each ritual segment confined to activities related to its god or goddess (see fig. 13). 28 abbreviation of the title claimed by the building M1 “diviner of the gods of Emar” in the colophons of lexical texts: see 369:5, etc.; 370:108; 385:4(A); 386:22; 393:5; etc. The longer lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd occurs in 406:4 (a fragment); 447:5 (the text with the month of Ze-ra-ti, line 6); 451bis:3; 451ter:10 (two more fragments of calendar ritual). Some of these represent a single (older?) scribal hand. Text 447 shares several traits of 446: the day number placed last in the temporal phrase (i-na u4-mi 7, line 6); aß for ina (line 7, etc.; cf. 446:8, etc.); the divine axe as ha-ßí-nu sa dingir (line 14); and the ˘a-sign with two winckelhakens (line 14). The other fragments are too small to judge properly without collation, though 451ter displays the lú-sign with only four wedges (line 4; cf. 446: 16, passim), the goddess dnin.kur.ra with a final Sumerianizing ending (line 5; cf. 446: 58, 59); the day number is last (line 5); and akalu is spelled syllabically rather than by kú (i-ka-lu, line 8; cf. 446:119). The lú-sign in 406:6 appears to indicate a separate hand. 25. “The diviner” as in the previous note; “the men of the qidasu,” in lines 60–61, 105, 114, and 119. In the text describing the installation of the nin.dingir priestess, the men of the qidasu consist of at least the diviner and the singers (zammaru); see my Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) 96. The equation is evident in the division of meat portions from a slaughtered ox and the daily allotments of food and drink in 369:76–83. Stefano Seminara (“Il ‘lugalato’ da Ebla a Emar: Sopravvivenze emarite della terminologia e della prassi eblaite della gestione del potere,” AuOr 14 [1996] 79–92) argues that a broader meaning of sarru (= lugal) as ‘governor’ at Emar is explained by Ebla’s earlier use of l u g a l to mean ‘governor’ rather than ‘king’. He then applies this interpretation to the full phrase sarru nadinu(ti) (sa) qidasi. Knowing that Hebrew ¶ar already has the broader meaning of ‘leader’, it seems to me less likely that the range of meaning for Emar’s West Semitic sarru is mediated by any use of Sumerian l u g a l. The early equation of Semitic sarru with Sumerian l u g a l may have begun during a time when both terms had the broader use. 26. See lines 13, 21, and 52 (all damaged) for offering supply and line 79 for the abu shrine. 27. The internal cult for each sanctuary would evidently be handled by a sanga priest. 28. Procession is most often designated by the verb (w)aßû ‘to go out’. Verbs other than (w)aßû are used only when they are intrinsically linked to the event in question: for

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I. Heading, line 1 II. (Month of Zarati), lines 2–57 A. 8th day (very broken), lines 2–7 B. 15th day, lines 8–57 1. Dagan (zukru?), lines 8–10 Some men (lúme[s . . .], eat?) 2. (dnin.urta of the) Amit (Gate), lines 11–18(?) The whole populace (eats?) 3. (Some god?), lines 18(?)–22 (Someone) eats 4. dnin.urta (with Ishara), lines 22–40(+) (The diviner?) receives the right breast The diviner receives the hide, head? (plus . . .) The leaders (and) men of the countryside (eat?) The leaders receive the hocks The slaughterer receives (some meat) The kinsmen of Udha’s temple get (something) The leaders and the whole populace eat the breast The diviner receives the head 5. (Unknown, lost column, lines 1*–40*) The diviner, line 26*(?) 6. (Some god?), lines 41–44 The diviner receives (all) hides 7. Saggar, lines 45–47 8. Planting rites (for the garden of the storm-god and Dagan Lord of the Seed), that evening, lines 47–53 The diviner scatters seed The diviner receives some bread, cups (of drink), and the right breast 9. kubadu, at dawn (Dagan?), lines 53–57 III. Month of dnin.kur.ra, lines 58–74 A. 17th day (dnin.kur), lines 58–59 B. 18th day (dnin.kur.ra), lines 59–66 The men of the qidasu (do something) huggu-bread, ghee(?) . . . (the diviner receives?) The diviner (does something) C. 19th day? (not clear whether other days) . . . (various gods), lines 66–(?) IV. Month of dAn-na (no days given; rites for Adammatera, the abu of the House of the Gods, and Dagan), lines 77–82 a The diviner receives (all) hides

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Figure 12. Outline of the Diviner’s Account of Rites for Six Months V. Month of dA-dama, lines 83–85 A. 7th day (return-ceremony of Il-li-la), lines 83–84 B. 8th day (return-ceremony to all the gods), lines 84–85 VI. Month of Mar-za-ha-ni, lines 86–95 A. 14th day (the bu-Ga-ra-tu4), line 86 B. 16th day (Astar-ßarba and the hunt of Astart), lines 87–90 C. 17th day (the hunt of the storm-god, marzahu rites), lines 90–95 The diviner receives half of one sheep VII. Month of dHal-ma, lines 96–119 A. 2d day (Dagan, with kubadu ceremony), lines 96–99 B. 3d day (hidasu of Dagan), lines 100–102 The diviner receives the hide of a sheep C. 8th day, lines 102–7 1. Halma, lines 102–5 The men of the qidasu eat The diviner(?) receives bread and beer 2. Preparation (by paªadu) for the storm-god event to follow, lines 106–7 D. 9th day (the storm-god of Canaan), lines 107–17 The kawanu(?) receives something? The men of the qidasu (eat?) The diviner receives the hides, heart, and intestines (or, fat) The king receives the kidneys(?) E. 18th day (the hiyaru of the storm-god), lines 118–19 The men of the qidasu eat and drink a. If the long vowel in Emar 452:32, etc., marks the plural ‘fathers’, omission of the extra vowel-sign might indicate a singular noun instead.

Each ritual event is treated in three parts: the procession, the offering, and the apportionment of materials to human participants. Description of the processions tends to be formulaic, with the destinations mentioned only when they help define the event: for example, the cattle barn is included in the description of the offerings in the company of Saggar. 29 It is not clear whether mention of the proexample, bringing Saggar down to the barns and stables—(w)aradu S; and the ßâdu ‘hunt’ of Astart and of the storm-god. 29. Line 45. These also include the great gate during the full moon in column I (ká.gal, lines 19, 24) and the Hurrian(?) temple as a site for burnt offering (line 92).

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cessional order marks a procedure that is out of the ordinary. 30 The central concern of the diviner is the offering and the associated apportionment, which are described with more variety. Different events and cults naturally gave rise to a variety of ritual procedures, and the terminology for offering and personnel follows a related pattern. The text for six months draws on clusters of terminology not generally found together in individual tablets from the Emar archive. Offering of naptanu bread, filling vessels with wine, and the presence of the men of the qidasu all are typical of the two installation rituals and the kissu festivals. 31 In contrast, the nuppuhannu sheep suppliers, the abu shrine, and the verb sarapu for burnt offering appear only in other ritual texts. 32 Furthermore, outside the offering lists, only the texts for six months and for the month of Halma (Hiyar) include activities on behalf of both Dagan and the storm-god. 33 The Syrian Setting Wherever “the city” appears in Emar texts, the cultural context associated with it is indigenous and local, with minimal foreign influence. All the rites in the text for six months are attributed to the city, and this fact alone prepares us for a general absence of recent foreign borrowings. It is not surprising that this ritual collection suggests a gradual development and a wide range of influences rather than the wholesale introduction of foreign rites by a new central authority. To the familiar cast of characters consisting of the diviner, the House of the Gods, and the city, this tablet adds the nuppuhannu, who provide most of the 30. ‘The divine axe’ (haßßinnu sa ili) regularly follows the honored god (lines 15, 43, 88–89, 103–4; cf. 40, 68–69), while the sacrificial animals are driven in front (lines 24– 25; cf. 14, 67–68). This order appears to be standard both within Emar 446 and in other texts, especially the nin.dingir festival; see my Installation, 108. 31. Lines 93 (naptanu); 98–99 (wine); 60–61, 105, 114, and 119 (men). Compare the following: the naptanu bread, 369:11, passim (nin.dingir); 370:24, passim (masªartu); 385:11, 24, 30; 386:5; 387:13, 16 (kissu); fragments 371:7; 393 passim; 394:32; 409:7, 10; filling (malû, D) vessels with wine (kaß.geßtin), 369:12, passim; 370:47, passim; 385:32; note 463:7, with no “wine”; the men of the qidasu, 369:12, passim; 385:14, passim in kissu; fragments 372:6, 10; 395:10, 12. Note also gabbu as ‘all’ with ‘the gods’ (dingirmes) in 446:85; cf. 369:6, passim (nin.dingir); 370:40 (masªartu); 373:8, passim (zukru). 32. Lines 9, 14, etc. (nuppuhannu); 79 (abu); 92 and 99 (sarapu). Compare the following: the nuppuhannu, 452:4, 17, passim; 458:6; 463:12(?); the abu shrine, 452:31–52, passim; sarapu for burnt offering, 463:9; 471:33; 472:1(?), 14, 15, 18, 24, 28 (twice). 33. See for the lists my Installation, 242–46, especially as in the zukru. The exceptions appear in 446:8 (dkur), 49 (dim), 50 (dDa-gan be-el numunmes), 54 (kur, as Dagan), 80 (dDa-gan), 91 (dim), 97 (dDa-gan), 100 (dkur), 107 (dim), 110 (dDa-gan?), 118 (dim); 463:3, 7 (dkur), 25, 27 (dim). The diversity in texts such as 446 and 463 confirms the wide influence of the building M1 diviner.

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Figure 13. Processional Rites in the Text for Six Months Line 8

Deity

Processional Action

Grammatical Expression

Dagan

go out

verb (w)aßû

11–12

(dnin.urta of the) A-mi-it (Gate)

go out

verb (w)aßû

23–24

(dnin.urta)

go out

verb (w)aßû

45

Saggar

bring down

verb (w)aradu S

48

(unstated)

bring out

verb (w)aßû

59

d

go out

verb (w)aßû

83

Illila

return

noun turtu (‘of ’ Illila) a

84

the gods

return

noun turtu (‘of ’ the gods)

87

Astar-ßarba

go out

verb (w)aßû

90

Astart

hunt

noun ßâdu (‘of ’ Astart)

91

storm-god

hunt

noun ßâdu (‘of ’ storm-god)

103

Halma

go out

verb (w)aßû

107–8

storm-god of Canaan

go out

verb (w)aßû

nin.kur

a. The turtu does seem to be a processional rite; see the previous discussion of the zukru.

sheep for sacrifice. The word nuppuhannu has not been found previously in Akkadian texts, though it may plausibly be explained as a Semitic form. 34 Arnaud has treated Emar’s calendar-based ritual as an essentially Mesopotamian tradition. 35 As one of the principal sources for such ritual at Emar, the text 34. Perhaps these are herdsmen who remain outside the settlements at night and light fires, an activity that came to identify them; see CAD s.v. napahu 6 (D stem). AHw s.v. nuppuhu(m) lists one Old Babylonian text that mentions a sheep that is nuppuhtim (TCL 17 57:26), which may point to a further, as yet unknown association. Ran Zadok (“Notes on the West Semitic Material from Emar,” AION 51 [1991] 118) assumes this Akkadian cognate. 35. Daniel Arnaud, “Traditions urbaines et influences semi-nomades à Emar, à l’âge du bronze récent,” in Le Moyen-Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges (ed. J. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980) 258; CRAIBL [1980] 384.

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for six months shows little evidence of direct Mesopotamian influence, either in the events of the calendar described in the text or in the literary form that the description takes. The events themselves appear to reflect a settled ritual calendar native to Emar, one not inspired by any foreign calendar scheme. Aside from Egypt, the earliest evidence for calendars in the ancient Near East comes contemporaneously from Syria and Mesopotamia. 36 Even in cities where the meanings of the Syrian month names remain largely obscure, the very existence of a calendar indicates the existence of regular ritual. If the very observance of calendar-based ritual is to be considered Mesopotamian because it requires the writing system known to have been invented in Sumer, then perhaps all Syrian calendar-based ritual is in some ultimate sense Mesopotamian. However, the traditions of 13th-century Emar have a Syrian heritage of at least a millennium. Innovation in both celebrating and recording local ritual was as likely to occur without direct Mesopotamian influence as with it, in this historical and cultural setting. Future discoveries may eventually provide parallels to the format of the text for six months, but the character of the contents suggests that the closest comparisons will come from Syria rather than proving to be direct imitations of Mesopotamian custom. Six Months in the Emar Ritual Calendar The six months and their accompanying ritual in our text supply the one extended calendar sequence discovered for Late Bronze Emar. More than twenty month names have been found in tablets from Emar, and the distinct zukru dates in sag.mu and Zarati already indicate overlapping systems. The text for six months therefore does not provide half of “the” Emar calendar but half of one Emar calendar, a calendar associated particularly with ritual sponsored by “the city.” (Zarati) I have already argued that columns I and III describe parallel rites that took place on or began on the full moon of the same month, which I have identified as Zarati by links to Saggar and the shorter zukru text. Because roughly forty broken lines separate the two readable columns, it should not be surprising that we find a significant contrast between the parallel rites, even given their shared calendar. Column I is preoccupied with Dagan and dnin.urta, the gods of the zukru, and appears to treat rites affiliated with the zukru. By the time the text reaches column III, the focus has shifted to ritual in the direct service of agriculture. 36. See Cohen, “Early Semitic Calendars,” Calendars, 23–36. Calendars are attested in the mid–late third millennium at Ebla, Mari, Gasur (Nuzi), Abu Íalabikh, and Esnunna.

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Column I. Column I begins by giving brief attention to the 8th day of the month, though the surviving detail is inadequate to define the event. 37 The remainder deals with rites on the 15th day for Dagan and dnin.urta, the central deities in the zukru. 38 Dagan is given pride of place, but the text does not bother with much detail. 39 The timing suggests that the description refers to the zukru itself, and the minimal attention may reflect the nature of the event. Both versions of the zukru conspicuously define formal participation by the entire populace, and neither text so much as mentions the diviner. 40 In the text for six months, the diviner may mention no special allotments because he receives none. The zukru texts focus on celebration of Dagan outside the city at the shrine of stones, and dnin.urta comes to the fore only when the procession turns toward the great gate of the city. In the first column of the text for six months, all the sections after the section describing the Dagan ritual involve gates, and two of the three sections involve the city god dnin.urta. The first section treats the procession by dnin.urta of the Amit Gate, a special cult of the city god that is mentioned in one administrative list. 41 The next deity’s name is lost, and the “great gate” appears to belong to a temple rather than to the city, but the broken text prevents certainty. 42 dNin.urta is shown to be the primary focus of the long final section by the prior enclosure of a sacrifice at his temple, as well as by further mention of the god with his associate Ishara. 43 The main procession leads to “the great gate,” which, like the great gates for the kubadu offerings at the end of the shorter zukru, is identified without qualification. 44 A further connection with events on the day of the zukru is found in the identification of the participants. While the long treatment of offerings and their 37. Lines 2–6. Emar 447 records offerings for the 7th of Zerati, which is probably related even if the distinction of the numbers seven and eight is sustained. 38. After the initial Dagan rite, the structure is determined by time statements in lines 11, 18, and 22, the first explicitly “on the same day” and the others probably the same. 39. See lines 8–10, perhaps with a prior offering by enclosure (lines 6–7, with the verb paªadu). 40. In both cases, this statement must be qualified by admitting that tablet damage limits our knowledge. The administrative section of the festival in Emar 373 is almost entirely missing (see line 205), with room for 14–16 lines at the bottom of column IV. 41. See lines 11–17 and Emar 274:6. 42. See lines 18–21, especially the great gate in line 19 (ká.gal). 43. See lines 22–40, especially lines 23 and 32. The goddess Ishara is listed before dnin.urta whenever they are paired. The two receive a kissu festival (Emar 387), take a table jointly in the Dagan kissu (385:8), and are invoked after Dagan in a curse (125:37– 38). Ishara receives offering in 446:37, after mention of “the kinsmen of Udha’s temple.” 44. Line 24, ká.gal. Compare “the great gates” (ká.galhi.a) in 375:51–52 and “the great gate of battle” in the festival (ká.gal sa qa-ab-li, 373:36, 62, cf. 166).

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apportionment mentions the diviner himself and other ritual participants, the dominant group consists of the population at large and their leaders. 45 These are defined once as “the leader (and) the people of the countryside,” and then as “the leaders (and) the whole populace.” 46 “The whole populace” also takes part in the feast with dnin.urta of the Amit Gate. 47 In the shorter zukru text, the participating population is described as “the citizens and the leaders of the city.” 48 It appears that on the day of the zukru, the diviner received little benefit from the celebration of Dagan at the stones. He may have played a much larger role in rites for the city god that accompanied return to the city. After all, the city and its temples were his proper domain. Column III. Only a few traces of column II are visible. We would expect the missing material to outline all of the activity surrounding dnin.urta and Ishara and then follow the activities of other important deities on this day, when all of the gods are taken out. 49 Rites for a seventh zukru day should not be ruled out, because the text could return to the full moon for the beginning of parallel 45. The only other group is the kinsmen (lú.mesahhi.a) of Udha’s temple, who receive a specific allotment. Udha is a mysterious figure who belongs to the second rank of local Emar deities. He appears in offering lists for local deities (379:3; 380:18; 384:3; cf. 373: 110, in the middle group), and he plays one other ritual role. At the start of the fourth and final day of the kissu festival for Dagan, someone or something is brought into the temple of dUd-ha (385:22). The preceding context appears to be corrupt, since the idioms do not match; see my Installation, 132. The diviner appears in lines 28 and 39 (cf. 26), and a certain slaughterer (lúza-bi-hi) also is given a portion. One list of temple personnel includes the lúza-bi-hu of dnin.urta, after those of the storm-god (dim) and Dagan (275:1–4). 46. lúgal lúmes edin, line 29; lúmes gal lúmes ga-ma-ri, lines 37–38. For edin as countryside or steppe at Emar, see RE 14:1, property i-na me-eh-ti-li edin es-si ‘in the mehtilu of the new territory of the countryside’; and Dalley and Teissier, Iraq 54 87, no. 1: 10, property sa uru.ki ù edinmes ‘of the city and (of) the countryside’. 47. lúmes ga-ma-ru, line 16. The tablet distinguishes clearly between the ma and ba signs. The adjectival form gammaru is found in Neo-Babylonian Akkadian (CAD s.v. gammaru adj.; AHw s.v. gamru(m) I). Notice also the “leader” in line 34. Eugen J. Pentiuc (“West Semitic Terms in Akkadian Texts from Emar,” JNES 38 [1999] 91–92) reads kàma-ri, meaning ‘priests’ (cf. Biblical Hebrew *komer). In general, we have no evidence for such a term in Syrian Akkadian texts, and lúmes gal in lines 37–38 suggests definition by the town population, not by a category with no evident sacred function in this context. 48. dumumes ù galhi.a sa uru.ki, 375:35. Bunnens (AbrN 27 31–32) locates the “Great Ones” in the entourage of the king; on the contrary, there is no reason to associate them with king or palace and they are more closely related to the elders. For instance, RE 34:14–15 describes the standard sellers of city-owned property as dnin.urta and ‘the leaders’ (lú.mesgal.gal), otherwise almost universally identified as dnin.urta and the elders. 49. Lines 34* and 36* suggest dnin.kur.ra and a ‘Lord’ (den/Baºla/Belu).

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activity. 50 Instructions for sacrifice to an unknown deity are concluded in the first four lines of column III. 51 Line 45 provides the first fixed point of reference in column III, and it moves away from the zukru focus of column I to specifically seasonal rites. Saggar, the god of the zukru full moon, assists the people in preparing draft animals for the season’s work. 52 A second set of offerings serves the needs of agriculture and animal husbandry, and coverage of the month ends with kubadu ceremonies, which must precede planting. 53 Saggar is brought down to the cattle barn outside the city walls, where a sacrifice is made. 54 Then, a sheep is sacrificed at (or, for) the horse stables. Neither of these is said to be given to Saggar, though it seems that he must be present. 55 With the attention to planting that follows, the concern of these rites may be field work, not fertility. Although cattle were the primary plow animals, and horses were prized for military use, in this smaller town the combination suits agriculture and nonmilitary draft work. 56 One Hittite royal funerary ritual provides the king with all of the tools for agricultural work in the afterlife, and these include a plow, horses, and oxen, all dismembered and burned so as to follow him into the world beyond. 57 50. The month-sign (iti) at the end of line 28* need not introduce a new month but may reorient the text after movement back to the full moon starting-point. This month-orientation appears in the odd statement after rites for Saggar in line 47: i-na iti su-wa-tu-ma ‘in the same month’. The phrase ‘in (that) month’ i-na iti.kám returns the zukru text to the full moon point of reference in 375:45. 51. Lines 41–44. 52. Lines 45–47. 53. Lines 47–53 and 54–57. 54. The text uses the verb (w)aradu (S), and this represents the counterpart of elû ‘to go up’, which is used for return inside the city walls in the zukru festival (373:37, etc.). The verb emphasizes departure from the confines of the city walls and may indicate descent not only from the tell but toward the river, where the large animals would have ready access to water. 55. The text allows two interpretations. Either d˘ar/Saggar is the object of the verb useradu, brought down to the cattle barn, or d˘ar/Saggar is the “Saggaru day” familiar from the zukru rites, and the object is assumed. Line 48 uses the S stem of (w)aßû, without object. The first choice supplies a recipient for the offerings that follow. 56. For Mesopotamia, compare the following CAD entries: alpu 1b, in connection with agricultural work (especially plowing, seeding, threshing); 1c, as draft animal (much more rarely, to pull wagons); sisû 1d, draft horses (for chariots, or to wear the yoke); niru A 1 yoke, crosspiece (for plows, chariots); b, with reference to draft animals (oxen and horses, the latter often in military use). For Hatti, see Harry A. Hoffner, Alimenta Hethaeorum: Food Production in Hittite Asia Minor (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1974) 45; the ox usually draws the plow, though one text (KUB 28.88+ ii: 17–18) hints that one can plow with a horse. 57. Ibid., 44–45, KUB 39.14 i:12–16.

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Some Emar seals have both cuneiform and Hittite hieroglyphic writing, and these identify d30 in personal names with Saggar. 58 Our calendar text and the shorter zukru write the name d˘ar instead, both texts sharing a narrow link to the full moon of one month. 59 The zukru festival, in contrast, distinguishes the syllabic form of Saggar as the god of the full moon from the god written as d30. 60 In fact, Emar ritual texts describe the cult of three separate lunar deities. The moon as a celestial body that complements the sun is written d30. 61 Saggar is god only of the full moon, actually found only with the zukru month at the year’s axis. 62 In a ritual tradition that has not been shown to have observed the lunar cycle systematically, perhaps the full moon was celebrated specially during one season. 63 The crescent moon was represented by the underworld god Nergal as Lord of the Horns, a connection appropriate to this period of dark nights. 64 Oddly enough, the god Saggar may not have been restricted to association with the full moon in every ancient Syrian setting, because at Ebla the deity Sanugaru 58. Laroche, Akkadica 22 11, md30-a-bi = Sà-ga+ra?-a-bu. Gonnet, AuOrS 1, p. 199, reads the fifth seal from AuOrS 1 21 as sà-ka+ra/i-a-pu (= md30-a-bi). See Dalley and Teissier, Iraq 54 90–91, for a useful collection of ancient Near Eastern references to Saggar. They regard the hieroglyphic evidence as conclusive. 59. Emar 446:45 and 375:4. Marten Stol (On Trees, Mountains, and Millstones in the Ancient Near East [Leiden: Ex Oriente Lux, 1979] 75) first identified d˘ar as Saggar in CT 2945 iii 7. Denis Soubeyran (“Une graphie atypique de Saggaratum?” M.A.R.I. 3 [1984] 276) discovered the same equivalence in ARM XXIII 83 for the city of the Habur, with further examples in J.-M. Durand, “Noms de dieux sumériens à Mari,” N.A.B.U. 1987, 8 (no.14). 60. For d30 and dutu as a pair, see Emar 373:29, 46, 58, 81, 89–90. The two are separated in the god list for the 24th of Niqali, lines 12, 13. For syllabic spelling of Saggar, see 373:44, 125, 171, 178, 187, 190; cf. 191. The fragment Emar 532 also lists d30 (line 3), dnè. iri11.ga[l . . . ] (line 4), and dSag-[gar] (line 7). 61. Recognition of a separate cult for the moon in this general guise is found twice in the offering lists 373:13 and 382:3. More often, moon and sun receive offerings together (274:7; 373:81; 378:6; 380:8). References to the moon- and sun-gods of the palace reflect the king’s contribution to the zukru festival (373:29, 46, 58), and these gods are listed separately but in sequence in the long list (lines 89–90). 62. Haas (Geschichte, 374–75) observes that from the time of Suppiluliuma I the Hittite moon-god became the god of oaths, along with Ningal and Ishara. Emar provides no evidence for this identification, but Saggar is associated with the specific time of the zukru, when the citizenry bound itself to Dagan verbally. On the Hittite god of oaths, see also Emmanuel Laroche, “Divinités lunaires d’Anatolie,” RHR 148 (1955) 11–13. 63. If monthly ritual existed at Emar, it does not appear to have been part of the diviner’s domain. 64. 378:11; cf. 373:74. den simes alone represents the same god in 373:14; see my Installation, 243–44, on the equivalence of these lists. den simes appears also in the god-lists 380:10 (den si 2); 381:9 (den si); and 382:7. The crescent moon is compared to a pair of horns, so Sîn is also bel qarni ‘Lord of the Horns’; see CAD s.v. qarnu 3a (RA 12 191:7).

Spread is 1 pica long

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is said to have the two horns identified with the crescent moon. 65 This collection of lunar deities may not have originated with a single Emar population, and it is not even clear whether d30 in the ritual texts stands for Mesopotamian Sîn, Canaanite Yarih, or some other name. 66 Saggar’s role in promoting the welfare of the herds is not unique among lunar deities. Sumerian Nanna is a “frisky calf ” or a cowherd, 67 and the connection of crescent moon and horns assumes a relationship to cattle. The biblical term seger is a calf in several texts, and the word may be derived from the divine name. 68 The next segment of column III addresses the concerns of flocks, gardens, and fields, with sacrifices of one sheep each. 69 The first sheep is for, rather than from, the nuppuhannu shepherds, evidently to promote the welfare of their flocks. 70 During the day, offering was made for the prosperity of oxen and horses, and the nuppuhannu are associated specifically with sheep, the remaining category of livestock. The other two sacrifices cover the main categories of horticulture. The storm-god receives an offering for the garden of his pool. 71 It is not 65. ARET 5 (1984) 4 III 1–6; see Haas, Geschichte, 373 n. 459. This association with different phases of the moon shows how Saggar could be equated with the primary moon-god in the writing d30 in personal names. 66. The pre-Islamic South Arabian states generally made the moon-god their national deity, and each state identified him by a different name: Wadd in Maºin, ªAlmaqah in Sabaª, ºAmm in Qataban, and Sin in ÓaÎramaut; Ulf Oldenburg, “Above the Stars of El: El in Ancient South Arabian Religion,” ZAW 82 (1970) 200. Different names derived from different peoples, regions, or lunar aspects may coexist at Emar. 67. Thorkild Jacobsen (The Treasures of Darkness [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976] 124) accounts for Nanna as cowherd in terms of the local conditions at Ur, but the connection seems to be more widespread. 68. Deut 7:13; 28:4, 18, and 51; cf. Exod 13:12. See Dalley and Teissier, Iraq 54 90– 91; after Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11 (AB 5; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 373. 69. Lines 47–53. 70. The preposition ‘for’ is ina, in place of ana. 71. kiri6 sa bi-ri-ki. The storm-god is said to have a garden in Arrapha in ARM I 136:5, giskiri6 sa dim i-na A-ra-ap-hi-i[mki]. The bi-ri-ki(-im) of various gods in Mari texts and the bi-ri-ki of the storm-god’s garden in our Emar text may be a sacred pond like the apsû in Mesopotamian temples. Durand (ARMT XXI, pp. 25–26) suggests the connection between pools and the notion of the apsû at Mari. The storm-god’s pool (Emar 446: 49) would not be located at his temple (that is, in chantier E of the excavations) but at the site of his garden, probably outside the city. Durand’s solution avoids the speculative sound correspondence of -l- and -r- required by the interpretation proposed by Juan Oliva, “Akk. pilakku und Emar pirikku,” N.A.B.U. (1993) 82 (no. 98), for pilakku ‘Stilett, Spindel’. If Dominique Beyer were right about the identification of the storm-god’s garden with the open space behind the chantier E sanctuaries, it would be possible to imagine a pool more directly linked to the temple itself. See Beyer, “Jardins sacrés d’Emar au Bronze Récent,” in Nature et paysage dans la pensée et l’environnement des civilisations antiques (ed. Gérard Siebert; Paris: de Boccard, 1996) 11–19.

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clear whether this garden was joined to a shrine for the storm-god and had an essentially symbolic function, or whether it played a larger role in the city’s economy. In either case, gardens would have produced fruits such as grapes and dates. 72 Dagan Lord of the Seed represents the fertility needs of the grain fields, the foundation for sustenance. This title highlights Dagan’s early association with grain, an association that the Hebrew term dagan has long suggested. 73 These offerings are also the occasion for a unique sowing rite that is probably mentioned only because it was performed by the diviner. He scatters seed, a procedure that could hardly portray the act of planting more directly. 74 Although such a rite seems entirely natural in association with the planting season, it is not widely attested. 75 In the Ugaritic Baal myth, Anat “scatters” Môt after she has ground him to dust, and this demise of Death allows the god of rain and growth to return. 76 One final section moves to the morning of the next day, which focuses on the kubadu ceremony. 77 These events are set after the sacrifice to Dagan and are explained by a difficult pair of phrases that we expect to describe the effect of these rites. 78 No planter may go out until the kubadu rites are complete. In practice,

72. CAD s.v. kirû a 3u includes dates and grapes (at Ugarit and Hattusa, among others), olives, and vegetables as garden products. Gardens were often associated with gods and temples in order to supply offerings, though in the context of Emar 446, the garden may represent agricultural effort in general. 73. Hebrew dagan means ‘grain’, with vocalization distinct from the Philistine god Dagon; both derive from the name of the Syrian god. Itamar Singer (“Towards the Image of Dagon the God of the Philistines,” Syria 69 [1992] 437, 443–46) renews a case for an early link between Dagan and grain. Hurrian Kumarbi is identified with Dagan in the comparative god lists from Ugarit, and Kumarbi is a god of field crops. Notice also the personal name Iz-ra-ª-dDa-gan ‘Dagan has sown(?)’, RE 91:29. 74. The verb is nadû ‘to throw down’. Lucian Turkowski (“Peasant Agriculture in the Judaean Hills,” PEQ 101 [1969] 32–33) observes two ancient methods for sowing among modern fellahin: ‘rowing’, inserting seeds deep in a furrow with a special tool, and ‘broadcasting’ (zrº), tossing handfuls of grain as evenly as possible over plowed land, then harrowing it to cover them with earth. 75. CAD s.v. nadû 1 b 4u ‘to scatter small objects (in rituals, etc.)’; no examples with zeru. CAD s.v. zeru does not mention verbs for planting. 76. See KTU 1.6 II:34–35, cf. V:18–19. “In the field she scattered him,” bsd.tdrºnn. J. F. Healey (“Burning the Corn: New Light on the Killing of Motu,” Or 52 [1983] 248– 51) concludes that Môt was not personified as grain in general but was treated like ripe grain, which was burned in the summer in order to separate it from waste. This sequence may cover a period of time that culminates in the scattering of seed, during autumn. 77. Lines 53–57. 78. Each phrase in line 55 begins with ana, though the precise reading is uncertain. See the notes to the text in the appendix.

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even with variation due to the instability of the lunar calendar, this ritual was timed to anticipate actual sowing. 79 The material in column III stands out as the only calendar-based ritual at Emar that explicitly addresses the seasonal needs of agriculture. Other events may have served these basic concerns, but if so, direct reference to them does not surface in the texts, perhaps because of their administrative bent. It is significant that rites associated with the zukru take place at the same time as these expressly agricultural rites. This concurrence of events should serve to caution us against hastily assuming that all rites during this season have an agricultural purpose. The definition of Emar’s calendar by lunar The Full Moon and the zukru. cycles partakes of a tradition that is attested much earlier in southern Mesopotamia. When the moon thus dominates the measurement of time, especially for cult, its principal phases easily come to receive regular attention. By the Ur III period, the Sumerians were celebrating every new moon, first quarter (or crescent), and full moon. 80 Nilsson notes that the new moon and the full moon are most often celebrated in cultures manifesting “primitive” time-reckoning and that religious festivals are often reserved for the full moon. “This is due not only to the full light of the moon but also to the world-wide idea that everything which is to prosper belongs to the time of the waxing moon, and above all to the days when it has reached its complete phase.” 81 In Mesopotamian thought, the full moon also represents a time when both sun and moon may be visible together at full strength. 82 This conjunction makes a good occasion for performing exorcisms, when the powers of the underworld are weakest. 83 The full moon rises with the setting sun, which may give particular power in Emar ritual to the time “just before evening” during the full moon. 84 All of these attributes of the full 79. Note that the season for sowing is placed in months 3–4 (late autumn?) in the “Gezer Calendar,” farther south. 80. See Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender, 37–38; William W. Hallo, “New Moons and Sabbaths: A Case-Study in the Contrastive Approach,” HUCA 43 (1977) 2–4; Benno Landsberger, Der kultischer Kalender der Babylonier und Assyrer (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915) 93, 131–32. 81. Martin P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1920) 154– 55. The Jewish religious calendar maintains a similar focus. 82. In the iqqur ipus series, failure of this to occur on the 14th and 15th days is a bad omen; René Labat, Un calendrier babylonien des travaux, des signes et des mois (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1965) 140–41, §67; cf. pp. 230–31, VAT 10163:obv. 32. This combination of the 14th and 15th days permits using the 14th for preparation before the full moon, as in the zukru festival. 83. Jean Bottéro, “Les morts et l’au-delà dans les rituels en accadien contre l’action des ‘revenants’,” ZA 73 (1983) 174–75. 84. In part I of the zukru festival text, this evening time (i/ana pani nubatti) is specified only for the 15th of sag.mu in the seventh year, the first day of the festival (373:61),

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moon combine at Emar with the seasonal significance of the autumnal axis at the turn of the year. The full moon of sag.mu/Zarati was the crown of Emar’s ritual calendar in the diviner’s archive. 85 Both the text for six months and the shorter zukru text preserve practices affiliated with this full moon but that have no direction connection with the zukru itself. The 15th of Zarati was not reserved for the zukru as the only observance of the turn of the year. Rather, it was a holiday dominated by a central celebration that nevertheless allowed room for other activity. Similar clustering of rituals at one time and in close geographical proximity must have occurred at Hattusa during the spring and autumn axes of the cult year. Archi suggests that these rituals had to be observed separately for each deity, even if some were venerated in the same temple. 86 Among the concurrent events on the 15th of Zarati, only the agricultural rites hold an indissoluble link to the season. Even these rites had come to this precise setting on the basis of celestial considerations rather than the onset of farming activities at Emar. At this full moon, seasonal and celestial time converged in a moment when the heavens were open to approach for the essential needs of earth’s inhabitants. The zukru did not have to be reserved for this moment, but this crucial time offered a natural occasion for such an important ritual transaction. 87

and is omitted from instructions for the same procedure on the 25th of Niqali (lines 34– 37). Dagan makes his climactic passage between the sikkanu stones when the moon is rising and the sun is setting. 85. Emar 446 gives no notice at all to the first day of the month. Only one ritual fragment may observe a “new year’s day,” and this is under the sag.mu heading, which may represent a later conception, likely influenced by Mesopotamian scribal training. Emar 467:9 reads [i-n]a u4-mi sag.mu, the first entry after a horizontal divider in a collection of various calendar-defined observances. These entries mention offerings in some unknown months (lines 4, 5), the u4-mi hi-ia-r[i] (line 6), and some u4-mi ra-wa-x (line 7). The hiyaru will be discussed with the month of Halma. 86. Archi, UF 5 10. The dates of the major Hittite festivals encroached on one another to the point that practice would have demanded some mutual accommodation. Both the an.ta˘.ßumsar and the purulli festivals occurred in the spring, covered a fairly long time, visited overlapping locations, and invited the king’s presence. O. R. Gurney (Some Aspects of Hittite Religion [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977] 39) even suggests that they may therefore have been identical. A balance of demands from the separate ritual traditions seems more likely. 87. The Ugaritic ritual KTU 1.41//1.87 appears to offer another, quite independent observance of a comparable autumn full moon, with specific agricultural reference, not to the anticipated sowing of grain, but to the grape harvest just completed; see Levine and de Tarragon, RB 100 83–84, with focus not on the 15th but the 14th.

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dNin.kur.ra

The name of the second month matches the goddess whose celebration dominates the account of the month in this calendar text. Rites for dnin.kur.ra begin in earnest on the 18th, anticipated by enclosure of a lamb on the previous day. 88 Unfortunately, the text for this event is badly broken after the third line, and little can be reconstructed, though activities appear to continue into the 19th of the month. 89 Two surviving details link this calendar rite for dnin.kur.ra with the ritual of the installations and the kissu festivals: the men of the qidasu and the huggu bread. 90 The goddess dnin.kur plays a substantial role in the installation of the nin.dingir priestess and in the kissu series, where she participates in the festivals that open and close the set. 91 In all three, she is moved out of her own shrine to a ritual location important to each festival. There she is laid down on the first day of the feast and raised to depart on the last. dnin.kur’s arrival in each case is associated with further rites that suggest awareness of death: the setting of tables divided between heavenly and underworld deities and the wailing of a certain nugagtu. If the kissu rites indeed celebrate the “thrones” of the gods, dnin.kur always undertakes this process in preparation for some aspect of enthronement. 92 88. The fragment 451ter:5 (Emar VI/4, p. 399) places dnin.kur.ra on some 18th day, likely in the same month; i-na u4.18 dnin.kur.r[a . . . ]. The pattern for rendering the date is like the pattern in text 446. Emar 446:118 places the hiyaru of the storm-god on the 18th of Halma, and Mari records show several rituals or offerings on the same day: the festival of Samas in Abum (ARM VII 13:1–10; month 4); the kinunum of Beletekallim in Kinunum (ARM XXIII 490:1–4, 11; month 7); sacrifices to Belet-ekallim and Annunitum in Belet-biri (ARM XXI 21:1–6; month 10); sacrifice to Diritum in Kiskissum (ARM XXI 41:1–3; month 11); and sacrifice to Addu of Halab at Saggaratum during an unknown month (ARM XIV 9:5–7, 13–15). 89. See lines 58–60 for the clear introduction and line 67 for the number 19, with the day formula lost. 90. Lines 60–63. On the men who give the qidasu, see my Installation, 94–96. These men appear in the installation of the nin.dingir priestess (369:12, 13, etc.), all of the kissu festivals but the one for dereß.ki.gal (385–88, frequently), and various festival-type fragments. The huggu (hukku?)-bread (uncertain doubled consonant) is not used in the installations but is prominent in the kissu festivals (excluding Dagan’s): 385:29, 34; 386: 15, 22; 387:4, 21; 388:16. 91. These festivals are listed in order by text F (Msk 74286b+), which treats all attested individual rites in a single series, led by the kissu for Dagan (Emar 385:1–26) and concluded by a text for all kissus (Emar 388). 92. For further discussion of dnin.kur, see my Installation, 169–72. The kissu rites may have been celebrated for the dedication of new thrones for individual deities. None of the kissu events was performed according to the calendar, and a kissu was even included in the installation of the masªartu, conceivably with a throne dedicated to the goddess

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The above association with enthronement may also pertain to the calendar event that names the month. dnin.kur is the most frequently attested month in Emar legal documents, with the variant “dnin.kur of the Throne.” 93 The throne in the title may reflect the larger role of the goddess rather than her own or any single enthronement. In the rite that gives the month its name, dnin.kur perhaps was celebrated for her office, with its responsibility for the throne. 94 dAn-na

Rites for the month of Anna are unique in this text in that they are attached to no specific days, an omission that appears to introduce the possibility that the rites may have been celebrated at various times within the month. 95 Unlike the months of dnin.kur.ra and Halma, this month includes no celebration of the god Anna that would account for the month-name. 96 The identity of Anna is uncertain, though the name resembles closely the name of the old Mesopotamian sky-god Anu. 97 A precedent for the incorporation of a Mesopota-

Astart. Year names from the reign of Zimri-Lim at Mari show that votive throne dedications were both prominent and fairly frequent. Charpin and Durand (M.A.R.I. 4 305–6) list fourteen years for the reign of Zimri-Lim, from 1, 2, 1u, 2u, to 12u. The year names include dedications of thrones to Annunitum (ZL-2), Samas (ZL-4u), Addu (9u), and Dagan (11u). See also Sasson, “Calendar,” 124. 93. Emar 13:10; 148:31; 150:38; AuOr 5, no. 4:33; AuOrS 1 69:41; cf. 19:32. The longer name is rendered as sa ku-us-sí (Emar 150:38); [s]a ku-sí (AuOrS 1 19:32); and sa gu?!.za (Emar 13:10). 94. The specific function is unclear. The goddess neither oversees the enthronement nor serves the throne directly. In the nin.dingir installation, dnin.kur accompanies the priestess through the transition by staying in her family home until she is ready to move into her residence in the storm-god’s temple. 95. J. M. Sasson (“The Calendar and Festivals of Mari during the Reign of ZimriLim,” in Studies in Honor of Tom B. Jones [ed. Marvin A. Powell and Ronald Sack; AOAT 203; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979] 128) finds that Mari observance of annual rites was somewhat flexible. In a distant and much later context, Michele R. Salzman (On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990] 118) states that the pagan festivals of the late Roman calendar included both “fixed annual, statesupported public celebrations” and events that “were celebrated annually, but without fixed dates.” 96. The god does receive an offering at Emar. The temple of dAn-na is included among recipients of sacrifice on the 7th of the month of Zerati in Emar 447:13, reflecting the same calendar as texts 446 and 375. A form of the same deity is written without the repeated an/dingir sign, An-na sa kib-ri (Anna of the River-Bank, 373:99). 97. Erich Ebeling (“Anu,” RLA 1.115) notes the Sumerian spellings dAn, An-na, and An-ni, rendered with case endings as An-nu, An-num, dA-nu, and dA-num. J. J. M.

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mian deity in the long-established local cult may be found in rites for the next month, where the writing Il-li-la appears to represent Enlil. 98 The first god to be honored is Adammatera, a name derived from the deity Adamma, for whom the next month is named. 99 Adammatera belongs to the storm-god’s ritual circle in the nin.dingir installation, though the storm-god makes no appearance here. 100 At Ebla, Adamma is frequently paired with Rasap, the Semitic god of the underworld. Because Adamma at Ebla is called “his Adamma,” the deity appears to be a goddess, a consort of Rasap. 101 This indirect association with Rasap and the mention of an abu shrine (line 79) give the month of Anna a darker hue. 102 Archi compares the Anatolian god names Adunterra, Roberts (The Earliest Semitic Pantheon: A Study of the Semitic Deities Attested in Mesopotamia Before Ur III [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972] 16) states that the spelling with doubled -nn- is the norm for the Akkadian form of the name by the Old Babylonian period. The “river-bank” apparently alludes to the Euphrates, the route by which a figure from Mesopotamian culture would arrive at Emar. A. Archi (“Substrate: Some Remarks on the Formation of the West Hurrian Pantheon,” in Hittite and Other Anatolian and Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Sedat Alp [ed. Heinrich Otten et al.; Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1992] 14) suggests that Ana at Ebla derives from a Hurrian substrate. Ana in early second-millennium Anatolia may also be explained by Mesopotamian origins; see Lubor Matous, “Anatolische Feste nach ‘kappodokischen’ Tafeln,” in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, April 21, 1965 (AS 16; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965) 175–77. Alternatively, the name might be understood to mean ‘mother’, like the title Addâ, which could be taken to mean ‘father’; see Durand, M.A.R.I. 4 409. In Mari personal names, Durand reads an-na as Ilu-na, but this does not explain the writing an-an-na (dAn-na). See Durand, Documents épistolaires du palais de Mari I (LAPO 16; Paris: du Cerf, 1997) 338. 98. Line 84. Note the Ebla bilingual text with de n - l i l : i-li-lu; see Pietro Mander, “Los dioses y el culto de Ebla,” in Mitología y Religión del Oriente Antiguo II/1 (Sabadell: AUSA, 1995) 15–16. 99. Lines 77 and 83. 100. Adammatera receives one lamb during the processions to the storm-god’s temple on the first and last days of the seven-day core of the festival (369:33A, 64); see my Installation, 75. For the reading of 446:77, compare the spellings: dA-dam-ma-te-ra (369:33, 64 in text A); dA-dam-ma-te-ri (369:B[31–36]a; cf. 64D); dA-dam-ma-te-[ra/ri] (465:2); ASJ 14, no. 48:7, dA--ma-te-ra (of the town of Essi). The hamsaªu men belong to the same circle and are found only in the two installations, which serve the pair of temples for the storm-god and Astart; see 369:53–54; 370:58, cf. 30, 55; also 371:16; see my Installation, 104–5. 101. See Archi, “Substrates,” 10–11; Francesco Pomponio, “Adamma paredra di Rasap,” SEL 10 (1993) 3–7. Francesco Aspesi (“Precedenti divini di ªadamâ,” SEL 13 [1996] 33–40) makes a connection with the Hebrew word for ‘soil’ in Gen 4:2, etc. 102. For Adamma, see V. Haas, “Leopard und Beine im Kulte ‘Hethitischer’ Göttinen: Beotrachtungen zu Kontinuität und Verbreitung altkleinasiatischer und nordsyrischer religiöser Vorstellungen,” UF 13 (1981) 102; A. Archi, “Die ersten zehn Könige

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Muntara, and Mutmuntara to Emar’s long form of the name, Adammatera. 103 The existence of rites for Adammatera in the month immediately preceding the month of Adamma suggests that the name Adammatera may have developed its own cult and drifted free of its original place in the calendar. The connection to the specific month was eventually lost, but rites for Adammatera remained in the same season. dA-dama

Only two events are noted for the month of dA-dama, with little detail. 104 Both are “return” rites, one on the seventh day “of Il-li-la” and the other “for all the gods.” 105 In the zukru festival, the return ceremony is necessary only on the seventh day, when the festival drew to a close. From this fact we may suspect that some event preceded the “return” rites earlier in the month. The diviner makes no reference to offerings with these events and there are no accompanying distributions. If ritual returns always involved bringing supplies back to their source, these rites for Illila and the gods may have restored materials to the House of the Gods, the diviner’s administrative center. 106 Ebla’s later calendar includes a month called dA-dam-ma(-um), which appears to stand in the ninth position, perhaps in early winter if the cycle begins in the spring. 107

von Ebla,” ZA 76 (1986) 214 and n. 6. The abû (see line 79) will be discussed in connection with the text for the month of Abî. 103. Archi, “Substrates,” 12. Tsukimoto (ASJ 14 298–99) suggests comparison with Hurrian teri- ‘front’, though his specific interpretations do not take into account the evidence from Ebla. 104. This rendering of the deity with final -a is based on the form of the divine name known at Ebla and on the long form Adammatera in the nin.dingir installation (dA-dam-ma-te-ra, Emar 369:33, 64; cf. 465:2). The rare sign value -dama might be confirmed here by the spelling of the longer divine name in line 77 as dA-dadama-te-ri, where one would expect the -m- of -dam- to have assimilated to the following -t-, without the final vowel. 105. Lines 83–85, turtu. 106. This return of sacrificial animals to the House of the Gods may be what is indicated in the conclusion of the annual zukru text, 375:49–50. 107. Charpin argues persuasively that the year begins with Isi, two months earlier than Cohen’s proposed turn of the year at Zaªatim; see D. Charpin, “Le début de l’année dans le calendrier sémitique du IIIe millénaire,” N.A.B.U. (1993) 48 (no. 56); after idem, “Mari et le calendrier d’Ebla,” RA 76 (1982) 1–6; against Cohen, Calendars, 23– 24. Giovanni Pettinato, “Il Calendario Semitico del 3. Millennio Ricostruito sulla Base dei Testi di Ebla,” OA 16 (1977) 257–85; and idem, “Il Calendario di Ebla al tempo del Re Ibbi-Sipis sulla base di TM.75.G.427,” AfO 25 (1974–77) 1–36, initially proposed an autumn new year.

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Mar-za-ha-ni The month of Marzahani is the second month name that is based on contemporary Emar ritual. 108 No other Emar text mentions the much-discussed marzahu, and in this tablet the group makes its first appearance in a ritual text, with explicit cultic context. 109 The form Marzahani is likewise new. 110 It is not clear how much of the ritual outlined for the month of Marzahani is directly associated with the marzahu group. The marzahu group appears only on the 17th, following the description of events on the 14th and 16th days of the month. The 14th day is simply identified as the bu-Ga-ra-tu4, an unknown term with an embarrassing variety of cognates in b/p, g/k/q, and r. 111 The 16th and 17th days are linked by the juxtaposed ‘hunts’ (ßâdu) of Astart and the storm-god, a pair found elsewhere in the two installations for priestesses and in documents from the temples at the western height of the tell. 112 Nothing in the brief account, however, demonstrates that Astart and the storm-god are the focus of the surrounding ritual. The hunt of Astart is isolated by the repeated time reference “on the same (day).” Offerings mentioned after the introduction of the stormgod’s hunt are not designated for him. 113 The marzahu are thus firmly linked only 108. A second attestation of the month may appear in 467:5, itiMa[r(?)-za-ha-ni(?)], a fragment that groups together various rites dedicated to the storm-god (dim). No other known Emar month-name fits the traces of the first sign. 109. Note, however, provision for a mar-za-u9 at Ebla, which may indicate a festival (ARET 25 rev. 1); see Cohen, Calendars, 34. 110. The particularizing -an- affix might reflect a single gathering of the Emar marzahu group, or one group among several (see GAG §56r). 111. The ga-sign most often is read /ga/ but sometimes is to be read -kà-: kà-ti4-na-ti (a weapon) in Emar 48:1, etc. There is no definite evidence for -qá- in the texts published in Emar VI/3: ag-ga-ra-ar (‘I fall down’) in 266:5 may not have to be derived from qrr (see CAD s.v. gararu); q[á-du] in 209:1 is uncertain. In the epithet for Astart, sa bi-ri-GA-ti, however, I can think of no interpretation with -g-, and the value -kà- is not characteristic of Syro-Hittite style orthography. I therefore follow Ran Zadok (“Notes on the West Semitic Material from Emar,” 115) and read bi-ri-qá-ti (‘lightning bolts’) in Emar 452:15; cf. 274:7. One Mari letter renders the West Semitic collective word for cattle (Hebrew baqar) as bu-ga -ru (buqaru, ARM II 131:39). It should be noted that J.-M. Durand has published a collation to line 33 of this text, so the reading presumably is secure; see “Íâbum *naburum,” M.A.R.I. 5 (1987) 671. Emar 406:5 mentions the Bu-uK-Ku-ra-tu4 sa f.mesmu-na-bi-ia-ti in a broken ritual text listing various personnel, here the prophetesses of Ishara. The item cannot be a meat portion, which we would expect to be listed after the recipient, not before. On munabbiatu as ‘prophetesses’, see my “nabû and munabbiatu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel,” JAOS 113 (1993) 175–83. 112. Lines 90–91. The two parallel temples in “chantier E” are therefore probably to be identified with these two deities; see my Installation, 216–21. 113. See lines 89–90 and 91.

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to the 17th of Marzahani, and this day alone can be considered the ritual reference on which the month name is based. Before reference to the two “hunts,” the 16th of Marzahani is occupied with the procession of a deity named Astar-ßarba, a figure who appears in Emar ritual texts only here and in the description of the same hunt of Astart on the 16th of Abî. 114 Unlike in the text for the month of Abî, no point of origin or destination is given for the procession but only the order of procession, with Astar-ßarba followed by a sacrifical sheep and the divine axe. 115 After mentioning the stormgod’s hunt, the text describes two offerings on the 17th day that are not directed to the storm-god. 116 First, a sheep is burned at a site possibly called “the Hurrian temple.” 117 The last offering of the month is “brought” by the marzahu men themselves. To describe an offering as “brought” is rare at Emar, and the verb is otherwise found in conjunction with an offering only in a broken context at the end of the description of the annual zukru. 118 As a result, the emphasis falls on the delivery itself, 119 and the very rarity of this mode of action in ritual contexts suggests a procedure that is peculiar to the role of the marzahu. The marzahu are already known from Ugarit and the Bible. Nonliterary evidence from Ugarit shows that the group was an association of wealthy individuals identified with a city or a god, who owned property that included vineyards. 120 114. Lines 87–89, As-tar-ßa-ar-ba; compare 452:21. For this reading, see J. A. Belmonte, “Zur Lesung und Deutung von ina s i l a - l í m ar-ba in Emar-Texten,” N.A.B.U. (1997) 82–83 (no. 87). The two events and months appear to be identical, and the alternative month name Abî comes from rites at the end of the month that are not mentioned in the text for six months. The comparison is pursued further in the discussion of the text for Abî. 115. Here also, Belmonte’s reading is surely correct: udu sa uruki ù ha-ßí-nu sa dingir-lì egir dAs-tar-ßa-ar i-la-ak ‘A sheep provided by the city and the divine axe follow Astar-ßarba’. Arnaud’s recent suggestion that the masªartu-priestess makes an appearance is unlikely; see “La religión de los Sirios del Éufrates medio siglos XIV–XII a.c.,” in Mitología y Religión II/2 (1995) 33: “Queman un carnero . . . en la case de la sacerdotisa-*masªart.” 116. Line 90, before lines 91–95. 117. Lines 91–92, é hu(?)-ri-ti. The reading is supported by use of the verb sarapu, which otherwise appears in the Hittite rites of Emar 471:33 and 472:1, 15, and 28. 118. See Emar 375:44, verb (w)abalu ‘to bring, carry’. 119. Compare nasû ‘to bear’, used of the divine weapon in the kubadu of the nin. dingir installation (369:10, 31A). 120. The group is referred to in the consonantal texts as mrz˙, and in the syllabic texts as lú.mesmar-za-i (RS 15.88:4, 6), lú.mesmar-zi-i (RS 15.70:4, 10; 18.01:7, 10), and lú.mesma-ar-zi-hi (RS 14.16:3). For thorough discussion of the Ugaritic evidence, including Ugaritic language references, see John L. McLaughlin, “The marzea˙ at Ugarit: A Textual and Contextual Study,” UF 23 (1991) 265–81. See also Karel van der Toorn, “Funerary Rituals and Beatific Afterlife in Ugaritic Texts and in the Bible,” BiOr 48 (1991) 54.

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Two literary texts, one from the Bible and one from Ugarit, have supplied the primary evidence for a debate concerning the relationship of the marzahu with the dead: Jer 16:5 and the Rephaªim texts KTU 1.21–22. In both cases, however, the primary meaning remains indeterminative and requires no more than a group gathered for feasting. 121 Emar’s new evidence neither confirms nor discredits speculation about a possible connection between the mrz˙/marzahu and cult for the dead. Appearance of the group in a month that is equivalent to Abî, with its recurrent concern with the netherworld, may be the most important consideration in favor of a connection. 122 The group is defined by the phrase sa mi-di, the noun perhaps to be derived from the verb ‘to know’. 123 No determinative indicates that the noun might be the name of a god or a place, as examples from Ugarit might suggest, 124 and a noun midû/medû could mean ‘acquaintance’ (a thing or person ‘known’) or collective ‘fellowship’. 125 It is unclear whether this acquaintance refers to the participants or perhaps to “the gods” whom they serve. In a text from the diviner’s House of the Gods, it is possible that building M1 is the destination of this provision for the gods, and perhaps the diviner himself belonged to the marzahu association. 126 121. Marvin H. Pope (“The Cult of the Dead at Ugarit,” in Ugarit in Retrospect: Fifty Years of Ugarit and Ugaritic [ed. Gordon D. Young; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1981] 176), who advocates interpretation of Jer 16:5 and the Ugaritic institution in terms of cult for the dead, nevertheless translates ‘Do not enter the drinking house to sit, eat and tope with them’, without explicit reference to ‘mourning’ (spd, nwd). Note the existence of a second biblical reference in Amos 6:7. Van der Toorn (BiOr 48 54–55) aptly remarks that in the Ugaritic mythic material a human institution is projected onto the world of the gods, as a simple feast. No cult meeting between the dead and the living need be assumed. 122. The underworld interest will be discussed with the text for Abî. 123. The root ydº is common in the Semitic languages; the Akkadian form of the verb is idû. Collation shows that the word is mi-di rather than mi-ki, and Emar 446 uses the di-sign only for /di/: i-na-di (line 51), ku-ba-di (55), na-di(?)-nu(?) (114). The similar text 375 follows the same pattern: i-na-di-nu (line 2), tu-qà-di-is (37), ku-ba-di (41). Neither text uses the di-sign for /ti/ (ti4), and the reading mitu ‘dead’ is therefore highly unlikely. Jun Ikeda (A Linguistic Analysis of the Akkadian Texts from Emar: Administrative Texts [Ph.D. diss., Tel-Aviv University, 1995] 279) observes no syllabic value for di other than /di/ in Emar administrative texts. Seminara (L’Accadico, 192) finds one example of di = /†i/ in the god-list Emar 378:43 (hi-i†-†i ‘wheat’). 124. Compare at Ugarit sa Ari and sa Siyanni (RS 18.01) for villages, sa Satrana (RS 15.70?) for a god. 125. Consider NB medû ‘known’ and mudû as ‘acquaintance, person known’ (see the dictionaries). 126. In legal settings, the iterative stem of the verb (w)abalu refers to responsibility for financial support, usually of a parent. For example, Emar 181:9–10: fPN a-ba-su-nu ù ama-su-nu li-it-ta-na-ba-lu ‘they must support fPN (as) their father and their mother’; see also Huehnergard, RA 77 28, 40, on this standard form and formula. Here, the action has

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The last month treated in this text is no afterthought squeezed onto the bottom of the tablet. Whatever the calendar framework intended by the scribe, the end of column IV shows no sign of unplanned abbreviation. Four significant events are addressed: a new moon rite called the hidasu of Dagan on the 2d and 3d; a celebration for the god Halma on the 8th that gives the month its name; the largest offering, on the 8th and 9th, given to the storm-god of Canaan; and the widely celebrated Syro-Mesopotamian hiyaru on the 18th. 127 Like dnin.kur.ra, the month of Halma contains an event for the deity who gives his name to the month, though unlike dnin.kur.ra, Halma has been supplanted as the predominant figure by the storm-god of Canaan, judging by the relative size of the offerings brought to each. dnin.kur is linked to Saggar and Halma in the zukru-related god lists, and the men of the qidasu appear in the rites for both dnin.kur.ra and Halma in the text for six months. 128 Halma’s name resembles the name of the city Halab/Aleppo, spelled with both final -b and -m in the month Baºla Halab, though no evidence proves an association. 129 The month of Halma begins with observance of the new moon as the hidasu of Dagan, which occurs not at first appearance of the new moon but on the 2d and 3d of the month. 130 Another tablet describing the calendar rites of an unnamed month opens with the same event, which is shown to be equivalent by less to do with giving than with sharing, perhaps the appropriate stance of the marzahu in feasting. It is interesting that the legal use of wabalu at Emar is found particularly in the “Syrian” type documents, where it applies more to material support and physical care than to the respect and obedience communicated by the parallel verb palahu (‘to fear’) in the Syro-Hittite type tablets. See Klaas R. Veenhof, “Old Assyrian and Ancient Anatolian Evidence for the Care of the Elderly,” in The Care of the Elderly in the Ancient Near East (ed. M. Stol and S. P. Vleming; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 124–25, 127–28. I would like to thank Prof. Veenhof for bringing my attention to this reference. 127. See lines 96–102 (hidasu), 102–5 (Halma), 106–17 (storm-god), and 118–19 (hiyaru). 128. See Emar 373:86 and 378:12 for the three gods, and 446:105 for the men of the qidasu. 129. Compare the forms of the city in the month name: Ha-la-ab (375:47; AuOrS 1 87:36); Ha-la-ma (RE 71:35); and Ha-la-am (AuOrS 1 15:20u). The prominence of the city and the northern Syrian setting make equation of Halma and Halab attractive, though some caution is warranted. J.-M. Durand (“Unité et diversiés au Proche-Orient à l’époque amorrite,” in La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le ProcheOrient ancien [ed. Dominique Charpin and Francis Joannès; CRRAI 38; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1992] 110) suggests that derivatives of halbum ‘forest’ appear repeatedly in place-names such as Halab, Halabît, and Halabam. The resemblance of the names was pointed out to me by Eva von Dassow. 130. Lines 96–102.

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repetition of an unusual combination of procedures in both: during the evening of the second day, chalices are filled and a bird is burned. 131 The identification of the two months as one is confirmed by the hiyaru for the storm-god on the 18th day of both. The tablets for Abî and the unnamed month present an expanded form of rites for this new moon by linking them to the previous waning moon, but the text for six months recognizes nothing between the 17th of Marzahani and the 2d of Halma. The largest portion of the space devoted to the month of Halma describes a celebration on the 9th day of the month for a cult of the storm-god identified by the title sa ki-na-i. 132 This title is best understood by reference to the common western toponym, which yields “the storm-god of Canaan.” 133 The writing ki-na-i is not known elsewhere but is appropriate in the Emar setting: a second -n- is frequently omitted, 134 and Emar joins the most common practice at Ugarit, where ºayin is frequently transcribed by Akkadian -ª- or with broken writing. 135 The 131. Emar 463:4–10, with 446:98–99; the vessel is the tasitu. 132. Lines 106–17, with the god mentioned in lines 108–9. Preliminary enclosure of a lamb occurs one day earlier. 133. This argument is presented separately in my “ ‘Storm God of Canaan’ at Emar,” UF 26 (1994) 127–30. Eugen Pentiuc (Studies in the Emar Lexicon [Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1997] from draft) reads sa qí-na-i ‘of lamentation’ (cf. the Hebrew root qyn). This association does not seem particularly appropriate to the storm-god. 134. Among the Amarna Letters, those sent from outside Canaan omit the final -n-: kurki-na-ah-hi (e.g. EA 8:15, 17; 14 ii 26, Babylon; 162:41, Egypt; cf. 30:1, likely Mitanni, William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992); contrast EA 109:46; 110:49; 131:61; 137:76 from Byblos; and 148:46; 151: 50 from Tyre (kurki-na-ah-ni/na). Compare also Hittite ki-na-ah-ha-, KBo 2 36:verso 13u; 18 88:rev. 5u. One early second-millennium example, from distant Mari, breaks the pattern: lúki-na-ah-númes (Georges Dossin, “Une mention de Cananéens dans une lettre de Mari,” Syria 50 [1973] 279, rev. 9u). Jean-Marie Durand (review of Sergio Ribichini and Paulo Xella, La Terminologia dei Tessili nei Testi di Ugarit [Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche, 1985], in M.A.R.I. 6 [1990] 660) promised more attestations of lú kinnahnim as “Gens de la Beqaºa” in texts to appear in AEM III. He evidently discusses these in his “Comment les textes de Mari documentent les régions occidentales du Proche-Orient,” in L’Acrobate et le Taureau (Colloque du Louvre, 1997; forthcoming). Because Mari’s “people of the Beqaº Valley” already write the name in the same way as later Canaanites, with the second -n-, perhaps we should imagine the name to come from inland, rather than the coast itself. 135. The Emar spelling pattern is most clearly visible in personal names. The ºayin in Baal names may be marked with either -h- in Ba-ah-la (e.g., mZu-Ba-ah-la, Emar 137:8, 9; fBa-ah-la-um-mi, 124:4) or more often with -ª- in Ba-ª-la (Zu-Ba-ª-la, Emar 14:27; cf. 32:23; 52:5, etc.; 138:39; 156:29). The ºayin is also written with -ª- in the theophoric name mIs-ma-ª-dkur (Emar 33:2, etc.; and 217:2), where the verbal root is smº ‘to hear’. Further possibilities in the ritual texts might include: lúmes sa zi-ir-a-ti, if the meaning is ‘men of the sowing’ (root zrº), Emar 373:37; 378:42; ma-as-ir-ta, meaning ‘offering’, 385:34,

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spelling ki-na-i represents a natural alternative to the spelling kurki-na-hi at Ugarit. 136 Although the Emar reference lacks any topographical marker, one Amarna letter from Cyprus provides an appropriate comparison, both in setting and form: x-ha-ti sa ki-na-hi. 137 By any definition, Late Bronze Age Canaan was situated along or near the Mediterranean coast, and this expression in a god’s title would hardly place Emar in Canaan. 138 Instead, reference to the cult of the storm-god ‘of Canaan’ at Emar would have had a western point of reference. Contacts with the west can be illustrated by the path of Idrimi’s flight: from Aleppo to Emar, from which he circled south through the land of the Suteans and west to “Canaan” and the town of Ammiya, where he stayed until his return. The celebration for the storm-god of Canaan witnesses the largest animal sacrifice in the text, with one ox and six sheep. This combination of animals serves as the standard sacrifice for the storm-god during the installation of his nin.dingir priestess, and several other details add to the impression of continuity with the storm-god cult as described in that text. 139 In a badly broken section cf. Ugaritic tºr ‘to arrange, serve (food)’; nu-a-ri, a kind of sacred personnel, 426:2 (see Martha Roth, “Age at Marriage and the Household: A Study of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian Forms,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 29 (1987) 38–46, on first-millennium nuªar(t)u from West Semitic nºr); consider also Dagan as en ga-ab-a, if the title is cognate with Hebrew gibºâ (so ‘Lord of the Hills’?, 373:103). For Ugarit, see Huehnergard, The Akkadian of Ugarit, 47. 136. Ug. 5, no. 36:6u, 8u. Huehnergard does not include this text in his study because the sender is lost and the tablet cannot be proved to have originated at Ugarit. On the other hand, the tablet was found at Ugarit, reflects the affairs of Ugarit’s populace, and is addressed to Egypt’s pharaoh. For the spelling with broken writing, compare ma-at ki-in-a-nimki in the Idrimi inscription from Alalah, lines 18–19. 137. EA 36:15, which Moran hesitates to identify as Canaan, because it lacks the determinatives kur or ki. 138. Compare Baºla Halab ‘the Lord of Aleppo’ in the local month name. Debate continues over the precise extent of Canaan as defined in the Late Bronze Age, particularly in the north. Anson F. Rainey (“A Canaanite at Ugarit,” IEJ 13 [1963] 43–45; and “Ugarit and the Canaanites Again,” IEJ 14 [1964] 101) observes that an Ugaritic scribe distinguished a Canaanite man as foreign, like a Babylonian or an Egyptian (KTU 4.96: 7, yºl.knºny); also L. L. Grabbe, “ ‘Canaanite’: Some Methodological Observations in Relation to Biblical Study,” in Ugarit and the Bible (ed. G. J. Brooke et al.; Münster: UgaritVerlag, 1994) 118. N. P. Lemche (The Canaanites and Their Land [JSOTSup Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991] 31, 39–40, 50–51) argues against Rainey, on the basis of EA 151, that Canaan did reach Ugarit along the coast, from an outsider’s view. All of this may be secondary to an older definition, if Durand is correct in locating early-second-millennium Canaan in the Beqaº Valley (see above). 139. See Emar 369:7 and 29, with discussion in my Installation, 135. The same combination of one ox and six sheep is offered to Dagan in a festival at Tuttul during the Mari period (ARM XXVI 215:6–11).

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after the sacrifice, an obscure group identified as the lúka-wa(?)-ni(?) makes an appearance, a group found otherwise only in the nin.dingir’s installation festival. In that rite, the title identifies a serving function of the men of the qidasu, the primary sponsors of the event. These men of the qidasu are also mentioned in some connection with the celebration for the storm-god of Canaan. 140 As in the installation, the diviner received the hides, the heart, and the intestines or fat, while the king received the kidneys. 141 The cult of the storm-god appears to have gained ground in official circles at Emar during the time of Hittite dominion. He occupies the second position, after Dagan, in the hierarchical lists associated with palace sponsorship of the zukru festival. Temples for the storm-god and his western consort Astart claimed the highest ground in the city, at the westernmost height. The storm-god was always worshiped throughout the entire region, but a new level of official endorsement might have been natural under the dominion of an empire that had a storm-god as head of the pantheon. The last two lines of the text, on the upper edge, briefly treat the hiyaru of the storm-god, which took place on the 18th of the month. 142 Similar continuity with the other storm-god rites is evident in the feasting by the men of the qidasu. The prominence of this hiyaru rite suggests that the month Hiyar in one Emar document may be equivalent to Halma. 143 At Ugarit, the month of Hyr is twelfth in a calendar counted from the spring, equivalent to the sixth in a set that begins with autumn planting rites. 144 The more distant city of Nuzi places the month of Hiyaru second in its Semitic calendar, which was also oriented toward a spring axis. 145 140. Emar 446:111; on the kawanu men, see Installation, 102. The men of the qidasu appear in line 114. 141. Emar 446:115–17 and 369:77–80. 142. Lines 118–19. 143. Tsukimoto, ASJ 10, text G:15u, [it]iHi-ar. One city need not be limited to a single hiyaru, but the existence of the month name itself points to one dominant annual event. Gernot Wilhelm (Grundzüge der Geschichte und Kultur der Hurriter [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche, 1982] 89) believes that the hiyaru occurred monthly at Nuzi. 144. T. DeJong and W. H. Van Soldt, “Redating an Early Solar Eclipse Record (KTU 1.78): Implications for the Ugaritic Calendar and for the Secular Accelerations of the Earth and Moon,” JEOL 30 (1987–88) 69–70. D. Arnaud (“Jours et mois d’Ougarit,” SMEA 32 [1993] 123–29) adds a further text fragment to this evidence from syllabic Akkadian. See also Juan-Pablo Vita, “Datation et genres littéraires à Ougarit,” in ProcheOrient ancien: Temps vécu, temps pensé (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1998) 51–52. 145. Cohen (Calendars, 370) identifies the month with Ayaru of the standard Mesopotamian calendar, based on their equivalent positions. The month of Hiyaru is also found at Alalah in both level VII (Hi-ia-re-e, AT 54, 61, 242, 243; Hi-ia-ri, AT 6, 63) and level IV (Hi-ia-ri, AT 46). J. P. J. Olivier (“Notes on the Ugaritic Month Names,” JNSL 2 [1972] 58) adds the Phoenician-Punic month Óyr in inscriptions from Idalion, Abydos, Carthage, and Leptic Magna.

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Durand refers to the hiyaru as the major ritual event of the Mesopotamian west during the Amorrite period, in celebrations of different leading deities in different cities. 146 The hiyaru for the storm-god is already well known. One Ugaritic ritual evidently focuses on the same hiyaru of the storm-god, also on the 18th day. 147 Another Ugaritic tablet lists the gods of the hyr, 148 and the hiyara- for the storm-god and Hebat of Aleppo was celebrated at Hattusa in midwinter. 149 Durand proposes that the month names Hiyaru and Ayaru come from a Semitic word for donkey-foal, usually spelled (anse) ha-a-ri(-im) in the expression for making an alliance, ‘to kill the donkey’. 150 This derivation depends in part on equation of ‘the hiyarum sacrifice’ (siskur2-re hi-ia-ri-im) and ‘the donkey of the storm-god’ (anße dim) in two Mari letters. 151 The spellings of donkey and hiyarum are not interchangeable, however, and the Syrian term remains without any reliable translation. 152 146. Durand (in Durand and Guichard, “Les rituels de Mari,” 38) notes evidence for performance of the hiyaru at Aleppo (Addu), Alalah (Estar), Ugarit (Addu), and Emar (Addu). Oddly, the rite is not yet known at Mari, farther east. 147. KTU 1.105:5, etc. The offerings give particular attention to Baal and his mountain Ípn (lines 7–10), with preliminary offering to Baal on the 14th of the month. KTU 1.112 also covers the month of H[yr] (the only Ugaritic month that begins with h-) but focuses on a wider range of rites and is broken after the 17th day. G. del Olmo Lete (“Un ritual funerario de Ugarit [KTU 1.105],” AuOr 6 [1988] 193) suggests that KTU 1.112 and 1.105 complement each other, with focus on the first and second parts of the month. If so, the systematic treatment in 1.112 still contrasts with the focus on one day and event in 1.105, so that the two texts are conceived quite differently. For del Olmo Lete’s reading of KTU 1.112, see “Ritual regio ugaritico de evocación/adivinación (KTU 1.112),” AuOr 2 (1984) 197–206; idem, “The Cultic Literature of Ugarit: Hermeneutical Issues and Their Application to KTU 1.112,” in Keilschriftliche Literaturen (ed. Karl Hecker and Walter Sommerfeld; CRRAI 32; Berlin: Reimer, 1986) 155–64. Del Olmo Lete (Canaanite Religion, 26) also cites references to the hiyaru in KTU 1.78:2 and 1.148: 23; see his discussion, p. 232 n. 53. 148. KTU 1.148, from line 23. 149. Vladimir Soucek and Jana Siegelová, “Der Kult des Wettergottes von Halap in Hatti,” AnOr 42 (1974) 44, KUB 38.32 ii 33ff. The same text (i 8–10) says that autumn (zena-) begins in the eighth month, which Hoffner places in November; see discussion in Hoffner, Alimenta Hethaeorum, 41–42. The tenth month would then fall in January, perhaps slightly earlier than the average position of the sixth month in Emar 446, in later winter. 150. Durand, AEM I/1, pp. 119–22; see for example ARM XXVI 24:10–12, ansehaa-ri iq-†ú-ú-lu-[n]im ‘they killed the donkey’. 151. ARM XXVI 19:5–6 and 20:7. Both letters were written by the diviner Asqudum; no. 19 is sent from Imar and no. 20 expects a meeting there; both mention an “arrival” (19:6; 20:9, etc.); and both are concerned about a sacrifice. 152. Durand suggests an intermediate rendition of the term in the ha-a-ia-ar dDiri-tim on the 10th of Kiskissum (the eleventh month), M.9779, AEM I/1, p. 122 n. 12.

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Rites in the month of Halma for the storm-god of Canaan and the hiyaru evidence Emar’s participation in cult traditions of the broader region. The citysponsored ritual of the text for six months is native in the sense that it is neither imposed recently by an outside power such as Hatti nor imported wholesale under local initiative. Such “native” religion proves its independence by its diversity. It takes form through accumulated influences from varied places and times according to the ebb and flow of populations and outside contacts. Novelties mingle with custom observed for centuries. The storm-god’s hiyaru was shared across a broad domain, both to the west and to the east. Celebration of the storm-god with a Canaanite title suggests western contacts, while Illila (if not Anna) appears to come from Mesopotamia to the east. All of these cults in time came to be supported by the city, and all fell under the supervision of Emar’s diviner of the gods.

Two Related Texts for Individual Months Emar’s text for six months of city ritual has no close parallel in cuneiform literature. Two other Emar tablets, however, are very similar to alphabetic cuneiform texts from Ugarit for rites confined to individual months. Both of the Emar texts treat non-contiguous days scattered throughout the given month. The longer tablet identifies the month as Abî in the first line, while the other launches directly into the opening event without mentioning a month name. 153 It appears that no name was needed for the second text because it picked up a rite left unfinished at the end of Abî, and the sequence was clear to the scribe. Unspecified doors are barred at the end of Abî and opened at the start of the second text, before a celebration for Dagan. This Dagan rite correlates with the hidasu new moon event at the beginning of Halma in the text for six months. 154 Other details confirm that these sequential texts for individual months coincide with the last two months of the six-month account. In spite of the connection between the one-month texts, the longer tablet shows a more marked interest than the others in the lunar cycle itself. Where the second tablet simply assembles the major rites in the unnamed month, the text for Abî adds to this a framework of offerings whose sole purpose is to fill out the observance of the moon’s passage.

Another donkey sacrifice with the same uncertain relation to the hiyarum is mentioned in the Mari letter A.2094. The event is rendered ha-a-ri-ni sa Ú-ga-ri-timki ‘in the presence of Addu’. See Pierre Villard, “Un roi de Mari à Ugarit,” UF 18 (1986) 411–12, with passing reference in a letter from Hammi-istamar to Ibal-El; and idem, “A.2094: Le rituel-hiyârum devant le dieu de l’orage,” N.A.B.U. (1990) 25 (no. 32). 153. Emar 452 (itiA-bi-i) and 463. 154. See 446:100.

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Chapter 4 Emar and Ugarit: A Syrian Text Tradition

Arnaud has characterized Emar’s calendar-based ritual as Mesopotamian in conception. The impression of a Mesopotamian prototype derives more from the texts for individual months than from the six-month text, but even these do not prove the proposed connection. Neither one-month text tabulates daily offerings for the entire period but rather skips from event to event, touching on only the relevant days. The added days for the month of Abî modify this pattern but do not obliterate it. The closest literary parallel for these Emar ritual texts is found at Ugarit, where several tablets confine themselves to activities during one month. Consider the following: 155 KTU 1.41 (cf. 1.87), month of Rªis yn (month VII), focus on the 14th day (also new moon, 13th) KTU 1.46, month lost, focus on the 13th, 15th days (also 14th) KTU 1.105, month Hyr (month XII), focus on the 18th day (also new moon, 14th) KTU 1.106, month Gn (month II), focus on the [new moon?], 8th, and 25th (also 22d) KTU 1.109, month assumed?, focus on the 15th (also 14th) KTU 1.112, month of H[yr], focus on the new moon, 14th and 15th (also 3d, 7th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 16th, 17th—then broken) KTU 1.119, month of ªIbºlt (month XI), focus on the 17th, 18th (also 7th; days 4, 5, 7 in lines 20–22 for seven-day feast?) KTU 1.132, month assumed?, focus on the 19th (a third day counts from then?)

None of these texts presents a record of daily care and feeding of the deities that inhabit a single temple. Like the Emar texts, they concentrate on one or more prominent celebrations and observe the relevant preparations and subordinate rites. KTU 1.41, 1.105, 1.109, and 1.119 appear to focus on a single major event, while 1.112 moves through a month more systematically, as does Emar’s Abî text. As in the other Emar tablet, KTU 1.109 takes for granted the name of the month. The organizing principle underlying this type of rite is time, not place. Several cults are served, and the offerings appear to require distribution to different shrines. Ugarit’s calendar-based rituals are recorded in the alphabetic cuneiform used for local myth and literature. These texts in general are not directly dependent 155. The Ugaritic calendar is counted from the spring. Del Olmo Lete (Canaanite Religion, 18) offers a similar list of texts with sacrifice by sequences of time within a month: KTU 1.41//1.87, 1.46, 1.106, 1.112, and 1.132. For the text of KTU 1.106, see pp. 231–32. I do not assume that KTU 1.132 serves the installation of the king, which seems to remain unproven. The sequence of months follows DeJong and Van Soldt, “Redating an Early Solar Eclipse,” 69.

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on Mesopotamian traditions, and the comparison with Ugarit should suggest that the Emar rituals are more likely Syrian in both content and text type until proven otherwise. The two Emar tablets confirm the existence of a Syrian tradition of calendar-based ritual in texts confined to individual months. The Month of Abî The tablet for Abî shows a noticeable concern to provide a ritual frame for the month as one cycle of the moon. 156 It maintains the archive’s preoccupation with annual rites by devoting long sections to the middle of the month and to the 25th through the 27th days, but separate offerings also mark other divisions in the month. Although the rites for the 16th day identify the month with Marzahani of the six-month collection, the name Abî reflects the attention to the abû shrines at the end of the month, an occasion omitted entirely from the account of Marzahani. The Text and the Frame This text begins simply by setting the time “during the month of Abî on the day of declaration,” evidently the first day, perhaps so called because the advent of the new moon was publicly proclaimed (see fig. 14). 157 The tablet is composed and written neatly, with room to spare on the reverse. Unlike the tablet for six months, the text is laid out according to a consistent plan, with the temporal phrases that mark the structure almost always at the head of a line, complemented by horizontal rulings. Each new day is numbered explicitly, after a 156. Emar 452. 157. I have no proof that the hussu day is first in the month. Emar 463 opens on the first day, “the day of opening the doors,” identified only by the ritual that takes place on it. The pattern of new moon, third, and eighth days resembles the 1-3-7-8–day sequence in the Ugaritic ritual for the month of H[yr], KTU 1.112. The word hussu appears to derive from the root hasasu ‘to bring to mind’, which sometimes replaces zakarum ‘to speak’ in the Mari formula for swearing an oath (e.g., ARM XXVI 328:63–64, 67). Henri Limet (“L’organisation de quelques fêtes mensuelles à l’époque néo-sumérienne,” in Actes de la XVIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale [ed. André Finet; Comité belge de recherches historiques, épigraphiques et archéologiques en Mésopotamie, 1970] 67) remarks that early rites at Umma and Ur only aimed (to) “solenniser l’apparition du croissant lunaire et la pleine lune, et proclamer officiellement le début du mois.” Perhaps hussu refers to official declaration of the new moon. The hussu-men of the nin.dingir festival (369:13, 38) could even be the ritual personnel who make such proclamations, and 459:3 ana hussi sa [. . .] could be ‘for the proclamation of . . .’ (not ‘recollection’; see my Installation, 96). Pentiuc (Studies in the Emar Lexicon) considers these “men of memory,” who perhaps recall the dead.

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Chapter 4 Figure 14. The Month of Abî in Outline

I. Frame Part 1: 1st? (hussu), 3d, 8th days; lines 1–8 A. hussu-day, distribution (zâzu) to “the gods”; lines 1–2 B. 3d day, lines 3–6 1. Offering to Astart sa abi, lines 3–5 2. Offering to Mount Sinapsi, line 6 C. 8th day, lines 7–8 1. Distribution to “the gods,” line 7 2. Offering to Mount Sinapsi, line 8 II. Mid-month Rites: 14th, 16th, 17th?; lines 9–26 A. 14th day, lines 9–17? 1. Offering to Astart sa subi, lines 9–10 2. Offering to (?), lines 11–13 (break: possibly no lines missing) 3. Offering to Astart sa subi, days of the kibadatu, line 14 4. Offering to Astart sa biriqati, line 15 5. Giving of some materials, recipient not clear, line 16 6. Offering to Astart sa abi, line 17 B. 16th day, lines 18?–21 1. Some offering, line 18 2. Entry with Astart (into storehouse?), and lamentation, line 19 3. The hunt of Astart, procession of Astar-ßarba from the storehouse, lines 20–21 C. 17th day?, lines 22–26 1. Some offering, lines 22–(23) 2. Some offering, lines 23–(25) 3. Procession with the divine weapon, offering behind the temple of dnin.urta, line 25 4. Performance (epesu) of some rite, line 26

horizontal ruling. 158 A second offering without change of date is identified as “on the same day.” 159 158. See lines 3, 7, 9, 18, 22, 27, 30, 31, 36, 43, 53. The temporal phrase “on day #” takes the form i-na u4.(#).kám when less than ‘ten’; i-na (#) u4-mi when more. 159. The phrase takes the form i-na u4-mi sa-(a)-su(-ma) in lines 6, 11, 20, 32, 38, 48, 51; sa-a-su-nu(-ma) in lines 23 and 40. For the latter alternative, including western texts, see AHw s.v. sâsu; CAD s.v. sâsunu. In one case, this distinction is strengthened by repetition of the numbered day with -ma (i-na u4.8.kám-ma, line 8), after another horizontal divider.

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Figure 14. The Month of Abî in Outline III. Frame Part 2: 19th and 20th days; lines 27–30 A. 19th day, lines 27–29 1. Offering to someone, from a 19th-day procession mentioned with the 20th, line 27 (recipient in line 28a?) 2. Offering to Mount Íuparatu, lines 28–29 B. 20th day, offering to Mount Sinapsi IV. Barring the Doors at the Waning Moon: 25th, 26th, 27th; lines 31–52 A. 25th day, lines 31–35 1. Offering to the abû of the bit tukli, lines 31–32 2. Gift (nadanu) to the abû of the palace, lines 38–39 3. Greater kubadu ceremony “at the gate of the grave,” lines 34–35 B. 26th day, lines 36–42 1. Barring of doors after offering to “all the gods,” lines 36–37 2. Offering to the abû of the palace, lines 38–39 3. Presentations to (lines 40–42): a. The abû of the temple of Dagan b. Alal c. Bel dadmi d. Ishara C. 27th day, lines 43–52 1. Lesser kubadu ceremony as offering “before” the abû of the temple of Dagan, lines 43–46 2. Gift(?) to the abû of some deity’s temple, singing to “the gods,” lines 47–48 3. Presentation to the abû of the temple of Alal, lines 48–50 4. Gift to the abû of the bit tukli, lines 51–52 V. Frame Part 3: Day of the New Moon, lines 53–55 A. Cleansing the city, line 53 B. Offering to Bel Akka, line 54 C. Procession of Latarak for three days, lines 55

Beyond the divisions by days, which supply the immediate scribal outline, the text incorporates offerings that create a genuine ritual frame for the month as such. This ritual frame is divided into two levels, with days 1 (hussu), 8, and 20 distinguished from days 3 and 19. None of these is given extensive attention, unlike the events during the middle and the end of the month. All five days describe simple offerings, without identifying them by special terminology, as is the case

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with the kubadu. 160 The lines for the 3d, 8th, and 20th days describe distribution to the gods and offering to Mount Sinapsi in fixed terms, the same items and amounts each time. The descriptions for days 3 and 19 add fairly elaborate and somewhat varying offerings to individual deities: Astart sa abi and probably a god that is now missing. 161 The frame of offerings provides a ritual unity for Abî as one cycle of the moon’s appearance. Days 1, 8, and 20 fill the gaps in the lunar cycle left by the two main events. The 1st and 8th days represent the new moon and its first quarter, while the 20th marks a transition to counting days by fives during the waning days of the month. This pattern can be seen in the assembled evidence for observing days of the month in ritual texts at Emar (see fig. 15). Rites are clustered at the new moon (days 1–3), the first quarter (7–9), and days 14–20 in the middle of the month. The waning moon, however, is dominated by the 25th, after the third quarter is ignored during days 21–23. The 25th may begin the last stage of the moon’s visibility, but it is not defined by any natural fraction of the whole lunar cycle. Choice of this day as the focus of the disappearing moon appears to reflect a second type of calculation, based on units of five. 162 The days of this ritual frame for the month are marked by a level of foreign influence that is not as evident in the core events at the middle and the end of the month. The mountain Sinapsi that is mentioned in connection with days 3, 8, and 20 is somehow related to the Sinapsi house in Hurrian rituals. 163 Standard 160. Note that day 19 mentions materials that ‘go forth’ (ußßû) only in order to account for actual offering of one set on the next day, the 20th (line 27). 161. Lines 5 and 28. 162. The dominance of the lunar pattern in the first half of the month reflects celebration of the new, half, and full moon from the Ur III period; see Landsberger, Kultische Kalender, 97–99; Limet, “L’organisation de quelques fêtes mensuelles,” 59–60; Hallo, “New Moons and Sabbaths,” 3–4; Sallaberger, Kultische Kalender, 37–38. On earlier conventions for counting time more generally and the custom of counting by fives, see my “Counting Time at Mari and in Early Second-Millennium Mesopotamia,” M.A.R.I. 8 (1997) 675–92. 163. See 452:6, 8, 30. A second mountain called Íuparatu receives offerings on the 19th day (lines 28–29). This mountain also is associated with the goddess Astart: dIs8-tár Íu-pa-r[a-ti], 274:8; dinanna Íu-pá-ra-ti, 379:6. For possible use of the Sinapsi house for ritual purification, see G. Beckman, Hittite Birth Rituals (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983) 113; V. Haas and G. Wilhelm, Hurritische und luwische Riten aus Kizzuwatna (AOATS 3; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974) 37–38. Archi (“Substrate,” 12) suggests that the word is derived from Hurrian sin- ‘two’, perhaps based on a division between male and female deities. Marie-Claude Trémouille (dHebat: Une divinité syro-anatolienne [Florence: LoGisma, 1997] 212 n. 749) suggests that dkur gal, ‘the great mountain’ in Emar offering list 378:3, might be Mount Sinapsi, but the texts provide no basis for this connection.

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Figure 15. Days of the Month Observed in the Emar Ritual Calendar Day of Month 1/30 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Text Number, Deity or Event (Month) 452:1, 53, umi hussi, umu bubbulu (Abî); 463:1, the opening of the doors (Halma) 446:96; 463:4, Dagan (Halma); cf. 452:55 (Halma/Hiyar) 446:100, hidasu of Dagan (Halma); 452:3 (Abî); cf. 452:55 (Halma)

446:83, turtu of Illila (Adamma); 447:6 (Zerati) 446:2 (Zarati?); 446:84, turtu to the gods (Adamma); 446:102, Halma (Halma); 446:105, opening for the storm-god even on the next day (Halma); 452:7, 8 (Abî) 446:107, the storm-god of Canaan (Halma)

373:39, 186, zukru (sag.mu); 446:86, buGaratu (Marzahani); 452:9 (Abî) 373:44, 171, 187 (sag.mu); 375:3 (Zarati) all zukru; 446:8, zukru? (Zarati?); 446:45, Saggar (Zarati?) 375:47, Baºla Halab (Zarati?); 446:87–90, Astar-ßarba and Astart (Marzahani); 452:21, Astar-ßarba and Astart (Abî) 446:58, dnin.kur (dnin.kur.ra); 446:91, the storm-god (Marzahani); 452: 22(?), uncertain (Abî) 446:59, dnin.kur (dnin.kur.ra); 446:118; 463:19, both the hiyaru of the storm-god (Halma) 446:67 (dnin.kur.ra?); 452:27 (Abî); 458:5 (dnin.urta?) 452:30, cf. 27 (Abî); 458:9 (dnin.urta?); 463:26, the storm-god? (Halma)

373:10, zukru (Niqali?) 373:5, zukru (sag.mu); lines 17, 180, zukru (Niqali?); 452:31, abû (Abî) 452:36, the barring of the doors, abû (Abî) 452:43, abû (Abî)

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portions of flour are often defined in part by the sinahilu, 164 otherwise found in offering lists and rituals that contain other Hittite-Hurrian traits. 165 At the end of the text, a bridge to rites in the following month shows marked Mesopotamian influence. 166 Definition of the month’s end by the actual disappearance of the moon, designating it ‘the head of the month’, displays a solid familiarity with Mesopotamian astronomical traditions. 167 The Mesopotamian god Latarak is honored for the first three days of the next month. 168 The notion of calendar-based ritual is surely very old in Syria, but the systematic organization of rites under one month’s frame may be a more recent phenomenon, perhaps inspired by models from Syrian neighbors. 169 No other Emar text reflects an intention to observe the month ritually as a period of time for its own sake. The text for six months implies no ritual connection between the times set for its separate events. Similarly, the second one-month text (Emar 463) records individual rites without any calendar framework linking them. Because of this characteristic, the text for Abî approximates Arnaud’s monthly ordo more closely than either of the other texts. It is not concerned with every day but is systematic 164. See AHw s.v. sinahilu(m), a Hurrian loanword. 165. These include Emar 461:11 (cf. u4-mi wa-lu-hi, line 8); 462:1, 15, etc. (cf. tu-rube, lines 2, 4, etc.; tu-tu-nu, lines 10, 37, etc.; am-[ba-as-si], line 48); 465:5 (cf. tar-na-as, lines 6, 7; tu-tu-nu, line 8); 466:8 (cf. tu-tu-nu, line 4, etc.; tu-ru-be, line 8); 471:4, etc. (explicit Hittite, line 1; cf. tu-ru-bu, lines 4, 5, etc.; kasapu D, breaking bread, line 27; plus other Hittite terms and Hittite pantheon); 472:16, etc.; 473:4, 5, etc.; 477:5 (all with Hittite pantheon and materials). For evidence that these terms are Hittite-Hurrian, see D. Arnaud, “Les hittites sur le moyen-Euphrate: protecteurs et indigènes,” in Hethitica VIII: Acta Anatolica E. Laroche Oblata (Louvain-la-neuve: Peeters, 1987) 9–27; E. Laroche, “Observations sur le rituel anatolien provenant de Meskéné-Emar,” in Studi di storia e di filologia anatolica dedicati à Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli (ed. Fiorella Imparati; Firenze: Elite, 1988) 111–17; R. Lebrun, “Divinités louvites et hourrites des rituels anatoliens en langue akkadienne provenant de Meskéné,” in Hethitica IX (Louvain-la-neuve: Peeters, 1988) 147–55. See also my Installation, 264–73. 166. Emar 452:53–55. Note also the kamanu sweet cakes in the mid-month event (line 18), not a standard part of Emar offering. 167. The two terms are umu bubbulu (ud.ná.a) and res warhi. 168. Latarak comes from Istar’s circle; see Wilfred G. Lambert, “Lulal/Latarak,” RLA 7.163–64. He appears again in Emar 274:19–20, which is a list of vessels for separate deities, there associated with Tuttul, downstream. AuOrS 1 98 lists the crew stationed at the gate of Latarak (dlú.làl), perhaps a city gate named for the god. Kutscher no. 3:5 mentions ‘the great highway of Latarak’ (kaskal-nu gal sa dlú.làl), which could be the road that leads from the Latarak city gate. At Mari, Latarak appears once in the Estar ritual (FM III 2 ii:2). 169. It should not be surprising that Ugarit offers the closest parallel for the Emar 452 text type (KTU 1.112) at the same time that it attests the months Niqali and Hiyaru, names known at Emar and in a larger north Syrian circle.

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in its approach to calendrical time. The text type is not Mesopotamian, however, but derives from a larger Syrian context. The Middle of the Month A large portion of the text for Abî is devoted to the very same days described during the month of Marzahani in the text for six months—the 14th, 16th, and probably the 17th. 170 Comparison with the description for Marzahani is unavoidable and useful, but full equivalence cannot be assumed for these very different texts. The importance of these days is demonstrated by the space allotted to them, but the missing material severely limits our ability to interpret the text. If the 14th day indeed straddles the break between tablet pieces, the occasion in question celebrates the goddess Astart under three titles, sa subi, sa biriqati(?), and sa abi. 171 Once the correlation of dates is established by the reference to the hunt of Astart on the 16th, rites for the 14th also can be considered parallel. The inscrutable bu-Ga-ra-tu4 on the 14th of Marzahani is dedicated to Astart as well. 172 The three titles of Astart in the rites for the 14th of Abî appear to represent truly separate cult centers. Astart sa abi probably is the patron of the abû shrines and of the month named Abî (not Marzahani), which I will address with the rites for the 25th–27th. The meaning of subu is uncertain, but the Ugaritic polyglot vocabulary offers an intriguing equation between Hurrian subi (su-bi) and Ugaritic harimu. If the Astart title is Hurrian, this goddess of war might be identified with the separation for sacred destruction that is well known from the biblical and Moabite ˙rm. 173 The goddess with the title sa bi-ri-Ga-ti may be ‘Astart of 170. Emar 452:9–26 and 446:86–95. The 14th day begins in line 9, and collation shows that no more than one line is lost, at most. Lines 14–17 may then tentatively be read as referring to the same day, because nothing in the content indicates a shift to another day. The Marzahani record avoids the 15th day, as does Emar ritual for months other than the zukru month. Lines 18–21 can be presumed to refer to the 16th day, based on both the explicit statement with the ßâdu and the parallel with 446:87–90. Given the adjoining sections devoted to days 16 and 19, lines 22–26 can only constitute the 17th or 18th day. Restriction of procession in Emar 452 to lines 18–26 suggests that there is continuity between the two segments, and the parallel with Emar 446 points to a celebration that occupies the 16th and 17th days. 171. Lines 10 and 14, 15, and 17. The damaged text prevents certainty, but one prominent Emar cult of Astart that is neglected is the cult of Astart sa tahazi, the mistress of the masªartu priestess. In fact, the personnel, offerings, and other installation terminology from Emar 370 have little if anything in common with those of Emar 452. 172. Compare 452:9–17 and 446:86. 173. On the lexical entry from Ugarit, see Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 40–41, 89 (Ug. 5 137 ii 40, 42 = Sa no. 190.4?, 191.1?). Huehnergard proposes, based on comparison with the similar Sa

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Lightning’; a reading with -kà- (for ‘pools’?) is unlikely in a text with orthography similar to the Syro-Hittite documents. 174 Four months after the planting rites, the 16th of Abî appears to celebrate the promise of refilled granaries with the ‘hunt’ (ßâdu) of the goddess Astart and a procession for Astar-ßarba, an old Syrian form of Estar/Astart (‘The Poplar-Estar’). 175 Like the 16th of Marzahani, this day joins two related activities: the procession from ‘the storehouse’ and the ‘hunt’ (or ‘rounds’? ßâdu), both for the goddess Astart, under two different names. 176 From the divine name Astar-ßarba, we infer that the rendition of the goddess as Astar was retained from her archaic cult and was not transferred to the male deity. This conclusion is confirmed both by her affiliation with Estar/Astart in this event and by the detail of the rites in this text. Even though most of the text is lost, the 16th of Abî appears to begin with a procession that involves two movements. Someone is brought into a certain place, and then Astar-ßarba is brought out from the storehouse. They bring ‘with her’ someone or something ‘(with) cries’, a term that otherwise is used only of the activity of Emar’s wailing woman. 177 Durand observes that Astar-ßarba (The Poplar-Astar) is revered as a goddess of plant life, 178 and this mid-month ritual appears to celebrate the ancient agriculVocabulary text MSL 3 82:29u, 39u, that the missing Akkadian equivalent should be sulputu ‘desecrate(d)’, so that the Hebrew/Moabite cognate suits the Ugaritic entry, as well as Arabic ˙aruma ‘to become sacred, be forbidden’ and Syriac ªa˙rem ‘to anathematize’. For Astart sa subi, see also Emar 274:3; cf. 373:88. 174. Zadok (“Notes on the West Semitic Material,” 115) suggests the reading bi-riqá-ti ‘lightning’. 175. The appearance of Astar-ßarba was discovered by Belmonte (N.A.B.U. [1997] 82–83 [no. 87]), based on comparison with Emar 300:4 ([dAs-t]ar-ßa-ar-ba) and ASJ 12, no. 3:6. In the latter text, the goddess is paired with the goddess dnin.kur: pa-nu-su kaskal-nu gal sa dnin.kur ù dAs-tar-ßa-ar-ba ‘in front of it is the great highway of dnin.kur and Astar-ßarba’. Belmonte then rereads RE 54:10–11 as: pa-nu-su kaskal-nu sa As !-tar !-ß[arº-ªbaº! ù sa dnin.kur, with similar translation. For the deity at Mari and her identification there as a goddess, see Durand, “La religión en Siria durante la época de los reinos amorreos según la documentación de Mari,” in Mitología y Religión II/1 (1995) 137. Juan Oliva (“Astar ßarbat in Ebla,” N.A.B.U. [1993] 32–34 [no. 42]) gathers early Syrian references to Astar-ßarbat at Ebla and at Mari in the Pre-Sargonic and Sakkanakku periods. Note that the spelling Estar represents a more archaic vocalization of the name, which in southern Mesopotamia comes to be rendered as Istar. 176. Emar 446:87–90 and 452:21. In the text for Abî, “the hunt of Astart” is segregated to the end of the section, in lines 20–21, and is accompanied by a restatement of the date formula, as a second ritual element in the day. 177. The form kíl-la-ti represents the expected feminine plural of killu ‘cry’, spelled syllabically in 388:4 as ki-il-la-si (cf. bún, 369:48). On the cries of the wailing woman (nugagtu), see my Installation, 104, 173. Note CAD s.v. ikkillu (killu, angillu), plural ikkillatu. 178. Durand, “La religión en Siria,” 202.

Spread is 3 points long

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tural powers of Estar/Astart. Jacobsen connects Inanna, the Sumerian equivalent of Astart, with the communal storehouse for dates, based on the etymology Ninanna(k), ‘Lady of the Date Clusters’, and association with the “storehouse of Eanna,” her temple. 179 Inanna/Istar/Astart makes a critical contribution to agricultural success, and a full storehouse reflects her cooperation. The Mesopotamian tradition of Inanna/Istar’s descent to the underworld derives from the possibility of a season without harvests, storehouses becoming empty toward the end of winter, and life itself being threatened. 180 If we follow the sequence of the text for six months, Emar’s rites for Astar-ßarba at the storehouse take place four months after planting, at a time of heightened uncertainty. The wailing that precedes the departure of Astar-ßarba from the storehouse, even with much of the intervening text lost to us, suggests lament, perhaps accompanied by an appeal for provision from the goddess’s bounty. After the agricultural rite for Astar-ßarba, the goddess Astart takes part under her standard name in a ‘hunt’ for which no clear objective is stated. The Akkadian verb ßâdu can refer to prowling or other regular rounds that have no single destination, 181 while the Ugaritic word includes the nuance of searching for an object. 182 Astart is evidently brought out for a ritual hunt or search whose object or prey is unknown. 183 She could be looking for game, provision in general, or even an agricultural god who has died, similar to Anat’s search for Baal at Ugarit. 184 The last day in the mid-month rites lacks even more of the text, as well as the date. Comparison with the text for Marzahani suggests that the day is the 17th, a date that may be confirmed by an Ugaritic ritual text for the month ªIbºlt, which is in a corresponding calendar position. 185 On the 17th of ªIbºlt, the king makes 179. Jacobsen, Treasures of Darkness, 36. 180. See ibid., 55–62, for provocative commentary. 181. CAD s.v. ßâdu 1a, b; AHw s.v. ßâdu(m), as ‘umherjagen’. None of the attestations is cultic. 182. Hebrew ßwd focuses on hunting in particular (see BDB), but Ugaritic ßd allows a more diverse objective. Anat seeks the missing Baal (KTU 1.5 VI:26), Môt looks for prey (1.6 II:15), and hunting is evidently the work of anyone who possesses Aqhat’s bow (1.17 VI:40). Sa˙ar and Salim go out to the open country (mdbr) when they are of age, whether to hunt or simply to roam adventurously (1.23:68). 183. One Ugaritic text may refer to the goddess Astart as ‘the Huntress(?)’ (ºttrt ßwd*[t], KTU 1.92:2). See Johannes C. de Moor, “ºAthtartu the Huntress (KTU 1.92),” UF 17 (1986) 225–26. 184. If Astart is looking for the storm-god, it is difficult to determine why he also has a hunt on the 17th in Emar 446:91. 185. ªIbºlt (ªIbºalatu) is now placed before Hyr in the 11th position, counted from the spring; see T. DeJong and W. H. van Soldt, “Redating an Early Solar Eclipse Record,” 69–70.

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a sacrifice, and the participants consume it “behind the temple of Baal of Ugarit,” another city god. 186 The Ugaritic rite closely matches the Abî text’s offering behind the temple of dnin.urta, a unique location for a ritual at Emar. This recalls the construction of the temples discovered in the excavations: each has a separate open space behind the enclosed building that could only be reached from a separate path, outside the walls. 187 Apart from this detail, neither the hunt of the storm-god nor the offering by the marzahu group found in the text for six months appears to have a place here. The text of Abî shows such enthusiasm for the cult of Astart and complete disinterest in the storm-god that his activity on this day may simply have been ignored in preference for rites that complement Astart or have some other focus. dnin.urta makes no other appearance in the text. The 25th–27th Days While the important mid-month observances of the month of Abî remain somewhat obscure because of the fragmentary text, the late-month rites for various abû shrines, which give the month its name, are almost entirely legible. The text devotes 22 of its 55 lines to these three days, from the 25th through the 27th. The offerings give special attention to Dagan, but the essential feature, common to each day of this celebration, is the abû, which is found in various buildings. The rites for the 25th–27th of Abî seem to have functioned on three levels. Their unity is apparent first of all in that there are offerings to abûs on all three days: the abûs of the bit tukli and dnin.kur’s temple on the 25th; the abûs of the palace and Dagan’s temple on the 26th; and the abûs of Dagan’s temple, another temple, Alal’s temple, and the bit tukli again on the 27th. 188 On a second level, these rites served to connect this period of the waning moon to the emergence of the moon at the beginning of the next month, moving beyond the three-day horizon of the abû shrines. Thus, on the 26th of Abî, doors are barred and not reopened until the first of the next month. This procedure may be related to the kubadu “at the gate of the grave” on the 25th, the only other major offering not addressed to the abûs. Even this ritual for barring and opening doors forms part of 186. KTU 1.119:8–10, bºd.bt.bº[l].ªUgrt. 187. J.-C. Margueron (Le Moyen-Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges [ed. J. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980] 310–11) suggests that this may derive ultimately from the construction of open-air ‘high places’ (Hebrew bamôt). If the temple of dnin.urta is temple M2, as speculated earlier, the back would be on the west side, which has not yet been excavated. The flat area behind the temples of the storm-god and Astart in chantier E was pocked with pits that may have been used for ritual purposes. 188. See lines 32, 33, 39, 40, 46, 48, 50, and 52. Line 52 includes a second reference to an abû in a broken context.

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a larger event, the hidasu or new moon of Dagan. The opening of doors inaugurates the new moon only in the text for the separate month, while the text for six months presents the hidasu of Dagan alone, anticipated by neither the abû offerings at the end of the previous month nor the rites for doors that follow. This connection probably explains the Abî tablet’s ending, which bridges into the next month, with a reference to purification of the city and interest in the same three days that span the hidasu. 189 Within this structure of stratified ritual, the 25th to the 27th of Abî cohere as a distinct unit. These three days are linked by repeated presentations to a cult feature rendered in the genitive case as a-bi-i (nominative abû). Both the procedure and the content of these presentations vary, though the lead examples show that they are offerings, in that they are devoted to the divine realm, not the human. The first presentation to an abû on each day is the most generous and is designated as an offering by use of the verb naqû, here ‘to sacrifice, offer’. 190 These offerings progress from the bit tukli on the 25th to the palace on the 26th to Dagan on the 27th. 191 This sequence, then, proceeds from the two political and economic centers of the city to the god of the coming new moon celebration. Secondary presentations on these days are either identified as ‘gifts’ by the verb nadanu or simply assigned to the recipient, with no verb to define the action, though they are also clearly offerings. On the first two days, the lesser presentations to the abûs at the temples of dnin.kur and Dagan are juxtaposed with equivalent offerings to the temple of Alal, Dagan as Lord of Habitations, and the temple of Ishara. 192 These small presentations do not continue on the 27th day, which represents the climax of attention to the abû cult. Unlike the previous two days, the 27th of Abî is devoted entirely to abû offerings, dominated by the large initial group defined as a kubadu offered “before the abû of Dagan’s temple.” 193 The remaining presentations are still substantial. After the temple of Dagan, an

189. Emar 452:53–55; they bring out the god Latarak for three days not as part of the hidasu but in a concurrent ritual associated with Istar/Astart, who dominates the ritual interest of the Abî text as a whole. 190. Unlike the verb nadanu ‘to give’, the verb naqû is never used for presentation to humans; see my Installation, 120–21. 191. Lines 31–32, 38–39, 43–46. The bit tukli is discussed earlier, in conjunction with the House of the Gods, and was probably located in the complex of dnin.urta’s temple, as part of the “city” religious administration, independent of the palace. 192. All of these consist of two ßabbuttu breads (only here, in Emar ritual), one dove, and fruit (lines 33, 40, 41, 42). Omission of fruit in the last instance may be a scribal error. ‘Lord of the Habitations’ (bel dadmi) is an expression referring to Dagan; see 373:101; 379:4; 380:20; 381:14; 382:11. 193. Lines 43–46.

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unknown temple is served, along with singing. The one visible deity is the underworld god Alal, before the bit tukli appears a second time. 194 The abû offerings as a whole define a three-day event that has its climax on the 27th. Identification of the major offerings on the first and last days as kubadu ceremonies reflects this scheme. 195 The independence of days 25 through 27 from the rest of the month is evident in the complete neglect of Astart, who dominates the rest of the text. The focus on Dagan, by contrast, suggests that the event was created to anticipate Dagan’s approaching new moon hidasu. 196 Before the new moon could be celebrated, the last visibility of the previous moon had to be saluted. The timing of these offerings alone suggests a focus on the underworld. The 25th to the 27th days cover the last stages of the moon’s light and influence, before the power of death encroaches on the land of the living in the darkness before the new moon. In Mesopotamian tradition, the 28th and 29th days of every month belong to Nergal and the underworld. 197 The end of Duªuzu in the summer (month IV) especially came to be set aside for mourning the dead Dumuzi, who would rise again only with the winter rains. 198 These rites began on the 26th, with the last moonlight, and continued through the 29th. The specific purpose of the Emar event depends greatly on interpretation of the word abû, which is susceptible to several plausible alternatives that the ancients themselves may have sometimes confused. Emar’s abû is at least once interpreted by a scribe as ‘father, ancestor’, and this meaning should be given tentative priority. 199 Astart (dIs8-tár) sa a-bi receives offerings twice in the text 194. Lines 50 and 52. The final presentation to the bit tukli avoids repetition of any materials given on the 25th day. The honey, oil, ghee, meats and fish, and fruit are all new (compare lines 31–32). Repeated offerings to Dagan and Alal show no such separation of materials. 195. Lines 35 and 46. The kubadu identification is attached to very different offerings, the first not for an abû but simply “at the gate of the grave” (line 35). This gate appears to be related to the gate with doors mentioned in the rite for day 26, a rite not confined to the 25th–27th; however, the presence of the kubadu in this context connects it to the three-day event. The association of the “greater” and “lesser” kubadu with opening and closing rites is discussed with the zukru festival. 196. The cast of deities resembles the summary pantheon of the Satappi kissu festivals, with Dagan and Ishara associated with the realm above and Alal with the realm below. 197. Landsberger, Kultische Kalender, 141–44; Cohen, Calendars, 454–55. 198. See J. A. Scurlock, “K 164 (BA 2, P.635): New Light on the Mourning Rites for Dumuzi?,” RA 86 (1992) 53–67; S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (AOAT 5/1–2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970–83) 2.8–10; Cohen, Calendars, 315–17. 199. I have adopted the normalization abû, based on the consistent spelling a-bi-i in Emar 452, to maintain some neutrality in the discussion of the term.

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for Abî, and she is thus strongly identified with the abû shrines, whether or not that association is original. 200 One of the 14th-century legal documents from Emar renders the name of the goddess [dA]s-tar-ti sa ab-bi, where the doubled consonant marks the plural for ‘fathers’. 201 The writing of the final long vowel with added -i also supports the interpretation of the shrine as dedicated to the ‘fathers’, by marking the plural explicitly. 202 The month name Abî is associated with these late-month rites, just as Marzahani retains a link between month name and actual ritual practice during the middle of the month. The presence of the abû rites in the month of Abî indicates that Emar scribes assigned the month name with reference to local practice. Competent scribes would nevertheless be aware of the standard Mesopotamian month Abu and of its associations. The Mesopotamian month first appears in the early second-millennium Semitic calendars of Esnunna and the Diyala, Tell Rimah and the upper Habur basin, and Mari. 203 It originally held the fourth position in calendars counted from the spring axis, sometimes the fifth, and came to be identified with Nippur’s ne-izi-gar, both Abu and ne-izi-gar traditionally being associated with rites for the dead. 204 Later religious tradition expresses the 200. Lines 5 and 17. This goddess appears frequently in Emar ritual: 373:102 (with cf. 429:4; 470:2; all sa a-bi; dinanna a-bi in 384:2 and 460:26; [dIs8-t]ár a-ba-ú in 274:9. Offerings are made at the a-bi of the House of the Gods during the month of Anna (446:79). The inventory 300:11 should probably be read a-na a-bi-ªiº, with the long final vowel marked. In spite of the unexpected spelling of Yammu ‘Sea’, the association of Astart and Sea or river in other West Semitic tradition may confirm this reading; see Juan Oliva, “Ashtarte (sa) abi of Emar: A Basic Approach,” N.A.B.U. (1993) 78–80 (no. 94). This does not mean that a-bi means ‘sea’ (Sumerian a - a b - b a). Zadok (“Notes on the West Semitic Material,” 115) considers the abû a ‘sea’ like the biblical temple reservoir. 201. Emar 153:2, abbi. Emar scribes often fail to indicate a doubled consonant, and there are other examples of such rare but correct alternatives. For instance, the stone shrine sikkanu is almost always written with a single -k-, except [na]4.messi-ik-ka-na-ti in 373:174 and na4si-ik-[ka-nu] in 422:4. The doubled -kk- is confirmed by the consistent Mari spelling. Similarly, the hizzibu vessel is spelled hi-zi-bu except in list 274, where it is rendered hi-iz-zi-bu. Doubtless the exceptional spelling with the doubled -bb- in sa ab-bi belongs to an older Syrian orthographic tradition, preserved in this early text. 202. Wayne T. Pitard, “Care of the Dead at Emar,” in Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (ed. M. W. Chavalas; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1996) 136. 203. See Cohen, “The Amorite Calendars,” Calendars, 248–94. 204. See Cohen, Calendars, 100–104, on ne-izi-gar as “(the month when) lamps/ braziers are lit,” perhaps to guide spirits back from the underworld. A. Tsukimoto (Untersuchungen zur Totenpflege [kispum] im alten Mesopotamien [AOAT 216; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985] 48) observes the unique affinity between the kispum rites for the dead and the month of Abum in first-dynasty Babylon. dYa-a-mi);

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same association by placing the Maqlû incantation series for defense against witchcraft at the end of Abu. 205 One Assyrian ritual text describes the apu as a hole for offerings directed to the netherworld, and one Old Babylonian text from Sippar that is dated to the month of Abu mentions food “at the entrance to the abu.” 206 The Hurrian word a-a-bi is used for a pit for communication with underworld beings, in which offerings are placed to lure them up. 207 At Emar, the word abû refers to the entire shrine, without regard for its shape. It is true that pits were discovered by the excavators on the flat open space behind the temples of the storm-god and Astart at the western height of the tell. However, the compound preposition ana pani ‘before’, which describes the placement of offering materials, is not what we would expect with offerings deposited in a hole. 208 The Mesopotamian associations called up by the similar month of Abu and the timing of the Emar event at the last visibility of the moon both indicate that the word abû somehow relates to the underworld. Interpreting the word as referring to ‘fathers’ or ancestors simply narrows the meaning to the dead, rather than to unknown gods and spirits in general. Even if the Mesopotamian institution and month name were never derived from the similar word for ‘father’, the use of the term at Emar may nevertheless have been easily confused by this verbal association. Emar’s abû shrines themselves may have originated as offering pits that were later transformed by folk etymology into ancestor cult. 209 The abû shrine shows no sign of mobility, of being carried in procession. It functioned in various locations by redundancy: wherever an abû was needed, a 205. Tzvi Abusch, “Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Literature: Texts and Studies,” JNES 33 (1974) 259–61. 206. KAR 146 rev. 1–2 (a-pi) and YOS 12 345 (i-na e-ri-ib a-bi), in Cohen, Calendars, 261. Cohen (pp. 259–61) concludes that the ab/pum was probably a mound placed over a passage believed to lead to the underworld. The idea of a mound derives from comparison with the ki.gal as burial mound: in one text, Subat-Enlil’s dnin-a-pí replaces Ereskigal as the spouse of Nergal (p. 260 and n. 2). This construction would still be below ground, however, and not necessarily distinct from the abu ‘hole’. Akkadian apu ‘canebrake’ does not offer a likely etymology. Pentiuc (Studies in the Emar Lexicon) considers the abû “a structure of wood at the entrance of a building (a porch?).” This interpretation is difficult to reconcile with the references in Emar 452 to the abû as indirect object. 207. Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ªôb,” JBL 86 (1967) 385. 208. Emar 452:46. 209. If there was a cult of Astart-of-the-Ancestors among any group of people at Emar, the ancestor cult itself must have had some hold in the city. This would be true whether Emar had old abbu shrines that were merged with the wider phenomenon with similar name, or whether the wider cult practice and term were together attached to an originally distinct local custom through incorrect etymology.

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new one was constructed. The shrine did not need to be identified with any specific god, as shown by the bit tukli and the palace, which were defined by their administrative function, not by a deity. Even so, gifts presented before an abû were regarded as offerings, because the verb naqû (‘to offer’) could be used to describe the presentation of them. The diviners who composed Emar’s ritual texts reserved this verb for gifts to beings of the divine class, who could be called ilu (‘god/spirit’). If abû means ‘ancestors’, it is simplest to understand these as offerings to the dead. 210 All of the abû sites are found in locations having sacred status, though the palace evidences this status mainly by being a source for ritual supplies. The diverse locations suggest that abû sites were not restricted to rare points of entry into the underworld. It seems that any sacred site connected with the lunar month-end transition had to maintain contact with the underworld by means of the abû. The gods and locations themselves demonstrate no intrinsic connection with the underworld. When the two texts for individual months are read together, it becomes clear that the rite for the abûs frames the start of a larger ritual linked to the coming new moon. The 26th of Abî opens with the most lavish offering of the whole month, not to an abû, but “for all the gods,” leading up to “the barring of the doors” at the gate. 211 The gate in question is apparently “the gate of the grave,” the site of the kubadu offering that completes the previous day. 212 These doors remained closed through the disappearance of the moon and were not reopened until the first light of the new moon. 213 Because this event is integrated into the hidasu of Dagan in the text for the following month, further discussion requires introduction of that tablet. 210. Pitard (“Care of the Dead,” 136) suggests that the abbu may be some sort of ritual personnel, but the term is not marked in Emar texts with lú.meß (as, for instance, is the term ‘brothers’ lú.mesahhi.a) and it is not attested in any context that identifies the referents as living human participants. Pitard’s explanation also minimizes the underworld connections in other aspects of the ritual setting. 211. The offering includes 17 sheep, flour, drink, and oil (lines 36–37). The number of sheep suggests a pantheon of cult places much smaller than the pantheon of gods gathered for the zukru, more reminiscent of the god lists in Emar 379–82 (383–84 are broken). Compare 17 deities in 379 (offering item not stated); 20 deities in 380 (one bird each); 17 deities in 381 (one sheep each, line 7 possibly two); 16 deities in 382 (one of an unspecified item, two for two deities). 212. Line 35. For the distinction of doors (dalatu) within a gate, see CAD s.v. daltu 1a, KAR 148:6, 16, ‘the door of my city gate’ (abullu); 1b, Dar. 499:11, PN sets the door in the gates (dalati . . . ina babe); CAD s.v. babu A1b to a palace, AKA 171 rev. 8 (Asn.), “I mounted the cedarwood doors (dalate ereni) in copper sheathings and hung (them) in its (the palace’s) doorways (babisa)”; A1c to a temple or part thereof, Nbn. 1012:3, ‘the doors of the main gate’ (dalatu sa babi rabî); AHw s.v. daltu(m) 1, (Holz-)Tür in der Türöffnung (babu). 213. Emar 463:1.

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Chapter 4 The Month of Halma (Hiyar)

Much less can be said about the second text, which is severely damaged. 214 The front side makes an important contribution to our understanding of the hidasu of Dagan that is named in the text for six months, and the reverse correlates with the hiyaru from the same text, but the scant detail does not merit extended discussion apart from these comparisons. 215 The tablet supplies no month name and begins simply with the day for opening the doors. I identify the month as Halma based on these comparisons, though the month may be named elsewhere by association with the hiyaru, as at Ugarit. 216 Another link between a month name and contemporary practice would not be surprising in light of months named by other ritual connections, such as dnin.kur.ra, Marzahani, Halma, and Abî. The tablet for Halma(Hiyar) is neatly inscribed, with text sections separated by frequent horizontal rulings much like those found in the text for Abî. 217 The full tablet appears to have been used, but little more than the top third survives (see fig. 16). Each section, as defined by the horizontal dividers, is introduced by a temporal phrase. 218 Use of the counting sign kám after days greater than 10 contrasts with the pattern of the text for Abî and cautions us against assuming that the two tablets were composed together. At the same time, reference to the doors in the first line follows directly from the other text, and the absence of a named month suggests that this tablet may have been written after the text for Abî to complete the sequence. Offerings and sources are consistent with the description in the text for Abî, within the distinctive features of individual rites. The sinahilu-flour that characterizes the framing days of the Abî text is not found here, just as the framing system itself is lacking. 219 214. Emar 463. 215. Emar 446:100 and 118–19. 216. See the discussion of the month of Halma in the text for six months. 217. One idiosyncrasy that reflects slightly less care is the slant of the text lineation upward toward the right after the first section. 218. Line 1: i-na u4-mi pí-it-ha gisigmes, on the day of opening the doors; line 4: a-na sa-ni-i u4-mi, on the next day; line 9: i-na mu-si, at night; line 12: i-na u4-mi sa-sú-ma is-tu dutu i-na-pí-ih, on the same day after the sun is lit; line 19: i-na u4-mi 18.kám, on the 18th day; line 26: a-na u4.20.kám, on the 20th day. 219. Shared offering features include the bán/qa measurements (463:1, 9, etc.; 452: 1, etc.); pappasu-meal as a staple (463:9, 12, etc.; 452:3, etc.); vessels hizzibu (463:2, 10, 12; 452:5, etc.), pihu (463:5; 452:1, 7, etc.), hubbar (463:24; 452:3, etc.), dug˘a (463:29; 452:3, etc.), and zadu (463:29; 452:2, 7); and doves (463:3, 6, 7; 452:1, etc.). Some materials evidently reflect specific occasions, such as kaß.geßtin as wine (463:2, 10; 452:43, 49) and the combination of honey and ghee (463:8; 452:39, 44, 50, 51), which are found only in the rites that span the 25th–27th of Abî and the 1st–3d of Halma(Hiyar). Three of the suppliers attested for 463 are found in 452 as well: the king (463:3, 20, 29; 452:28, 34), the House of the Gods (463:24; 452:3, etc.), and the nuppuhannu (463:11; 452:17,

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Figure 16. The Unnamed Month (Halma/Hiyar) in Outline I. (The hidasu of Dagan), 1st and 2d day; lines 1–14 A. 1st day (opening doors, offering to Dagan), lines 1–3 B. 2d day, lines 4–14 1. Before night, lines 4–8 Greater kubadu ceremony Distribution (zâzu) to “the gods” Evening: offering to Dagan 2. At night, lines 9–11 Burnt offering (with a bird, as purification) Other offering 3. The same day at sunrise, lines 12–14 Offerings involving “the gods” (Break) II. (Celebration for Halma?) 8th day?, lines 15–18 Some “day of the hiyaru” (line 17) III. Hiyaru of the storm-god, 18th day; lines 19–25 Various offerings IV. Celebration for the storm-god and Hebat, 20th day; lines 26–30 Sacrifice (ox and sheep) to the storm-god and Hebat, lines 26 Offering to Hebat, line 28 Distribution to “the gods,” lines 29–30

The resulting text does not have the ritual coherence of the rites for Abî and simply moves through the major events of the month, more in the spirit of the tablet for six months. It is difficult to compare the calendars of the Halma(Hiyar) tablet and the text for six months after the description of rites for the new moon because the tablet for Halma(Hiyar) has lost so much. Nothing can be said about celebrations for Halma and the storm-god on the 8th and 9th, though Halma is evidently mentioned in connection with a hiyaru before the 18th. 220 The text for the individual month makes one significant addition, namely, offerings on the

etc.). “The city” appears only in 463 as the source for the goblets (tasitu) that are peculiar to the rites for the second day (see 446:98). 220. Spelling as Hal-ba represents another example of the b/m alternation found in spellings of the month Baºla-Halab. The other correlations between text 463 and the month of Halma in 446 should identify the god in 463:18 as Halma.

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20th day for the storm-god and his consort Hebat. 221 These may be related to the storm-god’s hiyaru two days earlier. Again, the tablet for the single month appears to expand the shorter treatment of Halma in the text for six months, as might be expected. The New Moon of Dagan and the Rite for Barring and Opening Doors Although the text for six months 222 neglects the end of Marzahani entirely, it does not necessarily follow that the rites for the 25th–27th of Abî are unrelated to rituals in the other text. The two texts for individual months weave the rites for the end of Abî into the coming new moon by barring the doors to “the gate of the grave” through the intervening darkness. 223 Together, the rites for the passing and the arriving moons negotiate a frightening time of year when new harvests must replenish stores of food. 224 The convergence of the moon’s movement from darkness to light with the seasonal transition to harvest becomes a sign of hope, and “the new moon of Dagan” thus was a key moment in the turning year. The text for six months takes up rituals for the final month, Halma, on the 2d and 3d days with rites devoted to Dagan. 225 The event is evidently given a name at the climax on day 3, where it is called ‘the new moon of Dagan’ (hi-da-as dkur). 226 Given the strong association with the beginning of the month, it is difficult to avoid the cognate terminology for ‘new moon’ in Hebrew and Ugaritic, 227 221. Lines 26–30. 222. Much of the material included in this section was first published in my “New Moon Celebration Once a Year: Emar’s hidasu of Dagan,” in Immigration and Emigration within the Ancient Near East (ed. K. van Lerberghe and A. Schoors; Leuven: Peeters, 1995) 57–64. 223. Emar 452:35 and 463:1. Stefano Seminara (L’accadico di Emar, 307) reads pitha as the Akkadian noun pithu (‘effrazione’, or ‘breaking-in’), but this misses the connection to Emar 452. 224. The question of the consistent relationship between ritual and season is addressed in chapter 5. 225. Emar 446:96–102. 226. Arnaud does not read “3” in line 100 and translates ‘Au jour du renouvellement de Dagan’. In his note to the text, Arnaud wonders whether one should read hiia!-rú, but the da-sign is clear, and the bound form hidas is appropriate in the genitive chain. Arnaud’s copy, confirmed by collation, shows that the number 3 is the correct reading. Zadok (“Notes on the West Semitic Material,” 116) tentatively accepts hidas as ‘(day of) new moon’. 227. The connection of the hidasu with the beginning of the month points to derivation from the common Semitic root ˙dt, which yields ‘new moon’ ˙odes in Biblical Hebrew and ˙dt in Ugaritic. See HALOT s.v. ˙odes 1, “new moon,” for the range of biblical

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but the focus on the second and third days is still troubling. 228 It is possible that the situation may be explained by a system of calculation where the first day of the month did not match the actual first visibility of the moon. Durand argues that at Mari the first day of the month was counted from the moment when the moon was no longer visible. 229 If this was true at Emar in a tradition that was attached to the old local calendar, the third day of the month of Halma might then have been the first day when the moon could actually be seen and thus the ‘new moon’ in its western sense (˙dt), imbedded in a different way of counting the days of the lunar cycle. 230 According to the text for six months, the hidasu of Dagan was celebrated in a three-part sequence. Offerings of the kubadu type were performed at Dagan’s temple on the 2d of the month, followed by evening rites that included the filling of cups with wine and the burning of birds. At the hidasu of Dagan on the next day, the one act deemed worthy of mention is the seating of the divine axe in Dagan’s temple. Given the natural symbolism of the new moon, the last action, unique at Emar, should represent the establishment of a secure order under Dagan’s authority. 231 Even apart from the rites for the passing moon, this text observes the movement from danger to security within the shorter sequence of night turning to day. The burning of a bird the previous evening recalls the references. Occurrences in Ugaritic ritual include KTU 1.41:1, 48; 1.46:1; 1.78:1; 1.87:1, 53; 1.105:1; 1.112:2, 10; etc. All of these refer to the first day of the month. 228. Gernot Wilhelm (personal communication) emphasizes that this is the critical problem that my analysis of the terminology must address. I would like to thank him for his kind invitation to give a talk on Emar’s ritual calendar at Würzburg (February, 1998). 229. In Durand and Guichard, “Les rituels de Mari,” 32. Durand finds that ‘the head of the month’ (res warhim) is the whole period of the moon’s disappearance. The first of the month, then, is the biblum (‘new moon’), “le moment où la lune n’est plus visible.” 230. The vocalization of Emar’s hidasu contrasts with Hebrew ˙odes, which more closely resembles the Ugaritic personal name Hudasi. If the basic noun pattern is qi†lu rather than qi†alu, the vowel after the second consonant could be epenthetic, as in the word for the ‘previous’ priestesses at Emar, spelled ma-hi-ri-tu4 (mahiritu) instead of Akkadian mahritu (cf. m.s. mahrû), Emar 369:15, 55; 370:34. For the Ugaritic Hudasi (alphabetic ˙dt), see Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocabulary, 212, 231, 242; Daniel Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary of the Northwest Semitic Vocables in Akkadian Texts of the 15th–13th C. b.c. from Canaan and Syria (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984) 225. See my “New Moon Celebration,” 59–60, for further discussion. 231. The verb (w)asabu ‘to sit, reside’ is used in the installations for enthronement of the priestesses, with the same official posture implied for their feasts (369:40, 84; 370: 108); see my Installation, 183. Use of the verb in 446:101 has no parallel. The axe is placed on the goddess dnin.kur for the week she spends at the nin.dingir’s family house (369:46).

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Hurrian rite for purification, sometimes from uncleanness that has its source in the underworld. 232 Unfortunately, the text for the individual month is broken before the third day begins, but it preserves a lingering focus on the prior evening. 233 The interest in the period of darkness is expanded with night offerings, initiated by burning a water-bird together with honey and ghee. 234 The text specifies that the earlier kubadu also offers birds, seventy doves for distribution to the whole pantheon. 235 While the text for six months surprises the modern reader by describing a new moon celebration that begins on the second day, the tablet for one month initiates the rites for Dagan on the first, “the day of opening the doors.” 236 This act concludes the interval initiated on the 26th of Abî by barring the doors of a gate set at the grave on the previous day. Whether the entrance in question was a gate in the city walls that faced a burial ground or a gate that pierced a cemetery wall, its doors blocked traffic between the city and the domain of the dead during the time of lunar darkness. Certainly, the living were not permitted to visit the burials while the doors were closed, but perhaps the physical barrier was also considered able to prevent passage to the land of the living from the other side. Malevolent spirits that might emerge from this avenue to the underworld were shut in, even as proper relations were maintained with the underworld by the offerings at city-wide abû shrines. 237 While every disappearance of the moon represented a time when underworld power waxed, and every new moon offered a sign of hope and life, Emar’s new moon of Dagan borrowed these lunar metaphors for the turn of the year. In ancient Syria and Mesopotamia, spring and autumn were times of activity and hope. The ritual axes of the year came just before the arrival of the rains and subsequent planting in autumn and before the cycle of harvests in spring. After each season’s flurry of activity, summer and winter (especially July to September and 232. See Haas and Wilhelm, Hurritische und luwische Riten, 50–54, 137–42. This preparation contrasts with the offering by enclosure (paªadu) on days preceding major events. 233. Emar 463:6–7. The bird is a dove ‘offered’ to Dagan (verb siskur/naqû), but the vessels filled are still the rare tasitu. 234. Lines 8–10. 235. The verb zâzu is used for distribution to “all the gods” individually in the nin.dingir festival; see my Installation, 72, 125. The number 70 confirms attention to the whole pantheon in 463:6, comparable to the 70 pure lambs enclosed for all of the 70 gods of Emar before the zukru festival (373:39–40). 236. The “second day” of Emar 463 (see line 4) coincides with the numbered day 2 of 446:96. Note that the original /˙/ is preserved, spelled with -h- in both pí-it-ha (‘opening’, a Syrian Semitic noun) and hi-da-as. Line 3 assigns the offerings to Dagan. 237. The exact nature of these relationships depends on whether the abû are ancestors (that is, abbu).

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January to March) represented relatively quiet periods that tended to include an element of foreboding. Stores began to dwindle in late winter even while the new crops progressed, and the heat of late summer raised the threat of drought, as plant life withered before return of cool weather and rain. Often the months most strongly associated with underworld rites were situated in these seasons before spring and autumn. Mesopotamia’s summer month of Abu came to be identified with Nippur’s ne-izi-gar, both having long associations with the realm of the dead. If Emar’s month of Marzahani/Abî also occupied a relatively consistent seasonal position, as I suggest, it would have tended to fall in late winter. 238 Mari observed the major festival called Nergal’s Wagon slightly earlier, at the beginning of Liliatum (month IX). 239 Placing Emar’s month Abî in winter rather than summer follows from the seasonal significance given the new moon of Dagan. The abû offerings anticipated the new moon and appear to have guarded the same winter passage in the year. If the Dagan celebration concluded a critical annual transaction with the domain of death, the abû series and the barring of the doors naturally accompanied that event. All of these rites from the 25th of Abî through the new moon hidasu honored Dagan above all. This prominence need not reflect any chthonic aspect of Dagan’s character, since other Emar ritual explicitly distinguishes him from underworld gods, and he is most naturally the pantheon head, ‘the very father’ (abuma) in the zukru festival. 240 Comparison of the tables set for offering in the installation of the nin.dingir priestess and in Dagan’s kissu festival equates Alal and Amaza in the latter with “the gods below” in the former. In the kissu text, Dagan and Ishara are distinguished from the two underworld deities, whose tables are set “on (or in) the ground.” 241 The pantheon in the abû rites similarly includes deities from both domains: Dagan, Ishara, Alal, and the Dagan epithet Bel dadmi (Lord of Habitations). Because of his position at the head of Emar’s gods, Dagan’s place in this annual celebration adds to the impression that this singular passage from lunar darkness to light touches the public religious life of the whole town. 238. Ur III texts occasionally placed ne-izi-gar in the 11th or 12th position in midwinter rather than the usual summer slot, with the same underworld associations at both seasons; see Cohen, Calendars, 100–101, 456. Amar-Suen apparently introduced the Sumerian month a b - è in the winter (month X) to honor the dead kings of the Ur III dynasty (pp. 10, 118, 454–55). 239. See above; also, Sasson, “Calendar,” 133–34. The first-millennium Astrolabe B identifies the equivalent Kissilimu as the month of Nergal as well. 240. Emar 373:190, abuma. 241. See Emar 369:25 and 385:7–9, ina qaqqari; cf. 369:80–81.

Chapter 5

Calendrical Time in Ancient Syria With exploration of the major ritual texts concluded, a few important issues remain that require separate attention. The ritual texts are not the only source for calendars at Emar. Larger patterns, which are not otherwise visible, emerge from studying all of the administrative and private legal documents. Skaist’s new identification of older 14th-century texts explains diverse calendars that had appeared to exist side by side as essentially sequential. 1 Hittite rule encouraged integration into the larger world’s scribal and administrative norms. The relationship between the calendar, the seasons, and public ritual calls for further exploration in more general terms. I have proposed that the text for six months correlated at least roughly with the seasons, and the repeated consistency of calendar dates and ritual indicates a broad correspondence between the annual ritual cycle and the seasons of the year. This association is neither obvious nor uncomplicated, once a calendrical system is established. Some kind of adjustment of the lunar calendar to the seasonal year is necessary, and the Emar texts provide no intercalary months designated as “repeated” to prove that the normal Mesopotamian solution was used. In every case, the perspective found at Emar is especially significant because it is novel. As a smaller town in northwestern Syria, Emar preserved cultural traits in combinations not found elsewhere in the ancient Near East.

The Emar Calendars Twenty-five month names are attested so far both in texts from the authorized excavations and in the unauthorized exported collections dominated by 1. Before the latest draft of this study, I would have agreed with the analysis of Masamichi Yamada (“The Eponymous Years and Ninurta’s Seal: Thoughts about the Urban Authority of Emar,” BMECCJ 9 [1996] 299) that the two calendars should follow two local authorities, the king and the group city leadership. Even with the diachronic analysis I now adopt, this political division is still relevant.

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Emar tablets. 2 Ritual evidence has already indicated the existence of separate calendars at Emar, and the variety of names as a whole confirms this reality. Data from other text types is particularly illuminating against the backdrop of the calendar that can be pieced together from the ritual texts alone. Definition of Three Emar Calendars Even after the Assyrian and Babylonian calendars are distinguished as foreign, there is evidence for three more calendars of Syrian type in local use. These calendars contain some of the same names, but each also incorporates alternatives. I have labeled the Emar calendars “archaic city,” “new dynasty,” and “new M1 diviners,” according to their date and institutional affiliations (see fig. 17). These Emar variants developed with regional political changes, and none is identifiably non-Semitic or non-Syrian. Month names are found in three different types of texts, a fact that complicates even further our efforts at understanding the calendrical systems. The ritual texts (R) supply the principal basis for reconstructing one calendar sequence and the only indication of a seasonal axis. Names from the annual zukru and, related to it, the text for six months have separate counterparts in the text for the zukru festival and the text for Abî. 3 Private legal documents (D) provide the other large body of evidence, generally containing dates without sequence or context (see fig. 18). 4 Nevertheless, the dated documents distinguish two prominent calendars used by local scribes, one from the 14th-century texts before Hittite domination, and the other from the new 13th-century dynasty. The calendar from the 14th-century documents closely matches the one shared by the shorter zukru and the text for six months of city ritual. Evidence for a new calendar among the diviners of building M1 includes one text from their cult administration (A). 5 2. Some uncertainty remains regarding individual tablets, but it is highly likely that almost all were dug up on or near the Meskeneh mound. For instance, the Assyrian-style tablet with Assyrian date RE 19 is a labor contract that deals explicitly with a resident of Emar. 3. Emar 375 and 446, versus 373 and 452. 4. For kierßetu as undeveloped land (erßetu), see Claus Wilcke, “Kirßitu, ein Phantomwort,” N.A.B.U. (1991) 39 (no. 58). Beckman (RE, p. 6) accedes to this interpretation but observes that some of these lots do include structures. Note that ASJ 10, G:15u has rounded sides, unlike the Syrian tablet type. This text designates no ‘first’ or ‘second’ (1 or 2.kám.ma), so we do not expect an eponym after the month name (see pp. 203–5 below). There continue to be alternative suggestions to the reading kierßetu. Stefano Seminara (“Un dilemma della topografia di Emar: kirßitu o k ierßetu?” UF 27 [1995] 467–80) understands the kirßitu as a ruined house. Edouard Lipinski (“Arcanes et conjonctures du marché immobilier à Ugarit et à Emar au XIIIe siècle av. n.è.,” Semitica 19 [1992] 42) suggests reading qí-ir-ßi-tu4, property built up with stones, from the root qrß (‘pétrir’). 5. Emar 364.

198

Chapter 5 Figure 17. Emar’s Local Calendars, Listed by Primary Institutional Association Archaic City

ZaratiR, D (I, from autumn) nin.kur (sa kussi)R, D (II) AnnaR (III) AdammaR, D (IV) MarzahaniR (V) HalmaR, D (VI)

d

Baºla HalabD IliD ZurqituD d nin.urta?R, D

New Dynasty

Niqali

R, D, A

New M1 Diviners

sag.muR, A NiqaliR, D, A

AbîR, (D) (Hiyar?)D Baºla HalabD IliD

BalihD LiliatiD Text attestation: R = ritual texts; D = private documents; A = other cult administration

Dated Legal Documents: The Tablet Types Out of the twenty-five attested month names, five can be separated immediately as Mesopotamian (see fig. 19). Babylonian and Assyrian scribes had made their way to Emar along with other travelers and expatriates with business in Syria, and the foreign scribes used the calendars with which they were familiar. 6 In addition to the difference in the the month names themselves, the shape of the tablets with Babylonian and Assyrian dates is unlike the common Emar types. 7 6. Three of the tablets from a house in field area A use Babylonian months and were drawn up in the presence of Babylonians. Emar 26 is dated to the reign of the Kassite king of Babylon named Melisipak and shows no sign of Syrian participants or connection with Emar. Emar 24 and 28 treat legal arrangements among people with Syrian names but are witnessed mainly by Babylonians, evidently joined by Babylonian scribes. The third witness in Emar 24 is “ˇabiya, the scribe of Ahi-mukin-apli” (lines 18–19). The two Assyrian tablets published by Beckman lack an archaeological context, but RE 19 involves both an Emar citizen and Assyrian witnesses, as well as being written by the Assyrian scribe Adad-bel-napsate (line 32). 7. In his comment on RE 19, Beckman observes that the script, language, format, and some of the glyptic for texts 19 and 92 are Assyrian. The three documents with Babylonian month names were found together in house A V, and all involve loans and repayments, especially in silver exhange. Receipt is defined by the verb maharu rather than leqû (24:5; 26:8; 28:6, 24), and various Babylonian and Kassite names appear. Emar 26

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199

Figure 18. Dated Documents Associated with Emar Finds a Text

Document Type

New Real Estate Type Dynasty Tablet Type

Year Date

Emar 4:35 Emar 12:30–31 Emar 162:9 AuOrS 1 6:35 AuOrS 1 8:31 AuOrS 1 15:20–21 AuOrS 1 16:46–47 AuOrS 1 17:42–43 AuOrS 1 18:30–31 AuOrS 1 19:32–33 RE 77:33–35 Emar 110:38–39 Emar 148:31–32 Emar 150:38–39 Emar 171:31–32 RE 14:33 RE 71:35 RE 91:35–36 ASJ 12, no. 2:16u–17u Emar 125:34 RE 34:37 ASJ 12, no. 12:33–34 = AuOr 5, no. 4 Emar 144:39 AuOrS 1 63:25–26 RE 16:37

purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase purchase

field (a.ßà) field field field field field field field field field field land (ki erßetu) land land land land land land land house (é) house house

yes no no yes yes no no no no no – no no no no yes yes no no yes no no

Syrian? Syrian? fragment Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian

(?) (?) “hardship”b – – – – – – – event eponymc eponym eponym eponym – – eponym eponym – eponym eponym

purchase purchase purchase

yes no –

Syrian Syrian Syrian

– eponym (?)

ASJ 10, G:15u Emar 24:6 Emar 26:9–12 AuOrS 1 49:19 ASJ 13, no. 33:16–18 ASJ 13, no. 34:12–13 Emar 15:35–36 AuOrS 1 69:41–42 AuOr 5, no. 17:36 SMEA 30, no. 26:4 Emar 13:10 Emar 28:23–24 AuOrS 1 87:36–37 RE 19:34–35 RE 92:17–19

purchase loan loan loan loan loan will will disinheritance account other other other labor contract tax registration

tugguru-house ki.la˘4 (dry land) vineyard (kiri6.geßtin) (?)

(?) – – – no no – no no – – – no – –

Syro-Hittite? Babylonian Babylonian Syro-Hittite Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian Syrian (?) fragment Babylonian Syrian Assyrian Assyrian

– – royal reign – eponym eponym event eponym eponym – eponym – eponym limu-name limu-name

a. I do not include the unpublished text BLM 4, for which my information is incomplete. The text appears to be of the archaic Syrian type, because of the eponym date. b. I include this “hardship” date because the text provides a month-name in the previous line. c. Because of space limitations, I refer to the local system as “eponyms.” This should not be confused with the Assyrian eponym system of “limu-names,” which is not the same as the Emar system.

200

Chapter 5 Figure 19. Month Names Associated with Emar Finds

Name (Position from Autumn)

Text Type

Text Citations and Spelling of Names

sag.mu (I)

cult administration ritual

Emar 364:1, sag.mu Emar 373:38, 170, 186; 454:2, 7; 455:4; 459:18, sag.mu

Zarati (I)

ritual ritual private document

Emar 375:3, Za-ra-tì Emar 447:6, Ze-ra-ti ASJ 13, no. 33:16; cf. AuOrS 1 18:30, Ze-ra-ti

Niqali (II)

cult administration ritual private document

Emar 364:2, Ni-qa-li Emar 373:180; 512:2; 524:3; cf. 454:3, Ni-qa-li cf. Emar 144:39, [Ni-qa]-li

d

ritual private document private document private document private document

Emar 446:58, dnin.kur.ra Emar 148:31; AuOr 5, no. 4:33; ASJ 12, no. 12:33–34; AuOrS 1 69:41, dnin.kur Emar 13:10, dnin.kur sa gu?!.za Emar 150:38, dnin.kur sa ku-us-sí AuOrS 1 19:32, [dnin.kur s]a ku-sí

Anna (III)

ritual

Emar 446:77, dAn-na

Adamma (IV)

ritual private document

Emar 446:83, dA-dama Emar 110:38; AuOrS 1 16:46; 17:42, dA-dama

Abû/Abîa (V)

ritual ritual private document

Emar 452:1, A-bi-i Emar 456:2, A-ba-ú Emar 15:35, A-bi-i

Marzahani (V)

ritual

Emar 446:86; cf. 467:5?,b Mar-za-ha-ni

Hamsi (V)

ritual

Emar 454:6; cf. 10, Ha-am-si

Halma (VI)

ritual private document

Emar 446:96, dHal-ma RE 34:38; AuOr 5, no. 17:36, dHal-ma

nin.kur (II)

Hiyar (VI?)

private document

ASJ 10, G:15u, Hi-ar

Baºla Halab

private document private document private document private document private document private document

AuOrS 1 87:36, en Ha-la-ab Kutscher no. 6:44; en Ha-la-ab RE 71:35, den Ha-la-ma AuOrS 1 15:20, Ba-ah-la ? Ha-la-amc BLM 4:30u, dBa-aª-lu4 Ha-l[a-ab/m] cf. Emar 162:9, den [(?)]; RE 16:38, dend

Ili

private document

AuOrS 1 6:35; 8:31; 63:25, dingir-lì

ninurta

ritual private document

Emar 450:2, dnin.urta AuOrS 1 49:19, dnin.urta

Zurqitu

private document

RE 91:35; ASJ 13, no. 34:12, Zu-ur-qí-tu4

Baliha

private document

RE 14:33, dkaskal.kure

Tukiyaf

private document

RE 77:33, Tu-ki-ya

Zababa

account

SMEA 30, no. 26:4, dZa-ba-b[a]

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201

Figure 19. Month Names Associated with Emar Finds Name (Position from Autumn) Urda

Text Type

Text Citations and Spelling of Names

literary text colophon

Emar 775:27, dUr-da

Elulu (VI, from Babylonian spring) document

Emar 26:9, kin

Tasritu (VII, from spring)

Babylonian document

Emar 28:23, Ta-as-ri-ti

Kislimu (IX, from spring)

Babylonian document

Emar 24:6, gan.gan.è

Sîn

Assyrian document

RE 19:34–35, d30

Abu Sarranu

Assyrian document

RE 92:17, A-bu lugal-a-nu

a. Arnaud reads AuOrS 1 27:5 i-na iti sa A-bi-e (la-qì, of a payment), though the sa rarely otherwise intrudes between iti and a month name. (The one Emar instance is Babylonian: iti.kám sa Ta-as-ri-ti, Emar 28: 23.) The copy appears to read i-na kal-li a-bi-x(e?), and the example is best considered uncertain. b. Ma[r-za-ha-ni(?)]; no other attested name fits the first sign. c. This citation is based on Arnaud’s copy; he reads Ba-ah-lu Ha-la-ab. d. This is the only document from the dynasty of Yaßi-Dagan that has a year-date. e. For this month name, compare the deity in the zukru god list with the parallel names in Emar 378:2: d kaskal.kur.rames sa kiri6 é.gal-lì, 373:141, and 2 dBa-li-hé sa kiri6,numun sa lugal, 373:20; dkaskal.kur. rames sa hu-ut-ta-ni, 373:146, and dBa-li-ha sa hu-ut-ta-ni, 378:19. Note also dkaskal.kur.rames sa hi-i†-†ì, 373: 151. The deity has a local cult, if by nature borrowed from slightly downstream. The name is more commonly read as Illat; see Heinrich Otten, “kaskal.kur,” RLA 5.463–64. f. Beckman reads the year identification that follows as mu.kam lugal erínmes Hur-[ri], uruE-mar k[i i-lami-in(?)] ‘Year when the king of the Hurrian troops [harmed?] the city of Emar’, an unusual reference to an event rather than a personal name. The event would be the repulsed “Hurrian” (Mitanni?) attack mentioned in Emar 42:8–16 and ASJ 12, no. 7:28–37; see, for comment on this, Durand, “Hauts personnages à Emar,” N.A.B.U. (1989) 34 (no. 53); RA 83 183–84; Tsukimoto, ASJ 12 180 and n. 25; Carlo Zaccagnini, “Golden Cups Offered to the Gods at Emar,” Or N.S. 59 (1990) 518. The iti-sign is uncertain, but location at text’s end, before a year identification, makes this reading likely.

Tablet shape is relevant to the remaining dated documents as well. Arnaud distinguishes a “Syrian” from a “Syro-Hittite” form, defined first of all by the writing across the shorter axis on Syrian types and across the longer axis on the SyroHittite types. 8 The initial distinction is reinforced by a number of traits, among calculates the date from the regnal year of the Babylonian king Melisipak (lines 10–12, his second year). The tablets themselves belong to a single type that is much smaller than the local legal documents and that avoids use of the left and right edges. Emar 26 has stamp seal impressions on the uninscribed edges. 8. Arnaud, AuOrS 1, pp. 9–10.

202

Chapter 5

which are a long witness list in the Syrian type that is lacking in the other and the frequent appearance of Hittite officials in the Syro-Hittite group. 9 Although Syrian tablets outnumber the Syro-Hittite, the latter are abundant and are not generally dated. The only month named in a Syro-Hittite tablet is the local month dnin.urta, the date for repayment of a debt. 10 The month of Hiyar appears as a document date on a broken tablet that may belong to the SyroHittite type. This month name is widely known in Syria and would accompany the hiyaru rite for the storm-god during the month of Halma. We do not yet know whether the month name was ever used in the local calendars found in the Syrian type of tablets. Document evidence for Emar’s own calendar comes entirely from the Syrian type, and yet this type displays a striking division into two groups. These groups follow the chronological distinction, introduced by Skaist, between 14th- and 13th-century texts. Before the work by Skaist, the 13th-century texts already stood apart by their first witness, always a known Emar king from the family of Yaßi-Dagan and his son Baºla-kabar. Only the earlier texts display the eponym years with archaic local month names. All of the Syrian texts follow the same format, with several witnesses gathered at the end, but even tablet form and layout show distinct scribal habits. 11 9. Neither the Syrian nor the Syro-Hittite style represents a monolithic type; nevertheless, these categories are useful for grouping the tablet forms according to general trends. In the case of the Syro-Hittite type, locally produced tablets must be distinguished from texts explicitly recorded at Carchemish. Both types of Syro-Hittite tablets have similar orientation and rounded outline. The Carchemish texts, however, were recorded in the presence of the king and are characterized by a single bold royal seal, either a cylinder rolled across the middle of the reverse (Emar 18, 19, 202) or, in one case, a deep stamp seal in the center of the obverse (Emar 201, written by the chief scribe, line 52). Document clauses on these tablets are serparated by horizontal section dividers. Tablets of Syro-Hittite type but produced locally at Emar can be identified in various ways, though the most obvious is that they were drawn up in the presence of an imperial Hittite official such as Mutri-Tussub and the Emar elders (Emar 205, 252). Similarly, texts that involve Mutri-Tessub in local affairs (211, 212) are also clearly local. These Syro-Hittite tablets are not uniform but lack the consistent section dividers of the Carchemish tablets and require multiple seals for the various witnesses involved. 10. AuOrS 1 49:19. 11. “New dynasty” documents are more sharply pinched at the corners, so that the sides are slightly concave when viewed from the front. All Syrian tablets leave noticeable margins at the top and left on the front side, which are exaggerated on tablets produced before the Yaßi-Dagan dynasty. Tablets from the earlier period tend to be imprinted with multiple sealings, and the cylinder seals may even occupy the large left margin (e.g., Emar 148, 150). New dynasty texts often are imprinted with only a single (royal) seal, rolled along the upper edge after the witnesses (e.g., Emar 2, Abbanu; 8, 10, 125, Pilsu-Dagan; 94, Elli).

Calendrical Time in Ancient Syria

203

Dated Legal Documents: Calendar Patterns Most documents produced under the new dynasty of Yaßi-Dagan are not dated at all, and when they are, only the month is given (see fig. 20). 12 In contrast, texts of the more archaic Syrian type generally record both the month and the year, when they are dated. 13 Before the arrival of Hittite sovereignty and the change of royal dynasties, the system for naming years was eponymous, like the Assyrian limu but designated only as ‘year’ (mu), followed by a personal name. 14 12. The only exception is RE 16, a transitional document from the reign of YaßiDagan that still used the old Emar eponym system of dates. For this text, see the chronological sequence presented in chap. 2. 13. Other traditions handled the issue of precision in recording dates in various ways. Old Assyrian scribes dated their records by year, month, and hamustum, an interval that approximated our week, which Veenhof argues was in fact seven days long; see Klaas Veenhof, “The Old Assyrian hamustum Period: A Seven-Day Week,” JEOL 34 (1995–96) 5. Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian documents were generally dated to year, month, and day, but the dates on texts from western sites tended to be less precise and the use of dates was more sporadic. Like those from Emar, Old Babylonian Alalah documents are only occasionally given dates, and the Middle Babylonian texts from Alalah have none at all, as is the case at later Ugarit. The documents from Ekalte may be dated to year and month (e.g., MBQ-T 21). For a review of document-dating in the Emar period, see Juan-Pablo Vita, “Datation et genres littéraires à Ougarit,” in ProcheOrient ancien: Temps vécu, temps pensé (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1998) 40–42. 14. Given the prominence of the two groups of texts from the 14th- and 13thcentury kings, it is somewhat surprising to find two Syrian tablets without royal witnesses from either dynasty that date years by memorable events: ‘Year when he constructed the gate of (. . .) the opposite bank of his own city’ (ká [(x?)] bal.ri uru-su-ma i-pu-us), Emar 15:35–36; ‘Year when the king of the Hurrian troops [harmed?] the city of Emar’ (lugal erínmes Hur-[ri] uruE-mar k[i i-la-mi-in(?)], RE 77:34–35. The months of A-ba-i, dZa-ba-b[a], and Tu-ki-ia do not otherwise appear in dated documents, and the contents of the texts appear to derive from a population or institution outside Emar’s palace and “city.” These tablets may even come from another middle Euphrates site. Beckman observes that Baºla-gamil wrote only two known tablets besides RE 77, both dated to the ‘years of hostility and hardship’ (muhi.a kúr-kur-ti kala.ga, Emar 111; Iraq 54 no. 2) The same Hurrian attack may be in view. A third Syrian tablet from outside the palace is dated to ‘the year of hardship’ (mu-tu4 kala.ga, Emar 162). The Hurrian attack is mentioned apart from the date in the votive text Emar 42:9–10 and the royal grant ASJ 12, no. 7; see Tsukimoto, ASJ 12 191–92, on the Hurrian troops and Emar 42. On the larger historical problem, see M. C. Astour, “Who Was the King of the Hurrian Troops at the Siege of Emar?” Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (ed. M. W. Chavalas; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1996) 25–56. The peculiar verb form ilammin, known from the votive and grant texts, may be an alternative vocalization for the factitive D stem (for ulammin). J. Huehnergard (The Akkadian of Ugarit [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989] 173) observes examples from Ugarit with the verbs malû and zâzu:

204

Chapter 5 Figure 20. Dated Documents Created under the Yaßi-Dagan Dynasty Lead Witness from Royal Family

Yaßi-Dagan Baºla-kabar Abbanu (Sons of Baºla-kabar) Pilsu-Dagan

Text

RE 16:37 Emar 144:39 RE 14:33 AuOrS 6:35 RE 71:35 RE 14:33 Emar 125:34

Month den

[Ni-qa]-li dkaskal.kur dingir-lì den Ha-la-ba dingir-lì Li-li-ia-ti

The years identified simply by ‘hardship’ and ‘war’ (dannatu and nukurtu) do seem to reflect conditions of city-wide crisis, rather than just family misfortune, but these do not appear to depend on official pronouncements. Zaccagnini observes that the word ‘year’ (mu) was not always used, an inconsistency that suggests a less formal designation, not to be understood as a system of “year-names.” 15 At Assur, the eponym system originally used the name of a city administrative official who had a one-year term. 16 If we follow this model, Emar officials whose names were used as eponyms evidently would have served two years, since the names are qualified by ‘first’ (1.kám.ma) and ‘second’ (2.kám.ma). Thirteen eponyms are attested at Emar so far, so the tablets that are dated by these eponyms must come from at least a twenty-six year period (see fig. 21). Now that we know the names of many members of the Liªmi-sarru royal family, it is possible to observe that none of the eponyms comes from this group. A few connections, however, can be made between the eponyms and other parties to the same early documents. Íilla-Udha appears as the father of Itur-Baºlu, the seller in a real estate transaction. 17 The text itself is dated by year eponym, though

i-ma-lu-ú (‘they will pay’, probably D stem, PRU 3 34b:5u); ªi-zaº-i-zu-ni7 (‘they will(!) share’, D stem, PRU 3 66a:14, collated by Huehnergard, with drawing on p. 349). 15. Carlo Zaccagnini, “War and Famine at Emar,” Or 64 (1995) 98–99. This analysis is more convincing than suggestions that these represent real year-names; see Murray R. Adamthwaite, “New Texts from the Middle Euphrates: A Review Article,” AbrN 32 (1994) 22–23; Yamada, “Year Dates in the Emar Texts,” BSNEStJ 38 (1995) 96–97; idem, “The Eponymous Years and Ninurta’s Seal,” 301, 303. 16. M. T. Larsen (The Old Assyrian City-State and Its Colonies [Copenhagen: Akademisk, 1976] 192) observes that the Old Assyrian year eponymy was both a calendrical device and an element of the political structure. 17. AuOrS 1 63:10–11, Ííl-la-dUd-ha.

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Figure 21. Emar Year Eponyms Eponym

First or Second Year, Text

Associated Month dA-dama

I-sa-ah-a

2

Ga-di-du/di

2/1 Emar 148:31–32 / AuOrS 1 69:42

dnin.kur

dDa-gan-ma-lik

1 1

Emar 150:39 AuOr 5, no. 17:36

dnin.kur

1

Emar 171:31–32

den

A-bu-un-na dumu Ti-la-[ti]-dDa-gan dUd-ha

Emar 110:39

sa ku-us-sí

dHal-ma

1

AuOrS 1 15:21u

Ba-ah-la Ha-la-am

Tu-ra-am-dDa-gan dumu Ku-un-si Tu-ra-dDa-ga[n] dumu Ku-un-si dumu Ku-un-si

2 2 2

AuOrS 1 16:47 AuOrS 1 17:43 AuOrS 1 18:31

A-dama A-dama [Za-r]a-ti

dumu Hi-in-ni-a-bi

1

AuOrS 1 19:33

d[nin.kur

2 2

AuOrS 1 63:25–26 RE 91:36

dingir-lì Zu-ur-qí-tu4

Ííl-la-

dDa-gan

dumu Zu-Hal-ma A-bi A-bi-dDa-gan

s]a ku-sí

dumu Ha-am-sí

1

AuOrS 1 87:37; Kutscher no. 6:45

en Ha-la-ab

dumu Qa-te-bi-hu

2

AuOr 5, no. 4:33–34 (ASJ 12, no. 12)

dnin.kura

Ip-hu-ur-dDa-gan

2 2

ASJ 12, no. 2:16u–17u ASJ 13, no. 33:17–18

(broken) Za-ra-ti

Ip-hu-rù

2

ASJ 13, no. 34:13

Zu-ur-qí-t[u4]

BLM 4:31u

dBa-ªa-lu

Hi-in-ªna-dimº [ . . . ] d[umu Ku-un-si(?)]

(2?) Emar 12:31

4-Ha-l[a-ab/m] (broken)b

(broken)

2

Emar 13:11

dnin.kur

(broken, dumu? . . . )

RE 16:37

den

(broken)

RE 34:37

Hal-ma

sa gu.za

a. Arnaud’s reading is correct, against Tsukimoto’s. b. mu d[umu Ku-un-si(?) 2.kám.ma(?)]. The witness list of Emar 12 is almost exactly like the witness lists of AuOrS 1 16–18, and the first trace of the name would fit dumu (rather than Tu-). All of these three texts come from the same month and year.

it was not produced under the oversight of the Emar king. 18 Abi-Rasap, the buyer of the property in this text, has his men buy property from dnin.urta and the elders in another sale document drawn up in the presence of King Liªmi-sarru, one of the earlier figures from the 14th century. 19 No other connection is as secure as this one, because Íilla-Udha is a unique name at Emar, but there are likely identifications. 20 Abunna son of Tillati-Dagan 18. A-bi-dDa-gan dumu Zu-Hal-ma 2.kám.ma. 19. AuOrS 1 18:12; see the treatment of this text in the chronology sketched in chap. 2. 20. Regine Pruzsinszky has been extremely helpful and generous in providing me with information from her exhaustive study of the Emar onomasticon, which she has been preparing as a doctoral dissertation at Würzburg. The following notes reflect her findings.

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is otherwise unknown, but a Tillati-Dagan is the father of another man called Liªmi-Dagan in another document with an eponym date. 21 The broken eponym Hi-in-ªna-dimº[. . . ] brings to mind Hinna-dim father of Milki-Dagan in the witness lists of King Liªmi-sarru. 22 Dagan-malik is a common name, but note Daganmalik son of Izrah-Dagan in the witness lists of the same king. 23 The calendar derived from documents dated by both month and eponym year largely correlates with the calendar displayed in the text for six months. dnin.kur, Adamma, and Halma are found in both calendars, and Zarati appears in the related ritual text for the annual zukru. Along with the “city” heading for the sixmonth text and the absence of supplies from the palace in both ritual texts, the eponyms add to our impression that there was a city administrative institution in some way independent of the king. Together, these materials evidence a single calendar, which I call the “archaic city” calendar because of both the ritual heading and the absence of royalty among the eponym names. The extant evidence supplies ten of twelve months in the archaic city calendar, six of which we may tentatively order according to the ritual text. Of the four for which we have not proposed a position, Baºla Halab (Lord of Aleppo) appears most often. This month was named after the storm-god of the wider region, who may have been celebrated at the time of harvest, perhaps even at the spring axis of the year (thus, the seventh month). 24 The month den (Baºla) appears to be equivalent to Baºla Halab. 25 dEn is the month named in the only text with an eponym date under Yaßi-Dagan, the first king of the new dynasty. In its longer form as den Ha-la-ba, the month name persisted in the shifting calendar at least 21. Emar 171:31–32 and 148:24. The reading Til-la-ti-dDa-gan is from Regine Pruzsinszky. 22. BLM 4:31u; for the witness Milki-Dagan son of Hinna-dim, see AuOrS 1 16:39– 40; 17:34; 18:24; RE 22:24–25; and 91:32. 23. Emar 150:39 and AuOr 5, no. 17:36; cf. the witness in AuOrS 1 17:33; 18:23; 87:31. 24. W. G. Lambert (“Halam, Il-Halam and Aleppo,” M.A.R.I. 6 [1990] 641–43) proposes that the pre-Sargonic Mari place-name Halam and divine name Il-Halam most likely refer to Halab (Aleppo). He observes that /m/ and /b/ are not only related sounds but that even “Akkadian renderings and equivalents of Sumerian signs for syllables ending in m suggest a pronunciation more like b or p, e.g., alim = alimbû, z ú . l u m.(m a) = suluppu” (p. 642). See for further application to Ebla and other early evidence, Wolfram von Soden, “Itab/pal und Damu: Götter in den Kulten und in den theophoren Namen nach den Ebla-Texten,” in Ebla 1975–1985: Dieci anni di studi linguistici e filologici (ed. Luigi Cagni; Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1987) 84; Piotr Steinkeller, “More on Ha-lam=Ha-labx,” N.A.B.U. (1993) 8 (no. 10); Marco Bonechi, “Lexique et idéologie royale à l’époque proto-syrienne,” M.A.R.I. 8 (1997) 482, for Ebla personal names with “Aleppo” elements, spelled -ha-labx(lam). 25. RE 16:37; cf. RE 71:35.

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until the reign of Abbanu. dNin.urta, another month whose position we do not know, appears in a text about payment of a debt. Payment of this debt might anticipate income from harvest as well, and this timing would likewise fit the late spring better than the later months. 26 The month name Ili (dingir-lì) faces all the interpretive obstacles inherent in the word itself. Either the singular or the plural is possible, but no cult for The God (El, at Ugarit) has been proved for Emar, and the plural “the gods” would be more consistent with known religious practice. Zu-ur-qí-tu4, the fourth month without a definite position, represents a new name, read previously by Tsukimoto as dMa-lik-ki-nu(?). 27 The Semitic root zrq represents the most promising source of cognate terms for etymological purposes. These cognates suggest associations either with a rite of sprinkling (Hebrew zrq) or with irrigation (note Akkadian zaraqu). 28 If we connect this month name with the Akkadian cognate, it would be a second possible agricultural name in the city calendar. Zarati, the first candidate, may derive from ‘sowing’. An agricultural explanation for Zurqitu would not have to depend on a connection with agricultural activity in the winter, because the first preparatory irrigation for planting occurs during late summer. 29 However, neither of these hypothetical etymologies 26. AuOrS 1 49:19. The one ritual attestation of the month dnin.urta occurs with fragmentary detail that would suit the ritual world of Emar 446: the nuppuhannu men (450:1) and offering by enclosure (line 4, ú-pa-a-da [. . .]). 27. ASJ 13, no. 34:12. Comparison with RE 91:35 indicates that these two texts refer to the same month, with the entire name visible in the Rosen text, now confirmed by Gary Beckman’s collation. 28. For the Hebrew root, see the biblical dictionaries. The Akkadian root also means ‘to sprinkle’, but it yields several terms for agricultural irrigation as well: ziriqu and zuruqqu, an apparatus for drawing water for irrigation; zuriqtu (only plural zu-ri-qa-a-ti), irrigation (SB astrological commentary). The zuruqqum is found as an irrigation instrument in FM II 75:20: sa 5 giszu-ru-qí mu-ú i-na li-ib-[bi-sa] ‘il y a une (autre) source (inum) pourvue de 5 tuyaux-zuruqqum, avec de l’eau dedans’; text and translation from Francis Joannès, “L’eau et la glace,” in Florilegium marianum II (ed. D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 1994) 137. Ebla equates gisá - l á, a device for carrying water, with surí-gúm (to spell the word duriqqum), VE 097; see Miguel Civil, The Farmer’s Instructions: A Sumerian Agricultural Manual (AuOrS 5; Barcelona: AUSA, 1994) 69. The last term is phonetically very close to the Emar month name, which could also refer to irrigation. 29. Jacobsen, Salinity and Irrigation Agriculture in Antiquity (Malibu, Calif.: Undena, 1981) 57–58, based on the Sumerian “Georgica.” This preliminary irrigation (“water of the first seed”) allows the soil to be broken up for the coming planting. Later irrigations are spaced throughout the winter growing season, for which we already know month names from the city calendar in ritual text 446; see Civil, The Farmer’s Instruction, 31, 88–89. The Sumerian text distinguishes the careful application of water from canals as ‘sprinkling’ (a - d u g4/e; cf. Semitic zrq) in contrast to spring flood control (pp. 68–69). On irrigation in modern Iraq, see Robert McC. Adams, Land behind Baghdad: A History

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is intended as a basis for reconstruction of the Emar calendar, its sequence, or its associated seasons. Only five month names are found in dated documents from the Yaßi-Dagan dynasty, and they should not be forced into the better-attested city calendar. Although Baºla Halab and Ili occur in both the archaic city and the newer systems, Balih and Liliati appear only in the new dynasty texts, and these latter two months are associated with lands east of Emar. The name Balih refers to the river that joins the Euphrates downstream at Tuttul. 30 Liliatum is the ninth month in the Mari calendar of Zimri-Lim. It appears as Li-lí-a-timx in the earlier Sakkanakku-period calendar at Mari. 31 There is one direct correlation with the calendar of the buildng M1 diviners, a new dynasty document with traces of a date that probably is Niqali, known from various ritual and cult administrative texts. 32 Calendar Tradition and Innovation Together, the calendar shared by the texts dated by eponym years and the text for six months represent the enduring heritage of city administration and city-sponsored ritual. As in the diverse Semitic calendars across Mesopotamia and Syria several centuries earlier, the month names of Emar’s calendar come from parochial religious practice. 33 Most of these Emar months are identified simply by the god most prominently celebrated: dnin.kur, Anna, Adamma, Halma, Baºla Halab (Baºla), Ili, and dnin.urta. None of these has yet been found as a month name outside Emar. The association of this calendar with a “city” administration distinct from even the earlier 14th-century royal leadership appears to be reflected also in the of Settlement on the Diyala Plains (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965) 16–18; idem, Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) 3–6. 30. Balih (dkaskal.kur) as a divine name is already found in Sargonic theophoric personal names, spelled syllabically; see J. J. M. Roberts, The Earliest Semitic Pantheon: A Study of the Semitic Deities Attested in Mesopotamia before Ur III (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972) 17. A. Archi (“Substrate: Some Remarks on the Formation of the West Hurrian Pantheon,” in Hittite and Other Anatolian and Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Sedat Alp [ed. Heinrich Otten et al.; Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1992] 8) suggests that Balih is not Semitic but part of a pre-Semitic substrate along with gods such as Adamma and Ishara. 31. See Limet, ARMT XIX, pp. 11–12; Mark E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1993) 280. 32. Emar 144:39. Among all the months found at Emar, only Niqali ends with the li-sign. 33. Cohen (Calendars, 248) contrasts these early local calendars with the “early Semitic” calendar used across a broad region from Ebla to Gasur (Nuzi) in the mid-late third millennium. Emar’s old local calendar may well go back to the OB period or earlier.

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eponyms that accompany the calendar in legal documents. The eponym system itself was rooted in an administration separate from kings, an administration that itself turned over regularly. 34 There is no evidence that Emar’s eponyms served any office that existed at the time of the archives, but the system of year-names may have originated in one. In Assur before Samsi-Addu I, the administrative center of the city was identified as both the bit alim (‘city hall’) and the bit limmim (‘office of the eponym’). 35 No decisions at Emar are attributed to the “year” or any bureau connected with it, and none of the persons named as eponyms appear elsewhere in any official capacity. Even so, the form of the eponym and its setting at Emar suggest derivation from an office. If the institution were created only to name years, the two-year term of the eponyms serves no purpose. One dated document from nearby Ekalte, somewhat earlier than Emar, appears to have used the same two-year eponym system as its neighbor, presumably with the names of its own residents. 36 The identification of Emar’s eponym dates with a 14th-century city government with conservative ties to Old Babylonian scribal practices might help explain the similarity of the Ekalte texts to some of the Emar documents. 37 Against this backdrop, the new dynasty appears to introduce calendrical innovations from the more widespread custom of northern Syria, most likely under the influence of the new Hittite governance. The diviner of building M1 did not operate under palace administration and its calendar, but he made separate innovations. He did not choose to maintain the archaic city calendar displayed in the 34. Sippar records show a frequent turnover of various officials in the city administration, such as the ‘mayor’ (hazannum), ‘chairman of the assembly’ (gal ukkin.na), and ‘overseer of merchants’ (wakil tamkari); see Rivkah Harris, Ancient Sippar (Istanbul: Nederlands historisch-archaeologisch Instituut, 1975) 60–72. Harris argues that all of these officials served only one-year terms, but the existence of simultaneous office-holders suggests some other explanation for the office of overseer of merchants, at least; see Klaas R. Veenhof, “The Sequence of the ‘Overseers of the Merchants’ at Sippar and the Date of the Year-Eponymy of Habil-Kenum,” JEOL 30 (1987–88) 35–37. 35. Larsen, Old Assrian City-State, 156. Yamada (“The Eponymous Years and Ninurta’s Seal,” 307–9) compares the strong city authority of both early Assur and Ekalte, just upstream from Emar on the Euphrates. He observes that the Neo-Assyrian vassal treaty of Esarhaddon used an Old Assyrian seal that read sa dA-sùr sa é a-limki ‘belonging to (the god) Assur, (and) belonging to city hall’. The seal thus preserves a combination familiar to us from Emar, with the city god and the city government joined in the authority of a city seal. 36. MBQ-T 21:32: mu ma(/ba?)-da(/du?) 1.kam.ma; read by Claus Wilcke: “a˘, die ‘Brüder’ von Emar: Untersuchungen zur Schreibtradition am Euphratknie,” AuOr 10 (1992) 124. Like Emar, Ekalte knows nothing of the Assyrian limmu/limu, and the ‘first’ year suggests Emar’s need to distinguish between the two years of an eponym term. 37. Wilcke (ibid., 125) doubts the late-16th-century date proposed by the excavators, based on these similarities. Whether or not that 16th-century date is correct, the common ground is now easier to understand.

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annual zukru text and the collected rites for six months. In the context of cult administration, he exchanged the month names sag.mu and Niqali for Zarati and dnin.kur, which is one more piece of evidence that the rituals joined to the archaic city calendar represent the older local traditions. The use of Abî for Marzahani appears to follow the same shift. It is not clear how much the new dynasty and the new M1 diviners’ usage overlapped, but they both reflect contacts with a wider geographical area by incorporating names originating in or associated with other regions. 38 Both the king and the diviner were conduits for interregional contact, so even the diviner’s role in city administrative institutions did not hinder his ambition to broaden both his political and his intellectual horizons. The wider intellectual contacts of the M1 diviners are evidently also reflected in the paleography of the ritual tablets, as discussed with the two zukru traditions. The overwhelming majority of the ritual texts use the Syro-Hittite forms isolated by Wilcke, except for the annual zukru (Emar 375) and the text for six months of city ritual (Emar 446). 39 Clearly, the Syrian and the Syro-Hittite scripts were used concurrently through the 13th century, but it is hard to imagine that the self-contained institution of the diviners would have produced the exceptional texts at the same time as the rest. The text for six months is so completely unlike the main body of ritual writing that it appears to be an heirloom from earlier ritual administration, before the Syro-Hittite style script came to characterize the group. As such, it may well date from before the Hittite conquest at the end of the 14th century. Unlike the diviner, the new dynasty employed scribes who maintained the old local Syrian style. Based on paleography alone, then, the palace retained a closer link to native custom than the diviner’s House of the Gods. It is worth noting that the first change in the calendar came with the king Baºlakabar, not with his scribe Abi-kapi, who had served the king’s father, Yaßi-Dagan, while using an eponym date (RE 16). This suggests that the administrative shift of calendar was driven at least in part by the political leadership, whether local or foreign, and not by the scribes alone. Rare Babylonian and Assyrian documents aside, Emar’s evolving calendars reflect entirely local developments within a single population, as its institutions adjusted to life under an empire. Emar thrived under the financial support of the Hittites, who at least approved if not also funded and supervised the construction of the new city high above the river’s southern bank. A prosperous and wellfortified Emar would serve as a secure outpost on the empire’s southeastern flank. 40 38. sag.mu has not appeared elsewhere as a month name but draws on Mesopotamian inspiration. Abî takes its place and identity from Emar ritual but could hardly have been understood apart from Mesopotamian traditions. 39. Claus Wilcke, “a˘, die ‘Brüder’ von Emar.” 40. This does not mean that Emar invited domination or enjoyed all of its effects. Surely both response to and benefit from imperial rule varied in complex and unpredictable ways. For discussion of the Emar festivals as expressions of native community under

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The zukru festival alone shows us a king with enough wealth to allow his expenditure to dwarf the city’s, and the diviner’s archive suggests a significant increase in prosperity over three generations. Both the new royal dynasty and the diviner appear to have made the most of expanded opportunities under the Hittite Empire, and their calendar choices reflect more distant horizons. 41

The Turning of Time: Calendrical Issues in Emar Ritual It is possible to conceive of an “annual” cycle of ritual that has no relationship at all to the seasons. The Assyrian calendar was not adjusted to the solar year and its seasons. Emar ritual apparently was linked to the agricultural year, however, and this evidence raises the question of how the calendar was related to the seasons and to ritual. These issues in turn require examination in light of common conceptions about the nature of ritual time. Annual Ritual and the Seasons Because no exact number of lunar cycles matches one revolution of the earth around the sun, calendars based on the appearance of the new moon are doomed to fall out of adjustment to the solar year. The time between appearances of new moons varies between 28 and 31 days, usually 29 or 30, so that twelve lunar cycles occupy approximately 354 days, roughly 11 days short of the solar year. 42 Unless ritual or administrative texts demonstrate a link between months and seasons, there is no reason to assume that any given lunar calendar associates the two. Evidence is not always easy to find, and Emar provides no extensive collection of dated letters or documents. Nevertheless, the ritual texts alone do indicate both that the calendars followed true lunar cycles and that a link between ritual, calendar, and seasons was maintained. Evidence that Emar’s ritual calendars followed the cycles of the moon comes first of all from the text for Abî, which gives us the most detailed view of one month. The scribe chose to describe the transition to the following month with the standard Mesopotamian terminology for true lunar months. At “the head of the year,” a “day of disappearance” begins a period of lunar darkness, which this dominion, see my “Emar Festivals: City Unity and Syrian Identity under Hittite Hegemony,” in Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (ed. M. W. Chavalas; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1996) 81–121. 41. Notice that Hittite influence is substantial but indirect, typical of the approach that the Hittites preferred in managing their empire. 42. For discussion of this problem in general terms, see E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1968) 16–19.

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apparently concluded with the shining of the new moon. 43 The entire sequence of rites for the end of Abî and the beginning of the following month depends on alignment with the waning and new moons. Likewise, the consistent association of Saggar with the 15th of the month reflects the appearance of the full moon. The strong correlation between month names and recorded ritual events based on those names indicates a remarkable continuity over time in Emar’s public religious life. Calendars tend to be very conservative, as demonstrated by the centuries through which the standard Mesopotamian calendar persisted. Nevertheless, when the relationship between a calendar and local ritual is left intact, the conservatism of religious practice may rival that of the calendar. This proves to be true at Emar. In the text for six months, dnin.kur.ra, Marzahani, and Halma still include events associated with the named month. The text for Abî gives extended space to the rites at the abû shrines. These correlations demonstrate a strong tendency for annual rites to be celebrated during the same month throughout a long period of time. The pattern is perhaps most striking when the ritual seems no longer to dominate the month that carries its name, as in the month of Halma. Even if other names may not preserve a link between month name and ritual, these examples show that Emar did celebrate some annual rites that did not drift entirely free of the calendar. These connections between ritual and calendar do not prove that the calendar as a whole maintained a consistent orientation to the seasons. Even an accurate solar calendar cannot predict with precision the arrival of seasonal changes in climate or the appearance of new growth in plants from year to year. A lunar calendar adds an additional variable in the relationship between months and seasons, though the Mesopotamian system of adding a month every few years provided a rough synchronism. Emar texts rarely offer any hint about the rationale for the rites they describe, but several planting rituals seem to require a general correlation with the seasons. The unnamed month that opens the reverse side of the tablet for six months involves an offering to Dagan as Lord of the Seed, the scattering of seed by the diviner, and an instruction not to begin planting until rites are complete. The instruction to wait to plant until rites are complete compares closely with ritual for the 16th of Zarati in the shorter zukru text, and all of these activities anticipate planting. Preparations for planting would begin well before planting itself, and a very rough synchronism of calendar and season would be adequate for the ritual occasion. Emar’s ritual texts do not envision a direct association of rite and season that ignores the formal system of the calendar. Likewise, such narrowly agricultural rites have little use apart from their seasonal context. A connection between calendar and season is therefore very likely. 43. Emar 452:53, i-na sag iti i-na ud.ná.a a-n[a(?) x] us-ta-pu-ú ‘At the head of the month, on the day of (the moon’s) disappearance (until?) . . . it shines again’.

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Although it is impossible to equate the ancient months with fixed equivalents in a modern solar year, six months from the Emar calendars can be approximately assigned to a seasonal setting. Planting took place in autumn, and Zarati and sag.mu belonged to the autumn rather than the spring axis of the ancient Near Eastern year. The five months that follow occupied the period of planting and early growth rather than the time of harvests and storage—winter rather than summer. Whether or not sag.mu was regarded as the first month in a list of twelve, the Mesopotamian term did mark the first month from each axis. Thus, we have month I/VII through month VI/XII in the Emar calendar. This enumeration of months in relation to the two axes of the year allows comparison with the calendar at contemporary Ugarit. At Ugarit, Niqali (Nql) and Hiyaru (Hyr) have now been located in positions VIII and XII, counted from a spring axis. 44 The autumn placement for Niqali matches exactly the position directly after sag.mu at Emar (II/VIII). Ugarit’s winter month, Hiyaru, corresponds to Halma, the last month in Emar’s text for six months (VI/XII). The equation of calendar positions is confirmed by evidence for the hiyaru of the storm-god on the 18th of Hiyaru at Ugarit and the 18th of Halma(Hiyar) at Emar. 45 It appears that, regardless of whether one counts from the spring or the autumn axis, specific months and even specific rites held consistent calendar positions and seasonal settings at both Ugarit and Emar, which are substantially distant sites. All of the calendar texts examined in this study deal with the same half of the year. Surely ritual was not absent from the remaining months, but the uneven distribution of evidence may in fact reflect the real priority of this season. The half of the year that follows an autumnal axis includes the anticipation and onset of the annual rainy season. Although every season and every year bring variations that can upset the progress of agriculture, the timing and the violence of storms are particularly critical. During the months of autumn and winter, the crops are planted and await their fate, mediated by the gods. Spring and summer harvests would have repaid the investments necessary for farming, but autumn and winter may have been accompanied by a greater concentration of ritual activity and consequent income for the diviner. 46 44. DeJong and Van Soldt, JEOL 30 69–70. 45. See the earlier discussion of the hiyaru in the month of Halma(Hiyar). Association of month names with two separate events is attested already in the previous month (Marzahani/Abî), and the one occurrence of Hiyar in an Emar document probably represents the same calendar position as Halma. 46. The Sumerian “Georgica” provides one useful agricultural calendar for southern Mesopotamia. See Jacobsen, Salinity and Irrigation Agriculture, 57–60; and now Civil, The Farmer’s Instructions. Durand (in Jean-Marie Durand and Michaël Guichard, “Les rituels de Mari,” in Florilegium marianum III [ed. D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand; Paris: SEPOA, 1997] 39) observes that all of the major Mari rites converge in a period between months

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Chapter 5 Intercalation: The Problem of Seasonal Adjustment in a Lunar Calendar

The moon has always offered a compelling marker of time because of its readily observed cycle of constant length. The earth’s revolution around the sun produces a much longer interval in human experience of time, with accompanying changes in weather, plant and animal life, and the length of days—especially as the distance from the equator increases. Unfortunately, the solar year that underlies the turn of seasons soon comes into conflict with the counting of moons, and any attempt to create an integrated system for years and moons requires some adjustment. Our modern calendar gives up the true count of moons in favor of the solar year, since the relationship between earth and sun is what directly affects human activity in the changing seasons. Our solar calendar is a secondary development, however, and among many peoples the moon has priority as the primary measure of time, with an accompanying religious significance that demands faithful reckoning. 47 Three choices face societies that endeavor to count the passage of years: (1) abandon the month as “moon,” (2) make periodic adjustments to keep moons roughly compatible with seasons, or (3) leave a fixed cycle of moons to drift freely through the seasons. 48 The Egyptians chose the first option quite early in their history, though their calculations still resulted in a slow drift. A calendar of 365 days was established by counting twelve months of 30 days each—evidently an adaptation of the lunar cycle—and adding five days at year’s end. 49 This calculation was evidently accomplished by observing and averaging successive floodings of the Nile. 50 Egypt’s calendar was rooted in the regularity of the annual inundation and the consequent consistency of agricultural seasons, and none of its ancient neighbors VIII and X (overlapping roughly October–January). For a first-millennium example of the same phenomenon, see Ellen Robbins, “Tabular Sacrifice Records and the Cultic Calendar of Neo-Babylonian Uruk,” JCS 48 (1996) 61–87; especially table 3, pp. 70–71. In this case, the texts cover all twelve months’ rites for 10 to 11 different years, avoiding an argument from silence. The largest sacrifices occur on the following days (month/day), where I = March/April: I/8; IV/15; VI/16; VII/8; IX/7, 8, 17, 28; X/16; XI/3; XII/2–6, 20. Defined by ritual duration, the pattern is even more striking. Periods with increased sacrifice over two or more days include: I/8–11; VII/7–11; IX/3–10, 17–18(–20?), 28–29; XII/1–7(–8?). 47. M. P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1920) 173–74. 48. This drift passes through the seasonal cycle in about 33 years; ibid., 252. 49. H. E. Winlock, “The Origin of the Ancient Egyptian Calendar,” PAPS 83 (1940) 447–48; O. Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (Providence: Brown University Press, 1957) 80–82. 50. See ibid.; and G. J. Whitrow, Time in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 26.

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to the north joined it in giving up the priority of the moon. 51 Horowitz argues that a late Mesopotamian calendar attempted a similar calculation of the solar year as having 364 days. 52 Most of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia and northern Syria preserved the sanctity of the lunar cycle but periodically added months to keep the system of months roughly synchronous with the seasons. 53 Where they can be detected, these intercalary months most often were produced by doubling a month from the normal series of twelve, rather than by adding a thirteenth month with a different name. Conceptually, and perhaps in some sense religiously, the added month simply extended the associated month; it was distinguished for administrative purposes by various tags, such as 2 (‘second’), d i r i (watrum ‘extra’), m i n (‘again’), or the like. 54 Ebla’s “early Semitic” calendar already attests maxgánatenû-s a g 2 (month XI?) and Iq-za 2 (month II?). 55 Sumerian calendars with intercalation after the twelfth month were well established in various cities by the late third millennium: d i r i s e - kin- k u5 at Nippur, d i r i dM e - k i - g á l at Ur, and simple d i r i at Umma. 56 At first, intercalary months were added whenever the gap between cult calendar and appropriate season grew too wide, and a regular system of

51. Egypt did retain, for ritual use only, a lunar calendar that defined some events by the moon, such as when it was full; see Winlock, PAPS 83 455; Neugebauer, Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 82. 52. This proposal resulted in a protracted debate between Wayne Horowitz and Johannes Koch. For bibliography, see, most recently, Horowitz, “The 364 Day Year in Mesopotamia, Again,” N.A.B.U. (1998) 49–51 (no. 49); and Koch, “Ein für allemal: Das antike Mesopotamien kannte kein 364 Tage-Jahr,” N.A.B.U. (1998) 112–14 (no. 121). 53. Hittite intercalation is evident in the celebration of thirteen month-festivals for one year in CTH 698; see V. Haas, Geschichte der hethitischen Religion (Leiden: Brill, 1994) 692 n. 134. Earliest Mesopotamian administration may have used a calendar very similar to the ancient Egyptian calendar, with twelve standard 30-day units; see Robert K. Englund, “Administrative Timekeeping in Ancient Mesopotamia,” JESHO 31 (1988) 122–24, 131, 181. 54. Cohen, Calendars, 5. Ellen Robbins (Yale Assyriological Seminar, April 1994) suggests that in late Babylonian times the “extra” month may be the first of the pair rather than the second, as in the Jewish calendar (see LAS 287=ABL 338 and YOS 3 152). 55. Cohen (Calendars, 28–29) argues that these months should instead be IX and XII, in part because the position for intercalation would then be more standard. Charpin acknowledges the difficulty, but counters that this reading leaves an impossibly large gap in the actual dates as fixed by marked years; see N.A.B.U. (1993) 48 (no. 56); after D. Charpin, “Tablettes présargoniques de Mari,” M.A.R.I. 5 (1987) 74. 56. Ibid., 124, 159, and 188. Ordered use shows that the month of Umma also came to be placed at the end of the year. Cohen (Calendars, 76) places d i r i s e - kin- k u5 in the eleventh position at Lagas.

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seven additions over nineteen years was not instituted until the early 4th century b.c.e. 57 Two prominent calendars reveal the third possibility for calendar regulation: the Middle Assyrian calendar (before being preempted by the standard Mesopotamian calendar from the south) and the Islamic calendar of Muhammed both covered twelve moons strictly and ignored the gradual drift through the solar year that resulted. 58 It is not likely that the Old Assyrian calendar drifted without adjustment to the solar year. Larsen suggests that during the time of the earlier (Level 2) texts from Kültepe/Kanis the synchronicity between calendar and eponym year probably reflects some unknown adjustment to the solar year, until divergence of the cult calendar in the next period. 59 More recently, Veenhof has argued that eponyms named “the successor of PN” reflect the seasonal blockage of travel during the winter and indicate a rough coincidence between the first month and the arrival of a new eponym year. 60 Cohen argues that, logically, the opposite trend is more likely, from an original lack of adjustment to coordination of the eponym year with neighboring calendars. 61 The evidence may not yet allow proof of the direction of development at Assur, but the Islamic comparison shows that free drift could develop from an adjusted calendar, rather than the reverse. Muhammed appears to have ordered the establishment of the free lunar calendar as a response to perceived misuse of control over intercalation, thus deciding to ignore the advantages of the adjustment. 62 The 365-day Egyptian calendar likewise represented not a primitive system but an inadequate technical development that became frozen in convention. 57. Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein (Babylonian Chronology: 626 b.c.–a.d. 75 [Providence: Brown University Press, 1956] 1–2) suggest that the equation of 19 solar years and 235 lunar months was first recognized during the reign of the eighth-century Babylonian king Nabonassar. 58. See Cohen, Calendars, 239; F. Rochberg-Halton, “Calendars,” ABD 1.812–13; cf. Larsen, Old Assyrian City-State, 193, on the Assyrian calendar; Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning, 251–58; J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen heidentums (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1961) 94–100, on the Islamic calendar. 59. Larsen, Old Assyrian City-State, 193. 60. Veenhof, “The Old-Assyrian hamustum Period,” 12. Veenhof then suggests that intercalation is the most likely explanation, and he suggests a possible example in the rare 13th month called zi-bi-ba/i-ri-im (pp. 13–14). 61. Cohen, Calendars, 238. 62. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning, 257–58. See the Qurªan, Sura 9:37, “Verily the transposing (of a prohibited month) is an addition to unbelief: the unbelievers are led to wrong thereby: for they make it lawful one year, and forbidden another year, in order to adjust the number of months forbidden by God. . . .” Willy Hartner (“Zaman,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam [Leiden: Brill, 1934] 4.1210) observes that early Muslim scholars speak of a transition from a pure lunar calendar to a lunisolar calendar only two centuries earlier, under the influence of the Jewish system.

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Nilsson’s evidence suggests that “primitive” peoples observed both seasonal and lunar cycles and simply did not carry on a precise count of moons, rather than insisting on a year made up of 12 or 13 moons in a regular series that would not remain in a stable relationship to the solar year. 63 Emar’s calendar must be evaluated in terms of the same alternatives. The ritual texts show that true lunar cycles were observed and that the ritual calendar did maintain an association with the seasons. These characteristics together require some intercalation of extra months, as indeed was common throughout ancient Syria and Mesopotamia. In spite of these facts, no months have been found at Emar that are marked “extra,” “second,” or the like. Actually, this odd situation is not unique to Emar. Cohen argues at some length that the Nuzi calendars must have been adjusted to the seasons, though more than three hundred dates occur without any mention of intercalary months. 64 Alalah, Ugarit, and even biblical Israel attest no intercalation, again without evidence for a free-floating lunar calendar. 65 Sippar’s local calendar preserves no evidence for intercalation, while intercalary months do appear in Sippar texts dated by the southern Mesopotamian Sumerian calendar. 66 To claim that some other system of adjustment, no longer known to us, was in use at Emar is to fail to confront the full force of this dilemma. If the calendar truly adhered to lunar cycles, the one and only counting unit available for reconciling months and seasons is the moon. None of the Syrian and Mesopotamian calendars works from a fixed series of 13 months with subtraction, so every “year” of 12 months loses roughly 11 days to the seasonal cycle. The only way to make up that time is to add months, unless the cycle is allowed to slip so far that simple addition is insufficient and the entire series of moons is simply reset at the appropriate month. 67 The latter alternative would do violence to the regular cult calendar presented in Emar’s ritual texts and would be very unusual in this region, which is characterized by careful preservation of the twelve-lunar-month series throughout many centuries before our Late Bronze evidence. In a region already inclined to resolve the calendar tension by intercalation, another explanation is more plausible: intercalation without written distinction of the extra month. One administrative text from Ebla displays this very phenomenon when it records various disbursements over the course of seven years, listed month by month. During the third, fifth, and seventh years of the account, 63. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning, 242–43. 64. Cohen, Calendars, 367–68. 65. See ibid., 372–75, for Alalah; Olivier, JNSL 1 (1971) 39–45; 2 (1972) 53–59; DeJong and Van Soldt, JEOL 30 69–70, for Ugarit; Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York: McGraw Hill, 1961) 189, on Israel. 66. Cohen, Calendars, 271. 67. Nilsson (Primitive Time-Reckoning, 242–43) observes this response among some peoples who have not yet considered the potential conflict a serious problem.

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two lists with parallel elements are tallied separately under the repeated month s e - kin- k u5 but without notation regarding intercalation. 68 In effect, during an intercalary year, the Ebla month s e - kin- k u5 became two moons long. Legal or administrative documents dated in the Emar style, by month alone or month and year, would simply be placed in s e - kin- k u5, without distinction as to which of the “months” in the two-moon period the document belonged. Administrative texts, which often required no more precise dating than attribution to a month, and often no date at all, would have been adequately dated by the name of the doubled month. The Ebla tablet cited for evidence of unmarked intercalation is useful only because it reflects a transitional accounting phase, at a time when precise records for individual lunar durations were desired. From this point, it was a short step to include notation for the added month. 69 Neither the legal documents nor the various administrative texts from Emar shows any interest that records be carefully ordered by date, perhaps in part because none reflects an institution on the scale of the Ebla palace. Generally, the second-millennium sites away from the Mesopotamian centers do not attest the same bureaucratic or calendrical heritage. It is reasonable to suppose that Emar did adjust the lunar calendar to the seasons by intercalation but that the repeated month was not distinguished by d i r i (‘extra’) or the like. This practice is by very nature difficult to prove, since it cannot be seen directly, except in a transitional document such as the Ebla text. However, the logic of Emar’s seasonal accounting demands such a resolution. Further evidence from Emar and elsewhere may sustain or correct this hypothesis. Again, however, the Ebla texts warn against oversimplification. Mere attestation of isolated intercalary months may represent only occasional marking of the added month. Other intercalary months may continue to be left unmarked. The Nature of Ritual Time Calendar-based ritual is repetitive by nature. Every year it returns to religious occasions that address recurrent human needs, and it does so with ritual traditions 68. See TM.75.G.427 XIII:23u and XIV:4; rev. VI:7 and 17; and rev. XI:25 and 32; Pettinato, AfO 25 12, 17, 21. Pettinato (p. 31) comments that the marked form s e kin- k u5-m ì n is found twice out of 34 attestations of the month name, and he suspects that other unmarked examples are intercalary. Three added months in the span of seven years are an appropriate total for the proper adjustment. Note that the month Be/bad-li is repeated after a fourth-year total, but this more likely reflects a scribal quirk of counting provoked by this summation. The chief parallel element is the s e - b a gift. 69. Accounting by month units appears to be typical of the early calendars from Ebla and contemporary Mari; A. Archi, “The Archives of Ebla,” in Cuneiform Archives and Libraries (ed. Klaas R. Veenhof; CRRAI 30; Istanbul: Nederlands historisch-archaeologisch Instituut, 1986) 79; Charpin, M.A.R.I. 5 65–125, especially p. 90. None of the months cited by Charpin is marked as intercalary.

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that may reach beyond memory. Because the success of ancient societies depended heavily on production of food, ritual observance was naturally associated with the seasons of agriculture, and the seasons gave life a powerful cyclical framework. Emar offers an opportunity to reflect on the nature of ritual time in light of one ancient site and its practice. In particular, the combination of events at the full moon of Zarati/sag.mu provides an example of the variety possible in annual ritual. Specifically agricultural rites are found side by side with the zukru, which was concerned with the more general relationship between the city and its gods. Time is frequently discussed in terms of two expressions. Much in human experience repeats in a predictable rhythm, and time under this impulse to return is often called cyclical. 70 Irretrievable loss and genuine novelty are also part of our experience, however, and this experience of time’s forward movement into an uncharted future has been distinguished as linear. Ritual has been identified by some with the cyclical aspect of time and may even be regarded as a vehicle for interpreting existence as cyclical. 71 Another approach places ritual in sacred time, removed from the mundane progress of everyday experience. 72 In the work of Eliade, sacred time always returns to the age of beginnings, when the world was in its intended form. 73 Sacred time is essentially homogeneous and ahistorical, according to this view.

70. J. E. Orme (Time, Experience, and Behaviour [London: Iliffe, 1969] 99) even discusses the idea that survival of biological species depends on the capacity to follow the rhythms of the physical universe, whether diurnal (day/night), seasonal, or, for shore creatures, lunar (tides). 71. J. T. Fraser (Of Time, Passion, and Knowledge: Reflections on the Strategy of Existence [New York: Braziller, 1975] 152) remarks that “the essence of any ritual repetition is predictability without surprise.” P. Steensgaard (“Time in Judaism,” in Religion and Time, [ed. A. N. Balslev and J. N. Mohanty; Leiden: Brill, 1993] 70–71) treats Israelite perception of religious history as a development from the idea of a “cultic-cyclical repetition.” 72. This conception is incorporated into diverse study of religion. For instance, for Ernst Cassirer (The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Vol. II: Mythical Thought [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955 (repr. of 1925 ed.)] 108), holy days interrupt the uniform flow of life and introduce distinct lines of demarcation. These are understood to hold an essence and efficacy of their own. G. van der Leeuw (Religion in Essence and Manifestation [2 vols.; New York: Harper & Row, 1963 (from 1938)] 2.385–86) comments that in “sacred time,” time stands still as eternity. In ritual terms, this entry into sacred time produces a halt (“tempus”) in the flow of non-sacred “duration.” Such a halt is necessary for the encounter with power that constitutes a religious act. 73. See Mircea Eliade on sacred time in The Sacred and the Profane (1959, 68–72), reprinted in Myths, Rites, Symbols: A Mircea Eliade Reader (ed. Wendell C. Beane and William G. Doty; New York: Harper & Row, 1975) 1.33–36; on “perfection of the beginnings” in idem, Myth and Reality (New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 51; idem, The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954) ix.

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The literary texts from ancient Mesopotamia and Syria present a more complex backdrop for evaluating the sacred time of ritual. Human circumstances reflect actions of the gods that may go back to the creation of the habitable world, but the gods live in a continuum of time like that of humans. Though Ugarit’s Baal stories do not touch on human events directly, they portray three sequential episodes in the god’s kingship, as he struggles to maintain his due honor and to repel threats to his rule. 74 The Babylonian Enuma elis celebrates the rule of Marduk over all of the gods at Babylon as a reality built into the creation of human life, but this creation itself crowns an account of events that might be regarded as Marduk’s royal annals. Generations of gods are placed in succession in linear time that compares with human genealogy, especially the genealogies of kings. Atrahasis and the Gilgamesh flood account portray divine and human beings interacting throughout the same progression of time, with the flood itself the ultimate intersection of the two domains. The gods are released from the depredations of time by immortality, but divine affairs mingle freely with human in the progress of “history.” These tales of the gods lead us to expect ritual time to address divine and human affairs that mingle in sequential time. Jacobsen explained the entry of the gods into human history as a consequence of changes in Mesopotamian society that accompanied the evolution of cities. When cities began to compete violently for wealth and power, their populations rendered new authority to individual military leaders, and the gods likewise came to be regarded as officials governing a state. 75 At the local level, the more important gods were now treated as rulers of individual cities or towns who operated from their temple centers. The early á - k i - t i festivals appear to have risen out of this social and religious milieu, with a strong identification between god and city. The central event was the leading deity’s entry into the city after a period of removal. Emar’s zukru attended to the same relationship between the city and its chief god, Dagan, and traced the same movement out of and back into the city. Once the gods become attached to the fates of cities, they enter the realm of politics and the progress of human events. This entanglement is reflected in the Sumerian canonical laments (b a l a gs) that survived in liturgical use into the first 74. In contrast, the tale of Danªel and Aqhat shows humans and gods interacting freely as participants in the same time continuum. 75. “In considering where the ascendancy of the ruler metaphor has led, we note that the whole view of existence appears to have changed. The earlier world in which things happened more or less by themselves and the gods were ‘intransitive’ powers has yielded to a planned, purposeful universe actively administered and ruled by gods who have broadened their concerns far beyond what we call nature: to society as upholders of the legal and moral order, and to politics, deciding about victory and defeat. They have come to control and shape history” (T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976] 90).

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millennium. Some of these bewail a breach in the same relationship between a city and its chief deity that the á - k i - t i celebrates and mourn the destruction of what had been built for devotion to the god as his or her residence. The b a l a g s in some ways echo the long city laments that mourn specific calamities that befell Ur and other Sumerian centers. 76 They import the concern for city welfare into ritual settings, while they strip away the narrow historical settings that prevent universalization and repeated use. 77 History as the larger domain of evolving human affairs, distinct from the seasonal cycles of nature, is nevertheless assumed in these ritual laments. The akitu and Emar’s zukru maintain a continuing bond between a god and the political entity that serves him or her. Over the course of time, the success or failure of the cities in question would be interpreted as reflections of that religious relationship. It is neither necessary nor helpful to consider the sacred time of these rites a return to the perfect state of the created order. Unlike the biblical account of Eden, none of the Mesopotamian stories suggests that humanity has anything to gain by return to its original state. 78 These city celebrations may look to an age-old order, but they also certainly engage the expression of divine interest in unfolding history. Whenever the Mesopotamian and Syrian ritual calendars first arose, the fact that the ancients defined them according to the turn of years suggests an early concern for safe passage through the seasons. These calendars did not consist simply of named lunar cycles but named cycles in sets of twelve, an approximation of one year. Because the passage of a year was a primary marker of survival, the year naturally attracted other ritual that was deemed essential to the wellbeing of a community. In the case of Emar, the autumnal axis served both the obvious agricultural rites of the planting season and the zukru, an occasion dedicated to Dagan as father of the gods, not as the one with power over grain. At least in the zukru, a cyclical pattern of time also accommodated sacred affairs that were not simply confined to seasonal needs or understood as eternal return.

76. See the discussion in Mark Cohen, The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia (Potomac, Md.: CDL, 1988) 36–39. 77. Jacobsen proposed that the old city laments did have cultic use on occasions when temples were razed before reconstruction; see the discussion in William W. Hallo, “The Cultic Setting of Sumerian Poetry,” in Actes de la XVIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (CRRAI 17; ed. A. Finet; Comité belge de recherches historiques, épigraphiques et archéologiques en Mésopotamie, 1970) 119–20. Jerrold S. Cooper (The Curse of Agade [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983] 8) cautions, however, that these texts have no liturigical rubrics and would have required no ritual justification for their creation. 78. The relevant material is found in Enuma elis and Atrahasis.

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Emar in the Ancient Near East The diviner’s archive provides an unusual perspective on ancient Near Eastern religion. Although the diviner recorded rituals that involved the king and the royal palace and he was supported by the Hittite Empire, his ritual responsibilities involved a primary affiliation with a separate cluster of “city” institutions. Contemporary ritual collections from Hattusa, Ugarit, and Assur are dominated by kings. The Emar texts show us features of urban society that tend to be obscured by royal systems but probably precede them. Emar is also geographically interesting. Before the excavations at Meskeneh, few second-millennium texts had been found between the neighborhoods of Ugarit on the coast and Mari far downstream. Emar’s very location resists identification with either the coastal Levant or Mesopotamia and allows further consideration of regional continuities and differences during an age of extensive contacts. Once the rituals prove to reflect native practice, they open a whole new horizon. The rituals from Emar reflect the religious life of a modest Syrian town, a fresh point of view that adds greatly to our knowledge of the ancient Near East.

Emar and Early Urban Society During the late second millennium, Emar was a smaller town than Ugarit or earlier Mari and one less dominated by the palace economies of such states. Emar had largely missed the impulse toward government centralization under king and palace, not to mention the dominant temple systems of southern Mesopotamia. Even with the increasing power of local kings, the city, the elders, and the temple of the city god dnin.urta continued to exert considerable influence in economic, legal, and religious domains. One important expression of city government independent of the palace was the year eponym, an institution that lost its place in the early years of Hittite sovereignty. Under the 14th-century eponym system, years were named for men who were not part of the royal family. These men were evidently chosen from among local businessmen and occupied at least a symbolic position representing the city for two years. 79 Names usually appear once, with no evidence that influential fig79. In the ritual domain, the group from which “the daughter of any son of Emar” could be selected as the nin.dingir priestess of the storm-god apparently was defined the same way (369:3). It was “the sons of Emar” who were ultimately responsible for performance of each Emar festival, as were “the sons of Satappi” for the kissu celebrations in nearby village of Satappi (see 369:1; 373:169; 385:2). Michael Heltzer (The Rural Community of Ancient Ugarit [Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1976] 4–6) identifies the equivalent group at Ugarit as the freeborn populace of the land, including the neighboring villages.

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ures held the role repeatedly. Repetition might have caused confusion over identification of year names. 80 The use of year eponyms at Emar provokes a somewhat surprising comparison with the ancient city of Assur, where eponym dates are known as far back as the earliest second millennium. 81 Direct dependence on the Assur system is unlikely, since Emar does not use the Assyrian word limu/limmu for the office and its term and the associated calendar has no hint of Assyrian influence. 82 Assur’s eponym system continued through generations of empire, but it originated in a city government independent of kings, and no king took the role of eponym until Enlilnirari. 83 Application of the limmum title to year names for all of Assur reflects a powerful administrative alternative to kingship, so universally accepted that the Assyrian kings declined to replace it with a new system for counting years. In the early period, “the house of the limmum” was identified with “the city” in a manner recalling “the city” as it appears in Emar property ownership and ritual supply. 84 Even at the beginning of the second millennium, kingship was firmly established in Mesopotamia, and Assur’s limmum system for separate city administration stands out, whether or not it once coexisted with a moderated royal power. Eponymy at Assur was rooted in an economy whose thriving trade sustained a wealthy class that was not primarily dependent on military power to advance its prosperity. Early second-millennium Imar (the form of the name in the early second millennium) was characterized by a similarly prominent merchant class. Imar was an important vantage point in the web of trade and transportation routes that connected Carchemish, Aleppo, and Mari with Anatolia, the Mediterranean, and southern Mesopotamia beyond. Just as Assyrian merchants retained a substantial role in city government, Imar was governed by an assembly or council, 80. Larsen (Old Assyrian City-State, 210–11) observes for early Assur that apparent connections between individuals holding the office of limmum can be traced, so the eponyms seem to have come from a core group of families. He suggests that restriction to a single year prevented personal and political excesses, since “the man who was this year’s executioner could easily become next year’s victim.” The practical considerations of dating might also have played a role. 81. The full range of known eponyms from the “later Old Assyrian period” is discussed by Klaas R. Veenhof (“Eponyms of the ‘Later Old Assyrian Period’ and Mari Chronology,” M.A.R.I. 4 [1985] 191–218), with primary attestation from Mari, Chagar Bazar, Tell Rimah, Kültepe, Boghazköy, Tell Leilan, Alis¸ar, and various individual finds (pp. 194–201). 82. Given the evidence for an independent Emar system of eponym dating, it may not be necessary to postulate a direct Greek dependence on Assyria for archonship and, in turn, Roman consular dating (contra Alan Millard, The Eponyms of the Assyrian Empire, 910–612 bc [Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1994] 1). 83. Larsen, Old Assyrian City-State, 208–9; years 1329–1320 (or Brinkman, 1327– 1318). 84. Ibid., 156, 193–95.

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called the tahtamum. This group also was probably dominated by families enriched by trade. No king is attested during this early period. 85 The similar but historically unrelated eponym systems of Assur and Emar appear to have been rooted in ancient patterns of urban society across Syria and Mesopotamia. Both eponym systems originated in the collective governance identified as “the city,” associated in part with elders or free citizens. Both towns had ancient pedigrees, and their institutions should reflect shared customs in similar urban settings in at least northern Syria and Mesopotamia. Old as kingship already was by the second millennium, it was ultimately a political innovation. Parallel eponym and city administrative systems, when not directly attributable to kingship or other relative novelties, must have arisen out of the older social pattern. Recognition of Mesopotamian cultural commonalities throughout a large region need not blind us to the reality of regional differences. 86 Any local population develops independently, influenced by its unique climate, geographical setting, ethnic makeup, and any other historically-determined vagary that characterizes life in heterogeneous situations. Regional patterns appear that may turn out to be distinctly Syrian, southern Mesopotamian, or Mediterranean, and so on, rarely separated by absolute boundaries or definitions. Emar society and religious practice remained noticeably “Syrian” even though they also retained important continuities with the cultures of the east, north, or west. 87 Finally, the comparison offered in this section confirms the impression gained from evaluation of the Emar tablet finds that at a relatively late date this smaller town still preserved a number of traits from an older society. Emar had developed a strong political alternative to kingship in its wealthy merchant families, and the city enjoyed a relative distance from the centers of empire. These 85. Durand (M.A.R.I. 6 39–40, 55–57, etc.) draws together the Mari evidence and even compares Imar and Assur directly for this period. On the tahtamum at Imar, Tuttul, and earlier Ebla, see Durand, “L’assemblée en Syrie à l’époque pré-amorite,” in Miscellanea Eblaitica 2 (ed. Pelio Fronzaroli; Florence: Università di Firenze, 1989) 27–44. Arnaud suggests that the taªqtal form is specifically Southwest Semitic, from pre-Arabian connections, though one could also argue that the Arabian forms are simply shared with ancient central Syrian dialects. See D. Arnaud, “Les traces des ‘arabes’ dans les textes syriens du début du IIe millénaire à l’époque néo-assyrienne: Esquisse de quelques thèmes,” in Présence arabe dans le Croissant fertile avant l’Hégire (ed. Hélène Lozachmeur; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1995) 20–21. 86. For recent work on continuities across Mesopotamia, see Durand, “Unité et diversités au Proche-Orient à l’époque amorrite,” in La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancien (ed. Dominique Charpin and Francis Joannès; CRRAI 38; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1992) 97–128; Charpin, “Mari entre l’est et l’ouest,” Akkadica 78 (1992) 1–10. 87. Continuities with the southern desert may also be significant, but they are harder to document.

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advantages seem to have helped Emar to preserve many features of life before kings, including a leadership focused less in individuals than in dominant families, whose stature both derived from and generated further wealth and status. The Emar texts together offer a valuable view of an older world, albeit in an evolved form that reflected years of adapting to regional changes, which came about especially through outside contacts. Incursion of foreign powers brought new costs and limitations, but at the same time increasing interregional travel and trade created new opportunities for producing wealth, and the consequent contacts always introduced novel customs in every domain. Our understanding of Syrian and Mesopotamian cultures will not be best served by theoretical frameworks that insist either that all cultural distinctions can be explained in geographical terms or that the whole region began with a uniform cultural substrate. There is evidence of important shared features across the broader area, some introduced by innovation in historical time and some founded in more ancient social patterns. In every period, however, we should expect change to occur in different forms and at different paces according to the social and geographical setting. Our Emar archives do not come from a royal palace, and the city itself stood at the fringe of Hittite power. Both the social and geographic location lead to an unusually conservative view of traditional Emar institutions and allow us to see much that has origins long before the Late Bronze Age. Emar in Syria Each section of this book has included reflection on possible sources of foreign influence on Emar’s calendar-based ritual. Two principal forces always tugged at local Emar expressions of religious practice. On the one hand, the cuneiform writing system and the larger intellectual world accompanying it derived from the old Akkadian-speaking centers to the east and south, in Mesopotamia. Emar’s rituals were written in Akkadian, the language also used for recording private legal and economic documents, and when the local scribes learned Akkadian, they acquired with it a whole way of thinking about their universe. The diviner’s archive displays its Mesopotamian educational heritage in the lexical and literary texts found in building M1, along with samples of divination literature. The very title taken by the diviner bears the stamp, not only of Mesopotamian language, but of an entire division of Mesopotamian lore and a method of investigating and manipulating the unknown future. On the other hand, the Emar region of Astata was conquered by the Hittite king Suppiluliuma during the middle of the 14th century, and the new city may have been built high above the Euphrates River by his son Mursili II as an outpost against Assyrian expansion. 88 Hittite governors and administrators stayed in the 88. See Goetze, “The Struggle for the Domination of Syria (1400–1300 b.c.),” in CAH, vol. 2/2A: The Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1380–1000 b.c. (Cambridge:

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city as long as it survived, 89 and the diviner’s family of the M1 building cultivated connections with Emar’s overlords. 90 The empire exerted little impact on the religious life of Emar, as evidenced by the diviner’s archive. Hittite officials did not join the local dignitaries who were honored by special portions in the festivals of Emar. 91 The presence of the Hittites is evident only in separate texts, drawn up

Cambridge University Press, 1975) 16–19; E. Laroche, “Emar, étape entre Babylone et le Hatti,” in Le Moyen-Euphrate: zone de contacts et d’échanges (ed. J. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980) 237–40. The most important Hittite source for the initial conquest of Emar is the treaty of Suppiluliuma I and Sattiwaza of Mitanni, CTH 51 (A rev. 14–21): “I, Great King, King of Hatti, captured the lands of Mittanni. . . . All the cities which are situated in the land of Astata, on the west bank (of the Euphrates) of the land of Mittanni—Ekalte, [. . .], Ahuna, and Terqa—these cities belong to the land of Astata” (trans. Gary Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996]). For discussion of this text as it relates to Astata/Emar, see Masamichi Yamada, “The Northern Border of the Land of Astata,” ASJ 16 (1994) 261–68. 89. See G. Beckman, “Hittite Administration in Syria,” in New Horizons in the Study of Ancient Syria (ed. Mark W. Chavalas and John L. Hayes; Malibu, Calif.: Undena, 1992) 47–49; idem, “Hittite Provincial Administration in Anatolia and Syria: The View from Maÿshat and Emar,” in Atti de II. Congresso Internazionale di Hittitologia (ed. O. Carruba, M. Giorgieri, and C. Mora; Pavia: Gianni Iuculano, 1995) 19–37. These include the dumu lugal, a high official not necessarily son of the current king; the ugula.kalam.ma ‘overseer of the land’ who apparently served the entire southeastern region of Hittite Syria and traveled from town to town; and various bureaucrats more frequently of local Syrian birth. At any given time, there was surely a small cadre of true outsiders situated at Emar as part of imperial business. Fiorella Imparati (“La politique extérieure des Hittites: Tendances et problèmes,” in Hethitica VIII: Acta Anatolica E. Laroche Oblata [Louvain: Peeters, 1987] 191–93) discusses specific figures identified as dumu lugal at Ugarit and Emar under Ini-Tessub of Carchemish. 90. For instance, the “overseer of the land” named Mutri-Tessub was evidently in regular contact with the diviner, as shown by his appearance in the building M1 business correspondence. Two of the diviner’s personal documents (Emar 201 and 202) are witnessed outside the local city domain by the king of Carchemish. The diviner Zu-Baºla even possessed a letter from the Hittite king himself that confirmed an exemption from tax and corvée: Msk 731097, translated in E. Laroche, “Documents hittites et hourrites,” in Meskéné-Emar: Dix ans de travaux, 1972–1982 (ed. Dominique Beyer; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1982)54; cf. A. Hagenbuchner, Die Korrespondenz der Hethiter (Texte der Hethiter 16; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1989) 40–44 (no. 23). An unpublished Hittite letter in the collection of the Bible Lands Museum of Jerusalem deals with related matters (Gary Beckman). 91. Along with cult personnel, these include the king of Emar (369:17, 58, and 77; 370:36; 371:7; 385:25A; 386:22; 394:40), the “king” of the village of Satappi (369:58A; cf. 17A), and the “chief scribe” (385:25A; 386:22; cf. 394:40).

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for rites dedicated to the gods of Hatti. 92 The Hittite government did, however, introduce daily interaction with the Hittite language and many aspects of Hittite culture. Apart from these, incorporation into the empire involved orientation of the Emar economy and lines of communication toward the north and west. Traditional ties with people down the Euphrates would have been too strong to break, but the Hittites’ fear of Assyria may have strained many existing connections. The light hand of Mesopotamian cuneiform and Hittite sovereignty, felt only at considerable distance from the centers of each culture, permitted the underlying Syrian culture to remain clearly visible. Akkadian was not difficult to adapt to local Syrian religious practices, with certain adjustments, and these native traditions appear to have continued without interference under Hittite government. Emar’s calendar-based ritual was supervised by the diviners of building M1 against this backdrop, and it is necessary to evaluate the nature of Mesopotamian and Hittite influence. The Hittite cultural influence in Syria was transitory, 93 but contact with Mesopotamia was much older and more abiding. In general terms, the Emar calendar is at home among the various local Semitic calendars of second-millennium Syria and Mesopotamia and has no counterpart in Hittite religion. Arnaud presses the resemblance further and differentiates between the various local Syrian rituals and “ordo,” repeated offering and ritual, which in its very regularity shows its immediate dependence on Mesopotamian models. 94 Although Mesopotamian influence on the M1 diviners through the standard professional education indeed colors the formulation of all of the Emar ritual texts, the analysis in this book does not sustain a division between ancient native practice outside the fixed shrines and Mesopotamian-style temple ordo. Both the festivals and the remaining rituals, the rites defined by calendar and those not, are built around practice evidently native and long-established. Emar ritual as described in all of the relevant texts proceeded from fixed sanctuaries to various outside locations and combined elements of the urban, professional cult with features that may antedate that cult. The composition of the texts themselves must have depended heavily on the possiblilities inherent in the cuneiform system, with its explicitly Mesopotamian inspiration, 95 but none of the individual ritual 92. Emar 471–90. There is no sign that these Hittite rituals were actually performed at Emar, though the texts themselves appear to be local products. 93. E. Laroche, “Emar, étape entre Babylone et le Hatti,” 237. 94. Daniel Arnaud, “Traditions urbaines et influences semi-nomades à Emar, à l’âge du bronze récent,” in Le Moyen-Euphrate: zone de contacts et d’échanges (ed. J. Margueron; Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1980) 258; idem, “La bibliothèque,” CRAIBL (1980) 384. 95. The building M1 scribes favor Mesopotamian gods in their colophons to the lexical, divination, and literary texts (see Emar 604). Nabû has particular priority due to his oversight of the scribal arts.

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tablets has direct Mesopotamian counterparts for either the event described or the generic literary form. The festivals are somewhat similar to Hittite ezen texts in that sections describing allotments are isolated from description of progress through the rituals, but these elements are combined on a single tablet at Emar, compared to occupying separate tablets in the larger Hittite festival instructions. 96 The tablets for six months and the two individual months depend on calendar conceptions that were shared widely across Syria and Mesopotamia, but the actual compositions are quite unusual. Accounts of ritual events recorded for individual months are also found at Ugarit, so the latter two texts do have a Syrian cuneiform counterpart. These Ugaritic ritual texts are considered native because they were rendered in the alphabetic script and native language, rather than in Akkadian. Without better Mesopotamian parallel, these treatments of annual rites scattered through single months remain a uniquely Syrian phenomenon. The text for six months has no generic counterpart in the ancient Near East, to my knowledge. This text covers a longer period than any other ritual composition from Emar, yet it represents neither a simple calendar nor an administrative account of disbursements. The unusual combination of procedures for many cults reflects the office of the diviner, who oversaw the entire spectrum of Emar rituals. We would expect similar texts to come from a similar setting—probably not from the temple archives of the large Mesopotamian cities. 97 A useful control for the notion of direct cultural influence is provided by Emar’s own “rites for the gods of Hatti.” 98 These texts demonstrate the results of the most immediate borrowing conceivable. They are written in an Emar Akkadian idiom, evident in details such as use of the temporal phrases ina umi mahirî ana pani nubatti ‘on the first(?) day, just before the evening watch’, and ina umi sâsuma ‘on the same day’. 99 At the same time, the gods come directly from the 13th-century Hittite-Hurrian pantheon known from Hattusa/Boghazköy. 100 Pro96. Itamar Singer, The Hittite ki.lam Festival (StBoT 27; 2 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983) 1.6, 52. Singer believes that complete instructions for a Hittite festival included separate accounts of ritual progress, liturgy, and allotments. 97. It is conceivable, however, that smaller Mesopotamian towns might share the system for cult administration represented by the Emar “ lú˘al of the gods.” This question will remain unresolved without further evidence. 98. Emar 471:1; see texts 471–90. 99. Emar 471:28 and 472:16, 23, and 26. 100. See Arnaud, “Les hittites sur le moyen-Euphrate,” in Hethitica VIII: Acta Anatolica E. Laroche Oblata (Louvain: Peeters, 1987) 9–27; E. Laroche, “Observations sur le rituel anatolien provenant de Meskéné-Emar,” in Studi di storia e di filologia anatolica dedicati à Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli (ed. Fiorella Imparati; Firenze: Elite, 1988) 111–17; R. Lebrun, “Divinités louvites et hourrites des rituels anatoliens en langue akkadienne provenant de Meskéné,” in Hethitica IX (Louvain-la-neuve: Peeters, 1988) 147–55.

Spread is 6 points long

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cedures for the offerings still reflect a Hittite style, for instance, in breaking bread. 101 There is no hint of traditional Emar suppliers such as the nuppuhannu and the bit tukli, ritual players, or special rites such as the qaddusu or the kubadu. I have argued in my analysis of each major ritual text that the Emar ritual calendar is deeply native, even though diverse outside influences are strewn throughout it. The rites for Illila in the text for six months do not appear to reflect contemporary Mesopotamian cult, because the divine name has lost its typical Sumerian spelling as den.líl. In company with an otherwise Syrian pantheon, the divine name instead suggests an origin in a past that may be centuries distant. The Hurrian Mount Sinapsi is imported into the text for Abî from later contacts, as perhaps is the month name itself, though both features may have been borrowed from the more immediate neighborhood. Even the zukru bears a close resemblance to the akitu tradition that goes beyond direct association of terminology and conscious intent alone. When we find similar phenomena in old local Anatolian ritual as well, we must conclude that the assumptions shared by these religious traditions were ancient and widespread. It should not be surprising to find archaic religious practices imbedded in Emar ritual of both the festival and the calendar types. The legal documents also reveal many archaic traits in Emar’s political, social, and family structures. Kingship was evidently a late phenomenon at Emar. Evidence of a relatively weak form of kingship appears in the 14th-century documents. Kings apparently became more powerful only during the time of the Hittite Empire. 102 Consequently, the real function of the elders, “city” administration, and the related institutions discussed above persisted side by side with the emergent royal power. Comparison of a buyer’s status to an ‘alien’s’ (nikaru) when real estate was purchased by a natural brother or a relative of the seller reflects strong kinship ties, which continued to exert considerable influence on the legal affairs of extended families. 103 The prominent role of ‘kinsmen’ (lú.mesah hi.a) indicates the importance of the same family bonds. 104 The professional military class of charioteers, often associated 101. See for example, Heinrich Otten, Ein hethitisches Festritual (StBoT 13; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1971) 2–3; Erich Neu, Ein althethitisches Gewitterritual (StBoT 12; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1970) 12–13, 26–27; O. R. Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) 32–33. 102. Durand (M.A.R.I. 6 55–57) sees no evidence for kings at Imar in the early second millennium, and the Idrimi statue mentions only ‘rulers’ (lúhi.a uruE-mar ki, lines 5–6); see Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, “Die Inschrift der Statue des Königs Idrimi von Alalah,” UF 13 (1981) 201–68, for the text. On kingship as a recent development, see Fleming, UF 24 70–71; Beckman, “Hittite Provincial Administration,” 9. 103. Carlo Zaccagnini, “Ceremonial Transfers of Real Estate at Emar and Elsewhere,” VO 8 (1992) 36. 104. Bellotto (AoF 22 223–26, etc.) argues that, as a city institution, this group probably did not retain a direct familial link to any specific participant in a business transaction. Even if this proves to be the case, their very name reflects an origin in relations of

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with states more socially stratified, is largely absent. 105 Emar’s calendar-based ritual should be considered both Syrian and generally archaic. It is Syrian simply because it is native, with neither ritual nor text type borrowed from a foreign source. Identification as Syrian does not mean either isolation from outside influence over time or absence of resemblance to other custom. Many specific traits can be attributed to outside contacts during known periods of history, and larger patterns suggest continuity with distant regions that cannot be accounted for only by contact between different population groups. 106 This applies to the zukru procession of Dagan outside the city and back and to the very phenomenon of the cultic calendar, which appears contemporaneously throughout Syria and Mesopotamia. 107 Real regional differences in cultural character surely existed in every period, just as they did in the late second millennium. 108 The western features of early Semitic dialects in Syria may not follow absolute lines of “culture,” but these dialects could develop only in areas that evolved distinct internal circles of communication. At the same time, the peoples who inhabited ancient Mesopotamia and Syria, along with adjacent regions, evidently shared many familial, social, and religious structures, so that similarities are found over great distances—not by borrowing or diffusion but by retention of widespread archaic traits under similar conditions. This process seems to explain the unexpected resemblance between Emar and Assur. 109 Emar ritual is therefore kinship; see G. Beckman, “Family Values on the Middle Euphrates,” in Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (ed. M. W. Chavalas; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1996) 58–59. 105. RE 66:3, 8 now describes assignment of maryannu status to the servant of a certain Madi-Dagan, but this seems to reflect outside conceptions. The text is of the SyroHittite type. 106. Arnaud (“Les traces des ‘arabes,’ ” 19–22) emphasizes an Arabian connection for many old features of Emar culture. Some close contact with peoples from the southern desert is certainly plausible, but any shared traits may as easily derive from central Syria. Unique features should not be too quickly attributed to desert nomadism. 107. The Hittite calendar found in texts from Hattusa counts months by number, not religious occasion; see Giuseppe F. Del Monte, “Il mese hittita,” in Studi di storia e di filologia anatolica dedicati à Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli (ed. F. Imparati; Florence: Elite, 1987) 56. 108. Piotr Steinkeller (“Early Political Development in Mesopotamia and the Origins of the Sargonic Empire,” in Akkad: The First World Empire [ed. M. Liverani; Padua: Sargon, 1993] 107–29) identifies a cultural division between “southern Babylonia” and northern Syria–Mesopotamia that reaches back to the start of the third millennium, at least. He views “northern Babylonia” as the region where these two cultures met and mingled. 109. Durand (“Unité et diversités,” especially 109–20) pursues the notion of underlying cultural unity across Syria and Mesopotamia in the early second millennium, with

6 points long

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of particular interest not simply because it is deeply Syrian, which it is indeed, but because it carries valuable information about early life in the ancient Near East that may not be available from older cities. This in turn reflects the capacity of smaller towns to preserve elements of culture that changed first in larger cities. It is remarkable how many different developmental stages of cultural life may coexist at a single moment in one place. The calendar texts from the diviner’s archive are significant above all because they are new. Many individual rites were not known previously, and the zukru was little more than an obscure name. In every instance, the texts display Emar’s own distinct practices. The ritual calendar itself is evidently distinct to Emar as well, as was the ritual calendar of Ugarit. The sweeping use of cuneiform and extensive cultural contacts during the late second millennium did not produce a uniformity that obliterated the uniqueness of individual locations. Ancient calendars display the interwoven administrative and religious systems that served the public domain in every city and town. The preservation of local calendars reflects the survival of local customs, but, unfortunately, the ritual aspect is rarely illuminated by accounts of actual practice. Emar’s archive of the diviner provides an invaluable exception. diversity accounted for, not by “central” Babylonia and Assyria and “peripheral” outlands, but by various movements of people and ideas throughout the ancient world. As long as deep-rooted regional proclivities are recognized, this model offers a powerful explanation for far-flung cultural similarities and close-up differences.

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Appendix

Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

Daniel Arnaud published all of the ritual texts with the rest of the diviner’s archive in Recherches au pays d’Astata: Emar VI/1–3. His editions represent an impressive accomplishment and demonstrate a successful balance between the twin imperatives of celerity and accuracy. In particular, the copies are consistently reliable, and a few mistakes in the original transliterations can be corrected based on these alone. Closer study of a smaller group of texts, however, has yielded significant progress in many problematic sections, and collation has allowed a higher degree of certainty for all readings. I intend these transliterations and translations both as an improved edition of the major calendar texts and as a convenience for the reader. They are located in an appendix rather than at the front of the book because of my intention to make a fairly technical work somewhat more accessible to a broader audience. The transliterations are based on full collation of every relevant tablet. I was able to work at length with the two zukru texts (373 and 375), the text for six months (446), and the text for the month of Abî (452) in 1991, and in the early stages of the project made use of these collations. In 1995, I visited Aleppo a second time to pursue questions that had arisen during my research, to add the second text for an individual month (463), to explore further the shorter zukru tablets, and to look for joins. Some of the critical readings have thus been collated twice. The transliterations of my new edition follow my collated readings in every detail, so that even the placement of brackets at the broken edges of lines reflects my direct study of the tablet rather than Arnaud’s copies. Where I could see more than the original copies show, I have in most cases provided my own copy of the actual collation, but the definition of the text is intended to be precise throughout, regardless of whether such copy is provided. In the translations, partially 233

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preserved words are left outside of brackets. Readers should consult the transliterations for the precise condition of the tablet. Likewise, the lineation of the translation does not match the Akkadian line divisions precisely when English syntax suggests a smoother alternative. Most of the improvements to the text do not change Arnaud’s readings substantively, and I have not redrawn sign forms that, despite minor disagreements about the precise form, we read the same way. I have added a few notes for the installation festival for the nin.dingir priestess (369), because my previous book omitted actual drawings. My copies for the joins to each zukru text were originally circulated at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society.

A. The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+ The festival tablet was broken into dozens of small fragments that were pieced together by the publication team into the main text Msk 74292a. Before the publication itself, Arnaud recognized the further connection of Msk 74290d+ 74304a, a conclusion that was confirmed by my collation, though I have assigned the fragment a different position in the long god list. I have now joined one more fragment, Msk 74297c, at the top of the front side. Changes to the lineation of the primary edition are an inconvenience, I acknowledge, but adjustments due to

Column I (5–7 lines missing at top) 1 [ 2 [ 3 [ 4 (1) [ 5 6 7 8 9

(2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

10 (7) 11 (8) 12 (9)

[ [ [ [ [

ninda

pa]-pa-sú 2 bán ] x sa lugal a-na dkur a-na pa]-ni dkur ú-m]as !-sa-ru-su-nu-ti

] 2(?) lum(?) [(3–4 signs) i-na iti]sag.mu u4.25.kám k]ù(?).ga(?) [(4–6 signs)] x (x) x.kám sa x-nu ] sila4 kù.g[a sa lugal(?)]ªsiskur(?)º kurE-ma[r ] ]-qu-su x [x is-t]u ßà-su la-a x [ ] ud]u(?) i-na-aÍ-Í[a-ru(?) ]

[i-na itiNi-qa-li ] i-na u4.24.ká[m] 1(?) bán ninda.ße 2 dugpi˘ù (erasure?) [(6–8 signs)] sa lugal a-na gáb-bi dingirmes ú-za-a-zu [1 udu a-na dkur en bu-k]a-ri i-pa-a-du 1 udu a-na dim 1 udu a-na d utu

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

235

Because Arnaud’s editions will likely remain the starting point for studying all of the excavated texts from Emar, I have tried to retain his enumeration wherever possible. In the case of the text for six months, I number the traces from the end of column II with asterisks (*), in order to preserve some continuity with the original publication. My changes to the two zukru texts are more far-reaching, especially because of the new joins, and I have had to offer an independent numbering system in both cases. The text for the festival marks Arnaud’s lineation in parentheses, and the reverse side of the annual text is now treated as a continuation of one text. The two tablets for individual months did not require any changes in lineation.

the join and the repositioned fragment disrupt Arnaud’s numerical system beyond accommodation. The text presented here therefore introduces new numbering based on visible lines, with the original numbers in parentheses. References in the body of the book follow my revised lineation. Line 71 is numbered though no content is provided, based on the secure count of lines above and below, with the join of 74297c.

Translation: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+ 1 2 3 4

[ . . . ] (barley-) mash bread, two gallons [ . . . ] of the king to Dagan [ . . . ] before Dagan [ . . . ] they release them.

5 6 7 8 9

[ . . . ] two(?) . . . [ During the month] of sag.mu on the 25th day, [...]... [...]... [ . . . ] (a) pure lamb [from the king(?)] is the offering(?) of Emar [ . . . ] [ . . . ] they [ . . . ] from its midst must not [ . . . ] [ . . . ] they restrain(?) a sheep(?) [ . . . ]

10 11 12

[During the month of Niqali] on the 24th day, they distribute to all of the gods from the king one(?) gallon of barley bread, two storage jugs, [and (some vessel)] provided by the king. They set aside [one sheep for Dagan Lord of the] Offspring; (likewise) one sheep for the storm-god, one sheep for the sun-god,

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13 (10) [1 udu a-na dkur 1 ud]u a-na dÉ-a 1 udu a-na d30 1 udu a-na dnin.urta 14 (11) [1 udu a-na dnè.iri11.gal] en ki.lam 1 udu ªaº-[na] den simes 1 udu a-na dnin.kur 15 (12) [1 udu a-na dnin.é.gal-lì] 1 udu a-na dIs8-tár lú ta-ha-zi uduhi.a an-ni-ta5(tam) 16 (13) [sa lugal(?) (2–4 signs?)i]-pa-a-du 17 (14) [i-na itiNi-qa-li i-na u4].25.kám dingirmes gáb-bu ù d.mesSa-as-sa-ªbeº-ena-tu4 18 (15) [uß-ßu(?)]-ª ú(?)º x [(3–4 signs)] dkur en sig4 uß-ßa igi-sú kut-tu-mu 2 amarmes 6 uduhi.a 19 (16) ª sa lugalº ù [2(?) uduhi.a(?) s]a uru.ki a-na pa-ni dkur il-la-ku 20 (17) 1 bán 1 qa nindapa-pa-s[u 1(?) qa] ninda.ße 1 dug˘a 1 dugkur4.kur4 geßtin sa lugal a-na dkur siskur-u 21 (18) 1 bán 1 qa ninda!pa-pa-s[u 1(?) qa ni]nda.ße 1 dug˘a 1 dughu-bar sa é dingir-lì 22 (19) 1! bán zìpa-pa-sà 4 bán [ninda.ße 4(?)] dugpi˘ù a-na unmes 1 amar sila4 kù!.g[a?!] a-na dkur siskur ßà-su-nu is-tu na4ha-ªarº-[ßi ] (x)] unmes kú ina (aß) é(?) ª d(?)º[ 23 (20) 2 udu sa lugal 1 udu sa uru.ki 1 bán 1 qa nindapa-pa-sà 1 qa ninda.ße 1 dug[˘]a(?) [1(?)] dugkur4.kur4 sa lugal 24 (21) (erasure) 1 qa nindapa-pa-sà 1 [d]ughu-bar sa é dingir-lì a-na dnin.urta sisku[r] 25 (23)

dSa-as-sa-be-tu

4

sa é dnin.urta i-na ká na4.messi-ka-na-ti u[ß-ß]a

26 (24) 1 amar 6 uduhi.a sa lugal 1 udu sa uru.ki 1 bán 1 qa nindapa-pa-sà 1 qa [ninda]ße 27 (25) 1 dug˘a 1 dugkur4.kur4 geßtin sa lugal 1 bán 1 qa nindapa-pa-sà 1 qa ninda[s]e dug˘a sa é dingir-lì a-na dSa-as-sa-be-ti siskur-u 28 (26) 1 29 (27)

dnin.é.gal-lì d30

u dutu sa é.gal-lì i-na ká na4.messi-ka-na-ti

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+ 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22

23

24 25 26

27 28 29

237

[one sheep for Dagan, one] sheep for Ea, one sheep for the moon-god, one sheep for dnin.urta, [one sheep for Nergal] Lord of Trade, one sheep for the Lord of the Horns, one sheep for dnin.kur, [one sheep for Belet-ekalli], one sheep for Astart of the Warrior—they set aside these sheep [provided by the king]. [During the month of Niqali on] the 25th [day], all of the gods and the Sassabênatu-spirits go out (in procession). [ . . . ] Dagan Lord of the Brickwork goes out, his face covered. Two calves and six sheep provided by the king, with [two(?) sheep] provided by the city, proceed in front of Dagan. They offer to Dagan one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, [one quart] of barley bread, one flagon and one bowl of wine provided by the king. (Additionally,) one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, [one quart] of barley bread, one flagon, and one jar are provided by the House of the Gods. One gallon of (barley-) mash bread, four gallons of [barley bread, and four] storage jugs are provided for the people. They sacrifice to Dagan one calf and pure lamb. The people consume their hearts at the harßu-stones. At the temple of [ . . . ] Two sheep provided by the king and one sheep provided by the city; one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley bread, one flagon and [one] bowl provided by the king; one quart of (barley-) mash bread and one jar provided by the House of the Gods—they offer to dnin.urta. Sassabetu of dnin.urta’s temple goes out (in procession) to the gate of the sikkanu stones. One calf and six sheep provided by the king, and one sheep provided by the city; one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley [bread], one flagon and one bowl of wine provided by the king; one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley bread, and one flagon provided by the House of the Gods—they offer to Sassabetu. They bring out Belet-ekalli, and the moon- and sun-gods of the palace in procession to the gate of the upright stones.

238

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

30 (28) ú-se-ßu-ú 1 amar 10 uduhi.a sa lugal a-na pa-ni-su-nu il-la-ku 31 (29) 3 bán 3 qa nindapa-pa-sà 3 qa nindaße 3 dughu-bar 3 dugkur4.kur4 geßtin a-na pa-ni-su-nu siskur 32 (30) 1 bán nindapa-pa-sí 4 bán nindaße 4 dugpi˘ù sa é.gal-lì a-na unmes 33 (31) ßu.nigin 4 amarmes 40 uduhi.a qa-du-si 34 (32) ki-i-me-e kú nag na4mes gáb-bá is-tu ì mes ù úßmes i-†ar-ru-u 35 (33) udu.u8 2 ta-pal ninda.gur4.rames pa-pa-sí 1 dughu-bar sa lugal a-na pa-ni 36 (34) ká.gal sa qa-ab-li ku-ba-da a-na gáb-bi dingirmes dù 1 udu.u8 sa-a-si 37 (35) a-na gáb-bi dingirmes i-qa-al-lu-ú nindames kaßmes uzu i-na uru e-el-ª luº 38 (36) i-na sa-ni-ti mu.kám ezenzu-[u]k-ra dù i-na [i]tisag.m[u] 39 (37) i-na u4.14.kám 70 udu.sila4mes kù.ga sa lugal [1(?) qa(?) zìpa-pasà(?)]ªaº-na ninda.gur4.rames ì! 40 (38) 3 dugpi˘ùmes a-na 70 dingirª mesº gáb-bi [sa kur]ª Eº-mar i-pa-a-du a-na 7 lúmes ª ziº-ir-a-ti sa é.gal-lì 7 uduhi.a is-tu ßà-su-ma sum 41 (39) 1 amar 1 sila4 a-na dkur en bu-[k]a-ri i-pa-a-[du] ù i-na u4-mi egir-ki 42 (40) sa ezenzu-uk-ri un[(mes?)]ª ùº dingirmes si-ni-[s]u uß-ßu-ú 43 (41) ma-la al-lu-ti-im-ma ª iº-pa-ªa-a-du 44 (42) i-na sa-ni-i u4-mi i-na u4.15.kám i-na u4-mi S[a(?)-a]g-ga-ri dù 45 (43)

dkur

en bu-ka-ri dnin.urta dSa-as-sa-be-[ta s]a é dnin.urta

46 (44) [dnin.é.ga]l-lì d30 ª uº dutu sa é.gal-lì dingirmes [gáb]-bi u d.mesSa-as-sa-be-ia-na-ti 47 (45) [(5–7 signs)] a-na ká na4.messi-ka-na-t[i] ª úº-se-ßu-ú 48 (46) [(#) amar(?) (#) sila4mes(?)] ª kù.gaº sa lugal 10 sila4mes sa [ur]u.ki a-na pa-ni dkur 49 (47) [il-la-ku(?) 1(?) bán 1(?) qa nindapa]-ª paº-sú 1 qa ninda.ße 1 dug˘a 1 [d]ugkur4.kur4 geßtin sa lugal 50 (48) [1(?) bán 1(?) qa nindapa-pa-sú 1(?) qa ninda.s]e 1 dug˘a sa é dingir-lì a-na dkur siskur-u

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+ 30 31

32

33 34 35

36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

239

One calf and ten sheep provided by the king proceed in front. They offer before (these gods) three gallons and three quarts of (barley-)mash bread, three quarts of barley bread, three jars and three bowls of wine. One gallon of (barley-) mash bread, four gallons of barley bread, and four storage jugs (of drink) provided by the palace are provided for the people. Total: 4 calves and 40 sheep for the consecration. After eating and drinking, they rub all of the stones with oil and blood. In front of the great gate of battle they perform a sacrificial homage for all of the gods with a ewe, two pair of thick loaves made of (barley-)mash bread, and one jar provided by the king. That one ewe is to be burned for all of the gods. The breads, the beverages, and the meat go back up into the town. During the next year, they perform the zukru festival. During the month of sag.mu on the 14th day, they set aside for all seventy gods [of the land of ] Emar seventy pure lambs provided by the king, [one quart(?) of barley mash] for thick bread, oil, and three storage jugs. They give seven of those sheep to the seven sowers of the palace. They set aside one calf and one lamb for Dagan Lord of the Firstborn. Also the people and the gods go out in procession a second time on the later day of the zukru festival. They set aside the same (for) the others. They perform (the zukru festival) on the next day, the 15th (or) Saggarday. They bring out Dagan Lord of the Offspring, dnin.urta, Sassabetu of dnin.urta’s temple, Belet-ekalli, the moon- and sun-gods of the palace, all of the gods and the Sassabeyanatu spirits [ . . . ] in procession to the gate of the upright stones. [(A number) of calves and] pure [lambs] provided by the king and ten lambs provided by the city [proceed] in front of Dagan. [One gallon and one quart] of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley bread, one flagon and one bowl of wine provided by the king; [one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of ] barley bread, and one flagon provided by the House of the Gods—they offer to Dagan.

240

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

51 (49) [1 bán ninda/zìpa-pa-sà(?) 4 bán ninda.ße(?)] ª 4(?) dugºpi˘ù sa é dingir-lì a-na unmes 52 (50) [(#) amar(?) (#) sila4mes(?) sa lug]al 2 sila4 sa uru.ki 1 bán 1 qa [ninda/zì]pa-pa-sí 1 qa ninda.ße 53 (51) [1 dug˘a 1 dugk]ur4.kur4 sa lugal 1 qa nindapa-pa-sí [1 dughu-b]ar sa é dingir-lì 54 (52) [(#) amar(?) (#) sila4m]es sa lugal 2 sila4mes sa uru.[ki 1 bán 1 qa] ª zìºpa-pa-sí 55 (53) [1 qa ninda.ße 1 dug˘]a 1 dugkur4.kur4 geßtin sa lugal 1 bán 1 q[a ninda/zìpa-pa-sí] ª 1º qa ninda.ße 56 (54) [1 dug˘a s]a é dingir-lì a-na dSa-as-sa-be-ti sisk[ur(-u)] 57 (55) [(#) amar(?) (#)] sila4mes sa lugal 3 bán 3 qa zìpa-pa-[sí 3 qa] ninda.ße 3 dughu-bar 58 (56) [3 dugkur4.kur4 geßt]in sa lugal a-na dnin.é.gal-lì d30 [u dutu] sa é.gal-lì siskur (on left edge) ] 59 (212) 12 amarmes a-na dingirm[es (return to column I) 60 (57) [ki-i]-me-e kú nag na4.messi-ka-na-ti ìmes úsmes 61 (58) [i/ú-pá-s]a-su i-na pa-ni nu-ba-at-ti dingirmes i-na uru ú-se-lu-ú 62 (59) [a/i-na pa-n]i ká.gal sa [qa-a]b-li ku-ba-da tur dù 1 udu.u8 1 dughu-bar Lower edge (left column) 63 (60) [2(?) t]a-pal nindapa-pa-sí [s]a lugal a-na dingirmes gáb-bi i-qa-al-lu-ú 64 (61) [nindames kaß mes] ª uzuº [i-na uru] ª élº-li-ú Column II (4–6 lines missing at top) 65 xxx[ 66 amarmes udu[hi.a

] ]

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

241

51

[One gallon of (barley-) mash bread, four gallons of barley bread,] and four store jugs provided by the House of the Gods are provided for the people.

52

[(A number of calves and lambs) provided by] the king, and two lambs provided by the city; one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley bread, [one flagon, one] bowl provided by the king; one quart of (barley-) mash bread and [one] jar provided by the House of the Gods—.

53

54

55

56 57

58

[(A number of calves and lambs)] provided by the king, and two lambs provided by the city; [one gallon and one quart] of (barley-) mash bread, [one quart of barley bread, one] flagon and one bowl of wine provided by the king; one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread], one quart of barley bread, and [one flagon] provided by the House of the Gods—they offer to Sassabetu. [(A number of calves and)] lambs provided by the king; three gallons and three quarts of (barley-) mash bread, [three quarts] of barley bread, three jars, and [three bowls] of wine provided by the king—they offer to Belet-ekalli and the moon- and [sun]-gods of the palace.

59

Twelve calves for the gods [ . . . ]

60

After eating and drinking, they anoint the upright stones with oil and blood. Just before evening, they bring the gods back up into the city. [In front] of the great gate of battle they perform the lesser sacrificial homage. They burn for all of the gods

61 62

63 64

one ewe, one jar, and [two] pair of (barley-) mash loaves provided by the king. [The breads, the beverages], and the meat go back up [into the city].

65 66

... [...] calves (and) sheep [ . . . ]

242

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

67

ma-la sa [al-lu-ti-im-ma(?) i-pa-a-du(?)

68 69 70 71 72 (62)

ki-i-me-e [kú nag ù ª 7(?)º u4-[mi i-[ [ [

]

] ] ] ] ] x ni dù

] 73 (63) [ ] sa 8 ku-ba-dìmes [ dug me s 74 (64) [(6–9 signs) h]u-bar nu.ú[r.ma ] (?) mußenhi.a sa lugal [

]

75 (65) u4.7.kám sa ezenzu-uk-ri dingirmes u[ru]ª Eº-mar gáb-bá i-pa-al-[la-hu(?)] 76 (66) 1 amar 10 sila4mes kù.ga 1 bán 1 qa n[inda]pa-pa-sí 1 qa nindaße 1(?) [dug˘a(?)] 77 (67) 1 dugkur4.kur4 sa é.gal-lì a-na ª dºkur en bu-ka-ri [siskur(-u)] 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

(68) (69) (70) (71) (72) (73) (74) (75) (76) (77) (78) (79) (80) (81) (82) (83) (84) (85)

a-na dim ki-i dku[r en bu-ka-ri] a-na dkur ki.min a-na dÉ-a ki.min a-na d30 u dutu .min a-na dnin.urta k[i.min] a-na dA-lál [ù dA-ma-za(?) ki.min] a-na dnè.iri11.gal [en ki.lam ki.min] a-na dnè.iri11.ga[l en simes ki.min] a-na dnin.kur [dSa-ag-ga-ar ù dHal-ma ki.min] a-na dnin.é.gal-l[ì ki.min] a-na dinanna sa s[u(?)-bi(?) ki.min] a-na d30 sa é.ga[l-lì ki.min] a-na dutu sa é.g[al-lì ki.min] a-na dkur sa é.g[al-lì ki.min] ] a-na dinanna sa [ ] a-na dinanna s[a ] a-na dinanna s[a a-na dx x [ ]

96 (86) 5 sila4mes sa lugal 1?! qa nindapa-pa-sí 1 qa ninda.ß[e 1 dug˘a sa é.gal-lì(?)] 97 (87) a-na dkur en ha-ar-ri ki.min 98 (88) a-na 2 dkur en qu-ú-ni 2 ta-ª palº [ki.min] 99 (89) a-na An-na sa kib-ri [ki.min] ] 100 (90) a-na dkur en kar-se ki-i sa dkur-ma en x [

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

243

67

[They set aside] the same [(for) the others . . . ]

68 69 70 71 72

After [eating and drinking . . . ] and (for?) seven(?) days [ . . . ] ... [...] [...] [ . . . ] they perform.

73 74

[ . . . ] of the eight sacrificial homages [ . . . ] [ . . . ] jar(s), pomegranates, birds from the king [ . . . ]

75

For the seven days of the zukru festival they give reverence to all of the gods of Emar.

76

77

They offer to Dagan Lord of the Firstborn: one calf and ten pure lambs, one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley bread, one flagon, and one bowl from the palace.

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

To the storm-god, just as (to) Dagan [Lord of the Offspring]; To Dagan—ditto; To Ea—ditto; To the moon-god and the sun-god—ditto; To dnin.urta—ditto; To Alal [and Amaza—ditto]; To Nergal [Lord of Trade—ditto]; To Nergal [Lord of the Horns—ditto]; To dnin.kur, [Saggar, and Halma—ditto]; To Belet-ekalli—ditto; To Astart of the subi(?) [—ditto]; To the moon-god of the Palace [—ditto]; To the sun-god the Palace [—ditto]; To Dagan of the Palace [—ditto]; To Astart of [ . . . ]; To Astart of [ . . . ]; To Astart of [ . . . ]; To . . . ;

96

Five lambs from the king, one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley bread, and [one flagon—provided by the palace]; To Dagan Lord of . . . —ditto; To the two (statues of?) Dagan Lord of Creation(?), two pair—ditto; To Anna of the River-Bank . . . [—ditto]; To Dagan Lord of the Camp, just as for Dagan Lord of . . . [—ditto];

97 98 99 100

244 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes (91) (92) (93) (94) (95) (96) (97) (98) (99) (100) (101) (102)

a-na dkur en da-ad-mi ki.min a-na dinanna sa a-bi u dYa-a-mi 2 ta-pal k[i.min] a-na dx-ma [a]-na d[in]anna sa dù(?)-ri-si ki.min dIs-ha-ra gaßan uru.ki ki.min a-na dIs-ha-ra sa lugal ki.min a-na dIs-ha-ra sa f.mesmux-nab-bi-ia-t[i ki.min] a-na dx-na-na sa é.gal-lì ki.min a-na dx-na-na sa uru.ki ki.min a-na dUd-ha ki.[min] a-na dAs-ª tarº k[i.min] ù a-na gáb-bi dingirmes an-nu-ti dughar-de-e lu[gal . . . ]

113 (103) 2 sila4mes lugal! 1 qa nindapa-pa-sí 1 qa ninda.ße 1 dugh[u(?)-bar(?) sa é.gal-lì(?)] d 114 (104) a-na en Ga-ab-a ki.min 115 (105) a-na dkur en am-qí(?) ki.min 116 (106) a-na dkur en Su-mi ki.min 117 (107) a-na dkur en Bu-uz-qa ki.min 118 (108) a-na dkur en Ya-bu-ª urº ki.min 119 (109) a-na dinanna [s]a(?) x x x ki.min 120 (110) a-na dx [x x x (x)] é t[u-u]k-li ª kiº.[min] 121 (111) a-na [ ki.min] 122 (112) a-na [ ki.min] ki.min] 123 (113) a-na 2 d[ ki.min] 124 (114) a-na dMu-[ 125 (115) a-na dSa-a[g-ga-ar(?)] ki.[min] 126 (116) a-na den Ak-[ka(?)] ki.min 127 (117) a-na den I-[mar(?)] ki.min ] ki.min 128 (118) a-na dim en [ 129 (119) a-na dGa-as-r[u] ki.min 130 (120) a-na den ßa-a-[lu-li pa-sú-ri] ki.min 131 (121) a-na den Bu-[uz-qa(?) k]i.min 132 (122) a-na den Ya-[bu-ur(?) k]i.min 133 (123) a-na den na!-[aß-ßa-ri(?) ki].min Column III (reverse) 134 (124) [a-na 7 dIm-li-k]u sa 7! ká.galmes ki.min 135 (125) a-na [dx (x) s]a(?) x [x x (x)] bi ki.min 136 (126) a-na dSi(?)-bit-ti ki.min 137 (127) a-na dx-la-a-ba ki.min 138 (128) a-na den sag-ma ki.min

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

245

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

To Dagan Lord of Habitations—ditto; To Astart of the Abi and Yamu, two pair—ditto; To . . . ; To Astart of . . . —ditto; Ishara Lady of the City—ditto; To Ishara of the King—ditto; To Ishara of the Prophetesses [—ditto]; To . . . nana of the Palace—ditto; To . . . nana of the City—ditto; To Udha—ditto; To Astar—ditto; also to all of these gods . . . -vessels the king [ . . . ].

113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

Two lambs the king; one quart of (barley-) mash bread, one quart of barley bread, one jar—[provided by the palace]: To the Lord of the Hill-Country—ditto; To Dagan Lord of the Valley—ditto; To Dagan Lord of Sumi—ditto; To Dagan Lord of Buzqa—ditto; To Dagan Lord of Yabur—ditto; To Astart of . . . —ditto; To . . . of the House of Assistance—ditto; To [ . . . —ditto]; To [ . . . —ditto]; To two [ . . . —ditto]; To Mu- . . . [—ditto]; To Saggar(?)—ditto; To the Lord of Akka(?)—ditto; To the Lord of Emar(?)—ditto; To the storm-god Lord of [ . . . ]—ditto; To Gasru—ditto; To the Lord of Shade [(and) Protection]—ditto; To the Lord of Buzqa(?)—ditto; To the Lord of Yabur(?)—ditto; To the Lord of the . . . —ditto;

134 135 136 137 138

[To the Seven Counselors] of the Seven Gates—ditto; To . . . —ditto; To (the) Seven(?)—ditto; To . . . laba—ditto; To the Lord of Sagma—ditto;

246

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

139 (129) a-na dim kurBa-SAL-ma-ªa ki.min 140 (130) a-na dNa-wa-ar-ni ki.min 141 (131) a-na 2 ta-pal dkaskal.kur.rames sa kiri6 é.gal-lì ki.min 142 (132) a-na dnin.urta sa ma-qa-li ki.min 143 (133) [a-n]a dim en I-ª marº ki.min 144 (134/151) a-na dnin.ª urta enº ku-ma-ri ki.min 145 (152) a-na dinanna gaßan A(?)-[(x-)]ª ni(?)º ki.min 146 (153) a-na dkaskal.kur.rames sa hu-ut-ta-ni ki.[min] 147 (154) a-na dnin.kur gaßan na-ah-li ki.[min] 148 (155) a-na dnin.kur gaßan ka-ak-ka-r[i ki.min] 149 (156) a-na dkur en ßa-lu-li pa-sú-ri k[i.min] 150 (157) a-na dkur en ma-aß-ßa-ri ki.m[in] 151 (158) a-na dkaskal.kur.rames sa hi-i†-†ì ki.min 152 (159) a-na den Ra-ab-ba ki.min 153 (160) a-na dnin.kur gaßan is-[p]a-a-at ki.min 154 (161) a-na dkur en is-pa-a-at ki.min 155 (162) a-na ª dºkur en ha-pa-su(?) ki.min 156 (163) a-na ª dºLi-ªi-ª miº Sar-ta ki.min 157 (164) a-na dnin.kur sa ká Li-ªi-mi Sar-ta [ki.min] 158 (165) a-na ª dºim sa é Gad-dá ki.[min] 159 (166) a-na dSi-ka-ni sa dHé-bat ki.[min] 160 (167) a-na ª den ra-qa-ti kiº.[min] 161 a-na [ ki.min] 162 ªaº-[na ki.min] (39–41 lines missing at bottom) The last visible line (162) is aligned with the section divider after line 185 in column IV. The missing material must match the 20 lines to the end of column IV, plus roughly 14 to correspond with lines visible on the obverse, plus the 5 to 7 lost from the top of the obverse. This count could turn out slightly high if the text is more tightly squeezed together in the last column. Column IV 163 (168) [x x (x) gis]mar.gíd.da [sa dkur i-na(?)] be-ra-at na4.mess[i-ka-na-ti e(-et)-ti-iq] 164 (169) [pa-nu-s]u! pè-tu-u [a-na li-it(?)] dnin.urta il-l[a(?)-ak(?) dnin.urta(?)] 165 (170) [it-ti(?)]-su us-ra-[ka-bu gistukul(?)] dingirmes egir-ki-su i[l-la-ak (2–5 signs?)] ªa(?)-na(?)º 166 (171) [ká.gal(?) sa(?) qa-a]b(?)-li i-kas-sa-[du-ma k]u-ª ba-daº tur dù [1(?) udu.u8(?) 2 ta-pa]l ninda.gur4.ra

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

247

139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

To the storm-god of Mount Basalmaªa(?)—ditto; To Nawarni—ditto; To the two pair of Balih-River deities of the Palace Garden—ditto; To dnin.urta of the Burnt Offering(s)—ditto; To the storm-god of Emar—ditto; To dnin.urta Lord of . . . —ditto; To Astart Lady of Ani(?)—ditto; To the Balih-River deities of . . . —ditto; To dnin.kur Lady of the Wadi—ditto; To dnin.kur Lady of the Circle—[ditto]; To Dagan Lord of Shade and Protection—ditto; To Dagan Lord of the Fortress—ditto; To the Balih-River deities of Wheat—ditto; To the Lord of Rabbâ—ditto; To dnin.kur Lady of the Quiver—ditto; To Dagan Lord of the Quiver—ditto; To Dagan Lord of . . . —ditto; To the Sarta clan deity—ditto; To dnin.kur of the Gate of the Sarta clan—[ditto]; To the storm-god of the House of Fortune—ditto; To the upright stone of Hebat—ditto; To the Lord of . . . —ditto; To [ . . . —ditto]; To [ . . . —ditto];

163

[ . . . ] the wagon [of Dagan passes] between [the upright] stones,

164

his [face] uncovered. He proceeds [to] dnin.urta.

165

They have [dnin.urta] mount (the wagon) [with] him. The divine [weapon] follows him. When they reach [the great gate of ] battle, they perform the lesser sacrificial homage.

166

248

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

167 (172) [1(?) dughu-ba]r(?) sa lugal a-na gáb-bi dingirm[es i]-ª qaº-[lu-ú(?) ìmes(?) úsmes na]4mes i-pá-as-sa-sú 168 (173) [(2–4 signs) gisß]inig a-na muh-hi dingirme[s (no more than 6–9 signs)]

(Space of approximately 8 lines left uninscribed.)

169 (174) [e-nu-m]a dumumes kurE-mar i-na mu.7.kámmes ezenzu-uk-ra 170 (175) [a/i-na] ª dºkur en bu-ka-ri i-na-an-di-nu i-na mu.6.kám i-na itisag.mu 171 (176) ª iº-[na u4.1]5.kám i-na u4-mi Sa-ag-ga-ri dkur en bu-ka-ri ú-se-ßu 172 (177) pa-nu-s[u pè-t]u-ú ku-ba-da tur (erasure) i-na ká na4.messi-ka-na-ti 173 (178) a-na pa-n[i-su] dù ki-i-me-e siskur kú nag pa-ni-su ú-kat-ta-mu 174 (179) i-na be-ra-a[t na]4.messi-ik-ka-na-ti gismar.gíd.da sa dkur e-et-ti-iq 175 (180) a-na li-it d[nin.urta(?) i]l-lak dnin.urta it-ti-su us-ra-ka-bu-ma 176 (181) pa-nu-su-nu ku-ut-t[u-mu i-na] u4-mi sa-a-sú gudmes uduhi.a gáb-bi ul-lu-lu 177 (182) i-na u4-mi sa-a-su di[ngirmes gáb-bá(?)] ú-se-ßu-ú i-na pa-ni nu-ba-at-ti 178 (183) dSa-ag-ga-ar [(4–6 signs) i-n]a é dnin.urta i-na é tùk-li 179 (184) ú-se-ßu-ú ù [ninda uzu sa pa-ni dingirmes a-na] ª ßà uruºE-mar gáb-bi el-lu 180 (185) i-na itiNi-qa-l[i i-na u4.25.kám dkur] ª en buº-ka-ri ù dingirmes gáb-bá 181 (186) a-na ká na4.messi-ka-ª na-tiº ú-se-ßu-ª úº [pa-nu-s]u a-na a-ßi-su 182 (187) ù na-ha-si-su ku-ut-tu-mu is-tu u4-mi sa-a-su amarmes sila4mes kù.ga 183 (188) gír zabar ú-mas-ª saº-ru gismar.gíd.da i-na be-ra-at na4.messi-ka-na-ti 184 (189) e-et-ti-iq a-na li-it dnin.urta il-lak ù nindames uzu sa pa-[n]i dingirmes 185 (190) a-na ßà uru.ki e-[e]l-li 186 (191) i-na sa-ni-ti [m]u.kám i-na itisag.mu i-na u4.14.kám sila4mes pa-a-da-t[i]

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+ 167 168

169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186

249

They burn for all of the gods [one ewe, two] pair of thick loaves, and [one] jar from the king. They anoint the stones [with oil and blood]. [ . . . ] tamarisk to the gods [ . . . ].

When the sons of the land of Emar give the zukru festival [to] Dagan Lord of the Offspring during the seventh year: During the sixth year, in the month of sag.mu, on the 15th [day], the Saggar-day, they bring out Dagan Lord of the Offspring in procession, his face uncovered. They perform the lesser sacrificial homage before [him] at the gate of the upright stones. After they sacrifice, eat, and drink, they cover his face. The wagon of Dagan passes between the upright stones. He proceeds to [dnin.urta]. They have dnin.urta mount (the wagon) with him; their faces are covered. [On] the same day, they purify all of the oxen and sheep. On the same day, (once) they bring out [all of the] gods, just before the evening they bring out Saggar [ . . . ] from dnin.urta’s temple, from the House of Assistance. Also, the [breads and the meat that were before (all of) the gods] go up into Emar. During the month of Niqali, [on the 25th day,] they bring out [Dagan] Lord of the Offspring and all of the gods in procession to the gate of the upright stones. His [face] is covered for both his departure and his return. From that day they release the pure calves (and) lambs (from?) the bronze knife. The wagon (of Dagan) passes between the upright stones. He proceeds to dnin.urta; also the breads and the meat that were before the gods go up into the city. During the next year, in the month of sag.mu, on the 14th day, the lambs that had been set aside

250

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

187 (192) a-na dingirmes ú-z[a]-ªaº-zu sa-ni-i u4-mi u4.15.kám Sa-ag-ga-ru dkur en bu-ka-ri 188 (193) ù dingirmes gáb-[bá(?)] ª dºSa-as-sa-be-ia-na-tu4 a-na ká na4.messi-kana-ti ú-se-ßu-ú 189 (194) pa-ni dkur i-na ªa-ßiº-su ku-ut-tu-mu siskurmes ki-i sa i-na †up-pí sa-a†-ru 190 (195) a-na dingirmes sum-nu dkur a-bu-ma ù dSag-gàr i-na u4-mi sa-a-su-ma ú-se-ßu-ª úº 191 (196) ù nindames Sag-ga-ru sa gáb-bi uru.kiE-mar el-lu i-na pa-ni nu-ba-ti 192 (197) dkur i-na be-ra-at na4.messi-ka-na-ti e-ti-iq pa-ni-su ú-kat-ta-m[u] 193 (198) i-na ká.gal sa qa-ab-li pár-ßi ki-i sa u4-mi qa-du-si-ma dù-sú 194 (199) nindames uzu sa pa-ni dingirmes i-na uru.ki e-el-li 195 (200) i-na u4.6.kám sila4mes pa-a-da-ti ki-i sa i-na ma-hi-ri-im-ma-a 196 (201) a-na dingirmes ú-za-ªaº-zu 197 (202) i-na u4.7.kám dkur ù dingirmes gáb-bu d.mesSa-sa-be-ia-na-ta uß-ßu-ú 198 (203) pa-ni-su ku-ut-tu-mu pár-ßa ki-i sa u4-mi ma-hi-ri-im-ma a-na dingirmes 199 (204) i-na-ad-di-nu uzu nindames gáb-bi (erasure) mi-im-ma sa ik-ka-lu sa u4.[7.kám(?)] 200 (205) ù sa [be-ra-at] na4.messi-ka-na-ti i-na-as-su-mi i-na tu-ur-ti [i-sak-kanu(?)] 201 (206) mi-im-[ma a-na] ßà uru ú-ul e-el-li ki-i-me-e izi i-na [pa-ni(?) nu-ba-(at-)ti(?)] 202 (207) ú-x-[x (x) pa]-ni dkur i-pè-tu-ú gismar.gíd.da sa dku[r i-na be-ra-at] 203 (208) ª na4.º[messi-ka-na]-ti e-ti-iq a-na muh-hi dnin.urta il-l[ak(?) dnin.urta(?) it-ti-su(?)] 204 (209) [us-ra-ka-bu(?) p]ár-ßa ki-i sa i-na u4-mi ma-hi-ri-ma dù-sú 205 (210) [e-nu-ma dumumes kurE-mar]ª ezenzu-ukº-ra ú-qa-[(ad-)da-su

]

(14–16 lines missing at bottom) Only one of two lines on the left edge is written to be read from the obverse. The single line 206 therefore represents a separate summary count for the festival, intended to follow the missing administrative section. 206 (211) ßu.nigín 7 me sila4mes 50 amarmes

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+ 187

251

194

they distribute to the gods. the next day, the 15th day (of) Saggar, they bring out Dagan Lord of the Offspring, along with all of the gods and the Sassabeyanatu-spirits in procession to the gate of the upright stones. Dagan’s face is covered for his departure. They give to the gods the offerings as prescribed on the tablet. They bring out in procession Dagan the very father and Saggar on the very same day. Also the Saggar breads for all Emar go up. Just before evening, Dagan passes between the upright stones. They cover his face. In the great gate of battle they perform the rites just as for the consecration day. The breads and the meat that were before the gods go up into the city.

195 196

On the sixth day the lambs that had been set aside they distribute to the gods, just as (mentioned) previously.

197

200

On the seventh day Dagan, along with all of the gods and the Sassabeyanatu-spirits, goes out in procession, his face covered. They give the ritual requirements to the gods, just as for the day (mentioned) previously. All of the meat and breads, everything that they consume, from the [seven] days and from [between] the upright stones they take up and [place] in return.

201

Nothing goes up [into] the town. After the fire, just [before evening] . . .

202

204

They uncover Dagan’s face. The wagon of Dagan passes [between] the upright stones. He proceeds to dnin.urta. [They have dnin.urta mount (the wagon) with him.] They perform the rites just as for the day (mentioned) previously.

205

[When the citizens of Emar] consecrate the zukru festival [ . . . ]

206

Total: 700 lambs (and) 50 calves.

188 189 190 191 192 193

198 199

203

252

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

Notes to Emar 373, identified by my lineation (the first number) 1. The bán equals something more than a gallon and the qa roughly a quart. Translation is not intended to capture the precise quantities but the general effect. Measures appear to derive from the grain required to produce the stated breads, so liquid measures are appropriate for the pots that served this type of accounting. The pappasu preparation appears as both bread and flour; compare AHw s.v. pappasu(m) ‘ein Gerstenbrei od Pudding’. The translation ‘barley-mash’ attempts to capture this sense. 2. The first sign most resembles the last part of ßa or da. Perhaps it could be geßtin. 6. The signs before kám are difficult. One might read 20.kám, but the sign before these is not u4. 9. This very tentative reading of the verb is based on the verb naßaru ‘to guard, keep’. 10. The ‘storage jug’ is a large vessel for beer, the pihu. 11. ‘Of the king’ (sa lugal) follows the kur4.kur4 vessel at the end of offering lists in lines 20, 23, 53; cf. 27, 49, 55, 58, and the hu-bar in line 35. In translation, the phrase ‘provided by’ expands the determinative pronoun sa ‘(the one) of ’ in order to clarify that this is the point of origin for the materials named before the pronoun. 12. This list roughly parallels the offering hierarchy in lines 77–88 as well as the god list 378:1–13, and the restorations are based on those texts. The verb paªadu literally means ‘to enclose’, and the translation ‘to set aside’ for the context of offering was suggested to me by Gary Beckman. The precise nuance in ritual contexts remains uncertain. 13. Both 373:79 and 378:3 give place to a second Dagan, and this list should match the form dkur found in line 79. dkur.gal of Emar 378 reflects added Mesopotamian color in that list, along with the goddess dnin.líl as consort of Dagan bel bukari. 14. This contrasts with my reading in my Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 244, to match the parallels better. 15. The sign before ta-ha-zi appears to be lú; cf. lúmes in 370:32, etc. 16. Restoration of sa lugal follows the provision source of line 11. 18. The first verb is restored by comparison with line 197. 20. Restoration follows line 23, as do lines 21 and 22. The exact nature of various vessels remains obscure. This translation renders dug˘a, hu-bar, and kur4.kur4 ‘flagon’, ‘jar’, and ‘bowl’. 22. The first number is rendered ‘one’ instead of ‘one-half ’, since no fractions are given elsewhere in the text. For four pi˘ù, compare lines 32 and 51. The lamb is more likely described by the logographic writing kù.ga than the syllabic e-l[u] proposed by Arnaud (compare lines 7, 39, 76, and 182; cf. 48). Restoration of the stones follows 375:24 and 26. Line 22 appears to be added as an afterthought, written vertically in the space between columns I and II. The last part of the line comes from the join with Msk 74297c. Apportionment for feasting by kú/akalu ‘to consume’ suggests that a temple location will follow. The translation ‘are provided for’ reflects the destination indicated by the preposition ana (‘to, for’), in contrast to the origin indicated by the pronoun sa (‘of ’). Huehnergard (The Akkadian of Ugarit, 187) observes that the preposition istu may replace ina in the Akkadian of Ugarit and of

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

23. 25. 35. 37. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 48. 50. 51.

52. 53.

54. 56. 58. 59.

253

Carchemish. The preposition is unusual in the Emar ritual texts, and the exact nuance remains elusive. Restoration is based on line 20. Arnaud’s text skips line 22 by accident. ‘Sacrificial homage’ is used to render the kubadu sacrifice and ceremony. Collation supports the expected combination of bread and beer, against the awkward ‘calves’, between ‘bread’ and ‘meat’ (Arnaud). For ì alone as oil in an offering list, compare 369:19. For ninda.gur4.ra defined by the pappasu ‘barley mash’ used to make it, see 463:9–10. See offering list 378:42, dingirmes sa 7 lúmes zi-ir-a-ti. The use of the verb paªadu should signal reference to the same day as the ‘sixth’ at the end of the festival in line 195, sila4mes pa-a-da-ti. The space after un is larger than shown in Arnaud’s copy, adequate for both [mes] and the front of the ù-sign (see collation notes). The ‘others’ appear to be the rest of the pantheon represented by the idealized figure ‘seventy’, after Dagan is specified first. The object of the verb epesu should be the zukru itself; compare lines 169–70. The sign after the second u4-mi should be ßa, though this would leave some extra space before the ag-sign. Sassabetu belongs to the temple of dnin.urta, as in line 25, and there is no procession to the city god’s temple in the festival (Arnaud, [a-n]a é dnin.urta). Restore by comparison with line 29. The combination of both calves and pure lambs fits the space at the beginning of the line (compare also line 22). Lines 49–50 are restored based on comparison with lines 20–22. Provision for the populace appears to remain the same; compare lines 22 and 32. Collation shows the bottom tips of two verticals in the number restored as 4 (pi˘ù). Restore from lines 23–24. Restore both the contents and the intended recipient (dnin.urta) from lines 23– 24. There appears to be room for the recipient at the beginning of a new line, in which case there would be no scribal error. Restore from line 26 and the common pattern. Restore lines 54–55 from lines 26–28. Restore lines 56–57 from lines 29–30. Line 59 is written on the left edge, to be read from the obverse (opposite line 205). The line begins at line 41, which records the only calf offered on the 14th of sag.mu. This summation appears to correspond to the one given in line 33 for the consecration (the 24th–25th of Niqali), both lines added after completion of the regular text. Line 33 was squeezed into the space at the end of that section, and line 59 had to be added on the edge because the last coverage of the 14th–15th of sag.mu had already lapped onto the lower edge (lines 62–63). The section divider after line 58 left too little space for the addition. Twelve calves for the 14th–15th of sag.mu increase the offering considerably from the 24th–25th of Niqali.

254

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

61. The verb pasasu (D) is used for this action in 375:14. For spelling with -pá-, see line 167. 65. The new material at the top of column II is from the join of Msk 74297c; see the drawing of this join. 67. Restoration is based on comparison with line 43. 68. Compare lines 34, 60. 69. Five vertical wedges are visible and would fit the number ‘seven’. 74. Restore based on offering associations found in Emar 452, especially lines 31–32. 78. This statement might be understood to identify the storm-god with Dagan directly, but there is no evidence for such an equation anywhere else in the Emar archives, nor is there any similar use of kî ‘as’ with this intent. The comparison refers instead to the offering. 82. The gap after the name and placement of the first wedge below min of line 81 makes me doubt that the Sassabeyanatu are included. 95. Arnaud reads inanna Sa[g-ma], but collation neither supports this nor suggests a likely alternative. 96. The text has 1/2 qa for pappasu-meal, where at least 1 qa is expected; perhaps 1/2 represents a scribal confusion of the number with the larger unit bán. The material in the break is restored based on comparison with lines 76–77 and 113. 97. Lluís Feliu (“Dagan sa ˘ar-ri at Terqa,” N.A.B.U. [1998] 47 [no. 44]) uses this Emar title, which he reads as ‘pit, ditch’ to argue against interpretation of the Terqa name as “Hurrian” (so, *˘ur-ri). Eugen J. Pentiuc (Studies in the Emar Lexicon [Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1997] draft) translates ‘lord of the mountain’, from the root hrr. 98. The specification of two gods is surprising, but the matching offering suggests that some concrete points of reference are intended. The translation ‘Lord of Creation(?)’ depends on derivation from a root qny ‘to form’, though a middle-weak root qwn is also possible. Pentiuc (“West Semitic Terms in Akkadian Texts from Emar,” JNES 38 [1999] 95) proposes the alternative ‘lamentation’ for the title qu-ú-ni. 100. Stefano Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar [Rome: Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza,” 1998] 154) also reads kar-se, with the comment that the value kara is rare in Akkadian and otherwise unknown at Emar. 103. One might read d[Ha]l(?)-ma, after Arnaud, though the sign is not certain, and the deity may have been represented already in the company of dnin.kur in line 86. On the association of dnin.kur, Saggar, and Halma, see my Installation, 253. 104. Pentiuc (Studies) compares Akkadian turasu (‘harvest’) but cites an alternative from John Huehnergard, from Hurrian turi (‘spear’). 107. See Fleming, JAOS 113 175–83, for ‘prophetess’ rather than ‘lamentation priestess’. 108. The first sign of this deity ends with two winckelhakens and cannot be ˘a. 112. This possible solution for the end of line 112 was suggested to me by Gary Beckman, based on Arnaud’s copy alone, and appears to be confirmed by the collation notes I had made previously. 113. This line should be read and restored by comparison with lines 76–77 and 96. The sign after dug appears to be ˘u rather than ˘a. At the beginning of the line, the scribe has mistakenly written geßtin for lugal as the source of the lambs. 115. Arnaud follows Hebrew ºemeq ‘valley(-plain)’.

Spread is 6 points long

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

255

117. A town called Bù-zu-gaki is cited as a dependent of Imar during the Ebla period; see Marco Bonechi, “Lexique et idéologie royale à l’époque proto-syrienne,” M.A.R.I. 8 (1997) 524. 119. The last sign before ki.min could be ru or el. 120. The bit tukli is identified with the temple of dnin.urta in line 178. For possible interpretation of the bit tukli as ‘the House of Assistance’, see the discussion of the city and the House of the Gods in chapter 2. Compare Dietrich’s alternative, ‘Haus des Vertrauens, gesichertes Haus’ (UF 21 81). 124. Arnaud reads Mu-si-ti. 125. Arnaud’s reading is plausible, though the deity may also be represented in line 86 in the company of dnin.kur. As observed by Arnaud, Msk 74290c’s nine lines with ki.min should fall at the end of column II, the only position in any Emar text where such a fragment would fit. 126. This is based on Emar 452:54, but the reading remains quite uncertain. Reference to southern coastal Akko is unlikely. 127. This is dim, not dkur, in 378:25; see Fleming, ZA 83 88–98, on the title ‘lord’ applied to both Dagan and the storm-god at Emar. ‘Imar’ is the older spelling for Emar. 130. Restore by comparison with line 149. 131. Restore by comparison with line 117. 132. Compare line 118. 133. The first sign is na-, not ma-, so comparison with line 150 does not provide any basis for restoration. Column III (reverse). Nothing is written on the lower edge, between columns II and III. 134. Restore with Arnaud from 378:41. Only six verticals are visible before ká.galmes, but the number of gates should equal the number of gods. Gary Beckman observes the tradition of seven underworld gates, as in the Descent of Istar. 135. Collation shows no basis for Arnaud’s dinanna é sila.tattab, from 383:3. 136. This deity is not attested elsewhere at Emar, and the first sign is not definitely si. 137. The first sign does not appear to be ˘al. 139. The sal-sign is clear and could also be read sal- or rag/k/q-. 141. Compare 378:20, 2 dBa-li-hé sa kiri6.numun sa lugal. 142. Arnaud reads qa as -ka4-, though the word is not certain. Compare maqlû ‘oven’; maqaltanu ‘burnt offering’; and the maqaltanu of Samªal, a West Semitic loanword for a priest of the god Baal-rakkab. 143. See line 127. 144. The fragment Msk 74290d+74304a joins with the main tablet so that Arnaud’s line 151 forms the first part of line 144, which is completed from above. The join moves Arnaud’s lines 151–67 to lines 144–60. For the title, see the god list 378:48, which Arnaud reads [dni]n.urta ka-ma-[ri] but which might be [dni]n.urta [e]n(?) ku(?)ma-[ri]. See also Emar 468:3, en ku-ma-r[i]. Joan Westenholz (“Emar: The City and Its God” [paper read at the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leuven, 1995]) proposes that the title ku-ma-ri is related to the city name I/Emar. The first sign (ku-) represents the substantial hurdle, and even if a consonantal interchange were possible, the added problem of the vowel -u- makes this equation difficult to accept without further proof. Pentiuc (“West Semitic Terms,” 92) links this title to

256

145. 146.

147. 149. 150. 151. 152.

156. 160. 161. 163. 164. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172.

174. 176. 177.

178.

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes his reading of ga-ma-ru/i in Emar 446:18 and 38, as ‘Lord of Priests’. This title seems unexpected for an individual cult. Compare 378:44, dinanna gaßan E-ni? Read the left from 74290d+ and the right from 74292a. Only ki and part of -ni now come from the large tablet 74292a. See 378:19, dBa-li-ha sa hu-ut-ta-ni. This river-god is already known at Ebla, spelled dBa-li-ha; see Pietro Mander, “Los dioses y el culto de Ebla,” in Mitología y Religión del Oriente Antiguo 2/1 (Sabadell: AUSA, 1995) 47. The whole line now derives from 74290d+. The first sign is from 74292a, and the rest from 74290d+. See line 130 for the same title. The preposition a-na comes from 74292a, as it does through the next eleven lines. The divine names come from 74290d+. For the reading ‘wheat’, see Ran Zadok, “Notes on the West Semitic Material from Emar,” AION 51 (1991) 116; Seminara, L’Accadico di Emar, 192–93. Rabbâ(n) appears to be the town of the royal family of Pilsu-Dagan; see Fleming UF 24 64 and n. 34. Pentiuc (Studies) reads den ra-ab-ba as ‘the great lord’, rather than as a place. Arnaud places a section divider after this line, but it is not present at the start of the line in 74292a and is possible for at most two signs of 74290d+. Compare 378:22, the same deity with the same spelling. The traces for lines 161 and 162 come from Msk 74292a, the large tablet. Restore by comparison with lines 174 and 202. Column IV begins at the top of the reverse without writing on the lower edge. Restore from lines 202–3. The be-sign may be -pè- rather than -pát-; see Emar VI/4 545:359, ninda.gur4.ra = pè-[e]t-ti. Restore based on lines 35–36 and 62–63. For the verb kasadu in procession, see 369:9. The verb pasasu requires the idiom with blood and oil. Space and final traces require na4mes (cf. line 34) but no preposition (see line 60). Compare ßinig in Emar VI/4 783:31u, 35u, 44u, 53u; 784:18, the Palm and the Tamarisk. Compare 375:1–2 for enuma as the introduction to zukru performance. The idiom uses ina in 375:2. Only “15” fits the association with Saggar, and collation shows that the traces cannot be read as “2.” The nominative should be followed by a stative verb; see line 176, though the reverse is not always true. For stative with oblique case ending, see line 198; cf. 189. For be = pè, see line 164. See line 163; this is the standard idiom, with no number for the stones. The udu-sign is clear, versus Arnaud’s e-sign. Compare lines 188 and 197; both the gods and the Sassabeyanatu-spirits may be expected, but signs representing the latter would take too much space. Restoration is based on line 180, which has only “all the gods” after Dagan. The beginning of the dingir-sign is just visible. [i-n]a is not certain, but the traces do not easily fit [s]a. For waßû S + ina as ‘from’, see 452:21.

Spread is 6 points loing

The zukru Festival: Emar 373, Msk 74292a+

257

179. Restore by comparison with lines 184–85. The word gáb-bi might be expected to refer back to the gods, which it regularly qualifies in this text. However, see line 191 for “all Emar.” 180. Restore to fit the material from lines 17–38. 181. Compare line 189. 182. Only the lambs may be referred to as “pure”; see line 39 and 76; cf. line 22. In line 22, there appears to be only one bullock and one lamb, so meß may simply mark the logograms. 183. The reading at the start of the line is new (see collation notes). The bronze knife is a common implement; see AHw s.v. patru(m). For the writing gír zabar, see for example, ARM II 129:17, as a murder weapon; and 139:14, in a list of objects. Apparently the animals are released from slaughter until the next year. The verb (w)ussuru less likely refers to freedom for slaughter. 187. Translation of Saggaru follows line 44, the equivalent ritual moment. Notice absence of the divine determinative and use of the case ending, in contrast to line 178. 188. We expect -bá for the direct object, but the next word uses an incorrect nominative case ending. 189. The end of the line appears to be a direct reference to part I, lines 44–59, even demonstrating the purpose of the first part. The spelling pa-ni dkur appears to treat ‘face’ as a singular bound form. 190. Read the beginning of the line as the end of a sentence from line 189. 191. This translation takes Sag-ga-ru as an adjectival form, based on the nominative case. 193. This statement should refer to the kubadu described in lines 34–37 (see line 33). 195. The final sign should be -a, but no idiom suggests a restoration for the end of the line. The text makes sense as it stands, perhaps with stress or vowel length marked. Alternatively, the scribe may have begun a-[na] for the idiom found in line 196, realized that a new line was needed, and moved the whole phrase to the next line. 197. Arnaud unnecessarily emends the text for lines 195 and 197 to read a 16th and 17th day. This reading both ignores the existing text and neglects the seven-day duration of the feast, already mentioned in line 75. The typical structure of Emar festivals, in contrast, does call for special attention to the 7th day of the seven-day core. 198. This is the fourth abbreviation, after lines 189, 193, and 195. The scribe appears to sense the coming bottom of the tablet. 199. This restoration is attractive for a summary statement. 200. This line is restored by comparison with 374:5–9. The translation of the idiom a/ina turti sakanu is not certain. The act may also be ‘for the return’. 201. Compare 375:31, where the turtu takes place in the evening, [i-n]a li-le-e-tì. Text 373 uses only the word nubattu for evening rites; see lines 61, 177, and 191. 203. Arnaud suggests that his face is then covered. In lines 164–65 and 175 the most immediate action is dnin.urta’s placement onto the wagon, though the space for this is somewhat tight. 204. The main text ends here, with the fifth abbreviation. 206. Read amar instead of gud (Arnaud).

258

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

B. The Annual zukru: Emar 375 (/448/449) Arnaud separates the front and back sides of Msk 74298b into two texts (Emar 375 and 448), but there is no basis for identifying a new event at the top of the reverse. Once a single text A is defined, the same logic requires that both sides of tablet C (Msk 74303f) be treated as one ritual text. This places Arnaud’s Emar 449 in the same zukru group with Emar 375, evidently the end of the reverse side. Text A has been extended by the join with Msk 74287b (previously Emar 428), and it is now possible to follow fragments C and D as copies of the same text. The tablet and script of Msk 74303c (previously 448B) match the tablet and script of 74303f, though no join is possible, since they abut separate left and right edges. Copy D overlaps the front and back of A without break and thus confirms that A is to be read as a single ritual text. Lineation follows text A.

1

A B C1

[pár-ßu(?) sa zu]-uk-ri i-nu-ma uruE-marki [ ]sa zu-uk-[ri ] [ ]uruE-mar

2

A B C1

[zu-uk-r]a i-na dDa-gan i-na-di-nu [ ]i-na-an-di-nu [ i-n]a-an-di-nu

3

A B C1

[i-na itiZa-ra-ti(?) i-na u]4.15 sila4 i-na dDa-gan ª iº-pa-a-du [ ] i-pa-a-du i-na itiZa-ra-tì [ ]

4

A

[i-na u4.15 d˘ar i-n]a u4-mi su-wa-ti-ma ª dº[Da-gan(?)] ú-ßi pa-nu-su pi-tu-ú

B

i-na u[4 pi-tu-[ú] i-na u4-mi 15 d˘ar-ar [ ]pi-tu-ú

C1 5

A B C1

ú-ß]i pa-nu-su

[dHa-ßí-nu sa dingir(?) eg]ir-su i-la-ak 2 udu[hi.a sa uru(?) i-na] ßà-su-nu [ u]ru(?) i-na ßà-su-nu [ i]l-lak 2 uduª hi.a udu(?)º[sa uru(?) ]

The Annual zukru: Emar 375

259

Comparison of the first lines shows that text C is not as wide as A, while text B is much closer to A. Text A: Msk 74298b + 74287b (previously Emar 375A/448A and 428) Text B: Msk 74146l (previously Emar 375B) Text C: Msk 74303f (+) 74303c (previously Emar 375C/449 and 448B) C1 = Msk 74303f C2 = Msk 74303c Text D: Msk 74289b (previously Emar 448C) The following translation is based on the combined evidence of all of the copies, with brackets placed only around reconstructed text that is not attested on any of the tablets.

1

[Rites(?)] of the zukru. When Emar

2

gives the zukru to Dagan:

3

During (the month of) Zarati, [on] the 15th day, they set aside a lamb for Dagan.

4

On the 15th day, the Saggar(-day)—the very same day—[Dagan] goes out in procession, his face uncovered.

5

[The divine axe] goes behind him. Two sheep [provided by] the city(?) are in their midst,

260

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

6

A B C1

[1-en it-ti(?) dHa-ß]í-in-ni sa dingir i-na [bi-ri-it na4]sí-ka-na-ª tìº na]4sí-ka-na-tì 1-en i[t(?)-ti [ -ß]í-in-ni [ ]

7

A B C1

[ú-ßi-ú(?) (4–6 signs)] ª iº-na bi-ri-it na4s[í-ka-na-tì] ú-ßi [ ]ú-ßi [ ]x[ ]

8

A B

[i-na u4.15(?) i-na b]i-ri-it na4sí-k[a-na-tì] ] i-na u4.1[5(?)

9

A B

[ [

10

A B

[ [

]gudhi.a su-me-e ú-la[ ] x x ú(?) x x x [

11

A

[

]ª dºnin.kur.ra a-n[a

12

A

[

] x-du i-n[a(?)

13

A

[egir-su i-la-ak(?)] a-na bi-[ri-it na4sí-ka-na]-ti ú-sa-at-bu

14

A

[

]-x a-na d[

15

A

[

n]i(?)-su-ú u[ru(?)E-marki(?) i]-ª kaº-[lu] i-sa-tu

16

A

[

] x udu(?) [(2–3 signs) na4s]í-ka-ni sa dnin.urta

17

A

[

] a-ª (x)-biº [ x x dD]a-gan re-es zu-uk-ri

18

A

[

-n]a(?)-ma x x x x sum-ma sila4hi.a

19

A

[

] x e-ßa-am-me a-na é dDa-gan ú-pa-ha-ru

20

A

[

] x i-la-kám-ma

21

A

[

a-na(?) di]ngirmes ù éhi.a ì i-pá-a-du

22

A D

[

] x e-nu-tu ù dHa-ßí-nu sa dkaskal ª ùº dHa-ßí-in-[nu ]

23

A D

[

] 1 udu 1 amar a-na pa-ni na4sí-ka-ni [1] udu 1 amar a-na pa-[ni ]

24

A D

[sa dnin.urta(?)

] x a-na bi-ri-it na4sí-k[a-n]a-tì na4ha-ar-ßi

25

A D

[ a-[na(?)

] i-na ßà-su 2 ma-ka-l[a?!-t]ì

] x-da-su i-na u4-mi su-[wa-ti-ma] ] x ù kal-da-su [ ] d]Da-gan

i-li-ia pa-na-su-u ú-ka-ta-mu ]

a-na] dingirhi.a i-pa-a-du ] ù dHa-ßí-nu sa dingir

] na4sí-ka-na-tì úß hi.a ì.giß ú-pa-sa-su

The Annual zukru: Emar 375 6

one with(?) the divine axe. [They go out in procession] [between] the upright stones.

7

[ . . . ] goes out between the upright stones.

8

On the 15th(?) day, they [ . . . ] between the upright stones [ . . . ].

9

[ . . . ] . . . On the [very] same day,

261

10

[ . . . ] oxen, the roasted meat, (they) must not [ . . . ] Dagan, they cover his face above(?).

11

[ . . . ] dnin.kur, to [ . . . ] they set aside for the gods.

12

[ . . . ] the sacrificial homage(?) (is) at/for [ . . . ] and the divine axe

13

[follows him.] They lift these up (for procession) between the upright stones.

14

[ . . . ] to (some deity) [ . . . ]. They anoint the upright stones with blood and oil.

15

[ . . . ] The people(?) [of Emar(?)] eat and drink.

16

[ . . . ] . . . [ . . . ] the upright stone of dnin.urta

17

[ . . . ] . . . [ . . . ] Dagan Head of the zukru

18

[ . . . ] . . . If the lambs

19

[ . . . ] they prepare, (and) they gather (them) to the temple of Dagan.

20

[ . . . ] he/she comes, and

21

[ . . . ] they set aside oil [for] the gods and the sanctuaries.

22

[ . . . ] items and the (divine) axe

23

[ . . . ] one sheep (and) one calf before the upright stone

24

[of dnin.urta(?) . . . ] between the upright stones

25

to(?) [ . . . ] in its midst, two food-offerings(?)

262 26

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes A D

[ ù

na4

] i-na ßà-su i-na-du-ma ha-ar-ßi[ ]

Reverse of A 27 A [sà-ar-ma-a(?)]-tu4 gud uduhi.a ninda ka[ß a-na] pa-ni dDa-gan ì.kú D a-na pa-ni dDa-g [an ] 28

A D

[a-na na]4sí-ka-na-tì i-na [u4]-mi 7 ki-ma u4-ª mi º [15(?)] [ ]

29

A D

d

30

A D

[gud(?) udu(?)hi].a ú-ßi-ú i-ka-lu i-sa-at-tu i-na ª u4-mi º i-na u4-mi

31

A D

[su-wa-ti-ma(?) i-n]a li-le-e-tì ª é(?)ºhi.a tù-ur-tu4 (erasure) su-wa-tù[ ]

32

A D

[lu-bu-u]s-ma ù ka-lu-ma i-ßa-am-me-dì ú-pa-ha-ar-ma lu4-bu-us-ma ù[ ]

33

A D

[(2–3 signs) q]a-du ma-ka-li-su-nu ù udu sila4 sa uru.ki qa-du ma-ka-li-s [u-nu ]

34

A D

[

35

A D

[ù (1–2 signs)]ª úº-sa-ak-ka-lu-su dumumes ù galhi.a sa uru.ki ù

36

A D

[u4-mi su-wa-ti-]ma ú-ßi ù ki-ir-ba-ni-su-nu ú-pa-as-sà-sú ] i-na u4-mi su-wa-t[i-ma

37

A D

[ [

38

A D

[ [

A C2

[

A C2

[

A C2

[a-na pa-ni dDa-gan(?) udu(?)]ª hiº.a gal ku-ba-di ù-ka-ba-du a-na pa-n[i dDa-gan

39 40 41

[dDa-ga]n ù dingirhi.a ù dHa-ßí-in-nu sa dingir Da-gan ù dingirm[es ]

] x i-na ßà-bi tù-ur-tì i-sà-al-lu-sú i-sà-lu4-sú

a-n]a sa-ha-tì u[du(?)]-sa ù tu-qà-di-is x ] x sa-ni[ ] ] udu-sa ù tu-e-li-il -s]a ª ùº[

]

] x x x-qa-ri i-qa-du-si-i [ ]xx[ [

]

] x udu/-lu ù ku-ba-de4 (erasure) ù ku-b]a-de4

The Annual zukru: Emar 375

263

26

[ . . . ] and the harßu stones [ . . . ] they throw down in its midst, and

27

[the sarmatu-]women(?) consume the ox, the sheep, the bread, (and) the beer before Dagan.

28

On the seventh day just as (on) the [15th(?)] day,

29

Dagan and the gods and the divine axe,

30

[the ox and sheep(?)] go out in procession [to] the upright stones. They eat (and) drink. On

31

the evening of the [very] same day, the sanctuaries(?) are (in) the return.

32

(Dagan?) is clothed, and then everyone makes preparation, gathers (something?), and

33

[ . . . ] along with their food-offerings, and the sheep (and) lambs provided by the city,

34

[ . . . ] they repeat three times in the midst of the return.

35

They have [the people?] eat. The citizens and the leaders of the city

36

go out on the very same day and break their dirt-clods.

37

[ . . . ] in order to cleanse her sheep(?), so (that) she has consecrated (it).

38

[ . . . ] her sheep(?), so (that) she has purified (it).

39

[ . . . ] . . . they . . . her.

40

[ . . . ] . . . and a sacrificial homage—

41

they sacrifice [sheep (?)] as the greater homage [before Dagan(?)].

264

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

42

A C2

[uzux-x-ta uzuka-bar-t]a i-ta-ap-pa-ru [uzu](x)-x-ta uzuka-ª barº-t[a ]

43

A C2

[(3–4 signs) i/a-na é] dDa-gan ú-pa-ha-ru [i/a-na] é dDa-gan ú-pá-ha-ru [ dingirhi.a(?)]

]

44

A C2

[(1–3 signs) i/a-na [

45

A C2

[i-na itiZa-ra-ti(?)] ª iº-na u4-mi d ª iº-na iti.kám en BI-ta-ri ª iº-[na u4-mi

A

[su-wa-ti-ma(?) (3–4 signs)] nun(?) sà-ar-ma-a-tu i-ha-tá-ka kier-ßi-tu4 ú-ul i-[ sà-ar-ma-a-tu i-ha-tá-ka k[i ]

46

C2 47

A C2+1

48

A C2

ª úº-ba-lu-su-nu-ti ] ]

[den Ha-la-ab i-n]a u4-mi 16 gisx-x sà-ar-ma-a-tu4 i-ßa-mi-du-ú x [ ] den Ha-la-ab i-na u -mi 16 gi[sx ]ª i-ßaº-[mi-du] 4 e-ri-su [kier-ßi-tu4(?) ù-la a-n]a(?) udu ú-si-x[ kier-ßi-tu4 ù-la ªa(?)º-[na(?)

] ]

49

A [lú-la5 udu x x x ]ù ti-l[a-su gudhi.a (ù?)] udu.u8hi.a 1+2 C [l]ú-la5 udu x [(x)] x ù ti-la-su gudhi.a uduhi.a

50

A [a-na é dingir-lì(?) (1–3 signs)] ª i-naº bi-r[i-it na4sí-ka-na-ti ú-ta]-ru 2+1 a-na é[ ]zina-pí-is-ta-su ª úº-ta-ru C

51

A C2+1

(7–9 signs) ] ù ká.galª hi.a(?)º[ku]-ª ba(?)-de4(?)º [ú(?)]-ª ka(?)-ba(?)º-[du(?)] ù bi-ri-it na4sí-k[a-na-ti (2–3 signs?)] ká.galhi.a ku-ba-de4 ú-kab-ba-dù [

52

A [ù lú-la5 na4ig ù zag.udu(?)] ú-se-ßi ku-ba-de4 bi-ri-it na4sí-ka-ni 2+1 ª ù(?)º lú-la5 na4ig ù zag.udu [ú-se-ßi ku]-ba-de4 bi-ri-it [na4]ª sí-kaC na-ti(?)º

53

A [ú-ka-ba-du(?) uduhi.a(?) a-n]a é dingir-lì i-ru-ub C2+1 ª ú(?)º-[ka-ba-du(?) udu(?)]hi.a a-na é dingir-lì i-ru-ub

54

A C1

[ [

(55) C1

[

]gudhi.a ù

(56) C1

[uduhi.a(?)

di]ngir(?)hi.a

Spread is 6 points long

]gín uru.ki ú-sa-qí-lu ]ª úº-sa-qí-lu ku-ba-du

The Annual zukru: Emar 375

265

42

They burn(?) the . . . and the hock.

43

They gather [ . . . to] the temple of Dagan.

44

[ . . . ] (and) they carry them [to the gods(?)].

45

A C

46

[ . . . ] the sarmatu-women cut . . . The land is not [(plowed?) . . . ].

47

(The celebration of) the Lord of Aleppo is on the 16th day. The sarmatuwomen prepare the . . . (and) the one who plants

48

the land must not . . . [ . . . ]

49

They return between the upright stones the man, the sheep, the . . . , and his . . . , the oxen (and) the sheep,

50

to the House [of the Gods(?)].

51

They sacrifice the homage both between the upright stones and (at?) the city gates.

52

He brings out the man, the door-stone, and the shoulder of mutton. They [sacrifice] the homage between the upright stones.

53

[The sheep(?)] enter the House of the Gods.

54

They weigh out [ . . . ] (in) city shekels (to) [ . . . ].

55

The sacrificial homage [consists of(?) . . . ] oxen and

56

[sheep(?) . . . (to)] the gods(?).

[During the month of Zarati(?)], on the [very same(?)] day During the same month is (the celebration of) the Lord of Bitaru. On the [ . . . day . . . ]

266

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

Notes to Emar 375 by line number 2.

Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 399) suggests that the verb is marked by the subjunctive, after the singular ‘city’. It is possible, however, that the city is treated as plural, like the ‘residents of Emar’ who initiate the festivals in Emar 369:1 (nin.dingir); 373:174–75 (zukru); and 385:2 (kissu for Dagan). 8. Arnaud reads i-na u4-m[i], but the number fits the space at the start of the A text better. 9. The tip of one horizontal at the start of text A would not belong to the kal-sign that is clear in text B and might have offered an alternative writing to explain the latter. In text B, one could also read a verb, ù-x-da-su, though ù is expected to represent the conjunction. 10. The word i-li-ia is unfamiliar, but first person ‘my god’ is unlikely in a text without demonstrable liturgy. Instead, read from eli ‘above’, to yield an adverbial form iliya (= eliya). Compare MB Alalah daria ‘forever’ (see the dictionaries), AT 15:8, 12, 24. A Persian Akkadian text nominalizes the form eliya (sa sisê) to mean ‘horseman’, as one who (sits) on a horse; see CAD s.v. elija sa sisê. 12. The first visible sign appears to end with a single vertical. 13. See AHw s.v. tebû(m) S 8, ‘(Götterbild) vom Sockel heben (für Prozession)’. I read this verb with Arnaud for lack of a better suggestion, though this S of tebû would be unique in the ritual texts. The word is written ú-sa-ab-bu, but a verb of movement is expected. 15. The tip of a long horizontal (ni-?) is visible at the beginning of the line, with traces that would fit -ka- after the break. 16. Arnaud suggests the reading [a]k lu. 19. Arnaud proposes that the object of the preparations is (Dagan’s) wagon, [gismar. gíd].da. At the end of the line, the pa-sign is written over other traces, and the masign is not an option. The same sequence of the verbs ßamadu and paharu occurs in line 32A. 22. Text A reads ‘the axe of dkaskal’, with unclear implication. 24. In text D, the stones are called harßu rather than sikkanu. 25. Or, read ma-ka-a[l-t]ì, though the form should be plural. Compare the noun ma-kali-su-nu in line 33, with a masculine plural. 26. The stones in text D must be an object, perhaps in some reference to the verb nadû ‘to throw down’. Reverse of A. Text D straddles this transition without scribal pause, which confirms the impression that the two sides of text A should be treated as one ritual text. 27. The group of feasters is marked by the feminine -t-, which suggests the sarmatu of lines 46 and 47, written with -tu4 in line 47. Solitary use of the verb akalu generally indicates rights for human consumption of offering materials rather than the feast as such (akalu and satû together), and the point here seems to be to record the provision allowed this specific group of women. Line 46 has the sarmatu-women perform some rite of cutting, perhaps in keeping with derivation from the rare verb saramu ‘to cut’ (CAD s.v. saramu; cf. also saramu, with similar meaning). 28. Read either d˘ar/(Saggar) or the 15th, with the same effect.

The Annual zukru: Emar 375 31. 34. 35. 36. 37.

39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 46.

48. 49. 50.

51. 52.

267

Of the items marked in text 375 with plural ˘i.a, only é (‘house, shrine’) fits the traces. Return may be (to) various sacred sanctuaries. The root sls for sls ‘to do three times’ appears to offer the only intelligible interpretation. Gary Beckman (personal communication) observes an alternative reading as turmes ‘the small and the great of the city’. The space is tight for the full idiom i-na u4-mi su-wa-ti-ma, but the final -ma and proximity in text D suggest the tentative restoration in text A. This section appears to introduce an unknown female player, who remains through line 38 and perhaps 39. The verb sahatu ‘to smear, rinse, cleanse’ may indicate some aspect of consecration procedure. Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 338–39) understands the odd form tuqaddis to be a durative, with vowels changed under West Semitic influence. The second qa-sign is unclear and might be pa or b/para. The verb ú-ka-ba-du is erased, evidently in order to add the detail that follows, with closure at the end of line 41. The phrase ana pani in text C suggests a single deity, and there is no room for the sikkanu of dnin.urta (see line 23). Dagan fits best (see line 27). This restoration is based on available space. Text C can only be located here, and its kabartu (‘hock’) makes sense as the object of the verb taparu ‘to burn’. This verb appears to be related to saparu, with the same meaning, unless the ta-sign is simply a mistake for ßa. The ba-sign (-pá-) should be preferred over *-ma- in the verb ú-pá-ha-ru, with the same verb found in lines 19 and 32, also of text A. This reading follows the idiom in Emar 446:94, the only other ritual use of (w)abalu ‘to carry’. ‘The same day’ allows the simplest interpretation in light of the 16th day that follows in line 47. No new month has been introduced, and the zukru was defined in relation to the 15th day. The last sign might be ma or gar (qár). Text A specifies ewes. The final verb could also be read as i-ta-ru, intransitive ‘return’, but the preceding nouns are treated as direct objects with accusative case endings. The -pí- and -ta- in zina-pí-is-ta-su are written over other wedges and are not in doubt. Text C associates the return with ‘his throat’ or ‘his life’ (napistasu). This term recalls the oath terminology of the lipit napistim (‘touching the throat’) and suggests some identification of these sacrificial materials with oath-making. Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 70) places zinapistasu in his collection of full glosses to logograms. The parallel C text does not fit at the beginning of the line in A and is already incorporated into the end of line 50. There is room for no further material in the break of text A.

268

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

C. The Text for Six Months: Emar 446, Msk 74280a+74291a The text for six months is composed in four columns, two on each side of the tablet. Because column II is almost entirely missing, Arnaud chose to omit the

Column I (obverse) 1 [†up-pu/i(?) pár-ß]i sa uru.ki 2 [itiZa-ra-ti(?) i-na] u4.8 x [(4–5 signs)] 3 [(4–5 signs)] x 1 udu [(5–6 signs)] 4 [(2–3 signs) i]s(?)-tu x [(5–6 signs)] 5 [(2–4 signs)]ªúº-sa-x[ ] 6 [ú-pa(?)]-ha-ru ina(aß) u4.[14(?) sila4(?) i-na(?) dkur(?)] 7 ªi-paº-a-du ta-[(5–8 signs)] 8 ina (aß) u4.15 dkur ªúº-[ßi (4–5 signs)] 9 udu sa nu-pu-ha-nu [(5–8 signs)] 10 i-na-din-nu lúme[s (2–3 signs) i-ka-lu(?)] 11 i-na u4 su-wa-[tu-ma dnin.urta (sa) ká] 12 A-mi-it ú-ßi [(5–7 signs) sa(?)] 13 é dingir-lì i-na-d[in-nu (4–6 signs)] 14 15 16 17 18 19

udu sa nu-pu-ha-ni [a-na pa-ni-su(?) i-la-ak(?)] ha-ßí-in-nu s[a dingir egir-su(?) i-la-ak(?)] lúmes ga-ma-ru [(4–6 signs)] i-sa-ka-nu i-[na(?) (3–5 signs) sila4(?)] i-pa-a-du i-na u4 [su-wa-tu-ma (2–4 signs)] i-na ká.gal é ªdº[(4–6 signs)]

20 21

i-la-ak 2 udu ina (aß) ªé(?)º [(4–6 signs)] ninda kaß is-tu é [dingir-lì(?) (3–5 signs)]

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

i-ka-lu i-na u4-mi [su-wa-tu-ma(?) sila4(?) i-na(?)] é dnin.urta i-pa-a-[du dnin.urta(?) i-na(?)] ká.gal ú-ßi gud [6 udu(?) (2–4 signs)] a-na pa-ni-su i-la-[ku (4–5 signs)] zag uzugab a-na x [(1–2 signs?) lúmás.ßu.gíd.gíd(?)] i-la-qí kuß sag(?) [(4–6 signs)] gibil(??) sa lúmás.g[íd.gíd (3–5 signs)] lú gal lúmes edin i-[ka-lu i-sa-tu(?)]

The Text for Six Months: Emar 446, Msk 74280a+74291a

269

traces from his numbered lineation. The fragment Msk 74291a provides only the last one or two signs per line for the last seventeen lines of the column, which for practical purposes remains a blank. I have numbered these lines *24–*40 to indicate that they fall in the last section of a column roughly forty lines long and to avoid disrupting the lineation of the original publication.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

[Tablet of the] rites of the city. [The month of Zarati(?):] [On] the 8th day, [ . . . ] [ . . . ] one sheep [ . . . ] [ . . . ] from [ . . . ] [ . . . ] they [ . . . ] they gather. On the [14th] day, they set aside [a lamb for Dagan]. [ . . . ] On the 15th day, Dagan goes [out in procession . . . ] a sheep which the nuppuhannu men give [ . . . ] the [ . . . ]-men [consume]. On the [very] same day, [dnin.urta of the] Amit [Gate] goes out in procession. They give [ . . . (to someone, some provision) provided by(?)] the House of the Gods. [ . . . (and)] a sheep provided by the nuppuhannu men [precede him]. The [divine] axe [follows him], and the whole populace [ . . . ]. They place [the . . . ]. On [(a day? . . . )], they set aside [a lamb(?)]. On the [very same] day [ . . . ] proceeds into the great gate of [(some god’s)] temple. Two sheep in the temple [ . . . ] [(Some participants)] consume the bread and beer from the House [of the Gods]. On the [very same] day, they set aside [a lamb(?) at] the temple of dnin.urta. [dnin.urta] goes out in procession [to] the great gate. An ox [and six sheep(?) . . . ] precede him. [ . . . ] [The diviner] receives [ . . . (and)] the right breast for [ . . . ]. The hide, the head(?), [(and) . . . ] belong to the diviner. The leader and the people of the countryside eat [and drink] [(some food)].

270

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

30 31 32 33 34

ina (aß) é d[(4–6 signs)] gud i-na-ka-su-ma [(3–4 signs) a-na(?)] dnin.urta é dIs-ha-[ra (3–4 signs)] lam(?)-ti ú-na-qú uzu x [(2–3 signs) uzu(?)] kab-bar-tu4 a-na lú gal [uzu(?) (2–3 signs)]

35 36 37 38 39 40

a-na lúza-bi-hi i-na-an-din-[nu (2–3 signs)] lú.mesahhi.a sa é dUd-ha [(3–4 signs)] i-la-qú-ú uzugab a-na pa-ni dIs-ªra!º lúmes gal lúmes ga-ma-ri ì.kú sag é ªdingir(?)º lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd i-la-qí is-bi-†a i-sa-ka-nu ha-ßí-in-nu sa dingir

Column II (lines 1*–23* missing entirely) 24* [ ]x 25* [ ] xmes lúmás.ßu.gíd(?)].gíd(?) 26* [ 27* [ ] x ˘i 28* [ ] iti 29* [ i(?)-l]a(?)-qú 30* [ ] lú(?) 31* [ -n]a(?) 32* [ -ta]r(??) 33* [ ] dnin(?)].ªkurº.ra 34* [ 35* [ ] -ti-x 36* [ ] ªd(?)ºen 37* [ ] 38* [ i-†a(?)-b]a(?)-hu(?) 39* [ ]x 40* [ ] x x I(?) Column III 41 uduhi.a an-nu-ti i-†a-ba-hu 42. ni-bi-su-nu ªqàº-du gabmes ú-na-q[í] 43 ha-ßí-nu sa dingir egir-su-nu i-la-ak 44 ù kußhi.a ma-qí-ia-ti lúmás.ßu.gíd.gíd 45 i-na u4.15 d˘ar ªaº-na é gudmes ú-se-ra-du-u 46 47

i-†a--hu 1 udu a-na é anße.kur.ra i-†a: ba-hu i-na iti su-wa-tu-ma nu-ba-te

The Text for Six Months: Emar 446, Msk 74280a+74291a 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

271

In the temple of [(dnin.urta or Ishara) . . . ] they slaughter the ox, and [they give (some parts) to] dnin.urta of Ishara’s temple. They offer (some part) [ . . . ]. The [ . . . ]-meat and the hocks (are) for the leader, and they give [the . . . meat] to the slaughterer. The kinsmen of Udha’s temple [(and) . . . ] receive [(some part)]. The leaders and the whole populace consume the breast before Ishara. The House of the Gods(?) (and) the diviner receive the head. They place the staff(?). The divine axe [ . . . ]

26* [ . . . ] the diviner(?) 28* [ . . . ] the month 29* [ . . . ] they receive.

34* [ . . . ] dnin.kur.

38* [ . . . ] they slaughter(?).

41 42 43 44 45 46 47

(. . .) they slaughter these sheep. He offers their . . . , along with the breast-meats. The divine axe follows them. Also, the hides of the sacrificed (animals) belong to the diviner. On the 15th day, they bring Saggar down to the cattle barn and (perform) sacrifice. They slaughter one sheep at the horse stables. During the very same month, in the evening,

272

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

48

ú-se-ßú 1 udu i-na! lúnu-pu-ha-an-ni 1-en

49 50 51 52

udu a-na kiri6 sa bi-ri-ki sa dim ªuduº a-ªnaº dDa-gan be-el numunmes i-†a--hu lúmás.ßu.gíd.gíd numunmes i-na ki i-na-di nindax is-tu é ªdingir(?)º ka4-sà-tu4 uzu zag gab

53 54 55 56 57 58

sa lúmás.ßu.gíd.gíd i-na sa-ni u4 seer-tam-ma x (-x) x-am a-na kur i-†a-ba-hu-ma ku-ba-di a-na ªta(?)º-ma da-ri-ia u a-na da-na x-[(-x?)] ú-ka-ba-du a-di ku-ba-di4 ú-ga-ma-ru ma-am-ma e-ri-si ú-ul! ú-ßi iti dnin.kur.ra i-na u .17 sila i-na dnin.kur 4 4

59 60

i-pa-a-du i-na u4.18 dnin.kur.ra tu-ßi 1 udu sig5 babbar sa n[u-pu]-ha-an-ni ninda kaß sa

61 lú sa qí-da-s[i i]-ªka(?)-lu(?)º[i]-sa-tu ]-na ì.nun(?) 62 nindahu-ug-gu x [ dD]a(?)-gan(?) 63 i-na nindah[u(?)lú más.gí[d.gíd ]x[ ] 64 lú más.[ßu.gíd.gíd ] 65 i-na u4(?)] 66 sila4 x [ . . . ú-ßi . . . ] 67 19 ªdº[ 68 a-na pa-[ni-su/-si(?) i-la-ak/ku(?) ha-ßí-(in-)nu sa dingir(?)] 69 egi[r-su/si i-la-ak ] 69* x [ ] Based on comparison with the left column, 5 or, at most, 7 lines are missing. 70 [ ]xx[ ] d[ ] 71 udu a-na ] 72 udu a-na dªnin(?)º.[urta/kur(?) 73 x bar(?)-ra(?) x 1(?) udu(?) ªaº-[na ] 74 [ ]xx[ ] Column IV 77 [it]i dAn-na 1 udu a-na dA-dadama-te-ri udu 78 79 80 81 82

[ninda(?)] kaß(?) lú.mesnu-pu-ha-an-ni it-ti ha-am-sa-i [i-n]a-din-nu 1 udu a-na a-bi é dingir 1 udu a-na ªé(?)º dDa-gan udu a-na uru.ki udumes a-nu-tu4 [s]a nu-pu-ha-an-ni kuß mes a-nu-tu4 ªlúºmás.gíd.gíd i-aq-qí

Spread is 6 points long

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273

48

they bring out (a procession). They slaughter one sheep for the nuppuhannu men, one 49 sheep for the garden of the storm-god’s pool, and a sheep 50 for Dagan Lord of the Seed. 51 The diviner throws down seed onto the ground. The . . . -bread 52 from the House of the Gods(?), cups (of drink), and the meat of the right breast 53 belong to the diviner. On the next day, 54 at dawn . . . they slaughter (a sacrifice) for Dagan and 55 perform sacrificial homages by lasting oath(?) and by . . . . 56 Until they finish the sacrificial homages, 57 no one may go out to plant. 58 The month of dnin.kur.ra: On the 17th day they set aside a lamb for dnin.kur. 59 On the 18th day dnin.kur.ra goes out in procession. 60 One fine white sheep (is) provided by the nuppuhannu men. Bread and beer of 61 the men of the consecration-gift [ . . . ] eat and drink. 62 Contract bread [ . . . ] ghee 63 in the contract bread [ . . . ] Dagan(?); 64 the diviner [ . . . ] 65 the diviner [ . . . ] 66 a lamb [ . . . ] 67 [on the] 19th [day (some god goes out in procession?) . . . ] 68 [ . . . ] precedes [him/her]. [The divine axe(?)] 69 follows [him/her]. 69* [ . . . ] 70 71 72 73 74

[...]... [...] [ . . . ] a sheep to [(some god) . . . ] [ . . . ] a sheep to (another god) [ . . . ] [ . . . ] one sheep to [ . . . ] [...]... [...]

77

The month of Anna: One sheep is provided for Adammatera. The nuppuhannu men, along with the hamsaªu men, give a sheep, [bread] and beer. One sheep for the abu of the House of the Gods, one sheep for the temple of Dagan, and a sheep for the town—these sheep are provided by the nuppuhannu men. The diviner receives these hides.

78 79 80 81 82

274

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes iti dA-dama

83 84 85

i-na u4-mi 7 tù-ur-tu4 sa Il-li-la i-na u4.8 tù-ur-tu4 a-na dingirmes ga-bu-ma

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

itiMar-za-ha-ni

i-na u4.14 bu-Ga-ra-tu4 ªiº-na u4.16 As-tar-ßa-ar-ba ú-ßi udu sa uru.ki ù ha-ßí-nu sa dingir (erasure) egir dAs !-tar-ßa-ar- i-la-ak i-na su-wa-tu-ma ßa-du sa dIs8-tár i-na u4.17 ßa-du sa dim 1 udu sa nu-pu-ha-an-ni é hu(?)-ri-ti i-sa-ra-pu lú.mes mar-za-hu sa mi-di nindana-ap-ta-na i-na dingirmes ú-ba-lu mi-is-li 1 udu lúmás.gíd.gíd iti dHal-ma

96 97 98 99 100

2 i-na u4 ku-ba-dì i-na é dDa-gan ú-ka-ba-du ªiº-na nu-ba-ti kaß.geßtin ta-se-ia-ti [ú(?)]-ma-lu mußen i-sa-ra-pu ªi-naº u4.3 hi-da-as dkur 1 udu sa uru.ki

101 102 103 104 105

ha-ßí-in-nu sa dingir a-na é ú-sa-ab kuß udu sa lúmás.gíd.gíd i-na u4.8 dHal-ma ú-ßi ha-ßí-in-nu sa dingir egir-su ªiº-la-ak 1 udu sa uru.ki lúmes sa qí-ªdaº-si kú ninda kaß sa lúm[áß(?).gíd.gíd(?)]

106 i-na u4 su-wa-tu-ma sila4 i-na é 107 dim i-pa-a-du i-na u4.9 dim 108 sa ki-na-i ú-ßi gud 6 udu a-[na] 109 ªé-suº i-la-ak i-na ßà-su-nu 1 (diß?) [ ] 110 é dDa(?)-[g]an(?) be-ªel(?)º i-aq?!-qí ªa(?)-na(?)º 111 lúka-wa(?)-ni(?) x x (x)-na-su(?) 112 i-aq-qí x ªa(?)º-na ßà-su x x 113 x x ] 114 [ ]mes na-di(?)-nu(?) qí(?) x [ uzuir(?)-[ri ] 115 kuß ßà(?) ] 116 sa lúmás.gíd.[gíd ] lugal kur 117 uzugi5-is-se [ The last two lines are inscribed on the left edge. 118 [i(?)-n]a(?) ªu4º.18 hi-ia-rù ªsaº dim 119 gud! 2 udu i-†a-ba-hu lú sa qí-da-si i-ka-lu i-sa-tu

The Text for Six Months: Emar 446, Msk 74280a+74291a

275

83 84 85

The month of Adamma: The return-ceremony of Illila falls on the 7th day. The return-ceremony for all the gods falls on the 8th day.

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

The month of Marzahani: The Bugaratu fall on the 14th day. On the 16th day Astar-ßarba goes out in procession. A sheep provided by the city and the divine axe follow Astar-ßarba. The hunt of Astart falls on the very same . The hunt of the storm-god falls on the 17th day. They burn at the Hurrian(?) temple one sheep from the nuppuhannu men. The marzahu men of the fellowship(?) bring a standard loaf to the gods. Half of the one sheep belongs to the diviner.

96 97 98 99 100

The month of Halma: On the second day they perform sacrificial homages at the temple of Dagan. In the evening they fill goblets with wine and burn a bird. The new moon (celebration) of Dagan falls on the third day. One sheep is provided by the city. The divine axe takes up residence in the temple. The sheep’s hide belongs to the diviner. On the 8th day Halma goes out in procession. The divine axe follows him. One sheep is provided by the city. The men of the consecration-gift(?) feast. The bread and beer belong to the diviner. On the very same day, they set aside a lamb at the temple of the storm-god. On the 9th day the storm-god of Canaan goes out in procession. An ox and six sheep proceed to his temple. Among them [ . . . from(?)] the temple of Dagan(?) the Lord he receives. For(?) the servers . . . he receives . . . among it(?) . . . ... [...] [ . . . the men] who give(?) the consecration-gift(?) [ . . . ]. The hides, the intestines, the fat [ . . . ] belong to the diviner. [ . . . ] the kidneys [ . . . ] belong to the king of the land.

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

The hiyaru of the storm-god falls on the 18th day. They slaughter an ox and two sheep. The men of the consecration-gift(?) eat and drink.

276

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

Notes to Emar 446 by line number 1. A significant uninscribed space is visible after uru.ki at the top of the tablet, so nothing further should be read. Restore the opening based on similar first lines: 369:1, 385:1, 392:1. Although the ¯i-sign usually has two final verticals, in Emar 446 it is written with one (lines 24, 86, 107), or the first was pulled forward so that it would not be visible where this break occurs (see lines 57, 59, 102). uru.ki appears in line 80 as the recipient of sheep and marks the source of sheep for offering in line 88 of the month Marzahani and lines 100 and 104 of the month Halma. The source of offerings is rarely specified in this text. 2. Restoration follows the hypothesis that Zarati is the first month, as found in Emar 375:3. Emar 447 records rites for the seventh day of “Zerati.” 3. I see no traces visible after udu. 5. This should be a verb. For sa used when Akkadian /sa/ is expected, compare lines 17, 40, 92, 99, 101, and 119. This substitution only occurs in verbs, always with following -a-. 6. Compare 375:19, 32, and 43 for the verb paharu, also D. The end of the line is restored by comparison to lines 23–24, 58–59, and 106–7. In the last two, offering by paªadu occurs on the day preceding the processional celebration and consists of one lamb. 7. Comparison with the other preliminary paªadu offerings does not make clear what should fall at the end of the line. 8. When the gods are the subject of a known action, they ‘go forth’ (waßû); see lines 59 (dnin.kur), 101–2 (Halma), and 106–7 (the storm-god), all following the indication of a new day. 9. Human recipients would tend to be expected with the verb nadanu; see line 35 and the pattern in Emar 369 (Installation, 121, 127–28). The final sign is -nu, not the expected -ni. 10. The verb is not sakanu (Arnaud), written with the sa-sign in lines 17 and 40. 12. For restoration of the deity celebrated, see the offering list Emar 274:6, dnin.urta ká A-mi-ta. The end of the line should describe some allotment or offering. 14. The divine axe of line 15 indicates discussion of procession participants, with the verb alaku. Compare especially lines 24–25, as well as lines 86–88 and 101–3. 15. Compare lines 43, 87, and 102 for the weapon following other procession participants. 16. The ma-sign is certain in the adjective gammaru ‘whole’. In Emar 446, the ba-sign is distinguished sharply from ma by the forward position of the top horizontal wedge in relation to the very short middle horizontal (see lines 41, 47, 54, 55, 56, etc.). On the lúmes ga-ma-ru/i as ‘the complete populace’, see earlier discussion and compare lines 29 and 38. 17. The preposition ina could precede a definition of day or of offering recipient. Beyond the first full moon, the paªadu occurs on the day preceding each procession, but this section presents the scribes with a dilemma whose resolution the broken text leaves obscure. Separate processional events appear to take place on the 15th, each with a separate paªadu (lines 7, 18, 23), but the scribe places each preparation with the associated procession. It is unclear how the time is then handled for the

The Text for Six Months: Emar 446, Msk 74280a+74291a

18.

19. 20.

22. 23. 24. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

32. 33.

36.

277

last two (lines 18 and 23). Line 17 leaves too little space for a temporal phrase, recipient, and offering (a lamb?), together. According to the pattern for the following months, this line should move to the day after the paªadu offering, but lines 18 and 22–23 do not preserve the scribal solution to the temporal problem of the first full moon. Some subject is needed that will “go” in line 20. There is no room for a separate verb (w)aßû before alaku of line 20, as would be expected for a new processional rite (lines 12, 24, 59, 87, 103, and 108). Arnaud’s accurate copy shows traces of two horizontals at the right edge, which cannot belong to u4. Because this is not a preliminary offering, the verb should be something other than paªadu. This reading would fit the idiom and available space. This section begins rites for dnin.urta, who would then be the subject of the verb waßû. The ox and sheep are associated in line 107. Some other procession participants may precede the god as well. The last visible sign resembles the dingir-sign, but this clause should refer to allotment to human personnel. The diviner receives this portion in lines 52–53. The hide goes to the diviner in lines 44 and 101. The first sign is clear enough but cannot be read with certainty. Arnaud rendered this ka x ne. Arnaud offers no reading for the edin-sign. In Emar legal texts, property is divided between what is in the city and what is in the country (ßeru). This definition includes the population of the region surrounding the city proper. The singular form lú gal may simply lack the plural marker that is provided in line 38 (lúmes gal). This line makes little sense without removal of the middle portion. dnin.urta (and Ishara) should remain the focus. This should be the ox that went in procession in line 24. Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 202) suggests that we read -sux for ßu in the verb; I have preferred to leave the representation of the sibilants with their known value, because we do not know what sound was actually pronounced. The verb might be nadanu, if nadanu is used in this text with divine recipients. Arnaud suggests -qé-ti, which does not fit the signs that are clear. The first wedges might be read lam or nim, if they are a single sign, or u-de-ti, neither of which provides a coherent reading. Huehnergard (RA 77 36 and n. 99) reads lú.mesßeshi.a and compares it with Alalah Idrimi line 75, lú.mesah-hi hi.a-ia. Emar legal texts often preserve the double -hh- of the plural with normal case endings, as in lú.mesah-hi (oblique, Emar 109:21, 26; cf. lú.mesah-hé-si, 181:13), lú.mesah-hu (nominative, Emar 110:26; 111:23; 170:18). The same gathered kinsmen also occur with the unusual plural that replaces the case ending, lú.mesah hi.a-su, Emar 156:8; cf. 109:20. It appears that the irregular plural ˘i.a is attracted to identification of kinsmen by -h- in the root, especially when doubled in the plural. Emar Akkadian already shows a tendency toward final frozen -a, which might reflect deterioration of the case system in the local dialect; compare dAn-na in 446:77; Il-li-la in 446:84; and dnin.urta ká A-mi-ta in 274:6. All of

278

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

the writings with ah- appear to refer to a wider family circle, whereas the logogram ßes is used for immediate family (Emar 156:10; 180:12). 37. The first sign is Is-, and no other deity from the lists would fit. This goddess is involved already in line 32. Arnaud simply reads x x x. 38. The genitive is indicated by the spelling ga-ma-ri, and consider the parallel with line 29. The head is given to the diviner in 369:78, and the verb calls for an object from the sacrifice. The available space at the end of the line would accommodate nothing more, and the spelling é dingir also occurs in line 79 (cf. 52), versus é dingir-lì in line 13. This reading would not treat the vertical as a trace of the column divider (Arnaud, reading mar ú?). 39. S. Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 185–86) shows that, in the Syrian type paleography, the reading tá(da) is highly unlikely. This leaves the possible combinations s.b/p.d/†. From this range, the most plausible interpretation comes from the root sb†, understood to be a noun of the ipris-formation with proper accusative ending in -a. The writing †a(da) is found elsewhere in Emar 446 in the verb i-†a-ba-hu (e.g., line 41). The ipris formation is related to the pirs noun base, and it represents a concrete expression of the verbal action to which it is related: e.g., ikribu ‘blessing, prayer’; isdihu ‘profit’. Biblical Hebrew sebe† is a pirs-formation noun meaning ‘staff ’, and I translate ‘they place the staff ’, an action (like the word) without parallel in Emar ritual. Arnaud (“Contribution de l’onomastique du moyen-Euphrate à la connaissance de l’émariote,” SEL 8 [1991] 39) observes six personal names with prosthetic aleph: Ab-za-qí, Ap-sa-lu, Ad-ra-pu, Ur-ga-ni, Us-ka-ri, and Ur-gu-bu. 40. Note the confusion of /s/ and /s/ in this text. I have left the forms with the primary sibilant indicated by the sign (see also line 31). For the same phenomenon in Emar administrative texts, see Jun Ikeda, A Linguistic Analysis of the Akkadian Texts from Emar: Administrative Texts (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 1995) 40–41. 25*. Arnaud’s drawing of a ßu-sign is actually lú from the reverse (line 60). 26*. Arnaud’s incorporation of a final a-sign is kur in dnin.kur from the reverse (line 58). 38*. See lines 47 and 92 for /hu/ written as ri. 40*. The traces for this line are found at the bottom of Msk 74280a, the main tablet. 41. The material before udu overlaps from line 77, at the start of column IV. Arnaud reads uduhi.a, etc. 42. The word nibu should not be read as ‘number’ but rather as some meat portion (see CAD nibu B?). Use of qadu is likewise unexpected before an animal part, and the last sign appears to indicate a singular subject—the diviner? 43. This statement would follow a general statement of procession, usually with the verb waßû, rather than allotment of meat portions. Perhaps this was located at the end of column II. 44. Arnaud observes only one gíd-sign. The second laps around the edge. Compare 369:58 for a similar noun maqqû ‘sacrifice’. 45. The final long vowel on the verb appears to be marked. The day is only indirectly identified with the god in this text, since the verb waradu (S) should take a direct object. See 375:4 for the spelling d˘ar-ar. Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 433) observes that the form of the verb is a pseudo-Assyrianism, like the form usesubu.

The Text for Six Months: Emar 446, Msk 74280a+74291a

279

46. The verb †abahu (vs. †ehû) is likely, in light of lines 48–50, but it is redundant here, an apparent mistake. 47. This line appears to reorient the definition of calendrical time by the previously mentioned month. For the same phenomenon, see 375:45. 52. Arnaud reads only é before ka4-sà-tu4. 54. At the end of line 53 and the start of line 54, Arnaud reads u4.kám, ir ud ma x x am. Interpreting the signs as se-er-tam-ma provides a sensible solution to the first problem, with words also divided across two lines in 46–47 and 92–93. To refer to morning naturally follows a reference to ‘the next day’ (ina sanî umi). The content of the sacrifice is unclear, and mimmation would be more likely to be preserved with adverbial -am than with a normal direct object. One could read be-x-ás-am (be x aß am), but I can make no sense of it. On kur as sadû in the title of Dagan, see 378:3, and Fleming, N.A.B.U. (1994) 17–18 (no. 16). 55. This line is difficult, but we expect it to describe the (plural) kubadu ceremonies by two prepositional phrases with ana. The homages are not to the gods but for some result or by some procedure, possibly as translated. If the ta-sign is correct, the first phrase might involve an oath (tamû), with the fixed ending -a that occasionally appears with local terminology (e.g., Baºla in personal names and is-bi-†a of line 39 above). For da-ri-ia, see CAD s.v. daria at MB Alalah, so that uß-ma should be a separate word. The last word may come from the verb dânu ‘to judge’, but I am not confident of any reading for this line. 56. The -ni from line 91 is written over the ú- at the start of line 56. 57. The ul-sign in the negative is replaced by gu, a scribal slip. Interpretation of eresu as ‘planting’ would suit the association with the rite for scattering seed. Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 407–8) reads this statement as prohibitive, against the standard use of the negative la, but the sentence should perhaps be understood as grammatically descriptive. 60. The final wedge shown in Arnaud’s copy is in fact from the obverse side, and lú is the last sign in line 60. The scribe then repeats the sign at the beginning of line 61, without bothering to erase the first attempt. It is not clear whether the bread and beer are provided by the men of the qidasu or for them. These appear consistently as a group in the festival texts; see Installation, 94–96. 61. This restoration is based on collation and comparison with line 119. The last two signs are clear. 62. The translation ‘contract bread’ is based on the use of this type in bread-breaking rites that accompany the conclusion of legal arrangements (e.g., Emar 111:20). Pentiuc (“West Semitic Terms,” 88–90) argues that the double consonant disallows a derivation from Hebrew ºugâ (‘cake’, root ºwg), and he proposes instead a pursformation noun from the root ˙nk (‘to dedicate’). 63. The god Dagan is somewhat unexpected here, when dnin.kur should be dominating her event. 69*. Arnaud does not list this line, the last one before a break he describes as 10 lines long. If the column has 40 lines, like the first column, only 5 lines would be missing. 72. Lines 71–72 give the impression of a list of offerings to various gods, and this may or may not refer to the goddess of lines 58–59 and the last listed month. The traces after dingir may fit the nin-sign.

280

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

74. Arnaud’s lines 74–76 (left half) come from the left column, indented, and I have preferred to associate these lines with the end of the text, in a section that seems to span parts of both columns. 77. The final udu is drawn by Arnaud as part of line 41 from the right-hand column, but the sign belongs here. The second divine name supplies evidence that the damsign in this setting and in the shorter form should be read /dama/, following the pronunciation indicated in 369:B(31–36)a, dA-dam-ma-te-r[i] (cf. 64D), and 369:33A, 64A, dA-dam-ma-te-ra. 78. Arnaud reads [gáb]-bi, which fits the signs, but there is no evidence for this idiom in Emar 446. No clear solution fits the space, but the associated offering materials are suggested in order to reflect the separate donors: sheep from the nuppuhannu men, other materials from the hamsaªu men. 84. Arnaud reads il-li-ka!, but the la-sign is clear even in his copy. For Illila as Enlil, see the discussion of the month Adamma. 85. The case ending on gabbu suggests that the line should be read ‘everything belongs to the gods’, but this adjective usually modifies ‘gods’, and the second turtu should receive some distinctive qualification. Seminara (L’Accadico di Emar, 524) comments that the final -ma on ga-bu-ma should in this case be emphatic. 86. Read Mar-za-ha-ni with Arnaud’s transliteration rather than his copy (-nu). 87–89. The reading of this text has been effectively solved by J. A. Belmonte, “Zur Lesung und Deutung von ina s i l a . l í m ar-ba in Emar-Texten,” N.A.B.U. (1997) 82–83 (no. 87). See my discussion of the text for details. 90. The ¯a-sign is written over a horizontal and is not in doubt. 91. The last two signs are written over the ú-sign at the beginning of line 56. 92. This reading follows the observed use of the ri-sign to write ˘u in line 47, with another likely example in line 93. The practice of burning birds is distinctly Hurrian, and the verb sarapu is particularly associated with Hittite ritual at Emar (see comment). 93. The reading mar-za-hu is confirmed by the writing of ˘u as ri in line 47, along with the month name. See, for the modifier mi-di, the comment on Marzahani. The nap-

D. The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452, Msk 74146b; and Emar 463, Msk 7468 Neither of the tablets for individual months requires adjustments to Arnaud’s lineation. The tablet for the month of Abî (452) is broken all the way across

1. Emar 452, Msk 74146b 1. i-na itiA-bi-i i-na u4-mi hu-us-si 2 bán 2 qa zìsi-na-[hi-l]u 1 dugpi˘ù 10 tu.mußenmes

Spread is 6 points long

The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452 and Emar 463

96.

100. 104. 105. 109. 110.

111. 112.

114. 115. 117. 118. 119.

281

tanu bread is a standard allotment for one meal. The Mari letter ARM XXVI 215: 12 describes a celebration for Dagan at the city of Tuttul, for which the main feast is described with the verb patanum, ma-a-tum ip-tu-un (‘the land feasted’). The two vertical wedges before i-na u4 have full length and represent the number ‘2’, not a gloss mark. The scribe then began to write a Winckelhaken for the ki-sign but corrected himself. The number ‘3’ is in Arnaud’s copy but not in his transliterated text. The sheep is assumed to be for Dagan. For this type of statement, see line 88. See the comment on line 100. Compare the shorter spelling found in lines 102 and 116 (etc.), which would fit into the small space at the end of line 105. This text shows that the singular verb may be used in Emar 446 with a plural subject; cf. lines 88, 100–101, above. Neither the presence of Dagan in a rite for the storm-god nor the syllabic spelling of his title is expected, but the traces are fairly convincing. Unless the absolute form of Bel (‘Lord’) is intended to stand alone, some further epithet appears to have been omitted. The verb matches the unusual spellings in lines 82 and 112. Compare line 21 for use of the preposition istu with a sacred site and materials for allotment. For kawanu as servers, see Installation, 102. The second sign is -aq-, not -la- (see collation notes). The misspelling i-aq-qí may possibly reflect West Semitic pronunciation; Hebrew lq˙ is treated as I-nun in the prefixed form yiqqa˙. See also lines 82 and 110. This line is extremely worn, too much to permit confident restoration. Lines 115– 17 are then indented—Arnaud’s lines 74–76. ]. Or, read uzu ì[ See Installation 153, on gessu as ‘kidneys’, a standard portion of meat for the king. See comment for comparison with Emar 463:19; cf. 25. Read the first sign as gud rather than amar, with lines 24, 31, and 108. Collation shows a third, angled wedge, where gud should have a vertical.

along the horizontal ruling after line 13, but the proportions of the tablet suggest that no more than one line is missing and possibly none at all. The following sections consist of four and five lines (18–21 and 22–26), so that the four lines of 14–17 offer a consistent pattern. Emar 463, the tablet for an unnamed month, is likewise broken along the horizontal axis but with the entire lower half missing.

1

During the month of Abî on the day of declaration: two gallons and two quarts of second-quality flour, one storage jug, ten doves,

282

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

2

1 za-du ì.giß 1 qa geßtin.ud.du a-[na] ªdingirºmes ú-za-a-zu

3

i-na u4.3.kám 1 qa zìba.ba.za 1 qa z[ì?si-n]a-ªhi-luº ße [(x) x du]g˘a 1 dughu-bar sa é dingir-lì udu ] x ì.giß erin.na ße 1 ze˘ sa lú.mesnu-pu-ha-nu x x [x] x [ ì.nun.na 1 me-at ßem 1 hi-zi-bu 1! sig4 pèß 10 nu.úr.m[a x (x) geßt]in.ud.du sa é.gallì a-na dIs8-tár sa a-bi siskur-u

4 5

6

i-na u4-mi sa-a-su-ma 1 qa zìba.ba.za 2 qa zìsi-[na-hi-lu 1(?) hi-z]i-bu 1 tu.mußen gurunmes ìmes sa siskur a-na ˘ur.sag Si-nap-si

7

i-na u4.8.kám 2 bán 2 qa zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 dugpi˘ù 10(?) [tu.mußenmes 1 z]a-du ì.giß 1 qa geßtin.ud.du a-na dingirmes ú-za-zu

8

i-na u4.8.kám-ma 1 qa zìba.ba.za 2 qa zìsi-na-hi-lu ªpi˘ù(?)ºmes x x x x x x [ ] x x x x x x x [1(?) hi-z]i-bu gurun ìmes siskur 1 tu.mußen ˘ur.sag Si-nap-si

9

i-na 14 u4-mi 2 bán 1 qa zìba.ba.za 1 dug˘a 1 hi-z[i-bu 1 sig4 pèß]

10

10 nu.úr.mames a-na dIs8-tár sa su-bi siskur [x (x)] nindames kaßmes [

]

11

i-na u4-mi sa-a-su-ma 1 bán 1 qa z[ ìba.ba.za 1(?)] dug˘a 1 hi-[zi-bu

]

12

1 bán 1 qa zìba.za 1 ªdugº[

13

1 bán 1 qa zìba.ba.za 1(?) [

14

[

a-n]a dIs8-tár ªsaº su-bi siskur u4mes ki-ba-da-ti x x

15 16 17

[ [ [

] ªa!º-[na] ªdºIs8-tár sa bi-ri-qá-ti siskur-u ] 1 bán nindames zì.ße 1 dug˘a i-na-da-nu-ni-su-nu-ti sa é din]gir-lì 1 udu sa lú.mesnu-pu-ha-nu a-na dIs8-tár sa a-bi

] udu(?) sa lu[gal(?) ] ]

siskur-u 18 19 20

[i-na 16 u4-mi(?) ] 1 dug˘a ninda.meska-ma-na-ti siskur [ ] kíl-la-ti it-ti-si ú-se-ra-bu [ -s]e(?)-er-ra-bu i-na u4-mi sa-a-su ßa-a-du

The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452 and Emar 463

283

2

one juglet of oil, and one quart of raisins—they distribute among the gods.

3

On the third day: one quart of second-quality flour, barley, [( . . . ), (one)] flagon, and one jar provided by the House of the Gods; one female kid provided by the nuppuhannu men; . . . [ . . . ], cedar oil, barley, ghee, one hundred (shekels) of aromatics, one standard vessel, one brick of figs, ten pomegranates, [(and)] raisins provided by the palace—they offer to Astart of the abu. On the same day: one quart of (barley-) mash, two quarts of second-quality flour, [one(?)] standard vessel, one dove, fruit, and oil belong to the offering to Mount Sinapsi.

4 5

6

7

On the eighth day: two gallons and two quarts of second-quality flour, one storage jug, ten(?) [doves, one] juglet of oil, and one quart of raisins—they distribute among the gods.

8

Also on the 8th day: one quart of (barley-) mash, two quarts of secondquality flour, a storage jug, . . . [one(?)] standard vessel, fruit, oils, and one dove—are the offering for Mount Sinapsi.

9

On the 14th day: two gallons and one quart of (barley-) mash, one flagon, one standard vessel, [ . . . one brick of figs,] and ten pomegranates—they offer to Astart of the subi. (With) bread and beer, [ . . . ]. On the very same day: one gallon and one quart [of (barley-) mash, one(?)] flagon, one standard vessel, [ . . . provided by the House of the Gods(?)]; one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash, one [ . . . ]-vessel provided by the king(?), [ . . . ]; one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash, one(?) . . . [provided by . . . they offer to . . . ].

10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

[ . . . ]—they offer to Astart of the subi. During the days of the sacrificial homages, [ . . . ]—they offer to Astart of the Lightning Bolts. [ . . . ], one gallon of breads, barley flour, and one flagon—they give them. [ . . . provided by the House of ] the Gods; one sheep provided by the nuppuhannu men—they offer to Astart of the abu. [On the 16th day: . . . ], one flagon, and sweet cakes—they offer. [ . . . ] they make enter with her (with) wailing cries. [ . . . ] they make enter. The hunt is on the same day.

284 21

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes ]ªdºAs-tar-ßa-ar-ba i-na é.gur7 ú-se-ßu-ú i-na 16 u4-mi ßa-du sa

[ dIs

8-tár

] dughu-bar 1 hi-zi-bu sa é dingir-lì

22

[i-na 17 u4-mi(?)

23 24 25

[ [ [

26

[

27

[i-na 19(?) u]4-mi [(#) bán(?) (#) qa(?) zìba.ba].za 3 hi-zi-bu 1 sig4 pèß 10 nu.úr.[m]ames 1 me-at ßem i-na 19 u4-mi uß-ßu-ú i-na 20 u4-mi siskur-usu-nu-ti

28

[(1–2 signs)] xmes siskur 1(?) [(1–2 signs) ud]u(?) sa lugal 2 qa zìba.za 2 qa zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 bán zì.ße

29

1 dugpi˘ù sa é dingir-lì 1 uduze˘ sa lú.mesnu-pu-ha-nu 1 [qa/bán] zìab-lu-ßi ana ˘ur.sag Íu-pa-ra-ti siskur-u

30

i-na 20 u4-mi 1 qa zìba.za 1 qa zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 hi-zi-bu 1 tu.mußen gurun ìmes siskur i-na ˘ur.sag Si-nap-si

31

i-na 25 u4-mi 1/2 bán zìba.ba.za 2 bán zì.ße 1 dugpi˘ù sa é dingir-lì 1 hi-zibu 1 sig4 pèß 10 nu.úr.mames

32

1 udu sa lú.mesnu-pu-ha-nu 1 tu.mußen a-na a-bi-i sa é tùk-li siskur-u i-na u4mi sa-a-su-ma 2 nindaßa-ab-bu-ut-tù zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 tu.mußen gurun a-na a-bi-i sa é dnin.kur sum-nu i-na u4-mi sa-a-su-ma 1 bán zì.ße 2 qa zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 dug˘a 2 uduhi.a sa lugal 1 hi-zi-bu 25 mußen hur(?)-ri i-na ká ki.ma˘ ku-ba-da gal dù-su

33 34 35

36

i-n]a u4-mi sa-a-su-nu-ma ] 1 hi-zi-bu sa é dingir-lì g]istukul dingir.ra ú-se-ß[u]-ú egir é dnin.urta siskur-u ] ep-pa-su

i-na 26 u4-mi 2 bán zì.ße 2(?) [dugpi]˘ù 12 uduhi.a sa lú.mesnu-pu-ha-nu 5 uduhi.a sa lúmes sa im-ma-ri

The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452 and Emar 463

285

21

[ . . . ] They bring out Astar-ßarba from the storehouse. The hunt of Astart is on the 16th day.

22

[On the 17th day: . . . ] a jar, and one standard vessel provided by the House of the Gods; [ . . . (provided by another source?) . . . they offer.] On the very same day: [ . . . ], one standard vessel provided by the House of the Gods; [ . . . they offer.] They bring out the divine weapon [ . . . ]. They make offering behind the temple of dnin.urta. They perform [ . . . ].

23 24 25 26 27

28

29

[On the 19th(?)] day: [ . . . gallons and . . . quarts of ] (barley-) mash, three standard vessels, one brick of figs, ten pomegranates, and one hundred (shekels) of aromatics—on the 19th day (these) go out in procession. On the 20th day they offer them. [ . . . ] offering [ . . . ]. [ . . . ] sheep provided by the king; two quarts of (barley-) mash, two quarts of second-quality flour, one gallon of barley flour, and one storage jug provided by the House of the Gods; one sheep provided by the nuppuhannu men, one [quart(?)] of ablußu-flour—they offer to Mount Íuparatu.

30

On the 20th day: one quart of (barley-) mash, one quart of second-quality flour, one standard vessel, one dove, fruit, and oils are the offering for Mount Sinapsi.

31

On the 25th day: one-half gallon of (barley-) mash, two gallons of barley flour, one storage jug provided by the House of the Gods; one standard vessel, one brick of figs, ten pomegranates, one sheep provided by the nuppuhannu men, and one dove—they offer to the abû of the House of Assistance. On the very same day: two ßabbuttu loaves, second-quality flour, one dove, and fruit—they give to the abû of dnin.kur’s temple. On the very same day: (with) one gallon of barley flour, two quarts of second-quality flour, one flagon, two sheep provided by the king, one standard vessel, and twenty-five Hurrian(?) birds—they perform the greater sacrificial homage at the cemetery gate.

32 33 34 35

36

On the 26th day: two gallons of barley flour, two(?) storage jugs, twelve sheep provided by the nuppuhannu men, five sheep provided by the shepherds,

286 37 38

39 40 41

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes 1 za-du ì.giß a-di gisigmes ªi (?)º-[na k]á e-de4-li a-na gáb-bi dingirmes siskur-u gis mes ig e-da-lu i-na u4-mi sa-a-su-ma 1 bán 1 qa [zìba.z]a 1 bán zìsi-na-hi-lu 2 bán zì.ße 2 dugpi˘ù 1 hi-zi-bu geßtin sa é.gal-lì 1 gud 1 udu 1 mas.dà 1 mußen làl ªìºmes ì.nun.na gurun a-na a-bi-i sa é.gal-lì siskur-u i-na sa-a-su-nu 2 nindaßa-bu-ut-ªtaº zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 tu.mußen gurun a-na a-bi-i sa é dkur 2 ninda.mesßa-ab-bu-ta zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 tu.mußen gurun a-na é dA-lál 2 nindaßa-bu-ta 1 tu.mußen gurun en da-ad-mi

42

2 ninda.mesßa-ab-bu-ta zìsi-na-hi-lu 1 mußen a-na é dIs-ha-ra

43

i-na 27 u4-mi 1 bán 1 qa zìba.za dughu-bar 1 dugmah-ha-ru kaß.ße 1 dugmah-ha-ru kaß.geßtin

44 45 46 47

1 udu 1 tu.mußen làl ìmes ì.nun.na uzu gud uzu mas.dà uzu ku6 ga.˘ab gispèß gáb-bá gurunmes 4 mußen hur(?)-ri(?) ku-ba-dì tur a-na pa-ni a-bi-i sa é dkur siskur-u 1/2 bán zìba.za 1/2 bán zìsi-na-hi-[lu (#)] bán zì.ße 2 dugpi˘ù sa é dingir-lì

gis˘as˘ur.kur.ra

48

a-na a-bi-i sa é d[x ]x zi-ma-ra dingirmes dù-su i-na u4-mi sa-su-ma

49

51 52

1 bán 1 qa zìba.za 1 dughu-bar [1 dugmah]-ha-ru kaß.ße 1 dugmah-ha-ru kaß.geßtin làl ìmes ì.nun.na 1 tu.mußen [uzu gu]d(?) uzu mas.dà 1 sila4 gáb-bá gurun a-na a-bi-i sa é dA-lál ªiº-na u4-mi sa-a-su-ma làl ì[mes ì].nun.na uzu gud uzu maß.dà uzu ku6 gurun gáb-bá a-na a-bi-i is-tu [(x x)] x a-na a-bi-i sa é tùk-li sum-nu

53

i-na sag iti i-na ud.ná.a a-n[a(?) x] us-ta-pu-ú uru.ki ú-kap-pa-ru

54

1/2 qa zì.ße 1 dughu sa é dingir-lì [(#) udu s]a lú.mesnu-pu-ha-nu a-na den Ak-ka siskur-u

55

dlú.làlmes

50

u4.3.kám ú-se-ß[u-ú(?)]

The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452 and Emar 463 37 38

39 40 41

42 43

44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55

287

and one juglet of oil—they offer to all of the gods, up to the time of barring the doors at(?) the gate. Then they bar the doors. On the very same day: one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash, one gallon of second-quality flour, two gallons of barley flour, two storage jugs, and one standard vessel of wine provided by the palace; one ox, one sheep, one gazelle, one bird, honey, oil, ghee, and fruit—they offer to the abû of the palace. On the same day: two ßabbuttu loaves, second-quality flour, one dove, and fruit are for the abû of Dagan’s temple; two ßabbuttu loaves, second-quality flour, one dove, and fruit are for Alal’s temple; two ßabbuttu loaves, one dove, and fruit are for (Dagan) Lord of Habitations; two ßabbuttu loaves, second-quality flour, and one bird are for Ishara’s temple. On the 27th day: (with) one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash, a jar, one presentation vessel of barley beer, one presentation vessel of wine, one sheep, one dove, honey, oil, ghee, beef, venison, fish, apricots, soured milk, figs, all kinds of fruits, and four Hurrian(?) birds— they offer the lesser sacrificial homage before the abû of Dagan’s temple. One-half gallon of (barley-) mash, one-half gallon of second-quality flour, [ . . . ] gallon of barley flour, and two storage jugs provided by the House of the Gods— are provided for the abû of the temple of [ . . . ]. They perform the song of the gods. On the very same day: one gallon and one quart of (barley-) mash, one [jar, one] presentation vessel of barley beer, one presentation vessel of wine, honey, oil, ghee, one dove, beef(?), venison, one lamb, and all kinds of fruit—are provided for the abû of Alal’s temple. On the very same day: honey, oil, ghee, beef, venison, fish, and all kinds of fruits—they give to the abû of the House of Assistance, for the abû from [ . . . ]. At the head of the month, on the day of (the moon’s) disappearance (until?) [ . . . ] it shines (again): they purify the city. They offer to the Lord of Akka: one-half quart of barley flour, one jar provided by the House of the Gods, and [ . . . sheep] provided by the nuppuhannu men. They bring out Latarak for three days.

288

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

Notes to Emar 452, Msk 74146b by line number 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 14. 15. 16. 18. 20. 21. 25. 27.

28.

Collation shows the final sign of the month-name is i, not ˘é. The noun hussu indicates some sort of speech on the first day of the month, perhaps proclamation of the new lunar crescent. Arnaud reads a-[na di]m. For the verb zâzu with ‘the gods’, see Installation, 125. The translations for measures and vessels are the same as those offered for the zukru festival; see above, Emar 373. Collation does not support li-im after the nuppuhannu. The epithet a-bi is smudged, not erased. Arnaud correctly reads 1! sig4, by comparison with line 31, though the sign is written with a horizontal as for 1/2. The hizzibu vessel is the conterpart of naptanu bread, a standard portion for one ritual meal for human participants; see Installation, 143. Read sa before siskur, where Arnaud shows an erasure. Restore by comparison with lines 1–2. Line 8 is unusual not only in its repetition of the eighth day but in its remarkable length, wrapping around the reverse of the tablet and crossing much of the uninscribed bottom. Collation shows extensive traces for either side of the large break, but the uncharacteristic length of the line renders difficult any simple comparison with other lists of offering materials. siskur at the end is expected to precede the recipient immediately, and its placement before the dove may be a scribal error. As it stands, the translation ‘offering-oils’ retains the continuity of the materials list, all of which are likely for Mount Sinapsi. Restore by comparison with lines 5 and 31. Compare 463:12 and 25, as summary description. Pentiuc (Studies) understands su-bi to mean ‘return’ (cf. Hebrew swb). Restore by comparison with line 9. The whole lu/udu-sign is clear, but animals are usually listed before breads and beverages, not after. Traces of the last two visible signs do not confirm e-p[u-su] (Arnaud). It is also possible to read ‘the sacrifice of the days of homages’. See discussion of text 452. The accusative suffix would refer to the gifts, not to recipients. The form inaddanudiverges from the proper Akkadian inaddinu-. See comment for restoration of the likely pattern of days. See the collation notes for one Winckelhaken before -er-ra-bu. See 373:178; the preposition ina with the verb waßû should mean ‘from’ (see the dictionaries). There is no room for Arnaud’s fuller reading of ú-u[ß-ß]u-ú. siskur-u at the end of the line is smudged, not intentionally erased. The two Winckelhakens of ‘20’ are directly side-by-side horizontally and do not represent gam. Restoration of the units at the beginning of the line follows the standard combination. See the collation notes for the traces at the start of this line. It is not clear whether siskur represents a separate verb (with little content to separate it from the end of line 27) or a qualification for some material.

The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452 and Emar 463 29.

32. 35.

36. 37.

40. 42. 43. 45.

48. 50. 53. 54.

289

Arnaud’s copy lacks the udu-sign before ze˘ (compare line 4). See the collation notes for the reading 1 [qa(?)], and zì instead of zíz (Arnaud). The unusual ablußuflour would be measured by the common qa or bán. Zadok (“Notes on the West Semitic Material,” 115) suggested a connection with the Syriac root blß (‘that which buds’); cf. Pentiuc, Studies. ‘House of Assistance’ translates the bit tukli; see Emar 373:120. The word for birds could also be read har-ri. The proposed interpretation reflects the Hurrian practice of burning birds for purification when approaching the underworld. Collation confirms Arnaud’s reading ‘the gate of the grave’. Compare Akkadian immeru ‘sheep’. The i-vowel in e-de4(te)-li indicates the genitive rather than any finite verb, so the best solution is the infinitive of edelu ‘to bar’. The li-sign in the verb follows the typical festival form, also typical of the “Syro-Hittite” tablets, whereas the same sign in tùk-li of line 32 is rendered with a form closer to the “Syrian.” The noun tùk-li then uses the Syrian li-form in line 52. This text thus shows a familiarity with script traditions that are independent in legal documentation. For adi plus the infinitive, see CAD s.v. adi A 2a; GAG §150g. The sign before the infinitive ends in a double vertical suitable to ká, perhaps the gate of the grave (line 35). The phrase ina babi may be picked up from line 35. The vocalization of e-da-lu is Assyrian (Seminara, L’Accadico di Emar, 426 n. 173). All three verticals are visible in the a-sign of a-bi-i. Collation shows two, not four ßabbuttu-loaves. Arnaud appears to be correct that the final erasure is intentional. ‘Presentation vessel’ translates mahharu by reference to the verb maharu ‘to face, receive’. The last sign of the bird category is written as ˘u/mußen, but the term surely should be the same as that from the introductory kubadu in line 35. In Emar 446, ˘u and ri are confused more than once (see lines 47 and 93), and the same seems to have occurred here. A vertical before zi-ma-ra excludes deities already represented, such as dkur, dnin.kur. Spell a-bi-i with the final long vowel, as elsewhere in the text. Arnaud reads a-d[i la] us-ta-pu-ú, when the moon does not shine. The ˘u-sign appears to indicate the hubbar rather than the ˘a-vessel.

290

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

2. Emar 463, Msk 7468 Obverse 1 i-na u4-mi pí-it-ha gisigmes 1 udu 1 bán [(5–7 signs)] x i-na! dingirmes ú-za-a-zu ] 2 1 qa zì.da ßemes 1 hi-zi-bu kaß.geßtin 1 dug [ 3

sa lugal a-na dkur 1 tu.mußen[

4 5 6 7

a-na sa-ni-i u4-mi ku-ba-da ra-ba-a a-[na(?) ] ] 1 me-at ninda.gur4.rames 2 dugpi˘ù 1 duglam-x [ 70 tu.mußenmes a-na dingirmes ú-za-a-zu i-na nu-[ba-(at-)ti ] 1 tu.mußen a-na dkur siskur ta-si-a-ti sa uru ú-ma-l[u(-ú)]

8 9

i-na mu-si 1 mußen ames làlmes ì.nun.names i-sar-[ra-pu] 1 bán zìpa!-pa-sà a-na ta-sa-ti 1 qa zìpa-pa-sà a-na nindames 1 qa z[ìpa-pa-sà

sisku]r(?)

10

a-na ninda.gur4.ra 1 udu 1 hi-zi-bu kaß.geßtin

11

i-na u4-mi : sa-sú-ma is-tu dutu i-na-pí-ih 1 udu sa lú.m[esnu-pu-h]a-ni

12

1 bán zìpa-pa-sà 1 qa zìpa-pa-sà 3 hi-zi-bu a-na ta-si-a-ti 10 gis[pèß(?) nu.ú]r.mames nindames kaßmes sa ªéº dingir-lì

13

[(4–6 signs)] x giß tu ma x [x x] x x x x x a ßemes [ (break)

Reverse 15 [ ]xxx[ ] 16 [ m]eß ì.giß sisku[r ] 17 ªi-naº u4-ªmiº sa hi-ia-ri 18 a-na Hal-ba 19 20 21 22 23

i-na u4.18.kám 2 udu sa! lugal 1 ªa(?)º-[na(?) a]m-ba-si 2 mußen 1 amar ªsa!º ur[u!(2–4 signs) a]m-ba-si 1 gud 1 udu sa ur[u (2 signs)] x-ti kaß 1 bán 1 bán 1 qa zì.ßemes 1 dugx-[x]-x 1 hi-zi-bu kaß.ªgeßtinº

24

1 qa zìpa-pa-sà dughu-bar sa é dingir-lì làl

25

a-na hi-ia-ri sa dim nindames kaßmes sa lú x [

]

] x x x x x meß

The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452 and Emar 463

1

291

3

On the day of opening the doors, they distribute among the gods one sheep, one gallon of [ . . . ]. One quart of barley flour, one standard vessel of wine, one [ . . . ]-vessel, [...] provided by the king are provided for Dagan. One dove [ . . . ].

4 5 6 7

On the next day, [they perform] the greater sacrificial homage for(?) [ . . . ]. One hundred thick loaves, two storage jugs, one . . . -vessel, [ . . . ], and seventy doves—they distribute among the gods. In the evening, they sacrifice one dove to Dagan. They fill the goblets provided by the city.

8 9

At night, they burn one water-bird, honey, and ghee. One gallon of (barley-) mash is for the goblets. One quart of (barley-) mash is for the breads. One quart of [(barley-) mash] is for the thick loaves. (Also,) one sheep and one standard vessel of wine.

2

10 11 12

On the very same day, after the sun is lit, one sheep is provided by the nuppuhannu men. One gallon of (barley-) mash, one quart of (barley-) mash, three standard vessels for the goblets, ten [figs(?)], pomegranates, the breads and the beers are provided by the House of the Gods.

13

[...]... [...] (break)

15 16 17 18

[...]... [...] [ . . . ] they offer oil, [ . . . ] on the day of the hiyaru, to Halma.

19 20 21 22 23

On the 18th day: two sheep provided by the king, one for(?) the ambassi, two birds, one calf provided by the city, [ . . . of ] the ambassi, one ox and one sheep provided by the city, [ . . . ], beer, one gallon and one quart of barley flour, one [ . . . ]-vessel, one standard vessel of wine, one quart of (barley-) mash, and one jar provided by the House of the Gods— are for the hiyaru of the storm-god. The bread and the beers are provided by the [ . . . ]-men.

24 25

292 26 27 28

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes a-na u4.20.kám ] 1(?) a-na dim 1 gud 1 udu a-na dHé-b[at 1 bán 3 qa zìpa-pa-sà 1 qa zì.ßemes a-na dHé-b[at

Left edge 29 [ 30

[

]

s]a(?) lugal 1(?) qa zì.ßemes 2 dug˘a za-du ] x-ta-ri a-na dingirmes ú-za-a-zu

Notes to Emar 463, Msk 7468 by line number 1.

3. 5. 7.

8.

9.

10. 11. 12.

The material on the reverse continues between writing on the upper edge (lines 29–30) and the preceding section for day 20 (lines 26–28). It belongs with line 1 more likely than line 4 (Arnaud). If not from line 1, it might fall at the end of line 3. Compare the idiom of line 6 for this reading. It is not clear whether the traces for the reverse below line 1 belong to line 2 or 3. Context suggests line 3, if the verb is siskur ‘to offer’. The lam-sign is fairly clear, with upper horizontal. The signs sa uru are written below ta-si-a-ti, squeezed above the horizontal divider as if the expression is an added qualification. Three vertical and two horizontal wedges are visible in the lu-sign. One might also read ‘one bird, water, honey . . .’, though the water makes an unexpected ingredient in a burnt offering. Compare mußen in line 20, versus tu. mußen (‘doves’) in lines 3, 6, and 7. The form tasâti represents an unusual contraction of tasiati (cf. line 7). The ta-sign is clear. Arnaud’s copy does not show the first qa-sign, and there are traces of the zì-sign before the final break (see collation notes). The ninda-sign has all four verticals, confirming Arnaud’s reading. The gam-sign appears after u4-mi, and the vertical in the meß after lú is visible (see collation notes). The horizontal marks that cross the number 3 are simply flaws in the tablet. Ten pomegranates appear three times in Emar 452 (lines 5, 27, 31). None of these occurrences uses the giß-determinative, however, which might instead belong to pèß ‘figs’ (see 452:45), which precedes nu.úr.mames in the lists of lines 5, 27, and 31. The traces before dingir-lì are unclear, though ‘the house of the gods’ is expected (see collation notes).

The Texts for Individual Months: Emar 452 and Emar 463

293

26 27 28

On the 20th day: (they offer) to the storm-god: one (ox?); to Hebat: one ox and one sheep. [(They offer)] to Hebat one gallon and three quarts of (barley-) mash and one quart of barley flour.

29

[ . . . ] provided by(?) the king, one(?) quart of barley flour, two flagons, a juglet, and [ . . . ] . . . —they distribute among the gods.

30

15. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

24. 25. 27.

This text skips line 14 and begins the reverse with line 15, in order to follow Arnaud’s lineation as closely as possible. See the collation notes for the visible traces at the beginning of the line. The last sign is -ba (not -ma; collated); neither the divine determinative nor the month marker is present. The context offers little help, though location in the month of Halma does suggest that the word refers to the god. The abbreviated writing of “Halba” may have been provoked by cramped space due to the overlap of text from the obverse. Collation shows that all eight verticals are present; both the number and kám are damaged by gouges. The two top verticals in the ßa-sign are doubled, but the reading is certain in the larger phrase. On the ambassi, see D. Schwemer, “Das alttestamentliche Doppelritual ºlwt wslmym im Horizont der hurritischen Opfertermini ambassi und keldi,” in Edith Porada Memorial Volume (SCCNH 7; ed. David I. Owen and Gernot Wilhelm; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1995) 81–116. The uru-sign again adds a doubled horizontal. For sa, compare the writing in line 20, udu sa lugal, where the context is clear. See the collation notes for the signs before the middle break. The scribe appears to have started afresh with qa in line 23 after mistakenly repeating bán at the end of line 22. Note the raised lá-sign after the end of the line, with unclear significance. It does not appear to be part of the text. By comparison with 446:118–19, lú s[a qí-da-si] is expected, but the last visible sign does not easily suit sa. The tip of the horizontal in the bad-sign in dHé-b[at] is visible.

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

Msk

7429 7c

294

Msk 74292a

Msk 74297c

Msk 74292a (obverse)

Join of Msk 74297c to Msk 74292a+

E. Collation Notes 1. 2.

Join of Msk 74297c (formerly Emar 376) to Msk 74292a+ (Emar 373, the zukru festival); see above. Join of Msk 74287b (formerly Emar 428) to Msk 74298b (Emar 375, the annual zukru); see opposite, p. 295.

Collation Notes

295

Msk 74298b

Msk 74298b

Msk 74287b

Msk 74298b (reverse)

Msk 74287b

Join of Msk 74287b to Msk 74298b

3. Selected collations for the zukru festival, Emar 373 (by line number; signs drawn are in bold) 8 (5).

[is-t]u ßà-su la-a x

296

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

10 (7).

dugpi˘.ù

12 (9).

[bu-k]a-ri

(erasure?)

13 (10). [ud]u a-na dÉ-a dnin.urta

14 (11). ªaº-[na] den simes 18 (15). 6 uduhi.a 19 (16). ªsa lugalº 20 (17).

dkur

22 (19).

na4ha-ªarº-[ßi]

23 (20). sa uru.ki 25 (23). u[ß-ß]a 32 (30). 4 bán nindaße 34 (32). ki-i-me-e gáb-bá 35 (33). udu.u8 37 (35). kaßmes e-el-ªluº 38 (36). [i]tisag.m[u] 40 (38). 70 dingirªmesº lúmes ªziº-ir-a-ti 41 (39). i-na u4-mi egir-ki 42 (40). ªùº dingirmes 44 (42). u4.15.kám

Collation Notes 45 (43).

dkur d

en bu-ka-ri

Sa-as-sa-be-[ta]

46 (44). [dnin.é.ga]l-lì d30 ªuº dutu 47 (45). a-na ká 48 (46). ªkù.gaº sa lugal 49 (47). [nindapa]-ªpaº-sú [d]ugkur4.kur4 51 (49). ª4(?) dugºpi˘ù 52 (50). [sa lug]al [ninda/zì]pa-pa-sí 54 (52). ªzìºpa-pa-sí 56 (54). [s]a é dingir-lì 59 (212). dingirm[es] 60 (57). [ki-i]-me-e 61 (58). [i/ú-pá-s]a-su 62 (59). [pa-n]i ká.gal sa [qa-a]b-li 63 (60). [t]a-pal 64 (61). ªuzuº ªélº-li-ú 73 (63). ku-ba-dì mes 75 (65).

u[ru]ªEº-mar

76 (66).

n[inda]pa-pa-sí

297

298 78 (68).

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes dku[r]

81 (71). .min 82 (72).

dnin.urta

87 (77).

dnin.é.gal-l[ì]

k[i.min]

91 (81). é.g[al-lì] 95 (85). a-na dx x 96 (86). sa lugal ninda.ß[e] 100 (90). en x 104 (94).

d[in]anna

107 (97).

f.mesmu

108 (98).

dx-na-na

109 (99).

dx-na-na

x-nab-bi-ia-t[i]

111 (101). dAs-ªtarº 112 (102). lu[gal] 118 (108). Ya-bu-ªurº 119 (109). [s]a(?) x x x 124 (114). dMu-[

]

128 (118). dim en 133 (123). na!-[aß-ßa-ri(?)] 135 (125). [s]a(?) x [ 136 (126). dSi(?)-bit-ti 137 (127). dx-la-a-ba

]

Collation Notes 139 (129)

kurBa-sal-ma-ªa

144 (134/151).

d

nin.ªurta enº ku-ma-ri

145 (152). A(?)-[(x-)]ª-ni(?)º 146 (153). hu-ut-ta-ni 155 (162). ha-pa-su(?) 160 (167). ªden ra-qa-tiº 166 (171). dù [ta-pa]l 167 (172). [dughu-ba]r(?) [i]-ªqaº-[lu-ú(?)] 169 (174). [e-nu-m]a ezenzu-uk-ra

171 (176). [u4.1]5.kám 172 (177). pa-nu-s[u] 173 (178). dù 174 (179). be-ra-a[t] 176 (181). ku-ut-t[u-mu] udu hi.a 177 (182). di[ngirmes] 178 (183). [i-n]a é dnin.urta 180 (185). ªen buº-ka-ri 181 (186).

na4.messi-ka-ªna-tiº

ú-se-ßu-ªúº

299

300

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

183 (188). gír zabar ú-mas-ªsaº-ru 184 (189). pa-[n]i 185 (190). e-[e]l-li 189 (194). ªa-ßiº-su 191 (196). nindames Sag-ga-ru 192 (197). ú-kat-ta-m[u] 193 (198). dù-sú 195 (200). ma-hi-ri-im-ma-a 199 (204). sa u4.[7.kám(?)] 202 (207). [pa]-ni dku[r]

203 (208). ªna4.º[messi-ka-na]-ti il-l[ak] 204 (209). dù-sú 205 (210). ªezenzu-ukº-ra

4. Selected collations for the text with the annual zukru, Emar 375 3A.

[u]4.15 ªiº-pa-a-du

4A.

[i-n]a u4-mi ªdº[Da-gan(?)]

4B.

[ú-ß]i pi-tu-[ú]

Collation Notes 4C.

pi-tu-ú

5A.

[eg]ir-su

5B.

[u]ru(?)

5C.

[i]l-lak uduªhi.a udu(?)º

6B.

i[t(?)-ti]

7A.

na4s[í-ka-na-tì]

10A.

i-li-ia

10B.

x x ú(?) x x x

11A.

ªdºnin.kur.ra a-n[a]

12A.

x-du

13A.

a-na bi-[ri-it]

14A.

-x a-na

15A.

[n]i(?)-su-ú u[ru(?)E-mar ki(?)]

17A.

a-ª(x)-biº

18A.

xxxx

19A.

ú-pa-ha-ru

20A.

x i-la-kám-ma

21A.

[di]ngir mes

22D.

ªùº dHa-ßi-in-[nu]

23D.

[1] udu 1 amar

301

302 24A.

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes x a-na na4

sí-k[a-n]a-tì

25A.

ma-ka-l[a?!-t]ì

28A.

[na]4sí-ka-na-tì

29A.

[dDa-ga]n

29D.

dingirmes

30A.

i-na ªu4-miº

31A.

ªé (?)ºhi.a

31D.

su-wa-tù

33A.

ma-ka-li-su-nu

33D.

ma-ka-li-s[u-nu]

35A.

dumumes

36D.

su-wa-t[i-ma]

37A.

[a-n]a sa-ha-tì u[du(?)]-sa

37D.

x sa-ni

38A.

udu-sa ù

38D.

[-s]a ªùº

39A.

x x x-qa-ri i-qa-du-si-i

39C.

xx

40A.

x udu/-lu (erasure of ú-ka-ba-du)

40C.

[ku-b]a-de4

41C.

a-na pa-n[i]

Collation Notes 42A.

[uzuka-bar-t]a

42C.

[uzu](x)-x-ta uzuka-ªbarº-t[a]

44A.

ªùº-ba-lu-su-nu-ti

45C.

ªiº-na iti.kám

46A.

nun(?)

47A.

[i-n]a u4-mi gisx-x

i-ßa-mi-du-ú x 47C.

ªi-ßaº-[mi-du]

48A.

[a-n]a(?)

49A.

ti-l[a-su]

50A.

bi-r[i-it]

5. Selected collations for the text for six months, Emar 446 1.

[pár-ß]i uru.ki (and space)

2.

u4.8 x

3.

x 1 udu

4.

[i]s(?)-tu x

5.

ªúº-sa-x

7.

ªi-paº-a-du ta-[

]

303

304

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

8.

dkur

9.

nu-pu-ha-nu

ªúº-[ßi]

18.

i-na u4

22.

u4-mi

23.

i-pa-a-[du]

24.

ú-ßi gud

27.

kuß sag(?)

28.

gibil(??)

30.

d[

33.

lam(?)-ti

37.

dIs-ªra!º

38.

sag é ªdingir(?)º

25*.

xmes

26*.

[lúmás.ßu.gíd(?)].gíd(?)

28*.

iti

30*.

lú(?)

35*.

-ti-x

36*.

ªd(?)ºen

40*.

x x i(?)

42.

ªqàº-du

44.

lúmás.ßu.gíd.gíd

45.

ú-se-ra-du-u

50.

ªuduº a-ªnaº dDa-gan

]

Collation Notes 51.

lúmás.ßu.gíd.gíd

52.

é ªdingir(?)º ka4-sà-tu4

53.

lúmás.ßu.gíd.gíd

54.

x (-x) x-am

56.

ú-ka-ba-du

57.

e-ri-si

59.

i-na u4.18

60.

n[u-pu]-ha-an-ni n[u-pu]-ha-an-ni

61.

[i]-ªka(?)-lu(?)º [i]-sa-tu

62.

-na ì.nun(?)

63.

nindah[u-(?)-

69*.

x

70.

xx

71.

udu a-na d[

73.

x bar(?)-ra(?) x 1(?) udu(?) ªaº-[na]

74.

xx

77.

[it]i dAn-na

78.

ha-am-sa-i

79.

[i-n]a-din-nu

80.

a-nu-tu4

81.

[s]a nu-pu-ha-an-ni

85.

a-na

]

]

305

306

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

86.

itiMar-za-ha-ni

88.

dingir

90.

ßa-du

91.

u4.17 nu-pu-ha-an-ni

93.

mar-za-hu mi-di

96.

ku-ba-dì

98.

ªiº-na kaß.geßtin

100.

ªi-naº

105.

qí-ªdaº-si

108.

ki-na-i

109.

ªé-suº i-na ßà-su-nu

110.

é dDa(?)-[g]an(?) be-ªel(?)º i-aq?!-qí ªa(?)-na(?)º

111.

lúka-wa(?)-ni(?)

112.

i-aq-qí x ªa(?)º-na ßà-su x x

114.

mes

115.

kuß ßà(?)

x x (x) -na-su(?)

na-di(?)-nu(?) qí(?) x

uzuir(?)-[ri]

Collation Notes 117.

uzugi

118.

[i(?)-n]a(?) ªu4º.18 hi-ia-rù ªsaº dim

119.

gud!

5-is-se

6. Selected collations for the text for the month of Abî, Emar 452 1.

iti

2.

ªdingirºmes ú-za-a-zu

3.

z[ìsi-n]a-hi-lu

4.

x x [x] x

A-bi-i

x ì.giß 6.

sa siskur

8.

ªpi˘ùºmes x x x x x x x x x x x x x [1(?) hi-z]i-bu

12.

ªdugº[

14.

[a-n]a dIs8-tár ªsaº su-bi siskur u4mes ki-ba-da-ti x x

15.

ªa!º-[na] ªdºIs8-tár

20.

[-s]e(?)-er-ra-bu

25.

ú-se-ß[u]-ú

]

307

308 27.

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes [u]4-mi nu.úr.[m]ames i-na 20 u4-mi

28.

xmes

29.

é dingir-lì 1 uduze˘ 1 [qa/bán] zìab-lu-ßi

35.

i-na ká ki.ma˘ ku-ba-da

36.

[dugpi]˘ù

37.

gisigmes

ªi(?)º-[na]

ªi(?)º-[na k]á 38.

[zìba.z]a

39.

ªìºmes

42.

2 ninda.mesßa-ab-bu-ta

45.

mußen hur(?)-ri(?)

48.

x zi-ma-ra

50.

[uzu gu]d(?) a-na a-bi-i

51.

ªiº-na u4-mi ì[mes]

52.

is-tu

53.

a-n[a(?) x]

Collation Notes 7. Selected collations for the text for an unnamed month, Emar 463 1.

i-na! dingirmes

5.

duglam

7.

ú-ma-l[u(-ú)]

9.

a-na ta-sa-ti

x

1 qa zìpa-pa-sà z ì

[ pa-pa-sà]

10.

ninda.gur4.ra

11.

lú.m[esnu-pu-h]a-ni

12.

3 hi-zi-bu ta-si-a-ti 10 gis[pèß(?) nu.ú]r.ma sa ªéº dingir-lì

17.

ªi-naº u4-ªmiº

18.

Hal-ba

19.

u4.18.kám

20.

sa! lugal

21.

ªsa!º ur[u!]

22.

sa ur[u] x-ti

23.

1 dugx-[x]-x

24.

zìpa-pa-sà dughu-bar

é dingir-lì làl 27.

dHé-b[at]

309

310

Appendix: Texts and Translations, with Collation Notes

29.

[s]a(?) lugal 1(?) qa

30.

x-ta-ri ú-za-a-zu

8. Selected collations for the installation of the nin.dingir priestess, Emar 369 7A.

ªsiskurº, ªnin.dingir a-naº

9A.

[a-na pa-ni d]ªim epº-[pa]-su

10A.

[x] ªgín kùº.babbar

12C.

7 ninda ud[.du]

22A.

[ú-q]a-da-su

24A.

[i-n]a ªkiº qa-ªqaº-ri

25A.

[nindana]p-ta-ni mes

26B.

u4.7.k[ám]

33A.

i(?)-ªla(??)º[-ak(?)]

51A.

u4.7.kám

51B.

7.kám

52D.

[

53D.

1 gispa

56B.

7! ninda

56B.

ª7(?)º dugmes k[aß ]

58B.

i-na u4-mi e[gir(?)-ki]

58D.

[

] x x dSa-ah-ri

] x u4(?)-mi

Collation Notes 58D.

ellag(?)

58D.

[x x] x x

61A.

1(?) x [(x) túg íb.lá(?)]

65A.

3 nap-ta-ni mes

69D.

x (x)

69D.

dub diß x x [

71C.

sa-a-su [túg] x x e

86C.

(traces)

]

311

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________ . “Ceremonial Transfers of Real Estate at Emar and Elsewhere.” VO 8 (1992) 33–48. ________ . “Feet of Clay at Emar and Elsewhere.” Or 63 (1994) 1–4. ________ . “War and Famine at Emar.” Or 64 (1995) 92–109. ________ . “téß.bi= mitharu/mitharis at Emar and Elsewhere.” Or 65 (1996) 89–110. Zadok, Ran. “Notes on the West Semitic Material from Emar.” AION 51 (1991) 113–37.

Indexes

Index of Authors A Abusch, T. 188 Adams, R. McC. 207–8 Adamthwaite, M. R. 21, 204 Aitken, K. T. 75 Archi, A. 68, 84, 131, 136–37, 160, 163–64, 178, 208, 218 Arnaud, D. 1–4, 6–7, 9–10, 14–16, 18–19, 23, 26, 28–29, 31–32, 50, 60, 62, 65, 81– 82, 85, 89, 93, 123, 139, 143–44, 151, 166, 171, 180, 192, 201, 205, 224, 227–28, 230, 233, 252–55, 266, 268, 276, 278, 280–81, 288–89, 292 Aspesi, F. 163 Astour, M. C. 35, 203 B Bartlett, J. B. 107 Batto, B. 114 Beaulieu, P.-A. 75, 97 Beckman, G. 3, 7, 17, 23, 41, 61, 108, 124, 178, 197–98, 207, 226, 229–30, 252, 254–55, 267 Bellotto, N. 126, 229 Belmonte, J. A. 166, 182, 280 Beyer, D. 157 Bickerman, E. J. 130, 211 Birot, M. 104 Bonechi, M. 83, 206, 255 Bottéro, J. 39, 159 Bunnens, G. 125 C Carter, C. W. 74, 85, 134, 136 Cassirer, E. 219 Charpin, D. 4, 74, 90, 113, 118–20, 125, 128, 135, 162, 164, 215, 218

Chavalas, M. W. 1 Civil, M. 27, 207, 213 Clifford, R. J. 131 Clines, D. J. A. 132 Cohen, M. E. 8, 10, 29, 60, 89, 101, 104, 128–30, 132, 134–36, 138, 144, 152, 164–65, 171, 186–88, 208, 215–17, 221 Cooper, J. S. 221 D D’Agostino, F. 84 Dalley, S. 2, 7, 31, 94–95, 103, 154, 156–57 Dassow, E. von 168 DeJong, T. 171, 174, 183, 213, 217 Dever, W. G. 86 Dietrich, M. 2, 42, 81, 83, 229, 255 DiVito, R. A. 80 Dossin, G. 49, 86, 122, 169 Driel, G. van 135 Drijvers, H. J. W. 74, 80, 82 Dubberstein, W. H. 216 Duponchel, D. 83 Durand, J.-M. 39, 62, 74, 83–84, 105, 109, 113, 116, 118–21, 124, 126, 135, 139, 141, 156–57, 162–63, 165, 168, 170, 172, 182, 193, 201, 213, 224, 229–30 Dussaud, R. 87 E Ebeling, E. 91, 162 Eidem, J. 124 Eising, H. 123 Eliade, E. 219 Englund, R. K. 215 Engnell, I. 127

331

332

Index of Authors

F Fales, F. M. 7, 16 Falkenstein, A. 134 Feliu, L. 254 Fleming, D. 1, 4, 26, 29–30, 35–36, 40–42, 44–46, 53–54, 56–57, 61, 68–69, 73– 74, 79, 81, 83, 88, 93–94, 103, 106, 115, 120–21, 141, 147, 150, 154, 156, 161, 165, 171, 180, 192–93, 211, 229, 252, 254–56, 276, 279, 281 Foster, B. 43 Foxvog, D. 80 Frankfort, H. 129 Fraser, J. T. 219 Furlani, G. 68 G Gaster, T. H. 137 Goetze, A. 85, 87, 96, 137, 225 Gonnet, H. 2, 31, 156 Grabbe, L. L. 170 Groneberg, B. 75 Guichard, M. 83, 141, 193 Gurney, O. R. 60, 87, 96, 131, 136–37, 160, 229 Güterbock, H. G. 35, 60, 65, 131, 137 H Haas, V. 9, 35, 39, 48, 57, 63, 74, 80, 85, 91, 131, 137, 156–57, 163, 178, 194, 215 Hagenbuchner, A. 1, 14, 30, 226 Hallo, W. W. 75, 159, 221 Hammade, H. 86, 90 Harris, R. 209 Hartner, W. 216 Healey, J. F. 158 Hehn, J. 74 Heimpel, W. 80, 126 Heltzer, M. 222 Henninger, J. 87 Hess, R. S. 6 Hoffner, H. A. 57, 131, 155, 172, 188 Hooke, S. H. 127 Horowitz, W. 215 Huehnergard, J. 1, 7, 37, 167, 170, 181, 193, 203–4, 252, 254, 277 Huÿssteen, P. J. J. van 30 I Ikeda, J. 15, 17, 33–34, 41, 89, 110–12, 167, 278 Imparati, F. 226

J Jacobsen, T. 131, 157, 183, 207, 213, 220 Jakob-Rost, L. 48 Joannès, F. 29, 120, 207 K Kilmer, A. D. 80 Klengel, H. 3 Koch, J. 215 Köcher, F. 135 Kümmel, H. M. 95 Kupper, J.-R. 117 Kutscher, R. 130 L Labat, R. 75, 159 Lackenbacher, S. 83, 125 Lafont, B. 49, 105, 115, 117–22 Lambert, W. G. 29, 136, 180, 206 Landsberger, B. 8, 128, 134, 159, 178, 186 Langdon, S. 8 Laroche, E. 1, 3, 9, 14, 26, 30–31, 94, 156, 180, 226–28 Larsen, M. T. 204, 209, 216, 223 Lebrun, R. 35, 180, 228 Leemans, W. F. 42 Leeuw, G. van der 219 Lemche, N. P. 170 Lesky, A. 137 Levine, B. A. 9, 12, 96, 102, 123, 160 Limet, H. 75, 175, 178, 208 Lipinski, E. 131, 197 Lods, A. 49 Loretz, O. 83, 229 M Machule, D. 5 Maekawa, K. 104 Malamat, A. 113–14 Malul, M. 62, 109 Mander, P. 163, 256 Marello, P. 118 Margalit, B. 83 Margueron, J.-C. 1, 3–4, 18, 35, 42, 184 Masson, E. 128 Matous, L. 163 Matsushima, E. 7 Mayer, W. 83 McClellan, T. L. 4, 6 McEwan, G. J. P. 75 McLaughlin, J. L. 166 Menzel, B. 9, 135

Index of Authors Mettinger, T. N. D. 85 Meyer, J.-W. 7 Milgrom, J. 123 Millard, A. 223 Monte, G. F. del 230 Moor, J. C. de 183 Moortgat, A. 86 Moran, W. L. 25, 169–70 Morrison, M. A. 65 Mowinckel, S. 127, 131 N Nakata, I. 117 Neu, E. 229 Neugebauer, O. 97, 214–15 Nilsson, M. P. 127–29, 159, 214, 216–17 Nötscher, F. 91 O Oldenburg, U. 157 Oliva, J. 157, 182, 187 Olivier, J. P. J. 171, 217 Olmo Lete, G. del 9, 75, 102, 133, 142, 172, 174 Oppenheim, A. L. 80 Orme, J. E. 219 Ory, S. 19 Otten, H. 128, 201, 229 Owen, D. I. 7 P Paillet, J.-L. 19 Parpola, S. 128, 132, 186 Pecchioli-Daddi, F. 107 Pedersén, O. 6, 19 Pentiuc, E. J. 84, 90, 102, 154, 169, 175, 188, 254–56, 279 Pettinato, G. 68, 164, 218 Pitard, W. T. 187, 189 Pomponio, F. 163 Pongratz-Leisten, B. 135 Pope, M. H. 167 Pruzsinszky, R. 205–6 R Rainey, A. F. 170 Reiner, E. 80, 95 Richard, R. A. 216 Robbins, E. 75, 136, 214–15 Roberts, J. J. M. 163, 208 Robertson, N. 131 Rochberg-Halton, F. 75, 216 Roth, M. 170

333

Ryckmans, G. 86 S Sallaberger, W. 8–9, 35, 75, 93, 130, 134, 141, 159, 178 Salzman, M. R. 75, 162 Sapin, J. 10 Sasson, J. M. 9, 29, 44, 84–85, 104–5, 113–15, 129, 162, 195 Schwemer, D. 293 Scurlock, J. A. 186 Seminara, S. 30, 34, 76, 81, 84, 88, 110–12, 147, 167, 192, 197, 254, 256, 266–67, 278–79, 289 Siegelová, J. 172 Sigrist, M. 7, 11, 21–22 Singer, I. 68, 122, 131, 137, 158, 228 Sivan, D. 193 Sjöberg, Å. W. 108 Skaist, A. 21–25, 202 Smith, M. S. 91, 95 Soden, W. von 131, 134, 206 Soldt, W. H. van 62, 171, 174, 183, 213, 217 Sommerfeld, W. 90 Soubeyran, D. 156 Soucek, V. 172 Steensgaard, P. 219 Steinkeller, P. 93, 206, 230 Stol, M. 156 T Tallqvist, K. 91 Talon, P. 117 Tarragon, J.-M. de 9, 96, 102, 160 Teissier, B. 2, 7, 31, 94–95, 103, 154, 156–57 Teixidor, J. 80 Toorn, K. van der 92, 166–67 Trémouille, M.-C. 178 Tsukimoto, A. 7, 17, 65, 93, 164, 187, 201, 203, 205, 207 Turkowski, L. 158 V Vaux, R. de 217 Veenhof, K. R. 43, 86, 168, 203, 209, 216, 223 Villard, P. 117, 173 Virolleaud, C. 39 Vita, J.-P. 171, 203 W Weidner, E. F. 135 Weinfeld, M. 157

334

Index of Divine Names

Wellhausen, J. 86, 216 Wensinck, A. J. 129 Werner, P. 5 Westenholz, J. 7, 94–95, 255 Whitrow, G. J. 214 Wilcke, C. 109–10, 197, 209–10 Wilhelm, G. 7, 68, 171, 178, 193–94 Willetts, R. F. 122 Winlock, H. E. 214–15 Wright, L. 75

X Xella, P. 9, 169 Y Yamada, M. 7, 14, 21, 25, 30–34, 40–41, 196, 204, 226 Yoshikawa, M. 7 Z Zaccagnini, C. 62, 201, 204 Zadok, R. 89, 151, 165, 182, 187, 192, 256, 289

Index of Divine Names The following index of divine names includes translations, transliterations, and normalizations, as well as separate entries for equivalent names that are discussed under different forms. Bold italic entries here and in the Index of Akkadian Words and the Index of Sumerian Words mark substantive discussion of a term’s meaning or its basic identification. A Adamma 163, 208 Adammatera 148, 163–64 Addâ 163 Addu 26, 49, 114–18, 122, 162, 172–73 Addu Lord of Kallassu 114–15, 138 Addu of Aleppo 113, 115, 161 Adunterra 163 Alal 59, 177, 185–86, 195 ªAlmaqah 157 Amaza 59 ºAmm 157 Ana 163 Anat 58, 91, 158, 183 Anna 162–63, 173, 208 Anna of the River-Bank 162 Annunitum 161–62 Anu 90, 124, 135, 162 Aruru 124 Assur 91 Astar-ßarba 151, 166, 176, 179, 182–83 Astart 35, 43, 72, 88, 149, 151, 162–63, 165–66, 171, 176, 178–79, 181–84, 186, 188 Astart sa abî 176, 178, 181, 186–87 Astart sa biriqati 176, 181 Astart sa subi 176, 181

Astart-of-Battle 64, 84, 181 Astart-of-the-Ancestors 188 Astart-of-the-City 31 Astart-of-the-Mountain 44 Atargatis 82 Athirat 57 B Baal 57–58, 60, 74, 91, 94, 169, 183–84, 220 Baºalta matim 94 Baºla 26, 208 Baºla Halab 170, 179, 208 Baºlaka 95 Balih-River 39, 67, 73, 208 Bel 87 Bel Akka 177 Bel dadmi 177, 195 Belet-ekalli 39, 55, 67, 72, 78, 104, 161 Belit-Sippar 135 D Dagan 29–30, 37–38, 42, 44, 48–49, 51, 53– 55, 57, 60, 64, 66–68, 70–74, 77–78, 81–84, 86–87, 88–98, 100–101, 103–4, 106–8, 122, 126, 138–39, 145, 148–54, 156, 158, 160–62, 168, 170–71, 173, 177, 179, 184–86, 189, 191–95, 212, 220–21, 230 Dagan en Bu-uz-qa 88

Index of Divine Names Dagan en ha-ar-ri 88 Dagan en ha-pa-x 88 Dagan en kar-se 88 Dagan en qu-ú-ni 88 Dagan en Su-mi 88 Dagan en Ya-bu-ªurº 88 Dagan Lord of the Offspring 51, 88–89, 108 Dagan Lord of the Seed 148, 158 Dagan of the Palace 72, 88 Dagon 158 Damkianna 89 Damkina 34 Damnassara-deities 80 Diritum 104–5, 161, 172 Dumuzi 130–31, 186 E Ea 30, 34, 37, 58, 64, 89, 91 El 38, 91, 157, 207 d en /Baºla/Belu 27, 154 den BI-ta-ri 102 den Ha-la-ab 101 d en simes 156 Enlil 89–90, 92–93, 95, 163, 229 d ereß.ki.gal 58, 161, 188 Erra 93 Erra bel Sagma 44 Estar 104, 172, 180, 182 G Gad 80 Gaddê 80 Gestinanna 130–31 H Haddu 94 H Halwanna 137 Halma 44, 59, 70, 149, 151, 168, 179, 191, 208 d˘ar 32 Hattâ 118 Hebat 44, 84–86, 191–92 Hebat of Aleppo 172 I Ili 207–8 Il Imari 94–95 Illila 149, 151, 163–64, 173, 179, 229 Inanna 130, 183 Inar(a) 80, 82 Ishara 38, 50, 64, 73, 79, 81, 90, 94, 148, 153–54, 156, 165, 177, 185–86, 195, 208

335

Ishara of the City 94 Ishara of the King 73 Istar 182–83 Istar/Astart 185 K Kumarbi 90, 158 dkur gal 89, 178 L Latarak 177, 180, 185 Lord of Aleppo 95, 118, 206 Lord of Bitaru 101 Lord of Ekalte 95 Lord of Habitations 95, 185, 195 Lord of Halab 101 Lord of Kallassu 114, 118 Lord of Shelter and Protection 88 Lord of the Brickwork 67, 88 Lord of the Camp 88 Lord of the Fortress 88 Lord of the Habitations 88 Lord of the Hills 170 Lord of the Horns 156 Lord of the Offspring 57, 67, 73, 88, 99, 122 Lord of the Quiver 88 Lord of the Seed 103, 145, 212 Lord of the Valley Plain 88 M Marduk 93, 130–31, 135–36, 138, 220 moon-god 37, 55, 59, 156–57 moon-god of the palace 156 Môt 158, 183 Mount Sinapsi 176–78 Mount Íuparatu 90, 177–78 Muntara 164 Mutmuntara 164 N Nanna 136, 157 nè.eri11.gal sa na4 24 nè.iri11.gal sa ki.lam 24 Nergal 24, 31–32, 44–45, 90, 104, 125, 141, 156, 186, 188, 195 Ningal 156 Nintu 92 dnin.kalam 94 dnin.kur 31, 44, 59, 61, 70, 72, 81–82, 101, 107, 147–48, 151, 154, 161–62, 168, 179, 182, 185, 193, 208 dnin.kur of the Throne 162 d nin.kur.ra 161 dnin.líl 89

336

Index of Akkadian Words

Ninurta 93, 95 dnin.urta 15, 21, 25, 29, 37, 40–42, 44, 50– 51, 53–55, 61, 64, 67, 71–74, 78, 80–82, 84–85, 87–88, 92–93, 94–95, 96–97, 101, 107, 126, 148, 151–54, 176, 184–85, 202, 205, 207–8, 222 dnin.urta of the Amit Gate 148, 151, 153–54 Nuska 93 R Rasap 32, 163 S Sanugaru 156 Sîn 34, 38, 67, 78, 90–91, 156–57 Sîn sa ekalli 72 storm-god 2, 4, 7, 26, 29, 33, 35–37, 43–44, 61, 68–69, 76–77, 79, 84, 86, 88, 94, 102, 113–14, 136, 148–51, 154, 157, 161–63, 165–66, 168–73, 179, 183–84, 188, 191–92, 202, 213 storm-god of Canaan 149, 151, 168–70, 173, 179 sun-god 59, 156 sun-god of the palace 55, 67, 72, 78, 156 S Saggar 31–32, 59, 70, 97, 103, 145, 148–49, 151–52, 155–57, 168, 179, 212

Sa˙ar 183 Salim 183 Samas 34, 38, 90–91, 118, 161–62 Sassabetu 51, 55, 67, 71, 77–78, 80–82, 107 Sassabeyanatu 78–80, 82, 85, 107 Sassabitu 81–82 Satrana 167 Sinapsi 178 T Tessub 68 Tiamat 136 Tyche 80, 82 U Udha 148, 153–54 Uras 135 d Ur-da 28 W Wadd 157 X d x-na-na of the Palace 73 Y Yahweh 123–24 Yammu 91, 187 Yarih 157

Index of Akkadian Words The following index of Akkadian and West Semitic words includes both normalized and transliterated forms, depending on the nature of the evidence cited. abû

96, 147–48, 150, 163–64, 175, 177, 179, 181, 184–89, 194–95, 212 abullu 93, 189 a-bu-ma 90, 123, 195 lú.mes hi.a ah 154, 189, 229 akalu 147 akitu 130–31, 133–40, 221 alaku 87 alpu 155 alu 93, 126 ana lit 87 ana muhhi 87 ana pani 188 apilum 114–15

apsû 157 a-ra-na 25 aranum 25 arnu 25 assum 29, 117 awîlum 118 babu 76, 93, 189 baqaru 41 barû 26–27 bel biti 73, 82 belu 106 biblum 193 bi-ri-ki 157

Index of Akkadian Words bi-ri-qá-ti 165, 182 bit alim 209 bit limmim 209 bit tukli 40, 42, 177, 184–86, 189, 229 BI-ta-ri 100 bitu 85 bubbulu 179–80 bu-Ga-ra-tu4 149, 165, 181 bu-GA-ru 165 bukaru 57, 67, 73, 88–89, 91, 98, 122–23 buru 65 Bu-uK-Ku-ra-tu4 165 dadu 95 dâkum 62 dalatu 189 dannatu 204 duriqqum

207

elû 155 enuma 113 epesu 72, 121, 176 eqlu 40 erisu 145 erßetu 197 essessu 75 etequ 87 gabbu 71, 112, 150 ga-ma-ru 154 gararu 165 anse

ha-a-ri 172 (anse)ha-a-ri(-im) 172 halbum 168 hamsaªu 79, 163 dughar-de-e-x 59 harranu 40 harßu 82–83 hasasu 126, 175 haßßinnu 102, 147, 150 hazannum 209 henpa 30, 64 hepû 109 hi†u 25, 41 hidasu 97, 149, 168, 173, 179, 185–86, 189–93, 195 hi-i†-†i 167 hitpu 75

337

149, 160–61, 168, 171–73, 179, 190–92, 202, 213 hizzibu 36, 38, 187, 190 hubbar 58, 67, 190 hubu 38 huggu 148, 161 humusum 83 hurapu 65 hu(?)-ri-ti 166 hussu 79, 175–77, 179 hutnu 123 hiyaru

idû 167 ikribu 123 ilu 37, 189 imistu 61, 97, 102 im-ma-ri 146 ina 112, 157 inuma 139 istu 65 izuzzum 115 kalû 112 kamanu 180 karabu 123 kasadu 77 kasapu 180 ka-sa-ra-ti 89 ka-si-id za-wa-n[i-(e)] 95 katamu 92 kà-ti4-na-ti 165 kawanu 79, 149, 171 kerßu 58 kibadatu 176 kib-ri 162 kíl-la-ti 182 killu 182 kilûtum 141 ki-na-i 169 kinunum 104, 161 kirbanu 108–9 kirû 158 kispum 187 kissu 20, 30, 36, 50, 57, 64, 69–70, 73, 79, 81–82, 89, 97, 102, 112, 150, 153–54, 161, 186, 195, 222 kubadu 55, 61, 77, 95–96, 98, 100–103, 107–8, 122, 148–49, 153, 155, 158, 166, 177, 184–86, 189, 191, 193, 229 kurkurru 58, 67

338 kussû

Index of Akkadian Words 69

lahru 122 lamassu 79–80 lemenu 203 leqû 76, 198 lilêtu 100 limu/limmu 199, 203, 209, 223 lipit napistim 120 lit 112 littum 116 maharu 198 mahrû 53, 193, 228 ma-la 73 mala allûtima 60 malluku 70 malû 150, 203 marzahu 149, 165–68, 184 masªartu 20, 29, 36–37, 42, 45, 50, 64, 69–71, 79, 84, 89, 97, 102, 112, 142, 150, 161, 166, 181 ma-as-ir-ta 169 maskanum 62 mehtilu 154 midû/medû 167 mu-di ìmes 28 munabbiatu 73, 165 musazkirum 125 muskênum 57 nabalkutu 119 nadanu 60, 112, 117, 121, 139, 177, 185 nadû 145, 158 nahasu 87 naptanu 36, 150 naqû 61, 185, 189, 194 nasû 71, 166 nihlatum 114, 138 nikaru 229 nis ili 120, 124–26 nis zikir 125 nisu 78–79 nuªar(t)u 170 nubattu 77, 97, 100, 137, 159, 228 nugagtu 161 nukurtu 204 nuppuhannu 106, 146, 150–51, 157, 190, 207, 229

paªadu

52, 60–63, 66, 106, 112, 149, 153, 194, 252 palahu 79, 168 panu(m) 92 pappasu 58–59, 78, 190 parisu 37, 40, 79 pasasu 61, 83, 98 petû 92 pidûm 62 pihu 58–59, 78, 190 pitha 192, 194 pû 76 puhadu 65 purû 72 pussusu 108 qablu 93, 153 qaddusu 50, 53, 64–65, 67, 229 qadu 103 qalû 61, 95 qaqqadu 92 qaqqaru 195 qarnu 156 qidasu 79, 147, 149–50, 161, 168, 171 qû 78 rabû 96, 100 rakabu 88 rapsu 95 ra-wa-x 160 res satti 128 resu 106–7 res warhi 180, 193 sangû 24, 31, 44 sebû(t) sebîm 74 sikkanu 24, 53, 55, 71–73, 76–77, 82–86, 92– 93, 96, 101–2, 107–9, 137, 139, 160, 187 sirqatum 139 sisû 155 sugagu 117 sutu 78 ßabbuttu 185 ßâdu 149, 151, 165, 181–83 ßehru 96 ßupru 90 ßurpu 123

Index of Sumerian Words wakil tamkari 209 wa-lu-hi 180 waradu 149, 151, 155 warhu 101, 127 waßû 77, 147, 151, 155, 178 wasabu 81, 193 watrum 215 (w)ussuru 64

sadû rabû 89 sakanu 36, 71, 83 sarapu 150, 166 saraqu 82 sarru 147 sâsu 102, 176, 228 sâsunu 176 sattu 102, 127–29 sedu 80 sinahilu 180, 190 subi/subu 181 sulputu 182 suwatu 102, 112 tahtamum 224 ta-pal 85 tar-na-as 180 tarû 79 târu 87, 102 tasitu 169, 191, 194 tertum 115 tugguru 199 tuklu 40 turru 71 turtu 71–72, 87, 89, 102–3, 151, 164, 179 tu-ru-be/bu 180 tu-tu-nu 180 †araªu

61, 83

urram seram wabalu

119

lúza-bi-hi 154 zadu 190 zagmukku 128 zakaru 123–26, 175 zammaru 147 zaraqu 207 Zarati 104, 144 zâzu 36, 59–61, 176, 191, 194, 203 zeru 103, 158 zi-ir-a-ti/zirªatu 58–60, 104, 169 zikru 123 ziriqu 207 zukru 4, 9–11, 15, 20, 24, 37–39, 42, 46–48, 50, 52–53, 56, 60, 63–67, 69–74, 76, 78–80, 82, 85–93, 95–18, 120–24, 126–27, 132–33, 135–43, 145, 150, 152–56, 159–60, 164, 166, 168, 171, 179, 186, 189, 194–95, 197, 206, 210, 212, 219–21, 229–30 zunnu 123 zuriqtu 207 Zurqitu 207 zuruqqu 207

112, 166–68

Index of Sumerian Words 1.kám.ma 2.kám.ma

339

197, 204 197, 204

abhi.a 116 á - k i - t i 104, 130, 133–34, 136, 138, 141, 220–21 amar 65–66 anße 172 a.ßà 40, 199

lú

a.zu

28

b a l a g 220 bán 58–59, 67, 78 gisbuginmes 79 dingir-lì 37 dingirmes 150 d i r i 215, 218

340 lúdub.sar

30 dumu lugal 32, 226 dumumes 108, 154 é 85, 106, 199 é dingir-lì 37, 39, 56 é dingirmes 37 é.gal-lì 56 fé.gi .a 82 4 edin 154 e z e m - m a h 141 e z e n 9, 48, 106, 113, 228 gal 96, 100, 108, 154 gal dub.sarmes 30 gal ukkin.na 209 lú.mes gal.gal 154 gaßan 73, 79, 81 gír zabar 65 dug lú

˘a 58, 67, 190 ˘al 26–28, 33, 37, 146, 228

iti 101, 155 izi 71 lú ì.zu 27 ì.zu tur 27 ì.zu tur.tur 27 ká 76, 93 ká.gal 93, 107, 149, 153 kab.zu.zu 27 kám 102, 155 kaskal 40 kaß.geßtin 150, 190 ki.gal 188 ki.la˘4 199 kierßetu 33, 197, 199 kiri6 157 kiri6.geßtin 199 gisk i r i - m a h 75 6 kur 106 lú 118, 189 lúmes gal 154 l u g a l 56, 147

Index of Sumerian Words lúmáß.ßu.gíd.gíd

10, 26–28, 31, 33, 35,

146–47 m i n 215 mu 128, 203 mu.an.na 129 nin.dingir 2, 20, 29–30, 36–38, 42, 45, 56, 68–69, 71, 73, 76–77, 79, 83–84, 86, 92, 96–97, 102, 112, 142, 145, 147, 150, 161–64, 166, 170, 175, 194–95, 222 numun 103, 145 níg

piß.ku

qa

81

58, 67, 78

sag.du 92 sag.mu 9, 126, 128, 132–33, 160 sag.uß nim 122 sanga 28, 31, 37, 44, 147 sig4 67 sila4 65 siskur 194 siskur2-re 172 gis ßinig 71 s e - b a 218 ßen zabar 65 tur

27, 96, 108

ud.ná.a 180 udu 66 udu.sila4 57 udu.u8 98, 122 ugula 30 ugula.kalam.ma 3, 32, 226 unmes 59, 78–79 uru.ki 39, 56 lúuzú 27–28 z a g - mu 128 na4zi.kin 85 lúzu.zu 28

Index of Texts from Emar

341

Index of Texts from Emar ASJ 10 F:7 40 G:15u 171, 197, 199–200 ASJ 12 no. 1 15 no. 2 24 no. 2:6–9 41 no. 2:16u–17u 199, 205 no. 7 17, 203 no. 7:26–27 40 no. 7:28–37 35–36, 201 no. 8 17 no. 10 17 no. 12 25, 205 no. 12:33–34 199–200 no. 14:6 40 no. 15:5 40 no. 15:8 40 no. 16 15 no. 16:6 40 ASJ 13 no. 25 17 no. 32 7 no. 33:16 200 no. 33:16–18 199 no. 33:17–18 205 no. 34:12 200, 207 no. 34:12–13 199 no. 34:13 205 no. 42 7 ASJ 14 no. 43 40 no. 45 107 no. 48:2–3 65 no. 48:7 163 no. 49:20–23 64 no. 49:33–34 58 AuOr 2 no. 2:8–10 41 AuOr 5 no. 1:7–8 40 no. 3:4–5 41 no. 4 199 no. 4:33 162, 200 no. 4:33–34 205

AuOr 5 (cont.) no. 5:7–8 40 no. 6:5 40 no. 6:7–8 40 no. 17:36 199–200, 205–6 AuOrS 1 1 15, 22–23 2 22 2:8 40 3 17, 22 3:5 40 3:10–11 41 4 22 5 15 6 17 6:6 40 6:8 40 6:35 199–200, 204 7:4 40 7:5 40 8:31 199–200 9 17 9:18–19 41 10 17 10:8–9 41 11 17 11:4–7 40 11:15–16 41 12 17 12:4–7 40 13 17 14 25 14:19–26 25 14:37 125 15 24–25 15:14 125 15:20 200 15:20–21 199 15:20u 168 15:21u 205 16 24 16–18 205 16:39–40 206 16:46 200 16:46–47 199

AuOrS 1 (cont.) 16:47 205 17 24 17:17–18 41 17:33 206 17:34 206 17:42 200 17:42–43 199 17:43 205 18 24 18:5 40 18:5–8 40 18:9–10 41 18:12 205 18:23 206 18:30 200 18:30–31 199 18:31 205 19 23 19:32 162, 200 19:32–33 199 19:33 205 21 156 27:5 201 28 26 28:1 26 28:16 26 28:18 26 30:3 26 33:19 125 35 17 47 15 48:49–50 73 49:19 102, 199–200, 202, 207 50 15 54 17 55 17 59 17 60 17 62 17 63:10–11 204 63:25 200 63:25–26 199, 205 69:41 162, 200 69:41–42 199

342

Index of Texts from Emar

AuOrS 1 (cont.) 69:42 205 82 17 86 15 87 24, 31, 44–45 87:31 206 87:36 168, 200 87:36–37 199 87:37 205 95:9 41 98 180

Emar (cont.) 15:21 125 15:35 200 15:35–36 199, 203 16 61 16:9–12 61 16:10 61 17 15–17 17:39–40 83 18 202 19 202 20:26 125 24 38, 198 24:5 198 24:6 199, 201 24:18–19 198 26 198, 201 26:8 198 26:10–12 201 26:9 201 26:9–12 199 27:4 26 28 101, 198 28:6 198 28:23 201 28:23–24 101, 199 28:24 198 29:3 31 29:6 31 29:17 31 32:23 169 32:24 31 33:2 169 37:15 31 42 17, 203 42:8–16 201 42:9–10 203 43:18 38 48:1 165 52:5 169 52:62 125 52:70 125 75:2 125 86 70 91:10 31 93:20 38 94 17, 202 96 17 97 17

BLM 4 199 4:30u 200 4:31u 205–6 28:1–3 94 33:8–9 94 Emar 1–4 41 1–22 4 1–136 6 2 202 2:16 40 2:28–29 41 2:35 125 4 17 4:23–24 41 4:34 125 4:35 199 6:13 40 8 202 9 41 9:34–35 41 10 17, 202 11 41 11:6 40 12 41, 205 12:30–31 199 12:31 205 13:10 162, 199–200 13:11 205 14 17 14:18–20 125 14:24 125 14:27 169 15:15 125 15:17 125

Emar (cont.) 109:20–21 125 109:26 125 110:26 125 110:38 200 110:38–39 199 110:39 205 111 203 111:23 125 118:11 38 122 38 123:9 41 124:4 169 125 17, 70, 202 125:6 125 125:34 199, 204 125:37–38 81, 153 125:37–39 73 125:40–41 83 126 17, 41 128:18 38 137 17 137–41 18 137–42 18 137–75 14 137–257 19 137:8 169 137:9 169 137:27 40 137:41 125 138 17 138:4 40 138:39 169 138:53 125 139 15, 17, 41 140 17 141 17 142 17 142:1–7 40 142:4 40 142:7 40 144 17, 22 144–55 41 144:39 199–200, 204, 208 146 17 146:9 40 147 17 147:7 40 147:10 40

Index of Texts from Emar Emar (cont.) 147:16–19 40 148 23, 202 148:24 206 148:31 162, 200 148:31–32 199, 205 149 24–25 150 23–25, 202 150:29 125 150:38 162, 200 150:38–39 199 150:39 205–6 153 24–25 153:2 187 156 17 156:29 169 157 17 159 17 162 203 162:9 199–200 169:3 40 171:31–32 199, 205–6 176–98 14 176:3 125 177 15 178–79 70 180 17 180:3 125 181:1–2 125 181:22 38 181:9–10 167 183 17 187 70 190–91 70 190:2 65 194 40 199 32 199–226 14 200 32, 34 201 15, 30, 33–34, 44, 202, 226 201:4 33 201:24 33 201:34 34 201:49–50 33 201:52 202 202 15, 33–34, 44, 202, 226 202:4 33

Emar (cont.) 202:5 33 202:12 34 202:16 34 202:18 41 202:24 34 203 32 204 32 205 16, 32–34, 202 205:1 32 205:2 33 205:7–8 32 206 33–34 206:12–13 33 207 15, 33–34 207:33 34 208 32 209 16, 33–34, 44 209:1 165 209:2 33 209:4 125 209:7 33 209:8 33 210 32 211 16, 33–34, 44, 202 211:6–7 33 211:15 33 212 16, 33–34, 44, 202 212:3 33 212:7 33 212:23 34 213 33–34 213:12–14 33 214 33–34, 44 214:2–3 33 215 33–34, 44 215:4 33 216 32, 34, 44 216:22 34 217 33–34 217–20 44 217:2 169 217:5 33 218 34 218–20 33 219 34 220 34 221 34 221–24 33

343 Emar (cont.) 222:5 34 224 44 225 30, 33–34 225:1 33 225:5–6 33 226 30, 33–34 227–51 14 246 33 252 16, 32, 202 252–57 14 252:1–2 32 252:5 32 252:9 32 253 17 256 15, 17 258 31 258–73 14, 19 259 31 260 31 261 31 261:11–14 38 262 32 263 32 263:38 29 264 31–32 264:10–12 38 264:13–17 38 265 31 265:4–5 27 266:5 165 266:18 30 266:37 30 267 32 268 31, 44 268:4 38 269 32 270 32 270:17 32 271 32 271:4 30 271:8 29 272 32 273 32 274 39, 44, 89 274–368 14, 19 274:3 182 274:4 39 274:6 153

344

Index of Texts from Emar

Emar (cont.) 274:7 156, 165 274:8 178 274:9 187 274:19–20 180 275 44 275:1–4 154 275:11 30 275:13 30 276 44 276:5 31 277:2 38 277:7 38 277:9 38 279 37 279:1–3 40 279:5 37 279:16 37 279:21 37 279:48 37 282 44, 94 282:1–6 94 282:6 94 282:16–18 38 284 44 285 30, 38 285:1 65 286 44 287 44 288 44 289 44 296 44 300 44 300:4 182 300:11 187 311 30 316 30 321 39 321:1–4 39 323 30 327 30 337:2 31 360:93 29 363 38 364 38, 63, 197 364:1 200 364:2 200 369 2, 68–69, 112 369A 20, 143

Emar (cont.) 369B 20 369C 20 369D 19–20 369–535 9, 14, 19 369:1 112, 222 369:1A 102 369:3 222 369:4 111 369:5 29–30, 147 369:5–6 72 369:6 64, 70, 150 369:7 170 369:8 77 369:9 76 369:9–10 96 369:10 29, 111, 166 369:11 36, 150 369:11–12 36 369:12 36–37, 150, 161 369:13 79, 161, 175 369:15 76, 193 369:17 226 369:17A 226 369:19 36, 70 369:20 76, 97 369:20–21 30, 45 369:22 64, 70 369:22–28 50 369:24 89 369:25 195 369:26 50 369:28 36 369:29 70, 170 369:30–31A 96 369:31A 166 369:B[31–36]a 163 369:B(31–36)b–c 83–84 369:B(31–36)d–g 96 369:33 163–64 369:33A 163 369:34–35A 83–84 369:37 36 369:38 175 369:38–39 79 369:40 56, 97, 193 369:43 29 369:44 7 369:46 193

Emar (cont.) 369:47–48 36 369:48 70, 182 369:49–50 36 369:51 111 369:53–54 163 369:55 193 369:58 226 369:58A 226 369:59 36 369:60–75 71 369:61 92 369:62 97 369:64 163–64 369:64A 163 369:64D 163 369:65 36 369:66–67 36 369:67 36 369:69–70 42 369:76–83 147 369:76–94 50 369:77 226 369:77–80 171 369:78–83 29 369:80–81 195 369:84 29, 193 369:85 37, 40 369:85–90 37 369:90 37, 142 370 2, 20, 69, 112, 143, 181 370:2 64 370:12–13 42 370:16 69 370:20 70 370:24 150 370:26 36 370:29 36 370:30 163 370:34 193 370:36 226 370:40 70, 150 370:41–43 84 370:45–54 37 370:46 37 370:47 150 370:49 37 370:55 163

Emar (cont.) 370:56–57 79 370:58 163 370:60–62 37 370:60–68 37 370:69–107 69 370:76 97 370:79 69 370:108 29, 147, 193 370:108–17 50 371 18, 20 371:4 36 371:6 36 371:7 150, 226 371:12 36 371:16 163 372 18, 20 372:6 150 372:10 150 372:12–13 37 373 2, 9–11, 20, 39, 48, 56, 64–65, 81, 89, 98–99, 103, 111–12, 143, 153, 197 373:1–3 55 373:1–4 64 373:1–9 55 373:1–168 50 373:3 95 373:4 51–52, 64, 81 373:4–9 55 373:5 52, 66, 179 373:7 66 373:8 66–67, 150 373:9 51 373:10 179 373:10–16 55, 57 373:10–33 55 373:10–37 55 373:11 58 373:12 60, 89, 156 373:12–15 66, 88 373:12–16 54, 73, 89 373:13 94, 156 373:14 24, 156 373:16 51, 60 373:17 67, 78, 80, 179 373:17–33 55 373:17–37 65

Index of Texts from Emar

345

Emar (cont.) 373:18 37, 77 373:18–19 39, 66, 72 373:19 66, 70, 88, 111 373:20 61, 88, 201 373:21 37, 39 373:22 51, 61, 72, 78–79, 82, 88 373:23 39, 66, 70 373:24 39, 51, 61 373:25 37, 67, 76–77, 80–82 373:26 39, 66, 70 373:27–28 39 373:28 51, 61, 67, 80 373:29 76, 82, 89, 156 373:29–31 67 373:30 66, 77, 111 373:31 61 373:32 39, 72, 78–79 373:33 51, 53, 65, 89 373:34 61, 77, 79, 85, 87 373:34–37 55, 77 373:35 48 373:36 89, 111, 153 373:37 51–52, 61, 71, 82, 89, 111, 155, 169 373:38 68, 102, 121, 200 373:38–39 52 373:38–43 55 373:38–168 55 373:39 48, 57–58, 179 373:39–40 54, 61, 194 373:39–41 105 373:40 59–60 373:41 52, 60, 89, 121 373:41–42 57 373:42 111 373:43 51, 60, 73, 111 373:44 52, 68–70, 145, 156, 179 373:44–47 77 373:44–59 55 373:44–64 55, 65 373:45 67, 80–81, 88 373:46 67, 78, 80, 156 373:47 37, 76, 82 373:48 37, 39, 59, 70, 88 373:48–49 72

Emar (cont.) 373:50 37, 39, 61, 88 373:51 51, 59, 72, 78 373:52 39, 59, 70 373:53 37, 39, 51 373:53–57 158 373:54 39, 59, 70 373:55 158 373:55–56 39 373:56 51, 61, 67, 80 373:57 59 373:57–58 67 373:58 51, 61, 156 373:59 51, 59, 66 373:60 72, 77, 79, 85, 87 373:60–64 55, 77 373:61 61, 82, 97, 159 373:61–63 77 373:62 96, 111, 153 373:63 61, 89, 111 373:64 48, 51, 71, 82, 111 373:65–67 55 373:65–74 69 373:65–162 55 373:67 51, 73 373:68–72 55 373:72 51 373:73 69 373:73–74 55 373:74 51, 73, 156 373:75 50–52, 55, 69–70, 79, 111 373:75–162 55 373:76–77 72, 89 373:76–88 57, 73 373:76–95 55 373:76–162 15, 69, 88 373:77 39, 51, 88 373:77–89 89 373:78 88 373:79 88–89, 107 373:81 59, 156 373:82 94 373:83 59 373:84 24 373:86 59, 168 373:87 72 373:88 72, 88, 182 373:89 72

346

Index of Texts from Emar

Emar (cont.) 373:89–90 156 373:89–91 38 373:90 72 373:91 72, 88 373:92 88 373:92–94 72 373:94 79, 88 373:95 51 373:96 72 373:96–112 55 373:97 88 373:98 85, 88 373:99 162 373:100 88 373:101 88, 95, 185 373:102 88, 187 373:103 170 373:104 88 373:105 73, 81 373:106 38, 73 373:107 73 373:108 38, 73 373:110 154 373:112 51, 59 373:113 72 373:113–62 55 373:115 88 373:116 88 373:117 88 373:118 88 373:119 88 373:120 111 373:123 85 373:125 156 373:128 88 373:131 88 373:132 88 373:133 50–51 373:134–62 50 373:139 88 373:141 39, 67, 73, 85, 201 373:142 89, 111 373:143 88 373:145 88 373:146 201 373:147 111 373:148 89, 111 373:149 88, 111

Emar (cont.) 373:150 88 373:151 201 373:154 88 373:155 88 373:156 111 373:157 111 373:158 88 373:160 88–89 373:162 51 373:163 76, 85, 87 373:163–67 77 373:163–68 55, 71, 77 373:164 87, 92, 111–12 373:165 88 373:166 77, 96, 111, 153 373:166–67 98 373:167 61, 83, 85, 89 373:168 50–51 373:169 50, 111, 222 373:169–70 68, 88, 108, 121 373:169–71 52 373:169–79 55 373:169–205 50 373:170 200 373:171 70, 88, 111, 156, 179 373:171–76 64 373:171–79 64 373:171–85 77 373:172 76, 82, 92, 108 373:172–73 96 373:173 53, 87, 92 373:174 48, 53, 85, 87– 88, 111 373:175 87–89, 94, 111–12 373:176 53, 64, 92 373:177 52 373:177–79 97 373:178 70, 111, 156 373:179 51, 71, 82 373:180 88–89, 179, 200 373:180–82 77 373:180–85 55, 65 373:181 53, 76, 82 373:181–82 87, 92 373:182 52, 92 373:182–83 64

Emar (cont.) 373:183 85 373:183–84 53, 87 373:184 87–88, 94, 111–12 373:184–85 71 373:185 51, 82 373:186 52–53, 60, 102, 105, 179, 200 373:186–87 53–54, 61 373:186–94 55 373:186–204 55 373:187 52, 70, 88, 111, 156, 179 373:187–94 54, 77 373:188 52, 67, 76, 78, 80, 82 373:189 88, 92 373:189–90 53 373:190 70, 90, 123, 156, 195 373:191 53, 97, 156 373:191–93 77 373:192 53, 85, 87–88, 92, 111 373:192–93 94 373:193 53, 56, 65, 89, 111 373:194 51, 53, 71, 82, 111 373:195 50, 52–53, 60 373:195–96 53–55, 61 373:196 51 373:197 50, 52, 67, 71, 78, 80, 88, 100 373:197–204 55, 77 373:198 92 373:199 53, 71–72, 111 373:199–200 72 373:199–201 89 373:200 71, 85 373:201 71, 82 373:202 88, 92, 112 373:202–3 53, 87, 94 373:202–4 71 373:203 76, 85, 87–88, 111 373:204 51–52, 92 373:205 50–51, 55, 89, 153

Index of Texts from Emar Emar (cont.) 373:206 51, 55 373:210 48 374 20, 89, 99 374:4 72 374:4–6 72 374:4–9 72 374:7–9 72 374:9 89 374:10–11 72 374:19–20 98 375 10, 48, 73, 98–99, 102–3, 106, 108, 110, 112–13, 142, 162, 167, 197, 210 375A 18, 99 375C 99 375:1 48, 106, 110–12 375:1B 110 375:1–2 101, 108, 121 375:1–44 98, 101 375:2 103, 112, 167 375:3 61, 100–103, 105– 7, 112, 179, 200 375:3–4 145 375:3–15 101 375:3–27 101 375:4 102–3, 112, 156 375:4–7 107 375:4–10 101 375:5 106, 110 375:5–7 108 375:6 102–3 375:7 103, 108 375:8 102–3 375:9 100, 102–3, 112 375:9b 107 375:10 103, 110 375:11 61, 101, 103, 107 375:12 102 375:12–13 101 375:14 98, 101, 103, 108 375:14–15 108 375:15 79, 101, 103, 108 375:16 84, 101, 107 375:16?–27 101 375:17 48, 103, 109–10 375:17?–19 101 375:17A 106 375:19 103

Emar (cont.) 375:20?–21 101 375:21 106 375:22 102 375:22–26 101 375:23 103 375:23–24 107 375:24 103 375:26 101 375:26A 99 375:27 101, 103, 106 375:28 100, 102–3 375:28–30 100–101, 107 375:28–35 100 375:28–44 101 375:30 103, 108, 112 375:30–31 100 375:31 102–3, 110 375:31A 112 375:31D 112 375:31–35 101 375:32A 112 375:33 103, 106, 110 375:33D 110 375:34 103, 110 375:34A 112 375:35 100, 154 375:35–36 100–101, 108 375:35–44 100 375:36 100, 103 375:36A 112 375:37 167 375:37–38 100 375:37–39? 101 375:37A 112 375:38 110 375:40 103 375:40–41 100 375:40–42 101 375:41 167 375:43 100, 103, 107 375:43–44 101 375:44 100, 166 375:45 100, 155 375:45–46? 101 375:45–48 101 375:46 103 375:46A 112 375:47 102–3, 168, 179

347 Emar (cont.) 375:47–48 101, 103 375:49 98, 100 375:49–50 101–2, 108, 164 375:49–[56] 101 375:50 106 375:51 103, 107 375:51–52 102, 153 375:51–53 101, 108 375:52 103 375:53 37, 98, 101–2, 106 375:54 101–2, 106 375:55 102 375:[55]–[56] 101 375:56 102 376 20, 99 378 39, 73, 89, 98–99 378–84 15 378:1–13 57, 73, 88–89 378:2 89, 201 378:3 89, 178 378:5 89 378:6 156 378:7 81 378:7–8 81 378:8 81 378:9 59 378:10 24 378:11 156 378:12 59, 70, 168 378:14–15 39 378:16 89 378:18 89 378:19 201 378:19–21 39 378:35 89 378:42 59, 169 378:43 167 379 189 379:2 39, 67 379:3 154 379:4 95, 185 379:8–9 67 379–82 189 379–84 67, 73, 89 380 189 380:8 156 380:10 156 380:12 39, 67

348

Index of Texts from Emar

Emar (cont.) 380:18 154 380:20 95, 185 381 189 381:9 156 381:14 95, 185 381:17 67 382 189 382:3 156 382:7 156 382:9 39, 67 382:11 95, 185 383–84 189 384:2 187 384:3 154 385 81 385–88 81, 89, 112 385:1–26 161 385:1–27 69 385:1 102 385:2 222 385:4(A) 147 385:7–9 195 385:8 73, 81 385:9 89 385:11 150 385:11–12 70 385:13 36 385:14 150 385:19 36 385:21 82, 97 385:22 154 385:24 150 385:25A 226 385:26 154 385:28 154 385:28–29 64 385:29 161 385:30 150 385:32 150 385:33–34 58 385:34 58, 161, 169 385:35–36 30 385:39 154 386:1–2 64 386:5 150 386:15 161 386:22 147, 161, 226 386:22–24 30

Emar (cont.) 387 73, 81, 153 387:1–2 64 387:12 36 387:4 161 387:13 150 387:16 150 387:17–25 50 387:21 161 388 69, 81, 161 388K 112 388:1–5 64 388:3 36 388:4 36, 182 388:5 70 388:16 161 388:60–69 50 388:63 111 388: F ii:33–35 81 388: G rev.3–4 82 389 18 390 18 392:1 102 392:4 61 393 18, 20, 150 393:5 147 394 20 394:26–28 64 394:32 150 394:38 76 394:39 18 394:40 226 395 20 395:10 150 395:12 150 395:13 36 396:11 36 401 99 401:2 37, 98 404 18 406:4 147 406:5 165 406:6 147 409:10 150 409:7 150 415:2 97 420:4 36 422:6 146 422:9 97

Emar (cont.) 423:3 146 424 99 424:5 98 425 99 425:2 98 425:4 98 426:2 170 426:4 97 427:3 97 428 99 429:4 187 446 10–11, 31, 45, 71, 103, 106, 110–13, 142–43, 147, 150, 158, 160–62, 167, 191, 197, 207, 210 446–51 142 446:1 39, 146, 148 446:1–2 176 446:1–8 176 446:2 102, 143, 179 446:2–6 153 446:2–7 148 446:2–57 148 446:3 176 446:3–5 176 446:3–6 176 446:4 190, 207 446:5 178, 187 446:6 103, 143, 176 446:6–7 153 446:7 61, 176 446:7–8 176 446:8 102–3, 143, 147, 150–51, 176, 179 446:8–10 148, 153 446:8–57 148 446:9 146, 150, 176 446:9–10 176 446:9–17 176 446:9–26 176 446:10 103, 181 446:11 102–3, 112, 144, 153, 176 446:11–12 151 446:11–13 176 446:11–17 153 446:11–18 148

Index of Texts from Emar Emar (cont.) 446:12 103 446:13 37, 147 446:14 103, 146, 150, 176, 181 446:14–17 181 446:15 102, 150, 176, 181 446:16 147, 154, 176 446:17 111–12, 176, 181, 187 446:18 61, 103, 144, 153, 176 446:18–21 153, 181 446:18?–21 176 446:18–22 148 446:18–26 181 446:19 149, 153, 176 446:20 111, 176 446:20–21 176, 182 446:21 103, 147 446:22 103, 144, 153, 176 446:22–(23) 176 446:22–26 176, 181 446:22–40 148, 153 446:23 61, 153, 176 446:23–(25) 176 446:23–24 151 446:24 103, 149, 153 446:24–25 150 446:25 176 446:26 176 446:26* 146, 148 446:27 103, 111, 176–78 446:27–29 177 446:27–30 177 446:28 146, 178 446:28* 155 446:28–29 177 446:28a 177 446:29 103, 154 446:30 176 446:31 176 446:31–32 177, 185–86 446:31–35 177 446:31–52 177 446:32 153, 176, 184 446:33 184–85 446:34 154 446:34* 154

Emar (cont.) 446:34–35 177 446:34–37 160 446:35 103, 186, 189 446:36 110, 176 446:36* 154 446:36–37 177, 189 446:36–42 177 446:37 111, 153 446:37–38 154 446:38 176 446:38–39 177, 185 446:39 146, 184 446:40 102, 111–12, 150, 176, 184–85 446:40–42 177 446:41 185 446:41–44 148, 155 446:42 103, 112, 185 446:43 102, 111, 150, 176 446:43–46 177, 185 446:43–52 177 446:44 146 446:45 71, 102–3, 144, 149, 151, 156, 179 446:45–47 103, 148, 155 446:46 184, 186 446:47 97, 102–3, 144, 155 446:47–48 177 446:47–53 148, 155, 157 446:48 146, 151, 155, 176, 184 446:48–50 177 446:49 103, 150 446:50 103, 150, 184, 186 446:50–51 103, 145 446:51 45, 103, 146, 167, 176 446:51–52 177 446:52 37, 103, 112, 147, 184, 186 446:53 103, 143, 146, 176–77 446:53–55 177 446:53–57 148 446:54 103, 150, 177 446:54–57 155 446:55 103, 167, 177

349 Emar (cont.) 446:56 103, 111 446:56–57 103 446:57 103, 145 446:58 102–3, 143–44, 147, 179, 200 446:58–59 112, 148 446:58–60 161 446:58–74 148 446:59 61, 102–3, 143, 147, 151, 179 446:59–66 148 446:60 146 446:60–61 147, 150 446:60–63 161 446:62 110 446:63 103 446:64 146 446:65 146 446:66–(?) 148 446:67 143, 161, 179 446:67–68 150 446:68–69 150 446:69 111 446:77 144, 163–64, 200 446:77–82 148 446:78 146 446:79 37, 147, 150, 187 446:80 146, 150 446:81 146 446:82 110–11, 146 446:83 102–3, 112, 144, 151, 163, 179, 200 446:83–84 149 446:83–85 149, 164 446:84 102–3, 110, 112, 143, 151, 163, 179 446:84–85 149 446:85 150 446:85–87 72 446:86 102, 144, 149, 179, 181, 200 446:86–95 149, 181 446:87 102–3, 143, 151 446:87–89 166 446:87–90 149, 179, 181–82 446:88 102, 146 446:88–89 150

350

Index of Texts from Emar

Emar (cont.) 446:89 111 446:89–90 144, 165 446:90 102, 151, 166 446:90–91 143, 165 446:90–95 149 446:91 102, 146, 150–51, 165, 179, 183 446:91–92 166 446:91–95 166 446:92 112, 149–50 446:93 150 446:94 110, 112 446:95 146 446:96 144, 179, 194, 200 446:96–99 149 446:96–102 168, 192 446:96–119 149 446:97 103, 150 446:98 97, 191 446:98–99 150, 169 446:99 112, 150 446:100 102–3, 143, 146, 150, 173, 179, 190 446:100–102 149 446:101 102, 111–12, 193 446:102 102, 143, 146, 179 446:102–5 149, 168 446:102–7 149 446:103 102–3, 151 446:103–4 150 446:104 111, 146 446:105 147, 150, 168, 179 446:106 102, 144 446:106–7 149 446:106–17 168–69 446:107 61, 102, 143, 150 446:107–8 151 446:107–17 149 446:108 103 446:108–9 169 446:109 111 446:110 103, 111, 150 446:111 171 446:112 110–11 446:114 147, 150, 167, 171

Emar (cont.) 446:115–17 171 446:116 146 446:118 102, 143, 150, 161, 179 446:118–19 149, 168, 171, 190 446:119 103, 112, 147, 150 446:1*–40* 148 447 10, 20, 147, 153 447:4 147 447:5 147 447:6 142, 147, 179, 200 447:7 147 447:8 147 447:13 162 447:14 147 448 99, 110, 142 449 99, 142 450 20, 142 450:1 207 450:2 200 451 20, 142 451bis 14, 142 451bis:3 147 451ter 14, 20, 142, 147 451ter:5 161 451ter:10 147 452 10–11, 20, 111–12, 142–43, 173, 175, 180–81, 186, 188, 190, 192, 197 452–59 142 452:1 179, 190, 200 452:3 37, 179, 190 452:4 146, 150 452:5 190 452:6 178 452:7 179, 190 452:8 178–79 452:9 179 452:9–17 181 452:9–26 181 452:15 165 452:17 37, 146, 150, 190 452:18 180 452:2 190 452:21 166, 179, 182

Emar (cont.) 452:22 179 452:24 37 452:27 179 452:28 190 452:28–29 178 452:29 37, 90 452:30 178–79 452:31 37, 179 452:31–52 150 452:32 111, 146, 149 452:34 190 452:34–35 96 452:35 192 452:36 146, 179 452:37 111 452:39 190 452:43 179, 190 452:43–45 96 452:44 190 452:46 188 452:47 37 452:49 190 452:50 190 452:51 190 452:52 111 452:53 179, 212 452:53–55 180 452:54 37, 111, 146 452:55 179 453 20 454 20, 63, 133, 142 454:2 63, 133, 200 454:3 63, 200 454:6 63, 133, 200 454:7 200 454:10 200 455 20, 142 455:4 200 456 20, 142 456:2 200 457 20 458 20 458:5 179 458:6 146, 150 458:9 179 459 20, 142 459:3 175 459:18 200

Index of Texts from Emar Emar (cont.) 460:5–6 64 460:26 187 461:8 180 461:11 180 462:1 180 462:2 180 462:4 180 462:10 180 462:15 180 462:37 180 462:48 180 463 10, 20, 111–12, 142, 150, 173, 175, 180, 190–91, 194 463:1 111, 179, 189–90, 192 463:1–3 191 463:1–14 191 463:2 190 463:3 150, 190, 194 463:4 96, 179, 194 463:4–8 191 463:4–10 169 463:4–14 191 463:5 190 463:6 97, 190, 194 463:6–7 194 463:7 150, 190 463:8 190 463:8–10 194 463:9 150, 190 463:9–11 191 463:10 190 463:11 111, 190 463:12 37, 112, 146, 150, 190 463:12–14 191 463:15–18 191 463:17 191 463:18 191 463:19 179, 190 463:19–25 191 463:20 190 463:24 37, 190 463:25 150 463:26 179, 190–91 463:26–30 191–92 463:27 150

Emar (cont.) 463:28 191 463:29 190 463:29–30 191 465:2 163–64 465:5 180 465:6 180 465:7 180 465:8 180 466:4 180 466:8 180 467 20 467:4 160 467:5 160, 165, 200 467:6 160 467:7 160 467:9 160 470:2 187 471–90 4, 32, 227–28 471:1 180, 228 471:4 180 471:5 180 471:27 180 471:28 97, 228 471:33 150, 166 472:1 150, 166 472:14 150 472:15 150, 166 472:16 180, 228 472:18 97, 150 472:23 97, 228 472:24 150 472:26 97, 228 472:28 150, 166 473:4 180 473:5 180 477:5 180 503:2 97 512:2 63, 200 524:3 63, 200 532 156 532:3 156 532:4 156 532:7 156 536–603 14, 19 538I 32 567:5u 102 601 29 601:6–10 29

351 Emar (cont.) 602A 32 603 28 603:97–98 28 604 26–27, 227 604 no. 1 26–28 604 no. 2.1 27 604 no. 2.2 27–28 604 no. 4 26–28, 34 604 no. 5 27 604 no. 6 26–27, 31, 43 604 no. 7.2 27 604 no. 8 27–28, 31 604 no. 9 28 604 no. 11 27 604 no. 13 31 604 no. 14 27 604 no. 15 27 605–728 14, 19 611:203–4 28 652:83 31 652:83–85 28 653:93–94 28 655 31 655:50 31 655:55 31 655:56 31 698:67 28 708:5u–7u 28, 31 729–93 14, 19 767:25 28 768:colophon 1u 28 775:26 28 775:27 201 786–93 19 Iraq 54 no. 1:10 154 no. 2 203 no. 4 94 Kutscher no. 3:5 180 no. 4 17 no. 6 21–22, 24–25, 41, 44–45 no. 6:44 200 no. 6:45 205

352

Index of Texts from Emar

Msk 731000–731095 19 731035 19 731036 19 731057 19 731061 19 731064 19 731070 19 731076 19 731097 14, 27, 30, 34, 43, 226 731097:6–7 34 74121 32 74146l 18 74175a 32 74237b 19 74249a 19 74274 19 74286b+ 161 74287b 18, 99 74289b 18 74292a 50 74298b 18, 99 74303c 18 74303f 18, 99 74316b 19 74319 19 74329 19 74333 19

RE (cont.) 15 17 15:31–33 94 16 17, 22–23, 203, 210 16:10–14 41 16:14–15 41 16:15–16 41 16:37 199, 204–6 16:38 200 19 197–98 19:32 198 19:34–35 199, 201 20:6 125 21 17 22 24 22:8–9 41 22:24–25 206 23 17 24 17 24:6 40 24:7–9 41 29 17 30 15 34 23 34:14–15 154 34:30 23 34:37 199, 205 34:38 200 49:4–5 40 52 17, 22 52:5 40 54:10–11 182 59 17 62:27 125 63:25 107 66:3 230 66:8 230 71 17 71:9–11 41

RE 2 23 2:24 23 2:25 23 3 17 8 17 9 17 14 17, 22 14:1 154 14:33 199–200, 204

RE (cont.) 71:35 168, 199–200, 204, 206 77 203 77:33 200 77:33–35 199 77:34–35 203 79 17 81 17 86 17 91 23–24 91:29 158 91:32 206 91:35 200, 207 91:35–36 199 91:36 205 92 198 92:17 201 92:17–19 199 96:2 125 96:8 125 96:22–23 125 97 32 SMEA 30 no. 1 32 no. 2 16 no. 6:23 93 no. 7 32 no. 7:3 31 no. 7:4 27 no. 7:13–15 31 no. 7:16–19 31 no. 7:18–19 31, 34 no. 7:31 38 no. 8:9 65 no. 11 7 no. 11:9–10 65 no. 26:4 199–200