CONTENTS Articles Alan Lenzi – The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship ................................................ Jeremiah Peterson – A New Occurrence of The Seven Aurae in a Sumerian Literary Passage Featuring Nergal .................................................................................. Jacob Lauinger – The Temple of Istar at Old Babylonian Alalakh ................................................................................ Marinus A. van der Sluijs – On the Wings of Love ..........
137 171 181 219
Book Review Daniel M. O’Hare – Gary N. Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson, eds. The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007. ...................................................... 253
THE URUK LIST OF KINGS AND SAGES AND LATE MESOPOTAMIAN SCHOLARSHIP1 ALAN LENZI University of the Pacific Abstract The Uruk List of Kings and Sages is best known for its genealogy connecting human scholars to antediluvian sages. Since its publication in 1962, however, questions pertaining to the text’s specific purpose within the context of Hellenistic Uruk have been neglected. This study seeks to understand two such questions: why is the most explicit scholarly genealogy written in the Hellenistic period?; and who is the last named person in the text? Seeking answers to these questions sheds new light on the text’s purpose: it is an attempt by scholars to gain support for themselves and their novel cultic agenda. Keywords: Hellenistic Uruk, Mesopotamian scholars, Nicharkos, Antiquarianism, Anu cult
Abstract La réputation de la liste des Uruk de les rois et les sages est due à sa généalogie, qui crée un lien entre les savants humains et les sages antédiluviens. Par contre, depuis sa publication en 1962 on a négligé les questions qui ont affaire au but spécifique du texte dans le contexte de l’Uruk hellénistique. Cette étude cherche à comprendre deux questions dans ce domaine: pourquoi la généalogie la plus explicitement savante est-elle écrite pendant l’époque hellénistique?; et qui est la dernière personne nommée dans le texte? Chercher des réponses à ces questions illumine d’une nouvelle façon le but du texte; c’est une tentative par des savants de gagner du soutien pour leur programme original de culte ainsi que pour eux-mêmes. Keywords: Uruk hellénistique, sages mésopotamiens, Nicharkos, Goût des antiquités, culte d’Ane 1 I first presented this study at a conference entitled “Babylonia’s Imprint on the Hellenistic World” convened at University of California–Berkeley (October 5-6, 2007). I am grateful to the many participants and attendees for their useful feedback and conversation. I also thank my colleague at University of the Pacific, Martha Bowsky, for her very helpful criticism on an earlier draft of this paper and the reviewers for JANER for their suggestions. Remaining mistakes, infelicities, oversights, and ill-formed ideas are my own doing.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 Also available online – www.brill.nl
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The “Uruk List of Kings and Sages” (ULKS) was discovered in Anu’s Bìt Rès temple by German archaeologists during the 1959/60 season and published in 1962 by van Dijk.2 Since then Assyriologists have cited this Seleucid-era text as the clearest cuneiform evidence that Mesopotamian scholars (ummânù) traced their professional ancestry explicitly back to the mythological sages (apkallù) of antediluvian fame and thereby implicitly to a relationship with the god Ea. Setting this evidence alongside earlier historical data, it becomes clear that this scholarly genealogy was already functioning in the Neo-Assyrian period but probably even earlier in the late second millennium.3 Despite its historical importance, this genealogical aspect of our text has over-shadowed other basic questions about the Seleucid historical context in which it arose. Two such questions provide the impetus for this study: 2 The tablet bears the excavation number W.20030, 7. A copy of the tablet may be found in Jan van Dijk and Werner R. Mayer, Texte aus dem Rès-Heiligtum in Uruk-Warka, Bagdader Mitteilungen Beiheft 2 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1980), text no. 89 (= BaMB 2 89). For an edition of the text, see J. van Dijk, “Die Inschriftenfunde,” Vorläufiger Bericht über die . . . Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka 18 (1962), 44-52 and plate 27. I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Orient-Abteilung des Deutschen Archäologischen Institutes for making several high quality digital images available to me, against which I was able to collate the tablet. The obverse is encrusted and therefore did not always permit a clear image. The reverse is much cleaner and clearer. It is significant that our tablet was found among other tablets preserving various rituals known from François Thureau-Dangin’s Rituels Accadiens (Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1975 [originally, 1921]). More precisely, van Dijk indicates the tablet “wurde mit den Nummern W 20030, 1-8 zusammen gefunden” (“Die Inschriftenfunde,” 44). These tablets were among the few tablets actually found in situ, undisturbed by looters who had littered the area with other tablets and fragments (as noted by Mayer, BaMB 2, p. 13). W.20030, 1 (= BaMB 2 6) and W.20030, 4 (=BaMB 2 5) are lilissu-drum ritual texts; W.20030, 2 (=BaMB 2 10) and W.20030, 6 (=BaMB 2 12) are building ritual texts; and W.20030, 3 (=BaMB 2 1) and W.20030, 5 (=BaMB 2 2) are mìs pî ritual texts. I cannot specify W.20030, 8. Leaving aside the last, these texts fall within the professional sphere of the ummânù. Thus, the archaeological context of our tablet already places it within the scholarly sphere of interest. The tablet’s colophon indicates the text was copied in 147 se/165 bce. Its approximate date of original composition is a matter this paper will attempt to elucidate. 3 See, e.g., Helge S. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic: The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and of the Son of Man, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 61 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), 202; Claus Wilcke, “Göttliche und menschliche Weisheit im Alten Orient: Magie und Wissenschaft, Mythos und Geschichte,” in Weisheit: Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation III, ed. A. Assmann (München: W. Fink Verlag, 1991), 259-70; Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, State Archives of Assyria 10 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1993), XVIII; Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (Cambridge:
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1. Despite the well-known importance of scholars in the earlier Neo-Assyrian period and the abundance of materials relating to their activities, why does one find the most explicit and systematic connection between the ummânù and apkallù in the Seleucid period?4 2. How does the last named and oft-overlooked individual fit into this text’s plan and into the social context of Hellenistic Uruk?5 In order to formulate a plausible answer to these questions I raise three issues very briefly that provide context. First, I review some of the earlier first millennium evidence for the genealogical connection between the ummânù and apkallù; second, I survey the Seleucid dynasty’s relationship to indigenous institutions in Mesopotamia, especially with regard to temples; and finally, I consider aspects of the archaizing theological tendencies of Urukean scribes in the late Persian and Hellenistic periods. In light of this contextualization, I interpret the ULKS as a tendentious document written by scholars who needed to reassert their importance to the community leadership in order to advance their cultic-political agenda. Unfortunately, due to the circumstantial and at times
Cambridge University Press, 2004), 183-84; and most recently my own work, Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel, State Archives of Assyria Studies 19 (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2008). Prior to the discovery of the ULKS, Berossus was the best witness to anything like the connection the ULKS demonstrates (see Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 193 for a comparative chart of the sages and kings). Whatever its original date of composition, the simple fact that the tablet is a copy and not the original suggests the text continued to have ideological value that surpassed the particular time and concerns of its origin. Exploiting the text for what it can tell us about scholarly genealogical ideology is therefore legitimate; but, this need not rule out other questions that one might bring to the text. 4 The position of the scholars in the Neo-Assyrian court, including their appeal to antediluvian apkallù as their ancestors, has been recognized by many other scholars. Besides the works cited in the previous note, see the very helpful discussion in Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien: Formen der Kommunikation zwischen Gott und König im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v.Chr., State Archives of Assyria Studies 10 (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999), especially 286-320. My focus here is understanding why the clearest expression of the genealogical relationship is attested so late in Mesopotamian history. 5 Van Dijk recognized right away that this last person is of utmost significance for the interpretation of the text and offered tentative ideas about his identity and purpose (see “Die Inschriftenfunde,” 45-46, 50, 52). I know of no other explicit treatment of this particular issue since van Dijk’s. This study attempts to build on his suggestions.
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fragmentary evidence, this interpretation can only be offered as a plausible reading and must therefore remain tentative. The text of the ULKS is as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
[ina [ina [ina [ina [ina [ina [ina
ta]r-[ß]i ?6 Ia-a-lu lugal Iu4-d+60 nun.me ta]r-[ß]i Ia-lá-al-gar lugal Iu4-d+60-du10-ga nun.me tar-ß]i Iam-me-lu-an-na lugal Ien-me-du10-ga nun.me tar-ßi] Iam-me-gal-an-na lugal Ien-me-galam-ma nun.me tar-ßi] Ie[n-m]e-usumgal-an-na lugal Ien-me-bùlug-gá nun.me tar-ßi] Iddumu-zi sipa lugal Id+60-en-líl-da nun.me tar-ßi] Ien-me-dur-an-ki lugal Iù-tu-abzu nun.me
8. [egir mar.uru5? ina] bala-e Ien-me-kár lugal Inun-gal-pìrig-gal nun.me 9. [sá distar is-t]u an-e ana é-an-na ú-se-ri-du balag zabar 10. [sá x x ] x x.mes-sú na4za.gìn.na ina si-pir dnin-á-gal 11. [i-pu-us i-n]a? ME? KÙ KI7 su-bat [dingir lu.u18]8 balag ina ma¢-ri d+60 ú-kin-nu
6
All restorations follow van Dijk’s edition unless otherwise stated. Van Dijk reads the first three preserved signs as x-kùki (actually transliterating KUG as kú [“Die Inschriftenfunde,” 44], but treating it correctly as kù in his commentary [49]). He suggests this may have been a geographical name (49), but cannot offer a persuasive candidate. I think a geographical name is likely here but cannot remedy our ignorance. Alternatively, one might consider reading the first sign of the three as ME, suggesting me(parßi) elli, “pure rite,” for the first two signs. The KI might then be explained as ki(itti), or simply a defective spelling of kî. Following this line of thought, the phrase might be translated as follows: “The lyre was established before Anu by means of a pure rite as a dwelling. . . .” But the text remains unclear. 8 Van Dijk gives the reading dingir-lu-ulù here without brackets but notes that it is epigraphically uncertain (“Die Inschriftenfunde,” 49). I was unable to see any of the signs on the photo of the tablet because the area is too damaged; thus the brackets. Van Dijk mentions that the last sign of the trio, GISGAL, might also be read LU› since the two are difficult to distinguish in this period. (LU› can be read sukkal, of course, which is tantalizing in light of Beaulieu’s ideas of antiquarianism presented below, but I see no contextual sense in this reading.) But van Dijk seems to favor another possibility, namely, that the second sign, LU, was a mistake for LÚ (although one might better call it a phonetic writing), citing the same mistake in line 18 (but see note 15 below). Thus read, he translates the phrase as “god (and) man” (i.e., humanity). But this is problematic since one would expect dingir (u) (nam.)lú.u18 if this meaning were intended. Assuming dingir lu.u18 is the correct reading, I tentatively suggest we render it “the god of a man” (that is, his personal god). Given the possibility mentioned here, in the previous note, and in note 15 below, one might translate the entire line as follows: “He established the lyre or the lyre was established before Anu by means of a pure rite as the dwelling/seat of (his) personal god.” 7
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Id [ bilga-m]ès lugal?9 Id30-ti-ér lúum-man-nu [ina tar-ßi Ii-b]i-d30 lugal Iidim-il-dsú lúum-man-nu [ina tar-ßi Iis-bi]-dèr-ra lugal Isi-dù sa-nis Id+en.líl-dù um-man-nu [ina tar-ßi Ia-bi]-e?-sú-u¢ lugal Isu-dme.me u Ita-qis-dme.me umman-numes 16. [ina tar-ßi Ix x]-x lugal Ié-sag-gil-ki-i-ni-ibila um-man-nu rev. 17. [ina tar-ßi] Idim-ibila-sum lugal Ié-sag-gíl-ki-i-ni-ub-ba um-man-nu 18. [ina tar-ßi] Id+ag-níg.du-ùru lugal Ié-sag-gíl-ki-i-ni-ub-ba luum-mannu10 19. [ina tar-ßi] Ian.sár-a¢-mu lugal Ia-ba-dninnu-da-ri um-man-nu 20. [sá lú]a¢-la-m(i)11-mu-ú i-qab-bu-ú Ia-¢u-hu-qa-a-ri 21. [x -i]s ?12 Ini-q(a)-qu-ru-su!{text: su}-ú
12. 13. 14. 15.
22. [im I]d+60-en-sú-nu a sá Iníg.sum.mu-d+60 a!{text: min} Id30-ti-ér 23. [lúgal]a d+60 u an-tum unugki-ú qàt ní-sú 24. [unug]ki itigu4 u4-10-kam mu-147-kam Ian-ti-hi-i-ku-su lugal 25. pa-li¢ d+60 nu tùm-sú
9
Van Dijk thinks this may be an erasure (“Die Inschriftenfunde,” 50). We expect LÚ, the professional determinative, in front of ummânu here (as in lines 12 and 13). LU is probably an aural mistake or substitute for LÚ. Mentioning and rejecting both of these options, Beaulieu has argued that the sign is best taken as part of the previous name: either as IB!, in order to “give a more convincing spelling of the name Esagil-kìna-ubbib”; or as LU, in which case he thinks “the scribe might be playfully proposing to equate the two figures [scil. Esagil-kina-apli with Saggil-kina-ubbib] by making the last part of the name ubbalu sound like IBILA, the logogram for aplu” (see Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “The Social and Intellectual Setting of Babylonian Wisdom Literature,” in Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel, ed. Richard J. Clifford; Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 36 [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007], 3-19, here 14, n.32). With regard to the second option, if the motivation Beaulieu suggests is correct, one would not expect the writing of the name he supposes to appear in line 18 but in line 17. Although I would not exclude Beaulieu’s first option mentioned above, the use of the professional determinative in lines 12 and 13 as well as the otherwise identical writings of the names in lines 17 and 18 tip the scale in favor of taking LU with the following word. 11 The notation m(i) indicates the i-vowel may not have been pronounced; see likewise q(a) in the following line. 12 Despite many attempts, I cannot offer a satisfactory restoration of this unfortunate break. One might suggest restoring the beginning of the line with [e-di-i]s and translate the line “(but) Nikarchos is alone.” I am reticent about accepting this restoration, however, because it proceeds directly from my interpretation of the text. Although conjectural restorations are often somewhat circular, this one seems entirely so. 10
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During the reign of13 Ayalu, the king, Adapa was sage. During the reign of Alalgar, the king, Uanduga was sage. During the reign of Ameluana, the king, Enmeduga was sage. During the reign of Amegalana, the king, Enmegalama was sage. During the reign of Enmeusumgalana, the king, Enmebuluga was sage. During the reign of Dumuzi, the shepherd, the king, Anenlilda was sage. During the reign of Enmeduranki, the king, Utuabzu was sage. After the flood,? during the reign of Enmerkar, the king, Nungalpirigal was sage, whom Istar brought down from heaven to Eana. He made the bronze lyre, whose . . . (were) lapis lazuli, according to the technique of Ninagal.14 The lyre was placed15 before Anu . . ., the dwelling of (his) personal god.?16 During the reign of Gilgamesh, the king,? Sin-leqi-unnini was scholar. During the reign of Ibbi-Sin, the king, Kabti-ili-Marduk was scholar. During the reign of Isbi-Erra, the king, Sidu, a.k.a. Enlil-ibni, was scholar. During the reign of Abi-esu¢, the king, Gimil-Gula17 and TaqisGula were the scholars. During the reign of . . ., the king, Esagil-kin-apli was scholar. During the reign of Adad-apla-iddina, the king, Esagil-kin-ubba18 was scholar.
13
Literally ina tarßi in its temporal sense means “in the time of” (see CAD T,
242). 14
Ninagal is Ea’s smith. The subject of ukkinù is taken as an indefinite “they” and thus translated as a passive voice in English. I leave open the possibility, however, that the break at the beginning of line 11 hides a relative particle sa. In this case, ukinnu would be a subordinate, third person singular form of the verb and Nungalpirigal its subject. “Lyre” later in the line would then be the redundant antecedent of the relative particle (“which he placed [i.e., the lyre] before Anu”). 16 See note 8 above for this tentative translation. 17 Van Dijk reads this name as Sù-Gula (“Die Inschriftenfunde,” 51), though it is better interpreted as Gimil-Gula (see W. G. Lambert, “A Catalogue of Texts and Authors,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 16 [1962], 66. Correct Lenzi, Secrecy and the Gods, 108 accordingly and add Gimil-Gula to the others on p. 119). 18 This name here and in the following line, despite chronological problems, is probably to be identified with Saggil-kina-ubbib, the author of The Babylonian Theodicy (see van Dijk, “Die Inschriftenfunde,” 51). For other ideas about the relationship of Esagil-kina-apla, Saggil-kina-ubbib, and Esagil-kin-ubba, see Beaulieu, “Setting of Babylonian Wisdom Literature,” 14, whose ideas are mentioned briefly in note 10 above. 15
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During the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the king, Esagil-kin-ubba was scholar. During the reign of Esarhaddon, the king, Aba-Enlil-dari was scholar, whom the Arameans call Ahiqar. . . . Nikarchos.19 Tablet of Anu-belsunu, son of Nidintu-Anu, descendant of Sin-leqiunnini, the lamentation-priest of Anu and Antu. An Urukean. (Copied) by his own hand. Uruk, 10 Ayyar, 147th year of Antiochus, the king. The one who reveres Anu will not carry it off. The Earlier Evidence of a Genealogical Connection20 Gaining a historical perspective on the scholarly genealogical tradition attested in the text of ULKS is the first element of contextualizing our text. Clearly, the ULKS is unique. It lists seven well-known antediluvian kings, each paired with his corresponding apkallu-sage, then a single post-diluvian king-apkallu pair, followed by eight post-diluvian kings, each with his corresponding ummânuscholar (in one case, two scholars).21 The list is arranged from start to finish in what one must recognize as an attempt at chronological order.22 Focusing on the ummânù, the implication of the text is rather clear: the human, post-diluvian scholars are the direct professional descendants of the earlier semi-divine apkallù. In a previous study I called this traditional genealogical relationship the “mythology of scribal succession.”23 There are of course quite early precedents for king lists, antediluvian or otherwise; there are also several earlier examples of kings being listed with their chief scholarly advisor.24 But there is nothing that traces the royal scholars back through antediluvian times to the apkallù as clearly as does the ULKS. We need not
19
See below for the justification of this identification. The following section is based on Lenzi, Secrecy and the Gods, 106-25. 21 The three sections are separated on the tablet itself by rule lines. 22 This remains true despite the fact that there are chronological mistakes. Note that Adad-apla-iddina is placed before Nebuchadnezzar in lines 17 and 18. 23 Lenzi, Secrecy and the Gods, 107. 24 See the overview in A. Kirk Grayson, “Königslisten und Chroniken,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie 6 (1980), 86-135. Note especially lists 11, 12, 14, 15, and 17. 20
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require the evidence for the earlier viability of this tradition, however, to conform to this explicit and systematic presentation of the “mythology of scribal succession.” Our list’s formulation of the genealogical tradition should not be made the measure of its earlier existence. As others have done, we shall use one of the most basic features of the ULKS as our guide into earlier material: the close association between mythical apkallù and their human counterparts. Finding this concept as well as hints of succession between the two groups in earlier cuneiform material gives us good reason to believe the “mythology of scribal succession” existed at an earlier time.25 The list of apkallù in an incantation belonging to the apotropaic series Bìt mèseri is sometimes cited as evidence for the connection between sages and scholars before the Seleucid era.26 This text names the same seven apkallù as the ULKS, but here they are given an ichthyological description.27 Tablet III 10-13 reads:28 25 Others have surveyed this material before. See notes 3 and 4 above for references. The novel contribution here is to highlight two new evidential ideas, in Bìt mèseri and in “Advice to a Prince,” and to respond to an important objection raised by Seth Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse: Studies in the Theme of Ascent to Heaven in Ancient Mesopotamia and Second Temple Judaism” (Ph.D. Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1999), 125, 144-45. Many scholars treating the subject of scholarly genealogy often appeal to the Enmeduranki text (e.g., Beaulieu, “The Social and Intellectual Setting of Babylonian Wisdom Literature,” 15 and Rochberg, Heavenly Writing, 183-184; see W. G. Lambert, “The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners,” in Festschrift für Rykle Borger zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Mai 1994: Tikip santakki mala basmu . . ., ed. Stefan M. Maul; Cuneiform Monographs 10 [Groningen: Styx, 1998], 141-58 for an edition of this text). Although that tradition is clearly related to the issue of antediluvian knowledge and its transmission to scholars, its formulation is a minority view that places an antediluvian king at the center of mediation to scholars rather than the antediluvian apkallù (see my Secrecy and the Gods, 122-127, which also shows the relevance of LKA 147 and its unique formulation of the issue). This tradition will not factor into the discussion below. 26 See, e.g., Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, XVIII. 27 This recalls Berossus’ description of the sages. 28 I am citing the text according to the edition in Egbert von Weiher, Spätbabylonische Texte aus Uruk, Teil 2, Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft in Uruk-Warka 10 (Berlin: Mann, 1983), text no. 8 (= SpBTU II 8) for convenience. An up-to-date critical edition of the series is still lacking. SpBTU II 8 is a late text from Uruk, but Borger provides a list of other attested exemplars, most of which come from libraries of the early first millennium (see Rykle Borger, “Die Beschwörungsserie Bìt mèseri und die Himmelfahrt Henochs,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 33 [1974], 183-96; he translates our lines on 192-93). For recent observations on the Bìt mèseri series generally, including many citations of secondary literature and the role of apotropaic figurines in it, see Frans Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts, Cuneiform Monographs 1 (Groningen: Styx and PP Publications, 1992), 105-13.
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They are the seven brilliant puràdu-fish, puràdu-fish from the sea, the seven sages, who were created in the river, who ensure the correct execution of the plans of heaven and earth.29
The text continues with a list of four human apkallù, Nungalpirigal, Pirigalnungal, Pirigalabzu,30 and Lu-Nana, who are then described in lines 28-29 of the same tablet as: Four sages of human descent, whom Ea, the lord, perfected with wide understanding.31
The presence of these four humans in this text, even though called apkallù, suggests several points of similarity with the ULKS that advance our understanding of the apkallù–ummânù association. In the present context, however, I will limit my comments to a textual feature that others have noted but not utilized as evidence for understanding the apkallù–ummânù tradition; namely, unlike the seven non-human sages, the four human sages in Bìt mèseri have no place in the ritual instructions associated with this incantation.32 Sanders suggests this discrepancy indicates the four human apkallù are “extraneous” while Wiggerman gives it a source critical interpretation, suggesting “the list of apkallù does not originate from bìt mèseri but from another text—a chronicle ?—, from where it was adapted by bìt mèseri.”33 Building on these interpretations, I suggest that the absence of the four human apkallù from the ritual instructions is a textual clue that they are in fact a later addition to the incantation. According to this interpretation, the text provides evidence 10. su¢urku6.zalág.ga su¢urku6.a.ab.ba imin.na.ne.ne 11. pu-ra-du nam-ru-tu pu-ra-du tam-tim se-bet-ti sú-nu 12. imin abgal íd.da mú.mú.dè gis.¢ur an.ki.a si.sá.e.ne 13. se-bet ap-kal-lum sá ina íd(nàri) ib-ba-nu-ú mus-te-ser ú-ßu-rat an-e ù ki-tim 30 The artificiality of the first three names in this list has been noted repeatedly in the literature; the pirig- element is probably related to the u4- element in some of the antediluvian sages’ names. On these names, see, e.g., W. W. Hallo, “On the Antiquity of Sumerian Literature,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 83 (1963), 167-76, here 175; Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse,” 117; and Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, 74 (each citing nearly the same earlier secondary literature). 31 28. 4 abgal ù.tu.ud.da nam.lú.u .lu den.ki en gestú dagal.la su.du .e.ne 18 7 29. er–bet nun.me i-lit-tu lú-ut-tú sa dbe(Ea) en uz-nu ra-pa-as-tú u-sak-líl-su-nu-tú 32 See SpBTU II 8 i 30-31. 33 Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse,” 117; Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, 108. They do appear extraneous in the incantation when viewed from the perspective of the ritual instructions, and the four human apkallù almost certainly were taken from some other traditional context, though we have not yet identified it. 29
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that someone deliberately associated the two groups of apkallù, human and mythic, sometime in the early first millennium. That is to say, the disconnect between ritual and incantation provides a hint at alteration or innovation—i.e., an active interest—in the apkallù tradition attested here.34 We must recognize, however, the fact that the tradition exemplified in Bìt mèseri differs in a significant way from the ULKS: in Bìt mèseri the tradition occurs in a ritual.35 If this were the only instance of apkallù in a ritual context, this difference in genre would be of little consequence. But, in fact, it is not. The seven apkallù are mentioned, for example, in anti-witchcraft incantations in Maqlû II 124,36 V 110,37 VII 49,38 VIII 38 (though without names).39 They also occur in a medical incantation in LKA 146 that gives a mythological 34 For a much more detailed example of finding literary and socio-religious data in the discrepancies between an incantation and its associated ritual, see Tzvi Abusch, “Ritual and Incantation: Interpretation and Textual History of Maqlû VII:58-105 and IX:52-59,” in “Shaharei Talmon:” Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov with the assistance of Weston W. Fields (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 367-80; reprinted in Tzvi Abusch, Mesopotamian Witchcraft: Toward a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature, Ancient Magic and Divination 5 (Leiden: Brill / Styx, 2002). 35 Besides the generic difference the text also has a difference with regard to the included content: kings are only mentioned with two of the human apkallù and none is mentioned with the mythic apkallù. Since Bìt mèseri is a ritual, we would not expect the sage-king association to appear. Due to their association with Ea, the apkallù were “natural” candidates for invocation in apotropaic/exorcistic contexts (see, e.g., Benjamin Foster, “Wisdom and the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Orientalia 43 [1974], 344-54, here 349 and other examples below). But kings are not figures typically invoked in incantations. Thus, it is not really surprising that we do not see the connection made systematically in such a context. However, when a sage–king connection is mentioned, it is interesting to see signs of continuity with the later ULKS. For example, Nungalpirigal is associated with Enmerkar in both Bìt mèseri and the ULKS. 36 7 apkallè sùt Eridu likpidùsunùti ana lemuttim: “May the seven sages of Eridu plan evil for them.” This counters the assertion that the sorcerers have planned evil for the patient in II 117. See Gerhard Meier, Die assyrische Beschwörungssammlung Maqlû, Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft 2 (Berlin, 1937), 17 for text and translation. 37 7 apkallè sùt Eridu [. . .]; see Gerhard Meier, “Studien zur Beschwörungssammlung Maqlu,” Archiv für Orientforschung 21 (1966), 77 for the text. Meier’s earlier edition contains nothing except the number 7 from the line (Maqlû, 38). 38 7 apkallè sùt Eridu lipassi¢ù zumursu, “May the seven sages of Eridu give his body relief” (Meier, Maqlû, 48). 39 Broken context: [. . .] si-ma apkallè sa Apsî (Meier, Maqlû, 54). Note the next line, also broken, has nèmeqi nikilti Ea iqbû, “the wisdom, the ingenuity of Ea they spoke.”
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account of Ea communicating poultices to humans.40 From such evidence Sanders has argued that the seven apkallù are restricted to myths41 and rituals during the Neo-Assyrian period (and earlier), and this fact, in his opinion, speaks against their use in a scholarly genealogy before the Seleucid era.42 Sanders’ objection reminds us of the need for sensitivity to genre in adducing evidence, something few others have taken seriously when discussing the issue of scholarly genealogy. There is, however, other non-ritual evidence that both alleviates the problem he raises and provides more support for the earlier apkallù–ummânù association suggested by the Bìt mèseri material. A textual variant between the only two manuscripts of the Akkadian literary composition “Advice to a Prince,” which is clearly a nonritual text, supports the close association of the apkallù and ummânù in the early first millennium. A comparison of the two tablets at lines 4 and 5 reveals our variant of interest.43 DT 1:4-5 (the Ninevite version) a-na nun.me-sú(apkallìsu) la i-qúl ud.mes-sú(ùmìsu) lúgud.da.meS(ikarrû) a-na um.me.a(ummâni) la i-qúl kur-su(màssu) bal-su(ibbalakkissu)
40 W. G. Lambert, “The Twenty-one ‘Poultices,’” Anatolian Studies 30 (1980), 77-83. See also, e.g., Bìt rimki (Rykle Borger, “Das Dritte ‘Haus’ der Serie Bìt Rimki [VR 50-51, Schollmeyer HGS Nr.1],” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 21 [1967], 11:25 + a); the rituals treated by Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits; and the (overlapping) attestations noted by J. J. A. van Dijk, La Sagesse Sumero-Accadienne, Commentationes Orientales 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1953), 20, n.56. 41 They are found in Erra I 162 and Gilgamesh I 21 and XI 326 (called muntalkù). 42 He writes, “[t]he human sages, ummânu, appear for the first time in NeoAssyrian king lists, and in the bìt mèseri fragments of the Neo-Assyrian period the superhuman apkallù are for the first time listed by name and correlated with legendary and historical kings. While Mesopotamian kings remain on the throne, the apkallù remain confined to myth and ritual. In the Seleucid period, after the loss of native kingship, the apkallù enter history. . . . Evidence of a historically developing identification between the Mesopotamian ritual practitioner and the apkallù in general and Adapa in particular finally emerges in Seleucid Uruk” (Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse,” 144-45). 43 In the standard edition of the text, Lambert expresses the opinion that the text is from Babylon and should be dated to roughly 1000 to 700 bce. He also notes, “(t)he text is written on a tablet from the libraries of Assurbanipal [i.e., DT 1], and no duplicate has yet been found” (W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960; reprinted, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996], 110, 111). Steven Cole has recently published a duplicate to DT 1 (Nippur IV. The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor’s Archive from Nippur, Oriental Institute Publications 114 [Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1996], no. 128 [= OIP 114 128]); the tablet was found among a cache from Nippur.
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alan lenzi (If ) he does not listen to his sage, his days will be short. (If ) he does not listen to (his) scholar, his land will rebel against him.
In the standard edition based on DT 1 (the Ninevite version), Lambert took the ME in nun.me-sú as a plural marker and read the word as rubû, “princes, nobles.”44 This is understandable in light of line 10 which sets nun.me alongside di.kud.me (dayyànù, “judges”). In the orthography of the latter term ME must indicate plurality. But Reiner has noted that DT 1 typically uses MES to express the plural (line 10’s di.kud.me being the one indisputable exception); thus, it seemed likely to her that nun.me in both lines 4 and 10 should be read apkallu (singular).45 Considering only the evidence of DT 1, I think there is internal evidence in line 26 for the proper reading of nun.me in both lines 4 and 10. In line 26 Marduk is called the nun.me dingir.mes (apkal ilì, “sage of the gods”) and the nun (rubû, “prince”). These epithets are even adjacent to one another in the line. It is clear therefore that the text knew the distinction and the potential ambiguity between the words apkallu and rubû. Moreover, lines 4 and 10 could have made the reading rubû—if that is what was intended— unambiguous if it had wanted to. But it did not. Therefore, I think, nun.me should be read as apkallu in DT 1. On this reading, there is a clear parallel established between an apkallu and ummânu in the Ninevite Version of the text. The answer to the contextual and practical problems presented by the resulting parallelism in lines 4 and 5 comes from the duplicate published by Cole.46
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Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 112-13. See Erica Reiner, “The Etiological Myth of the ‘Seven Sages,’” Orientalia 30 (1961), 9 and n.1. 46 Cole, Nippur IV, 268-74 (OIP 114 128). Hurowitz, through whom I became acquainted with this issue, points out the contextual difficulties with this reading nicely. Although he recognizes that “apkallu is an excellent parallel for ummànu” since “(b)oth refer to sages and masters of the basic fields of wisdom,” he goes on to say the following: “[w]hile the later [sic., latter; the ummânù] could be courtiers who could proffer advice at court and be heeded by the king, the former [the apkallù] can impart their wisdom only in an indirect manner [i.e., because they were mythological sages], and the king could not be expected to really heed them. The reading apkallu would therefore be problematic on practical grounds if the text is not to be considered as speaking metaphorically” (Victor Hurowitz, “Advice to a Prince: A Message from Ea,” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 12 [1998], 49, n.23). I would add to this that apkallu does not seem an appropriate parallel term to dayyànù in line 10. 45
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OIP 114 128 (the Nippur version) a-na nun.mes-sú(rubîsu) nu(là) me(iqùl) ud.mes-sú lúgud.da.meS a-na um-ma-a-nu nu me kur-su bal-su (If) he does not listen to his princes, his days will be short. (If) he does not listen to (his) scholar, his land will rebel against him.
Lines 4 and 11 (= DT’s line 10) in the Nippur version of the text have the unambiguous reading nun.mes-sú, i.e., rubîsu, “his nobles.” This is probably the better reading of the two versions since it fits the social situation envisioned by the text much better than the mythological sage-figures of the Ninevite version. Moreover, rubîsu provides a suitable parallel for the terms in both lines 5 (ummânu) and 10 (dayyànù). So why was apkallu employed in parallel to ummânu in line 4 of the Nineveh version? It seems the composition did not always do so. The reading in the Nineveh version is either a graphic corruption of the original reading (it left out three Winkelhaken in the MES sign twice, in lines 4 and 10, thereby forming ME) or, more likely, there was a deliberate, if small, alteration to the text that was ideologically motivated.47 If Hurowitz is correct in seeing a relationship between the “Advice to a Prince” and Ea,48 then this text would be a significant and appropriate textual location to assert a connection between the apkallù and their descendants, the ummânù. Bringing them together may have seemed an almost “natural” thing to do in this text in light of the “mythology.”49 Significantly, the “Advice to a Prince” explicitly sets the identification of the apkallù and ummânù within the context of royal advising. In this regard, our text shows another conceptual continuity with the ULKS and suggests that the apkallù are not found exclusively in ritual contexts during the early first millennium. As is well-known, antediluvian knowledge had special significance in Mesopotamia.50 The most important example of this fact for the
47 Cole, Nippur IV, 274 mentions the possibility, based on a mistake in the text, that the Nippur tablet was a practice tablet written from dictation. If that is so, then it is unlikely that the confusion between apkallu and rubû could be attributed to a simple graphic error. 48 Hurowitz, “Advice to a Prince.” 49 It is possible, therefore, that the production of this variant was not wholly conscious. 50 For other examples of antediluvian knowledge (though sometimes in a broken context), see the examples gathered by Lambert, “Catalogue of Texts and Authors,” 72 at the note on VI 15.
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purposes of this study comes from an oft cited colophon of a medical tablet from Ashurbanipal’s library, AMT 105,1 (K.4023), lines 21-25. This colophon shows not only the association of antediluvian sages and a human sage but also the “mythology of scribal succession” in action.51 Salves (and) bandages: tested (and) checked, which are ready at hand, composed by the ancient sages from before the flood, which52 in Suruppak in the second year of Enlil-bani, king of Isin, Enlil-muballit, sage of Nippur, bequeathed.53
Although the number of apkallù is unspecified in this text, the indication of plurality of sages and the antediluvian time frame strongly suggest an association with the seven sages known from traditions such as Bìt mèseri and the ULKS. The fact that the tablet claims the apkallù composed54 these recipes bolsters the authority (by invoking these beings associated with Ea) and legitimacy (by asserting antiquity) of the recipes contained in the text. But I do not think that is its primary purpose. The claim is not made in the context of a ritual; so it does not primarily function to create ritual power. Rather, the claim occurs in a colophon, a label that communicates something about the tablet for other would-be readers/users of it. The invocation of the apkallù and a claim to antediluvian knowledge in a colophon intends therefore to affect the social situation in which the tablet is used. In this case the colophon credentials a human being as the possessor of antediluvian knowledge (i.e., medical recipes). Revealed by primeval apkallù, mediated to the human sage Enlil-muballit, and transmitted, presumably, by means of various
51 For the original copy of the tablet, see R. Campbell Thompson, Assyrian Medical Texts (London: H. Milford / New York: Oxford University Press, 1923; reprinted, Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1983), 105,1 (=K.4023, col. iv, and thus probably from Nineveh). I have cited the text according to Hermann Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 2 (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag / Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon and Bercker, 1968), no. 533, with corrections from Yaakov Elman, “Authoritative Oral Tradition in Neo-Assyrian Scribal Circles,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 7 (1975), 19-32, here 31. 52 This refers back to salves and bandages. 53 21. [na]p-sá-la-tú tak-ßi-ra-nu lat-ku-tu ba-ru-ti sá ana [S]u su-ßú-ú 4 22. sá ka nun.me.mes-e la-bi-ru-ti sá la-am a.má.uru5(abùbi) 23. sá ina lamxkurki(suruppak) mu.2.kám Iden.líl-ba-ni lugal uruì.Si.inki 24. Iden.líl-mu-bal-li† nun.me nibruki [ez]-bu 54 Note that as with Ea in the “Catalog of Texts and Authors” (see note 50 and just below), the Akkadian reads sa pî.
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copyists to the present possessor, AMT 105,1 implies the same notion of succession as the ULKS. A similar idea is probably attested in KAR 177, obv. iv 25-32, a text containing hemerologies, which reads:55 Favorable days. According to the seven s[ages(?)]. Duplicate of a tablet from Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, Larsa, Ur, Uruk, and Eridu. The scholars excerpted, selected, and gave it to Nazimuruttash, king of the world.56
It seemed highly unlikely to the editor (Lambert) that the seven cities named in the text represented the seven exemplars from which the scribe worked. In other words, it seems unlikely that the scribe was looking at seven different copies while writing his own tablet. Instead, Lambert proposed that the seven cities represent a succession of exemplars. Each of the exemplars was written by one of the seven sages one after another thereby creating a line of succession for the present tablet that extends back into earliest times. The claim of this colophon, therefore, is that the tablet of hemerologies over which the ummânù labored goes back to the apkallù and ultimately originated in Eridu, the home city of Ea. This again demonstrates an example of the “mythology of scribal succession” and an implicit assertion of antediluvian knowledge. Finally, although not giving specific proof of a genealogical relationship, the content of the well-known “Catalog of Texts and Authors” edited by Lambert attests once again the close connection between Ea, the mythological apkallù, and the ummânù as in the “mythology of scribal succession.”57 In this text Ea is credited 55 The tablet is from Assur and presumably the NA period. The text and restorations follow W. G. Lambert, “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 11 (1957), 1-14, here 8. Lambert also gives the remainder of the colophon, rev. iv 1-3 (8), which is of no interest in this context, and sets out von Soden’s readings in a follow-up note (“Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity [JCS XI, 1-14]: Additions and Corrections,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 11 [1957], 112). 56 25. ud.meS(umù) dùg.ga.meS(†àbùtu) ka 7 a[p?-kal ?-li?] 26. gab-ri zimbirki(Sippar) nibruki 27. ká.dingir.raki ud.unugki(Larsa) 28. úriki unugki(Uruk) eri4-du10ki 29. um-ma-a-ni ú-na-as-si-¢u-ma 30. ú-na-as-si-qu-ma 31. a-na Ina-zi-múru-u[t-ta]s 32. sàr Sú(kissati) sum-nu(iddinù) 57 See the edition in Lambert, “Catalogue of Texts and Authors,” 59-77.
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with the authorship of several large and important works (see I 14). Following his works, the catalog lists Oannes-Adapa, the first mythological apkallù in the common list of sages of the Uruk list, Bìt mèseri, and Berossus, and credits him with the authorship of the astronomical series Enùma Anu Enlil (5-6). It also lists him as the author of another work later in the catalog (VI 15-16). Although the title of this other work is only partially preserved, it is notable that the preserved portion reads sa làm abùbi, “from before the flood.” Following these first two authors (Ea and Oannes-Adapa), the catalog enumerates many other works and their putative authors.58 Two of these are known to be apkallu: one, named Enmeduga (IV 11), does not have a preserved title, but is known as the third antediluvian sage in the common list of sages; another is called a sage but his name is not preserved (III 7). The majority of the remaining authors are ummânù, usually àsipù or kalû but also including a bàrû. Several among those listed in the catalog are also listed in the ULKS: Sin-leqi-unnini (VI 10), Kabti-ili-Marduk (II 2), Sidu (VI 13), Gimil-Gula (VI 8), Taqisa-Gula (IV 9), and Saggil-kinaubbib (= Esagil-kin-ubba in the ULKS) (V 2). The last human apkallu in Bìt mèseri, Lu-Nana (VI 11), is also attested. To find mentioned by name scholars who would be remembered hundreds of years later in the tradition (in the ULKS) is somewhat remarkable. But it is even more remarkable that these scholars, along with a couple of mythological sages and the god Ea, are placed alongside other, presumably less celebrated scholars, many of whom we know absolutely nothing beyond what this text preserves. This suggests the genealogical relationship to antediluvian sages extended to all scholars as a class. Taken as a whole, a general picture emerges that sustains the idea that the “mythology of scribal succession,” though never presented as clearly as in the ULKS, was quite alive early in the first millennium. The ummânù fashioned themselves—consciously or perhaps unconsciously59—into the scribal heirs of the antediluvian sages, 58 Lambert believes the list has no apparent order (“Catalogue of Texts and Authors,” 76) while Karel van der Toorn has suggested the “classification of the literature is by presumed antiquity” (“Why Wisdom Became a Secret: On Wisdom as a Written Genre,” in Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel, ed. Richard J. Clifford; Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 36 [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007], 21-29, here 21). Van der Toorn’s view has merit, but a decision in this matter is not important for the present purpose. 59 Mythmaking need not always be conscious nor considered duplicitous or
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themselves closely allied with Ea, the patron deity of the ummânù. This relationship of scholarly succession gave mythological support for the roles of the ummânù at court and in society as ritual experts, counselors to the king, and authors of important cuneiform works.60 As this mythology of succession was accepted and reified—that is, after it was accepted as a fact of the ordered cosmos—it would have galvanized the importance of the scholarly texts for the scholars and for the king they served. Given the precarious professional existence of the scholar (see “The Forlorn Scholar”)61 and their institutional dependency for scholarly support, this development was a major contribution to their social security. Seleucid Treatment of Indigenous Mesopotamian Institutions The Seleucid attention to indigenous traditions as well as their support of Mesopotamian temples—whether directly or indirectly—is the second element in understanding the Hellenistic context from which our text arose. Historians of Hellenistic Mesopotamia in recent decades have successfully countered earlier, largely Hellenocentric scholarly opinions about Seleucid neglect or disinterest in and thus demise of traditional Babylonian settlements and institutions.62 The alleged neglect, in fact, originates with modern historians manipulative. As Russell McCutcheon notes, “[a] thoroughly social theory of religion posits individual actors’ intentions, plans, and organizations not as causes of, but as artifacts that result from social formation, as the evidence of pre-existent, communally shared intellectual and material conditions beyond the scope or control of the individual. . . . Social formations are therefore complex, interactive, partially intentional yet completely blind processes” (see Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion, Issues in the Study of Religion Series [Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001], 27-28). 60 The scholars may also have inscribed their relationship to the apkallù in the palace reliefs as argued by Mehmet-Ali Ataç, “Scribal-Sacerdotal Agency in the Production of the Neo-Assyrian Palace Reliefs: Toward a Hermeneutics of Iconography” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2003). I have only been able to read the abstract as the dissertation itself was unavailable to me for consultation. Ataç only briefly mentions this idea in his “Visual Form and Meaning in Neo-Assyrian Relief Sculpture,” The Art Bulletin 88.1 (2006), 69-101, here 87, 88-89. 61 See Simo Parpola, “The Forlorn Scholar,” in Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, ed. F. Rochberg-Halton; American Oriental Series 67 (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987), 257-78. 62 See especially Susan Sherwin-White, “Seleucid Babylonia: A Case-Study for the Installation and Development of Greek Rule,” in Hellenism in the East: The
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who had not adequately factored the cuneiform evidence into their accounts and rather too eagerly believed the tendentious reports concerning Babylon given by such classical authors as Strabo (Geography 16.1.5), Pausanias (Description of Greece 1.16.3), and Pliny (Natural History 6.26.122).63 Based on a growing body of cuneiform and archaeological evidence, recent scholars have suggested that the Seleucids actually made significant investments in traditional Mesopotamia. Chronicles, astronomical diaries, and administrative documents attest to the fact that Seleucid rulers took part, at least at times, in various traditional temple rituals and supported the temples through various projects of renovation or repair, especially in Babylon.64 Archaeology Interaction of Greek and Non-Greek Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander, ed. Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White; Hellenistic Culture and Society 2 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 1-31; Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White, From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire, Hellenistic Culture and Society 13 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993); and Amélie Kuhrt, “The Seleucid Kings and Babylonia: New Perspectives on the Seleucid Realm in the East,” in Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship, ed. Per Bilde et al.; Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 7 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1996), 41-54. See also Pierre Briant, “The Seleucid Kingdom, the Achaemenid Empire and the History of the Near East in the First Millenium (sic) bc,” in Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom, ed. Per Bilde et al.; Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 1 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990), 40-65. Briant notes that recent investigators have abandoned Droysen’s idea of the Hellenization of the Near East and have turned their attention to understanding the continuation of local institutions and cultural patterns. However, “this essential and fruitful attempt at reinterpretation remains more often than not unfinished and incomplete” due to academic specialization. 63 See D. T. Potts, Mesopotamian Civilization: The Material Foundations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 280, 284-85 and especially T. Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 136 (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 77-78, 135-36. For a convenient translation of Strabo’s comments, see M. M. Austin, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), no. 188. 64 See, e.g., A. Kirk Grayson, Babylonian Historical-Literary Texts, Toronto Semitic Texts and Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 19-20, n.29, where he entertains the idea that the Dynastic Prophecy may have had an anti-hellenistic element in it but opposes S. K. Eddy’s idea of widespread anti-Hellenistic sentiment in Seleucid Mesopotamia (in his The King is Dead: Studies in the Near Eastern Resistance to Hellenism 334-31 B.C. [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961]) by listing the cuneiform evidence that records Seleucid patronage of traditional Babylonian cultic institutions. See further Grayson’s Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1975; reprinted, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 278, n.2, where he lists various kinds of evidence of Seleucid temple restorations, among other things. (Grayson notes here renovations during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes [175-164 bce], citing M. Rostovtzeff, “Seleucid Babylonia: Bullae and Seals of Clay with Greek Inscriptions,” Yale Classical Studies 3 [1932],
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often confirms reports of temple renovation and perhaps equally significantly has yet to provide evidence for the Hellenization of temple architecture. In fact, quite the opposite case holds true: Seleucid rulers seem to have encouraged the continued use of traditional temple styles when renovation projects were undertaken.65 There is also some evidence that the Seleucids, at least at times, accommodated themselves to Mesopotamian traditions. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Antiocus I’s royal inscription of 268 bce. In this archaizing inscription Antiochus I appropriated the traditional language of kingship, utilized throughout earlier Mesopotamian royal inscriptions, in order to present his own rule in the linguistic garb of an indigenous king. The opening lines read: “I am Antiochus, great king, strong king, king of the inhabited world, king of Babylon, king of the lands, the provider of Esagil 3-113, here 6-7, as evidence; but upon closer inspection of Rostovtzeff one will see that he has in fact dated the Kephalon inscription [now known to be from 201 bce] to the reign of Antiochus IV. Adam Falkenstein indicates that the proper reading for the date was established only some time after its initial publication [Topographie von Uruk: I. Teil Uruk zur Seleukidenzeit (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1941), 7, n.3]. There is, therefore, currently no evidence to the best of my knowledge for renovation of Mesopotamian temples under Antiochus IV.) Note also S. M. Sherwin-White, “Babylonian Chronicle Fragments as a Source for Seleucid History,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42 (1983), 265-70 and her analysis in “Ritual for a Seleucid King at Babylon?” Journal of Hellenic Studies 103 (1983), 156-59, citing Grayson’s earlier work (159, nn.40-41). Amélie Kuhrt and Susan SherwinWhite, “Aspects of Seleucid Royal Ideology: The Cylinder of Antiochus I from Borsippa,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 111 (1991), 81-2 survey the data (chronicles and diaries) for Seleucid work on Marduk’s temple in Babylon, dating between 322/1 to 224/3 and Kuhrt, “The Seleucid Kings and Babylonia,” 48 cites an astrological diary that proves Antiochus III engaged in cultic rites as late as 187 bce. For the diaries specifically, see, e.g., R. J. van der Spek, “The Astronomical Diaries as a Source for Achaemenid and Seleucid History,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 50 (1993), 91-101 and Wayne Horowitz, “Antiochus I, Esagil, and a Celebration of the Ritual for Renovation of Temples,” Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 85 (1991), 75-77. 65 See Lise Hannestad and Daniel Potts, “Temple Architecture in the Seleucid Kingdom,” in Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom, ed. Per Bilde et al.; Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 1 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990), 107, who cite the Bìt Rès temple’s traditional design as evidence (a temple refurbished at least a couple of times during the Seleucid period). They conclude with the following: “we can hardly escape the conclusion that there was no official programme of Hellenization of the religious sphere during Seleucid rule. The evidence from Babylonia points rather to the contrary, that the Seleucid kings, like many later colonizers, encouraged traditionalism in the religious sphere” (123). See also Susan B. Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 7-50, especially 11, 14, 16, and 38 (all concerning temples in either Babylon or Uruk).
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and Ezida, foremost son of Seleucus, the king, the Macedonian, king of Babylon.”66 Even if we were to interpret all of these Seleucid activities as exploiting indigenous traditions to further their own rule, we should probably only conclude from this that the Seleucids were doing what a long line of earlier Mesopotamian rulers—indigenous or otherwise—had done.67 But, we need not imagine the Seleucid appropriation or support of Mesopotamian institutions as a simple one-way, top-down mechanism of exploitation.68 There may be indications that some of the local elites encouraged the rulers to adopt Mesopotamian ways, either explicitly or implicitly. For example, several historians have suggested that Berossus’ Babylonaica was explicitly written to encourage the foreign Seleucids, especially Antiochus I, to sympathize with and support Mesopotamian traditions.69 And 66 The Akkadian text of 5R, no. 66 reads: 1.Ian-ti-hu-ku-us lugal gal 2. lugal dan-nu lugal Sár lugal eki lugal kur.kur 3. za-ni-in é-sag-il ù é-zi-da 4. ibila sag sa Isi-lu-uk-ku lugal 5. lúma-ak-ka-du-na-a-a lugal eki 6. a-na-ku (see Kuhrt and Sherwin-White, “Aspects of Seleucid Royal Ideology,” 75-76 for a transliteration and translation, with previous literature cited on p. 73, n.13; see also Austin, The Hellenistic World, no. 189, for an accessible translation). The analysis of Kuhrt and Sherwin-White demonstrates the inscription’s mostly traditional Babylonian royal rhetoric and points out its few non-Babylonian features (“Aspects of Seleucid Royal Ideology,” 78-86). Boiy has noted that the cuneiform script used in this inscription is archaizing (i.e., making an attempt to look older than it is), and thus he suspects the royal titles, which are traditional but not always found in more contemporary royal inscriptions, are also archaizing (see T. Boiy, “Royal Titulature in Hellenistic Babylonia,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 92 [2002], 241-57, here 248). This is significant in light of section three below. 67 For a recent attempt to formulate the Seleucid imperial policy toward Mesopotamia as one of indirect rule that supported and utilized (i.e., exploited) indigenous institutions rather than imposing specifically Hellenistic ones, see Michael Sommer, “Babylonien im Seleukenreich: Indirekte Herrschaft und indigene Bevölkerung,” Klio 82 (2000), 73-90. After a brief look at Hellenistic Palestine (i.e., the events leading up to the Maccabean revolt), Sommer examines Mesopotamia under the Seleucids and sets this alongside a discussion of British indirect rule in India. The latter becomes an ideal type to test the notion of indirect rule in the ancient Hellenistic Mesopotamian context. 68 See Sherwin-White, “Seleucid Babylonia: A Case Study,” 9. 69 See Stanley Mayer Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus (Sources from the Ancient Near East I/5; Malibu: Undena Publications, 1978), 5-6, who believes Berossus’ departure for Cos late in his life may indicate Berossus’ disappointment with the Seleucid policies toward Babylon. See also Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “The Historical Background of the Uruk Policy,” in The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo, ed. M. Cohen, D. Snell and D. Weisberg (Bethesda: CDL Press, 1993), 49. But see Amélie Kuhrt, “Berossus’ Babylonaika and Seleucid Rule in Babylonia,” in Hellenism in the East, 32-56, who contends Berossus may have written in order to provide the Seleucids with local ideological
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recently Paul-Alain Beaulieu has set the Uruk Prophecy within a larger religious agenda and interpreted the enigmatic text as an implicit attempt to persuade Antiochus I to support the Uruk temple, thereby furthering the newly revived cult of Anu and Antu.70 While properly recognizing Seleucid adoption or support of Babylonian traditions and institutions, we should not allow the pendulum to swing too far toward a thorough-going pro-Babylonian policy. As noted by Sherwin-White, “there is . . . a tendency in writing on the Seleucids, and on the hellenistic world in general, to concertina three whole centuries of history and assume . . . that what is characteristic of one century, or of part of it, is equally true of the whole.”71 Thus, we should not assume that temple renovations started under Alexander or a ruler fashioning himself according to the pattern of a good Mesopotamian king in the midthird century was the Seleucid policy, that it always characterized the Seleucid policy for the duration of the empire in every location under their governance. Two well-known dedicatory inscriptions from the second half of the third century (i.e., 244 bce, during the reign of Seleucus II, and 201 bce, during the reign of Antiochus III) that describe temple renovations on Uruk’s Bìt Rès temple might in fact hint at a cooling of Seleucid interests in Mesopotamia, at least outside the city of Babylon.72 Although both inscriptions describe the temple renovation as having been undertaken “for the life of the king” (ana bul†a sa RN) and probably therefore suggest the indirect involvement of the Seleucid rulers, the actual administrators of the work support for their regime, especially in order for them to rebut claims made by Ptolemaic authors such as Manetho and Hecataeus (55-56). 70 He writes, “The Uruk Prophecy is therefore a rewriting of historical material with the purpose of vindicating the establishment (presented as the reestablishment) of a new cult (i.e. the cult of Anu as reorganized in the third century by the priesthood of the Bìt Rès), to present the ruler who will foster this cultic revival (i.e. one of the contemporary Seleucid rulers [which Beaulieu later identifies as Antiochus I]) as a new Nebuchadnezzar, to obliquely suggest that his father was a neglectful, and therefore malevolent, ruler (as Nabopolassar had been), and to predict an everlasting rule for his dynasty, even a rule of divine character” (Beaulieu, “Uruk Prophecy,” 49). 71 Sherwin-White, “Seleucid Babylonia: A Case Study,” 3. 72 Editions of the two texts may be found in Falkenstein, Topographie von Uruk, 4-7. For the Kephalon inscription, see the improved readings offered by van Dijk, “Die Inschriftenfunde,” 47 (though he accidentally attributes the inscription to Nikarchos instead of Kephalon). For Seleucid interaction with Mesopotamian cults, see note 64.
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according to these texts were city/temple officials, the famous Anuuballi†–Nikarchos and Anu-uballi†–Kephalon.73 Even if these inscriptions point to indirect Seleucid involvement or support,74 they also suggest that the kind of personal interest in Mesopotamian temple construction apparently exhibited by Antiochus I had waned somewhat among his successors, an opinion affirmed by Beaulieu in his interpretation of the Uruk Prophecy and its historical context.75 Antiquarianism This brings us to the last element of historical context: antiquarianism at Uruk. Certainly others have noticed the conspicuous rise of the Anu and Antu cult in Hellenistic Uruk in both the archaeological evidence of the massive Bìt Rès temple dedicated to Anu and Hellenistic cuneiform texts.76 But Beaulieu has offered a compelling explanation of this cultic development along with its attendant 73 For these two men, their titles (saknu and rab sa rès àli sa Uruk), hierarchical relationship, families, and attestation elsewhere in Seleucid cuneiform documents, see L. Timothy Doty, “Nikarchos and Kephalon,” in A Scientific Humanist: Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs, ed. Erle Leichty et al.; Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 9 (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1988), 95-118. Kephalon’s title has since been connected to temple rather than civic duties (see T. Boiy, “Akkadian-Greek Double Names in Hellenistic Babylonia,” in Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia: Papers Read at the 48th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Leiden, 1-4 July 2002, ed. W. H. van Soldt [Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten, 2005], 57 n. 47, citing studies by van der Spek and Joannès). Anuuballi†–Kephalon is also known from an Aramaic inscription found on 15 bricks in the Irigal temple in Seleucid Uruk (see R. A. Bowman, “Anu-uballi†–Kefalon,” American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 56.3 [1939], 231-43 and Falkenstein, Topographie von Uruk, 31); he was apparently responsible for some restoration work in that building, too. It is significant to note that Anu-uballi†–Nikarchos received his name, according to the inscription, directly from the Seleucid king (sá Ian-tih-i-ku-su lugal kur.kur.mes Ini-qí-qa-ar-qu-su mu-sú sá-nu-ú is-kun-nu, “whom Antiochus, the king of the lands, named Nikarchos as his other name”). Also, one should at least consider the possibility of a relationship between the meanings of the men’s Greek names (N¤karxow and K°falvn) and the positions of authority these inscriptions give to the men. 74 Such is a reasonable assumption, I think, in light of the magnitude and therefore expense of the project. See, likewise, L. T. Doty, “Cuneiform Archives from Hellenistic Uruk” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1977), 30 and Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 45. 75 See Beaulieu, “Uruk Prophecy,” 50 for this opinion. 76 For the former, see, for example, Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 17-32, who identifies the Bìt Rès as “the most important religious structure in Uruk during the Seleucid period” (17), and for the latter, see Amélie Kuhrt, “Survey of Written Sources Available for the History of Babylonia under the Later
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theological distinctives. He argues that it is a deliberate, archaizing theological program under the direction of temple functionaries, probably beginning in the late Persian period and culminating in Hellenistic times.77 A key element in this program was the fashioning of the Urukean pantheon after the canonical god list An = Anum, thereby exalting Anu and Antu, ancient patron gods of Uruk, to its head while demoting other high-ranking deities like Marduk, the old imperial capital’s head deity, and Ishtar, a goddess prominent at Uruk in earlier periods, to a lower level in the pantheon.78 Beaulieu describes the reasons for this theological move as follows: By putting Anu back in the foreground the religious establishment of Uruk achieved a double purpose. They created a theological system which could challenge the dominant Marduk-Nabû theology of Babylon, and they promoted an Urukaean deity to the head of their new version of the national pantheon, thus enhancing local pride.79
In other words, with the disintegration of indigenous imperial structures under foreign regimes with little interest in arcane Mesopotamian theological matters, local cults were able to reassert their own distinctive interests. The local temple elites in Uruk did this by utilizing
Achaemenids,” in Achaemenid History I: Sources, Structures and Synthesis, ed. Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 147-57, here 151. 77 See Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “Antiquarian Theology in Seleucid Uruk,” Acta Sumerologica 14 (1992), 47-75. (Beaulieu also focuses on antiquarianism in his “Antiquarianism and the Concern for the Past in the Neo-Babylonian Period,” Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 28 [1994], 37-42). Beaulieu dates the rise of the prominence of Anu and Antu by the appearance of these deities in personal names. Summarizing his findings, he writes: “the crucial phase of the process had probably already taken place by the end of the fifth century” (“Antiquarian Theology,” 55). 78 Beaulieu cites SpBTU I 126 as evidence that the old god-list was known in Seleucid Uruk (“Antiquarian Theology,” 73, n.40). He discusses other related archaizing items, too, such as bringing an obscure goddess like Amasagnudi, consort of Papsukkal/Ninsubur, the vizier of Anu, to cultic prominence. 79 “Antiquarian Theology,” 68. Since greater antiquity was perceived as conferring greater authority in Mesopotamia, one might add that Uruk had a distinct advantage in reasserting the claims of the Anu cult against the claims of the Babylonian Marduk cult: Anu was considered older than him even by such traditions as the Enùma Elis. However, even if one wishes to see the exaltation of Anu in terms of re-asserting the authority and position of a local deity within the pantheon, this does not exclude the possibility that other concerns contributed to the decision to do so. The decision to exalt Anu, e.g., may also have been influenced by the increasing importance of astrology among scholars, who at this later period of Mesopotamian history were now primarily associated with temples.
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ancient (conceived as such by mid-first millennium times) god-list traditions to exalt Anu to the head of the pantheon. Beaulieu believes this development also provides an explanation for the great number of scholarly texts that have turned up in Seleucid-level excavations at Uruk, both traditional kinds known from elsewhere as well as those with an explicitly Urukean bias.80 In fact, as Beaulieu explains, one colophon, attached to TCL 6 38, seems to offer justification for the new rituals of the Anu cult via the familiar “pious fraud” trick: Kidin-Anu “found” some ritual tablets in Elam, where the sinister Nabopolassar had taken them much earlier. He copied them there in order to return to Uruk and properly restore the Anu cult.81 The archaizing tendency was also deployed in Kephalon’s temple dedicatory inscription from 201 bce mentioned above.82 Although not so much as hinted at in the earlier Nikarchos inscription of 244 bce, the later inscription names Adapa himself, the first of the antediluvian apkallù, as the founder of the Bìt Rès temple.83 With this and the other two contextual points in mind, we may now attempt to answer the questions I posed at the beginning of this study. The Uruk List of Kings and Sages as a Hellenistic Document The ULKS clearly draws upon earlier ideas to formulate its list. What I have emphasized in the foregoing is that its formulation of the list, although unique, is better viewed not as a new invention from old material, but as a very systematic and explicit formulation of an old association, one that is evidenced already in early first millennium materials. Given the deliberate and learned antiquarian interests identified in texts by Beaulieu, it seems quite reasonable 80 See François Thureau-Dangin, Tablettes d’Uruk à l’usage des Prêtres du Temple d’Anu au Temps des Séleucides, Textes Cunéiformes du Louvre 6 (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1922) (= TCL 6); SpBTU 1-5, BaMB 2, etc. The Uruk Prophecy is an example of a distinctively Urukean text. 81 See Beaulieu, “Uruk Prophecy,” 47 for the analysis. The text may be found in Thureau-Dangin, Rituels Accadiens, 79-80, 85-86 and Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone, #107. 82 Also mentioned by Beaulieu in connection with antiquarianism (see “Antiquarian Theology,” 68). 83 See Falkenstein, Topographie, 6 and van Dijk, “Die Inschriftenfunde,” 47 (improving Falkenstein) for the text.
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to include the ULKS in that intellectual current, too. Thus, just as the scholars responsible for moving Anu to the head of the pantheon utilized the Kassite period An = Anum god-list for that purpose, so too they used earlier traditions about apkallù–ummânù relations to further their religious authority and other aspects of their agenda, especially their standing vis-à-vis political leadership. A scrutiny of the precise manner in which the scribes behind the ULKS formulated their genealogy reveals the cultic and especially political aspects of their aspirations. As for the cultic aspect of the agenda, it is surely significant that Nungalpirigal, the first postdiluvian apkallu, makes a bronze lyre that finds its final resting place in front of Anu. This creates a connection between our text and the renewal of the cult of Anu as discussed by Beaulieu. But there is more to matters than this simple fact. By placing this cultic act of devotion first in the list, right after the flood, the ULKS intends to give the Anu cult prominence; the first human sage was a devotee of Anu. Moreover, the list probably supplies an etiology for the relationship between Nungalpirigal, the Eana temple, and Anu, thus answering any would be critics of the novel idea that Anu’s house could displace Eana. As for the political aspect of the agenda, there are at least three points that require attention. First, we know that the locus of scholarship had shifted from court to temple,84 thereby removing (as far as we can tell) scholars from regular influence within the centers of political power. Invoking the association of scholarship with memorable kings and their mythical sages or famous human scholars in the ULKS attributes to the Seleucid-era scholarly professions a venerable history, which in turn implies the scholars deserved a higher level of political influence or support than in fact they were enjoying at the time (see also the discussion of line 21 below). Second, by emphasizing their historical connection to the antediluvian sages— the agents of Ea—the scholars were granting themselves authority rooted in divinity, a particularly difficult kind of authority to dispute. Less systematic formulations of this genealogical idea in earlier materials provide us with the evidence to see that these Seleucid-era scribes were not inventing something new. Rather, 84 See, e.g., Francesca Rochberg, “The Cultural Locus of Astronomy in Late Babylonia,” in Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens: Beiträge zum 3 Grazer Morgenländischen Symposium (23-27 September 1991), ed. Hannes D. Galter, Grazer Morgenländische Studien 3 (Graz: Graz, 1993), 31-45, here 44.
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their systematic and explicit formulation demonstrates their concern to make their position well-understood. No longer wandering the halls of the palace at a time when scholarship’s importance went without saying, these men could assume nothing was selfevident. The fact that Berossus includes something of the same idea in his work, which was probably written during the reign of Antiochus I, points to this conclusion as well. The scholars, it seems, were deploying a mythmaking strategy to elevate their position and importance in society, even if achieving imperial-level influence was not their ultimate goal. Third and finally, the genealogy suggests a position of both antiquity and prominence and thus implicitly authority to Sin-leqi-unnini, the first human ummânu in the list and ancestor of the scribe who copied the present tablet. I doubt that it is a coincidence that this same figure is the eponymous ancestor of the scribe writing the tablet.85 In its present form, therefore, alongside the more general points of exalting the cult of Anu and attributing importance to scholars, we note for the sake of completeness that this list is clearly biased toward the Sin-leqi-unnini scribal clan.86 But are the scholars who created and copied this list really trying to manipulate the Seleucid court? Are they trying to insinuate that the traditional association of kings and scholars should continue under a non-native king? Although this is possible, it is difficult to imagine how the scribes would ever have acquired an audience for their ideas. Moreover, the identification of the person in the last line of the text before the colophon indicates a negative answer to these questions and suggests a more subtle tactic from the scholars. As is often the case, the culmination of an Akkadian list occurs in its final line where matters are summarized or its telos obtained. Thus, as van Dijk already recognized,87 the contemporary purpose 85 For a discussion of scribal ancestors and their four clans in Uruk, see Lambert, “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity” and “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity (JCS XI, 1-14): Additions and Corrections.” 86 See likewise van Dijk, “Inschriftenfunde,” 50. It would not be surprising to someday find a list contemporary with the ULKS that places a rival ancestor/clan, Ekur-zakir, for example, in a similarly prominent position. It is interesting that a number of members of the Ekur-zakir clan actually owned apkallu-seals. So it is clear that the apkallu tradition was utilized by other scribal clans. See Ronald Wallenfels, “Apkallu-Sealings from Hellenistic Uruk,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 24 (1993), 309-24 and Tafeln 120-23. 87 “Inschriftenfunde,” 45-46, 52. Concerning the reading of the last line, see also van Dijk’s later comments in his brief note “Die Tontafelfunde der Kampagne 1959/60,” Archiv für Orientforschung 20 (1963), 217.
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of the ULKS probably rests precisely here. Unfortunately, the last line of our text is extremely frustrating. Unlike previous lines naming kings and scholars, all we have in this line is a break hiding one or two signs, a broken IS sign, and a name. No one has yet been able to provide an acceptable restoration for the beginning of the line.88 The following interpretation, therefore, must remain tentative. Whatever the first word may be, I think van Dijk was correct to suggest that the name of the final person in the list, a certain I ni-qa-qu-ru-su!-ú, is none other than the Nikarchos (N¤karxow) known from the dedicatory inscription found in the Bìt Rès temple dating back to 244 bce. Although some have questioned this proposed identification due to the orthography of the name on the tablet,89 variations in Greek names are rather common.90 Indeed, a list of orthographic variations attested for Nikarchos in archival texts, provided to me by L. T. Doty,91 suggests his name was something of a moving target for the scribes. Thus, the identification seems quite plausible. This in turn opens line 21 to an interesting line of interpretation. I suggest that Nikarchos, the saknu of Uruk in the mid-3rd Century, occupies in line 21 the position of the tenth and final “king” of
88
See note 12 above for a suggestion. See van Dijk, “Inschriftenfunde,” 52. 90 A perusal of the various transcriptions of Greek names in Akkadian documents demonstrates, in my opinion, the general problem Greek phonology posed for the Semitic scribal ear. See W. Röllig, “Griechische Eigennamen in Texten der babylonischen Spätzeit,” Orientalia 29 (1960), 376-91, who attempts to make some phonetic generalizations. Despite correlations, there are many exceptions to his rules, some of which involve metathesis of consonants and the insertion of a vowel in the cuneiform script between what are contiguous consonants in the Greek. For example, DhmÆtriow is written De-e-mi-†i-ri-su and De-e-mi†-ri-su while DhmÆtria is written Di-i-me-ri-ti-ya (384, though the latter may be a scribal error). For the related issue of Mesopotamian scribal representations of Akkadian and Sumerian phonology in Greek letters (i.e., the Graeco-Babylonaica texts), see Marckham Geller, “The Last Wedge,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasitische Archäologie 86 (1997), 43-95 and the recent critique by Aage Westenholz, “The Graeco-Babyloniaca Once Again,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasitische Archäologie 97 (2007), 262-313. 91 He provides the following variants of the name as found in Seleucid archival texts: ni-iq-ar-ku-su, ni-iq-ar-qu-ra, ni-iq-ar-qu-su, ni-iq-ar-qu-ú-su, ni-iq-ar-ra-su, ni-iq-árra-su, ni-i-qí-ar-qu-su, ni-iq-qar-su, ni-qí-ar-qu-su (personal communication; cited with permission). Van Dijk reads the name in ULKS as follows: ni-q(a)-qu-ru-su!(text: su)-u. As stated in note 11 above, the notation q(a) indicates the a-vowel may not have been pronounced. 89
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the ULKS.92 Associating him with ancient kings of renown and doing so by listing him in the tenth (a number of completion) and final (a place of prominence) position in the list exalts him wellbeyond what one would expect from his actual civic title. As is well-known, temple building was a royal prerogative in ancient Mesopotamia and Nikarchos had shown leadership in the re-building of the Anu temple as indicated in the dedicatory inscription of 244 bce. The presentation here therefore is probably intended to praise and flatter Nikarchos in light of his king-like actions.93 Yet there is something amiss in our line; it is uneven and unprecedented. For unlike the kings listed in the lines before Nikarchos, no scholar’s name follows his on the tablet. There is no successor to the famed A¢iqar.94 Instead, there is a gap on the tablet to the end of the line. Conspicuous in its contrast to the repetitive lines that precede, the text infers with this absence that the office of scholar was unoccupied during Nikarchos’ time.95 Given the norm established by the previous lines in the text, this should be viewed as an unacceptable situation for the scholars in Uruk. Contemporary 92 Nikarchos is clearly not listed as a king; notice the absence of lugal after his name. My interpretation suggests the placement in the text was a symbolic gesture. Although Nikarchos was a member of the A¢uhtu clan, his work on the temple would have benefited all of the scribal clans. It is therefore not surprising to see a text with a Sin-leqi-unnini bias honor him as the ULKS does. Van Dijk accepted the identification of the name with Nikarchos tentatively; but, having confused Nikarchos for Kephalon in the dedicatory inscription of 201 bce mentioned above, he wanted to make Nikarchos the last of a long line of sage/scholars that stretched back to Adapa. Apart from the confusion, I do not think the list supports this idea. 93 Moreover, the fact that the list only includes indigenous Mesopotamian kings prior to Nikarchos may even say something about the hopes for or the idealized status of renewed indigenous rule during Nikarchos’ leadership. The scholar who originally composed the ULKS could have continued his list with kings from Persian and Seleucid times if he had wanted to. King lists containing Persian and Seleucid royal names have been discovered at Uruk. See van Dijk, “Inschriftenfunde,” 53-60 and Grayson, “Königslisten und Chroniken,” 97-98, his King List 5. 94 For a convenient survey of the person known as A¢iqar in various ancient texts, see James C. Vanderkam, “Ahikar/Ahiqar” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman (6 Vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1.11315; and for the literary work associated with his name, see Vanderkam’s article, “Ahiqar, Book of,” in the same work (1.119-20). 95 If there had been a scholar named with Nikarchos, he would have been the eleventh post-diluvian scholar on the list since there are two scholars, Gimil-Gula and Taqis-Gula, mentioned with king Abi-esu¢ in line 15. But as there are only nine post-diluvian kings in the list, Nikarchos’s scholar would be the scholar for the tenth reign. Excluding the invocation attached to the end of the tablet (line 25), the gap at the end of line 21 is the only one on the entire tablet.
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scholars, the list implies, were not being properly recognized; they were not receiving their ancient due. How could scholars respond to this situation? They did what they knew to do: they wrote a text—our text—to assert emphatically their ancient role as inheritors and perpetuators of antediluvian knowledge, to lay claim unmistakably to divine authorization of their status, and to reiterate in strong terms the importance and supremacy of their cult. Ending as it does with Nikarchos, the text flatters the man to which they could appeal while also reminding him of the current deficiency. The scholars knew that Nikarchos was not really a king. Further, they of all people would be aware of the fact that they were not going to be imperial advisors like their predecessors to him or to the non-indigenous Seleucid kings. But the text’s ending praises their patron for his past activity in order to induce him to take up their cause and give them the attention their ancient pedigree deserved. If imperial interests in Uruk were on the wane, Nikarchos may have been their only and best hope to further their interests. The ULKS presents a new formulation of an old scribal genealogical idea, composed under foreign rule that showed uneven interest in things Mesopotamian, during a scribal renaissance in Uruk of archaic indigenous lore. From these historical contextual clues it is reasonable and plausible to suggest that the Uruk List of Kings and Sages is a tendentious document written by scholars who felt the need to reassert their importance to the community leadership in order to advance their cause, the renewal of the Anu cult. Recognizing the tentativeness of the evidence, this interpretation remains only a possibility for the time being. Bibliography BaMB 2 = van Dijk and Mayer, 1980 CAD = Chicago Assyrian Dictionary SpBTU II = von Weiher, 1983 TCL 6 = Thureau-Dangin, 1922 Abusch, Tzvi. “Ritual and Incantation: Interpretation and Textual History of Maqlû VII:58-105 and IX:52-59.” In “Sha harei Talmon:” Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov with the assistance of Weston W. Fields, 36780. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992. ———. Mesopotamian Witchcraft: Toward a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature. Ancient Magic and Divination 5. Leiden: Brill / Styx, 2002.
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Ataç, Mehmet-Ali. “Scribal-Sacerdotal Agency in the Production of the NeoAssyrian Palace Reliefs: Toward a Hermeneutics of Iconography.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2003. ———. “Visual Form and Meaning in Neo-Assyrian Relief Sculpture.” The Art Bulletin 88.1 (2006): 69-101. Austin, M. M. The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. “Antiquarian Theology in Seleucid Uruk.” Acta Sumerologica 14 (1992): 47-75. ———. “The Historical Background of the Uruk Policy.” In The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo, ed. M. Cohen, D. Snell and D. Weisberg, 41-52. Bethesda: CDL Press, 1993. ———. “Antiquarianism and the Concern for the Past in the Neo-Babylonian Period.” Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 28 (1994): 37-42. ———. “The Social and Intellectual Setting of Babylonian Wisdom Literature.” In Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel, ed. Richard J. Clifford, 3-19. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 36. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Boiy, T. “Royal Titulature in Hellenistic Babylonia.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 92 (2002): 241-57. ———. Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 136. Leuven: Peeters, 2004. ———. “Akkadian-Greek Double Names in Hellenistic Babylonia.” In Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia: Papers Read at the 48th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Leiden, 1-4 July 2002, ed. W. H. van Soldt, 220-25. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten, 2005. Borger, Rykle. “Das Dritte ‘Haus’ der Serie Bìt Rimki (VR 50-51, Schollmeyer HGS Nr.1).” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 21 (1967): 1-17. ———. “Die Beschwörungsserie Bìt mèseri und die Himmelfahrt Henochs.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 33 (1974): 183-96. Bowman, R. A. “Anu-uballi†–Kefalon.” American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 56.3 (1939): 231-43. Briant, Pierre. “The Seleucid Kingdom, the Achaemenid Empire and the History of the Near East in the First Millenium (sic) bc.” In Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom, ed. Per Bilde et al., 40-65. Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 1. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990. Burstein, Stanley Mayer. The Babyloniaca of Berossus. Sources from the Ancient Near East I/5. Malibu: Undena Publications, 1978. Cole, Steven. Nippur IV. The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor’s Archive from Nippur. Oriental Institute Publications 114. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1996. Dijk, J. van. La Sagesse Sumero-Accadienne. Commentationes Orientales 1. Leiden: Brill, 1953. ———. “Die Inschriftenfunde.” Vorläufiger Bericht über die . . . Ausgrabungen in UrukWarka 18 (1962): 44-52 and plate 27. ———. “Die Tontafelfunde der Kampagne 1959/60.” Archiv für Orientforschung 20 (1963): 217. Dijk, Jan van and Werner R. Mayer. Texte aus dem Rès-Heiligtum in Uruk-Warka. Bagdader Mitteilungen Beiheft 2. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1980. Doty, L. Timothy. “Cuneiform Archives from Hellenistic Uruk.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Yale University, 1977.
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———. “Nikarchos and Kephalon.” In A Scientific Humanist: Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs, ed. Erle Leichty et al., 95-118. Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 9. Philadelphia: University Museum, 1988. Downey, Susan B. Mesopotamian Religious Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Eddy, S. K. The King is Dead: Studies in the Near Eastern Resistance to Hellenism 33431 B.C. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961. Elman, Yaakov. “Authoritative Oral Tradition in Neo-Assyrian Scribal Circles.” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 7 (1975): 19-32. Falkenstein, Adam. Topographie von Uruk: I. Teil Uruk zur Seleukidenzeit. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1941. Foster, Benjamin. “Wisdom and the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Orientalia 43 (1974): 344-54. Geller, Marckham. “The Last Wedge.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasitische Archäologie 86 (1997): 43-95. Grayson, A. Kirk. Babylonian Historical-Literary Texts. Toronto Semitic Texts and Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975. ———. Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1975; reprinted, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000. ———. “Königslisten und Chroniken.” Reallexikon der Assyriologie 6 (1980): 86-135. Hallo, W. W. “On the Antiquity of Sumerian Literature.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 83 (1963): 167-76. Hannestad, Lise and Daniel Potts. “Temple Architecture in the Seleucid Kingdom.” In Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom, ed. Per Bilde et al., 91-124. Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 1. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990. Horowitz, Wayne. “Antiochus I, Esagil, and a Celebration of the Ritual for Renovation of Temples.” Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 85 (1991): 75-77. Hunger, Hermann. Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 2. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag / Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon and Bercker, 1968. Hurowitz, Victor. “Advice to a Prince: A Message from Ea.” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 12 (1998): 39-53. Kuhrt, Amélie. “Berossus’ Babylonaika and Seleucid Rule in Babylonia.” In Hellenism in the East: The Interaction of Greek and Non-Greek Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander, ed. Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White, 32-56. Hellenistic Culture and Society 2. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. ———. “Survey of Written Sources Available for the History of Babylonia under the Later Achaemenids.” In Achaemenid History I: Sources, Structures and Synthesis, ed. Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, 147-57. Leiden: Brill, 1987. ———. “The Seleucid Kings and Babylonia: New Perspectives on the Seleucid Realm in the East.” In Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship, ed. Per Bilde et al., 41-54. Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 7. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1996 Kuhrt, Amélie and Susan Sherwin-White. “Aspects of Seleucid Royal Ideology: The Cylinder of Antiochus I from Borsippa.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 111 (1991): 71-86. ———. From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire. Hellenistic Culture and Society 13. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.
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Kvanvig, Helge S. Roots of Apocalyptic: The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and of the Son of Man. Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 61. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988. Lambert, W. G. “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 11 (1957): 1-14. ———. “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity (JCS XI, 1-14): Additions and Corrections.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 11 (1957): 112. ———. Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960; reprinted, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996. ———. “A Catalogue of Texts and Authors.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 16 (1962): 59-77. ———. “The Twenty-one ‘Poultices.’” Anatolian Studies 30 (1980): 77-83. ———. “The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners.” In Festschrift für Rykle Borger zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Mai 1994: Tikip santakki mala basmu . . ., ed. Stefan M. Maul, 141-58. Cuneiform Monographs 10. Groningen: Styx, 1998. Lenzi, Alan. Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel. State Archives of Assyria Studies 19. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2008. McCutcheon, Russell. Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. Issues in the Study of Religion Series. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Meier, Gerhard. Die assyrische Beschwörungssammlung Maqlû. Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft 2. Berlin, No Publisher, 1937. ———. “Studien zur Beschwörungssammlung Maqlu.” Archiv für Orientforschung 21 (1966): 70-81. Parpola, Simo. “The Forlorn Scholar.” In Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, ed. F. Rochberg-Halton, 257-78. American Oriental Series 67. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987. ———. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. State Archives of Assyria 10. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1993. Pongratz-Leisten, Beate. Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien: Formen der Kommunikation zwischen Gott und König im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v.Chr. State Archives of Assyria Studies 10. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999. Potts, D. T. Mesopotamian Civilization: The Material Foundations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Reiner, Erica. “The Etiological Myth of the ‘Seven Sages.’” Orientalia 30 (1961): 1-11. Rochberg, Francesca. “The Cultural Locus of Astronomy in Late Babylonia.” In Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens: Beiträge zum 3 Grazer Morgenländischen Symposium (23-27 September 1991), ed. Hannes D. Galter, 3145. Grazer Morgenländische Studien 3. Graz: Graz, 1993. ———. The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Röllig, W. “Griechische Eigennamen in Texten der babylonischen Spätzeit.” Orientalia 29 (1960): 376-91. Rostovtzeff, M. “Seleucid Babylonia: Bullae and Seals of Clay with Greek Inscriptions.” Yale Classical Studies 3 (1932): 3-113. Sanders, Seth. “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse: Studies in the Theme of Ascent to Heaven in Ancient Mesopotamia and Second Temple Judaism.” Ph.D. Dissertation. The Johns Hopkins University, 1999.
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Sherwin-White, S. M. “Babylonian Chronicle Fragments as a Source for Seleucid History.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42 (1983): 265-70. ———. “Ritual for a Seleucid King at Babylon?” Journal of Hellenic Studies 103 (1983): 156-59. ———. “Seleucid Babylonia: A Case-Study for the Installation and Development of Greek Rule.” In Hellenism in the East: The Interaction of Greek and Non-Greek Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander, ed. Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White, 1-31. Hellenistic Culture and Society 2. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Sommer, Michael. “Babylonien im Seleukenreich: Indirekte Herrschaft und indigene Bevölkerung.” Klio 82 (2000): 73-90. Spek, R. J. van der. “The Astronomical Diaries as a Source for Achaemenid and Seleucid History.” Bibliotheca Orientalis 50 (1993): 91-101. Thompson, R. Campbell. Assyrian Medical Texts. London: H. Milford / New York: Oxford University Press, 1923; reprinted, Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1983. Thureau-Dangin, François. Tablettes d’Uruk à l’usage des Prêtres du Temple d’Anu au Temps des Séleucides. Textes Cunéiformes du Louvre 6. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1922. ———. Rituels Accadiens. Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1975 (1921). Toorn, Karel van der. “Why Wisdom Became a Secret: On Wisdom as a Written Genre.” In Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel, ed. Richard J. Clifford, 21-29. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 36. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Vanderkam, James C. “Ahikar/Ahiqar.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, 1.113-15. 6 Volumes. New York: Doubleday, 1992. ———. “Ahiqar, Book of.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, 1.119-20. 6 Volumes. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Weiher, Egbert von. Spätbabylonische Texte aus Uruk, Teil 2. Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft in Uruk-Warka 10. Berlin: Mann, 1983. Wallenfels, Ronald. “Apkallu-Sealings from Hellenistic Uruk.” Baghdader Mitteilungen 24 (1993): 309-24 and Tafeln 120-23. Westenholz, Aage. “The Graeco-Babyloniaca Once Again.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasitische Archäologie 97 (2007): 262-313. Wiggermann, Frans. Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts. Cuneiform Monographs 1. Groningen: Styx and PP Publications, 1992. Wilcke, Claus. “Göttliche und menschliche Weisheit im Alten Orient: Magie und Wissenschaft, Mythos und Geschichte.” In Weisheit: Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation III, ed. A. Assmann, 259-70. München: W. Fink Verlag, 1991.
A NEW OCCURRENCE OF THE SEVEN AURAE IN A SUMERIAN LITERARY PASSAGE FEATURING NERGAL JEREMIAH PETERSON1 Abstract A brief and fragmentary newly reconstructed Sumerian literary passage contains a portion of a hymn to Nergal or a hymnic passage centered around Nergal. Most notably, it contains a rare reference to seven aurae (ni2 imin), which is attested elsewhere only in conjunction with ›uwawa.
CBS 7972 (STVC 40)2 + N 3718, which were joined by the author, is a central piece of an imgida that preserves portions of the obverse and reverse as well as portions of the right and left edges. The final double ruling of the text is also preserved. This ruling probably does not reflect the end of the composition, but rather the end of an extract. The vertical curvature of the piece demonstrates that the missing top and bottom portions of the tablet were not large, although the exact length of the two lacunae cannot be established. The layout of this manuscript has notably pre-Old Babylonian features. The format of frequent double rulings is difficult to reconcile with its usage in Old Babylonian contexts, where it typically connotes a boundary between texts, major textual sections, sometimes corresponding to a change of speaker, or separate textual entities such as proverbs. It does, however, resemble the use of double rulings that occurs in some Ur III 6N-T literary texts from Nippur.3 A similar use of double rulings is also attested in N 5779, 1 I would like to thank Professor Christopher Woods, editor of JANER, and Professor Walther Sallaberger for their comments and suggestions pertaining to this article, which greatly improved its content. I am solely responsible for the content of this article. 2 STVC 40 has not attracted much attention in the secondary literature to the present, presumably due to the fact that it is a small fragment. In his introductory catalog to STVC, Chiera described it as a fragment of a hymn to Nergal: see also HKL 1 51. 3 Note, for example, 6N-T 637, a text featuring the obscure deity Enenusi (for
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JANER 8.2
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an unpublished core fragment of an imgida with an Old Babylonian hand and ductus that contains a hymn that mentions both Shulgi and Nergal.4 There is, however, no obvious feature about the paleography of CBS 7972 + N 3718 that would obviously exclude an Old Babylonian date. The signs that are preserved on this piece are highly reflective of their typical Old Babylonian literary forms.5 Therefore, it may be best understood as an archaizing copy of a pre-Old Babylonian text that was authored during the Old Babylonian period. Given the likelihood that this manuscript ultimately reflects a composition of pre-Old Babylonian date, CBS 7972 + N 3718 would reflect one of the earliest attested contexts at present that reckons Nergal and Meslamtea, a divine name which is assumed to be involved here via the mention of the Meslam temple of Kutha in line 4', as the same deity. This conflation also appears to be present in Sulgi U, a text that evidences the pre-Old Babylonian orthography that is featured in some of the Sulgi hyms via its rendering of the 2nd person enclitic copula as me-en3. As several scholars have suggested, a direct association between Nergal and Meslamtaea begins to be evident during the Ur III period.6 obverse (beginning of obverse missing) ‘ ir ur-sa‘g ‘ -e ¢xÜ [x x] 1') di‘g God, hero, . . . an overview of this text, see Rubio 2000: 204 and n. 6), as well as the unidentified literary fragments 6N-T 934 and 6N-T 1019 (for an overall discussion of the 6N-T literary texts, see Rubio 2000: 203-205 and Krispijn 2008: 174). 4 The content of this piece has notable affinities to Shulgi U (Ash. 1911-236 (BL 195, photo Zólyomi 2005: 399-400: bottom half of tablet only)), for which see van Dijk 1960: 13-14, as well as the comments of Klein 1981: 42 n. 80, Katz 2003: 414, n. 112, and Zólyomi 2005: 396. As noted by Klein, the explicit connection of this text to Shulgi hinges on the reading of his name in a partially effaced section of line 28' by van Dijk. In addition, the aforementioned orthography of the 2nd person enclitic copula and the occurrence of the toponyms Ansan and Tidnum also implicate the text as a Shulgi hymn. It is quite possible that N 5779 belongs to this incomplete composition, although this is unverifiable at present. 5 For an extensive compilation of OB literary sign forms, see Mittermayer 2006. 6 See, for example, the remarks of Livingstone 1995: 1171, Wiggerman 1999: 216-217, Katz 2003: 351-352, 413-420.
a new occurrence of the seven aurae
CBS 7972 + N 3718 obverse (6.1 × 6.3 × 2.3 cm)
2') us umgal-gin7 s ag4 ki tab-ba ba-¢xÜ Like an usumgal serpent, you . . . with your belly against the ground 3') a-a-zu dEn-lil2-la2 a2 mi-ri-[s um2?] Your father, Enlil, furnishes you with strength(?) 4') lugal gu2 si-¢aÜ en Mes-¢lamÜ King of the assembled (people), lord of the Meslam (temple) double line ‘ nir ZU.[A]B-ta /nun-e a2 s um2-ma 5') ur-sa‘g Hero, noble one to whom the prince (Enki) gave strength in the Abzu
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CBS 7972 + N 3718 reverse
‘ -ki-ne-ne-da /ni2 imin gur3-ru 6') sa‘g Seven aurae are imbued around their (??? referent uncertain) temples ‘ a2-‘g ‘ a2 7') me-lam2-zu U18 [. . . m]u?-ra-‘g Your aura . . . for you 8') ni2 gal i [. . .] Exuding a great awe . . . (double line) 9') dKIS. A[BxX . . .] Nergal, . . .
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(remainder of obverse missing) reverse (beginning of reverse missing) ‘ Ü [. . .] /en x[. . .] 1'') ur-¢sa‘g Hero . . ., lord . . . ‘ al2-e x[. . .] mi-ni-[. . .]- ¢xÜ-[. . .] 2'') nig2-zi-‘g Living creatures . . . (double line) (end of text) Commentary obverse: 2'. Nergal is described as an usumgal elsewhere: see, for example, Su-ilisu A (adab for Nergal) 16.7 The rare, primarily faunal behavior sag4 ki—tab also occurs in Sulgi R 14,8 where it is performed by the mus-sig-sig, the scorpion incantation CBS 8371 (PBS 1/2 130)/BM 25145/H 60 line 4,9 where it is performed by a scorpion, as well as Nergal A (Ni 9501 (ISET 1 pg. 71) 21, where the agent of the action is not sufficiently preserved in this lone exemplar for certain identification. Note as well Tree and Reed 81,10 where, in the context of the tree insulting the reed and its derivative objects, the agent of the action is the inanimate entity gi-kid, “reed mat,” which is placed below the wooden chair/throne (‘gisgu-za): gi-kid ‘gis gu-za ¢su¢usÜ ‘gis zid-da-ka sag4 ki ¢e2-bi2-ni-tab “reed mat, you lie belly to the ground beneath the wooden throne, whose base is good quality wood.” 3'. The restoration of the verbal root in this line is not certain. One possibility, given the presence of the dative in the prefix chain, 7
Sjöberg 1973: 4. Klein 1990: 114. 9 Michalowski 1985: 221, Cavigneaux 1995: 81. 10 This text is cited here according to the two-column manuscript UM 29-16217 (+) UM 29-16-415 ii 18. 8
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which was suggested to me by Professor Christopher Woods, would be the expression a2 sum2, “to endow with power.” This expression also occurs immediately below in line 5'. A tradition of Nergal’s direct descent from Enlil is well-known by the Old Babylonian period, as is described in the mythological context of Enlil and Ninlil 90.11 See also Sulgi U 19', Su-ilisu A 18, 41, 56, 58, Isme-Dagan N (CBS 15209 (STVC 73)) 12, 49, 55, Nergal B 9, 55,12 and the tigi composition Nergal C (AO 5388 (TCL 15 23)) 13, 18.13 4'. The object u‘g3, “people,” is probably implied here for the participle gu2 si-a, “assembled.” Compare, for example, Sulgi U 12' and Nergal C 12. The epithet en Mes-[lam] is also attested in N 5779 obv. 3'. 5'. Nir is sporadically attested as an epithet, presumably reflecting an abbreviated form of nir-‘gal2, “noble one”: see, for example, Suilisu A 44 and Temple Hymns 70.14 The mention of Enki and the Abzu in conjunction with Nergal is exceptional, although Enki is often associated with the warrior god Ninurta, who is partially conflated with Nergal in some contexts by the Old Babylonian period. 6'. The interpretation of the beginning of this line is difficult. The most straightforward way to interpret the ne-ne-da which follows sa‘g-ki would be to understand it as containing two bound morphemes, the third person plural possessive -(a)nene and the comitative -da, although it should be noted that the comitative does not readily occur with the well-attested phrase ni2—gur3 elsewhere. The line appears to mean “seven aurae are imbued along their temples.” The referent of -(a)nene is not immediately apparent and, seemingly rather incongruent to the current context, the resulting line may not directly involve Nergal. The only immediately apparent possible referent of -(a)nene are the deities that grant powers to Nergal in the preceding lines, namely, Enlil and Enki. Another possibility is that the referent of -(a)nene is a group of deities which 11 12 13 14
Behrens 1978: 35. Van Dijk 1960: 36-37. Van Dijk 1960: 7. Sjöberg and Bergmann 1969: 20.
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was either left unstated or was disclosed prior to the break, a group which may have included Nergal. Thus, this description may be advanced here as some kind of precondition that qualifies the specific description of Nergal’s melam in the following line, or perhaps to furnish some kind of contrast to the specific nature of Nergal’s aura. The ni2 or me-lam215 can be worn like a garment, but in other contexts, they are explicitly located around the head or the face, the former in an analogous manner to that of a crown or the ¢ili, variously defined as a wig or, in a more abstracted sense, feminine allure (Sumerian ¢i-li). For another instance of the attachment of an aura to the sa‘g-ki, “temple,” compare, for example, Inana and Ebi¢ 54,16 where attachment of the ni2(-)me-lam2 to the sa‘g-ki is expressed via the auxiliary verbal construction /serkan/—dug4, which is governed by the locative -a: ni2 me-lam2 ¢us-a sa‘g-ki-na se-er-ka-an ba-ni-in-du11 “She (Inana) adorned her forehead with a terrible aura.” In addition, the location of ›uwawa’s aurae around his forehead (sa‘g-du) at the conclusion of Gilgames and ›uwawa A may be inferred from context, as Enlil distributes ›uwawa’s seven melam to several earthly locations and entities utilizing only his decapitated head.17 Although the attribution of an aura to a deity is commonplace, and frequently, the attribution of a multiplicity of aura to a deity or a fantastic creature occurs only rarely. Elsewhere, only ›uwawa is famously attributed with seven ni2/me-lam2 in Gilgames and ›uwawa A,18 a configuration which is also reflected in exemplars of the OB Akkadian Gilgames Epic,19 as well as in the broken context of Sulgi
15 These nouns are not entirely synonymous in their meanings, but they are virtually interchangeable in contexts such as those involving ›uwawa in Gilgames and ›uwawa A 137-138, 141af. and 177f. (Edzard 1991: 213-217, 230-231, Delnero 2006: 2451-2459, 2472-2473 (the numeration of this text here follows Delnero 2006): see also the discussion of Aster 2006: 41-44). In numerous contexts, they seem to form either the actual or de facto compound lexeme, ni2(-)me-lam2. 16 See Bruschweiler 1987: 54, Attinger 1998: 170-171, and Delnero 2006: 306, 2316-2317. 17 The giving of a me-lam to the lion (ur-ma¢) in this context may constitute 2 an etiology for the lion’s mane. Note, however, that Civil (2003: 85) understands the ur-ma¢ as an oblique reference to lugal, “king,” or “boss,” as suggested by its juxtaposition to the entries tir-tir, “thickets” and e2-gal, “prison,” all of which are also found together in Proverb Collection 2+6.155). 18 See, for example, the discussion of Civil 2004: 84-86. 19 YBC 2178 line 137 and the Ischali fragment A 22007 line 35': see George 2003: 200-201, 264-266.
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O 95-96.20 In later Akkadian literary tradition, Marduk is furnished with fifty pul¢àtu, a figure which is obviously intended to foreshadow and correspond with the furnishing of his fifty names, in Enùma Elis tablet 1 104.21 It is unclear whether or not this context was intended to describe a unique state of the divine aura, but the general absence of such a description elsewhere in the ample extant corpora of myths and hymns is telling.22 It may be the case, however, that the typical terms that describe the divine aura, such as ni2, me-lam2, su-lim, and i-lim, implicitly possessed a manifold nature. 7'. The reading of ULU3 here is not certain, but it probably reflects either u18-ru/uru16(n), “mighty,” or (tum9)u18-(lu), “(southern) storm.” If the former word occurs here, then a passive meaning of the verb ‘gar, “to place, establish,” etc., i.e., “your powerful me-lam2 is set up for you,” with the possible restoration me-lam2-zu u18-[ru m]ura-‘ga2-‘ga2, if a sign did in fact occur in the break between the ULU3 and [M]U signs, is a possibility. Note that the me-lam2 is qualified elsewhere by u18-ru, as it is in the sirgida Nuska A (Kenrick Seminary 1) rev. ii 19.23 If the word (tum9)u18-(lu) is present here instead, a transitive verb may obtain, with a potential restoration me-lam2-zu u18-[lu m]u-ra‘ga2-‘ga2, “your melam sets in place a storm for you.” Note that the term (tum9)u18-(lu) occurs together with the ni2(-)me-lam2, perhaps in apposition, in Ninmesara 21.24 Neither interpretation of this line is 20
Klein 1976: 280. For this line, see, for example, the recent discussion of Seri 2006: 511. 22 As a possible exception, note that Cavigneaux in his discussion of the semantic overlap between ni2 and me compares Inana’s wearing or wielding of the seven me prior to her descent to the netherworld and the sevenfold removal of her divine dress and emblems in Inana’s Descent 14 to the seven aura of ›uwawa in the Gilgames cycle (Cavigneaux 1978: 180). The extent of the analogy would appear to hinge on the meaning of the compound verb zag—kes2 (for a treatment of this verb, see Karahashi 2000: 176) in this line. As the verb can be a synonym of the verb mu4, “to wear,” and could echo contexts such as Udug-¢ul forerunner 695, 704 (Geller 1985: 64), where me-lam2 occurs with zag—kes2, a similar concept may be involved. However, zag—kes2 also occurs with hand-held objects such as weaponry, and Inana manipulates the me via the compound verb su—ur4 in the next line, so this interpretation is not assured: note, for example, the translation of the verb in line 14 as “girded to her loin” by Katz (2003: 179). 23 Goetze 1950: 139, van Dijk 1960: 110. Note also perhaps also Rìm-Sîn I 19 (YBC 8770) line 3 (Frayne 1990: 298), although the decisive phonetic indicator is not preserved. 24 Zgoll 1997: 215-216, Delnero 2006: 2039-2040. 21
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assured, however, and it should be further noted that the verb ‘gar does not readily occur with me-lam2 elsewhere. 8'. This identical phrase occurs in Sulgi U 2'. The auxiliary verb i, which is probably to be understood as a separate verb from dug4/di/e due to its limited distribution, is not generally attested in conjunction with the noun ni2. 9'. In Old Babylonian contexts, the term ni‘g2-zi-‘gal2 is frequently to be differentiated from the same term minus the derivational morpheme ni‘g2-, i.e., zi-‘gal2, which is often utilized to describe humans. See the discussion of Tinney 1996: 167-168 and Peterson 2007: 56-57. It is unclear if such a differentiation of meaning obtains here. Bibliography Aster, S.Z. 2006. The Phenomenon of Divine and Human Radiance in the Hebrew Bible and in Northwest Semitic and Mesopotamian Literature: A Philological and Comparative Study. PhD Thesis: University of Pennsylvania. Attinger, P. 1998. “Inana et Ebi¢.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 88: 164-195. Behrens, H. 1978. Enlil und Ninlil: Ein sumerischer Mythos aus Nippur. Studia Pohl: Series Maior 8. Rome: Pontifical Institute. Cavigneaux, A. 1978. “L’essence divine.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 30:177-185. ———. 1995. “Le Pariade du Scorpion dans les Formules Magiques Sumériennes (Textes de Tell Haddad V).” Acta Sumerologica 17: 75-100. Chiera, E. 1934. Sumerian Texts of Varied Contents. Oriental Institute Publications 16. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Civil, M. 2004. “Reading Gilgames II: Gilgames and ›uwawa.” In Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien: Festschrift für Claus Wilcke, eds. W. Sallaberger et al., pp. 77-86. Orientalia Biblica et Christiana 14. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Delnero, P. 2006. Variation in Sumerian Literary Compositions: A Case Study Based on the Decad. PhD Thesis: University of Pennsylvania. van Dijk, J.J. 1960. Sumerische Götterlieder II. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Edzard, D.O. 1991. “Gilgames und ›uwawa A, II Teil.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 81: 165-233. Geller, M.J. 1985. Forerunners to Udug¢ul: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations. Freiburger Altorientalische Studien 12. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag. Goetze, A. 1950. “Texts and Fragments.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 4: 137-140. Karahashi, F. 2000. Sumerian Compound Verbs with Body-Part Terms. PhD Thesis: University of Chicago. Katz, D. 2003. The Image of the Netherworld in the Sumerian Sources. Bethesda: CDL Press. Klein, J. 1976. “Shulgi and Gilgamesh: Two Brother-Peers (Shulgi O).” In Kramer Anniversary Volume: Cuneiform Studies in Honor of Samuel N. Kramer, eds. B. Eicher et al., pp. 271-292. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 25. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.
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———. 1981. Three Shulgi Hymns: Sumerian Royal Hymns Glorifying King Shulgi. RamatGan: Bar-Ilan University Press. ———. 1990. “Shulgi and Ishmedagan: Originality and Dependence in Sumerian Royal Hymnology.” In Bar-Ilan Studies in Assyriology dedicated to Pin-as Artzi, eds. J. Klein and A. Skaist, pp. 65-136. Ramat Gan, Bar-Ilan University Press. Krispijn, T.J.H. 2008. “Music and Healing for Someone Far Away From Home: HS 1556, A Remarkable Ur III Incantation, Revisited.” In van der Spek, R.J., ed.: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society Presented to Marten Stol on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, ed. R.J. van der Spek, pp. 173-193. Bethesda: CDL Press. Lambert, W. 1991. “The Name of Nergal Again.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 80: 40-52. Livingstone, A. 1995. “Nergal.” In Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, eds. K. van der Toorn, et al., pp. 1170-1172. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Michalowski, P. 1985. “On Some Early Sumerian Magical Texts.” Orientalia 54: 216-225. Mittermayer, C. 2005. Die Entwicklung der Tierkopfzeichen. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 319. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. ———. 2006. Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der sumerisch-literarishchen Texte. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis: Sonderband. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Peterson, J. 2007. A Study of Sumerian Faunal Conception with a Focus on the Terms Pertaining to the Order Testudines. PhD Thesis: University of Pennsylvania. Rubio, G. 2000. “On the Orthography of the Sumerian Literary Texts from the Ur III Period.” Acta Sumerologica 22: 203-226. Seri, A. 2006. “The Fifty Names of Marduk in Enùma elis.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 126: 507-519. Sjöberg, Å. 1973. “Miscellaneous Sumerian Hymns.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 63: 1-13. Sjöberg, Å. and Bergmann, E. 1969. The Collection of the Sumerian Temple Hymns. Texts from Cuneiform Sources 3. Locust Valley: J.J. Augustin. Steinkeller, P. 1987. “The Name of Nergal.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 77: 161-168. ———. 2004. “Studies in Third Millennium Paleography, 4: Sign KIS.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 94: 175-185. Tinney, S. 1996. The Nippur Lament: Royal Rhetoric and Divine Legitimation in the Reign of Ishme-Dagan of Isin (1953-1935 B.C.). Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 16. Philadelphia: University Museum. Wiggerman, F.A.M. 1999. “Nergal.” In Edzard, D.O., et al., eds.: Reallexikon der Assyriologie 9. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter: 215-223. Zgoll, A. 1997. Der Rechtsfall der En-¢edu-Ana im Lied nin-me-sara. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 246. Münster, Ugarit Verlag. Zólyomi, G. 2005. “A Hymn to Ninsubur.” In “An Experienced Scribe Who Neglects Nothing:” Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Jacob Klein, eds. Y. Sefati et al., pp. 396-412. Bethesda: CDL Press.
THE TEMPLE OF ISTAR AT OLD BABYLONIAN ALALAKH* JACOB LAUINGER Abstract The temple of Istar is well attested in the Old Babylonian (level VII) texts from Alalakh. However, it is not evident from these attestations whether the temple was an autonomous institution or part of the palace administration. This article demonstrates first that an excavated temple dating to the level VII occupation is the same temple of Istar known from the texts; and second that the excavated temple contained an archive documenting a store of the palace’s silver. These conclusions affirm that the temple of Istar lay within the purview of the palace administration. The article ends by suggesting that the palace may have encompassed the temple not just administratively but also architecturally. Keywords: archives, Alalakh, Istar, Old Babylonian, temple
The goddess Istar and her cult are well attested in the Old Babylonian (level VII) texts from Alalakh.1 From these attestations, it is clear
* This article revises and expands arguments initially presented in my dissertation “Archival Practices at Old Babylonian/Middle Bronze Age Alalakh (Level VII),” University of Chicago, 2007: 138-190. A preliminary version of this article was presented at the 218th meeting of the American Oriental Society. I am grateful to Dominique Collon for sharing her thoughts on and her unpublished photographs of the sealing ATT/47/21, to Michael Kozuh for his comments on an earlier draft of this article, and to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago for permission to reproduce figure one. Abbreviations follows those of M. T. Roth (2006) The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, vol. ˇ (Chicago: The Oriental Institute) ix-xxxii. The transliteration and normalization of personal names follows the guidelines, with accompanying caveats, put forward by von Dassow 2008: xiii-xiv. Of course, any errors herein are entirely my responsibility. 1 The attestations are gathered in appendix one. The goddess’s name is consistently written with the logogram ISTAR, that is is8-tár. For convenience, I normalize this logogram as Istar and translate it as Istar. However, the reading of this logogram is still unclear, see Zeeb 2001: 284 n. 331. Istar, Is¢ara, and Sauska are all possible readings as all three divine names appear in syllabic spellings in the level VII onomasticon. Zeeb suggests the reading Is¢ara on the basis of Wiseman Alalakh 276: 4-5, in which he wishes to identify an individual named © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 Also available online – www.brill.nl
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that the goddess had both a temple and priests at Alalakh and that this temple was given sheep and grain by the palace administration. Despite this evidence of Istar’s veneration, the scholarly literature shows a difference of opinion as to the palace’s role in the cult. On the one hand, Klengel has pointed to the palace’s provisioning of sheep and grain and suggested “eine Zugehörigkeit des Tempels zur ökonomischen Einheit ‘Palastwirtschaft’ . . ., d.h. zum Haushalt des Alala¢-Fürsten.”2 On the other hand, Zeeb has described these same provisions as probably having a symbolic character “als eine Art Präoffertorium,”3 so that “der Tempel in ökonomischer Hinsicht autonom war.”4 To a large degree, this difference of opinion arises from the nature of the evidence at our disposal, namely textual references that can be interpreted in opposing ways in the absence of supporting data. The purpose of this article is to remedy the lack of such data and to demonstrate that the palace exercised some degree of administrative control over the temple of Istar. The first part of this article identifies the temple of Istar mentioned in the texts with an excavated structure from level VII that was described as a temple in the site report. This identification provides a new avenue of approach to the debate outlined above because the excavated temple contained an archive of tablets.5 The second part of this article examines this archive and concludes that it consists of the documentation of an office of the palace administration. In other words, among its religious functions, the temple served, at the least, as the storage site of palace records, implying that the palace exercised some degree of administrative control over the temple. The article concludes by reviewing the extent of the level VII excavations
nu-wa-as-si-dISTAR (line 4) with nu-was-as-si-dis!-¢a!-ra! (line 5), see Zeeb (2001) no. 68. These emendations are difficult to support epigraphically, as, according to Zeeb’s copy, the divine name in line 4 is ¢dIMÜ and the proposed divine name in line 5 is logogram BUR.¢GULÜ. 2 Klengel 1979: 449. 3 Zeeb 2001: 287. 4 Zeeb 2001: 492. 5 Following van den Hout 2005: 280, I use “archive” with the meaning commonly accepted in the field of archival science: “The whole of the written documents, drawings, and printed matter, officially received or produced by an administrative body or one of its officials, in so far as these documents were intended to remain in the custody of that body or official,” see Muller, Feith, and Fruin 1968: 13.
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and suggesting that the temple of Istar may have been incorporated not just administratively but also architecturally into the palace of Old Babylonian Alalakh. * * * In order to reach this conclusion, it must be established first that the structure identified in the site report as a temple was in fact a temple, and furthermore, that it was the temple of Istar attested in contemporaneous texts. The structure in question was uncovered in the 1947 season during the course of one of two deep soundings that were used by Woolley, Alalakh’s excavator, to “trace the history of the site to its beginning”6 (see figure one for a plan of the level VII excavations). From an archeological perspective, its identification as a temple seems secure. The structure is an approximately square building with walls about 11.5 meters in length and four meters thick.7 Its interior space is divided into an antechamber and a cella, in which an altar sat upon a two-level platform of uncut blocks. A drain behind this altar may have been used for libations.8 The presence of the altar alone confirms the structure’s identification as a temple. Furthermore, the architectural form, two rooms and an altar aligned with the entrance along a central axis, is characteristic of Syrian temples in the Middle Bronze Age.9 Can we determine the deity or deities to whom the temple was dedicated? The question has been addressed by Nahaman, who argues that this deity was the goddess Istar.10 Nahaman claims that both an uninscribed diorite head that was found in the temple11 and also the enormous thickness of the temple walls12 are mentioned in the level VII texts. However, these claims are problematic.
6 Woolley 1955: 10. The temple sounding is mentioned with reference to this aim on page 11. 7 Woolley 1955: 59. 8 Woolley 1955: 63. 9 Yener 2005: 106. For a comparison of the Alalakh temple’s plan to those of the temples from Shechem and Megiddo, see Mazar 1992:163. Note that the plans of the two Alalakh temples are mislabeled. Figure 12, which is given as the plan of the level VII temple, is actually the level IV temple. Figure 13, which is given as the plan of the level VI temple, is actually the plan of the level VII temple. 10 Nahaman 1980: 214. 11 Woolley 1955: 64 and plates XLI-XLII. 12 Woolley 1955: 61.
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According to Nahaman, the statue head, which Woolley dubbed “the Head of Yarim-Lim” after the first king of Alalakh, was “intuitively”13 recognized by Alalakh’s excavator for it appears in Wiseman Alalakh 1 as an object dedicated by the king to the temple of Istar: Wiseman Alalakh 1:8-1014 . . . i-na u4-mi-su mia-ri-im-li-im 9 DU[MU m›a-am-mu]-ra-pí ÌR mab-ba-AN [ALAM-su] 10 [a-na É d]ISTAR ú-se-li 8
“At that time, Yarim-Lim, the s[on of ›ammu]rabi, the servant of Abba-ilì,15 dedicated [his statue to the temple] of Istar.” Even if we accept the restoration of the key word ALAM in this text, there is still no reason to connect this reference with the uninscribed statue head that was found in the temple. Therefore, the statue head cannot help identify the excavated temple with the temple of Istar known from the texts. Nahaman also finds reference to the thick walls of the excavated temple in the ration lists, where he follows the original editor’s reading of Wiseman Alalakh 243:9, 13 as recording the disbursement of barley and emmer to É.BÀD dISTAR, “the fortress of Istar.”16 Again, no direct connection exists between these references and the excavated temple, only the assumption that fortresses must have thick walls. Furthermore, Zeeb argues against the reading É.BÀD, noting that for bìt dùrim, “diese Wendung einer späteren 13
Nahaman 1980: 211. Transliteration following Nahaman 1980: 209. Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 47 read, to much the same end, 8 . . . ¢iÜ-na u4-mi-su mia-ri-im-li-im 9 DUM[U m›aam-mu]-ra-pí ARAD mAb-ba-an 10 A[LAM a-na É d]ISTAR ú-se-li. 15 Some studies of Old Babylonian Alalakh read the name written ab-ba-DINGIR as Abban, see Zeeb 1991: 402 n. 10 and Zeeb 2001: 308 n. 423. This interpretation understands the /n/ as a nasalization that occurs in PNs with a final vowel, a phenomenon attested in other names in the Alalakh VII onomasticon. The name Abban would then be a hypocoristic. However, a hypocoristic does not seem likely, as this royal name would then be unattested in its full form in the Alalakh VII texts. It seems better to read the final sign as DINGIR and to interpret the name as a nominal sentence, especially in light of the writing ab-ba-ì-lí attested in ARMT 13 1 xi 14, see Gelb 1980: 45, cf. Streck 2000: 279. Gelb also cites JCS 12 112:17 for the writing dab-ba-ì-lí, but I have been unable to locate the name in JCS or in YOS 14, where the text in question was reedited. 16 Nahaman 1980: 213. This entry also appears in two other ration lists, Zeeb 2001: no. 50:9 and no. 61:3, that were unpublished at the time Nahaman’s article appeared. 14
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Sprachstufe zugehört und eher in militärischen Kontexten belegt ist.”17 Zeeb reads the signs as gisBANSUR. Epigraphically, this reading seems sound, and it is supported by the appearance of the word passùrum, spelled syllabically, elsewhere in the ration lists where it is used to refer to grain intended for the king.18 Zeeb’s reading, then, seems preferable, although collation of the relevant signs is desirable. In sum, Nahaman’s suggestion that the excavated temple should be identified with the temple of Istar seems likely, but must remain a suggestion in the absence of evidence that can directly link the two structures. Happily, a clay sealing, ATT/47/21,19 that Woolley found in the temple provides such evidence. The sealing originally covered a rectangular object, and its reverse shows the impression of string, meaning that this sealing was used to seal a box or a lock on a square-shaped object.20 As officials sealed locks and other objects to prevent unauthorized access, sealings offer valuable evidence of who had institutional authority over what.21 Unfortunately, the inscription on the reconstructed impression is fragmentary and only preserves part of the seal owner’s name.22 However, the same seal that was impressed into ATT/47/21 also appears on Zeeb 1992: 477, the envelope to Wiseman Alalakh 18.23 My collation of the envelope has shown that the impression on the envelope is accompanied by the caption na4KISIB lúSANGA, “seal of the priest” (the priest’s full title lúSANGA dISTAR appears in the envelope’s witness list).24 In other words, the clay sealing that was discovered 17 Zeeb 2001: 283. According to CAD D s.v. dùru in bìt dùri, the phrase appears in NA royal inscriptions and letters and in one SB hemerology. 18 Wiseman Alalakh 273:2, see Zeeb 2001: 283. 19 For the composite edition of the impression, restored from three sealings, see Collon 1975: no. 15. 20 Collon 1975: no. 15 describes ATT/47/21 as a jar sealing. At my request, Collon kindly reviewed her unpublished photographs of the sealing, noting at the time her study of the Alalakh seal impressions was published, the use of sealings on locks was not commonly understood. See Zettler 1987: 197 on this same point. 21 Zettler 1987 provides a classic case study. 22 The inscription should perhaps be restored as 1[E]¢-li-d[ISTAR] 2[DU]MU Ni-iq-mi-a-[du] 3[Ì]R sa d[ISTAR], see n. 42. 23 Republished as Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 260-261. 24 Note that the position of the seal impression (not illustrated) and the caption on the envelope are misleadingly presented in Zeeb 1992: 477, where they appear to be located on the envelope’s top edge. In fact, they are on the envelope’s left side, as can be seen in Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 260 and the photograph of the envelope presented in Collon 1975: plate LVIII.
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in the excavated temple was made by the priest of Istar or his subordinate. The details of the administrative process that led to the deposit of the sealing on the temple floor are unclear. We do not know, for example, whether the sealed object was permanently stored in the temple or whether it was in transit and the sealing was broken off to check its contents.25 Nonetheless, the presence of the priest of Istar’s seal impression inside the excavated temple implies that he exercised administrative control over this space, and it allows us to identify the excavated temple with the temple of Istar mentioned in the level VII texts. * * * This identification is significant because it affords a new approach to examining the temple’s relationship to the palace. We are no longer confined to attestations of the temple in the textual record, which, as described above, have been interpreted in opposing ways. Now we can use the material culture of the temple itself. A few relevant examples of the material culture excavated from the temple—the altar, the drain, the statue head, and the sealing— have already been mentioned. However, these were not the only finds from the temple’s main room. On either side of the altar, the excavators found two long hollow benches made of brick and cement into which wooden boxes had been inset.26 The covers to these boxes showed signs of having been, as Woolley puts it, “violently torn open,” suggesting that the temple had been looted before it was destroyed in the fire that marks the end of level VII.27 Although not many small finds were discovered in the temple, presumably because of this looting, several objects made of ivory and alabaster still remained in the bench-boxes. Some fragments of similar objects, as well as larger pieces of statuary such as the “Head of YarimLim,” discussed above, lay on the raised platform and underneath the ash that covered the temple floor. Mixed among these objects on the platform and on the floor were eighteen cuneiform tablets and two envelope fragments.28 25
Zettler 1987: 227. Woolley 1955: 62-63. 27 Woolley 1955: 64. 28 Wiseman Alalakh 176, 373-378, 382-389, ATT/47/4, 6 and 8 (tablets) and ATT/47/10 and 15 (envelope fragments). Woolley 1955: 64 claims that several 26
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Transliterations and translations of the texts in this archive appear in Appendix Two. I have added one text, Wiseman Alalakh 381 to the archive. Although Wiseman Alalakh 381 was found eight years prior to the excavation of the temple,29 the tablet displays the unique shape, format, and terminology of documents in Dossier Two, (discussed in more detail below) and it undoubtedly formed part of this archive. Unfortunately, the unpublished tablets and the one envelope fragment that is inscribed, ATT/47/10, are illegible, and therefore I have not included them in the appendix. In and of itself, the presence of this archive in the temple does not seem remarkable, for ancient Near Eastern temples could be important institutions with substantial assets, and accounting for these assets often produced many tablets. However, this archive does not reflect the administrative life of the temple. Rather, it records the management of silver that belonged to the palace. The remainder of this section examines the texts in the temple archive in order to demonstrate this claim. For this purpose, I have arranged these texts into two dossiers on the basis of their content.30 The first dossier, Wiseman Alalakh 373-377, consists of texts that record the disbursement of silver. The second dossier, Wiseman Alalakh 381-389, consists of texts that record the receipt of silver.31
tablets were found in one of the bench-boxes, noting that the others were found on the floor of the temple. However, he provides no excavation numbers for the former group, while, for the latter group, he cites the excavation numbers of all the tablets found in the temple. Unpublished excavation cards now in the collection of the British Museum record that the tablets from the temple were found either on the floor or on the raised platform. Even if we assume that no tablets were found in the bench-box, the distribution of ivory, which was found on the floor and the raised platform as well as in the bench-boxes, suggests that the tablets may also have been originally stored in the bench-boxes and scattered during the final destruction of the temple. 29 Wiseman Alalakh 381 was found at the beginning of the 1939 season. The tablet is not mentioned in the site report. Its excavation card records that the tablet was found in square N 10 “in the terrace filling,” but gives no mention of the occupation level, most likely because the excavators were themselves unsure. Square N 10 is approximately 20 meters north of the temple, corresponding to the wall between rooms 7 and 9 of Yarim-Lim’s palace. As Wiseman Alalakh 381 was excavated before this palace was reached, however, the terrace filling in which the tablet was found must belong to level VI at the earliest. 30 Defining a dossier as a group of documents that all relate to the same task, see Muller, Feith and Fruin 1968: 83. 31 I do not discuss Wiseman Alalakh 176 and 378, as these texts seem to document the personal assets of a member of the temple’s personnel, either the
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The five texts of Dossier One contain between two and seventeen entries for a total of thirty-seven entries. The typical entry records the amount of silver disbursed, its recipient and the reason for its disbursement, with the majority of the recipients receiving silver not for their own use but as intermediaries. While the texts are undated, two of the longer texts, Wiseman Alalakh 376 and 377, include summary sections that total the disbursements, and the two shortest texts, Wiseman Alalakh 374 and 375, do not.32 This difference may indicate that the dossier contains documents from two different stages of a bookkeeping process in which a small number of disbursements were first recorded as short memoranda and later compiled into larger accounts. Who wrote these texts? On whose behalf did the intermediaries named in the texts perform their tasks? Who, ultimately, is the source of the silver? The names that appear in the texts are the best evidence at our disposal with which to answer these questions. Because of the frequent use of hypocoristics and the lack of additional qualifying information in both these texts and the level VII corpus as a whole, an exhaustive prosopography of the names is impossible. Nonetheless, as the table below illustrates, the texts of Dossier One mention certain key individuals, identified by name or profession, who may be safely identified in the ration lists:
priest of Istar or Kuzzi, the diviner. While Wiseman Alalakh 378 does record the disbursement of silver, the end of the text states that the silver, in the form of cups, was disbursed when the priest of Istar’s daughter married Kuzzi. This specification echoes similar statements in Wiseman Alalakh 409:41-46 and Wiseman Alalakh 411:21-25, which record a bride price and a dowry, respectively, paid by Ammitaqum, the king of Alalakh. Wiseman Alalakh 378, then, most likely records the dowry given by the priest of Istar or the bride price paid by Kuzzi. Wiseman Alalakh 176 is badly damaged, but the text preserves three names that also appear in Wiseman Alalakh 378, suggesting that this text was composed in connection with the same event. (The text cannot be, as Zeeb 2001: 245 proposes, a roster of the palace’s male workforce by virtue of fDìn-Addu’s presence in line 7'.) Wiseman Alalakh 176 and 378 may have been stored in the temple because that is where their owner worked, and the texts should perhaps be considered a distinct archive. 32 The longest text, Wiseman Alalakh 373, lacks a summary section. It is also the only text in the dossier in which entries continue onto the left side. Perhaps the scribe misjudged the size of the tablet he would need and ran out of room for a summary section?
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Table 1: Persons who appear in Dossier One and in the ration lists Person(s)
Dossier One
Lau(l)-Addu nu¢atimmum Na¢mi-Dagan ràkibum Kuzzi, bàrûm
Wiseman Alalakh 376:5 Wiseman Alalakh 376:7 Wiseman Alalakh 373 r. 3' Wiseman Alalakh 373 r. 6'
agrù E¢luwa parkullum
Wiseman Alalakh 373 r. 14', 377:1
Suba-¢ali
Wiseman Alalakh 376:16
Kunnate
Wiseman Alalakh 373:7
Ration lists
Date of ration listsa)
Wiseman Alalakh IC 278:6 Wiseman Alalakh IIB, XB 274:6, 244:6 Wiseman Alalakh IIB, VC 274:30, 269:16 Wiseman Alalakh VIIA, IC, IVC 258:15, 278:11, 257:15 Wiseman Alalakh IIB, IIB, VIB, 274:3, 263:14, XB, XIB, IC 268:3, 243:16 240:14, 247:6, 11 Wiseman Alalakh XIIA, VIB, XIB, 252:12, 268:5, XIB, IC, IIIC; 240:10, 241:44, VIIB, VIC 278:1, 238:37; Zeeb (2001) no. 47:10' , 27:6 Wiseman Alalakh VIIA, IXA, XA, 258:4, 265: 13, 25, XIA, IB, IIB, 31, 277:11, 252:2, IIIB, VIB, VIIB, 13, 246:20, 34, VIIIB, XIB, XIIB, 274:2, 256:6, 18, IC, IIIC, IVC, 254:5, 25, 272:1, VC, VC; VIIB, 237:4, 283b r. 2', IIbC, VIC 264:19, 239:9, 251: 13, 28, 248:4, 238:9, 257:6, 253:23, 269:61, 63, 66, 72; Zeeb (2001) no. 47: 7', r. 1', 23:3, 37, 72:6', r. 4'
a)
I follow the chronological arrangement of the ration lists presented in Zeeb (2001) 158-183. According to this arrangement, the ration lists span a period of twenty-eight months over three years (A, B, and C) and conclude with the destruction of the palace that marks the end of level VII. This span begins in month VA and ends in month VIIC.
In the fourth column, bold italics highlight a significant overlap in the dates of activity in which these persons are attested in the ration
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lists. The overlap is clearest with those individuals who appear only occasionally in the ration lists. Thus, the hired laborers appear in only three ration lists, one of which, Wiseman Alalakh 278, also contains the only attestation of the cook, Lau(l)-Addu, and an attestation of Suba-¢ali. This text dates to the first month of Year C, around one of the times that E¢luwa, the seal-cutter, is also attested in the ration lists. As the table shows, with the exception of the diviner Kuzzi, every other individual who can be securely identified is attested in the ration lists at this approximate time, a fourmonth period from the tenth month of Year B to the first month of Year C. This observation has two implications. First, it provides a terminus post quem for the composition of Dossier One at month IC, or about six months before the destruction of the palace. Second, it means that at the same time that these individuals were receiving grain from the palace, they were also receiving silver. On its own, this second point need not necessarily imply any further connection between the two dossiers—craftsmen, for example, could have received grain from the palace and silver from the temple for unrelated work done for each institution. However, the context in which one particular craftsman, the seal-cutter E¢luwa, received his disbursements, suggests that this is not the situation. Zeeb has shown that E¢luwa was the representative of a small group of seal-cutters who most likely were not residents of Alalakh but stayed there on two occasions, once in the first half of Year B and once at the end of Year B and the beginning of Year C.33 During each visit, E¢luwa and the seal-cutters received grain in two unequal disbursements: a larger amount as payment for their materials; and a smaller amount for their personal sustenance. The texts of Dossier One coincide with the second visit and in these texts, E¢luwa also receives two unequal disbursements of silver, the first, twenty shekels, being much larger than the second, two-thirds of a shekel. Notably, the entry recording the larger amount (Wiseman Alalakh 377:1) uses the preposition GÌR to indicate that this silver, like the larger grain disbursement, was not intended for the seal-cutters’ personal use but rather for the purchase of materials. The entry recording the smaller amount (Wiseman Alalakh 373
33
Zeeb 2001: 448-451.
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r. 14'), which was intended for their personal use, does not have this preposition. In other words, this group of craftsmen received grain and silver not only at the same time but also in the same unequal disbursements. As the palace disbursed the grain, it must also have been responsible for the silver. However, two different offices of the palace administration disbursed these two commodities. Consequently, the records of the disbursements appear in two different archives. One of these archives, containing the ration lists, was stored in the palace, while the other, containing Dossier One, was stored in the temple. In spite of their storage location, then, the texts of Dossier One seem to record the disbursement of silver that belonged to the palace administration. What about the texts of Dossier Two? These texts record the receipt of silver but the persons appearing in connection with this silver cannot be securely identified with persons appearing in other level VII texts (discussed in more detail below). Therefore, we must use the administrative formula itself to reconstruct the nature of the transaction it documents. The formula consists of three phrases: 1. # shekels of silver which was received.34 2. sa PN1 (+ patronym/profession). 3. PA PN2 (+patronym/profession).35 Wiseman Alalakh 381-385 and 389 present this formula, while Wiseman Alalakh 386-388 offer variations. The meaning of the formula is not readily apparent, and Zeeb uses the variations to
34 The word written ma-a¢-ru/rù is analyzed as a 3 m. s. stative in the subjunctive. The writings alternate between RU and RUM (=rù), meaning that the form lacks mimation and cannot be a verbal adjective modifying kaspum. In Wiseman Alalakh 386, the silver has not been received, as expressed by la ma¢ru. The use of la instead of ul signifies that -u morpheme appearing on ma¢àrum throughout almost all the dossier is the subjunctive marker and that the form is a 3 m. s. stative. The presence of the subjunctive means that the form should be translated as an asyndetic relative clause. In Wiseman Alalakh 381, the stative is in the indicative. 35 In the original publication of the texts, Wiseman proposes reading PA as UGULA for waklum, “overseer.” This proposal is followed by Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 281-283. However, as the occurrences of PA precede the personal names, this reading seems unlikely.
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establish the meaning of the formula.36 Thus Wiseman Alalakh 388 has KI PN1 in line 2, so Zeeb understands sa PN1 to mean that the silver is received from PN1. Similarly, Wiseman Alalakh 387 ends with the phrase ana PN2 nadin, so he understands PA PN2 to mean that the silver was given to PN2.37 According to Zeeb, then, these texts record the receipt of silver from PN1 by an unidentified party that subsequently disbursed the silver to PN2. However, he does not describe the administrative context in which these transactions took place, nor does he explain why someone (presumably the unidentified party mediating the transactions?) saw fit to document the transactions in the first place. The scenario that Zeeb reconstructs results from his methodology, which, again, uses variations from the formula in order to establish the formula’s meaning. In the case of orthographic or morphological variants, as in the discussion of the form ma¢ru above, this approach can be valuable. However, variations from the formula proper are just as likely to have occurred because the texts in which they appear record situations that likewise varied from the norm (as is clear in Wiseman Alalakh 386 in which the silver has not been received). Therefore, we should not too readily understand the phrase KI PN1 in Wiseman Alalakh 388 and the phrase ana PN2 nadin in Wiseman Alalakh 387 as simply synonyms for the phrases sa PN1 and PA PN2, respectively.38 A text from the palace’s main archive in the basement storerooms, Wiseman Alalakh 270, offers a different perspective on the phrase PA PN2. Although some features of Wiseman Alalakh 270 remain obscure,39 the basic structure and function of this text is clear. The text contains thirteen entries, each of which records a quantity of emmer associated with a single individual. The end of the text (lines 39-40) totals the amount of emmer and describes this
36
Zeeb 2001: 61-64. Zeeb 2001: 64 suggests understanding PA “als eine Konjunktion nach Art des arab. und ugar. fa- bzw. p-.” 38 As Wiseman Alalakh 388 also omits the phrase PA PN , according to Zeeb’s 2 methodology, KI PN1 should substitute for sa PN1 PA PN2 in toto. 39 Specifically, the meaning of the sign TAR that occurs after every two or three entries (lines 3, 9, 14, 20, 27, 31, and probably 35 and 38) and is immediately followed by a high official or other individual identified by name; and the specification repeated four times (lines 8, 19, 26, and 34) that a varying amount of emmer from among the amount recorded in four entries in incumbent upon a certain individual named Taggiya. 37
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total as “emmer owed by Alalakh” (the amount of the emmer in the total is the same as the sum of the individual entries). The function of this text is to document the amounts of emmer that certain residents of Alalakh, presumably land owners, owed to the king of Alalakh.40 In this function, Wiseman Alalakh 270 is similar to four other texts from the same archive, Wiseman Alalakh 42, 45, 319, and 380, memoranda that record obligatory payments from other villages controlled by the king of Alalakh. Significantly, the sign PA prefaces each of the thirteen entries in Wiseman Alalakh 270. As in the texts of Dossier Two, the reading of PA, and even whether it is a logogram or an abbreviation for an Akkadian word, is unclear. Whatever its reading, in Wiseman Alalakh 270, the sign evidently designates the amount of emmer that follows as an obligatory payment. We can connect this use of PA to the appearance of PA in the texts of Dossier Two and propose that the sign has a similar function there, namely to designate the silver as an obligatory payment by PN2. The meaning of the preceding phrase, sa PN1, remains difficult, but perhaps is a periphrastic genitive separated from the head noun kaspum that serves to indicate not who paid the silver but who actually delivered it.41 Several pieces of circumstantial evidence not only support this interpretation of the texts in Dossier Two but may help qualify it. First, following my restoration of the text, Wiseman Alalakh 387 lacks the phrase sa PN1 but goes on to say that the silver was given to a màkisum, “tax collector.” That is, in this variant from the formula, in which the silver was not delivered by a third-party, the text includes a note specifying that the silver was paid directly to a tax collector. Second, the vast majority of the individuals appearing in these texts cannot be identified with individuals known from other level VII texts, which implies that they were not palace personnel. Moreover, some of these individuals seem to be foreigners
40 Goetze 1959: 37 suggests that the grain was delivered to the persons appearing after the sign TAR, though he does not know how to translate the sign. Bunnens 1982: 81 n. 5 remarks only that “[c]e texte semble enregistrer des taxes en nature dues par l’ville d’Alalakh et réparties entre divers contribuables.” 41 The statement in Wiseman Alalakh 388 that the silver is KI PN may 1 then mean that PN1 both paid and delivered the silver—in effect, a shorter rendering of the same situation documented in Wiseman Alalakh 384. In Wiseman Alalakh 386, the silver has not been received, and so in this text sa PN1 cannot mean that PN1 delivered it. Seemingly, the phrase has a different meaning in this context.
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to Alalakh: in Wiseman Alalakh 385, the silver is sa Alasiya, “the Cypriote;” and the name of the oil-presser in Wiseman Alalakh 389, Sumu-›alab, may indicate that he was a resident of the city of ›alab. Third, six out of the nine texts specify the amount of silver received as ten shekels, suggesting that ten shekels was the standard amount of silver for the transactions documented in these texts. This circumstantial evidence suggests that the silver documented in the texts of Dossier Two was indeed an obligatory payment, and may have been a generally fixed amount collected by the palace from individuals traveling into or through its territory, perhaps on a trade route that connected the empire of Yam¢ad to the Mediterranean. * * * The texts of both Dossier One and Two, then, document the movement of silver that can be connected, directly in the case of Dossier One and circumstantially in the case of Dossier Two, with the palace administration. The texts are not concerned with what we expect to be a temple’s administrative responsibilities, such as the care and feeding of the gods or the provisioning of cultic personnel and sacrificial animals. Yet, as the first section of this article has demonstrated, these texts were found in the temple of Istar. How do we account for this seeming discontinuity? A speculative interpretation of the evidence posits that the silver documented in the texts was actually stored in the temple, kept in one of the bench-boxes that adjoined the altar. This bench-box was sealed by the square-shaped sealing found on the temple floor, and thus the silver inside was administered by E¢li-d[x], the priest of Istar.42 A more minimalist interpretation of the same evidence holds that the silver and the administrative body responsible for it may 42 Wiseman Alalakh 369, a text from the palace’s main archive in the basement storerooms, records the disbursement of two silver vessels and 190 shekels of silver that is qualified as KÙ.BABBAR dISTAR (l. 2). The expenditure was made under the authority of an individual named E¢li-Istar, who should perhaps be identified with E¢li-d[x], the priest of Istar. Wiseman Alalakh 369 may have been transferred from the temple to the palace because it recorded the disbursement of a relatively large amount of silver. This E¢li-Istar should not be identified with E¢li-Istar, the priest of Addu, who appears in Wiseman Alalakh 30:13 (see Zeeb 1993: 471 on reading SANGA instead of -ra) and Wiseman Alalakh 55:35. These texts were composed at ›alab and this latter E¢li-Istar was a functionary in the cult of Addu at ›alab.
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have been located elsewhere, but the palace chose to store the documentation of some of its assets in the temple.43 Such a decision implies that the palace exercised a degree of control over the temple. This conclusion allows us to reenter the debate outlined at the beginning of this article. The textual attestations of the cult of Istar are not enough on their own to allow us to characterize the relationship between the temple and the palace at Old Babylonian Alalakh. The nature of the temple archive, however, supports the view that the temple was not an autonomous institution, as argued by Zeeb, but rather was incorporated into the larger structure of the palace administration, as argued by Klengel. Therefore, the grain and sheep that the palace supplied to the temple are better understood not as symbolic gestures but as the transfer of commodities between the offices of a single institution. The sheep in particular point to a significant ramification of this arrangement. The two texts recording the disbursement of sheep for the hiyaru-festival of Istar form part of a small archive located in room 2 of the palace. Also in this archive are two texts recording the receipt of sheep from the king of Carcemish (Wiseman Alalakh 349) and from a certain fIrpa-Abì (Wiseman Alalakh 347), who may have been a member of the royal family of the SyroAnatolian city of Apisal.44 Were these deliveries of sheep also intended as offerings to Istar of Alalakh? If so, then the palace’s administrative control of the temple positioned it to take advantage of the goddess’s veneration outside the immediate vicinity of Alalakh. In fact, the palace may have encompassed the temple architecturally as well as administratively. Yener, the director of the current excavations at Alalakh, has tentatively identified the open area to the west of the palace as a courtyard (see figure one). Woolley was prevented from digging around this open area by the level IV palace, which the Turkish authorities wished to preserve. One test sounding in the level IV palace’s courtyard, however, uncovered the foundations of monumental architecture dating to level VII.45 43 Because the tablets were found mixed among the ivory and statuary fragments that lay beneath the ash layer covering the temple floor, the tablets cannot be a later deposit. 44 The only other attestation of the name occurs in Wiseman Alalakh 409:16. This text lists various gifts that the king of Alalakh gave to the royal family and courtiers of Apisal on the occasion of his marriage to the king of Apisal’s daughter. 45 Woolley 1955: 110 describes them as “the most massive found by us at Alalakh.”
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The presence of these foundations suggests that the level VII palace may have extended westward. If this is the case, then the palace most likely also continued southward from this extension to encompass the temple, so that the palace was in fact a square-shaped structure organized around a central courtyard. This proposal, if correct, would have two important implications. First, the location of the temple of Istar within the palace of Alalakh would serve as an important parallel to the divine sanctuary of Istar located within the near-contemporaneous palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari.46 And second, the original excavations of Alalakh would have uncovered only half of the level VII palace, with the other half still awaiting excavation. Hopefully, the current excavations at Alalakh will be able to clarify this proposal. Appendix One Attestations of the Cult of Istar in the Old Babylonian Alalakh Texts The attestations are arranged under the following subject headings: • Temple • Personnel • Offerings Attestations of offerings via personnel appear under personnel. Temple Wiseman Alalakh 1:10, see Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 47 . . . ¢iÜ-na u4-mi-su mia-ri-im-li-im 9 DU[MU ¢a-am-mu]-ra-bi ÌR m ab-ba-DINGIR 10[ALAM? a-na É d]ISTAR ú-se-li 8
“At that time, Yarim-Lim, the son of ›ammurabi, the servant of Abba-ilì, dedicated a statue? to the temple of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 61:18, see Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 113 16
ma-al KÙ.BABBAR KÙ.GI
46
See Durand 1986: 71-73.
17
a-na É ISTAR Ì.[LÁ.E]
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“(Whoever breaks the contract), he will pay the full amount of silver and gold to the temple of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 126:39, see Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 54 38
qa-ta-ka ú-ul me-si
39
a-na É dISTAR te-ru-ub
“Your hands are not washed when you enter the temple of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 127:10 and 15, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 254-255 9
[S]U.NIGIN 7 me-tim 8 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR 10 a-na É dISTAR ia-ri-im-li-im 12 i-pu-ul 13 1 li-im (erasure?) 14 8 me-tim si-dá-at KÙ.BABBAR 15 sa (erasure: É?) dISTAR 16 UGU ia-ri-im-li-im
11 m
“Total: 708 shekels of silver, Yarim-Lim has paid (this amount) to the temple of Istar. 1,800 (shekels) is the remainder of the silver of Istar owed by Yarim-Lim.” Personnel Wiseman Alalakh 26 r. 5', see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 267 5'
IGI sar-r[a-¢]i lúSANGA dISTAR
“Witness: Sarra¢i, the priest of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 27:11, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 268 11
IGI lúSANGA dISTAR
“Witness: the priest of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 61:23, see Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 113 23
IGI lúSANGA sa d¢ISTARÜ
“Witness: the priest of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 65:11, see Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 138 11
IGI lúSANGA dISTAR
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“Witness: the priest of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 270:3, see Oliva Mompeán 1998: 596 and Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 294 1
PA (text: GIS) 32 pa-ri-si ZÍZ e-di 3 TAR lúSANGA dISTAR
2
as-ta-bi-LUGAL DUMU am-mi-
“Payment of 32 parìsu’s of emmer, Astabi-sarra, the son of Ammiedi, determined by (?) the priest of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 281:6, see Zeeb 2001 no. 78 6
15 GÌR lúSANGA dISTAR
“15 (parìsu’s of barley) via the priest of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 378:9', see Zaccagnini 1979: 474 and Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 130 SU.NIGIN 33 1/3 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR 8' sa a-na dugGAL.›I.A is-¢ku-nuÜ 9' i-nu-ma DUMU.SAL lúSANGA dISTAR 10' mku-uz-zi lú UZÚ 11' i-¢i-ru 7'
“Total: 33 1/3 shekels of silver which was set aside for vessels when the daughter of the priest of Istar married Kuzzi, the diviner.” Zeeb 1992: 477:19 (envelope to Wiseman Alalakh 18), see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 261 19
[IGI] lúSANGA dISTAR
“Witness: the priest of Istar.” Ibid. left side 1 (below seal impression) 1 na4
KISIB lúSANGA
“Seal of the priest.” Zeeb 2001: no. 2:13
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[x] ¢aÜ-ri-a-du LÚ ISTAR
“[x] (parìsu’s of grain to) Ari-Addu, the man of Istar.” Offerings Wiseman Alalakh 242:15, see Zeeb 2001: no. 32 14
1 pa SE 1 pa ZÍZ a-na ¢a-li-ia
15
a-na pa-ni dISTAR
“1 parìsu of barley and 1 parìsu of emmer to ›aliya at the disposal of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 243:9, see Zeeb 2001: no. 1 9
25 sa
gis
BANSUR dISTAR
“25 (parìsu’s of grain), that of the table of Istar.” Ibid.:13 13
20 pa ZÍZ sa
gis
BANSUR dISTAR
“20 parìsu’s of emmer, that of the table of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 269:11, see Zeeb 2001: no. 35 11
1 a-na pa-ni dISTAR i-na u4-um ú-ti-it-¢i
“1 (parìsu of emmer) at the disposal of Istar on the festival-day of the month of Utit¢i.” Ibid.:44 44
1 pa SE a-na pa-ni dISTAR sa u4-um ú-ti-i[t-¢i]
“1 parìsu of barley at the disposal of Istar, that of the festival-day of the month of Utit¢i.” Wiseman Alalakh 346:2, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 109
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3 UDU i-na u4-um
2
¢i-ia-ri-i dISTAR
“3 sheep on the festival-day of the month of ›iyari of Istar.” Wiseman Alalakh 348:2, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 110 1
20 UDU i-na u4-um
2
¢i-ia-ar-ri-i dISTAR
“20 sheep on the festival-day of the month of ›iyari of Istar.” Zeeb 2001: no. 50:3 3
1 a-na
gis
TUKKUL pa-ni dISTAR
“1 (parìsu of grain) to the weapon before Istar.” Ibid.:4 4
2 a-na pa-ni dISTAR
“2 (parìsu’s of grain) at the disposal of Istar.” Ibid.:9 9
30 a-na
gis
BANSUR dISTAR
“30 (parìsu’s of grain) for the table of Istar.” Zeeb 2001: no. 61:3 3
10 a-na
gis
BANSUR dISTAR
“10 (parìsu’s of barley) for the table of Istar.” Appendix Two Texts from the Temple of Istar This appendix presents transliterations and translations of the texts found in the temple of Istar. When relevant, a brief philological
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commentary follows the translation. The texts are arranged under the following headings: • Dossier One (Wiseman Alalakh 373-377) • Dossier Two (Wiseman Alalakh 381-389) • Other texts from the temple (Wiseman Alalakh 176 and 378) Dossier One: Texts Recording the Disbursement of Silver Wiseman Alalakh 373, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 118-119 Obverse 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
10 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR a-na a-ri-ib-sa-¢usÜ-ka i-na re-es ti-tu-ri-im na-di-in 2 GÍN a-na UGULA KAS4.E 7 GÍN a-ri-ib-sa-us-ka sa a-na na-wa LÚ eb-laki na-ad-nu 2 GÍN lu-bar-wa-an-di lúNAR sa a-na ku-un-na-te na-ad-nu 4 GÍN lúTUR LÚ urua-pí-sal sa a-na sa-li-mi-im i-lu-ú 6 1/2 GÍN i-ri-ba lúta-ru-ú ¢3+x GÍN si-im xÜ¢i.a
(remainder of obverse missing) Reverse (beginning of reverse missing) 1'. 2'. 3'. 4'. 5'. 6'. 7'. 8'. 9'. 10'. 11'. 12'. 13'.
¢10 GÍN si-imÜ [x x x x x] a-na tu-uk-ri-in 10 GÍN a-na ku-uz-zi lúÚZU sa a-na i-ri-ia-dISTAR 2 GÍN a-na ti-su-¢e a-na lú.mesag-ri na-di-in 18 GÍN si-im SILA4¢i.a a-na LÚ uru¢a-la-abki 1 GÍN lúTUR UGULA AGA.US sa ANSE¢i.a ú-se-lu-ú 1 GÍN ÌRmes LUGAL 2 GÍN si-im ni-wa-ri sa Ì.GIS GÌR kí-ir-ra
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14'. 2/3 GÍN e¢-lu-wa BUR.GUL 15'. IGI.5.GÁL si-im KU6 Left side 1. 2 GÍN qa-ti LUGAL ¢i-na x x xÜ 2. a-na ka-ad-¢ri na-di-inÜ 10 shekels was given to Arib-Sauska at the head of the bridge. 2 shekels to the overseer of the messenger. 7 shekels, Arib-Sauska, which was given to Nawa, the man of Ebla. 2 shekels, Lubar-wandi, the singer, which was given to Kunnate. 3 shekels, the servant of the man of Apisal, who came up for the peace agreement. 6 1/2 shekels, Iriba, the tarûm. 3+[x] shekels, the purchase-price of x (pl.). (break of uncertain length) 10 shekels, the purchase price of [x], for Tukrin. 10 shekels to Kuzzi, the diviner, which is for Iriya-Istar 2 shekels was given to Tisu¢e for the hired laborers. 18 shekels, the purchase-price of lambs for the man of ›alab. 1 shekel, the servant of the troop commander, who dedicated donkeys. 1 shekel, the servants of the king. 2 shekels, the purchase-price of a niwaru of oil via Kirra. 2/3 of a shekel to E¢luwa, the seal-cutter. 1/5 (of a shekel), the purchase-price of fish. 2 shekels at the disposal of the king when [x x x], (the silver) was given for gifts. 5: Zeeb 1998: 854, followed by Rép géogr. 12/2 67 and Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 118, reads the PN as the logogram NA.GADA. 8: Here et passim, Dietrich and Loretz 2006 read lúTUR as lúDUMU. The first reading seems preferable because of the determinative. 9: Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 118 read the sign sa- as ir-, understanding a personal name Irlimim. However, the etymology of this name is unclear and personal names are typically not declined in the Alalakh VII texts. On the other hand, Alalakh and Apisal’s relations are documented elsewhere in the texts, and salìmum is well attested in the geographically and chronologically contemporaneous texts from Mari.
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10: The profession tarûm also appears in Wiseman Alalakh 378:7. The copy of Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 118 confirms the reading suggested by AHw 1442a, although the lack of mimation is unexpected. The tarûm appearing in the Alalakh VII texts should be distinguished from tàrûm, “male nursemaid,” as the latter profession is only attested in SB, see CAD T s.v. tarûm. r. 12': Following Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 119. See Zeeb 2001: 433-434 for a discussion of previous literature on this line. l.s. 1: The end of the line is badly damaged. Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 119 read ¢i-na SÀ DIB.BAÜ, which does not fit the context. l.s. 2: Following the reading of Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 119 with hesitation. Collation of the line is desirable. While kadrûm is attested in the OB period, it appears in literary contexts and does not seem appropriate here. Wiseman Alalakh 374, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 120 Obverse 1. 1/2 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR a-na ti-su-¢e 2. LÚmes uruab-ra-ti-ikki 3. 1 GÍN a-na as-ta-bi-LUGAL-ra 4. DUMU i-lu-ra 5. a-na bi-ik-ki-it-ti 6. UGULA AGA.US Lower edge 7.
ú-bi-il
1/2 shekel of silver to Tisu¢e (for) the men of Abratik. 1 shekel to Astabi-sarra, the son of Ilura. He brought (the silver) to Bikkitti, the troop commander. 2: For the emendation, see Wiseman Alalakh 373 r. 5'-6'. 5: Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 120 read pí-iq-qí-it-ti in place of the PN. This reading is morphologically and syntactically difficult. Morphologically, the form would have to be singular, as piqittum is feminine, but it lacks mimation. Syntactically, the role of UGULA AGA.US is unclear if it is not in apposition to the preceding word.
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Wiseman Alalakh 375, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 120 Obverse 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
13 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR GÌR ku-su-e i-na urutu-ni-ipki ú-bi-il 4 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR
Lower edge 6. GÌR ¢i-ir-se 7. DUMU wu-ul-lu-ra Reverse 8. a-na SÀM GU4 9. sa bi-ir-zi 10. a-na LUGAL GAL 13 shekels of silver via Kusu¢e. He brought (the silver) into? Tunip. 4 shekels of silver via ›irse, the son of Wullura for the purchase-price of Birzi’s ox for the Great King. 3: The expected preposition with wabàlum is ana, as in Wiseman Alalakh 374:5-7. For a possible parallel to this line, see the SB incantation Küchler Beitr. pl. 2:25, cited in CAD A/1 s.v. abàlu A mng. 2a-6', Gula . . . ina bìt Asallu¢i ubil e†lu, “Gula . . . took the man into the temple of Asallu¢i.” As the scribe presumably was located at Alalakh, the use of the preposition in an ablative sense seems impossible. Note also ina GN . . . alàkum in Wiseman Alalakh 377:4. Wiseman Alalakh 376, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 107 Obverse 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
6 GÍN GÌR a-bi-a-du lúMASKIM 11 1/2 GÍN a-na GESTIN (text: LUGAL) KAS i-na uruú-ni-kaki ù uru¢u-tam-meki i-nu-ma LUGAL GAL i-lu-ú 5 GÍN GÌR la-ú-la-a-da a-na lú.mesMU›ALDIM¢i.a 1 GÍN GÌR na-a¢-mi-dda-gan
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8. a-na lúTUR sa tap-se a-na SAL EN / ub-lu 9. 14 GÍN GÌR sar-ru-ub-se 10. si-im GU4 a-na at-ta-na-ti ub-lu Lower edge 11. 5 GÍN qa-ti LUGAL 12. 2 GÍN GÌR am-ma-ak-ku / lúNAR Reverse 13. 3 GÍN GÌR lúTUR LUGAL 14. sa AM ú-se-lu-ú 15. 1 GÍN GÌR lúKAS4.E 16. 1 GÍN GÌR su-bá-¢a-li 17. a-na lúTUR urunu-ra-an-tiki 18. SU.NIGIN 50 GÍN 1/2 GÍN LÁ 19. ZI.GA “6 shekels via Abì-Addu, the representative. 11 1/2 for wine and beer in Unika and ›utamme, when the Great King came up. 5 shekels via Laul-Addu for the cooks. 1 shekel via Na¢mi-Dagan for the servant who brought a tapse for the lord’s woman. 14 shekels via Sarrub-se, the purchase-price of an ox which he brought for the month of Attanatu. 5 shekels at the disposal of the king. 2 shekels via Ammu-akku, the singer. 3 shekels via the king’s servant who dedicated a wild bull. 1 shekel via the messenger. 1 shekel via Suba-¢ali for the servant of Nuranti Total: 49 1/2 shekels as expenditure. 2: Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 107 read the last two signs as LUGAL.BI. However, the larger context of such an entry is unclear. Rép géogr. 12/2 reads LUGAL.KAS. While the logogram KAS.LUGAL is attested in the level VII texts (Wiseman Alalakh 34:5, 324b:8, 11, 13, and 17), the order of the two signs is never reversed. The forms of the signs LUGAL and GESTIN are similar, and it seems better simply to emend the text here.
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8: The meaning of tapse is uncertain. The word may designate a garment, see CAD T s.v. tapsû. Alternately, it may be connected to the sijataltapse festival, for which tapse is used as an abbreviation in the level VII texts, see Zeeb 2001: 285-286. Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 107 read the line differently: a-na LÚ.DUMU sa GABA KÙ.BABBAR MUNUS.EN / ub-lu. Wiseman Alalakh 377, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 108 Obverse 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
20 GÍN GÌR e¢-lu-wa lúBU[R.GUL] 2 GÍN GÌR na-as-we NAGAR 8 GÍN GÌR lúSUKKAL i-nu-ma i-na urueb-la i-il-la-ku 23 GÍN GÌR ú-bi LÚ ia-am-a-ad 10 GÍN GÌR lú.mesag-ri 5 1/2 GÍN GÌR e-el-li
Lower edge 9.
si-im URUDU¢i.a
Reverse 10. SU.NIGIN 68 1/2 GÍN 11. ZI.GA 20 shekels via E¢luwa, the seal-cutter. 2 shekels via Naswe, the carpenter. 8 shekels via the vizier when he goes into? Ebla. 23 shekels via Ubi, the man of Yam¢ad. 10 shekels via the hired laborers. 5 1/2 shekels via Êlli, the purchase-price of copper. Total: 68 1/2 shekels as expenditure. 4: The expected preposition with alàkum is ana, cf. Wiseman Alalakh 375:3-4. The use of ina instead of istu and the lack of ventive make a translation “comes from” unlikely. This entry provides the only occurrence of a present-tense verb in the dossier.
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6: Zeeb 1998: 834 reads the GN as ia-am--a-ad. However, this emendation results in an otherwise-unattested plene spelling of Yam¢ad. Dossier Two: Texts Recording the Receipt of Silver The translations of this dossier’s texts are clarified by the discussion of these texts in the body of the article. Wiseman Alalakh 381, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 281 Obverse 1. 10 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR ma-¢i-ir 2. sa ak-da-mu 3. lúSU.›A Reverse 4. PA bu-na-a-da 5. lúSU.›A 10 shekels of silver has been received. That of (= delivered by?) Akdamu, the fisherman. Payment of Bùn-Addu, the fisherman. 4: Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 281 read the first sign of the PN as mu-. Wiseman Alalakh 382, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 281: Obverse 1. 10 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR ma-a¢-rù 2. sa a-ri-im-mu 3. DUMU ka-ba-/-ar-ta Reverse 4. PA ¢a-as-su 5. DUMU we-ri-it-te 10 shekels of silver which has been received. That of (= delivered by?) Ari-Ammu, the son of Kabarta. Payment of ›assu, the son of Ewri-itte.
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Wiseman Alalakh 383, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 282 Obverse 1. 4 1/2 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR ma-a¢-ru 2. sa e-wi-ri-ha-ú-wa lú US.BAR 3. Reverse 4. PA ¢pé-enÜ-tam-mu 5. DUMU is-¢miÜ-il-a-du 4 1/2 shekels of silver which has been received. That of (= delivered by?) Ewri-¢auwa, the weaver. Payment of Pendi-Ammu, the son of Ismil-Addu. Wiseman Alalakh 384, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 282 Obverse 1. 10 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR ma-a¢-ru 2. sa e¢-li-a-du 3. DUMU pé-en-du Reverse 4. PA e¢-li-a-du-ma 10 shekels of silver which has been received. That of (= delivered by?) E¢li-Addu, the son of Pendu. Payment of this same E¢li-Addu. 4: The emphatic -ma indicates that this E¢li-Addu is the same E¢liAddu who appears in line 2. Wiseman Alalakh 385, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 282 Obverse 1. 2. 3. 4.
14 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR ma-a[¢-ru] sa a-la-si-ia DUMU i-ri-ba PA ku-we-en DUMU am-[x x x]
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14 shekels of silver which has been received. That of (= delivered by?) Alasîya, the son of Iriba. Payment of Kuwen, the son of Am[xxx]. 3: Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 282 read the final sign in the PN as -ma. Wiseman Alalakh 386, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 283 Obverse 1. 3 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR 2. la ma-a¢-rù 3. sa ki-il-li-ia 3 shekels of silver which has not been received. That of Killiya. Wiseman Alalakh 387, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 283 Obverse 1. 10 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR ma-a¢-rù 2. [PA a]m-ma-ad-da-nu 3. [DUMU? x x]-nu Reverse 4. a-na sar-ru-wa 5. lúZAG.›A 6. na-di-in 10 shekels of silver which has been received. [Payment of A]mmaddanu, the [son of x x]-nu. (The silver) was given to Sarruwa, the tax collector. 2-3: Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 283 restore these lines as [sa L]Ú.Maad-da-nu [id-d]i-nu. 5: CAD M/1 s.v. màkisu mng. 2a references this text as Wiseman Alalakh 381 because of a mislabeling of the text’s copy in Wiseman Alalakh. Wiseman Alalakh 388, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 283
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Obverse 1. 10 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR 2. ma-a¢-rù 3. KI ¢a-li-ia 10 shekels of silver which has been received. From ›aliya. 3: KI = itti. For a syllabic spelling of itti with the meaning “from,” see Wiseman Alalakh 64:5. Wiseman Alalakh 389, see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 283 Obverse 1. 10 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR ma-a¢-ru 2. sa ¢a-si-ib-ta 3. PA su-mu-a-la-ab Ì.SUR 10 shekels of silver which has been received. That of (= delivered by?) ›asib-ta. Payment of Sumu-›alab, the oil-presser. 3: Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 283 read Ì.SUR as BUR and understand the sign to be part of the PN, Su-mu-a-la-ab-bur. ›alab also appears as an element in personal names in Wiseman Alalakh 98f:9 and Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 130:8', see Zeeb 1998: 834 (citing Wiseman Alalakh 98f as only 22.14 = AM xxxx, but see Dietrich and Loretz 2005: 311 where “AM ohne Nr.” = AlT 98f = 22.28[sic!]). Unfortunately, both names are damaged. Wiseman Alalakh 98f:9 reads a-na a-laab-¢¢iÜ(-)bi [x x x] (the text is unpublished but has been collated). Dietrich and Loretz 2004: 130:8' reads ¢aÜ/¢¢aÜ-la-ab-¢i-im DUMU [PN]. In both names, Zeeb 1998: 834 interprets -¢i as a gentilic. Other texts from the temple Wiseman Alalakh 176, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 91 Obverse (beginning of obverse destroyed) 1'. [x x w-a]n-di-dis-¢a-r[a] 2'. (erasure)
the temple of iStar at old babylonian alalakh 3'. 4'. 5'. 6'. 7'. 8'.
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x]x ni-mi-na-a-du x]x ni-ma-a-du x]x e¢-li-a-du x] e¢-lu-ub-LUGAL-ri x] ¢fÜdi-na-a-du x x x x]x-za
Reverse 1. [x x x x x]-¢paÜ 2. [x x x x x]-¢aÜ-du 3. [x x x x x x]x 4. x x x x x]x dISTAR (remainder of reverse destroyed) [x] (to) Wandi-Is¢ara. (erasure) [x] (to) Nimin-Addu. [x] (to) Nim-Addu. [x] (to) E¢li-Addu. [x] (to) E¢lub-sarri. [x] (to) fDìn-Addu. [x] (to) [x x x]-za [x] (to) [x x x]-pa [x] (to) [x x x]-Addu (lines r. 3-4 not translated) 3'-5': The left side of the tablet is missing. These three lines have single vertical wedges as the first preserved signs after the damage. Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 91 interpret these wedges as three instances of the Personenkeil. Accordingly, they transliterate the lines as undamaged, consisting of the Personenkeil followed by a personal name. These lines seem to provide the basis for their restoration of the text as a whole, which they see as a list of 12 personal names with the last two names separated from the ten names that come before by a horizontal stroke. There are two problems with this restoration. First, lines 3'-5' are not completely preserved. Dietrich and Loretz’s copy shows space for at least two signs at the beginning of each line (confirmed by collation). The single vertical wedge that Dietrich and Loretz take as the Personenkeil is actually the end of a
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more complex sign (perhaps GÍN?). Each line of the text probably consisted of three elements: a number (entirely lost); a commodity ( partially preserved in lines 3'-5'); and the name of the person to whom the commodity was disbursed (preserved throughout). This observation points to the second problem, Dietrich and Loretz’s restoration of lines r. 3-4. The horizontal stroke that separates these lines from the rest of the text implies that the lines are not simply a continuation of the entries that came before but are substantively different in content. Most likely in this section, the scribe summarized the text, noting the total amount of commodities recorded in the text and the occasion of their disbursement. Therefore, the format of Wiseman Alalakh 176 parallels that of Wiseman Alalakh 378 (see below). The two texts may have been composed in connection to the same occasion. Some of the same personal names appear in both texts (see the note to Wiseman Alalakh 378 r. 2'), and the mention of Istar in the summary section of Wiseman Alalakh 176 recalls the appearance of the priest of Istar in the summary section of Wiseman Alalakh 378. Wiseman Alalakh 378, see Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 129-130 Obverse 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
1/3 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR SAL.DAM.A.NI ú-pu-li 11 SE ia-ri-im-li-im DUMU LUGAL 1/2 GÍN sa-am-si-dIM DUMU kur-ri-ia-an-ni 1/2 GÍN e-†ar-ma-lik IGI-6-GÁL SE su-mi-lam-mu lúMUHALDIM 2 GÍN SAL.DAM.A.NI a-ri-ib-sa-us-ka IGI-6-GÁL SE a-ia-DINGIR lúta-ru-ú 1 GÍN x x as-ta-ab-ba-am-mu 1/2 GÍN dISTAR-te-er-ra DUMU ta-gi-a-d[u] IGI-4-GÁL SE i-lu-ra-an ¢13 SE wa-an-di-ia lúx x xÜ
(remainder of obverse missing) Reverse (beginning of reverse destroyed) 1'. 1 GÍN ¢tub-biÜ-[x x x] 2'. 1 GÍN ni-i[m x x x] 3'. 1 GÍN e¢-lu-u[b-LUGAL-ri]
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4'. 1 GÍN sa-am-¢siÜ-[x x] 5'. 1 GÍN fdi-in-¢aÜ-[du] DUMU.SAL na-x[x x x] 6'. 1/3 GÍN sa-am-si-dI[M DU]MU SANGA 7'. SU.NIGIN 23 1/3 GÍN KÙ.BABBAR 8'. sa a-na DUG.GAL¢i.a-tim is-¢ku-nuÜ 9'. i-nu-ma DUMU.SAL lúSANGA dISTAR Top edge 10'. mku-uz-zi lúUZÚ 11'. i-¢i-ru 1/3 of a shekel of silver, the wife of Upuli. 11 grains, Yarim-Lim, the king’s son. 1/2 of a shekel, Samsì-Addu, the son of Kurriyanni. 1/2 of a shekel, E†ar-malik. 1/6 (of a shekel) in barleycorns, Summilla-Ammu, the cook. 2 shekels, the wife of Arib-Sauska 1/6 (of a shekel) in barleycorns, Aya-ilì, the tarûm. 1 shekel x x, Astabi-Ammu. 1/2 of a shekel, Istar-terra, the son of Tagi-Addu. 1/4 (of a shekel) in barleycorns, Iluran. 13 barleycorns, Wandiya, the [x x x]. (break of uncertain length) 1 shekel, 1 shekel, 1 shekel, 1 shekel, 1 shekel, 1/3 of a
Tubbi[x x x] Nim-[x x x x] E¢lu[b-sarri] Samsì-[DN] f Dìn-A[ddu], the daughter of Na[x x x] shekel, Samsì-Ad[du], the son of the priest.
Total: 23 1/3 shekels of silver which was set aside for vessels, when the daughter of the priest of Istar married Kuzzi, the diviner. 2: Zaccagnini 1979: 474 emends SE to GÍN. Because the text is damaged and a number of entries are missing, the sum of the entries cannot be added and compared to the total given in r. 7'. However, as discussed in the comment to line 5, the writing 11 SE seems to be in keeping with the accounting practices displayed in this text.
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5: Zeeb 2001: 59-60 uses this entry and the entries in lines 7 and 10 to argue that the barleycorn was the equivalent of 1/60 of a shekel at Old Babylonian Alalakh, as opposed to 1/180 of a shekel as in the contemporaneous Mesopotamian weight system. In his opinion, “der sechste Teil eines 1/180 Seqels Silber kaum noch wahrnehmber ist,” and so Zeeb proposes a different measurement in keeping with a sexagesimal counting system (though note the convincing argument of Zaccagnini 1979 that the mina at Old Babylonian Alalakh was the equivalent of fifty, not sixty, shekels). A simpler explanation is to view SE as an adverbial accusative and not a genitive, so that, in line 5, the entry records 1/6 of shekel of silver in barleycorns. This interpretation accords well with the other measurements of weight listed in Wiseman Alalakh 378, where we get amounts of silver less than a shekel recorded as: • • • • • •
1/2 GÍN (lines 3, 4, and 9) 1/3 GÍN (lines 1 and r. 6' ) IGI-4-GÁL SE (line 10) IGI-6-GÁL SE (lines 5 and 7) 11 SE (line 2) 13 SE (line 11)
The scribe seems to be following the principle that amounts of silver weighing 1/3 of a shekel or more are recorded as fractions of shekels; amounts weighing 1/4 to 1/6 of a shekel are recorded as fractions (of shekels) in barleycorns; and amounts less than 1/6 of a shekel are recorded as barleycorns. 7: See the note to Wiseman Alalakh 373:10. 8: The two signs following GÍN overlap and cannot be distinguished, cf. Zaccagnini 1979: 494. Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 130 read the signs in question as 21 1/3 SE. This reading cannot be correct because it interprets the single vertical wedge that follows the proposed SE as the Personenkeil. Not only is the Personenkeil unexpected before a name appearing in the middle of a line, but it is not used before any other name in the text. 11: Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 130 read the profession as ¢zu-¢ariÜ. The lack of mimation would be unexpected.
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r. 2': Zaccagnini 1979: 474 reads the last damaged sign as -i[n?]. Zeeb 2001: 462 reads it as -i¢. But cf. the names Nimina-Addu and Nim-Addu in Wiseman Alalakh 176 4'-5'. Two other names appearing in Wiseman Alalakh 176 (E¢lup-sarri and fDìn-Addu) appear in Wiseman Alalakh 378. r. 8': Following Dietrich and Loretz 2006: 130, although it is difficult to find a parallel for this meaning of sakànum (interpreted here as an impersonal use of the 3rd p. pl.). Zaccagnini 1979: 474 reads sa a+na DUGGAL›I.A ti! (TIM)-is-¢nuÜ, understanding the silver “to be used to manufacture one cup (in spite of the plural determinative ›I.A).”
Figure 1. Architectural Layout of Level VII, reproduced from Yener 2005: figure 4.27
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Bunnens, G. 1982. “Quelques aspects de la vie quotidienne au palais d’Alalakh d’après les listes de rations du niveau VII (XVIIIe/XVIIe s.).” In Vorträge gehalten auf der 28. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Wien, ed. H. Hirsch, pp. 72-84. AfO, Beiheft 19. Horn: Verlag Ferdinand Berger & Sohne Gesellschaft M. B. H. Collon, D. 1975. The Seal Impressions from Tell Atchana/Alalakh. AOAT 27. Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon & Bercker. von Dassow, E. 2008. State and Society in the Late Bronze Age: Alala¢ under the Mittani Empire. SCCNH 17. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press. Dietrich, M. and Loretz, O. 1993. “Der biblische Azazel und AlT *126,” UF 25:99-117. ———. 2004. “Alala¢-Texte der Schicht VII (I). Historische und juristiche Dokumente.” UF 26:43-150. ———. 2005. “Alala¢-Texte der Schicht VII (II). Schuldtexte, Vermerke und Sonstiges.” UF 37:241-314. ———. 2006. “Alala¢-Texte der Schicht VII (III). Die Listen der Gruppen ATaB 40, ATaB 42, ATaB 43 und ATaB 44.” UF 38:87-138. Durand, J.-M. (1986) “L’organisation de l’espace dans le palais de Mari: Le témoignage des textes.” In Le système palatial en Orient, Grèce et à Rome, ed E. Levy, pp. 39-110. Actes des Colloques du Centre 9. Strasbourg: Publications du Centre de Recherche sur le Proche-Orient et la Grèce Antiques. Gelb, I. J. 1980. Computer-aided Analysis of Amorite. AS 21. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Goetze, A. 1959. “Remarks on the Ration Lists from Alalakh VII.” JCS 13:34-38. van den Hout, T. 2005. “On the Nature of the Tablet Collections of Hattusa.” Studi micenei ed egeo-anatolici 47:277-289. Klengel, H. 1979. “Die Palastwirtschaft in Alala¢.” In State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Neat East, ed. P. Lipínski, pp. 435-457. OLA 6. Leuven: Departement Orientalistiek, Katholieke Universiteit. Marín, J. A. B. 2001. Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der Texte aus Syrien im 2. Jt. v. Chr. Rép. géogr. 12/2. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Mazar, A. 1992. “Temples in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and the Iron Age.” In The Architecture of Ancient Israel from the Prehistoric to the Persian Periods, ed. A. Kempinski and R. Reich, pp. 161-187. Jersusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Muller, S., Feith, J. A., and Fruin, R. 1968. Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives, trans. A. Leavitt. New York: The H. Wilson Company. Nahaman, N. 1980. “The Ishtar Temple at Alalakh.” JNES 39:209-214. Oliva Mompeán, J. 1998. “Neue Kollationen und Anmerkungen zu einigen Alala¢ VII-Texten.” UF 30:587-600. Streck, M. 2000. Das amurritische Onomastikon der altbabylonischen Zeit. AOAT 271/1. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Wiseman, D. 1953. The Alalakh Tablets. Occasional Publications of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara 2. London: The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. Woolley, C. L. 1955. Alalakh: An Account of the Excavations at Tell Atchana in the Hatay, 1937-1949. Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 18. Oxford: The Society of Antiquaries.
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Yener, K. A. 2005. “Alalakh Spatial Organization.” In The Amuq Valley Regional Projects, Volume 1: Surveys in the Plain of Antioch and Orontes Delta, Turkey, 19952002, ed. K. A. Yener, pp. 99-144. OIP 131. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Zaccagnini, C. 1979. “Notes on the Weight System at Alala¢ VII.” Or. NS 48:472475. Zeeb, F. 1991. “Tell Leilan und die Gründung des altbabylonischen Alala¢.” UF 23: 401-404. ———. 1992. “Studien zu den altbabylonischen Texten aus Alalah (II): Pfandurkunden.” UF 24:447-480. ———. 1993. “Studien zu den altbabylonischen Texten aus Alalah (III): Schuldabtretungsurkunden.” UF 25:461-472. ———. 1998. “Die Ortsnamen und geographischen Bezeichnungen der Texte aus Alalah VII.” UF 30:829-886. ———. 2001. Die Palastwirtschaft in Altsyrien nach den spätbabylonischen Getreidelieferlisten aus Alala¢ (Schicht VII). AOAT 282. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Zettler, R. 1987. “Sealings as Artifacts of Institutional Administration in Ancient Mesopotamia.” JCS 39:197-240.
ON THE WINGS OF LOVE MARINUS A. VAN DER SLUIJS Abstract A single passage in Hesiod’s Theogony describes Aphrodite’s abduction of Phaethon. At first glance, this Phaethon appears to have little in common with his namesake, who famously rode the chariot of the sun god for a day. Accordingly, various reputable scholars have treated them as two unrelated characters. This article argues that the underlying theme of apotheosis through catasterism—reinforced through comparison with ancient Near Eastern traditions—forges a link that allows for the ultimate unity of these divergent traditions concerning Phaethon.
Phaethon Abducted A well-known character in the colourful spectrum of classical mythology is the demigod Phaethon, son of Clymene and the sun god, Helius or Sol, who miserably failed to control the solar chariot of his father and came crashing down to earth, precipitating both his own death and a cosmic conflagration. The most familiar version of the myth is told enticingly in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca (5th century CE) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE), both of which were arguably dependent on a largely lost play by Euripides, entitled Phaethon (±420-416 BCE).1 That Phaethon may have been a latecomer in the panorama of Greek mythography is suggested by the notable absence of his myth from the works of Homer and Hesiod (8th or 7th century BCE). Puzzlingly, a single passage in Hesiod’s Theogony does mention a Phaethon, but the information given about this character is so different that one wonders if it actually refers to the same Phaethon: And Eos bare to Tithonus brazen-crested Memnon, king of the Ethiopians, and the Lord Emathion. And to Cephalus she bare a splendid son, strong Phaëthon, a man like the gods, whom, when he was a young boy in the 1 Nonn. Dion. 38; Ov. Met. 1. 750-2. 366; Eur. Phaeth., ed. Kannicht 2004: 798826; Collard et alii 1997: 195-239; Diggle 1970. A good overview of the textual history of the myth is given in Simon 1999: 23-28.
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marinus a. van der sluijs tender flower of glorious youth with childish thoughts, laughter-loving Aphrodite seized and caught up and made a keeper of her shrine by night, a divine spirit.2
Though he does not mention Phaethon by name, the Latin mythographer, Hyginus († 17 CE), in his book on astronomy, alluded to what is evidently the same story concerning the anonymous Aurorae et Cephali filium, “son of Aurora and Cephalus”, whose beauty rivalled that of Aphrodite: Some have said it [the star of Venus; MAS] represents the son of Aurora and Cephalus, who surpassed many in beauty, so that he even vied with Venus . . .3
Grinding a Christian axe, Clement of Alexandria († ±215 CE) and Arnobius of Sicca († ±330 CE) had no qualms in identifying Aphrodite’s interest in Phaethon as being of an erotic nature, on a par with her liaisons with Ares, Adonis, Anchises, and others: Yet these [the goddesses; MAS] are more passionately given to licentiousness, being fast bound in adultery; as, for instance, Eos with Tithonus, Selene with Endymion, Nereis with Aeacus, Thetis with Peleus, Demeter with Iasion and Persephone with Adonis. Aphrodite, after having been put to shame for her love of Ares, courted Cinyras, married Anchises, entrapped Phaëthon and loved Adonis.4 But now, as you have it, do only the males carry on loves and has the female sex preserved its chastity? Is it not vouched for in your writings that Tithonus was loved by Aurora; that the Moon burned with love for Endymion; the Nereid for Aeacus; Thetis for the father of Achilles; Proserpina for Adonis; her mother Ceres after some rustic Iasion; and after Vulcan, 2 Hes. Th. 984-991. “. . . a young boy in the tender flower of glorious youth” translates néon téren ánthos échont’ erikydéos h¶bès. 3 Hyg. Poet. astr. 2. 42, tr. Grant 1960: 227f., using certasse for “vied”. The reason why Hyginus omitted the name of this character is ostensibly that he had already assigned the name ‘Phaethon’—along with the story of the crash—to the planet Saturn in the same section, in keeping with the common practice of Hellenistic astronomy. Hyginus’ account apparently informed the following scholastic note: “Quartum sidus Veneris, Phosphoros colore albo, maior omnibus sideribus. . . . Est autem pes et caput, ob amorem ex Attice rapuit et cum eo concubuit. Ex hoc honoratus caelo . . .” Schol. Basileensia (9th century CE) on German. Arat. 43. 14-17, ed. Dell’Era 1979: 370. The puzzling phrase pes et caput, ‘foot and head’, may have resulted from a misreading of Greek Èous, ‘Èòs’, as Pous, ‘foot’, and of Kephálou, ‘of Cephalus’, as Kephalè, ‘head’, 1979: 370 note. Compare: “Veneris uero stellam . . . diCITVR fuisse Hesperum, Aurorae et Cephali filium, et ob pulchritudinem cum Venere certasse IN COITV. . . . Ad hanc enim, se uoluptatem HABERE CREDEBANT.” Schol. Strozziana on German. Arat. 46. 64-67, ed. Dell’Era 1979: 231. 4 Clem. Al. Protr. 2. 29.
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Phaethon, Mars, Venus herself, the mother of the sons of Aeneas and source of Roman domination, for marriage with Anchises?5
An anacreontic or short lyrical poem composed as a bridal song by John of Gaza (6th century CE), a Christian monk who was stationed in Palestine, appears to portray Aphrodite, identified with her usual epithets ‘the Cytherean’ and ‘Cypris’, as the bride of Phaethon: ‘. . . that the youthful Phaethon took care of the youthful Cytherean . . .’6 The goddess’ love affair with Phaethon has here clearly evolved into a marriage. The combined motifs of Phaethon’s handsomeness and abduction by a goddess are paralleled by a similar tradition transferred to his legendary father Cephalus.7 The earliest witness to this appears to be Euripides’ passage: “. . . Dawn, goddess of lovely light, once abducted Cephalus to heaven for love’s sake.”8 With a substitution of Hèméra, ‘day’, for Èòs, ‘dawn’, Pausanias (2nd century CE) relayed the legend in his description of the images of baked earthenware on the tiling of the Royal Portico in the Athenian suburb of Ceramicus, confirming that Phaethon was installed as phÿlaka . . . tou naou, ‘guardian of the temple’ of Aphrodite, but perhaps falsely attributing the tradition to Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women: . . . Day carrying away Cephalus, who they say was very beautiful and was ravished by Day, who was in love with him. His son was Phaëthon, . . . and made a guardian of her temple. Such is the tale told by Hesiod, among others, in his poem on women.9
5 Arn. Adv. nat. 4. 27, tr. McCracken 1949: 398. Potter (in 1949: 561 note 202) supposed that “Phaethon, referred to in this connection only by Clement and Arnobius, should possibly read Phaon”, but there is no evidence that the church fathers lacked access to Hesiod. 6 “hoti tèn néan Kythèrèn / Phaéthòn néos komízei”, John of Gaza, Carmina or Epithalamia, 3: Bridal Song for Anatolius Faustus, 5-6, ed. Bergk 1882: 344. Martin West (personal communication, 10th. December 2007) prefers to translate ‘new’ instead of ‘youthful’. 7 “There is an archaic tradition that features the Dawn Goddess Eos herself abducting young male mortals, and her motive is in part sexual . . . As for the abduction of Phaethon, again by Aphrodite, the precedent is built into the young hero’s genealogy: his father Kephalos had been abducted by his mother Eos . . .” Nagy 1979: 197. 8 Eur. Hipp. 454-455. Compare: “Herse had by Hermes a son Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off, and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon . . .” Apollod. Bibl. 3. 14. 3. 9 Hes. Fr. 375, ed. Merkelbach & West 1967: 182, apud Paus. 1. 3. 1. The Greek used for “very beautiful” is kálliston genómenón. The episode of Phaethon’s being “ravished” has the character of an insertion.
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In the extant passages cited above, the abducted Phaethon is not directly related to the Phaethon of the tragic incident with the solar chariot. On the surface, moreover, the story of Phaethon’s abduction by Aphrodite could hardly be more different from that of the dramatic fall from heaven, concomitant with a partial incineration of the earth. Is there any evidence, direct or circumstantial, that Hesiod was familiar with the ‘standard’ myth of Phaethon’s fall from the chariot of Helius? While Hyginus in his book on astronomy failed to name the “son of Aurora and Cephalus” and certainly did not associate him with the fall from heaven, two parallel accounts of the myth of Phaethon’s fall do occur in his other work, the Fabulae.10 The second of these, generally numbered 154, is curiously entitled Phaëton Hesiodi in the 1535 edition produced by the German philologist, Jacob Molsheim, Möltzer alias Micyllus,11 as if Hesiod had been the source of this tradition.12 Yet apart from the chapter heading, the only reference to Hesiod in Hyginus’ treatment of the myth of Phaethon’s fall is the following passage: The sisters of Phaethon, too, in grieving for their brother, were changed into poplar trees. Their tears, as Hesiod tells, hardened into amber; [in spite of the change] they are called Heliades [daughters of Helios]. They are, then, Merope, Helie, Aegle, Lampetie, Phoebe, Aetherie, Dioxippe.13
As the chapter headings did not originally belong to Hyginus’ work, the reference this title contained to Hesiod must have been extrapolated from the above restricted statement, which apparently attributed
10 Knaack (1884: 2179-2181) argued that these two accounts must originally have formed a unity, which some later editor distorted with a forced interpolation of the myth of Deucalion’s flood between the two. According to Gruppe (1886: 650), the two accounts merely represented two variations on the same legend, one authored by Hyginus, the other anonymous. 11 Hyg. Fab. 154, ed. Micyllus 1535: 6, 64; cf. ed. Rose 1934: 110; Marshall 1993: 132. In this narration of the myth, Hyginus (tr. Grant 1960: 124) appears to have converted Clymene into a male deity in a contrived attempt to reconcile two conflicting traditions regarding the identity of Phaethon’s mother: “Phaethon, son of Clymenus, son of Sol, and the nymph Merope . . .” Clÿmenos was a euphemistic epithet of Hades, Nagy 1990: 254. 12 “Hygin bezeichnet also ausdrücklich den Hesiod als seine Quelle für die ganze Fabel, nicht etwa bloss für einen einzelnen Zug derselben . . .” Robert 1883: 436. 13 Hyg. Fab. 154, tr. Grant 1960: 124-125.
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to Hesiod only the metamorphosis of the tears of Phaethon’s sisters into amber, not the entire myth.14 A similar fragment in an obscure work ascribed to a late grammarian, Lactantius Placidus (5th century CE), derives the same motif from both Hesiod and Euripides.15 But even a restricted statement concerning Phaethon’s sisters is nowhere found in Hesiod’s extant oeuvre, causing modern scholars to view this evidence from Hyginus and Lactantius with scepticism and to argue that it may have derived from Pliny’s attribution of the amber episode to Aeschylus († 456 BCE), Euripides, and others.16 Even so, it is doubtful that the aetiological myth of amber and the Heliads—as relayed in Aeschylus’ play the Heliads, for instance, and possibly in a lost fragment of Hesiod—ever existed independently from the full myth of Phaethon’s crash. Micyllus’ bold credits to Hesiod for the entire story of Phaethon’s fall may have been partly inspired by medieval traditions that directly and unambiguously made this connection. In his magisterial commentary on the works of Homer, Eustathius († 1198 CE), the archbishop of Thessalonica, offered the following comment on Clymene: ‘Yet Hesiod says that she had communed with Helius and gave birth to Phaethon.’17 Eustathius here attributes knowledge of the ‘solar’ Phaethon, who is the son of Clymene, to a passage in Hesiod that must—if genuine—by implication be different from the one
14 “It is disquieting to be told at the beginning that Hesiod is the author of the ensuing section and to be told in the middle that Hesiod is the author of a minor detail in that same section. The ascriptions are incompatible . . . The suprascription, it may be assumed, is a later addition prompted by the appearance of Hesiod’s name in the body of the narrative.” Diggle 1970: 22f., compare 17-19. 15 “sorores Phaethontis Phaethusa Lampetie Phoebe casum fratris cum deflent, deorum misericordia in arbores populos mutatae sunt. lacrimae earum, ut Hesiodus et Euripides . . . indicant, in electrum conversae sunt ac fluxisse dicuntur.” Hes. Fr. 311, ed. Merkelbach & West 1967: 162, apud Lact. Plac. Narr. Fab. 2. 2-3, ed. Munckerus 1681: 198. According to Collard et alii (1997: 198), this fragment is “an unconfident reconstruction from the narratives in Hyginus and the Aratus-scholia . . .” 16 “The story how, when Phaethon was struck by the thunderbolt, his sisters through their grief were transformed into poplar trees, and how every year by the banks of the River Eridanus, which we call the Po, they shed tears of amber . . . this story has been told by numerous poets, the first of whom, I believe, were Aeschylus, Philoxenus, Euripides, Nicander and Satyrus.” Plin. HN. 37. 11. 31. “Hesiodeam esse hanc fabulam non admodum certum est, cum auctor sit Plinius, N. H. XXXVII, 31, primos quos nouerit Aeschylum aliosque quos recenset illo iuniores poetas electrum dixisse e lacrimis Heliadum ortum.” Rose 1934: 110 note. 17 Hèsíodos dé phèsi promigènai aut∞n Hèlíòi kaì tekein Phaéthonta.” Hes. Fr. 387, ed. Merkelbach & West 1967: 185, apud Eust. Od. 1689. 1, ed. Stallbaum 1825: 421.
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identifying Èòs as his mother. Despite agreement that Eustathius’ commentaries were not original, but compiled from earlier texts, however, such a tradition cannot be traced back into classical times. In addition, Micyllus’ qualification may have been reinforced by a passage in the so-called Scholia Strozziana (14th century CE) on an emulation of Aratus’ Phaenomena attributed to Germanicus Caesar († 19 CE): Saturni NAMQVE sidus, a quo se tarditatem accipere opinabantur, Phaethontem Solis ET CLYMENAE filium esse dixerunt et quia paternos cursus affectans sibi atque mundo concremationis detrimenta conflIXERIT, ab Ioue fulmine percussus in Eridanum deciderit FLVVIVM (SICVT HESIODVS REFERT) et a Sole patre inter sidera collocatus.18
With substitution of Apollo, the sun god of the Imperial era, for Sol, the first part corresponds almost verbatim to a passage concerning Phaethon in the work of the African grammarian, Fabius Fulgentius (6th century CE): “Apollo is said, by making love to the nymph Clymene, to have sired Phaethon, who, aspiring to his father’s chariot, sparked off destruction by fire for himself and the earth.”19 The authenticity of the ascription to Hesiod in the second half—including the thunderbolt—is ruled out by the fact that this passage was excerpted word for word from the Scholia Sangermanensia (8th century CE, ultimately 3rd century CE?), that furnish no reference to Hesiod.20 The interspersion “SICVT HESIODVS REFERT ” may then have been based on an earlier passage in the Scholia Strozziana, according to which Hesiod, expatiating on the river Eridanus, identified Phaethon as the son of Sol and Clymene, who fell from the sky and drowned in this river, subsequently to be placed in the sky as a constellation along with Eridanus: HESIODVS AVTEM DICIT INTER ASTRA COLLOCATVM PROPTER PHAETHONTA, SOLIS ET CLYMENAE FILIVM, QVI CLAM DICITVR CVRRVM PATRIS ASCENDISSE CVMQVE A TERRA ALTIVS
18 19
Schol. Strozziana on German. Arat. 46. 47-52, ed. Dell’Era 1979: 231. Fulg. Myth. 1. 16 (49-50; 644-645), ed. Helm 1970: 27, tr. Whitbread 1971:
56. 20 Schol. Sangermanensia, 228. 18-22, ed. Breysig 1867: 174. Diggle’s argument (1970: 16-17, 25) that the attribution may have been lifted from the passage on the planet Venus in Hyginus’ astronomical treatise, as cited above, is unlikely considering that the scholiast links this statement to the planet Saturn, whilst retaining Hyginus’ treatment of ‘Hesperus, the son of Aurora and Cephalus’ in his discussion of Venus.
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LEVARETVR, PRAE TIMORE IN ERIDANVM FLVVIUM, QVI ET PADVS, CECIDISSE, EVMQVE PERCVSSVM FVLMINE A IOVE.21
As a reference to Hesiod is absent from Germanicus’ text as it is known today,22 it is clearly an insertion made by the scholiast— presumably during the 3rd century CE, when these scholia are thought to have been originally written. In doing so, one cannot rule out that the scholiast ultimately relied on a genuine fragment of Hesiod.23 Thus, while two 19th-century classicists, Carl Robert and Georg Knaack, positively deduced on the basis of this flimsy evidence that Hesiod was familiar with the myth of Phaethon’s fall,24 the jury is clearly still out on this matter. One or Two Phaethons? The question arises whether the kidnapped Phaethon, the son of Èòs and Cephalus, is entirely different, though coincidentally bearing the same name, from the fateful hero, son of Helius and Clymene, or whether the snippets reviewed so far present a ‘forgotten’ aspect of the mythos of the same hero. History of the Question Commentators have been divided over this issue. The dominant sentiment among philologists up until the second half of the 20th century was that Greek mythographers did at some point feel the two different strands of myth belonged to the prosopography of a single character. While Georg Knaack identified the two Phaethons,25 Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff separated them, arguing that 21
Schol. Strozziana on German. Arat. 40. 1-16, ad 366-378, ed. Dell’Era 1979:
222. 22 “. . . the River which wept over Phaethon, who, having lost control of his father’s horses, had fallen into its waters, Jupiter’s flames issuing from his wound. His sisters, forming a new forest, and sorrowing over their arms, unknown to them before, also mourned him. Eridanus flows in the middle of the gleaming stars.” German. Arat. 363-368, tr. Gain 1976: 62-63. “The allusion to Phaethon’s fall into the river is as concise as it can possibly be. . . . He alludes to the two most important events relevant to the catasterism myth, the remnant of the river . . . left by Phaethon’s flaming corpse, and the mourning of the Heliades . . .” Possanza 2004: 152. 23 “We cannot prove that the compiler of the S Strozziana did not somewhere find authority for his attribution of the catasterism to Hesiod . . .” Diggle 1970: 25. 24 Robert 1883: 436; 1878: 214-218; Knaack, in Gruppe 1886: 647f. 25 Knaack, in Gruppe 1886: 647-649.
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Euripides was the first to combine the originally separate myths of Phaethon’s abduction, told by Hesiod, and his fateful ride, more widely known.26 Pierre Grelot knew of only one Phaethon, but regarded the Phaethon of the solar chariot as a late literary development of Hesiod’s Phaethon.27 More recently, Martin West, Neil Forsyth, John Poirier and others have all assumed a relationship of some sort between the two different Phaethons.28 In the opposite camp, Hyginus was probably the first mythologist to differentiate between the two, associating each with a different planet. A scholium in two 15th-century manuscripts of Hesiod’s Theogony remarks that the Phaethon who was born of Cephalus and Èòs must have been another one than the son of Helius, who caused the fire.29 The Jesuit savant, Franz Kugler, opted for a complete differentiation of Hesiod’s Phaethon and the Phaethon known from the poetry of Ovid and Nonnus throughout.30 And in agreement with this, James Diggle pointed out that Hesiod’s Phaethon “is unconnected with our Phaethon, and the attempts which have been made to identify him with the charioteer are misguided . . . It remains doubtful whether Hesiod so much as mentioned the story of Phaethon . . . On the evidence available to us the son of Helios and the son of Eos and Cephalus must be pronounced entirely different persons. There is neither the means nor the necessity of reconciling them.”31 However, the last word on the subject has not yet been said. In mythology, literary sources are seldom entirely consistent with each other for the simple reason that the actual organic development of the mythological tradition takes place outside the literary domain, 26 “. . . dass Euripides nicht sowohl eine neue Sage erfunden, als Phaethon den Sohn der Eos mit Phaethon dem Sohne des Helios contaminirt hat. . . . Phaethon, der Sohn des Helios, ist mit dem Sohne des Kephalos seiner Natur nach schlechterdings nicht zu identificiren; es liegt hier wirklich einmal eine, bei dem durchsichtigen und wenig bezeichnenden Namen leicht erklärliche Homonymie vor . . .” Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff 1883: 416, 426, cf. 433. 27 Grelot 1956: 31f. 28 Forsyth 1987: 133 note 33; West 1997: 476f.; Poirier 1999: 380f. note 39. 29 “Kephálòi: tòi dè Kephálòi éteken hè ȱs tòn Phaéthonta. héteros dè Phaéthòn estí: pròtos ho tou Hèlíou, aph’ou hè ekpÿròsis egéneto.” schol. Hes. Th. 986-989, ed. Di Gregorio 1975: 120f. 30 “. . . auch scheint mir Phaëthon II (Sohn des Helios und der Klymene) von Phaëthon I (Sohn der Eos und des Kephalos)—gegen Knaack—getrennt werden zu müssen”, Kugler 1927: 37. 31 Diggle 1970: 4, 15; compare: “Hesiod mentions such a person in the Theogony, but as a son of Eos and Kephalos snatched away by Aphrodite, and thus presumably a different figure altogether . . .” Gantz 1993: 31.
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in the oral realm. The disparate and incoherent character of the snippets of the Phaethon myth encountered in the extant versions does not necessarily testify to ‘different Phaethons’, but simply to the evolving reception and disintegration of what may once have been or become a single myth. At best, the textual evidence at our disposal amounts to a set of ‘fossilised’ snapshots of a living and developing tradition. The challenge of the ‘historical mythologist’ is to try and identify conceptual ‘bridges’ or points of agreement between the respective versions that could support the idea that some Greek mythographers recognised only one Phaethon in both myths, either at the inception or at a later stage of the literary chain of ‘Phaethon’ mythology. Two lines of reasoning strongly suggest that the myths of Phaethon’s abduction and of his fall from heaven did originally belong to a single myth cycle associated with a single Phaethon, which could perhaps have been known as such to Hesiod. A Shared Solar Aspect As a first consideration, the two Phaethons are both independently qualified as exponents of solar mythology. The solar connection is most pronounced in the story of Phaethon’s catastrophic accident with the chariot of his father, the sun god. That this Phaethon was effectively portrayed as an ephemeral substitute of the sun is underscored by the repeated usage of phaéthòn, ‘radiant’, as an epithet of the sun both by Homer and Hesiod.32 An implicit association with the rising of the sun is embedded in Hesiod’s designation of the abducted Phaethon as a son of Èòs, the dawn. Significantly, drawing in comparative material from the ancient Near East, Isaiah presented the West Semitic god Hèlèl—hurled down from the sky as a consequence of hybris—as b\n-sà˙ar or ‘son of the dawn’.33 On the common assumption that the myth of Phaethon’s fall was borrowed from a Near Eastern source,34 the myth of Hèlèl as offered 32 The title èélios phaéthòn occurs in Hom. Il. 11. 735-736; Od. 5. 479; 11. 16; 19. 441; 22. 388; Hymn. Hom. Hel. 31. 2; Hes. Th. 760; Orph. Fr. 238. 8-11 (152), apud Macrob. Sat. 1. 18. 22; Nonn. Dion. 38. 19, 52, 308; Val. Fl. Arg. 3. 236238 (212-213); Sil. Pun. 11. 369-372; Verg. Aen. 5. 104-107; cf. Diggle 1970: 4. 33 Isaiah 14. 12-16. 34 Gunkel (1895: 133f.) was perhaps the first to propose a relationship between Hèlèl and Phaethon, followed by Grelot (1956: 30, 38); cf. Schmidt 1951: 167; Loretz 1976: 133; Forsyth 1987: 126-139; Watson 1995: 747. Astour (1965: 268f., 273; cf. West 1997: 476) was adamant that the name, image, and myth of Phaethon
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by Isaiah forms a striking bridge between the two aspects of Phaethon considered here, especially if Sa˙ar’s sex had been conceived as feminine, as McKay has demonstrated.35 As an additional reflection of Phaethon’s association with the sunrise, both Hesiod and the narrators of Phaethon’s fall relate Phaethon in some way to Ethiopia as the legendary land of the east. Hesiod’s introduction of “brazencrested Memnon, king of the Ethiopians” as the step-brother of Phaethon arguably implies a general ‘family relationship’ to Ethiopia. This is matched by pronouncements of Euripides, followed by Ovid, that identify Ethiopia as the place of Phaethon’s youth,36 while the obscure historian, Chares of Mytilene (4th century BCE), apparently located Phaethon’s tomb in an Ethiopian temple of Ammon: “. . . Chares states that Phaethon died in Ethiopia on an island the Greek name of which is the Isle of Ammon, and that here is his shrine and oracle, and here the source of amber.”37 all trace back to West Semitic mythology. McKay (1970: 453-456) argued the reverse, that the myth of Hèlèl was based on that of Phaethon. Implausibly, Grelot (1956: 31f.) argued that the motifs of hybris and the fall were secondary developments that occurred independently in Isaiah’s Vorlage and the myth of Phaethon. Etz (1986: 297 note 18) dismissed Phaethon as a weak parallel to Hèlèl, presumably because his agenda was to prove that Isaiah’s report of Hèlèl was based on a contemporary observation of the sky. Meanwhile, the argument for a Levantine provenance of the myth of Phaethon does not solely rest on comparative mythological analysis, but is curiously reinforced by the remainder of Apollodorus’ (Bibl. 3. 14. 3) passage cited above: “. . . Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off, and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon, who had a son Astynous, who had a son Sandocus, who passed from Syria to Cilicia and founded a city Celenderis, and having married Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, begat Cinyras.” While ‘Cinyras’ is the undisputed Greek equivalent of the Ugaritic deity Kinnâr, the ‘lyre’ (Albright 1968: 144 and note 91), ‘Sandocus’ resembles Hebrew qwdx Íàdòq, ‘righteous one’, a priestly title sometimes rendered Saddouk with long d in Greek; the nasalisation of the consonant cluster through dissimilation is not out of the ordinary in the northwest Semitic language group, being demonstrably systematic and productive in Imperial Aramaic (±600-±200 BCE; Garr 2007) and with possible examples in Punic (K. Jongeling, personal communication 17th. December 2007). 35 McKay 1970: 453-456. 36 Euripides’ Phaethon takes place before the palace of Phaethon’s assumed, legal father—Merops, king of Ethiopia, “at the eastern edge of the world bounded by the river Oceanus (109), close to the house and stables from which Helios the sun-god daily drives his chariot across the heaven . . .”, Collard et alii 1997: 196. Compare: “Phaëthon leaps up in joy at his mother’s words, already grasping the heavens in imagination; and after crossing his own Ethiopia and the land of Ind lying close beneath the sun, he quickly comes to his father’s rising-place.” Ov. Met. 1. 776. 37 Chares of Mytilene, Fr. 3, apud Plin. HN. 37. 11. 32-33. “This passage is our only authority for the existence of a shrine of Phaethon anywhere in the
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Euripides’ Hymenaeus Secondly, an arguably conclusive proof for a link between Hesiod’s Phaethon and the fallen Phaethon is contained in an extant fragment of Euripides’ Phaethon. In the preceding and largely missing parts of the narrative, Phaethon would have fled to the dwelling of his ‘natural’ father, Helius, in a bid to escape from the marriage his legal father, Merops, the king of Ethiopia, had arranged for him. As Phaethon’s smouldering corpse lies concealed in Merops’ treasury, presumably following its retrieval from the Eridanus, the king enters in cheerful anticipation of the wedding and a chorus of girls sing the customary marriage hymn in honour of the goddess Aphrodite: Hymen hymen! We sing the heavenly daughter of Zeus, the mistress of passions, her who brings maidens to marriage, Aphrodite. Mistress, for you I sing this wedding song, Cypris fairest of goddesses, and for your newlyyoked child whom you hide in heaven, offspring of your marriage; you who preside over the marriage of the great king of this city, a ruler who is dear to the starry palace of gold, Aphrodite. O blessed man, O king greater than ever in felicity, who will marry a goddess and be hymned the whole world over the only mortal to be kinsman to the immortals.38
Ritual hymns sung on occasion of marriages for Aphrodite, the patroness of love and marriage, apparently formed the original Sitz im Leben of this passage. The Greek term for these hymns, hyménaios, derives from Hymen or Hymenaeus, the deity of marriage, whom disparate and highly fragmentary sources describe as an exquisitely handsome youth,39 the son of Apollo and one of the Muses,40 or of Dionysus and Aphrodite,41 who was “seized by Fate, world. Nor is there any allusion to a cult of Phaethon . . .” Diggle 1970: 45 and note 2. According to Diggle, Chares was not referring to the oasis of Siwa in Libya, but to the ‘insula’ of Meroe, which also featured a temple of Zeus-Hammon. Yet compare Pliny’s report (37. 11. 38) of a pool with amber-shedding trees near Libya: “Theomenes tells us that close to the Greater Syrtes is the Garden of the Hesperides and a pool called Electrum, where there are poplar trees from the tops of which amber falls into the pool, and is gathered by the daughters of Hesperus.” 38 Eur. Phaeth., Fr. 781 (227-244), ed. Kannicht 2004: 817-818; Collard et alii 1997: 216-219, tr. Diggle 1970: 149, compare 43, 65f. The Greek for “your newlyyoked child whom you hide in heaven” is tòi te neózygi sòi / pòlòi tòn en aithéri krÿpteis . . . 39 Serv. Aen. 4. 99; Buc. 8. 30; Eust. Il. 277; Vat. Myth. 2. 219; 3. 11. 3. 40 Sauer (1886: 2800) and Jolles (1914: 127) list sources for Hymenaeus’ descent from Calliope, Clio, Urania, or Terpsichore respectively. 41 Serv. Aen. 4. 127; Vat. Myth. 3. 11. 2; Sauer 1886: 2800; Jolles 1914: 128.
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when first he lay with another in wedlock”,42 or otherwise disappeared on his wedding night.43 The hymn indicates that this character was the génna, “offspring”, of Aphrodite’s marriage and was transferred by her to the sky: “. . . your newly-yoked child whom you hide in heaven, offspring of your marriage . . .”44 The wedding song evidently meant to symbolically identify the bridegroom—particularly if he was royal—with the youthful Hymenaeus as the consummator of a celestial and incestuous hieròs gámos with Aphrodite. As the “newly-yoked child” mentioned in the hymn would personify Hymenaeus, his bride Aphrodite—perhaps thought to be incarnate in his mortal bride—would symbolically appropriate him to herself with the tying of the knot. Mythologically, Hymenaeus’ translation to heaven arguably implied a dalliance with Aphrodite along the lines of the goddess’ impressive string of other mortal lovers. The significance of this hymn in Euripides’ play must be that Euripides’ chorus sung these lines in order to compare Phaethon’s fate to that of Hymenaeus.45 But how far did the comparison extend? Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff hesitatingly propounded the idea that Aphrodite would have been Phaethon’s intended bride,46 a possibility rebutted at length by Diggle; she would neither have been Phaethon’s mother nor could she ever be thought to marry any of
42
Pind. Fr. 3. 7-8 (139), ed. Maehler 1989: 114. Serv. Aen. 1. 651 (and apud Vat. Myth. 2. 219; 3. 11. 3); 4. 127; Buc. 8. 30; Procl. Chrest. apud Phot. Bibl. 239. 20-22 (321a); Eust. Il. 277; Sauer 1886: 2800; Jolles 1914. 44 Collard et alii 1997: 235. 45 “We must at the same time appreciate that this entire wedding song to Aphrodite and Hymen is being sung in honor of Phaéthòn, and that his brideto-be is in all probability a daughter of the Sun.” Nagy 1979: 200. Collard et alii (1997: 216-219, 235) proposed that the king addressed in the hymn is Merops, who is blessed to marry out his son Phaethon: “While the bridegroom must be Phaethon, only Merops can be great king, whether or not he intends to share power with Phaethon after the wedding . . .” Collard et alii 1997: 235 note 236239. However, the corresponding translation of the final lines (1997: 216-219) seems forced: “You will be marriage-kin to a goddess and be sung throughout the boundless earth as the only mortal father of a groom for immortals.” If the hymn was based on ancient Near Eastern prototypes sung on occasion of the hieròs gámos, the address is perhaps better seen as a textual relic of the actual king’s role in the ritual union with a veritable goddess. Surely Aphrodite only serves as “patroness of the marriage” through a symbolic marriage with the bridegroom, impersonating the bride? 46 “Aphrodite als Braut löst überhaupt die Räthsel des Dramas.” Von WilamowitzMöllendorff 1883: 413. 43
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her mortal paramours.47 For Diggle, the “newly-yoked child whom you hide in heaven” was Hymenaeus and Phaethon’s only connection to the hymn was the fact that he—as “the great king of this city” in spe?—was about to marry someone, perhaps one of the Heliads.48 Other scholars at least allow for a symbolic marriage of Phaethon to Aphrodite, calling for a closer symmetry between Hymenaeus and Phaethon. The word pòlos, ‘child’, actually means ‘colt’. As such, Hymenaeus’ role as Aphrodite’s ‘newly-yoked colt’49 cannot be separated from Homer’s qualification of—a third?— Phaethon as one of the horses of Èòs,50 employing the same word for ‘horse’. “In the dramatic context, the ‘hiding away’ of the newyoked colt makes it impossible not to think of Phaethon, whose corpse is, as we know, hidden away in the treasure chamber. More important, Phaethon has been described, perhaps more than once, as himself a new-yoked colt; and it was precisely Merops’ attempt to yoke him in marriage that led to his yoking of the Sun’s chariot . . .”51 If Euripides meant to portray the ‘thunderstruck’ Phaethon, standing in for Hymenaeus, as Aphrodite’s latest acquisition, a striking parallel emerges with Hesiod’s intimation that the handsome Phaethon was made “a keeper” of Aphrodite’s “shrine”. Hesiod placed so much emphasis on the youth of the abducted Phaethon, who was “a young boy in the tender flower of glorious youth with childish thoughts”, that the link with the juvenile Hymenaeus can hardly be coincidental. Consequently, at least to Euripides’ mind, the Phaethon that fell down from the sky was identical with the Phaethon united in marriage with Aphrodite.52
47
Diggle 1970: 156-160; Collard et alii 1997: 198 Diggle 1970: 158f., followed uncritically by Kannicht 1972: 9 and more critically, but still in principle, by Lloyd-Jones 1971: 342 49 Nagy (1979: 200; cf. 1990: 250) translates: “O Kypris, most beautiful of gods! /— and also to your newly yoked / pôlos [horse], the one you hide in the aether, / the offspring of your wedding.” 50 Athene “stayed golden-throned Dawn at the streams of Oceanus, and would not let her yoke her swift-footed horses that bring light to men, Lampus and Phaethon, who are the colts that pull Dawn’s chariot.” Hom. Od. 23. 244-246. 51 Reckford 1972: 424. 52 Condemning Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff’s allegation that the chorus “shrewdly put two and two together and remembering their Hesiod (pp. 10f.) draw the sensible conclusion that the bride has spirited her husband away to heaven”, Diggle (1970: 157) suppressed the similarity of the hymn to Hesiod’s passage concerning Phaethon, restricting its relevance to the obscure mythology of Hymen without explaining why the chorus would have compared Hymen to Phaethon if not for 48
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If Phaethon, while marrying Aphrodite, counted as her “offspring”, how does Aphrodite’s role as ‘mother’ compare to Èòs’? In a sense, Hesiod contrasted Èòs, Phaethon’s ‘natural’ mother, with Aphrodite as his ‘adoptive’ mother, taking him into her ‘sanctuary’. Diggle’s objection that Aphrodite could not possibly have been regarded as either Phaethon’s bride or his mother53 is weakened by Nagy’s elegant demonstration of the goddess’ double, incestuous role in relation to her mortal lover.54 Coupled with Hesiod’s designation of Èòs as the mother of Phaethon, Nagy’s analysis leads to the conclusion that Èòs and Aphrodite were merely different manifestations of the same goddess. “From the comparative evidence of the Rig-Veda, we might have expected Eos to be both the mother and the consort of a solar figure like Phaethon. Instead, the Hesiodic tradition assigns Aphrodite as consort of Phaethon, while Eos is only his mother . . . We may infer that the originally fused functions of mating with the consort and being reborn from the mother were split and divided between Aphrodite and Eos respectively. However, such a split leaves Phaethon as son of Eos simply by birth rather than by rebirth.”55 “. . . the Hesiodic tradition seems to have split the earlier fused roles of mother and consort and divided them between Eos and Aphrodite respectively. This way, the theme of incest could be neatly obviated.”56 “From the standpoint of comparative analysis, then, Aphrodite is a parallel of Eos in epic diction. Furthermore, from the standpoint of internal analysis, Aphrodite is a parallel of Eos in epic theme.”57 This conclusion
the very motif of the lad’s abduction by Aphrodite. Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff ’s (1883: 416, 433) hypothesis that Euripides was the first to weave the originally independent characters of the abducted Phaethon and the ‘solar’ Phaethon together lacks proof. 53 Diggle 1970: 159. 54 “On the level of celestial dynamics, these associations imply the theme of a setting sun mating with the goddess of regeneration so that the rising sun may be reborn . . . if the setting sun is the same as the rising sun, then the goddess of regeneration may be viewed as both mate and mother.” Nagy 1979: 198; 1990: 246, compare 250. Note also that the hero’s twofold role as the goddess’ son and lover has parallels in ancient Near Eastern mythology, including Istar’s union with Tammuz and Cybele’s union with Atthis. 55 Nagy 1979: 200f. 56 Nagy 1990: 248f. However, incest does not need to have been the real motivation for the split, as the Greeks do not seem to have been particularly concerned with incest among the gods. 57 Nagy 1990: 248.
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also throws a sharper light on the parallel scenes of abduction associated with both goddesses.58 If Euripides’ actors compared the dead Phaethon, come down from the sky, to Hymen as Aphrodite’s adoptive son and prospective bridegroom, it seems safe to conclude that Euripides recognised only one Phaethon, but was this a reconciliatory fabrication, as Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff had argued, or an accurate reflection of earlier versions of the myth? The latter possibility is suggested by the fact that, even though Hesiod may never have elucidated the account of Phaethon’s fall, his portrayal of Phaethon as a ‘son of Dawn’ suggests ultimate dependence on the Canaanite mythology of Hèlèl, son of Sà˙ar, who did descend from the highest heaven to hell. Yet the hypothesis of a single Phaethon requires further clarification of the way mythographers would have linked Phaethon’s fall with his marriage to Aphrodite. A closer examination of the narrative type detectable in the story of Phaethon’s abduction may shed light on this issue. Phaethon’s Apotheosis in the Light of Comparable Traditions from the Ancient Near East Adopting a Jungian approach, Reckford understood the union of Phaethon and Aphrodite implied by Euripides as representative of the youth’s ‘loss of innocence’ both if he would have married according to plan and through his death, in his attempt to avoid the marriage.59 Perhaps closer to the tragedian’s conscious intentions is Nagy’s masterful and irrefragable demonstration that Aprodite’s seizure of Phaethon belongs to the wider mythological genre of the apotheosis of a hero. Although Hesiod does not say it with so many words, what is being described is essentially Phaethon’s premature death and the status of immortality conferred upon him by the goddess.60 The epithet daímòn in particular, bestowed here on 58 Analogous to Aphrodite’s numerous affairs, Èòs is on record abducting Orion (Hom. Od. 5. 121), Clitus (15. 250), Cephalus (Hes. Th. 986), and Tithonus (Hymn. Hom. Aphr. 5. 218-227), and Attic vases show winged Dawn carrying off a young man, Brown 1995: 111f. 59 Reckford 1972: 425. 60 “. . . the story about Aphrodite and Phaethon (Hesiod Theogony 986-991) presents yet another pattern, that of abduction/death followed by preservation.” Nagy 1990: 252. “From the standpoint of myth, he is explicitly dead, but from the standpoint of cult, he is implicitly reborn and thus alive.” 1990: 253.
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Phaethon, implied divine preservation: “The designation of Phaethon as daímòn also conveys the immortal aspect of the hero in his afterlife, since it puts him in the same category as the Golden Generation, who are themselves explicitly daímones . . .”61 Through abduction, Aphrodite killed but simultaneously resuscitated Phaethon.62 On a ritual level, this ‘heroisation’ at the hands of the goddess will have been expressed through “the practice of burying the priestking in the temple of his god”, whom he represented and “where he received worship as a hero. . . . In Euripides’ play, this took place on the day of Phaethon’s marriage to a goddess (we do not know who . . .). This must have been the reason for his consecration to Aphrodite. . . . Aphrodite may have appeared at the end of the play and instructed that Phaethon’s remains should be laid in her temple.”63 Both ancient Greek and Near Eastern mythology are replete with other Phaethon-like tragedies in which some winsome mortal youth is adored, adopted, immortalised and not infrequently also employed by a voluptuous goddess.64 Erechtheus and Cinyras were commemorated as priestly servants of respectively Athena and Aphrodite,65 while Demeter attempted to immortalise the young Demophon by means of a fiery ritual en megárois or in her own “mansion”.66 Another possible parallel is furnished by the mythology of the so-called ‘Tyrian Heracles’, a segment of Heracles traditions that was in all likelihood based on the cult of the Tyrian god Melqart, the consort of Astarte. In his capacity as one of the dwarf-like Dactyls, Heracles is reported to have served as ‘doorkeeper’ in the sanctuary of Demeter, near a town on Boeotia.67 Though present knowledge does not permit a connection with these temple duties, Heracles—in the tragic culmination of his career—was also granted apotheosis, through his self-immolation on a funeral pyre on the 61 Nagy 1979: 191. Rohde (in Nagy 1979: 191 note 3) mistakenly assumed that Phaethon’s abduction did not involve death. 62 “As with the myth of Aphrodite and Phaethon, the myths of Eos too are marked by the design of making the hero immortal.” Nagy 1979: 197. 63 West 1966: 428. “Phaethon becomes a daimon himself, but is subordinate to Aphrodite as her temple-keeper.” 64 Astour 1965: 258f. 65 Erechtheus: Hom. Il. 2. 546-551; cf. Nagy 1979: 192. Cinyras: Pind. Pyth. 2. 15-17. 66 Hymn. Hom. Dem. 236-241. While Aphrodite appears to have succeeded with Phaethon, however, Demeter’s efforts failed. 67 Paus. 9. 19. 5; compare 9. 27. 8; 8. 31. 1, 3; Cic. Nat. D. 3. 42 (16).
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summit of Mount Oeta, a type of death reminiscent of the cremation of Homer’s heroes.68 As archaeologists have discovered, this myth corresponded to a ritual festival during which cult figurines representing Heracles were subjected to a fire atop Oeta.69 This aspect of Heracles’ cult—both the myth and the rite of the bonfire— was probably directly inspired by the Phoenician worship of Melqart,70 who experienced a ritual égersis or ‘awakening’ during an annual festival in Spring.71 The analogy of Heracles’ fiery way to attain bliss with Hesiod’s abducted Phaethon especially springs to light in a tradition that, following Heracles’ death atop Oeta, Hera adopted him as her son, thus also in a sense ‘rejuvenating’ him.72. Despite vivid scholarly debate, it would seem straightforward to conclude that Heracles’ name, which almost certainly means ‘glorious through Hera’, had originated as an epithet, earned by Hera’s efforts in securing Heracles a place of fame among the immortals on Olympus.73 This inference is strengthened by vestigial indications that a form of Heracles not only served as Hera’s adopted son, but also as her servile partner in matrimony,74 as seen in a sacred marriage rite that was apparently celebrated on the island of Cos and perhaps
68 Sil. Pun. 3. 43-44; Soph. Phil. 726-728; Arn. Adv. nat. 1. 36. 5; Herod. 7. 198; Serv. Aen. 8. 300; Buc., 8. 30. “Herakles is the only Greek hero who, at the end of his mortal life, was elevated to the company of immortals on Mount Olympus . . .” Shapiro 1983: 9; compare Burkert 1985: 210. 69 Shapiro 1983: 15; Croon 1956: 212; Nilsson 1932: 205. 70 Lucian D. Syr. 3, tr. Lightfoot 2003: 248f., 294f.; Seyrig 1953: 8-11 (69-72); Goldman 1949: 167f.; Shapiro 1983: 13f. 71 Menander of Ephesus (2nd century BCE), Fr. 783 F1, apud Joseph. Ant. Jud. 8. 146 (5. 3); cf. Ps.-Clem. Rec. 10. 24. Nonnus (Dion. 40. 398) invoked the same deity, Astrochítòn Heraklès, along with a list of other syncretistic names for the sun god, as he who “Having lost his old age in fire . . . obtains in exchange his youth”. 72 Diod. Sic. 4. 39. 2. The theme of Heracles’ acquisition of immortality through marriage with Hèbè must have been known as early as the 8th or 7th century BCE, as it informs Hom. Od. 11. 601-604; Hes. Th. 950-955. 73 On this vexing subject, see Suhr 1953: 258; Pötscher 1970: 170-173; Farnell 1921: 100; Kretschmer 1917. On the basis of Dumézil’s (1983: 123-144) work, Nagy (1979: 303) observed “that the suckling of Hèrakléès by H¶¶rà after his birth (Diodorus Siculus 4.9.6) and the adoption of Herakles by Hera after his death (Diodorus 4.39.2-3) are themes of beneficence that complement the prevalent themes of her maleficence towards this h¶¶ròs ‘hero’, and that together these themes of beneficence/maleficence constitute the traditional epic theme embodied in the very name of Hèrakléès ‘he who has the kléos of H¶¶rà’.” 74 Tümpel 1891: 617, cf. 619, seconded by Cook 1906: 370f.; Harrison 1927: 491; Pötscher 1970.
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also at Argos.75 In traditions such as these, Demeter, Hera or some other goddess like Asteria76 relates to Heracles in the same way as Aphrodite to Phaethon, the handsome mortal fulfilling the archetypal function of a subservient and adopted son-lover in a hieròs gámos of matrifocal type.77 Finally, according to a tradition recorded at a late time, Esmounos, a Greek reflection of the Phoenician god Esmun, was a ‘very handsome youth’ who castrated himself in order to escape the attention of Astronoe, ‘mother of the gods’. Resembling Aphrodite’s activities concerning Phaethon, the goddess then turned her lover into a deity epì tèi thérmèi zòès, ‘on account of his vital heat’, as he emitted pol_y phòs, a ‘bright light’.78 Such comparative material suggests that Phaethon’s abduction by Aphrodite was a mythological expression of his death and apotheosis through ‘adoption’.79 The mythical type reflected or fed into a popular custom to bury the dead at night: “In classical Athens the funeral was conducted at night, partly from a reluctance to pollute 75
Cook 1906: 372, 377; Kerényi 1978: 127; compare Suhr 1953: 258. At Philadelphia in the Decapolis, Heracles’ partner was Asteria, ‘starry one’. Seyrig (1953: 19 (80)) suspected that this tradition was an interpretatio Graeca of the Phoenician pair Melqart and Astarte. 77 If, for argument’s sake, the marriage hymn for Hymen and Aphrodite had originated as a Greek translation of a Phoenician hymn to Melqart and Astarte, the puzzling address to tòn mégan tasde póleòs basilè, “the great king of this city”, would receive an elegant explanation in the etymology of Melqart’s name: Milkqart, ‘king of the city’ (though note Brown 1995: 120), by which the underworld is originally thought to have been intended. 78 Dam. Isid. apud Phot. Bibl. 242. 302-303 (352b). The motif of emasculation is absent from the myth of Phaethon, but echoes an earlier version of what must be a variant of the same story; in this (Lucian D. Syr. 19-27), a ‘very handsome young man’ called Kombábos is charged with the task of building a temple for the queen Stratonice—in whom some scholars see a cipher for the goddess Istar or Astarte (Astour 1965: 258; Lipi…ski 1971: 20f.; Goossens 1943: 45; but see Lightfoot 2003: 390)—but castrates himself lest he become implicated in her adulterous desires. The description of Kombabos must have drawn upon the kÿbèbos or ‘devotee of Cybebe’, the goddess of Carchemish, or on the Babylonian ogre ›umbaba, who was the custodian of “the Mountain of Cedar, seat of gods and goddesses’ throne” (The Gilgames Epic, Standard Version, 5. 6, tr. George 1999: 39) in the earliest versions, and the “warder of a goddess’s shrine” more specifically in later versions such as the version from Nineveh, where he serves in the sanctuary of Irnini, a hypostasis of Istar, Lightfoot 2003: 391f.; Goossens 1943: 36, 43 note 4. 79 Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff’s suggestion that Aphrodite was Phaethon’s intended bride requires either that this marriage never materialised due to Phaethon’s premature death or that it was accomplished precisely through his death. Only the latter possibility is viable in view of the present argument. 76
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the day and the living, partly to confirm the release of the soul at dawn. It was natural to express the reason for the practice in mythological terms, that Eos the Dawn carried off the dead ‘on the wings of the morning’, and to motivate the event by simple sexual attraction or love.”80 As the Stoic philosopher, Heraclitus (1st century CE) clarified: Quand mourait un jeune homme à la fois de noble famille et de grande beauté, on nommait par euphémisme son cortège funèbre, dans le jour naissant, « enlèvement par Héméra »: comme s’il n’était point mort, mais qu’une amoureuse passion l’eût fait ravir. On dit cela d’après Homère.81
Phaethon’s Astral Aspect Aphrodite as the Planet Venus The analysis presented so far does not quite constitute the full picture; a vital element of the myth has so far evaded detection. When probing into the typological character of the myth of Phaethon’s adoption, the astral import of the story appears unassailable. According to Hesiod himself, Aphrodite appointed Phaethon as “a keeper of her shrine by night, a divine spirit.” Following a scholastic variant variously attributed to Archilochus, Archelaus or Aristarchus, a number of notable authorities have preferred to read mÿchion, “inward, inmost”,82 instead of nÿchion, ‘nocturnal, nightly’,83 as if Aphrodite’s act had merely consisted in the youngster’s concealment.84 If the unproblematic and generally attested lection may 80 Vermeule 1981: 163, who offers a detailed discussion of related imagery revolving around Eros, the Harpies, and the Sphinx. 81 Her. Hom. All. 68. 5-6, tr. Buffière 1989: 73. In this passage, “ravir” translates èrpagØn and Héméra is the goddess of Day. 82 archélochos dè gráphei mÿchion, hoion en tòi mychòi, en tòi adÿtòi prophaínonta tèi Kÿpròi, schol. Hes. Th. 991, ed. Di Gregorio 1975: 121, with variants listed in the note. For Aristarchus, an Alexandrinian scholar of Homer, see Nagy 2004: passim; Liddell & Scott 1968: 1157 s. v. ‘mÊxiow’. 83 In general meaning ‘nightly’, Greek nÿchios in this specific passage speaks “of persons, doing a thing by night”, Liddell & Scott 1996: 1186 s. v. ‘nÊxiow’. 84 For West (1966: 428), the place where the hero was thus ‘hidden’ was his allotment in the goddess’ temple: “The hero has his own corner of the temple, where he is buried. . . . He is there all the time, not only at night.” Compare (1988: 32): “Aphrodite . . . made him her closet servant in her holy temple . . .” Nagy (1979: 191) interpreted mÿchion as meaning ‘underground’, in the sense of an “undisturbed corner plot, mukhós, of Aphrodite’s precinct (hence múkhios at Th. 991)”: “And she made him an underground temple attendant, a dîos daímòn, in her holy temple.” Later (1990: 254), he modified this statement to
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be given the benefit of the doubt, Phaethon’s transformation into a nèopólon nÿchion, a ‘nightly temple keeper’, “un guardien des nuits”85 or a “night-watchman”86 must be “an obvious night-luminary reference”,87 indissolubly related to Aphrodite’s intimate association with the planet Venus, as intimated in a note contained in a number of 14th- and 15th-century Greek manuscripts: ‘the star of Dawn (Èòs) that brings up both the day and Phaethon is Venus (Aphrodite)’.88 Venus’ patronage of marriage had at least since the 1st century BCE been interpreted in terms of her planetary aspect, specifically in relation to Mount Oeta. For Claudian (±400 CE), a male Hesperus was the beloved one of Venus: “Hesperus, loved of Venus, rises and shines for the marriage with his Idalian rays.”89 Servius directly associated the tale of Heracles’ cremation with Oeta, where the stars were seen to set and worship was made of Hesperus, the female evening star, ‘who is said to have loved Hymenaeus, the most handsome of boys’.90 And the Roman poet, Catullus († ±54 BCE), in no uncertain terms hailed Venus, rising as evening star above Mount Oeta, as the patron of wedlock, “Hesperus the same but with changed name Eous”, who joins lovers by snatching them away from their parents.91 Although the earliest textual identification of Aphrodite with Venus dates no earlier than the Platonic Epinomis (4th century
the effect that “the adjective múkhios ‘secreted’ describing Phaethon in Theogony 991 implies a stay in the underworld, as we see from the usage of mukhós ‘secret place’ in Theogony 119.” Diggle (1970: 10 and note 2) rejected such translations, applying the term to the adyton or inner shrine of Aphrodite’s temple again: “This, rather than underground . . . is probably the implication of mÊxion.” 85 Mazon, in Grelot 1956: 27. 86 McKay 1970: 454. 87 Poirier 1999: 374. 88 “ . . .ho heòios ast∞r ho anágòn t∞n hèméran kaì tòn Phaéthonta hè Aphrodítè estín.” schol. on Hes. Th. 990, ed. Di Gregorio 1975: 121. Nagy’s (1990: 258) translation implies a reference to Phaethon’s resuscitation: “. . . the star of Eos, the one that brings back to light and life [verb an-ágò] the day and Phaethon”. This is acceptable in respect of the scholiast’s preceding admission that Phaethon was made to undergo apotheosis: “. . . hòs àn en tois hierois autès naois apethèòsen autón, hieréa aphanè poi¶sasa, epeid∞ ou phaínetai teleut¶sas.” 89 Claud. Fesc. 4 (14), 1-2. 90 “Oeta mons Thessaliae, in quo Hercules exustus est volens . . . et post in caelum receptus est. de hoc monte stellae videntur occidere, sicut de Ida nasci, ut iamque iugis summae surgebat lucifer Idea. . . . in eodem monte Hesperus coli dicitur, qui Hymenaeum, speciosum puerum, amasse dicitur . . .” Serv. Buc. 8. 30, eds. Thilo & Hagen 1927: 98; compare Nonn. Dion. 38. 137; Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff 1883: 417. 91 Catull. 62. 1-5, 7, 20-28, 35.
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BCE),92 it is worth asking whether the lascivious goddess Aphrodite could have signified the planet as early as Hesiod’s time. As the worship of Aphrodite—via her religious centre, Cyprus—was arguably based directly on the cults of the Semitic goddesses Astarte and Istar, the latter of whom had been linked with Venus since the 2nd or even 3rd millennium BCE,93 it is a priori likely that Aphrodite’s association with the planet Venus had lingered in the background of her cult and myths from its first arrival in Greece, but whether Hesiod or other early mythographers were consciously aware of this intrinsic connection is debatable; they could have adopted and adapted Aphrodite’s myths with or without awareness of the goddess’ original planetary aspect. Catasterism of the Goddess’ Lover in Ancient Near Eastern Traditions Where does this leave Aphrodite’s zatheois . . . nèois or ‘sacred shrines’, to which she transferred Phaethon? The key is that, for mortal heroes to be immortalised, the ancient mindset requires them to ‘go to heaven’, to be elevated into the sky and to be transformed into a celestial body. From a mythological perspective, catasterism is the indispensable mechanism to achieve immortality.94 On a ritual level, where temples are widely conceived as mesocosmic replications of the sky, this presents the intriguing paradox that one’s concealment in the earthly temple of a goddess equates one’s symbolical promotion into the sky as a heavenly body. Such a line of reasoning informs Plutarch’s revelation concerning the Egyptian practice: In regard not only to these gods, but in regard to the other gods, save only those whose existence had no beginning and shall have no end, the priests say that their bodies, after they have done with their labours, have been placed in the keeping of the priests and are cherished there, but that their souls shine as the stars in the firmament . . .95
Sure enough, the common fate of the male lovers of great goddesses in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia is precisely death and subsequent resurrection through catasterism. According to the theology 92
Pl. Epin. 987B. Certainly, the Sumerian goddess Inanna, whose cult eventually merged with that of Istar, was already associated with Venus in the late 3rd millennium BCE, Szarzy…ska 1993: 7-8, 14, and more sceptically, Kurtik 1999. 94 Heracles, for instance, upon his reception in the sky, was thought to have turned into the constellation of the same name. 95 Plut. De Is. et Os. 359C (21). 93
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reflected in the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the god Horus’ celebrated ascent to the sky in the form of the morning star constituted a form of rebirth which was really a unification with his mother Nùt, the personification of the sky.96 Insofar as Nùt is interchangeable with Óat˙or in the funerary texts,97 this trait may be compared to a sacred marriage of Horus and Óat˙or that was annually celebrated in Ptolemaic times from the day of the new moon in the third month of Summer to the day of the full moon in the temple of Horus of Be˙u†e† at Edfu: “. . . Hathor boarded her great river-going processional barge and was towed up-stream towards Edfu . . . Eventually, the boats arrived at Edfu, and Horus and his bride entered the enclosure . . . this was the marriage proper, and Horus and Hathor spent their marriage night in the Sanctuary.”98 A recurrent Sumero-Babylonian motif, meanwhile, concerns the “various ill-fated liaisons of the goddess Istar”99 as well as her celebrated hieròs gámos with Adonis’ distant precursor, Tammuz or Dumuzi. In a text found on one tablet, for which no date is given, Inanna sings of her passionate love for Dumuzi, whom she installed as the en or overseer of her temples in various Sumerian cities.100 At Dumuzi’s premature death, Inanna pleads for his funeral boat to be directed towards heaven: “Oh Maid, station him for me at the sky, / Station for me at the sky the greatest of wild oxen, / Station Dumuzi for me at the sky, / Station for me at the sky the greatest of wild oxen . . .”101 Apparently, Dumuzi journeys to the 96 Pyramid Texts, 379-381 (269); 392 (272); 910-913 (470); 1036-1038 (485C); 1320 (539); 1344-1345 (548); 2106-2107 (690). “. . . the coffin becomes the body of the sky- and mother-goddess, thus enabling the ‘placing of the body in the coffin’ to be transfigured into the ascent of the deceased to the heavens and the return to the mother-goddess (regressus ad uterum). . . . Through this rebirth, the deceased becomes a star-god . . . This rebirth . . . takes place inside the mother’s womb, inside the coffin and sky.” Assmann 1989: 139f. 97 Compare Coffin Texts, 44 (I. 181); 300 (IV. 52); 696 (VI. 330). 98 Fairman 1954: 196f. 99 These are enumerated in the Gilgames Epic (Ninevite version), 6, Frayne 1985: 11. 100 “My vulva—the passionate one (has put (his) hand on it), / My vulva—the potent one (has put (his) hand on it / The spouse, the spouse . . ., / And so the son makes not (happy) the temple . . . / When I made the en supreme, when I made the en supreme, / When I made the en supreme in Erech, in the Eanna, / . . . / Of the (cities) of my land—their happy shrines, their temples, / I made for him, I installed an en in them.” ‘a sìr-nam-sub of Inanna’ (BM 88318 obv.), 6-21, tr. Kramer 1984: 5-6. 101 ‘a sìr-nam-sub of Inanna’ (BM 88318 obv.), 48-51, tr. Kramer 1984: 6. “Station Dumuzi for me at the sky” translates Sumerian ddumu-zi-de an-né gub-ba-ma-ab.
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sky, where he is stationed “as a planet or a star, with the help of Inanna’s mother Ningal and his own mother Zertur.”102 Venus Immortalising an Adoptive ‘Son’ Importantly, the instrumental role played by a goddess in general in such catasterisms was extended to the functional repertoire of Aphrodite herself. While classical mythographers indulged in the portrayal of Aphrodite’s trysts with mortal men, it is noteworthy that Roman writers have also preserved a tradition in which the goddess immortalised a ‘lover’ by transferring him into the sky. The appearance of a comet during the funeral games Emperor Octavius Augustus held after the death of Julius Caesar († 44 BCE) was interpreted as the transportation of Caesar’s soul into the sky as a means to immortalise him. On this occasion, Augustus allegedly declared: On the very days of my Games a comet was visible for seven days in the northern part of the sky. It was rising about an hour before sunset, and was a bright star, visible from all lands. The common people believed that this star signified the soul of Caesar received among the spirits of the immortal gods, and on this account the emblem of a star was added to the bust of Caesar that we shortly afterwards dedicated in the forum.103
The comet—dubbed the sidus Iulium or ‘Julian star’—appears to be historic: it is mentioned in nearly a dozen classical sources104 as well as two accounts from China and Korea and its course has tentatively been plotted by modern cometologists.105 Quick to capitalise 102 Kramer 1984: 5. While Kramer (1984: 7) argued that this “Maid”, the goddess Ningal, “to judge from the context, cannot refer to Inanna”, it might well refer to Inanna after all if these lines were sung, not by someone representing Inanna, but a chorus addressing her. Compare: “He is refreshed in the palace; they address him as follows: ‘Dumuzid, radiant in the temple (?) and on earth! Mother Inana, Mother Inana, your mounds, your mounds (?)! Mother Inana, Inana of heaven . . .” ‘a sir-nam-sub of Inanna’ (BM 88318), 55-59, tr. Black et alii 1998-: 4.0.7.7. “. . . radiant in the temple (?) and on earth” renders é-e-àm ki-àm dadag-ga. 103 Augustus, apud Plin. HN. 2. 23 (93-94). “. . . in the northern part of the sky” translates in regione caeli quae sub septentrionibus est, “the soul of Caesar received among the spirits of the immortal gods” Caesaris animam inter deorum immortalium numina receptam. For the comet’s northern position in the sky, compare Serv. Aen. 8. 681; Jul. Obs. Prod. 68; Dio Cass. 45. 6. 4-7. 1. 104 In addition to the sources cited above, see Sen. Q. Nat. 7. 17. 2; Suet. Iul. 88; Plut. Caes. 69. 3 (740); Calp. Ecl. 1. 82-83; Serv. Aen. 1. 287; 6. 790; 8. 681; Ecl. 9. 47. 105 Ramsey & Licht 1997. Kronk (1999: 22f.) catalogued the comet as C/-43 K1.
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on popular belief, poets such as Ovid were happy to rise above the strictly factual: “. . . . Caesar is god in his own city. Him . . . changed to a new heavenly body, a flaming star; but still more his offspring deified him.”106 Caesar had been a longstanding devotee of Venus, whose gens, the Iulii, claimed descent from the goddess. As his funeral games had been held in honour of Venus Genetrix, it comes as no surprise that a belletrist of Ovid’s calibre would pinpoint Venus in its evening aspect as the protagonist in Caesar’s apotheosis: “Then indeed did Cytherea smite on her breast with both her hands and strive to hide her Caesar in a cloud . . .”107 Jove is introduced prodding Venus to spirit away Caesar: This son of thine, goddess of Cythera, for whom thou grievest, has fulfilled his allotted time, and his years are finished which he owed to earth. That as a god he may enter heaven and have his place in temples on the earth, thou shalt accomplish, thou and his son. . . . Meanwhile do thou catch up this soul from the slain body and make him a star in order that ever it may be the divine Julius who looks forth upon our Capitol and Forum from his lofty temple. . . . Scarce had he spoken when fostering Venus took her place within the senate-house, unseen of all, caught up the passing soul of her Caesar from his body, and not suffering it to vanish into air, she bore it towards the stars of heaven. And as she bore it, she felt it glow and burn, and released it from her bosom. Higher than the moon it mounted up and, leaving behind it a fiery train, gleamed as a star.108
Ovid’s rendition of the event adheres in two vital respects to the ‘archetypal’ pattern of divine adoption discussed above. Firstly, in styling Caesar hic sua, “This son of thine”, Jove brings Caesar’s fate remarkably close to the characterisation of Hymenaeus as the foster-son of Aphrodite. And secondly, Caesar’s double act of ‘entering heaven’ and ‘having his place in temples on the earth’ closely approximates Phaethon’s installation in Aphrodite’s temple as the
106 Ov. Met. 15. 746-750. “. . . changed to a new heavenly body, a flaming star . . .” translates in sidus vertere novum stellamque comantem. 107 Ov. Met. 15. 803-806. 108 Ov. Met. 15. 816-821, 840-850. “That as a god he may enter heaven and have his place in temples on the earth” translates ut deus accedat caelo templisque colatur . . .; “and his son” or natusque suus refers to Augustus as Caesar’s adoptive son. “. . . do thou catch up this soul from the slain body and make him a star” renders . . . hanc animam . . . caeso de corpore raptam fac iubar . . . The final sentence reads: alma Venus . . . suique Caesaris eripuit membris nec in aera solvi passa recentem animam caelestibus intulit astris dumque tulit, lumen capere atque ignescere sensit emisitque sinu: luna volat altius illa flammiferumque trahens spatioso limite crinem stella micat . . . The choice of word, eripuit or ‘snatched away’ reminds of Aphrodite’s forceful abduction of Phaethon.
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enactment of his ascension into the sky. The allotment of a different fate for Caesar’s corpse and his soul, meanwhile, is paralleled at an early time in a spell in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts: “The spirit is bound for the sky, the corpse is bound for the earth . . .”109 Any doubt that Roman literati regarded the retriever of Caesar’s spirit not merely as Aphrodite in her divine aspect, but in her planetary aspect is dispelled by Propertius’ († ±15 BCE) enunciation: “But Father Caesar from the star of Venus looks marvelling on: ‘I am a god . . .’”110 Significantly, astronomical retrocalculations show that “the planet Venus is likely to have been visible in the evening sky not long after the sidus Iulium rose at about the 11th hour in late July. . . . Therefore, the planet Venus should have been visible at twilight as the evening star if the sky was relatively free of the volcanic dust veil by that time of the year. . . . the star of Venus would have been seen in the west for at least a short interval while the sidus Iulium was beaming in the NE. Surely this happy coincidence could not have been overlooked by those who wished to exploit the celestial phenomenon to argue that Caesar’s soul was soaring to the heavens where it would join the rank of the gods.”111 As a final shared trait between Caesar’s comet and the abducted Phaethon, both events were believed to mark the transition from one cosmological era to the next; just like Phaethon’s conflagration was interpreted as an epoch-making watershed in cosmic history, so the Etruscan augur Vulcanius “stated in a public meeting” that the sidus Iulium “was a comet (cometes) which indicated the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth age. . . . Augustus too included this information in book two of his Memoirs.”112 This ‘tenth age’ is bound to be identical to the famous ‘era of Augustus’ that was widely believed to restore paradise-like conditions to the world. Thus, the popular myth of Caesar’s deification by means of a comet would appear to have been moulded on the hoary theme of Aphrodite absconding with the soul of a mortal lover.
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Pyramid Texts, 474 (305), tr. Faulkner 1969: 94 Prop. 4. 6. 59-60. The actual phrase Propertius used for “the star of Venus” is Idalio . . . astro, the ‘Idalian star’. 111 Ramsey & Licht 1997: 138f. 112 Serv. Ecl. 9. 47, eds. Thilo & Hagen 1927: 173-174, tr. Ramsey & Licht 1997: 164-165; compare Aen. 10. 272. 110
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Phaethon’s Abduction as an Interpretatio Graeca of a Myth of Catasterism The ‘repugnance’ classicists sensed at the thought of a daímòn or ‘demon’ marrying a goddess of Aphrodite’s stature113 ought to evaporate if Phaethon’s ‘marriage’ to the patroness of love was merely construed as a metaphor for his posthumous elevation to the sky, all the more if this motif was simply an interpretatio Graeca of a theme exceedingly widespread in ancient Near Eastern lore: that of the exaltation of the king’s soul into the sky—annually during his life and permanently after his death—in order to conjoin with a celestial goddess in a hieròs gámos. In the light of the comparative evidence, Aphrodite’s removal of Phaethon apparently involved not only his death and apotheosis, but his assumption into the sky and his transformation into a planet, star, or constellation.114 This conclusion allows three further speculations. Firstly, the ‘brightness’ expressed etymologically in Phaethon’s name115 is readily understood in terms of a radiant celestial object.116 Secondly, Phaethon’s exceptional beauty, noted by Hyginus, and his description as phaídimon hyión or “a splendid son” by Hesiod warrant the same suggestion, buttressed by Hyginus’ straightforward interpretation of Phaethon’s beauty contest with Aphrodite in terms of planetary brightness. And thirdly, an isolated citation from an unknown work of Euripides by Plutarch, in which the release of a mortal soul is compared to a meteor, may have belonged to Phaethon and
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Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff 1883: 416; Diggle 1970: 159. “Das alte Naturmärchen konnte einfach erzählen, Aphrodite nimmt sich den Jüngling den sie liebt, und lässt ihn zum Sterne werden.” Von WilamowitzMöllendorff 1883: 433. At the juncture in Euripides’ Phaethon where the youngster’s smoking body is discovered, “Sie mag dann auch die Verstirnung des toten Jünglings verkündet haben.” Lesky 1932: 3. 115 Greek Fa°yvn Phaéthòn is a present participle with th-suffix, based on a thematic aorist pháe-, ‘to light up, radiate, be bright’. From the same stem were derived the verb phaeínò, ‘to gleam’, the noun pháos, ‘light’, later contracted in Attic to phòs, and many other words, Frisk 1957: 989-991 s. v. ‘fãow’. The form pháe- derived from a Proto-Greek stem *phawe-, which was itself a u-extension to the Proto-Indo-European root *bheh2-, ‘to shine’: *bhh2-u-. The same root is contained in Sanskrit bhà-, ‘shine, light, lustre’, and bhà-ti, ‘luminary’, Avestan bà-, ‘to shine, appear, seem’, Old Irish bàn, ‘white’, Tocharian A paá, ‘clear, bright’, and other forms, Pokorny 1959: 104-105 s. v. ‘bhà-, bhò-, bh6’; Chantraine 1968: 1168-1170 s. v. ‘fãe’. Nonnus (Dion. 38. 142-144) devised an obvious play on the name when he related that Phaethon was phaesphóron, “brilliant with light”, upon his birth: “Then Clymene’s womb swelled in that fruitful union, and when the birth ripened she brought forth a baby son divine and brilliant with light.” 116 Reckford 1972: 427 note 23. 114
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referred to the character’s posthumous transit to heaven if it is allowed that Plutarch counts Phaethon among thnètòn or “mortal men”: Nature has placed within our ken perceptible images and visible likenesses, the sun and the stars for the gods, and for mortal men beams of light, comets, and meteors, a comparison which Euripides has made in the verses: He that yesterday was vigorous Of frame, even as a star from heaven falls, Gave up in death his spirit to the air.117
Clearly, the myth of Phaethon—whether Hesiod’s version or the standard one—presupposes a nature myth with a radiant celestial body for a protagonist. Interpreted along these lines, Hesiod’s reference to Phaethon is more easily reconcilable with the standard myth of Phaethon’s accident with the solar chariot. The necessity of Phaethon’s death for his catasterisation brings Hesiod’s passage considerably closer to the ‘other’ Phaethon, who was likewise given a tragic death as a youngster. Crucially, a late tradition, exclusively known from the Roman period onwards, appends an episode of catasterism to the story of Phaethon’s fall from heaven, in which the lad was fittingly turned into the constellation of Hèníokhos or Auriga, the Chariot: But Father Zeus fixed Phaëthon in Olympos, like a Charioteer, and bearing that name. As he holds in the radiant Chariot of the heavens with shining arm, he has the shape of a Charioteer starting upon his course, as if even among the stars he longed again for his father’s car.118
Not all difficulties are resolved with this comparison, as Phaethon’s connection with Auriga—though this is the only constellation ever 117 Eur. Fr. 971, ed. Kannicht 2004: 968, apud Plut. Def. Or. 13 (416D). Compare: “. . . Euripides says / He who but now / Flourished in health, has like a shooting star / Vanished.” Non Poss. Suav. Viv. 4 (1090C). Yet: “However attractive it may be to attribute the fragment to the speech describing Phaethon’s death, such an attribution is merest guesswork.” Diggle 1970: 176f. 118 Nonn. Dion. 38. 424-431; compare: stat gelidis Auriga plagis, “the charioteer is there in his icy zone”, Claud. Cons. Sext. Aug. 28. 168-172. Scholiasts matter-offactly attest to catasterism in general, without specification of the asterism involved: “Post fulminis ictum caelo receptus”,Schol. Basileensia on German. Arat. 43. 9, ed. Dell’Era 1979: 370; “. . . et a Sole patre inter sidera collocatus.”Schol. Strozziana on German. Arat. 46. 47-52, ed. Dell’Era 1979: 231, cf. 40. 1-16, ed. 1979: 222; Knaack 1884: 2179; Grelot 1956: 25 note 3; Allen 1963: 84f. s. v. ‘Auriga’; Diggle 1970: 194f. Knaack (1884: 2182) branded this catasterism ‘free Alexandrinian speculation’, but as Diggle has shown, there is no evidence for an Alexandrinian source common to Ovid and Nonnus.
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identified with him—is difficult to square with the reasonable assumption that Aphrodite’s ‘sacred shrines’ in the sky are stations in the orbit of the planet Venus and competes with indications that a planet, a comet or a meteor was envisioned as the original referent of the myth. While the intricacies of this subject are best reserved for another discussion, it is noteworthy that a deity’s joint association with a planet and a constellation certainly formed no obstacle within the Mesopotamian tradition; during the early 1st millennium BCE, “Many names are shared between planets, and between planets and constellations or stars . . .”119 Conclusion In sum, the theme of apotheosis through catasterism followed by consummation of the ‘holy marriage’—as familiar from ancient Near Eastern traditions—forges a link that allows for the ultimate unity of the two divergent lines of tradition concerning Phaethon. Allowing for the usual level of variation in genealogical and other finer details when comparing different versions of a myth, the above then enables the following reconstruction of the ‘full’ myth of Phaethon: Phaethon was a radiant and young mortal ‘man’ who approached his father, the sun, with the request to ride the solar chariot for a day, perhaps in an attempt to evade the marriage planned for him. Unable to control the reins, he crashed and, setting himself and the world ablaze, fell into the river Eridanus and died. Envious of his beauty, an enamoured Aphrodite in her aspect as the planet Venus then intercepted and immortalised his soul by transporting it into the sky, adopting and marrying it as her own son-lover, and installing it as a bright celestial body protecting her own ‘shrine’.120
119 Brown 2000: 53. “The identification of various stars and planets with each other, and especially of constellations with planets, is a very distinctive feature of Babylonian astrology. Nevertheless, in the letters and reports the fixed stars appear mostly either as planets or in connection with planets . . . that planet is understood as giving the fixed stars their colours, or making them bright or faint . . . Bezold . . . developed the idea, first proposed by Boll, that the identification worked by likeness in colour rather than mythologically, phonetically or otherwise . . . The rules of identification are often obscure to us . . .” Koch-Westenholz 1995: 130f., 142. 120 Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff (1883: 433) attributed a similar reconstruction to Euripides: “In dem Momente, wo Euripides den Gedanken fasste, Phaethon die Liebe Aphrodites als seiner unwürdig verschmähen und lieber die Fahrt wagen zu lassen, die ihm den Tod bringt, und andrerseits, wo er Aphrodite den Geliebten zum Stern machen liess, weil sie ihn verloren hatte, war das Naturmärchen zur
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Acknowledgments Without the generous support of the Mainwaring Archive Foundation this article could not have been completed. I am also grateful to Ev Cochrane and Peter James, with who I have had the pleasure to exchange many thoughts and notes on this subject over the years. Ev helpfully supplied me with a copy of Kramer’s article, which was hard to find. Thanks finally to Walter Burkert, James Diggle, Gregory Nagy and Martin West for saving me from possible embarrassment with their stimulating feedback and suggestions, and to Karel Jongeling for answering questions about Punic morphology. Bibliography Albright, W. F., Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan; A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (New York: Doubleday, 1968) Allen, R. H., Star Names; Their Lore and Meaning (New York: Dover Publications, 1963) Assmann, J., ‘Death and Initiation in the Funerary Religion of Ancient Egypt’, in J. P. Allen et alii (eds.), Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (‘Yale Egyptological Studies’, 3; New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1989), 135-159 Astour, M. C., Hellenosemitica; An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean Greece (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965) Bergk, Th. (ed.), Poetae Lyrici Graeci (3; Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 18824) Black, J. A., G. Cunningham, E. Fluckiger-Hawker, E. Robson, and G. Zólyomi (trs.), T he Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://www.-etcsl. orient.ox.ac.uk; Oxford, 1998-) Breysig, A. (ed.), Germanici Caesaris Aratea cvm Scholiis (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1867) Brown, D., Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology (‘Cuneiform Monographs’, 18; Groningen: Styx Publications, 2000) Brown, J. P., Israel and Hellas (1 of 3; ‘Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft’, 231; Berlin: Walter de Gruyer, 1995) Buffière, F. (tr.), Héraclite; Allégories d’Homère (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1989) Burkert, W., Greek Religion (tr. J. Raffan; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard University Press, 1985) Chantraine, P. (ed.), Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque; Histoire des Mots (2 of 2; Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1968) Collard, C., M. J. Cropp & K. H. Lee (eds.), Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays (1; Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1997) Cook, A. B., ‘Who Was the Wife of Zeus?’, The Classical Review, 20 (1906), 365378, 416-419 Tragödie geworden.” Similarly, Knaack, in Gruppe 1886: 647-649. Collard et alii (1997: 197), more neutrally, hypothesise that, towards the end of the play, “a god would have interrupted to rescue Clymene, confirming Phaethon’s divine parentage and his future after death (fr. 6D . . .).”
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Merkelbach, R. & M. L. West (eds.), Fragmenta Hesiodea (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967) Micyllus, Iacobus (ed.), C. Ivlii Hygini Avgvsti Liberti Fabvlarvum Liber, ad Omnivm Poëtarum Lectionem Mire Necessarius & Antehac Nunquam Excusus; Eivsdem Poeticon Astronomicon, Libri Quatuor; Palaephati de Fabulosis Narrationibus, Liber 1; F. Fvlgentii Placiadis Episcopi Carthaginensis Mythologiarum, Libri III; Eivsdem de Uocum Antiquarum Interpretatione, Liber. 1; Arati Phainomenòn Fragmentum, Germanico Cæsare Interprete; Eivsdem Phænomena Græce, cum Interpretatione Latina; Procli de Sphaera Libellus, Græce & Latine; Index Rerum & Fabularum in his Omnibus Scitu Dignarum Copiosissimus (Basel: Ioan. Hervuagius, 1535) Munckerus, Th. (ed.), Mythographorum Latinorum Complectens Fabii Planciadis Fulgentii Mythologias, Continentiam Virgilianam, & Libellum de Prisco Sermone; Lactantii Placidi Argumenta Metamorphoseôn Nasonianarum; Albrici Philosophi Commentariolum de Imaginibus Deorum (2; Amsterdam: Joannis à Someren, 1681) Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans; Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979) ———, Greek Mythology and Poetics (‘Myth and Poetics’, 2; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990) ———, Homer’s Text and Language (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2004) Nilsson, M. P., The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (‘Sather Classical Lectures’, 8; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932) Pokorny, J. (ed.), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1 of 2; Bern: Francke Verlag, 1959) Poirier, J. C., ‘An Illuminating Parallel to Isaiah XIV 12’, Vetus Testamentum, 49. 3 (1999), 371-389 Possanza, D. M., Translating the Heavens; Aratus, Germanicus, and the Poetics of Latin Translation (‘Lang Classical Studies’, 14; New York: Peter Lang, 2004) Pötscher, W., ‘Der Name des Herakles’, Emerita; Revista de Linguistica y Filologia Clasica, 38. 1 (1970), 169-184 Ramsey, J. T. & A. L. Licht, The Comet of 44 B. C. and Caesar’s Funeral Games (‘American Philological Association: American Classical Studies’, 39; Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1997) Reckford, K. J., ‘Phaethon, Hippolytus, and Aphrodite’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 103 (1972), 405-432 Robert, C. (ed.), Eratosthenis Catasterismorvm Reliqviae (Berlin: Weidmann, 1878) Robert, C., ‘Die Phaethonsage bei Hesiod’, Hermes; Zeitschrift für classische Philologie, 18 (1883), 434-441 Rose, H. I. (ed.), Hygini Fabvlae Recensvit, Prolegomenis Commentario Appendice Instrvxit (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1934) Sauer, B., ‘Hymenaios’, in W. H. Roscher (ed.), Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (1. 2; Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1886-1890), 2800-2804 Schmidt, K. L., ‘Lucifer als gefallene Engelmacht’, Theologische Zeitschrift, 7. 3 (1951), 161-179 Seyrig, H., ‘Héraclès-Nergal’, Syria, 24 (1945), 62-80, reprinted in Antiquités Syriennes (‘Institut Français d’Archéologie de Beyrouth: Publications hors Série 8’, 4 (1-6); Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1953), 1-19 Shapiro, H. A., ‘Hêrôs Theos: The Death and Apotheosis of Herakles’, Classical World, 77. 1 (1983), 7-18 Simon, B. (tr.), Nonnos de Panopolis: Les Dionysiaques (14; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1999)
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Stallbaum, J. G., Eustathii Archiepiscopi Thessalonicensis Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam ad Fidem Exempli Romani Editi (1; Leipzig: J. A. G. Weigel, 1825) Suhr, E. G., ‘Herakles and Omphale’, American Journal of Archaeology, 57. 4 (1953), 251-263 Szarzy,nska, K., ‘Offerings for the Goddess Inana in Archaic Uruk’, Revue d’Assyriologie, 87 (1993), 7-28 Thilo, G. & H. Hagen (eds.), Servii Grammatici qui Feruntur In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii (3 of 3; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1927) Tümpel, K., ‘Zu koïschen Mythen’, Philologus; Zeitschrift für das classische Alterthum, 50 (1891), 607-636 Vermeule, E., Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (‘Sather Classical Lectures’, 46; Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981) Von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, U., ‘Phaethon’, Hermes; Zeitschrift für classische Philologie, 18 (1883), 396-434 Watson, W. G. E., ‘Helel llyh’, in K. van der Toorn, B. Becking & P. W. van der Horst (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 746-750 West, M. L., (ed.), Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966) West, M. L., (tr.), Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) West, M. L., The East Face of Helicon; West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) Whitbread, L. G. (tr.), Fulgentius the Mythographer (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1971)
REVIEW Gary N. Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson, eds. The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007. The result of four panels on Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Law at the 2006 International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Edinburgh (2-6 July), this volume seeks to “obtain a better grasp of the means, circumstances, factors, and setting of the Pentateuch’s rise to prominence as a foundational collection of Scriptures in early Judaism and Samaritanism” (1). In their introductory essay, the editors highlight nine major points of scholarly debate: 1) How did the Pentateuch come to be a heterogeneous work including both law and narrative stemming from priestly and non-priestly sources? 2) Was the Pentateuch originally promulgated within a small circle of Judean elite and was it part of an educational initiative? 3) Does the Torah involve a long series of protracted societal negotiation? 4) Did the Torah’s rise reflect the eclipsing of earlier foundational documents, whether wisdom materials or the Hexateuch (Deut 34:10-12)? 5) What role did diaspora leaders play in the recognition of the Pentateuch? 6) How do we explain the Samaritan acceptance of the same Pentateuch as the Jews? 7) Was there a transition between the Pentateuch as descriptive law and its prescriptive law, and if so, when did it occur? 8) Was there an external stimulus that facilitated the rise of the Torah, as seen in the legal collections of Rome, Athens, and the small Aegean islands? 9) How do the re-interpretation, translation and aftereffects of the text explain its composition? The breadth of such concerns sets this volume apart from earlier works concerned more specifically with the idea of potential Persian involvement in the authorization of the Penateuch (e.g. James W. Watts, ed. Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 17. [Atlanta: Scholars, 2001]). Part One, “Ratifying Local Law Codes in an International Age,” addresses new developments in the debate over Achaemenid imperial © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 Also available online – www.brill.nl
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authorization and contextualizes these developments in the light of trends in the larger Mediterranean. Konrad Schmid’s article seeks to distinguish issues he feels have been improperly conflated, such as whether the Achaemenid Empire possessed a means of imperial authorization and whether the Pentateuch fits such a category. He suggests the correct question to guide scholars in considering such authorization is “‘How can we best describe processes whereby Persian authorities created local autonomy—processes that are only to be expected and that can be substantiated beyond any doubt?’ ” (27). Schmid further observes that Frei was interested in qualitative characteristics of Persian sanctioning of local laws, and that Iranologists such as Wiesehöfer and Ahn have misread Frei’s theory, thinking him to be interested in some sort of central register of local laws. While Ezra 7 could be a late text (Sebastian Grätz suggests Ezra 7:12-26 is a pure Hellenistic fiction), it is unlikely to be spun out of whole cloth, and thus a limited adoption of the theory of imperial authorization is warranted. Next, David M. Carr, Anselm C. Hagedorn and Reinhart G. Kratz present their own views of the adoption and promulgation of the Torah. Carr and Kratz both accept a limited version of Frei’s theory of imperial authorization and draw attention to the priestly and Temple connections of the Torah. Carr emphasizes the educational and inculturational value of the Torah as the main cause of its rise to prominence and legal validity. For his part, Kratz argues from the evidence at Elephantine (ca. 400 B.C.E.), Qumran, and in the preserved writings of Hecateus of Abdera that the promulgation of the Torah occurred from 400-300 B.C.E. and that the account in Ezra 7 is fictitious. The Samaritans probably accepted the Torah before the Judeans (Deut 11:29-30; 27:4-8, 1113; Josh 8:30-35) to legitimize their temple at Mt. Gerizim. Hellenization led to the flattening of the differences between the original temple practice and the Mosaic Law, so that the process of unification of Temple and Torah was complete only with the Hasmonean rebellion. Hagedorn takes a different tack, rejecting the theory of Achaemenid authorization and contending instead that the authors of the Torah shaped their laws to avoid conflict with the Persian Empire and thus took the decisive step toward a colonial existence. They make the document comprehensible within the Persian administration, limited as it is to local laws and issues (explaining the non-use of the Torah at Elephantine). They also define their identity through the Pentateuchal narrative that ignores
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the political situation, exploiting the non-intervention of the Persians to its greatest extent while avoiding open conflict. Gary N. Knoppers and Paul B. Harvey, Jr. examine the promulgation of law codes in Athens (ca. 594/93 B.C.E.), Gortyn (in central Crete), and in Rome’s Twelve Tables during the late archaic and classical eras (7th-mid 4th centuries B.C.E.). The publication of written law illustrates the increased literacy and urbanization of the societies in which they originated as well as their movement from an autocratic system to a form of government that diffused control more widely. Knoppers and Harvey, Jr. suggest that there is benefit in transcending the boundaries of the Achaemenid Empire in understanding the promulgation of the Pentateuch as Torah. Part Two, “Prophets, Polemics and Publishers: The Growing Importance of Writing in Persian Period Judah,” includes contributions by Jean-Louis Ska and Eckart Otto. Ska describes his thesis as follows: “. . . the origin of the Pentateuch should be linked to the founding of a ‘library’ in Jerusalem in the postexilic period and the writing down of the most important traditions of Israel, in particular the torah, although it is difficult to be much more precise about its original content” (169). He opens by considering the loss in interest in writing recent history in the postexilic period, which was replaced by the idealized conceptions of the remote past and shows the identity of the oral and written traditions. Exod 24:3-8 presents Moses as the model for every scribe in the postexilic period. Otto contends that the crystallization of prophetic books (e.g. Jeremiah) influenced the crystallization of the Pentateuch and vice versa. Prophetic scribes saw divine revelation continuing up until the present, while priestly tradents thought that interpretation of Mosaic Torah was the only access to divine revelation; both groups used the same scribal techniques to advance their convictions. Part Three, “The Torah as a Foundational Document in Judah and Samaria,” begins with a contribution by Christophe Nihan, in which he argues that passages such as Deut 11:26-31; 27:1-26; Josh 8:30-35 represent a concession to the Samaritans rather than an ancient northern tradition. Josh 24 has most of the Pentateuchal traditions at its disposal (including P) and thus represents the final chapter in the editing of the Hexateuch ca. 445 B.C.E. The reference to Mt. Gerizim in the secondary layer of Deut 27 (vv. 3-8, 11-13) is likewise aimed at Samaritan acceptance, so that the Pentateuch is acceptable to both communities. The change of Mt. Gerizim to Mt. Ebal in Deut 27:4 represents a very late addition
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that was never meant to be accepted by the Samaritans. Part Three also contains a helpful article by Reinhard Plummer that provides an overview of contemporary scholarship on the Samaritans in the postexilic period, highlighting their participation in creating the Torah. Plummer ultimately concludes that there is insufficient evidence to explain the reception and form of the Samaritan Pentateuch. In this section, Joachim Schaper argues that publication of legal codes involved both public reading and public writing (i.e. inscription) by examining three texts in which the D stem of rab appears (Deut 1:5; 27:8; Hab 2:2). Schaper follows Braulik, Lohfink and others who translate rab in Deut 1:5 as “Moses began to give legal force to the Torah,” adducing the Akkadian bâru(m) (CAD B, “bâru” A, §3a) as a cognate. Part Four, “The Translation, Interpretation and Application of the Torah in Early Jewish Literature,” begins with an article by Sebastian Grätz, in which he considers the significance of the Torah through examples from Ezra and Ruth. While Ruth does not accept the Torah as the only source for answering contemporary debates, the authors of Ezra see the Torah as possessing the highest authority. Arie van der Kooij theorizes that the Septuagint was translated at the initiative of the royal adviser Demetrius of Phaleron, a Perpatetic philosopher interested in comparing law codes, in conjunction with the Jerusalem authorities. Sidnie White Crawford examines the Temple Scroll and Damascus Document, secondcentury B.C.E. Essene compositions, demonstrating that while the Temple Scroll presents the results of its exegesis as divine revelation, the Damascus Document provides exegetical rationales for its laws. The Essene movement must have formed in the 4th BCE from the Priestly-Levitical circle in Jerusalem, and may be responsible for the pre-Samaritan Pentateuch. James W. Watts observes that the Torah functioned as legitimation of the cultic and political claims of the priests, and he finds it necessary to provide “new, imaginative construals of the values in Priestly rhetoric” (320). Priestly effectiveness can be judged by how the priests met the basic standards of Torah (e.g. monotheism) and by the practical effects of their rule on their subjects. “The Aaronides’ record of promoting ‘biblical’ religious standards and of using relatively tolerant policies to improve the well-being of their communities compares favorably with all of ancient Israel’s alternative leadership models and experiences up to the end of the Second Temple period” (331).
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This informative and well-written volume provides an excellent entry-point for scholars, advanced undergraduates and graduate students to explore the fast-changing world of Pentateuchal theory and the relationship of the Torah to its literary and cultural environment. It seems especially suitable for a graduate or senior undergraduate course on the Pentateuch. The fact that all German is provided in both the original and in translation increases the utility of this volume to those in the beginning stages of scholarship, but all readers will benefit from the nuanced presentations of these senior scholars. Taken together, the essays by Schmid, Carr and Kratz argue for the continued viability of a more limited theory of Persian authorization, though of course the nature of this external pressure is subject to vigorous debate. The contributors and editors also clarify the extent to which a successful theory of the promulgation of the Torah needs to take into account both local (Samaritan and Judean) and wider (i.e. Mediterranean) contexts as well as factors within and outside the Torah. For their contribution toward the realization of this goal, the editors and contributors are to be congratulated. Daniel M. O’Hare University of Notre Dame
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