1932 | Samizdat

September 8, 2015

Kvanvig: The apkallus as Watchers and Guardians

“As demonstrated in the rituals, the apkallus were not only figures of the past. Surely, they visited the earth in antediluvian time to bestow wisdom on mankind, but they were still alive and invisibly present in the human world.

Detail from a drawing of a bronze plaque held in the Louvre.
Puradu-fish apkallu minister to an ill patient in bed. The lamp of Nusku is depicted at far left, and ugallu attack with upraised fists in concert with Lulal, identified by Wiggerman as “a minor apotropaic god.”
I believe that this plaque portrays an exorcism.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze plaque of which an engraving was published by Clermont-Ganneau.
The original, which belonged to M. Péretié, is now in the collection of M. de Clercq.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17323/17323-h/17323-h.htm#linkBimage-0039

They were present as “guardian spirits,” as we have seen in the depiction of the sick man. We now see that they performed other roles as well. One of the most important was to purify the Tree of Life. This duty was closely connected to their role as cosmic guardians and formed a parallel to the maintenance of the divine statue, as in the Poem of Erra.

Click to zoom in. <br /> Ummanu and bird-apkallu tend the sacred tree.<br /> The bird-apkallu are portrayed in the iconic act of purifying or pollinating the sacred tree with mullilu cones and banduddu buckets.<br /> A fleur de lis is clearly portrayed at the base of the sacred tree. It is not known whether the fleur de lis was also portrayed atop the horned headdresses of the ummanu in the top register.<br /> It is worth noting that the ubiquitous rosette pattern is portrayed at the base of the sacred tree in the top register. The same detail is apparent upon scrutiny of the sacred tree in the lower register, partially occluded by a mount or platform for the tree.<br /> One further detail which may be of no import: the bird-apkallu on the right wears a bracelet, but unlike other bracelets portrayed on left wrists elsewhere in this frieze, the rosette is not visible. For whatever reason, this apkallu wore his rosette bracelet oriented towards his body. This could be no more than an oversight by the original artist, or realistic portrayal of a real life model.<br /> From Kalhu, Northwest Palace of Assurnasirpal II, Room I, Slab 30, inscribed wall relief, Metropolitan Museum 32.143.3. Photo Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1932.<br /> John Malcolm Russell, The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions, Eisenbrauns, 1999. P. 18.

Click to zoom in.
Ummanu and bird-apkallu tend the sacred tree.
The bird-apkallu are portrayed in the iconic act of purifying or pollinating the sacred tree with mullilu cones and banduddu buckets.
A fleur de lis is clearly portrayed at the base of the sacred tree. It is not known whether the fleur de lis was also portrayed atop the horned headdresses of the ummanu in the top register.
It is worth noting that the ubiquitous rosette pattern is portrayed at the base of the sacred tree in the top register. The same detail is apparent upon scrutiny of the sacred tree in the lower register, partially occluded by a mount or platform for the tree.
One further detail which may be of no import: the bird-apkallu on the right wears a bracelet, but unlike other bracelets portrayed on left wrists elsewhere in this frieze, the rosette is not visible. For whatever reason, this apkallu wore his rosette bracelet oriented towards his body. This could be no more than an oversight by the original artist, or realistic portrayal of a real life model.
From Kalhu, Northwest Palace of Assurnasirpal II, Room I, Slab 30, inscribed wall relief, Metropolitan Museum 32.143.3. Photo Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1932.
John Malcolm Russell, The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions, Eisenbrauns, 1999. P. 18.

When the apkallus purified the tree, they “insured the correct functioning of the plans of heaven and earth,” as it was expressed in Bīt Mēseri. The divine and human worlds overlap. The depiction of the sick man did not show the āšipū performing their ritual, but the apkallus, whom they represented.

In the Poem of Erra the human ummanus were called the images of the transcendent apkallus. Since the scholars emulate the role of the apkallus, the Tree of Life scene, with the apkallus, can also be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the scholar’s activity at the court.

The Tree of Life represents the king, whom the scholars protect with their wisdom. In many of the letters that Parpola has edited this is expressed through a recurring phrase: massartu ša šarri nasāru, “to keep the king’s watch.”

Click to zoom in. <br /> This reproduction of the bas reliefs in Room I of the Northwestern Palace of King Ashurnasirpal at Nimrud is remarkable for the sheer number of apkallus portrayed interacting with endless renditions of the sacred tree.<br /> All apkallu are winged, even the beardless specimens in I-16. All others are either bearded males, or griffin-headed bird apkallus.<br /> Samuel M. Paley and R.P. Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud) II. (The Principal Entrances and Courtyards). Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1992.<br /> From Mehmet-Ali Atac, The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art, Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 100.

Click to zoom in.
This reproduction of the bas reliefs in Room I of the Northwestern Palace of King Ashurnasirpal at Nimrud is remarkable for the sheer number of apkallus portrayed interacting with endless renditions of the sacred tree.
All apkallu are winged, even the beardless specimens in I-16. All others are either bearded males, or griffin-headed bird apkallus.
Samuel M. Paley and R.P. Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud) II. (The Principal Entrances and Courtyards). Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1992.
From Mehmet-Ali Atac, The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art, Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 100.

In the Akkadian phrase the element of “watching” is expressed twice, both through the noun massartu, and through the verb nasāru. The Akkadian massartu both has the connotation “guard, watchman, be awake,” and someone who watches for astronomical observation.

The noun corresponds closely to the verb nasāru, “guard, take care of, keep watch for celestial phenomena.” Used together in massartu nasāru, the phrase often means “to take care of a person’s interests.”

The two meanings “guard” and “watch for omens” come together in the tasks of the scholars; it was through their watching for divine signs that they guarded the king. A good illustration of this double meaning we find in the following letter:

“To the king, our lord: your servants, the scribes of Kilizi. Good health to the king, our lord! May Nabu and Marduk bless the king.

We watched the moon; on the 14th day the moon and the sun saw each other. (This means) well-being.

May Nabu and Marduk bless the king. Because of the ilku-duty (state service) and the corvée work we cannot keep the watch of the king, and the pupils do not learn the scribal craft.”

(Letter 143, Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, p. 111.)

The role of the earthly scholars at this point reflects the apkallus, as we have seen in many other instances. The scholars were “watchers” over the king’s well-being and health and in this instance over his kingdom, in the same manner as the apkallus who were invoked as “watchers” in the rituals.

The scholars should watch the king in order to maintain the cosmic order, just as the apkallus were watchers of the cosmic order in the divine realm.”

Helge Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading, Brill, 2011, pp. 144-6.

2 Comments

August 29, 2015

Dalley: Apkallu-6, IDD 2011

Iconography of Deities and Demons (IDD).

Apkallu (continued).

Type 3 Bird-of-Prey-Headed Apkallu, Problematic Identifications.

“The three types are identified from ritual texts and labels on figurines, but because the evidence is uncommon and sometimes ambiguous there are uncertainties. Change over time may also account for some difficulties. Some overlap in the iconography with Tiamat’s composite monsters from the theme of the Epic of Creation is possible, as mentioned above.

Single objects such as bucket or sprig may be held by figures who do not share other characteristics with definite sages. WIGGERMANN (1992: 75) identifies Apkallus in scenes in which figures resembling types 1 and 3 carry weapons and attack animals and monsters.

The Anzu bird.

This is not certain, as the bird-headed Apkallu may overlap in form with the Anzu bird in its 1st millennium appearance, and various winged or wingless man-figures may be hero-gods rather than Apkallus.

Lahmu, “Hairy,” is a protective and beneficent deity, a first-born son of Apsu and Tiamat.
He and his sister Laḫamu are the parents of Anshar and Kishar, the sky father and earth mother, who birthed the gods of the Mesopotamian Pantheon.
Laḫmu is depicted as a bearded man with a red sash–usually with three strands–and four to six curls on his head. He is often associated with the Kusarikku or “Bull-Man.”
In Sumerian times Laḫmu may have meant “the muddy one”. Lahmu guarded the gates of the Abzu temple of Enki at Eridu.
He and his sister Laḫamu are primordial deities in the Babylonian Epic of Creation-–Enuma Elis.
http://foundfact.com/portfolio-view/lahmu/#!prettyPhoto
http://foundfact.com/library/beings-people-and-gods/page/6/#!prettyPhoto

WIGGERMANN’s identifications are largely accepted (WIGGERMANN/GREEN 1993-97) and are followed here, but disagreement, and a proposal to identify the Lahmu-hero with three pairs of curls as a further type, are suggested by RUSSELL (1991: 312 n. 27; also ORNAN 1993: 60).

Amulet with a figure of Lamashtu, Mesopotamia, around 800 BC.<br /> A demonic divinity who preys on mothers and children.<br /> This protective image of Lamashtu, a fearsome female divinity of the underworld, was intended to keep evil at bay.<br /> Although she is usually described in modern works as a demon, the writing of her name in cuneiform suggests that in Babylonia and Assyria she was regarded as a kind of goddess.<br /> Unlike the majority of demons, who acted only on the commands of the gods, Lamashtu practised evil apparently for its own sake and on her own initiative. There is a cuneiform incantation on the reverse side of this amulet to frighten her away.<br /> Lamashtu's principal victims were unborn and new-born babies.<br /> Slipping into the house of a pregnant woman, she tries to touch the woman's stomach seven times to kill the unborn baby, or she kidnaps the child.<br /> Magical measures against Lamashtu included wearing a bronze head of Pazuzu. Some plaques show a bedridden man rather than a pregnant woman, so in some contexts Lamashtu is considered a bringer of disease.<br /> Lamashtu is described in texts as having the head of a lion, the teeth of a donkey, naked breasts, a hairy body, stained hands, long fingers, long finger nails, and the talons of a bird.<br /> Plaques also show her suckling a piglet and a whelp while she holds snakes in her hands, as in this case.<br /> She stands on her sacred animal, the donkey, which is sometimes shown in a boat, riding through the underworld.<br /> H.W.F. Saggs, Babylonians (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)<br /> J. Black and A. Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (London, The British Museum Press, 1992)<br /> http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/blagop#sthash.psbzCU3E.dpuf<br /> http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/a/amulet_with_figure_of_lamashtu.aspx

Amulet with a figure of Lamashtu, Mesopotamia, around 800 BC.
A demonic divinity who preys on mothers and children.
This protective image of Lamashtu, a fearsome female divinity of the underworld, was intended to keep evil at bay.
Although she is usually described in modern works as a demon, the writing of her name in cuneiform suggests that in Babylonia and Assyria she was regarded as a kind of goddess.
Unlike the majority of demons, who acted only on the commands of the gods, Lamashtu practised evil apparently for its own sake and on her own initiative. There is a cuneiform incantation on the reverse side of this amulet to frighten her away.
Lamashtu’s principal victims were unborn and new-born babies.
Slipping into the house of a pregnant woman, she tries to touch the woman’s stomach seven times to kill the unborn baby, or she kidnaps the child.
Magical measures against Lamashtu included wearing a bronze head of Pazuzu. Some plaques show a bedridden man rather than a pregnant woman, so in some contexts Lamashtu is considered a bringer of disease.
Lamashtu is described in texts as having the head of a lion, the teeth of a donkey, naked breasts, a hairy body, stained hands, long fingers, long finger nails, and the talons of a bird.
Plaques also show her suckling a piglet and a whelp while she holds snakes in her hands, as in this case.
She stands on her sacred animal, the donkey, which is sometimes shown in a boat, riding through the underworld.
H.W.F. Saggs, Babylonians (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)
J. Black and A. Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (London, The British Museum Press, 1992)
http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/blagop#sthash.psbzCU3E.dpuf
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/a/amulet_with_figure_of_lamashtu.aspx

This wingless type is thought by WIGGERMANN (1992: 74f) to be sages before the flood, an identification based on a possible but unfounded connection with the Sumerian names of those early sages. Their human appearance might be more appropriate for mortal sages who lived after the flood, or they may not be sages at all.

Several possible identifications on West Semitic seals cannot be regarded as certain; ORNAN 1993: 60, figs. 11-12 show a kneeling atlantid figure not generally considered to be an Apkallu, and figs. 15, 17, and 18 are dubious because the seal cutting is so skimpy.

The number of wings shown may sometimes be misleading; perspective or spacing may reduce them, and some scholars think a pair of wings shown in side profile represent four. When a single wing is shown (71*, 76* ) a pair can be presumed.

Apkallu type 3, illustration 76, Stephanie Dalley, IDD.
Stephanie Dalley cites illustration 76 as an exemplar “with a long, high crest … with two ringlets falling to the shoulder,” which it indeed does portray.
She also writes, “For jewelry the figure may wear a necklace with seven strands (76*), which may also only be single-stranded with pendants. With my apologies to the professor, I detect no necklace or pendants on this illustration.
This illustration does depict a type 3 Nisroc apkallu in the apparent act of uttering a cry, with a visible tongue, though Professor Dalley does not cite it as an example of that.
Finally, she asserts the “so-called “fish-tail fringe” dangling from the kilt (76*) is not a fish part, and so does not indicate that the type is a fish composite.” With this statement, I am in utter agreement.
This particular illustration, its find site unknown to me, is atypical in other respects. The portrayal of the avian head is perhaps unique, and at variance with the typical versions from the palace walls of Ashurnasirpal II, for example.
The lone curl at the top of the head is unique, I think, as are the curls which Professor Dalley identified above.
In no other example does a nisroc-bird apkallu stand in front of a sacred tree, occluding it from view.
The armlet on this apkallu is unusual, as well, with a design that I have not seen elsewhere.
In all other respects, this depiction of a type 3 bird-headed apkallu is typical, with mullilu cone and banduddu bucket in their customary places.

Similarly, the number of horns shown on crowns of divinity may have been reduced due to considerations of space; they do not appear to distinguish different ranks of sage.

Color may have been used to differentiate between types and eliminate ambiguities, but is not preserved except as occasional traces of paint on foundation figurines.

On Urartian bronzes and on other media, e.g., MERHAV 1991: 144 and 309, a pair of winged, human-headed lions with cone and bucket on each side of a tree of life has a context and attributes identical to that of the Apkallus, but cannot be identified as such without textual support.

Figure 2.2 (from Nakamura). Apotropaic figures with associated features.
1. Drawing after Richards in Black and Green (1992:65).
2. The identification of the lahmu figure is controversial; it names both a cosmogonic deity and one of Tiamat’s creatures (Wiggermann 1992:155–156), and may also represent an apkallu sage (Ellis 1995:165; Russell 1991:184, fn. 27).
3. In register 2, ugallu, kusarikku and kulullu are portrayed.

The scorpion-man (Girtablullu), the Kusarikku-bison, and the Ugallu-demon, who all fight in the army of Tiamat in the Epic of Creation, were attributed to the category of Apkallu by ORNAN (1993: 56) on a misunderstanding of GREEN (1984: 83).

The confusion may have validity in some contexts, since sages are said to guard the Tablet of Destinies for Nabu, a modification of a theme from the Epic of Creation. Possible links are mentioned under individual phenotypes above.

Umu-apkallu are portrayed in the top register, tending to a sacred tree.
In the lower register avian-headed apkallu use mullilu cones and banduddu buckets to bless the sacred tree.
John Malcolm Russell, The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions, Eisenbrauns, 1999.

Stephanie Dalley, “Apkallu,” Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East (IDD), Swiss National Science Foundation, University of Zurich, 2011 (text updated 2011 and illustrations updated 2007), p. 4/7.

August 1, 2015

Lenzi: Strabo, Pausanias and Pliny All Have Agendas

“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 Helleno-centric scholarly opinions about Seleucid neglect or disinterest in and thus demise of traditional Babylonian settlements and institutions.

The alleged neglect, in fact, originates with modern historians 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).

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.

According to some interpretations, the death of the Persian king Darius III Codomannus in July 330 CE was foretold in the Dynastic Prophecy written on a clay tablet found at Babylon.
Heralding the end of the Achaemenid empire, the Macedonian conquerer Alexander the Great took over.
The tablets containing the Dynastic Prophecy are now in the British Museum, BM40623.

(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], 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].

$The relevant lines are quoted below in a translation by Bert van der Spek.  [Column 5] 4 For two years [he will exercise kingship]. [1]. 5 That king a eunuch [will murder]. 6 A certain prince [......] [2] 7 will set out and [seize] the thr[one] 8 Five years [he will exercise] king[ship] 9 Troops of the land of Hani [......] [3] 10 will set out a[nd? .. ]./-ship?\ th[ey will? ...] 11 [his] troop[s they will defeat;] 12 booty from him they will take [and his spoils] 13 they will plunder. Later [his] tr[oops ...] 14 will assemble and his weapons he will ra[ise (...)] 15 Enlil, Šamaš and [Marduk(?)] [4] 16 will go at the side of his army [(...);] 17 the overthrow of the Hanaean troops he will [bring about]. 18 His extensive booty he will car[ry off and] 19 into his palace he [will bring it] 20 The people who had [experienced] misfortune 21 [will enjoy] well-being. 22 The heart of the land [will be happy] 23 Tax exemption [he will grant to Babylonia]   http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t49.html$

The relevant lines are quoted below in a translation by Bert van der Spek.  [Column 5]
4 For two years [he will exercise kingship]. [1].
5 That king a eunuch [will murder].
6 A certain prince [……] [2]
7 will set out and [seize] the thr[one]
8 Five years [he will exercise] king[ship]
9 Troops of the land of Hani [……] [3]
10 will set out a[nd? .. ]./-ship?\ th[ey will? …]
11 [his] troop[s they will defeat;]
12 booty from him they will take [and his spoils]
13 they will plunder. Later [his] tr[oops …]
14 will assemble and his weapons he will ra[ise (…)]
15 Enlil, Šamaš and [Marduk(?)] [4]
16 will go at the side of his army [(…);]
17 the overthrow of the Hanaean troops he will [bring about].
18 His extensive booty he will car[ry off and]
19 into his palace he [will bring it]
20 The people who had [experienced] misfortune
21 [will enjoy] well-being.
22 The heart of the land [will be happy]
23 Tax exemption [he will grant to Babylonia]  
http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t49.html

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).

The Cylinder of Antiochus I Soter from the Ezida Temple in Borsippa (Antiochus Cylinder) is an historiographical text from ancient Babylonia.
It describes how the Seleucid crown prince Antiochus, the son of king Seleucus Nicator, rebuilt the Ezida Temple.
  The cuneiform text itself (BM 36277) is now in the British Museum.   The document is a barrel-shaped clay cylinder, which was buried in the foundations of the Ezida temple in Borsippa.
The script of this cylinder is inscribed in archaic ceremonial Babylonian cuneiform script that was also used in the well-known Codex of Hammurabi and adopted in a number of royal inscriptions of Neo-Babylonian kings, including Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus (cf. Berger 1973).
The script is quite different from the cuneiform script that was used for chronicles, diaries, rituals, scientific and administrative texts.  
Another late example is the Cyrus Cylinder, commemorating Cyrus’ capture of Babylon in 539 BCE (Schaudig 2001: 550-6). This cylinder, however, was written in normal Neo-Babylonian script.
The Antiochus Cylinder was found by Hormuzd Rassam in 1880 in Ezida, the temple of the god Nabu in Borsippa, in what must have been its original position, “encased in some kiln-burnt bricks covered over with bitumen” in the “doorway” of Koldewey’s Room A1: probably this was built into the eastern section of the wall between A1 and Court A, since the men of Daud Thoma, the chief foreman, seem to have destroyed much of the brickwork at this point.
Rassam (1897: 270) mistakenly records this as a cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar II (Reade 1986: 109). The cylinder is now in the British Museum in London.   (BM 36277).
http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/antiochus_cylinder/antiochus_cylinder1.html

Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White, “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.

Archaeology 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.

(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 Bīt Rēš temple’s (Temple of Anu) 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).

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 153-5.

Samizdat

Category: 1932

September 8, 2015

Kvanvig: The apkallus as Watchers and Guardians

Share this:

August 29, 2015

Dalley: Apkallu-6, IDD 2011

Share this:

August 1, 2015

Lenzi: Strabo, Pausanias and Pliny All Have Agendas

Share this: