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September 13, 2015

Izre’el: The Tale of the Adapa Myth

“Moreover, there is further textual evidence for the identification of the two figures in the combined name u-an(-na) adapa or u-ma-a-num a-da-pa (Lambert 1962: 73-4; van Dijk 1962: 44-8; Hallo 1963: 176; Bottéro 1969-70: 106; Borger 1974: 186; Picchioni 1981: 97-101; Kvanvig 1988: 202-4; Denning-Bolle 1992: 44-5; cf. Albright 1926).

The mythological figure Adapa has, thus, two variants: one is called Uan; another is called Adapa. The myth of the seven primordial sages shares with the Berossus tradition the mytheme of emergence from water. The etymological equation between Adapa and ù.tu.a.ab.ba is related to a similar tradition, while his having ascended to heaven is perhaps recalled by the name Uan, which includes a direct reference to heaven (An).

Purādu-fish apkallū were antediluvian sages, the famous Seven Sages of Sumeria were purādu-fish.
The genotype is also attested in Berossus, as the form of the mentor of mankind, Oannes.

Thus it was Oannes-Adapa who instructed people about the ordinance of the earth. It is with this theme that the myth of Adapa and the South Wind opens.

The Story

The myth as we know it opens with a description of the background to the main narrative. This background has reached us through what is now called Fragment A, of which the very first line or lines are missing (for the find and the extant fragments, see below).

The first legible lines refer to the power of divine speech, and it is said that Ea—known to us as the Mesopotamian god of fresh water and wisdom—perfected Adapa “with great intelligence, to give instruction about the ordinance of the earth. To him he gave wisdom, he did not give him eternal life” (lines 3’-4’).

Adapa was a servant of Ea. Respected and adored by his community, he performed the chores necessary to the daily rituals, which included, among others, supplying fish from the nearby sea.

One day Adapa’s journey to the wide sea ended unexpectedly in a sudden burst of the South Wind. Adapa was plunged into the sea. Here begins the narrative as we know it from Fragment B. This fragment has some close, albeit broken, parallels in Fragment C and at the beginning of Fragment D.

Adapa, who for the first time in his life had met with some difficulty, could do nothing other than to threaten the blowing wind that he would break its wing. As soon as he uttered this threat, the wing of the South Wind broke.

Click to zoom.<br /> A solid basalt tub recovered from outside the Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh, now in the collection of the Pergamon Museum.<br /> Ea is readily identified at the center with water flowing from his shoulders. Ea is surrounded by apkallu, puradu-fish apkallu.<br /> The puradu-fish apkallu have a fish head and fish skin flowing down their backs. They raise rectangular objects of unknown etiology in their right hands, in their traditional acts of purification and blessing. The banduddu buckets are, as usual, in their lowered left hands.<br /> This tub probably portrays the Seven Sages of antediluvian Sumeria.

Click to zoom.
A solid basalt tub recovered from outside the Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh, now in the collection of the Pergamon Museum.
Ea is readily identified at the center with water flowing from his shoulders. Ea is surrounded by apkallu, puradu-fish apkallu.
The puradu-fish apkallu have a fish head and fish skin flowing down their backs. They raise rectangular objects of unknown etiology in their right hands, in their traditional acts of purification and blessing. The banduddu buckets are, as usual, in their lowered left hands.
This tub probably portrays the Seven Sages of antediluvian Sumeria.

Nothing could be done against Adapa’s spell, and Anu, the sky god and the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon, called Adapa to task. The situation was indeed unpleasant for the disciple of Ea. Yet, a god such as Ea would not risk a meeting between his loyal servant and Anu without proper preparation.

As might be appropriate for the god of wisdom, Ea, well known also for his artful character, supplied Adapa with minute instructions that were intended to save his life. Among these were strict orders to avoid any food or drink offered to him in heaven, any of which Ea said would bring death on Adapa.

However the situation turned out to be rather different from what Adapa anticipated. While in heaven, Anu’s anger was appeased by two deities, Dumuzi and Gizzida, who were standing at the gate of heaven. Following Ea’s instructions, Adapa had paid a tribute of flattering words to them. Instead of being offered deadly food and water, he was offered the food and water of life.

Adapa refused it, and thus—at least according to one recension, recorded in Fragment B—lost a unique and irreversible chance for eternal life.

However, according to another version of the story, recorded in Fragment D, Anu seems to have shown Adapa the awesomeness of heaven and to have installed Adapa in his own rather than in Ea’s service. This fragment also adds to the myth a healing incantation that is based on the very fact that Adapa, “a seed of humankind,” succeeded in breaking the wing of the South Wind.”

Schlomo Izre’el, Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death, Eisenbrauns, 2001, pp. 2-5.

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September 13, 2015

Izre’el: Origins of the Adapa Myth

“Adapa the Sage

Adapa was known in Ancient Mesopotamia as The Sage. The original etymology of the name Adapa may not have reached us. A lexical text lists a term adapu as meaning “wise” (Igituh I: 107), an attribute that is further attested in another late text (Lambert 1962: 74). This adjectival noun is undoubtedly derived from the name of the mythological figure Adapa (CAD A/I 102 s.v. adapu B; AHw 1542 s.v. adapu III).

This lexical text has ù.tu.a.ab.ba “born in the sea” as the Sumerian equivalent of adapu, an equation that may have resulted from folk etymology (Lambert 1962: 73-4). In any case, whether primary or secondary, this possible etymology shows the mythological characteristics attributed to Adapa by the Mesopotamians, since he, as one of the first antediluvian sages, was thought to have emerged from the sea.

At some point, the name Adapa was interpreted as an epithet rather than as a proper noun, and as such it co-occurs with the name Uan(na), “the light of An” (see below).

Whether the word was originally an epithet or a name is hard to tell, especially since one cannot draw any sound conclusions regarding the origin of the myth or of any individual mytheme from the chronology of its occasional textual finds.

K 5519, British Museum.
E.A. Wallis Budge, ed., Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, part XXX, British Museum, London, 1911. Plate 8.
http://www.etana.org/sites/default/files/coretexts/17079.pdf

In a Sumero-Akkadian bilingual account of the first sages, a priest of Eridu is mentioned as one who ascended to heaven:

“[PN,] the purification priest of Eridu

[. . .] who ascended to heaven.

They are the seven brilliant apkallus, purãdu-fish of the sea,

[sev]en apkallus “grown” in the river,

who insure the correct functioning of the ordinance of heaven and earth.”

(K 5519: I’ – 9’ after Reiner 1961: 2, 4).

Reiner (1961: 6-7) suggested that the subject here was Adapa. However, taken in its context as part of the bīt mēseri ritual, the name of the apkallu mentioned is Utuabzu (“born in the Apsu”), who comes seventh in a list of apkallus (Borger 1974: 192-4).

A fish-apkallu drawn by A.H. Layard from a stone relief, one of a pair flanking a doorway in the Temple of Ninurta at Kalhu.
This example is identical to illustration 55 in Dalley’s article on the apkallu, which she cites for the dual daggers in his waistband.
British Museum.   Reproduced in Schlomo Izre’el, Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death, Eisenbrauns, 2001.  
https://books.google.co.th/books?id=MbwwROVGl7UC&pg=PA3&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

In another place in the same text, the last of seven sages is Utua-abba, mentioned as one who descended from heaven (Borger 1974: 193-4; see also Borger 1994: 231 and p. 232 n. 37).

The name Uan is listed as the first apkallu, who served during the time of the king Ayyalu (van Dijk 1962: 44). It is he who is mentioned as the one who “completed the ordinance of heaven and earth.”

The Greek variant of the name Uan, namely Oannes, is known from the account of Babylonian history by Berossus, The Babyloniaca, where it is said that before civilization was introduced to the people of Mesopotamia,

“…there was a great crowd of men in Babylonia and they lived without laws as wild animals. In the first year (i.e., of the reign of Alorus) a beast named Oannes appeared from the Erythrean Sea in a place adjacent to Babylonia. Its entire body was that of a fish, but a human head had grown beneath the head of the fish and human feet likewise had grown from the fish’s tail. It also had a human voice. A picture of it is still preserved today.”

(Burstein 1978: 13-4).

The evidence in our possession thus seems to point to at least two different original traditions (cf. Wiggermann 1986: 153) that have become a single unified tradition in the most prominent remaining texts (cf. the remarks by Denning-Bolle 1992: 44-5).

I believe that in the myth of Adapa and the South Wind, as it was interpreted in the traditions that have reached us, there is a strong case for such a unified tradition. Variation, it must be noted, is a part of the very nature of mythological traditions (cf. pp. 108-10 below).”

Schlomo Izre’el, Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death, Eisenbrauns, 2001, pp. 1-2.

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August 15, 2015

Kvanvig: The Apkallus had a Cosmic Function

“There is a clear difference between the group of seven and the subsequent group of four figures in Bīt Mēseri. The difference is not expressed in the same way as in the Uruk tablet in a general pattern of apkallus and succeeding ummanus. In Bīt Mēseri all the figures are apkallus with a curious exception of the last one, who is only two-thirds apkallu.

In Bīt Mēseri, there are thus two periods of transition, from the seven apkallus of divine descent to the four apkallus of human descent, and from the extraordinary apkallus to ordinary scholarship (we assume ummanus).

This depiction of a fish-apkallū of the parādu-fish type guarded the entrance to the temple of Ninurta at Nimrud.
A fish’s head can be seen on the Apkallu’s head, and its skin hangs down over the back of his body.
It is important to recall that the so-called Seven Sages of Sumeria were apkallū of this type.
Neo-Assyrian era, 865-860 BCE.
From the Temple of Ninurta, Nimrud (ancient Kalhu; Biblical Calah), northern Mesopotamia, Iraq. (The British Museum, London).
Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP (Glasg)
http://www.ancient.eu/image/2708/

The last transition is exemplified with Lu-Nanna; he is a mixture of both apkallu and, we must assume, ummanu. The difference between the first two groups is expressed through their origin. At the end of the list of four it is stated: [seb]et apkallu ša Ea bēlum [u]zna rapašta ušaklilušunuti,” of human descent, whom the lord Ea has endowed with a broad understanding” (lines 30-31).

“Born in the river” means engendered in the abode of Ea, which shows divine descent, in opposition to the human descent of the four succeeding ones, who, nevertheless are given great wisdom.

The apkallus are given a cosmic function. This is repeated twice, first in connection with the first apkallu, then in connection with all seven apkallus at the end of the list in Bīt Mēseri.

In both cases their responsibility concerns usurāt šamê u erseti (lines 1 and 13). Akkadian usurtu means concretely, “drawing,” abstractly, “plan, regulation, destiny;” so the apkallus are in charge of the “plans of heaven and earth.”

We have met this concept in Atrahasis where the birth-goddess Nintu: usurāti ša niši ussar, “draws the drawings for the people,” (S, 14), i.e. creates the basic conditions and fixes the destinies.

(Text in Lambert and Millard, Atra-Hasis, 62-3).

There is, however, a difference in Bīt Mēseri, which is made clear by the two different verbs used. In the case of the first apkallu (line 1) the verb mušaklil, participle, of the verb šuklulu (Š stem), is used. The verb means both “complete” and “make perfectly.”

In this bas relief from Nimrud, human apkallū, the ummánū, kneel and tend to a sacred tree.
Both ummânū wear horned tiaras and display rosette bracelets on their wrists. Bracelets are also apparent on their upper arms.
In the lower register, bird-apkallū raise mulillu cones to sprinkle water in a gesture of exorcism and liberation of sin.
As is typical, the banduddu buckets are in their left hands.
Interestingly in this case, the bracelets of the bird-apkallū are atypical. No rosettes are apparent.

The first apkallu thus “completed” or “made perfectly the drawings of heaven and earth.”

In the summary about all the apkallus (line 13) the verb muštešer, participle, Št stem, of the verb ešēru is used, which has the meaning “keep in order.”

Thus there is a distinction between what the first apkallu initially did, and what all apkallus did together. The first apkallu completed the design of the world-order; the seven apkallus, as a group, maintained this world order.

The corresponding Sumerian line 12 (the tablet is bilingual) has a text close to what we find in a Sumerian hymn. We quote the text in the German translation by van Dijk:

“Die urformen von Himmel und Erde

in rechter Ordnung zu halten, in die Weite von Himmel und Erde

den grossen Entscheidungen den Weg zu bahnen,

die Kultordnungen vollkommen zu machen.”

(Hymn to Nusku I, 14).

(J. van Dijk, Summarische Götterlieder, AHAW, PH, abh. I. Heidelberg 1960, 14; transliteration, 108; translation, 111.).

What is said here about the god Nusku is in Bīt Mēseri said about the apkallus. It covers the wide aspects of culture and civilization listed by Berossos about the first and seventh apkallu; it brings us, however, even one step further. The apkallus had a cosmic function; they were cosmic guardians.

They were both in charge of the me, and they were in charge of people’s destinies. In the last role, they are also described in a Babylonian myth where they are the custodians of the tablets of destinies.”

(W.G. Lambert, “The Twenty-One “poultices,”” AnSt 30 (1980): 77-83; B.R. Foster, “Wisdom and the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Orientalia (NS) 43 (1974): 344-54.).

Helge Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading, Brill, 2011, pp. 116-7.

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August 12, 2015

Kvanvig: The Lists of the Seven Apkallus

“There are known three lists of apkallus, two cuneiform and the one in Berossos. The first known cuneiform list of seven apkallus was published by E. Reiner in 1961, and then reedited with new pieces added by R. Borger in 1974.

Already Reiner suggested that the broken tablet belonged to the Neo-Assyrian incantations series Bīt Mēseri, “protected house.” Borger made clear that the list belonged to the third tablet in this series, and that there are traces of two more lists of a similar kind.

(E. Reiner, “The Etiological Myth of the ‘Seven Sages’,” Orientalia (NS) 30 (1961): 1-11. Borger, “Die Beschwörungsserie Bit Meseri,” 192-3.)

The three types of apkallū are portrayed, with the human ummânū at far left, the bird-apkallū type in the middle, and the antediluvian purādu-fish type at far right.
The human ummânū is attested in the Uruk List of Kings and Sages, while other references to bird-apkallū are legion, as documented in Wiggermann and other authorities. The purādu-fish apkallū is principally attested in Berossus, though other authorities confirm them, as well.

There are found two copies of of the apkallu list from Bīt Mēseri in late Babylonia. A. Cavigneaux published a tiny little fragment in 1979. In 1983, E. von Weiher published the transliteration of the full list as part of an Uruk recension of Bīt Mēseri.

The tablets were found in the house of what was most likely a priest specializing in astrology and divination. They can be dated to the 4-3 century, which means about the same time as Berossos wrote his Babyloniaca.

That there existed a Babylonian recension of the apkallu list in Bīt Mēseri is important, because it demonstrates that the tradition contained in this list was not an isolated Assyrian phenomenon.

As already stated, the Antediluvian King List from Uruk, W 20 030, 7, published by van Dijk in 1962, contained both seven kings and seven parallel apkallus. Berossos also paralleled kings and apkallus, but unlike the Uruk tablet it has one apkallu parallel to the first king, a=one to the fourth, four to the sixth, and one to the seventh.

Fish-Apkallū statuettes of the type that were buried in the foundations of buildings.
The so-called parādu-fish apkallū were the seven antediluvian sages of Sumeria.

The names of the apkallus and their successions are identical in Bīt Mēseri and the Uruk tablet, with small variations in spelling. We render the names in the Sumerian form they have in the Uruk tablet:

Uan
Uandugga
Enmedugga
Enmegalamma
Enmebulugga
Anenlilda
Utuabzu

There is a correspondence to the Greek names in Berossos, but it demands both scholarly quibbling and a bit of creative imagination to explain how exactly the Sumerian words were transformed to Greek ones. We have to bear in mind that it is far from certain that we have Berossos’s own spellings. His text has gone through many hands.

In Bīt Mēseri the list of the seven apkallus is succeeded by a list of four apkallus and built into an incantation. For the sense of convenience we bring here an English translation based on Reiner’s English edition of a part of the list and Weiher’s German edition of the full list.”

Helge Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading, Brill, 2011, pp. 107-8.

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August 9, 2015

Lenzi: The Uruk List of Kings and Sages Renewed the Anu Cult

“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 Ini-qa-qu-ru-sù-ú, is none other than the Nikarchos (Νίκαρχος) known from the dedicatory inscription found in the Bīt Rēs temple dating back to 244 BCE.

Although some have questioned this proposed identification due to the orthography of the name on the tablet, variations in Greek names are rather common.

Indeed, a list of orthographic variations attested for Nikarchos in archival texts, provided to me by L. T. Doty, 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 šaknu of Uruk in the mid-3rd Century, occupies in line 21 the position of the tenth and final “king” of the ULKS.

(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 Ahu’tu clan, his work on the temple would have benefited all of the scribal clans.

Ruins of the Anu Ziggurat and the White Temple. Uruk ( Present-day Warka, Iraq). c. 3300-3000 BCE.  <br /> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/168814686005734256/

Ruins of the Anu Ziggurat and the White Temple. Uruk ( Present-day Warka, Iraq). c. 3300-3000 BCE.  
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/168814686005734256/

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.)

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 well-beyond 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.

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 Ahiqar.

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.

(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 Taqiš-Gula, mentioned with king Abi-ešuh in line 15.

A Nisroc bird-Apkallu with a king.

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.)

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 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.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 163-5.

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August 5, 2015

Lenzi: Authority Rooted in Divinity

“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, thereby removing (as far as we can tell) scholars from regular influence within the centers of political power.

(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.)

Ruins of Ur  
http://www.ancient.eu/sumer/

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, their systematic and explicit formulation demonstrates their concern to make their position well-understood.

Map of the Main Cities of Sumer and Elam  <br /> Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished. Original image by Phirosiberia. Uploaded by Jan van der Crabben, published on 26 April 2012 under the following license:<br /> Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike.<br /> This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.<br /> <br /> http://www.ancient.eu/uploads/images/359.png?v=1431034297

Map of the Main Cities of Sumer and Elam  
Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished. Original image by Phirosiberia. Uploaded by Jan van der Crabben, published on 26 April 2012 under the following license:
Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike.
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

http://www.ancient.eu/uploads/images/359.png?v=1431034297

No longer wandering the halls of the palace at a time when scholarship’s importance went without saying, these men could assume nothing was self-evident. 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 ummânū 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.

(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.”)

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.

(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.

From Ronald Wallenfels, Apkallu-Sealings from Hellenistic Uruk, 1993.
Seal number 3. A fish-apkallu, a paradu-fish apkallu, depicted on a personal seal.
https://www.academia.edu/1368825/Apkallu-Sealings_from_Hellenistic_Uruk

It is interesting that a number of members of the Ekur-zakir clan actually owned apkallū-seals. So it is clear that the apkallū 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.)

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?

From Ronald Wallenfels, Apkallu-Sealings from Hellenistic Uruk, 1993.
Seal number 23. A fish-apkallu, a paradu-fish apkallu, depicted on a personal seal.
https://www.academia.edu/1368825/Apkallu-Sealings_from_Hellenistic_Uruk

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, the contemporary purpose of the ULKS probably rests precisely here.

(“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.)

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 IŠ sign, and a name.

No one has yet been able to provide an acceptable restoration for the beginning of the line. The following interpretation, therefore, must remain tentative.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 161-3.

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August 5, 2015

Lenzi: More on the Exaltation of the Anu Cult

“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.

(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.)

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.

Ziggurat at Ur.

(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.)

The archaizing tendency was also deployed in Kephalon’s temple dedicatory inscription from 201 BCE mentioned above. (Also mentioned by Beaulieu in connection with antiquarianism (see “Antiquarian Theology,” 68).

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 apkallū, as the founder of the Bīt Rēs temple. (See Falkenstein, Topographie, 6 and van Dijk, “Die Inschriftenfunde,” 47 (improving Falkenstein) for the text.)

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.

A schematic of remains at Uruk.

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 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 apkallū–ummânū 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.

An aerial view of the Uruk ziggurat. My purpose in posting pics of the temple remains in Ur and Uruk is to compare their relative sizes and comparative majesty.

As for the cultic aspect of the agenda, it is surely significant that Nungalpirigal, the first postdiluvian apkallū, 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.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 160-1.

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August 3, 2015

Lenzi: On Nikarchos and Kephalon

“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.”

Clay jar lid, incised with a Greek inscription; diameter 0.165, maximum thickness 0.015. Letters 0.005 – 0.01.
Now in the Yale Babylonian Collection (MLC 2632).
Courtesy of the Yale Babylonian Collection.
S.M. Sherwin-White, Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 50 (1983), p. 221.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20183777

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 mid-third 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 Bīt Rēš temple might in fact hint at a cooling of Seleucid interests in Mesopotamia, at least outside the city of Babylon.

(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.)

Although both inscriptions describe the temple renovation as having been undertaken “for the life of the king” (ana bulta ša RN) and probably therefore suggest the indirect involvement of the Seleucid rulers, the actual administrators of the work according to these texts were city/temple officials, the famous Anu- uballit–Nikarchos and Anu-uballit–Kephalon.

From:
S. M. Sherwin-White
Aristeas Ardibelteios: Some Aspects of the Use of Double Names in Seleucid Babylonia
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
Bd. 50 (1983), pp. 209-221
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20183777?&seq=14#page_scan_tab_contents

(For these two men, their titles (šaknu and rab ša rēš āli ša 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).

Anu-uballit–Kephalon is also known from an Aramaic inscription found on 15 bricks in the Irigal temple in Seleucid Uruk (see R. A. Bowman, “Anu-uballit–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-uballit–Nikarchos received his name, according to the inscription, directly from the Seleucid king (šá 1an-ti-‘-i-ku-su LUGAL KUR.KUR.MEŠ 1 ni-qí-qa-ar-qu-su MU-šú šá-nu-ú íš-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 (Νίκαρχος and Κέφαλων) and the positions of authority these inscriptions give to the men.

Even if these inscriptions point to indirect Seleucid involvement or support, 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.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 157-8.

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July 26, 2015

Lenzi: The Mythology of Scribal Succession

“The text of the ULKS is as follows:

“During the reign of 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 Enmeušumgalana, 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 Ištar brought down from heaven to Eana. He made the bronze lyre, whose . . . (were) lapis lazuli, according to the technique of Ninagal (Ninagal is Ea’s smith). The lyre was placed before Anu . . ., the dwelling of (his) personal god.?

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 Išbi-Erra, the king, Sidu, a.k.a. Enlil-ibni, was scholar.

During the reign of Abi-ešuh, the king, Gimil-Gula and Taqiš-Gula 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-ubba (this name … despite chronological problems, is probably to be identified with Saggil-kina-ubbib, the author of The Babylonian Theodicy; see van Dijk, “Die Inschriftenfunde,” 51) was scholar.

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.

Tablet of Anu-belšunu, son of Nidintu-Anu, descendant of Sin-leqi-unnini, 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.”

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.

Text: "IN ERIDU: ALULIM RULED AS KING 28,800 YEARS. ELALGAR RULED 43,200 YEARS. ERIDU WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO BAD-TIBIRA. AMMILU'ANNA THE KING RULED 36,000 YEARS. ENMEGALANNA RULED 28,800 YEARS. DUMUZI RULED 28,800 YEARS. BAD-TIBIRA WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO LARAK. EN-SIPA-ZI-ANNA RULED 13,800 YEARS. LARAK WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO SIPPAR. MEDURANKI RULED 7,200 YEARS. SIPPAR WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO SHURUPPAK. UBUR-TUTU RULED 36,000 YEARS. TOTAL: 8 KINGS, THEIR YEARS: 222,600" MS in Sumerian on clay, probably Larsa Babylonia, 2000-1800 BC, 1 tablet, 8,1x6,5x2,7 cm, single column, 26 lines in cuneiform script. 5 other copies of the Antediluvian king list are known only: MS 3175, 2 in Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, one is similar to this list, containing 10 kings and 6 cities, the other is a big clay cylinder of the Sumerian King List, on which the kings before the flood form the first section, and has the same 8 kings in the same 5 cities as the present. A 4th copy is in Berkeley: Museum of the University of California, and is a school tablet. A 5th tablet, a small fragment, is in Istanbul. The list provides the beginnings of Sumerian and the world’s history as the Sumerians knew it. The cities listed were all very old sites, and the names of the kings are names of old types within Sumerian name-giving. Thus it is possible that correct traditions are contained, though the sequence given need not be correct. The city dynasties may have overlapped. It is generally held that the Antediluvian king list is reflected in Genesis 5, which lists the 10 patriarchs from Adam to Noah, all living from 365 years (Enoch) to 969 years (Methuselah), altogether 8,575 years. It is possible that the 222,600 years of the king list reflects a more realistic understanding of the huge span of time from Creation to the Flood, and the lengths of the dynasties involved. The first of the 5 cities mentioned , Eridu, is Uruk, in the area where the myths place the Garden of Eden, while the last city, Shuruppak, is the city of Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah. Jöran Friberg: A remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts. Springer 2007. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, vol. 6, Cuneiform Texts I. pp. 237-241. Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 96, pp. 199-200, pls. LXXVIII-LXXIX. Andrew E. Hill & John H. Walton: A survey of the Old Testament, 3rd ed., Grand Rapids, Mi., Zondervan Publ. House, 2009, p. 206. Zondervan Illustrated Bible, Backgrounds, Commentary. John H. Walton, gen. ed. Grand Rapids, Mich., Zondervan, 2009, vol 1, p. 482, vol. 5, p. 398. Babylonia 2000 - 1800 BC

MS 2855
Text:
“IN ERIDU: ALULIM RULED AS KING 28,800 YEARS. ELALGAR RULED 43,200 YEARS. ERIDU WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO BAD-TIBIRA. AMMILU’ANNA THE KING RULED 36,000 YEARS. ENMEGALANNA RULED 28,800 YEARS. DUMUZI RULED 28,800 YEARS. BAD-TIBIRA WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO LARAK. EN-SIPA-ZI-ANNA RULED 13,800 YEARS. LARAK WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO SIPPAR. MEDURANKI RULED 7,200 YEARS. SIPPAR WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO SHURUPPAK. UBUR-TUTU RULED 36,000 YEARS. TOTAL: 8 KINGS, THEIR YEARS: 222,600”
MS in Sumerian on clay, probably Larsa Babylonia, 2000-1800 BC, 1 tablet, 8,1×6,5×2,7 cm, single column, 26 lines in cuneiform script.
5 other copies of the Antediluvian king list are known only: MS 3175, 2 in Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, one is similar to this list, containing 10 kings and 6 cities, the other is a big clay cylinder of the Sumerian King List, on which the kings before the flood form the first section, and has the same 8 kings in the same 5 cities as the present.
A 4th copy is in Berkeley: Museum of the University of California, and is a school tablet. A 5th tablet, a small fragment, is in Istanbul.
The list provides the beginnings of Sumerian and the world’s history as the Sumerians knew it. The cities listed were all very old sites, and the names of the kings are names of old types within Sumerian name-giving. Thus it is possible that correct traditions are contained, though the sequence given need not be correct. The city dynasties may have overlapped.
It is generally held that the Antediluvian king list is reflected in Genesis 5, which lists the 10 patriarchs from Adam to Noah, all living from 365 years (Enoch) to 969 years (Methuselah), altogether 8,575 years.
It is possible that the 222,600 years of the king list reflects a more realistic understanding of the huge span of time from Creation to the Flood, and the lengths of the dynasties involved.
The first of the 5 cities mentioned, Eridu, is Uruk, in the area where the myths place the Garden of Eden, while the last city, Shuruppak, is the city of Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah.
Jöran Friberg: A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts. Springer 2007.
Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences.
Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, vol. 6, Cuneiform Texts I. pp. 237-241. Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17,
Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 96, pp. 199-200, pls. LXXVIII-LXXIX.
Andrew E. Hill & John H. Walton: A Survey of the Old Testament, 3rd ed., Grand Rapids, MI., Zondervan Publ. House, 2009, p. 206.
Zondervan Illustrated Bible, Backgrounds, Commentary. John H. Walton, gen. ed. Grand Rapids, MI., Zondervan, 2009, vol 1, p. 482, vol. 5, p. 398.
Babylonia
2000 – 1800 BC
http://www.schoyencollection.com/history-collection-introduction/sumerian-history-collection/king-cities-before-flood-ms-2855

It lists seven well-known antediluvian kings, each paired with his corresponding apkallū-sage, then a single post-diluvian king-apkallū pair, followed by eight post-diluvian kings, each with his corresponding ummânu-scholar (in one case, two scholars).

The list is arranged from start to finish in what one must recognize as an attempt at chronological order. Focusing on the ummânū, the implication of the text is rather clear: the human, post-diluvian scholars are the direct professional descendants of the earlier semi-divine apkallū.

In a previous study I called this traditional genealogical relationship the “mythology of scribal succession.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 140-3.

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July 26, 2015

Lenzi: The Uruk List of Kings and Sages

THE URUK LIST OF KINGS AND SAGES AND LATE MESOPOTAMIAN SCHOLARSHIP

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

The cuneiform tablet (IM 65066) is in the Bagdad Museum.  
A.K. Grayson, from the Reallexikon der Assyriologie, s.v. “Königslisten und Chroniken”.
A.K. Grayson, ‘Assyrian and Babylonian King Lists,’ in: Lišan mithurti. (Festschrift Von Soden) (Kevelaer : Neukirchen-Vluyn : Butzon & Bercker; 1969) Plate III.  
http://www.livius.org/source-content/uruk-king-list/

The “Uruk List of Kings and Sages” (ULKS) was discovered in Anu’s Bīt Rēš temple by German archaeologists during the 1959/60 season and published in 1962 by van Dijk. (The tablet bears the excavation number W.20030, 7. For an edition of the text, see Jan van Dijk, “Die Inschriftenfunde,” Vorläufiger Bericht über die . . . Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka 18 (1962), 44-52 and plate 27).

Since then Assyriologists have cited this Seleucid-era text as the clearest cuneiform evidence that Mesopotamian scholars (ummânū) traced their professional ancestry explicitly back to the mythological sages (apkallū) 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. (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, etc.)

An ummânu, or sage of human descent. The ummânu raises his right hand in the iconic gesture of greeting, with uncertain plants in his left hand. Note the rosette design on his wristband, and the horned tiara headdress, indicative of divinity.   Such human apkallū are invariably portrayed with wings.

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:

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 ummânū and apkallū in the Seleucid period?
How does the last named and oft-overlooked individual fit into this text’s plan and into the social context of Hellenistic Uruk? (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.)

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 ummânū and apkallū; 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 fragmentary evidence, this interpretation can only be offered as a plausible reading and must therefore remain tentative.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 137-40.

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July 17, 2015

On the Ummânu

“Such an association of the apkallu’s with kings of renown is singularly striking in view of the ancient near eastern motif that links a person of superior wisdom with a famous king.

In Egypt, we have the tradition — or fiction — of viziers who are credited with the authorship of “instructions” or “admonitions” (see J.A. Wilson, ANET 412 ff. and 432 n. 4, see also H. Brunner in Handbuch der Orientalistik I/2 p. 92 f.); for the Old Testament, references are conveniently collected by J. Lindblom, in Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 3, p. 129 f.

The god Ea at far left, wearing the horned headdress indicative of divinity, with water coursing from his shoulders.   A fish-apkallū is in the iconic posture with right hand raised in blessing or exorcism, with the banduddu bucket in his left hand.   The next apkallū wields an indistinct and as yet undefined angular object in his right hand, with the typical banduddu bucket in his left.   The entity at far right, which appears to be wearing a horned tiara indicative of divinty, remains unidentified and undefined.

The most famous figure of such a wise man, whose story is the most wide spread, is Ahiqar, whose Mesopotamian origin has repeatedly been stated (for bibliography see Ginsberg in ANET 427), although no Babylonian prototype of the story as a whole is known.

However, there can be proven for Babylonia the existence of at least the theme that serves as a framework for Ahiqar’s sayings: this theme, the “disgrace and rehabilitation of a minister”, has been discussed, with a good comparative bibliography, by A.H. Krappe in JAOS 61 (1941) 280-84.

The story is included in the “bilingual proverbs” (latest publication with bibliography, by W.G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature 239 ff.), where it comprises a section of fourteen lines (ii 50-63, op. cit., p. 241), the longest of the sayings which usually consist of only two to four lines, although there are some as much as eight lines long.

The umu-apkallū at far left has his right hand raised in the iconic gesture of purification and exorcism, but no mullilu cone appears to be present.
The banduddû bucket is present in the left hand. This umu-apkallū wears a horned tiara, indicative of divinity.
The next entity lacks wings, and so is probably not an umu-apkallū. The mace in the right hand could be an e’ru, as it is not yet clear precisely what e’ru means. I do not understand the object in his left hand. The mace could be an indicator of sovereignty, of kingship.
The next entity holds a bowl and the curved staff, known as the gamlu-curved staff. While this entity wears a headdress, it is not horned, and wings are absent, suggesting that it is human rather than umu-apkallū. This is probably a king, Museum notes suggest Ashurnasirpal.
The entity at far right wields a curved stick in his right hand, I am unsure how Wiggermann defines it, and I am completely stumped by the object in his left hand, which appears to be a ladle. The entity appears to be a priest, blessing an offering from the king in a bowl.
Overall, this frieze supports one theme of Erica Reiner’s article on the Seven Sages of Sumeria, which is that each king had his associated advisor in the form of an apkallū.

Since none of the previous translations does justice to the motif expressed in the relevant passage, I suggest the following (the short lines of the bilingual text disposed in two columns are here restored to their assumed full length):

50-51: “Their gods have returned to the ruin,
52-53: the clamor (of daily life) has filled (lit. entered) the deserted house (again);
54-55: (where) the ingrate is tenant, the wise man does not reach old age.
56-58: The wise vizier, whose wisdom his king (or his lord) has not heeded,
59-61: and any valuable (person) forgotten by his master,
62-63: when a need arises for him (i.e., for his wisdom), he will be reinstated.”

The second half of the “saying” has reference to the disgrace and rehabilitation of a wise vizier, and, unless the first three lines (ii. 50-55) should be taken as a separate saying (so last J. Pereman, The Book of Assyro-Babylonian Proverbs [in Hebrew], p. 58), the reference to the “ingrate” (raggu) would indicate that the other basic theme of the Ahiqar-story, that of the “ungrateful nephew” (see Krappe, loc. cit., p. 281), had already been fused in the Mesopotamian tradition, as in the Ahiqar-story, with that of the “disgrace and rehabilitation of a minister”.

The argument for the existence in Babylonia of a tradition linking wisdom to a high official (“vizier”) of the king can be strengthened by the philological evidence of the alternation of the terms apkallu and ummânu, which has been adduced in other contexts.

In the top register, Ummiamu, (a variant spelling of Reiner’s ummânu), human apkallū that are postdiluvian, tend to a sacred tree. In the lower register, antediluvian apkallū with avian heads tend to a sacred tree.
The cones and buckets in their hands are now understood to be standard devices used to sprinkle water. Called mullilu and banduddu, respectively, the water sprinkling ritual was intended to liberate sin, or as part of a rite of exorcism.

The usual acceptation of the latter is “master craftsman,” often referring to scribes, authors or copyists of literary texts. References to both have been collected by van Dijk, La Sagesse Suméro-Accadienne, p. 20 n. 56, and note that Adapa, besides his more common epithet apkallu, is also called ummânu . . .

Moreover, it has been shown the term ummânu serves not only as the designation of a learned man or craftsman, but also refers, although in late texts, to a high official . . . In our connection most relevant is the mention of the ummânu beside the king in the Synchronistic King List (see simply Oppenheim in ANET 272 ff.), and the passage from the Fürstenspiegel (see now Lambert, BWL 112:5): šarru . . . ana UM.ME A la iqūl “if the king does not heed the vizier (or wise man).”

Note in the same text . . . is most likely to be read apkallišu.”

Erica Reiner, “The Etiological Myth of the “Seven Sages,” Orientalia, v. 30, No. 1, 1961, pp. 7-9.

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July 15, 2015

On the Fish-Apkallu

“Lamaštu amulets:

The fish-apkallū on Lamaštu amulet 2 (and 4?), exactly like the ūmu-apkallū on Lamaštu amulets 3 and 61, has his left hand on the bed of the sick man. The right hand is slightly damaged, but probably greeting.

Fish-Apkallu statuettes of the type that were buried in the foundations of buildings. It is difficult to tell whether they hold their hands in a prayerful position or hold something indistinct.

Wrong hand:

Occasionally apkallū are attested holding the bucket in their right hand: AfO 28 57f. 30 (above IIiI/6), Lamaštu amulet 5 (?), Calmeyer Reliefbronzen 66 H:8 (bird-apkallū).

Unidentified object:

One of the apkallū on CANES 773 holds in his right hand an unidentified feather-like object.

Identification:

The identification of the fish-apkallū of ritual I/IiI with the “fish-garbed” man goes back to Smith JRAS 1926 709 (based on comparison with the Kleinplastik from Ur); identification of one of them with Oannes has been proposed since the early days of Assyriology (Kolbe Reliefprogramme 26, Zimmern KAT 535ff., ZA 35 151ff.) but was proved only after the names of the sages in Berossos’ Babyloniaka were recognized in cuneiform (van Dijk UVB 18 46ff.).

Occasionally the apkallū is mistakenly identified with the fish-man / kulullû (see below, VII.C.9), a completely different figure. U4 – a n (Oannes) and Adapa, a human sage living approximately at the same time, are probably two different figures (Borger JNES 33186, Picchioni Adapa 97ff.).

A “fish-man” / kulullû is depicted at left, and a fish-apkallū at right.
Wiggermann distinguishes these two entities.

The texts clearly indicate that the fish-apkallū are not fish-garbed priests, but mythological figures, man and fish; they are bīnūt apsî, “creatures of apsû“, in ritual I/IIi, purād tāmti … ša ina nāri ibbanú, “carp of the sea…who were grown in the river” in text IIiI.B.8 (cf. also Cagni Erra, I 162), and Berossos clearly describes them as a mixture of fish and man (cf. S. Mayer Burstein SANE I/5 13, 19).

Their names lack the determinative DINGIR, they are no gods, and the horns on the head of the fish (on palace reliefs, not on seals, cf. Kleinplastik 89, FuB 10 35) probably developed from its gills.

Berossos calls them “hemidaimones” (Jacoby FGrH 400).

Fish-Apkallū depicted on a cistern. The fish iconography is unmistakable, as are the banduddu buckets in their left hands. Objects in their right hands are indistinct, but the traditional gestures of warding or blessing seem clear. The objects in their right hands may be the “angular objects” mentioned in the table by Wiggermann at the top of the page.

History.

In the third millennium a b g al is the name of a profession: see MSL 12 10:15, ZA 72 174 11 v 3, Bauer AWL 125 i 4 (NUN.ME.KA X ME/GANA2f, cf. also Barton MBI 2 iv 2), Ukg. 6 ii 30′, iii 4 (NUN.ME.KA X ME/GANA2f.) UET 8 33:15 and for the same profession in the divine world: TCL 15 10:98 (dA b g a l) cf. 85.

In OB sum. incantations a b g a l apparently refers to a mythological sage at the court of Enki: VAS 17 13:5 (together with Enkum, Ninkum, and the seven children of Apsû), 16:11, 32:21, HSAO 262:56, PBS I/2 123:9 IIIISET 1 217 Ni 4176:12, OrNS 44 68, cf. ASKT 12 Obv. 11ff.

The “seven apkallū of Eridu“, at least in AnSt 30 78 (SB) identified with the seven antediluvian sages (Anenlilda is among them), are rooted in the third millenium (TCS 3 25:139, cf. Benito “Enki and Ninmah” and “Enki and the World Order” 91:105, and for later attestations JCS 21 11 25+a, Maqlû II 124, V 110 = AfO 21 77, VII 49, VIII 38).

The names of the seven antediluvian sages are certainly not as old as the names of the antediluvian kings: they seem to be derived partly from the titles of literary works (Hallo JAOS 83 175f.), and partly from the names of the antediluvian kings.

The element en-me-(e n) (and a m – m e, a m – i etc.) = e m e n (me —en) (cf. Finkelstein JCS 17 42, Wilcke Lugalbanda 41), “lord”, in the names of the kings has been reinterpreted as “the lord (e n) who makes good (d u 10 – g a)/ perfects (g a l a m) / refines (b ùl u g -g á) the regulations (m e)”.

Although the resulting names are good Sumerian (Lambert JCS 16 74), the consistent difference is telling. The Sumerian of the linguistically rather simple bilingual incantation to the fish-apkallū in bīt mēseri (III.B.8) could well be of MB date, and the Kassite seals with representations of the fish-apkallū prove that at this time the later views existed at least partially.

These undatable later views connect the named carp apkallū with canonized literature (Lambert JCS 16 59ff., Hallo JAOS 83 175f., van Dijk-Mayer BaMB 2 no 90) and have possibly been developed concomittantly.

Literature on the apkallū types :

Below text III.B.8, 9, 10, 11; Borger JNES 33 183ff., Foster OrNS 43 344ff., Komoróczy ActAntHung 21 135ff., 142ff., S. Mayer Burstein SANE 1/5 13ff., Kawami Iran 10 146ff., van Dijk UVB 18 43ff., all with many references to previous literature.”

F.A.M. Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts, STYX&PP Publications, Groningen, 1992, p. 76-7.

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July 5, 2015

On the Mullilu, the “cleaner,” the Purification Instrument of the Apkallu Exorcist

“–mullilu, “purification instrument” (literally: “cleaner”).

When it is agreed upon that a word denoting the cone, the most common object in the hands of the bird-apkallū and the fish-apkallū, must appear among the terms denoting objects held by the apkallū in ritual I/II, this word can only be mullilu.

The identification of mullilu as denoting the cone is based on the observation that the cone on reliefs, seals and in the Kleinplastik never occurs as the only object held by an apkallū; thus e’ru, libbi gišimmari, and urigallu, the other objects held by an apkallū, are excluded.

Klengel-Brandt (FuB 10 34, cf. Rittig Kleinplastik 215) thinks mullilu denotes “eine Art kurzen Wedel … der hauptsachlich zum besprengen mit Wasser benutzt worden ist“, and indentifies it with the cone. Correctly, but without justification, Parker (Essays Wilkinson 33) states that mullilu, “purifier”, “may be the cone-shaped object carried by the genii”.

Umu-Apkallū in the characteristic act of purification, sprinkling sacred water from the Banduddu bucket with the Mullilu cone.
From Nimrud, capital of king Ashurnarzipal.
AO 19845

Unclear is BBR 26 v 39ff. (restored from 28:9, quoted by CAD M/2 189a), where the king carries a mullilu in his right and in his left hand. Never, on seals, reliefs or as a statue, does a figure carry a cone in both his left and his right hand.

The identity of the cone is still being debated: male inflorescence of the date-palm, or cone of a coniferous tree (cf., with previous literature, Stearns AfOB 15 2443). In a recent study, the second option is hesitantly favoured (Bleibtreu, Flora 61f., 93f., 123f.).

A bird-apkallu with mullilu and banduddu.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from an Assyrian bas-relief from Khorsabad.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17323/17323-h/17323-h.htm#linkBimage-0011

The Akkadian term mullilu does not give a clue. From a philological point of view the fir-cone (terinnu) is preferable to the male inflorescence of the date-palm (rikbu, cf. Landsberger Date Palm 19): terinnu is attested as an instrument bringing about the release of sin (Maqlû I 24, cf. Landsberger Date Palm 14) and thus resembles the other objects carried by the apkallū. For rikbu no such use is known.

Regarding cone and bucket, we conclude with the following:

The bucket is always carried in the left hand. The other hand may be empty, or may carry a variety of objects, such as the sprig (Kolbe Reliefprogramme Type VI), which occur also in the hands of figures not carrying buckets. The value of the bucket in the ritual cannot be dependent on the objects held in the other hand. The bucket, or rather its content, is effective simply by being present.
One object, the cone, appears only when the figure in question carries a bucket in its left hand. The value of the cone must in some way be dependent on the value of the bucket.
The texts indicate that the bucket contained holy water effectuating “release”. As was proposed before, the dependent cone “purifier”(mullilu) held in the right hand activated the holy water: it was a sprinkler (Klengel-Brandt, Rittig, CAD M/1l 189a).
The figures carrying buckets (and cones) are engaged in a purification ritual. As will be seen below, this accords well with their function of apkallū.
Figures carrying cones point their cone at the sacred tree, the king, or courtiers (Stearns AfOB 15 64f.). Figures standing in doorways and apparently pointing their cones at nothing, are perhaps best thought of as pointing their cones at passing visitors, just as the weapons and the gestures of greeting are directed at the visitors, and not at the building.
The sacred tree benefits from the activities of the genii, the genii do not need the tree, cf. Stearns AfOB 15 70ff. It is not necessary to understand the meaning of the tree in order to understand the meaning of the figures with bucket and cone.
For the tree we refer to Porada AASOR 24 108ff., Madhloon Sumer 26 137ff., Stearns AfOB 15 70ff. Genge AcOr 33 321ff., Hrouda BaM 3 41ff., Kolbe Reliefprogramme 83ff., Bleibtreu Flora 37ff., and passim, Parker Essays Wilkinson 38. For a doubtful connection with the texts, cf. van Dijk Syncretism 175 f., and Lugal 1 10 ff. (see below 000).”

F.A.M. Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts, STYX&PP Publications, Groningen, 1992, p. 67.

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March 1, 2015

Transcendant Radiance of the Gods

“Although the gods were visualized in anthropomorphic form, with human emotions and physical needs and desires, important distinctions set the gods apart from humanity.

First, they had transcendent divine powers in the universe, over other gods, and over human lives and institutions. Second was the gods’ sublime position in an ordered universe, in which divinity could be expressed in terms of rank and precedence. Sublime power and position inspired fear, trembling and speechlessness in the presence of a god (Jacobsen 1976: 3–5; Bottéro 1992: 210).

Divinity was furthermore revealed by a radiant brightness, not as of heat but as of a gem-like sheen, blinding, pure and holy. This was sometimes seen as separate from the divine being, worn like a brilliant garment or headgear, or set about the features as glories. In art, this property could be represented by brightly coloured inlays on the surface of figures, or rosettes or stars sewn on textiles. In poetry, this concept was expressed by words meaning awe-inspiring radiance and sublime purity.

A distinctive aspect of Sumerian religious thought was the concept called ‘me’, literally ‘is’. This was an individual, differentiated, abstract power that defined and controlled both divine attributes and attributes of human civilization (van Dijk 1971: 440–2).

Thus there was a ‘me’ of individual gods, temples and lands, and of human institutions, states and accomplishments such as kingship, wisdom, music, old age or carpentry. According to the Sumerian myth of Inanna and Enki, Enki controlled these but Inanna got them away from him by getting him drunk then taking them as gifts proffered in his intoxicated state, which he regretted when sober (Farber, in Hallo 1997: 522–6).

The concept of ‘me’ did not carry over into post-Sumerian times, though there was an Akkadian concept called ‘parsu’ which referred to the dynamic existence of gods and temples.”

Benjamin R. Foster, “Properties of Divinity,” John R. Hinnells, ed., A Handbook of Ancient Religions, 2007, pp. 179-80.

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Category: van Dijk

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