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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 5, 2015

Lenzi: The Exaltation of the god Anu

“This brings us to the last element of historical context: antiquarianism at Uruk. Certainly others have noticed the conspicuous rise of the Anu and Antu cult in Hellenistic Uruk in both the archaeological evidence of the massive Bīt Rēs temple dedicated to Anu and Hellenistic cuneiform texts.

(For the former, see, for example, Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture, 17-32, who identifies the Bīt Rēs as “the most important religious structure in Uruk during the Seleucid period” (17), and for the latter, see Amélie Kuhrt, “Survey of Written Sources Available for the History of Babylonia under the Later Achaemenids,” in Achaemenid History I: Sources, Structures and Synthesis, ed. Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 147-57, here 151.)

A stele of the Assyrian king Šamši-Adad V (c.815 BCE), standing in the gesture of blessing before five divine emblems:<br /> (1) the crown of the sky-god Anu, with three horns; <br /> (2) the winged disk, often associated with Marduk or Aššur; <br /> (3) the disk and crescent associated with the Moon god Sin; <br /> (4) the fork associated with Nabu (?); <br /> (5) the eight-pointed star of Ishtar.<br /> It is now apparent that the horned crown of Anu is portrayed on numerous depictions of ummanū, or human apkallū.<br /> The cross worn as an amulet is a symbol of the sun god, Šamaš. <br /> It is worth noting that this king is portrayed without any indicators of divinity like a horned headdress, though he does hold a mace in his left hand, and the rosette design is evident on his bracelet. <br /> BM 118892, photo (c) The British Museum.

A stele of the Assyrian king Šamši-Adad V (c.815 BCE), standing in the gesture of blessing before five divine emblems:
(1) the crown of the sky-god Anu, with three horns;
(2) the winged disk, often associated with Marduk or Aššur;
(3) the disk and crescent associated with the Moon god Sin;
(4) the fork associated with Nabu (?);
(5) the eight-pointed star of Ishtar.
It is now apparent that the horned crown of Anu is portrayed on numerous depictions of ummanū, or human apkallū.
The cross worn as an amulet is a symbol of the sun god, Šamaš. 
It is worth noting that this king is portrayed without any indicators of divinity like a horned headdress, though he does hold a mace in his left hand, and the rosette design is evident on his bracelet.
BM 118892, photo (c) The British Museum.

But Beaulieu has offered a compelling explanation of this cultic development along with its attendant theological distinctives. He argues that it is a deliberate, archaizing theological program under the direction of temple functionaries, probably beginning in the late Persian period and culminating in Hellenistic times.

(See Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “Antiquarian Theology in Seleucid Uruk,” Acta Sumerologica 14 (1992), 47-75. (Beaulieu also focuses on antiquarianism in his “Antiquarianism and the Concern for the Past in the Neo-Babylonian Period,” Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 28 [1994], 37-42).

Beaulieu dates the rise of the prominence of Anu and Antu by the appearance of these deities in personal names. Summarizing his findings, he writes: “the crucial phase of the process had probably already taken place by the end of the fifth century” (“Antiquarian Theology,” 55).)

A key element in this program was the fashioning of the Urukean pantheon after the canonical god list An = Anum, thereby exalting Anu and Antu, ancient patron gods of Uruk, to its head while demoting other high-ranking deities like Marduk, the old imperial capital’s head deity, and Ishtar, a goddess prominent at Uruk in earlier periods, to a lower level in the pantheon.

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

(Beaulieu cites SpBTU I 126 as evidence that the old god-list was known in Seleucid Uruk (“Antiquarian Theology,” 73, n.40). He discusses other related archaizing items, too, such as bringing an obscure goddess like Amasagnudi, consort of Papsukkal/Ninsubur, the vizier of Anu, to cultic prominence.)

Beaulieu describes the reasons for this theological move as follows:

“By putting Anu back in the foreground the religious establishment of Uruk achieved a double purpose. They created a theological system which could challenge the dominant Marduk–Nabû theology of Babylon, and they promoted an Urukaean deity to the head of their new version of the national pantheon, thus enhancing local pride.”

(“Antiquarian Theology,” 68. Since greater antiquity was perceived as conferring greater authority in Mesopotamia, one might add that Uruk had a distinct advantage in reasserting the claims of the Anu cult against the claims of the Babylonian Marduk cult: Anu was considered older than him even by such traditions as the Enūma Eliš.

However, even if one wishes to see the exaltation of Anu in terms of reasserting the authority and position of a local deity within the pantheon, this does not exclude the possibility that other concerns contributed to the decision to do so.

The decision to exalt Anu, e.g., may also have been influenced by the increasing importance of astrology among scholars, who at this later period of Mesopotamian history were now primarily associated with temples.)

In other words, with the disintegration of indigenous imperial structures under foreign regimes with little interest in arcane Mesopotamian theological matters, local cults were able to reassert their own distinctive interests. The local temple elites in Uruk did this by utilizing ancient (conceived as such by mid-first millennium times) god-list traditions to exalt Anu to the head of the pantheon.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 158-60.

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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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August 2, 2015

Lenzi: On the Restoration of the Temples

“There is also some evidence that the Seleucids, at least at times, accommodated themselves to Mesopotamian traditions. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Antiochus I’s royal inscription of 268 BCE.

In this archaizing inscription Antiochus I appropriated the traditional language of kingship, utilized throughout earlier Mesopotamian royal inscriptions, in order to present his own rule in the linguistic garb of an indigenous king.

The 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

The opening lines read: “I am Antiochus, great king, strong king, king of the inhabited world, king of Babylon, king of the lands, the provider of Esagil and Ezida, foremost son of Seleucus, the king, the Macedonian, king of Babylon.”

Even if we were to interpret all of these Seleucid activities as exploiting indigenous traditions to further their own rule, we should probably only conclude from this that the Seleucids were doing what a long line of earlier Mesopotamian rulers—indigenous or otherwise—had done.

But, we need not imagine the Seleucid appropriation or support of Mesopotamian institutions as a simple one-way, top-down mechanism of exploitation. There may be indications that some of the local elites encouraged the rulers to adopt Mesopotamian ways, either explicitly or implicitly.

For example, several historians have suggested that Berossus’ Babylonaica was explicitly written to encourage the foreign Seleucids, especially Antiochus I, to sympathize with and support Mesopotamian traditions.

The Scheil dynastic tablet or “Kish Tablet” is an ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform text containing a variant form of the Sumerian King List.
The Assyriologist Jean-Vincent Scheil purchased the Kish Tablet from a private collection in France in 1911. The tablet is dated to the early 2d millennium BCE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheil_dynastic_tablet

(See Stanley Mayer Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus (Sources from the Ancient Near East I/5; Malibu: Undena Publications, 1978), 5-6, who believes Berossus’ departure for Cos late in his life may indicate Berossus’ disappointment with the Seleucid policies toward Babylon.

See also Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “The Historical Background of the Uruk Prophecy,” in The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo, ed. M. Cohen, D. Snell and D. Weisberg (Bethesda: CDL Press, 1993), 49.

But see Amélie Kuhrt, “Berossus’ Babylonaika and Seleucid Rule in Babylonia,” in Hellenism in the East, 32-56, who contends Berossus may have written in order to provide the Seleucids with local ideological support for their regime, especially in order for them to rebut claims made by Ptolemaic authors such as Manetho and Hecataeus (55-56)).

And recently Paul-Alain Beaulieu has set the Uruk Prophecy within a larger religious agenda and interpreted the enigmatic text as an implicit attempt to persuade Antiochus I to support the Uruk temple, thereby furthering the newly revived cult of Anu and Antu.

(He writes, “The Uruk Prophecy is therefore a rewriting of historical material with the purpose of vindicating the establishment (presented as the reestablishment) of a new cult (i.e. the cult of Anu as reorganized in the third century by the priesthood of the Bīt Rēs), to present the ruler who will foster this cultic revival (i.e. one of the contemporary Seleucid rulers [which Beaulieu later identifies as Antiochus I]) as a new Nebuchadnezzar, to obliquely suggest that his father was a neglectful, and therefore malevolent, ruler (as Nabopolassar had been), and to predict an everlasting rule for his dynasty, even a rule of divine character” (Beaulieu, “Uruk Prophecy,” 49).”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 155-7.

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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.

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July 31, 2015

Lenzi: The ummânū Were The Scribal Heirs of the Antediluvian Sages

“Finally, although not giving specific proof of a genealogical relationship, the content of the well-known “Catalog of Texts and Authors” edited by Lambert attests once again the close connection between Ea, the mythological apkallū, and the ummânū as in the “mythology of scribal succession.”

In this text Ea is credited with the authorship of several large and important works (see I 1- 4). Following his works, the catalog lists Oannes-Adapa, the first mythological apkallū in the common list of sages of the Uruk list, Bīt mēseri, and Berossus, and credits him with the authorship of the astronomical series Enūma Anu Enlil (5-6).

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.

It also lists him as the author of another work later in the catalog (VI 15-16). Although the title of this other work is only partially preserved, it is notable that the preserved portion reads ša lām abūbi, “from before the flood.”

Following these first two authors (Ea and Oannes-Adapa), the catalog enumerates many other works and their putative authors. Two of these are known to be apkallū: one, named Enmeduga (IV 11), does not have a preserved title, but is known as the third antediluvian sage in the common list of sages; another is called a sage but his name is not preserved (III 7).

Bird Apkallū and Fish Apkallū, the so-called parādu-fish, side by side. Apkallū statuettes of this design were buried in appropriate places in the home of a Babylonian exorcist. They were believed to have prophylactic qualities, guarding the home from evil.

The majority of the remaining authors are ummânū, usually āšipū or kalû but also including a bārû. Several among those listed in the catalog are also listed in the ULKS:

Sin-leqi-unnini (VI 10),
Kabti-ili-Marduk (II 2),
Sidu (VI 13),
Gimil-Gula (VI 8),
Taqiša-Gula (IV 9), and
Saggil-kina-ubbib (= Esagil-kin-ubba in the ULKS) (V 2).

The last human apkallū in Bīt mēseri, Lu-Nana (VI 11), is also attested.

To find mentioned by name scholars who would be remembered hundreds of years later in the tradition (in the ULKS) is somewhat remarkable. But it is even more remarkable that these scholars, along with a couple of mythological sages and the god Ea, are placed alongside other, presumably less celebrated scholars, many of whom we know absolutely nothing beyond what this text preserves.

This suggests the genealogical relationship to antediluvian sages extended to all scholars as a class.

Taken as a whole, a general picture emerges that sustains the idea that the “mythology of scribal succession,” though never presented as clearly as in the ULKS, was quite alive early in the first millennium.

Human apkallu, known as ummânū, distinguished with two pairs of wings. In a gesture of ritual purification, he holds a “cleaner” cone in one hand, and a bucket in the other. The cone is called a mullilu, the bucket a banduddu. From Nimrud, capital of king Ashurnarzipal.
AO 19845

The ummânū fashioned themselves—consciously or perhaps unconsciously—into the scribal heirs of the antediluvian sages, themselves closely allied with Ea, the patron deity of the ummânū.

This relationship of scholarly succession gave mythological support for the roles of the ummânū at court and in society as ritual experts, counselors to the king, and authors of important cuneiform works. (The scholars may also have inscribed their relationship to the apkallū in the palace reliefs as argued by Mehmet-Ali Ataç, “Scribal-Sacerdotal Agency in the Production of the Neo-Assyrian Palace Reliefs: Toward a Hermeneutics of Iconography” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2003)).

As this mythology of succession was accepted and reified—that is, after it was accepted as a fact of the ordered cosmos—it would have galvanized the importance of the scholarly texts for the scholars and for the king they served.

Given the precarious professional existence of the scholar (see “The Forlorn Scholar”) (see Simo Parpola, “The Forlorn Scholar,” in Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, ed. F. Rochberg-Halton; American Oriental Series 67 (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987), 257-78) and their institutional dependency for scholarly support, this development was a major contribution to their social security.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 151-3.

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July 29, 2015

Lenzi: The Antediluvian Medical Tablet from Ashurbanipal’s Library (K.4023)

“As is well-known, antediluvian knowledge had special significance in Mesopotamia. (For other examples of antediluvian knowledge (though sometimes in a broken context), see the examples gathered by Lambert, “Catalogue of Texts and Authors,” 72 at the note on VI 15.)

The most important example of this fact for the purposes of this study comes from an oft cited colophon of a medical tablet from Ashurbanipal’s library, AMT 105,1 (K.4023), lines 21-25.

AM-102 ; No. #1 (K4023)
British Museum of London   Tablet K.4023
COL. I
[Starting on Line 38] . . .
Root of caper which (is) on a grave, root of thorn (acacia) which (is) on a grave, right horn of an ox, left horn of a kid, seed of tamarisk, seed of laurel, Cannabis, seven drugs for a bandage against the Hand of a Ghost thou shalt bind on his temples.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] – The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 54, No. 1/4 (Oct., 1937), pp. 12-40; Assyrian Prescriptions for the Head By R. Campbell Thompson   
http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap2B/Assyria/K4023.htm

This colophon shows not only the association of antediluvian sages and a human sage but also the “mythology of scribal succession” in action.

(For the original copy of the tablet, see R. Campbell Thompson, Assyrian Medical Texts (London: H. Milford / New York: Oxford University Press, 1923; reprinted, Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1983), 105,1 (=K.4023, col. iv, and thus probably from Nineveh).

I have cited the text according to Hermann Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag / Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon and Bercker, 1968), no. 533, with corrections from Yaakov Elman, “Authoritative Oral Tradition in Neo-Assyrian Scribal Circles,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 7 (1975), 19-32, here 31.)

Salves (and) bandages: tested (and) checked, which are ready at hand, composed by the ancient sages from before the flood, which in Suruppak in the second year of Enlil-bani, king of Isin, Enlil-muballit, sage of Nippur, bequeathed.

Although the number of apkallū is unspecified in this text, the indication of plurality of sages and the antediluvian time frame strongly suggest an association with the seven sages known from traditions such as Bīt mēseri and the ULKS.

The fact that the tablet claims the apkallū composed these recipes bolsters the authority (by invoking these beings associated with Ea) and legitimacy (by asserting antiquity) of the recipes contained in the text.

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/

But I do not think that is its primary purpose. The claim is not made in the context of a ritual; so it does not primarily function to create ritual power.

Rather, the claim occurs in a colophon, a label that communicates something about the tablet for other would-be readers/users of it. The invocation of the apkallū and a claim to antediluvian knowledge in a colophon intends therefore to affect the social situation in which the tablet is used.

In this case the colophon credentials a human being as the possessor of antediluvian knowledge (i.e., medical recipes). Revealed by primeval apkallū, mediated to the human sage Enlil-muballit, and transmitted, presumably, by means of various copyists to the present possessor, AMT 105,1 implies the same notion of succession as the ULKS.

A similar idea is probably attested in KAR 177, obv. iv 25-32, a text containing hemerologies, which reads:

Favorable days. According to the seven s[ages(?)].
Duplicate of a tablet from Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, Larsa, Ur, Uruk, and Eridu.
The scholars excerpted, selected, and gave it to Nazimuruttash, king of the world.

(The tablet is from Assur and presumably the NA period. The text and restorations follow W. G. Lambert, “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 11 (1957), 1-14, here 8.

Lambert also gives the remainder of the colophon, rev. iv 1-3 (8), which is of no interest in this context, and sets out von Soden’s readings in a follow-up note (“Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity [JCS XI, 1-14]: Additions and Corrections,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 11 [1957], 112).

It seemed highly unlikely to the editor (Lambert) that the seven cities named in the text represented the seven exemplars from which the scribe worked. In other words, it seems unlikely that the scribe was looking at seven different copies while writing his own tablet.

Instead, Lambert proposed that the seven cities represent a succession of exemplars. Each of the exemplars was written by one of the seven sages one after another thereby creating a line of succession for the present tablet that extends back into earliest times.

The claim of this colophon, therefore, is that the tablet of hemerologies over which the ummânū labored goes back to the apkallū and ultimately originated in Eridu, the home city of Ea.

This again demonstrates an example of the “mythology of scribal succession” and an implicit assertion of antediluvian knowledge.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 149-51.

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July 29, 2015

Lenzi: the Apkallū and the Ummânū May Be Artificially Related

“Considering only the evidence of DT 1, I think there is internal evidence in line 26 for the proper reading of NUN.ME in both lines 4 and 10. In line 26 Marduk is called the NUN.ME DINGIR.MEŠ (apkal ilī, “sage of the gods”) and the NUN (rubû, “prince”). These epithets are even adjacent to one another in the line.

It is clear therefore that the text knew the distinction and the potential ambiguity between the words apkallū and rubû. Moreover, lines 4 and 10 could have made the reading rubû—if that is what was intended— unambiguous if it had wanted to. But it did not.

This exemplar of an Ummânū raises his right hand in the greeting gesture and holds what appear to be poppy bulbs in his left hand.
Rosette bracelets are apparent on his wrists, and he wears the horned tiara indicative of divinity.

Therefore, I think, NUN.ME should be read as apkallū in DT 1. On this reading, there is a clear parallel established between an apkallū and ummânū in the Ninevite Version of the text.

The answer to the contextual and practical problems presented by the resulting parallelism in lines 4 and 5 comes from the duplicate published by Cole.

(Cole, Nippur IV, 268-74 (OIP 114 128). Hurowitz, through whom I became acquainted with this issue, points out the contextual difficulties with this reading nicely.

Now compare this Nimrud bas relief from the Louvre: an ummânū sprinkles water with a mullilu cone in his right hand, holding his banduddu bucket in his left.
This ummânū wears bracelets with a concentric circular design, and rosettes are not apparent.
This ummânū also wears the common horned headdress, but with three stacked layers of horns.
As noted elsewhere, this headdress is surmounted by an object that resembles a partial fleur de lis.
From Nimrud, capital of king Ashurnarzipal.
Louvre, AO 19845

Although he recognizes that “apkallū is an excellent parallel for ummānu” since “(b)oth refer to sages and masters of the basic fields of wisdom,” he goes on to say the following: “[w]hile the later [sic., latter; the ummânū could be courtiers who could proffer advice at court and be heeded by the king, the former [the apkallū can impart their wisdom only in an indirect manner [i.e., because they were mythological sages], and the king could not be expected to really heed them.

The reading apkallū would therefore be problematic on practical grounds if the text is not to be considered as speaking metaphorically” (Victor Hurowitz, “Advice to a Prince: A Message from Ea,” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 12 [1998], 49, n.23). I would add to this that apkallū does not seem an appropriate parallel term to dayyānū in line 10.)

OIP 114 128 (the Nippur version)

If) he does not listen to his princes, his days will be short.
(If) he does not listen to (his) scholar, his land will rebel against him.

Lines 4 and 11 (= DT’s line 10) in the Nippur version of the text have the unambiguous reading NUN.MEŠ-šú, i.e., rubîšu, “his nobles.”

Finally compare this representation. Wings are missing. The horned headdress has two levels of horns, and is again surmounted with what appears to be a fleur-de-lis.
Like other examples, this figure holds what appear to be poppy bulbs, and raises his right hand in the greeting gesture.
Bracelets with rosettes are present, as are armlets on the upper arms.
The sacred tree before the figure varies from other depictions, as well.
It is not certain that this figure depicts an ummânū at all. It could portray a king. The lack of wings is clearly deliberate.
Bas-relief, Louvre, AO 19869

This is probably the better reading of the two versions since it fits the social situation envisioned by the text much better than the mythological sage-figures of the Ninevite version. Moreover, rubîšu provides a suitable parallel for the terms in both lines 5 (ummânū) and 10 (dayyānū).

So why was apkallū employed in parallel to ummânū in line 4 of the Nineveh version? It seems the composition did not always do so.

The reading in the Nineveh version is either a graphic corruption of the original reading (it left out three Winkelhaken in the MES sign twice, in lines 4 and 10, thereby forming ME) or, more likely, there was a deliberate, if small, alteration to the text that was ideologically motivated.

(Cole, Nippur IV, 274 mentions the possibility, based on a mistake in the text, that the Nippur tablet was a practice tablet written from dictation. If that is so, then it is unlikely that the confusion between apkallū and rubû could be attributed to a simple graphic error.)

If Hurowitz is correct in seeing a relationship between the “Advice to a Prince” and Ea, then this text would be a significant and appropriate textual location to assert a connection between the apkallū and their descendants, the ummânū.

Bringing them together may have seemed an almost “natural” thing to do in this text in light of the “mythology.”

Significantly, the “Advice to a Prince” explicitly sets the identification of the apkallū and ummânū within the context of royal advising.

In this regard, our text shows another conceptual continuity with the ULKS and suggests that the apkallū are not found exclusively in ritual contexts during the early first millennium.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 148-9.

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July 29, 2015

Lenzi: A Fault Line Where Legend and History Collides

“If this were the only instance of apkallū in a ritual context, this difference in genre would be of little consequence. But, in fact, it is not.

The seven apkallū are mentioned, for example, in anti-witchcraft incantations in Maqlû II 124,36 V 110,37 VII 49,38 VIII 38 (though without names). (Note that the next line…has “the wisdom, the ingenuity of Ea they spoke.”)

They also occur in a medical incantation in LKA 146 that gives a mythological account of Ea communicating poultices to humans.

(W. G. Lambert, “The Twenty-one ‘Poultices,’” Anatolian Studies 30 (1980), 77-83. See also, e.g., Bīt rimki (Rykle Borger, “Das Dritte ‘Haus’ der Serie Bīt Rimki [VR 50-51, Schollmeyer HGS Nr.1],” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 21 [1967], 11:25 + a); the rituals treated by Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits; and the (overlapping) attestations noted by J. J. A. van Dijk, La Sagesse Sumero-Accadienne, Commentationes Orientales 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1953), 20, n.56.)

In this bas relief from Nimrud, human apkallū, the ummánū, kneel and tend to a sacred tree.<br /> Both ummânū wear horned tiaras and display rosette bracelets on their wrists. Bracelets are also apparent on their upper arms.<br /> In the lower register, bird-apkallū raise mulillu cones to sprinkle water in a gesture of exorcism and liberation of sin.<br /> As is typical, the banduddu buckets are in their left hands.<br /> Interestingly in this case, the bracelets are atypical, and only one rosette insignia can potentially be discerned. This sort of specificity must be deliberate. What it portends, however, remains speculative.

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 are atypical, and only one rosette insignia can potentially be discerned. This sort of specificity must be deliberate. What it portends, however, remains speculative.

From such evidence Sanders has argued that the seven apkallū are restricted to myths (they are found in Erra I 162 and Gilgamesh I 21 and XI 326 (called muntalkū)) and rituals during the Neo-Assyrian period (and earlier), and this fact, in his opinion, speaks against their use in a scholarly genealogy before the Seleucid era.

(He writes, “[t]he human sages, ummânu, appear for the first time in Neo-Assyrian king lists, and in the bīt mēseri fragments of the Neo-Assyrian period the superhuman apkallū are for the first time listed by name and correlated with legendary and historical kings.

While Mesopotamian kings remain on the throne, the apkallū remain confined to myth and ritual. In the Seleucid period, after the loss of native kingship, the apkallū enter history. . . .

Evidence of a historically developing identification between the Mesopotamian ritual practitioner and the apkallū in general and Adapa in particular finally emerges in Seleucid Uruk” (Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse,” 144-45).

In this Nimrud bas relief from the Louvre an ummânū sprinkles water with a mullilu cone, holding his banduddu bucket in his other hand.
This ummânū wears bracelets with a different design, as rosettes are not apparent. In this case, the design appears to consist of concentric circles.
This ummânū also wears the common horned headdress, but in this case the headdress is surmounted by an object that resembles a partial fleur de lis.
The detail on this bas relief is unusually good, revealing details about the earrings that are blurry in most other examples.
Bracelets are also apparent on the upper arms, and the banduddu bucket reveals cross-hatching detail which rarely appears in other depictions.
The realistic portrayal of fine detail on the fingernails, the toenails, and the tassels is singular. In no other example does the embroidery on the garment stand out so well.
The fine detail on the wings and the braided hair is exceptional, and this ummânū appears to be wearing a medallion or other object at his sternum, a detail not noted elsewhere.
From Nimrud, capital of king Ashurnarzipal.
Louvre, AO 19845

Sanders’ objection reminds us of the need for sensitivity to genre in adducing evidence, something few others have taken seriously when discussing the issue of scholarly genealogy.

There is, however, other non-ritual evidence that both alleviates the problem he raises and provides more support for the earlier apkallū–ummânū association suggested by the Bīt mēseri material.

A textual variant between the only two manuscripts of the Akkadian literary composition “Advice to a Prince,” which is clearly a non-ritual text, supports the close association of the apkallū and ummânū in the early first millennium. A comparison of the two tablets at lines 4 and 5 reveals our variant of interest.

(In the standard edition of the text, Lambert expresses the opinion that the text is from Babylon and should be dated to roughly 1000 to 700 BCE. He also notes, “(t)he text is written on a tablet from the libraries of Assurbanipal [i.e., DT 1], and no duplicate has yet been found” (W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960; reprinted, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996], 110, 111).

Steven Cole has recently published a duplicate to DT 1 (Nippur IV. The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor’s Archive from Nippur, Oriental Institute Publications 114 [Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1996], no. 128 [= OIP 114 128]); the tablet was found among a cache from Nippur.)

(If) he does not listen to his sage, his days will be short.

(If ) he does not listen to (his) scholar, his land will rebel against him.

In the standard edition based on DT 1 (the Ninevite version), Lambert took the ME in NUN.ME-šú as a plural marker and read the word as rubû, “princes, nobles.” (Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 112-13.)

This is understandable in light of line 10 which sets NUN.ME alongside DI.KUD.ME (dayyānū, “judges”).

In the orthography of the latter term ME must indicate plurality. But Reiner has noted that DT 1 typically uses MES to express the plural (line 10’s DI.KUD.ME being the one indisputable exception); thus, it seemed likely to her that NUN.ME in both lines 4 and 10 should be read apkallū (singular.) (See Erica Reiner, “The Etiological Myth of the ‘Seven Sages,’” Orientalia 30 (1961), 9 and n.1.)”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 146-8.

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July 28, 2015

Lenzi: Human apkallū are a Later Inclusion

“Sanders suggests this discrepancy indicates the four human apkallū are “extraneous” while Wiggerman gives it a source critical interpretation, suggesting “the list of apkallū does not originate from bīt mēseri but from another text—a chronicle ?—, from where it was adapted by bīt mēseri.”

(Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse,” 117; Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, 108. They do appear extraneous in the incantation when viewed from the perspective of the ritual instructions, and the four human apkallū almost certainly were taken from some other traditional context, though we have not yet identified it.)

This design is perplexing. I am uncertain whether it depicts a human apkallū, an ummânū, or, as earlier analysts assessed, the god Anu.<br /> The iconography is correct for an apkallū. The horned headdress is indicative of divinity, the plants held in both hands are not unprecedented, though they are not common. They appear to be poppies.<br /> The rosette design in the large ring around his waist appears elsewhere in Neo-Assyrian symbolism, though its significance is undetermined. In no other case have I seen a ring surrounding the waist of such a figure.<br /> The wings on the apkallū are typical.<br /> The fact that this figure stands on a bull, however, suggests that this is a depiction of a deity, rather than a human apkallū.<br /> Further, the disc atop the headdress is problematic. In no other example does a human apkallū appear with a disc surmounting a horned headdress.<br /> Indeed, it is unclear whether the disc is just worn with time, or whether the lower part of the disc portrays the inverted horns of the Moon, indicative of the Moon god Sin.<br /> This is one of the most dramatic examples of Neo-Assyrian art, but my scholarship is too meager to explicate it.<br /> http://transfixussednonmortuus.tumblr.com/image/32382020729

This design is perplexing. I am uncertain whether it depicts a human apkallū, an ummânū, or, as earlier analysts assessed, the god Anu.
The iconography is correct for an apkallū. The horned headdress is indicative of divinity, the plants held in both hands are not unprecedented, though they are not common. They appear to be poppies.
The rosette design in the large ring around his waist appears elsewhere in Neo-Assyrian symbolism, though its significance is undetermined. In no other case have I seen a ring surrounding the waist of such a figure.
The wings on the apkallū are typical.
The fact that this figure stands on a bull, however, suggests that this is a depiction of a deity, rather than a human apkallū.
Further, the disc atop the headdress is problematic. In no other example does a human apkallū appear with a disc surmounting a horned headdress.
Indeed, it is unclear whether the disc is just worn with time, or whether the lower part of the disc portrays the inverted horns of the Moon, indicative of the Moon god Sin.
This is one of the most dramatic examples of Neo-Assyrian art, but my scholarship is too meager to explicate it.
http://transfixussednonmortuus.tumblr.com/image/32382020729

Building on these interpretations, I suggest that the absence of the four human apkallū from the ritual instructions is a textual clue that they are in fact a later addition to the incantation.

According to this interpretation, the text provides evidence that someone deliberately associated the two groups of apkallū, human and mythic, sometime in the early first millennium.

This depiction of a human apkallū, or ummânū, portrays the right hand raised in the greeting gesture, and the banduddū bucket in the left hand.<br /> This ummânū displays the rosette design on bilateral wristbands and on a headband, which differs from the usual horned headdress.<br /> The wings are typical, further indicative of divinity or partial divinity.

This depiction of a human apkallū, or ummânū, portrays the right hand raised in the greeting gesture, and the banduddū bucket in the left hand.
This ummânū displays the rosette design on bilateral wristbands and on a headband, which differs from the usual horned headdress.
The wings are typical, further indicative of divinity or partial divinity.

That is to say, the disconnect between ritual and incantation provides a hint at alteration or innovation—i.e., an active interest—in the apkallū tradition attested here.

(For a much more detailed example of finding literary and socio-religious data in the discrepancies between an incantation and its associated ritual, see Tzvi Abusch, “Ritual and Incantation: Interpretation and Textual History of Maqlû VII:58-105 and IX:52-59,” in “Shaharei Talmon:” Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov with the assistance of Weston W. Fields (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 367-80; reprinted in Tzvi Abusch, Mesopotamian Witchcraft: Toward a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature, Ancient Magic and Divination 5 (Leiden: Brill / Styx, 2002).

This depiction of a human apkallū, or ummânū raises the mullilu cone in the right hand, in the prototypical gesture of blessing and exorcism, releasing all sin.
The gesture is one of sprinkling water, with the water contained in the banduddû bucket in the left hand.
This ummânū wears wristbands with the undefined rosette design, but in this example the headdress is the horned tiara indicative of divinity.
Wings reflecting divinity or semi-divinity are also present.
In this bas relief, the ummânū is blessing or purifying a sacred tree.
It is possible that the blossoms on the sacred tree are related to the rosette design on the wristbands, though I am unaware at this time of any scholarship drawing the similarity.

We must recognize, however, the fact that the tradition exemplified in bīt mēseri differs in a significant way from the ULKS: in bīt mēseri the tradition occurs in a ritual.

(Besides the generic difference the text also has a difference with regard to the included content: kings are only mentioned with two of the human apkallū and none is mentioned with the mythic apkallū. Since Bīt mēseri is a ritual, we would not expect the sage-king association to appear.

This ummânū uniquely presents with a feather in the raised right hand, and a kid goat held in the left.
I am unaware of any other depiction like this one.
The bracelets of rosette design appear bilaterally on both wrists, as do bracelets around the upper arms.
The tassels are finely detailed, and a tassel can be discerned on the ummânū’s upper back.
This depiction is also perhaps unique in the degree of fine detail lavished on the wings, and on the fringe of the garment.
This ummânū also wears a headband with the rosette design, rather than the horned tiara.

Due to their association with Ea, the apkallū were “natural” candidates for invocation in apotropaic/exorcistic contexts (see, e.g., Benjamin Foster, “Wisdom and the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Orientalia 43 [1974], 344-54, here 349 and other examples below).

This portrayal of a human apkallū, or ummânū, wears the horned headdress indicative of divinity, and raises his right hand in the greeting gesture.
Uniquely, this depiction carries an er’u stick, emblazoned with an un-circled rosette design that reflects the bracelet on the ummânū wrist.
It also strikes me as possible that the stick is a mace.
It should be noted that these rosette designs feature nine petals.
This ummânū is unique, perhaps, in that bracelets on the upper arms are depicted.
Likewise noteworthy are the tassels hanging from the apparel, which appear in other depictions but not, perhaps, with this degree of fine detail.
Note the attention to detail revealed in the thumbnail of each hand.
The wings, indicative of divinity, also portray uncommon detail.

But kings are not figures typically invoked in incantations. Thus, it is not really surprising that we do not see the connection made systematically in such a context. However, when a sage–king connection is mentioned, it is interesting to see signs of continuity with the later ULKS. For example, Nungalpirigal is associated with Enmerkar in both Bīt mēseri and the ULKS.)

If this were the only instance of apkallū in a ritual context, this difference in genre would be of little consequence. But, in fact, it is not. The seven apkallū are mentioned, for example, in anti-witchcraft incantations in Maqlû II 124, V 110, VII 49, VIII 38 (though without names).

This ummânū kneels before the sacred tree, apparently depicted in the act of tending to it.<br /> This bas relief is perhaps unique in its fine detail which survived a long period of time.<br /> Note the care focused on the fingernails and toenails.<br /> The rosette design is mirrored on the bracelets, while this ummânū wears the horned tiara of divinity.<br /> The tassels from the apparel are finely detailed, and another tassel appears behind ummânu's neck, beneath his braided hair.<br /> The earrings are of an unknown design.

This ummânū kneels before the sacred tree, apparently depicted in the act of tending to it.
This bas relief is perhaps unique in its fine detail which survived a long period of time.
Note the care focused on the fingernails and toenails.
The rosette design is mirrored on the bracelets, while this ummânū wears the horned tiara of divinity.
The tassels from the apparel are finely detailed, and another tassel appears behind ummânu’s neck, beneath his braided hair.
The earrings are of an unknown design.

(7 apkallē sūt Eridu likpidūšunūti ana lemuttim: “May the seven sages of Eridu plan evil for them.” This counters the assertion that the sorcerers have planned evil for the patient in II 117.

See Gerhard Meier, Die assyrische Beschwörungssammlung Maqlû, Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft 2 (Berlin, 1937), 17 for text and translation.)

(7 apkallē sūt Eridu [. . .]; see Gerhard Meier, “Studien zur Beschwörungssammlung Maqlu,” Archiv für Orientforschung 21 (1966), 77 for the text. Meier’s earlier edition contains nothing except the number 7 from the line (Maqlû, 38).

An ummânū, or sage of human descent. The ummânū raises his right hand in the iconic gesture of greeting, with uncertain plants in his left hand.
The rosette design on his wristband is perhaps uniquely not reflected on the opposite wrist. Bracelets appear on the upper arms.
The horned tiara headdress, indicative of divinity, is often worn by such figures.

(7 apkallē sūt Eridu lipaššihū zumuršu, “May the seven sages of Eridu give his body relief” (Meier, Maqlû, 48).

(Broken context: [. . .] ši-ma apkallē ša Apsî (Meier, Maqlû, 54). Note the next line, also broken, has nēmeqi nikilti Ea iqbû, “the wisdom, the ingenuity of Ea they spoke.”)

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 145-6.

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July 27, 2015

Lenzi: On the apkallū–ummânū Association

“There are of course quite early precedents for king lists, antediluvian or otherwise; there are also several earlier examples of kings being listed with their chief scholarly advisor (see the overview in A. Kirk Greyson, “Königslisten und Chroniken,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie 6 (1980) 86-135).

But there is nothing that traces the royal scholars back through antediluvian times to the apkallū as clearly as does the ULKS. We need not require the evidence for the earlier viability of this tradition, however, to conform to this explicit and systematic presentation of the “mythology of scribal succession.”

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.

Our list’s formulation of the genealogical tradition should not be made the measure of its earlier existence. As others have done, we shall use one of the most basic features of the ULKS as our guide into earlier material: the close association between mythical apkallū and their human counterparts.

Finding this concept as well as hints of succession between the two groups in earlier cuneiform material gives us good reason to believe the “mythology of scribal succession” existed at an earlier time.

(The novel contribution here is to highlight two new evidential ideas, in Bīt mēseri and in “Advice to a Prince,” and to respond to an important objection raised by Seth Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse: Studies in the Theme of Ascent to Heaven in Ancient Mesopotamia and Second Temple Judaism” (Ph.D. Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1999), 125, 144-45.

Many scholars treating the subject of scholarly genealogy often appeal to the Enmeduranki text (e.g., Beaulieu, “The Social and Intellectual Setting of Babylonian Wisdom Literature,” 15 and Rochberg, Heavenly Writing, 183-184; see W. G. Lambert, “The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners,” in Festschrift für Rykle Borger zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Mai 1994: Tikip santakki mala bašmu . . ., ed. Stefan M. Maul; Cuneiform Monographs 10 [Groningen: Styx, 1998], 141-58 for an edition of this text).

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.

Although that tradition is clearly related to the issue of antediluvian knowledge and its transmission to scholars, its formulation is a minority view that places an antediluvian king at the center of mediation to scholars rather than the antediluvian apkallū (see my Secrecy and the Gods, 122-127, which also shows the relevance of LKA 147 and its unique formulation of the issue). This tradition will not factor into the discussion below.)

The list of apkallū in an incantation belonging to the apotropaic series Bīt mēseri is sometimes cited as evidence for the connection between sages and scholars before the Seleucid era.

(See, e.g., Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, XVIII.) This text names the same seven apkallū as the ULKS, but here they are given an ichthyological (fish-like) description. (This recalls Berossus’ description of the sages.)

Tablet III 10-13 reads:

“They are the seven brilliant purādu-fish, purādu-fish from the sea, the seven sages, who were created in the river,

who ensure the correct execution of the plans of heaven and earth.”

The text continues with a list of four human apkallū, Nungalpirigal, Pirigalnungal, Pirigalabzu, and Lu-Nana, who are then described in lines 28-29 of the same tablet as:

Four sages of human descent, whom Ea,
the lord, perfected with wide understanding.

The presence of these four humans in this text, even though called apkallū, suggests several points of similarity with the ULKS that advance our understanding of the apkallū–ummânū association.

(The artificiality of the first three names in this list has been noted repeatedly in the literature; the pirig– element is probably related to the u4-element in some of the antediluvian sages’ names.

On these names, see, e.g., W. W. Hallo, “On the Antiquity of Sumerian Literature,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 83 (1963), 167-76, here 175; Sanders, “Writing, Ritual, and Apocalypse,” 117; and Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, 74 (each citing nearly the same earlier secondary literature).

In the present context, however, I will limit my comments to a textual feature that others have noted but not utilized as evidence for understanding the apkallū–ummânū tradition; namely, unlike the seven non-human sages, the four human sages in Bīt mēseri have no place in the ritual instructions associated with this incantation.”

Alan Lenzi, The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship, JANER 8.2, Brill, Leiden, 2008. pp. 143-5.

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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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June 27, 2015

Sex, Evil, and the Fall

“If we posit a rich circulation of oral traditions in the eastern Mediterranean–including Mesopotamia, West Semitic cultures, and Greece–following the well-attested trade route in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, then we may wish to relate these Greek, Mesopotamian, and biblical texts to these (now invisible) streams of tradition.

In this view, the texts are a literary selection and / or reworking of a few stories among the many variations that circulated in these traditions. With this maximal view of the interaction of eastern Mediterranean oral and written traditions, it is not necessary to relate the surviving texts to each other directly; it is plausible to see each as representing a particular selection of motifs and combinations, each text articulating its distinctive discourse out of the available materials of tradition.

Against this background, we may see Genesis 6:1-4 as related to Greek traditions as a member of a larger family of discourses, and, at the same time, as a distinctive version (and abbreviation) of old traditions.

It has often been argued that the biblical writers eschewed mythology and embraced instead a view of time and history closer to modern conceptions. This position, exemplified in the “Biblical Theology” school of the postwar period has been effectively countered by closer attention to the continuities between biblical and Near Eastern texts and concepts.

Satan in his Original Glory:
‘Thou wast Perfect till Iniquity was Found in Thee’
c.1805 William Blake 1757-1827 Presented by the executors of W. Graham Robertson through the Art Fund 1949
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05892

Genesis 1-11 functions as myth just as thoroughly as Atrahasis or Hesiod’s Theogony, in that it lays out the origin of the present cosmic order as a product of primeval events, a narrative of the past that is constitutive of the present world.

In Alan Dundes’ succinct defintion, myth is “a sacred narrative explaining how the world or humans came to be in their present form.” (Alan Dundes, ed., The Flood Myth (Berkeley, 1988), p. 1.) Genesis 1-11 fulfills neatly this generic and functional definition. It is a cycle of ancient Israelite mythology, a prelude to the stories (which may be called legendary or epic) of national origin in the rest of the Pentateuch. Genesis 6:1-4 is an obvious example of myth in this sense.

Even as Genesis 6:1-4 shows that mythology was alive and well in ancient Israel, it also shows that such stories could be controversial, since this account has been so severely truncated in the J source. Each culture creates its own discursive boundaries, which are constantly subject to negotiation and conflict.

William Blake, the Fall of Satan.
http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Romanticism/William+Blake/William+Blake+-+The+fall+of+Satan.jpg.html

There were aspects of the full story of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men that, according to the J source, ought not to be said. The boundaries between what can and cannot be said are important to discern in order to attend to the distinctive features of Israelite culture in its various manifestations.

Israelite religion is both like and unlike the religions of its neighbors according to these shifting boundaries of discourse and practice. Genesis 6:1-4 shows how the sexuality of the gods and their marriages with human women came into conflict with the unsayable in the conceptual horizons of the J source.

William Blake (1757–1827)
wikidata: Q41513 s:en:Author:William
Deutsch: Der große Rote Drache und die mit der Sonne bekleidete Frau
Français : Le grand Dragon Rouge et la Femme vêtue de soleil
Español: El gran dragón rojo y la mujer vestida de sol
wikidata:Q538936
Date 1805-1810
Current location: National Gallery of Art
wikidata:Q214867
Washington (D.C.)
Source/Photographer The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.
Permission
(Reusing this file) http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikide-l/2005-April/012195.html
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Blake_003.jpg

That these issues are not spoken of elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible also illuminates this particular boundary of the unsayable. Sex, gods, and the allure of women are a potent and self-censoring combination in biblical discourse.

In post-biblical times, these tantalizing issues came to receive fuller attention, in what Freud might call a return of the repressed. The terse and sensational aspects of Genesis 6:1-4 provoked detailed exegetical attention. The wayward Sons of God and the Nephilim, the latter taken in their etymological sense as the “fallen ones,” in combination with other biblical stories of the “fall” of divine beings (especially Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, and Psalm 82), gave rise to the myth of the fallen angels who seduced human women and introduced evil on the earth.

The awakened sexuality of these divine beings leads to their cosmic fall, similar to the exegetical equation of sex and evil in some post-biblical interpretations of the Garden of Eden story. (Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, New York, 1988).

Through these extensions of the biblical story, the brief and cryptic text of Genesis 6:1-4 became the site of potent discourses in the Hellenistic period and beyond.”

Ronald Hendel, “The Nephilim Were on the Earth: Genesis 6:1-4 and its Ancient Near Eastern Context,” in Christoph Auffarth and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds., The Fall of the Angels, Brill, 2004, pp. 32-4.

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June 26, 2015

The Sexual Mingling of Gods and Humans

“Flavius Joseph noted in his Jewish Antiquities the affinities between Genesis 6:1-4 and Greek traditions: “In fact the deeds that tradition ascribes to them resemble the audacious exploits told by the Greeks of the giants.”

The sexual encounters between Greek gods and human women (and also between Greek goddesses and human men) are a common topic in Greek mythology. A work almost wholly devoted to this theme is the fragmentary Catalogue of Women, a work of the seventh or sixth century BCE, though drawing on earlier traditions. (M.L. West, The Hasidic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure, and Origins, Oxford, 1985; Ludwig Koenen, “Greece, the Near East, and Egypt: Cyclic Destruction in Hesiod and the Catalogue of Women,” TAPA 124 (1994), pp. 1-34.)

It begins with an invocation to the Muses: “Sing now of the tribe of women … who unfasten their waistbands … in union with gods.” (R. Merkelbach and M.L. West, eds., Fragmenta Hesiodea (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), pp. 3-4. Fragment I)

At the beginning of this account, gods and mortals mingled and feasted together, a proximity that led to their sexual unions.

The Catalogue seems to conclude with a fragment that describes the end of this era of divine-human intimacy. Zeus conceives a plan to send a great destruction–the Trojan War–to bring to an end the easy mingling of gods and humans.

“For at that time high-thundering Zeus was planning tremendous deeds, stirring up <quarrel> throughout the boundless earth. For now he was hastening to annihilate the greater part of the human race as a pretext to destroy the lives of the demigods.”

(Merckelbach-West, Fragmenta Hesiodea, 101-2).

It is not entirely clear what Zeus’ intentions are, since it is impossible (depending on some restorations in the following fragmentary lines) that he does not actually destroy the demigods but rather removes them to an idyllic existence in the Islands of the Blessed, as happens in Hesiod’s Works and Days. (H.G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (LCL: Cambridge, 1914), pp. 199-201.)

In any case, as L. Koenen observes, “he brings to an end the age of social and sexual intercourse between gods and mortal women.” (See Ludwig Koenen, “Greece, the Near East, and Egypt: Cyclic Destruction in Hesiod and the Catalogue of Women,” TAPA 124 (1994), p. 30).

This fragment, as scholars have noted, is remarkably similar to Genesis 6:1-4, particularly in the latter’s context as a prelude to the Flood story. (Ronald Hendel, “Of Demigods and the Deluge,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 1987, pp. 18-20) The Greek fragment includes the details of male gods having sex with human women, propagating a race of semi divine offspring, and the high god’s decision to send a great destruction.

In this case, Zeus’ decision to destroy “the greater part (pollen) of the human race” (or perhaps “the multitudinous human race”) is motivated by his desire to destroy (or remove) the race of mixed human-divine creatures, the demigods or heroes.

These are the great warriors who fight and die on both sides of the Trojan War. A separation between the human world and the divine world is established by Zeus’ plan, preventing the further sexual mingling of gods and humans and bringing to an end the age of heroes. (Ronald Hendel, “Of Demigods and the Deluge,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 1987, pp. 16-20).

R. Scodel has argued that the ideas in this fragment are in fact more suitable to a cosmic destruction than to the Trojan War:

“A war, no matter how long and how bitter, does not seem calamitous enough to have been an original form of the myth of destruction: it is, moreover, a normally human and local activity … It therefore seems likely that this aspect of the Trojan War is secondary, and that the theme has actually been borrowed from the Deluge.”

(Ruth Scodel, “The Achaean Wall and the Myth of Destruction,” HSCP 86, 1982, 42-3).

If it is plausible that this motive for the Trojan War (and there are others, including Zeus’ intent to reduce overpopulation, reminiscent of Enlil’s motive in Atrahasis) (See A.D. Kilmer, “The Mesopotamian Concept of Overpopulation and Its Solution as Reflected in the Mythology,” Or 41 (1972), p. 176) is related to Near Eastern traditions, in which Genesis 6:1-4 and the flood stories are mutually implicated.”

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June 26, 2015

Flood Traditions

“Another point of connection with Mesopotamian traditions concerns the relationship between Genesis 6:1-4 and the flood story. Since Genesis 6:1-4 occurs immediately prior to the flood story, it is possible that the stories were more richly connected in other versions of these stories, whether oral or written.

One such possibility would be a version of the flood story in which the deeds and / or existence of the mixed breed demigods provoked God to destroy them in a great cataclysm–the flood. This possible story is not told in biblical or Mesopotamian texts of the flood, but an intriguing Greek text about the Trojan War (see below) raises the possibility of this combination of motifs.

Library of Ashurbanipal / The Flood Tablet / The Gilgamesh Tablet
Date 15 July 2010
Current location: British Museum Link back to Institution wikidata:Q6373
Source/Photographer Fæ (Own work)
Other versions File:British Museum Flood Tablet 1.jpg
British Museum reference K.3375
Detailed description:
Part of a clay tablet, upper right corner, 2 columns of inscription on either side, 49 and 51 lines + 45 and 49 lines, Neo-Assyrian., Epic of Gilgamesh, tablet 11, story of the Flood. ~ Description extract from BM record.
Location Room 55  
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Library_of_Ashurbanipal_The_Flood_Tablet.jpg

In the versions of the flood recounted in Mesopotamian and biblical texts, the motives for the flood are several:

Old Babylonian Atrahasis: the “noise” (rigmu) of overabundant humans makes it impossible for Enlil to sleep. The flood is an extreme and, as Enki points out, morally repugnant method of population reduction.
Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh epic. Tablet XI and the flood tablet from Ugarit: the flood was sent for reasons impenetrable to humans: it is a “secret of the gods” (pirišta ša ili. XI.10).
The J flood story of Genesis: the evil of the human heart makes Yahweh regret that he created humans, and so he resolves to destroy them with a flood (Genesis 6:5-7).
The P flood story of Genesis: the violence of humans has corrupted the earth, and so God resolves to destroy them with a flood (Genesis 8:11-3).

None of these motives directly requires the existence of mixed-breed demigods or the sexual mingling of gods and humans. In its context as a prologue to the flood, Genesis 6:1-4 serves as one of several illustrations of human evil or corruption, but is not itself a necessary or sufficient cause of the flood.

Cuneiform tablet with the Atrahasis Epic, Babylonian, about 17th century BC
From Sippar, southern Iraq
A version of the Flood story
The story outlines the structure of the universe according to Babylonian beliefs. Heaven is ruled by the god Anu, the earth by Enlil and the subterranean sweet water by Enki.
The text then explains how the minor gods work in the fields but then rebel. As a result, humans are made from clay, saliva and divine blood to act as servants of the gods. This does not prove a perfect solution, as the humans reproduce and their noise disturbs Enlil’s sleep.
He decides to destroy them with plague, famine, drought and finally a flood. However, each time Enki instructs one of the humans, Atrahasis, to survive the disasters.
The god gives Atrahasis seven days warning of the flood, and he builds a boat, loads it with his possessions, animals and birds. He is subsequently saved while the rest of humankind is destroyed.
However, the gods are unhappy as they no longer receive the offerings they used to. There is a gap in the text at this point but it does end with Atrahasis making an offering and Enlil accepting the existence and usefulness of humans.
Copies of this story have survived from the seventeenth to the seventh century BC showing that it was copied and re-copied over the centuries. This is the most complete version.
There are clear similarities between this Flood story and others known in Mesopotamian literature, for example, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
T.C. Mitchell, The Bible in the British Museum (London, The British Museum Press, 1988)
S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford University Press, 1991)
W.G. Lambert and A.R. Millard, Atra-hasis: the Babylonian story (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1969)
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/c/cuneiform_the_atrahasis_epic.aspx

But it is in the nature of oral and mythological traditions that stories and myths can be combined and recombined–this is what Claude Lévi-Strauss (The Savage Mind, Chicago, 1966, pp. 16-22) calls the “bricolage” of myth making, and what Albert Lord (Singer of Tales, 2d ed., Harvard university Press, 2000,) calls the multiformity of oral narrative traditions.

It is possible that the birth and proliferation of the demigods signified a kind of chaotic disruption of the cosmic order that required a global destruction. But to find an example of such a combination of motifs, we must turn from Mesopotamia to Greece.”

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June 25, 2015

Correspondences Between Apkallu and the Nephilim

“Mesopotamian literature provides some interesting glimpses into the conceptual background of Genesis 6:1-4. The most notable case is the famous hero Gilgamesh. As a great warrior-king, he would certainly fit the epithets “ancient warrior” and “man of renown.”

In the Gilgamesh Epic we are told that “two-thirds of him is god and one-third of him is human” (I.46 and IX.31), the son of the goddess Ninsun and the human king Lugalbanda. In this ancestry we see a divine / human marriage and the birth of a semi divine child.

Gilgamesh defeating the Bull of Heaven.

There is also a pivotal scene in the Gilgamesh epic where the goddess Ishtar sees that Gilgamesh is beautiful and desires to marry him–but Gilgamesh refuses Ishtar’s advances (VI.5-80). Here is almost another divine / human marriage, again with a divine woman and a mortal man. The motif of Gilgamesh’s semi divine identity likely stems from the ideology of kingship in Mesopotamia, in which the king is often depicted as quasi-divine, sealed with greatness by the gods at birth.

For example, the Tukulti Ninurta Epic describes the Assyrian king as “the flesh of the gods” (šēr ilāni), the same phrase used to describe Gilgamesh in Gilgamesh IX.53. Royalty is rounded with divinity in Mesopotamian political ideology, as it is elsewhere in the ancient Near East.

In the top register, Ummiamu tend to a sacred tree, In the lower register, antediluvian apkallu tend to a sacred tree. The pinecones and buckets in their hands are now understood to be standard devices used to sprinkle water.

In the top register, ummianu, postdiluvian apkallu, tend to a sacred tree, In the lower register, antediluvian apkallu tend to a sacred tree.
The pinecones and buckets in their hands are now understood to be standard devices used to sprinkle water in blessing.

It is entirely possible that the unknown legends of the Nephilim have something to do with stories of such ancient semi divine warrior kings. Another relevant example, mediating between Mesopotamian and biblical traditions, is Nimrod (Genesis 10:8-12; J), a mighty hunter and king of Babylon and Assyria.

A.D. Kilmer has suggested that the ancient sages of Mesopotamian tradition–the apkallu–may be related to the Nephilim. The grounds for this suggestion are the following: the apkallu lived immediately before and after the flood; some of the post-diluvian apkallu are described as angering various gods; and some apkallu are “of human descent,” one of them being only two-thirds apkallu. A Late Babylonian list of the apkallu alludes to several unknown episodes about the postdiluvian apkallu:

Nungalpiriggaldim–who brought down Ishtar from heaven and who made the harp decorated with bronze and lapis.
Piriggalnungal–who angered Adad
Piriggalabsu–who angered Ea
Lu-Nanna, only two-thirds apkallu–who drove the dragon from Ishtar’s temple
[total of ] four of human descent whom Ea endowed with comprehensive intelligence.

Of the apkallu before the flood, only Adapa can be said to have angered the gods, since Anu calls him to task for breaking the wing of the south wind.

The transgressions of the apkallu are intriguing, particularly those “of human descent.” Yet it is hard to see how these figures can be directly related to the Nephilim, since their identities and attributes are so different: the apkallu are ancient sages and culture heros, while the Nephilim are ancient warriors and giants.

It is plausible, as H.S. Kvanvig has argued, that tales of the apkallu became mixed with interpretations of the Sons of God and the Nephilim in post-exilic times, for in I Enoch and later texts the heavenly beings (the “Watchers”) that come to earth to marry human women are also culture heroes, teaching arts and sciences to their human wives. Adding to this possibility of influence are indications that parts of I Enoch are of Mesopotamian provenance.”

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June 25, 2015

Asherah, Astarte, Anat, Athirat in Ancient Ugarit

“Some scholars have suggested that El’s two wives in The Birth of the Gracious Gods (Manfred Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquín Sanmartín, Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (CAT), KTU 2d enlarged edition. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995, p. 1.23) are mortal women, since they are referred to as ‘attm, “two women.” But it is just as likely that they are goddesses–perhaps Asherah and Rahmay, mentioned prominently earlier in the myth.

British Museum EA 191, upper register of limestone stele of chief craftsman Qeh. Naked goddess identified as ‘Ke(d)eshet, lady of heaven’ flanked by the ithyphallic Egyptian god Min and Syro-Palestinian god Reshep. Deir el-Medina (Dynasty 19). Photograph © Trustees of the British Museum.
“Her name Qdš(-t) simply means ‘holy’. As such, it can be attached to almost any goddess, including the whole of the A-team: Anat, Astarte, Asherah and Athirat. The question is: did there exist an independent goddess named Qedeshet at all? She is not known from any Canaanite or Ugaritic texts or inscriptions. Rather, she only appears as a named goddess in Egypt. There, she is honoured with such typical titles as ‘Lady of heaven’ and ‘Mistress of all the gods’ — which are not specific to her but could equally apply to any goddess in Egypt.”
http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com/2014_01_01_archive.html

In any case, these women become “El’s wives, El’s wives forever” (CAT 1.23.48-9) and give birth to two gods, Dawn and Dusk. There is much about this myth that is obscure, and nothing substantial that sheds light on Genesis 6:1-4.

In later West Semitic texts, the term “Children of El” (bn ‘ilm) is occasionally used, as at Ugarit, to refer to the main group of gods under the high gods. The Phoenician inscription of King Azitawadda (8th Century BCE) invokes a local sequence of gods: “Baal of heaven, and El the creator of earth, and the eternal Sun, and the whole council of the Children of El (bn ‘lm) (KAI 26. A.iii.19).

A Phoenician inscription from Arslan Tash (7th Century BCE) invokes the “Eternal One” and probably “Asherah,” followed by “All the Children of El (bn ‘lm) and the great of the council of all the Holy Ones” (KAI 27.11-2). An Ammonite inscription from the Amman Citadel (8th Century BCE) exhorts: “[Be]hold, you should trust(?) the Children of El (bn ‘lm).” These brief notices indicate that the term “Sons / Children of El” continued in use in the first millennium with the same general sense as in the second millennium texts.

Some Hellenistic era Phoenician traditions preserved in the writings of Philo of Byblos have been adduced as comparable to the themes and characters in Genesis 6: 1-4 (A.I. Baumgarten, The Phoenician History of Philos of Byblos (Leiden, 1981), pp. 156-7), but their relevance is dubious. In a portion of Philo’s Phoenician History (as quoted by the church father Eusebius), an interesting sequence of primeval history is related:

“From Genos, the son of Aion and Protogonos, there again were born mortal children whose names were Phos, Pur, and Phlox. These–he says–by rubbing sticks together discovered fire, and they taught its use.

And they begot sons who in size and eminence were greater [than their fathers] and whose names were given to the mountain ranges over which they ruled, so that they Kassios, the Lebanon, the Anti-Lebanon, and the Brathys were called after them.

From these–he says–were born Samemroumos who is also [called] Hypsouranios and Ousoos. And–he says–they called themselves after their mothers, since the women of that time united freely with anyone upon whom they chanced.” (Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 1.10.9)

These are probably authentic Phoenician traditions, but they have been filtered through Philo’s Hellenistic hermeneutics. If these traditions were about primeval humanity, as the text suggests, then the comparison with Genesis 6:1-4 would be warranted, particularly the birth of giants and perhaps the sexual adventures of women in primeval times. But it has long been clear that the characterization of these figures as human is due to Philo’s Euhemeristic technique, in which the stories of the gods have been transposed into stories about humans.

The clues that this is a sequence of divine figures include the following: Aion (“Eternity”) is identifiable as the well-known Canaanite / Phoenician god ‘Olam (“Eternal One”), as in the Arslan Tash inscription above; the children who discover fire are named “Light,” “Fire,” and “Flame,” also identifiable as Canaanite / Phoenician gods; their sons whose names are given to mountains are identifiable as local Baals—Baal of Kassios (= Mount Zaphon), called Zeus Kassios in Hellenistic times, Baal of Lebanon, and Baal of Anti-Lebanon (= Mount Hermon); Samemroumos means in Phoenician “High Heaven” (= Greek Hypsouranios), perhaps related to Baal of Heaven in the Phoenician inscription of Azitawadda above, or to the temple precinct in Sidon called “high heaven.”

Gold pendant, possibly Astarte. Ugarit. 1500-1200/1150 BCE.
Drawing © Stéphane Beaulieu, after Toorn 1998:86, #31
http://www.matrifocus.com/IMB04/spotlight.htm

The “mothers,” champions of free sex in Philo’s text, are likely to be goddesses, though their identities are unclear. Astarte and Anat (called in a Ugaritic text “Lady of High Heaven”) are good candidates.

Phoenician traditions about gods of mountains and about goddesses who have sex and bear divine offspring are interesting of themselves, but do not bear directly on the story or characters of Genesis 6:1-4. The same lack of connection pertains to stories about open conflict or rebellions among the generations of the gods (related in Philo’s Phoenician History among other sources), since this theme is not perceptible in Genesis 6:1-4.

Nonetheless, the long duration of the “Sons / Children of El” in West Semitic lore indicates that the story in Genesis 6:1-4 is rooted in widespread cultural traditions. But, perhaps because our textual evidence is so sparse, we lack other West Semitic narratives that are clearly related to Genesis 6:1-4.”

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June 22, 2015

The Children of El in Ancient Ugarit

“There is, of course, a logical problem with the twofold reference of the Nephilim to the antediluvian warriors and to the giant inhabitants of Canaan on the eve of the Israelite conquest. The flood intervenes, which kills all living creatures on earth: “Everything with life’s breath in its nostril, everything that lived on dry land, died” (Genesis 7:22 J).

The continuance of the Nephilim contradicts the testimony of the flood story (thus providing a lively subject for post biblical exegetes). The likely solution to this problem is that the writer was heir to traditions about the Nephilim that were not internally consistent, but was constrained by the audience’s horizons of expectations to relate these traditions accurately.

Such internal inconsistency is characteristic of oral traditions in many cultures, and we may point to this particularly inconsistency as a sign of the oral multiformity of the narrative lore of ancient Israel. As with the Sons of God, the Nephilim no doubt populated more stories in ancient Israelite culture than the brief texts that have been preserved.

To gain a richer understanding of Genesis 6:1-4–both of its content and its gaps–it is useful to consider the longer history (the discursive longue durée) of these narrative elements in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. The most immediate cultural context, for this and much else in ancient Israel, is the culture of Canaan from which early Israel emerged.

We have seen above that the term “Sons of God” has a direct antecedent in the Canaanite bn’il, “Sons / Children of El.” This group is referred to several times in Ugaritic literature of the Late Bronze Age and is carried on in several later West Semitic cultures of the Iron Age.

"22 alphabet" by Chaos - self-scan of old picture more than 10 years in syria (PD in syria). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

“Ugaritic text“. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

In the Ugaritic texts the “Sons / Children of El” are the members of El’s divine assembly (Mark S. Smith, trans., Simon B. Parker, ed., Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 1997). They are described as the offspring of El and his chief wife, the goddess Asherah. One of El’s epithets is ‘ab bn ‘il, “Father of the Children of El,” indicating his paternity of the gods, and Asherah is called qnyt ‘ilm, “Creatress of the gods.”

The Children of El are often shown feasting in heaven, as is the wont of the gods. At one point Baal recounts an shameful–but obscure–event during a feast in the divine assembly:

“… He stood and abased me.

He arose and spat on me.

Amid the ass[em]bly of the Children of El bn’ilm”

(Manfred Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquín Sanmartín. Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Íbn Hani and Other Places. (CAT). KTU 2d enlarged edition. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995, 1.4.iii.12-4)

Usually the gods feast in heaven, but occasionally they attend feasts on earth in the company of humans, such as the wedding feast for King Kirta (CAT 1.15.iii).

A Statuette of Baal.
http://www.american-buddha.com/bible.ugarit.htm

The Children of El are immortal, as the goddess Anat affirms in her (probably spurious) promise of immortality to the mortal hunter Aqhat:

“Ask for life, Aqhat the Hero.

Ask for life, and I’ll give it.

Deathlessness–I’ll endow you.

I’ll let you count years with Baal.

Count months with the Children of El bn’il.”

(CAT 1.17.vi.26-9, after Mark S. Smith, trans., in Parker, ed., Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 61, and Ronald Hendel, The Epic of the Patriarch: The Jacob Cycle and the Narrative Traditions of Canaan and Israel, 1987, pp. 74-81.)

Though immortal, the Children of El are less powerful than El. In the Kirta epic, El asks the divine assembly seven times if any among them can remove disease, but they are silent. Apparently El alone has the power to heal:

“Stay seated, my children (bny), on your seats.

On your elevated thrones.

As for me, I’ll use skills and create.

I’ll create a remover of illness.

A dispeller of disease.”

(CAT 1.16n.24-8).

Interestingly, this passage appears to equate the Children of El with the stars, comparable to the biblical concept in Job 38:7 and the biblical term “Host of Heaven” (see above).

The Children of El in the Ugaritic texts, cognate to the biblical Sons of God, are subordinate to the high god El, just as the biblical Sons of God are subordinate to Yahweh. They are less powerful than El and they occasionally visit humans on earth. Nowhere in the extant texts, however, do the Children of El engage in sex with humans.

In one curious text, Baal may have sex with a cow, which bears “a bull for Baal” (CAT 1.10.35, see Smith, trans., Parker, ed., Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 181-7), but there is no other inter-species sex that we can discern.”

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June 22, 2015

Editorial Note on the Apkallu and the Roadmap Ahead

I am breaking the narrative stream to speak directly to the process emerging from our reading on the apkallū, the antediluvian and postdiluvian sages of ancient Mesopotamia.

If you are reading along over my shoulder, you noticed that we digressed from Martin Lang, “Mesopotamian Early History and the Flood Story,” in a post titled On the Date of the Flood.

Martin Lang wrote:

“Berossos’ own knowledge of primordial kings probably goes back to sources that were available in Hellenistic times. The Sumerian King List itself was still known in the Seleucid era, or rather versions of king lists that echo, structurally and stylistically, their ancient forerunners from the early second millennium.

In matching up the primordial kings with the seven sages, the apkallū, Berossos once again works in the vein of contemporary scholars, who demonstrably constructed lists with kings and apkallū in order to advertise their own importance, and the primordial roots of their knowledge, as Alan Lenzi has recently shown.”

I updated that post to include a link to Alan Lenzi, “The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship,” JANER 8.2, 2008, which is serialized and linked in posts below.

I also changed the link to the Sumerian King List to point to the beautiful 1939 edition by Thorkild Jacobsen generously published by the University of Chicago Press, available for free download off the web.

We then dipped into Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, “The Mesopotamian Counterparts of the Biblical Nephilim,” in Francis I. Andersen, et al, eds., Perspectives on Language and Text: Essays and Poems in Honor of Francis I. Andersen’s Sixtieth Birthday, 1985, in a post titled On the Apkallū.

This is where I drilled in hard on the apkallū, incorporating bas reliefs and figurines held at the Louvre and the British Museum. Out of numerous posts addressing the apkallū, this one is well-illustrated, and lushly hyperlinked.

Moreover, Anne Kilmer synthesized the supporting research on the apkallū at the time of writing very effectively, so if you are overwhelmed by the other articles, just read this one. It goes without saying that you should not be intimidated by this academic literature. I have made it as readable and accessible as I can.

Yes, there is a lot of it. As I excavate the academic literature on the apkallū the hard way, mining references from footnote after footnote, I get a sense of what it might be like, to be an academic Assyriologist rather than an autodidact.

I do not include everything that I find. I assess and include just those pieces which accrue gravitas in that greater academic community. If you see glaring omissions, please let me know. This note is shaping up to be an academic survey of the literature on the apkallū, and it may save others treading these same paths some time.

Fair warning: our continuing digression into the apkallu will be deep.

As I complete serialization of source texts, I will include links to the posts beneath their citation below. These sources are sorted by date, so we can track the evolution of academic thinking on the apkallū. Our digression includes excerpts from:

Erica Reiner, “The Etiological Myth of the “Seven Sages,” Orientalia, v. 30, No. 1, 1961, pp. 1-11. Posted as:
- Erica Reiner on the Etiological Myth of the “Seven Sages.”
- Each King had his Apkallū.
- On the Ummânu.
- Why No Canonical Literature Regarding the Apkallū?
Anthony Green, “Neo-Assyrian Apotropaic Figures,” Iraq, Vol. 45, 1983.
- From Anthony Green, Neo-Assyrian Apotropaic Figures, 1983.
- Figurines Excavated from the Burnt Palace and Fort Shalmanesar.
- Green Identifies the Lahmu and the Ugallu.
- Green Defines Numerous Figures.
Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, “The Mesopotamian Counterparts of the Biblical Nephilim,” in Francis I. Andersen, Edgar W. Conrad, & Edward G. Newing, eds., Perspectives on Language and Text: Essays and Poems in Honor of Francis I. Andersen’s Sixtieth Birthday, 1985, posted as:
- On the Apkallu.
H.S. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic: The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and the Son of Man, WMANT 61, 1988.
E. Noort, “The Stories of the Great Flood: Notes on Genesis 6:5-9:17 in its Context of the Ancient Near East,” in F. Garcia Martinez and G.P. Luttikhuizen, eds., Interpretations of the Flood, 1988.
Jean Bottéro, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De Mieroop (translators); Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
F.A.M. Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts, Brill, 1992. Posted as:
- Lahmu, “The Hairy One,” is Not Apkallu.
- Mesopotamian Apotropaic Gods and Monsters.
- Apkallu Details (Excerpt from Wiggermann).
- Statues in Private Rooms, the apkallū, “Sages.”
- On the Banduddū, or “Bucket.”
- On the Mullilu, the “cleaner,” the Purification Instrument of the Apkallū Exorcist.
- Things that Apkallū Hold.
- On the Names of the Ūmu-Apkallū.
- Bird-Apkallū, Characterized as Griffin Demons.
- On the Fish-Apkallū.
- Wiggermann Defines the Lamassu.
F.A.M. Wiggermann, “Mischwesen A,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie (RlA) 8, Berlin, 1993-7.
Anthony Green, “Mischwesen B,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie (RlA) 8, Berlin, 1993-7.
Rykele Borger, “The Incantation Series Bīt Mēseri and Enoch’s Ascension to Heaven,” in I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11 (ed. R.S. Hess and D.T. Tsumura; Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 4, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994), pp. 224-33.
Schlomo Izre’el, Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death, Eisenbrauns, 2001.
- Izre’el: Origins of the Adapa Myth.
- Izre’el: The Tale of the Adapa Myth.
- Izre’el: Listing the Fragments.
- Izre’el: Adapa and the South Wind as Mythos.
Carolyn Nakamura, “Dedicating Magic: Neo-Assyrian Apotropaic Figurines and the Protection of Aššur,” World Archeology, 2004.
Ronald Hendel, “The Nephilim Were on the Earth: Genesis 6:1-4 and its Ancient Near Eastern Context,” in Christoph Auffarth and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds., The Fall of the Angels, Brill, 2004, posted as:
- The Children of El in Ancient Ugarit
- Asherah, Astarte, Anat, Athirat in Ancient Ugarit
- Correspondences Between Apkallu and the Nephilim
- Flood Traditions
- The Sexual Mingling of Gods and Humans
- Sex, Evil, and the Fall.
Carolyn Nakamura, “Mastering matters: magical sense and apotropaic figurine worlds of Neo-Assyria,” Archaeologies of materiality (2005): 18-45.
- Carolyn Nakamura on the Figurines.
- Nakamura: Rimbaud’s Derangement of All the Senses, Magic, and Archeology.
- Nakamura: More on Magic and Archeology.
- Nakamura: Magic Produces Wonder.
- Nakamura: Magic as Mimesis in Mesopotamia.
- Nakamura: Magic’s Perception and Performance.
- Nakamura: Clay Pit Ritual.
- Nakamura: The Common Terrain Shared by Myth and Iconography.
- Nakamura: An Idiom of Protection Arises in the Material Enactment of Memory.
- Nakamura: Humans Make Up the gods Who Make Them.
- Nakamura: The Figurines as Magical Objects.
- Nakamura: The āšipu was Master of the Figurines.
- Nakamura: Magic Enchants Us with the Possible Made Real.
Alan Lenzi, “The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship,” JANER 8.2, 2008.
- Lenzi: The Uruk List of Kings and Sages.
- Lenzi: The Mythology of Scribal Succession.
- Lenzi: On the apkallū-ummânū Association.
- Lenzi: Human Apkallū are a Later Inclusion.
- Lenzi: A Fault Line Where Legend and History Collides.
- Lenzi: The Apkallū and the Ummânū May Be Artificially Related.
- Lenzi: The Antediluvian Medical Tablet from Ashurbanipal’s Library (K.4023).
- Lenzi: The ummânū Were The Scribal Heirs of the Antediluvian Sages.
- Lenzi: Strabo, Pausanias and Pliny All Have Agendas.
- Lenzi: On the Restoration of the Temples.
- Lenzi: On Nikarchos and Kephalon.
- Lenzi: The Exaltation of the god Anu.
- Lenzi: More on the Exaltation of the Anu Cult.
- Lenzi: Authority Rooted in Divinity.
- Lenzi: The Uruk List of Kings and Sages Renewed the Anu Cult.
David P. Melvin, “Divine Mediation and the Rise of Civilization in Mesopotamian Literature and in Genesis 1-11,” The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, v. 10, art. 17, 2010.
- Melvin: Origins of Human Civilization–Divine Mediation or Human Endeavor?
- Melvin: Divine or Semi-Divine Intermediaries.
- Melvin: On the Role of Divine Counsel.
- Melvin: Human Civilization is a Gift of the gods.
- Melvin: Who Built the First City? Cain? Enoch? Chouser? Or Nimrod?
- Melvin: On the Tower of Babel.
- Melvin: Divine Instruction Reappears in 1 Enoch.
- Melvin: Divine Knowledge was Sexual Knowledge.
- Melvin: Divine Knowledge is Transcendent.
- Melvin: Human Knowledge is Sinful.
Trevor Curnow, Wisdom in the Ancient World, Bloomsbury, 2010.
- Curnow: Boundaries of Legend and History.
- Curnow: Ziusudra Divides Invented Myth from Mythologized Fact.
- Curnow: Atrahasis is More Historical Than Noah.
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).
- Dalley: Apkallu, IDD 2011.
- Dalley: Apkallu-2, IDD 2011.
- Dalley: Apkallu-3, IDD 2011.
- Dalley: Apkallu-4, IDD 2011.
- Dalley: Apkallu-5, IDD 2011.
- Dalley: Apkallu-6, IDD 2011.
- Dalley: Apkallu-7, IDD 2011.
Helge Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading, Brill, 2011.
- Kvanvig: The Lists of the Seven Apkallus.
- Kvanvig: The Apkallu List From Bīt Mēseri.
- Kvanvig: Discrepancies Between the Lists.
- Kvanvig: Introducing Ahiqar.
- Kvanvig: Berossos and Primeval History.
- Kvanvig: Introducing the Apkallu Odakon.
- Kvanvig: The Apkallus Had a Cosmic Function.
- Kvanvig: Bīt Mēseri and the Adapa Myth.
- Kvanvig: The Adapa Myth Symbolizes the Initiation of Humanity into Civilization.
- Kvanvig: Adapa Breaks the Wing of the South Wind.
- Kvanvig: On the Destiny of Adapa.
- Kvanvig: The Apkallu are on the Borderline Between the Human and the Divine.
- Kvanvig: Human Knowledge is Dangerous to the Cosmic Order.
- Kvanvig: Limitations of Human Wisdom and the Loss of Eternal Life.
- Kvanvig: The Apkallus as Protective Spirits.
- Kvanvig: The Bīt Mēseri Ritual.
- Kvanvig: On Sēp lemutti, Averting Evil.
- Kvanvig: The ilū mušīti Are the Stars of the Night.
- Kvanvig: The Maklû Ritual Against Witchcraft.
- Kvanvig: The mīs pî and pīt pî Rituals of Mouth Washing and Mouth Opening.
- Kvanvig: Aššurbanipal Studied Inscriptions on Stone From Before the Flood.
- Kvanvig: Surpassing the Wisdom of the Abyss–Or Not.
- Kvanvig: Five Specialties of Sages Communicating with the Divine.
- Kvanvig: The Sacred Tree.
- Kvanvig: The apkallus as Watchers and Guardians.
- Kvanvig: Transmission of Antediluvian Revelation.
- Kvanvig: Antediluvian Scribes of the gods.
- Kvanvig: Initiation is a Restriction of Marduk.
- Kvanvig: Divine Origin of Antediluvian Texts.
- Kvanvig: On the Correspondences Between Antediluvian Myths.
- Kvanvig: At the Brink of Legendary Time and Historical Time.
- Kvanvig: Earthly Counterparts of the Divine Watchers.
- Kvanvig: Dates the apkallu to the Beginning of the 1st Millennium BCE.
Gebhard J. Selz, “Of Heroes and Sages–Considerations of the Early Mesopotamian Background of Some Enochic Traditions,” in Armin Lange, et al, The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context, v. 2, Brill, 2011.
- Selz: Enoch Derives from 3d Millennium BCE Mesopotamia.
- Selz: On Giants.
- Selz: An Excerpt from the Book of Giants.
- Selz: Enūma Anu Enlil and MUL.APIN.
- Selz: On the Astronomical Diaries of Babylon.
- Selz: The Debate Over Mesopotamian Influence on Jewish Pre-History is 2000 Years Old.
- Selz: No Connection Between the Biblical Patriarchs and the Babylonian Antediluvian Kings.
- Selz: Tracking Gilgamesh Throughout History and Literature.
- Selz: Patriarchs and Sages.
- Selz: Connects the Apkallu with the Fallen Angels.
- Selz: On Sacred Marriage.
- Selz: Victory Steles, Dreams and the Erra Epic.
- Selz: The Dream of Gudea.
- Selz: Plant of Life or Plant of Birth in the Etana Legend?
Constance Ellen Gane, Composite Beings in Neo-Babylonian Art, University of California, 2012.
- Gane: Composite Beings in Neo-Babylonian Art.
- Gane: A Study of Mischwesen in the Neo-Babylonian Period.
- Gane: Neo-Babylonian Monsters, Demons & Dragons From a Narrow Slice of Time & Space.
- Gane: Review of the Literature on Monsters, Demons and gods.
- Gane: Applying Black’s Theory of Metaphor.

After we complete our deep dive into the apkallu, we will return to the Sumerian King List, then resume with Berossos. This is the roadmap ahead.

Editorial note: In some cases citations above which are not followed by links in the bulleted list are internet dry holes, no digital versions are available. In other cases, links are to Google Books editions, which often limit visible pages. Google’s intent is to sell electronic versions of the texts that they scan.

Under these circumstances, I end up rekeying entire articles, at ruinous waste of time. If you have a moment, please send a sweet nastygram to Google asking them to post free and complete eBooks as they continue their vast project to digitize the entirety of human knowledge.

In other cases, I simply have not yet reviewed the articles and posted them. If you are following this project, you see that I post updates nearly every day. Stay tuned.

My purpose in publishing Samizdat is to highlight excerpts from the great books, mining synchronicities from legends and myths. As I point out in the About page, the Deluge was an historical event for the ancient Sumerians.

I now need to update that page, incorporating the research that we have already completed on the Sumerian King List, setting up a future digression into the concept of the Great Year, which Berossos associated with traditions of a Conflagration and the Deluge.

If you wondered where we were going, I wrote this for you.

Updated 20 November 2015, 23:39 hrs.

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