Alas, Babylon: Tracing the Last King's Desert Exile
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Meeting Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale CHICAGO,ILLINOIS—More than 300 Mesopo- tamian scholars gathered at the University of Alas, Babylon:Tracing the Chicago’s Oriental Institute from 17 to 23 July. Last King’s Desert Exile Mid–6th century B.C.E. was a dark time for 60 centimeters (cm) wide, 50 cm high, and 542 B.C.E. after a decade in exile, only to be the empire of Babylonia. Persians and Medes 11 cm thick—was later reused in building a overthrown by the Persian King Cyrus the were threatening in the east, and the king wall. Only about a dozen lines of the stele are Great 3 years later. Thus Mesopotamians lost mysteriously abandoned his famed capital of legible, but they indicate that Nabonidus control over their own rich territory—a Babylon for a remote oasis in the western made offerings to Babylonian deities— control that was not fully regained until 2500 including Marduk—in the form years later in the 20th century. of carnelian, lapis lazuli, and censers of gold, according to a translation by Assyriologist Ur’s Xena:A Warrior Hanspeter Schaudig of the Uni- versity of Heidelberg in Ger- Princess for Sumeria? many. The find “is very valuable for our knowledge of history,” One of the most spectacular archaeological says philologist David Weisberg discoveries in history was Leonard Woolley’s of Hebrew Union College in excavation of the royal tombs of Ur in the late Cincinnati, Ohio. But he adds 1920s. The 16 graves included a “death pit” that the inscription “is quite dam- with sacrificed retainers and animals. Woolley aged, and many lines are illegi- believed the tombs were those of kings and on March 12, 2012 ble,” so it will require more study. their consorts, including the famous Queen The find is part of a larger Puabi, buried with a magnificent effort to understand the complex crown and other jewelry. trade routes that linked the But one grave, tomb 1054, ancient Middle East. Tayma lies left Woolley perplexed. In the King’s record. Ricardo Eichmann studies the stele that at a critical juncture of the frank- shaft 4 meters above the stone records Nabonidus’s exile. incense trade flowing north from burial chamber was a cylinder Yemen and other routes to the seal inscribed with the word Arabian desert. Contemporary texts portray Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, and for “lugal,” Sumerian for “king” or www.sciencemag.org King Nabonidus as mentally unstable and millennia it offered travelers a respite from “ruler,” along with a name read as complain that he forsook the prime Babylon- the desert. At the time of Nabonidus, the Meskalamdug and traditionally ian deity, virile Marduk, for the mystical cult oasis included a city with a vast wall some translated as “hero of the land.” In of the moon god Sin, often portrayed as an old 14 kilometers in circumference and a well the stone chamber itself were a man with a long beard. 18 meters across, one of the largest on the host of weapons, including a Those texts, written by Nabonidus’s cleri- notoriously dry Arabian Peninsula. The dagger at the side of the princi- cal enemies, have been the only evidence of team, led by Ricardo Eichmann of Berlin’s pal occupant. But there was his claimed exile. Now archaeologists have German Archaeological Institute and one hitch: Woolley determined Downloaded from found the first concrete signs that Nabonidus Said al-Said, a professor at King Fahd Uni- that the remains were of a indeed lived in the oasis of Tayma, more than versity, has found 13 successive layers of woman. Scholars had long held 1000 kilometers to the west of today’s Iraq, occupation from the mid–3rd millennium that ancient Mesopotamian and they hope also to uncover why this to the early centuries of the modern era, rulers, unlike their Egyptian obscure oasis played such a pivotal role in his- showing a surprising continuity in urban neighbors, were always men. tory. Academics familiar with the Middle desert life. “That seal cannot be hers,” East say that the Tayma dig itself, in sparsely Although Babylonian texts mention that Woolley concluded in a settled northwestern Saudi Arabia, is a tri- Nabonidus built a palace at the site, Eich- 1934 publication. umph of science over politics, given the diffi- mann says none has yet been found, but the The puzzle has obsessed two culty of winning permits from the Saudi gov- team will keep looking when it returns to generations of researchers, who ernment for excavations by foreign teams. Saudi Arabia in November. Textual evidence have come up with a variety of Three years ago, Saudi researchers work- found elsewhere indicates that Nabonidus theories to explain it. Now ing near Tayma found rock inscriptions that was ill when he left Babylon and recovered Kathleen McCaffrey, a graduate mention an army of Nabonidus that battled during his decade in the desert. But German student at the University of Cal- local Bedouin. Then in December, a joint excavation director Arnulf Hausleiter specu- ifornia, Berke- Saudi-German team found a piece of badly lates that his real motives could have been Fit for a prin- ley, says that weathered stele, a stone slab inscribed with economic: By asserting control over an cess?The myste- the most logi- writing, which closely resembles other slabs important trade city, Nabonidus may have rious occupant of cal answer is associated with Nabonidus’s reign. been attempting to bolster Babylon’s flag- tomb 1054 wore the simplest: The slab originally would have stood for ging treasury. If so, the gambit failed. The this gold dagger The seal and passersby to read, but the team’s fragment— texts say that the king returned to Babylon in at her side. weapons did CREDITS TO BOTTOM):(TOP DAI ORIENT-ABTEILUNG; K. MCCAFFREY 868 5 AUGUST 2005 VOL 309 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS N EWS FOCUS indeed belong to the buried skeleton, Without a skeleton, scholars may never fiercest debate at the meeting and revealed a which may have been that of a female definitively sort out the mysteries of tomb bitter split within the community. Some Sumerian ruler. That claim has sparked 1054. But the women of ancient Ur may have philologists say that given the scale of the fierce debate, however, especially because more to say in the near future: Researchers looting, they are eager to salvage what data Woolley disposed of the bones shortly are now examining Queen Puabi’s remains they can by translating and publishing texts. after discovering them. for clues to her genetic identity. “You have an obligation to your science, to Woolley himself suggested that the seal your data,” says Jerrold Cooper, a philologist and weapons were gifts from the woman’s at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, husband. Another theory is that the true Looted Tablets Pose Maryland, who says he would work with col- owner of the seal, a male, was buried in a lectors who own tablets. “It makes no sense at mud-brick shaft above the stone tomb. But Scholar’s Dilemma all to condemn all publication” of potentially McCaffrey notes that the materials in that looted items. shaft are low quality and lack weapons, and Few societies before our own were as But many archaeologists see the wide- that no other royal tomb is constructed of obsessed with recording data as ancient spread looting in Iraq as an unalloyed night- mud brick. In fact, the remains in the mud- Mesopotamia. After inventing the first mare and any involvement with potentially brick shaft, identified by Woolley as male, script in the 4th millennium B.C.E., the stolen tablets as aiding and abetting the were wrapped in women’s clothing with Sumerian scribes used clay tablets to keep destruction. At the meeting, a faction led by feminine jewelry. Unfortunately, those track of the most minute economic trans- Michael Mueller-Karpe, a specialist in bones also were discarded. actions as well as great myths such as The ancient metals at the Roman-German Central The principal occupant of 1054 herself Epic of Gilgamesh that stir readers even Museum of Mainz, Germany, proposed a res- reveals some curious gender anomalies, olution opposing scholarly notes McCaffrey. Her skeleton was found involvement with tablets that may wearing a hair ribbon, two golden wreaths, have been looted. “Scholars ... are and a gold dress pin, all typical for high- urged to refrain from providing status Sumerian women of the day. But she expertise to the antiquities market was not adorned with the usual earrings or and to private collectors, unless elaborate choker, and there were no floral the artifacts in question can be on March 12, 2012 combs or cosmetic containers. And a gold proved to be neither excavated headpiece and a dagger and whetstone at illegally nor exported without her waist were typical for Sumerian men; a permission,” states the resolution, gold headdress near the skeleton has a brim, which was signed by 130 academ- a style that Woolley believed was worn ics at a meeting after the confer- mostly by men. ence officially ended. A number Also in the stone chamber were a bronze of scholars, primarily philologists ax, dagger, and hatchet—very atypical for a like Cooper, refused to sign. woman’s tomb. Other researchers attribute The different opinions do not www.sciencemag.org those weapons to the male attendants in the always track disciplinary lines. room, but McCaffrey notes that the atten- Robert Adams, a retired archae- dants lack rings, weapons on their bodies, or ologist and former head of the any other sign of elite materials, suggesting Smithsonian Institution, sur- that they were servants.