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The Weeping Goddess: Sumerian Prototypes of the Mater Dolorosa Author(S): Samuel Noah Kramer Source: the Biblical Archaeologist, Vol

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The Weeping Goddess: Sumerian Prototypes of the Mater Dolorosa Author(S): Samuel Noah Kramer Source: the Biblical Archaeologist, Vol The Weeping Goddess: Sumerian Prototypes of the Mater Dolorosa Author(s): Samuel Noah Kramer Source: The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Spring, 1983), pp. 69-80 Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research . The Weeping Goddess: Sumerian Prototypes of the Mater Dolorosa by Samuel Noah Kramer Some time about 2000 B.c., a devasta- ting calamity befell Sumer, a disaster that well-nigh ended the existence of Sumer as a political entity. What made this catastrophe partic- Ur-Nammu, the founder of the ThirdDynasty, erected this stele at Ur. Only fragments of the stele werepreserved, but it has been restored to its original size of approximatelyten feet high ularly tragic, was and five feet wide. The top decorative zone shows the king pouring libations before an enthroned deity. The scene is repeated in the second zone with Ur-Nammu appearing the poignant fact twice-once before the moon-god Nanna and once before the goddess Ningal. The heavily damaged, lower zones of the stele originally depicted the king engaged in building that it marked operations. University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST/SPRING 1983 69 the end of a Sumerian renaissance of at bay,but to no avail. They contin- Finally,in the twenty-fourth year political and economic power,a ued their inroads into Sumer dur- of his reign, the Elamites and their periodwhen learning, literature, and ing the reign of Ibbi-Sin,the last allies, the Su-people, overwhelmed music flourished throughout the king of the dynasty,who suc- and destroyedUr and led off Ibbi-Sin, land. It had begun when a king of ceeded in holding on precariouslyto and no doubt many of the nobles Erechby the name of Utuhegal his throne for twenty-fouryears. and priests, into captivity. It was this defeatedthe barbaricGutian hordes Throughout his reign, his situation calamitous event that left a bitter, from the east that had subjugated was insecure and even pathetic. distressing, harrowingimpression on much of Sumer.Utuhegal, however, Undermined by the repeatedincur- the Sumerian psyche. And in the did not rule long over Sumer-his sions of the nomads from the west, years following this catastrophe, throne was usurped by one of his after Ur had recoveredto some ambitious governors,Ur-Nammu, extent, when the priestly poets and who succeeded in founding the last bardswere called upon to help important Sumerian dynasty,com- conduct services in Ur's restored monly known as the Third Dynasty temple, they were moved to com- of Ur. Ur-Nammu reigned for six- pose lengthy poems consisting pri- teen years and provedto be a capable marily of mournful laments over military leader,a great builder,and the sad fate of Sumer and its cities, an outstanding administrator.' but all ending on a note of hope Ur-Nammu was followed by and deliverance. It was in the course his son Shulgi, who reigned for close of composing these heartrending to half a century.Shulgi was one of laments that the Sumerian poets the truly great monarchs of the created the image of the grieving ancient world: an outstanding mili- "weepinggoddess," sorrowful, tender, tary leader,a punctilious admini- and compassionate. strator,an energetic builder of monu- mental temples, and, even more The Appearanceof the Weeping important, a veritable cultural Goddess in Sumerian Literature Maecenas. He extended Sumer's In the course of the centuries that political powerand influence from followed, the "weeping goddess" the Zagrosranges on the east to the image became a current motif in the MediterraneanSea on the west. He dirges and laments that abound in instituted an effective bookkeeping Detail of copperstatuette of Ur-Nammufrom the Sumerian literary repertoire.She and accounting system in palace the Inanna temple at Nippur. appearsin numerous and diverse and temple, rearrangedthe calendar, guises: as the divine queen bemoan- and standardizedweights and mea- ing the destruction of her city and sures throughout the land. He and assaulted by the hateful Elamites temple, the suppression of her cult, broughtto completion the construc- from the east, his empire tottered the sufferingof the ravagedand tion of Sumer's most imposing stage and crumbled, and the governorsof dispersedpeople. Or, she is the tower,the zigguratof Ur, which his all the more important cities of spouse, the sister, and above all the fatherhad left unfinished, and built Sumer found it advisable to abandon mother, of Dumuzi, or a Dumuzi- numerous religious structures in their king and fend for themselves. like figure, who had been carried the cities of Sumer.He was a lavish One of these governors,Ishbi-Irra by off into the nether world, a tragic fate patronof the arts-he founded or name, was a craftyMachiavellian that came to symbolize the death at least liberally supportedSumer's type, who kept on increasing his of the king and the destruction of two majoracademies of learning, powerby beguiling the confused her city and temple. Forthis paper one in Ur and one in Nippur. and ratherobtuse Ibbi-Sinwith I have combed the Sumerian literary But despite Shulgi's remarkable spurious comforting promises and documents in orderto uncover and achievements, the dynasty was honeyed seductive assurances that collect the more significant and nearing its end. His two sons, Amar- lulled the king into a false sense of intelligible passages that portrayin Sin and Shu-Sin, reigned only nine security. So much so, that in time one way or another the role, character, years each, and we now hear for the Sumer found itself under the rule and behaviorof the "weeping first time of serious incursions by of two kings: Ibbi-Sin, whose domin- goddess"as imagined by Sumer's nomadic Amorites from the Syro- ion was limited to the capital Ur poets and bardsover the centuries. Arabiandesert. Shu-Sin found it and its environs, and Ishbi-Irra,who These documents fall into three necessary to build a huge fortified controlled most of the other cities categories:(1) A group of five city wall to keep the barbaricnomads of Sumer from his capital Isin. lamentations which give the impres- 'Until very recently Ur-Nammu was thought to havepromulgated the first written law code in the history of man. Now, new facts have come to light. See my article, "WhoWrote the Ur-NammuLaw Code?" in the forthcomingissue of Orientalia. 70 BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST/SPRING 1983 sion that the destruction of Sumer that she had abandonedher city and and its cities was a tragic event It was in the course forsakenher temple-she had tried whose bitter memories were still desperately to prevent the catastro- ratherfresh in the hearts and minds of composing phe that befell Ur and its inhabi- of the Sumerian poets and bards. tants. On the very day that she had Two of these, the "Lamentation laments over the learned that the great gods An and Over the Destruction of Ur" and Enlil had decreed the destruction of the "Lamentation Over the Destruc- sad fate of Sumer Ur and the extermination of its tion of Sumer and Ur," were proba- people, she claims to have poured bly composed no more than a genera- and its cities that out "the water of her eyes" before tion or two after the collapse of the An and to have come as a suppliant Third Dynasty of Ur, that is, about Sumerian poets cre- before Enlil, pleading with them 1900 B.c. The other three, the ated the of and saying "Let not Ur be destroyed! "LamentationOver the Destruction image Let not its people perish!" But in of Nippur,"the "Lamentation Over the vain-"An changed not his word.... the Destruction of Erech,"and the grieving "weep- Enlil soothed not my heart (by "LamentationOver the Destruc- saying) 'It is good, so be it!'" tion of Eridu,"were composed about ing goddess," Even so, continues the goddess, a century later, during the reign of she refused to resign herself. With Ishme-Dagan, the fourth ruler of the sorrowful, tender, bent knees and outstretched arms Dynasty of Isin. (2) A group of and she came before the council of the formulaic, repetitive, stereotypical compassionate.gods meeting in solemn session liturgies and litanies that echo and repeatedher plea: "Let not Ur be from afar,as it were, the destruction their mothers, and the alienation of destroyed!Let not its people perish!" of such cities as Kesh, Isin, Ur, its rites and rituals. But again in vain. An and Enlil Nippur, Erech,Eridu, and Larsa.(3) A The poet then begins the third refused to change their cruel ver- considerablenumber of liturgic stanza by introducing the agonizing, dict and they directed the utter laments relating to the death of sleepless Ningal who seats herself destruction of the city and the Dumuzi, or one of the deities that on the groundwith her plaintive death of its people. came to be associated with him; lyre, and chants a lament, the With Ningal's plea rejected, most of these are couched in burden of which is the suffering the poet devotes the next two stan- language that is laconic, enigmatic, inflicted upon her by the terrifying, zas to a detailed, distressing descrip- ambiguous, and obscure. cyclonic destructive storm which tion of the destruction of Ur on she cannot escape day or night and Enlil's command. He called the Lamentations which does not allow her one day cruel merciless storm, accompanied LamentationOver the Destruction of peace and rest. Because of the by ragingwinds and scorching fire, of Ur. By far the most vivid, anguish of the land, the poet has against the trembling, horrified land. graphic,and comprehensive deline- her continue, she trod the earth like After destroying the cities of Sumer ation of the "weeping goddess"and a cow in search of its calf, but the it turned to Ur and "coveredit like a her agony and torment is found in land was not delivered of fear.
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