Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia
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AN ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia JEREMY BLACK AND ANTHONY GREEN Illustrations by Tessa Rickards Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia An Illustrated Dictionary Jeremy Black and Anthony Green Illustrations by Tessa Rickards THE BRITISH MUSEUM PRESS Jeremy Black The late Dr Black, formerly Director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, was a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in Akkadian. He was the author of several studies on Sumerian and Babylonian literature and ancient philology, and headed the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature project (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk ) Anthony Green Dr Green has formerly held the positions of Fellow of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, G.A. Wainwright Research Fellow in Near Eastern Archaeology at Oxford University, and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Free University of Berlin. He is currently Shinji Shumeikai Senior Academic Research Fellow in Near Eastern Art and Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin. He has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork in Syria and Iraq and writes on ancient Mesopotamian art and archaeology. Tessa Rickards Tessa Rickards is a freelance archaeological illustrator specialising in ancient Mesopotamia. She has worked as an illus- trator on numerous international excavations in the Middle East. She is an MA graduate of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Front cover: Green jasper seal depicting a conflict between two heroes, a bull-man, a bull and a lion. Dated 225o BC, origin unknown. Frontispiece: A nude winged goddess on a large-scale baked clay plaque in high relief The deity portrayed may be an underworld aspect of Istar (Inana). Old Babylonian or Isin-Larsa Period. Ht. 0.49 m. © 1992 The Trustees of The British Museum Published by The British Museum Press A division of The British Museum Company Ltd 46 Bloomsbury Street, London wCIB 3QQ First published 1992 Second edition 1998 Reprinted 2003, 2004 British Library Cataloguing in Pubiication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0 7141 1705 6 Designed by James Shurmer Cover design by Andrew Shoolbred Typeset in Ehrhardt and printed in Great Britain by The Bath Press, Bath Authors' note The names and concepts of Mesopotamian religion are recorded in two languages, Sumerian and Akkadian. Where possible, words have been listed in this dictionary in their Sumerian form, with only a cross-reference under the Akkadian name. Thus the goddess Ištar (Akkadian), for instance, is dealt with under her Sumerian name Inana. However, within the entries, the Sumerian or Akkadian name is used as appropriate, depending on the sources or periods referred to. A number of Mesopotamian names are commonly used in modern books (including this one) in Greek or Latin forms (especially place-names, e.g. (Greek) Babylon for Akkadian Bâbili), or in a form in which they occur in the Authorised Version of the Old Testa- ment (especially the names of Assyrian kings, e.g. Sennacherib for Akkadian Sin-ahhé-eriba). Similarly, archaeological sites are sometimes known by their modern Arabic names, e.g. Abù Shahrain for Sumerian Eridu. Of course we have no exact information on the pronunciation of the Akkadian or Sumerian languages, but scholars have reconstructed an approximate system based on comparison with other Semitic languages and on ancient transcriptions into Greek. A simplified guide to this is as follows: All letters are pronounced. The four vowels a e i u are always pronounced as in Italian (i.e. as 'ah', `ay', `ee', 'oo'). The signs - or ^ over vowels mark them as long. The letter g is always hard, as in `god', not soft, as in 'gem'. The symbols indicates the sound sh, as in 'shop'. The symbol g in Sumerian words indicates the sound ng, as in 'sing'. The letters s, t and q indicate 'emphatic' forms of the consonants s, t and k (and can be pronounced as s, t and k). The letter h always indicates the guttural sound ch, as in `loch'. This means that -sh- indicates two sounds — sh followed by guttural ch — not just sh. Words beginning with s are listed separately after those beginning with s. Because our understanding both of the cuneiform writing system and of the languages written in it has improved enormously since the early days of Assyriology (as this study has come to be known), ancient names sometimes 5 Authors' note appear written differently in early publications. For instance, we now know that in the name of the god Ninurta, the sign is should be read as URTA, but in older books `Ninib' will be found. This corresponds to the same group of signs in Sumerian, but is now out of date as a transcription. The books in the reading list on pages 191-2 all use the transcriptions currently favoured by the majority of scholars. Illustrations have been chosen to accompany many of the entries in this book. Drawings are particularly useful to show iconographic details or scenes, or the occasional relatively simple object. Most have been drawn by Tessa Rickards especially for this work. In other cases photographs have been preferred in order to give a clearer picture of the objects themselves. Although each of these illustrations has been selected with a particular theme in mind, they often contain elements which illustrate aspects covered in other entries. Therefore, each illustra tion has been numbered in sequence and the numbers of any that are relevant are printed in the margins of the text. Visual representations of some of the supernatural beings and the major symbols of the gods in art are given in illustrations 53 and 76. 6 Introduction Ancient Mesopotamia was the home of some of the world's earliest cities, and the place where writing was invented. For these two major developments alone — urban society and literate society — it might justly be titled the 'cradle of civilisation', but in its literature, its religious philosophies and no less in its art it can also be placed firmly as the direct ancestor of the Western world. Our knowledge of the civilisation of ancient Mesopotamia is constantly expanding. A hundred and fifty years after the first modern excavations, archaeological work in the Near East continues unabated and new dis- coveries are constantly being made which add to, reshape and refine our assessments of some of the most staggering human achievements of anti- quity. At the sites of ancient settlements and in the museums of Iraq and of other countries one can contemplate and wonder at the monuments, arts, handicrafts and utensils of daily life of the Mesopotamians. Thanks to the Mesopotamians' own greatest invention — writing — and modern decipher- 1 Worshippers stare wide-eyed at the heavens. Limestone statues found with numerous others buried in a shrine of an Early Dynastic temple at EsEšnunnamodern Tell Asmar). The eyeballs are of inlaid shell. Ht. of each statue 0.34m. 7 Introduction 2 (below) A typical ancient mound (or tell) site of southern Mesopotamia. 5 A view of Eridu. 3 (right) Cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing. The names and titles of iraMinerMa Hammurabi, king of Babylon in the early second millennium BC, from the II_ stone monument inscribed with his Laws. .0 i4 Brk- ^ A uTitMl ment of the languages in which they expressed themselves, we can read their literature, reconstruct their history and learn something of their thoughts. This is not to say that vast amounts of research do not still remain to be done. If some areas of history can be reconstructed down to the smallest detail, there are periods where enormous gaps in our knowledge remain. If numerous copies survive of one poem, there are many others of which only fragments have been recovered. If we can trace the use and meaning of some religious motifs throughout thousands of years, there remain some whose significance still eludes us completely. There is a constant need for skilled archaeologists and scholarly researchers to sift through the great wealth of evidence coming to light. But for the general reader, several reliable accounts of Mesopotamian civilisation, together with the story of how it has been revealed to us, are now available (see pages 191-2). There are lavishly illustrated books showing the full range of ancient art, from temple architec- ture and palace reliefs to cylinder seals and filigree jewellery. And gradually, accurate and readable modern translations of the extensive Sumerian and Babylonian literatures are appearing, together with explanatory studies. This book does not attempt to emulate the breadth or detail of such works, but rather to serve as an introductory guidebook for those who are tempted to read for the first time about ancient Mesopotamia, and especially to those 8 Introduction whose interest is drawn to the belief systems of ancient peoples as revealed in their art and in their writings. It is not intended to be a complete survey of religion and beliefs, and necessarily reflects the particular interests of the authors. There are a number of extended essays, which are complemented by shorter entries covering the most interesting individual deities, mo tifs and symbols, and a selection of other topics. Inevitably much has been omitted. The uses to which cuneiform writing was put in Mesopotamia have ensured that, in addition to administrative, commercial and historical docu- ments, extensive attention was paid to the recording of religious matters. In pre-modern societies, religion had a much more pervasive influence on every aspect of life: government and politics, social relations, education and litera- ture were all dominated by it.