SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
The Burney Relief Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East Edited by M.MINDLIN M.J.GELLER J.E.WANSBROUGH
SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Malet Street, London WC1E 7HP 1987 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” © School of Oriental and African Studies 1987 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Figurative language in the ancient Near East. 1. Semitic languages—Figures of speech I. Mindlin, M. II. Geller, M.J. III. Wansbrough, J.E. 492 PJ3051
ISBN 0-203-98498-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-7286-0141-9 (Print Edition) Acknowledgements
The symposium on ‘Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East’, which took place on 17–18 November 1983, was achieved with the aid of grants from the British Academy, the Institute of Jewish Studies at University College London, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, with additional support and hospitality from the Warburg Institute and the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum. The session at the Warburg Institute included papers by Th.Jacobsen, D.O.Edzard and O.R.Gurney; and that at the School of Oriental and African Studies included the papers of W.G. Lambert, K.R.Veenhof, C.Wilcke, J.E.Wansbrough and S.Talmon. All the papers submitted for publication were substantially amplified and revised. The editorial work of Murray Mindlin, including his English translation of D.O.Edzard’s contribution, deserves particular mention, especially in the light of subsequent illness, which compelled his retirement from the project. His death on 8 May 1987 has deprived us all of an energetic colleague and great friend. The editors wish to thank Martin Daly for his wise counsel and the Publications Committee of the School of Oriental and African Studies for meeting the cost of production.
Abbreviations The Assyriological abbreviations can be found in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and in R.Borger, Handbuch der Keilschrift Literatur (HKL).
CONTENTS
Introduction vii M.J.Geller (University College London)
Pictures and Pictorial Language (The Burney Relief) 1 Thorkild Jacobsen (Harvard University emerit.) Deep-rooted Skyscrapers and Bricks: Ancient Mesopotamian Architecture and its 11 Imaging D.O.Edzard (University of Munich) Devotion: the Languages of Religion and Love 21 W.G.Lambert (University of Birmingham) ‘Dying Tablets’ and ‘Hungry Silver’: Elements of Figurative Language in 38 Akkadian Commercial Terminology K.R.Veenhof (University of Leiden) A Riding Tooth: metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche, Quick and Frozen in 69 Everyday Language C.Wilcke (University of Munich) Antonomasia: the case for Semitic’TM 93 J.E.Wansbrough (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) Har and Midbār: An Antithetical Pair of Biblical Motifs 105 S.Talmon (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
INDEXES
Subject 126 Words: Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew 134 Primary sources 147 Biblical sources 151 ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece: The Burney Relief
1. Mesopotamian seed-plough 70
2. Standard of Ur and wild animal approaching 70
3. Silver handle of dagger ending in lion’s mouth 72
4. Axe blade hanging from lion’s mouth 73
5. Hoe from Urnammu’s stele (with coil of measuring rope similar to 74
one held by Inanna in the Burney Relief)
6. Sun god on the gate (photograph C.Wilcke) 83 Introduction M.J.Geller
A group of scholars from Britain, Holland, Germany, and Israel met at the Warburg Institute and the School of Oriental and African Studies in November 1983, to discuss the use of figurative language in Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, and biblical Hebrew literature. The papers were presented in memory of Henri Frankfort, and consequently also took into account figurative expression in ancient art and architecture. The original impetus for the colloquium came from Thorkild Jacobsen’s extended visit to London as guest of the British Academy, and all of the participants came to honour both Frankfort’s memory and Jacobsen’s presence. This volume represents the fruits of that meeting. Until now, there has been little interaction between Assyriologists, Semitists, and literary theorists, for obvious reasons. Modern studies of structuralism, semantics, and metaphor1 usually begin with Aristotle and then advance abruptly to nineteenth and twentieth century European literature, or following the example of linguistics analyse contemporary language and discourse.2 The current trends away from historical grammar and linguistics have meant that languages such as Sumerian and Akkadian do not feature in studies of metaphor and figurative language. The Semitists, on the other hand, have generally not entered into the arena of semiotics and ‘the meaning of meaning’, because so much of the basic work of lexicography and the production of text editions remains to be done. The present volume should serve to show that both fields can profit from closer contact. The metaphorists may be surprised by the variety of Near Eastern texts in which figurative language regularly occurs. These papers contain examples of tropes from building inscriptions, private letters, and even economic texts, as well as literary compositions such as love poetry. The Assyriologists and Semitists have still to confront the problems posed by semantics in trying to determine whether the usage of a particular word is monistic or dualistic, i.e. whether its metaphoric meaning in a specific context is an integral part of its basic ‘meaning’ or definition.3 The difficulties posed by Assyriology are easy to document. Sumerian includes many words which are ‘compound roots’, combining separate lexical elements to create a new lexeme. Sumerian igi-bar, for instance, literally means to ‘open the eye’, but the combined form corresponds to ‘looking’ or even ‘noticing’, depending upon the context. Similarly ki-ús means to ‘touch the earth’, but becomes ‘reaching’ or ‘arriving’, while one literally ‘throws’ (šub) an incantation, i.e. ‘recites’ it. One hastens by ‘giving the head’ (sag-sum//hiāšu), and prays by ‘raising the hands’ (šu-íl). Likewise in Akkadian, idiomatic uses of combinations of words give quite different meanings from the individual lexical units: the court adversary, or bēl dabābi, is a ‘master of speaking’, and one silences or interrupts by ‘seizing the mouth’ . The modern translator must attempt to apply the ‘basic’ meaning of individual words to the context, and in many cases he may even be compelled to ignore the dictionary entry, somewhat consistent with the modern theory that words have no meaning, only contexts.4 The complex nature of Sumerian and Akkadian semantics is partially the result of a bilingual literary tradition which is first evident in the third millennium B.C., and continued to thrive at least until the first century A.D. Bilingualism accounts for the fruitful borrowing of words and expressions between the languages, and encouraged the study of grammar and translation in the ancient scribal curriculum. The result is an impressive lexical tradition from Mesopotamia which not only catalogued numerous categories of objects according to genus, but also created bilingual glossaries which could be organized according to words with similar meaning or even root structure, or as homonyms.5 The potential, therefore, for substitution of expressions from one language to another was great. A famous example is the Sumerian political title lu gal kiški ‘King of (the city of) Kiš’, becoming šar kiššati ‘King of the whole world’, as used in later Assyrian and Babylonian royal titles, with the geographical meaning of Kiš being substituted by its logographic use in Akkadian contexts corresponding to akkadian kiššatu ‘entirety’.6 The scope for figurative language in Assyriology and related fields is too broad to be enumerated here, but one intriguing line of inquiry can be opened by way of introduction to the subject. The ‘comparison’ theory of metaphor is ascribed to Aristotle,7 whose succinct insight into figurative language in Poetics 21 still retains its value, and certain of Aristotle’s statements cannot be improved upon. Nevertheless, all the literature cited in this volume pre-dates Aristotle, and one wonders whether metaphor or semantic analogy was ever recognized as such by the ancient scribes, despite the absence of a comprehensive theory. The use of simile and metaphor may not in itself imply an awareness of the role of tropes within the language, since it is conceivable that figurative language was used unconsciously or stylistically, without isolating such usage as a particular phenomenon. One possibility for crediting Mesopotamian scribes with a pre- Aristotelian conception of figurative language is to be found in certain commentaries to lexical texts, which are intended to amplify or explain the glosses of the standard compilations. One such commentary elucidates the following passage of the lexical text Aa III/1 86–88 (MSL 14 320): zi ZI na-da-ru (‘to be furious’) la-ba-bu (‘to rage’) na-al-bu-bu (‘to be enraged’)
The ancient commentary on this passage (MSL 14 323) explains the terms nadāru (and presumably the adjective nadru) with a citation from a bilingual incantation: ur šu zi- ga//la-ab na-ad-ru ‘a raging lion’ (cf. CT 16 19:21–22, and CADN1 65a), thus relating nadru ‘raging’, labābu ‘to rage’ and labbu ‘lion’. That this association is intentional can be seen from other similes, such as Sennacherib’s statement that labbiš annadirma allabib abūbiš ‘I was furious as a lion and ferocious as a flood’ (OIP 2 51 25 et al.), which employs the same play on words. The commentary then proceeds to explain nalbubu with a citation from Babylonian wisdom literature (Ludlul I 86): na-al-bu-bu tap-pa-a ú-naq-qar-an-ni ‘the furious friend derides me’, which is followed in turn by nu-ug-gu-ru: ; this is an explanation of nugguru ‘to deride’ as akāl ‘eating in pieces’, i.e. ‘slander’. This last example is a good illustration of a figure of speech (CAD K 209, 222, also occurring in precisely the same form in Aramaic, cf. Jastrow 63b) used to elucidate a relatively rare word, and the quotation serves to distinguish between labābu ‘to rage (like a lion)’ and nalbubu ‘to be enraged’ (like a human being), i.e. as above, ‘to be outraged’ like a friend. Another example of such conscious word-play occurs in a commentary entry explaining a rare word in Ea II 11 (MSL 14 247): li-id NI li-ti-ik-tu (‘true measure’)
The commentary (MSL 14 268) reads: li-id NI li-ti-ik-tú: gišmaš: a-a den-líl giš[ŠÀ.ME]-da mu-un-D[U…] umun ka-nag-[g]á! giš[ŠÀ]-ME-da: ma-šú-ú šá kak-ku ŠE.GIŠ.Ì ana da-[…]
The passage should be understood in the following way: (The sign) NI (to be vocalized as) lid (means) litiktu (which means) gišmaš (‘twin- rod’). (Quote): ‘Father Enlil carried the lidda(-rod)…, the lord of the land (carried) the lidda(-rod)’.8 (Quote): ‘In order to.[..] the “twins” of lentil9 and sesame.’ This commentary entry contains four separate elements: A=lid//litiktu B=gišmaš C=quotation from an Enlil hymn D=unidentified quotation (twins of lentil and sesame)
A schematic design of the passage would be two-fold: B explains A, and D explains C, but equally A:C as B:D. In other words, gišmaš explains lid (litiktu), and the two quotations from Sumerian and Akkadian literature are offered as further explanations of the word lid (litiktu) and gišmaš. At the same time, however, the word lid relates to the Enlilhymn quotation in the same way that gišmaš relates to the ‘“twins” (māšū) of lentil and sesame’ quotation. The key to understanding the passage is a single lexical entry in Hh VII A 229 (MSL 6 103), which reads: gišmaš=ma-a-šú
The word māšu is only attested elsewhere as the word for ‘twin’, but the supposition is that the gišmaš is a kind of rod (with the wood-determinative giš). This commentary is thus explaining a rare word lid (da) by finding the term used as a type of measuring rod in an Enlil hymn.10 But what exactly is a lid (da)? The commentary relates lid (da) to another rarely attested word, gišmaš, which is translated by Akkadian māšu, ‘twin’, and a passage is cited which is intended to explain the gišmaš as a ‘twin’ or perhaps double measure of lentil and sesame, and may reflect the repetition of the lid (da)-rod in the Enlil passage; such is the rabbinic logic of commentaries. The basis for the comparison, however, is more subtle: the Akkadian translation for lid (da) is litiktu, which is related to the root latāku ‘to check, test’, while a homonym mâšu ‘to check, look over’ appears twice in Neo-Assyrian sources (CADM1 403). The process of interpretation illustrated by this commentary represents textual criticism based upon the conscious use of metaphor and analogy, and passages have been cited to render new meanings for poorly attested or obscure words. The use of figurative language in Babylonian hermeneutics is reminiscent of Aristotle’s statement that ‘metaphor consists of assigning to a thing the name of something else’ (Poetics 21). The Babylonian scholars knew what they were doing. They were able to compare words and contexts to move from lexicography into semantics. The contributions in this volume highlight various aspects of figurative language, and no attempt was made by the organizers of the colloquium to restrict the discussion to any particular aspect of the subject. As a result, each paper added new insights to completely separate areas of figurative language without repetition or superfluity. Thorkild Jacobsen introduced the subject of ‘Bildsprache’, focusing on figurative imagery as expressed in a single Mesopotamian relief, but in close harmony with thematic expressions in the literature. Dietz Edzard discussed the crucial metaphor of the temple as mountain and bond of heaven and earth, which reflects a basic conception of Mesopotamian religion. Claus Wilcke has extracted from Old Babylonian letters an intriguing riddle of the plough based upon figures of speech. Klaas Veenhof has elaborated the ‘making of money’, the figurative expressions of Old Assyrian businessmen in the course of ancient commerce. Wilfred Lambert has elaborated the language of religion and love in both Mesopotamian and biblical contexts. John Wansbrough explores Ugaritic, Hebrew and Arabic sources for the antonomastic use of asham (guilt offering) in the Canaanite pantheon, producing a model of methodology in his search. Finally, Shemaryahu Talmon explains the biblical references to desert and mountain as extremes of religious imagery. These contributions are intended to serve as a first foray into a rich field of research, although the study itself is not a new one. As George Steiner has recently commented,
The disciplines of reading, the very idea of close commentary and interpretation, textual criticism as we know it, derive from the study of Holy Scripture or, more accurately, from the incorporation and development in that study of older practices of Hellenistic grammar, recension and rhetoric.11
The intention of this volume is to push back further the frontiers of reading, interpretation, and textual criticism into the world’s oldest literature. 1Inter alia cf. J.Culler, Structuralist Poetics (London, 1975), P.Ricoeur, The rule of Metaphor (London, 1978), and A.Ortony, Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, 1979). 2Cf. Culler, op. cit. 1–31. 3Cf. J.J.A.Mooij, A Study of Metaphor (Amsterdam, 1976), 117ff. 4Cf. Ricoeur, op. cit. 72ff. 5I.L.Finkel, Introduction to MSL 16. 6W.W.Hallo, Early Mesopotamian Royal Titles (New Haven, 1957) 21ff. 7Ricoeur, op. cit. 8ff. 8The quotation comes from a hymn to Enlil (CT 15 10:23–24), and the full text of this passage in its Old Babylonian version is cited in MSL 14 2689. M.Civil ibid. also identifies gišŠÀ.ME as equivalent to gišŠÀ.DIŠ=litiktu in lexical texts (cf. CADL 216b), although the orthography giš giš of this commentary, ŠÀ.ME-da, suggests a reading lidx-da, which is supported by the parallel passage in CT 15 10 23:a-a dmu-ul-líl li-id!-da mah mu-e-DU ‘You, Enlil, carried the august lidda’; cf. MSL 14 op. cit. 9Cf. MSL 14 2689, in which M.Civil suggests an alternative reading kak-ku ŠE.GIŠ.Ì, ‘head? of sesame’. Not only does kakkû ‘lentil’ make better sense in the context, but lentil and sesame are often paired in economic texts (CADK 58). 10In the parallel passage CT 15 10 24, Enlil also bears a gi-gur and gisba-tí-ga; cf. MSL 14, op. cit. 11The Times Literary Supplement, 8 November 1985, p. 1275.
Pictures and Pictorial Language (The Burney Relief)* Thorkild Jacobsen
It is a great privilege—and for me a very moving one—to take part in a colloquium in memory of Henri Frankfort, or Hans, as he was always affectionately called. He was and is one of the truly great, shining figures of our field, and he was a wonderful friend. His achievements were fundamental. He introduced dating by pottery into Mesopotamian archaeology and established the first datable series. Later he did the same thing for cylinder seals assigning them to their various periods. His excavations in Khorsabad and the Diyala Region were a model for their time and did much, by their example, to help improving archaeological method in Mesopotamian archaeloogy. It is difficult now, fully to realize how little was known in 1930. The Early Dynastic Period, which Frankfort cleared up and subdivided, was then a dark mystery. It did not even have a name then. Among the many striking finds we owe to him I shall mention only the magnificent horde of early statues, then the earliest ones known, which Frankfort published with his superb feeling for, and insight into, art and its values. Frankfort’s concerns with art and archaeology were in a measure summed up in his book on Art and Architecture, his broader interest in ancient culture bore fruit in his planning of Before Philosophy with his very fine introductory and concluding chapters on Ancient Religion, and his important study of sacral kingship in Kingship and the Gods.1 As a teacher he was electrifying. He conducted the almost legendary seminar that correlated archaeological dating across the ‘Fertile Crescent’ from Egypt in the west to Iran in the east. His range was marvellous. I remember once he took his class in Egyptian Art down to a visiting Picasso exhibition in the Art Institute in Chicago and was as knowledgeable about Picasso’s blue period as about the Ancient Egyptians. The week after that, I think it was, he lectured on cave-art for the Department of Anthropology and raised the question whether it was not, perhaps, too immediate in its rendering to be truly art. He was inspiring to work with, warmhearted and brilliant, uncompromising in his insistence on the highest attainable standards. To work with him in Tell Asmar was for all of us who were there, an experience that proved of decisive and enduring value in our lives. As for this present Colloquium, it seemed to me that I could perhaps honour his memory best by beginning with a problem which he solved in all essentials, but which I think, can be carried a little further toward understanding by the use of materials that were not available to him when he made his identification of the figure in the Burney Relief.2 As Frankfort correctly saw, the figure in the Burney Relief represents a supernatural being called Kilili in Akkadian, and he drew attention to Zimmern’s earlier suggestion of a relationship between Kilili and the Greek Aphrodite Parakýptousa. Following the Figurative language in the ancient near east 2 consensus of Assyriological opinion as it was then, and still is, he considered Kilili to be a female demon, a kind of Lilith, and it is at that point that I believe we can now see a little more clearly.
Size
Looking then at the Burney Relief afresh, we may begin by considering its size. It measures 49.5 by 37 cms. and is 2.5–3 cms. thick. Thus, although it is made of clay its size sets it firmly apart from the run of small clay plaques and makes it almost certain, as Frankfort pointed out, that we are dealing with a cult relief. This however, does not fit well with the idea that the relief could represent a demon, for it is precisely the lack of a cult that sets Ancient Mesopotamian demons apart from the gods. The demons could have no cult, for they were completely alien to man and unreachable, no relationship of giving and taking could be established with them. We are told that
Neither male are they nor female, they are ghosts ever sweeping along, are ones who take not wives, to whom children are not born, know not how to show mercy, hear not prayer and supplications3 they are such as
know not food, know not drink, eat not flour strewn (as offering), drink not water poured as libations.4
Horned Crown
Against identifying the figure as that of a demon speaks also the fourtiered horned crown it is wearing. The horned crown is an emblem of divinity and the multiple layers of horns indicate a deity of exceptional powers and high rank. We should therefore abandon the idea that the figure represents a demon and assume rather that a goddess is meant. If that is so, however, the lions under her feet become significant, for there is, as far as I know, only one goddess who has lions as attribute, the goddess Inanna, who corresponds to the Akkadian Ishtar. She drives a team of seven lions, lions guard her throne and scare the eagle in the Etana Story, and she was herself originally envisaged in lion shape as shown by her name Labbatu which means ‘Lioness’.5 For our present purposes perhaps the most telling reference is a line (line 23) in the Sumerian hymn to her called Innin-šag-gurra which describes her as ‘seated on crossed lions’.6 Pictures and pictorial language (The burney relief)* 3
Mountains
Below the lions is, as you will notice, the conventional design by which the Ancient Mesopotamian artists represented mountains. The scene depicted is thus the mountain- tops east of the Mesopotamian plain. This too fits Inanna, for there, on Kur-mùsh, that is to say, on the mountain crests, was her original home. kur means mountain and mùš means ‘crest’, ‘summit’. That she came from there we know from The Lugalbanda Epic, and the epic of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.7
Wig
Returning, then, to consideration of the figure itself, there is underneath the horned crown her hair, which, predictably, can hardly be expected to contribute anything special in the way of identifying marks. Nevertheless, there are some points of interest for fitting the figure in with Inanna that may be worth mentioning. First, what is rendered was most likely not her natural hair but rather a wig. It was customary for the Sumerians to shave the head and to wear a wig for festive occasions when they wanted to look their best. There is in the British Museum a wig of stone meant for the head of a statue of a goddess which is called in the inscription on it ‘her glory of womanhood’ recalling to the modern reader the English expression that ‘the hair is a woman’s crowning glory’ and meaning exactly that.8 In this respect Inanna followed prevailing custom and we are told that when she set out to conquer the Netherworld she wore a ‘kefia’ (túg) and ‘aghal’ (šu-gur-ra) of the desert but carried in her hand ‘the wig of her brow’. Apparently she planned to put that on when she arrived and wanted to look her best.9 The reason why the Sumerians shaved their heads and wore wigs was apparently the same that made wigs popular in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: to keep free of lice. The shaved head could be washed and anointed to clean it. Typical wearers of wigs were the priests, the gudu Akkadian pašīšu ‘the anointed one’. The etymology of the Sumerian term is not clear but it is written with two signs, one of which is the sign for ‘louse’, the other for ‘clean’, ‘free of’. That anointing was indeed used to get rid of lice is shown by an incantation which guards against ghosts who may have been nourishing a grudge. One such is of a man who, when alive had begged, ‘in my lousiness let me anoint myself with you’, and had been refused. Anointing thus reveals itself as a means of bodily cleanliness and thus as a necessity for cultic purity. The priest is the pašīšu ‘the anointed’, and when the ruler is anointed that too prepares him for cultic function, just as the promised king and saviour will be a priest-king, a messiah.10
Necklace
Returning from this excursus to the figure before us we may skip for the moment her necklace which we shall come back to later, and consider instead the things she holds in her hands, known traditionally as ‘the Rod and the Ring’. Figurative language in the ancient near east 4
The Rod and Ring
What the rod and the ring actually picture is clear, fortunately, from the famous Stele of Urnammu from Ur,11 where the Moon god, the god of Ur, Nanna, is shown handing them to the ruler, Urnammu, who appears on the stele in the role of builder, carrying pick and other building tools. Here, in contrast to later representation, the execution is precise and detailed enough to show that the ring actually is no ring at all but a coil of rope, apparently a measuring-cord for measuring longer distances, while the accompanying ‘rod’ is a yardstick for details. This interpretation is confirmed—as is also the identification of the figure with Inanna—by the myth of the Descent of Inanna, for there we are told that as she dressed for her descent she carried ‘the yardstick of one nindan (length)’ and ‘the pure (measuring) cord of the iku. nindan and iku are units of length and area corresponding roughly to our ‘yard’ and ‘acre’.12 Why Inanna would carry the implements of the builder here, where she is hardly suitably dressed for building, or on her journey to the Netherworld where, likewise, there would seem to be no call for them, is, of course, at first glance puzzling. But here, again, the Stele of Urnammu furnishes the answer. It will be noted that Nanna holds in his hands both a weapon, a battle-axe, and the yardstick and coil, and that it is the latter, not the weapon, that he hands to Urnammu, thus entrusting him with works of peace rather than war; for the task of building temples could be done only in peacetime. The manpower needed for building was provided by the army and it would, of course, be needed for fighting in times of war. Samsuiluna, for instance, had to postpone building the temple for Shamash in Sippar which the god had asked for because a rebellion broke out in the south of the country and had to be put down.13 Thus the yardstick and measuring coil symbolize peace, and Inanna holds them because, as goddess of war she clearly controls also the absence of war, peace. They symbolize one aspect of her powers.
Wings and Talons
We come next to the wings and bird’s claws of the figure and here the fact that it is flanked by two owls as its attributes clearly indicates that the bird features are meant to suggest specifically owl character. If we are right so far in assuming that the figure represents Inanna, we must ask therefore whether this goddess, besides her lion-form, also could be envisaged under the form of the owl. And that seems in fact to be the case. The Akkadian word for owl, eššebu corresponds to Sumerian ninna ‘owl’ and also to dnin-ninna ‘Divine lady owl’, that is owl goddess.14 This owl goddess Nin-ninna, however, is Ishtar, the Akkadian name of Inanna.15 Besides the translation eššebu ‘owl’ the ancient lexical texts give for Nin-ninna also kilili16 which likewise is known to be a name for Inanna/Ishtar as was shown first by Zimmern who many years ago pointed to an incantation reading ‘Exalted lady Kilili who has rushed at me, great Ishtar who has flung your limbs around me’.17 Pictures and pictorial language (The burney relief)* 5
The name Kilili makes it clear what Inanna’s owl-aspect stands for, for Kilili denotes the harlot who like the owl comes out at dusk. The Sumerian counterpart of Kilili is Abashushu,18 ‘harlot’, literally ‘the one who leans out of the window’, that is, the harlot who leans out of the window of the bordello soliciting custom from the men in the street below. The gesture was a characteristic one. It meets us also in the Hellenistic-Roman world where the goddess of harlots was Aphrodite parakýptousa ‘Aphrodite who leans out of the window,19 and it underlies the familiar pictorial motif of ‘the woman in the window’.20 A description of Inanna in this aspect of her, as harlot and goddess or harlots, we have in the Sumerian hymn to her published by Langdon in Babylonian Expedition 31 no. 12. The section which interests us here21 addresses the goddess directly as follows:
Harlot, you go down to the alehouse, Inanna, you are turning into one leaning out of the window lifting up your voice, Inanna, you are mistress of myriad offices no god compares with you!
Nin-egalla, here is your home ground let me praise your greatness. As the beasts are stirring up the dust, as oxen and sheep are returning to byre and fold, you, my lady, have dressed like one of no repute in a single garment, have fastened the harlot’s erimmātu (necklace) around your neck, you are become one who snatches the man from the wife’s embrace, you are the one who is hastening into the embrace of Dumuzi your bridegroom, Inanna, your seven bridallers are bedding you. Inanna, you are mistress of myriad offices, no god compares with you!
It is of interest that the text specifically calls Inanna ‘harlot’, kar-kid and ‘one who leans out of the window’, ab-ba-[šú]-šú, which in Akkadian would have been rendered as Kilili. It also mentions Inanna’s necklace, indicating that it identifies her as harlot. That necklace is also listed as part of her attire in Figurative language in the ancient near east 6
Inanna’s Descent.22 We may therefore, I think, quite reasonably identify it with the necklace the figure on the Burney Relief is wearing and which we delayed commenting on earlier. We may thus sum up: 1. The size of the relief suggests a cult-relief. Since demons had no cult the figure depicted is unlikely to be a demon. 2. The horned crown with four tiers suggests a major deity. 3. The lions suggest Inanna, since she is the only goddess associated with lions. 4. The mountain pattern fits since Inanna’s home was the mountain crests in the east. 5. The yardstick and coil of rope in her hands accord with the description of her in the myth Inanna’s Descent. 6. So does the necklace she is wearing. 7. Finally, the owls and the wings and bird talons of the figure show that Inanna is pictured in her aspect of Owl-goddess and goddess of harlots, Ninnina, in Akkadian Kilili. One may therefore hazard the opinion that the Burney Relief represents Inanna as goddess of harlots and served as a cult-relief at the house-altar of an ancient bordello. If so, that would explain also a last unusual feature of the relief, the nudity of the figure. Nudity is practically never found in monumental art in Ancient Mesopotamia and seems to have been deliberately avoided for reasons of propriety. In a bordello, though, it would hardly have given offence.
Pictorial Language
Before we can leave the Burney Relief entirely, there remains the question of its revelance to pictorial language and here I would plead that it helps us to see concretely how the Ancients responded to certain terms which from an origin as straightforward descriptive words moved on to become in fact metaphors, mere pictorial language. I am thinking particularly of Sumerian divine names such as An which identifies the god as the sky or Enlil whose name identifies him as the wind, although in historical times both gods were undoubtedly thought of as having human form. We may begin by defining what happens when pictorial language is used, and I follow here Ogden and Richards in their The Meaning of Meaning, who say that the metaphor calls to mind an image from which the hearer is expected to abstract and to concentrate only on such features as are relevant in the context. Thus if one speaks of ‘waves of pain’ only the rhythmic movement of actual waves is to be considered as relevant, while their wetness, dark green colour and so on are tacitly discounted.23 Considering in this light a term, or name, for Inanna such as Nin-nina ‘Lady Owl’, one could well imagine that in historical times, when anthropomorphic forms of the gods had become dominant, the Ancients, on hearing it, would select from it only one feature, appearance at dusk when:
The beasts are stirring up the dust, as oxen and sheep are returning to byre and fold. Pictures and pictorial language (The burney relief)* 7
One could well imagine this; but a look at the Burney Relief will show that the Ancients were, in fact, less radical. ‘Lady Owl’ is essentially ‘lady’ and ‘human’, but not entirely. She retains the owl’s wings and claws reinforcing the aspect of night prowler. In western culture we have a parallel in the imagining and representation of the Devil in human shape except for one foot which has the cloven hoof of the lustful satyr he is. Other cases like that of Lady Owl on the Burney Relief abound. Gudea, who saw the god Ningirsu in a dream, reports that the god had the wings of his original form, the Thunderbird, and ended below in a floodstorm,24 the snake-god Ningishzida has snakesheads protruding from his shoulders.25 Vegetation goddesses sprout grain from their bodies and so on. As Frankfort once vividly summed it up, ‘it is as if their inner being was threatening to break and burst through the human form imposed on it’. What we have then, in terms such as Nin-nina ‘Lady Owl’, is accordingly a metaphor which makes the listener accept rather more from the ‘image’ than will fit cleanly into the context’s demand for a deity in human form of nocturnal habits. It calls up in the mind also the external signs of those habits, the owl’s wings and talons much as the Devil’s cloven hoof is the external sign of inner lasciviousness. We might perhaps call such metaphors in which the image still vigorously resists the process of full abstraction half- metaphors. One more feature of the Burney Relief might be mentioned, the lions. Here too, as with Nin-nina, we have a pre-anthropomorphic form of the goddess, corresponding to her Akkadian name Labbatu ‘lioness’. Unlike the form of the owl, though, no lion features are observable in the figure, nor would they suit the harlot aspect of Inanna. The lions appear, it would seem, as pure ‘attributes’, having as their only function that of identifying the figure as Inanna. They are, so to speak, mere name-tags. If we seek parallels for this on the linguistic plane I should suggest comparison with the so-called ‘dead metaphor’. In a sentence like ‘The heart of Chicago showed in the generous giving at Christmas’, ‘heart’ is a live metaphor for ‘compassion’, the seat of which is traditionally in the heart. In saying that a house is located in the heart of Chicago, however, ‘heart’ has become a dead metaphor. No image of a heart is called up in the mind, it serves as a simple variant of terms like ‘centre’, ‘midst’. On the Burney Relief the lions are not intended to call up any lion-aspect of the goddess at all. That aspect goes back to her early rôle of roaring goddess of Thunder. They serve only as a variant of her name Inanna, and have, as here used, become a dead metaphor. * The Burney Relief is illustrated in the frontispiece to this volume. 1Mention should also be made of Frankfort’s important work at El-Amarna and his studies of Egyptian art and Egyptian religion. A complete bibliography of Frankfort’s contributions, compiled by Johanne Vindenaes, may be found in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, xiv (1955), 4–13. 2‘The Burney Relief’, Archiv für Orientforschung, xii (1937–39), 128–35. 3CT, 16. 15 37–45: ù munus nu-meš ù nitah-nu-meš: ul zi-ka-ru šu-nu ul sin-niš-a-ti šú-nu/e-ne-
ne-ne líl-lá bú-bú-meš: šú-nu za-qí-qu mut-taš-rab- /dam nu-du12-a-meš dumu nu dú-ud-da-meš: áš-šá-tú ul ih-zu ma-re ul al -du nu-un-zu-meš: i-du-u/a-ra-zu siskur-ra nu-tuku-a-meš: ik-ri- bi taš-li-tú ul i-šem-mu-u. See also the similar description of the demons who accompanied Inanna on her return from Hades. S.N.Kramer, ‘Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld. Figurative language in the ancient near east 8
Continued and Revised’ JCS, v (1941), in the following abbreviated as Kramer, ‘Inanna’s Descent’, 12, lines 285–290 and the description of the captors of Dumuzi op.cit., 14, lines 345–351. Cf. B.Alster, Dumuzi’s Dream, 64f lines 111–116. 4 Kramer, ‘Inanna’s Descent’ 286–288. ú nu-zu-me-eš a nu-zu-me-eš/ zī dub-dub-ba nu-gu7-me- eš/a bal-bal-a nu-na8-na8. 5The Treasures of Darkness, 136 and n. 228. For the Etana passage see Babyloniaca xll pls. ix– x. 8–13 and E.Speiser in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts…(1950), 228 C-5, lines 8– 13. 6 A.Sjöberg ‘in-nin šà-gur4-re. A Hymn to the goddess Inanna by the en-priestess Enheduanna’ d ZA, 65, 181 line 23 Inanna dúr-ru-né nu-zu ku5-ku5 ‘Inanna, seated on crossed lions, tearing to bits the ones who know not reverence’. Sjöberg’s translation differs slightly, he renders gilgila as ‘harnessed(?)’ rather than as ‘to be crossed’ (itguru) and the remainder of the line as ‘she cuts into pieces (TAR-TAR) him who shows no fear’. 7 See C.Wilcke, Das Lugalbanda epos (1969), 244–296 (repeated in 360–362) ki ud-ba nin9-e5- d 4 ki mu kù Inanna-ke /kur-mùš-ta šà-kù-ga-ni-a hé-em-ma-ni-pà-dè-en sig4-Kul-aba4 -šè hé- em-[ma-ni]-in-ku4-re-en. ‘At that time and place my princely sister, holy Inanna, verily envisaged me from the mountain crest in her holy heart’ and S.N.Kramer, Enmerkar and the d Lord of Aratta (1952), 20 lines 230–232 nin-gal-an-na (var. Inanna) me-huš-a u5-a
kur-mùš-ka bará-kur-mùš-ka še-er-ka-an-du11-ga ‘Heaven’s great queen (var. Inanna), who is highly placed in awesome office, seated on the foothills of the mountain crests, bedight on the throne dais of the mountain crests’. 8SAK, 194, x, 11 hi-li nam-munus-ka-ni, literally ‘her desirability of womanhood’. 9Kramer, ‘Inanna’s Descent’ lines 17–18 túg šu-gur-ra men-edin-na / šu-ba-ni-in-ti ‘kefia and aghal, the headdress of the desert, she put on her head, took in the hand the wig of her brow’. 10See ‘Ancient Mesopotamian Religion : The Central Concerns’, Proceedings of The American Philosophical Society, 107/6 (1963) 477, n. 11, also in W.L.Moran (ed.) Toward the Image of Tammuz, 41, n. 11. Note also that when Shulgi visits Inanna: ‘a wig as headdress he put on the head’. See Jacob Klein, Three Šulgi Hymns (Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 1981) 136, line 10. 11Henri Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (The Pelican History of Art, Vol. V.London, 1951), 50–51 and plate 53. See also A.Moortgat, The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia (London, 1969), pl. 201 for a detail of the scene discussed. 12 Kramer, ‘Inanna’s Descent’, line 19 gi-diš-ninda ešé-iku-za-gìn šu mi-ni-in-du8 ‘the yardstick (lit. “reed”) of one nindan (length) and the pure cord of the iku’s he held in the hand’. A nindan measured 5.94m., the iku was the square of a ‘cord’ (ešé), 59.40m) or 3528.36 square metres. In his book The Statue of Idri-mi (London, 1949) 92, Sidney Smith suggested that the cord was ‘the builder’s cord for setting a straight line’ and for such use the measuring cord would of course serve well also. The usual term for the cord for setting a straight line and to guide the masons in laying a straight wall face seems, though, to have been gu rather than ešé if one may generalize from Gudea Cyl. A XX.26–27 uš ki im- mi-tag/silim mu-sum sig4-ga gu bí-dúb ‘he laid the foundations, set down the walls thereon, gave them a blessing: “The string flips the bricks!”’ i.e. the bricks all touch the guide string. 13See Sollberger, ’Samsu-iluna’s Bilingual Inscription B’RA, 61 (1967), 39–44 and literature there cited. 14Ea I 98 (MSL 14 181) nin-na: LAGABXEŠ: [MIN(=la-gab-bu) eš geš-pa MIN (=i-gub): eš- še-bu MUŠEN cf. Ea I.119 (MSL 14, 183) ni-in-na: : MIN (=la-gab-bu) MIN (=eš geš-pa) MIN (i-gub): šá dNin-LAGABXEŠ-LAGABXEŠ-MUŠ[EN] eš-še-[b]u and parallel passages quoted in CAD E p. 370 s.v. eššebu. Pictures and pictorial language (The burney relief)* 9
15KAV n. 48 ii.5: d[Nin]-ni-na: KI-MIN (=dIštar). 16Hh XVIII 332–333 MSL 8/2) 147: mušen: MIN (=eš-še-bu)/dNin-LAGABxEŠLAGABxEŠMIN(=ni-in) mušen: Ki-li-li. 17Zimmern, OLZ 31, 1928.1ff. The passage was published by Ebeling MVAG 23/2, 22 lines 44– 45 and reads ia-a-ši Ki-[li-li] šá ta-šú-ri-in-ni šá-qu-tum be-el- [tum] meš-re-ti-ka ana m[uhhi]-ia taš-pu-ki rabî-tu dIš-tar uk-tap-pira-an-ni maš-maš-ši, ‘Me, Kilili, whom you impaired, upon whom, exalted lady, you let your limbs sink down, me, great Ishtar, my incantation priest has wiped clean!’ 18Lú Excerpt II.177 ab-ba-šú: Ki-li-li; Igituh App. A.i.38[d]Ab-ba-šú-šú: dKi-li-li. See CAD K, 357 s.v. kilili lex. sect. and cf. ibid. 2 Craig, ABRT I.57.32 [dKi]-li-li šarratu ša apāti dKi-li-li mušîrtu ša apāti, ‘Kilili, the queen of the windows, Kilili, who leans out of the windows’ which translates the Sumerian term into Akkadian. 19Cf. R.Herbig, ‘Aphrodite Parakýptousa’ OLZ 30, 1927, 917–922. 20Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, pl. 170 b. 21 d Reverse lines 10–21. It reads: (10) kar-kîd [eš6]-dam-šè mu-un-e11-dè-en (11) Inanna ab-ba- d [šú]-šú-gù-zu-ra ì-in-ku4-ku4-dè-en (12) Inanna nin-me-šár-ra-me-en dingir nu-mu-e-da-di d (13) Nin-é-gal-la ki-ùr-zu nam-mah-zu ga-an-da-dug4 (14) sahar máš-anše-du8-a-
ba (15) gud udu tùr-amaš-e gi-a-ba (16) mu-nu-tuku-gim túg-aš im-me-mu4 (17) nunuz kar-kid gú-za i-im-DU (18) [ú]r-dam-ta lú mu-dab5-me-en (19) úr-nitalam-[z]u- dDumu-zi-da-ka (!)-ga-me-en, (20) dInanna nimgir-si-imin-zu ki-nú mu-e- da-ak-e (21) dInanna nin-me-šár-ra-me-en dingir nu-mu-e-da-di. In line 11 gù-zu-ra means literally ‘to throw the voice’, i.e. to raise it so that it will carry far. In line 17 kar-kid represents kar-kid