Women in the Ancient Near East: a Sourcebook

WOMEN IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST Women in the Ancient Near East provides a collection of primary sources that further our understanding of women from Mesopotamian and Near Eastern civilizations, from the earliest historical and literary texts in the third millennium BC to the end of Mesopotamian political autonomy in the sixth century BC. This book is a valuable resource for historians of the Near East and for those studying women in the ancient world. It moves beyond simply identifying women in the Near East to attempting to place them in historical and literary context, follow- ing the latest research. A number of literary genres are represented, including myths and epics, proverbs, medical texts, law collections, letters and treaties, as well as building, dedicatory, and funerary inscriptions. Mark W. Chavalas is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he has taught since 1989. Among his publications are the edited Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (1996), Mesopotamia and the Bible (2002), and The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation (2006), and he has had research fellowships at Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Cal-Berkeley, and a number of other universities. He has nine seasons of excavation at various Bronze Age sites in Syria, including Tell Ashara/Terqa and Tell Mozan/Urkesh. ROUTLEDGE SOURCEBOOKS FOR THE ANCIENT WORLD HISTORIANS OF ANCIENT ROME, THIRD EDITION Ronald Mellor TRIALS FROM CLASSICAL ATHENS, SECOND EDITION Christopher Carey ANCIENT GREECE, THIRD EDITION Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland READINGS IN LATE ANTIQUITY, SECOND EDITION Michael Maas GREEK AND ROMAN EDUCATION Mark Joyal, J.C. Yardley, and Iain McDougall THE REPUBLICAN ROMAN ARMY Michael M. Sage THE STORY OF ATHENS Phillip Harding ROMAN SOCIAL HISTORY Tim Parkin and Arthur Pomeroy DEATH IN ANCIENT ROME Valerie Hope ANCIENT ROME Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland SEXUALITY IN GREEK AND ROMAN LITERATURE Marguerite Johnson and Terry Ryan ATHENIAN POLITICAL ORATORY David Phillips POMPEII Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley GREEK SCIENCE OF THE HELLENISTIC ERA Georgia Irby-Massie and Paul Keyser WOMEN AND LAW IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE Judith Evans Grubbs WARFARE IN ANCIENT GREECE Michael M. Sage THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE Barbara Levick PAGANS AND CHRISTIANS IN LATE ANTIQUITY A.D. Lee ANCIENT GREEK LAWS Ilias Arnaoutoglou TRIALS FROM CLASSICAL ATHENS Christopher Carey GREEK AND ROMAN TECHNOLOGY John Humphrey, John Oleson, and Andrew Sherwood ROMAN ITALY 388 BC–AD 200 Kathryn Lomas THE ROMAN ARMY 31 BC–AD 337 Brian Campbell THE ROMAN HOUSEHOLD Jane F. Gardner and Thomas Wiedemann ATHENIAN POLITICS G.R. Stanton GREEK AND ROMAN SLAVERY Thomas Wiedemann Forthcoming: ANCIENT CITY OF ROME Christopher Smith, J.C.N. Coulston, and Hazel Dodge GREEK RELIGION Emma Stafford and Karen Stears This page intentionally left blank WOMENINTHE ANCIENT NEAR EAST A Sourcebook Edited by Mark W. Chavalas First published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Mark W. Chavalas for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors. The right of Mark W. Chavalas to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-415-44855-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-44856-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-73702-6 (ebk) Typeset in Baskerville by Taylor & Francis Books CONTENTS List of contributors ix Preface and acknowledgements xii Introduction1 MARK W. CHAVALAS 1 An exploration of the world of women in third-millennium Mesopotamia 10 HARRIET CRAWFORD 2 The feminine in myths and epic 28 ALHENA GADOTTI 3 Sumerian wisdom literature 59 ALHENA GADOTTI 4 Akkadian wisdom literature 75 KAREN NEMET-NEJAT 5 Medicine and healing magic 101 JOANN SCURLOCK 6 Women and law 144 MARTHA T. ROTH 7 The Epic of Gilgamesh 175 KAREN NEMET-NEJAT 8 The Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld compared to Nergal and Ereshkigal 195 KAREN NEMET-NEJAT vii CONTENTS 9a Akkadian Texts—Women in letters: Old Assyrian Kaniš 205 CÉCILE MICHEL 9b Akkadian Texts—Women in letters: The Neo-Assyrian period 213 SARAH C. MELVILLE 10a Women in Neo-Assyrian texts 228 SARAH C. MELVILLE 10b Women in Neo-Assyrian inscriptions 240 KAREN NEMET-NEJAT 11 Women in Hittite ritual 246 BILLIE JEAN COLLINS 12 Hurro-Hittite stories and Hittite pregnancy and birth rituals 272 MARY BACHVAROVA Index 307 viii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Mary R. Bachvarova is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at Willamette University, Oregon. Her research focuses on cultural interaction between Greece and Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. Mark W. Chavalas (PhD UCLA) is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he has taught since 1989. Among his publications are the edited, Emar: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Syrian Town in the Late Bronze Age (1996), Mesopotamia and the Bible (2002), and The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation (2006), and he has had research fellowships at Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Cal-Berkeley, and a number of other universities. He has nine seasons of excavation at various Bronze Age sites in Syria, including Tell Ashara/Terqa and Tell Mozan/Urkesh. Billie Jean Collins is an instructor in Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University and Acquisitions Editor for the Society of Biblical Literature. She is author of The Hittites and Their World (2007), editor of A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East (2002) and co-editor of Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and their Neighbors (2008). Harriet Crawford has worked extensively on the archaeology of the third millennium in south Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. She is the author of Sumer and the Sumerians and editor of The Sumerian World, which came out in December 2012. Now retired from her post at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, she is a Reader Emerita at UCL and a senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute in Cambridge. Alhena Gadotti (PhD, The Johns Hopkins University) is a Sumerologist spe- cializing in Sumerian Literature of the Old Babylonian Period. Her doctoral dissertation, soon to be published with DeGruyter, discusses Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld in the larger framework on a posited Sumerian Gilgamesh ix LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Cycle. In addition, Professor Gadotti works on the Old Babylonian scribal curriculum, as well as on the representation of women in Sumerian documents. She is currently Assistant Professor of History at Towson University, MD. Sarah Melville is an Associate Professor of ancient history at Clarkson University. Her research focuses on Neo-Assyrian history, particularly during the period from the ninth to the seventh centuries BC. Her publications con- cerning women include a monograph, The Role of Naqi’a/Zakutu in Sargonid Politics, and several essays. Cécile Michel is Senior Researcher at the National Center of Scientific Research, Maison de l’Archéologie et de l’Ethnologie, Nanterre. She has published several books on the Old Assyrian documentation and is preparing a volume dedicated to Assyrian and Anatolian women. Karen Nemet-Nejat was the first woman to receive her PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Languages, History and Cultures (with Distinction) at Columbia University. She is the author of Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, Cuneiform Mathematical Texts as a Reflection of Everyday Life in Mesopotamia and Late Babylonian Texts in the British Museum. She has held a Kohut Fellowship at Yale University, was part of an NEH Fellowship cataloguing mathematical tablets at Yale University, and received a grant from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin and the Frei Universität Berlin for a seminar on the history of mathematics. She has taught at the Bosphorus University in Istanbul, Turkey, Yale University, and University of Connecticut. Her interests include ancient literature, Mesopotamian mathematic, and matching objects in texts with those in real life. She is currently writing Yale Oriental Series no. 16. Martha T. Roth is Dean of Humanities and the Chauncey S. Boucher Distinguished Service Professor of Assyriology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the College, and the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. From 1996 to 2011 she served as the third Editor-in-Charge of the 26-volume Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, the first volume of which was published in 1956 and the last volume published in 2011. Roth is the author or editor of several books, articles, and edited volumes, including The Series An-ta-gal = Saqu, Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon 17 (1985); Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 7th–3rd Centuries B.C. (1989); and Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (1995; 2nd edition 1997; 2nd rev. edition 2000). JoAnn Scurlock received her BA and PhD in Assyriology from the University of Chicago.

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