THE MELAMMU PROJECT http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ “Ideology and Nomenclature of Power in Sumer and Ebla” GIOVANNI PETTINATO Published in Melammu Symposia 3: A. Panaino and G. Pettinato (eds.), Ideologies as Intercultural Phenomena. Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Held in Chicago, USA, October 27-31, 2000 (Milan: Università di Bologna & IsIao 2002), pp. 197-204. Publisher: http://www.mimesisedizioni.it/ This article was downloaded from the website of the Melammu Project: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ The Melammu Project investigates the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian culture throughout the ancient world. A central objective of the project is to create an electronic database collecting the relevant textual, art-historical, archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic evidence, which is available on the website, alongside bibliographies of relevant themes. In addition, the project organizes symposia focusing on different aspects of cultural continuity and evolution in the ancient world. The Digital Library available at the website of the Melammu Project contains articles from the Melammu Symposia volumes, as well as related essays. All downloads at this website are freely available for personal, non-commercial use. Commercial use is strictly prohibited. For inquiries, please contact [email protected]. PETTINATO I DEOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE OF POWER IN SUMER AND EBLA GIOVANNI PETTINATO Roma Ideology and Nomenclature of Power in Sumer and Ebla he vastness and variety of the very man world was ruled by a sovereign who, rich epigraphic documentation in addition, was invested by the divine Tfound in the Royal Palace G of world, so that his sovereignty was, so to Ebla, from 16,000 to 20,000 documents, say, sacred. Furthermore, in Egypt, the might make us assume that we, scholars, Pharaoh was the incarnation of the god are in the most favourable condition to himself, while in Mesopotamia the sov- go back to both political and social con- ereign was the earthly vicar of the god ceptions of the Eblaites and that we and could exercise his sovereignty with shouldn’t find it difficult at all to rebuild the gods’ consent, of which he could be both Ebla’s life and the relations with its deprived in any moment. Both peoples surrounding world. considered sovereignty as a gift of the Unfortunately, the reality is different. gods to the human beings, who otherwise The ancient peoples preceding the wouldn’t be able to get organized and Greeks, among whom there were Meso- ruled. potamians and Egyptians, did not hand As we will see further on, the Sumeri- down to us political treatises, therefore ans had a large range of terms to express we are entrusted with a difficult task, the State’s highest authority and the sov- that is to carefully read their historical ereigns themselves use them in their and economic documentation, and draw commemorative inscriptions in an inter- out of it that information which allows us esting way, so that we can not only re- to trace out a reliable outline of their in- construct the power map, but also under- stitutions. stand the difficult political balance be- As far as Egyptians, Sumerians and tween the various cities-states of that ep- Akkadians are concerned, we have to ac- och. It’s true that, especially for the most knowledge that our undertaking is not so ancient periods, there are many unan- desperate, also because their mythologi- swered questions due to the very little cal and epic texts and the historical in- epigraphic information, but we cannot scriptions of their sovereigns allow us to doubt at all on the fact that, already in get an approximate idea of their religious the 3rd millennium, the political struc- and political conceptions. As an exam- ture in force was based on the sacral ple, this way, now we know for a cer- monarchy with the differentiations above tainty that Egyptians and Sumerians had mentioned. created a state structure based on a mon- Now, as far as Ebla of the 3rd millen- archy reflecting the divine system: as the nium is concerned, the surprises started reign of the gods was ruled by the main right away in 1974: reading the recov- god of the crowded Pantheon in an ab- ered economic texts, I noticed, among solutistic way, at the same way the hu- the words comprehensible at that time, A. Panaino & G. Pettinato (eds.) MELAMMU SYMPOSIA III (Milano 2002) ISBN 88-8483-107-5 197 PETTINATO I DEOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE OF POWER IN SUMER AND EBLA the fateful en- eb-la ki “lord of Ebla” differences of meaning, as it is also dif- which, if on one side it confirmed our ficult to establish the apparition chrono- proposal of identification of Tell Mar- logical order of each term. Now, it’s a dikh with Ebla, just because of the an- general opinion that, in any case, the title cient Syrian city mentioned in economic designating the highest political author- texts, on the other side it rather per- ity is lugal which originally means “great plexed me: having a profound knowledge man” or, more exactly, “leader of men,” of the Mesopotamian civilization, I ex- while ensi , which found favour espe- pected, in fact, that the head of the city, cially at Lagash during the first and sec- or better of the reign of Ebla, was desig- ond dynasties, assumed in a short time nated by the term lugal , just as it was the connotation of “governor of prov- used in the coeval Mesopotamia. ince” of the reign. Then, in the Sumerian But the repeated mention of en-eb-la ki literature, the term en has a double made me also understand that the expres- meaning, the first one of a political na- sion had not to be referred to a priest-en, ture and the second one of a religious but to the Eblaite state’s highest position nature: in fact, it designates the political who dealt as an equal with the sovereign leader of Uruk, but also a particular type of Assur, as we will shortly see, dis- of priest or priestess in the various Cit- cussing this wonderful document. At the ies-States. same time, it became evident that, if it We already mentioned the presence of was possible to compare Ebla’s royal ti- the expression en- eb-la ki in Ebla’s texts, tle with a corresponding one in Mesopo- and we outlined that it had to indicate, tamia, then we even had to go back to the unless there were mistakes, the State’s civilization of Uruk, the sovereigns of highest position. But here we have an- which are called, at least in the epic other surprise of our documentation: to- compositions, en-kul-ab ki “lord of Kul- gether with the term en, we often find lab.” evidence of the term lugal , and, what’s I spoke about these matters twice, ex- more, in the same document. But the actly in 1979 and 1986, that is in Ebla 1 latter cannot mean the State’s highest po- and Ebla 2 , and both times, although I sition, as it is contemporarily attributed met with a very remarkable success of to more than one person, on a average of audience, my arguments and conclusions 14. Now, unless we want to consider were not favourably accepted, at least Ebla a political confederation, that is a according to the two reviews of my sort of United States of America, we books by A. Archi and W. Heimpel, who have to conclude that lugal designates a were perhaps too much worried to outline different authority from the head of the the defects. state. And, in fact, as we will see further In the Sumerian and Assyro-Baby- on, the lugals in Ebla are the “governors lonian Mesopotamia, there are various of the reign,” who are submitted in some terms meaning the State’s highest autho- way to the supreme authority who sur- rity, such as lugal, ensi or en, where prisingly bear the title of en- eb-la ki , lugal has to be surely considered a des- “lord of Ebla.” Of course we cannot say ignation of princeps . The various titles I that in Ebla we find a reversed situation just mentioned are unlikely to appear compared with Mesopotamia, but only a contemporarily and, even when this oc- different situation as this occurs only for curs, it isn’t always easy to perceive the the title of lugal which here doesn’t indi- 198 PETTINATO I DEOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE OF POWER IN SUMER AND EBLA cate the supreme authority. feeling that in the State of Ebla the fig- In Ebla, the head of the State is de- ure of the personalized sovereign was not fined “ en ” just like in the Sumerian important, the important thing was only Mesopotamia, in Uruk, where the sover- the authority expressed by the title: this eigns are called, especially in the epic makes the institution of the rule or sov- poems, en-kul-ab ki , “lord of Kullab.” In ereignty in Ebla something of absolutely some of my previous works, I have al- abstract and at the same time full of po- ready outlined the extraordinary impor- litical meaning; if the document is signed tance of this connection between Ebla by So-and-so, king of Ebla, this has un- and Uruk, which gives us ground to hy- doubtedly a great importance, but it has a pothesize a close relation between the greater importance if it’s simply signed two Sumerian and Syrian cities also at an by the “sovereign of Ebla,” because in institutional level.