CONTENTS Articles K. Lawson Younger, Jr. The Deity Kur(r)a in
the First Millennium Sources
........................................................... Keith
Dickson The Wall of Uruk: Iconicities in Gilgamesh ... Philip C.
Schmitz The Owl in Phoenician Mortuary Practice
...............................................................................
Book Review Amar Annus Review Article. The Folk-Tales of Iraq and
the Literary Traditions of Ancient Mesopotamia
...................
1 25 51
87
THE DEITY KUR(R)A IN THE FIRST MILLENNIUM SOURCES K. LAWSON
YOUNGER, JR. Trinity International UniversityDivinity School
AbstractRecent epigraphic evidence from Cebel res Da, ineky and
Tell amad have provided further important additional documentation
in Phoenician for a deity Kur(r)a. This article investigates the
growing attestations for this deity in the rst millennium sources,
both cuneiform and alphabetic. In light of the growing occurrences
of b l kr, it proposes a reassessment of the enigmatic phrase b l
krntry in the Phoenician text from Karatepe. The article also
presents the limited second millennium data and evaluates the
possible connections with the third millennium Eblaite deity Kura.
Lvidence pigraphique rcente de Cebel res Da, ineky et Tell amad a
fourni encore plus de documentation importante en phnicien pour une
divinit nomme Kur(r)a. Cet article tudie les attestations
croissantes pour cette divinit dans les sources cuniformes et
alphabtiques du premier millnaire av. J.-C. la lumire des
occurrences croissantes de b l kr, cette tude propose une
rvaluation de lexpression nigmatique b l krntry dans le texte
phnicienne de Karatepe. Larticle prsente galement les donnes
limites du deuxime millnaire et value les liens possibles avec la
divinit blate du troisime millnaire Kura. Keywords: Kur(r)a, Ba al,
Karatepe, Ebla, ineky, Cebel res Da, Tell amad
1. Introduction The discoveries and publications of the
Phoenician inscription from Cebel res Da and the
PhoenicianHieroglyphic Luwian bilingual inscription from ineky have
raised again the question of the identity of a deity b l kr.1 The
name of such a deity was previously known in Phoenician only from a
small four-sided gray1 I am very grateful to Gary Beckman, JoAnn
Scurlock, Richard Beal and Philip Schmitz for their kindness in
reading an earlier draft of this article and for their criticisms
and suggestions. An earlier version was read at the annual meeting
of the American Oriental Society, March, 2008. All errors are my
responsibility.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 Also available online
brill.nl/jane
JANER 9.1 DOI: 10.1163/156921209X449134
2
k. lawson younger, jr.
marble bowl or mortar from Sidon (formerly in Berlin, VA 569,
unfortunately now lost). It measured 15 cm high, carved with
bullhead handles, from whose mouths rings hang. The depression in
the center of the top is encircled by a snake in relief. On the
sides (their starting point is uncertain) are incised ritual scenes
each in a rectangular panel (Drawing 1 below).2 On the basis of the
form of the letters, a date in the 4th century BCE would seem
likely for this object. In 1969, R. D. Barnett offered the rst
detailed study of this bowl and proposed that the term kr was
derived from a geminate root krr to enclose,3 thus b l kr, Ba al of
the pasturage/the encloser. Barnett argued that the four scenes on
the bowl form a coherent whole and may be identied with the rituals
of burning a god on a pyre, recorded at Tyre in the cult of
Melkart. He also noted that a similar ritual is reported from
Tarsus in the half-Asianic cult of Sandon.4 In 1970, E. Lipiski
proposed to connect kr to a hollow root kwr, a lexeme attested in
Hebrew kr furnace, hence Ba al of the furnace.5 This appeared to be
a better proposal since one scene on the bowl appears to depict a
large seething cauldron, and another seems to show a gure (possibly
representing Melqart?) bathed in ames. Other scholars have followed
this understanding of kr (see Panel A in Drawing 1).6 In 1988, J.
Elayi published another marble stemmed bowl that seemed to be a
parallel to the Sidon bowl. She argued that both bowls were pieces
of popular art due to their irregular carvings. She also noted the
form of the bowls and their apparent intent for use in an oven or
furnace.7 She concluded that the four scenes represented on the
vase [i.e. the Sidon bowl] have likely a link with the myth of
Milqarts inhumation and resurrection.8 T. Mettinger has recently
used the Sidon Bowl as evidence in an argument for a dying and
rising deity.9See Barnett 1969; Elayi 1990: 63-64 and drawing p.
298; Gressmann 1927; Pietschmann 1889: 24. 3 Barnett 1969: 11. He
was followed in this interpretation by Tomback 1978: 149, s.v. kr2.
4 Ibid., 10. 5 Lipiski 1970: 43. 6 Delcor 1974: 68-74;
Bonnet-Tzavellas 1983; Bonnet 1988; 1992. 7 Elayi 1988: 547; 1990:
64. See also Bonnet 1988: 78-80; 1992. 8 Elayi 1988: 547. 9
Mettinger 2005. However, since the iconography of this bowl is
still not fully understood, caution is perhaps required.2
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
3
With the publication of the Cebel res Da inscription by Mosca
and Russell in 1987, a second attestation of the phrase b l kr
appeared. They opted to understand this as Lord of the furnace,
stating: In support of this interpretation, we may recall that
Cilicia had been for centuries an important source of iron for
Mesopotamia, and presumably also for Phoenicia. It would thus not
be surprising to nd b l kr in both Rough Cilicia and Sidon.10
However, the interpretation of b l kr as Ba al of the furnace is
not problem free. First, the drawings incised on the second bowl
published by Elayi do not really match those of the Sidon bowl.
There is no gure in the ames as on the Sidon bowl and the
connections are rather loose. Second, it is not certain that the
gure in the ames depicted on the Sidon bowl (see Panel A of Drawing
1) is supposed to represent b l kr, since the inscription is n
another side panel where the gure is holding a bird in each hand
between four palm brancheshardly a furnace! Third, in the context
of the Cebel res Da inscription, understanding b l kr as Ba al or
Lord of the furnace really does not make good sense. The
inscription11 (lines 4a-7a) states:w p . (4a)mt . ytn . lkl . d .
z(4b)bl . wkrmm . bd . zbl . t t . qrt . wkr(5a)mm . . t t . ml . w
p . (5b)b l . kr . yb . bn . wqb . mt . qbt . drt (6a). lbl . gzly
. dm . d . (6b) m . krm . bd . p . kl . bkl . . ytn (7a). l . mt .
And furthermore, Mutas gave to Kulas the eld of the Prince and the
vineyards within the eld of the Prince below the town as well as
the vineyards below ML. And furthermore, he (Mutas) settled b l kr
in it, and Mutas pronounced a mighty curse so that no one should
illegitimately seize iteld or vineyardfrom the possession of the
family of Kulas among everything which Mutas had given to
him.12
Why settle in a eld a deity connected to the furnace or to
smelting? Why pronounce a mighty curse in the name of a deity of
the10 Mosca and Russell 1987: 14. They also noted the possibility
that b l kr could refer to human beings rather than a deity. Thus
just as Hebrew ba al i m, lit. lords of arrows (Gen 49:23; cf. the
similar expression in Ugaritic b l ) designates archers, so here
*ba l kr, lords of the crucible, might designate metal workers or
smelters. But as they rightly observed this understanding of the
phrase does not t the context of the awesome curse which follows.
Thus their preferred understanding of b l kr is as a reference to
the deity Lord of the furnace. See also Elayi 1990: 64 and DNWSI
534 s.v. kr4. 11 KAI 5 no. 287; Mosca and Russell 1987. 12 See
Younger 2002 with references.
4
k. lawson younger, jr.
furnace or smelting on anyone who might illegitimately seize the
eld or the vineyard? In 1995, Lipiski suggested another possible
understanding of the term kr, connecting the term with a north
Syrian deity named Kura.13 This deity is well-attested as early as
the late third millennium at Ebla. In fact, Kura (written dKu-ra)
was the most important deity at Ebla, receiving the major number of
offerings. In order to assess these different proposals, the
following sections will briey investigate the evidence for a deity
Kura from the third, second and rst millennia (with particular
focus on the rst millennium). 2. Possible Third Millennium
Attestations Archi argues that the Eblaite pantheon is the
expression of an urban society in which two linguistic and cultural
elements have come together, the substrate and the Semitic.14 At
the head of this pantheon was a triad of deities composed of Kura
(dKu-ra), the citys major god,15 who belongs to the substrate, and
two Semitic deities: the Storm-god, Adda (d-da), and the
sun-goddess, dUtu (logogram to be read ama).16 Thus, of the little
over forty deities17 that comprised the Eblaite pantheon, some were
Semitic and others were from an earlier non-Semitic context. But
one must be somewhat cautious here since, as Pomponio and Xella
point out,18 the hypothesis of Archi is based on the connection of
Kura to the dynasty and city; it is not explicitly documented.
Archi also notes that Kura seems to manifest some of the same
functions as the storm-god, probably because in the rainfall zone
of the ancient13 Lipiski 1995: 239-240. He argues that Kura was a
god of the harvest and agriculture because the deitys name is
non-Semitic, standing for the deied grinding stone (derived from
Old Sumerian kurax). Thus the gods cult was a fertility cult,
linked to the myth of the dying and rising deity, resulting in the
association with Melqart (p. 240). It seems rather odd, however,
that the name of the major deity at Ebla would be derived from a
Sumerian term. 14 Archi 1992: 7; 1993: 12. 15 It is clear that Kura
was the citys major god from the close to 300 attestations of the
deitys name. See Pomponio and Xella 1997:223-245; Waetzoldt 2001:
593-594. 16 Archi 1992: 7; 1993b: 470. 17 In the offering lists,
the number of deities listed slightly exceeds forty. See Archi
1993a: 9. 18 Pomponio and Xella 1997: 246; Wilhelm 1992: 24.
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
5
Near East (i.e. Anatolia, Syria, and Northern Mesopotamia), the
main male god usually has the feature of being in control of
meteorological phenomena.19 Kuras feminine counterpart is Barama
(written: dBa-ra-ma). The evidence indicates that the deity Kura
and his consort Barama are considered as the divine projection of
the Eblaite sovereign couple who, after the marriage, are identied
by their superhuman archetypes (i.e. Kura and Barama).20 Hence,
while the mortal royal pair serve as projections for the divine
pair, through the codication of the projection, the divine pair
serve as the archetype for the mortal pair and the basis for their
connection to the divine pair. Thus, Kura serves as the dynastic
deity par excellence.21 This divine pair is intimately connected
with the cult of the dead kings (ARET 3 178; note also dKu-ra wa
dBa-ra-ma in ARET 3 419).22 From ARET 3 178, as Stieglitz notes,23
it seems clear that the deities Kura and Barama were the principal
deities in a seven-day ritual termed the a-ba-tum ma Greater aba
tum. These liturgies were performed in the temple of Kura at Ebla
and its adjoining mausoleum called The House of the Dead (
ma-dm/tim).24 Stieglitz comments:The Eblaite term aba tum is to be
derived from the root B seven, and as such is no doubt related to
the Akkadian sebtu 7th day (of the month) and of course to Biblical
Hebrew ba week. A connection between the Eblaite word and Akkadian
apattu 15th day (of the month) seems less likely to me.25
In the legal texts, Archi notes that Kura forms a triad with
dUtu and Adda, and seems in some texts to represent directly all
the gods.26 Thus Kura is invoked with dUtu, Adda, and the gods, in
TM.75.G.1444 (SEb 4 [1984] 35-39) to serve as witness to a royal
decree.Archi 1993a: 11. Pomponio and Xella 1997: 245. . . . le dieu
Kura et sa pardre Barama taient considrs comme la projection divine
du couple des souverains blates qui, aprs le mariage, sidentiaient
leurs archtypes surhumains. 21 Often occurring in personal names at
Ebla. E.g., A-b-dKu-ra; En-nu-dKu-ra; Mi-kum-dKu-ra; Mi-nu-dKu-ra;
Puzur4-ra-dKu-ra; Si-ma-dKu-ra; -ma-dKu-ra; u-ma-dKu-ra;
dKu-ra-i-da-ma; cf. the Indexes of ARET I-VIII. 22 Stieglitz 2002:
212. 23 Ibid. 24 Fronzaroli 1988: 26. 25 Stieglitz 2002: 212. 26
Archi 1982: 210.19 20
6
k. lawson younger, jr.
In the administrative texts, the gods NIdaBAL (Itab/pal) and
Kura have more than twice as many attestations than any other
deity. That NIdaBAL preceeds Kura is explained by the fact that he
is represented by several hypostases. But Kuras pre-eminence over
the other deities is conrmed by the annual accounts (about twenty
in number) of silver and gold expended by the Palace. They
invariably begin with the recording of one mina silver for the head
(of the statue) of Kura. This donation likely refers to a yearly
renewal rite of the main gods statue in the city (well known in
many cultures).27 The temple of the Kura was situated at Saza. This
was a complex of buildings at Ebla which served as not only the
most sacred religious place of the city (where marriage rites,
oaths, verdicts, etc. took place), but whose single grand sanctuary
was the political and administrative hub of the city.28 The fact
that Kura had a preeminent place in the devotion of the king is
attested by a number of documented events: rst, the king pronounced
a solemn verdict concerning an inheritance in favor of the minister
Ibrium (SEb 1 1981: 38, 44); second, he swore (an oath) by invoking
in order the deities Kura, dUtu and Adda. While the invocation of
the solar deity is perfectly explained by that deitys traditional
function as the guarantor of oaths, treaties, and contracts, the
invocations of Kura and Adda were invoked precisely because they
were the two major divinities of the national pantheon and of the
king, not only in his devotional preferences, but also in the
ofcial and public aspects of the cult.29 While Kura was
unquestionably the most important deity at Ebla, he was not
venerated exclusively there. There is evidence that he was
venerated at Munutium, a kingdom of north-west Syria,30 at ila a
(perhaps in the region of Ebla?),31 and at Armi (TM.75. G.10201 r,
I 10).32 Of course, one of the difculties of identifying Phoenician
kr with Eblaite Kura is the apparent absence of any second
millennium attestations of the deity. Stieglitz professes: we know
littleArchi 1993a: 11. Cf. Milano 1989-90: 155-173. 29 For Kuras
absence in the treaty between Ebla and Abarsal, see Pomponio and
Xella 1997: 246. 30 Bonechi 1990: 162. 31 Bonechi 1993: 296. 32
Archi, Piacentini and Pomponio 1993: 162.27 28
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
7
about this deity (i.e. Kura), especially since the name is
unattested elsewhere in Bronze Age or Iron Age sources.33 3.
Possible Second Millennium Attestations There may be a few
occurrences of this divine name in the second millennium, though
none can be considered certain.34 3.1. First, a possible
attestation is found in the God-list An: Anu a amli, where dKur-ra
is given as a name of Anu and explained as of the land (a mti).35
3.2. Second, G. Wilhelm has explicated the possible connection of a
deity dku-ur-ri with Eblaite Kura found in a tablet from attua.36
The name appears in the fth tablet associated with the Hurrian
feast of iuwa.37 An offering of 1 silver cup of wine is given to
Kurri in the same context as the same offering given to other
Hurrian deities of destiny (Zimazzalli, Eui, and utena and
utellurra); and the underworld goddess Allani receives two silver
cups of wine. Wilhelms proposal has been taken up by Haas38 and
accepted by Archi.39 3.3. Third, Dalley and Postgate suggest that
Kur(r)a may possibly be attested at Mari in the personal name
mab-Kur-i.40 3.4. Fourth, two attestations may be found in texts
from Nuzi, d ku-ur-we-e (AASOR 16, 47:1) and Kr-we-e (AASOR 16,
48:1).41 Whether any of these attestations are to be connected with
the
33 Stieglitz 2002: 212. About a decade earlier, Sollberger
stated: The existence of this deity [Kura] outside of Ebla is
unknown to me (ARET 8:10). 34 Pomponio and Xella mention the
possibility of recognizing the name of Kura in the Ugaritic
personal name ilmkr (as cited in Grndahl 1967:151), though they
wisely express uncertainty about this (Pomponio and Xella 1997:
247). Grndahl (1967: 369) cited UM 321 I.9 ( CAT 4.63) and he
analyzed the name (1967: 151) stating: ilmkr, unsicher, vielleicht
il + -m (emphat. Partikel) + kr El/mein Gott ist wahrlich ein
Widder. However, CAT 4.63 reads the name as ilmhr (El is a
warrior). For this name, see del Olmo Lete and Sanmartn 2004:
57-58. 35 See Litke 1998: 229, A.6 and plate XLIII. 36 Wilhelm
1992. 37 Wilhelm 1992: 26 (line 41); KBo XV 60 Vs. I; KBo VII 45 +
XX 114 (+) 118 Vs I; KBo XV 50. 38 Haas 1994: 545-547. 39 Archi
1992: 11. 40 Dalley and Postgate 1984: 100. See footnote 21 above,
rst name in the list: A-b-dKu-ra. 41 Ibid.
8
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Eblaite deity and the later rst millennium citations is difcult
to assess. But it must remain possible.42 4. Possible First
Millennium Attestations For the rst millennium, there is a growing
number of attestations of a deity Kur(r)a.43 These are found in
cuneiform sources from the Neo-Assyrian empire and in West Semitic
alphabetic, almost exclusively Phoenician, sources. 4.1. Cuneiform
Sources 4.1.1. First of all, according to ADD 1252, there was a
temple of the god Kur(r)a in the Neo-Assyrian period in Nineveh (
dkur.a).44 In this text describing the division of an inheritance,
A u-iddina, son of [. . .]numi buys from his brother Zeru-ukin the
share that he inherited of their fathers house in Nineveh. The text
is from the reign of Assurbanipal, dated by eponym to 636 BCE, and
the temple of Kur(r)a is listed here as one of the adjoining
properties to the inherited estate. 4.1.2. Furthermore, a deity
Kur(r)a is also attested in personal names from the Neo-Assyrian
period. In two of these, the theophoric element serves as the
second component in the name: Abdi-Kur(r)a and Amat-Kur(r)a. There
are two individuals who bear the name Abdi-Kur(r)a.45 First, a cook
from Nineveh during the reign of Assurbanipal (634 BC) is named
Abdi-Kurra (spelled mab-di-kurra).46 Second, a man from Nineveh
whose son owed six shekels of silver is named Abdi-Kura (spelled
mab-di-dkur-a).47 In the case of42 Pomponio and Xella note that it
is possible to see in Kura a dynastic deity, a paternal and royal
gure, and to envision in the divine pair Kura-Barama a formal
analogy with the Ugaritic divine pair El-Athirat. They speculate
that there may be some analogy also between Kura and Adda on the
one hand, and El and Baal on the other hand (Pomponio and Xella
1997: 248). 43 Lipiski 1995: 239-240; Dalley and Postgate 1984:
100. 44 Postgate 1976: 117, no. 19:13; Mattila 2002: 96, no.
111:13. 45 Fales and Radner 1998: 6. 46 Postgate and Ismail 1979:
30, no. 15.1 and 14. 47 Postgate and Ismail 1979: 17, no. 6.2
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
9
Amat-Kur(r)a,48 only one individual bears this name. A woman
from Nineveh named Amat-Kura (spelled fgem-dkur-a) is pledged by
her husband, along with her daughter, two sons and another person
(ADD 78.5).49 4.1.3. The theophoric component is found fronted in
the personal name Kur-ilya. M. Stolper suggested reading the name,
previously taken as Mat-ilya, as Kur-ilya.50 There is now a
consensus that this is the correct understanding of the name. There
are thirty-nine occurrences of this name, and twenty-six
individuals bore it in texts from the reign of Sargon II to the end
of the Assyrian empire.51 The very meaning of this personal name
(Kur(a) is my god)52 argues strongly for the existence of a deity
Kur(r)a.53 4.1.4. Thus, in the cuneiform texts from the rst
millennium, there are forty-one occurrences in personal names with
the deity Kur(r)a as the theophoric component. That a temple to
this deity existed in Nineveh at the height of the Assyrian empire
is further evidence to the deitys importance.
Fales 1998. Mattila 2002: 152, no. 181.5; Fales 1998. 50 Stolper
1980: 85. 51 Thirty times the name is written: mkur-dingir-a-a. See
Baker 2000: 641-642, although her last two entries,
mku-ri-il-la-a-a (Af O 27 85:7 r. 5) and mkur-il-la-a-a (2 R 64 r.
iii 24), may be a different name. I am adding mku-ur-la-a-a (Wunsch
1993: 99, 21) to the count, even though it is in a Babylonian text.
Lipiski (1997: 90-91) suggested that the name is based on kurillu
pile of sheaves, i.e. Born at the end of harvest. This might
explain the last two entries in Bakers article, but it is not an
adequate explanation of the other spellings. 52 Zadok 1998: 59. He
states: Ku-ur-la-A+A . . . is the same name as NA Kurla-A+A,
Kur-ri-la-A+A, Kur-l-A+A (SAA 6, 344, 10, 26 r. 2 and 170, 2 resp.)
Kur(a) is my god with dropping of a short unstressed -i-. 53 One
should compare the name Bl-ilya (Bel [Ba al] is my God) written m
en-dingir-a-a, not once mden-dingir-a-a. See Kessler 1999. Compare
also the name Adad-ilya (Adad is my god) which is often written
m10-dingir-a-a. See Radner 1998.48 49
10
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4.2. West Semitic Sources 4.2.1. In Personal Names 4.2.1.1. The
rst possible attestation is found in a legal text dating to 686
BCE.54 In it, an unnamed governor of Arzuhina, and two other men
(Rmanni-ilu55 and Ahu-ilu) were obligated to pay back a loan for
three minas of silver to Mamu-iqbi56 in Nineveh (BT 124).57 A
cylinder seal inscription on this tablet reads [ ]bdkr. It is
likely that this is the name of the governor of Arzuhina, whose
name is not mentioned in the document.58 Amadasi Guzzo,59 following
Watanabe,60 has suggested that since the rst letter of this name is
not preserved, it is possible that the name should be read with an
aleph, not an ayin,61 hence: [ ]b-dkr (Ab-dekr), an Aramaic name
attested a few times in cuneiform sources. However, this name is
not attested in alphabetic script,62 and the persons bearing this
name do not match the period of this tablet. Thus it is more likely
that the name should be read with an ayin, hence [ ]bd-kr
(Abd-Kur), a name attested in cuneiform (see 4.1.2. above), as well
as alphabetic sources (see next paragraph). 4.2.1.2. A second
possible attestation is found in a Punic text (CIS 2630.3) where
the personal name bdkrr occurs.63 This is the same name as found in
the cuneiform examples discussed in 4.1.2 above. Clearly,Watanabe
1993: 114, Taf. 5.6; Fales and Radner 1998. Baker 2002. 56 Van
Buylaere 2001: 676. This individual is attested in a number of
texts from the latter part of the reign of Sennacherib. 57 Parker
1963: 97; BT 124 FNALD 20 (Postgate 1976: 119-122). 58 Radner in
Fales and Radner 1998: 6. 59 Amadasi Guzzo 2002: 318. 60 Watanabe
1993: 114. 61 This is Maraqtens restoration [ ]bdkr (1988: 65).
Vattioni (1968: nr. 160) apparently read brhd? 62 Maraqten 1988:
113; Breckwoldt 1998: 9. The name is always written with the
logogram ad: mad-de-kr or mad-de-ki-ri. See Breckwoldt 1998: 9. 63
Benz 1972: 154. He states: Unknown deity or epithet (with sense of
to leap, dance? if not a misspelling of KR (Inventor-craftsman
divinity and patron of arts). Perhaps related to non-Sem. krr found
as name in Ug. (Hurrian?, PTU 237) (Ibid., 335). The possibility of
misspelling is lessened by the growing number of attestations of
kr(r) as a theophoric element in personal names.54 55
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
11
the second element of the name is a theophoric.64 There may be
other examples of this theophoric element in other personal names
as yet unidentied.65 4.2.1.3. A recently published sherd from Tell
amad (SH 95 / 6543 I 142) contains a clear ve-letter inscription of
ownership: l zkr Belonging to Oz(i)kur(r)a.66 Rllig notes that
while the name zkr is not attested until now, the formation of
Phoenician personal names with the element z strength, might is
common in the onomasticon: see e.g. zb l, zyb l, zmlk, zmlqrt,
ztnt. Since the second component in these names is a theophoric, it
is natural to assume that kr is also a theophoric element.67
4.2.1.4. Finally, the deity appears to be attested in an Old
Aramaic text from the Gozan-Harran area written as krly, which is
the alphabetic writing of the cuneiform name Kur-ilya.68 4.2.2. In
Combination With B l 4.2.2.1 ineky. Besides the Sidon Bowl and the
Cebel res Da Inscription (discussed above), the term kr is found in
combination with the word64 See Delcor 1974: 73. He states: De
fait, il existe dans lonomastique punique un nom thophore bd krr,
le serviteur du brl, o le second terme parat dsigner un attribut de
Melqart. Cf. Halff 1965: 129. Krahmalkov (2000: 243, 356) analyzes
the name as Abd-Kirr servant of Kirr, where Kirr is the god of the
seventh month. 65 The personal names of two rulers in the region of
Que merit mention. After marching to the city of Tarsus
(uru.tar-zi), Shalmaneser III appointed a man named Kirr
(mki-ir-ri-i) as king in the place of his brother Kat, the Quean.
See Verardi 2000. In 696, during the reign of Sennacherib, an
Assyrian army invaded Cilicia because a former loyal supporter of
Assyria named Kirua (mki-ru-a) a city lord of Illubru (l.en-uru a
uru.il-lu-ub-ri) had incited revolt, supported by the inhabitants
of Ingira (Anchiale) and Tarzu (Tarsus). He was captured and ayed
in Nineveh. See Frahm 2000. 66 Rllig 2001: 46-52, photo p. 47. 67
Ibid., 48. 68 Obviously, this requires the syncope of the aleph.
See Lipiski (1997: 90-91), although he derives the name from
Akkadian kurillu, which does not seem to match the majority of
spellings as well as Zadoks analysis (see note 52 above). Postgate
(Dalley and Postgate 1984: 100) suggests emending the deity kd in
the Sere treaty to kr . This, however, has not been accepted by
most scholars.
12
k. lawson younger, jr.
b l in the Phoenician version of the recently published
hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician bilingual inscription from ineky
that dates to the last quarter of the 8th century.69 The Phoenician
text is inscribed in an area on the statue base between the hind
legs of two bulls who are pulling a chariot in which the statue of
a storm-god stands. The inscription belongs to Awariku/Urikki,70
king of Adana, of the lineage of Mopsos,71 and mentions an alliance
between the Danunians and the Assyrians. The passage concerning the
deity reads as follows (restorations mine):[yt]n b l(17)
kr tq y b w[kl] n m72 (18)
(18)
l mlk h(17)
[May] b l kr [give ] and [every(?)] good.(17)
to this king
tranquility(?), deliverance, abundance,
It is possible that this deity was the dynastic deity for the
house of Mopsos.73 Unfortunately, the preserved portion of the
hieroglyphic Luwian inscription does not contain the passage which
may have given the precise equivalent to kr in that language.
However, it is apparent that b l kr corresponds to Tarhunza, the
storm-god in the Luwian version. 4.2.2.2 Karatepe. Azatiwada, a
powerful subordinate of Awariku, built a town that he named after
himself, Azatiwadaya (modern Karatepe),74 erecting gates and a
monumental statue of the storm-god standing on a bull base upon
which he incised a hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual text
that related his accomplishments and invoked blessings69 Tekolu and
Lemaire. 2000; for the discovery with photos, see pek, Tosun, and
Tekolu 1999. 70 The name written in Phoenician wryk (Awariku in the
Luwian source; Urikki in the Assyrian sources) is attested at
Karatepe and Hassan-Beyli where the references are to a king of the
Danunians (Que). For Karatepe, see Rllig 1999 and Younger 1998. For
Hassan-Beyli, see Lemaire 1983. While this is the same name in the
Cebel res Da inscription, it is not the same person (based on the
dates of the inscriptions). See Lipiski 2004:116-130. 71 Lemaire
2006; Hawkins 1995; Vanschoonwinkel 1990. Interestingly, the
Phoenician and Luwian versions of the ineky Inscription preserve
the Greek name spelled variously and , mp and muksas (alternation
-ps- / -ks-). See Vanschoonwinkel 1990: 197; Forlanini 2005; Lebrun
and Vos 2006. 72 The letter before b l kr is either k or n. Thus
possible restorations would include: brk bless, nsk pour, ytn give.
In Biblical Hebrew, neither brk or nsk occur with the preposition
l; ntn is used with l. Thus it is likely that the verb ytn should
be restored here: may Baal Kura give . . . to this king. 73 Lemaire
2006:106. 74 ambel and zyar 2003; Hawkins 2000.
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
13
on himself, his city and its citizens. In the Phoenician
version75 (found on the North Gate [A], the South Gate [B] and the
Statue [C]), a deity called b l krntry is mentioned nine times:
North Gate [A] II.19 b l krntry III.2-3 b l kr[n]try III.4 b
l/krntry (entire word is written alone on the next orthostat)76
South Gate [B] II.6 [b l] krntry II.8 [b l] krntry Statue [C]
III.16 b l III.17 b l III.19 b l IV .20 b l krntry krntry krntry
krntry
Importantly, the variant on the statue itself identies the
statue with this deity (C III.15b-16a; and IV.19-20).77 Scholars
have suggested a number of different ways to understand these
sevenletters: krntry. From the time of its discovery, the most
common explanation has been toponymic.78 Of these, the most
promising proposal was to identify the term krntry with Kelenderis
(modern Aydnck),79Rllig 1999; Younger 1998; 2000. Rllig (1999: 52,
n. 4) suggests that the scribe forgot the word and added it. But
above this word, there are two letters r that are part of a word r
plowing that must have been incised together at the same time (the
heth is actually missing in a break, but this does not change my
point). Since this word ([ ]r) was not added secondarily, it is
doubtful that krntry was. 77 Rllig 1999: 64-67. 78 Gibson (1979 SSI
3: 60) simply comments that krntry is obviously nonSemitic, perhaps
a place-name, but gives no suggestions. Rllig (1967 3: 42) added
the possibility of krntry containing the Hittite royal name
Kurunta. 79 For an identication with Kelenderis, see Alt 1948;
Barnett 1953: 142, n. 5; Vattioni 1968. Marcus and Gelb (1948: 198)
stated: It (the shin) probably stands for a simple s in the
spelling of b l krntrjs (iii.16, etc.), where the ending j may
express the normal Indo-European gentilic formation ios or ias.
With due caution it may be suggested that the remaining krntr
corresponds to the classical Kelenderis, the name of a city
situated on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Cilicia
Tracheia. The change of the rst r to l could easily be due to
dissimilation because of the second r. For an identication with
Krindion, see Alt 1949-52: 282 and Rllig 1967 3: 42.75 76
14
k. lawson younger, jr.
a city on the southern coast near the border with Rough Cilicia.
However, recent excavations have demonstrated that there was a
signicant gap in occupation from the end of the Bronze Age until
the late Sub-Geometric period, i.e. from 1200 to 800 BCE.80 It
seems doubtful that the Karatepe term krntry is referring to
Kelenderis. Another place-name that scholars have attempted to see
in krntry is Tarsus, being composed of the last four letters try,
resulting in different suggestions for the rst three letters.
Honeyman proposed an unattested Indo-European compound,
*kuirwan(a)-tarayas lord of Tarsus.81 Dupont-Sommer suggested Greek
chief compounded with -try Tarsus. 82 Bron favored this
interpretation, though acknowledging the orthographic problem that
Tarsus is written Trz in Phoenician and Aramaic.83 Lebrun argues
against -try being Tarsus because of this orthographic issue.84 He
suggests isolating the initial segment krn, comparing Akkadian
kurinnu divine symbol,85 with the remaining letters -try being
Luwian sufxes. Thus while he does not reconstruct the phrase in a
translation, it would seem that Lebruns suggestion would be
something like Ba al of the divine symbol (with additional Luwian
sufxes signifying?).86 This seems doubtful linguistically. Other
scholars have seen in krntry a possible adjectival form. Bossert
speculated that krntry could represent Greek sovereign.87 M.
Weippert discussed krntry comprehensively, concluding that it is an
unattested Luwian adjectival form so that b l krntry corresponds to
k0r(0)natariyassis Tarhuis (0 represents a vowel).88 Rllig has
recently suggested that while the Luwian text clearly refers to
Tarhunza (he reads the deity name as Tarhuis),Ylndrs and Gates
2007: 332. Honeyman 1948. He states: . . . the writer has
conjectured that the new cult is that of the Tarsian Sandan, who is
here given a native appellation suzerain of Tarsus and identied
with the Semitic Baal, and who later is called the Baal of Tarsus
(Honeyman 1949: 37). 82 Dupont-Sommer 1948: 173. 83 Bron 1979: 183.
He cites Hill 1964: 162-164. For a recent discussion of Ba altarz
(Aramaic reads: b ltrz) Baal of Tarsus, see Casabonne 2002: 21-31.
84 Lebrun 1992. 85 According to CAD K 560 s.v. kurinnu, the meaning
of (a divine symbol) is mainly attested in inscriptions from
Boazky. See also AHw 511, s.v. kurrinnu 2. 86 For this suggestion
and its anticipated criticism, see Weippert 1969: 213, n. 105. 87
Bossert 1953: 183. 88 Weippert 1969: 211-213; reprint 1997:
125-126.80 81
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
15
the Phoenician text might be referring to an additional
Anatolian deity.89 He suggests understanding b l krntry as a phrase
meaning Ba al krn (and) Tarhuis. He suggests that Ba al krn may be
read *kur(in),90 and thus associated with the epithet bl kurrinni
connected to the Teub of Ka at. In my opinion, this solution is
unsatisfactory, for it is unlikely that the Luwian deitys name
would be spelled in Phoenician Try, particularly if the Luwian
should be understood as Tarhunza, not Tarhuis.91 But even granting
that Try stands for Tarhuis, in a Phoenician text one would expect
a conjunction w between the phrase b l krn and Try (i.e. asyndeton
is unlikely). Since the epithet bl kurrinni is only attested in
Akkadian, its occurrence in a Phoenician text from Karatepe seems
problematic. Finally, Rlligs proposal yields an awkward combination
repeated in the text nine times: lord of the (divine) symbol (and)
Tar unza. G. Bunnens has recently suggested that perhaps the name b
l kr is a shortened form of b l krntry.92 But this still does not
solve the Karatepe syntagm. Instead, it attempts to explain a
simple form by an enigmatic one. Moreover, the cuneiform and
alphabetic inscriptional evidence demonstrates that kr is very
likely not a shortening of the Karatepe term krntry, but refers to
a deity named Kur(r)a. P. Schmitz has recently suggested that the
phrase b l krntry at Karatepe should be understood as b l plus a
Greek adjective *, thus yielding the mace-bearing Ba al.93 He
argues that * is a calque or loan translation of the Northwest
Semitic word md mace (attested in Ugaritic [e.g. CAT 1.2 IV 15] and
Phoenician [KAI 5 24.15]). Moreover, he equates this macebearing Ba
al with the mace-smiting storm-god of Aleppo (as particularly seen
on orthostat 7 in the recently excavated temple).94 There can be no
doubt that there were Greeks in the region and that Greek inuence
was felt there during this period. Schmitz has ably assembled the
evidence for this.95 Therefore, his suggestionRllig 2001: 49.
Following Lebrun 1992, see above. 91 Note here Brons comment: Les
spcialistes du hittite ne se sont pas mis daccord sur la lecture de
ce nom divin : Tarhunda pour Laroche, Tarhui pour Meriggi, Tarhuis
pour Weippert (Bron 1979: 183, n. 7). In recent years, there has
been a growing consensus that the name should be understood as
Tarhunza. 92 Bunnens 2006: 128, n. 88 93 Schmitz forthcoming. I
would like to express my sincere appreciation to Philip Schmitz for
kindly allowing me to see his forthcoming study. 94 See Kohlmeyer
2000: Taf. 8. For the iconography, see Bonatz 2007. 95 See Schmitz
forthcoming.89 90
16
k. lawson younger, jr.
merits full consideration. However, there are some signicant
difculties. For example, why would a Greek term be used in a
Phoenician inscription to calque a perfectly good Phoenician term
md? Why not just use b l md? Another difculty is that the Greek
adjective as proposed by Schmitz is an unattested form. A third
problem is the iconology of the statue at Karatepe that is identied
as b l krntry does not have a smiting pose (nor does the ineky
statue). Conclusion It is clear that there was a rst millennium
deity Kur(r)a. Besides the Sidon Bowl, the Cebel res Da and ineky
inscriptions, there are clear occurrences in Phoenician personal
names. Furthermore, the cuneiform sources add signicantly to the
evidence, both in personal names and in the existence of a temple
to this deity in Nineveh. Here, the use of the divine determinative
is highly signicant testimony. Therefore, it would seem likely that
the Karatepe inscriptions also refer to this deity b l kr. If this
is granted, then the term krntry must be divided into two words: kr
and ntry. Thus the second word might be an adjective or a place
name. There is a Luwian adjective nanuntarra/i-.96 However, for
various reasons this does not seem to work. Thus a place-name may
yet be the solution, though here too there is, as yet, no solid
suggestion. Was Kur(r)a a storm-god? From the rst millennium
bilingual inscriptions and from the sculpted iconography which is
clearly tied to storm-god imagery, the answer would seem to be
afrmative. The ineky Inscription equates b l kr with Tarhunza.97
Lebrun rightly notes that b l krntry is the name under which the
Phoenicians at Karatepe venerated the storm-god of the country of
Adana.98 It is also possible that the term krntry at Karatepe is
another term altogether and the kr should not be separated from the
other letters. In this case, Karatepe would not serve as an
attestation96 However, the nanutarra/i- family all derive from
nanun now > nanuntarriya- of the presentwhich is of course a
different concept from the meaning of the nuntara- family in
Hittite. See Melchert 1993: 156, 160. Similarly, the hieroglyphic
Luwian adjective ana(n)tari- lower (Hawkins 2000: 625) may match in
form, but does not yield a clear meaning. 97 For syncretism, see
Xella 1999; 1995. 98 Lebrun 1992.
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sourcesDrawing 1: The
Sidon Bowl (Pietschmann 1889; Gressmann 1927; Barnett 1969;
Mettinger 2005)
17
Lipiski (1970) suggested that the four scenes should be read in
the same order as the Phoenician script, i.e. from right to left.
He interpreted the pictures as references to (A) the pyre, (B) the
tomb, (C) the mourning, and (D) the epiphany in glory of
Melqart-Heracles. The inscription b l kr is in (D).
to the deity Kur(r)a as the other inscriptions bearing b l kr
from Sidon, Cebel res Da and ineky do, as well as the other rst
millennium evidence discussed in this article. However, the great
similarity between the statues at ineky and Karatepe would argue in
favor of the baals followed by kr in the inscriptions from both
sites referring to the same deity.
18
k. lawson younger, jr.
This combination b l kr should perhaps be understood as either
the generic term b l proceeding the proper name of the deity (e.g.
b l dgn, b l rkb or b l z),99 or alternatively, as another case of
the phenomenon of a double deity100 as seen in the Moabite tr .
km,101 Samalian Aramaic rqrp,102 and in the Phoenician-Punic world,
with names like rp mkl, rsp mlqrt, mlqrt d, mlqrt mn, mlk trt.103
Along with these, b l kr would thus represent the theological
development in the rst millennium of double deities. There can be
no doubt that at third millennium Ebla, there was a deity called
Kura. While there may be some possible evidence from the second
millennium, it is perhaps not as yet sufcient to establish a denite
link between the third and rst millennia citations. On the other
hand, there is some possibility. An interesting parallel with Kura
can be seen in the Eblaite deity Gami (dGami-i ). This god was
important in both private and ofcial religion at Ebla; there is
little rm evidence from the second millennium; and of course,
during the rst millennium was the major deity of Moab: Kamo (Mller
1995). Therefore, a possible link between the third millennium
evidence for Kura and the rst millennium evidence for such a deity
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Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten te Leiden 102. Leiden: Nederlands
Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. Milano, L. 1989-90. Luoghi di
culto in Ebla: economia e sistema delle offerte. Scienze
dellAntichit 3-4:155-173. Mosca, P. G., and J. Russell. 1987. A
Phoenician Inscription from Cebel Ires Da in Rough Cilicia.
Epigraphica Anatolica 9:1-28. Mller, H.-P. 1995. Chemosh. Cols.
356-362 in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, eds. K.
van der Toorn, B. Becking and P. W. van der Horst. Leiden: E. J.
Brill. Olmo Lete, G. del, and J. Sanmartn. 2004. A Dictionary of
the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition. 2 Vols. Trans.
W. G. E. Watson. HdO 67. 2nd Revised Edition. Leiden and Boston:
Brill. Pardee, D. 1988. A New Datum for the Meaning of the Divine
Name Milkashtart. Pp. 55-68 in Ascribe to the Lord. Biblical and
Other Studies in Memory of P C. Craigie, . eds. L. Eslinger and G.
Taylor. JSOTSup 67. Shefeld: JSOT Press.
22
k. lawson younger, jr.
Parker, B. 1963. Economic Tablets from the Temple of Mamu at
Balawat. Iraq 25:86-103. Pietschmann, R. 1889. Geschichte der
Phnizier. Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen 1. Berlin:
G. Grote. Pomponio, F., and P. Xella. 1997. Les dieux dEbla. tude
analytique des divinits blates lpoque des archives royales du IIIe
millnaire. AOAT 245. Mnster: Ugarit-Verlag. Postgate, J. N. 1976.
Fifty Neo-Assyrian Legal Documents. Warminster: Aris &
Phillips. Postgate, J. N., and B. K. Ismail. 1979. Texts from
Nineveh. Texts in the Iraq Museum 11. Baghdad: Republic of Iraq:
Ministry of Culture and Information, Directorate General of
Antiquities & Heritage. Radner, K. 1998. Adad-il . PNA 1/1:26.
Rllig, W. 1967. Karatepe. Pp. 39-51 Kanaanische und aramische
Inschriften, eds. H. Donner and W. Rllig. 2nd Edition. Vol. 3.
Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. . 1999. Appendix 1: The Phoenician
Inscriptions. Pp. 50-81 in Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian
Inscriptions. Volume 2: H. ambel. Karatepe-Aslanta . The
Inscriptions: Facsimile Edition. Untersuchungen zur
indogermanischen Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft, N. F. 8.2. Berlin
and New York: Walter de Gruyter. . 2001. Phnizisches aus Nordsyrien
und der Gott Kurra. Pp. 41-52 in Punica, Libyca, Ptolemaica:
Festschrift fr Werner Huss zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht von
Schlern, Freunden und Kollegen, eds. K. Geus and K. Zimmermann. OLA
104. Studia Phoenicia 16. Leuven: Peeters. Schmitz, P. C.
forthcoming. Phoenician RR , Archaic Greek *, and the Storm God of
Aleppo. Smith, M. S. 1995. The God Athtar in the Ancient Near East
and His Place in KTU 1.6 I. Pp. 627-640 in Solving Riddles and
Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic and Semitic Studies in Honor of
Jonas C. Greeneld, eds. Z. Zevit, S. Gitin, and M. Sokoloff. Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Starke, F. 1990. Untersuchung zur
Stammbildung des keilschrift-luwischen Nomens. Studien zu den
Boazky-Texten 31. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Stieglitz, R. R. 2002.
Divine Pairs in the Ebla Pantheon. Pp. 209-214 in Eblaitica: Essays
on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, eds. by C. H. Gordon and
G. A. Rendsburg. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Stolper, M. 1980.
Two Neo-Assyrian Fragments. AfO 27:83-85. Tekolu, R., and A.
Lemaire. 2000. La bilingue royale louvito-phnicienne de ineky.
CRAIBL 961-1006. Tomback, R. 1978. A Comparative Semitic Lexicon of
the Phoenician and Punic Languages. SBLDS 32. Missoula, MT:
Scholars Press. Van Buylaere, G. 2001. Mamu-iqbi. PNA 2/2: 676.
Vanschoonwinkel, J. 1990. Mopsos: lgendes et ralit. Hethitica
10:185-211. Vattioni, F. 1968. Note fencie. AION 18:71-73. Verardi,
V 2000. Kirr. PNA 2/1: 619-620. . Waetzoldt, H. 2001. Wirtschafts-
und Verwaltungstexte aus Ebla: Archiv L. 2769. Materiali per il
vocabolario sumerico 7. Materiali epigraci di Ebla 12. Rome:
Universit degli studi di Roma La Sapienza. Watanabe, K. 1993.
Neuassyrische Siegellengenden. Orient. Report of the Society for
Near Eastern Studies in Japan 29:109-138. Weippert, M. 1969.
Elemente phnikischer und kilikischer Religion in den Inschriften
vom Karatepe. ZDMG Supplementa I. XVII. Deutscher Orientalistentag.
Wiesbaden, pp. 191-217. Reprinted in Jahwe und die anderen
the deity kur(r)a in the first millennium sources
23
Gtter: Studien zur Religionsgeschichte des antiken. Forschungen
zum Alten Testament 18. (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997) 109-130.
Wilhelm, G. 1992. Zum Eblaitischen Gott Kura. Vicino Oriente
8:23-31. Wunsch, C. 1993. Die Urkunden des babylonischen
Geschftsmannes Iddin-Marduk: zum Handel mit Naturalien im 6.
Jahrhundert v. Chr. Cuneiform Monographs 3. Groningen: Styx
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Divints doubles dans le monde phnico-punique. Semitica (Hommages
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international en lhonneur de Franz Cumont loccasion du cinquantime
anniversaire de sa mort. Rome, Academia Belgica, 25-27 septembre
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Jr. 1998. The Phoenician Inscription of Azatiwada. An Integrated
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2.31. . 2002. Cebel Ires Dai. COS 3:137-139. Zadok, R. 1998. West
Semitic Material in Neo/Late-Babylonian and NeoAssyrian Sources.
NABU no. 56 (pp. 58-61).
THE WALL OF URUK: ICONICITIES IN GILGAMESH KEITH DICKSONWe all
secretly venerate the ideal of a language which in the last
analysis would deliver us from language by delivering us to things.
M. Merleau-Ponty, The Prose of the World
AbstractThe Wall of Uruk: Iconicities in Gilgamesh. This article
examines the invitation in the SV prologue to Gilgamesh (I 1-28) as
a device to engage the reader in a series of iconic acts that aim
to preserve heroic glory. Since two artifacts in particularthe wall
of Uruk and the inscribed tabletmediate these acts, I investigate
the nature of artifacts in general in the poem, and specically
focus on three: the corpse of Enkidu, his funeral statue, and the
divine fruit in the garden at the end of Tablet IX. These three
stand related to each other as a series of iconic representations
of the emplacement of life within various bodies. In the context of
these representations, the lapis lazuli tablet on which Gilgamesh
allegedly inscribes his tale also gures as a kind of body: a
relatively permanent one that appropriates the readers voice
through the act of recitation to grant Gilgamesh perpetually
renewable life.
The invitation in the prologue to the Standard Version (SV) of
the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic remains compelling despite even its
long exposure to time and scholarship, which is no small feat.1
This has much to do with the degree of engagement it evokes from
the reader. As audience, each one of us individually is summoned by
the narrators voiceas was Ur-shanabi by the voice of Gilgamesh
himself in the nal tablets ring-composed coda (XI: 323-329)to
survey the concrete structure of Uruk, examine the oven-red
brickwork of its walls, and acknowledge that the seven sages or
apkallu themselves laid the foundations on which the1 All
references (by tablet and line) and quotations from Gilgamesh rely
on the translation by George (2003). Other translations consulted
are those of Foster (2001: 3-95); George (1999); Bottro (1992);
Tournay and Shaffer (1992); and Dalley (1989: 39-153).
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 Also available online
brill.nl/jane
JANER 9.1 DOI: 10.1163/156921209X449152
26
keith dickson
hero subsequently built.2 Along with Ur-shanabi I am urged not
just to look, but also to mount the rampart and walk upon it back
and forth (I: 18 = XI: 323), marking out its density and extent
with my own moving body. In an apparent shift back to the medium of
sightbut to sight now informed by the bodily effort involved in the
climb and the pacing of the wallsUruks greater dimensions (city,
date-grove, clay-pit, temple) are then measured off and tallied,
amounting to a total expanse of roughly ve square miles. The
prologue then goes even farther than Ur-shanabi could, inviting me
forward to see and touch, unlock and open a cedar box with clasp of
bronze, lift up its lid and take from it a tablet made from lapis
lazuli (I: 24-27).3 At this point what has been so far a
progression of increasingly more tactile experiencefrom sight to
embodied movement, then to touch and the felt weight of cedar lid
and cool stone slabperhaps surprisingly modulates into an act of
oral recitation. This essay aims to map that shift. The attention
that has often been drawn to the circular conceit linking audience
in Tablet I with Ur-shanabi in Tablet XIa neat conation of
analepsis and prolepsis (de Villiers 2005: 123-124.) has perhaps
made it easier to overlook a similar kind of mirroring that occurs
within the opening lines of the prologue itself to link the
audience more closely with Gilgamesh. For the progression from2 On
the literary and documentary history of this tour of the city, see
Tigay (1982: 146-149) and Hurowitz (1992: 1, note 1, with
references). On the rhetorical impact of the prologues direct,
personal address to the reader, see Oppenheim (1977: 258-259) and
Moran (1991: 16-17). 3 Walker (1981: 194) notes the parallel to the
deposition of royal inscriptions in the foundations of buildings;
see also Moran (1991: 17-18) and, more generally, Ellis (1968). The
conceit of the tablet is certainly not unique. Its status as a
literary topos in the Mesopotamian tradition has been noted by
Oppenheim and others, and its style identied as that of a gestural,
mannerist claim to textual authorityas if Gilgamesh himself were
the author of the inscription no less than of the wall. Oppenheim
(1977: 258) is suspicious of how seriously an original audience was
meant to have taken this claim, nding it more likely instead that
its use presupposes a reader who is sophisticated enough to accept
it as a literary ction and not as proof of the authenticity of the
text. He concludes that the reference to the tablet, and no less
the earlier invitation to examine the walls, establish a
relationship between author and his readers on the level of pure
imagination (259). It may be asked, of course, on what other level
a textual relationship ever exists, but his point is still well
taken. Oppenheims comments are motived principally by his thesis
that the introit is strictly literary rather than the product of an
oral, bardic tradition, and that it properly assumes an audience of
readersor at least of a public that lives in a social context that
makes it possible to hear the epic read (259). See also Tigay
(1982: 144-145) and Pongratz-Leisten (1999: 80-90) on the topos in
both royal inscriptions and epic literature.
the wall of uruk: iconicities in
GILGAMESH
27
sight to embodied movement to reading in the invitation (I:
13-28) actually amounts, mutatis mutandis, to a reprise of the
heros own general progress in lines 1-12. There He who saw the
Deep, who saw the secret and uncovered what was hidden (I: 1, 7),
becomes the one who afterwards returned to Uruk, inscribed on a
stele all (his) labours (I: 10), and then proceeded to build the
very rampart and wall I am called to inspect (I: 11-12). The
actions the prologue invites me to perform are structured by a kind
of implicit imitatiostylized and perhaps even mannerist, but for
all that nonetheless still mimetic.4 Just as Gilgamesh saw the
Deep, I am asked to see [the] wall of Uruk and view its parapet (I:
13-14), survey the foundation platform, inspect the brickwork (I:
19). Of course, the distance here between original and simulacrum
might well seem too great to support the analogy between the object
of the heros vision and what I must now imagine lies before me.
What he presumably saw was the aps itself, the foundation of the
world as such, on which Ea once built his own dwelling, the worlds
primordial ediface (Enuma Elish I: 71-78).5 What narrows that
distance, however, is recognition of the degree to which material
construction gures in Mesopotamian mythic narratives and civil
engineering no less as the icon of genuinely primal, cosmogonic
works.6 Insofar as all human foundationsespecially4 On the complex
issues of literacy and orality in Mesopotamian literature, see the
essays collected in Vogelzang (1992), especially 23-69 (B. Alster,
Interaction of Oral and Written Poetry in Early Mesopotamian
Literature), 227-245 (P. Michalowski, Orality and Literacy and
Early Mesopotamian Litarature), and 265-278 (M. Vogelzang, Some
Aspects of Oral and Written Tradition in Akkadian). On the shift
from orality to writing as an inuence on the scribalization of
wisdom in Mesopotamia, see van den Toorn (2007). 5 On the polysemy
of the term nagbu (either subterranean aps or totality) in the
opening line of the SV prologue, see George (2003: 444-446), who
also discusses a related ambiguity in the phrase i$di: ma:ti
(foundation, basis of the country), which might be understood to
have a literal, cosmological reference, for the realm of men was
believed to stand on top of the cosmic abode of Ea; see also
Castillo (2001: 91-92). For English texts of the Enuma Elish, see
Foster (1993: 351-402) and Dalley (1989: 228-277). 6 On the status
in ancient Near Eastern thought of man-made edifaces as simulacra
of the primal, cosmogonic structures wrought by the gods, van
Leeuwen (2007: 67) observes: Both Mesopotamians and Israelites
grounded human wisdom in the divine wisdom, which gave order,
meaning and life to the cosmos as a whole. Creation was portrayed
as a macrocosmic housewith its elds, waters, and variegated
activitiesto which temples and ordinary houses with their lands
corresponded as microcosms. His essay is a detailed study of this
iconic relationship. On the same issue, see also Hurowitz (1992),
especially Appendix 5 (Temples, Temple Building and Divine Rest)
and Appendix 7 (The Cosmic Dimensions
28
keith dickson
(but by no means exclusively) the regal, monumental
onesintentionally mirror that rst cosmic basis, what Gilgamesh saw
and what the text invites me to see are metaphorically one and the
same, in particular since it is the apkallu who are said to have
established the foundation on which Gilgamesh built the wall of
Uruk.7 In turn, the labor of his journey home along a distant road
(I: 9) is matched, however faintly, by my own physical effort to
take the stairway . . . go up to the wall . . . and walk around (I:
15, 18) to view the citys total expanse. In both cases, sight leads
to embodiment in the form of the return of Gilgamesh home and my
own return, via the trope, from wherever I might be at the opening
of the prologue to virtually the same place the heros distant road
once brought him. My return is of course perhaps best understood as
temporal just as much as spatial, since my movement in space back
to the wall is actually a movement back in time to the original
time of its construction. The course of the imitatio intends to
lead my steps to where his own went generations earlier, and to the
very place where his heroic journey culminatednamely, to the site
of Uruk.8 Finally, Gilgameshs inscription of his labors is
literally echoed in my recitation of the text engraved on the
tablet taken from the cedar box. This engages once again the theme
of return, but here with reference less to location and time than
to the production of the narrative itself. Moreover, the relation
between inscription and recitation is not one of sameness but
instead complementarity; his writing and my reading aloud what he
has written are in fact collaborative events. One depends upon the
other: the silent act of writing on stone, that is, requires
voicing to bring its narrative back to lifefrom mute glyph to
audible enunciationand therebyof Cities and Temples). On the theme
in general, see also Edzard (1987). 7 On the apkallu, primordial
sage-craftsmen, especially with reference to the common connection
between wisdom and building construction, see Sweet (1990: 47), who
later comments (51) on the typical Mesopotamian understanding of
wisdom as the intelligence and skill that enable one to perform
practical deeds, particularly for the benet of the gods. Note in
this context the high frequency of references in Mesopotamian royal
inscriptions to divinely-based wisdom as the means for projects
specically related to engineeringespecially temple-building and the
restoration of ruined cities. 8 In its most basic form, the
traditional heroic narrative proceeds along the circular track of
Departure outward and subsequent Return, travel to the limits of
the world and then the long trek home again. On this narrative
structure, see Campbell (1968: 3-46), along with Raglan (in R.
Segal 1990: 89-175) and Propp (1968) for earlier typologies of the
heroic narrative.
the wall of uruk: iconicities in
GILGAMESH
29
also to bring it back to the attention of an audience on whose
renewed memory of the hero depends the heros own perpetually
renewable fame. Jesper Svenbro, in the course of his extended
anthropology of reading in ancient Greece, remarks as follows on
the relationship between the author and the reader of inscriptions
(1993: 44-45):9At the moment of reading, the reader nds himself
before a written word that is present in the absence of the writer.
Just as he foresees his own absence, the writer foresees the
presence of his writing before the reader. The reading constitutes
a meeting between the reader and the written marks of someone who
is absent. The writer . . . counts on the reader and the reading
aloud that the reader will accomplish, for in a culture in which
klos [glorious fame] has a fundamental part to play, what is
written remains incomplete until such time as it is provided with a
voice. . . . The text is thus more than the sum of the alphabetic
signs of which it is composed. These signs will guide the voice
that will permit the vocalization of the text, its sonorous
realization. This, then, is the way in which the text includes the
voice that its mute signs are lacking. If the text is to nd total
fulllment, it needs the voice of the reader, the reading voice.
As long as it remains silent, the heros life was indeed a
terminal one after all, a history of acts consigned now to the mute
and unrecoverable past; once it appropriates new voice through
recitation, however, that life speaks anew and therefore somehow
lives again. What Svenbro refers to as sonorous realization applies
equally well to Gilgamesh as to the Greek inscriptions that are his
subject. The implicit imitatio of the SV prologue, in which the
reader performs a stylized, bodily re-enactment of the heros
career, also speaks to this theme. Both kinds of engagement,
moreover, sonorous no less than physical, entail the readers
involvement with things in the text and with the text itself as a
thing.10 A look at the things involved will bear this out. George
(2003: 446) and others (cf. Tigay 1982: 144-145) plausibly assume
that the passage from Gilgamesh in question requires the original
stele or nar (I: 20) to be identical to the lapis lazuli tablet in
line 27, and that as9 On the connection in Greek culture between
mute written signs and public recitation, especially in the context
of heroic glory, see also Nagy (1983 and 1990: 202-222), along with
Vernant (1974: 9-25) and C. Segal (1982). 10 See Pongratz-Leisten
(1999: 85-86) for discussion of the intended audience in so-called
nar-texts, which (in both inscriptional and literary forms) make
explicit appeal to an other to see, hear, call out, or voice what
has been written. On nar in general, see e.g. Gterbock (1934:
62-86); Gurney (1955); Ellis (1968: 145-147, 166-167); Longman
(1991: 44-47); and especially Pongratz-Leisten (1999), with
references.
30
keith dickson
a consequence I am expected to imagine that I hold in my hands
the very stone on which Gilgameshs own hand etched the tale. This
is a precious conceit, as Oppenheim points out, and certainly a
fragile one, on which we are probably not meant to push too hard.11
It is perhaps enough that the content of what is read aloudall the
misfortunes, all that the hero went through (I: 28)precisely
matches that of what was writtenall [his] labours (I: 10)inasmuch
as the narrative proper of Gilgamesh, coinciding with the introit
(Surpassing all [other] kings . . . [29]) of the earlier, Old
Babylonian (OB) version, begins at this point.12 The mimetic and
performative acts with which the prologues invitation opens, that
is to saysight, movement, appropriation of the tabletnow culminate
in the recitative performance of the poem itself. In this sense, at
least, the modulation noted earlier, from bodily experience to what
would seem to be the qualitatively different experience of reading
a text aloud, is possibly not so surprising after all. Reading the
tablet, no less than touching and pacing the wall, involves
representation in the form of a kind of renewal via re-embodiment
of the hero. They differ chiey in the materialsesh and soundin and
through which this realization takes place. This is of course its
aim. The conceit itself is actually the reex of a wider and deeper
theme that supports the literary convention and expresses motives
that appear just as foundational to the genre of epic as the wall
is to Uruk. The best way to appreciate this is to recognize that
the bodily imitatio and the equally mimetic and collaborative act
of reading aloud in the opening lines of Gilgamesh are not direct
but instead mediated activities. Each, moreover, is mediated by a
simple artifact: the wall of Uruk and the inscribed stone text,
respectively, are the devices by which the spatial, temporal, and
narrative distance between reader and authorial hero is narrowed.
Were it not for the wall, Gilgamesh would not be present via the
product of his hands, which (given his status as king) in fact
reprises the foundational, cosmogonic act of a god; were there11
Difcult and impertinent questions follow on the assumption that
Gilgamesh himself is the author of the tablet; see Oppenheim (1977:
257-259). Moran (1991: 17-19) draws attention to the parallel
between the tablet in the SV prologue to Gilgamesh and the
pseudo-autobiographical stele of Naram-Sin. See also van den Toorn
(2007: 27-28); and Tigay (1982: 144-146), with references. 12 On
the literary history of Gilgamesh, and especially the differences
between the Old Babylonian (OB) and Standard (SV) versions of the
text, see Tigay (1982), with summary in Maier (1977: 40-49) and
George (2003: 22-33).
the wall of uruk: iconicities in
GILGAMESH
31
no engraved tablet, in turn, the very agency that made the wall
a metonym for that cosmic foundation would be inaccessible. The
fact that neither of those things is actually present in my
experience as a readerassuming I do not in fact stand on the wall
of the city and take a slab of lapis from a cedar boxis not
especially relevant to the point; and here Oppenheims reasonable
comments seem a little obtuse.13 The real point is that, however
mannered the conventions that give rise to this undeniably literary
trope, what underlies them are implicit claims that (1) both a
functional and also perhaps even a literal equivalence holds
between tablet and wall; and (2) precisely as artifacts, tablet and
wall are instrumental in engaging the reader in a set of stylized
acts that endorse the heros accomplishments and perpetuate his life
by conrming that both have been transformed into (ideally)
renewable things. Both are the media for the fulllment of an aim
that is central to this narrative, and probably also to epic as
such. Their functional equivalence is not hard to see. Insofar as
both tablet and wall are artifacts made by the hand of Gilgamesh
himself, both survive him to make the absent hero present, and in a
form more durable than were his once exquisite body and spectacular
acts. He now lives on in (and somehow also as) this wall of Uruk
and this inscribed narrative; in a sense yet to be fully explored,
he has become them. As already suggested, however, there is an
important difference between wall and tablet. Two issues are
involved here; despite how intimately bound they are in fact, for
the sake of argument they need to be dealt with separately. On the
one hand, there is the artifact as product, as a thing that in one
sense leads a life of its owna life simultaneously cultic, utile,
political, economic, for instanceindependent of that of its maker
(who in this case is in fact long dead), though in another sense it
never severs the connection to the one who made it. That connection
is sometimes simply expressed by the makers name, whether actually
inscribed on it (as in royal depositions) or in some other way
associated with the product. Both tablet and wall bear the mark of
his hand at the same time as they remain clearly different from
him: they survive while he does not. On the other, there is the
artifact as index of an agency moved by the specic intention to
preserve itself by somehow making itself concrete. This is perhaps
a less straightforward sense of artifacts, a13
See above, note 3.
32
keith dickson
sense easily conated with the idea of the artifact as product,
but nonetheless (and especially within the world of epic) a
critically distinct one. This is because artifacts in epic are more
than just the carriers of tags, simple witnesses of their authors
presence at some time or another (indenite or specied) in the past.
As such a tag, in fact, the wall of Uruk would differ only in
degree, not in kind, from lines scratched on a rock, even if those
scratches happened to spell the name Gilgamesh or Kilroy. Epic
heroes do not dedicate their livesand the genre of epic as such is
not devotedto the deposition of objects that merely assert a
quondam presence. Those objects are meant instead to concretize and
thereby also somehow to maintain a life, both to embody it as fact
and also perpetually to keep it living. In the case of tags, the
material on which the name is written is in one sense immaterial to
the writing; its relation to the name it bears is a supercial one,
simply that of medium to inscription. Epic artifacts (and the epic
as itself an artifact) instead intend a deeper and more intimate
relation, one that offers something resembling genuine embodiment,
rather than just a surface on which to etch a name. As products,
both tablet and wall serve as signs of the absent Gilgamesh, and
thus maintain for him a presence in the world generations after
time has demolished his own material body. As indices of the agency
that produced them, in turn, they both offer themselves as
instruments for the sort of imitatio encouraged by the invitation
in the SV prologue. That is, they provide the concrete means for
various kinds of mimetic, surrogate enactments that aim to bring
the hero back to life. To appreciate both these issues separately
and in their connection with each other, we need rst to look more
closely at the nature and function of other manufactured objects in
the poem. Artifacts in Gilgamesh turn out to be comparatively few
in number. The material landscape of the poem is stark and almost
minimalist, especially when set next to the rich inventory of
things that ll the Homeric epics, for example, that appear and then
disappear almost epiphanically throughout the Sanskrit Mahabharata,
and that lurk behind the characters in the tale of Beowulf. The
list here is relatively short: clothing, ale, baked bread, an
amulet, a few thresholds and doors, ritual implements (censer) and
crafted offerings (throw-stick, ask, ute, throne, clasp, bangles),
weapons (axe, sword, dirk, knife), roads, buildings, gates, a bed,
a statue, two boats, punting-poles, a wall, a cedar box, a tablet
made of lapis
the wall of uruk: iconicities in
GILGAMESH
33
lazuli.14 These are the props of the drama, so to speak; though
to call them that falsely suggests that they play a merely
ancillary role in the story. More often than not, on the contrary,
they tend to lead the story from one episode to the next, or at
least to act as crucial signposts along its course. Moreover,
rather than providing ground for dismissing the artifacts in
Gilgamesh as unimportant, their relative lack of clutter instead
lends them considerable weight. The things that appear in the text
are freighted with signicance; most seem to lead what Appadurai has
aptly called a rich social life.15 Few if any are neutral, few
simply lie inert in the world of the tale, as if in a kind of at
background detached from the characters that move among them.
Instead, most exercise real transactional force. Through use,
gifting, and exchange, that is to say, artifacts both symbolize and
also effect real changes in the poem. This is because they are
never mere objects, but instead things thoroughly traversed by
intentionality16whether as indices of categories in whose terms the
human world is organized, as the instruments by which specic aims
are furthered, as products that come at the end of a process of
renement of raw material and thereby embody cultural advance, or
else as the simple objects of human desire. Articles of clothing
are an obvious case in point, since they serve as one of the
principal signiers in a familiar system of signs through which
distinctions between nature and culture are expressed.17 A
vestimentary code structures much of what takes place in the poem,
guiding the story along a well-marked trajectory and also
bringing14 For the sake of this short sketch, and somewhat
arbitrarily, I include only those real manufactured objects
mentioned by the principal narrator of the SV Shamhats reference to
drums (I: 229), for example, as an instance of embedded .
narration, is excluded from the list, as is the axe of Gilgameshs
dream (I: 278). Likewise excluded, as metaphorical, are the net
with which Enkidu is compared (IV: 13) and the rope that forms part
of the traditional adage in V: 76. 15 See Appadurai (1988). The
bibliography on material culture is extensive. See also, for
instance, Bonnot (2002); Brown (2004); Knappett (2005); and Riggins
(1994), with references. 16 For an extreme position on agents and
objects as purely correlative entities, see the comments of Latour
(quoted by Knappett 2005: 31): Consider things, and you will have
humans. Consider humans, and you are by that very act interested in
things. Bring your attention to bear on hard things, and see them
become gentle, soft or human. Turn your attention to humans and see
them become electric circuits, automatic gears or softwares. We
cannot even dene precisely what makes some human and others
technical On agents and artifacts, see Pickering (1997); on the
distinction between objects and things, see Brown (2004: 1-22). 17
On the nature/culture opposition in Gilgamesh, see especially
Mobley (1997: 220-223); Tigay (1982: 202-203); and Kirk (1970:
146-147).
34
keith dickson
about signicant transformations in its characters. The dressing
of Enkidu by Shamat, the self-adornment of Gilgamesh after his
defeat of Humbaba, the lthy pelts that later signify the heros
lapse from civilization into a state of wildness, the immaculate
robe loaned to Gilgamesh by Uta-napishtimall function as indices of
position and value along a continuum that runs from beast to
divinity. At the same time, however, they do more than simply
indicate: Enkidus attire is both a sign of his acculturation and
also one of the things (along with grooming, for instance) that in
a very real, practical sense render him civilized. That is,
clothing gures as both product and also as a kind of agencyin this
latter function, behaving more like a signal than a sign, in
fact,18 not merely to reference but even to trigger a particular
effect. Clothes do make the man. The same is true of foods, and
with respect to precisely the same issue. Food specic to human
beings qualies as artifact because it represents the transformation
of raw, natural stuff into something different, whether through an
overt process of cooking or else by the subtler heat of
fermentation. The contrast between the diets of animals (water and
grass) and humans (beer and bread) in the Gilgamesh story (I:
110-112, II: 44-51) thereby marks out and also creates fundamental
differences among living beings. The alchemy by which animal feed
becomes human food likewise affects those who eat the latter:
Enkidu is directly humanized by the mere act of eating breadas if,
somewhat magically, he becomes what he eats, as the saying goesand
the fact that he eats bread (and not grass) conversely signies that
transformation.19 The power of certain things both to signify and
to effect real change is critical to advancing the purpose of
heroic endeavor, whose aim is precisely to make the heros concrete
sign a renewable signal. This becomes clear from an examination of
the imagery that underlies the motive Gilgamesh announces for his
journey to the Cedar Forest; though preserved only fragmentarily in
the SV it is ,18 On the distinction between sign and signal, see
Leach (1976), who remarks (23-24): The contrast between signal and
index [=sign] is that between dynamics and statics. With a signal,
one event causes another event; the signal itself is the message.
With an index, the message-bearing entity is an indication of the .
. . existence of a message. No cause and effect relationship is
involved. 19 If the logic of this claim seems strained, it is
because the claim verges on a mythic one in its view both of
objects and also of signs as agencies rather than instruments. At
the base of this logic is a confusion, often operative in magical
thinking, between indices and signals; see Leach (1976: 29-32).
the wall of uruk: iconicities in
GILGAMESH
35
by now conventional enough. His statement to Enkidu implicitly
plays on the contrast between materiality and nothingness, thing
and absence (II: 234-235):20As for man, [his days] are numbered,
all that ever he did is but [wind.]
The couplet is structured by a familiar trope:21 in its
invisibility, its erratic and shifting nature, and especially in
its apparent lack of substance, wind is a common gure for the
instability and the resulting evanescence of human accomplishments.
Like air, mans deeds are insubstantial; they have no density, as it
were, and therefore neither reality nor true permanence. Transient,
they perish along with their wraith-like agents, or (at best) not
long afterwards, rendering the agency that produced them futile and
ultimately vain, however weighty its initial intent. Though
fragmentary in the SV this motive for the heroic exploit , can be
eshed out by reference to lines preserved in Version A of the early
Sumerian poem Gilgamesh and Humbaba (The Lord to the Living Ones
Mountain), which enjoyed the status of a favorite copy-text in Old
Babylonian schools (George 1999: 149),22 suggesting in turn that
its sentiments were in some sense recognizably mainstream. Here
what stands as an implicit opposition in the SV passage just
quotednamely between wind and some other unnamed thing that is
truly substantialnow comes to expression in terms of a more overt
contrast between river and mountain, water and stone. Despite its
use of different comparanda, the couplet of lines from the SV
clearly intend as their substrate precisely the same metaphorical20
George (2003: 456) speculates: perhaps to distract Enkidu from his
misery [viz. over his lack of family], Gilgamesh proposes that the
pair make a glorious expedition to the Cedar Forest. This ignores
its broader, epic signicance. 21 George (2003: 457) glosses the
proverb as Life is short and given over to mundane activities,
which fails to acknowledge the full metaphorical value of wind as
index of insubstantiality. Tigay (1982: 164-165) reads it
differently: Gilgamesh argues that fear of the danger should not
deter them, since death is mans lot in any case. He suggests that
the Akkadian version of the proverb is ultimately dependent on the
Sumerian. On Sumerian proverbs in general, see Alster (1975). West
(1997: 253), noting that Akkadian sru, the ordinary word for wind,
may be used as a metaphor for the vain and insubstantial, cites Old
Testament parallels. The image is of course polyvalent. See Leick
(1994: 33, 38, 45) on wind as a sexual metaphor. Where wind has
substance, it is often disease wind or the destructive wind of
stormboth of which do the work of undoing what human hands have
made. 22 The translation that follows is that of George (1999:
161-166). For an edition of Version A, see Edzard (1990 and
1991).
36
keith dickson
reference. The insubstantiality and transience expressed by the
trope of human action as mere wind represent one term in an implied
contrast whose sense is essentially identical to what the following
lines from Gilgamesh and Humbaba express by the contrast between
water and rock, movement and permanence, uidity and xity. On the
eve of his expedition to the forest, Gilgamesh addresses the god
Utu with the words (A 23-33; cf. B 5-16):In my city a man dies, and
the heart is stricken, a man perishes, and the heart feels pain. I
raised my head on the rampart, my gaze fell on a corpse drifting
down the river, aoat on the water: I too shall become like that,
just so shall I be! ... Since no man can escape lifes end, I will
enter the mountain and set up my name. Where names are set up, I
will set up my name, where names are not yet set up, I will set up
gods names.
Wind and water vs. substance and stone: the same oppositional
structure underlies both gures. In the lines just quoted, the heros
response to the sight of the oating corpse in the river is the urge
to enter the mountain and there set up his name. This image of the
corpse operates in two distinct but closely related registers. On
the one hand, it is of course his own dead body aoat that Gilgamesh
sees. In the later OB and SV Gilgamesh, this rst and still somewhat
detached visiona corpse drifting . . . aoat in the waterwill become
the closer and far more intimate sight of the corpse of beloved
Enkidu, the mirror of the heros own inevitable death. Even more
signicantly, the dead body in the river is Gilgamesh himself in his
most obscene manifestation: no longer fused with subjectivity and
life, the corpse is just an inert lump, a dumb thing with no
agency, the naked object of a horried gaze.23 Further, and in
direct contrast with the inanimate corpse is the constant movement
of the river in which it is adrift, like so much otsam to be
snagged on the bank somewhere downstream, or else to be carried out
helplessly into the vast and anonymous waters of the Gulf. Its
eshly corruption and the rivers endless ow are therefo