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Some Contributions to the Gilgamesh Epic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

C. J. Gadd
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Extract

The text published as no. 394 (plates CCLXXVIII f.) in U.E.T. VI, (Second Part) is written, as there described, on a complete tablet measuring 14 × 7 cms. This tablet was found during the excavations at Ur, but in circumstances unknown, for it bears no excavation-number nor mark of any kind, and in fact can be identified henceforth (until it receives a museum-number) only by the number it bears in the aforesaid publication. This is the first obscurity of a text which abounds otherwise in that disconcerting quality.

A far more serious defect is the condition of its surface. Upon the ‘body’ of the tablet a thin overlay of finer clay seems to have been spread, and the inscription made upon this, no doubt with the view of obtaining greater clearness. The result has been unfortunate—over irregular spaces the overlay has become detached, carrying away the signs with it. Occasionally it is possible to trace a faint impression on the ‘body’ clay below, where a mark of the stilus has penetrated the overlay, but much has disappeared completely, and much of what remains is very indistinct. It has been peculiarly difficult to reproduce this text; the copy published is the last of several attempts, and is itself, no doubt, capable of improvement through younger and better eyes. A necessity experienced throughout was to adhere as faithfully as possible to what the tablet seems really to carry, i.e. in detachment, where necessary, from many partial duplicate readings which ‘ought’ to exist, and which there is a constant temptation to ‘find’ in the sadly defective lines of no. 394. For the collation of several signs in the K. tablets published in R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish, plates 27–29 I am much beholden to Dr. E. Sollberger.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1966 , pp. 105 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1966

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References

1 One may compare the omission, from the Boğazköy fragment, of the long and vivid speech of Gilgamesh rejecting the advances of Ishtar; see Kupper, J.-R. in Garelli, P. (ed.), Gilgameš et sa Légende, (1960), 100Google Scholar.

2 There is no corresponding ruling in B.23 between lines 11′–12′, nor between lines 15′ and 16′.

3 Also in N.

4 Aro, J., Studien zur mittelbabylonischen Grammatik, 92Google Scholar.

5 Nougayrol, J. in J.C.S. 2, 203Google Scholar; Aro, op. cit., 92; Weidner, E. F. in A.f.O., 16, 201Google Scholar.

6 Aro, op. cit. 25; von Soden, W., Das akkadische Syllabar, p. 85Google Scholar.

7 U.E.T. VIII (Royal Inscriptions, Part II, by Sollberger, E.), no. 101Google Scholar.

8 U.E.T. I, nos. 166, 167.

9 Heidel, A., The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (1946), pp. 58ffGoogle Scholar.; Oppenheim, A. L. in Or. 1948, pp. 40ffGoogle Scholar.; Speiser, E. A. in A.N.E.T. p. 86f. (1950)Google Scholar; Schott, A.—von Soden, W., Das Gilgamesch Epos (1958Google Scholar), cf. Z.A. 53 (1959), 228Google Scholar.

10 See already Oppenheim, A. L. in Or. 1948, p. 40Google Scholar.

11 In U.38 Enkidu speaks of some action of his [i + n]a arki ḫi-ir-[ti(?)], and with this may be compared U.56 (better in N, col. iv, 10) ummi 7 ḫi-ir-tu 4, as also Tablet III, col. i, 10, ana šēr ḫirāti pagaršu libla (said of Enkidu, cf. C.A.D. 6, p. 200bGoogle Scholar; the occasion is an expedition to Syria). These three passages seem to suggest that Enkidu was already married, and perhaps the father of seven children, before his adventure with the Hunter and the Harlot, and this situation is not necessarily inconsistent with Tablet I, col. ii, 34ff., on the creation of Enkidu by Aruru, which need not mean that Enkidu was created in full maturity from the beginning, immediately before his encounter with the Hunter—indeed, it is said there that Aruru (line 34) cast the lump of clay ina EDIN, and upon the present view this would mean ‘in the wilderness’, where Enkidu grew up. This is a question which applies also to U.39 (= N. col. iii, 32) ina ṣēri-ia. The earlier passage (Tablet I, col. ii, 34) has been rendered both ‘on the steppe’ (Heidel, Speiser) and ‘draussen’ (Schott—von Soden), whereas Tablet VII, col. iii, 32 has, when not omitted, been rendered ‘upon me’, or ‘against me’ (Or. 1948, p. 41Google Scholar). Both uses of EDIN, ṣēru can be illustrated from the Epic itself, and the choice here must be guided by the more significant meaning.

12 Like another pathetic exile, Odyss. I, 58fGoogle Scholar., ‘longing to see even the smoke going up from his own land’.

13 In his early life Enkidu ‘knew not people nor land’ (Tabl. I, col. ii, 38), i.e. Sumer and its inhabitants, which the intellectual snobbery of the scribes regarded as alone worthy of those names. The trend of this present story might be regarded as a counterblast to the Sumerian scribes' persistent ridicule of the ‘barbarous’ Amorites, Have we here a real example of the Sumerian-Akkadian confrontation, generally so difficult to detect? See also below, p. 118.

14 After her initiation the Harlot boasts (Tabl. I, col. iv, 34, according to a probable restoration) ‘you are wise, Enkidu, you have become like a god’, with which cf. Gen. III, 5, ‘ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil’, the words of another Tempter.

15 ‘May governors and princes be your lovers’, and especially ‘may your charms be so potent as to affect a man two “leagues” away’, i.e., according to the accepted evaluation, more than 20 kilometres!

16 The last two references I owe to Professor O. R. Gurney, who very kindly sent me information about the relation of a (female) Hurrian deity Allanzu as šid(t)uri to Hepat, parallel with that of the (male) Sarruma as hupiti, ‘bull-calf’, to Teshup. The two authors last quoted describe this relationship, and translate šid(t)uri as ‘girl’ or ‘(unverlobtes) Mädchen’, but express no opinion as to her comparison with si-du-ri of the G.E.

17 This has recently been pointed out, in relation with §41 of the Eshnunna laws, by Wiseman, D. J. in the Tyndale House Bulletin, Cambridge, no. 14 (1964), pp. 8ffGoogle Scholar. In line 15 of the text translated above the description ardāti, ‘girls’, is applied to the inmates of the aštammu (as probably restored), and this is the word equated with ši-du-ri in the vocabulary aforesaid.

18 Hartman, L. F. and Oppenheim, A. L., On Beer and Brewing Techniques in Ancient Mesopotamia, p. 12Google Scholar; D. J. Wiseman, loc. cit., p. 9.

19 There is evidence of this even in the O.B. period, according to the examples assembled by Kraus, F. R. in his Edikt des Königs Ammi-ṣaduqa von Babylon, p. 161fGoogle Scholar.

20 It would be a mere guess to include among such a gift of prophecy; yet we know at least that ‘prophecy’, of the ‘Sibylline’ kind, did exist in later Babylonian literature; Gadd, C. J., Ideas of Divine Rule, pp. 69ffGoogle Scholar.; Grayson, A. K. and Lambert, W. G. in J.C.S. 18 (1964) pp. 7ffGoogle Scholar.

21 Although it does not appear that he is anywhere described, like Ishullanu, as lúnu-kiri6 in the surviving parts of the text.

22 Again in The Sumerians: their History, Culture, and Character (1963), p. 162fGoogle Scholar.

23 Mole, spider, and now frog (C.A.D. 3, p. 52aGoogle Scholar) have been successively proposed.

24 Even as the second victim, the bird with the ‘broken wing’ crying kappi, was identified as the Roller-bird by Thompson, R. C. in J.R.A.S. 1924, p. 258fGoogle Scholar.

25 See above, p. 108, n. 13, and below p. 121.

26 In Iraq 26 (1964), pp. 99ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.; text now in C.T. 46, plate 28, no. 16.

27 Friedrich, J., in Z.A. n.F. 5 (1930), p. 26, no. 11, 34Google Scholar.

28 In R.A. 51 (1957), pp. 107ffGoogle Scholar.

29 As set out in detail by B. Landsberger in the article quoted by the note on l. 63.

30 B.M. 34160 + 34193 + four more fragments, first published in part by Wiseman, D. J. in Garelli, P. (ed.), Gilgameš et sa Légende, pp. 128ffGoogle Scholar., and now resumed by Lambert, W. G. in C.T. 46, pl., 32fGoogle Scholar. The lines in question are obv. col. ii, 21′f, (40′ in C.T.).

31 The end of sect, a) in the article šūt abnī of the C.A.D. A/1, p. 61b has already been criticized by A. R. Millard, loc. cit. 103, n. 12 as ‘overbold’. It is also rather inaccurate, for the line beginning iṣ-bat(mid?) is not Tablet X, col. iii, 41, but only (probably, not certainly) col. ii, 40, and in the new text line 21′ (or 40′), as quoted above. The ‘correction’ of the following line to pu-lu(?)-ḫ[u-ma …………] is warranted by neither of the published copies, although they differ slightly, and the resulting constructed translation has been rightly rejected by Millard.

32 As Thompson, R. C. proposed, with great reserve, (Gilgamish, p. 85)Google Scholar, but he was entirely right in seeing that the ‘stone things’ must be means of propulsion.

33 Gadd, C. J., The Stones of Assyria, p. 140fGoogle Scholar., Stearns, J. B., Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnaṣirpal II, p. 82fGoogle Scholar. (A.f.O. Beiheft 15, 1961). A fine example in ivory—Mallowan, M. E. L., Nimrud and its Remains, vol. I, p. 195, no. 133Google Scholar.

34 Botta, P., Monument de Ninive, I, pls. 32–34Google Scholar; A. Parrot, Nineveh and Babylon, no. 267; Contenau, G., Manuel d'Archéologie orientale, III, 1264Google Scholar.

35 M.S.L. VIII/1, 45, ll. 310fGoogle Scholar.

36 Landsberger, B., Die Fauna des alten Mesopotamien, p. 93Google Scholar.

37 Borger, R., Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien (A.f.O. Beiheft 9 (1956), p. 87 and Tafel I, rev. 4–6)Google Scholar.

38 Meissner, B., Babylonien und Assyrien, II, Tafel-Abb. 15, 16Google Scholar.

39 C.A.D. 3, p. 106aGoogle Scholar.

40 Gössmann, P. F., Planetarium Babylonicum (1950), p. 23, no. 76Google Scholar.

41 M. E. L. Mallowan, op. cit. I, p. 104, no. 50.

42 Gurney, O. R., ‘Babylonian prophylactic figures and their Rituals’, in A.A.A. 22 (1935), p. 52 and pl. XII, col. iii, 51Google Scholar.

43 Like the šēdu; see von Soden, W in Baghd. Mitteil. 3 (1964), pp. 153fGoogle Scholar.

44 See n. 28, above.