The Ark Before Noah
Page 29
Seldom has it been that a single cuneiform tablet could engender an entire book. The Ark Tablet is so extraordinary that it leads of its own accord to myriad enquiries to which new answers have to be supplied. I close these pages dedicated to decoding the immortal Story of the Flood in the hope that, in doing my best, I have at least launched an idea or two on a voyage of their own.
The author aged 9, in Exeter Museum, talking for the first time about becoming a British Museum curator.
(picture acknowledgement i1)
The Arched Room library in the Middle East Department of the British Museum, where 130,000 cuneiform tablets are housed.
(picture acknowledgement i2)
Professor W. G. Lambert, as encountered by the author in September 1969.
(picture acknowledgement i3)
Leonard Simmons in Egypt, at the time he was collecting curios, among which this Christmas card can be included.
(picture acknowledgement i4)
Douglas Simmonds as a boy with the cast of Here Come the Double Deckers.
(picture acknowledgement i5)
Douglas Simmonds with a Mesopotamian hero in the Louvre.
(picture acknowledgement i6)
The Ark Tablet, front view.
(picture acknowledgement i7)
The Ark Tablet, back view.
(picture acknowledgement i8)
A Sumerian reed hut, or mudhif, as depicted on a stone trough of about 3000 BC.
(picture acknowledgement i9)
The characteristic and timeless landscape of the southern marshes in modern Iraq.
(picture acknowledgement i10)
Reeds, water, man and livestock in harmony in a 1974 photograph taken in the southern Iraqi marshes.
(picture acknowledgement i11)
Coracles in use, Iraq, 1920s.
(picture acknowledgement i12)
The coracle to capture the imagination of boys as part of the Churchman cigarette card set entitled Story of Navigation.
(picture acknowledgement i13)
An artist’s impression of ancient Assyrian riverside life.
(picture acknowledgement i14)
A model of a traditional coracle from Iraq; the bead and shells are to promote good luck and are also found on full-size coracles.
(picture acknowledgement i15)
A seventeenth-century view of the animals waiting patiently to embark, by the Flemish painter Jacob Savery.
(picture acknowledgement i16)
This sixteenth-century drawing by Hermann tom Ring gives a good idea of the practicalities involved when it actually came to boarding.
(picture acknowledgement i17)
The flood as depicted by Frances Danby, first exhibited in 1840, and a striking canvas.
(picture acknowledgement i18)
An Ottoman Turkish miniature with the prophet Nuh in his Ark.
(picture acknowledgement i19)
Noah sends out his raven and his first dove in a mosaic from St Mark’s Basilica, Venice, eleventh-century.
(picture acknowledgement i20)
The Tower of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, as visualised by an unknown sixteenth-century Flemish painter.
(picture acknowledgement i21)
The Babylonian mušhuššu dragon, sacred to the God Marduk, that bedecked King Nebuchadnezzar’s royal walls at Babylon, probably modelled on a giant and carnivorous monitor lizard.
The traditional view of the Judaeans grieving at Babylon, as described in Psalm 137. But, as shown in this book, much happened after the first tears dried …
(picture acknowledgement i23)
The Babylonian Map of the World, front view: the world’s oldest usable map.
(picture acknowledgement i24)
The Babylonian Map of the World, back view: an old photograph of the hard-to-read triangle descriptions.
The profile of Mount Pir Omar Gudrun, near Kirkuk, northern Iraq.
(picture acknowledgement i26)
An eternal icon: a rainbow over Mt. Ararat hidden by storm clouds; seen from Dogubeyazit, Turkey.
(picture acknowledgement i27)
Gertrude Bell’s view from Mt. Cudi Dagh.
(picture acknowledgement i28)
The twin peaks of Mt. Ararat, irresistible to romantic painters.
(picture acknowledgement i29)
(picture acknowledgement i30)
The author battling with broken Ark Tablet signs in the British Museum.
(picture acknowledgement i31)
Appendix 1
Ghosts, the Soul and Reincarnation
Drawings of a male and female ghost for a ritual model. The female ghost is furnished with a male partner to keep her happy and distracted; he walks respectfully behind her with his hands tied.
(picture acknowledgement app1.1)
The Akkadian word for ghost or spirit, the sometimes, somehow visible human form that survives death, is eṭemmu, which is a loanword from the older Sumerian word GEDIM with the same meaning. The latter is written with what looks like a particularly elaborate symbol but it actually consists of the cuneiform fraction ‘1/3’ next to two other signs, IŠ and TAR, one written inside the other (which we can best write as IŠxTAR). Ancient Babylonian scholars interpreted the IŠ and TAR signs as the Sumerian words for ‘dust,’ and ‘street,’ either thinking of a ghost along the lines of our ‘dust into dust,’ or perhaps rather some evanescent phenomenon. Either idea makes sense, but no one seems to have explained what the ‘1/3’ element is doing. There is also a second, closely similar sign to GEDIM, which consists of the fraction ‘2/3’ placed next to IŠxTAR. This latter sign is pronounced UDUG in Sumerian, borrowed into Akkadian as utukku, and it is the name of a particular kind of troublesome evil demon. Two similar signs for two ‘shady’ entities, a ghost and a demon.
It has occurred to me that the signs IŠxTAR – notwithstanding the ancient interpretation above, can also be understood as a ‘fancy’ writing of the Akkadian noun ištar, ‘goddess’ (that is, a female divinity, not the famous goddess Ishtar). The sign as a whole could therefore mean that a ghost is either one-third goddess in make-up, or in itself constitutes one third of a goddess. Similarly an utukku demon is either two-thirds goddess in make-up or in itself represents two-thirds of a goddess.
Simple understanding comes if we conclude that the ghost or spirit represents one third of the make-up of what was the living person, and that this is somehow equivalent to female divinity. The lost two-thirds is therefore flesh and blood.
With an utukku demon, which does not teeter on the live-and-die fulcrum, the proportion of feminine divinity is two-thirds. The remaining third, whatever that might be, cannot therefore be analogous to flesh and blood, but is alien and enduring.
Just from the cuneiform sign itself, therefore, we can infer the following suggestive equation:
man = flesh and blood + divinity
Tablet I of the Old Babylonian Atrahasis Epic describes the creation of man by the goddess Nintu out of the body of a slaughtered god. Here are the two passages in translation:
Let the one god be slaughtered
So that all the gods may be cleansed by immersion.
Let Nintu mix clay with his flesh and blood,
Let god and man be thoroughly mixed in the clay,
So that we may hear a heartbeat for the rest of time
Let there be spirit (eṭemmu) from the god’s flesh.
Let it proclaim living (man) as its sign,
So that this not be forgotten let there be spirit (eṭemmu).
Atrahasis I: 208–17
They slaughtered We-ilu, who had reason (ṭēmu),
in their assembly.
Nintu mixed clay with his flesh and blood;
For the rest [of time they heard a heartbeat],
From the flesh of the god [there was] spirit (eṭemmu).
It proclaimed living (man) as its sign,
And so that this was not forgotten [there was] spirit (eṭemmu)
Mankind according to this account is composed of three divine constituents out of the sacrificed god We-ilu: flesh and blood and reason (ṭēmu). Clay, mixed with flesh and blood and animated by ṭēmu, generates the human spirit and institutes man’s first and never-to-be-interrupted heartbeat. After death it is only the human spirit or eṭemmu that endures, while the body – the other two-thirds of ‘clay’ – returns to the earth.
The Atrahasis passage thus articulates the idea that ṭēmu (reason) is the crucial component of eṭemmu (human spirit) at the very birth of mankind. The strange name of the sacrificed god, We-ilu, clearly embodies this idea: it is the ‘we-’ element (before ilu, ‘god’) that, added to ṭēmu, produces eṭemmu:
we + ṭēmu = eṭemmu
One of the known cuneiform source tablets for Atrahasis Tablet I actually writes weṭemmu instead of eṭemmu for spirit in this passage, which has usually been dismissed as an error, but I think it is deliberate and meaningful.
There is also interplay between the Sumerian and Akkadian words, for ṭēmu in Akkadian is connected with Sumerian DIMMA, and GEDIM with eṭemmu, although the linguistic affiliations are a conundrum. The words ṭēmu and eṭemmu, so crucially intertwined at creation, were ever after linked with one another. On such a fundamental matter there is, naturally, Babylonian textual speculation available. Let us investigate by looking over the shoulder of a learned ummānu (teacher) in about 300 BC. This is real cuneiform stuff, but nothing to be afraid of.
We find our teacher talking about the name of the disease called Hand of a Ghost, which is ŠU.GEDIM.MA in Sumerian, qāt eṭemmi in Akkadian, to a handful of advanced students. The teacher defines the nature of an eṭemmu from ‘inside’ its very name, but in a way quite different from what I have just been doing. To separate out words and ideas he uses two wedges one on top of the other exactly as we employ a colon, and adds explanations in tiny gloss script, here printed above the line. Sumerian words are in capital letters and Akkadian in italic, for it is important not to lose sight of which is which.
GEDIM is normally written with the complex sign drawn above. Here the scribe makes use of a second, much rarer sign for this word, which can be pronounced the same way, and which we differentiate as GEDIM2: Although GEDIM™ is actually one sign made up of three wedges the teacher for present purposes considers it formed of two parts, BAR (the ‘cross’ part) and U (the single diagonal).
Here is what he wrote on the tablet:
GI-DI-IM GEDIM2 (BAR.U) : eṭemmu(GEDIM) : pe-tu-u uznē(GEŠTUGII) : BAR : pe-tu-u
UBU-UR : uz-nu : e-ṭem-me : qa-bu-ú ṭè-e-me
E : qa-bu-u : KADE-EM4-MAHI : ṭè-e-me
There are two beautiful techniques involved. The first extracts meaning in Akkadian by literally deconstructing a Sumerian sign. The second is more sophisticated: it extracts meaning in Akkadian out of the Sumerian meanings of the syllables used to spell an Akkadian word. Words in bold all occur in the commentary text; everything in brackets is me trying to make it clear for cuneiform apprentices.
TECHNIQUE 1
(The Sumerian sign) GEDIM™ (pronounced) gi-di-im [consisting, as noted, of ‘BAR’ plus ‘U’] is the same as (Sumerian) GEDIM (eṭemmu, Akkadian ‘ghost’ or ‘spirit’). The latter means pētū uznē (Akkadian ‘those that open ears’) [in the explanation the word uznē, ‘ears,’ is written with the Sumerian ideogram] GEŠTUGII (because the) BAR (part of GEDIM™ in Sumerian) means petū (Akkadian ‘to open,’ and the) U (part of GEDIM™, when pronounced) bu-ur [because U has multiple values] has the meaning uznu (Akkadian ‘ear’).
TECHNIQUE 2
e-ṭem-me (this simple, syllabic spelling of the Akkadian word eṭemmu can itself be ‘interpreted’ as Akkadian) meaning qabū ṭēme (Akkadian for anything from ‘giving orders’ to ’speaking with intelligence). This is possible because taking the first Akkadian syllable e- as Sumerian) gives us the capital E which equates with qabū (Akkadian ‘to speak).’ In Sumerian there is a word DIMMA written with two signs together as if a single sign, one KA, the other HI, together pronounced de-em4-ma. (The Sumerian word DIMMA) means ṭēme (Akkadian ‘order, information, mind, intelligence’). The words for ghost in the two languages can be shown to mean those that open the ear and speak with intelligence.
In this deft way, using associative meaning plucked out of the heart of the signs, a true scholar teaches how the troublesome eṭemmu spirit enters the patient’s ear when he is asleep. This invasion can bring about the condition known as šinīt ṭēmi, lit. ‘changing of reason,’ which interferes with the normal pattern of a person’s mind and behaviour, as shown by this description of the condition:
If šinīt ṭēmi affects a person and the balance of his reason is disturbed, his words are strange, his faculties fail him
and he raves all the time …
Having got so far we can consider another ancient exposition, this time interpreting a medical omen. This particular omen is the first line of a great, multi-tablet compilation:
If an exorcist sees a kiln-fired brick on the way to a sick person’s house the sick person will die.
The outcome of a patient’s condition can thus be foretold from what he happens to pass by in the street before he even gets to the house! What he sees is not an obvious ‘bad sign,’ such as encountering a violent road accident on the way to an exam might appear to us. It is something very different and very Mesopotamian. Another brilliant Babylonian had the most interesting ideas about what it really meant. Here most words are Sumerian ideograms, so I have included the Akkadian readings in brackets:
The omen: šumma (DIŠ) agurru (SIG4.AL.ÙR.RA) īmur (IGI) murṣu (GIG) imāt (UG7)
There follow three separate explanations lines.
Explanation 1: kayyān (SAG.ÚS) normal meaning (Akkadian kayyān)
The first interpretation is that the text means what it says: the exorcist sees a baked brick. Babylon was full of baked bricks and there must be some focal point here, such as the doctor treading on a sharp upturned fragment, which hurt him through his sandal, or seeing a brick dangerously dislodged from a wall. This would be discussed, but not recorded, for it is obvious.
Explanation 2: šá-niš amēlu (LÚ) šá ina hur-sa-an i-tu-ra
A : me-e : GUR : ta-a-ra
Secondly it means a man who returned from the river-ordeal (Akkadian amēlu šá ina hursān itūra)
The second interpretation is deeper; the brick is interpreted as a man who has survived the water ordeal, a primitive legal device not unlike the medieval European stool, which establishes guilt or otherwise by dunking. This meaning is accomplished by a very sophisticated device. The Akkadian word for baked brick is agurru. This word is not written here syllabically but with the Sumerian ideogram with the same meaning, SIG4.AL.ÙR.RA. The commentator supplies the Babylonian equivalent agurru, takes the syllables ‘a’ and ‘gur’ from it and uses their Sumerian meanings. Sumerian A is ‘water,’ and Sumerian GUR is ‘to return,’ thus allowing the Akkadian paraphrase, ‘returned from the water.’
Explanation 3: šal-šiš arītu (MUNUS.PEŠ4) : A ma-ru :
ki-irkìr (GUR4) : ka-ra-ṣa
Thirdly it means a pregnant woman (Akkadian arītu)
To show that the brick can mean a pregnant woman requires further mental dexterity. The teacher returns to the ‘a’ and ‘gur’ of agurru, ‘brick,’ and supplies different Sumerian meanings. Sumerian A, in addition to ‘water,’ can mean ‘semen’ and ‘son.’ Starting with GUR, the homophonic tendencies of cuneiform mean that there are several quite different-looking ‘gur’ signs, including GUR4, which is the one he chooses. This sign GUR4 can itself be pronounced in more than one way: when pronounced ‘kir,’ as shown by the gloss ki-ir, it corresponds to the Akkadian verb karāṣu, ‘to nip off a piece of clay,’ a verb which tellingly is used of the creation of mankind in Akkadian mythological compositions. Thus we arrive at ‘one who is making a son out of basic clay.’
The teacher who produced this deft display of cuneiform exegesis was of rare ability. There is, however, more to be explained. What should we take from his interpretations of the brick in the street as passers by? The hurrying doctor would be unaware that he had bypassed an ordeal survivor or a pregnant woman (for a pregnant woman who had to be publically outdoors would certainly dress modestly). The force of the explanation is that he saw a man who had evaded death – cheating the underworld assistants of a body who were waiting to claim him as he drowned – or a woman in the very process of engendering new life. Either means that the death of the patient is required in compensation. The clear implication, although this point too is apparently nowhere articulated in ancient Mesopotamian writings, is that for a new life to come into the world someone first must die. There is a simple beauty about this idea, which, to me, is irresistible. I imagine that contemplation of it could be a great solace to many people who are aware that they are soon to die.
To me this discloses an unacknowledged Mesopotamian system of reincarnation. The bodiless, personality-bearing one-third matter that remains after death – equal in some way to female divinity – sustains the eṭemmu spirit in a recyclable state until needed for a new birth. It suggests the underlying conception of a finite number of human spirits in circulation, reflecting the idea that the material of life, like any other natural resource, and especially water, is not boundless. It does seem hard to divorce this spirit from what is usually referred to, in common understanding, as a soul.