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December 18, 2007
The King is Dead, Long Live the King
A couple of days ago I wrote a post that contained several blessings, a few of them from Ugarit. All of those blessing came from letters. But as I indicated there, not all blessings come from letters. KTU 1.161 is a ritual text that begins spr . dbḥ . ẓlm, "Document of the sacrifice of (to) the Shade." Pardee, 86, says of this text, "This is the only explicitly funerary text from Ugarit." He speculates that it was prepared upon the occasion of the Death of Niqmaddu III, the next to last know king of Ugarit. Mourners are called upon the shed tears over some Niqmaddu and Niqmaddu's heir is mentioned in the closing blessing (KTU 1.161:31b-34) that I reproduce and translate here.
[If you see squares, rectangles or something else that doesn't look right, please install the Charis SIL font.]
šlm ʿmr[pr]
w. šlm . bah . (read bth or bnh)
šlm . ṯryl
w. šlm . bth .
šlm . ugart
šlm . ṯģrh
Well-being of ʿAmmurapi
and well-being to his house (or his sons?)
Well-being of Ṯarriyella
and well-being to her house.
Well-being of Ugarit
(and) well-being of her gates.
ʿAmmurapi is likely the last king of Ugarit before it was destroyed in c.1185 BCE and Ṯarriyuella was the queen mother, likely Niqmaddu III's wife or mother. See Pardee, 115, n. 133. I translate the Ugaritic construct state "of" but one more poetic than I might prefer "for" or even "to." Because of the parallel with <bth (her house) I prefer to read bth rather than bnh where the text clearly has bah as a error for one or the other possible readings.
I have some ideas about this blessing but I'm not quite ready to share them just yet. I will say that this blessing reminds me somewhat of a blessing that one reads in several of the Amarna letters, particuarly those from the north. EA 45:2 from Ugarit is an example but EA 41:4-6 from the Hittite king Shuppiluliuma is better preserved. "May all be well (šulmu) for you, may all be well for your wives, you sons, your house, your troops, your chari[ots, and i]n the heart of your country, may all be very well." I'm not suggesting a direct relationship but a only common sentiment.
Reference:
Pardee, Dennis, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit, Writings from the Ancient World, Theodore J. Lewis, ed., Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002
Posted by Duane Smith at December 18, 2007 8:02 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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