« Selective Quotation
Main
I'm a Citation Already »
July 6, 2008
Filling in the Blank
I continue to work on the second line of the colophon of tablet A (STT 40) of the Letter of Gilgamesh. I mentioned the other day that there is a problem in how to reconstruct the first part of this line.
Gurney, 132, reads it,
ša itabbalu dEa(DIŠ) [lit-bal-šu dŠamaš] ēnēII.meš-šú litbal
Whoever takes away (this tablet), may Ea [take him away, may Shamash] take away his eyes!
Hunger, 113, reads it,
ša itabbalu dEa(DIŠ) [šar apsî?] ēnēII.meš-šú litbal
Whoever takes away (this tablet), may Ea, [King of the Deep,] take away his eyes!
The translations are mine.
Both scholars cite colophons on other tablets, including tablets from Sultantepe, in support of their reconstructions. While I think the broken area of the tablet could support either reading, Hunger's reconstruction fits the space a little more comfortably. In addition, I think Hunger's reconstruction provides a smoother and somewhat more coherent understanding. Nonetheless, with the possible exception of this tablet, all of the many examples of colophons that Hunger surveyed with the expression "may DN take away his eyes!" have Shamash as the DN. In one sense, it doesn't matter all that much the exact reading of the line. In another, I'd sure like to know what the tablet actually said.
You might wonder why I insert the words "this tablet" in parentheses in both my translations. Well, the curse as found in this colophon of the Letter of Gilgamesh is a contraction of a very well document, somewhat longer, form that goes like this,
ša ṭuppa šuātu i-tab-ba-lu DN ēnē meš-šu
Whoever takes away this tablet, may DN take away his eyes.
I'm trying to discover if this kind of curse was associated with any particular genre or genres of text. My preliminary observation is that it isn't. Interestingly, I have not found it associated with letters. To be sure, the bodies of letters may contain curses, the Letter of Gilgamesh sure does, and their colophons may contain other curses but as far as I have been able to see, the colophons of letters do not seem to contain this exact kind of curse (please allow me the insertion of a weasel word) typically. But I still have many texts to look at.
On another vaguely related subject: A few readers have speculated on whether or not this letter really is a letter from Gilgamesh to some king. The short answer is "on." As I wrote in a comment on Hot Cup of Joe.
. . . this letter is a wonderful work of fiction. All examples of the text, three badly broken tablets, are from Sultantepe in Turkey. There are no examples from anywhere else. That does not mean that it wasn’t copied elsewhere but it at least contains a suggestion of local origin. The language is neo-Babylonian with neo-Assyrian intrusions or the other way around. It is more or less the same dialect found in other locally produced tablets from Sultantepe. And then there are the unbelievable numbers and the weird requirements ("100 thousand mares whose bodies are marked with the face of the mountain kanaktu, 40 thousand young calves which never stop frolicking, 50 thousand teams of piebald mules, 50 thousands [???] calves with sound hooves and intact horns . .") . . .
Even if this letter purported to come from a Babylonian or Assyrian king (or even a Sumerian king) with a well-documented regal history, the internal evidence would call its authenticity into serious question. But this letter does not purport to come from a Babylonian or Assyrian king, or even just any Sumerian King, it purports to come for Gilgamesh himself. I don't want to get into the question of whether or not memories of a historical Gilgamesh are preserved in the Sumerian king list. I will point out that, in addition to the Gilgamesh Epic, a significant body of additional literature grew around this figure. None of this literature has anything to do with the life of any historical king. That and the approximately 2000 years between his supposed reign and the only known copies of this letter, written in a dialect (perhaps even a language) that no scribe working at the time of a possible historical Gilgamesh had ever heard, are further evidence that this "letter" is, as I said, "a wonderful work of fiction."
Posted by Duane Smith at July 6, 2008 6:58 PM | Read more on Akkadian |
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telecomtally.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2555
Comments
Post a comment
Please read Abnormal Interest's Comments Policy.