« 2000 Year Old Hebrew Scroll
Main
Journals and Abbreviations »
May 7, 2009
Divining A Prayer
The amazing complexity of the cuneiform system used to write Akkadian texts often provides unforeseen rewards to the reader. The ancients were well aware of the richest of the system with its many ways to write what on the surface amounts to the same thing. They often took advantage of this complexity in the most wonderful ways. Very complex puns are part of this richness. So are multiple levels of meaning. Take for example, this omen set from the Assyrian Dream Book (K. 2018A rev '10-'11, Oppenheim, 281). [Sumerograms are in caps; Akkadian or the Akkadian equivalents of the Sumerograms are in italics; determinatives are in superscripts; alternative signs have subscripted numbers.]
If he seizes a fox (KA5.A = šēlibu); he will seize a Lamassu (AN.KAL, but if he seizes a fox, in his hand (ŠU), and it escapes, he will have seized a Lamassu, but it also will escape from his hand (ŠU). (Noegel's, 20, translation)
A Lamassu is a guardian god. Here's what Noegel, 22, says about this,
Though the protasis records the dream image of a fox, which is written with the Sumerogram KA5.A (= Akkadian šēlibu), its interpretation as a Lamassu derives from reading šēlibu as if it were written syllabically, for when written še7-lib-bu, the same signs can be read as (A).AN.KAL-u, i.e. "Lamassu." Moreover, though ŠU here means qātu "hand," one lexical list gives us the equation dLAMMA = dŠU.
There's a lot going on in these omens, puns, multiple meanings of signs, and much of it rests on a very intimate understanding of the writing system. As Noegel suggests, these complexities, particularly the puns, may provide the hermeneutical basis by which various elements of thought were connected. In the case of this set of two omens, the apodoses may "logically" follow from the protases by virtue of the šēlibu / (A).AN.KAL-u pun and may be reinforced by the dLAMMA = dŠU equation. So here, we not only have omens, with their interpretations, and we see, by way of the pun, why their interpretations apply. Sometimes, scribes may just have been showing off when they took advantage of the complexities of their writing system but don't count on it. If you are wondering, the Sumerograms were almost certainly pronounced as if they were Akkadian when read aloud. Modern scholars know the Akkadian equivalents of these Sumerograms from multi-tablet ancient lexical texts that list most of them. There are also occasions when an ideogram was glossed with its syllabic spelling or when it's Akkadian equivalent is clear from a context where a word or phrase is written more than one way. The title of Noegel's paper on this omen set sums up his understanding rather nicely, "Fox on the Run: Catch a Lamassu by the Pun."
Because of all this richness, all this wonderful complexity, every time I seriously study an Akkadian text I vacillate between worrying that I've missed something significant and worrying that I'm seeing something that isn't there.
I'm working my way through a prayer to the god Nusku (Oppenheim, 298) where the supplicant is seeking relief from a possible bad omen in a dream. Oppenheim, 298ff, argues that this prayer and the accompanying ritual were part of the Assyrian Dream Book, series dZiqīqu. Whether one agrees with him on this point or not, it is certainly the case that one can only fully appreciate this prayer and ritual in the context of oneiromancy. Now here is my problem, well one of my problems with this prayer. Line 6 of the prayer reads in my translation,
(A dream) came to me that you (atta) (the god Nusku) understand (Ì.ZU) (but that) I (anaku) do not understand (i-du).
There are a couple of things one might notice about this line. First, the explicit use of the pronouns atta, "you," and anaku, "I," emphasizes the contrast between what the god knows and what the supplicant knows. And second, there's the use of the Sumerogram Ì.ZU. Ì.ZU here almost certainly stands for Akkadian tīdi, "you know," the second person equivalent of idu, "I know." IGI.ZU, along with some common variations, is a common way to write the verb idû, "to know." But, why does the text spell idu out syllabically but use a Sumergram to represent tīdi? Well, I'm not at all sure. It's possible that it's only an issue of efficacy. Spelling tīdi out might be one symbol longer than the syllabic spelling of idu or using Ì.ZU. It's not that the scribes didn't know how to write it syllabically. Here are couple of other possibilities. First, the false phonetic similarity between Ì.ZU and idu seems to me to bind that knowledge together. The knowledge the god has and the lack of knowledge on the part of the supplicant relate to same thing, the interpretation of the dream. But we may also be dealing with multiple meaning. Ì.ZU can, on rare occasion, stand for asû, a physician, or even bārû, a diviner as well as for edû, "to know," in all its various forms. One might even see a relationship between the three meanings. Remember our prayer involves the risk with damning consequence. Nusku knows the portent of the dream even if our supplicant doesn't. Nusku has "divined" the answer. What else would a god do but divine? If this interpretation is correct, then Ì.ZU reflects a couple of levels of meaning. On one level, it means "to know" but, on another, it represents the process divining the meaning of the dream and of making the supplicant whole, healing him.
But the evidence for such an interpretation is weak. As far as I can find, only the lexical series ERIMḪUŠ = anantu V, 137ff, (See CAD A, 344; B, 121) documents an Ì.ZU / asû / bārû equivalence. And even there it just might be a variant for A.ZU, a more common way to write asû and bārû. Hummm! Am I over complicating things or is there an even greater or different depth that I have missed?
References:
Noegel, Scott B, "Fox on the Run: Catch a Lamassu by the Pun," Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires, 1995/96
Oppenheim, A. Leo, "The interpretation of dreams in the ancient Near East, with a translation of an Assyrian dream-book", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Volume 46, Part 3, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1956, 179-373
Posted by Duane Smith at May 7, 2009 10:16 AM | Read more on Akkadian |
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telecomtally.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2868
Comments
Interesting stuff, Duane. The phrase in question reminds me of the stock phrase in other prayers (like er-sha-hun-ga's), "my which I do not know but you [i.e., the god] know."
Posted by: Alan Lenzi at May 7, 2009 5:24 PM
"my SIN"
Posted by: Alan Lenzi at May 7, 2009 5:25 PM
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.
Send me an email if it is important.