Edena-usagake - A Text Report
Feb 2, 2013 12:52:13 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Feb 2, 2013 12:52:13 GMT -5
Thread Orientation: In the following thread I have posted a text report I did for class.
For NMC347, a class on ancient Mesopotamian history, I have completed a text report on the Old Babylonian balag lamentation know as Edena-usagake. A text report is simply writing 3 or 4 pages on the nature of a text of the students choosing.
I chose this particular text because of the possible involvement of incorporeal entities, according to Jacobsen (a topic I enjoy). There are of course many details and connections I would have liked to have added, but as it is my report was 7 pages, 3 pages over the maximum and I may loose marks for that. Ah well.
If someone should be particularly interested in the gala priests and their balag lamentations, please consult further posts 12 and 13 of this thread. Typed up examples of balag lamentations from Cohen 1988 appear here
Edena-usagake or In the Steepe, in the Early Grass… is a long and relatively well persevered text from the balag lamentation genre, and is known from Old Babylonian and Neo Assyrian tablets. The balag lamentations, which have been studied extensively by Mark Cohen(1), have been found broadly comparable in content and structure to the more widely known city laments such as The Ur Lament, or The Lament over Sumer and Ur; for example, both text genres are divided by a system of line breaks referred to as kirugus (and occasionally, a gišgigal)(2).
The balag lamentations have a major distinction in that texts from this genre were composed in the emesal dialect of Sumerian, a dialect limited to a smaller number of texts which also include the eršemma, several incantation-hymns, some proverbs, and numerous texts relating to the goddess Inanna.(3)
The survival of the composition Edena-usagake may largely
be due to its nature as an emesal text, as Cohen explains, with the rise of the Kassites main dialect Sumerian compositions ceased to be transmitted for the most part, while bilingual texts and the emesal genres enjoyed renewed transmission. (4) The author insightfully explains that while main dialect Sumerian texts were the domain of the royal court, the emesal texts were in contrast “almost totally rooted in a specific religious institution ”and so enjoyed continuing relevance. Cohen here refers to the gala-priest, a professional lamenter and a priest who carried out funerary functions (see below).
Textual Sources:
Edena-usagake is preserved on the Following Old Babylonian and 1st millennium sources(5) :
The OB version comes from the tablet VAT 00611 (representing joins VAT 00611, VAT 00612 and VAT 01371) of unknown provenance, which is now housed at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. It was first published by Heinrich Zimmern in 1912. The 1st millennium sources constitute a later recension and date primarly to Neo-Assyrian period Kunyunjik, the library of Ashurbanipal. VAT 255 and VAT 402 come from Hellenistic period Babylon.(6)
Collating Edena-usagake was a long and difficult task for scholars, as Jacobsen once put it, the text was remarkably “disjunct and diverse” having been “put together from many and various sources” even in antiquity.(7) Despite theological divergences, the effort to restore the OB text benefited greatly from comparison with the 1st millennium sources.(8)
The Context and Religious Background of Edena-usagake:
As explained above, the emesal balag lamentations were the reserve of the gala-priests. These professionals are attested already in 3rd and 2nd millennium texts as lamentation priests who presided over funerary rituals (among other responsibilities).(9) One of their roles was to play the balag instrument (from which the balag lamentations get their name) and a Gudea inscription connects the gala with the playing of the instrument in the graveyard of the city. (10) Evidence from the colophons of late period emesal lamentations confirms that the gala-priests were writing and rehearsing these texts, an association which can reasonably be assumed for earlier periods as well. (11)
Edena-usagake derives its form, substance and rasion d’étre from the actual ritual laments of the dying gods, particularly Dumuzi/Damu, a syncretic pair at home in the Steppe and in lower Euphrates in the region of the orchard growers, respectively. (12) The setting for the story is the steppe land, Sumerian EDIN / Akkadian ṣeru it was also called Arali. It was located “between Badtibira and Uruk,” and was the area where Dumuzi would graze his sheep and ultimately where he met his death. (13) Possibly due to the heavy mythology associated with Arali, any concrete geographical association with Arali was lost and by the Old Babylonian period Arali became synonymous with the netherworld, or in some cases, with the one way road to the netherworld. (14)
Fitting soundly into the greater narrative of the myth of Inanna’s descent (and the subsequent death of Dumuzi), the lamentations for the dying god demonstrate the Mesopotamian response to changing of the seasons and the drying up of vegetation expressed mytho-poetically in the “death” and journey to the netherworld of these gods of vegetable fertility.
Plot Structure of Edina-usagake:
Jacobsen described the structure of this lamentation as “a sequence of themes” rather than a simple narrative, a description that fits a text which is actually an amalgamation of the ritual lamentations from the cult of several dying gods. (15)
In the 1st and 2nd kirugu, the sister issues a lament for the young Damu; in the 3rd, the libir demon takes the son from his mothers lap; in the 4th and 5th kirugus, the mother goddess searches for her son – the demons bind the hands of Dumuzi (as in Inanna’s Descent); the next kirugus are difficult to interpret; in the 9th kirugu, the mother calls out in the steppe – the son
cannot answer. In a character revealing self-reflection, the dying god states fatalistically: “I shall never (be able to) answer her. I am not new grass, sprouting in the steppe” (although on his rebirth, of course, he is.) The 10th kirugu discusses the burial site of Dumuzi, Damu and Ningishzida, and mentions the “burial place of lords” where Amar-sin (Bur-sin), Ishme-dagan, Lipit Ishtar, and Ur-Ninurta are said to be buried. The association between the final resting place of the dying gods and the Ur III and Isin kings may relate to the Sacred Marriage ritual, and the kings ritual identification with Dumuzi in order to court Inanna.
Difficulties of Interpretation: Incorporeal Entities
In kirugu 4 the mother searches for her son along the “Road-which-Destroys-Him-who-Walks-It” and in a place “towards the … of all the lords” and towards the settlements of the gudus.” The first location, analogous with “The road of no return” indicates that the mother is searching in the steppe, in Arali. (16) The second two, when compared to the descriptions of the “burial place of lords” in kirugu 10, are transparently referring the same area, Arali.
The setting is thus set for a fascinating but problematic sequence that occurs in kirugu 5, one that presents difficulties for philologists and students of Mesopotamian religion alike. In 1987, Jacobsen translated the next lines as:
“The wind blew off a pure reed, from the gipar. The wind blew off a pure reed, the lad, from the gipar.”
While Cohen 1988 translated:
“Do not let the wind… the lapis lazuli… from the gipar! Oh, do not let the wind.. the lapis lazuli.. from the gipar!”
The main difference in interpretation seems to hinge on the Sumerian word za-gin3 which is usually translated “lapis lazuli” but which Jacobsen has translated as “pure reed.” Perhaps Cohen’s reading here may be favored, as a text dealing with the Sacred Marriage (TRS 60) states that Dumuzi would meet Inanna “at the lapis lazuli door which stands in the Gipar.”(17) Hence the wind blows from the Gipar, perhaps from the lapis lazuli doors of the inner ritual structure. But what is the wind?
Cohen translates and interprets the next few lines rather prosaically, wherein the poet simply asks “are you not the southwind? are you not the northwind?” and there is no sense we are dealing a spirit here. Jacobsen, on the other hand, demonstrates what may be seen as interpretive brilliance with these lines when he translates:
“Since I am one lying in the south winds, lying in all the north winds, since I am lying in the little ones that sink ships, since I am lying in the big ones that drown the crops, since I am lying in the lightnings and in tornados, she should not where (I) [Dumuzi], the lad, am!”
Hence Jacobsen interprets that we are dealing with the dead Dumuzi’s spirit in the form of wind, which is blowing with other winds.
Jacobsen’s take on this difficult and obscure portion of Edina usagake finds strong conceptual support from a related text known as The Messenger and the Maiden. Reconstructed from the OB texts BM 24975 and TIM 9 15, it was treated by Kramer in 1977, by Alster 1985 and has been thoroughly discussed in recent times by Dina Katz.
In essence, the text is a funerary ritual meant to send the spirit on its way. BM 24975 contains a portion of the basic text of this ritual, while TIM 9 15 contains lines from this funerary ritual followed by a dividing line and then lines from the start of Edina-usagake. As a result of this arrangement, scholars have struggled to interpret whether the Messenger and the Maiden actually is part of the lamentation text or not. Alster has suggested that this is actually a case of the re interpretation of literary material however,(18) and Katz sees lines containing the epithets of Dumuzi as an attempt to “harmonize” the text with the Dumuzi laments. (19) In other words, this originally independent text was adapted for use in the Edina-usagake texts. Hence, the actors, who remain unnamed in the original funerary text, can only be seen as Dumuzi and Inanna through this textual association.
The direct relevance of this text is in its description of the dead man as wind. The “messenger” (the ghost) comes to visit the “maiden” (his sister, mother, or wife) who proceeds to make funerary offerings on his behalf in an attempt to send his soul on. The crucial lines come from TIM 9 15 and read:
“I poured water, I poured it onto the ground, he drank it. With my sweet oil I anointed the wall. With my new garment I dressed his chair. The wind entered, the wind went out.” (20)
The purpose of this ritual and that of comparable ritual texts is the maiden’s sending or “release” of the spirit, “the wind.” Interestingly, Katz has noted that cryptic (or poetic) lines from Edina-usagake (SK 26 v24) are likely to refer to this when the dying god begs: “I am indeed a handcuffed lad, may she say my ‘release him”. (21) Taken together, new evidence from funerary texts which explain the human spirit using the metaphor of wind, and the surfacing of a tablet which adapts a funerary text into the Edena-usagake narrative, together with cryptic passages from the text itself, lend support for Jacobsen’s rendition of the 5th kirugu and his interpretation of the wind from the Giparu.
NOTES:
1 The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia 1988 – Mark Cohen.
2 Cohen 1988 pg. 34-39
3 Cohen 1988 pg. 11
4 ibid. pg. 12/13. Citing Hallo 1976, Cohen describes a point in the Kassite period where Akkadian had become the dominant literary medium, relegating Sumerian to irrelevance. While an intellectual renaissance seems to have occurred a few centuries later, it was too late to save many of the main dialect Sumerian compositions from extinction; a select number of main dialect Sumerian texts were given Akkadian interlinear translations and became bilingual texts entering canonization.
5 Following Cohen 1988 pg. 668
6 with reference to the CDLI (Cuneiform Digital Library) www.cdli.ucla.edu/
7 Jacobsen 1987 pg. 56
8 Alster 1988 pg. 26 notes that Dumuzi had become responsible for taking diseases down to the netherworld in the later periods, so late period Edena-usagake texts place more emphasis on Dumuzi’s suffering than earlier versions.
9 Cohen 1988 pg. 13
10 ibid.
11 ibid.
12 While Dumuzid was a shepherd deity he was also associated with the fertility of the vegetation of the non-irrigated steppe lands; his mythology became confused and confounded with that of Damu, the son of Ningishzida and god of the orchard growers on south Euphrates. See Dalley 1991 pg. 31, Jacobsen 1987 pg 56/1976 pg. 342 n. 8
13 Katz 2003 pg. 2
14 Katz 2003 pg 2. n3 /pg. 44
15 Jacobson 1987 pg. 56
16 Arali had become synonymous with the netherworld in this period, but the association is more specifically entrance to the netherworld: an OB incantation states: “In the arali the path is laid out for them. In the grave the gate is open for them. They leave toward the gate of sunset.” Katz 2003 pg. 44
17 See Jacobsen 1970 pg. 375 n. 32
18 Alster 1985 pg. 23
19 Katz 2003 pg. 12
20 Alster 1985 pg. 30
21 Katz discusses the Messenger and the Maiden together with a related text Lulil and his Sister in her 2003 work, pgs. 197-211. This particular observation comes from Katz 2007 pg 175 n. 27
Alster, B. 1988. E d i n – n a ú-s a g – g á: Reconstruction, History and Interpretation of a Sumerian Cultic Lament pgs. 19-32 in Keilschriftliche Literaturen: Ausgewahlte Vortrage der XXXII, Recontre Assyriologique Internationale. eds. Hartmut Kuhne, Hans Jorg Nissen and Johannes Renger. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag
Cohen, M. 1988 The canonical lamentations of ancient Mesopotamia. Potomac Md : Capital decisions
Jacobsen, T. 1976. The treasures of darkness : a history of Mesopotamian religion. New Haven : Yale University Press
Jacobsen, T. 1987. The Harps that once-- : Sumerian poetry in translation. New Haven : Yale University Press
Jacobsen, T. 1970. Toward the image of Tammuz and other essays on Mesopotamian history and culture. Cambridge, Harvard University Press
Katz, D. 2002. The image of the netherworld in the Sumerian sources. Bethesda, MD : CDL Press
Katz, D. 2007. Sumerian Funerary Rituals in Context pgs. 167-187 in Performing Death: Social Analysis of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean. ed. Nicola Laneri. Chicago, Ill. : The Oriental Inst.of the Univ
For NMC347, a class on ancient Mesopotamian history, I have completed a text report on the Old Babylonian balag lamentation know as Edena-usagake. A text report is simply writing 3 or 4 pages on the nature of a text of the students choosing.
I chose this particular text because of the possible involvement of incorporeal entities, according to Jacobsen (a topic I enjoy). There are of course many details and connections I would have liked to have added, but as it is my report was 7 pages, 3 pages over the maximum and I may loose marks for that. Ah well.
If someone should be particularly interested in the gala priests and their balag lamentations, please consult further posts 12 and 13 of this thread. Typed up examples of balag lamentations from Cohen 1988 appear here
Edena-usagake and Related Texts
Edena-usagake or In the Steepe, in the Early Grass… is a long and relatively well persevered text from the balag lamentation genre, and is known from Old Babylonian and Neo Assyrian tablets. The balag lamentations, which have been studied extensively by Mark Cohen(1), have been found broadly comparable in content and structure to the more widely known city laments such as The Ur Lament, or The Lament over Sumer and Ur; for example, both text genres are divided by a system of line breaks referred to as kirugus (and occasionally, a gišgigal)(2).
The balag lamentations have a major distinction in that texts from this genre were composed in the emesal dialect of Sumerian, a dialect limited to a smaller number of texts which also include the eršemma, several incantation-hymns, some proverbs, and numerous texts relating to the goddess Inanna.(3)
The survival of the composition Edena-usagake may largely
be due to its nature as an emesal text, as Cohen explains, with the rise of the Kassites main dialect Sumerian compositions ceased to be transmitted for the most part, while bilingual texts and the emesal genres enjoyed renewed transmission. (4) The author insightfully explains that while main dialect Sumerian texts were the domain of the royal court, the emesal texts were in contrast “almost totally rooted in a specific religious institution ”and so enjoyed continuing relevance. Cohen here refers to the gala-priest, a professional lamenter and a priest who carried out funerary functions (see below).
Textual Sources:
Edena-usagake is preserved on the Following Old Babylonian and 1st millennium sources(5) :
Old Babylonian:
VAT 611 (VAS 2 26)
1st millennium:
Ni 1364 (SLTNi 71), K. 3311 (BA 10 30), K.3479 (BA 5 30),
K.4903+Sm.2148 (4r2 30 2), K.4950 (4R2 27 1 and p.6), K. 4954,
Rm.220 (ZA 40 p. 86), Sm. 1366 (ASKT 16), Sm. 1718
VAT 255 (SBH 80), VAT 402 (SBH 37)
VAT 611 (VAS 2 26)
1st millennium:
Ni 1364 (SLTNi 71), K. 3311 (BA 10 30), K.3479 (BA 5 30),
K.4903+Sm.2148 (4r2 30 2), K.4950 (4R2 27 1 and p.6), K. 4954,
Rm.220 (ZA 40 p. 86), Sm. 1366 (ASKT 16), Sm. 1718
VAT 255 (SBH 80), VAT 402 (SBH 37)
The OB version comes from the tablet VAT 00611 (representing joins VAT 00611, VAT 00612 and VAT 01371) of unknown provenance, which is now housed at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. It was first published by Heinrich Zimmern in 1912. The 1st millennium sources constitute a later recension and date primarly to Neo-Assyrian period Kunyunjik, the library of Ashurbanipal. VAT 255 and VAT 402 come from Hellenistic period Babylon.(6)
Collating Edena-usagake was a long and difficult task for scholars, as Jacobsen once put it, the text was remarkably “disjunct and diverse” having been “put together from many and various sources” even in antiquity.(7) Despite theological divergences, the effort to restore the OB text benefited greatly from comparison with the 1st millennium sources.(8)
The Context and Religious Background of Edena-usagake:
As explained above, the emesal balag lamentations were the reserve of the gala-priests. These professionals are attested already in 3rd and 2nd millennium texts as lamentation priests who presided over funerary rituals (among other responsibilities).(9) One of their roles was to play the balag instrument (from which the balag lamentations get their name) and a Gudea inscription connects the gala with the playing of the instrument in the graveyard of the city. (10) Evidence from the colophons of late period emesal lamentations confirms that the gala-priests were writing and rehearsing these texts, an association which can reasonably be assumed for earlier periods as well. (11)
Edena-usagake derives its form, substance and rasion d’étre from the actual ritual laments of the dying gods, particularly Dumuzi/Damu, a syncretic pair at home in the Steppe and in lower Euphrates in the region of the orchard growers, respectively. (12) The setting for the story is the steppe land, Sumerian EDIN / Akkadian ṣeru it was also called Arali. It was located “between Badtibira and Uruk,” and was the area where Dumuzi would graze his sheep and ultimately where he met his death. (13) Possibly due to the heavy mythology associated with Arali, any concrete geographical association with Arali was lost and by the Old Babylonian period Arali became synonymous with the netherworld, or in some cases, with the one way road to the netherworld. (14)
Fitting soundly into the greater narrative of the myth of Inanna’s descent (and the subsequent death of Dumuzi), the lamentations for the dying god demonstrate the Mesopotamian response to changing of the seasons and the drying up of vegetation expressed mytho-poetically in the “death” and journey to the netherworld of these gods of vegetable fertility.
Plot Structure of Edina-usagake:
Jacobsen described the structure of this lamentation as “a sequence of themes” rather than a simple narrative, a description that fits a text which is actually an amalgamation of the ritual lamentations from the cult of several dying gods. (15)
In the 1st and 2nd kirugu, the sister issues a lament for the young Damu; in the 3rd, the libir demon takes the son from his mothers lap; in the 4th and 5th kirugus, the mother goddess searches for her son – the demons bind the hands of Dumuzi (as in Inanna’s Descent); the next kirugus are difficult to interpret; in the 9th kirugu, the mother calls out in the steppe – the son
cannot answer. In a character revealing self-reflection, the dying god states fatalistically: “I shall never (be able to) answer her. I am not new grass, sprouting in the steppe” (although on his rebirth, of course, he is.) The 10th kirugu discusses the burial site of Dumuzi, Damu and Ningishzida, and mentions the “burial place of lords” where Amar-sin (Bur-sin), Ishme-dagan, Lipit Ishtar, and Ur-Ninurta are said to be buried. The association between the final resting place of the dying gods and the Ur III and Isin kings may relate to the Sacred Marriage ritual, and the kings ritual identification with Dumuzi in order to court Inanna.
Difficulties of Interpretation: Incorporeal Entities
In kirugu 4 the mother searches for her son along the “Road-which-Destroys-Him-who-Walks-It” and in a place “towards the … of all the lords” and towards the settlements of the gudus.” The first location, analogous with “The road of no return” indicates that the mother is searching in the steppe, in Arali. (16) The second two, when compared to the descriptions of the “burial place of lords” in kirugu 10, are transparently referring the same area, Arali.
The setting is thus set for a fascinating but problematic sequence that occurs in kirugu 5, one that presents difficulties for philologists and students of Mesopotamian religion alike. In 1987, Jacobsen translated the next lines as:
“The wind blew off a pure reed, from the gipar. The wind blew off a pure reed, the lad, from the gipar.”
While Cohen 1988 translated:
“Do not let the wind… the lapis lazuli… from the gipar! Oh, do not let the wind.. the lapis lazuli.. from the gipar!”
The main difference in interpretation seems to hinge on the Sumerian word za-gin3 which is usually translated “lapis lazuli” but which Jacobsen has translated as “pure reed.” Perhaps Cohen’s reading here may be favored, as a text dealing with the Sacred Marriage (TRS 60) states that Dumuzi would meet Inanna “at the lapis lazuli door which stands in the Gipar.”(17) Hence the wind blows from the Gipar, perhaps from the lapis lazuli doors of the inner ritual structure. But what is the wind?
Cohen translates and interprets the next few lines rather prosaically, wherein the poet simply asks “are you not the southwind? are you not the northwind?” and there is no sense we are dealing a spirit here. Jacobsen, on the other hand, demonstrates what may be seen as interpretive brilliance with these lines when he translates:
“Since I am one lying in the south winds, lying in all the north winds, since I am lying in the little ones that sink ships, since I am lying in the big ones that drown the crops, since I am lying in the lightnings and in tornados, she should not where (I) [Dumuzi], the lad, am!”
Hence Jacobsen interprets that we are dealing with the dead Dumuzi’s spirit in the form of wind, which is blowing with other winds.
Jacobsen’s take on this difficult and obscure portion of Edina usagake finds strong conceptual support from a related text known as The Messenger and the Maiden. Reconstructed from the OB texts BM 24975 and TIM 9 15, it was treated by Kramer in 1977, by Alster 1985 and has been thoroughly discussed in recent times by Dina Katz.
In essence, the text is a funerary ritual meant to send the spirit on its way. BM 24975 contains a portion of the basic text of this ritual, while TIM 9 15 contains lines from this funerary ritual followed by a dividing line and then lines from the start of Edina-usagake. As a result of this arrangement, scholars have struggled to interpret whether the Messenger and the Maiden actually is part of the lamentation text or not. Alster has suggested that this is actually a case of the re interpretation of literary material however,(18) and Katz sees lines containing the epithets of Dumuzi as an attempt to “harmonize” the text with the Dumuzi laments. (19) In other words, this originally independent text was adapted for use in the Edina-usagake texts. Hence, the actors, who remain unnamed in the original funerary text, can only be seen as Dumuzi and Inanna through this textual association.
The direct relevance of this text is in its description of the dead man as wind. The “messenger” (the ghost) comes to visit the “maiden” (his sister, mother, or wife) who proceeds to make funerary offerings on his behalf in an attempt to send his soul on. The crucial lines come from TIM 9 15 and read:
“I poured water, I poured it onto the ground, he drank it. With my sweet oil I anointed the wall. With my new garment I dressed his chair. The wind entered, the wind went out.” (20)
The purpose of this ritual and that of comparable ritual texts is the maiden’s sending or “release” of the spirit, “the wind.” Interestingly, Katz has noted that cryptic (or poetic) lines from Edina-usagake (SK 26 v24) are likely to refer to this when the dying god begs: “I am indeed a handcuffed lad, may she say my ‘release him”. (21) Taken together, new evidence from funerary texts which explain the human spirit using the metaphor of wind, and the surfacing of a tablet which adapts a funerary text into the Edena-usagake narrative, together with cryptic passages from the text itself, lend support for Jacobsen’s rendition of the 5th kirugu and his interpretation of the wind from the Giparu.
NOTES:
1 The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia 1988 – Mark Cohen.
2 Cohen 1988 pg. 34-39
3 Cohen 1988 pg. 11
4 ibid. pg. 12/13. Citing Hallo 1976, Cohen describes a point in the Kassite period where Akkadian had become the dominant literary medium, relegating Sumerian to irrelevance. While an intellectual renaissance seems to have occurred a few centuries later, it was too late to save many of the main dialect Sumerian compositions from extinction; a select number of main dialect Sumerian texts were given Akkadian interlinear translations and became bilingual texts entering canonization.
5 Following Cohen 1988 pg. 668
6 with reference to the CDLI (Cuneiform Digital Library) www.cdli.ucla.edu/
7 Jacobsen 1987 pg. 56
8 Alster 1988 pg. 26 notes that Dumuzi had become responsible for taking diseases down to the netherworld in the later periods, so late period Edena-usagake texts place more emphasis on Dumuzi’s suffering than earlier versions.
9 Cohen 1988 pg. 13
10 ibid.
11 ibid.
12 While Dumuzid was a shepherd deity he was also associated with the fertility of the vegetation of the non-irrigated steppe lands; his mythology became confused and confounded with that of Damu, the son of Ningishzida and god of the orchard growers on south Euphrates. See Dalley 1991 pg. 31, Jacobsen 1987 pg 56/1976 pg. 342 n. 8
13 Katz 2003 pg. 2
14 Katz 2003 pg 2. n3 /pg. 44
15 Jacobson 1987 pg. 56
16 Arali had become synonymous with the netherworld in this period, but the association is more specifically entrance to the netherworld: an OB incantation states: “In the arali the path is laid out for them. In the grave the gate is open for them. They leave toward the gate of sunset.” Katz 2003 pg. 44
17 See Jacobsen 1970 pg. 375 n. 32
18 Alster 1985 pg. 23
19 Katz 2003 pg. 12
20 Alster 1985 pg. 30
21 Katz discusses the Messenger and the Maiden together with a related text Lulil and his Sister in her 2003 work, pgs. 197-211. This particular observation comes from Katz 2007 pg 175 n. 27
Bibliography
Alster, B. 1988. E d i n – n a ú-s a g – g á: Reconstruction, History and Interpretation of a Sumerian Cultic Lament pgs. 19-32 in Keilschriftliche Literaturen: Ausgewahlte Vortrage der XXXII, Recontre Assyriologique Internationale. eds. Hartmut Kuhne, Hans Jorg Nissen and Johannes Renger. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag
Cohen, M. 1988 The canonical lamentations of ancient Mesopotamia. Potomac Md : Capital decisions
Jacobsen, T. 1976. The treasures of darkness : a history of Mesopotamian religion. New Haven : Yale University Press
Jacobsen, T. 1987. The Harps that once-- : Sumerian poetry in translation. New Haven : Yale University Press
Jacobsen, T. 1970. Toward the image of Tammuz and other essays on Mesopotamian history and culture. Cambridge, Harvard University Press
Katz, D. 2002. The image of the netherworld in the Sumerian sources. Bethesda, MD : CDL Press
Katz, D. 2007. Sumerian Funerary Rituals in Context pgs. 167-187 in Performing Death: Social Analysis of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean. ed. Nicola Laneri. Chicago, Ill. : The Oriental Inst.of the Univ