Word study: Saḫar kur-ra (Paper read in Germany, July 2015)

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hey e n e n u r u -






I would like to share a paper I read in Zingst, Germany. This was during my year in Jena. It was the first paper I have read and this was an intimidating experience, there were perhaps 13-15 people in the room, but some very important scholars were among them. As a topic, I choose to investigate a problem that came up here on enenuru many years ago.. In fact, post one on the [http://enenuru.proboards.com/thread/365/literary-cosmological-esoterica]literary and cosmological esoterica[/thread]. So what is the topic, well, it is captured in the original post: the vision of the Shukaletuda, from the myth "Inanna and Shukaletuda." As I said in 2011: "the sequence which occurs shortly there after, which involves the stormwind and the dirt of the mountain, which enter Shukaletuda's eyes , seems to empower him with vision of the divine realms...." For a full explanation, I invite reader to review post 1 on the above linked thread.


Positive aspects of my talk - I am pleased with certain aspects of the paper, I was able to summarize and distill some interesting scholarship on the Netherworld and characters of the story, offering my own views key points. I call it a 'word study' as the key phrase in the Shukaletuda's vision, saḫar kur-ra, 'dust of the netherworld' was examined and nuanced.


Disappointments: I was disappointed to find basically nothing in terms of a smoking gun or a definite indicator of whether the dust of the netherworld may have triggered the vision sequence - in effect, after quite a bit of research and contemplation I am unable to demonstrate my theory. The paper was meant for a talk and is not as developed or nuanced as a paper intended for publication.



www.enenuru.net/pdfs/McGrath%20-%20sahar%20kur-ra%20word%20study%20(enenuru%20version).pdf