Review: Enki and the Theology of Eridu Author(s): William W.

Hallo Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 116, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1996), pp. 231234 Published by: American Oriental Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/605698 . Accessed: 22/09/2011 04:58
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REVIEW ARTICLES

ENKI AND THE THEOLOGY OF ERIDU*

WILLIAM W. HALLO YALE UNIVERSITY Three discrete ideologies may be identified in Sumer: the theologies of Nippur, Lagash, and Eridu. In focusing on the god Enki, the book under review provides the first systematic survey of the third of these theologies. That such a survey can be offered for one major Mesopotamian deity attests to the maturingof Assyriology. ANCIENT EGYTIAN RELIGION VIEWED THE WORLD through three discrete intellectual perspectives which modem Egyptologists have labeled the theologies of Thebes, Heliopolis, and Memphis.1 Similarly, the older Mesopotamian Weltanschauungen can be subsumed under three headings best described as the theologies of Nippur, Lagash, and Eridu.2 The first and oldest of these theologies centered upon Enlil, effectively the head of the Sumerian pantheon, and reflected conditions in Early Dynastic times, a period when Nippur, Enlil's cult city, also served as the religious center of a league of all Sumer (Jacobsen's "Kengir League")3 and later, under the Sargonic and Ur III Dynasties, of Sumer and Akkad.4 It survived into Old Babylonian times when the First Dynasty of Isin tried to present itself as the heir to all Sumerian traditions since the Flood. It was enshrined at this time in the Neo-Sumerian canon as fixed in the scribal schools, particularly at Nippur.s In addition to the hymns, lamentations, and other genres on Enlil and/or his consort Ninlil (or Sud6 or even Ashnan7), the theology of Nippur is exemplified primarily in the Nippur recension of the Sumerian King List.8 The theology of Lagash revolved around Ningirsu, "the lord of Girsu," the capital city of the Lagash citystate, a leading actor in the outgoing Early Dynastic Period and once again in the late Sargonic Period. Lagash was dormant, if not actually suppressed, in the Ur III and early Isin Periods but surfaced once more under the Dynasty of Larsa thereafter. It is reflected in myths * Review articleof: Mythsof Enki,the CraftyGod. By SAMUEL about Ninurta (who took Ningirsu's place in the Nippur NOAH KRAMER and JOHN UNIVERSITY curriculum9); in hymns to Ningirsu's consort Bau or MAIER. Oxford: OXFORD 1989. Pp. viii + 272. $39.95. to the goddess Nanshe who was "born in Eridu,"10 but PRESS, 1 Cf., e.g., James P. Allen, Genesis in Egypt: the Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts, Yale Egyptological 5 W. W. Studies, 2 (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1988), 62. Hallo, "Towarda History of Sumerian Literature," 2 W. W. Hallo, "The Limits of Skepticism,"JAOS 110 (1990): in Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jacobsen, ed. 187-99, esp. pp. 197f.; idem, "SumerianReligion," in kinattutu Stephen J. Lieberman, Assyriological Studies, 20 (Chicago: sa darati: Raphael Kutscher Memorial Volume, ed. Anson F. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1975), 181-203. 6 Miguel Civil, "Enlil and Ninlil: The Marriage of Sud," Rainey, Tel Aviv Occasional Publications, 1 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Univ. Press, 1993), 15-35, esp. pp. 26f. JAOS 103 (1983): 43-66. 7 W. G. Lambert 3 Cf. W. W. Hallo and W. K. Simpson, The Ancient Near apud Civil, ibid., 64-66. East: A History (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 8 W. W. Hallo, "Beginning and End of the Sumerian King List in the Nippur Recension," JCS 17 (1963): 52-57. For the 1971), 38f. and 43. For even earlier evidence of such a league, see now Roger J. Matthews, Cities, Seals and Writing:Archaic latest study of this recension, see Jacob Klein, "A New Nippur Seal Impressions from Jemdet Nasr and Ur, Materialien zu Duplicate of the Sumerian Kinglist...," Aula Orientalis 9 den friihen Schriftzeugnissen des Vorderen Orients, 2 (Berlin: (1991): 123-29. 9 W. W. Hallo, review of Jerrold S. Cooper, The Return of Gebr. Mann, 1993). 4 In the words of the to the of Enlil Ninurta to Nippur, JAOS 101 (1981): 253-57. (Sargonic) hymn temple 10 Wolfgang Heimpel, "The Nanshe Hymn,"JCS 33 (1981): in Nippur, "your right and your left hand are Sumer and Akkad"; cf. Hallo, "Sumerian Religion," 26. 65-139, esp. pp. 82f., line 8. 231

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.2 (1996)

whose cult center had moved from Eridu to Lagash, more specifically to Nina (Sirara)"; in non-Nippur versions of the Sumerian King List, which prefixed an antediluvian section featuring Larsa;and finally in a polemical parody of the Nippur recension of the Sumerian King List, which described the history of the world entirely in terms of Lagash.'2 The theology of Eridu centered on the cult of Enki, the "juniorEnlil" (Enlil-banda)'3of the Sumerian tradition, equated with Ea of the Akkadian tradition. His cult center was at Eridu, and Eridu was the oldest city in fact as well as in tradition (Sumerian, Akkadian, and even Hebrew14).It was thus possible to claim a hoary antiquity for this theology, though, in fact, it was probably not systematized before the middle of the Old Babylonian Period and the rise to prominence of Babylon. Here Marduk, the local deity, was equated with Asarlubi, the son of Enki, and turned, like his Sumerian prototype, into a patron of incantation and magic. The Sumerian flood story, in which Enki bests Enlil to assure the survival of humankind,15was modified to provide a new antediluvian prologue, beginning with Eridu, to the Sumerian King List. A whole host of myths focusing on Enki developed the theme of his solicitude for humanity as a counterweight to the terror inspired by Enlil and his unalterable "word." The book under review speaks of a "theology of Ea" (p. 146). It does not operate with the notion of a "theology of Eridu,"but it provides for the first time a systematic survey of the Sumerian and Akkadian literary texts that go to make it up, i.e., the myths and other compositions about Enki/Ea. It is the product of a col-

11 W. W. Hallo, "Back to the Big House: Colloquial Sumerian, Continued," Or. 54 (1985): 62, based on Temple Hymn no. 22, for which see Ake W. Sjoberg and E. Bergmann, The Collection of the Sumerian Temple Hymns, TCS, 3 (Locust Valley, N.Y.: J. J. Augustin, 1969), 33. 12 E. Sollberger, "The Rulers of Lagash," JCS 21 (1967): 279-91. 13 Cf., e.g., p. 90, line 14 of the book under review. 14 W. W. Hallo, "AntediluvianCities," JCS 23 (1970): 57-67, esp. p. 64; idem, "Information from Before the Flood: Antediluvian Notes from Babylonia and Israel," Maarav 7 (1991): 173-81, esp. p. 174. 15 M. Civil, "The Sumerian Flood Story,"apud W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-6asis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 138-45, 167-72. Civil, however, considers this text as possibly late and secondary; cf. ibid., 139.

laboration between Samuel Noah Kramer,the late dean of Sumerology, and John Maier, a professor of English at the State University of New York at Brockport.Their respective roles are partially delineated in the introduction (pp. 17f.). Maier is the coeditor of two volumes of essays on the Bible.'6 He is known to Assyriologists chiefly through his contribution to the second Kramer Festschrift'7 and through his collaboration with the poet John Gardner (and the Assyriologist Richard A. Henshaw) in the preparation of a new and ratherimaginative rendition of the Gilgamesh Epic.18 He has also addressed the American Oriental Society on the subject of "Enki Speaks" (cf. p. 193) and has writtenon "ThreeVoices of Enki"(p. 244, n. 42).19 The present book is the outgrowth of these essays, according to the introduction, which seems to be at least in part Maier's. In the rest of the book, Kramer is responsible for the translation of all the Sumerian myths (chapters one through five) and other literary genres (chapter six), most of them more or less revised versions of his earlier editions. Many of these, in their time, were pioneering efforts that first revealed these compositions to the world of scholarship. Maier appears to be responsible for the translation and discussion of the later literary traditions about Enki/Ea in Sumero-Akkadian bilinguals and in other works in Akkadian, Hittite, Hebrew, Greek, and even beyond (chaptersseven throughnine). A final chapter (by Maier?) deals more generally with "myth and literature"(chapter ten). Between them, the authors have omitted relatively little of relevance. Of the secondaryliterature,one misses the dissertationof HannesD. Galter.20 Among particularly the more notable textual omissions is the composition known by its ancient title (incipit) as nin-mul-an-gim,

16 The Bible in Its Literary Milieu: Contemporary Essays, ed. Vincent I. Tollers and John R. Maier (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979); eidem, Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell Univ. Press, 1990). 17 John R. Maier, "Charles Olson and the Poetic Uses of Mesopotamian Scholarship,"JAOS 103 (1983): 227-35. 18 John Gardner and John Maier, Gilgamesh (New York: Knopf, 1984). 19 J. Maier,"Threevoices of Enki:Strategiesin the Translation of Archaic Literature," ComparativeCriticism6 (1984): 101-17. 20 "Der Gott Ea/Enki in der akkadischen Uberlieferung: Eine Bestandsaufnahme des vorhandenen Materials" (Ph.D. diss., Karl-Franzen-UniversitatGraz, 1983).

HALLO:Enki and the Theology of Eridu

233

which describes "The Blessing of Nisaba by Enki."21 For the sake of completeness, the admittedlyfragmentary text described by Gadd as "partof a myth in Akkadian concerning principally the god Ea"22might have been presented. And the corpus of compositions has grown in the meantime with "A Litany for Enki."23 Secondary literature about the deity since the book's appearanceincludes studies by Cooper,24 Limet,25and Vogelzang.26 But even without these omissions and additions,Myths of Enki presents a rich feast. It serves as testimony to the maturing of Assyriology: the field has arrived at a new plateau when a comprehensive survey can be offered for the figure of a single Mesopotamian deity among the dozen major ones and the more than five thousand lesser ones that make up the Sumero-Akkadian And pantheon.27 when we recall that, in Mesopotamia, deification was the functionalequivalentof generalizationor of abstractconthen the equationof "the myths of Enki" ceptualization,28 with "the theology of Eridu"is not so farfetched. The following detailed comments may be added here. P. 7: "The first inkling of its existence" (i.e., that of Sumerian literature) dates not to 1875 and the first
edition of Rawlinson's The Cuneiform Inscriptions of

Western Asia, vol. IV, as stated here and elsewhere,29 but to 1873, when Lenormant began the publication of a sizable body of bilingual texts.30 P. 88: Whether Aratta is "now part of Iran" may be debated. One authority thinks so,31but another places it in Afghanistan,32and a third regards it as an essentially imaginary locale.33 Pp. 92-94: For "crafty" in this hymn (11. 1, 12, 20, 27) the original has galam, which Kramer (p. 237) equates with Akkadian naklu. Presumablythis is the inspirationfor the title of the book. Sjoberg, in his original edition of the text, "Miscellaneous Sumerian Hymns," ZA 63 (1973): 40-48, translated galam by "clever" in 11. 1 and 12, by "surpassing"in 1. 20, and by "(accomplishing) everything"in 1. 27 (for kin-galam-ma ak). P. 105, 11.42-45: for "the curse of his father/mother" in physiognomic omens and elsewhere, cf. W. W. Hallo,
The Book of the People, Brown Judaic Studies, vol. 225

(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 30f. The theme is treated in early moder times by Jean-Baptiste Greuze
(1725-1805), La Malediction paternelle.

21 W. W. Hallo, "The Cultic Settingof Sumerian Poetry," CRRA17 (1970): 116-34. (Abbreviations of textseriesfollow
Erica Reiner, ed., TheAssyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, vol. 17: S, Part II [Chicago:

P. 107,1.72: ForNindinugga,the "Womanwho Revives the Dead" in Shurpu,34 cf. alreadythe inscriptionof Enlilbani of Isin dedicatedto Nintinugaas nin-ti-la-ugs-ga,"the mistresswho revives the (near-)dead."35 The same epithet, was translatedby appliedto Ninisina in a hymnalprayer,36 Krameras "queen of the living and the dead."37

The Oriental Institute, 1992],ix-xxvi.) Forthe latestadditions to this composition, see CT58, no. 47; andA. Cavigneaux and F al-Rawi, "NewSumerian TextsfromTellHadad (AnLiterary cientMeturan): A FirstSurvey," Iraq55 (1993):95. 22 UETVI.2, 396 and 7. p. 23 A. R. texts fromthe Folios of SidGeorge,"Babylonian RA82 (1988): 139-62, esp. pp. 155-61. ney Smith,PartOne," 24 Jerrold S. Cooper,"Enki's Members: ErosandIrrigation
in Sumerian Literature,"in DUMU-E2-DUB-BA-A: Studies in Honor of Ake W. Sjoberg, ed. Hermann Behrens et al., Occa-

E.g., S. N. Kramer, From the Poetry of Sumer: Creation, Glorification, Adoration (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press,

29

1979), 1.
30 Francois Lenormant, Etudes accadiennes (Paris: Maison-

a History," neuve,1873-1879).Cf. already 181. Hallo,"Toward 31 Yousef Majizadeh,"The Land of Aratta,"JNES 35 (1976): 105-13. 32 J. F Hansman, "TheQuestion of Aratta," JNES37 (1978): 331-36. 33 PiotrMichalowski, "Mental Mapsand Ideology:Reflections on Subartu," in The Origin of Cities in Dry-Farming Syria and Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium B.C., ed.

sional Publicationsof the Samuel Noah KramerFund, 11 The University Museum,1989), 87-89. (Philadelphia: 25 HenriLimet,"Les Fantaisies du dieu Enki:Essai sur les de la narration dansles mythes," techniques ibid., 357-65. 26 M. E. Vogelzang,"TheCunning of Ea andthe Threat to
Order,"Jaarbericht. .. Ex Oriente Lux 31 (1989-90): 66-76. 27 The first edition of Anton Deimel's Pantheon Babylo-

Harvey Weiss (Guilford,Conn.: Four QuartersPublishing Co., 1986), 129-56, esp. p. 131. 34 EricaReiner,Surpu,36-38. 35 W. W. Hallo, "Oriental Institute MuseumNotes, no. 10: The LastYearsof the Kingsof Isin," JNES18 (1959):54. Cf.
now Douglas R. Frayne, Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595

nicum(Rome:Pontifical Biblical Institute,1914) listed 3300 divinenames,butthe second(= SL IV. ) 5580 by actualcount (5367 net aftersubtracting cross-references).
28 Hallo and Simpson, TheAncient Near East: A History, 171.

of Mesopotamia: 4 BC),TheRoyalInscriptions EarlyPeriods, Univ.of Toronto (Toronto: Press, 1990), 82f. 36 OECT 5, no. 8, line 21. 37 Ibid.,p. 21.

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.2 (1996) P. 155: It is perhaps a bit surprising to see Sumerian influence claimed for Psalm 104, more often regardedas the biblical psalm most indebted to Egyptian models.45 P. 159: The concept of "intertextuality" was introduced to the literary criticism of cuneiform sources by Erica Reiner in 1985 and has been invoked by Assyriologists quite often since then.46 P. 161: While it is true that the biblical version of the Flood has no particularrole for the flood-hero'swife and daughter,one may note the intertestamentaltraditionthat made the first sibyl a daughter-in-lawof Noah. For postbiblical traditions about Noah's wife, see pp. 162-65. P. 189: The referencehere and on pp. 193f. is to the text translatedby Krameron pp. 77-82 and transliterated by him on pp. 228-31. For the couplet "You are (or: he is) true with those who are true / not true with those who are not true"(1. 139), cf. the proverbialsaying, "With the liar he acts the liar, with the truthfulone he acts truthfully."47 P. 192: Helga Piesl's theory of "the emergence of anthropomorphic... forms of the divine in Sumer"has been roundly criticized by Hruska.48 Typographical corrections are called for on pp. 1 (chapter 6, not 7), 11 (Altra-basis), 84 (of of its hand), 85 (it awesomeness), 94 (delete note 25), 104 (actually, not actual), 116 (seen the plan, not been the plan), 117 (takkabu,not takkakbu),121 (chapter 8, not 6), 154 (denonced), 157 (charism), 180 (undersand), 208 (effectivenesss), 224 (William K. Hallo), 235 (rstorations),235 (ZA 49 [1950], not CA 49 [1930]), 237 (ZA, not AZ), 240 (Eine zweisprachige K6nigsritual), 256 (uinnush). As these comments and suggestions imply, Myths of Enki, the Crafty God is worthy of careful study and eventual reprinting. 45 Cf., e.g., R. J. Williams,"The Hymnto Aten,"in Documents from Old Testament Times, ed. D. Winton Thomas (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1958), 142-50. 46 W. W. Hallo, "Proverbs Quoted in Epic," in Lingering Over Words: Studies... in Honor of William L. Moran, ed. Tzvi Abusch et al., Harvard Semitic Studies, 37 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 203-17, esp. pp. lf. and nn. 8f. Add W. L. Moran, "Some Considerations of Form and Interpretation in Atra-hasis," in Language, Literature and History: ... Studies... Reiner, ed. F. Rochberg-Halton,AOS, 67 (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987), 253. 47 Hallo, "Proverbs Quoted in Epic," 214. 48 B. Hruska,"ZurGeschichte der sumerischen Religion: Die Grenzen einer Methode,"Archiv Orientdlni 39 (1971): 190-99.

P. 112: The incantation against the seven evil gods from Utukki Limnuti XVI is reminiscent of that in the fifth tablet of the same series which inspired, indirectly, the Russian poem, "They Are Seven," by Konstantin Balmont, set to music by Sergei Prokofiev.38 P. 116: It may be questioned whether adapu means "wise." That Berossos' Oannes is derived from Sumerian u4-an-na (thus rather than uma-an-na) and is "none other than Adapa" has long been clear from the comand pound forms umun-a-da-pa,39u4-an-na-a-da-pa,40 u4-ma-da-num-a-da-pa.41 Pp. 138f.: "The exaltation of Kingu"-if this characterization of the passage in question is granted-provides an interesting new example of "the typology of The pericope occurs in the second divine exaltation."42 Enuma of Elish, the composition con(tablet) chapter ventionally known as the "BabylonianEpic of Creation," but which would be better entitled, "The Exaltation of
Marduk" (cf. pp. 172f.).43

P. 145: The term nagbu, "everything," is not "ordinarily 'groundwater'or 'depth'."Rather we may be dealing here with two homophones. The same ambiguity occurs in the opening line of the canonical version of Gilgamesh ("He Who Saw Everything") where, however, Maier failed to note it, since he allowed Gardner (above, note 18) to translate there unambiguously "the one who saw the abyss." A defense of this translation was provided by Kilmer.44
38 See Sasson apud Maier, "The Poetic Uses of Mesopotamian Scholarship," 235. 39 ABL 923, 1. 8; cf. W. W. Hallo, "On the Antiquity of Sumerian Literature,"JAOS 83 (1963): 176, n. 83. 40 W. G. Lambert, "A Catalogue of Texts and Authors,"JCS 16 (1962): 59-77, esp. pp. 64f., 1. 6. 41 Verse Account of Nabonidus ii 3; cf. Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556-539 B.C., Yale Near Eastern Researches (hereafter, YNER), 10 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 218; cf. ibid., 215 and n. 47. 42 W. W. Hallo and J. J. A. van Dijk, TheExaltation oflnanna, YNER, 3 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), ch. 6. 43 Ibid., 66f.; cf. already J. van Dijk, "L'Hymne a Marduk avec intercession pour le roi Abi'esub," MIO 12 (1966-67): 57 ("L'Exaltationde Marduk"). 44 Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, "A Note on an Overlooked Word-Play in the Akkadian Gilgamesh," in zikir sumim: Assyriological Studies Presented to E R. Kraus ..., ed. G. van Driel et al. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982): 128-32, esp. p. 131.