Two / Nothing Blogger

So I haven't had much to say for a little bit and so I haven't been in for a while. This blog on Word Press was hard to format, and I had 126 pieces of spam. Not so for the Blogger version. Two points are awarded to Blogger for not being annoying.

Prelude to Gilgamesh Insight

So someone on Tablet of Destiny (a Yahoo group) commented about the Prelude to Gilgamesh. (The part in Gilgamesh Enkidu and the Netherworld where Ereshkigal goes to the netherworld.) So I took the Oxford transliteration (Pretty reliable) and the Halloran lexicon (Also rather good) and attempted to translate line 13 where it describes exactly what happened.

. . . I didn’t do so great. .  ..

See, the problem is that I was using the English transliteration with an American lexicon. Not all of the spellings quite line up. Here was the result:

The oxford translation, unfortunately those are notoriously poor, has the
following "when the nether world had been given to Ereškigala as a gift; when he
set sail, when he set sail, when the father set sail for the nether world, when
Enki set sail for the nether world -- against the king a storm of small
hailstones arose, against Enki a storm of large hailstones arose. The small ones
were light hammers, the large ones were like stones from catapults (?). The keel
of Enki's little boat was trembling as if it were being butted by turtles, the
waves at the bow of the boat rose to devour the king like wolves and the waves
at the stern of the boat were attacking Enki like a lion."
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.1.4#

The Sumerian being translated is:
13. derec-ki-gal-la-ra kur-ra saj rig7-bi-ce3 im-ma-ab-rig7-a-ba
14. ba-u5-a-ba ba-u5-a-ba
15. a-a kur-ce3 ba-u5-a-ba
16. den-ki kur-ce3 ba-u5-a-ba
17. lugal-ra tur-tur ba-an-da-ri
18. den-ki-ra gal-gal ba-an-da-ri
19. tur-tur-bi na4 cu-kam
20. gal-gal-bi na4 gi gu4-ud-da-kam
21. ur2 jicma2 tur-re den-ki-ka3-ke4
22. nij2-bun2-na du7-am3 mi-cu2-cu2
23. lugal-ra a jicma2-saj-ja2-ke4
24. ur-bar-ra-gin7 tec2 mu-na-gu7-e
25. den-ki-ra a jicma2-ejer-ra-ke4
26. ur-mah-gin7 saj jic im-ra-ra

with line 13 being the one in question.

Using a direct translation
13: d|Ereshkigal (Kur-ra: Underworld + genitive) (Saj: I'm not quite sure what
this word translates to. Fortune perhaps?) (rig7-bi-ce3: give possession of+
its + unto) (im-ma-ab-rig7-a-ba: Previous / named + object + give possession of +
who). I translate this as "Ereshkigal was given to the underworld." or "The
underworld took possession of Ereshkigal." though I could certainly see
"Ereshkigal was given the underworld as a gift." Though this last doesn't seem
as likely as then why would Enki follow after? Why would she be unable to depart
in other myths?

At this point I would then turn to translators far wiser than myself. Namely
Dina Katz (Author of "the image of the Nether World in the Sumerian Sources."
ISBN 4883053773), though I'll look at others. That will take some work though,
so I'll get back to you.

As it stands, it's not looking like the Kramer interpretation of the Kur dragon
kidnapping Ereshkigal is looking good. Kur is not really indicated as an
individual here, much less a dragon.

Well for those of us who do not read ancient Sumerian fluently (This pretty much includes everyone on the planet.) the best way to check a translation is to look at how other people translate it. In my library and at my disposal I have the Kramer translation (Old and outdated), the Oxford translation (Unlike their transliterations I have often found problems there.) the George version (He himself isn’t confident in his understanding of Sumerian.) and the Katz excerpts (almost definitely spot on, but the book is rather hard to navigate. I’m still looking for the correct passage.)

Well, I happen to mention the dilemma to my wife and she floors me with a simple observation “It sounds a lot like the dedication of Enheduanna to the temple.” So let us say that Ereshkigal wasn’t kidnapped by a dragon and rescued by a hero as in the Kramer version. Let us also say she wasn’t given the entire underworld as a wedding gift without mentioning who she was getting married to or why she can’t seem to be able to get out of the underworld in other myths like in the Oxford version.

What if she was simply dedicated to the office of managing the underworld. She would be the absolute ruler and high priestess of the land. Not as romantic as a princess a dragon and a hero. Not as straight forward as getting Kur as a present. What it would be however is very Sumerian. Young Ereshkigal was dedicated to the underworld as its High Priestess and absolute ruler like young Enheduanna was dedicated centuries later.

Tags: Gilgamesh, Ereshkigal, Underworld, Translation, Tablet of Destiny