Babylonian philosophy

It came to me just yesterday that while people may write about Greek philosophy or Roman philosophy, nobody ever talks about Babylonian philosophy. I figure that this probably has something to do with the fact that Babylonian texts of this nature are hard to come by. However, I decided to look it up just in case I missed something (which is quite possible for any of us in the vast field of ancient history).

Unexpectedly I came across a small mention of a curious document called the Dialogue of Pessimism which records a series of odd conversations between master and slave talking about different courses of action the master could take in his life followed by input from the slave for or against these courses of action. In the end and absurdly, when the slave is asked which course he would take, he deems death the most preferable option in all things.

I'm sure the conversation was intentionally a spoof and not an earnest espousal of nihilism. Böhl once referred to similarities in its concept with the Roman holiday called Saturnalia where, for a day, the slave becomes master and master becomes slave during the celebrations, a kind of role reversal. I also think of the words of the legendary Greek satyr Silenus, constantly drunk on wine, who philosophized in his wild stupor that human beings would be happier if never born.

So I guess, pessimism is quite an ancient idea indeed.

The dank bowels of earth

Memiyawanzi remarks lately on the use of γῆ κατ' εὐρώσσ' 'dank earth below' in the oddly named post Dank earth and ejaculations. It inspires me to take a crack at this interesting and potentially profound concept. For me, the subtle phrase in Greek can be understood as part of a much larger concept that goes well beyond Homer or the borders of Greece, pertaining to the world of the dead as it was once conceived.

Hades is described as 'cold', 'dark' and 'watery'. This is equally a description of the literal earth that we dig up when we bury the dead, showing us the analogy involved here and its evolution. The rivers in Hades that are later named (ie. Acheron, Styx, etc.) are relatively recent add-ons to the initial analogy of burial and moist earth. In Ugaritic texts, we read instances of 'filth' in reference to the city of the underworld, directly derived from the image of the deceased being laid to rest in the literal filth of the earth. Hence, the underworld came to be seen by many cultures of the Mediterranean to be cold, dark and moist. This was also the understanding of Etruscans who traded afterall with the Greeks and who absorbed many traditions from the Near East.

However, I believe the symbolism goes one step further. The very rites of Etruscans which were designed to divine the future from the internal organs of sheep, themselves imported traditions traced back to Babylonian extispicy, are necessarily built on a lost metaphor of the Earth, not only as cold, dark and moist but also a living deity, complete with innards. From the metaphor of a living earth, ancients reasoned further that the sun, as it passes under the horizon in the west and underneath the earth to rise again in the east, is effectively passing through the bowels of the earth. The way in which the sun passes through the world of the dead below and how it's effectively reborn every morning was a directly significant and life-affirming image to ancient believers throughout the eastern Mediterranean, whether Greek, Etruscan, Hittite or Egyptian. People ancient and modern have mourned their loved ones and often need to believe in a greater purpose to mortal life, sometimes straining to see any hope, even a blind metaphor-induced one.


Knowing now the source behind expressions like 'bowels of the earth'^[1] and Etrusco-Babylonian haruspical rites, we're armed with the power not only to crack the intended meaning of some obscure Greek texts or comprehend the purpose of some Etruscan artifacts, but we're also capable now of seeing a glimpse into the heliocentric belief system of the Minoans in the same region. The Minoans left traces in their murals and their stories carried on by the Greeks. The mystery of the labyrinth unravels itself and we recognize it as a representation of the entrails of the earth. The living Earth is the maze of innards. As anthopomorphic goddess, she protects her holy symbol of immortal life within her, the labrys. The Minotaur becomes transparent as Death incarnate (cf. the Ugaritic death god, Mot), with whom Theseus wrestles in the dead of night. Here, Theseus can only represent the immortal, heroic Sun^[2] who in Herculean fashion conquers death. We see this not only by his function but also by his non-Greek name built on a Proto-Aegean root *tʰes- 'to dawn' (> Etruscan θesan 'dawn').

The Minoan mural below, tragically described as showing a 'secular' act by some stunted historians^[3], is replete with iconography. The tanned youth representing the sun 'floats' in the air atop the living bull of the underworld between two ladies representing the horizons of east and west and forming the invisible Horns of Consecration (cf. Egyptian aker). In sacrifice, this same bull might be offered to the gods and his organs interpreted by priests just as if the animal were literally Death incarnate^[4], perhaps holding important omens of the future in his murky, dank depths.




NOTES
^[1] Compare equivalent expressions in the Semitic world like Ugaritic l-kbd ’arṣ 'in the bowels of the earth' where kbd refers to both the literal viscera of an organism and also metaphorically as the interior of something.
^[2] Rev C W Jones, On mythology in funereal sculpture in Parker, The archaeology of Rome (1877), p.27 (see link).
^[3] Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean religion and its survival in Greek religion (1971), 2nd edition, p.374 (see link). In a failed attempt at erudition, the author dug himself into a corner with a contrived attempt to impose his own atheism on ancient cultures: "It is often assumed that Minoan bull-fighting was a sacral performance, but there is nothing in the Minoan monuments to prove that it was more than a very popular secular sport."; Renfrew, The emergence of civilisation: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the third millennium BC (1972), p.435: "Whether or not it had a religious origin and significance, which is not certain, these representations are entirely secular in flavour, expressing often the dramatic contrast in the anatomies of bull and leaper." Again, an exaggerated emphasis on secular interpretation of bull-leaping at the expense of a competent and convincing explanation of its source.
^[4] Castleden, Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete (1993), p.168 (see link) laments: "The bull sacrifice was probably a regular occurrence at the temples, yet it is very rarely depicted: the scene with the tressed bull on its sacrificial table shown on the Agia Triadha sarcophagus is a rarity."

A Pre-Greek name for Odysseus

In my previous post (Odysseus, Uthuze and Utnapishtim), I finished off with the dangling idea that the name Odysseus had reached Anatolia and the Aegean by the second millenium BCE. This shouldn't be a provocative speculation given the facts and communis opinio. However, the question is exactly how the name entered Greek and how a Sumerian name Utu-zi suggested by the Babylonian rendering of the name Utnapishtim (UD.ZI^tim) might have even influenced Greek if Sumerian is said to have been a dead language by the beginning of the 2nd millenium BCE!

There are additional facts that make this topic very intriguing, such as the fact that Ὀδυσσεύς (''Odusseús'') is but one Greek reflex of the name, others being Ὀλυσσεύς (''Olusseús''), Οὐλιξεύς (''Oulikseús'') and Οὐλίξης (''Oulíksēs'') from whence Latin Ulysses. Notice the alternation of d to l? Strangely enough Robert Beekes identifies a lot of "Pre-Greek" words with this same alternation and many of the pairs seem to me to be rather convincing. As previously mentioned, the Etruscan name shows an aspirated plosive th, yet another phoneme for what is surely the same sound in the beginning.

So here's what I hypothesize to explain all this maddening variation. Let's presume that Beekes' observation of "Pre-Greek" d/l alternation is suggestive of Minoan phonology. The unetymologizable d/l pairs in Greek are afterall inexorably linked to the current awkwardness of the Minoan transliteration (cf. Paleoglot: A new value for Minoan 'd') which doesn't exhibit a natural phonology for a language. I've previously suggested an affricate /t͡ʃ/ for Minoan "d" but I'm lately honestly considering an affricate /t͡θ/, attested in Athabaskan languages, which when unaspirated may be mistaken as either a "d" or an "l", particularly in a language like Mycenaean Greek which evidently lacked this sound. This brings us to a reconstructed Minoan form *Oduze /'Ot͡θut͡se/ which is more in line with the presumed Sumerian form.

Now how might the Sumerian form enter Minoan by chance? Certainly one way would be if a Minoan scribe moderately knowledgeable in Babylonian characters read the Sumerograms UD.ZI literally as Utuzi. The use of the original Sumerian phonetic values for the Babylonian symbols when writing Babylonian long postdates the extinction of the Sumerian language.

Finally, back to the Etruscan aspirated plosive, I would suggest that there may be a correspondance between Minoan "d" /t͡θ/ and Proto-Cyprian *tʰ. (Note: I've now decided to call Proto-Etrusco-Cypriot simply Proto-Cyprian since, for one thing, it's easier to type. Lol.) From Cyprian, we get the derivative languages Etruscan, Lemnian, Rhaetic, Eteo-Cypriot and Eteo-Cretan.

Odysseus, Uthuze and Utnapishtim

I've been dwelling the past few days on the origin of Etruscan words. Many words appear to be of Doric origin and then there are even older loanwords, it seems, showing Anatolian IE, West Semitic and Egyptian influence. On the topic of the origin of the Etruscan name, Uθuze (''ET Cy G.1'' and ''OI G.39''), we need only look to a borrowing from Greek Ὀδυσσεύς 'Odysseus'. Or so it seems.

Now, please forgive me, my readers, if I should tread on something that's already understood by everyone but me. However, on closer inspection of the aforementioned Greco-Etruscan connection, even if we should say that the name was borrowed from a Greek vocative form Odusseu, we can see that Greek voiced, unaspirated /d/ doesn't nicely become a voiceless aspirated /tʰ/ at all. We should rather expect Etruscan plain t. And thus, we trek through yet another etymological safari hunt.

Upon investigating the origin of Odysseus, we may find that the origin is spoken of vaguely as "uncertain". As far as I'm concerned, uncertain is one of the most disgusting words in the English language because it's such a common excuse for intellectual laziness. Why is it uncertain? Must it truly be uncertain?

In the Etruscan form, I can't help but be idly amused by Uθ- at the beginning which strongly reminds me of Sumerian utu 'sun'. This combined with a free-word association with Utnapishtim, the legendary Babylonian survivor of the World Flood, evokes a Sumerian name Utu-zi 'Life-breath of the sun' being readapted to Ut-napishtim (napishtim = 'life, breath') but still written in script using the Sumerograms UD-ZI^[1]. Things get complicated if we consider that the other corresponding Sumerian name normally cited, Zi-ud-sura, may be a "re-borrowing". That is to say, Sumerian Utu-zi 'Life-breath of the sun' would have become a partial calque Ut(a)-napishtim which would be reinterpreted by scribes and priests to mean 'he found (uta-) life-breath (napishtim)' (nb. the replacement of Sum. utu 'sun' with Bab. ūta 'found') and thus back into Sumerian with the reformulated Zi-ud-sura 'Life of long days', now implying a character who has found immortality. Odysseus' relationships to an underlying sun-god motif have already been noted in literature which is what made my synapses fire in the first place.

So I now wonder if this Sumerian name Utuzi reached Anatolia and the Aegean by the second millenium BCE in order to better explain the source of the Greek and Etruscan names.


NOTES
^[1] It seems that the journal Kairo (1987) has beaten me to the punch on that one (see link).

No-frills Royal Game of Ur now available on Paleoglot

I whipped up another program - this time the Babylonian Royal Game of Ur. My game doesn't have errorchecking for moves yet and it doesn't even care where you place your pieces but it's still playable with a friend next to you. I'm still thinking about what rules I should code into it so, for now, enjoy.

The following image shows what I think makes the most historical sense about the gamepath. Since the related Egyptian 20-Squares game is an obvious variant of this Royal Game of Ur and shows that the 2x3 square portion of the Babylonian game has merely been "unfolded" into a straight line (or rather the Royal Game of Ur has been "folded" into its shape from the 20-Squares game, depending on whichever came first), it helps to narrow down the possibilities of gamepaths considerably. It seems rather safe to conclude the gamepath below. More on this later but essentially, the first four pieces are a safe zone that aren't shared with the opponent and beyond this the pieces proceed cautiously down symmetrically opposed paths to their respective end points where the pieces are then taken off the board as in the Egyptian game Sínat.

Piacenza Liver and The Palace Gate

Now that we've survived another holiday season intact (more or less), I have a strange yearning to talk about the inner portions of the Etruscan Piacenza Liver artefact again. It seems to me that the first place to start in cracking the mystery is to compare the Etruscan liver model with Babylonian haruspical traditions yet oddly Etruscanist authors continue to fail to do that. So let's break away from academic status quo and see what we can't find, shall we?

One link online concerning Babylonian haruspicy (i.e. the practice of divining the future through sheep livers) may oddly enough help us shed some light on Etruscan rites, beliefs and cosmology: Sacrificial divination: Confirmation of extispicy. It shows a map of the sheep's liver and explains the significance to Babylonian ritual. There is also a very informative book called Babylonian Liver Omens where on page 45 a graphic shows the various parts of the liver as they were identified in the Babylonian language. This is followed by a lengthy explanation of the religious significance of each section.

Looking back at the Piacenza Liver, the middle section appears to me to have a direct connection to the Bāb Ekalli (aka. "The Palace Gate"). On page 46, it states:

"Symbolic value (OBE, 60): the palace, its internal affairs and the city gate and its incoming and outgoing traffic. In 62 Pān tākalti Tablet 5 many apodoses concern life and intrigue at the palace, only very few refer to the city gate."

This then seems to connect back to the tripartite division of the inner section of the Piacenza Liver that I suggested previously in Solving the inner portions of the Piacenza Liver. This particular section would correspond to the earthly "middle world", pertaining to the world of humankind.

Babylonian whores

I'm always fascinated by how different cultures understand things we easily take for granted, like sexuality, because it can be so radically different from everything we may be accustomed to in our own culture. As I might have hinted before, learning history is simply the act of visiting another culture in the past, like a vacation through time rather than space.

Here's an interesting quote from Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia by Jean Bottéro that adds to my blog rants on sexuality in ancient times (p.123-124):

"Since homosexual love was perfectly tolerated in the land, provided that it did not harm anyone, it should not be surprising to see professional homosexuals here, as if to balance the 'religious' prositutes mentioned above, the assinu, the kurgarru, the kulu'u, and even, on occasion, the kolû, who had rather a bad reputation in this regard, although we do not really know why. Nor do we know under what conditions they expressed their profession or their duties. But we occasionally see them dressed as women, holding strictly feminine accessories (such as a spindle) in their hands in addition to manly weapons, as if to point out their sexual ambiguity, and taking part, at least in honor of Ištar, in ritual, ambiguous, or lascivious dances. They were not, however, firmly integrated into the clerical corps, and their specific designation referred above all to their condition and to their way of making love."

Before I continue let me just say that "professional homosexual" is unfortunate wording, making it sound as though homosexuals do nothing but have sex all day and that some even go professional. [Pause for laughter...] Within the greater context of the paragraph though, the author is talking about prostitutes as a whole, some of which happen to be homosexual.

Putting aside the risky wording, Jean mentions three terms in the Babylonian language referring to specialized types of prostitutes. John Barclay Burns from George Mason University published in The Journal of Religion & Society the article Devotee or Deviate with more detail on what exactly these terms meant as part of a larger explanation of sexuality in Ancient Israel and the Old Testament:

"Sources from Mesopotamia testify to the existence of male cult figures whose sexuality was confused or liminal and who engaged in various sex-related practices. One text refers to the sinnišānu, literally, 'woman-like,' who went into a tavern and agreed to divide his earnings, presumably with the tavern-keeper. Taverns were permitted places of resort for prostitutes of both sexes. The assinnu was a member of Ishtar’s cultic staff with whom, it seems, a man might have intercourse, whose masculinity had become femininity (Erra IV 55-56; CAD, A: 341). The effeminate kulu'u, not a zikaru, a 'real' man, and the transvestite kurgarrû sang, acted, and danced in the worship of Inanna/Ishtar. The kulu'u was certainly regarded as a male prostitute in the saying, amat LU kulu'u u: ha-rim-ti URU, “the word of the male or female prostitute of the city” (CAD, K: 529, 557). W. G. Lambert argued that there was a fair amount of evidence for a cluster of male types notorious for their femininity and that they served as prostitutes. One of these, the assinnu, lacked libido, either from a natural defect or castration (152-53). M. Nissinen pointed out that the cuneiform signs used for assinnu were UR.SAL, 'dog/woman,' evidently an insulting designation (32). Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the cognate Akkadian word for dog, kalbu, was ever employed as a metaphor in this precise context."

And thus we come full circle by ending it off with Old Testament sexuality. The picture above is old religious art portraying the so-called "Whore of Babylon" as it was written in the book of Revelation, a symbol of decaying morals. As we can tell by this wording alone, there was a sense of moral supremacy in regards to sexuality throughout the biblical scriptures and a constant war between misunderstood foreign moralities and their own. Sound familiar in the modern day?