Grieving with the Moon: Pantheon and Politics in The Lunar Eclipse
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In response to the absence of consensus on events narrated in the Lunar Eclipse Myth, this article proposes an interpretation that takes into account the mythological representation of astrological phenomena, the Myth’s meaning in the context of the Utukkū Lemnūtu (“evil demons”) incantation series, as well as its implications concerning royal authority and guilt during the politically unstable conditions of a lunar eclipse. Although human observation alone could not discern the reasons for a lunar eclipse, the Myth suggests that at least some eclipses resulted from malevolent acts of self-will by a group of seven deities or demons (the “Sibitti”) and did not represent the pantheon’s condemnation of royal guilt. By contrast, celestial omens, letters from astrologers, the substitute king ritual, and šuilla prayers all envisioned the lunar eclipse as a sign of the gods’ displeasure. Omen verdicts depicting successful acts of treason as divine judgment would have contributed to suspicions and tensions between the king and his courtiers during stressful times of eclipses. In portraying the king as an embodiment of the moon-god and as a fellow victim (together with the pantheon) of the Sibitti, the Lunar Eclipse Myth functioned as royal apology by removing implications of the king’s personal guilt and failure and, hence, the pretext for treason and regime change. Such a radical reinterpretation that contradicted long-held ideas about the lunar eclipse as divine judgment, however, may not have fitted easily with existing traditions. Inter-textual references to the Eclipse Myth are relatively scarce and do not accurately convey meanings original to the Myth itself, suggesting that subtler ways of downplaying royal guilt and safeguarding the king’s status may have been preferred.
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1
M. J. Geller, Forerunners to Udug-hul: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations (Freiburger Altorientalische Studien 12; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985), 3; M. J. Geller, Evil Demons: Canonical Utukkū Lemnūtu Incantations (saact 5; Finland: Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy, 2007), xi n. 3. The Eclipse Myth, however, is referenced in Seleucid rituals against the lunar eclipse. See M. J. H. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practises (cm 25; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 109–117, 306–320.
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8
Ibid., 685.
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13
L. Cagni, L’epopea di Erra (Studi Semitici 34; Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente, 1969), 60 (lines 34, 36), 62 (line 38); Geller, Evil Demons, 178, 251 (lines 6, 9, 11).
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18
A. Kammenhuber, Orakelpraxis, Träume und Vorzeichenschau bei den Hethitern (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1976), 49. The well known asterism of the Big Dipper in Ursa Maior, as we define it today, also consists of seven stars.
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19
Puhvel, “Names and Numbers of the Pleiad,” 1245–1246. See also discussion in A. M. Polvani, “The Deity IMIN.IMIN.BI in Hittite Texts,” OrNS 74/3 (2005): 189–190; cf. the feast for the moon and thunder (cth 630) mentioned in F. P. Daddi, La mitologia ittita (Brescia: Paideia, 1990), 110. For the relevant passage in the myth of The Moon that Fell from Heaven, see H.-S. Schuster, Die Ḫattisch-Hethitischen Bilinguen, II (dmoa 17/2; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 397 (col. iii, A 17′–19′).
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27
Geller, Evil Demons, xvi–xvii. Sumerian precursors to this series are available only for Tablets 3–8.
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40
Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness, 137. The view that “Ištar. . . strebte danach königin des himmels zu werden” also appears in Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen III, 59.
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48
Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 244–252. Note also the tradition that the sun-god abides in the “middle of heaven” (AN.ŠÀ, identified with Anu’s Heaven) at night, when he is not visible as a celestial body.
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52
Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 250–251. Note that the Akkadian syntax of line 32 (. . . irmī-ma . . . ikappud = Preterite verb + -ma + Durative verb) suggests that Ištar’s main action of “taking thought for the kingship of the sky” occurs during the circumstance of her residence with Anu, not that she was contriving to attain such a position. J. Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian (hss 45; Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2011, 3rd ed.), 50 (§7.4c); W. von Soden, Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik (AnOr 33; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1995, 3rd ed.), 221 (§123), 257 (§156).
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56
Rochberg-Halton, Aspects of Babylonian Celestial Divination, 216, 269–270. See my discussion of this text and the difficult writing tu-bu-ul-šú-nu in footnote 131.
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61
Ibid., 202 (no. 200), 204 (no. 204), 236–241 (nos. 262–266), 286–287 (no. 306), 287–288 (nos. 307–308), 288–289 (no. 309).
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62
Ibid., 266 (no. 282 lines 13–16).
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64
Ibid., 238 (no. 4).
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65
Ibid., 141 (line 27'). See also the role of Šamaš in ibid., 100 (line 19), 162 (line 11').
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67
Geller, “Nos. 25–29, Documents of the Incantation Priest,” 135.
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72
Ibid., 206 (line 113′), 211 (line 110); cf. 254 (lines 94, 95), 255 (line 157′), 257 (line 196′). Geller, Forerunners to Udug-hul, 23 (line 51), 27 (line 113), 39 (line 346), 53 (line 577), 71 (lines 735, 736).
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74
Ibid., 133 (F r. 19), 241 (no. 2), 255 (no. 4).
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75
Ibid., 191 (no. 7); H. Hunger, Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings (saa 8; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1992), 5 (no. 4, obv. 6–7), 168 (no. 300, obv. 17, rev. 9–10), 193 (no. 336, rev. 6–8). For the interpretation that “the son who wronged his father” refers to a prince not originally named as the heir, see Cassin, Le semblable et le différent, 258–266, esp. 262.
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77
Ibid., 87 (no. 16), 98 (E iii 20'), 128 (D ii 21), 146 (B 2′).
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78
Ibid., 130 (F 1′), 238 (no. 5), 256 (no. 4).
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87
Frechette, Mesopotamian Ritual-prayers of ‘Hand-lifting’, 138–142; Mayer, Untersuchungen zur Formensprache, 100.
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90
Ibid., 121 (no. 160 lines 6–8).
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93
Ibid., 54 (no. 72 lines 6–10), 67 (no. 89 r. 9–12; no. 90 lines 14ff.). For a good discussion of similar client-patron and client-client dynamics in the Medici court, see M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993), 1–102.
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110
Falkenstein, Die Haupttypen der sumerischen Beschwörung, 67–68, 75–76.
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112
Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology, 145. See also Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings, Part II, xxiii; Koch, Mesopotamian Astrology, 121.
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118
Ibid., 79–88.
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120
Ibid., 256 (no. 316 rev. 21).
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121
Azarpay and Kilmer, “The Eclipse Dragon,” 370–374; E. Weidner, Gestirn-Darstellungen auf babylonischen Tontafeln (Wien: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1967), 5–15, Tafeln 1–4. In my lecture at the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine (Manchester, 22–28 July 2013) and in a forthcoming publication, I demonstrate how such drawings of planets and star constellations were constructed.
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122
Azarpay and Kilmer, “The Eclipse Dragon,” 371. For possible evidences of this Eclipse Dragon or a celestial dragon, see Stol, “The Moon as Seen by the Babylonians,” 260–263; P.-A. Beaulieu, “The Babylonian Man in the Moon,” jcs 51 (1999): 91–99.
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126
Van Buren, “The Seven Dots,” 283, 287; U. Seidl, “Die babylonischen Kudurru-Reliefs,” BagM 4 (1968): 102–103.
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127
Stol, “The Moon as Seen by the Babylonians,” 254. For the “Pleiaden-Schaltregel” as an “‘ideal intercalation’ scheme,” see Hunger and Pingree, MUL.APIN, 150–153; Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology, 118–119.
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130
Rochberg-Halton, Aspects of Babylonian Celestial Divination, 178–179, 252. Whatever the origins of the two recensions, however, it should be noted that copies of both Tablet 20 and Tablet 22 containing the tāmiātum paragraph have been recovered from Assyrian cities: Sources S and T of eae Tablet 20 and Sources A, B, and J of eae Tablet 22 derive from Nineveh, while Sources E and F of eae Tablet 22 derive from Assur. Ibid., 175, 178, 251, 269–270.
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131
Ibid., 269–270. The translation of tu-bu-ul-šú-nu (eae Tablet 22) or tu-bu-lu-šú-nu (eae Tablet 20) is difficult. The context does not lend itself easily to the meaning of tublu as “Fundamentgrube” (AHw, 1365a) or the lexical equation maḫ = tu-ub-lu (Izi H, iv 256 in msl XIII, 208). Other possibilities such as ṭupullû or ṭuplu “slander” have been proposed in Rochberg-Halton, Aspects of Babylonian Celestial Divination, 216 n. 3. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary leaves the problematic term untranslated: “the gods of heaven and earth decree as their . . . the actions of mankind” (CAD Š I, 360) and “the gods [. . .] determine the actions of mankind, their t[ublu], and . . .” (cad T, 446–447). We are probably correct to assume that, as usual, the gods are the subject of the verb i-ši-im-mu, “they determined / decreed” (eae Tablet 22, sources B and F), despite the variant readings i-ši-im-ma (eae Tablet 22, sources A, E, and J) and ša-⌈am(?)⌉-ma (eae Tablet 20, source S). I tentatively propose that the direct object of this verb (išimmū) is the infinitive clause epšēt amēlūti tubbulšunu(?) (“that they would take away (?) the works of humankind”), though the D stem of tabālu (cad T, 20, §5) is admittedly uncommon, and though the single attestation of tu-bu-lu-šú-nu (eae Tablet 20) is problematic. There may be an implied comparison between the gods’ actions here and the use of tabālu for tshe “disappearance” or “invisibility” of the moon and various planets in astronomical contexts (cad T, 20, §4). On the syntax of the infinitive, see Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, 343–344 (§30.1g.2); von Soden, Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik, 3rd ed., 249 (§149c), 251 (§150e).
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133
F. Rochberg, “TCL 6 13: Mixed Traditions in Late Babylonian Astrology,” ZA 77 (1987): 221; Rochberg, “Personifications and Metaphors,” 478–479.
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136
Ibid., 481.
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Grieving with the Moon: Pantheon and Politics in The Lunar Eclipse
In: Journal of Ancient Near Eastern ReligionsSearch for other papers by John Z. Wee in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
In response to the absence of consensus on events narrated in the Lunar Eclipse Myth, this article proposes an interpretation that takes into account the mythological representation of astrological phenomena, the Myth’s meaning in the context of the Utukkū Lemnūtu (“evil demons”) incantation series, as well as its implications concerning royal authority and guilt during the politically unstable conditions of a lunar eclipse. Although human observation alone could not discern the reasons for a lunar eclipse, the Myth suggests that at least some eclipses resulted from malevolent acts of self-will by a group of seven deities or demons (the “Sibitti”) and did not represent the pantheon’s condemnation of royal guilt. By contrast, celestial omens, letters from astrologers, the substitute king ritual, and šuilla prayers all envisioned the lunar eclipse as a sign of the gods’ displeasure. Omen verdicts depicting successful acts of treason as divine judgment would have contributed to suspicions and tensions between the king and his courtiers during stressful times of eclipses. In portraying the king as an embodiment of the moon-god and as a fellow victim (together with the pantheon) of the Sibitti, the Lunar Eclipse Myth functioned as royal apology by removing implications of the king’s personal guilt and failure and, hence, the pretext for treason and regime change. Such a radical reinterpretation that contradicted long-held ideas about the lunar eclipse as divine judgment, however, may not have fitted easily with existing traditions. Inter-textual references to the Eclipse Myth are relatively scarce and do not accurately convey meanings original to the Myth itself, suggesting that subtler ways of downplaying royal guilt and safeguarding the king’s status may have been preferred.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 616 | 141 | 37 |
| Full Text Views | 252 | 6 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 126 | 12 | 2 |