2.1 Understanding and Appreciating the Intricacies in a Work of Art

Art can be appreciated in many ways. The challenge for a scientific approach to art is to understand as precisely as possible the particular forms or features of the work in question, and to trace the relationship between its contents and form, in order to understand its meaning(s) and appreciate its design. If the aim is to understand and appreciate not just the rough outline but also the finer details of the work, one must compare the finished piece with the raw material from which it was made, as one would examine a precious new garment to appreciate the pattern of its weave and even the individual threads revealed by closer inspection. A comparable approach to art is well-known in the field of musicology: here, a musical theme is the raw material from which composers create variations with different instrumentations, tonalities, major or minor keys, rhythms, tempos, and accompaniments. For example, Johann Sebastian Bach composed The Musical Offering as a body of variations on a theme suggested by Frederick the Great, known as “The King’s Theme,” and musicologists can uncover the subtleties of these variations by analyzing how Bach arranged and adapted the original in different versions and comparing the variations with the King’s theme.

To distinguish between a fully formed work of art or literature and its raw material, we need to establish a functional, reliable terminology. The uses and definitions of the term “story” vary widely across the branches of literary scholarship: story is most often defined as the “action of a text in the sequence of the natural chronology,” compared to the “plot,” which is defined as the “action in the sequence of events, not in their natural order, but as they occur in a given text.”³ Story and plot, however, are unique to a specific work of art and the medium of texts, whereas the narrative material or “Erzählstoff,” abbreviated “Stoff” is a type of content not exclusively associated with or bound to any one form or medium: “As one can see, no comparable, corresponding term for the concept of Stoff exists in the field of narratology. For the moment we can—only inadequately, as a first approximation—describe a (mythical) Stoff as the totality of both existing and potential variants of a Stoff, which in turn is a self-contained sequence of events with particular protagonists, localities, themes, and actions.”⁴ Besides texts, an Erzählstoff-version may also be represented in pictures, statues, films, pantomimes, and so on. Further, a given text may contain more or even less than one complete version of an Erzählstoff. In Mesopotamian literature, we frequently encounter texts that reflect only parts of one Erzählstoff-version, rather than the full-length narrative material which is being adapted. One example in the present paper is ershema no. 165, which deals with the death of Dumuzi and the lament of his wife Innana and his sister Geshtin-ana. As shown below, this text tells only part of the Erzählstoff-version: Dumuzi provides for cities and temples, he has to die, and two goddesses lament his death. At the end of the text and its story, the goddesses are still lamenting, but this cannot be the end of the Erzählstoff-version: especially in myths, there has to be a “solution” to the problem addressed in the myth.⁵ With ershema no. 165, text and story are “smaller” than the narrative material that inspired the poem. Such a relationship is typical not just for Mesopotamian laments, but for many other texts as well.

However, the inverse relationship is also commonly found in Mesopotamian narratives, where the text and its story incorporate multiple Erzählstoff-versions, as in Mesopotamian epic poetry. The song called Innana’s Descent to the Netherworld represents such a case, where a mythical Erzählstoff about Dumuzi’s descent to the Netherworld is combined with stories about Innana, including several about her journey to the netherworld and one about her bringing the first temple from heaven to earth. Even the narrative material about Dumuzi is not taken from a single Erzählstoff-version, as sections 4–7 will demonstrate. Taken together, the individual Erzählstoff-versions about Dumuzi and Innana descending to the netherworld are shaped into a series of composite mythical Erzählstoff-versions—that is, myths (see section 6.3 below).

To be more precise, the myths incorporated in Innana’s Descent are not narrative materials (Erzählstoffe) in a strict sense, but concrete manifestations of Erzählstoff-variants.⁶ Where there are multiple variants of a narrative material, as with the descent of Dumuzi, any number of them can be expressed in a given physical text. The present paper explores the textual shape of stories, and the role of Erzählstoff-versions in their shaping, presenting analytical techniques that will allow us to detect and identify narrative materials, and arguing that a comparative approach of text and incorporated narrative material(s) will enhance our understanding of those narrative shapes.

2.2 Developing Narratological Tools for the Reconstruction of Narrative Material

In the field of narratology, there was until recently no methodology for examining the final textual shape of stories vis-à-vis their raw material; no technique to separate the material from the finished product (whereas we can distinguish the thread from the fabric, or the musical variation from its original theme). The conundrum we need to resolve is the nature of the material which, by definition, does not exist in any physical form: How can we work backwards from the end product—the physical text—to arrive at the material underneath? How can we describe the liberties that the text has taken with its sources, and weigh the product against its ingredients?

The development of a theoretical framework and corresponding methodological toolbox with which to isolate and extract raw materials from the physical manifestations of a story in any medium has been the goal of several research groups over the past decades, and the recent success of two such research groups has profound implications for the study of narratology.⁷ A new framing theory and heuristic method now provides researchers with precise tools to reconstruct the narrative material, the Erzählstoff,⁸ from the physical manifestation in which it appears.⁹ The analysis of mythical Erzählstoff-versions opens up new avenues for the field of narratology, by allowing systematic comparisons between the narrative material and its presentation in a given text.¹⁰ Bringing to light the differences between the two will also elucidate the processes involved in and required for the poetic shaping of texts, plots, and stories. In this paper, we explore the consequences of this method for the analysis and interpretation of ancient Near Eastern texts.

3.1 Textual Phrases vs. Hylemes: Revealing the Threads in the Fabric

How do we get a hold of the narrative materials underneath the text? The starting point for this methodology is the realization that an essential feature of all types of narrative materials is the representation of a change in state.¹¹ Narratives are shaped by a sequence of actions, where “action” is understood in a general sense, comprising actions as well as states. The minimal definition of an Erzählstoff requires at least one change in state;¹² this is usually accompanied by a description of the states themselves.¹³ By extracting the smallest action-bearing units from a given text (or other concrete manifestations of narrative materials), we can begin the reconstructive work. As Christian Zgoll puts it: “The focus … is on the content of the minimal action-bearing units which lie behind the textual plane, and even behind the plane of an individual language.”¹⁴ These minimal¹⁵ action-bearing¹⁶ units of Erzählstoff-versions (narrative material) are called hylemes, from Greek hyle (ὕλη) meaning “raw material, stuff.”¹⁷ “Hylemes are the basic building blocks of any type of narrative Stoff … . Hylemes represent key pieces of content that are moreover not defined by or limited to any specific medial manifestation, such as a text or an image.”¹⁸ The theory and methods for the reconstruction of narrative raw material, meaning the analysis of Erzählstoff-versions, comprise the field of hylistics.

In this paper, we aim to present the hylemes under discussion according to a logical structure and in a standardized format.¹⁹ Each hyleme consists of one hyleme predicate and at least one hyleme element, its logical subject. There may be more than one subject or object, and the hyleme predicate and elements may have additional determinants.²⁰ The standard hyleme is expressed in the present tense and active voice;²¹ sequences of hylemes are given in lists introduced by a dash; and the names of narrative materials (Erzählstoff-versions) are given in small capitals to distinguish them from the titles of texts, which are given in italics.

Different categories of hylemes must also be considered: (1) single-event actions, in which the changes in the story unfold dynamically; (2) durative-constant hylemes, comprising actions and states that existed before the changes in the story and which remain unchanged; (3) durative-initial hylemes, which exist at the beginning of the story but change during its course; and (4) durative-resultative hylemes, which come into being as the story unfolds and represent the lasting consequence of the story’s changes.²² For example, an Erzählstoff-version might start with the hylemes:

This would be followed by hylemes about Dumuzi’s courtship and the wedding of Innana and Dumuzi, all of which are single-event hylemes:

This results in a new state:

3.2 Textual Variety (Length, Syntax, Focus) vs. Hyleme Structure: Sewing Fabrics into Garments

Two text passages of the same length may yield a different number of hylemes, but the reverse is also true: different lengths of text may yield the same number of hylemes. Take for instance the short epithet kur gul-gul, “destroyer of mountainous (or: foreign) lands,” from Innana B, l. 17, which contains the hyleme:

On the other hand, the first three lines of Innana’s Descent²⁴ express a single hyleme about Innana, who is making plans to go to the Great Earth, that is, the netherworld:

The comparison of text and hyleme structure reveals how information (the hylemes) can be incorporated differently into a concrete text with its own syntax and length, and where the focus of that text lies.

3.3 Textual Omissions vs. Complete Narrative Material, and the Ending of Myths: Darning Holes in the Garment

Narratological research has shown that no narrative can be all-encompassing. It is simply impossible to describe every step and detail of an action.²⁶ This causes no problems for the audience if the missing details and implied sequence can be easily reconstructed. But the more complex the story is, and the further removed the audience is from its original context and cultural background, the more incumbent it is on us to reflect on and bring out those implicit hylemes, and in so doing, enhance our understanding of the material. Hylistic analysis gives us the tools to do so. Some hylemes clearly imply additional information, that is, implicit hylemes that may be logically compelling or culturally deducible. Such implicit hylemes will be given in square brackets. The following example illustrates this step of hylistic analysis: a hyleme,

logically implies the preceding hyleme,

and even a further hyleme:

The reconstruction of implicit hylemes has yielded important insights into texts and their meaning. For example, hylistic analyses of the myths incorporated in the epic praise song Innana’s Descent to the Netherworld (with special regard to the ending of the myths) have increased our understanding of the different myths incorporated in it, revealing that Innana does not fail, but is rather the victorious hero of these myths, and was celebrated as such in religious rituals for many centuries.²⁷

The search for implicit hylemes is particularly important when the ending of a myth is not reflected in the concrete manifestation of the myth. The phenomenon of omitting parts of a myth is common in visual media (where it is a challenge to integrate multiple action-bearing units, e.g., in a concrete group of statues or a painting),²⁸ but it is also common in textual media (which is to be expected the more a concrete myth is known to the people who use it). So, the absence of the ending of a myth in a concrete manifestation does not mean that there is no ending in that myth. Myths serve to explain the world and cope with problems.²⁹ They display a three-partite structure:

(1) problem = starting point

(2) addressing the problem = middle section

(3) solving the problem = ending.³⁰

Myths, then, have neither open endings nor do they lead into aporias (narratives that end openly or in aporias do not fall into the category of myths; even if they may use mythic hylemes, the narrative material as a whole does not belong to the mythic, but to another narrative category). Therefore, it is important to try to reconstruct the endings of myths. The fact that the ending of a Mesopotamian myth can be omitted or only hinted at in concrete text versions has posed a great challenge (see above for Innana’s Descent to the Netherworld). This paper discusses examples of narrative materials about the death of Dumuzi.

On the methodological level, the analysis of implicit hylemes is a way of making transparent what the modern researcher takes for granted, comparable to the techniques used in grammatical analysis, which also reproduces morphemes that are a part of the language but not represented in writing; some may not even be present in spoken language (as in the case of zero morphemes, {Ø}). The more complex and polysemous the text and its narrative materials are, the more important it is to have a systematic, methodological presentation of the reconstructed hylemes.

The visual representation of implicit hylemes also allows us to categorize them on a scale from the obvious and indisputable, through the highly possible, to the merely plausible, by employing brackets, italics, and question marks exactly as we do in standard text editions. The line from which the hyleme has been deduced is given in superscript, as in the hyleme:

3.4 Order of the Text vs. Order of the Narrative Material: Weaving Plain Threads into Intricate Fabrics

A key step in hyleme analysis is the reconstruction of the chronological order of the narrative material. This has yielded key results for the restoration of whole narrative materials and can determine the composition or degree of complexity of the “fabric,” that is, the textual manifestation of a story.

In Innana’s Descent, for example, the chronological order of one of its incorporated Erzählstoff-versions³¹ is so complex that it was not discovered until 2020.³² The beginning of this hidden Erzählstoff-version about Innana descending into the netherworld is left untold in the concrete manifestation of the story until line 193 mentions it in passing: me kur-ra me al nu-di.d-da al bi₂-in-du₁₁.g, “The Instruments of Power of the netherworld (Sumerian me), the Instruments of Power demanded by no one—she demanded them!” The hyleme that is told in this line is:

A hyleme-based narratological approach will then compare the plain chronological order of the narrative material with the often elaborate rearrangement of that narrative material in the text.

3.5 Multiple Narrative Materials in a Text: Patching Fabrics into Garments

The relationship between the narrative material (Erzählstoff) and its textual manifestation can take on many different forms. A simple connection would be a single narrative text incorporating a single Erzählstoff-version, but this is rarely the case. As we have seen, texts can incorporate more but also less than one Erzählstoff: the possible combinations in a given text include multiple Erzählstoff-versions (and even multiple versions of the same Erzählstoff), part of one Erzählstoff, the combination of parts of multiple Erzählstoff-versions, and so on.³³ A complete hylistic and sequence analysis has for example enabled new insights into Enheduana’s ritual song to Innana, Innana B. Only by analyzing the incorporated narrative material hylistically has it become clear that three myths are incorporated into the song of Enheduana which are fundamentally important to the rhetoric of the song:³⁴

First myth: An lets Innana execute his judgement over the enemies, including Sumer

Second myth: Innana lets Nanna execute her judgement over Ur and every other rebellious city

Third myth: Innana executes her judgement on the Anuna gods

Together, these three myths form a larger, composite myth:

Innana becomes the ruler of heaven and earth.

The hylistic narratological analysis of Erzählstoff-versions aims to describe the shape of texts as fully as possible by taking into account the totality of incorporated Erzählstoff-versions.

The layered combination of multiple versions of the same Erzählstoff is common in ancient texts, especially when the narrative materials are transmitted over long periods of time, as is often the case in myths, making stratification analysis an indispensable tool.³⁵ A failure to separate different versions of an Erzählstoff that have been incorporated into one text may cause confusion about the story’s structure, contents, and intended message(s).

Recognizing and separating the different narrative materials is sometimes an easy task but quite often a challenge. This is where sequence-analysis comes in. In our context it must suffice to sketch out the major methodological outlines of sequence-analyses. Important parameters are topic, time, place, protagonists, and events (abbreviated TTPPE, in German ZOPHT: Zeit, Ort, Protagonisten, Handlung, Thematik). The more these parameters change at a certain point in a narrative sequence, the more it is necessary to check whether there is a border between different narrative materials at this point.³⁶

Another analytical clue is to be found through the evidence of durative-resultative hylemes. Such durative-resultative hylemes are a typical feature of the ending of narrative materials (see section 3.1). Thus, when we find a durative-resultative hyleme within a hyleme sequence, this is a strong indication that this hyleme marks the end of a narrative material that has been combined with one or more subsequent narrative materials.³⁷

3.6 Boundaries Between Multiple Narrative Materials: Stitching Together the Fabrics

The combination of multiple Erzählstoff-versions within one text is characteristic of Mesopotamian literature, necessitating various devices to mark the boundaries between two or more Erzählstoff-versions (or different versions of the same Erzählstoff-version). Often, we find elaborate “narrative hinges” or “threshold lines” linking these segments.³⁸ Sometimes, the need for such a hinge resulted in new hylemes, as in Innana’s Descent, where Innana’s ascent from the netherworld is conflated with the need for a substitute, causing the descent of Dumuzi in the new version of the narrative.³⁹

3.7 Hyper-Hylemes and Other Complex Patterns: Applying Special Techniques

This operation leads to the next methodological step: examining the textual shape of stories with an eye for the idiosyncrasies of each incorporated narrative material (Erzählstoff-version). In Innana’s Descent, one half-line from the speech of the gods Enlil and Nanna refers to another myth that is entirely separate from the poem’s primary narrative. Innana has made her way into the netherworld and, while dead, confronts the great gods, who respond with the half-line in 191a–192, repeated in 205a–206a: dumu-ĝu₁₀ an gal al bi₂-in-du₁₁.g (…) Innana.k an gal al bi₂-in-du₁₁.g, “My child! She demanded the Great Heaven! … Innana! She demanded the Great Heaven!” This half-line contains the hyleme:

Another research project has identified this hyleme as representing an entire self-contained and separate Erzählstoff-version: the myth Innana brings the first temple from heaven and thereby creates the earth.⁴⁰ A hyleme that stands in for an entire Erzählstoff-version is a hyper-hyleme.⁴¹ Hyper-hylemes are defined as “hylemes which represent longer episodes or even an entire Stoff …, either by summarizing these episodes or the Stoff in the style of a chapter heading, or by evoking them through their succinctness and specific detail.”⁴² In this example, the hyper-hyleme referring to the myth Innana brings the first temple from heaven also functions as a subtle reminder that Inanna’s plan to bring the Instruments of Power from the netherworld to earth has a precedent, in which Innana was actually successful: the House of Heaven was indeed brought to earth. On the textual level, the point can be made in a variety of ways: not just through the Sumerian grammatical option of an affirmative future, but also through the direct juxtaposition of the two myths. Both have Innana as the protagonist bringing items of high significance to earth,⁴³ and both employ hyper-hylemes to tell the story, using near-identical wording, matching rhythms, epiphora, and rhyme. Only a single word has been changed: an gal al mu-un-du₁₁.g / ki gal al mu-un-du₁₁.g, “She demanded the Great Heaven! She demanded the Great Earth!” (l. 191–192 // 205–206). The compression of the two myths—(1) Innana brings the first temple from heaven and thereby creates the earth and (2) Innana brings the netherworld’s instruments of power to earth—creates a strong association between these myths and the events that they explain: Innana’s successful creating of the earth (in 1) and her shaping of the earth as a space where gods and humans can live (in 2).⁴⁴

A hyper-hyleme can be found in an ancient text but may also be created by modern scholars to summarize, compress, or abbreviate multiple hylemes. This is especially useful when comparing different versions of one narrative material or multiple narrative materials, which can thereby be aligned more closely, especially if their original forms have different lengths or degrees of detail (see further in section 3.9 below).

3.8 The Stratigraphy of Narrative Materials and Texts: Layering Fabrics

The patchwork style of combining multiple narrative materials and their variants into one, multi-layered narrative material (as described in section 3.5) is a familiar technique in ancient texts, especially in myths but also in other types of narratives.⁴⁵ It is a challenge to recognize the variants that are combined into a multi-layered narrative. Research has shown that the combination of multiple strata in one composite narrative material is not always a benign, simple procedure like the combination of different fabrics into one garment. Which version of a myth is made dominant and how much of the competing versions are still visible in the text is a significant indicator of priorities, testifying to the fact that myths are “battle-grounds for competing world views.”⁴⁶ Myths have never broached issues that were considered either commonplace or of only limited interest.⁴⁷ While mythical narratives have always dealt with important world phenomena, the notion of what constitutes such phenomena has varied over time. New interpretations have been superimposed over preexisting ideas, and both old and new concepts have invariably been transformed in the process. The kind and the degree of that change ranges from imperceptible tweaks to major modifications.⁴⁸ In the field of mythological studies a set of methodological instruments has been developed to identify each stratum of an Erzählstoff-version and the modifications of those strata by their combination.⁴⁹ More dominant Erzählstoff-versions, for instance, are more likely to cause what are known as Stoff-Stoff interferences, i.e., interferences between different narrative materials, which can be detected through inconsistencies on the textual level or value judgements and hierarchical relationships on the semantic level of the Erzählstoff-versions.⁵⁰

Stratigraphical analysis of the praise song Innana’s Descent to the Netherworld, for instance, has shown that at least three different versions of the myth Innana goes down to and comes back from the netherworld⁵¹ are combined to form one complex, composite narrative material Innana becomes mistress over life and death and its text, the praise song.⁵² Incorporated in this composite narrative material are myths about The death of Dumuzi as well as a shorter, older version of Innana’s descent to the netherworld, namely Innana brings the netherworld’s instruments of power to earth.⁵³ This reconstructed older Erzählstoff-version was corroborated in a comparative study of previously unedited texts.⁵⁴ Such new findings enhance our understanding of the myths and allow for new insights into their original meaning.

Erzählstoff-versions, as we have seen, can be combined in a variety of ways: they can be presented sequentially, in opposition, or in tandem as separate entities, or they can be merged and intertwined. Both types of Stoff-Stoff combinations will be explored in the case studies below.

3.9 Comparisons of Different Versions of Narrative Material: Recognizing Similar Fabrics in Different Garments

As the previous sections have shown, mythical and other texts are often complex, layered structures forming a patchwork of different narrative materials. For Mesopotamian religious-literary texts, it is the rule rather than the exception that a text comprises multiple layers.⁵⁵ To unlock the specific content of such a text, we must first understand the number and variants (if any) of its fabrics—the layers and the patches of narrative material it is made of. The task requires nothing less than a painstaking comparative analysis of the same and related fabrics—narrative materials—in other textual manifestations of the same or related texts.

Comparison is central to comprehension.⁵⁶ An analogy might be drawn from life sciences, e.g., the study of dolphins: biologists learn about dolphins by studying their characteristics compared to those of other mammals; and they gain knowledge about mammals and their behavior by including as many mammals as possible in their studies. In the fields of narrative analysis, a bespoke branch of hylistic studies that is fully equipped to take on this challenge has only recently taken shape: the comparative study of narrative materials, comparative hylistics. Since comparative hylistics is a discipline in its own right, a short introduction will have to suffice in this context.⁵⁷ Any comparative study of the textual variations of a given narrative material (Erzählstoff-version) must ensure that its methods are sound, if the pitfalls of comparing apples to oranges are to be avoided. Different media, such as texts versus pictures, or different genres within one medium, such as prayer versus fiction, will inevitably cause the narrative to be told in different ways. For a successful comparison, we therefore need to do the following:⁵⁸

A comparative study of similar Erzählstoff-versions (be it in the same text or across multiple texts) can, for example, reveal that a particular variant inverts the message(s) conveyed by other versions of the same narrative, even if the textual format (genre, formulations, length, etc.) is different (see section 3.10). The myth Innana brings the first temple for earth, as told in the epic song Innana and An, clearly makes Innana a heroine, who is praised for stealing the House of Heaven from An and bringing it down from the heavens, thereby creating the earth and the land of Sumer through this First Temple; the god An eventually acknowledges the theft and decrees that the beauty of the temple shall never cease.⁶² But in the version of the myth extracted from Enheduana’s ritual song Innana B (l. 85–89), the message is reversed. Here, one of the accusations levied against the usurper Lugal-Ane is that he stole the House of Heaven from An and thereby destroyed its beauty.⁶³ The comparison underscores the stark contrast between the strategic goals pursued by each variant: one sets out to praise Innana’s heroic deeds for the benefit of mankind, the other twists the tale into a dark warning against human hubris and sacrilege.⁶⁴

3.10 Comparisons of Texts and Their Versions of Narrative Material: Interhylistic and Intertextual Relationships

When comparing texts on the semantic level,⁶⁵ the first step is to analyze which Erzählstoff-versions are incorporated in them. The best results will be achieved when the semantic analysis, or content comparison, examines the same or similar Erzählstoff-versions across multiple texts. Whether we are comparing the same narrative material or different stories across texts, the Erzählstoff-versions will have to be disentangled from their textual manifestations before we can analyze their narrative strategies and intricate combinations. With the methods described above, we can achieve a solid scientific footing from which to move on into increasingly complex territory, especially the comparative analyses of narrative materials described in the previous section: How do Erzählstoff-variants line up against each other, where are they identical (or similar), where do they differ, and why?

Returning to an earlier example, two seemingly different versions of the myth Innana brings the netherworld’s numinous instruments of power to earth are told in Innana’s Descent and in Innana and Shukaleduda. This impression is based on quantitative evidence: the comparable mythical variant in Innana’s Descent is told in 284 lines, whereas in Innana and Shukaleduda a version of the same narrative material is told in just 28 lines. Furthermore, both versions of the myth Innana descends into the netherworld combine it with different myths. But despite these apparent differences, hyleme analysis has brought to light their undeniable qualitative similarities (see below).⁶⁶

Similarities in content must be examined carefully: if there are enough clues linking one Erzählstoff-variant to another across texts,⁶⁷ we may be dealing with an interhylistic relationship. Connections that are both semantic and formal constitute a subset of interhylistic relationships; the fact that both narrative material and text must agree makes such intertextual relationships much rarer than other kinds of interhylistic relationships. Another comparative step on the semantic level is to examine the internal contextualization of the narrative material, which has consequences for the external perception of the material. Thus, the myth Innana brings the netherworld’s numinous instruments of power to earth is embedded in both Innana’s Descent and Innana und Shukaleduda, but the context provided by the surrounding narratives differs substantially. In Innana’s Descent, the mythical version of Innana and the numinous instruments of power is combined with a several mythical versions about the descent of Dumuzi to the netherworld, whereas Innana und Shukaleduda combines Innana and the numinous instruments of power with myths about Innana examining Sumer and a myth about Innana and Shukaleduda. The hylistic comparison has shown that, while they contain the same core myth, in their textual manifestations the composite narratives take different forms and convey different messages.⁶⁸

3.11 Conclusion: Hylistic Narratology and its Methodological Approaches

The application of the ten methodological steps detailed above forms part of a larger theoretical-methodological framework which allows us to reconstruct narrative raw materials for the first time. The extraction and reconstruction of these narrative materials through hyleme and stratification analysis thus merits a new narratological discipline: hylistic narratology. Hyleme analysis gives us precise tools with which to extract the hidden threads and the layers of content that shape stories and define literary texts by their degree of complexity. We are now able to appreciate more fully the process by which stories and especially myths have acquired their characteristic shapes over time and space, how they have developed duplicates and variants, how they have lost or gained layers of fabric, and so on. Because the new discipline also allows us to compare the fabrics (narrative materials) themselves, independently of their textual manifestations, we can now confidently establish interhylistic cross-references as well as intertextual ones. The possibilities unlocked by the methods of hylistic narratology range from analytic access to the structures of literary forms in their entirety, such as epics and poems, down to excerpts and even individual lines. It also enables us to examine how different texts incorporate the same (or similar) narrative material.

4.1 The Long Version

Table 12.3 below presents the passage as it appears in Ur-S and Ni-d (see Appendix 1) and shows the hyleme analysis method detailed in section 3.1 at work, as I extract the hylemes from the preliminary translation and present them in a standardized format.

4.2 The Short Version

4.3 Comparison

At this point, we can confirm that the long and the short textual manifestations are indeed variants of the same narrative material: The Fly reveals Dumuzi’s whereabouts to Innana. There is, however, one glaring discrepancy between them, which becomes apparent when they are juxtaposed for the text score, and it has to do with the order of the hylemes in the text. Table 12.5 presents the sequence of hylemes as they appear in the two manifestations, which is to say, on the actual tablets:

The key difference between the two versions lies in the position and function of two hylemes: “The Fly will dwell in the Alehouse near the goblets” and “The Fly will live like/together with the Children of the Wise.” In the long version, they are placed after “The Fly reveals Dumuzi’s whereabouts to Innana”; in the short version, they appear before that action. The content of the quoted speech is the same, but a shift occurs in their semantic value, and this is also true for the corresponding hylemes. In the long version, both hylemes can be summarized by one sentence, “Innana decrees a (good) fate for the Fly”; in the short version, UN-y, their meaning is rather that “Innana promises a (good) fate for the Fly.” The hyleme in the extended version is performative: Innana speaks (l. 385–386), and her words immediately enact the promise (l. 387). The hyleme in the UN-y version is not performative, or at least not instantaneously so: the Fly has to hold up its end of the bargain for the words to come true.

As can be seen in this table, there are, on one hand, similar hylemes, corresponding to different lines in the textual variants (“Innana promises a reward” is extracted from lines 380a–381 in the long version and from lines 385–386 in the short version); and, on the other hand, similar lines corresponding to different hylemes (“The Fly will dwell in the Alehouse near the goblets. The Fly will live like/together with the Children of the Wise” corresponds to “Innana decrees a fate” in the long version and to “Innana promises a fate” in the short one). The short version actualizes a narrative material that is similar to the longer one, but it does so with a greater economy of explicit hylemes:⁹³ we are provided only with what we need to understand the plot. Innana’s promise and its reciprocal response, the Fly’s revelation of Dumuzi’s whereabouts, are retained from the long version, while the self-evident outcome for the Fly is omitted. (Yes, it does receive its reward.) The fact that in this case the narrative material does not take on the exact same form in the two variants presents a challenge for anyone attempting to arrange the Sumerian versions into a coherent text score.⁹⁴

But why does UN-y present us with such a condensed version of the narrative material? First, it should be noted that UN-y is generally more concise than the other manuscripts; it shares this trait with UN-x (MS 3281), and these two tablets constitute the only two originally complete manuscripts of Innana’s Descent. Other tablets contain, at best, little more than half the text. To an extent, then, the size and type of the tablet may have constrained the poetic shape of the narrative material in UN-y. Second, an important difference is the use of direct speech in the two versions. For example, in lines 376 and 377 of UN-y (quoted above in section 4.2), direct speech is not introduced by a verb of speaking—a consistent feature of the manuscript. For example, in lines 363' and 363'a, which follow line 363/383, the direct address to Innana reads merely: “Innana, (direct) your attention to your spouse”; or “Innana, (direct) your attention to Dumuzi”. Furthermore, UN-y contains several phonetic spellings (e.g., UR and BAD lines 376 and 377). The emphasis on direct speech, combined with the format of the tablet, suggest a specific use for this particular textual manifestation, such as an oral performance.⁹⁵

But is it true to say that UN-y only offers an abbreviated version of the narrative material? Unlike the longer version, it does summarize most of the narrative material. On closer inspection, one can note that the hylemes manifested in lines 376–377 have no exact equivalent in the longer version:

Innana’s search has been given additional qualifications that are not present in the longer version. Innana is literally searching high and low for her husband, reflecting a greater emphasis on the relationship between Inanna and Dumuzi, that is, on the larger story that is being told in the final part of Innana’s Descent, rather than on the specific episode of the Fly. Therefore, the last explicit hyleme in the order of the text concerns the Fly’s revelation of Dumuzi’s whereabouts (and his subsequent reunion with Innana), rather than the fate of the Fly, as it did in Ur-S and Ni-d. The two versions therefore emphasize different aspects of the same narrative material: one highlights the search for Dumuzi, the other the fate of the Fly.

4.4 Preliminary Conclusion

Hyleme analysis has proven to be a useful and rigorous scientific instrument that allows us to identify and extract important clues from the extant manuscripts and reconstruct some of the missing text in the tablets. It has enabled us to go beyond the mere observation that the two versions differ in length and note that the narrative focus shifts from the Fly in one version to the bond between Innana and Dumuzi in the other. And finally, it illustrates how an Erzählstoff-variant can be described and summarized by applying structural modifications to a sequence of hylemes.

Taken together, these findings offer fresh perspectives on the established notions of text and literary works in the Old Babylonian period. Scribes and scholars at the time clearly held the long and the short version of the narrative material to be representatives of the same entity: a text beginning with the incipit an gal-ta ki gal-še₃, which we today call Innana’s Descent to the Netherworld.⁹⁶ But in contrast to modern or even later ancient texts, the precise poetic shape of Innana’s Descent was not fixed at the time. The scribes seem to have had a quite clear canvas for the story, a mental version of the narrative material and its necessary steps, but the exact sequence of events and the choice of expressions afforded them some degree of liberty.

5.1 Hylistic Approach no. 1: Identification, Categorization, and Presentation of the Mythical Narrative Material

From this short passage, we can reconstruct the following sequence:

5.2 Hylistic Approach no. 2: Analysis of Textual Representation of Hylemes

A categorization of theses hylemes shows the following distribution.

Durative-constant hylemes:

Single-event hylemes:

One immediately apparent feature of the narrative is the small number of actions that are expressed by single-event hylemes, while the ershema elaborates in great detail on Dumuzi’s functions and character (i.e., the durative-constant hylemes).

5.3 Hylistic Approach no. 3: Analysis of Textual Omissions of the Narrative Material, and the Ending of Myths

Innana’s statement also implies that Dumuzi used to provide for the palace, as well as the cities and the temples, as she explains in the following lines. We can therefore add the hyleme:

The wording of Innana’s lament further hints at the fact that Dumuzi performs this task because he is the darling of Innana. To account for the implication, the hyleme must be made more specific:

So, what exactly happened to Dumuzi? The crucial hyleme here is “NN seizes Dumuzi.” From similar texts about Dumuzi, we know that the term “to seize,” Sumerian dab₅, when carried out by the galla demons is used as a reference to death.¹⁰⁵ This assumption is supported by the following lamentations and the search for him. The overwhelming majority of the Erzählstoff-versions about the seizure of Dumuzi present demons as the agents of his death. Considering that demons are the usual offenders, and with no other characters in sight in the narrative, one can make the case that the most common version of the narrative is also at play in this version of the Erzählstoff. Therefore, we can complete the hyleme sequence as follows:

5.4 Hylistic Approach no. 4: Analysis of the Order of the Narrative Material in the ershema

Dumuzi usually provides for the city and its inhabitants (A, l. 4–10; B, l. 12–16), but this stops with his death. Consequently, the hyleme sequence can now be arranged as follows:

5.5 Hylistic Approach no. 5: Analysis of Narrative Materials Incorporated into the ershema

Within the limited space available, my focus here will be on an overview of the most important steps in the analysis, displaying only hyper-hylemes of the story (see section 3.7) in a hyleme-based summary of the narrative material.¹⁰⁶ I will then reconstruct two more hyleme sequences for passages that are especially helpful for a more profound understanding of the mythical narrative material represented in ershema no. 165.

5.6 Hylistic Approach no. 6: Analysis of the Techniques for Joining Multiple Variants of the Same Erzählstoff-Version

As mentioned in the previous section, the ershema presents two similar sequences about Geshtin-ana and Innana, and we can assume that we are dealing with two versions of the same narrative material. Rather than being joined by threshold lines,¹¹⁰ or other mechanisms of this type, the descriptive passages about the lamenting goddesses are presented sequentially in the text. Structurally, however, they are parallel compositions (but see section 6 below on the “hinge” construction).

5.7 Hylistic Approach no. 9: Comparison of Two Versions of the Composite Erzählstoff-Version

At this point, a comparison of the narrative materials presented in the various manuscripts will be useful. The following actions take place before the goddesses’ encounter with the Fly.

The parallel structure of Innana’s and Geshtin-ana’s actions is remarkable: both lament and leave their homes in search of Dumuzi. Later, both have a conversation with the Fly. In both manuscripts of the ershema, Geshtin-ana appears to be the one who finds Dumuzi in the end¹¹¹ (see section 6.3 below for a summary of the narrative material in Stoff-chronological order). And there are more parallels that connect the two versions. For instance, locations include Uruk, Umma (and Zabalam in Text A, perhaps also in B), the site of a sheepfold, and the steppe. Common themes revolve around lamenting, leaving, and searching for Dumuzi, as well as rewarding the Fly. Specific points in time are not mentioned in either version.

Given the similarity of places, actions, and themes, it is safe to assume that the two texts express two variants of the same mythical narrative material.¹¹³ The two variants differ in the degree to which they elaborate on certain actions (e.g., the lament of the city), and which of the two protagonists is the main character in the hyleme segments. While Innana’s departure from her cities is described in both versions, Geshtin-ana’s departure is only briefly mentioned in version A. In version B, it is Innana who again leaves the sheepfold and the young animals, leading to Geshtin-ana’s rather abrupt appearance at the end of version B.

5.8 Hylistic Approach no. 8: Stratigraphical Analysis of Narrative Materials

The parallel presentation of the goddesses’ actions allows us to reconstruct a more abstract narrative:

The abstraction yields two variants of the same mythical narrative material that differ only slightly. These differences, however, may shed some light on the dynamic between Innana and Geshtin-ana in religious traditions; the following comparison of two more hyleme sequences lends further support to this suggestion. As the parallel structure of actions and events has been established, we will compare the segments by looking at their protagonists, the defining difference between them.

The comparison shows two variants of the narrative material A female relative laments the death of Dumuzi. A closer look reveals that the same hyleme sequence occurs twice in each text. The sequence starts with Innana and the Fly, breaks off, and continues with Geshtin-ana and the Fly. The parallel structure is preserved; only the protagonist (and a detail regarding the Fly’s reward) are altered. Clearly, the ershema here combines an Innana stratum and a Geshtin-ana stratum to form a composite mythical narrative material (see sections 3.8 and 6.1).

6.1 Polyphony of Different Voices: More about the Stratification of the Dumuzi Myths in ershema no. 165

The two texts deal with the myths in distinct ways: text B uses them in an additive way, placing the narrative materials in a sequential order and juxtaposing the narratives in their entirety, allowing them to remain separate, consistent entities. This is a case of Stoff-Stoff interference where both narrative materials stay recognizably intact. Together, they form an enriched combination, a compound of multiple narrative materials (see section 3.8). The overall myth is shaped around first Innana and then Geshtin-ana. A hinge is created in the duplication of the Fly’s offer to find Dumuzi and its demand of a reward, and the promise of first Innana, then Geshtin-ana, to reward the Fly with a good fate.

The situation in text A is different. Here, the combination of Erzählstoff strata leads to inconsistencies, because the strata are intertwined: Geshtin-ana leaves the sheepfold in search of Dumuzi (A: l. 13–18), whereupon the Fly appears to offer its help—not to Geshtin-ana, but to Innana. Innana promises a reward to the Fly, then the Fly goes to Geshtin-ana, and Geshtin-ana promises a reward. From this point onward, the narrative material is only focused on Geshtin-ana.¹¹⁷ From a synchronous perspective, the finding could be interpreted as a case of syncretism of the two goddesses that would be typical of Emesal songs (both ershema and balang).¹¹⁸ From a diachronous perspective, various strata can be reconstructed, pointing to a merging of different traditions. From a functional standpoint, the Stoff-Stoff interferences create a “simultaneous recognition of multiple traditions … The polyphony of different voices is not a deficiency … it is a bonus.”¹¹⁹

Because the hyleme sequence with the Fly occurs in both the Innana and the Geshtin-ana version of the underlying narrative material, their parallel structures make it safe to deduce from the available texts that these mythical versions about Innana and Dumuzi will continue on their parallel paths, alongside either the added (B) or the inserted (A) myth about Geshtin-ana and Dumuzi. A plausible explanation for the absence of further textual parallels could be found in the desire to avoid repetition or duplication, but this may hold true only for the level of the written text, not necessarily for the oral performance of the lamentation. The ershema laments are typically full of repetitions,¹²⁰ and usually not all of these repeated lines were written out in full.¹²¹

In light of these practices, the short episode about Innana lamenting and searching for Dumuzi, and the abrupt change of perspective from one narrative material to another cannot be seen as conveying a particular message of disruption, or a preference for one over the other. The hylistic analysis of texts A and B shows that the hylemes about Geshtin-ana’s search for Dumuzi and her lamentation over his death have a parallel in similar hylemes about Innana. The composite myth that is thus reconstructed conveys the sense that Innana’s search and lament are no less important than Geshtin-ana’s efforts. The presentation of the myth must be understood as an abbreviated depiction of parallel events, dictated by the conventions of written texts and the literary genre of laments.

6.2 Reconstruction of the Dumuzi Myths in the ershema

Having reached these preliminary findings, we can begin to reconstruct the hyleme sequence for the Innana version of the composite myth. Accordingly, I will present the hylemes by incorporating the Erzählstoff-version about Innana that has been extrapolated from the Geshtin-ana version; indicating the lines where a hyleme concerns Geshtin-ana on the textual level. The hylemes are grouped together under descriptive headings that also identify their respective narrative materials:

Narrative material 1 =myth 1: Innana chooses Dumuzi as provider of her cities

Narrative material 2 with first problem = myth 2: The fate of Innana’s cities

Narrative material 3 as hinge between narrative material 2 and 4: From the cities (narrative material 2) to the steppe and Dumuzi (narrative material 4)

Narrative material 4 with second problem = myth 3: The fate of Dumuzi

The following hylemes are extrapolated from the hylemes about Geshtin-ana:

Narrative material 4 with solution of the second problem = myth 3: Innana improves the fate of Dumuzi

This means that Innana creates the first rituals for the first person to suffer death.¹²⁵

Comparable to the function of praise, the function of such a lamentation is to elevate the status of a person. And it is not only the lamentation which carries this function with regard to a deceased. In the given context, references to lamentations have the character of a synecdoche, in that they denote not only lamentations, but funerary rituals in general. These funerary rituals serve the dead Dumuzi whom we are to understand here as the first deceased person ever.¹²⁷ In Mesopotamian funerary rituals, lamentations were performed, the body was cleansed and wrapped in a shroud, and the deceased were provided with offerings of food and drink, as well as gifts that they could present to the officials of the netherworld.¹²⁸ Knowledge of these cultural practices allows us to add the following hypothetical hylemes, indicated in italics, which can but need not be part of the hyleme sequence:

In passing, one may note that this interpretation gives a clue to understanding the hitherto incomprehensible enumeration of plants and animals at the end of the text; since their names and spellings contain references to burial rituals; this is still being investigated. In our example, only the opening rites of the funeral ceremony are mentioned; other elements, such as the offerings of food and drink and the gifts to the netherworld gods, are missing. Either way, the problem of Dumuzi’s fate in the afterlife must have been resolved in the myth like this. The reconstruction of the myth has shown an important meaning of this myth and text: the mythical explanation for death, and how to cope with death through funerary rites.

Narrative material 2 with solution of the first problem = myth 2: Innana and Dumuzi improve the fate of the cities

While one myth (narrative material 4) is complete, narrative material 2 still lacks a solution to the “first problem:” the fate of the cities. Of course, here too, the original narrative material would have included a proper ending; the fact that it is missing from the textual medium as preserved forces us to consider the possible suitable endings for the sequence of events: Innana’s intervention in Dumuzi’s favor has consequences for the dead Dumuzi, whose status in the netherworld is elevated; therefore he is willing and able to provide for (the fertility of) the cities, even from “beyond the grave.”¹²⁹ At a time when the king was ritually transformed to become an earthly manifestation of Dumuzi (that is, the twenty-first to twentieth century BCE, in the Ur III and Isin periods), the task of providing for the cities and ensuring their survival would have been of fundamental importance, to be performed not only by the divine figure of Dumuzi in the netherworld, but also by his living human incarnation, the king who ruled over and provided for his people. In Mesopotamian culture, such a dual concept of Dumuzi posed no intellectual problem: a fundamental aspect of the Mesopotamian worldview was the conviction that gods existed in multiple manifestations, including astral and other natural phenomena, cult statues, standards, and the like.¹³⁰ Dumuzi may have been busy in both his mortal and immortal forms, providing for the cities of his kingdom simultaneously as a dead and a living king.¹³¹

6.3 The Incorporated Myths, Their Concerns, and the Composite Myth as Reconciliation of Two Mythical Traditions

We have found that ershema no. 165 is an amalgamation of multiple myths about Innana and Dumuzi, resulting in a new composite myth:

Myth 1: Innana chooses Dumuzi as provider of her cities

This myth is only alluded to; it provides the background for the other myths.

Myth 2: Innana makes dead Dumuzi provide for her cities

This myth provides the framework for the composite myth. It shapes the perspective of the ershema lament by setting the scene and the mood from the very beginning: the death of Dumuzi is lamented; the cities have lost their provider. Studies by Sara Milstein have shown that new, innovative additions to a textual tradition were often placed at the beginning of the text in question, and this would appear to be the case in our text as well.¹³²

Myth 3: Innana creates funerary rituals to improve the fate of the dead Dumuzi

The stratification of this Innana-Dumuzi-myth reveals obvious traces of an earlier version about Dumuzi and his sister, the myth Geshtin-ana creates funerary rituals for her brother Dumuzi to grant him a good fate in the netherworld. This myth must be understood as the precondition for a positive outcome to myth 2. When Dumuzi is appeased and has gained a good status in the netherworld, he is powerful enough to continue in his role as provider for Innana’s cities, which is the primary concern of myth 2.

Composite myth: The three myths are intertwined to form the composite myth Innana improves the fate of dead Dumuzi so that he provides for her cities from the netherworld.

The question arises, why the complex entity made up of three myths about Innana and Dumuzi was made even more complex by the addition of yet another myth about Geshtin-ana (Geshtin-ana finds Dumuzi with the help of the first Fly)? The composite myth clearly focuses on Innana: she represents her cities and her temples. The fact that Geshtin-ana’s creation of funerary rituals for Dumuzi has been included points to the presence of a strong Geshtin-ana tradition, which the authors of the ershema did not wish to neglect and so harmonized with the myth about powerful Innana. Myths are battlegrounds for clashing interpretations of the world¹³³—and in this rivalry between two mythical traditions, the ershema chose the path of reconciliation.¹³⁴

7.1 Hylistic Approach no. 9: Comparative Analysis of the Mythical Narrative Materials about Innana and Geshtin-ana

By applying the methods of hylistic analysis, we have shown that the narrative material is stratified, in that it combines one stratum about Innana with another about Geshtin-ana. As described above, these strata may be understood as two competing traditions that have been merged into a single variant of the narrative material. The narrative materials of the individual myths are here connected as strata, both in terms of their content on the level of the Erzählstoff and in terms of their diachronous textual levels.¹³⁵ On the content level, the goddesses clearly pursue the same goal with the same steely determination: to find Dumuzi and give him a proper burial, ensuring a safe passage for his spirit into the netherworld and a good place for him in the afterlife.

Looking at the two variants of the origin myth for burial rites as they manifest in separate texts, we note different emphases in them: while Innana’s variant focuses on her leaving her temples and cities, Geshtin-ana’s variant elaborates on her search and her lament. However, nothing indicates a preference for one over the other: the fact that the Erzählstoff-versions in both traditions follow a similar or parallel pattern is perhaps a good measure of their importance and presence in the imagination of the contemporary audience. Different emphases aside, the composite Erzählstoff-version implies a strong preexisting tradition about Geshtin-ana, which other Erzählstoffe-versions about Dumuzi’s death readily attest to.¹³⁶ The tradition about Innana, by contrast, appears stronger than Geshtin-ana’s at the beginning of the text. In the context of Dumuzi’s death, the person lamenting the deceased is a female relative, such as a wife, sister, or mother (see for instance Innana and Bilulu, Dumuzi’s Dream, and ershema no. 88). Whereas Mark Cohen interprets Geshtin-ana’s offer as more alluring to the Fly, and Innana’s behavior as leading to Dumuzi’s capture by evil demons,¹³⁷ we offer a different reconstruction based on hylistic analysis: the actions of both Geshtin-ana and Innana are deliberately structured to shape originally diverging traditions and narrative materials into a parallel pattern. Once differing ideas about the goddesses and their functions have thus been harmonized into one composite myth.

We can also observe a clear interhylistic relationship between the two variants. Any analysis of their underlying Erzählstoff-versions must treat them as separate entities, as they represent two variants of the same narrative material—with different protagonists, now joined together in a much larger composite Erzählstoff-version, a relatively frequent occurrence in Mesopotamian myths and their textual manifestations.¹³⁸ The composite myth as a whole can thus be described as stratified: it is composed of various (parts of) individual mythical Erzählstoff-versions. While the Innana variant is known from other texts and contexts (see section 4), the Geshtin-ana variant has to date only been reconstructed from this one ershema.