classics midterm 2 images

Drawing of cuneiform tablet with reed stylus

• cuneiform is a writing system invented by Sumerians

• NOT a language, a writing system, like the alphabet

• lots of ancient work written in cuneiform, like Enuma Elish, Song of Emergence, and Epic of Gilgamesh

One of the clay tablets in Atrahasis epic (in British Museum)

• compared to Enuma Elish and The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Atrahasis epic is VERY fragmented

• Atrahasis epic in 3 tablets

Enuma Elish, cuneiform tablets discovered in library of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, ca. 650 BCE

• discovered in Assyria

• Enuma Elish has a total of 7 tablets

Enki/Ea and Ishtar, Akkadian cylinder seal, ca. 2200 BCE

• Apsu: streams of water coming off his shoulders with fish

• Enki: within the temple/between the streams of water

• Ishtar: in the middle with wings and arrows/spears sticking out from her back

  • remember that Ishtar is a mix between goddess of war and sexual desire

Enki/Ea in apsu, Akkadian cylinder seal, ca. 2200 BCE

• Enki/Ea in the middle of the two streams

Marduk and his mushushshu dragon, drawing of detail from Babylonian cylinder seal, ca. 850 BCE

• Marduk is depicted in mythology as fire-breathing and having 4 eyes and 4 ears, but this is not depicted in this image

• Marduk in anthropomorphic form

Mushushshu Dragon, from Ishtar Gate, Babylon, ca. 575

Reconstruction, Ishtar Gate, Pergamon Museum, Berlin

• huge gate with glazed bricks and paintings of mushushshu dragons and bulls

• main entryway into city of Babylon

Babylon, ca. 575 BCE (reconstruction)

• Ishtar Gate

• you can see the glazed bricks and the alternations of bulls and mushushshu dragons

• main entryway into city of Babylon

Ninurta (later Marduk) fighting Tiamat (?), Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal, ca. 900-800 BCE

• Tiamat as serpent?

  • there isn’t any description of Tiamat’s physical appearance in other works

• battling god Ninurta? (replaced by Marduk in Babylonian Enuma Elish)

  • the one towards the head of the serpentine, holding thunderbolts in his hands (3-pronged)

    • storm god

Tiamat in Dungeons & Dragons

• Tiamat as a 5-headed dragon

Hurricane storm god Teshub or Hittite Storm God (Tarhun?), Hittite stone pillar, ca. 1300 BCE

• Teshub or Tarhun?

• figure holding 3-pronged lightning bolt

• standing on a bull

• upturned shoes

• horned helmet

  • horned helmet is a sign of divinity, so it shows that the figure is a god/goddess

New Atrahasis Fragment, Babylonian clay tablet, first published in 2014 CE

• in this new fragment, we get a better idea of what the boat looked like

• we also get when Enki/Ea talks to the wall with Atrahasis behind it and get the instructions for the boat

• the new fragment is mostly spoken, maybe a script for dramatic reading

• we still don’t see the actual flood

Coracles (woven basket boats) from modern-day Vietnam

• what Atrahasis’ boat probably looked like with information from the new Atrahasis fragment

• woven basket boat

• not meant for oceans/seas, more for rivers

• circular!

Coracle from modern-day India

• Atrahasis must’ve had a huge coracle to fit all the animals

Coracles from early 20th-century CE Iraq

• from a postcard in Baghdad

Sacrificial procession, painted wooden plaque from Pitsa (near Corinth), ca. 540 BCE

• boys in the middle playing instruments

• women are very decorated

• woman far right has a basket on her head

  • inside basket has the knife that will be used for sacrifice

  • boy next to far right woman leading the sacrificial lamb

• blood on altar

Sacrifice scene, Attic R-F kylie, Epidromos Painter, ca. 500 BCE

• two men about to sacrifice a boar on altar

• boar is already dripping blood

• blood on altar

Sacrifice scene, Apulian R-F column-krater, ca. 350 BCE

• two men about to kill lamb on alar

• woman is bringing basket of barley

  • barley will be sprinkled on the animal to purify it

• one man pouring drink offering on the altar

• blood on altar

Sacrifice scene, Attic R-F bell-krater, Pothos Painter, ca. 420 BCE

• animal has already been killed

• man on right is cooking a piece of the animal on the spit

• woman on the left playing the double pipes

• man on left pouring drink offering

Standard Version of Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet 11 (= the Flood), from library of Assyrian king Ashurbanibal at Nineveh, ca. 650 BCE

• Epic of Gilgamesh in 12 clay tablets

  • Atrahasis had 3, Enuma Elish has 7, so Epic of Gilgamesh is huge!

• flood myth is in tablet 11