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Quote: Gudea and his Dynasty (The Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Early Periods, RIME3/1) Summary:

By Dietz Otto Edzard

* Publisher: University of Toronto

* Number Of Pages: xviii 233

* Publication Date: 1997-08-09

* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0802041876

* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780802041876

Product Description:

Gudea ruled over the Sumerian city-state of Lagas during the 21st century B.C.E., and left an incredible wealth of inscriptions pertaining to his building activity and pious donations, displayed on statues, clay cylinders, mace heads, vessels and many other objects. The central part of the book is Gudea's incription dedicated to the construction of the Eninnu, the main sanctuary of his city-god Ningirsu. It is composed of two parts, each displayed on a huge clay cylinder measuring 60 cm in height and 33 cm in diameter. The composition as a whole has 1366 cases or lines, and is among the longest Sumerian literary texts known at present. Although formally a building inscription, it is at the same time Sumerian poetic art at its best, and also a rich source for the study of Sumerian religion.

Gudea's inscriptions and those of his predecessors and followers are offered in the Latin transliteration of the original cuneiform texts, in translation, and they are pred with introductions, commentaries and explanatory notes, with the volume as a whole highlighting a century which was part of the so-called Neo-Sumerian period.

Review: The history of later third millennium (B.C.) Babylonia is dominated by three polities: the state founded by Sargon of Akkade, variously known as the Old Akkadian or Sargonic empire, or the dynasty of Akkad (ca. 2350-2200); the state founded by Urnammu with its capital at Ur, known as the Third Dynasty of Ur, or, simply, Ur III (ca. 2100-2000); and the state of Lagash, in the southeast of Sumer, with its major urban centers of Girsu, Lagash, and Nina. Whereas the first two, which controlled not only all of Babylonia but considerable territory beyond it, are considered to be the first "empires" in western Asian history, and are known from widely distributed sources, the place of Lagash in Babylonian history is controversial and poorly understood. Due to the copious epigraphic material unearthed by the French expeditions to Girsu (Tello) beginning in the last century, and to a much smaller extent by the American expedition to Lagash itself (Al-Hiba) in the 1970s, we know more by far about Lagash in the period prior to Sargon of Akkade, ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2350), and in the period just before Urnammu, than we do about any other place in Babylonia. But generally, historians have not considered Lagash a major player on the political scene; even the claims of Eanatum (ca. 2400) to victories over Elam and Mari, and his assumption of the hegemonic title "King of Kish" tend to get dismissed unfairly, I would think, as the overblown boasts of a petty city-state ruler. For the period between the Sargonic state and Ur III, the place of the so-called "Second Dynasty of Lagash," whose inscriptions are edited and translated in the volume under review, is likewise not well understood nor agreed upon. Even the chronology of the best-known ruler of the dynasty, Gudea, whose statues grace the Louvre and whose inscriptions can be found in museums and collections all over the globe, is disputed--did he rule prior to Urnammu or did he overlap with him?--as is the order and identity of some of the other rulers. The author does not rehearse these problems, wisely, since without new sources they appear so intractable, but he does seem to belong to those historians who see Gudea's state as a peaceable kingdom: "Foreign relations, at least according to the information of our corpus, were trade-oriented since enormous quantities of building materials and precious goods had to be imported for Gudea's ambitious projects. It goes without saying that our texts do not state how these imports were to be paid for, but they were certainly neither booty nor foreign tribute" (p. 26). These two sentences conclude a paragraph that refers, in an almost dismissive way, to the following passage from Gudea's Statue B (vi 64-76, as translated by Edzard on p. 35): "He defeated the cities of An?an and Elam and brought the booty therefrom to Ningirsu in his Eninnu. When he had built the Eninnu for Ningirsu, Gudea, ruler of Laga?, made (the booty) a donation forever." Actually, Gudea never says that he "paid" for any of the raw materials he gathered; rather, he usually simply says he "brought down" the various materials from this "land" or that "mountain range," and it seems rash to assume that these were trade goods rather than booty or forcible extractions of some sort. In fact, the latter is suggested by the long passage in Cyl. A xv-xvi, where, on the one hand, various foreign lands are bringing raw materials to Gudea on command, and on the other, the god Ningirsu clears a path into the mountainous areas from which Gudea can extract timber and stone. Gudea's hegemony over Sumer is implied in Cyl. A xi 16f. and B xxii 19f., and was assumed (primarily for the wrong reason) by A. Falkenstein (Die Inschriften Gudeas von Laga?, I [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1966], 42-44). Gudea and His Dynasty (RIM E3.1) appeared simultaneously with The Third Dynasty of Ur (RIM E3.2); when The Early Dynastic Period (RIM E1) appears in 1999 or early 2000, the Early Periods series of the Inscriptions of Mesopotamia will be complete. The Sargonic and Gutian Periods (RIM E2) and The Old Babylonian Period (RIM E4) appeared in previous years. This represents a remarkable accomplishment indeed, and the authors as well as the staff of the entire project are to be congratulated, but especially Douglas Frayne, who has produced all of the Early Periods volumes save the one under review here. Because the author of this volume is different, some conventions of transliteration and presentation have been altered to fit the author's preferences, as explained by R. F. G. Sweet in his usual "Editorial Notes," and by the author himself in his introduction. Since nearly all of the inscriptions edited by Edzard appeared in H. (correct the bibliography on p. xiv) Steible, Neusumerische Bau- und Weihinschriften (Stuttgart: E Steiner Verlag, 1991) (hereafter NSBW), Edzard relies on that work for its collations and bibliography, which is appropriate, but goes too far, perhaps, in an edition that will remain the standard scholarly presentation of these texts for decades to come, by sending his readers to NSBW for variants that are not, in his judgment, "of philological or historical interest." Edzard wisely has departed from RIM practice by retaining the traditional designations of Gudea Statues ("Statue A," "Statue B," etc.), and just as wisely has abandoned the designations of the other inscriptions by medium ("Brick A," "Cone A," etc.), since the same inscription can appear on more than one medium. As Edzard notes in the introduction to his handy "Catalogue of Types of Inscribed Objects" (pp. 223-28), Gudea 37, commemorating the restoration of the Eninnu, appears on six different media: stone block, inscribed brick, stamped brick, clay cone, stone door socket, and stone tablet. But one might question the wisdom of not informing the reader of these traditional designations in the bibliography at the beginning of each inscription; Edzard instead refers those interested to NSBW. As Edzard notes, his greatest departure from NSBW is the inclusion of Gudea's magnificent cylinders A and B and the cylinder fragments. The long temple hymn in two parts, cylinders A and B, is perhaps the greatest masterpiece of Sumerian literature, and, curiously, stands at the very beginning of a long and very rich tradition of hymnography, vigorous under the Third Dynasty of Ur and the rulers of Isin, much less so under the rulers of Larsa, and finally petering out under the First Dynasty of Babylon. I dare say that this will be the most consulted portion of the volume: a translation by the doyen of the students of Adam Falkenstein of the document to which Falkenstein devoted so much of his scholarly energy, yet did not live to present himself in a scholarly edition and translation. Again, there is departure from RIM practice in the inclusion of a mini-commentary at the foot of the page (though not of every page). Yet, as with the popular translations of Falkenstein and Thorkild Jacobsen, whose inspiration Edzard acknowledges (p. 68), in the absence of a full-blown commentary it will often be difficult for the reader to know exactly what motivated Edzard's translation in a specific instance. Edzard has long been a fierce opponent of Sumerologendeutsch, and, as one might expect, has no patience with Sumerologists' English either. His translation of the Gudea Cylinders aims at "reflecting the literary qualities of the original," which is to aim very high and at a target that can be maddeningly elusive. He defers to Jacobsen's exquisite renderings "whenever Jacobsen seemed to me to have hit the mark," but as every Sumerologist who has worked with Jacobsen's iant but idiosyncratic translations of Sumerian litreature knows, there are places aplenty where Jacobsen's beautiful translation cannot be made one's own. So Edzard has set himself a formidable task, all the more so, as he acknowledges, since English, for him, is a second language. Those who know Edzard might smile; I myself cannot think of a non-native speaker among my Assyriological colleagues whose English is more perfect. And yet.... Edzard's translation is not always poetry, and most often this is because his choice of English words is too prosaic or colloquial. Sumerian poetry relies heavily on repetition and parallelism, devices that cannot but give it an archaic flavor in English translation. A too colloquial translation can be more jarring in such a context than the "sens d'originalit?" that Edzard eschews (p. 68). For example, the divine pronouncement near the beginning of the hymn (Cyl. A i 4f.) In our city everything really functioned as it should,

In fact, the flood again reached the banks ... jars because of the "really functioned" and the "in fact." Would not the traditional "indeed" have been better suited to the poetic register than "really" and "in fact"? And "indeed" in both lines would also preserve the rhyme of the verbal prefix nam- in each line. Furthermore, is n?g-du7 pa-? really "functioned as it should," or rather "appeared as it should"? This is more a question of philology than register (though "functioned" sounds very awkward even if correct), just the kind of question which would have been answered in the sort of commentary that the RIM format precludes. At other times, the problem is not register, but nuance. For example, in Cyl. A i, Gudea does not fully understand a dream in which the god Ningirsu commands him to build the very temple whose subsequent construction and dedication is the subject of Gudea's hymn. His decision to have the goddess Nanshe interpret the dream for him (Sum. ga-na ga-na-ab-du11 ga-na ga-na-ab-du11) is rendered by Edzard "Well, well, I will have to tell it to her." "Well, well" hardly captures the urgency of the original, but to the contrary suggests an inappropriately contemplative attitude. Again, when Gudea travels to Nanshe's city by boat in col. ii, Edzard has Gudea "merrily cutting through the waves on the river," which implies a jollity unsuitable to so fraught an occasion; "joyfully" or even "happily" would have worked much better. Edzard has long questioned the traditional translation of Sumerian k? as "holy" or "sacred;" and in his edition of the Gudea cylinders he avoids it whenever possible. He prefers "bright," "shining," or "pure," and, of course, it is very difficult to argue that the star prefiguring the building of Eninnu is "holy" rather than "bright," or that a stone jar in the temple is "holy" rather than "pure" (but why "pure" and not "shining"?). But should iri-k? (Uruku), the sacred precinct of Girsu (G. Selz, Untersuchungen zur G?tterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Laga? [Philadelphia: The Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, 1995], 299), be translated "Shining City" rather than "Holy City"? One wonders how Edzard knows that the dusu k? and the gi?gigir k? are "brand-new" and not just "shining" or "sacred," or why the men k? in Cyl. A xix 14 is a "lovely tiara," but the same object in xx 25 is a "pure crown." How does he come by the translation "snow-white cover" for bar k? in Cyl. B xvii 1, and how does he know that the ban?ur k? of xiv 17 is "properly set" and not "pure" or "shining"? Is nothing "sacred"? Well, yes, there is one instance when k? is so translated: ??r k? in Cyl. B iv 6 is "sacred songs." Admittedly, it would be hard to make songs shining or bright, but they could have been brand-new, pure, or lovely. If however, Edzard is serious about translating k? as "sacred" in this one instance, then his reluctance to do so in any other is puzzling. The cylinders are about the construction of the most holy place in the entire state; why object to calling its furnishings and the tools and materials used to build it "holy" or "sacred"? One of the key-words in Sumerian religious discourse is me (G. Farber, Reallexikon der Assyriologie, 7:610-13), which refers to divine powers in general or the specific spiritual force animating a given institution, activity, or phenomenon. Edzard most often translates "powers" which works very well in English, but sometimes avoids that word for what he seems to think is a more idiomatic rendering. But by so doing the force of the repeated use of me in the original is lost, and the poetry of the original, which depends on such repetition, is obscured. Thus, in Cyl. A i 11, the god Ningirsu tells us he will make the powers (me) of his temple manifest in the entire universe, and nine lines later, in a line beginning identically, Ningirsu reveals those powers to Gudea: ?-ninnu me-bi an-ki-a pa-? mu-ak-ke4 (A i 11)

?-ninnu me-bi gal-gal-la-?m igi mu-na-ni-gar (A i 20f.) Edzard loses the obvious parallelism in his translation: I will render Eninnu most influential in heaven and on earth.

He let Eninnu, whose powers are the greatest, stand before his eyes. Not only is nothing gained and much lost by the translation "render most influential" instead of "make its powers manifest" for line 11, but it is not at all certain that the text's meaning is being accurately represented. In certain circumstances, me alternates with the reflexive pronoun ni, but Edzard would see this alternation in places where most would stick with the traditional understanding of me as "powers." Thus, me gal - la "(Laga? ...) sure of itself" (Cyl. A i 2), me gal-gal-la "([Ningirsu] ...) very sure of himself" (Cyl. B vi 8) and me gal-la "(Ekur ... built) as your [Eninnu] very self" (B xx 21). But surely, if Ningirsu in Cyl. A x 6 is endowed by Enlil with me ninnu-a "the fifty powers," then B vi 8 must be referring to those very powers, which may indeed give him the self-confidence implied in Edzard's translation, but which nevertheless should appear in translation as they stand in the original. Likewise, after numerous references to the "powers" (me) of Eninnu, surely B xx 21 must be referring to the "powers" (me) of Ekur. The meaning of the temple name, ?-ninnu "house fifty," which perplexes Edzard (pp. 4f.), is to be sought in the significance of the number fifty and its attribution to Enlil, Ninurta/Ningirsu and, later, Marduk (W. Rollig, Reallexikon der Assyriologie, 3: 500). This same significance is reflected in the me ninnu "fifty powers" given by Enlil to Ningirsu in Cyl. A x 6, and in Ningirsu/Ninurta's fifty-headed weapon (J. Cooper, The Return to Ninurta to Nippur [Rome: Pontifical Institute , 1978], 154-62; D. Frayne, The Old Babylonian Period, 1.4.15), as well as in the fifty names of Ninurta (Frayne, loc. cit.) and later, of Marduk. Another key Sumerian religious term is nam-tar "destiny, fate," and, as a verb, "to determine/decide destiny/fate." This traditional translation may be stilted, but it accurately portrays what is conveyed by the Sumerian. In an effort to find a more natural rendering, Edzard has settled on "firm promise," but a "promise" is not nearly so certain and unavoidable as "destiny," and making a promise, even a "firm promise," lacks the overtones of deciding someone's or something's fate. As with the words k? and me, the traditional Sumerologists' translation has advantages as well as drawbacks, and ought not to be abandoned if the price of more felicitous English is a translation that conveys less of what is in the original. I am not advocating that' every Sumerian word ought to be translated each time by the same English word, which could lead to ludicrous results. So for Sumerian ma? "large, grand, exalted" Edzard is correct to translate gidri ma? "lofty scepter" (St. B ii 18; D i 19) but kisal-ma? "main courtyard" (St. E iv 14), yet how are we to understand the inconsistencies in translating gi?dur-gar ma? variously as "lofty seat" (St. A ii 3), "sublime seat" (St. E iv 3), and "huge seat" (St. F iii 8); ?-ma? as "Huge House" (St. A ii 5), "lofty building" (St. B v 51), and "Sublime House" (St. E iv 10); or nam-ma? as "prominence" (St. B ix 29) and "greatness" (St. E ii 3)? These different translation choices could not have been done for the sake of more felicitous English, and while it may be true that the differences hardly matter, this kind of unexplained inconsistency in a scholarly edition cannot but be troubling to the reader. The preceding criticism should be understood as part of a long-standing engagement with the problem of translating Sumerian texts. It is not a problem that I myself have been able to solve satisfactorily, and the aspects of the problem raised in this review by no means detract from the enormous accomplishment of Edzard in setting before us a Gudea for the third millennium (A.D.). The University of Toronto has produced a handsome book, with none of the excess of blank space that marred earlier RIM volumes. The price however, is very high indeed, and the practice of charging customers outside of Canada the same number of U.S. dollars as Canadians pay in Canadian dollars is an outrage. Would a U.S. publisher dare to charge British customers the same number of pounds as American customers pay in dollars? Has the University of Toronto no shame?

Jerrold Cooper

Johns Hopkins University

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