Notes to Chapter 11. The nature of gods and world: Enūma elīš

General notes on Chapter 11
11.1 Voice
11.2 Generations
      11.2.1 The pre-historic pantheon
      11.2.2 The proto-historic pantheon
      11.2.3 The historic pantheon
      11.2.4 The historic pantheon: conflict
      11.2.5 The historic pantheon: resolution
11.3 Compositive structure
      11.3.1 Recalls, resumes, transitions
      11.3.2 Divisions
      11.3.3 The *colophon*
11.4 Themes
      11.4.1 The "creation"
      11.4.2 The aquatic element
11.5 The setting
      11.5.1 The scribal sphere
      11.5.2 The cultual sphere
      11.5.3 The centrality of memory
11.6 Perception
11.7 The natural world
11.8 The human world
      11.8.1 A primitive democracy
      11.8.2 The kingship as a paradigm of order
11.9 The sense of history
      11.9.1 The value of tradition
      11.9.2 The generation as historiographic model
      11.9.3 Civilization vs. barbarity
11.10 The nature of the becoming
      11.10.1 "Destroy and create"
      11.10.2 "The limits of time"
11.11 The nature of evil
      11.11.1 Noise and disorder
      11.11.2 Ethic and ontology

ERRORS in databases:

• "Boson1918Assiriologia.d": duplicate bibliography "Boson1918Assiriologia" for site "Akk-lg".
• "Bottero1992Reasoning.d": duplicate bibliography "Bottero1992Reasoning" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Buccellati1972Teodicea.d": duplicate bibliography "Buccellati1972Teodicea" for site "Mes-lit".
• "Cauvin2000Birth.d": duplicate bibliography "Cauvin2000Birth" for site "Mes-rel".
• "DMB.d": duplicate bibliography "DMB" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Edzard2003Sumerian.d": duplicate bibliography "Edzard2003Sumerian" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Oshima2014Sufferers.d": duplicate bibliography "Oshima2014Sufferers" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Trinkaus1983Shanidar.d": duplicate bibliography "Trinkaus1983Shanidar" for site "Mes-rel".

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General notes on Chapter 11

1. Textual notes:

   i 15 My reading of *Anšar Anum bukrašu umaššil* is: "Anšar made Anum, his son, a copy (of himself)". Similarly Foster 1996 Muses, 1, p. 353: "Anshar made Anu, his offspring, (his) equal". Differently *CAD* M/1, p. 357 and Lambert 2013 Creation Myths, p. 51: they interpret the line as "Anu, the son, equalled Anšar". This is less likely because it seems preferable to take the D-stem as a factitive, and to take the accusative *bukrašu* at face value, as the object of the verb. i 21-24 The alternation of permansives (underlined in the following) and preterites is significant and must be enlightened:
   

   *innendūma athū ilānū*	"the gods *congregated * as comrades do and"
   *ešūTiamat-ma*	"were *in a state of confusion* that affected Tiamat because"
   *nāşiršunū ištappū*	"they *kept jumping* making a huge clamor";
   *dalhunim-ma ša Tiamat karassa*	"they were in a state of great agitation and so"
   *ina šuarī šu'durū*	"they were full of anxiety with their dancing"
   *qirib Anduruna	"in the midst of Anduruna"

        *ištappū*: I take this as the third person plural of the Btn stem of *šapū*, "to surge up and down," and *nāşiršunū* as an accusative of relation, "with their noise."
        *nāşirum* is rare, and is used here as an arcane word; its meaning as "clamor" is derived from lexical lists v 3      *u’addī šattam mişrāti umaşşir* "he made known (the nature of) the year, defined the boundaries (of time)
        *u’addī*: D-stem from *idū *"to make known," equivalent to "revealing"
        *umaşşir* D-stem from *maşāru*, a denominative from *mişru* "boundary" (*AHw*, p. 620 A), hence "to make a boundary," which is etymologically the equivalent of "to define" (from Latin *finis* "boundary"); another equivalent would be "to circumscribe its inner divisions," as is made clear by the following verse: "he established three stars for each of the twelve months." v 71      The break at the beginning of the line hides the nature of the object that Marduk places on his head and then delivers to the "fathers." The suggestion that it may have been a "standard" harks back to i 67-68, where it is said of Ea that he "ripped off his tiara, took away his aura (*melammu*), put it on himself." vii 146      The cuneiform *en-qu mu-du-u* does not explicitly give a conjunction *u*, but we may assume an ellypsis for *enqu u mudū*. Alternatively, we may take *enqu mudū* as a compound referring to both: "the wise expert." vii 157      «(Questo testo è) l'esposto che una persona in autorità (*mahrū*) pronunciò», thus with con Lambert. L'interpretazione in *CADT*, p. 80 "the instructions that a former (poet?) communicated to him he wrote down and established it to be heard by later (generations)" seems less likely because it is not clear what the term *panuššu* actually refers to.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.2.1 The pre-historic pantheon

1. For the interpretation of the early gods in terms of the landscape of southern Mesopotamia, see below 11.7.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.2.2 The proto-historic pantheon

1. For the interpretation of the storm in its confrontation with the sea, see below, see below 11.7.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

2. For the quality jump, see Clarke, Childhood’s End.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.5.2 The cultual sphere

1. The ritual describing the New Year program (akītu) is found in F. Thureau-Dangin, Rituels akkadiens, Paris 1921, pp. 127-154. The text is as follows (lines 280-282): Enūma elīš [ištu rēš]īšu adi qītīšu šešgal Ekua [ana Bēl i]naššī. Literally, the verb inaššī means “lift up, lift up”. Anyhow, it is understood in the sense of the expression nīš qāti, “the act of raising the hands” in a gesture of prayer. In other words, the Poem of Creation is recited in its entirety as a prayer said with the hands raised up.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

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11.7 The natural world

1. For the description of the lowlands of southern Iraq, see Jacobsen 1946 Intellectual, pp. 171 f. For the description of the storm against the sea, on the Mediterranean coast, see Jacobsen 1968 Tiamat.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.8.1 A primitive democracy

1. See Jacobsen 1943 Primitive.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.8.2 The kingship as a paradigm of order

1. Utu-hegal’s text is published as No. E2.13.11.4 in Frayne 1993 R I M E 2.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.9.3 Civilization vs. barbarity

1. Utu-hegal’s text is published as No. E2.13.11.4 in Frayne 1993 R I M E 2.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.10.2 "The limits of time"

1. For the notion of the “boundaries of time” see above, textual note to v 3.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]

11.11.1 Noise and disorder

1. For the notion of “noise” see Oshima 2014 Sleep, who suggests an interpretation (in line with Moran, Machinist and Batto) that is substantially close to the one I propose here.

   – [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2022]