Anonymous asked: Hello, i love your blog sooooooo much ❤❤❤❤ and I have en ask for you and your knowlege!!! do you know what is the significance of Ur-Nungar (ya'know Gil's son) and Mesanepada? Thank you!!! ❤❤❤❤
Hi there, and thanks for the kind words!
Ur-nungal, son of Gilgamesh, is written 𒌨𒀭𒉣𒃲 in cuneiform. Nungal is a set phrase meaning “the great gods, the major Sumerian pantheon members” in Sumerian, and is preceded by the deity classifier 𒀭, which appears in the middle of his name; Ur-nungal therefore means “servant (ur) of the great gods”.
Meshanepada (sometimes transliterated in a couple different ways), the first king on the Sumerian kings list to rule from Ur, is written 𒈩𒀭𒉌𒅆𒊒𒁕 in cuneiform. Derived from mes or mesh 𒈩 “young man”, an 𒀭 “sky; the sky god An”, and pad 𒅆𒊒 “to find, choose”, his name means “young man chosen by An.”
Silim! I’ve received a couple of messages recently asking why a given question hasn’t been answered.
I often receive a burst of a lot of questions at once, and try to go through them in order, so it may take a while for a given answer to publish. I do occasionally skip a question if I’ve answered an identical question very recently. Also, this is Tumblr, so occasionally a question gets eaten by the ask system, unfortunately.
If you want to guarantee a (somewhat prompt) private response to your question, please sent it not on anonymous, and/or send me a message using the messenger system as well. Thanks!
The goddess Narundi is not a well-known goddess, but from what one can see the statue here indicates she was of extreme importance in her pantheon. Her headdress has three pairs of horns (not easy to see in this angle, don’t worry another pic after this blurb) usually indicated Sumerian deities of high rank. She is holding both a palm frond and a goblet. Lions decorate all sides of her throne, even beneath her feet; some even hold poles or spears. Lions were symbols of strength in Mesopotamia, especially when associated with the war goddess Inanna/Ishtar. There are also two inscriptions of the sides of the statue. One in Akkadian with the name Puzur-Inshushinak, an Elamite king of the Awan dynasty who is the commissioner of the statue. And the other in Elamite bearing Narundi’s name.
Other side of the statue where you can see the three horns on the headdress and one of the side lions at the bottom.
Anonymous asked: hey! i love your blog a lot. my name means "protector of humanity" or "defender of men". could you translate that to sumerian, pretty please?
Hello! I’ve actually answered about this name before, but here’s the short version: the closest translation I can come up with is ludullu, “person of protection of men”, written 𒇽𒌋𒌆𒇽 in cuneiform. There’s another word, luu 𒇽𒍇, which means “all of mankind”, so you could also go with ludulluu 𒇽𒌋𒌆𒇽𒍇, “person of protection of all of mankind” if you prefer.
MUNICH, GERMANY—For as long as there has been civilization, there have been mind-altering drugs. Alcohol was distilled at least 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, about the same time that agriculture took hold there. Elsewhere, for example in Mesoamerica, other psychoactive drugs were an important part of culture. But the ancient Near East had seemed curiously drug-free—until recently.
Now, new techniques for analyzing residues in excavated jars and identifying tiny amounts of plant material suggest that ancient Near Easterners indulged in a range of psychoactive substances. Recent advances in identifying traces of organic fats, waxes, and resins invisible to the eye have allowed scientists to pinpoint the presence of various substances with a degree of accuracy unthinkable a decade or two ago.
For example, “hard scientific evidence” shows that ancient people extracted opium from poppies, says David Collard, senior archaeologist at Jacobs, an engineering firm in Melbourne, Australia, who found signs of ritual opium use on Cyprus dating back more than 3000 years. Read more.
Anonymous asked: hi! so, i read that the sumerian word for lion is "urmah", and i'm a little confused why the word for dog would be used in that? is ur more a general "animal" prefix that just happens to mean "dog" on its own, or is there a specific reason the sumerians called so many animals dogs? (besides them being dog people, of course)
Hi there! Ur 𒌨 in Sumerian does mean “dog”, but can also mean “carnivorous animal” in general, and it’s used as the base of the names of a bunch of other animals, including:
urbarra 𒌨𒁇𒊏 “wolf” (“outside dog”)
urmah 𒌨𒈤 or urgula 𒌨𒄖𒆷 “lion” (both meaning “great dog”)
urdib 𒌨𒁳or urnim 𒌨𒉏 “lion cub” ( “early dog”)
ura 𒌨𒀀 “otter” (“water dog”)
urki 𒌨𒆠 “badger” (“earth dog”)
uridim 𒌨𒅂 “wild dog, rabid dog” (“wild dog”)
urbigu 𒌨𒁉𒅥 “jackal” (“eating-everything dog”)
urbigu 𒌨𒁉𒅥𒄷 “vulture” (“jackal bird”)
urshub 𒌨𒍤𒆸“tiger, cheetah” (“dog (in the) rushes”)
urshubkuda 𒌨𒍤𒆸𒋻𒁕“leopard” (“dog (in the) cut-short rushes”)
…plus, of course, words like urtur 𒌨𒌉 “puppy”, urgir 𒌨𒆪 “watchdog”, and ursaga “pampered dog”, whose exact cuneiform I can’t find, but which I just had to include.
As to why the Sumerians used a (commonly encountered) animal as the basis for the names of other animals, all I can say is that a lot of languages do this! It’s especially true in languages that use extensive compounding, like Sumerian and German — a number of German animal names are based on Tier “animal”, including Stinktier (“stink animal”, skunk), Gürteltier (“belt animal”, armadillo), Schnabeltier (“beak animal”, platypus), and Faultier (“lazy animal”, sloth).
Ancient Greek: As a young lion, venturing for the first time out of the den, drawn to the brightness of Helios and the rustle of leaves, is caught unaware by hunters and runs for his life, bounding over stones with ragged breath, so the late student, suckling of wisdom, hurried to the gymnasium.
Hittite: For the ritual of the late apprentice. When a scribal apprentice is continually late to work, I prepare the following: 3 sour breads, 1 bowl of water, 1 cu[p of … ] a little bit of red string, blue string, a stylus, a snail (?), a piglet, clay models of hands, 2 jugs of beer, a palm frond, fingernail clippings from the apprentice’s master, watercress (?), a stool… (continue for 15 lines)
Akkadian: If a scribal apprentice is accused of being late to work and the accuser produces three witnesses, the scribal apprentice shall have his hands cut off. If the apprentice is accused again, he shall be put to death. But if the accuser cannot produce three witnesses, then he shall be put to death.
Sumerian: The apprentice roams the city during the day. The apprentice always roams the city [during the day. The appre]ntice, the ungrateful (`?) child, always roams the city during the day. When the master asks [ … ] late. The clay is not patted into a tablet. The holy (or shining, or lapis lazuli?) stylus is not taken up. The master [ … ] drinking beer.¹
¹See Attinger who interprets this text not as a schoolmaster’s complaint but as a metaphor for sacred marriage.
Anonymous asked: Sorry to bother you, but I was trying to figure out if you could help me with the etymology of the Huwawa 𒄷𒉿𒉿. By the way, your blog kicks A$$!
Hi there, and thanks!
There’s no known exact meaning for Huwawa (Akkadian Humbaba), a giant in the Epic of Gilgamesh, but my thinking is that that’s purposeful. You may notice that the /w/ sound isn’t a “natural” sound in Sumerian, and 𒉿 “wa” is a sign that normally is read pi. It appears as “wa” exclusively in borrowings from Akkadian (not relevant here) or in onomatopoeic words like 𒉿𒉿 wawa or wuwa, “a sound like ‘woo-wah’”. So Huwawa’s name is probably intended not to sound like meaningful language, but to emulate the kind of noise a terrifying gargantuan monster would make.
Anonymous asked: A fellow anthropologist? What job did you get with that?
My current day job has pretty much nothing to do with my degree (in Classics & Anthropology) — I work in the publishing industry, doing book design, editing, and things of that nature. If you’d like to know more about me outside of my Sumerian project, you can visit my personal website.