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Two Medical Texts from Nimrud

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Extract

The texts presented in this study are two which were discovered by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq during the 1955 season at Nimrud. The field records of the Expedition show that both tablets came from a rubbish pit H 2 within the precincts of the Nabu Temple. They formed part of a large collection which was disturbed and partly destroyed by persons searching for loot and burnt-bricks after the destruction of Calah in 612 B.C. Some time in the sixth century there was an attempt to repair and renovate the city by the impoverished inhabitants of the district, who found in the old Assyrian pavements invaluable building material. Much excavation of the Temple area was then undertaken, and the site was studded with pits which were subsequently refilled with unwanted debris including the remains of the Temple library.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1956 , pp. 130 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1956

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References

page 130 note 1 See also Iraq, XVIII, Pt. 1, p. 7Google Scholar. Additions to the collection were also made in 1956 in a similar context which will be described in a subsequent number of this Journal.

page 130 note 2 Following Geers, , A.J.S.L. XLIII, 24, 1Google Scholar. The reading illiku, Labat, , T.D.P. I, 2, 1 (and colophons) hardly seems appropriateGoogle Scholar.

page 131 note 1 Originally edited by Zimmern, , Z.A. XXX, 204 ffGoogle Scholar. and referred to in numerous places since, most recently by Oppenheim, , A.f.O. XVII, 50Google Scholar.

page 131 note 2 On the readings sa-gig, sakikkû and (edge-gloss) sa-kik-ke 4 see the discussion in the end-notes under rev. 7.

page 131 note 3 See Weidner, , A.f.O. XIV, 186–7 and plates I–IIGoogle Scholar.

page 133 note 1 Although the equation SAG = tašrîtu is not elsewhere established, the reading tašril (so, rather than rēš) is very probable because on the relevant tablet of the series itself (see T.D.P. I, p. 156)Google Scholarina SAG GIG (l. 1) is followed consistently thereafter by ina taš-rit GIG (ll. 4, 8 and 10) and such two-fold writing follows a well-known principle (cf. especially Nougayrol, , R.A. XXI, 38)Google Scholar. For another example note that MI.MEŠ is wrongly transliterated ṣalmû(mes) (T.D.P. 52, 1416)Google Scholar; the verb must be tarāku (cf. Š.L. 427/8) as indicated by the following tar-ku (ll. 17–18). For an example of ‘three-fold wirings’ cp. A.M.T. 90, 1, rev. iii, BÚR—pa-ši-er—pa-šer in three successive prescriptions (ll. 12, 19 and 23).

page 133 note 2 Restored after T.D.P. I, 176, 1Google Scholar.

page 133 note 3 Reading and first sign uncertain. Cf. T.D.P. II, LI, 26Google Scholar, and also XLIX, 80, which appears to have an additional sign initially.

page 134 note 1 Restored after T.D.P. II, LII, obv. I.

page 134 note 2 Restored after T.D.P. II, LVII, obv. I.

page 134 note 3 Literally ‘sweat (and) spots/pimples’ unless we have to do with a true compound ‘sweat-pimples’ in which case the translation follows at once.

page 134 note 4 Unless the concept is rather different, namely, ‘If all his sa's “are safe”’ that is, ‘have been saved, spared’ from the disease-demon's assault.

page 135 note 1 One which involves a fall, including, but probably not confined to, the major epileptic fit. Cf. Goetze, , J.C.S. IX, 12Google Scholar.

page 135 note 2 According to the extant tablet the sentence continues, ‘her child will be a boy’—a most illogical conclusion! In point of fact the probability is simply that some aspect of anaemia was involved.

page 135 note 3 The figure should, however, be 644; but since in the line above two entry totals for the tablet are given (as a partial explanation of this note the rule-line after T.D.P. 228, 102 in Labat's editionGoogle Scholar) it seems possible that it is the ‘2’ of ‘62’ which has been accidentally overlooked.

page 135 note 4 It will be seen that this sub-series is named by description only, and not from the first line of Tablet XXXVI. The meaning of the title given is not, however, very apparent.

page 136 note 1 Cf. respectively A.f.O. XIV, Tf. III, ii, 6Google Scholar, and C.T. XIV, 9 (K. 4373), rev.;9Google Scholar.

page 136 note 2 Apparently written (d)GUDIBIR-TUR.UŠ-SUM (na).

page 137 note 1 If-um is indeed the complement to LUGAL and not the beginning of the next word.

page 137 note 2 For the second restoration see the end note; the first is supplied ad senium.

page 137 note 3 Analysing as ina tam-ir-ti siḫirti, the text being defended in the end note. The translation ‘highways and byways’ attempts to render the spirit of the phrase; but that we thus also avoid the needo to determine with exactitude the meaning of the much discussed tamirtu (whether it be ‘meadows’, ‘commons’, ‘land liable to inundation’ or something else) will also be apparent and is not disguised.

page 137 note 4 Cf. ina sa-di-ri šum-šu-nu ul am(vat. im)-bi-ma (Thompson, Campbell, D.A.B., viii)Google Scholar, ‘I did not call out their names ina sadiri’, in connection with Ashurbanipa's revision of URU-an-na.

page 137 note 5 See Deimel, , Š.L. 128/31Google Scholar. Note also that in the text edited by Köcher, , ‘Eine spätbabylonische Ausdeutung des Tempelnamens Esangila’, A.f.O. XVII, 131 ff.Google Scholar, lines 32–4 of the reverse are to be restored in terms of (* ?) é-gú-zi. In connection with the father's name, if (d)˹KA˸.DI? is indeed rightly restored then cf. for the reading R.L.A. (s.v. Datenlisten), 137a, n. 2; Z.A. 41, 304Google Scholar; Dossin, , R.A. 35, 117Google Scholar, n. 1. On the problem of these names in general, cf. note 33 below.

page 137 note 6 J.C.S. IX, 125, n. 22Google Scholar.

page 138 note 1 C.T. XIV 9 (K.4373) rev. 2Google Scholar, and ibid. 22, rev. iv, 55.

page 138 note 2 It is perhaps worth adding that both contexts seem to indicate that SUR.GIBIL, z/ṣarâ was a fully revised edition, one which could if necessary begin a new tradition of its own, and not merely an edition which might differ from the one before it only by having additional items.

page 138 note 3 Cf. T.D.P. n. 1 and perhaps n. 219. My feeling is, however, that ‘commentaries’ is probably too big a word for egirātē, and although it has been kept in translation largely because traditional, the rendering ‘notes’ is almost certainly nearer. For interest cf. Cicero, , Ad Familiares v. 12, 140Google Scholar: ‘conficiam commentaries’ translated Jeans, , Select letters, 78Google Scholar, ‘I will put together my notes’.

page 138 note 4 On the ‘big/elder brother’ of the scribal school, see Kramer, J.A.O.S. 69, 209, n. 187Google Scholar. The fragment is perhaps the latest evidence so far to hand for the šeš-gal, and is of interest because of its witness to the continuity of tradition.

page 139 note 1 In point of fact the only means whereby one could see such an element in the term is to suppose that LÚ.GABA.RI reflects Sum. *lú-gaba-ri(-ak), Akkd. *amīl gabarî, ‘the man of the gaba-ri’, which is both unconvincing and without support.

page 139 note 2 See for the context Ebeling, Z.A. (N.F.) 17, 174Google Scholar.

page 139 note 3 IV R. 10, obv. 46.

page 139 note 4 Etana, K.2606, obv. 6.

page 139 note 5 The point can hardly be connected in any way with the fact that both Ešguziš and Satran?-šeš-maan-sum are thorough-going Sumerian names (8th cent. B.C., see below). One presumes that such names were sometimes employed in scribal families who were otherwise ‘Akkadian’ in every proper sense of the term. Cf. also Thureau-Dangin, , K.A. XXXII, 114Google Scholar, and Nougayrol, , K.A. XLI, 37, n. 8Google Scholar.

page 139 note 6 The same word, of course, as pa-ḫal, cp. the references to pa-ḫal-la and pap-ḫal-la cited by Falkenstein, , L.S.S. (N.F.) I. 16, n. 4Google Scholar.

page 141 note 1 Note that in T.D.P. I, the entries from 40, 11 to 42, 29 are to be restored throughout with SA = šer’ān after the conditional šumma, in line with 40, 8 and 42, 30, and because the verbs found in this section are those which are regularly used in connection with the sa’s.

page 141 note 2 See utuk. lim. III (CT. XVI, 5), 180182Google Scholar (Thompson, Campbell, Devils, I, 18)Google Scholar and Falkenstein, , Die Haupttypen der sumerischen Beschwörung, L.S.S. (N.F.) I, 29Google Scholar.

page 141 note 3 Lambert, and Gumey, , A.S., Vol. IV, 65 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 141 note 4 Note particularly iš-ḫu-ṭu, plural: and see further end-note, under reverse 7.

page 141 note 5 Assuming the la of l.12 to be the ‘pleonastic negative’ (see Albright, and Moran, , J.C.S. II, 240)Google Scholar which appears to give the best sense. As a small offering to the Hebrew examples of this idiom quoted in the article referred to, note the new sense which may be given to Job, iii, 26 (thus chiefly against Stevenson, , Critical Notes …, p. 8)Google Scholar: lō šālawti wlō’ šāqaṭti wlo’ nāḥti wayābō’ rōgex, ‘No sooner am I at ease, no sooner am I quiet, no sooner at rest-but always some torment cometh’. The tenses do not describe ‘events in the past’; they are ‘gnomic aorists’, a theme which will be developed elsewhere.

page 142 note 1 Text A.M.T. 2, 1, 4Google Scholar.

page 142 note 2 It should also be considered whether we ought not to insert the English ‘some’ (French ‘du’ ‘de la’, no corresponding Akkadian) before the nouns given in the above examples—thus ‘contains some rain’ ‘contains some sweat’, etc.—in order to explain more precisely how it comes that the idiom merely expresses a condition ‘moderate in degree’. As to the example on ‘paralysis’ (Akkd, . šimmatu, Ebeling, M.A.O.G. X/2 22Google Scholar, n. 32; Symb. Hrozný, 193) the text is T.D.P. 34, 19Google Scholar, and I would presume that the condition actually being referred to was no more than paresis, ‘a slight, or partial, paralysis’.

page 143 note 1 nu-nu maš-di-e is plural, a point hitherto overlooked, so indicated clearly by the commentary, K.A.R. 307, rev. 2, which substitutes ḪA.MEŠ maš-di-e. Since, however, both sense and syntax demand a singular, to suppose some such (superlative) meaning as that given appears to be the only way one can justify the form. As to the specific translation ‘oyster’, cf. the Phoenician Tabnith inscription (editions by Cooke, North Semitic Inscriptions, No. 4, and Driver, S. R., Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, 2nd. ed., xxiv ff.) 11. 45Google Scholar:

(4) … w’l trgzn k’i’dln ksp’i ’dln (5) ḥrṣ wkl mnmmšd blt ’nk škb b’rn z

‘… and disturb me not, for here is neither image of silver nor image of gold nor yet aught from the oyster: (but) I myself only do lie in this coffin’. To suppose now that nmmšd (analysing m(n)-nmmšd) is a loan-word from Akkd. nun(u)-mašdu would solve an old crux very suitably and to good profit in both passages.