As deusas Inanna e Ištar: semânticas de poder com traços de amor e guerra

A presente dissertação de mestrado centra-se na divindade suméria Inanna e na sua homóloga semita Ištar. Recolhemos e analisamos conjuntos de mitos, narrativas, hinos, oráculos, canções e orações, de proveniências e cronologias distintas, para compor um retrato cuja complexidade ultrapassa as questões do género e apela a sentimentos transversais ao ser humano. Num panteão com uma miríade de divindades altamente especializadas, Inanna/Ištar destaca-se pelo facto de acumular funções. Deusa trifuncional, regente do Amor e da Guerra, era igualmente a representação divina do planeta Vénus. Numa primeira abordagem, essa singularidade é um factor desconcertante para a sua compreensão. Pelo seu carácter problemático, foi o principal incentivo para o nosso estudo. Examinando as suas diferentes manifestações, propomos um eixo comum para a sua aparente ambivalência, interpretando o amor e a guerra como metáforas com um mesmo significado: poder. Vemos assim como a guerreira e a noiva se complementam em vez de se contradizerem. Ao lado do rei, no leito sagrado ou no campo de batalha, exprimem sempre a bênção divina assegurando a legitimidade dos seus actos enquanto representante dos deuses na Terra e, por conseguinte, garante da ordem. A permanência no tempo do sistema de crenças originalmente fixado por mão suméria, resistindo a conquistas e mudanças dinásticas, e a sua difusão no espaço, transpondo fronteiras naturais e artificiais, demonstram que os povos do Crescente Fértil o partilharam, não obstante algumas alterações semânticas. Na perspectiva da história das religiões, este olhar projetado sobre o passado permite ainda entender melhor a mente do homem mesopotâmico e acompanhar as consequências das alterações culturais no tecido sociopolítico da época. Afloramos também alguns aspectos de continuidade, manifestados através da presença de influências mesopotâmicas na literatura e religião gregas, mais especificamente em Afrodite e Deméter, deusas do amor e da fertilidade, respectivamente. Por fim, sugerimos a permanência de categorias mentais que transportam o passado até aos dias de hoje, ligando a Antiguidade à Actualidade.Abstract: This master’s dissertation is focused on the Sumerian deity Inanna and its Semitic counterpart Ištar. We have collected and analysed sets of myths, narrations, hymns, oracles and prayers from different geographies and chronologies in order to compose a portrait whose complexity by far supersedes gender issues and can be related with feelings that concern men and women of all times and places. Inanna/ Ištar had an outstanding position in a pantheon of highly specialised deities because she performed multiple functions. A trifunctional goddess, commanding Love and War, she was also the divine representation of planet Venus. At first sight this uniqueness is a bewildering feature preventing us from understanding her. Indeed her problematic nature was the most influential driver behind our decision to study her. By examining her different angles, we proposed a common explanation for her apparent ambivalence, interpreting love and war as metaphors with the same meaning, i.e. power. Thus we found that warrior and bride complemented – rather than contradicting, each other. Right by the king’s side, in the sacred bed or in the battle field, they always express the divine blessing required for legitimizing royal deeds, as representative of the Gods on Earth and, consequently, the warrant of order. The long-lasting permanence through time of the system of beliefs originally created by hand of the Sumerians, enduring conquests and dynastic change, and its expansion in space across natural and man-made borders, demonstrate that the peoples of the Fertile Crescent shared it, notwithstanding a few semantic modifications. As regards the perspective of history of religions, this look over the past also helps to better understand the mind of Mesopotamian men and perceive the impact of cultural change on the sociopolitical fabrics of ancient times. We also touch upon a few aspects of continuity, expressed in the presence of Mesopotamian influence in Greek literature and religions, more specifically in Aphrodite and Demeter, respectively goddesses of love and fertility. Lastly we suggest the permanence of mental categories that bring the past to the present, connecting Antiquity with Modernity

Gilgamesh and the Great Goddess of Uruk

DEDICATION This book is dedicated to Richard A. Henshaw Simply the MasterAs early as five thousand years ago the Sumerians who were developing a complex city-state based on plow agriculture and animal husbandry in what is now southern Iraq illustrated their culture in great vases, one band of which can be interpreted as a “Sacred Marriage” between the highest power in the universe, the Great Goddess “Inanna” (in Semitic Babylonia and Assyria “Ishtar”). In the very complicated scene at the topmost band of the Uruk Vase the goddess raises the status of her human lover to semi-divine status. The position he held the Sumerians called en, and on the vase he is seen receiving from the goddess a symbolic wrap and a cap that indicate his new status. The most famous of the Sumerian ens was an Urukean known a “Bilgamis” later “Gilgamesh,” and his exploits are recounted in a variety of poems, epics as important to his people as Odysseus and Achilles were to the ancient Greeks. From the 4th millennium BCE Uruk Vase to the 1st millennium BCE versions of Gilgamesh poems the peoples of Mesopotamia celebrated the often combative relationship between the en and the Great Goddess.SUNY BrockportSUNY Brockport eBook

The Tomb of Two Priestesses? The Late Neo-Elamite Jubaji Tomb in a Religious-Royal Context

This article revisits one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in southwest Iran in recent decades, a rich early-mid 6th century BCE tomb of two women, unearthed near the village of Jubaji on the Ramhormoz plain in 2007. Based on the sumptuous grave assemblages and the inclusion of a gold ceremonial ‘ring’ inscribed with the name of a late Neo-Elamite king, Šutur-Nahunte son of Intata, the tomb’s excavator, Arman Shishegar, reasonably interpreted the women – one aged under 17 years, the other 30-35 years – as princesses. Here it is argued that the women may have been important figures in a religious institution based on a combination of the context of the tomb, which seems to have been in an association with a monumental structure, and certain elements of the assemblages. While none of the individual items is significant in isolation, when put together they are highly suggestive of a cultic environment. These include several semiprecious stone beads, including two inscribed eye-stones, that were already very ancient when deposited, special ritual paraphernalia, the bronze coffins that held the women’s remains, the inscribed gold ‘ring’ naming Šutur-Nahunte son of Intata, and an inscribed gold object (perhaps a bracelet) of a cult officiant. This is not to say that the roles of princess and priestess were by any means mutually exclusive, but it is the religious aspect that has yet to be investigated. A reassessment here of the significance of the inscribed objects from the Jubaji tomb in a religious context is taken as an occasion to publish new transliterations, translations, and analyses of the inscriptions by Gian Pietro Basello

Kuningavõim ja kuninglik templipoliitika Sumeris ja Akkadis 2500–2154 eKr

In this article, the author has raised a few questions concerned with the relations of rulers and temples: temple politics of the rulers of the Late Presargonic period (the Early Dynastic III, ca. 2500–2335 BCE) and the Sargonic period (2334–2154 BCE) in Sumer and Akkad. The first written records of the subdual of the main temples and sanctuaries by Sumer rulers date back to not earlier than ca 2500–2400 BCE, but this politics of subjection still remained irregular until the end of the Early Dynastic Period and it was not yet a strong ruling instrument used by kings. It seems that during this period these politics were not yet regularly applied by rulers and only some Early Dynastic kings sometimes used them. However, the situation changed dramatically when Sargon of Agade established the Akkadian Empire in the late 24th century BCE. The Akkadian kings (Sargonids) were the first rulers in the Mesopotamian region who had established a large territorially centralised state with its own administrative system and a relatively complex bureaucracy. On the hierarchical top of the state administration was a strong and powerful king with unlimited power, who was sometimes even deified (e.g. the case of Narām-Su’en of Akkad). The unifying politics of the Akkadian kings were carried out in all spheres of statehood, ideology, and, of course, cult. For that reason, the Sargonic kings tried to unify the calendar systems and rituals. They also tried to create a unified Sumero-Akkadian pantheon that was meant to be universal for all the inhabitants of the empire. Undoubtedly, the Akkadian kings wished to control the peripheral regions of their kingdom. This was the time when the unification of the measurement system also took place. Certainly some important changes occurred in the state’s religious politics – the subjection of priesthood and the most influential temples of the Akkadian state. Sargon and his successors – kings of Akkad – systematically assigned their daughters and sons or other relatives to key positions in temple hierarchies as top administrators, or high priests or priestesses. They wanted to keep the main cults of their state entirely under control, but also to control temples economically, because some temples were quite rich and owned treasuries, slaves, cattle, and land. This became part of the new centralised political course or, to be more exact, the political programme of the Sargonic kings

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Il Cimitero Reale di Ur: comparazione storica dell'«Anthropoctonie» all'epoca della I Dinastia della città

La tesi è volta ad analizzare il fenomeno delle morti rituali presenti nelle tombe della I dinastia della antica città sumera di Ur, tale rituale è stato confrontato con situazioni simili presenti presso i cimiteri di Kish in Mesopotamia, Abidos e Saqqara in Egitto, Il cimitero della dinastia Shang in Cina, i ritrovamenti presso i grandi tumuli Sciti e i resoconti dei funerali reali presso il popolo Ashanti del Ghana e il popolo Baganda dell'Uganda

Mesopotamien: Die altbabylonische Zeit

Das Buch „Mesopotamien: Die altbabylonische Zeit“ setzt die Reihe über ausgewählte, abgegrenzte Abschnitte der Keilschriftkulturen fort, nachdem die ersten beiden Bände (OBO 160/1 und 3, 1998 und 1999) das III. Jahrtausend in Mesopotamien abgedeckt haben. Im Teil zur altbabylonischen Zeit bieten drei angesehene Assyriologen, Dominique Charpin, Dietz Otto Edzar und Marten Stol, eine umfassende Synthese jahrzehntelanger Forschungen, die dem ferner Stehenden eine kompetente Einführung in das Thema und dem Fachmann eine aktuelle und weiterführende Darstellung bieten. Dominique Charpin verdanken wir die „Histoire politique du Proche-Orient amorrite (2002-1595) (S. 23-482). Eine Einleitung zu Raum und Zeitrahmen und einer Bewertung der Quellen führt in die eigentliche Darstellung der politischen Geschichte ein, die vom Ende der III. Dynastie von Ur bis ans Ende der I. Dynastie von Babylon führt. Eingefügt ist ein Exkurs über das politische Leben um 1765 zu den Aufgaben und dem Umfeld des Königs. Synchronistische Tabellen im Text, eine Übersicht über die wichtigsten Dynastien, ein „Who’s who“ der Könige der amurritischen Periode und eine Landkarte erleichtern den Zugang ebenso wie die ausführliche, thematisch gegliederte Bibliographie zu den Quellen altbabylonischer Geschichte. Dietz Otto Edzard behandelt die „Altbabylonische Literatur und Religion“ (S. 483-640). Der Überblick über die literarischen Genres wird durch zahlreiche Exkurse, Bearbeitungen literarischer Text, begleitet. Abgesehen von der im engeren Sinne „schönen Literatur“ werden auch Omina, Rechtscodizes und Königsinschriften behandelt. Bemerkungen zum Übersetzen und Edieren stehen am Ende dieses Abschnitts. Die Religion führt vom Pantheon über Aspekte des Kults bis zum Tod und Totenwelt, Kult und Spaß. Marten Stol fasst in „Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in altbabylonischer Zeit“ (S. 641-976) seine Forschungsarbeit zu diesem Themenbereich zusammen. Neben konzisen Darstellungen finden sich hier die Diskussion zentraler Thesen und für bisher vernachlässigte Themen umfassende Sammlungen und Diskussion einschlägiger Belege. Der Bogen spannt sich von Bevölkerung, Recht, Stadt, Haus, Familie, Diensten und Steuer zu Armee und Landwirtschaft; behandelt werden auch zentrale Aspekten der Wirtschaft wie Handel, Silber, Sklaven, Palastgeschäft. Abkürzungsverzeichnis und Indices zu Namen, Wörtern und Texten (S. 977-1027) beschließen das Werk

The Assyrian king and his scholars: the Syro-Anatolian and the Egyptian Schools

The article highlights the presence of scholars from Egypt and Syro-Anatolia in the service of the Neo-Assyrian kings