The Sultantepe Tablets: IX. The Birdcall Text

Extract

This text is one of a number of first millennium compilations that reflect a certain philosophical and religious outlook of those times. The compilers sought to find evidence of current theology in the physical universe, which, viewed dispassionately, had only little relevant to show. Whereas “primitive” man had observed the forces of nature and had worshipped them with anthropomorphic attributes, more sophisticated man imagined signs of divine ordering where certainly none exist. This text is based on birdcalls. The sounds were interpreted as Babylonian phrases of mythological content, and the bird in question was thus “the bird of” the deity to whom the phrase applied. Of course one does not know if in fact the connexion of god and bird preceded or followed the interpretation of the call, and the answer need not be the same in every case.