Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:29:03.551Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Court ceremonial and marriage in the Sumerian epic ‘Gilgamesh and Huwawa’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Bendt Alster
Bendt Alster
Affiliation:
Carsten Niebuhr Institute, Copenhagen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Four versions of an episode in the Sumerian composition ‘Gilgamesh and Huwawa’ are discussed here. The encounter of Gilgamesh and Huwawa is interpreted in terms of Gilgamesh playing the role of a visitor received in audience at a foreign court. His gifts aim at inviting Huwawa to reciprocate, and thereby give up his protection. Gilgamesh especially exploits Huwawa's social isolation and lack of noble ancestry by offering him his two sisters, one in marriage and one as a concubine. he version in which the two sisters are the only offer makes most coherent sense. In another version the inner logic was distorted when the list was expanded to at least six offers.

TIM IX 47 (IM 62827) was first published by J. van Dijk, in Šumer, 15,1959, PI. 2, and edited in the same volume, pp. 8–10.1 had a chance to collate the text in the spring of 1990 when I visited the Iraq Museum, Baghdad.1 Since this led to some improved readings, which may clarify a difficult episode in the Sumerian composition ‘Gilgamesh and Huwawa’, a complete edition of the tablet is presented here.2 With a few exceptions my readings are in agreement with van Dijk's copy.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 1 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ellis, M. deJong, ‘Gilgamesh, approach to Huwawa: a new text’, AfO, 28, 1982 123–31.Google Scholar
Falkenstein, A., ‘Zur Oberlieferung des Epos' von Gilgames und Huwawa’, JNES, 19, 1960, 65–71.Google Scholar
Forsyth, N., ‘Huwawa and his trees: a narrative and cultural analysis’, AcSum, 3, 1981, 13–29.Google Scholar
Kramer, S. N. ‘Gilgamesh and the land of the living’, JCS, 1, 1947, 3–46.Google Scholar
Shaffer, A., ‘Gilgamesh, the Cedar Forest and Mesopotamian history’, JAOS, 103, 1983, 307–13.Google Scholar
Dijk, J. van, ‘The denouement de «Gilgameš au bois de cèdres» selon LB 2116’ in: Garelli, (ed.), Gilgameš et sa légende, Paris: 1960, 69–81'.Google Scholar