26

Appendix 26

See P. Gössmann, Planetarium Babylonicum (1950), 99: “ilDapinu, ’the prevalent, the strong,’ surname of Nusku (passim), of Nabu, of Marduk . . . As star-god ilDapinu is the Marduk-star Jupiter, identical with dSUL. PA.E3 . . . , mulUD.AL.TAR . . . Since UD.AL.TAR can also mean the fixed star Procyon, also ilDapinu should have this significance (Jensen, “der Furchtbare, Gewaltige (= Humbaba),” ZDMG 67, S. 517).” (For the identification of Nusku with Mercury, see H. and J. Lewy, “The God Nusku,” Or. 17 [1948], pp. 146-59.) See also Gössmann, 137 s.v. mulUD.AL.TAR: “I. Akkadian as much as umu dapinu . . . the full name of Jupiter, II. Procyon. Procyon seems to have been counted with Jupiter’s hypsoma, Cancer.” See also E. Weidner, Handbuch der Babylonischen Astronomie (1915), p. 25. (For Procyon as part of Cancer, see RLA 3, p. 77; for al. lu5, representing sometimes the zodiacal sign Cancer, otherwise Procyon, see B. van der Waerden, “The Thirty-Six Stars,” JNES 8 [1949], p. 21.)

Langdon (Semitic Mythology [1931], p. 268) mentions the identification Humbaba = Procyon, without giving the source, and without paying heed to such notion.

As concerns Humba with the determinant mul (Babylonian kakkab, respectively), Weidner (RLA 2, p. 389) informs us of the existence of two lists dealing with “7 astralen Enlil-Gottheiten.” List 1 states — we give it according to Weidner, since it is not essential, right here, to establish whether or not his identifications are right throughout: “Perseus is the Enlil of Nippur, g Ursae Majoris is the Enlil of Enamtilla, alpha Cassiopeiae is the Enlil of Hursag-kalama, Columba is the Enlil of Kullab, Taurus is the Enlil of Aratta, kHumba (=?) is the Enlil of suba (? ) -Elam, Arcturus is the Enlil of Babylon.” List 2 omits mulHumba (compare also Weidner, Handbuch, pp. 58-60). Gössmann 188 states, pointing to F. Boll-C. Bezold (*Antike Beobachtungen *farbiger Sterne [1916], p. 121), that, according to VAT 0418 III 3, “mulHUMBA replaces mulAPIN.” The latter, the “plow constellation,” is triangulum and gamma Andromedae (see van der Waerden, JNES 8, p. 13).

Now it is of considerable interest to learn from Hüsing (*Die einheimischen Quellen *zur Geschichte Elams [1916], pp. 11,95) that “the highest god of Elam . . . Humban (Hanubani, Hamban—Umman, Imbi)” is (supposedly) the same as Hanuman, the monkey-god, the crafty adviser of Rama (Hüsing also takes Humban for a monkey); and from Charles Dupuis (Origine de tous les cults et toutes les religions [1795], vol. 3, p. 363) the following: “Dans l’explication des Fables Indiennes, nons avons toujours trouvé que Procyon étoit le fameux singe Hanuman. Il fixe le lever du Sagittaire, avec lequel le singe est en aspect (Kircher: Oedipus 2 II, p. 201).”

Considering that Procyon has been counted among the stars of Cancer, a constellation which had the name Nangar = Carpenter, the Twelfth Tablet of GE, of pure Sumerian origin, might gain a completely new significance. Gilgamesh does, there, a lot of “wailing” and “lamenting” about some objects that he left (or failed to leave) there, where they might have been in safety, in “the house of the Carpenter,” nangar. Apart from Procyon, the fixed representative of Jupiter and Mercury, once Humbaba is purged from his “ogrish” reputation, the time will have come to approach Kombabos and his doubles in Iranian and Indian mythology. [1] The story of young Kombabos, who castrated himself as a precaution when he was appointed the traveling companion of “Caesar’s wife,” has been hitherto incompatible with the “monster” of the cedar forest, although the scholars agree that the names Humbaba and Kombabos are identical. It would be worth investigating whether or not the proposed equation Humbaba = Mercury might also fit Kombabos. F. K. Movers, however, was inclined to take Kombabos for Saturn. [2]

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  1. Lucian, “De Dea Syria,” in Lucian, trans. by A. M. Harmon, vol. 4, cols. 19-27, LCL. Lucian claims that Kombabos was the prototype of the galloi, i.e., that after his example the priests of the Great Goddess castrated themselves and put on female garments. See also F. Liebrecht, Des Gervasius van Tilbury Otia lmperialia; (1856), pp. 216f.; Ganschinietz, in RE 11, cols. 1132-39; E. Benveniste, “La Légende de Kombabos,” in Mélanges Syriens offerts à René Dussaud (1939), pp. 249-58.

  2. Die Phönizier (1841/1967), vol. 1, pp. 154,306-09,686-89.