32

Appendix 32

Considering that removed posts or pegs, pulled-out pins, wrecked axles, and felled trees have accompanied this whole investigation as a kind of basso ostinato, we cannot pass in silence over these super-important posts; considering, on the other hand, that technical details are not likely to make pleasant reading, we prefer to deal with this specimen outside the main text, although we deem it essential indeed.

The object that Irragal is tearing out is called tarkullu, Sumerian DIM. GAL, which has been translated into “(Anchor-) post”, “ship’s mast”, “mooring-post” (Heidel), also “anchor” itself, and even “steering-oar” (Jensen). [1] In the Era Epic, Era (=Irragal=Nergal), when announcing a new catastrophe, threatens that he is going to tear out the tarkullu, that he will make the ship drift off, break the steering oar so that the ship cannot land, and remove the mast and all that belongs to it. [2]

We meet the word also in names given to temples, as we learn from Burrows, [3] who considers “the evidence for the relation of the temples to (1) heaven, (2) earth, (3) underworld,” and tells us what follows:

(1) The idea of the Bond of Heaven and Earth is given explicitly. Dur-an-ki, was the name of sanctuaries at Nippur, at Larsa, and probably at Sippar. Also in Semitic markas šamē u irsiti, Bond of Heaven and Earth, is used of the temple E-hursag-kur-kur-ra and of Babylon.
(2) Idea of Bond of the Land. Probably by extension of religious use the royal palace of Babylon is called markas (bond) of the Land. An ancient Sumerian temple-name, which probably expresses an analogous idea, is “dimgal of the Land.” This was the name of the temple of Der, an old Sumerian center beyond the Tigris; a name given to Gudea’s temple at Lagash; a temple of Šauška of Niniveh; and probably the temple of Nippur was another “dimgal of the Land.” The pronunciation and meaning of *dimgal *are disputed. “Great binding-post” is perhaps a fair translation. The religious terms “dimgal of the Land” and the like perhaps indicate the temple as a kind of towering landmark which was a center of unity by its height.
(3) Idea of the bond with the underworld. Gudea uses dimgal also with reference to the abzu, i.e., the waters of the underworld: he laid two termens, ritual foundations — the temen “above” or “of heaven” and the temen “of the abzu,” and the latter is called “great dimgal.” The idea may be that the temple is as it were a lofty column, stretching up to heaven and down to the underworld — the vertical bond of the world. The same passage mentions, it seems, a place of libation to the god of the underworld. Drains or pipes apparently destined for libations to the underworld have been ‘discovered at Ur. Thus, if these interpretations are right, the temples expressed not only, in their height, the idea of the bond with heaven but also, in their depth, that of union with the netherworld.

Were we to hear less of “towering landmarks” and “lofty columns,” for the sake of being presented with one single thought dedicated to the fact that these alleged “temples” and “columns” were torn out in order to start a deluge, we would be better off. Much more astonishing, however, is the circumstance that nobody seems to have taken the trouble of looking for relevant enlightenment in Egypt, i.e., of dealing with the Egyptian mnj.t.

According to Erman-Grapow (Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache [1957], vol. 2, pp. 72ff.) the word is used as (1) symbolical expression for the king (als Lenker des Staatsschiffes); (2) symbolical expression for Isis and Nephthys who fetched Osiris from the water. It is a constellation, the instrument for impaling, the post to which a person to be punished is bound. The transitive verb (mnj) means to bind to a post, to tether (anpflocken); the intransitive verb means to land, from persons, and from ships, and to die, sometimes supplemented “at Osiris” (bei Osiris landen).

This mnj.t wr.t — Mercer writes it min.t — the “great landing stick,” [4] is said “to mourn” for the soul of the dead in the Pyramid Texts, [5] and Mercer comments [6] that “the great stake . . . is personified as a ‘mourning woman’ in reference here to Isis.” The “mooring-post” being a constellation, as even the *Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen *Sprache has to admit, the question is where to look for this mnj.t. The constellation — transcribed menat by Brugsch, [7] mnit by Neugebauer [8] — occurs in two categories of astronomical monuments, namely (1) in the Ramesside Star Clocks, [9] and (2) in the ceiling pictures of royal tombs, in the zodiacs of Dendera, etc. In every case the peg or post rests in the hands of Isis disguised as a hippopotamus; fastened to the mooring-post is a rope or chain, to the other end of which is tied Maskheti, the bull’s thigh, i.e., the Big Dipper, and in one of the texts it is stated (Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 122) that “it is the office of Isis-Hippopotamus to guard this chain.”

According to the Ramesside Star Clocks, mnj.t included six different parts, [10] and only after these six parts follow rrt “female hippopotamus,” comprising eight positions. Boll (Sphaera [1903], p. 222) remarks that this constellation must be thought of as being parallel to either the equator or the zodiac, and as being rather “long,” because otherwise it could not need more than four hours of ascending.

Most of the scholars dealing with the Egyptian astronomical ceilings took it for granted that the main scenery represented the northern circumpolar constellations, because the Big Dipper, Maskheti, holds the “determinant” position upon the stage, and they tried their hardest to identify Isis-Hippopotamus holding the mooring-post, and carrying upon her back a crocodile, with a constellation very near the Pole. Now, we do not mean to go into details of the Egyptian sphere as represented in these ceiling decorations, which is an extremely difficult task, and nothing has been gained in the past by the different efforts to settle the affair by simply looking at the sky (worse, at sky-maps) trying to imitate Zeus by “catasterizing” on one’s own account, and giving keen verdicts. Let us say only this much: (1) as yet no single proposition concerning the Hippopotamus holding the mooring-post is satisfying; [11] (2) that the determinative group of the ceiling pictures show decisive factors of the “frame": Leo, Scorpius, Taurus, [12] serving thus as a kind of “key” of the whole presentation. [13] But, if our “frame” is meant, i.e., the structure of colures, where is the southern celestial landscape? We do not dare to molest the reader with the impenetrable text (Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 122), out of which we quoted only one sentence which states that Isis-Hippopotamus is guarding the chain; this much at least is recognizable, that this text jumps from the Big Dipper — via “the middle of the sky” — to positions “South of Sah-Orion.”

And here Casanova [14] comes in quite handy with his proposition to understand mnj.t (he writes it menat ) as Menouthis, the wife of Canopus, steersman of Menelaus, whom we know from late Greek texts (also written Eumenouthis). Epiphanius [15] talks of the tomb of both, i.e., Canopus and his wife, in Alexandria. Stephanus of Byzantium knows of a village “at Kanobos” which had the name Menouthis. [16] It would lead us too far to deal with Canopus-steersman-of-Menelaus, and the Canopic mouth of the Nile: the modern Homo occidentalis is bound to shrink back from the mere idea that the Nile represented a circle, where “source” and “mouth” meet, so that there is nothing preposterous in the notion that a Canopic mouth can be found in the geographical North, and here it is not necessary to discuss the question. It is sufficiently striking to see the mooring-post “married” to Canopus in a similar manner as Urshanabi is “married” to Nanshe, Enki’s daughter, to whom is consecrated the holy stern of the ship.

Admittedly, we know as little as before where precisely the mnj.t of the star clocks has to be looked for, [17] but we have at least made it more plausible that DIM.GAL / *tarkullu */ mnj.t must be the decisive plumb line connecting the inhabited world with the celestial South Pole or, let us say, with the orbis antarcticus: Osiris being depicted as a circle (see Brugsch, *Religion und *Mythologie, plate facing p. 216), the verb mnj.t, “to land (at Osiris),” points in this direction. (We recall once more Virgil’s statement that the “shades infernal” and Styx see the South Pole.) It has not escaped our attention that GE 11.101 seems to talk of posts, in the plural: as, in some Egyptian texts, we have the “double mnj.t.” We do not know yet why: the Era Epic uses the singular, but Era is going to pull out a different post from the one he had torn out previously in GE under his name Irragal. There are possible solutions, but we leave alone this question as well as the next difficult problem arising with the suspicious similarity of the ship’s peg with the nosebone of the Horus-Eye (numerical value 1/64), however tempting this problem is.

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1. See P. Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier (1890), pp. 377, 422f.; K. Tallqvist, Akkadische Gôtterepitheta (1934), p. 244 (see also p. 283; Dim gul-an-na “Himmelspfahl” = Ninurta, and Dim gulkalam-ma “Weltpfahl” = Ninurta). See C. Bezold, Babylonisch-Assyrisches Glossar (1926), p. 296: “Pfahl, Prügel, Schiffspfahl, Mast”; A. Salonen, Nautica Babyloniaca (1942), p. 85; “(Anker) pfahl.” On p. 104 Salonen explains tarkulla as “the mast,” and it is the mast of Ea’s ship: “sein (des Ea-Schiffs) Mast ist in der Schiffsmitte aufgestellt, schwebt am Himmelsband.” See also R. Labat, Manuel d’Epigraphie Akkadienne (1963), no. 94, p. 81: DIM riksu, lien; dimmu, colonne; DIM-GAL tarkullu, mât; no. 122a, p. 93: DIM GUL tarkullu, mât. Cf. B. Meissner, Beitrage zum Assyrischen Wörterbuch 1 (1932), pp. 58f., and A. Schott, Das Gilgamesch-Epos (1958), p. 90, n. 19: “Das Weltenruder?”

2. For the explanation of the several termini, see P. F. Gössmann, *Das *Era-Epos (1956), p. 55; see also Ebeling, AOTAT, p. 227.

3. Eric Burrows, S.J., “Some cosmological patterns in Babylonian religion,” in The Labyrinth, ed. by S. H. Hooke (1935), pp. 46ff. (That we do not share the author’s too-simple opinions goes without saying.)

4. See W. Max Müller, Egyptian Mythology (1918), p. 376, n. 79.

5. Pyramid Texts, ed. by S. Mercer (1952), p. 794C: “The great min.t (-stake) mourns for thee”; d. 876c. 884b (“the great min.t laments for thee, as for Osiris in his suffering”), and 2013b.

6. *Pyramid *Texts, vol. 2, p. 399; see also p. 361. See pp. 371, 398 for mini “to pasture, to land (i.e., to die),” and for min.w, derived from mini, as an epithet of Anubis 793c: “he who is upon the min.w”). “The min.w here seems to indicate a cask for the limbs of Osiris.”

7. H.Brugsch (Thesaurus Inscriptionum *Aegyptiacorum *[1883-91; repro 1968], pp. 122, 130, 188) takes it for a “knife” or “sword”; later (*Die *Aegyptologie [189d, p. 343) he spelled it “ship’s peg” (“Schiffspflock” and “Doppelpflock”).

8. Neugebauer and R. Parker, *The *Ramesside Star Clocks (1964). p. 7.

9. Formerly they were called “Theban hour-tables” (Thebanische Stundentafeln, or Thebanische Tafeln stündlicher Aufgange).

10. Neugebauer and Parker, “The Ramesside Star Clocks,” p. 7: (1) the “predecessor,” or the “front of the mooring post,” (2) “is not translatable,” (3) “follower of the front of the mooring post,” (4) “mooring post,” (5) “follower of the mooring post,” (6) “follower which comes after the mooring post.”

11. We hope for enlightenment to be contained in the third volume of Neugebauer’s Egyptian Astronomical Texts. In vol.2, p. 7 he states, with respect to the hour-stars: “To what extent, if at all, the constellations of the lion, the mooring post, the hippopotamus, and perhaps others, can be identified with similar figures in the so-called ‘northern’ constellations as depicted on many astronomical ceilings . . . is a problem into which we do not intend to enter until all the evidence can be presented in our final volume. That the problem is more complex than would appear at first glance — at least in so far as the two hippopotami are concerned — is sufficiently indicated by the fact that on the ceilings the hippopotamus is never named rrt, never is shown with two feathers as a headdress, and very frequently has a crocodile on its back.” (We are only too grateful for everybody who recognizes that the problems are “more complex” — a hundred times more complex, indeed — “than would appear." The underlining of “so-called ’northern’” is ours, that of the two “never’s” is Neugebauer’s.)

12. That the Dipper is said to be the thigh of a bull indicates Taurus clearly enough; we have mentioned that there is also a “foreleg of Khnum” available, i.e., that of a ram, and that in Dendera a ram is sitting on the Ursa-Leg: whose leg it is depends from the constellation marking the vernal equinox. To the objection that the constellation as depicted in Egyptian pictures clearly shows the hind-leg of an ox, we have to answer that the texts insist on talking about the bull’s foreleg; in other words, the real resemblance does not count so much, apparently (cf. appendix #27).

13. Even if we had no other evidence, the Ramesseum would be good enough, showing in the center, precisely below Maskheti, the baboon sitting upon the Djed-pillar — we know from Horapollo (1.16) that the squatting baboon indicates the equinoxes; whereas the third, lowest register shows the sitting dogs at both ends, and we know from Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 5.7, 43.3) that these represent the Tropics.

14. P. Casanova, “De quelques Légendes astronomiques Arabes,” BIFAO 2 (1902), p. 18.

15. Quoted by P. E. Jablonski, Pantheon Aegyptiorum (1751), vol. 3, pp. 14ff.

16. Casanova, p. 153. Cf. H. Kees in RE s.v. Menuthis, cols. 968f., who also mentions a dedication to “Eisidi Pharia, Eisin tēn en Menouthi,” and who points to a sanctuary of Menouthis famous as “sanatorium” and replaced, later, by a monastery. W. Max Müller, in his turn (Egyptian Mythology [1918], p. 397, n. 94), informs us thus: “In the Greek period the name Menuthias (‘Island of the Nurse’) was given to a mythical island in the South as being the abode of the divine nurse (of Horus), and later this was identified with Madagascar as the most remote island in the south, i.e., the lower world.” Muller seems to take Menouthis for the same as Thermouthis, the daughter of that Pharaoh who found Moses in the Nile (cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2.9.5-7, 224; Bk. Jub. XLVII.5: Tharmuth), without giving sources or reasons for doing so. We should very much like to know whether or not mnj.t is identical, or has something to do at all with “Menāt or Heliopolis,” whom Brugsch identified with Satit of Elephantine (of all deities!); it would be decisive to know it. (Cf. Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie [1891], p. 301; Brugsch, Thesaurus [1883-91; repro 1968], p. 107.)

17. Some years ago, a mathematician in Frankfurt, who had invested much computer time in the star clocks, felt sure that mnj.t must end in alpha Centauri. As concerns the astronomical ceilings, we have presumably to mind the manner in which the late zodiacs of Dendera and Esne (Roman time) “project” the Big Dipper/Maskheti, the bull’s thigh (together with Isis-Hippopotamus and the chain) into the zodiac, namely, between Scorpius and Sagittarius (Esne), and between Sagittarius and Capricornus (Dendera). There is, moreover, a remarkable Arabian survival (R. Böker, quoting Chwolson [1859], in A. Schott’s translation of Aratus, Sternbilder und Wetterzeichen [1958], p. 119) stating to Sagittarius degree 30: “To the right of the degree is Meshkedai, the moulder of divine images.”