The ancient Mesopotamian literary compositions known today as balaĝ prayers were Sumerian liturgical laments sung or recited to the accompaniment of the musical instrument balaĝ, probably a kind of harp or lyre. They were performed by professional singers (Sumerian gala) on set days of the temple calendar and on special occasions. The genre of Sumerian liturgical laments included compositions accompanied by various other instruments; the Babylonians called them all kalûtu, i.e. the professional literature of the gala singers. The liturgical laments employed a variety of Sumerian, Emesal, which was otherwise spoken by female characters in literary discourse. This suggests that the gala singers were castrati, or of ambiguous gender. Typically they were employed by temples. The genre of kalûtu has a long history, being first set down in writing in the early second millennium bc and continuing right down almost to the end of the cuneiform tradition when Parthian kings ruled Babylonia.
For the first half-century of Sumerology the Sumerian liturgical laments were somewhat neglected by scholarship, the primary focus of scholars being the study of literature, history and society. Thus narrative and lyric poems, royal inscriptions and administrative and legal documents attracted more attention. However, in the last four decades the liturgical laments have been recognized both as fascinating compositions and as important resources for the study of religion. Consequently, much more scholarly attention has been devoted to them. One of the centres for their study has been the University of Heidelberg, from which emerged ten years ago a new book series dedicated to the academic study of kalûtu, called Heidelberger Emesal-Studien. The present volume is the fifth in the series, and the third from Uri Gabbay.
The motivation for the book was the discovery of an important new source for a balaĝ lament called a-abzu-ĝu “O my Abzu”, a large clay tablet in the British Museum. This tablet, BM 45391, entered the museum in 1881 and its text lay unidentified for a century and more, until Konrad Volk and Irving Finkel combined to make a preliminary decipherment, which they passed on to Uri Gabbay. It is a fine example of how the museum’s collections of cuneiform tablets continue to astound scholars. Treasures acquired in the nineteenth century were deciphered piecemeal by a tiny band of Assyriologists and slowly emerged into the public domain. This process has recently been accelerated exponentially by a digital project, the Electronic Babylonian Library of Munich, which has placed photographs of thousands of the museum’s tablets online. Its image of BM 45391 (at www.ebl.lmu.de/library/BM.45391) complements the photograph published in the book under review, which is rather too dark to be easily used.
The purpose of the liturgical lament was to pacify an angry god by telling a short myth. In this myth a god became angry, withdrew favour from his city and abandoned it, leading to catastrophe for human and divine residents alike. A goddess then mourned the destruction and begged the god to show mercy. The god ignored her and she was left to weep. Eventually his anger died down and he spared the city and its people. Telling and retelling the myth, by performing the liturgical laments in regular ritual, was a strategy of magic. Each performance opened a window into mythical time that ensured any new instance of the god’s anger would follow the same course as the first such event, and so eventually resolve into calm. The idea was that however terrible any catastrophe might be, in due course it would come to an end and peace and security return.
Gabbay’s new volume combines two separate studies. It is at once a critical edition of the balaĝ lament a-abzu-ĝu, and a theological study of the deities that figure in the lament, especially Enki, god of the cosmic domain Abzu. The theological study comes first. Quoting a liberal array of passages from liturgical laments, Gabbay sets out the roles of the deities Enlil, Inanna and Enki in these texts. Enlil is usually the angry god, frequently identified through syncretism with other gods, particularly warrior gods. The mourning goddess is Inanna, often represented by other goddesses – in a-abzu-ĝu by Enki’s wife Damgalnunna and daughter-in-law Panunanki. Enki sometimes acts like Enlil in bringing catastrophe. At other times he sorrows with the victims and plays a part in calming Enlil with offerings. Such is the state of preservation of the lament a-abzu-ĝu that his role in it cannot yet be determined. Indeed, there is reason to think that his son Asarluḫi played a part instead.
The critical edition of the lament a-abzu-ĝu occupies the book’s latter chapters. The edition is an exemplary work of traditional Assyriology. Gabbay presents the text in cuneiform script (photographs and drawings of the clay tablets and fragments), transliteration and translation, with annotations and – very pleasing to see – a glossary of vocabulary in Sumerian and Akkadian, and an index of proper nouns. Several fragments of related texts are given the same treatment. This edition is much to be welcomed. It makes considerable progress in the continuing work of understanding the balaĝ laments in general and the lament a-abzu-ĝu in particular.
