MESOPOTAMIANS

Between the Tigris and Euphrates

MY FIRST ANCIENT CIVILIZATION

I’ve always loved history, but the world of the Mesopotamian peoples has had a special place in my heart since I was about 9 when, too ill to play in the playground, I was kept in the classroom and given an improving Bible to read by my form teacher. Fortunately for me, it was an illustrated one, revealing the sheer glory that was Babylon: I immediately decided that this era was far more exciting than any other depicted in the Bible - certainly a lot more civilised than all that wandering around in tents! This is my first ancient civilisation, in the same way that people have their first kiss, or their first alcoholic drink. It was initiatory and still excites me.

Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon, from Look & Learn...

That we know so much about the ancient world of the Mesopotamians in what is now covered by what is called Iraq today, is down to 19th century archaeology, and subsequent research and scholarship, which continues to this day, especially in the wake of the devastating wars that have swept across Iraq.

While the vexed question of whether the art works of a nation should be removed to other places still rumbles on, in this instance, it is a moot point whether that the archaeology of 19th and early 20th centuries was finally a bad thing for Iraq, given that British and German archaeology had fortuitously preserved what would certainly have joined the destruction of sites like Nimrud, Nineveh and Balawat, that took place when Islamic State looted and destroyed their way across Iraq. I have left footage of the wholesale destruction of artefacts in Mosul Museum within this Guardian article, rather than putting up the video directly, as it is very distressing to anyone who respects the heritage of the past.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/isis-fighters-destroy-ancient-artefacts-mosul-museum-iraq

I hope that the heritage of all peoples will be left in peace, and that these and other artefacts may return to gladden hearts on their own native soil, but until that time, we may still see these glories at the British Museum in London, as well as in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. My first visit - and indeed, all subsequent visits - to the British Museum have me arriving at the Lamassu guarding a reconstruction of the Balawat Gates - and it is here I would gladly spend the night between their strong hooves, were I allowed to sleep a night in a museum!

What remains of the Mesopotamian peoples’ world, whose history ranges from 3500 BCE to 529 BCE, including Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures, is largely becoming clearer through the work of Assyriologists who can now read the evidences of cuneiform tablets, which can be very exact in their maintainance of memory.

If I look back to the days when I sat engrossed in Mesopotamian matters in my classroom during playtime, I had no idea that archaeology, Assyriology and Biblical studies overlapped so well. The cuneiform tablet below dates from 595BCE, found in Sippar in 1870, it confirms that the chief eunuch of King Nebuchadnezzer, who appears in the Bible in the Book of Jeremiah as Nebo-Sarsekim in Hebrew transcription, was indeed named Nabu-sharussu-ukin in Assyrian. He is noted in Jeremiah 39,3 as one of the officials that came to Jerusalem during its conquest by the Babylonian army as ‘rab sha-reshi’ or ‘right-hand man’ to the king. The fact that we can still read this record of the eunuch’s gift of gold to a temple of the sun-god Marduk, under the supervision of the royal body guard and two other witnesses - well, it still seems miraculous to me! But that is Babylonians for you - everything noted down and witnessed.

Two new books by women working in this field flag up this work of interpretation from the written evidence and what has come from it, which I am reviewing here.

BETWEEN TWO RIVERS

The first is Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History by Moudhy Al-Rashid, Hodder Press, 325pp. £25.

This book is an exploration of eight objects that were first excavated by Leonard Wooley in the 1920s in the palace of the princess and priestess Ennigaldi-Nanna, daughter of King Nabonidus, who lived in the 6th BCE. This collection of objects were found together and were described by Wooley as ‘a museum’, since ‘the newest of them was seven hundred years older than the pavement (they lay upon), and the earliest was two thousand (years older.)’. Unlikely though it may seem that ancient peoples had a sense of their own history, this was particularly borne out in Mesopotamian culture, where kings proclaimed their antecedents on a special brick that would be buried at the base of significant buildings, so that their descendants had a sense of their accomplishments. These inaugural bricks acted like foundation stones in our own time, giving us time, place and persons on one artefact.

These disparate objects range from a palm-sized clay drum-shaped tablet which was written on all sides by a scribe called Nabi-shuma-iddin - he wrote it in a form of script that was already antique in his own time, emulating Sumerian ideographs, in the same way that you or I might letter a text in a monastic uncial font, were we wanting to make our evidence look like it came from a 7th century Irish monastery! There is also a statue of King Shulgi who lived from 2094-2046 BCE, a boundary stone with an image of the god of writing upon it: Nabu. Then there is a mace-head, and the little evidence we have for the priestess Ennigaldi-Nanna, who was elevated to priestess of the moon god Sin after an oracular demand by the god Sin himself, which was delivered on the night of a partial lunar eclipse on 26 September 554 BCE. Her old name, which remains unknown, was removed and her new name given her, - it means ‘the high priestess requested by the god, Nanna.’ Nanna was the Sumerian name for Sin - they are the same moon god, but her people still spoke of holy things in the oldest language they knew - just as we use Latin or Ancient Greek today in liturgy and ritual.

Wound around these objects, Moudhy Al-Rashid, leads us through the Mesopotamian world, with the help of the cuneiform evidence that unlocks ordinary lives, not just those of kings and priestesses. She has an engaging style, and writes as a new mother, with a tenderness towards both the artefacts, but also towards the testimony that cuneiform tablets have left for us to read from dream-incubators and lamentation priests, to businesswomen trading in cloth, and school children’s first attempts at writing, where they copied the teacher’s text.

The book’s chief fault is that, while the text is very engaging, the publisher didn’t stump up the permission fees for Moudhy’s book, so she could share the images that she is discussing. Although there are links to where these artefacts might be viewed, I have been unable to access them, due to the updating of the site that she references. This kind of failure to complete a book is unfortunately becoming more prevalent, and is always down to the cost of the picture permissions, which in this case would have to have been expensively bought from museums. (A standard picture permission from an institution, for image reproduction in book to be published with world rights, can run from £150-£300 per image, depending on how mean the institution is! So even just 8 images would have cost her over a thousand or more.) This is a regrettable lapse in an otherwise brilliant book.

Boundary Stone with Nabu seated on level 5.

Between Two Rivers does a wonderful job of bringing the Mesopotamian world alive for those who might not normally read such a book, so it is on the more popular side, but I do not despise for that, because I love to talk about this set of nesting civilisations that stretch back beyond reckoning, and I would like more people to know about it. It really is delightfully written/

THE LIBRARY OF ANCIENT WISDOM

The second book I am reviewing here is The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History by Selena Wisnom, Allen Lane 398pp. £30. Where Between Two Rivers focused upon artefacts discovered by Leonard Wooley in the 1920s, this book takes a narrower focus upon the wonders of Ashurbanipal’s palace which were discovered by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuz Rassam in1850, on behalf the British Museum.

This is a magnificent book that gives us all the panoply of Mesapotamian life, but through the focus of Ashurbanipal’s time, and specifically through the cynosure of his immense library. Much of this library and the palace’s mural walls can be seen at the British Museum. The cuneiform tablets found have furnished more material than a handful of Assyriologists working at top speed could translate in a month of Sundays.

We immediately gain a sense of this powerful king from every page, for this is no ordinary, run-of-the-mill warrior king, hedonistically determined to beat his foes; this is a deeply-cultured person. Even while Ashurbanipal is hunting lions, we note that he has his stylus stuck into his belt!

Ashurbanipal recorded this information about himself, to leave to posterity his accomplishments, in case we should be in any doubt as to his prowess in the arts and sciences:

‘I learned the craft of the sage Adapa, the secret and hidden law of all the scribal arts. I am able to recognise celestial and terrestrial omens and can discuss them in an assembly of scholars. I am capable of arguing with expert diviners about the series called ‘if the Liver is a mirror image of the heavens.’ I can resolve complex mathematical divisions and multiplications that do not have an easy solution. I have read cunningly written texts in obscure Sumerian and Akkadian that are difficult to interpret. I have carefully examined inscriptions on stone from before the duluge that are sealed, stopped up and confused.’

His library still constitutes one of the greatest collections of cuneiform tablets anywhere found. The British Museum has set them out as they had been in his own palaces.

The Library of Ancient Wisdom is an excellent book, giving us a window onto a world that was soon to be forever lost.

Of these two books, Selena Wisnom’s is the more rigorously scholarly and satisfying, and certainly better illustrated: it is also better written and easier to follow, as Moudhy Al-Rashid does wander off point considerably in a more meandering, though pleasant, way. Selena nails it for me by starting her chapters with the view through the eyes of officials attached to Ashurbanipal’s court: we feel and know what it is to be the King’s general, diviner, exorcist, or dream-interpreter. We also gain the full richness of the supernatural world that governs every action, where celestial phenomena, the strange behaviour of animals, the dreams of the night all provide evidence for what the gods are trying to tell you. Both books come with full bibliographies and supporting material, if you want to delve deeper into this fascinating world.

Both the authors of these hardback books fell into Assyriology by accident, having been charmed and lured by the prospect of written, first-hand evidences. They have both crouched over mobile phone-sized tablets to squint at crisply written but now dry clay tablet, by the light of a torch - which is the only way to read cuneiform, as you need a strong light to determine the characters clearly. I envy their application and share their delight in the revelations of solid historical evidence that can still be read. I think I would have been a very happy Assyriologist had my sight been a little better, but my life fell into other lines. Hail. Nabu, god of writing!

---

We still have a few places left on this new course which is running in June 2025.

26-29 June 2025 A SHRINE IN THE DARKNESS: Creating and Maintaining a Spiritual Practice. With Cáit Branigan and Caitlín Matthews.

In times of deep change, spiritual practices can provide solace, comfort and a powerful foundation to aid us in accessing deep sources of support. Such support provides us with the depth and strength required to stay in loving awareness and to hold to an ethical approach to life and growth. Unfortunately, in a world that focuses on success, such foundational practices are often neglected. This course is for all people of spirit, regardless of whether they belong to a spiritual tradition or not. Based upon the simple practices and wisdom of the Sister Islands of Ireland and Britain, we find the ancestral path that has always been under our feet, so that we and the children who come after us may have good guidance. BOOKING: Single: £675 Shared: £600, Non-Res: £480. Please send your non-returnable deposit of £150 payable to Hawkwood College, Painswick Old Rd., Stroud, Glos GL6 7QW (01453 759034) Please send your non-returnable deposit of £150 payable to Hawkwood College, Painswick Old Rd., Stroud, Glos GL6 7QW (01453 759034)

https://www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/our-programmes/programme/27001-shrine-in-the-darkness

CÁIT BRANIGAN is a Bean Feasa (Shamanic Practitioner) and healer working within the Irish tradition. She teaches groups and conducts ceremonies, teaching internationally. She teaches regularly on the Walkers Between Worlds curriculum.

CAITLíN MATTHEWS is a ritualist and teacher of Western spiritual traditions, as well as the author of 85 books. She has had a shamanic healing practice in Oxford for the last 35 years. www.hallowquest.org.uk

Together we have worked within the traditions of the Sister Islands for many years. We look forward to welcoming all those who wanting to deepen their own spiritual practice, starting with the basics which we do everyday because ‘there is no advanced, only practice.’