In the context of a civilization where literary material was handed down over many centuries, and where there were no conceptions of copyright or in the majority of cases even of authorship, the concept of intertextuality takes on a new meaning. Study of Babylonian and Assyrian literature can give the impression that it is imbued with the results of an interaction between an oral tradition on the one hand, and the traditional redaction of textual material on the other. The purpose of this section is to defend and illustrate this statement by analysing two specific texts. The first is the text dubbed by modern scholarship Assurbanipal's Coronation Hymn (no. 11) and the second the compendium of mystical lore (no. 39).
Assurbanipal's Coronation Hymn
This tablet from Assur has a total of 39 lines, 21 on the obverse, and 18 on the reverse and is complete apart from internal damage to a few lines. A final ruling and space at the bottom of the tablet show that the text is complete. There is no colophon, but there is scarcely any doubt that the composition pertains to the beginning of the reign of Assurbanipal. The first two lines invoke Šamaš and Aššur to appoint the king, prolong his reign, and extend it over the whole known world, using language which could be paralleled in many texts, and belongs to the standard phraseology of Mesopotamian kingship. Šamaš is appropriate with regard to the world regions: traversing the heavens, he sees the whole world.
It is Aššur who gives the sceptre. The king is then commanded to extend the land at his feet: to conquer was part of the raison d'être of the Assyrian state. A parallel in the Middle Assyrian coronation ritual[[12]] is particularly close: "May your foot be agreeable in Ekur, and your hands on the breast of Aššur, your god. May your priesthood (šangūtu) and the priesthood of your sons be agreeable before Aššur, your god. With your just sceptre, widen your land! May Aššur give you command, obedience, consent, justice, and peace!" (col. ii 32-36). As royal insignia the Middle Assyrian text speaks of the "crown of Aššur and the weapons of Mullissu" (col. ii 15), and of a turban(? ): "May Aššur and Mullissu, the lords of your turban(?) (kulūlu), put the turban(? ) on your head for a hundred years!" Then there is an obscure line in the Neo-Assyrian text, for which an emendation is offered. This involves the idea that Šerua is invoked to intercede for Assurbanipal with Assurbanipal's personal god, her husband Aššur. This is followed by an elaborate simile (obv. 5-7) expressing the wish that the gods of Assyria may find Assurbanipal acceptable as king. This can be compared generally with the use of cosmic hyperbole in similes describing the king or his reign in letters from Assyrian courtiers (e.g. LAS 121, 123, 125, 129, 143, 145 etc.).
The next line refers to kittu and mēšaru, concepts of legal and fiscal order customarily expressed by Mesopotamian kings at the beginning of their reigns. The text then turns (obv. 9-14) to expression of the idea of a golden age. This is paralleled in essence in letters from courtiers (especially LAS 121) and also in royal inscriptions (especially Prism B // Prism D ll. 22-38); it is known that the beginning of Assurbanipal's reign coincided with a period of unusual economic prosperity. After an emphatic statement (obv. 15) of the kingship of Aššur (paralleled in the Middle Assyrian coronation ritual "Aššur is king, Aššur is king!" (col. i l.29)), the concept of Assurbanipal's divine parentage (cf. nos. 3 obv. 13-15 and 13 rev. 6-8 in the present corpus) is elaborated. There follows a short section repeating the content of the first two lines but invoking "the great gods" in general.
The parallels mentioned so far point not to textual borrowing, but to the existence at the Assyrian court of certain kinds of language and thought, which are found crystallized in similar but not identical ways in various texts. The next lines are paralleled exactly in a tākultu prayer (obv. 19-rev.3, ending with a scribal ruling, see Menzel Tempel II T143). Either these lines were in general use in various contexts, or the present text quotes from the tākultu; rev. 3 makes it clear that the previous lines are part of a prayer.
The remaining 11 lines of text contain a mythological blessing in which each of five of the most prominent deities in the early Mesopotamian pantheon give to the king an attribute appropriate to that deity's own office. For the antiquity of this section, it is noticable that both Marduk and Aššur are missing. There then follow three curses against those who would perpetrate various types of disloyalty. Finally, there is a blessing, in which "as many gods as there are" are invoked to gather and bless Assurbanipal, "a circumspect man (ma-li-ku a-me-lu)", and to equip him for war and rule.
Thus, these final 11 lines comprise three individual sections which are only related to each other in the most general sense. It is therefore striking that the first two of these sections are closely paralleled in a text in Neo-Babylonian script, VAT 17019, being pinned on at the end of a text recording the creation of "the king, the circumspect man" (LUGAL ma-li-ku a-me-lu).[[13]] The coincidence of the two generally unrelated sections makes it seem certain that the material was taken from the coronation composition. This would then be one of the unusual examples of transmission of literature from Assyria to Babylonia.
The explanation why this material has been added to an otherwise unrelated text probably lies in the use of the expression "the circumspect king" in the coronation composition, which provides a somewhat artificial connection between the two works. The alternative, that VAT 17019 was composed with Assurbanipal as the king created, seems impossible for two reasons. Firstly, there would seem to be no reason to avoid mentioning him by name until the final lines of the composition. Secondly, the text comes to a conclusion, stylistically and logically, with the final line before the quotation: "Thus Belet-ili created the king, the circumspect man!"
This case study of intertextuality shows borrowing on two distinct levels, within the context of a specific type of material, probably partly oral, and direct verbatim takeover from one text to another. It also shows how items relating to, or taken from, various spheres of literary activity at the court have been forged into a single more or less coherent text.
The Mystical Compendium, No. 39
According to its colophon, this Assur tablet was written by, or belonged to, a certain Kiṣir-Aššur, an exorcist of the Aššur temple, the son of Babu-šumu-ibni, an official of Ešarra. The purpose here is not to give a detailed discussion of its contents, but to use it to illustrate intertextuality; some remarks on the genre it represents are given below.
The first section, giving a mystical representation of a god in terms of animals, objects, and substances is paralleled in four other texts. Two of these, one from Assur (no. 38 r. 9-17) and one from Nineveh (no. 37 r.2-5), are given in the present corpus and it can be seen that at least the former contains a less full version: 9 as against 18 lines. Two Babylonian parallels are known (see MEW p. 96). One text, once represented by manuscripts from Nippur and Borsippa, gives five lines, but this is equivalent to two and a half lines in the Assyrian text, since the lines are short. The other gives the equivalent of one and a half lines; it probably comes from Babylon and refers in its colophon to copies from Babylon and Borsippa, and seems incidentally to have been written by a Hebrew scribe (Šemaya).
A further section of no. 39, rev. 22-25, is not strictly paralleled in the former of the two Babylonian texts referred to above, but one line shows that the same thought is involved. The next section is closely paralleled in an astro-mythical compendium (AfO 19 105ff.).
12 K. Fr. Müller, Das assyrische Ritual. Teil I: Texte zum assyrischen Königsritual, MVAG 41/3 (1936), p. 8ff; Menzel Tempel II (1981) T7 gives col. ii 30-34 of KAR 217.
13 W. R. Mayer, "Ein Mythos von der Erschaffung des Menschens und des Königs," Or. 56 (1987) 55ff.
Alasdair Livingstone
Alasdair Livingstone, 'Intertextuality', Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, SAA 3. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1989; online contents: SAAo/SAA03 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa03/natureandcontent/intertextuality/]