To read the complete article by Lauren Goodchildin the Guardian go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/dec/09/museums-greece
=====================================================

Eros: From Hesiod’s Theogony to Late Antiquity
10 December 2009 - 5 April 2010
Museum of Cycladic Art: Eros: From Hesiod’s Theogony to Late Antiquity

Some 272 objets d’art, including masterpieces from more than 50 international museums which date from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, tell the story of love in antiquity. The exhibition has sought to survey the changing perceptions of Eros from the 8th century BC, when he is seen as a powerful god, to Roman times when, less potent, under the name of Cupid he becomes a mere companion to Venus.

Eros, the great loosener of limbs, was many things: irresistible, tender, beautiful, excruciating, maddening, merciless and bittersweet. Eros is the Greek god of love and fertility. In early mythology, Eros is a primeval god, born of Chaos. It was Eros who brought together Uranus, sky, and Gaia, earth, the original father and mother. In later traditions, Eros is the son of Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual love and beauty. Some myths say that Eros’s father was Ares, god of war.In earlier art and literature, Eros was depicted as a strong, athletic, young man. However, he was gradually portrayed as younger and younger, until in Hellenistic times, he was being portrayed as a child or baby, with wings, and a bow and arrow.

Attic red-figure krater depicting the abduction of Europa.  Zeus, transformed into a white bull, carries the Phoenician princess on his back.  Hermes leads, showing them the way to the island of Crete, while the winged Eros accompanies them.

Zainab Bahrani’s book Women of Babylon. Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia. (2001) is an elegantly formulated and provocative introduction to postmodernist theory and methodology, and their possible application to Ancient Near East Studies.

One doesn’t have to agree with her analysis in detail to be dazzled and delighted by the possibilities and new insights her approach offers.  I take as an example the chapter on “Ishtar: The embodiment of tropes” (p. 141). Bahrani states: “In this chapter, I shall focus on the goddess Ishtar in order to explore her place within Mesopotamia’s cultural order. In doing so I shall diverge from the traditional reading of mythology as narrative tales, and a literary reading of hymns and prayers as poetry. Instead, I shall consider the cultural meanings and values embodied in the figure of Ishtar. Because mythology is an important aspect of cultural signifying systems, I shall analyse Ishtar as a part of this system of signs. […] The methods I rely upon here derive from poststructuralist semiotic and reception theory.”

Her analysis of Ishtar as „truly all woman“, as seductress or femme fatale (p. 144) and her arguments against the goddess being androgynous, bisexual or hermaphrodite I find attractive, and they seem to be not implausible.  It should be, however, checked against and substantiated with contemporary documents and archaeological artefacts. Is the “femme fatale” a notion that would translate into Ancient Near Eastern thought patterns, cultural concepts and models, gender roles? Totally implausible, on the other hand, I find her conclusion that: „ As the goddess that represents all that is unruly, unpredictable, and marginal in Mesopotamian society she stands for what is unstable or outside the accepted forms of behaviour. She is Mesopotamian culture’s figure of the chaotic and marginal and as such is a figure of the chaotic and marginal and as such is a figure of alterity or otherness, an otherness that stands for what is different from the norm: civilised man.” Surely, “civilised woman” would be a norm too? Moreover, “Mesopotamian society” is a very vague and large description. The thousand-year-long evolution of the figure of Inana/Ishtar – with marked character changes and different emphasis on contradictory aspects of her character – and the likewise long history of Ancient Mesopotamia are being ignored here, just as the fact that the position of women in different historical phases and/or places was vastly different.
This seems to me to be going too far in applying – without substantiation – modern western values and especially 20th Century feminist concepts to the Mesopotamian world and culture. The esoteric Lacanian analysis that follows does nothing to clarify this position.

Women of Babylon is a splendid and inspiring introduction to feminist theory & other modern theoretical and methodological debates, and how they could be applied to Ancient Near Eastern Studies. The application and detailed analysis is and will be an important task for ANE scholars.

Zainab Bahrani is Edith Porada Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology, Director of Graduate Studies.

A royal love song of Shu-Suen from the Ur III period (c. 2100 BC):

The beer of my […], Il-Ummiya, the tapstress
Is sweet
And her vulva
Is sweet like her beer
And her beer is sweet!
And her vulva is sweet like her chatter
And her beer is sweet!
Her bittersweet beer
And her beer are sweet!

(Translation: Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Harps that Once. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987)

Die große Ausstellung im Pergamonmuseum (26.6. – 5.10.2008) ist eine Zusammenarbeit vom Louvre in Paris, dem British Museum in London und dem Vorderasiatischen Museum in Berlin. Gezeigt wird die enge Verknüpfung der Geistesgeschichten Europas und des Vorderen Orients über einen Zeitraum von mehreren Jahrtausenden. Zahlreiche archäologische Objekte aus Babylonien dokumentieren die “Wahrheit” der babylonischen Kultur und die weit zurückreichenden Wurzeln der europäischen Zivilisation. Der Teil “Mythos” widmet sich der Rezeption babylonischer Kultur in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte von der Spätantike bis ins 21. Jahrhundert.

Zu behaupten, dass man in einer Ausstellung die “Wahrheit” über die Babylonische Kultur zeigen kann, ist ziemlich anmaßend (Siehe unten). Andererseits – man kann auch argumentieren, dass der Mythos die Wahrheit ist - aber das überlasse ich den Pomo-Babblers.

Genug genörgelt. Folgende Sachen sind mir in der Ausstellung speziell aufgefallen:
__________________________________

• 1- Die Eigenbegrifflichkeit der Babylonischen Welt
• 2- Henotheismus
• 3- “La plus speedy des pizzas”
• 4- Robert Koldewey
• 5- Erotika

__________________________________

• 1- Die Eigenbegrifflichkeit der Babylonischen Welt

To arrive at the “Truth” about the Babylonion culture is a somewhat overwhelming project, the end of which is absolutely out of sight – indeed, one doesn’t know where to start. Several preliminary reflections are to be taken into account:

• We have only spotwise information about Babylon and Mesopotamia in generall. The physical area is a vast one – and we are talking about a very long period of time. For a variety of reasons, large periods of time remain up till this day undocumentated: no archaeological funds or texts having been found up till now. Likewise, geographical regions have gone undiscovered till very recently, having been believed to be insignificant – suddenly showing themselves as being of great importance. New discoveries can be expected every moment, overthrowing the general image that has been painstakingly pieced together.
• The language(s): the sheer philological difficulties of deciphering, reading and interpreting languages long dead, that were alive in a culture totally alien to ours, puts a heavy barrier to our grasping of any aspect of Babylonien and Mesopotamian life in general.
• We are still overly much influenced by biblical conceptions about Babylon. Of course the Bible is an important historical source to Babylonian history – but Babylon as it is depicted in the Hebrew Bible would be comparable to the rantings and ravings of a Flemish communist today about New York. An interesting point of view, for sure, but admittedly somewhat marginal.

One has to remember that the Assyriologist has at his disposal but a small section of material. Any new excavation and any other find can endanger and perhaps overthrow the conclusions he has reached. … an alien civilization, a civilization that is reflected solely in the dull and distorting mirror of documents written in a language long dead. It is necessary, but extremely difficult, to free oneself from one’s own ingrained concepts in attempting to organize data pertaining to another civilization.

[Oppenheim, p. 27]

Science and Religion, to name but two aspects of culture, function on very different premises than ours. (The fact that “Science” is mostly written inside quotation marks when it’s Babylonian Science, speaks for itself.) Unless we can set aside our preconceived ideas about what they are, or what they ought to be, we won’t get any closer to the Weltanschaung, culture and history of Babylon and Mesopotamia.

• 2- Henotheismus

“Gegenüber dem kompromisslosen Entweder-oder gab die Weisheit des alten Zweistromenlands dem Sowohl-als-auch den Vorzug.” [Oppenheim, p. 172]

Der Begriff Henotheismus stammt von dem Indologen Friedrich Max Müller. Henotheismus ist ein logischer Schritt zwischen Polytheismus und Monolatrie bzw. Monotheismus. Man glaubt an einen höchsten Gott, ohne jedoch die Verehrung anderer untergeordneter Göttern auszuschließen. Monolatrie ist exklusiver und weniger tolerant: die Existenz anderer Götter wird zwar anerkennt, diese dürfen aber nicht angebeten werden.

“This brings us to the conceptual difficulties of understanding a polytheistic religion as far removed in time and background as that of Mesopotamia. It may be stressed that neither the number of deities worshipped nor the absence or presence of definite (and carefully worded) answers to the eternal and unanswerable questions of man separate decisively a polytheistic from a monotheistic religion. Rather, it seems to be the criterion of a plurality of intellectual and spiritual dimensions that sets off most of the higher polytheistic religions from the narrowness, the one-dimensional pressure of revealed religions.”

[Oppenheim, p. 82]

Marduk, der Gott Babylons, ist ein gutes Beispiel des Begriffes “Henotheismus”. Marduk macht Anspruch auf über fünfzig Götternamen, die alle verschiedene Aspekten des Gottes repräsentieren. So werden die mindere Götter in Marduk inkorporiert, ohne wirklich zu verschwinden:

“Sin ist deine Göttlichkeit, Anu deine Regentschaft!
Dagan ist deine Herrschaft, Enlil dein Königtum!
Adad ist deine Stärke, der weise Ea dein Erkennen!
Der den Schreibgriffel hält, Nabu, ist dein Können!
Deine Führerschaft ist Ninurta, Nergal deine Macht!
Der Ratschlag deines Herzens ist Nuska, dein erhabener Wesir!
Dein Richtertum ist der leuchtende Schamasch, der Zwist nicht abkommen last!
Dein überragender Name, weisester unter den Göttern, ist Marduk!”

[Liste mit den Namen des Gottes Marduk, 7. Jht. BCE].

• 3- “La plus speedy des pizzas”

So las Umberto Eco [La ricerca della lingua perfetta nella cultura europea, 1993] auf einen Mauer in Brüssel, und ihm erschien dies, wenn vielleicht nicht das perfekteste Beispiel, so doch der Anfang einer perfekten europäischen Sprache.

Sündenfall und babylonische Sprachverwirrung scheinen in unserer Ideen unlösbar verbunden zu sein. Babylon als international scene, die Stadt generell als Zentrum der Zivilisation, wo eine friedliches Zusammenleben vieler Sprachen und Kulturen zu den Möglichkeiten gehört, gegenspricht anscheinend die Idylle des Landlebens. In der Stadt geht der Link mit der “göttliche Sprache der Natur” verloren.

Die Suche nach eine “Reine Sprache”, nach der “Ursprache” oder die “vollkommene Sprache” fängt in der hebräischen Bibel an, und geht bis heute weiter (Esperanto ist ein rezenteres Beispiel; der Teufel, laut Thomas Mann, halt Deutsch für die vollkommene Sprache). Sprachliche Reinheit im Gegensatz zu eines fruchtbares Sprach-Babylon: das Thema ist unheimlich aktuell. [1]

• 4- Robert Koldewey

Gleich am Anfang der Ausstellung werden die Expeditionsjournale, Zeichnungen und einige Fotos Robert Koldeweys (1855-1925) und sein Motorfahrrad gezeigt – ich war gleich bezaubert und ahnte einen neuen archäologischen Held und richtigen Manly Man (laut Harvey Mansfield sowie Immanuel Kant) gefunden zu haben. Ich wurde nicht enttauscht.

Koldeweys Skizzenbücher zeigen ein außerordentliches zeichnerisches Talent, seine Briefe einen begabten Schreiber und einen eigensinnigen Charakter. Er bewies Mut und Geschick nicht nur in seiner Arbeit, sondern auch bei den Verhandlungen in krisenhaften Situationen mit den Scheichs. Andererseits zeigte er sich unerbittlich gegenüber Ignoranz. Man erzählt, dass Koldewey einer bibelfesten englischen Touristengruppe ein tiefes Grabungsloch als „Daniels Löwengrube“, ein Grabungsfeld als Thronsaal des „Menetekels“ und einen Schlackenhaufen als „feurigen Ofen“ eröffnete. Von seinen Mitarbeitern deswegen kritisiert, soll er geantwortet haben: „Wieso? Wer glaubt, ist selig! Sollte ich ihnen die Freude nehmen und sie enttäuschen? Das wird bis an ihr Lebensende das Erlebnis für sie bleiben!“


Koldewey blieb unverheiratet und kinderlos.

Das Buch Auf dem Weg nach Babylon enthalt viele Anekdoten, Bilder und Zitaten von und über Robert Koldewey, und einen Übersicht seiner Ausgrabungen und Erforschungen, insbesondere auch seiner Logistik der Ausgrabung, der bis heute als vorbildlich gilt. Sein Nachlass wird im Vorderasiatischen Museum zu Berlin aufbewahrt und erforscht.

• 5- Erotika

_____________
Notes
[1] Es ist auch ein sehr schwieriges Thema für pedantische SNOOTs. David Foster Wallace hat darüber ein wünderschönes Artikel geschrieben. We will miss him.
_____________
Literatur

aavv. Babylon. Mythos und Wahrheit. 2 Bände. München: Hirmer Verlag, 2008.
aavv. Wiedererstehendes Babylon. Eine antike Weltstadt im Blick der Forschung. Berlin, 1991. (Katalog der Ausstellung Wiedererstehendes Babylon, Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Staatlichen Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz)
Andrae, Walter. Babylon. Die versunkene Weltstadt und ihr Ausgräber Robert Koldewey. Berlin: de Gruyter Verlag, 1952.
Eco, Umberto. La ricerca della lingua perfetta nella cultura europea. Roma, Laterza, 1993.
Koldewey, Robert. Das wieder erstehende Babylon. Beck: München, 1990.
Oppenheim, A. Leo. Ancient Mesopotamia. Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Wartke, Ralf-B. (Ed.). Auf dem Weg nach Babylon. Robert Koldewey - Ein Archäologenleben. Mainz: Verlag Philip von Zabern, 2008.
Müller, Friedrich Max. Vorlesungen über den Ursprung und die Entwickelung der Religion mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Religionen des alten Indiens. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner Verlag, 1880 (2. unveränderte Aufl. 1881).

In my search for Good-Looks, the handsome playboy who was treated so harshly by Ereshkigal, I stumbled upon Desire, discord and Death. Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Myth., by Neal Walls.
His approach to the ancient Near East myths is pleasantly refreshing, and I was excited to learn about the new approaches in Ancient Near East studies, and hopefully likewise in Biblical studies. The old approach was as dry as sand, most of the time, not to mention (religiously) biased and sometimes hideously racistic.

I quote from the foreword:

“For most of the twentieth century, the traditional curriculum of Near Eastern studies emphasized the technical methods of archaeology, history, and philology but neglected the fields of anthropology, comparative religion, and literary theory. As a result, Near Eastern scholars were often unfamiliar with current methods in the academic studies of myth. Many scholars adopted out-of-date interpretative approaches, such as euhemerism, nature-myth, or myth-ritual approaches; others adopted overly romantic perspectives toward the ancient world and attributed a prelogical, mythopoetic mentality to practitioners of “ancient “fertitlity religions”. (…) While earlier generations of Near Eastern scholars did brilliant work in philology, history, and the production of critical editions, they did not always have the same high standards or appropriate methods for sensitive interpretations of mythological literature. Recently, however, scholars have begun to cross disciplinary lines in order to apply contemporary forms of literary and symbolic criticism to the world’s oldest mythology. Indeed, the need for scholars of ancient Near Eastern literatures to break out of their self-imposed isolation and engage critical literary theory is now openly acknowledged within the guild.”

“… the complexity of mythological literature compels me to employ a complex set of methods in order to expoit more fully the surplus of meanings produced by ancient Near Eastern mythological narratives. I apply a variety of methods in order to explore the texts as examples of sophisticated literature and symbolic discourse, to unpack their poetics, and to emphasize literary features not adequately appreciated by previous interpreters. I borrow this idea from literary criticism, that perspective from psychoanalysis, and the other notion from ideological criticism in order to offer new readings of very ancient myths. These contemporary reading strategies ask new questions of both the reader and the text and so open up new vistas of meaning; they cast a new light on the ancient texts and illumine neglected facets of their discourse.”

The result of these methods are four highly interesting, refreshing, thought-provoking essays.

Neal Walls. Desire, Discord and Death: Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Myth (ASOR Books). The book can be downloaded (as pdf) here, and can be ordered here.