The "Underworld Vision" of the Ninevite Intellectual Milieu

Author(s): Mehmet-Ali Ata

Source: Iraq, Vol. 66, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale,
Part One (2004), pp. 67-76
Published by: British Institute for the Study of Iraq
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4200561
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 67

THE "UNDERWORLD VISION" OF THE NINEVITE

INTELLECTUAL MILIEU

By MEHMET-ALI ATA,*

One Assyrian text relates how a crown prince had monstrous

dreams, the meaning of which remains obscure to us.

Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods'

The Assyrian Netherworld is often depicted in literature as a grim "hell" whose residents are
clad like birds, deprived of light, and have soil and clay as their food and sustenance.2 It is the
land of no return, erset la tari,2 "the house which none who enters ever leaves", reached by a
"path that allows no journey back".4 In addition to such a dreary "hell," however, the Assyrian
Netherworld should also be understood in its capacity as a locus of initiation to which the hero
or the spiritual adept is able to pay a visit while still alive without being permanently engulfed by
it, and as a result attains a superior level of consciousness, perhaps even immortality.5
This paper focuses on such initiatic aspects of the Netherworld. Especially two poems composed
in the Standard Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, the Standard Babylonian Version of the Epic of
Gilgamesh, a work long ingrained in the Mesopotamian religious consciousness, and the poem
known as the Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince,6 may be thought to shed light on this
more covert perception of the Netherworld. Further, since both of these works come from
"libraries" in Nineveh,7 they may after all be thought to reflect the way the Ninevite intellectual
elite themselves perceived the Netherworld. This "Underworld Vision" of the Ninevite scholarly
milieu is by no means confined to contemporary literature; it is also visible in the royal palaces
of Nineveh through representations of gate-guardians, Mischwesen,8 that belong to that very
Netherworld. Nor is this "Underworld Vision" exclusive to the Ninevite elite alone, as it is one
which the latter inherited from a long-standing Mesopotamian mystical tradition. Here, however,
I shall try to present a glimpse of this Netherworld from a Ninevite perspective.
In the Standard Babylonian Version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh's quest for immortality
takes him to the ends of the earth via the twin mountains, Mount Masu, where the sun goes into
and comes out of the Netherworld every day.9 This journey, which ultimately leads Gilgamesh to

* Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology,

Egyptian eschatology. It presupposes the existence of a
Bryn Mawr College, 101 North Merion Avenue, Bryn blessed afterlife for the deserving, which is contrary to the
Mawr, PA 19010; matac@brynmawr.edu. general Greek and Semitic view of the underworld as a
1 1948: 255 cheerless place where all are reduced to the same state." We
2See for instance, the Standard Babylonian Version shall see that even in ancient Mesopotamia the Netherworld
of the Epic of Gilgamesh VII 165-208, where Enkidu's is far from being this one-sided, as significant but covert
dream vision of the Netherworld is related. Further on the clues lead one to conceive of this realm as a more complex
Mesopotamian Netherworld, see Black and Green 1997: place where the ultimate destinies of the deceased differed
180-2, s.v. "underworld", Horowitz 1998: 268 ff., and Katz in accordance with their degrees of initiation.
2003. 6Livingstone 1989: 68 ff.
'One of the epithets of the Mesopotamian Netherworld 7Among the texts that were copied out by Ashurbanipal's
is the land of no return, erset la tari, on which see Horowitz scribes was the Gilgamesh epic, of which the library of
1998: 18, 268-9, 276-7. Ashurbanipal may have possessed as many as four complete
'In Enkidu's dream vision the Netherworld is further copies on clay tablets (George 1999: xxii). As for the
described as follows: "[He bound] my arms like the wings Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Crown Prince, it was
of a bird, / to lead me captive to the house of darkness, found in a library in a private house which yielded 20
seat of Irkalla: / to the house which none who enters tablets of fragments of miscellaneous contents (Livingstone
ever leaves, / on the path that allows no journey back" 1989: xix).
(VII 183-6, George 1999: 61). 8On monsters and Mischwesen in Mesopotamian art and
'In comparing the Egyptian and Greek-Semitic Nether-
thought, see especially Black 1988, Black and Green 1997,
worlds, for instance, M. L. West writes: "Judgment of the Cassin 1968, Green 1984, McBeath 1999, Wiggermann 1992.
dead before Osiris had long been a prominent feature of 9IX 38-41.

Iraq LXVI (2004) = RAI 49/1 (2005)

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 68 MEHMET-ALI ATA4

the sage Utnapishtim, is a path

is the story of the Flood, a benchmark in man's mythical proto-history signaling the end of one
cosmic era and the beginning of another, and hence a piece of restricted knowledge." In fact, in
Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian Version of the Epic, Utnapishtim starts telling Gilgamesh
the Flood story by saying: "Let me disclose, 0 Gilgamesh, a matter most secret, / to you I will
tell a mystery of gods".'2 On his journey, Gilgamesh essentially follows the path of the sun when
it traverses the Netherworld at night.13 In this respect, the hero's journey should also be understood
as taking place in the Netherworld. Returning to Uruk at the end of Tablet XI, and thus coming
full circle, Gilgamesh is able to survive this journey, and emerges from it informed, though still
mortal in the flesh.
There are of course more focused and graphic glimpses of this realm in the Standard Babylonian
Version of the Epic. These direct glimpses are of the grim and infernal sort, such as Enkidu's
dream in Tablet VII.'4 This vision, which ushers in the death of Enkidu, is in fact full of covert
clues that point to the initiatic capacity of the Netherworld, nevertheless presented in a dreary
guise. For instance, it is noteworthy that Enkidu sees in the Netherworld crowns that belonged
to those "who ruled the land since days of yore, who served the roast [at the] tables of Anu and
Enlil, and who proffered baked bread, and poured them cool water from skins"."
What this means may be that Enkidu here encounters the crowns of antediluvian kings who
belonged to the age of apkallus, sages, who, along with their wisdom and magical skills entered a
state of "occultation" in the Apsu after the Flood.'6 The Apsiu was a component of the greater
Mesopotamian Netherworld, and was sometimes equated or even confused with the Netherworld
proper. '7 Moreover, the antediluvian kings were sometimes themselves sages such as Enmeduranki,
the diviner king.'8 The statement that these rulers served at the banquets of the gods may hence
be taken as an indication of these kings' closeness to the gods, not unlike the humanity of Hesiod's
Golden Age that lived and feasted among the gods."9 Thus, the infernal realm depicted in Enkidu's
dream has aspects that are suggestive of this locale's co-extensiveness with the realm to which the
antediluvian world order was withdrawn in its occultation. Indeed, this is perhaps analogous or

10 "[I am seeking] the [road] of my forefather, Uta- 18 Kvanvig 1988: 18, Lambert 1967. According to Kvanvig,
napishti, / who attended the gods' assembly, and [found there may originally have been two separate currents of
life eternal:] / of death and life [he shall tell me the secret.]"
tradition, those dealing with antediluvian kings and those
(IX 75-7, George 1999: 72). On the Epic of Gilgamesh aswith primeval sages. The two were later merged "in what
an account of initiation, see Prevot 1986: 228. can be regarded as a comprehensive view of the primeval
"1On the theology of the ancient Mesopotamian Flood antediluvian period" (1988: 159). One can postulate that in
story and the Mesopotamian antediluvian tradition and a mythical antediluvian period, no distinction existed between
sages see Kvanvig 1988, Parpola 1993: xiii-xxxv, Ataq king and sage, and that this separation came to exist once
2003:
esp. Part III. the perfection or the superiority of this spiritually more
"2XI 9-10, George 1999: 88. informed age came to an end.
"1In both ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian religion, " The decline in the spiritual quality of progressing cycles
the sun god travels across the Netherworld at night. of time is clear in Hesiod's "Myth of the Ages", Works and
On the descent of the sun god to the Netherworld in Days 109-200. Even though a one-to-one correspondence
Mesopotamian religion, see Heimpel 1987; on the descent does not exist between the Hesiodic and Mesopotamian
of the Egyptian sun god to this realm see, for instance, tradition of the "ages", two parallels are unmistakable.
Hornung 1999. First of all, the apkallus as the circle of Enki are referred
14Supra fnn. 2 and 4. to as "pure" (ebbu) in literary texts (Reiner 1961: 9), just as
1 VII 194-7, George 1999: 61. Hesiod designates the generation of his Golden Age as pure
16Reiner 1961: 9. The relegation of the apkallus to the spirits (daimones hagnoi, 122) who lived under the aegis of
Apsu causes the esoteric art and craft of fashioning and Kronos. Also, just as Hesiod's pure spirits were covered,
inducing a divine statue to enter into a state of occultation the apkallus also descended to the Apsfi, the realm of Enki
as well. As the organizer of the universe, even Marduk (ibid.). Secondly, one can note the fourth age of Hesiod as
is incapable of possessing that magical power and hence having a strong affinity to the state of Utnapishtim, the
deplores the absence of the Seven Sages in the Poem of Erra: survivor of the Flood. It is in this age that Hesiod locates
"Where are the seven sages of the Apsfi, the pure puradu- the heroes of the Trojan war, as well as those heroes who
fish, who, just as their lord Ea, have been endowed with were placed at the ends of the earth (peirata gaies, 169),
sublime wisdom?" (I 162, ibid.). One can also quote Marduk on the "islands of the blessed" (en makaron nesoisi, 170).
speaking to Erra (Nergal) in the same poem: "I dispatched Just as is the case with the Golden Age, it is also Kronos,
those (renowned) ummanu(-sages) down into the / Apsu: I the equivalent of Enki, who rules over these happy heroes
did not ordain their coming up again / I changed the place (olbioi her6es, 172). Utnapishtim is also an immortal who
of the mesu tree (and) of the elmesu(-amber): / I did not lives by the shore of the sea far from gods and men, in a
reveal (the new place) to anybody" (vv. 147-8, Cagni "blessed" state (IX 75-7). For a synoptic account of the
1977: 32). Indian tradition of the great cosmic cycles, the yugas, see
"Horowitz 1998: 342. Eliade 1974: 112-14.

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 THE "UNDERWORLD VISION" OF THE NINEVITE INTELLECTUAL MILEU 69

identical to the transcendental realm in which Utnapishtim himself took refuge as a result of the
Flood, following the exhortations of the very god of this realm of "occultation", Enki/Ea: "For
sure the god Enlil feels for me hatred. / In your city I can live no longer, / I can tread no more
[on] Enlil's ground. / [I must] go to the Ocean Below, to live with Ea, my master".20 The Flood
clearly marks the concealment of initiatory knowledge possessed by sages such as Utnapishtim
and their master Enki/Ea.
Further scrutiny of the structure of the Netherworld as witnessed by Enkidu provides additional
important clues along these lines. Why, for instance, is the Netherworld equipped with an entire
body of priesthood, "the en-priests, lagar-priests, lustration priests, lumahhu-priests, and the great
gods' gudapsu-priests", all cited by Enkidu in his description of this "Underworld vision"? What
is more, the same Netherworld also hosts such benign characters as Etana and Shakkan. It is
ultimately presided over by a supreme divinity herself, Ereshkigal, the queen of the Netherworld,
with an official scribe, Belet-seri, sitting in her presence.2' One could of course argue that the
divine and sacerdotal presence in the Netherworld is there on account of its role in the judgment
of the dead. In fact, rather than undergoing any kind of mystical transformation, Enkidu weakens
and dies shortly after his dream experience.22 This, however, is not the case with the Assyrian
crown prince who also undergoes a similar experience, and here perhaps lies the key to the
understanding of the paradoxical nature of the Mesopotamian Netherworld.
The Neo-Assyrian text known as the Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince is a poem that
essentially relates a mystical experience that takes place in the Netherworld. It describes the night
vision of one Kumma, who may be Ashurbanipal, though this is not certain.23 In the dream, the
prince directly encounters some of the denizens of the Netherworld, including the god Nergal,
the Lord of the Netherworld, who is about to "kill" him, but an intercessor asks the god to spare
the prince's life.24 Nergal then admonishes the prince to acknowledge him: "Do not forget or
neglect me! Then I will not pass a verdict of annihilation on you. (But) on the command of
Shamash, may distress, acts of violence and rebellion together blow you down so that, by their
oppressive clamor, sleep may not come to you".25 Nergal continues his speech with the enigmatic
mention of a "corpse" of a "proud shepherd", who is actually the prince's father, and who lies
dead in the Netherworld. Nergal further states that the body of this king is protected and his
progeny is kept healthy by divine agents.26 One can compare the presence of such a royal corpse
in the Assyrian Netherworld to the mysterious corpse in the Egyptian Netherworld with which
the sun god Re unites every night, a corpse associated with Osiris, again a king whose progeny is
kept healthy and alive by the divine world order.27
Nergal further indicates in this speech of "epiphany" that this dead king is one who "scanned
the 'plans' (gis.hur.mes) of the mainstay of the earth".28 It is clearly the case that this royal
personage is an embodiment of a "sacerdotal" kind of kingship which, like Enki/Ea and Osiris,
is now passive and exists in "occultation", guarded by divine agents. What Nergal is here doing
is admonishing the prince to be mindful of this truth: "Who(ever of you) may have closed his ear
to speech, tasted the forbidden, trampled on the consecrated the luminous splendor of his
terrifying majesty will throw you down instantly, until (you are but) wind! May this word be set
like a thorn in your heart! Go forth to the upper world until I think of you!"29 It is also in this

20XI 39-42, George 1999: 89. priest, [dec]reed the building of the holy Akitu House of
21VII 198-205. the plain, surrounded by a garden of abundance, the likeness
22"The day he had the dream [his strength] was of Mount Lebanon . ...... for ever and ever; / Whose body
exhausted, / Enkidu was cast down, he lay one day sick Yabru, Humban and Napru?u protect, whose progeny they
[and then a second.] / Enkidu [lay] on his bed, [his sickness keep healthy, and whose army and camp they rescued so
worsened,] / a third day and a fourth day, [the sickness of that no charioteer could come near him in battle. / He is
Enkidu worsened.]" (VIII: 254-7, George 1999: 62). your father, the eminent one, experienced in matters, wide
"3Livingstone 1989: xxviii. of understanding, comprehensive in the seat of ordaining
24 Ibid., rev. 15, p. 74. fate, who scanned the plans of the mainstay of the earth."
2 Ibid., rev. 20. 27 In the Amduat, the fourth and fifth hours of the night
26 Ibid., rev. 22-6, pp. 75-6: "This [corpse] which (lies) are occupied by the region known as the desert of Sokar.
buried in the underworld, is that of the proud shepherd This region is also called Rosetau and is located "at the
who fulfilled the wishes of my father [AIMur], the king of boundary of the sky". It contains the "corpse" of Osiris
the gods; / [The king wh]o from east to west made all the (Hornung 1999: 1 1).
lands be looked upon as booty, who ruled everything; / 28Rev. 26, Livingstone 1989: 75-6.
[For wh]om Assur, at the beginning of his office as high 29Rev. 27-8, ibid., 76.

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 70 MEHMET-ALI ATAM

respect that sleep is not supposed to come to the prince,30 for he is now aware of an important
but disturbing truth.
The prince wakes up, and the whole experience has created a complete tumult in him:
I woke up, and like a man who has let blood, who roams alone in a reed thicket, whom a runner
catches up with, so that his heart pounds, or like a just matured young boar, who has mounted on his
mate, and whose inwards inflate so that he gives out wind from his mouth and backside, he became
inflamed with lamentation and called out, "Woe, my heart!" He flew into the road like an arrow, scooped
up into his mouth the dust from the street and square, continually letting out a terrified shriek, "Woe
is me!"
He cried "Why have you decreed this for me?" and in his pain he praised before the peoples of Assyria
the mighty deeds of Nergal and Ereshkigal, who had come to the aid of the prince.3"

Because of what he learned from Nergal, and experienced in general, the prince is transformed.
The simile of the just matured young boar mounting on his mate, perhaps evoking coming of age,
is further indicative of this initiatic experience. The prince clearly undergoes the most perilous
step in mystical descent, the danger of annihilation, but is ultimately saved and rendered more
knowledgeable than his former state.32 Further, the prince is also subject to the state of videre
deum, Nergal's epiphany: "I looked at him and my bones shivered! His grimly luminescent splendor
overwhelmed me, I kissed the feet of his great divinity and knelt down"."
Ultimately, the Netherworld literally proves to be a land of no return for Enkidu, since after
his dream his own biological death ensues;34 whereas for the Assyrian prince the Netherworld is
not a final destination but a transitional stage toward enlightenment. I submit that this difference
is one between the lots of the initiated and the uninitiated. Enkidu, who is made to tread an
on-the-surface humanized but in fact a regressive path through his separation from his initial
"edenic" state can be understood as experiencing the Netherworld in a post-mortem condition,
when there is no chance of coming back. As for the Assyrian prince, he is able to return from the
Netherworld unharmed, just as Gilgamesh returns to Uruk after his own journey more knowledge-
able. He thus stands for the adept who, when the time is come, is snatched by invisible agents to
another realm where he is instructed in the Mysteries, and eventually sent back to the upper world
in a transformed, albeit traumatized, state.35
In this respect, the prince is perhaps not unlike the "lamentation priests" of the Descent of
Inanna/Ishtar to the Netherworld. In the myth, these beings are specially crafted by Enki/Ea to
withstand the conditions underground, and are unharmed as they enter and exit the Netherworld
on their mission to save Inanna/Ishtar.36 In essence, these beings may be thought to constitute an
etiology for the salvific function of the scholarly and priestly elite in their role as initiators and
possessors of antediluvian wisdom. In the poem The Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince as

30Rev. 20, supra 25. to them from close at hand" (Apuleius. Metamorphoses
31Rev. 29-32; ibid. [= Hanson 1989]: vol. II, pp. 340-1). Likewise, the medieval
32The idea of a dark and fearful stage that precedes Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross formulates this
or accompanies mystical illumination can also be seen in crucial phase in the development of the mystic in what he
other ancient and later religious traditions. For example, coins as the "Dark Night of the Soul", a phenomenon
in discussing Iranian sufism and its sources, the Islamicist that first purges and ultimately illuminates the candidate
Henry Corbin talks about a "black light" which constitutes seeking admission to the highest Mysteries (John of the
the highest spiritual stage and marks the most perilous Cross. Selected Writings [= Kavanaugh 1987]: 43, 46; for a
initiatic step in the enlightenment process, "the stage immedi- translation of this poem as well as the commentary, see
ately preceding the ultimate theophany" (Corbin 1978: 100). ibid., 157ff.).
According to Corbin, this black light is an attribute of 33Rev. 14, Livingstone 1989: 72.
Majesty which sets the mystic's being on fire; "it is not 34Supra fn. 22.
contemplated, it attacks, invades, annihilates, then annihil- "5The same distinction exists between Gilgamesh and
ates annihilation" (ibid., 108). This darkness, the "black Enkidu. Gilgamesh whose mind was broadened by the gods
light" or the divine Night, is the Essence which causes the is by nature, or by ontology, an initiated man: "O Enkidu,
light to be revealed, not to be confused with the darkness cast aside your sinful thoughts! / Gilgamesh it is whom
further below, the demonic darkness which holds the light divine Shamash loves. / The gods Anu, Enlil and Ea have
(ibid.). Comparable is a passage in Apuleius' Metamor- broadened his wisdom" (I 240-2, George 1999: 9), whereas
phoses XI: 23: "Therefore listen, but believe: these things Enkidu who acquires his knowledge along the way may be
are true. I came to the boundary of death, and having thought of as the uninitiated man: "Enkidu was weakened,
trodden the threshold of Proserpina, I traveled through could not run as before, / but now he had reason, and wide
all the elements and returned. In the middle of the night I understanding" (I 201-2, ibid., 8).
saw the sun flashing with bright light. I came face to face 36 Sladek 1974: 22-3.
with the gods below and the gods above and paid reverence

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 THE "UNDERWORLD VISION" OF THE NINEVITE INTELLECTUAL MILIEU 71

well, it is again the Assyrian scribal-sacerdotal elite who are projecting their own spiritual sagas
on to royal characters, serving on the one hand exoteric royal ideology, and on the other their
own purposes of preserving an internal dialogue regarding the Mysteries they hold in custody.
Ashurbanipal's court in Nineveh must have been a particularly sophisticated milieu in this respect,
as the presence of the "library" also testifies. Not only older venerable texts were preserved here,
the cumulative erudition of ancient Mesopotamian civilization, but also new texts were composed
such as the Coronation Hymn37 and the Underworld Vision. Ashurbanipal's personal claim to
literacy, learnedness, and even initiation - since he claims to understand the meaning of texts
from before the Flood - may also be understood as a self-referential indication on the part of
the same scholarly milieu.38
This self-referential component was not only literary, but also visual. The gate-guardian figures
of Assyrian palaces, be they apkallus (Fig. 1) or other Mischwesen (Fig. 2) that belong to the army
of Tiamat, can be considered as the primary visual means through which the scribal-sacerdotal
elite communicated their presence in the Assyrian court.39 Notwithstanding their "monstrous"
appearance, these beings can in fact be thought of as examiners on the path of initiation. Some
are shown with daggers in their hands, such as the ugallu (Fig. 3); and some with both daggers
and axes, such as the trio thought to be a fragment from a representation of the sibittu (Fig. 4),
the seven gods associated with the Pleiades.40 It is noteworthy that some of these beings belong
to the sky4' as much as to the Netherworld. Many have their counterparts as constellations in the
sky, and many appear on Babylonian plaques and kudurru reliefs among other astral symbols. It
is also noteworthy that the descriptions of some of the denizens of the Netherworld in the
Underworld Vision match some representations of these Mischwesen in Ninevite palaces: "The Evil
Spirit (utukku lemnu) had a lion's head, (his) hands and feet were those of Anzu".42 "Nedu, the
porter of the Underworld, had a lion's head, and human hands, his feet were those of a bird".43
The ugallu depicted on Sennacherib's and Ashurbanipal's (Figs. 2 and 3) reliefs perfectly fits this
description, as also noted by the editors of the State Archives of Assyria Volume III, who chose
representations of the ugallus as illustrations accompanying the text of the Underworld Vision."
Some of the denizens of the Egyptian Netherworld are also depicted holding daggers in New
Kingdom representations of the Afterlife (Fig. 5). According to Egyptian funerary texts whose
central concern was an uninjured and unthreatened pass through the gates of the Netherworld,
these menacing gate guardians "devour the souls and shadows of those destined to die".45 Hence,
one can think of them too as examiners, guarding the path for the adept and excluding or
destroying the inept, ensuring "terrors for the uninvited and reception for the select".46 Dagger-
bearing demons' iconographic presence in Ninevite palaces is also a reference to an exclusive and
challenging notion of initiation, admitting the adept, and banishing the wicked and inept.

37Livingstone 1989: 26 ff. their intense Babylonian politics, as well as the arrival of
For Ashurbanipal's declarations regarding his literacy Enuma Elish in Assyria and its appropriation to Assyrian
and his understanding esoteric lore, see Kvanvig 1988: 189 theology through replacing Marduk with the Assyrian
where colophons indicating Ashurbanipal's knowing the national god Ag?ur. On the Assyrian appropriation of
nisirtu, secret, of the wise apkallus, antediluvian sages, are Enuma Elish, see Lambert 1997: 77-9. On the Assyrians'
mentioned. Ashurbanipal himself declares: "I study stone dilemma of political rivalry with Babylonia in spite of the
inscriptions from before the flood, which are difficult, obscure
latter's "cultural superiority", see Machinist 1984-5.
and complicated!" (Streck, Assurbanipal 256: 18, quoted in 40Black and Green 1997: 119-21, s.v. "lion-demon"
Livingstone 1989: xix). On Ashurbanipal's claims to literacy (ugallu); 162, s.v. "Seven (gods)" (sibittu).
and "antediluvian knowledge," see also Lambert 1962: 72. 41 In discussing the syncretism between the dead or captive
390ne should also note that there is a shift in palace gods of Enuma Elish and the "Slain Heroes" of Ninurta,
art from representations of apkallus to those of Tiamat's J. van Dijk draws attention to the astral aspects of both of
Mischwesen as one moves up in chronology in the Neo- these groups of divine beings (1983: 16-17).
Assyrian period. Whereas the art of Ashurnasirpal II features 42Obv. 6, Livingstone 1989: 72.
apkallus alone, the palaces of the Sargonids display an 43Obv. 7, ibid.
exclusive interest in Tiamat's Mischwesen, especially the 44 Ibid., 73, Fig. 25.
lion-demon ugallu. The art of Sargon II in a way stands in 4"Hornung 1990: 73. In the Book of Gates, such gate
the middle where these two lines of visual tradition con- guardians also bear threatening names and attributes:
verge, displaying both the apkallus and a limited entrance "with sharp fire", "the unapproachable", "blood-sucker",
into Neo-Assyrian iconography of Tiamat's creatures, such "he whose eyes spew fire" (ibid., 72-3).
as the six-curled "hero" figure, Lahmzu The Sargonids' 46Ibid., 72.
penchant for Tiamat's Mischwesen was no doubt a result of

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 72 MEHMET-ALI ATAS

Fig. 1 Fish-cloaked apkallu o

BM 124573. Photo: author.

Even though not represented in Ninevite palaces, two other gods, Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea,
co-extensive in both the Netherworld and the sky with the constellation Gemini, are also depicted
in late Babylonian glyptic (Fig. 6) with raised axes. They were thought to stand at the entrance
to the Netherworld "ready to dismember the dead as they entered".7 Rather than a priori
destructive, the underlying idea behind the mission of these twins too may be their function as
examiners, guarding the path against the inept. The scorpion-beings guarding the entrance to the
Netherworld are also of an analogous nature. Their cynical and questioning attitude toward
Gilgamesh is a sign of their examining disposition directed toward the candidate who seeks

4 Black and Green 1997: 123-4, s.v. "Lugal-irra and the heart and compress the kidneys. This function belongs
Meslamta-ea." Meslamta-ea is also sometimes equated to gods who stand at the entrance to the netherworld
with Nergal. In fact, Mes-lam is the name of the temple of waiting to pounce on new arrivals to dismember them"
Nergal in Kutha (Cooper 1983: 16, Hayes 2000: 288). In (Lambert 1987: 145). Astronomical texts also explain the
Maqlu, the pair is described as "guard-gods, who tear out constellation Gemini as Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea (ibid.).

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 THE "UNDERWORLD VISION" OF THE NINEVITE INTELLECTUAL MILIEU 73

r;~~~

Fig. 2 One of the two heraldic panels depicting a trio of guardian figures, the lahrmu,
the ugallu, and the so-called Ninurta Genius. Door jambs of Room B, North Palace of
Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. BM 118917. Photo: author.

admission to the Mysteries.48 Even though the Standard Babylonian Version is fragmentary, we
know that Gilgamesh is ultimately allowed to pass through the gateway of the sun and reach
Utnapishtim after traveling on the nocturnal path of the sun.49
I would argue that the "demonic" and at times negative screen that characterizes these beings
can be understood as a device to hide the spiritual privileges of the Assyrian scholarly elite. Be
they antediluvian sages or members of Tiamat's army, one common aspect that ties these
Mischw,esen together is their affiliation with a cosmic proto-history, an understanding of the "firs
days" of the world.50 In a way, it is as if the former masters of truth came to later times concealed
as monsters. Their location at doorways can be further justified by their role as examiners and/or
initiators and guardians of "acts of passage", as both the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian
Netherworld are thought to be composed of compartments connected with gateways.5'
All of this does not necessarily mean that the Assyrian palace was a setting for ceremonies of
initiation or rites of passage. Rather, what matters is the fact that in addition to an apotropaic

48IX 49-51, George 1999: 71; IX 79-81, ibid., 73. The even think of Gilgamesh's encounter with Siduri, as well
Scorpion Beings' recognition of Gilgamesh as "flesh of the as Urshanabi and Utnapishtim, as taking place in the
gods" in v. 49 may again be understood as these mythical "Netherworld" itself, understood again in its transcendental
beings' capacity to distinguish between the divine man, a capacity as the land where a golden age is in occultation.
potential initiate, and the inept. In this respect, just as there are gates and compartments in
49 IX 129-32 and 136-9, ibid. Clearly, the Scorpion both the Egyptian and Mesopotamian Netherworld, the
Beings here act first as examiners, and then as advisors to gate which Siduri initially locks to bar Gilgamesh's passing
Gilgamesh on his "initiatic journey" along the path of the can be seen as marking a new compartment or phase in
sun. Indeed, the same examining attitude can also be seen Gilgamesh's journey in the Netherworld that starts with
in the disposition of Siduri toward Gilgamesh at the ends Mount Masu and its guardians, the Scorpion Beings.
of the earth (X 13-16). This initial hostile and un-admitting 50Green 1984: 85.
attitude of Siduri later changes and the barmaid disburses " For the compartmentalized conceptualization of the
advice to Gilgamesh on his quest for Utnapishtim ( X 88-91 ).
Egyptian Netherworld as divided into temporal and spatial
Like the Scorpion Beings, Siduri is also an agent on the sections separated by gateways, see Hornung 1999: 58.
path of examination, initially barring the gate of admission In the Descent of Inannal/Ishtar to the Netherw,orld, the
into a restricted realm that ultimately leads to the Mysteries, goddess goes through seven gates before reaching her sister,
but later on acting as an advisor on that path. One may Ereshkigal, Queen of the Netherworld (Sladek 1974: 20-1).

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 74 MEHMET-ALI ATAI

i-'

Fig. 3 Detail showing the ugallu from the other panel depicting the same trio on door jambs
of Room B, North Palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. BM 118918. Photo: author.

function,52 representations of these beings had a very important semiotic role. This semiotic mainly
pertained to the stages of the development that the adept went through on the path of spiritual
transformation as well as to the guidance and companionship with which the cosmos provided
the candidate during this ordeal. I submit that this semiotic is primarily addressed to the elite
leading their lives and carrying out their activities in the royal court, the ones who possess the
power of the written word as well as that of iconography. The members of this elite surround
themselves with the semata of this otherworldly or antediluvian realm to which they are heirs. In
this manner they create an internal dialogue, which they also do by means of texts.

52 In current literature, representations of such fantastic beneficent and protective spirits (ibid., 86). John Russell
beings have been understood primarily as apotropaic. See, also considers the representations of apkallus on Assyrian
for instance, Green 1984: 82. Green suggests that monstrous palace reliefs as mainly apotropaic (1998: 674).
and evil offsprings of Tiamat, upon their defeat, became

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 THE "UNDERWORLD VISION" OF THE NINEVITE INTELLECTUAL MILIEU 75

Fig. 4 Three figures presumably belonging to a group of seven representing the Seven Gods,
the sibittu. Panel 4, Court 0, entrance (b), North Palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh.
BM 124918. Source: J. E. Curtis and J. E. Reade (eds.), Art and Empire. Treasures from
Assyria in the British Museum (London: The British Museum Press, 1995): P1. 33.

Fig. 5 Menacing knife-bearing guardians of gates from one of the funerary shrines of
Tutankhamun from Thebes, Dynasty XVIII. Source: Erik Hornung, Valley of the Kings.
Horizon of Eternity, David Warburton, trans. (New York: Timken Publishers, 1990): p. 73.
Fig. 6 The gods Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea, the "Great Twins". Drawing of the impression
on a chalcedony amuletic pendant of the Neo-Assyrian period. Source: Black and Green
1997: Fig. 102.

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 76 MEHMET-ALI ATAM

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