The Sumerian Abgal and Nanše's Carp Actors

Daniel A Foxvog

Originally Published in N.A.B.U 2007/4 (Paris) 80-81 (No. 67)

Laura Feldt recently examined “the relationship between textual and visual representations of the goddess Nanše” (“Fishy Monsters: Updating the Iconographic References of V. Scheil ‘La Déesse Nina et sa Poissons’,” in “An Experienced Scribe who Neglects Nothing.” Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Jacob Klein (Bethesda, 2005) 116-126. On p. 120f. she discusses the well known apkallu, pictured as a person with a fish-garment over his head and back, and concludes that “no special relation to Nanše is in evidence.” This may be true for the 1st millennium mythical-magical figure, but for the real-life early Sumerian precursor of the “fish-man” some suggestive information can indeed be found in a group of Pre-Sargonic Lagaš administrative texts.

An ábgal ^dNanše, known only by his title, occurs in six texts, one dealing with field allotments (VS 25, 78), another a list of mašdaria-tax payments by temple administrators including the sanga ^dNanše (RTC 44), and four records of allotments of sheep fleeces (DP 179, DP 180, DP 182, DP 220). The last four texts, together with thirteen others (DP 178, 183, 185-189, Nik I 254, VS 14, 105, VS 14, 180, VS 27, 79, VS 27, 90, FAOS 15/2 No. 125) in which clearly the same person is referred to by the abbreviated title ábgal, form a small archive dealing with distributions (ba) of fleeces, occasionally also oil, to the personnel of the Lagaš state cult of Nanše. All the texts date from the reign of Lugalanda except for DP 183 and 189, from Ukg e 1 and Ukg 2 respectively, after which administrative records concerning these Nanše temple personnel effectively cease following Irikagina’s wholesale reorganization of the economics of the state religion beginning in Ukg 2. These are all special allotments, not regular rations, in some cases occurring twice in the same year, with nine occurring expressly in the months of the Festival of Malt-Eating of Nanše or the Festival of Barley-Eating of Nanše.

Most of these texts mention, in addition to the ábgal, small groups of lú-ma-sá-íl-la “basket carriers” and a lú-ninda-áĝ “bread measurer.” Some add a sukkal, others a lú-a-gúb-ba “man of lustration water,” an éngiz conventionally “temple cook” (but cf. Waetzoldt, NABU 1998/60), a lú-kas-še-gibil “man of new beer and barley,” or a lú-nì-ZUM-dim₄ "(?)". VS 14, 180 adds, among other cultic personnel, most notably an ènsi “dream interpreter,” an igi-du₈ "seer," a dumu-išib-ka-ZALAG “pure-mouthed incantation priest” (Waetzoldt, ibid.), a lú-diĝir "god-man," a lú-dub-šen^urudu "treasure-box keeper," the gala-mah Niĝin_x^ki and 4 ordinary gala's, a gal-nar “chief musician,” and a gal-dub-EZEM “chief in charge of the festival/song tablets,” perhaps a kind of chief of ritual protocol or choir master. See Selz, UGASL p. 202-207 for descriptions of several of these texts as well as a catalog of the attested Nanše cult personnel. Y. Rosengarten previously studied DP 180 and the abgal₂ “sage” in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 162 (1962) 133-146.

The one person always present in these texts, and only in these texts, is the ábgal, presumably thus a key figure in the ordinary rituals of the cult of the goddess. This certainly argues for “a special relation to Nanše” for the Lagaš ábgal at least; the slightly earlier Fara attestations of the occupational term do not occur in obvious cultic contexts. There are few indications of how the ábgal functioned within the Nanše cult – his later reputation as a "sage" or "expert" suggests he may have been a kind of prophet or diviner – but can he at least be linked in some way with the later fish-cloaked figure identified as the apkallu?

DP 220 is a 12-column partially broken tablet listing fleeces, oil, breads and fish distributed in Niĝin_x^ki at the command of Lugalanda to more than 16 Nanše cult personnel beginning with the ábgal ^dNanše and the gala-mah Niĝin_x^ki and including several other gala-priests, among whom (iv 6) are 2 gala eštub^ku6-di “carp-actor gala’s.” The term eštub^ku6-di, I submit, is the native Sumerian term for the cult officiant clothed in a fish garment. The term is very rare, attested elsewhere to my knowledge only in Ed Lu B 9 – without a determinative and read gu₄-di in MSL 12, 13 – preceded and followed there by the balaĝ-di “harp player” (an occupation of the gala) and nar “musician.” The ábgal also occurs only once in the early Lu lists (Ed Lu A 52, cf. 15), although abgal = apkallu does appear in later lexical sources (see Henshaw, Male and Female 153-5). As Jacobsen remarked in Harps That Once ... 417 n. 113, the abgal “is still attested under Urukagina, but very soon the title, and probably also the office, disappeared from political life and remained only as a term of myth.”

The ábgal thus appears together with priestly carp-actors in one Lagaš text. Did he become the later apkallu fish-man solely by early association with Nanše-cult fish-garbed gala's and whatever rituals were performed by them, or could he himself have also participated as a fish-clad priest in that cult? It is impossible to say at this time, although the mythical abgal mentioned in Sumerian literary texts is typically associated with Enki, the god of wisdom and magic as well as fresh water, or his son Asarluhi, or his watery realm the Apsu (cf. Enki and the World Order 102, Enki’s Journey 48, Asarluhi Hymn A 32, Temple Hymn to Asarluhi in Kuara 139), and Nanše of course was Enki's daughter and a goddess of fish.

But the abgal of later Sumerian literary texts is also said to have free-flowing or long hair, e.g. abgal-zu siki bar-ra bí-in-du₈ “Your abgal let his hair loose upon his back” (Enki’s Journey 48); abgal siki bar-ra du₈-a-né = abgallum ša peressu ana warkīšu ina wuššurim “when the abgal let his hair loose upon his back” (Nisaba Hymn A OB 44). Compare hé-du₇ èš-e abzu-a siki bar-ra lá-lá en ^dnu-dím-mud-ra "(The god Haia) ornament for the shrine in the Apsu, letting his hair hang down on his back for lord Nudimmud" (Rim-Sin Hymn B 8). The topos of long hair hanging down the back may also permit us to understand the name of the Nanše-circle deity ^dNin-mùš-bar, the presumed consort of ^dNin-mar^ki and thus the son-in-law of Nanše, as "lord having a halo-of-hair (upon the) back" (see Selz, UGASL 260ff., also the references in G. Marchesi, Lumma 98 n. 550 for mùš "hairdo" or the like).

siki bar-ra as a stock phrase, found also in several eršemma laments, was later reinterpreted as an attributive síg-bar-ra and loaned as sigbarrû “(one) with loose hair” describing the hairdo of an apkallu or a luhšû priest (CAD S 234; Henshaw, Male and Female 36) or a diviner (W. Lambert, JCS 21, 132:25). Cf. [gu]du₄-síg-bar-ra = šu‛‛uru “hairy” (Lú = ša 199, MSL XII 102) and see Sjöberg, JCS 21, 278 and PSD B 93f. The picture of a priest with characteristically free-flowing hair does not unfortunately square well with the notion of the abgal as a fish-clad priest, although the two images are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It does, however, fit perfectly with the data provided by two Ur III votive statuettes.

The first is Ibbi-Suen 3 (FAOS 9/2, 281f.), photo Thureau-Dangin, Monuments Piot (MMAI) 27 (1924) 109 fig. 3 etc. The second is HMA 9-16476, inscription in RIME 3/2 01.02.2032, photo viewable on the Web as CDLI No. P227450. Both statuettes represent Ur-^dNinĝirsu En-me-zi-an-na the šennu priest and high priest (en) of Nanše. The first is a votive to Nanše's consort the god ^dNin-dar-a, while the second is dedicated to their daughter the goddess ^dNin-mar^ki. Both depict a priest with a long, wide, wavy mass of hair falling down his back to the waist, clearly a three-dimensional equivalent of the OB literary description of the hair of the abgal priest. Thus the Ur III high priest of Nanše in ca. 2050 BC and the ábgal ^dNanše whose cultic office seems to have disappeared some three centuries earlier may have worn the same long hair style. The implications are uncertain, but it does not seem likely that the ábgal similarly occupied the highest office in the early Nanše cult. That position was probably taken by the well attested sanga ^dNanše. There is no reference to an en of ^dNanše, or an en of any other deity for that matter, in the Lagaš I administrative texts, and the office of šennu (= ēnu ša ^dEa) is not attested until the Ur III period. The only other possible candidate for high office in this small archive is the unique and not further identified lugal-mah or gal-lú-mah (PN or title?) who heads the list of fleece recipients in VS 14, 180 i 3, followed there by the ènsi, éngiz, and ábgal.

One last matter deserves comment.

While wool rations (siki-ba) are very common in the Lagaš I texts, the allotting of whole fleeces (siki bar-udu) is limited to Nanše cult personnel, also once to the sanga abzu and a group of mainly unidentified persons at the small Enki shrine called apsu gú i₇-da-ka "Apsu of the Riverbank" (DP 184), and once to the nu-saĝ priest and ereš-diĝir priestess of ^dNin-a-su (DP 51 v 1-5, Ukg 2). Why are fleeces never distributed as gifts to any other persons in the Lagaš I corpus? What is the purpose of these specialized allotments of whole fleeces within the Nanše cult? If they are for use in religious ritual, are they perhaps intended to be pieced together into the kaunakes-style tufted skirts or lower skirt trim so commonly seen in religious art of the mid 3rd millennium? Compare the rendering of the fleece worn by the mother-of-pearl figure in Parrot, Mari fig. 72 with that of the fleece of the offering-ram he is holding, likewise the clothing and ram of the statue of fig. 76. The famous figurine of the nu-bànda Ebih-il in fig. 14f. also seems to show the animal fleece quite clearly. Perhaps the OB author of Nanše Hymn B had the antique tufted skirt in mind when he wrote (iv 6): ku₆ túg-ba₁₃ šà-ge nam-mi-in-lá "She bound fish as a fine garment onto her midriff" (Veldhuis, CM 22, 144).

Guerneville, CA

July, 2009