Aspekte des menschseins im alten mesopotamien: eine studie zu person und identitat im 2. und 1. jt. v.

• Author: Foster, Benjamin R.
• Position: Book review

Aspekte des Menschseins itn Alten Mesopotamien: Eine Studie zu Person und Identiteit im 2. und 1. Jt. v. Ch, . By ULRIICE STEINERT. Cuneiform Monographs, vol. 44. Leiden: BRal., 2012. Pp. loci + 619. $252.

This original and impressive study sets out to discover how, in Mesopotamian thought of the second and first millennia, the human being was understood, as a living organism, as a social being, and after death. Steinert decides, at the outset, that the Mesopotamian person was essentially his physical self, rather than a spirit and a body, so she proceeds to a study of bodily terms that can stand for the person or self in Akkadian, choosing fourteen words to study in depth. These include the head, brow, hand, and foot, but not the heart, ear, and eye, to this reviewer highly problematic omissions. For each constituent part she shows in detail how it could be used to stand for the person as a whole, and what specific aspects of the person it suggested; for example, the head implied social identity and status, the hand authority, power, control, and material assets.

The author then turns to more difficult words, among them ramanu, the Akkadian word for "self" (it would have been a pious courtesy to have cited Ungnad's pioneering essay, "Zur Geschichte des Ich-bewuBtseins," Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie 36 [1925): 269-72, who also began with body parts, qaqqadu "head," napiku "throat/breath of life," and ramanu, which he argued must originally have been a part of the body as well, his proposal, after some etymological adventure, being "penis"). Steinert considers as well napigtu "breath of life," etemmu, and zaqiqu, two words for the spirit of a dead person; !emu, which she understands as "understanding, intellect," and baitu and related words, variously "shame" and "pride."This project, the core of the study, occupies more than four hundred pages of detailed discussion.

This book shows luminous intelligence, extraordinary enidition, exceptional research and reflective capacity, and a fine literary sense. It is well grounded in theoretical discussion from a variety of disciplines, but does not sledgehammer the reader with it; rather, Steinert gives concise summaries of each work she cites and shows how her citation is related to her inquiry. She seems consciously fair, balanced, and judicious in her use of scholarly literature and gives ample evidence for a superior technical and conceptual mastery of Assyriology. One notes therefore with surprise the occasional substantial omission. For example, she does not use (p. 74) the Akkadian fragment from Ugarit of Gilgamesh Tablet I, which gives us more of the description of the hero (re-edition by A. George, "The Gilgamd Epic at Ugarit," Aula Orientalis 25 [2007]: 237-54), and in her...