Das hurritische Epos der Freilassung, I: Untersuchungen zu einem hurritisch-hethitischen Textensemble aus Hattusa.

• Author: de Martino, Stefano
• Position: Review

By ERICH NEU. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten, vol. 32. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 1996. Pp. xix + 596, 6 plates. DM 248.

In the thirty-second volume of the series Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten, E. Neu has published the transliteration and translation with ample commentary of the Hurrian literary composition that in some colophons of the tablets is called "Song of Release (from slavery)." This composition has survived in a bilingual version in Hurrian and Hittite executed in the Middle Hittite period and was preserved in series of tablets with many duplicates and parallels: KBo XXXII 10-110, 113, 208-10, 212-17. All these tablets come from the Hittite capital Bogazkoy/Hattusa, where they were discovered during the 1983 and 1985 excavations.

As is well known, the "Song of Release" is a composition which in form and content cannot be ascribed to a single literary genre: Tablet KBo XXXII 13 contains a mythological narration, texts 15-20 relate to the liberation of slaves from the city of Ebla, and tablets KBo XXXII 12 and 14 contain a series of fables belonging to the genre of wisdom literature.

The central theme of a large part of the narration (in KBo XXXII 15, 19 and 20) concerns the request Tessob made of Megi, king of Ebla, to liberate the slaves. The god threatens to destroy the city should his request go unheeded. But the council of city elders is opposed to manumitting the slaves, thus implicitly condemning Ebla to ruin. V. Haas and I. Wegner ("Baugrube und Fundament," IM 43 [1993]: 57) have advanced the hypothesis (in my view convincing) that the entire composition is an etiology to justify the destruction of Ebla, an event that occurred during the Syrian campaigns of either Hattusili I or Mursili I.

Yet to be satisfactorily resolved is the reconstruction of the precise sequence of the tablets and, therefore, the definition of the overall structure of the composition. We may recall, in fact, that only the colophons of KBo XXXII 11, 12, and 15 give indication of the number of these tablets within the series, revealing that they were, respectively, the first, second, and fifth tablet. As far as KBo XXXII 15 and 19 are concerned, I find convincing G. Wilhelm's recent proposal ("Die Konige von Ebla nach der hurritisch-hethitischen Serie 'Freilassung'," AoF 24 [1997]: 277-93) that KBo XXXII 19 precedes tablet no. 15. (Neu is of a different opinion: pp. 18-19.) In columns 1 and 2 of KBo XXXII 19, in fact, Tessob asks Megi to free the slaves; in column 4 of this text it is Megi who transmits the god's request to the city elders; KBo XXXII 15, finally, contains the council's reply to Megi. In a speech before the city elders Megi's adversaries claim that they would have satisfied the weather god had he asked for anything he personally needed; but they will not free their slaves.

Tessob's request for release from slavery and a reference to a situation in which the same god would have lost his freedom seem to be justified on the basis of KBo XXXII 13. In fact, the mythological aition at the core of the entire composition can be explained as follows: Tessob, who was imprisoned by Allani in the Netherworld, and therefore had experienced loss of freedom, would champion the liberation of Ebla's slaves...