Open Collections

Maggio, Michèle

Database of Religious History (DRH)

At Ur, a range of documents called “donation texts” were unearthed. They are small tablets that registered quantities of semi-precious stones, silver and gold given to the temple of Ningal, the goddess protector of the city of Ur. The items were delivered by individual, including women. These documents belong to the archives of the unique religious complex of the city which included in its centre a ziggurat. The texts was excavated by Sir L. Woolley at Ur and are now preserved in the British Museum. I started to work on these texts during my doctoral dissertation and edited them in my book on the ornamentation of the gods in the Old Babylonian period (Maggio 2012). I take great interest in these documents because they are a rich source of information on worshipping practices, despite the difficulties that persist in the interpretation of certain cuneiform signs. These difficulties make us feel as though they are written at a turning point in Mesopotamian history. In this southern city, customs were changing. There was a tension between Sumerian traditions and the Akkadian traditions being introduced in the region. This tension implies some difficulties in the use of those two languages in the documentation. It is well established in this documentation that the objects belonging to the goddess Ningal and occasionally also to other deities were undoubtedly linked to her cult at Ur. Most probably, there were chapels dedicated to these deities in the temple of Ningal. The ornamental stone fragments were probably part of a larger piece of jewellery, such as necklace, but were torn off and dedicated to Ningal by their owners. From that moment on, they became the property of the temple and were used to adorn the goddess Ningal, and maybe other statues of lesser deities. In addition, one may wonder whether a particular area of the temple of Ningal itself was used for the storage of the goods, altough the available documentation does not mention it. Instead we know that the objects dedicated to the deities of the Ningal temple could be stored along with other materials in the nearby Ganunmaḫ.

Other

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0431141

Non UBC

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/