M e e t i n g Re n c o n t r e A s s y r i o l o g i q u e I n t e r n a t i o n a l e
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—More than 300 Mesopotamian scholars gathered at the University of
Chicago’s Oriental Institute from 17 to 23 July.
60 centimeters (cm) wide, 50 cm high, and
11 cm thick—was later reused in building a
wall. Only about a dozen lines of the stele are
legible, but they indicate that Nabonidus
made offerings to Babylonian deities—
including Marduk—in the form
of carnelian, lapis lazuli, and
censers of gold, according to a
translation by Assyriologist
Hanspeter Schaudig of the University of Heidelberg in Germany. The find “is very valuable
for our knowledge of history,”
says philologist David Weisberg
of Hebrew Union College in
Cincinnati, Ohio. But he adds
that the inscription “is quite damaged, and many lines are illegible,” so it will require more study.
The f ind is part of a larger
effort to understand the complex
trade routes that linked the
ancient Middle East. Tayma lies
King’s record. Ricardo Eichmann studies the stele that at a critical juncture of the frankrecords Nabonidus’s exile.
incense trade flowing north from
Yemen and other routes to the
Arabian desert. Contemporary texts portray Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, and for
King Nabonidus as mentally unstable and millennia it offered travelers a respite from
complain that he forsook the prime Babylon- the desert. At the time of Nabonidus, the
ian deity, virile Marduk, for the mystical cult oasis included a city with a vast wall some
of the moon god Sin, often portrayed as an old 14 kilometers in circumference and a well
man with a long beard.
18 meters across, one of the largest on the
Those texts, written by Nabonidus’s cleri- notoriously dry Arabian Peninsula. The
cal enemies, have been the only evidence of team, led by Ricardo Eichmann of Berlin’s
his claimed exile. Now archaeologists have German Archaeological Institute and
found the first concrete signs that Nabonidus Said al-Said, a professor at King Fahd Uniindeed lived in the oasis of Tayma, more than versity, has found 13 successive layers of
1000 kilometers to the west of today’s Iraq, occupation from the mid–3rd millennium
and they hope also to uncover why this to the early centuries of the modern era,
obscure oasis played such a pivotal role in his- showing a surprising continuity in urban
tory. Academics familiar with the Middle desert life.
East say that the Tayma dig itself, in sparsely
Although Babylonian texts mention that
settled northwestern Saudi Arabia, is a tri- Nabonidus built a palace at the site, Eichumph of science over politics, given the diffi- mann says none has yet been found, but the
culty of winning permits from the Saudi gov- team will keep looking when it returns to
ernment for excavations by foreign teams.
Saudi Arabia in November. Textual evidence
Three years ago, Saudi researchers work- found elsewhere indicates that Nabonidus
ing near Tayma found rock inscriptions that was ill when he left Babylon and recovered
mention an army of Nabonidus that battled during his decade in the desert. But German
local Bedouin. Then in December, a joint excavation director Arnulf Hausleiter specuSaudi-German team found a piece of badly lates that his real motives could have been
weathered stele, a stone slab inscribed with economic: By asserting control over an
writing, which closely resembles other slabs important trade city, Nabonidus may have
associated with Nabonidus’s reign.
been attempting to bolster Babylon’s flagThe slab originally would have stood for ging treasury. If so, the gambit failed. The
passersby to read, but the team’s fragment— texts say that the king returned to Babylon in
868
5 AUGUST 2005
VOL 309
SCIENCE
Published by AAAS
542 B.C.E. after a decade in exile, only to be
overthrown by the Persian King Cyrus the
Great 3 years later. Thus Mesopotamians lost
control over their own rich territory—a
control that was not fully regained until 2500
years later in the 20th century.
Ur’s Xena:A Warrior
Princess for Sumeria?
One of the most spectacular archaeological
discoveries in history was Leonard Woolley’s
excavation of the royal tombs of Ur in the late
1920s. The 16 graves included a “death pit”
with sacrificed retainers and animals. Woolley
believed the tombs were those of kings and
their consorts, including the famous Queen
Puabi, buried with a magnificent
crown and other jewelry.
But one grave, tomb 1054,
left Woolley perplexed. In the
shaft 4 meters above the stone
burial chamber was a cylinder
seal inscribed with the word
“lugal,” Sumerian for “king” or
“ruler,” along with a name read as
Meskalamdug and traditionally
translated as “hero of the land.” In
the stone chamber itself were a
host of weapons, including a
dagger at the side of the principal occupant. But there was
one hitch: Woolley determined
that the remains were of a
woman. Scholars had long held
that ancient Mesopotamian
rulers, unlike their Egyptian
neighbors, were always men.
“That seal cannot be hers,”
Woolley concluded in a
1934 publication.
The puzzle has obsessed two
generations of researchers, who
have come up with a variety of
theories to explain it. Now
Kathleen McCaffrey, a graduate
student at the University of California, BerkeFit for a prin- ley, says that
cess? The myste- the most logirious occupant of cal answer is
tomb 1054 wore the simplest:
this gold dagger The seal and
at her side.
weapons did
www.sciencemag.org
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on April 11, 2009
Mid–6th century B.C.E. was a dark time for
the empire of Babylonia. Persians and Medes
were threatening in the east, and the king
mysteriously abandoned his famed capital of
Babylon for a remote oasis in the western
CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): DAI ORIENT-ABTEILUNG; K. MCCAFFREY
Alas, Babylon: Tracing the
Last King’s Desert Exile
CREDIT: ALI JAREKJI/REUTERS
N
F
O C U S
Without a skeleton, scholars may never
definitively sort out the mysteries of tomb
1054. But the women of ancient Ur may have
more to say in the near future: Researchers
are now examining Queen Puabi’s remains
for clues to her genetic identity.
fiercest debate at the meeting and revealed a
bitter split within the community. Some
philologists say that given the scale of the
looting, they are eager to salvage what data
they can by translating and publishing texts.
“You have an obligation to your science, to
your data,” says Jerrold Cooper, a philologist
at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,
Maryland, who says he would work with collectors who own tablets. “It makes no sense at
all to condemn all publication” of potentially
looted items.
Few societies before our own were as
But many archaeologists see the wideobsessed with recording data as ancient spread looting in Iraq as an unalloyed nightMesopotamia. After inventing the f irst mare and any involvement with potentially
script in the 4th millennium B.C.E., the stolen tablets as aiding and abetting the
Sumerian scribes used clay tablets to keep destruction. At the meeting, a faction led by
track of the most minute economic trans- Michael Mueller-Karpe, a specialist in
actions as well as great myths such as The ancient metals at the Roman-German Central
Epic of Gilgamesh that stir readers even Museum of Mainz, Germany, proposed a resolution opposing scholarly
involvement with tablets that may
have been looted. “Scholars ... are
urged to refrain from providing
expertise to the antiquities market
and to private collectors, unless
the artifacts in question can be
proved to be neither excavated
illegally nor exported without
permission,” states the resolution,
which was signed by 130 academics at a meeting after the conference officially ended. A number
of scholars, primarily philologists
like Cooper, refused to sign.
The different opinions do not
always track disciplinary lines.
Robert Adams, a retired archaeologist and former head of the
Smithsonian Institution, surprised many participants at the
opening session by allowing that
no discipline should be expected
Stolen. Looted cuneiform tablets, like these recovered in to ignore vast amounts of new
Jordan, are pouring out of Iraq.
data, however it might have been
obtained. (After taking fire from
today. The tablets have proved invaluable in colleagues, Adams later clarified that he did
understanding the hearts and minds of that not mean to condone the publishing of
lost world.
looted material but wanted to emphasize the
But the artifacts also have attracted collec- complexity of the problem.)
tors and antiquities dealers. Today, as many as
Meanwhile, several philologists draw a
100,000 tablets a year are being ripped out of distinction between working on existing colarchaeological sites in war-torn Iraq and put lections and trafficking with dealers seeking
on the international market, according to U.S. to boost the value of tablets. Cooper, for
government estimates. By comparison, only example, says he would “not be comfortable”
some 300,000 to 400,000 likely existed in examining tablets owned by dealers.
libraries and private collections prior to 1990,
But a few at the meeting do read recently
say scholars. So far, the number of stolen acquired tablets for dealers, for free or for
tablets confiscated or returned is minuscule: pay—an act that archaeologists maintain
An FBI official said at the conference that can boost the tablets’ value and reinforce
fewer than 400 had been recovered recently the cycle of looting. Cooper says he hopes
by U.S. agents.
participants at the next conference will
Should academics publish texts from come up with a common ethical stance to
cuneiform tablets that may have been looted? guide scholarly actions.
This thorny ethical question sparked the
–ANDREW LAWLER
Looted Tablets Pose
Scholar’s Dilemma
www.sciencemag.org
SCIENCE
VOL 309
Published by AAAS
5 AUGUST 2005
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on April 11, 2009
indeed belong to the buried skeleton,
which may have been that of a female
Sumerian ruler. That claim has sparked
fierce debate, however, especially because
Woolley disposed of the bones shortly
after discovering them.
Woolley himself suggested that the seal
and weapons were gifts from the woman’s
husband. Another theory is that the true
owner of the seal, a male, was buried in a
mud-brick shaft above the stone tomb. But
McCaffrey notes that the materials in that
shaft are low quality and lack weapons, and
that no other royal tomb is constructed of
mud brick. In fact, the remains in the mudbrick shaft, identified by Woolley as male,
were wrapped in women’s clothing with
feminine jewelry. Unfortunately, those
bones also were discarded.
The principal occupant of 1054 herself
reveals some curious gender anomalies,
notes McCaffrey. Her skeleton was found
wearing a hair ribbon, two golden wreaths,
and a gold dress pin, all typical for highstatus Sumerian women of the day. But she
was not adorned with the usual earrings or
elaborate choker, and there were no floral
combs or cosmetic containers. And a gold
headpiece and a dagger and whetstone at
her waist were typical for Sumerian men; a
gold headdress near the skeleton has a brim,
a style that Woolley believed was worn
mostly by men.
Also in the stone chamber were a bronze
ax, dagger, and hatchet—very atypical for a
woman’s tomb. Other researchers attribute
those weapons to the male attendants in the
room, but McCaffrey notes that the attendants lack rings, weapons on their bodies, or
any other sign of elite materials, suggesting
that they were servants.
McCaffrey maintains that the root of the
problem is translation: Sumerian grammar
does not include gender distinctions, but
“lugal” has always been translated as “king”
rather than simply “ruler.” In the case of
tomb 1054, she concludes that the woman
was in fact a lugal.
But other scholars hotly disagree. University of Chicago archaeologist McGuire
Gibson argues that the seal’s location above
the stone chamber makes it difficult to tie it
to the elite occupant below. He adds that
most of the bones had deteriorated so much
that identifying gender was difficult. “Woolley couldn’t tell the difference between a
man, a woman, or a monkey,” he says.
McCaffrey counters that Woolley was
competent enough to identify correctly the
genders of the dozen skeletons that still
exist. Philologists, meanwhile, note that
although “lugal” is technically a gender-free
term, there is the counterpart term “eresh,”
which traditionally is translated as female
consort to a male ruler.
E W S
869