The Forum

Gilgamesh’s Ending

I welcome Jack Meinhardt’s essay on the Gilgamesh epic (“Gilgamesh—Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before,” July/August 2005), but I take issue with the statement in the footnote on page 43 that Stephen Mitchell’s decision to omit Tablet 12 from his translation is “somewhat arbitrary.”

That the epic originally ended with Tablet 11 is made clear by the way the last lines (322–328) of Tablet 11 repeat lines 18–23 of Tablet 1. The epic opens with a eulogy of Gilgamesh, inviting the audience to “climb Uruk’s wall … survey its brickwork” and see the size of the city. At the end of the epic, Gilgamesh invites Ur-Shanabi, the ferryman who accompanied him back to Uruk, to do the same.

The walls of Uruk are a lasting memorial to Gilgamesh, as physical immortality has eluded him. Tablet 12, on the other hand, is a translation of the second half of a Sumerian poem, “Gilgamesh and the Netherworld,” that is not part of the Akkadian epic (see Andrew George, The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation [Penguin Press, 1999], p. 100).

Archaeologists Are Funny?

Your tit-for-tat debate between Eric Cline and Robert Merrillees concerning the Alashiya/Cyprus connection is priceless (“An Odyssey Debate: Was Ancient ‘Alashiya’ Really Cyprus?” September/October 2005). It’s a great way of mixing the sober world of archaeology and humor. That kind of article is what gives your mag a leg up on the rest.

Yawn, Yawn

Who really cares where Alashiya was? Cancel my subscription. I would rather read love stories.

A Civilized Debate

Congratulations on your article examining the relationship, if any, between Alashiya and Cyprus. The question has considerable bearing on our understanding of the interaction among Late Bronze Age cultures.

Equally praiseworthy is the tone of the debate. Readers of Archaeology Odyssey understand that differences of opinion frequently cause acrimony. How refreshing is the spirit of the “letter” presented by Professor Cline and the nature of Professor Merrillees’s reply. May this exchange influence the often-turbulent, wine-dark sea of archaeology.

Visiting Cahokia

When I was teaching at Westminster College, in Missouri, I always took my archaeology classes for a tour of Cahokia (“The Earth-Movers: Cahokia,” Horizons, September/October 2005). It is an impressive monument to the achievements of Native American culture. Anyone interested in archaeology will find a visit most rewarding and the unsolved mysteries of the place intriguing.

Your piece doesn’t mention the sighting station that was found in front of the “palace-like structure” on Monks Mound. It was in alignment with “Woodhenge,” so the same observations could be made there. It was also on a north-south axis with Mound 72, which led to the excavation of Mound 72 and the discovery of the high-status burial and the (probably) sacrificial burials.

Buying Saffron

Your article “Saffron: The Emperor of Spice” (Ancient Life, September/October 2006) states that saffron oils are “a key ingredient in some perfumes.” There are many expensive perfume ingredients: tuberose, boronia, jasmine, orris root and the well-known Bulgarian rose oil. Many of these are still hand-harvested. As you correctly note, saffron is “one of the world’s most precious and expensive spices”—and this cost, in fact, makes saffron too expensive to use as an essential oil for perfumery. Bulgarian rose oil requires approximately 2,500 kilograms of fresh-picked petals to produce 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of essential oil, hence its wholesale price of $8,000 per kilogram (approximately one liter). An oil distilled from saffron would cost more than $50,000 per kilogram.

Kim Bleimann is president of Berjé, a supplier of essential oils.—Ed.

Dating Saffron

In the Ancient Life piece, you say that the “earliest known reference to saffron comes in a seventh-century B.C. Assyrian botanical text.” Then you say that the “1500 B.C. Ebers Papyrus … recommends saffron as a remedy for kidney ailments.” So is the earliest reference actually the 1500 B.C. papyrus?

A number of readers have rightly complained about this confusion of dates. The earliest certain reference to saffron comes from a seventh-century B.C. Assyrian botanical text. The second-millennium B.C. Egyptian Ebers papyrus discusses djaret, a saffron-like botanical. Only about 20 percent of the more than 150 plants mentioned in ancient Egyptian papyri have been identified with certainty, however, and djaret may actually refer to something other than saffron.—Ed.

Ceres, Finials and Trumpets

I was struck by three things in the May/June 2005 issue. The first concerns the identity of the “personification of earthly fecundity” on the issue’s cover and on page 47 (see (Linda Ann Nolan, “Emulating Augustus—The Fascist-Era Excavation of the Emperor’s Peace Altar in Rome”). Behind the baby on the female figure’s left leg is a sheaf of vegetation, which includes opium poppy capsules and wheat. Doesn’t that mean the figure is the Roman goddess Ceres, called Demeter by the ancient Greeks?

Second, the coin shown has an architectural feature that is missing from the reconstructed Ara Pacis as shown. On top of each corner of the facade on the coin, projecting upwards and outwards, is a curved, striated finial, of which there is no sign in the reconstruction. Nor is there any reference to this feature in the accompanying text. Have we all missed something?

Finally, in your Ancient Life piece on pharaonic trumpets, you say that in 1939 both the bronze and silver trumpets were played, damaged and played again. However, according to an eye-witness account in Rex Keating’s appropriately titled memoirs, The Trumpets of Tutankhamun (1999), only the silver one was broken and then replayed in the famous BBC broadcast. [Robert Merrillees is correct: Although both the bronze and silver trumpets were played a few times following their discovery in Tut’s tomb, only the silver one was damaged, repaired and then played in the 1939 BBC broadcast from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.—Ed.]

Linda Ann Nolan replies:

Scholars have debated the identity of several figures represented in the relief sculpture of the Ara Pacis Augustae, including the female figure described in my article as a “personification of earthly fecundity.” This female figure has been variously identified as the goddesses Pax, Venus and Italia, as well as Ceres. (See, for example, the following articles in the American Journal of Archaeology: Nancy de Grummond, “Pax Augusta and the Home on the Ara Pacis Augustae” [1990], pp. 663–667; Karl Galinsky, “Venus, Polysemy, and the Ara Pacis Augustae” [1992], pp. 457–475; and Barbette S. Spaeth, “The Goddess Ceres in the Ara Pacis Augustae and the Carthage Relief” [1994], pp. 65–100.)

Robert Merrillees is right to point out the missing architectural feature. A number of the monument’s decorative features were simplified in the reconstruction, and the crowning cornice was probably one of them. In archaeological reconstructions, the elevations are the most difficult parts to reconstruct because the material evidence is usually the least well preserved. We should also keep in mind that representations of monuments on coins are not always archaeologically accurate and only serve as general guides in reconstructions.

Gilgamesh’s Ending

I welcome Jack Meinhardt’s essay on the Gilgamesh epic (“Gilgamesh—Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before,” July/August 2005), but I take issue with the statement in the footnote on page 43 that Stephen Mitchell’s decision to omit Tablet 12 from his translation is “somewhat arbitrary.”