Piercing the Eyes: An Old Babylonian Love Incantation and the Preparation of Kohl, BiOr 72 (2015), 601–612.

601 PIERCING THE EYES: AN OLD BABYLONIAN LOVE INCANTATION PIERCING THE EYES: AN OLD BABYLONIAN LOVE INCANTATION AND THE PREPARATION OF KOHL NATHAN WASSERMAN, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem VS 17, 23, a short Old Babylonian incantation dealing with love, first published by J. van Dijk (1971, 11; without translation), stands at the heart of this article. A brief introduction (§ I) is followed by a discussion of the intricate literary construction of the incantation (§ II). The possibility of its containing information about the preparation of cosmetics in Old Babylonian times ends this paper (§ III).1) 602 Three protagonists are recognizable in this short incantation: the unyielding woman who is described and addressed directly, the yearning man who is mentioned only indirectly (= the client), and the speaker in the text (= the magician). The magician promises the woman that the man who yearns for her will bring her presents. These, no doubt, are supposed to help overcome her resistance. Somewhat unexpectedly, the promised gifts are raw materials whose meaning is revealed in the second part of the presentation. The text of VS 17, 23 is as follows:4) Obv. 1 pa-ar-ki-i[š"n]a-ak-ra-at 2 ṣú-úḫ-ḫu-ri-iš"gi-ri-im-mi-iš 3 ki-ma"i-ni-ib"ki-ri-im"e-li-šu"wa-a-ṣi-a-ti! (Text: BI) 4 li-ib-la-ki-im"ú-pe-el-li-a-am" 5 I-di-ig-la-at 6 sà-an-gi-i"we-ri-a-am"a-ba-ri"Šu-ši-im 7 li-ib-lam"sà-an-gi"mu-sà-ḫi-la-at"i-né-ki ---8 KA-inim-ma IZI.ŠÀ.GA (Rev. uninscribed). 1–2 3 4–6 7 ---8 Barrier-like she is alienated, entangled as a tiny berry-fruit. Like an orchard fruit come out over him! Let the Tigris carry for you(f.) charcoal, sangû, copper, lead of Susa! Let it carry hither sangû! Oh you, who pierces your(f.) eyes! Incantation (to calm) the fire"of"the"heart. II. Philological and Literary Discussion I. Introduction VS 17, 23 (= VAT 8354), kept in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, is an unprovenanced tablet whose origin is probably in or around Larsa.2) The purpose of the incantation was to overcome a young woman’s resistance and to convince her to surrender to the advances of a male suitor, whose name — as is the norm in Old Babylonian incantations3) — remains unknown. More concretely, as its colophon indicates, the text was meant to deal with IZI.ŠÀ.GA, lit. “fire of the heart”, which I claim is a metaphor for jealousy. The suitor, therefore, has to overcome not only the woman’s indifference, but also her preference for another man. 1 ) This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 116/13): “The Reality of Magic: The Corpus of Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian Incantations in their Social and Literary Context”. An early version of this paper was read at the 61st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Geneva, June 2015. My thanks go to Marten Stol for his helpful suggestions and corrections. 2 ) It is one of a group of pillow-like rectangular tablets, each of which contains a short magical text. These texts, I believe, were the work of one specific magician, or a specific magical workshop, which prepared them for different clients. As photos nos. 1a and 1b below show, VS 17, 4 (= VAT 8363, snake incantation; 4.0 × 6.0 × 1.5 cm), VS 17, 8 (= VAT 8355, dog incantation; 3.7 × 5.0 × 1.0 cm), the text at the heart of this paper, VS 17, 23 (= VAT 8354, love incantation; 5.0 × 7.0 × 2.0 cm) and YOS 11, 17 (=YBC 5630, birth incantation; 4.1 × 6.4 × 2.0 cm), are all very similar in size and format, and share similar handwriting. Noticeable is the fact that the reverse of all four texts is left blank (YOS 11, 17 is a very rare case where a drawing is found on its reverse). 3 ) Wasserman 2014, 56–58. 1: Without a leading historiola, VS 17, 23 opens directly by presenting the problem: the woman is “alienated like a barrier” (parkiš nakrat). It is precisely this nakārum and parākum attitude of the young girl towards her suitor that the incantation tries to redress.5) 2: The sequence of two -iš forms, ṣuḫḫuriš" girimmiš, poses some grammatical problems. AHw 1109b, s.v. ṣuḫḫuriš, hesitates whether this adverb is based on ṣeḫērum or ṣuḫḫurum. For reasons listed below, I prefer taking ṣuḫḫuriš" from the adj. ṣuḫḫurum and translate “like a very little one”. The second form, girimmiš, is left in AHw 1556b as “unkl.”, probably because von Soden did not recognize the comparative function of the term. adv. -iš in Old Babylonian (GAG § 67c*). However, as discussed by Streck/ Wasserman (2008, 350), the comparative function of the term. adv. -iš in the Old Babylonian is well attested, hence translating girimmiš as “like a berry fruit” seems secure. Mayer (1995, 182) took a different path and translated: “um seine ‘Frucht’ klein zu machen”, namely ṣuḫḫuriš is for him an infinitive of ṣeḫērum-D with term. adv., replacing ana ṣuḫḫurim, and girimmiš ends with a shortened poss. pron. -š(u/a). Ingenious as it is, this suggestion does not clarify the 4 ) Note the following minor mistakes in van Dijk’s edition (1971, 11): l. 3 wa-a-ṣi-a-ti (not ṣí), l. 4 ú-pe-el-li-a-am"(not ú-we-el-li-a-am), ll. 6, 7 sà-an-gi-i"(although za-an-gi-i"is possible as well), l. 7 mu-sà-ḫi-la-at"(not sa). 5 ) The verb parākum is found in a similar context in a first-millennium love ritual (Lambert 1975, 108: 8): mūša"alti"amēli"lā"iparrik, “at night the man’s wife will not pose/should not pose any (sexual) objection”. 603 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXII N° 5-6, september-december 2015 604 Photos no. 1a, 1b: upper register, left to right: VAT 8363, 8355, 8354 (courtesy J. Marzahn, Vorderasiatisches Museum). Lower register: YBC 5630 (courtesy U. Kasten, Yale Babylonian Collection) passage, for girimmum, “small fruit”, stands metaphorically for the young woman and it is the wish of the male client — expressed through the magician’s words — to make the fruit grow, bloom, and come out, namely to yield to him, not to have it reduced in size and disappear. This sequence of two forms ending in -iš is in fact not unique. BM 13928: 11, an unpublished Old Babylonian list of proverbs (to be published soon by Streck and Wasserman) reads: ši-ib-bi-iš" ki-ip-pí-iš" i-te-né-ep-pu-uš, “He (the wolf) constantly acts like a šibbu-snake, like a snare”, i.e. “He constantly acts in a twisted manner, like a šibbu-snake”. With this parallel before us, ll. 1–2 of our incantation can safely be translated as a hendiadys-like comparison: “like very little-one, like a fruit”, i.e. “like a tiny fruit”. 1–2: Beyond the grammatical issues, it is remarkable that three of the first four words of the incantation end in -iš: parkiš" nakrat" ṣuḫḫuriš" girimmiš. Such a dense cluster of forms ending in the adverbial ending -iš cannot be accidental. Alliterating first lines, sometimes containing meaningless abracadabras (in what may be corrupted Hurrian or Elamite), are known to open other Old Babylonian incantations.6) The 6 ) Van Dijk 1982. 605 PIERCING THE EYES: AN OLD BABYLONIAN LOVE INCANTATION function of such openings is to reinforce the magical power of the spell, similar to the Latin words embedded in vernacular prayers or in magical texts during the Middle Ages. The hissing assonance of the slant-rhymes in the opening formula parkiš"nakrat"ṣuḫḫuriš"girimmiš has the same purpose. 2–3: The word girimmiš, which seals the opening formula, links it to the following line where inib"kirîm, “fruit of the orchard”, appears. Thus, two floral metaphors are contrasted: a “(tiny) berry-fruit”, girimmum (l. 2) whose vehicle is the obstinate young girl, and the “(blossoming) fruit of the orchard”, inib"kirîm (l. 3) which stands for a woman who is willing “to come out”, to surrender to the man’s desire. 3: Up to this point only one verbal form has been used, the 3 sg. f. nakrat. Now another verbal form, the 2 sg. f. waṣiāti, appears, where the magician directly addresses the resistant woman: “Like an orchard fruit you come out over him!”.7) Literary Akkadian uses ḫanābum and ḫanāmum to describe blooming flowers and thriving fruits. Growing vegetation is described with šiāḫum, šamāḫum, or našûm. The verb waṣûm, “to go out”, though occasionally used in a vegetal context,8) is not a typical verb for the semantic field of flowers and fruits. In our incantation the verb waṣûm was chosen, I suggest, because it is used to describe promiscuous women who do not keep to their households but “come out”. Good parallels to this use of waṣûm are found in legal texts. CH § 143 reads: “If a woman is not guarding her (reputation) but going out (waṣiat) and squanders her house and belittles her husband…”, and similarly MAL § 13: “If a wife of a free man came out of her house (tattiṣīma) and went to another free man to the place he dwells and he had illicit sex with her…”. I connect the use of waṣûm"in such contexts to the idioms ālikūtam" alākum and ālikūtam" epēšum, both meaning “to go philandering”, idioms that are found in epistolary sources,9) in rituals,10) and in physiognomical omens concerning women.11) A lexical entry makes this point patently clear: wāṣītum, “wayward woman” is synonymous with nayyāaktum, “fornicating woman”.12) Summing up the first part of the incantation (ll. 1–3), the magician tries to manipulate the woman and transform her from a tiny fruit, girimmum, into a ripe orchard fruit, inib" kirîm. He aims at changing her attitude from nakārum and parākum to waṣûm. 4–7: The second and final part of the incantation consists of two quasi-parallel precative sentences in which the river Tigris — representing the client — is asked to bring the 7 ) The use of the prep. eli in connection to waṣûm is unknown to me elsewhere. 8 ) See AHw 1477, 12b. A fine Old Babylonian example is the incantation YOS 11, 16: 1–2 // YOS 11, 77: 10–12: [ṣe]-et"erṣetim"ṭāb"ṣēt"asurrîm" napīšam" īšû, “The growth of the earth — it is good, the growth of the footing of the wall has a (pleasant) smell”. 9 ) Veenhof 2003, 320 ad 29–31 (ref. Sofie Demare-Lafont). On this see also Cooper 2006–2008, 16. 10 ) See the Old Babylonian ritual which ends with “…You put (the pellets) in between her breasts and (your) wife will come to you (illakakkum)” (Wasserman 2010, 332–333). The same idiom is found in the late astro-magical texts which list the appropriate times for performing specific rituals. One entry states that under the sign of Aries it is appropriate to perform the ritual MUNUS GIN.NA “for a woman to come” (STT 300 obv. 12 ≈ BRM 4, 20: 8 // BRM 4, 19: g, see Scurlock 2005–2006, 131 and now Geller 2014, 28 and 33). 11 ) Böck 2000, 156: 75–78: “If … (the woman) will have illicit sex and causes to go out(?) (ušeṣṣi)” (but see Böck 2000, 166: 230 where the G-stem a-ṣa-a-at is found). 12 ) MSL SS 1: 95 (see Cooper 2006–2008, 13). 606 unwilling woman list of raw materials: charcoal, copper, lead from Susa, and an unknown material called sangû. Clearly, these materials are supposed to be gifts, but why would a young woman, perhaps even a girl, be tempted by them? A hint as to the meaning of this list is found in the final line, l. 7, which reads musaḫḫilat"īnēki, “oh you - who pierces your(f.) eyes!”13) 7: The designation musaḫḫilat" īnēki, “she who pierces her eyes”, cannot but refer to a woman applying kohl to her eyelids with the help of a needle-like, or spoon-like, cosmetic implement. A Biblical parallel supports this suggestion. In Jer. 4: 30 one reads: And you, who are doomed to ruin, what do you accomplish by wearing crimson, by decking yourself in jewels of gold, by enlarging your eyes with kohl?14) In Biblical Heb. the act of applying kohl to the eyes is described with the root √QR῾, “to rip, to tear up the eyes”, which semantically is comparable to Akk. saḫālum-D, “to prick, to pierce”. The co-location of the raw materials and the act of “piercing the eyes”, together with the Biblical parallel, strongly suggest that the materials which the Tigris is asked to bring — charcoal, copper, lead from Susa,15) and probably also the mysterious sangû — are components for the preparation of kohl,16) the dark-blue paste used as eyeliner for cosmetic, as well as for ophthalmological purposes,17) throughout the Near East.18)19) 13 ) Correct the translation of CAD S 29b 2a and 146 (“let him bring …. that pierces your eyes”): musaḫḫilat"īnēki (sg. f.) cannot be understood as an attribute of sangî (pl. m.). 14 ) The Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. 15 ) For the medical usage of lead in Mari, see Archipov 2009. 16 ) Sum. šembi, Akk. guḫlum; Arab. kuḥl; Bib. Heb. pūḫ and later also koḫal; Iranian sorma. 17 ) The medical importance attributed to kohl is well known in Islam. A ḥadīṯ, a tradition going back to the Prophet, says: “…Use kohl made of ithmid on the eye; it brightens the eyesight, and strengthens and increases the growth of the eye lashes” (see Al-Ḫālidī 1996, 27. Ref. Gerrit Bos). A similar tradition is found in the Babylonian Talmud: “Rabbi Yoḫanan said: Kohl (Heb: pūḫ) removes (the"demoness"called)"the"Princess, stops the tears, and promotes the growth of the eye-lashes…” (b."Shabbat 109a, my trans.). 18 ) On kohl in Mesopotamian sources, see Stol 1989, 165–166 and Fincke 2000, 47–48 (neither of the two mention VS 17, 23). 19 ) Potts et al. 1996 argued that guḫlu in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian records does not designate kohl or antimony, but bdellium, an aromatic gum of vegetal origin, growing in Western and South Asia and serving as incense. The following arguments were raised in support of this suggestion. First, in some first-millennium records listing booty guḫlu is found in such high quantities (e.g. 176 talents) that “it seems inconceivable that over 5 tons of a mineral as rare as antimony, or a cosmetic with the limit utility of kohl, could possibly be in question” (Potts et al. 1996, 301). Second, the authors claim that guḫlu has an neat etymological counterpart in Sanskrit"guggulu, a word which is also widely attested in some Dravidian languages of Southern India. The authors claim further that Akk. guḫlu “was borrowed from Late Babylonian to Sanskrit in the first millennium B.C.”, and that “the borrowing must have occurred by or during the NeoAssyrian period” (Potts et al. 1996, 297). Lacking the necessary knowledge in ancient Indo-Aryan languages, I cannot comment directly on the suggested etymological connection between Sanskr."guggulu and Akk. guḫlu, but semantically it is implausible that an Akkadian word would be borrowed and used in Sanskrit when referring to a product which does not grow in Mesopotamia itself. Unknown and nonlocal products may carry with them their original foreign names, but the opposite direction of borrowing is entirely unknown to me. In other words, it is unlikely, in my opinion, that a product growing in India or in Arabia would be called in its land of production by an Akkadian name. The more plausible situation is that Akk. guḫlu began to be conflated with Sanskr." guggulu (whose independent etymology in Indo-Aryan is, following Potts et al. 1996, 297, unclear), once the aromatic substance bdellium started to 607 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXII N° 5-6, september-december 2015 The geographical horizon of VS 17, 23 is the East, as is made clear by the specification “lead of Susa”.20) This remark fits well with what is known from other, mainly Sumerian, sources, namely that Elam was a source of kohl production.21) A literary echo of this is found in Lugalbanda" and" the" Anzu" Bird, where the hero, while in the mountains east of Sumer, applied" šembi, kohl, to the eyes of Anzu’s fledglings.22) But other regions were also known to be the source of kohl. Medical texts from the first millennium refer to guḫlu, kohl, from Edom.23) This kohl was no doubt based on copper, since Edom was known for its copper mines. I will return to this point later. In conclusion, our incantation employs metonymy, or more precisely synecdoche: the materials charcoal, copper, lead and sangû denote the product kohl, just as ‘iron’ or ‘steel’ may be used for a sword, and ‘gold’, ‘silver, or ‘bronze’ for the respective medals in the Olympic Games.24) With this understanding, bringing the raw materials from abroad makes good sense, since kohl is a perfect gift for courtship. 8: Some words on the colophon of the text. Prima"facie KA-inim-ma IZI.ŠÀ.GA stands for išāt"libbim, “fire of the heart”. Burning fire — in the heart, belly or other inner parts of the body — is a well-known metaphor for depicting strong emotions, such as anger,25) enthusiasm26) or desire,27) in Akkadian literature. But the meaning of this expression here is, I believe, more intricate than appreciated at first. It leans, I suggest, on the Sum. word ninim, a sign written ŠÀxIZI. This complex sign, if taken literally, conveys “fire of/in the heart”. As shown by Civil 1990, ninim in lexical lists corresponds to qīnum, “jealousy”. The notion of jealousy.28) as a perilous burning fire is echoed in a first-millennium extispicy omen: “If… the ‘Station’ is like the sting of a scorpion, a man’s wife, with her(!) crotch burning, will set the man’s house on fire”.29) A commentary explains this omen, saying: “If you have (the word) ‘crotch’ before you: ‘crotch’ (means) ‘jealousy’, she is jealous, and in her jealousy sets be imported to Mesopotamia during the first millennium. And so, at some point in late Mesopotamian history, guḫlu was used indiscriminately for both the dark cosmetic paste kohl (used in small qualities) and the aromatic gum (used in large quantities). 20 ) As the database ARCHIBAB (http://www.archibab.fr/) shows, the spelling Šu-ši-im occurs occasionally in Old Babylonian sources, see, e.g. ARM 26/2, 273: 11. 21 ) Stol 1989, 165. 22 ) Wilcke 1969, 96: 58 and 100: 94. For a similar use of applying kohl to the eyes in a first-millennium ritual connected to the Netherworld, see Scurlock 2010. 23 ) Finkel 2000, 178: 6 […gu?]-uḫ-lu4 šá kurI-du-um-mu and Fincke 2009, 95: obv. 8’ gu-uḫ-lu"šá"E-du-um"and rev. 6 gu-ḫúl"šá"I-du-um,"with commentary on 96–97 (refs. Marten Stol). 24 ) Similarly, guḫlu itself means both the dark paste that is applied to the eyes and the mineral(s) from which this paste was produced (see CAD G 125). 25 ) TIM 9, 72: 17–18 (Whiting 1985: 180–181): lušēṣi"išātam"ša"libbika, “I will take out the fire of your heart”. 26 ) Zimrī-līm"epic iii 18–19 (Guichard 2014, 20): ṣabtū"šīrušunu"išātam karšūšunu"šiwītam"lamdū, “Their (Zimrī-līm’s soldiers’) flesh caught fire, their bellies experienced burning”. 27 ) YOS 11, 24 i 24 (Sigrist/Goodnick Westenholz 2008, 679 and 682): ina"ṣēriya"ṣurup"lalâka, “Burn your craving upon me!” and see also MS 3062: 9–11"(love incantation, to be published by A. George): ana"išātim ezzetim"mê ašpuk, “I have poured water of the fierce fire”. 28 ) MSL 14, 135: 25, MSL 14, 117 no. 6 i’ 5, excerpt of Ea VII (MSL 14, 455: 28’), see Civil 1990 (ref. Eckart Frahm). 29 ) Frahm 2011, 81: šumma…"Manzāzu"kīma"ziqit"zuqaqīpi"aššat"amīli" ina" kubbub" suḫsēšu" išātu" ana" bīt" amīli" iddi (Frahm’s trans. with minor changes). 608 the man’s house on fire”.30) This later evidence hints that the genitive construction IZI.ŠÀ.GA is connected to Sum. ninim (= ŠÀxIZI) — either exegetically, or as a corrupted writing of the sign — strengthening the suggestion that VS 17, 23 is an incantation that deals with jealous love. III. The Preparation of Kohl The following different materials can be used in the preparation of kohl:31) (1) Burnt wood, or charcoal;32) (2) Malachite (copper carbonate, Cu2CO3(OH)2),33) a mineral found in the Sinai, Africa and the Ural mountains. Malachite-based kohl resulted in a green salve, typical of Egypt.34) This kohl, I suggest, was the one mentioned earlier as coming from Edom. (3) Galena (lead sulphide, PbS),35) a fairly common compound quarried in Europe, Anatolia and Iran;36) and (4) Antimony (Stibium, Sb), a semi-metal element with physical properties similar to lead, or arsenic, which is found in nature associated with sulfur, a compound known as stibnite, or antimonite (Sb2S3).37) The latter compound is quarried in different locations around the globe, but as far as Mesopotamia is concerned, stibnite is found in central Asia (Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and China).38) Chemical analyses proved the use of antimony in a small number of archaeological findings from ancient Near East.39) Of the materials above, the most common compound used in the preparation of kohl was, as Stol (1989) pointed out, the lead-based galena just mentioned,40) and the Akkadian name for the tool used to apply kohl to the eyes, itqurtum"ša" abārim, “the small spoon of the lead”,41) testifies to that (see photo no. 2 below). Chemical studies examining the residues in cosmetics bottles from ancient Egypt found that most contained galena.42) Contemporary methods for the preparation of kohl sometimes use organic components — charcoal mixed in oil or ghee — to avoid the possible toxic effects of lead43) or stibnite,44) but the use of lead-based kohl is still 30 ) Frahm 2011, 81–82: šumma"suḫsu"ana"maḫrika"suḫsu"qīnu"qēnatma" in"qīniša"išāta"ana"bīt"amīli"iddi. 31 ) A brief and clear introductory to kohl in modern times can be found in Cartwright-Jones 2005. 32 ) Using charcoal as maquillage is perhaps hinted at in some difficult lines in another Old Babylonian incantation, YOS 11, 12: 41–43: [i?]-ma?la-am"ki-ma"na-ri-[im] / i-ka-ap-pu-ša"ki-ma tâmtim(A.AB.BA) / ù"ú-pi-illi-a"pa-ni-šu"ip-šu-u[š]?, “[It]"is"full like a river, like the sea it overcomes me. Verily he(sic) smeared his face with charcoal!”. For charcoal in cosmetics in general, see Hardy et al. 1998. 33 ) Hamilton et al. 1976, 70. 34 ) Stol 1989, 166. 35 ) Hamilton et al. 1976, 24. 36 ) Stol 1989, 166. 37 ) Hamilton et al. 1976, 28. Schuster-Brandis 2012, 177. 38 ) Anthony et al. 2004, 3459. 39 ) Moorey 1994, 241–242; Schuster-Brandis 2012, 177–178. 40 ) See, e.g. Hardy et al. 1998. 41 ) Stol, 1989, 166 (and see the discussion in CAD I/J 302a). In later, Mishnaic Heb. the implement for coloring the eyes is called ‫מכחול‬, “brush”, which had two parts: ‫זכר‬, “masculine member”, the pointed part with which the salve was applied, and ‫כף‬, “palm of a hand”, which probably served for wiping the excessive paste from the eye (see Stol, 1989, 166, n. 42). 42 ) Brill in Oppenheim et al. 1970, 117; Hardy et al. 2006. 43 ) Cartwright-Jones 2005; and “Kohl, Kajal, Al-Kahal, or Surma: By Any Name, a Source of Lead Poisoning” in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/productsingredients/products/ucm137250.htm. 44 ) Gad 2014. 609 PIERCING THE EYES: AN OLD BABYLONIAN LOVE INCANTATION Photo no. 2: A woman applying kohl with a special implement. (http://www.fosta.me/2013/05/blog-post_9543.html) fairly widespread in the Middle East, the Maghreb and in Europe.45) In his Old" Babylonian" Ophthalmology Stol (1989, 166) wrote: What will surprise some readers is that kohl is a lead product [emphasis in original]… For some time it has been common knowledge among Egyptologists and Arabists that kohl was not originally made from antimony, and that antimony has only been used for this purpose for a few hundred years. This partly explains the problems that Assyriologists have in finding antimony in texts or archaeological remains.46) I suggest that VS 17, 23 may offer a solution to this problem. Three out of four of the materials enumerated in the incantation — charcoal, copper and lead — are lexically well known and clearly identified. The hapax sangû"remains.47) If the proposal that VS 17, 23 lists materials for the preparation of kohl holds true, then it is very likely that sangû also designates a material used for this purpose. In other words, I suggest that sangû is the ancient name for the antimony compound stibnite.48) 45 ) A number of studies deal with lead poisoning caused by kohl, see, e.g. Ali et al. 1978; Parry/ Eaton 1991; Witkowski/ Parish 2001; De Caluwé 2009. Mahmood et al. 2009’s review article is interesting, since, after reviewing many different studies, they find that “the relation between Kohl and toxicity or increased blood lead concentration upon its application to eyes as reported elsewhere is likely to be more of theoretical nature rather than a practical health hazard”. 46 ) Similarly Moorey 1994, 138 and 241. 47 ) Unknown also in Mari archive (not in Arkhipov 2012 nor in Limet 1961). 48 ) The fact that the noun sangû is clearly in m. pl., and not in sg. as a collective noun (as is more common in Akkadian when referring to metals) is not an insurmountable morphological obstacle. Some metals, notably annakum, “tin”, and siparrum, “bronze”, are occasionally found in pl., 610 In her article “Stibium”, Schuster-Brandis (2012, 178) listed four terms that different studies suggested as possible names for antimony or antimonite in cuneiform sources: lulûm (KÙ.GAN), guḫlûm (ŠIM.BI.ZI.DA),49) asḫar (ŠIM. BI.ZI.DA SIG7.SIG7), and su/sù/su13-GAN. As the dictionaries show, guḫlûm and asḫar are unknown in early secondmillennium sources. By contrast lulûm is found in Old Babylonian and in Old Assyrian documents where it designates some kind of a metal, serving as a medical drug and a component used in glassmaking. No reference connects it directly to cosmetics.50) The fourth term, su/sù/su13-GAN, attested in Old Akkadian and Ur III records,51) is more relevant for the present discussion. First, it is hard to avoid noticing the similarity between the two nouns sangû and su-GAN. The etymology of these words is unclear, so resemblance between them might be coincidental, but it should not be ignored. Secondly, as in VS 17, 23, in a number of third-millennium occurrences su-GAN appears in connection with other metals, notably copper. Still, the nature of the substance suGAN, and its exact use in antiquity, is a matter of debate, and there is no consensus that it is a metal or mineral. The relation of su-GAN to our sangû — a mineral,52) as I believe — remains therefore an open question. Be that as it may, the fact that sangû is mentioned twice in VS 17, 23 suggests that it was rare, and consequently the most precious of the raw materials listed in the text.53) The unclear etymology of sangû — connected to su-GAN or not — hints at a foreign origin, similar to other Kulturwörter, as, e.g. Akk. gayyātum, a hapax in Hittite texts, which refers probably to some kind of perfumed oil, perhaps of Egyptian etymology.54) Until a direct textual reference or concrete archaeological evidence appears, VS 17, 23 supplies, I believe, the best indication for the use of stibnite in the preparation of kohl in the Old Babylonian period — a material which, I put forward, ancient Mesopotamians called sangû. Bibliography Al-Ḫālidī, Muḥammad ῾Abd al-῾Azīz 1996: Aš-Šamā᾿il al-muḥammadiyya wa-l-Ḫaṣā᾿il al-muṣṭafawiyya (at-Tirmiḏī), esp. in Old Assyrian sources (see, e.g. CAD A/2, 128–129 7’a-b and CAD S 297a). The use of pl. here is probably due to the fact that in the eyes of the Mesopotamians sangû was seen as stones, rather than metal. Note Moorey (1994, 241): “… the metallic antimony of antiquity was […] occasionally found as granular masses with a tin-white colour and a metallic lustre in limestone or marble veins.” 49 ) On the questionable equation guḫlûm = antimony, see Brill in Oppenheim et al. 1970, 116–117. 50 ) CAD L 243. 51 ) Limet 1961, 55–58; Neumann 1987, 72 with n. 351, 78 with n. 392, 100 with n. 537, and passim. 52 ) Throughout his book Neumann (1987) keeps the question mark next to “Antimon”, expressing thus his doubts regarding the common identification of su-GAN as antimony. Indeed, some scholars consider su-GAN not to be a metal (and consequently not antimony). For summary of these earlier studies, see Moorey 1994, 241. More recently, see Schrakamp 2012, 694 who writes: “sù-GAN wird nicht mehr als “Antimon” […] sondern als nichtmetallene Zutat bei der Bronzelegierung (Borax?) bestimmt…” (ref. Marten Stol). 53 ) In principle one could suggest that sangû is some sort of oil with which the minerals were crushed to make a paste. It is, however, unlikely that the incantation would mention sangû twice if it were oil. The enumeration consists of raw materials and sangû must, to my mind, also be a solid substance, very likely a mineral of some kind. 54 ) Singer/ Gestoso Singer 2014, 327–328. 611 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXII N° 5-6, september-december 2015 Bayrūt (Dār al-Kutub al-῾ilmiyya 1 Ausgabe. (ch. 7 on Kuhl of the Prophet Muḥammad). Ali, A. R./ Smales, O. R./ Aslam, M. 1978: Surma and Lead Poisoning, British Medical Journal 10, 915–916. Anthony, J. W/ Bideaux R. A./ Bladh K. W./ Nichols M. C. (eds.) 2003: Handbook of Mineralogy, Mineralogical Society of America, Tucson: AZ. 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