subject of love, Mesopotamian style
An exhibition at the Sterling Memorial Library offers insights into what ancient Mesopotamians thought and wrote about love 2,500 to 4,000 years ago.
Titled "Love in Mesopotamia," the exhibition features objects and tablets drawn from the Yale Babylonian Collection. It will be on view through April.
The items on display range from tender portrayals of romantic and familial affection to explicit celebrations of sexual passion. The exhibition includes spells to drive away temptress demons and to attract lovers; erotic objects; courtship, dowry, marriage and divorce negotiations; love and bereavement poetry; family correspondence; and proverbs on love and happiness.
Among the tablets is an excerpt from a poem celebrating the goddess of love and fertility written by Enheduanna, a Mesopotamian princess who lived about 2300 B.C.E., the first author in history whose name is known and who can be plausibly identified with a surviving literary work. A portion of the text reads:
Over a city which has not declared, "This land is yours!"
"Love in Mesopotamia" was organized by Benjamin Foster, the William M. Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature and director of undergraduate studies in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, and Karen Foster, lecturer in Near Eastern languages and civilizations. Benjamin Foster is also curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, the nation's largest collection of documents, seals and other artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia. Founded in 1910 by a gift from J. Pierpont Morgan, the collection now includes about 45,000 items, ranging in date from around 3000 B.C.E. to early in the Christian era.
Sterling Memorial Library, located at 120 High St., is open for exhibition viewing 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday, and 3-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.
T H I S
Which has not declared, "This belongs to your father, to your begettor!"
You have pronounced your holy sentence,
You have indeed turned it back from your forward course,
You have indeed withheld your presence from its breeding places.
The woman there no longer speaks with affection to her husband,
They no longer hold converse together at nightfall,
She ceases to reveal to him the matters sacred of her heart!
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