The Babylonian Map of the World,

- and its world view1

by Jakob Bo Flygare

Abstract
The topic of this paper is a Late Babylonian tablet known as the Babylonian Map of the World or Mappa Mundi (BM
92687). It presents a unique case of Babylonian cartography, as it is the only tablet that contains a drawing of the
entire earth’s surface (orbis terrarum) from Ancient Mesopotamia.
During my discussion I will focus on two different kinds of mapping space and the geography of the Babylonian Map
of the World.
The Babylonian Map of the World deals with a mythologized landscape opposed to a physical landscape and in so
doing a particular world view is presented.
The Babylon Map of the World is composed according to the cartographic rule of ethnocentricity and presents
spatiality as the relationship and dominance of Babylon in a way that is similar to the mappaemundi of the Christian
Middle Ages.

landscape everywhere in the world is a construct of human beings – whether through human
ascription to it of mythological creation, or through physical actions by the humans themselves
(Ucko 1994, quoted in Knapp 1999)

Introduction
The Babylonian Map of the World contains both a commentary and a unique map of the world.
Babylon is shown above the centre with the Euphrates running through. It is depicted as a large
rectangle that occupies almost half of the width of the central continent. The map also names other
places such as Assyria, Susa and Bit-Yakin. The central continent is ringed by a circular ocean. The
outer rim of the sea is surrounded by mysterious regions, each indicated by a triangle. The
commentary describes the edges of the world with monstrous and exotic beings as well as great
heroes.

Date and provenance

The map of the world (shown below) occupies the lower half of the obverse while the remainder of
the obverse and the entire reverse preserves verbal text as commentary.
The date of composition and provenance of the tablet is uncertain: It is placed within the 82-7-14
collection at the British Museum that primarily comes from Sippar(Leichty 1986: xxxiii). However,

1
the tablet is given the out-of-sequence number 509 within that collection suggesting it is not from
Sippar (Leichty 1986: 198).
The colophon of the tablet states that it was “copied from its older exemplar and collated” by a
descendant of the scribe Ea-bēl-ilī. This is the name of a scribe who is said to come from Borsippa
in southern Mesopotamia which might explain why the tablet is numbered out-of-sequence if
indeed it comes from Borsippa. Furthermore, the colophon tells us that this is not the only map of
the world from Ancient Mesopotamia. There must at least have been one predecessor.
On philological grounds the tablet can be dated to somewhere between the ninth and the seventh
century.2

History of research
1. Authoritative editions:
During a stay in London F. E. Peiser came across a tablet at the British Museum that caught him by
surprise. The lower part of the obverse revealed a map.
This was quite a sensation as the only evidence until that time of geographical studies among the
Babylonians was a single fragment with a part of a map of Babylon. To make his new discovery
available to his colleagues he published his new discovery right away in Eine babylonische
Landkarte from 1889 with a copy prepared by J. N. Strassmaier.3
The tablet was copied again in 1906 by R. C. Thompson as CT 22, 484 and given a short description
by L.W. King. CT 22, 48 was the standard edition of the tablet for more than eighty years until W.
Horowitz published a new edition in 1988.5 Ten years later he published a revised copy of the tablet
that included a new join to the map discovered in 1995 at the British Museum.6

1. CT 22 48

2
2. Authoritative studies:
J. D. Muhly has characterised the tablet as “one of our most famous clay maps, a Babylonian map
of the world (mappa mundi), a text about which a great deal has been written, most of it nonsense.”7
In the following I will briefly consider the first study by F.E Peiser before moving on to a
discussion of the studies by E.F. Weidner and E. Unger. These two studies present very different
interpretations that have informed much of what has been said about the tablet.

The first study of the tablet is that by F.E Peiser from 1889 (see above).
Among other things it pointed to the use of different scales on the map and stated that the original
tablet could be no earlier than the 9. century BCE due to the name Bit-Yakin on its later copy.
Furthermore, it drew attention to the common concept of a circumfluent ocean.

The next comprehensive study appeared in Der Zug Sargons von Akkad nach Kleinasien by E. F.
Weidner from 1922. He proposed that the tablet most likely represented a redaction of the second
tablet in the King of Battle series.
The obverse was supposed to concern Sargon’s campaign to Asia Minor and the wonders
encountered along the Mediterranean coast before entering the Taurus.8
The reverse described the regions beyond the known world of the Babylonians that Sargon
travelled through on a dangerous and unreal campaign through the mountains in southeast Asia
Minor.9
The map on the lower part of the obverse was seen as nothing less than a Late Babylonian
attempt of a graphic representation of Sargon’s worldwide empire surrounded by a circumfluent
ocean. His empire comprised an area from the Persian Gulf in the south to the upper reaches of the
Euphrates in the mountains in the north, and from the wilderness in the west to the Zagros in the
east.

Finally I shall consider the astral-mythological interpretation presented by E. Unger who worked
with the tablet between 1929 and 1937.The first comprehensive treatment appeared in Babylon from
193110 and the last in the article From the Cosmos Picture to the World Map from 1937.
E. Unger completely abandoned the connection between Sargon and the World Map that was
proposed by Weidner.11 Instead he supposed that the tablet described the Babylonian cosmos with
Babylon in its centre- the “hub of the universe.”
Unger argued that the map only served as a background for the distant regions (nagû) arranged
round the circumfluent ocean; this explained the casual arrangement of topographical features on
the map as they only served to locate the distant regions.

3
 Having assigned the terrestrial map a secondary role the primary concern of the tablet now
became the distant regions that were thought to form bridges between the heavens and its mirror
image on earth. The distant regions lay between the “Earthly ocean” encircling the round earth and
the “Heavenly ocean” wherein the animal constellations of the zodiac dwelled.12 These animals
were the gods and goddesses of the night that were banished by Marduk at the time of creation to
the “Heavenly ocean.” It was thought to extend beneath the Underworld to allow the constellations
to continue their passage when they sank below the horizon.13

2. The Babylonian Map of the World 3. The Babylonian Cosmos

Reconstruction by Herbert Anger Reconstruction by Karl Maasz

Unger’s interpretation is taken over almost verbatim in many treatments of the map. A few
examples are Maps and map-makers by R.V. Tooley that first appeared in 1949 (Tooley 1978: 3)
and Late Babylonian Field Plans in the British Museum by K. Nemet-Nejat from 1982 (Nemet-
Nejat 1982: 8-9).

The Babylonian Map of the World has commonly been studied in terms of something else such as
an illustration of Sargon’s world-wide empire or as a source on the Babylonian cosmos. The
following study approaches the tablet as a source on itself and considers the tablet as a map on its
own terms.
Let me start off by outlining the methodological approach:

4
Methodology
In the words of Tim Ingold landscape is “the world as it is known by those who dwell therein.”14
This may be schematised in the following way:

Landscape and the philosophy of reality

Relation: (World) - ((Landscape) - (Subject))

↓ ↓
Reality: Ontology Epistemology

• The world belongs to the ontological sphere of reality

• The reality of the world is material and objective
• Landscape belongs to epistemological sphere of reality
• The reality of landscape is immaterial and subjective

The world belongs to the ontological sphere of reality whereas landscape belongs to the
epistemological sphere of reality:
The reality of the world is material and objective, but the reality of landscape is immaterial and
subjective. Landscape is a mental image that we create within ourselves by encoding our world - the
environment - with meaning. The attachment of meaning translates this environment into a
signifying system that shapes and is shaped by our thoughts and ways of seeing things (Cosgrove
1995: 281).

Landscape is something subjective, something perceived, conceived, and experienced that alters
through time and space. In order to interpret a landscape we have to study its subtext by looking at
the society and culture that it exists in.
The source of information depends on the availability of evidence about experience and meaning.
An interpretation of a prehistoric landscape is dependent on inference on the basis of signs, symbols
and iconography whereas an interpretation of a present-day landscape can draw on direct evidence
about experience and meaning on the basis of observation.
An historical landscape can be interpreted on the basis of written sources that reveal the writers’
occupations, ideas and perceptions of the world (Wagstaff 1987: 3).

Maps offer an important opportunity to study the comprehension of spatial phenomena in different
periods. To cite Norman Thrower: “Viewed in its development through time, the map details the
changing thought of the human race, and few works seem to be such an excellent indicator of
culture and civilization” (Thrower 1996: 1).

5
 Not only the interpretation of ancient maps, the use of the term map is in itself problematic. This
debated issue shall not concern us, as it does not pertain directly to our topic. I follow the definition
of maps offered by David Woodward in The History of Cartography as “graphic representations
that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the
human world” (Woodward 1998: 1).

The process of mapmaking may be schematised in the following way:

Mapmaking
The human world ↔ cartographer → map
↓ ↓
Reduction Translation

When producing a map a spatial understanding is extracted from the human world and translated
into a map that is imposed upon landscape; i.e. a map is representational and related to the
perspective it is representing (White 1999). A map therefore is not neutral but relative to the
cartographer’s organisation of spatiality and his conception of that spatiality that can be real as well
as surreal.15 Spatiality is here taken in the sense of post-modern geography that rejects the Kantian
idea of space as an empty container. Instead space is viewed critically as a culturally constructed
subtext that we bring to our view of the world (Flanagan 1999: 2-4) and that is simultaneously
material and representational (Berquist 2002: 4).

In the following I briefly consider the general features of the Babylonian Map of the World in
relation to the Western history of cartography until the Middle Ages.

Concepts of spatiality and their maps

The Babylonian Map of the World depicts the Earth’s surface as a flat disc surrounded by an
ocean.16 Greek maps from the middle of the first millennium shows a common belief that the
inhabited world is surrounded by water. One such map is the map of Anaximander who lived from
610-540 BCE. It is discussed by the fourth century BCE geographer Agathemenos:

“Anaximander, the Milesian, the disciple of Thales, was the first to draw the inhabited world on a tablet …
and the ancients drew the inhabited world as round and Greece in the middle, and Delphi (lay) in the middle
of it for it is the umbilicus of the Earth … and swift flowing Oceanus completed a circle around the Earth”
(quoted in Horowitz 1998:41)

However, while in Greek traditions the omphalos of the world was the Apollo temple at Delphi, the
compass point at the centre of the Babylonian map is unlabelled.17 This particular location might be
6
assigned to the holy mid-Babylonian city of Nippur. Like Babylon it was the scene of cosmological
events that transfigured the city to a symbolic status like Delphi placed in the centre of the earth’s
surface (Black 2002: 45, Horowitz 1998: 299).
The distant regions projecting beyond the cosmic ocean on the Babylonian Map of the World is
another difference from early Greek traditions that do not include any lands outside the encircling
ocean.

In other traditions the most holy place was considered as the umbilicus of the Earth. The Roman
Vitruvius had observed that a man standing in a circle with his arms and legs extended would center
on the navel, the place of prenatal nourishment and cosmological significance; Rome was the
omphalos of the world. Vitruvius intended to use his drawing to illustrate his De Architectura Libra
Decem written during the time of Augusus Caesar. In the Renaissance period it was developed into
Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing, Man in a circle and a square; a metaphor for man as the
measure of all things (Flanagan 1996 5:2).

Another example. The mappaemundi of the Christian Middle Ages use a T-O template (terra-
oceanus).
Maps using this template present the entire world surrounded by the ocean. It is divided into three
landmasses by the Don River (flowing to the Black Sea on the north), the River Nile (on the south),
and the Mediterranean. The three continents Asia, Africa, and Europe were divided up between the
sons of Noah, - Shem (Asia), Ham (Africa), and Japheth (Europe) - and Jerusalem was at the centre,
the omphalos of the map (cf. Ezek 38:12) (Flanagan 1996 2: 4-5).
An elaborate use of this template is found on the famous Hereford Map of about 1300 CE
preserved in the Hereford Cathedral.

The Christian mappaemundi demonstrate a specific organization of theologized space as the

relationship to an urban centre of power (Flanagan 1999: 7f.).
In Human Territoriality. It’s Theory and History (1986) Robert Sack deals with the T-O map in
the context of spatial concepts and he concludes: “wherever one is placed is immaterial unless one
is at the centre in the heavenly city, Jerusalem.”18 Sack discerns two perceptions of territoriality
defined as “the attempt to by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people,
phenomena, and relationships, by delimiting and asserting control over a geographical area.”19

7
Perceptions of territoriality according to the theory of R. Sack:
1. Territoriality seen organically as related to events, persons and places. This concept of space is expressed in
the T-O kind of mapping that stresses space as the relationship to, and dominance of, the center. It presents the
globe as an amorphous topography in which space can take on mythic proportions (e.g. the early Western
Christian mappaemundi such as the Hereford map)

2. Territoriality seen abstractly as a geometry of distances and directions. This concept of space is expressed in
the Ptolemaic kind of mapping that employs longitude-latitude coordinates and stresses location in space. It
presents the globe as a homogenous surface ruled by a uniform grid (e.g. the world map of Claudius Ptolemy
from 1482 CE)

The mappaemundi serves as an example of a map dealing with the first kind of territoriality.
At the time of the mappaemundi a different, more utilitarian kind of map appears known as the
portulan that serves as an example of a map dealing with the second type of territoriality. The
portulan are medieval sea charts made up from data on directions, distances and coastal descriptions
given by sailors. They were primarily produced by cartographers in Italy and Majorca who were
influenced by Arab cartography (Moreland 1993 1:2).
Another example is the famous woodcut world map from 1482 CE based on the work of the
second century Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy but with a contemporary addition of
Greenland and Scandinavia.

I have dealt with the different kinds of mapping that are represented by the mappaemundi and the
ptolomaic maps as they serve as an allegory for different functions of maps and the differing
interests of their makers (Turnbull 1993 pp. 40 et seq.).
In the following the Babylonian Map of the World is placed within the cartographic tradition of
Babylonia.

The cartographic tradition of Babylonia

As mentioned earlier the Babylonian Map of the World is unique in Babylonian cartography. Like
the medieval mappaemundi it is drawn on a global scale and it organizes mythologized space as the
relationship to an urban centre of power; in this case Babylon. I shall return to this point below.
Apart from this map Babylonian cartography is limited to architects’ and surveyors’ plans and
large scale maps that, like the portulan, deal with geometric space on a local scale.20
The plans are of a utilitarian nature that, to quote Millard, serve the “need to delimit estates,
calculate areas to be developed and guide builders.”21
Babylonian cartography has been classified on an axis of distance and immediacy of the area
depicted by K. Nemet-Nejat.22 It may be illustrated by the following schema:

8
 Classification of Babylonian Cartography
Remote Middle distant Local
Maps of remote regions Maps of large areas Plans of immediate localities
a) District maps a) Building plans
b) City maps b) Estate or field plans
Babylonian World Map Nuzi Map (type a) Gudea B (type a)
Nippur Map (type b) BM 78148 (type b)*

* This is Text 1 in Nemet-Nejat 1982.

In number the plans of immediate localities constitute by far the largest group with several hundred
known examples. Regarding the maps of large areas there are approximately 15 known examples.
The Babylonian Map of the World is the only one known of remote regions.23

The cartographic tradition of Babylonia can be demonstrated for over two thousand years starting
with the Nuzi Map of about 2300 BCE that also presents the oldest known example of cartographic
orientation.

The Nuzi Map (shown to the right) is a district map that depicts an area bounded by two mountain
ranges and bisected by a watercourse somewhere near Yorghan Tepe in north-eastern Mesopotamia.
In the centre of the plan a measure of approximately 12 hectares (i.e. 354 iku) is given for a plot of
land and its owner is named Azala.
Three entries mark the cardinal directions north, east and west that this plan was aligned in
(Millard 1987) with north on the left.24
The south wind might have been inscribed on the right side which is now lost (Muhly 1978: 28).

The Nuzi Map employs a set of topographical signs that give it a pictorial character and an aesthetic
quality. The watercourse (rāhium) is indicated by parallel lines filled by water-lining25 and the two
mountain ranges are indicated by a scale-pattern; it is the only known representation of mountains on
a map from Ancient Mesopotamia apart from the Babylonian Map of the World.

The use of topographical signs presents a consistent tradition within the history of Babylonian
cartography.
In the following schema the common cartographic language of Mesopotamian maps is presented
as it occurs on the Babylonian Map of the World (cf. the appendix):26

9
 Cartographic language of the Babylonian Map of the World
Geometric shape Akkadian name Translation Qualifies Label on the map
Circle kippatu Circle City, camp, field Assyria, Der, Susa, 2x
City, 3x unlabelled
Semi-circle īn alpi Bovine eye Mountain Mountain (the
Taurus)
Parallel lines nāru River River Unlabelled (the
Euphrates), swamp,
channel, the sea
Rectangle nalbattu Brick shape City, camp, field, Babylon
building

The other features on the Babylonian Map of the World include:

a) The tribes Urartu, Bit-Yakin, and Habban placed between circles27
b) A crescent-shaped area extending from the east bank of the Euphrates to the sea. It is labelled x-ra-[… 28
c) A compass-point in the centre of the map29
d) Triangles (santakku) mark the distant regions projecting beyond the cosmic ocean

Having placed the Babylonian Map of the World within the tradition of Babylonian cartography I
will move on to consider how spatiality is organized and represented on the Babylonian Map of the
World.

The globality of the Babylonian Map of the World

From the perspective of positivist geography it has reasonably been stated that localities of the
Babylonian Map of the World are placed, to cite Millard: “without much attention to geography;”30
or similarly: in contrast to other cuneiform maps, and here I quote Horowitz, “the relative size and
location of many of the features of the World Map seem preposterous.”31
However, from the perspective of post-modern geography the map’s representation of spatiality
is not inaccurate or distorted; it presents a cultural construction of space (Flanagan 1998: 9). The
selection and ordering of data relates the entire world to the domain of Babylon. It is made the clear
focus of the map by making it occupy almost half of the width of the central continent. This is made
possible by the use of different scales:

The use of scales on the Babylonian map of the world:

1. Firstly we have a local scale used for Babylonia. It is represented by the ancient equivalent of Shatt-al-Arab that
connects the Euphrates with the Gulf in the southern marshes where Bit-Yakin is situated. On this scale we also
have Habban, Der and Babylon that is separated in two by the Euphrates just as it was during the Neo-
Babylonian period

10
 2. Secondly we have a regional scale used for the area of Greater Mesopotamia. It is represented by Susa, Assyria,
Urartu, and the Taurus

3. Thirdly we have a small scale used for the entire world. It is represented by the encircling ocean and the distant
regions beyond

So, what qualifies this as a world map, when the Babylonians of this period certainly knew more
distant places like Egypt, Anatolia and eastern Iran which the central continent is simply too small
to be able to include?
To answer this question we must address the tenth line of the commentary on the obverse of the
tablet. It reads: “Ut-napištim, Sargon, and Nur-Dagan the king of Buršahanda”. The first character,
Ut-napištim, is the Babylonian Noah of the Gilgamesh Epic who was rewarded with eternal life
after having saved the human race from the Flood and settled in a distant region at “the source of
the rivers”; i.e. at the edge of the world.
The name Ut-napištim might have been confused with the fictive, second millennium character
Ut-rapaštim, who, like Nur-Dagan of Buršahanda, is related to the legends about Sargon of Akkad.32
In the first millennium tradition Sargon of Akkad was the paradigmatic king who reached the
edge of the earth and created a worldwide empire (māt sihip šamê the entire land under heaven). It
seems obvious that the Babylonian Map of the World associates itself with this tradition as it
concerns remote regions at the edge of the earth (Liverani 2001: 82).
Sargon’s mythological empire is described in the Sargon Geography dating to this period. It
places Crete and Cyprus across the Mediterranean and Bahrain and Oman across the Persian Gulf
(Horowitz 1998: 87-88). Egypt is located to the west and across the Gulf together with Oman
(Horowitz 1998: 85-86).
The identification and location of these distant places is anachronistic as it imposes modern
geographical knowledge on ancient spatiality (Flanagan 1999: 8). But the inclusion of these five
lands within Sargon’s worldwide empire is of interest to the Babylonian Map of the World and its
use of scales.
The Babylonian Map of the World places distant regions across the ocean beyond the central
continent and the Sargon Geography similarly places five lands beyond the central continent at the
ends of the earth’s surface (Horowitz 1998: 94-95).
The tradition of an ocean encircling the central continent with distant regions projecting from it
as depicted on the Babylonian Map of the World, would thus be based on a geographical knowledge
of the Gulf in the south with the islands of Bahrain and Oman, the Black and Caspian Seas in the
north flowing beyond the far border of Urartu, and the Mediterranean in the west with the islands of
Cyprus and Crete (Horowitz 1998: 93 et seq.).33

11
 Furthermore, this qualifies the map as global in the sense that it represents the whole known
world (Cosgrove 1995: 282).

In the following I will elaborate on how the organization of space on the Babylonian Map of the
World presents a particular projection that is related to Babylonian imperialism.

Projections in cartography and Babylonian imperialism

As mentioned during my discussion of methodology a map is representational and as such it is
related to the particular perspective it represents; i.e. there is no such thing as a neutral map.
This may be demonstrated with an example of map deformation:
One problem in mapmaking is caused from the translation from a spherical or sphereoid world to a
representation on a flat surface. The particular projection employed always distorts the scale of the
map one way or the other. One of the first who is thought to have struggled with this problem is the
Greek geographer Hipparchos who experimented with the stereographic and orthographic
projection. The first projection makes the peripheral latitudes too large and the latter projection
makes the central latitudes to large (White 1999).

The Babylonian Map of the World is composed according to the cartographic rule of
ethnocentricity: “the tendency of societies to put themselves at the centre of maps.”34 The particular
perspective is Babylonian35 and it represents Babylonia as the focal centre of a round earth placed
equidistant of its edges.
Furthermore, the commentary conveys a social order beyond the physical landscape through the
ascription to it of mythology. I have already discussed the connection between the Babylonian Map
of the World and Sargon’s mythological empire that reached to the edges of the world. In the
following I will consider the rest of the commentary on the obverse of the tablet that relates to
creation.

The commentary on the obverse

The textual commentary on the obverse of the tablet mythologizes the map by associating it with
Babylonian cosmology. Much of the following paraphrases Horowitz 1998: 22 et seq. to which I
refer for discussion.

Obverse:
l.1 Broken.

12
l. 2 This line contains the phrase ‘ruined cities’ (ālānu abtutū). It might relate to cities from before the flood, i.e. ruined
city-mounds. In terms of the world map they might be rendered by circles marked with a dot36

l. 3 This line and the following relates to the cosmogony related to Marduk. It contains “the vast sea which is overseen
by Marduk” (tamtu rapaštu ša ibarrû Marduk) and ‘the bridge of her interior’ (titurri qerebša). The vast sea is
personified as the primordial sea-goddess Tiāmat and the bridge of her interior is the place of battle (cf. Ee VII l. 74-75)

l. 4 This line has ‘the ruined gods which he settled inside the sea’ (ilānu abtutū ša ina libbi tamti ušēšibû). This refers to
the gods that marched at the side of Tiāmat. They panicked as soon as their leader was slain and were subsequently
subdued to servitude by Marduk (cf. Ee VI l. 151-54)

l. 5-9 mentions various mythological and exotic beasts (umāmu) that may be divided into the following two groups:
1. horned viper (bašmu)*,ct and great serpent-dragon (mušhuššu rabû)*,ct,r are placed inside the sea
2. Lion-headed eagle (anzû)*,r, scorpion-man (girtablullû)*,ct, mountain goat (armu)r,t, gazelle (şabītu)t, “sphinx”
(apsasû)r, leopard (nimru)*,t, bull-man (kusarikku)*,ct,r, lion (nēšu)*,r,t, wolf (barbaru)* , red-deer (lulīmu)*,t,
hyena (būşu)t, ape (pagû)r,t, female ape (pagītu)r,t, ibex (turāhu), ostrich (lurmu)t, “cat” (šurānu), chameleon
(hurbabillu) are “beasts which Marduk created on top of the restless sea”
(* marks beasts related to astrology/astronomy, ct marks beasts among the eleven creatures of Tiāmat, r marks beasts
represented on public buildings, t marks beasts as tribute from royal hunts and campaigns)

l. 10 is discussed above in The globality of the Babylonian Map of the World

l. 11 “…wings like a bird and no one can comprehend their contents” (…kappi işşurišma manma qerebšina ul idû). The
3rd fem. pl. pronominal suffix -šina probably refers to the broken opening line of the obverse. l. 27 of the reverse
contains the phrase “which contents no one can comprehend” (qerebšina manma la idû) and here -šina apparently refers
to ‘the four quadrants of the entire world’ (kibrāt erbetti ša kal HI) of l. 26. Rev. l. 11 therefore seems to be a vivid
description of the incomprehensible span of the world even seen in a bird’s-eye-view (cf. the flight to heaven on the
back of an eagle in the Etana Epic).

In the words of Wiggermann the placement of the beasts of obv. l. 5-9 at the edge of the world
shows that: “the farther away from home, the more the familiar and domesticated is replaced by the
wild, strange, primeval and diabolical”.37 Once again this relates to the mythologized landscape that
the Babylonian Map of the World articulates.
Furthermore, obv. l. 3-9 can be related to the Bilingual Account of the Creation of the World by
Marduk (CT 13 35-37). In this composition the central continent and the encircling ocean are
depicted like the artificial reed-islands in the marshes of southern Babylonia. The earth’s surface is
a cosmic reed-raft that Marduk constructed on the face of the primeval waters. Inside it and on top
of it he settled its beasts (cf. Horowitz 1998: 130-31).

13
In terms of the Babylonian perspective of the map the edges of the world are presented as the
relationship to Babylonia at its focal centre.
As was said with regards to the Sargon Geography one way of dealing with distant places was to
place them at the extreme periphery of a mathematical model of the world. Another way was by
defining them as the other.38 These two techniques present a particular picture of a constructed
enemy which is instrumental in the formation of a socio-cultural identity that shows you who you
are.
Furthermore, as the beasts were subdued to the order established by Marduk at the time of
creation they were assigned to his domain with Babylon at its centre.

To sum up: The commentary on the obverse of the Babylonian Map of the World conveys a
particular social order beyond the physical landscape. Through ascription to it of mythology it is
articulated as a spatial power that the geography of the Babylonian Map of the World expresses as
the relationship to, and dominance of, the Babylonian power centre.

In the following I will discuss the distant regions on the Babylonian Map of the World. I address the
problem of how many triangles the map might originally have contained and what they might
represent. It sheds new light on the genre of the tablet and its interpretation.

The distant regions

1. The number of nagû
The distant regions on the Babylonian Map of the World surround the outer rim of the circumfluent
ocean. They are marked by triangles and each of them contains the label nagû (distant region).
Since the first publication of the tablet more than a century ago it has been debated whether there
were originally 7 or 8 such triangles on the map.39
The problem is that the textual commentary on the reverse mentions 8 nagû which the map itself
does not seem to leave room for if a symmetrical arrangement is assumed. The actual traces of the
five extant triangles on the map itself suggest 7 and first line of the tablet AO 6478 seems to
mention 7 nagû.40
One way of solving this question would be if a key were to be found to unlock the mathematical
problem that seems to be involved on the reverse. It probably relates to the map as a diagram of a
circle inside a circle with isosceles triangles placed along the periphery of the outer circle. These
triangles are placed at varying distances from each other (two are mentioned to be 6 double-hours41
in between and one to be 8 double-hours in between) and supposedly have one curved side and two
equal sides each (or a meridian) with a length of 7 double-hours (additional numbers are extant for

14
the fourth and the fifth nagû that seems to concern their dimensions (cf. the translation in Horowitz
1998a: 25).
If this interpretation is correct the tablet belongs to the genre of explanatory works within the
Babylonian scholarly literature that deals with mathematical expositions.42
It should be noted that the mythological commentary on the obverse might be a later addition to
the tablet. The original might have consisted of a problem text with an explanatory diagram (cf. the
different argument put forth in n. 39).

2. The nagû as a cosmic wall

It has been proposed that the nagû presents islands or landmasses beyond the ocean. H. and J. Lewy
argued that the nagû are mountains rising out of the sea seen from a frontal view and not in a bird’s-
eye-view as the rest of the map (Lewy 1943: 10-15).43 The small fragment that was joined to one of
the nagû in 1995 (Finkel 1995) seems to qualify this interpretation. It contains the label Great Wall
(BÀD.GU.LA). Walls were commonly used as a literary metaphor for mountains and protection
and it would therefore seem to follow that the Great Wall portrays a cosmic mountain at the edge of
the world.
Such a cosmic wall might be mentioned in the Sargon Legend from the Neo-Babylonian period.
It seems to tell us that Sargon ascended the “Great Wall of Heaven and Earth?” (read BÀD AN.KI
GAL-i) at a place that would be defined as the ends of the earth (Horowitz 1997: 98, Westenholz
1997: 42-43).

As to the actual function of the nagû they seem to be related to the movement of solar and stellar
motion. In the following I will deal with them in that order.
The nagû that is identified by the new join is labelled as a place “where the sun is not seen.”44
When viewed from the latitude of Mesopotamia the Sun never passes through the northern portion
of the sky, and this could be explained by the presence of the Great Wall in the north. In order to
complete its night journey from horizon to horizon the setting Sun had to cut its way through to rise
in the south (Horowitz 1998: 30 et seq.). 45
The Path of the Sun and its relation to a great cosmic mountain may be compared to a passage
from the Epic of Gilgamesh which on one level can be “read” as an itinerary of narrativized space.
On the IX tablet Gilgamesh follows the Sun’s Path of the night through the chthonic realm of a
great mountain at the edge of the world that seems to be located to the north. The relevant passage
from Gilgamesh may be paraphrased as follows:

15
 Gilgamesh reaches a mountain that touches on the sky’s foundation and reaches down to the Underworld.
Scorpionmen keep watch at its gate, and they tell him: “It is impossible Gilgamesh […] no one has passed
through the mountain’s inaccessible tract. For 12 double-hours it is darkness throughout- dense is the
darkness, and light there is none.” For 12 double-hours he walks and climbs in total darkness unable to see
anything either ahead or behind. Finally he comes out in front of the sun in a brilliant garden of precious
stones

However, if indeed this passage refers to the northern nagû one would expect a circuit of 6 rather
than 12 double-hours as the latter would describe a full circuit of the Sun completing a 360◦ circle
above and below the earth. The former would describe a semicircular night course of the Sun of
180◦ at the equinoxes. Even at the winter solstice the travelling distance between horizons would
only take 8 double-hours corresponding to the 4 mines of water in the water-clock.

The astronomical text AO 647846 seems to associate the nagû with a group of ziqpu-stars stars that
culminated in sequence when seen from the latitude of Mesopotamia (Horowitz 1998b). A full
circuit of such ziqpu-stars is said to cover 360◦ (12 double-hours) along the Path of Enlil which is
similarly shown as a circle on the circular astrolabes (Horowitz 1994: 96-97). The intervals between
their culminations were used for timing events at night measured on a water-clock as degrees of
arc.47

The presence of the nagû on the Babylonian Map of the World associates the earth’s surface with an
extraterrestrial landscape and its solar and stellar circles from horizon to horizon. In standard
ideology they would move according to the rules established by Marduk at the time of creation.
This changes the configuration of the Babylonian world map into a three-dimensional map with an
inverted bowl and saucer framework.

The nagû are described on the reverse of the tablet. It contains 29 lines and is divided into eleven
sections by horizontal lines. The text is very fragmentary and does not allow for any clear
interpretation. For a discussion of the reverse I refer to Horowitz 1998: 22 et seq. The following
presents an overview:

Reverse:
Section 1
l. 1-4 gives an introduction and presents the first nagû

Section 2-9

16
l. 5-25 describe the second to the eight nagû. They all contain the same 2nd person instruction of the form: “to the n.
nagû where you go, 7 double-hours” (ana n. nagû ašar tallaku 7 bērū…).
The descriptions are limited to one, two, and three lines of text each except from the sixth section that concerns the
fifth nagû (rev. l. 11-18)

Section 10
l. 26-27 was discussed in relation to l. 11 of the obverse above. It seems to be a vivid description of the
incomprehensible span of the world even seen in a bird’s-eye-view

Section 11
l. 28-29 is separated by a double ruling. It contains the colophon which was discussed above in Date and provenance

The description of the fifth nagû was briefly considered in connection with the mathematical
problem it seems to comprise.
It might be worth drawing attention to just one Old Babylonian mathematical tablet to underline
the connection between the Babylonian Map of the World and Babylonian mathematics.
One of the problems on the tablet (i.e. BM 85194 i 37-50) consists of a diagram in the upper left
corner with three concentric circles that represent a village with a surrounding ditch and dike. The
problem involves geometric calculations concerning the base, top, height, and circumference of the
dike given a constant between village and ditch and ditch and dike, the depth and volume of the
ditch, the inclination of the dike as well as the circumference of the village (cf. Kilmer 1964: 144).

17
Conclusion
The Babylonian Map of the World is unique in the history of Babylonian cartography that consists
of architects’ and surveyors’ plans and large scale maps that convey geometric space on a locale
scale. Unlike these plans its representation of spatiality is seen as inaccurate or distorted by
positivist geography; but in terms of critical spatiality it shows a cultural construction of imagined
space. In other words, it serves a different function from the architects’ and surveyors’ plans and
has to be evaluated accordingly.
The Babylonian Map of the World is composed according to the cartographic rule of
ethnocentricity and mythologizes spatiality as the relationship and dominance of the power centre.
In this way it is similar to the mappaemundi of the Christian Middle Ages whose T-O template
presents Jerusalem as the axis mundi. However, whereas everything is at the same scale on the
mappaemundi the Babylonian world map uses different scales in a sophisticated and complex way
to give prominence to Babylon.
Like Delphi, Jerusalem and Rome a symbolic status was assigned to Babylon by cosmological
events, but unlike these places Babylon was not the omphalos of the earth. This place is probably
occupied by Nippur that had a similar role in early mythology and was also called “the bond of
heaven and earth.”
The Babylonian Map of the World is global in the sense that it deals with the entire world known
to the Babylonians. The cosmic ocean was probably based on the Gulf in the south, the Black and
Caspian Seas in the north and the Mediterranean in the west that contained distant lands such as
Bahrain, Oman, Cyprus and Crete.
In cosmology the central continent and the ocean were associated with a reed-raft floating on the
face of waters and monsters were placed within the periphery of Babylon’s domain at the edge of
the world.
The distant regions beyond the ocean represent cosmic mountains that were associated with the
movement of fixed stars and the Sun’s Path from horizon to horizon.
The tablet seems to be an explanatory work with a mathematical exposition of the cosmos.
Unfortunately the tablet is incomplete and lacks context and this makes it impossible to investigate
the particular interests of its composer and its purpose.
If the original composition that the tablet was copied from was to be discovered it would add
significantly to the evidence currently available.

18
Notes:

1. A shorter version of this paper was presented at Freie Universität on Dec. 6 as part of the Berlin-
Copenhagen Seminar “Landscape-Archaeology”.
The particular aspect of landscape with which this study is concerned is mythologized landscape.

2. For a discussion of provenance and date of composition I refer to Horowitz

1998a: 25-26.

3. Peiser 1889: 361.

4. CT 22 48 = Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Part XXII (1906),
ed. E.A.W Budge, Plate 48, Nr. 92687.
It was reviewed by H. Hirsch in ZA 59 (1969): 325 after this volume was reprinted in 1966.

5. Horowitz 1988.

6. Horowitz 1995.

7. Quotation from Muhly 1978: 31.

8. Sargon was mentioned in l. 10 of the obverse together with Nur-Dagan and it would therefore
relate to Sargon’s campaign in Asia Minor.
In 1913 (cf. OLZ (1913), Sp. 109, Anm. 1) he proposed that the first name in obv. l. 10 was to be
read Ut-napištim (this is the reading adopted here although one would expect mUD.ZI instead of
md
UD.ZI). However, this reading did not fit into the supposed connection with the King of Battle
and dUD was read as Šamaš instead. In context this reading presented Šamaš as protector of the
lives (napištim) of Sargon and Nur-Dagan during their campaign in terra nova (i.e. the Taurus) as
expressed in obv. l. 11:”… man-ma ki-rib-ši-na ul i-[di]”.
The first entry in l. 8 of the obv. “[ p]a-gi-tum” was unsatisfying for the same reasons. If the text
concerned a campaign through the Taurus apes was out of the question as they could not have lived
in the Taurus during antiquity.
The occurrence of Marduk on the obverse did not fit his interpretation of the tablet as relating to
the King of Battle. He suggested that the tablet had been revised in the Neo- or Late Babylonian
period in praise of Marduk which would explain the occurrence of his name in a King of Battle
context as an addition to the original tablet.
As it was a copy of an earlier version obv. l. 5: “iz-za-zu-ma ina MU mušruššî rabî” was
reasonably propsed to be a shortened form of an Old Babylonian date formula. Horowitz 1998a
reads: iz-za-zu ba-aš-mu mušhuššu rabû (muš.huš gal).
The first entry in l. 9 of the obv. “ú-ma-mu” (ša ina eli tam-tim gal-la-tim) was interpreted as a
whale living at the upper sea. This fitted the interpretation of the text as describing Sargon’s
campaign along the Mediterranean shore.

9. They were divided into eight parts with a travelling distance of seven double hours each and
calculated as a travelling distance of 337 kilometres in total. It was argued that the mountainous
terrain would have increased the actual travelling time with at least 50-75 kilometres as the distance
between Kayseri and Alexandria is only 250 km as the crow flies. The placement of these regions
along the periphery of the circumfluent ocean was seen as a slip in both the technical abilities of the
composer as well as his understanding of geographical relations to the known world.

10. Unger dealt with the map two years before in the short article Die älteste Weltkarte that
appeared in Atlantis (1929) p. 701.

19
 This article featured the well-known reconstructive drawing by H. Anger based on an astrolabe
from the 17th century CE (cf. ill. 3).
The reconstruction of the Babylonian Cosmos by K. Maasz was published in 1932 in the article
Die Reformation des babylonischen Kosmos, Atlantis (1932) pp. 246 et seq. It was based on
representations of astronomical animals on late second millennium kudurrus and tablets of the
Seleucid period (cf. ill. 4).

11. Weidner correctly read LUGAL DU in obv. l. 10 as the personal name Sargon. Unger
abandoned this interpretation and understood LUGAL as an appellation of Ut-napištim and DU as
the active verb illik (came).
According to Unger’s interpretation obv. l. 10 referred to the two kings Ut-napištim and Nur-
Dagan as some of the few who had ever entered the nagû and come to the gods (cf. Unger 1931:
255 l. 10 with n. 1 on p. 257).
For this reason the last word in obv. l. 11 was read: ul i-[li-ku] (nobody has entered) opposed to
Weidner’s reading: ul i-[di] (nobody knows) (cf. Unger 1931: 255 n. 3).

12. The beings mentioned on the obverse do not constitute the 18 constellations of the Babylonian
zodiac from the period 1000-400 BCE.
Unger employed the following list of animals (cf. ill. 4):
(1) bašmu, (2) MUŠ.HUŠ.GAL, (3) lahamu, (4) şabītu, (5) apsasû, (6) nimru, (7) kisarrikku, (8)
unknown, (9) UR.MAH, (10) UR.BAR.RA, (11) lulīmu, (12) būşu, (13) unknown, (14)
pagītu, (15) DAR, (16) lurmu, (17) šurānu, and (18) harbabillu
(2) He identified the following constellations:
2=Hydra, 9=Leo, 10=Cassiopeia, 11=Andromeda, 15=Capricorn
(3) The following can be identified as zodiacal constellations:
9=Leo, 11=uncertain

2=Hydra is an Enlil-star and it is rather to be identified with (1) than (2) (cf. Wiggermann 1997a:
461-62).
10=Wolf-Star is an Anu-star
15=Capricorn is based on the identification of DAR turāhu (goat) with goat-fish. However, the
goat-fish is the suhurmašû

13. Unger studied the tablet as a source on the Babylonian cosmos and supposed to form a part of a
series of tablets that described the entire universe.
On analogy with the Babylonian cosmos he descriebed the Germanic cosmos and the cosmos
from Teleilat Ghassul on the Dead Sea in terms of his interpretation of the tablet. His comparisons
depended on a Germanic gold disc from Moordorf dated to the latter part of the Scandinavian
Bronze Age and the famous star fresco from Teleilat Ghassul that depict stardiscs similar to that
found on the tablet.
The approach adopted by Unger allowed him to find exact correspondences and close
connections between different cultures (Unger 1937). Needless to say it is highly speculative and
methodologically uncritical.

14. Ingold 1993: 156.

15. Cf. Post 1979 with a collection of over two hundred maps of imaginary landscapes.

16. This area is indicated by parallel lines; a topographical sign in Babylonian cartography that
qualifies a river. It is labelled marratu (bitter sea) four times (cf. the appendix) and one of these
entries is introduced by the íd-determinative; a ligature that designates rivers. This implies that the
circumfluent ocean is to be understood as a circular waterway flowing around the earth.
20
 There seems no reason to follow the suggestion presented by M. Stol that marratu should also
refer to a rainbow around the earth (Stol 1988: 33-34).

17. Babylon was called “the bond of heaven and earth” (dur.an.ki/ markas šamê u erşti); i.e. the axis
mundi. The reason why Babylon was not considered to be the umbilicus of the Babylonian world is
probably because this position was already occupied by Nippur, the holy city of Enlil (cf. Pongratz-
Leisten 2001: 201 with the important point that “the regionalization of religion within the
polytheistic system” of Ancient Meopotamia presents “not one but different cosmologies in
different local shapes”).
The Nippur cosmology is known from the Ur III period and Babylon was subsequently assigned
a similar status as an axis mundi with its rise to supremacy during the reign of Hammurabi. In the
Babylonian Epic of Creation that can probably be dated to this period, Babylon is the scene of
cosmological events and the focus is therefore shifted from Enlil to Marduk, the city-god of
Babylon.

18. Quoted in Flanagan 1996 4:1.

19. Flanagan op. cit.

20. Cf. Millard 1987 for a brief overview of various maps and plans from Ancient Mesopotamia. A
systematic study of the cartographic tradition in Mesopotamian economic, social, and intellectual
history needs to be written.

21. Millard 2000.

22. Cf. Nemet-Nejat 1982: 5-24 for discussion. Her classification elaborates on that by T. Donald in
JSS (1962) p. 61.

23. The known example is a copy of an original which is now lost. For another map with a
commentary on its reverse I refer to BM 35385 (CT 22 49) (cf. Millard 1987 p. 110 with fig. 6.6 on
p. 111).

24. In fact, the word orientation is derived from the East where the sun rises. East was commonly
placed at the top of the map before the northern European convention that privileges the direction to
the North (Turnbull 1993: 8).
Another example of orientation may be presented by the Turin papyrus known as the Ancient
Egyptian Gold Mine Map. It is dated to the reign of King Seti I (1317-1303 BCE) of the 19th
Dynasty and oriented with south at the top (Muhly 1978: 30-31).

25. The Akkadian name of this geometric shape is mû.

26. I refer to Kilmer 1990 for a discussion of the relationship between the standard repertory of
terms used for geometrical constructions and artistic designs.

27. One would expect Bit-Yakin and Habban to be placed to the right. They seem to be placed on
the left due to the particular selection of data for the map and its use of different scales (cf. The
globality of the Babylonian Map of the World). If they were to be represented on the left Babylonia
could not be in the focal centre of the earth’s circle.

28. Cf. Horowitz 1998a: 29 which presents the following possibilities of restoration: [ma]r-ra-[tum]
(sea), [p]u-ra-[tu] (arm), [ha]r-ra-[nu] (road), [qa]-ra-[an tâmti] (horn of the ocean).

21
29. The root dkš is used for a pierced circle and for one geometrical construction inside another.
The concentric circles on the Babylonian Map of the World may be described by the technical term
dikšu (cf. Kilmer 1964 for a discussion of dkš in Old Babylonian geometry texts).

30. Millard 2000.

31. Horowitz 1998a: 27.

32. For a discussion of the legends about Sargon of Akkad I refer to Mieroop 1999: 59 et seq.

33. In his recent study of the Sargon Geography M. Liverani (2001: 81-84) spoke of a traditional
cosmology. It was said to provide a common conceptual structure of the world so rooted in scribal
thought that it framed the Sargon Geography and the Babyloninan Map of the World.
The traditional cosmology was complemented by new geographical information provided by
mathematics and long distance campaigns that was inserted in the old framework with
Mesopotamia as its focal point.
Some of the new geographical information such as Kush and Egypt did not fit the particular
perspective of the traditional ethnocentric framework. The techniques involved in dealing with
these distant places in the Sargon Geography involves othering (i.e. the negative construction of the
enemy by inversion that develops a social entity; cf. Pongratz-Leisten 2001: 195 et seq. for a
discussion of this technique) and allocation at the extreme periphery in a mathematical model of the
world with Nineveh in the focal centre of a round world. The radius to the outer edge might have
been measured during Esarhaddon’s campaign as 120 double-hours along the coast of the Persian
Gulf to Dilmun and along the Mediterranean down to the Nile Valley.
Note that Liverani’s reference on p. 82 “Sargon is mentioned in its reverse” should be to its
obverse.

34. Quotation from Flanagan 1999: 2.

35. Whether it reflects the perspective of the Babylonians or more that of a particular Babylonian
scholar remains an open question (Oppenheim 1981: 638).
As a source on how the ancient Babylonians viewed their world two cautions should be taken:
The first is that of over-generalisation. I do not believe that the ancient Babylonians had a fixed
cosmographic map in their heads of what the world looked like as we do from modern satellite
images of Earth that has completely change our way of seeing it (cf. the discussion of the impact of
the geographic information system in Goodchild 1997). The second is the lack of context that
disallows us to place the tablet within a specific socio-political milieu and investigate its particular
interests.

36. The label on two of the circles as city (uru) might indicate that they were inscribed on the
original but that these names were lost when the copy was made.

37. Quotation from Wiggermann 1997b: 238.

The notion of monstrous beings thought to live at the rim of the world is well-known.
I shall not attempt an overall explanation of this phenomenon here but simply point to its
peripherality. This is a spatial aspect of liminality that represents a negation of the habitual and
familiar ways of the preliminal world (Pongratz-Leisten 1994: 73).
In the following I present a social explanation well-knowing that the answer is as much related to
cognition and the way we frame our world.

38. Cf. n. 33 above.

22
39. The question of whether there originally were seven or eight triangles was first raised by F.E.
Peiser in his publication from 1889. He thought that the reverse mentioned 8 but found that the 5
remnants on the map only left room for 7. This is the number he restored on the copy he published
(Peiser 1989: 366, 368).
Weidner inserted a dividing line after rev. l. 17 that separated the first 24 lines into eight sections
describing one nagû each. He found room for 8 nagû on the map and concluded that there most
originally have been 8 nagû corresponding to the descriptions in the first eight sections of the
reverse (Weidner 1922: 91 with n. 2).
Unger followed Thompson’s omission of a dividing line after rev. l. 17. This let him to reject
Weidner’s proposal to restore 8 nagû. His omission divided the first 24 extant lines on the reverse
into seven sections consecutively describing one nagû each which let them to restore 7 nagû (Unger
1931: 255 n. 4).
H. and J. Lewy followed Unger’s rejection of a dividing line after rev. l. 17. The reverse was
accordingly thought to describe 7 nagû. They argued that a reconstruction on transparent paper
placed over a photograph of the remnant triangles would fit a regular seven pointed star but not a
regular eight pointed star (Lewy 1943: 11 with n. 43, 44 et 45).
Oppenheim noted that the visible traces suggested 7 triangles as a symmetrical arrangement
would be expected if 8 triangles were intended. He followed Weidner’s insertion of a dividing line
after rev. l. 17 and concluded that there were originally 8 nagû on the map in accordance with the
commentary on the reverse (Oppenheim 1981: 638, 655 n. 35).
Horowitz found room for an additional triangle on the copy published by Peiser and inserted the
dividing line proposed by Weidner on the reverse. He therefore suggested that the map originally
held 8 triangles.
However, he argued that the descriptions of the nagû on the reverse and the triangles drawn on
the map might be unrelated. His argument was that the commentary apparently makes the nagû
equidistant from each other but that this is not true for the triangles on the map. He proposed a
compromise by making them equidistant from the inner circle instead (Horowitz 1998: 30).
His reason for this compromise seems to be derived from his suggestion that the obverse was a
later addition composed separately from the map and the reverse. The reverse would then originally
have been written to accompany the map as a commentary on its nagû (Horowitz 1998: 26). The
argument is that the commentary on the obverse uses the word tâmtu whereas the map uses the
latter synonym marratu. However it can also be argued that the scribe who made this tablet based
his composition different sources.
Note that the dividing line inserted after rev. l. 13 in his edition from 1988 was corrected in his
edition from 1998 where it is omitted.

40. AO 6478 is published in Thureau-Dangin 1913: 216-217. Only the lower half of the first line of
the obverse is preserved and the traces are not clear. AO 6478 is a late Uruk copy of K. 9794 that
comes from Assurbanipal’s library (Horowitz 1994: 93 n. 10).
Horowitz 1998b: 50-51 restores “Inscribed with seven regions (nagū), and which are equal,
whose? inside? no one knows, and concerning the sea in between […]” He suggests that this line
“may have been meant to explain that ziqpu-stars rose and set into or beyond the cosmic ocean
amidst nagû according to a model for stellar movement that dates back to the Neo-Assyrian
fragment K. 9794” (Horowitz 1998b: 51).
The ziqpu-stars would set six months after rising below the earth’s surface. Here they remained
for the following six months of the year (Horowitz 1998a: 188).

41. The akkadian name is bēru. It is used as:

(a) measure of length (1 bēru = 10.8 km)
(b) measure of time (1 bēru = 1/12 of a day; i.e. two hours)
(c) measure of degrees (1 bēru = 1/12 of a circle; i.e. 30◦)

23
42. A study of this genre is presented in Livingstone (1986).

43. H. and J. Lewy assumed that the nagû constituted a great range of seven mountains along the
rim of the encircling ocean (Lewy 1943: 13). On analogy with a passage from Gilgamesh IX (see
below) they went on to suggest a cosmological picture of the nagû as a ring around the earth where
heaven and underworld meet. The underworld was thought to be reached by crossing the ocean and
entering its seven entrances one after the other placed inside the seven mountains in a downwards
winding spiral (Lewy 1943: 15 with n. 59).

44. It might be identified with the nagû described in the fifth section of the reverse (cf. the
discussion of this section in Horowitz 1998: 38 with n. 29).

45. The Path of the Sun moves from the Path of Enlil in the north to the Path of Ea in the south and
back completing a circuit of 12 double-hours (i.e. 360◦). Likewise, the daily circuit between sunrises
was described as a 360◦ arc (Horowitz 1998a: 190-91).
This might explain why the northern nagû is labelled “Great Wall, 6 double-hours in between,
where Šamaš is not seen” if indeed the 6 double-hours correspond to the 180◦ of arc that the Sun
completed below the earth’s surface at the equinoxes.

46. Cf. n. 40 above.

47. 1 mine in a water-clock = 60◦ along a circle in the sky = 2 double-hours. For a discussion of the
water-clock I refer to Hunger 2001.

24
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