M. L.
Glikman, Israel
This
article can be considered as sort of “side notes”. The material for the article was collected in
the course of my search for the shoham stone.
The time inevitably erases from human memory
both the good and the bad. Thus, the mineral
that was widely used in ancient economy as well as in glyptics in Mesopotamia,
Harappa and Egypt had lost its original name or maybe it had disappeared in
other languages. We are talking about steatite. Many museums around the world put on display
artifacts made of steatite: scarabs, both enameled and not enameled, pots,
rectangular and round stamps depicting exotic animals and un-deciphered
scripts, the well-known bust of Mohenjo-daro priest and other artifacts. Even today steatite has not lost its artistic
and commercial value.
“Steatite is a microcrystalline variety of talc
(and this ancient name probably comes from the Arabic word talq). The name is derived from the Greek words stear
and steatos meaning “fat” or “greasy”, because the surface of the stone
seems greasy to the touch.” (N. Sobchak, T. Sobchack , The Encyclopedia of
Minerals and Precious Stones, 2002, pp. 354, 364).
Pliny wrote that there are stones that had
received their names from different body parts, thus, “steatitis singulorum
animalium adipe numerosa" (Naturalis Historiae, 37,186), i.e.
from the animal fat.
The name of the stone has many synonyms:
soapstone, Speckstein (fat-stone in German), pot-stone, wax-stone (which
relates to the word “stearin”). In
Finland it is called tulikivi, which means “fiery, furnace stone”.
How was steatite called in ancient
Mesopotamia? We could not find a
definite answer in the available literature.
Thus, in CAD A/1 337-338 it says "algameshu- steatite or any soft stone ". R.C.Thompson in DACG 167-169 calls it
amethyst. There is a similar sounding
word in Hebrew אלגביש-elgabish - meaning crystal, hailstone, meteorite. In
ancient Egypt the word irkbs also meant crystal.
A.Schuster –Brandis (2008), believes that
the dushu stone – a light green stone – is steatite. Many authors disagree with her including P. Steinkeller (1982) NA4 who believes duh-shi(-a) to
be topaz or agate, according to him, steatite is the marhushu
stone.
Following Thor Heyerdahl (see The Tigris
Expedition, M. 1981) into the Meluhha country in the Indus Valley (modern day
Pakistan) we have looked into some aspects of the history of the Sultanate of
Oman.
After the archeological excavations carried
out in this country, no one really doubts that the modern Oman is Makkan (often
spelled Magan) – the ancient trading partner of Sumer (see G. Bibby. Looking for
Dilmun, N.Y.,1968). All the papers
written before the results of the Mohenjo-daro excavations were published are
based on the notes by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, the son of the king
Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) about the country of Magan (Ma-gan-nu) being in
Egypt or to the South of Egypt ( W. F. Albricht
,1921; E. A. Wallis Budge, The History of
Esarhaddon, 2001). It is a historical irony
caused by the limitations of human memory.
At the time of the above-mentioned Assyrian king’ rule, it had been more
than a thousand years since the goods from Magan and Meluhha stopped coming,
and the names of the countries remained only in records. Here is another example of the echoes of
history: there is a Yiddish expression unsere meluhe meaning “our
country”.
The Mesopotamian texts from the times of Sargon
of Akkad, the texts written by Gudea the ruler of Lagash, the Enki and Ninhursag
epic and other texts describe the goods coming from Magan. They included copper supplies and, as has been
established by the modern chemical analysis, this copper had low content of
nickel, diorite (NA4 esi/usu), U-stone and shuman- stone (P. Attinger, 1984; W. Heimpel, Magan, Reallexikon
der Assyrologie, B.7,S.195-199; D. T. Potts,
1993; Нimanshu Prabha
Ray,2003).
The modern analysis of ancient statues that
were previously recorded as made of diorite shows that gabbro was also used as part
of the material (P. Yule, I. Guba, 2001).
What kind of minerals are hiding behind
the names of U-stone and shuman-stone?
In the Assyrian Dictionary published by the
University of Chicago (СAD,1992, vol. Sh 3, p. 272) we find shumenu - "a stone",
while in Akkadisches Handworterbuch
(1981, vol. 3, p. 1272) the stone is called slightly differently –shumi/enu,
which is translated as ein Stein- "a stone". In the list of all the known stones in Deutsch-Akkadisches Wortebuch ( T. R .Kammerer, D. Schwiderski, 1998,
p. 360) we found the word shuminu
without any additional explanations.
D.T. Potts (1993) reckons NA4 shu-man/mi
among "the soft stones" ( NA4
is a directory of stones in Sumerian-Akkadian texts), while NA4 al-ga-mish
and NA4 bur-shu-sal -accadic belong to the same group. According to him, all these stones can be
identified as steatite, or chlorite, or serpentine. The author comes to the conclusion that it is
impossible to clearly indicate which specific mineralogical values correspond
to Sumerian-Akkadian names in the cuneal texts analyzed by him.
Both Arabic and Hebrew belong to the Semitic languages. One of the words for “fat” in Arabic is samin
(F. Steingass, The English-Arabic Dictionary, 1993, p.139). The Hebrew word for “fat” is שומן –shuman. Also in Akkadian
the “fat” is shamnu, shaman.
Comparing these words with shuman, shumin brings us to the
fat-stone. It turns out the term “fat” connects the
Akkadian and the Greek languages.
Steatite clearly has its place in the literature on mineralogy but the
origin of its name is forgotten.
A small detail, the Oman steatite is a
reality, as steatite is stated on the list of the natural resources of the
Sultanate.
Concerning U-stone, there is a
speculation that it is malachite. It is
synonymous with shammu-stone, which means “green”. It was often given as a tribute and was used
for medical purposes (CAD SH/1 320-321). Here is an analogy: the ancient Egyptians
used malachite and called it “green” – wзd, wзdwзdt, and another name
shsmt (the letter t in the end of the word indicates the feminine
gender) (J. R. Harris, 1961). The
speculation requires additional proof.
However, it is a fact that the Sumerian-Akkadian name for malachite has
not been found yet. Perhaps it is some other cupriferous mineral. The ancient Magan used to export the copper.
The conclusion: NA4 shuman /in is
steatite.
