MAKKAN – MAGAN, OMAN AND THE STEATITE STONE.

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.