AHMM, July/August 2012

by Dell Magazine Authors

“Don't worry, you'll get paid. He asked specifically for you. He remembers your discretion in that delicate matter involving the letter to the lugal of Larsa, when he demoted him to ensi—a mere governor. He said, ‘get me that public scribe who sits in the courtyard of the moon god. He is a scribe whose hand moves in accordance with one's mouth.'”

  “Too delicate a matter to risk temple gossip, is it? So you don't know what it's about?”

  That stung. He saw Lu-innana's jaw tighten.

  “It's a poem,” Lu-innana blurted before he could stop himself, and immediately closed his mouth.

  “A poem?” Nabu-zir said incredulously.

  “And why not? Everyone knows that the great Shulgi is a patron of the arts, as well as a protector of the poor, a builder of public works, the lawgiver who carried on the work of his father, Ur-nammu,and the brilliant general who drove the Akkadians from power and restored Ur to its former glory.”

  “As well as being a half god,” Nabu-zir said dryly.

  “Be careful, Nabu-zir. You'll get yourself in trouble again.”

  “Oh? Do you plan to report me to the chief inspector for disrespect, Lu-innana? He's too busy counting his silver. And so are you, aren't you? Have you yet handed over a third of your bribe from me and the other scribes?”

  Lu-innana ignored that and said piously, “His divinity was proclaimed at his birth by his father, the great Ur-nammu.”

  “We all know the story. I've transcribed enough copies of the official proclamation myself. Ur-nammu fathered him in a dalliance with the moon goddess herself, and so Shulgi is half divine, a god. I've also made many copies of the story of how Ur-nammu was found as a baby drifting down the Euphrates in a reed basket. The populace loves that one. But as we know very well, Ur-Nammu ascended the throne by deposing King Utuhegal, who had foolishly entrusted him with the governorship of Ur. And Shulgi walked into the job through his father's preference for him over his brothers. His very name—'strong young man'—reflects his father's affection for him. A good thing for Ur that he turned out to be a brilliant general like his father, else we'd be under the thumb of some barbarian chieftain of one of the border tribes.”

  “We're wasting time. The divine Shulgi has the impatience of all the other gods.”

  Nabu-zir gave a grunt of resignation. He got to his feet and gathered a small kit together: a bundle of spare reeds, his whittling knives, and a wooden scraping knife. The tub of wet clay was still half full. “Here, you can help me carry the tub,” he said.

  “What, am I a porter?” Lu-innana said. “We can borrow a tub of clay from the scriptorium.”

  * * * *

  It was a long walk from Nabu-zir's modest house in the crowded waterfront district to the vast ziggurat enclosure in the city's heart. But the oppressive heat of day was beginning to give way to the cool of evening. The sun god, Utu-shamash, was perched on the horizon, about to descend to the underworld for his nightly journey, and though there was still daylight, the shopkeepers along the banks of the inner canal were already beginning to light torches in front of their mud brick hovels in hopes of squeezing another hour's worth of business out of the day.

  The towering ziggurat could be seen from anywhere in Ur—could be seen from miles across the flood plain between the rivers in fact, and as Nabu-zir and Lu-innana grew nearer, the close-packed dwellings began to give way to more substantial houses of burnt brick, with high walls and forbidding gates.

  Puffing alongside Nabu-zir, Lu-innana stopped to catch his breath and mop his brow. “You walk too fast, Nabu-zir,” he complained. “How do you keep up such a pace when you're skinny as a starving donkey?”

  “Take heart, Lu-innana, we're halfway there. There's the Great Music Hall just ahead at the corner. I see they're just letting out. A little late for them.”

  “Impious rowdies! Nothing but songs with double meanings and monkey jokes! They're taking advantage of the crowd's excitement in the days leading up to the New Year rites.”

  “Relax, Lu-innana. Even the gods like to laugh.”

  The streets were getting wide enough to accommodate donkey carts, but not wide enough for one cart to pass another. Pedestrians squeezed by as best they could. A crowd of noisy schoolchildren, just getting out of one of the tablet houses after a long day of being bullied by their teachers, darted in and out of the traffic, earning shouted reprimands from passersby.

  Farther on, a scruffy storyteller reciting the familiar tale of Gilgamesh was flattened against a wall where a recessed doorway provided a little space for his listeners and allowed people to get by. Nabu-zir and Lu-innana were briefly impeded by a crowd of customers at an open-air eating shop offering a quick meal of onions, cucumbers, and fried fish, but with a little apologetic jostling they were able to break through the jam.

  As they drew closer to the ziggurat precincts with its public buildings, Nabu-zir could hear a jingle of armor and the sound of marching feet. They broke through the maze of houses and found themselves in a paved plaza where a phalanx of marching spearmen was being drilled by one of Shulgi's young officers. They were all equipped with identical copper-tipped spears, leather helmets, and sturdy boots, supplied at the king's expense.

  “On their way to the frontier to hold back the Martu or the Elamites, no doubt,” Lu-innana said with approval. “Now that the divine Shulgi has organized the citizenry, Sumer will never be under foreign sway again. Why do you not join, Nabu-zir, and demonstrate your patriotism?”

  “I'll leave that to the younger bloods who are eager to show their mettle,” Nabu-zir said. “The militia won't want me. As you pointed out, I'm too old and skinny.”

  They crossed the plaza, dodging the tightly closed ranks of the marching men, who didn't seem at all inclined to slow down for them, and found themselves at the outer gates of the ziggurat enclosure. Then they had to thread their way through a steady traffic of supplicants bringing their New Year offerings to Nana-sin—sturdy farmers shouldering sacks of grain or well-to-do citizens leading overburdened donkeys with more substantial offerings.

  The temple grounds were a city in itself, with palaces for the higher officials, humbler quarters for the slaves who worked in the temple's factories, and storehouses and shrines for the various gods. Looming directly ahead was the great ziggurat, with its ramps and stepped terraces, built high enough to meet the gods halfway. At the top was the shrine to Nana-sin, the moon god himself, where Shulgi, as the incarnation of the fertility god Dumuzi, would consummate his annual marriage to the goddess Innana in the person of the high priestess, and so insure Ur's safety and prosperity for the coming year.

  “We'll stop at the scriptorium first,” Lu-innana said.

  The temple scribes were working late at this season, and would work later still. The long room was smoky from the torches, bundles of oil-soaked reeds, that had already been lit. Several of the scribes, red-eyed from their labors, looked up from their work and called out greetings to Nabu-zir, no doubt wondering what had brought him here.

  The head scribe, a fussy little man with a bald head and an overfancy flounced skirt, hurried over to greet them. He gave Nabu-zir a wary look, and addressed himself to Lu-innana.

  “What service can I do, agrig?” he said, using the formal title that acknowledged Lu-innana's status as an overseer of scribes.

  “Oh, nothing to worry you, Iddin-sin. We just need to borrow a tub of clay.”

  “Certainly, certainly.” The little man turned his head and called, “Nana-palil, come over here a minute.”

  One of the scribes got up and approached at a reluctant saunter that was almost insolent in its slowness. He was dressed more elaborately than the other scribes, who mostly wore a simple skirt that left the torso bare. This one outdid his supervisor, in a tufted wool skirt with many overlaying petals and a length that draped over one shoulder to cover his chest, like a garment that a woman—at least a free woman—might wear.

  “The agrig and the estimable Nabu-zir need a tub of clay,” the superv
isor said. “Yours is still almost full. You can share a tub with Ishmi. He's lagging behind too, so there should be enough clay to last till it's time to quench the torches.”

  Nana-palil shot his supervisor a look of pure fury, but said nothing. Nabu-zir suddenly realized that this must be the royal scribe he had been brought here to replace, and that the man bitterly resented being temporarily assigned to the scriptorium to work with scribes of inferior rank.

  He also surmised that Iddin-sin was goading the young man on purpose, in hopes of prompting some outburst that would provide a hint as to what Nabu-zir's confidential assignment for the king might be.

  But Nana-palil either didn't know anything or he wasn't talking. He stood in sullen silence, making no move to obey.

  Nabu-zir didn't want to humiliate the man further. He didn't need an enemy.

  He glanced at Lu-innana, who immediately took his meaning and called out to the scriptorium's hulking porter, “Here, fellow, don't just stand there like a lump. Go fetch the tub and come with us.” He gave the head scribe a curt nod and said, “Thank you for your assistance, Iddin-sin. I shall tell the king that you and Nana-palil have given all due cooperation.”

  He nudged Nabu-zir and said, “Come, we mustn't keep his divinity waiting.” They headed for the doorway, the porter lumbering along behind them with the tub of clay.

  Before they could exit, their way was blocked by an arriving party, four or five men attending a magnificently robed personage with a gold headband and armlets, who Nabu-zir recognized as the high priest, Enannatum-sin. The sanga, the temple administrator, was with him, as well as the nu-banda, the chief inspector, accompanied as usual by a couple of his thugs.

  Lu-innana stepped deferentially aside, tugging Nabu-zir along with him. But the high priest didn't sweep by with his attendants as expected. Instead, he fixed Lu-innana with a cold eye and said, “I was told that you had arrived with your pet scribe, Lu-inanna. When you didn't show up at the king's chambers in the House of the Mountain, I thought I might find you here.”

  Lu-inanna started to reply, but the high priest cut him off and turned to Nabu-zir. “You, fellow, Nabu-zir, you're that pesky scribe who keeps writing petitions to the lugal on behalf of insolent farmers who have a quarrel with the temple's tax collectors. What mischief are you up to now?”

  “No mischief, supreme Sanga-mahhu,” Nabu-zir said carefully. “I am here at the king's request.”

  An alarm buzzed in his head like a swarm of bees. Why had the high priest bothered to find out his name? And why had he been watching for his arrival?

  The how was another matter. The nu-banda had spies everywhere. It was not a good thing to attract his attention.

  As if to reinforce that thought, the nu-banda scowled at him. Nabu-zir tried not to let that unsettle him. The nu-banda, he told himself, was only trying to toady to his chief.

  “And what does the Shulgi want you to do?” the high priest demanded.

  “To write a tablet,” Nabu-zir said, risking insolence.

  “A tablet about what?” the high priest fired back.

  “That I do not know.”

  The high priest turned back to Lu-inanna in a cold fury. “The king already has a personal scribe not in the employ of the temple,” he said. “What is so secret that he has to bring in a scribe from the marketplace, a common dub-sar, to write a tablet for him?”

  “I swear I don't know, Sanga-mahhu,” Lu-inanna said in a trembling voice. “He told me nothing. Said only to hold my tongue. Some affair of state, I presume.”

  It was brave of Lu-inanna to hold back the fact that it was about a poem, Nabu-zir thought. The high priest was a dangerous man to cross. But it would have been even more dangerous to violate the confidences of a king. He began to wonder what he had gotten himself into.

  The high priest glared, but Nabu-zir could see that he was struggling with some of the same thoughts.

  “When a king orders silence, it is not for a mere temple administrator like you to breech his confidences,” Enannatum-sin said grudgingly. “But I warn you, Lu-inanna, you are beholden to the temple, and if the king is cooking up another one of his plaguey decrees to usurp the powers of the priesthood, you will not escape your share of responsibility.”

  Nabu-zir understood now. It was all about power and money. It had started with Shulgi's father, Ur-nammu, and now the temple establishment, grown rich and corrupt over the years, was locked in a struggle with a reformist priest-king who had taken control of the reins.

  The high priest whirled on him. “And that goes for you, dub-sar! Do not meddle in affairs that are above you!”

  “I am only here as the king's hand, to write a tablet so that the king's voice may be preserved on clay. The words are the king's.”

  The high priest treated him to a final scowl, and stormed out of the scriptorium with the nu-banda and the rest of his entourage.

  Lu-inanna gave Nabu-zir a sickly smile, but did not dare to speak. After waiting long enough to give the priestly retinue a safe head start, they set out for the king's residence in the House of the Mountain.

  * * * *

  Shulgi's palace was located just past a small temple dedicated to Ea, the sky god, who had appointed the moon god the guardian of Ur, across an expanse of brick pavement that bore Shulgi's name on every brick. It seemed unguarded, but when they passed through the gate to the outer courtyard, they found themselves in a narrow passageway where guards armed with bronze axes stood at intervals in shallow niches. Shulgi had learned his lessons well from Ur's many conquerors and usurpers. A party of armed men could not storm the palace, but would have to pass between two walls, where the hidden axemen could dispatch them one or two at a time.

  The plan was repeated at the inner court. An axeman at one of the turns recognized Nabu-zir as they passed, and called out, “Nabu-zir, do you know me? I am Padu, son of Idi-narum. You wrote my marriage contract and spoke to the girl's father when I was too heavy of mouth to do it myself.”

  Lu-inanna hurried Nabu-zir past. Nabu-zir grinned maliciously at him and said, “So much for your secrecy, Lu-inanna. It will be all over the place by morning.”

  Once inside, they passed through a public room with a raised throne that was currently unoccupied. This was where Shulgi conducted his official business. Emphasizing his priestly role was a frieze showing Shulgi pouring a libation for a seated moon god, and a model of the crescent-shaped ship in which the moon god crossed the heavens.

  Beyond the public rooms was a domestic area with many smaller rooms spaced along a winding passage that constituted a second line of defense. It was awkward going for Nabu-zir, who was toting the tub of clay by himself now. Servants bustled back and forth on their various errands, squeezing past them with their trays or utensils. The aroma of a roasting sheep came from a kitchen somewhere.

  “He has a workroom down at the end,” Lu-inanna informed him.

  They found Shulgi in a small, unpretentious chamber at the end, scratching out what looked like some sort of architectural plan on a flattened sheet of wet clay. Nabu-zir could see incised marks in the margins that were probably measurements or instructions for the builders.

  Shulgi saw him looking, and laughed. “Yes, Nabu-zir, I can read and write, though not with anything like your finesse. My father sent me to scribe school when I was a boy, like any son of a merchant, so that I would be able to deal with practical matters directly and without delay, and not always have to rely on scribes like yourself.”

  Nabu-zir set down the cumbersome tub with a grunt of relief. Emboldened by the king's matter-of-fact manner, he said, “If I'd known you had a tub of wet clay waiting for me, great lugal, I wouldn't have lugged this one all the way across town.”

  Lu-innana looked shocked, but Shulgi only laughed again. He said pointedly, “Thank you for doing this little errand for me, Lu-inanna. I will not require your further presence.”

  Lu-inanna backed out awkwardly, attempting a half bow at the same time. Shulgi a
ppeared to have forgotten him before he was halfway to the door.

  He turned to Nabu-zir. “Then you must be hot and thirsty, Nabu-zir. Let us drink beer together and enjoy a happy liver before we begin.”

  He gestured toward the clay vat he had been drinking from while he worked. There were no gold straws, like the ones that Nabu-zir's richer clients liked to impress people with. The king drew a couple of ordinary marsh reeds from the bundle he had been using to write with and handed one over to Nabu-zir. Together they bent the reeds for drinking and leaned companionably over the vat of beer, their heads almost bumping. Nabu-zir poked his straw through the scum of barley husks and other brewing debris floating on top, and tried to act as though he shared a beer with a king every day.

  When he was slaked, Nabu-zir leaned back and took the opportunity to study Shulgi covertly. The king hadn't changed much since the last time he had seen him up close. In the nineteenth year of his reign, the year that had already been given the name “the year the citizens of Ur were organized as spearmen,” Shulgi still retained the look and the force of his youth. He had taken nine wives so far, though his father had contented himself with one wife and given her the title nin-bada—great lady.

  “Shall we get to work, Nabu-zir?” Shulgi said.

  Nabu-zir dutifully scooped up a handful of wet clay and patted and smoothed it into the shape of a small tablet to fit his palm. He chose the sharpest reed from the kit he had brought with him, so that the marks he incised would be clean and elegant, as befitted a king; he had never forgotten his first childhood lessons at scribe school, when he had defaced hundreds of practice tablets and endured dozens of beatings before he had been allowed to impress actual characters made from the individual wedge-shaped marks.

  Shulgi cleared his throat and said, “It's a love song, so you must choose words carefully so that they will not sound graceless if they are spoken in Akkadian.”

  Nabu-zir nodded. In the years when the Akkadian overlords had ruled Ur, they had adopted Sumerian wedge-writing and had otherwise been civilized by their subjects. The same wedge-writing in words with the same meaning could be read either way, but would sound different depending on which language was used.