Balag

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Standing male worshiper, Early Dynastic I-II ca. 2900–2600 BCE, Mesopotamia. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Balag
Cultural originsSumer
FormatsHymns
AuthorsPriests
This article is about the Sumerian literature genre. For the Polish city, see Bałąg.

In Mesopotamia, a balag (or balaĝ) refers both to a Sumerian religious literary genre and also to a closely associated musical instrument. In Mesopotamian religion, Balag prayers were sung by a Gala priest as ritual acts were performed around the instrument. Sometimes the instrument itself was regarded as a minor deity,[1][2] and every balag had a proper name.[3] Despite the importance of the instrument in the rituals, its identity is disputed,[4] but is generally thought to be either a drum or a string instrument such as a lyre. The purpose of the ritual involving this prayer and instrument was to soothe the local deity with pleasings sounds,[5] while lamenting what may happen to the city should the god decide to abandon it.[6] Balags were used from the Old Babylonian period to the Seleucid Empire.[7]

Characteristics

As a literary genre, the balag was written in the cuneiform script and sung by the Gala priest in a dialect of Sumerian called Emesal (𒅴𒊩 eme-sal).[8][9] Each balag is composed for a particular god.[7]

The precursor to the balag was the City Lament, a type of prayer that was recited when temples were destroyed and rebuilt.[7] The balag instrument was known to accompany the city lament.[7] Over time, as city laments became associated with scribal schools, the balag was adapted for many different ritual uses.[7] As the city lament became more distant from ritual activity, the balag emerged as a distinct literary genre.[7]

Despite its importance in the rituals, the balag instrument's exact nature is debated.[4][10] Some scholars regard it as a drum, others a stringed instrument such as a lyre. Others have claimed it is both of these at once, and another theory suggests the word balag started out referring to a lyre, but over the period of several millennia, it came to mean a drum.[11] There were earlier suggestions that it was a bell.[12]

Every balag had a proper name.[3] For example, the names of two balags commissioned by Gudea included ‘Great Dragon of the Land' and 'Lady as Exalted as Heaven'.[13]

The word was loaned into Syriac as p(ə)laggā (Syriac: ܦܠܓܐ), referring to a type of drum.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Bowen 2020, p. 70.
  2. ^ Sachs 2012, Chapter 3, section on drums, paragraph 18.
  3. ^ a b Sachs 2012, Chapter 3, section on drums, paragraph 11.
  4. ^ a b Gabbay 2014, §1.
  5. ^ Gabbay 2014, §11.
  6. ^ Bowen 2020, p. 70-72.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Sperling 1980, p. 371.
  8. ^ Bowen 2020, p. 68.
  9. ^ Sperling 1980, p. 372.
  10. ^ Gabbay 2018, §2 pp. 2.
  11. ^ Gabbay 2014, §8.
  12. ^ Sayce 1924, p. 106.
  13. ^ Kilmer 2001, Section 2, pp. 1-2.

Sources

  • Bowen, Joshua (2020). Learning to Pray in a Dead Language: Education and Invocation in Ancient Sumerian. Digital Hammurabi Press. ISBN 978-1-7343586-6-7.
  • Cooper, Jerrold S. (2006). "Genre, Gender, and the Sumerian Lamentation". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 58: 39–47.
  • Gabbay, Uri (2014). "The Balaĝ Instrument and its Role in the Cult of Ancient Mesopotamia" (PDF). Yuval. 8. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
  • Gabbay, Uri (2018). "Drums, Hearts, Bulls, and Dead Gods: The Theology of the Ancient Mesopotamian Kettledrum". Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions. 18. Brill.
  • Kilmer, Anne (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. p. §8 Mesopotamia.
  • Sachs, Curt (2012). The History of Musical Instruments. Dover Publications.
  • Sayce, A. H. (1924). "Hittite katral, Sumerian balag". Archiv für Keilschriftforschung. 2: 106.
  • Sperling, S. David (1980). "Reviewed Work(s): Balag-Compositions: Sumerian Lamentation Liturgies of the Second and First Millennium B. C. by Mark E. Cohen". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 100: 371–372.

Further reading

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