132 i Flora Unveiled
- Sefati, Y. (1998). Love Songs in Sumerian Literature: Critical Edition of the Dumuzi-
Inanna Songs. Bar- Ilan University Press. - Iddin- Dagan (1974– 1954 bce) was the third king of the first dynasty of Isin, a city in
southern Mesopotamia near Uruk. Although the only surviving tablets containing the hymn
date to the eighteenth century bce, the hymn was probably composed during Iddin- Dagan’s
reign. See Jones, Philip (2003), Embracing Inana: Legitimation and mediation in the ancient
Mesopotamian sacred marriage hymn Iddin- Dagan. Journal of the American Oriental Society
123:291– 302. - Either of two species of gray- green needlegrasses (Stipa tenacissima and Lygeum spartum),
or the fiber derived from them. - Identifies the king with the shepherd Dumuzi, Inanna’s lover.
- Translated by Black, J. A., Cunningham, G., Ebeling, J., Flückiger- Hawker, E., Robson,
E., Taylor, J., and Zólyomi, G., The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http:// etcsl.
orinst.ox.ac.uk/ ), Oxford 1998– 2005. - Postgate, J. N. (1987), Notes on fruit in the cuneiform sources. Bulletin on Sumerian
Agriculture 3:115– 144. - Today, there are about 22 million date palm trees in Iraq producing about 600,000
tons of dates annually (Morton 1987). The date- growing region occurs in the lowland plains
between 30° and 34° latitude. Starting at the Persian Gulf, dates are grown all along the Shatt-
al- Arab River, including Basra. Beyond the Shatt- al- Arab, date- growing occurs throughout
the region between the Tigris and Euphrates as far north as Baghdad and also occurs along
the banks of the Euphrates river all the way to the Syrian border. Wheat and barley can also
be grown in most of the date- growing areas, except the southernmost region near the Gulf.
Wheat and barley are the main crops in the northern part of the country up to the Zagros
Mountains. - The common names for the various types of pistachio trees are somewhat confusing.
Sumeriologists usually refer to Pistacia atlantica as “terebinth,” although this name more
logically should be applied to the closely related Pistacia terebinthus, which goes by the com-
mon name of “turpentine tree.” The common name for Pistacia atlantica is “Mt. Atlas mas-
tic tree,” to distinguish it from Pistacia lentiscus, the “mastic tree, “ whose resin is used for
chewing gum. - Although wild grapes were originally dioecious, the cultivated variety was hermaphroditic.
- The rachis/ rachillae complex of dates is often erroneously referred to as a “spadix” in
the archeological literature. A spadix is an inflorescence borne on a single thick, fleshy spike,
whereas the date rachis and rachillae are woody and branching. - V. Scheil (1913), De l’exploitation des dattiers dans l’ancienne Banylonie. Revue
d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale 10:1– 9. - Pruessner, A. H. (1920), Date culture in ancient Babylonia. American Journal of Semitic
Languages and Literatures 36:213– 232. - Harper, R. E. (1904), Code of Hammurabi King of Babylon About 2250 b.c. University of
Chicago Press. - Rav and Rashi say grafting was necessary because the “female” trees would otherwise be
barren. Mishna (Pessachim, 4, 8).
31. Ibid.