example, the bushy tree in the vase libation scene depicted in Fragment ST. 4 , the top
register of a Gudea stele (Suter 2000 : 195 ), with the different tree representing the
alternative goddess.
The interpretation of the palm libation scene as the mundane reality of the Sacred
Marriage would account for the silence in the texts as to how the ritual was staged and
who played Inanna. Nothing needed to be explained to the Mesopotamian audience
because the procedure was familiar to everyone. The case of the Sacred Marriage
demonstrates how art and archaeology can contribute to the interpretation of texts. For
example, whereas texts are inconclusive about earlier eras, images confirm that the
Sacred Marriage ritual antedates the Ur III dynasty. The ceremony is featured on stelae
of Gudea (Suter 2000 : 167 – 168 , 195 – 196 ). It also appears on the Disk of Enheduanna
from the Ur Gipar (Winter 1987 b) and on various Early Dynastic plaques and seals.
The ED III plaque from the Ur Gipar (Figure 11. 2 ) (Aruz and Wallenfels 2003 : 74 )
provides the most detailed early depiction. The libation in the top register of the Ur
plaque is performed inside the temple by a naked male figure. A similar ceremony in
the lower register is performed outside.
The visual evidence allows us to see how the ceremony changed over time. As
depicted on the Ur Plaque, the early ceremony employed real palm branches and dates
splayed in biconical vases. In contrast to earlier and later Sumerian practice, palm
vegetation is largely missing in images from the Akkadian period (Orthmann 1975 :
135 H; Winter 1986 : pl. 62 ; cf. the Disk of Enheduanna), perhaps reflecting a new
linguistic environment that severed the semantic connection between palm and
goddess. The lack of fruiting palms in the north similarly accounts for their exclusion
or for the substitution of artificial trees outside the Sumerian heartland. The stylized
palm introduced in the archaizing Neo-Sumerian period, a visual pun alluding to
Inanna’s gender variance, honored tradition but refreshed the traditional association
between palm and goddess. Seals and statues depicting Ur III kings clasping the
biconical vase, indicative of greater parity between ruler and goddess, represent another
innovation (Zettler 1989 ). The Sacred Marriage is poorly attested in the textual record
after the Ur III period, but the material evidence indicates that the archaic type ritual
continued to be performed in the Old Babylonian period and even later in the
periphery (al-Jadir and Werr 1994 : 178 , figs., 1 , 9 ; cf. a palm vase with snakes on an Iron
I seal from the Levant, Keel 1998 : 39 , fig. 63 ). Although we have a missing link at
present between the palm vases of the second millennium and the palm-grove object
known as the Assyrian Sacred Tree (the latter plausibly reformulated in an imperial
setting to represent the entire pantheon, supporting the interpretation of Parpola 1993 ),
the prominent image of Assyrian monarchs watering a mysterious artificial tree
provides strong grounds to suspect a Sumerian prototype.
Palm libation images also tend toward less explicit sexuality (Danmanville 1955 ). In
contrast to the allusive Neo-Sumerian ritual performed by a fully clothed ruler, the ED
rite mimics sexual intercourse with ritual nakedness and ithyphallic pouring spouts.
It has seemed obvious that only a man could become the spouse of the goddess;
however, no physical impediment prevented a female ruler or a minor from performing
a symbolic ceremony. The visual evidence indicates that female rulers did perform this
function, although the female libators were allowed loincloths (Van Buren 1948 : 108 ;
Aruz and Wallenfels 2003 : 122 , fig. 137 ). A similar concession to modesty is evident in
the ED tombs of Ur, where, in contrast to the male standard, female monarchs
–– Kathleen McCaffrey ––