which reference the snakes as sometimes male and sometimes female, are attested in
the Neo-Sumerian era at Ur but only in texts associated with the akitu-festival
(McEwan 1983 : 225 ).
Seal impressions of ophidian snakes have been found in early levels at Uruk (Van
Buren 1935 : 53 ; Boehmer 1999 : pl. 41 ), and images of paired fluvial snakes, entwined
or woven into a twist, abound on the biconical vases of the Early Dynastic era (from
Nippur, Khafajah, Uruk, Mari, and Tepe Yahya; see Aruz and Wallenfels 2003 : 326 – 328 ,
334 – 338 , 343 ). Snake depictions fade after the Early Dynastic period, but the theme of
flowing dual streams continues into the second millennium in the heavenly vases
depicted on the Stele of Ur-Namma and the investiture scene at Mari. Water imagery
with provincial innovation is also prominent in art from the Sumerian periphery; for
example, a mid-third millennium seal from Mari depicts two tree-like goddesses on
either side of a seated cult image, each standing on a stream that issues from or into a
snake’s mouth (Aruz and Wallenfels 2003 : 220 – 221 , fig. 151 ). Seals from Tell Brak and
Kish depict the pedestal vase with streams or with paired snakes on either side (de
Genouillac 1924 : 24 , fig. 15 ; Van Buren 1949 : 60 – 61 ).
The natural environment explains the Sumerian monarchs’ preoccupation with
water. In Sumer and along the Middle Euphrates, river and rainfall levels were at their
lowest at the time of sowing in the autumn, while the rivers swelled perilously during
the spring harvest (Hrusˇka 2007 : 56 – 57 ; Mori 2007 : 42 ). Such an environment
presented its inhabitants with a pressing need to control the water supply. As indicated
by the paired heavenly vases, whose streaming contents travel in both directions, and
by the ophidian snakes on Gudea’s pourer, which entwine down the length of the
portal and point their heads at the spout, the water delivery system appears to have
been conceptualized as interconnected streams flowing between heaven and earth. The
point of mixing symbolic male and female “water/semen” within the person of the
goddess may have been to harness her power to generate reversals. Reading the Sacred
Marriage as a performative act that effectuates something (as proposed by Bahrani
2002 : 20 ), one can theorize that the merger of symbolic liquids in some specific
manner reversed the dominance of one stream over the other, flipping the existing
current, sending moisture toward the fields during the growing season and directing
water away during the harvest.
In contrast to the autumnal ceremony performed at Nippur, which logically would
have functioned to bring water to the sowed fields, the spring ceremony at the Eanna
precinct sent excess water back to heaven. If so, Nippur’s reputation as the place of
passage for things traveling downward from the sky explains why the Sumerian
kingship was always lowered from heaven at this place. This study extends Irene
Winter’s ( 1985 ) insight that image and text on the Stele of the Vultures are inter-
connected, proposing that all inscriptions on the palm libation stelae supplement the
primary message relayed through images: “the ruler watered the crops and held back
the flood (and also dug canals and protected access to the river).” Attributing super-
natural power over the natural environment to the king justified great benefits in kind
from his subjects, but it augured political instability when the weather failed to
cooperate (cf. collected papers in Brisch 2008 ).
–– The Sumerian sacred marriage ––