The Commonwealth of Crowns

Nearly passed into history again, but summer tire Tesla on ice filled steep hill missed me by a fraction of inches a few weeks ago.

I do hope that report brings that git some issues, he drove off after smashing into a parked car rather than accepting responsibility.

Aside from that, work work work work and trying to be a good partner as usual. Nor ain't dust yet.

Phaedo (Φαίδων, Phaidōn) parts VI, VII, & VIII by Platon
AudioEbook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b8hE92CuFY&t=6995s
Text: https://genius.com/Plato-phaedo-full-text-annotated

With Simmias's concerns answered, Sokrates now addresses Kebes's analogy of the body to a coat and the soul to a weaver with the idea of the Form of Life. Afterwards, the remainder of the dialogue details Sokrates speculations on the nature of the world, the heaven, the other world, and finally is his departure.

The Epic of Gilgamesh (Standard Babylonian version) tablets 1 - 5 by multiple authors, compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni
Audiobook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYf8AwNvKg
Text: https://archive.org/stream/TheEpicofGilgamesh_201606/eog_djvu.txt

The Epic of Gilgamesh posted here is the Standard Babylonian version that was compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni during the Kassite Dynasty of Babylon c. 1300-1000 BC. The story (or rather stories) are older still, with an Old Babylonian version that is less well preserved from around 1800 BC, and several poems recounting events in this version and others besides that are from the Sumerian Renaissance of the Neo-Sumerian Empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2100 BC, when legendary tales of old were promoted by the state and actively spread amongst the public.

As I go through various readings, it's interesting to use the events and places covered therein to segue into discussing parallels in history or other literature of contemporaneous or relevant cultures. In this case, we see mention that Abram, the common patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is said to have been born in Ur of the Chaldees (ʾŪr Kaśdīm). There is indeed a historical Ur, a major city of southern Mesopotamia, prominent during the Sumerian civilization, which eventually came to be settled by a group called the Chaldeans, although this happened relatively late in history, probably not before around 1000 BC, which might put pressure on the amount of time available between Abram's departure to Canaan and the historically identified events of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.

This week is relatively short at just under 43 minutes; it covers the first 5 of 11 tablets (excluding the 12th which is an addendum that does not fit into the narrative of the first 11, but does appear to be based upon one of the oldest poems), through the events around Humbaba. I will post the remaining hour next week(?), picking up where the goddess Ishtar attempts to court Gilgamesh...

Scotch sales are up in Norengland.

The Anatolian Myth of Illuyanka
Text and notes: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/77487
Story and commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UqmQJ-VkbI

Last week, Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite his field and the cave of Machpelah that sat thereon to bury his dead for 400 shekels of silver, and so I figure this would be an opportune time to look at the Hittites. It is unclear if there is a link between the Biblical Hittites and the eponymous historical empire. The first are identified as the children of Heth (second son of Canaan, who was the youngest son of Ham, and who was singled out for a curse by his grandfather Noah on account of Ham's indiscretion), while the latter take the name from the Hatti people and the city of Hattusa in central Anatolia, and their identification with the Biblical Hittites in the 19th century because of the similarity of names (Hatti and Hetti). The Hittite Empire fell with the phenomenon known as the Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1177 BC), although a group of Neo-Hittite states survived in southern Anatolia and the northern Levant for several centuries into the Iron Age, which were Aramaean and Luwian in culture.

I think Biblical tradition places Abraham at roughly 2000 BC, which actually precedes the historical Hittite Empire (c. 1750-1178 BC), and moreover their occupation of the northern Levant, let alone their collapse and the establishment of the Neo-Hittite states. On the other hand, Israel principally emerges in the historical record during (or just prior to) the early Iron Age and these northern Levantine Neo-Hittite states would likely be relevant in the formation of any associated traditions during this period. Given how early in the project I am, I'd prefer to err on the side of older works, from which I thought I'd pull the stories of Illuyanka this week.

In these stories, the Storm-god of Nerik (in north-central Anatolia near the Black Sea) battles a great primordial serpent called Illuyanka as the central ritual around the spring festival of Puruli. Normally, the Hittite storm god would be Tarḫunna, although it is also closely identified with the Luwian Tarḫunz from southern Anatolia and the Hurrian Teshub; however, in this account, the only named identification I've seen is with Zaliyanu, which is supposed to be the name of a divine mountain responsible for bestowing rain on the city. The actual work is rather short. In addition to a transliteration of the Hittite text, and several pages of notes, the pdf available through the link only has about three pages of a translation that is highly fractured in places and split between two stories. However, I found what I think is a good podcast that discusses some of the nuances around the story while making a reasonable compromise between creatively filling in the gaps and staying faithful to the original work found in Catalogue des Textes Hittites (CTH) 321.