Fake antiquities. Were the Mesopotamian scribes already counterfeiters?

25 February 2018

During the three thousand or so years that cuneiform script was used, Mesopotamian scribes tirelessly copied out texts as part of their education, with the goal of memorising them, or of preserving them for scholarly libraries. They also created some fakes, sometimes reproducing archaic writing styles from ancient times, thereby rewriting history. Some of these fake antiquities are well known to Assyriologists, such as the cross-shaped monument of Manishtushu and a letter supposedly written by Gilgamesh.

The monument of Manishtushu, carved from black basalt, has a cross-shaped vertical section. This object, kept at the British Museum, bears an inscription composed of 346 lines of text written in cuneiform distributed over its twelve sides. According to the text, the monument dates to the time of King Manishtushu, who reigned in the Akkadian territory in the twenty-third century BCE. The text concerns the renovation of the temple of the Sun God, Shamash, and an important grant from the crown for the temple. Some anachronisms, both historical and philological, have made it possible for Assyriologists to revoke the authenticity of the monument which, moreover, was discovered in much more recent (sixth century BCE) Neo-Assyrian archaeological strata. The stonecutter who engraved the inscription applied himself to composing an archaic text, even down to the shape of the signs, but he mingled elements from different historical periods. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the text was composed by priests from the temple of Shamash, on the pretext that the temple would have enjoyed privileges in the past, so it should continue to benefit from the king’s largesse. Therefore, it represents an instance of manipulating the past with the aim of steering the future.

In addition to this monument, many fictitious royal letters have been attributed to some important kings of the third and second millennia BCE. One which was supposedly written by Gilgamesh, the hero who reigned over the ancient city of Uruk in the twenty-seventh century BCE, is without doubt one of the most famous; there are copies of it that date from the seventh and sixth centuries. In the letter, Gilgamesh addresses an unknown king, threatening him with devastating military action if he does not submit to his extraordinary and outrageous demands, including: ‘70,000 white horses with black stripes, 70,000 black horses with white stripes, 100,000 fillies whose bodies have markings like the roots of wild trees, 40,000 miniature calves frolicking ceaselessly (…) 90,000 talents (2,700 tonnes) of iron: pure, excellent, choice, select, closely scrutinised, precious, of premium quality, hallmarked, impeccable, of the kind from which the blacksmith can forge stags’. He adds: ‘I wish to tie a red gold nugget weighing 15kg to the breast of my friend Enkidu’. The final demand, which concerns the manufacture of a golden statue, alludes to the Epic of Gilgamesh in which the hero remains inconsolable upon the death of his friend.[1] This fictitious letter, which parodies the royal Assyrian style, originated from scholars working in cultural centres far from the Assyrian empire who were engaged in producing counterdiscursive writing on the king and royalty.

It is not altogether surprising that these fake relics date to the seventh to sixth centuries BCE, a period in which sovereigns developed a particular taste for antiquities, even creating museums where they kept ancient inscriptions. Scholars copied these inscriptions, and they made a great effort to reproduce ancient characters. And so it is among copies of authentic texts that historical counterfeits flourish.

[1] Bottéro, Jean (1992), L'Épopée de Gilgamesh: Le grand homme qui ne voulait pas mourir, Paris: Gallimard.