My wife came home and told me where to find Jack Kessler's note on
"imprecations against 'stealing ot damaging books', from Asher and Uruk
libraries c. 650 BC" so I am reposting
I thought I'd share with Exlibris a few gems from a remarkab!e new book
which I am enjoying: the following are imprecations against "stealing or
damaging the books", from Ashur and Umk libraries c.650 BC -- think juicy
bookplate quotations here --
"He who fears Anu, Enlil, and Ea will return [this book] to the owner's
house the same day"
or the slightly more lenient,
"He who fears Anu and Antu will return [this book] to the owner's house the
next day"
or the "rare book librarian" versions,
"He who fears Marduk and Sarpanitmn will not entrust [this book] to
[others'] hands" and,
"He who entrusts [this book] to [others'] hands, may all the gods who are
found in Babylon curse him !"
or the conservationist's / preservationist's varieties,
"He who fears Anu and Antu will take care of [this book] and respect it"
"This book by order of Anu and Antu is to remain in good condition" --
the Bush administration should consider a new Library of Congress bookplate,
punishing any who damage a volume with the wrath of God... -some god.., and
Ashur and Uruk librarians apparently used a couple of Nicholson Baker
jeremiad - style lines,
"In the name of Nabu and Marduk, do not rub out the text!"
"Who rubs out the text, Marduk will look upon him with anger"
and we learn that King Ashurbanipal's royal library at Uruk was not a
lending library: "He who fears Anu and Antu will not carry [this book] off
by theft"
"He who carries [this book] off, may Shamash carry off his eyes"
"He who carries [this book] off, may Adad and Shala carry him off!"
and finally there is my favorite -- this goes into all of my own books from
now on, and if someone will give me Nicholson Baker's address I'I1 send him
a bookplate copy for his books as well --
"He who breaks [this book] or puts it in water or mbs it until you cannot re
cognize it [and] cannot make it be understood, may Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Adad
and Ishtar, Bel, Nergal, Ishlar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, Ishtar of Bit
Kidmurri, the gods of heaven and earth and the gods of Assyria, may all
these curse him with a curse which cannot be relieved, terrible and
merciless, as long as he lives, may they let his name, his seed, be carried
off from the land, may they put his flesh in a dog's mouth."
Never mind that all these warnings were not about our modem acid paper
editions but clay tablets -- which incidentally, the author points out,
.were wonderfully preserved for posterity by the ancient Near Eastern
practice of regularly burning down the libraries, which baked the clay...
This is all from Lionel Casson's new -Libraries in the Ancient World (Yale,
2001) ISBN 0-300-08809-4.
The book is not without its problems, among these an immodest and I think
inaccurate initial statement by its author that it "is the first full -
scale study of libraries in the ancient world":
I expect that friends in France will line up in back of Henri - Jean Martin
and several others. And the French are not the only ones who have been
studying old books and libraries for a long time: various historians of
writing and communications, paleographers, archeologists will protest -- US
fans of James Westfall Thompson and Fred Kilgour will as well. All blanket
eneralizations about history are invalid including this one...
But Casson's little book -- a very manageable 145 pages of text -- is
wonderfully written, and meticulously annotated for those who may want to go
further. It even offers a good assortment of very interesting illustrations,
among these "Eratosthenes' map" showing "Taprobane" and "Thule" and a place
labeled "Brettanic Is.". Altogether a highly - recommended summer read.
So, lshtar of Bit Kidmurri be with you all --
Jack Kessler, kessler~well.sf, ca.us
Thanks to Jack, Jim