[Lines 266]–270. Do not appear to refer to rites performed after a victory, as might at a first glance appear, but merely voice the hope that Gišh will completely take possession of Ḫuwawa’s territory, so as to wash up after the fight in Ḫuwawa’s own stream; and the hope is also expressed that he may find pure water in Ḫuwawa’s land in abundance, to offer a libation to Šhamašh.
[Line 275]. On šú-pa-as-su = šupat-su, see above, to l. 115.
[Note on Sabitum (above, [p. 11])
In a communication before the Oriental Club of Philadelphia (Feb. 10, 1920), Prof. Haupt made the suggestion that sa-bi-tum (or tu), hitherto regarded as a proper name, is an epithet describing the woman who dwells at the seashore which Gilgamesh in the course of his wanderings reaches, as an “innkeeper”. It is noticeable that the term always appears without the determinative placed before proper names; and since in the old Babylonian version (so far as preserved) and in the Assyrian version, the determinative is invariably used, its consistent absence in the case of sabitum (Assyrian Version, Tablet X, 1, 1, 10, 15, 20; 2, 15–16 [sa-bit]; Meissner fragment col. 2, 11–12) speaks in favor of Professor Haupt’s suggestion. The meaning “innkeeper”, while not as yet found in Babylonian-Assyrian literature is most plausible, since we have sabū as a general name for ’drink’, though originally designating perhaps more specifically sesame wine (Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 745b) or distilled brandy, according to Prof. Haupt. Similarly, in the Aramaic dialects, sebha is used for “to drink” and in the Pael to “furnish drink”. Muss-Arnolt in his Assyrian Dictionary, 746b, has also recognized that sabitum was originally an epithet and compares the Aramaic sebhoyâthâ(p1) “barmaids”. In view of the bad reputation of inns in ancient Babylonia as brothels, it would be natural for an epithet like sabitum to become the equivalent to “public” women, just as the inn was a “public” house. Sabitum would, therefore, have the same force as šamḫatu (the “harlot”), used in the Gilgamesh Epic by the side of ḫarimtu “woman” (see the note to line 46 of Pennsylvania Tablet). The Sumerian term for the female innkeeper is Sal Geštinna “the woman of the wine,” known to us from the Hammurabi Code §§108–111. The bad reputation of inns is confirmed by these statutes, for the house of the Sal Geštinna is a gathering place for outlaws. The punishment of a female devotee who enters the “house of a wine woman” (bît Sal Geštinna §110) is death. It was not “prohibition” that prompted so severe a punishment, but the recognition of the purpose for which a devotee would enter such a house of ill repute. The speech of the sabitum or innkeeper to Gilgamesh (above, [p. 12]) was, therefore, an invitation to stay with her, instead of seeking for life elsewhere. Viewed as coming from a “public woman” the address becomes significant. The invitation would be parallel to the temptation offered by the ḫarimtu in the first tablet of the Enkidu, and to which Enkidu succumbs. The incident in the tablet would, therefore, form a parallel in the adventures of Gilgamesh to the one that originally belonged to the Enkidu cycle. Finally, it is quite possible that sabitum is actually the Akkadian equivalent of the Sumerian Sal Geštinna, though naturally until this equation is confirmed by a syllabary or by other direct evidence, it remains a conjecture. See now also Albright’s remarks on Sabitum in the A. J. S. L. 36, pp. 269 seq.]
[1] Scribal error for an.
[2] Text apparently di.
[3] Hardly ul.
[4] Omitted by scribe.
[5] Kišti omitted by scribe.