ISTANBUL, Feb. 13 — It is as tiny as the sleekest mobile phones that fit in the
palm of the hand, but its message is anything but modern. A small tablet in a
special display this month in the Istanbul Museum of the Ancient Orient is
thought to be the oldest love poem ever found, the words of a lover from more
than 4,000 years ago.
The ancient Sumerian tablet was unearthed in the late 1880's in Nippur, a region
in what is now Iraq, and had been resting quietly in a modest corner of the
museum until it was brought back to the limelight this year by a company that
made it part of a Valentine's Day promotion.
The poem sits among Sumerian documents such as a court verdict from 2030 B.C.
breaking an engagement, a property sale and documentation of a murder. Despite
the tablets' ancient lineage, they had gone relatively unnoticed by most museum
visitors until the company provided the money to make it the centerpiece of a
special exhibit.
"It must be written by a man desperately in love with the rich princess,"
guessed Choi Na Kyoung, 27, a tourist from Korea, examining the love poem on
clay on a recent day. But she was mistaken.
The tablet in fact contains a daring — and risqué — ballad in which a priestess
professes her love for a king, though it is believed that the words are in fact
a script for a ceremonial re-creation of a fable by the priestess and the king,
Su-Sin. The priestess represents Inanna, the Goddess of Love and Fertility, and
the king represents Dumuzi, the God of Shepherds, on the eve of their union.
"Bridegroom, dear to my heart, Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,'" the first
line in the cuneiform tablet reads. '"You have captivated me, let me stand
trembling before you; Bridegroom, I would be taken to the bedchamber."
He apparently does. "Bridegroom, you have taken your pleasure of me," the poem
continues. "Tell my mother, she will give you delicacies; my father, he will
give you gifts."
Turkey is second only to the United States in its collection of Sumerian
documents. Muazzez Hilmiye Cig, 93, a retired historian at the museum who is one
of only a few people in Turkey who can read the text, said she was fascinated by
the way Sumerians perceived love. "They did not have sexual taboos in love," she
said. "Instead, they believed that only love and passion could bring them
fertility, and therefore praised pleasures."
In the agriculture-based Sumerian community, she said, lovemaking between the
king and the priestess would have been seen as a way to ensure the fertility of
their crops, and therefore the community's welfare, for another year.
Ms. Cig said she worked with Professor Samuel Noah Kramer in 1951, and that he
had identified the tablet, among 74,000 others, during years of studies in the
Istanbul museum. Their translation of this tablet also shed light on the Song of
Solomon in the Old Testament, she said, because some phrases are similar to
poems sung during Sumerian weddings and fertility feasts. "This filled the
missing link between religious texts of the different periods," she said.
In today's world, of course, Valentine's Day also combines love with commerce.
Bisse, a Turkish shirtmaker known for its support for archeological studies,
provided the funds for the special display and promoted the exhibit by giving
away replicas of the love poem at its stores.
"We need such financial support," said Dr. Ismail Karamut, director of the
museum, adding that he would like to have more financial autonomy, as many
European museums do.
As she held the transcription of the poem, Ms. Cig smiled. "After all these
years, very little has changed," she said. "There's still jealousy,
unfaithfulness and sexuality in affairs of love as in the times of Sumerians. I
just wished whoever has written the poem could see how popular the tablet has
now become."
