Zombies: More Recent Dead - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Paula Guran (Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) Alex Dally MacFarlane) #9

Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) Alex Dally MacFarlane

Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya, daughter of King Nabu-kudurri-usur, in Uruk. Cuneiform inscription dating to the neo-Assyrian Empire:

To the king, my lord: your servant Nabu’a. May Nabu and Marduk bless the king, my lord! On the 7th of Kislev a fox entered the Inner City, and fell into a well in the garden of Aššur. It was hauled up and killed.

Later annotation on the letter of Nabu’a in Aramaic, using ink:

What omen is this? What did Nabu’a prevent? It is a time of terrible plague in Babylon. With your wisdom, perhaps this tablet will help to explain one of the omens presaging the events here: the dead fox seen walking into the temple of Marduk.

Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya:

Innin-Etirat to Kaššaya, my sister, may Anu keep you well in this time of plague! May the plague that afflicts us in Babylon never reach the great city of Uruk!

I send this letter with four tablets that have been brought from the ruins of Nineveh in the north. Everyone in Babylon with the wisdom to understand these tablets—the omens and the measures taken as a result of them—is dead. They are dead, but they walk, they eat the flesh of living people, who then sicken and die and walk through the city, spreading the illness further. Before this terrible plague, there were four omens here in Babylon: the right-hand quadrant of the sun darkened without the moon passing across it, the king dreamed of a dead woman with teeth as sharp as knives, a dead fox was seen walking into the temple of Marduk, bones fell from the noon sky like rain.

Kaššaya, my sister, if you or your scholars can interpret the past omens described in the tablets and whether they relate to our omens, then you will know what measures to take to prevent this plague from reaching Uruk.

I have sent this letter and these tablets with a soldier I know well. I will remain within Babylon, unless the palace becomes unsafe.

Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya, either an archival copy or the unsent original:

Kaššaya to Innin-Etirat, my sister, may Anu keep you safe! May Nabu and Marduk keep Nabu-kudurri-usur, the king, our father, safe! May the great city of Babylon be unharmed by this calamity! Your letter arrived with only one tablet, carried by a woman fleeing Babylon, who tells me that she found your soldier dying on the road. I have given her food. I have ensured that she is watched for signs of this sickness.

You write: “the right-hand quadrant of the sun darkened without the moon passing across it, the King dreamed of a dead woman with teeth as sharp as knives.” I too have dreamed this. I too have witnessed this brief darkening of the sun.

I have been to every temple to report the news you have sent me. Offerings are being made to every god in my name and the king’s name. The signs of plague are being watched for in Uruk.

Innin-Etirat, my sister, may you remain safe in the palace of Babylon!

Tablet found in the Eanna temple in Uruk:

Eight minas and five shekels of blue-colored wool for an ullakku garment, the property of Innin-Etirat, the king’s daughter, brought to Eanna by Innin-Etirat herself on the day she arrived in Uruk, after the outbreak of the plague. Month Šabatu, 7th day, 33rd year of Nabu-kudurri-usur, King of Babylon.

A story passed orally among the women of Uruk (now in southern Iraq) and surviving to this day in several variants (including a Safavid Dynasty manuscript, the only written variant), from which this original has been tentatively constructed:

Long ago there was a terrible plague in the city of Uruk. Can you imagine! The dead in the streets of Uruk, attacking those who still lived. Feasting on those who were too slow. Even the animals could get this sickness: dead dogs and foxes ran through the city, biting the legs of the living. No offering to the gods could end this plague. No medicine could cure it.

All of Uruk’s men were given bows and swords to fight the dead, but even this was not enough. Many were bitten. Many found that the dead would not die again no matter how many arrows sank into their chests—even the headless would still stumble, even the teeth would still try to bite them from the ground!

At this time lived three women, daughters of the king, called Kaššaya, Innin-Etirat, and Ba’u-Asitu, who all owned land in Uruk.

It is said of Kaššaya that she was wise, of Innin-Etirat that she was determined, of Ba’u-Asitu that she was bold.

During the time of the plague, each of the daughters gathered all of the women and children working for her into her main property, each well provisioned with water and grain and dates, and built sturdy defences. There they planned to wait until the plague passed, as all terrible illnesses eventually do. They sought to keep everyone from dwelling on the horrors beyond their walls: Kaššaya organized storytelling competitions, Innin-Etirat led the women and children in song, Ba’u-Asitu invented a new dance every morning.

It was Ba’u-Asitu who noticed three foxes below the walls of her home.

A dead fox, its legs shattered, unable to walk but biting out at anything that passed. Two living foxes pinned it down and ate the remnants of its flesh. You wince, but such is the nature of foxes.

Ba’u-Asitu observed that when the living foxes had torn the flesh from the dead fox, it stopped trying to bite. It lay still, a skeleton, truly dead.

Being bold, she darted from the security of her walls with two other women and with great care and stealth took one of the walking dead men from outside. They covered his head with thick cloth so that he could not bite, and secured the door once they brought him inside. Then with tools they stripped the rotting flesh from him.

The bared skeleton of the man stopped moving. The teeth lay in their sockets like needles in a pouch: sharp but unused.

Ba’u-Asitu sent letters to her sisters, to the temples and to the leaders of the soldiers, telling them of this discovery. Letters were also sent to Babylon and the other cities. From then on, the living were able to fight the dead, although it was not easy and many more died.

The flesh of the dead was immediately burnt. The stench filled the city for weeks. The bones were buried far from the cities, in tracts of desert where none lingered long. The teeth were not touched with bare hands.

Eventually the plague passed, as all terrible illnesses do.

In one oral version of this tale, Ba’u-Asitu becomes so famed for her skill at stripping the flesh from the dead that she is known as Ba’u-Asitu the Fox-Woman: an immortal figure who still hunts under an occluded moon with an army of foxes. Screams in the night are attributed to her work. The plague has never spread far again.

Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya:

To Kaššaya, my lady, and Innin-Etirat, my lady: your servant Šamaš-ereš. May Anu and Ishtar keep you both well!

You write: “No one in Uruk or Babylon can say whether the omens we saw before the plague have appeared before. Is there anything in the ruined cities of the north that will help us understand these omens and how to respond to them?”

Nothing I have found yet will help. I do not think that this plague ever afflicted these old cities. The fox in the well of Aššur may have been alive, signifying a different omen. The omens described on the tablets found by Innin-Etirat’s servant and lost between Babylon and Uruk may have been the same. Nothing I have found suggests that they were important.

I will continue to search the ruins.

Let us hope that this plague never afflicts Babylon again!

Saying uttered by Uruk women when falling ill with any ailment, recorded on a tablet in Eanna temple:

Let the foxes of Ba’u-Asitu watch over us!