BORN OF FIRE

.

In this Ugaritic letter from ~1200 BCE, a woman and a man jointly write to their “master,” a man named Yadurma.  The woman expresses her frustration at harassment by a man named Bin-Ayana, and then the two authors make a request for food and discuss the creation of a garment.

Del Olmo Lete argued in 2002 that the letter uses the language of a professional oracle, a role frequently occupied by women in the ancient Near East.  In that case, rather than being Yadurma’s personal slave, the woman may have been a professional oracle/soothsayer on Yadurma’s payroll.  I have tentatively assumed this meaning in my translation.

Because of the remaining ambiguities, I have provided two translations: one colloquial translation, and one more stilted but “literal” translation that shows other interpretation alternatives.

To: Yadurmu, our master From: Pinhathu and Yarmihaddu, your servants

May you be well; may the gods guard you and keep you well.  From afar, we fall at your feet, twice seven times.

The female servant speaks: Listen.  Bin-Ayana keeps demanding oracles from me, so send him a message to make him stop.  I myself conducted the ritual; I finished the task.  So why did Bin-Ayana come back and take two shekels of silver from me?

Also: Even after the two of us were with you, you still will not give us food!  So if you request an oracle from our house, then when we come, you absolutely must pay in person.  (As it is, we cannot order new clothing — they would not make it for what money we had.)

20 places that don’t look real (part 2)

11.Mount Roraima-Venezuela

12.Naico mine-Mexico

13.Red beach-China

14.Salar de Uyuni-Bolivia

15.Tainzi mountians-China

16.Tulip fields-Netherlands

17.Tunnel of love-Ukraine

18.Wisteria flower tunnel-Japan

19.Zhangye Danxia landform-China