XVI - The Goddess Who Never left


Our question, ‘Who was buried in PG-800?’ would have sounded strange to Sir Leonard Woolley were he still alive to hear it.

 

For as soon as he had reached its burial chamber - on January 4, 1928 - he sent to the University Museum in Philadelphia a Western Union telegram that said (in translation from the Latin that he used for secrecy):

I found the intact tomb stone built and vaulted over with bricks of Queen Shubad adorned with a dress in which gems flower crowns and animal figures are woven together magnificently with jewels and golden cups.

Woolley.

 

 

"The intact tomb of Queen Shubad"

 

How did Woolley know this answer to the mystery as soon as he had found the chamber? Did the buried VIP have a name tag saying "Queen Shubad"? Well, in a manner of speaking, she did: Four cylinder seals were found in PG-800, one near the wardrobe chest and three inside the tomb chamber, depicting females banqueting.

 

One of the three near the body was inscribed with four cuneiform signs (Fig. 139) that Woolley read Nin.Shu.ba.ad and translated ‘Queen Shubad’ - for though Nin signified ‘goddess’, Woolley took it to mean ‘queen’, because as he and everyone else knew, gods and goddesses existed only mythically and had no physical body to be buried.

 

His assumption that this was the personal seal of the buried VIP has been taken for granted, though the reading of her name has since been changed to Nin-Pu.a.bi, (It is noteworthy that the University Museum in Philadelphia, on reopening the Royal Tombs of Ur exhibit in March 2004, changed the title from ‘Queen Puabi’ to ‘Lady Puabi’.)


The scene depicted on this seal, in two ‘registers’ is that of females banqueting; since tumblers are shown raised by the celebrants, they were probably drinking wine. In each register, there are two seated female celebrants and several female attendants/servants.

 

The second and third seals found inside the tomb chamber also depicted, in two registers, two female celebrants - drinking beer with long straws, or having wine and food, served by attendants and entertained by a harp player. None of these two seals had any writing.


The fourth cylinder seal, found lying against the wardrobe chest outside the tomb chamber, also depicted banqueting scenes, with female celebrants and attendants. We have already pointed out that the name inscribed on it, A.bara.ge (= ‘The Water Purifier of the Sanctuary’) identified its owner as a high-ranking holder of the office of Cupbearer.

 

We can additionally note here that he or she had to be a ‘royal’ per se, for he/she was a namesake of a famed king of Kish, En. me. bara.ge. si - a demigod, who was credited with reigning 900 years (see chapter 11).


Apart from suggesting that the VIP buried in PG-800 was ‘Queen Shubad’, Woolley had no information to offer about her. There is no mention in Mesopotamian records of a queen by that name (whether Shubad or Puabi). In so far as she was a Nin - a goddess - named Puabi, there is no such name in the God Lists either. If not an unlisted epithet - of which each deity had galore - it could have been a local or family nickname; so we will have to resort to detective tactics to unravel her identity.


The script-sign for Nin on the seal is absolutely clear and requires no further elaboration (see Fig. 57).

 

Breaking down the epithet-name Pu.a.bi by its components, we find that the first one, read PU, was written with sign number 26a in the Sumerian Kign List - and it was another word for Sud - ‘One who gives succor’ - a nurse, a medic. This finding reinforces our earlier conclusion based on the medical ‘tweezers’ that the VIP entombed in PG-800 was a healer, as Ninmah/Ninharsag, Ninlil (Enid's spouse) and Bau (Ninurta’s spouse) were; and our guess is that she was directly related to one of them, and thus an Enlilite.


The second component, read A as in cuneiform sign number 383, meant ‘Large/Much’; and BI, sign number 214, meant a certain variety of beer. So Nin Pu.a.bi literally meant a Nin, a goddess, who was "Healer [of] Much Beer." It is a nickname that matched the banqueting and beer drinking depicted on the the second cylinder seal found near Puabi’s body (Fig. 140).

 

Indeed, the depictions on all of the six ‘female’ seals found in the Royal Tombs show banqueting ladies who differ in certain aspects - age, hairdo, dress, and stature. Since the seal cutters might have tried to make the individual seals as true portraits as possible, these small details deserve attention.

 

Especially intriguing is the PG-800 seal (see Fig. 139) in which, in the upper register, a younger goddess (the host?) sitting on the right next to the inscribed title/name, and a more matronly goddess, more elegantly dressed, and with an elaborate hairdo (the guest?) sits on the left.

 

 

Figure 139

 

 

Was this an actual portrait of the tomb’s occupant and her more matronly and hefty guest?
 

 


Figure 140
 


It’s a possibility to be kept in mind, for the physical size of the hostess (and her guest) are relevant to their ultimate identification because some of the skeletal remains from several Ur tombs, including PG-800 and PG-755, were examined by the then leading British anthropologist, Sir Arthur Keith.


In regard to Shubad/Puabi, this is how he began his written report that formed part of Woolley’s 1934 book on the Royal Tombs of Ur:

An examination of the Queen’s remains has led me to form the following conclusions concerning her:
The Queen was about forty years of age at the time of her death;
she was approximately 1.510 m. (5 feet) in stature; her bones were slender and her feet and hands small; she had a large and long head.

In estimating her age, Sir Arthur was baffled by the fact that dental and other aspects of her skeletal remains indicated a much younger age than forty. As to her stature, let us note that it is comparable to that of Inanna in the Mari photograph, Fig. 86.


While the skull, badly fractured, might have been compressed by soil pressure to appear longer and narrower than what it really had been, Sir Arthur concluded on the basis of detailed measurements that the queen could not be a Sumerian - that she was "a member of a highly dolichocephalic race" (‘dolichocephalic’ is having a head disproportionately longer than it is wide).

 

Even more so, he was astounded and puzzled by the overall size of the head and the extraordinarily large cranial (brain) capacity:


We have only to measure the frontal, parietal, and occipital bones along the midline of the vault to realize how large the capacity of the skull must have been...

 

The cranial capacity could not have been less than 1600 cubic cm. - 250 c.c. above the mean for European women.

"The remains," he wrote, "left no doubt that the Queen had an uncommonly capacious skull! After providing details of the rest of her bone remains, Sir Arthur’s overall conclusion was that her head was unusually large, while her body, hands, and feet, compared to the size of the head, was rather small "though stoutly made."

To use Sumerian terminology, one can say that she had the head of a Gal and the body of a Banda... Sir Arthur also examined the skeletal remains of the male in PG-755, referring to him as "Prince Mes-kalam-dug."

 

Comparing the two, he observed that,

"except for her large cranial capacity, Queen Shub-ad was intensely feminine in her physical characterization; in Mes-kalam-dug the bones in the body were fashioned as a very robust male."

His bones were much thicker than hers;

"the right arm was particularly thick and strong in the Prince."

All told, Sir Arthur concluded,

"the bones of the Prince - alas! all of them are only fragmentary now - show him to have been a strongly built, powerful man, about 5 ft. 5 in. or 5 ft. 6 in. (1.650-1.675 meters) in height. . . He was a strong-necked man."

The skull of the ‘Prince’ had "the exact same cephalic index as in Queen Shub-ad" (i.e., the length to width proportion) - markedly elongated - and the cranial capacity (the brain size) was "well above the average size for Sumerians."

 

Racially, Sir Arthur wrote,

"I would name him, for lack of a better [word], Proto-Arab."

Fractured skull and bone remains from several other Early Dynastic tombs were examined; Sir Arthur’s main conclusion was that they too were "Proto-Arabs." In an overall summary, he noted that the remains of the ‘Queen’ and the ‘Prince’ stood out from the others:


Of particular interest is it to observe the fine physique and the rich brain endowments of Queen Shub-ad and of the Prince Mes-kalam-dug.


The latter was an exceptionally strong man physically, and if we may rely on size of brain as an index of mental capacity - then was the Prince not only physically strong, but also a man of superior capacity.


The Queen’s cerebral endowment was exceptional, and if we can trust physical development of the body as a clue to sexual mentality, then we may infer that she was a very feminine woman.


In complete agreement with all the other aspects that we have found, Sir Arthur thus accurately described

  • A heroic demigod in PG-7SS, a "strongly built powerful man" with a "superior cerebral capacity "
    and was right on the mark about the
     

  • "Very feminine" smallish 1Queen’ with an "uncommonly - capacious skull" in PG-800.

The skeletal remains and physical findings concerning the ‘Prince’ in PG-755 completely fit his identification as Mes.kalam.dug, whom we have established as a son of the goddess + demigod couple who began the First Dynasty of Ur; but we still face the enigma of the VIP in PG-800: Bejewelled and Inanna-like in stature, yet not Inanna...

 

Who could she be, and who was entombed next to her in the emptied PG-789?

 


* * *

 


Regarding the occupant of PG-800 we have established the following points that can lead to her identification:


A cylinder seal next to her body identified her as Nin.Puabi - the goddess ‘Puabi’.


The retainers and attendants buried with her were themselves high- ranking courtiers, even a king, indicating that she was of greater importance than they - that she was a goddess - confirming her Nin title.


Gold was used in this burial even for common, daily-use utensils -  emulating the only other instance on record: Anu and Antu’s visit to Earth ca. 4000 B.C.
Those utensils were embossed with the same emblem - a ‘rosette’ - with which the Anu-visit utensils were embossed. This suggests that the female buried in PG-800 was ‘Of the House of Anu’ - a direct linear descendant of Anu. Such a direct genealogical link to Anu could be through his sons Enki and Enlil or his daughters Ninmah and Bau.


An implement found in the tomb, that has to be of the hardest metal - a hoe - was made of the soft metal gold, i.e., for symbolic purposes. The only recorded prior instance of that was the Sacred Hoe with which Enlil cut the ground to establish the Duranki Mission Control Center in Nippur.

 

The hoe clue suggests that the VIP in this tomb was an Enlilite, associated with Nippur and not with Enki and Eridu. This eliminates Enki and leaves only three - Enlil, Ninmah, or Bau - as the direct genealogical link of ‘Puabi' to Anu.


Possessing a symbolic golden medical instrument (the ‘Tweezers’) links Puabi to a tradition of giving medical succor - as Ninmah and Bau were; it still leaves the male Enlil in contention because his spouse, Ninlil, was also a nurse.


Since it would seem improbable that the youthful-looking Puabi would have been one of the Olden Ones who had come to Earth from Nibiru, we cannot consider Ninmah or Bau or Ninlil themselves, and must look at theirfemale descendants.


Since the known Earthborn daughters of Ninmah were fathered by Enki, they are ruled out; we are left with daughters of Enlil + Ninlil or of Bau + Ninurta.

  • Enlil + Ninlil had male sons (Nannar/Sin and Ishkur/Adad) born on Earth, and several daughters, including the goddess Nisaba (mother of king Lugalzagesi) and the goddess Nina (mother of king Gudea). Since Nina lived long enough to be one of the deities fleeing the later Evil Wind, she is eliminated as a ‘Puabi’ candidate. So does Nisaba, having still lived later, in Gudea’s time.
     

  • Bau (= ‘Gula’, the ‘Big One’), youngest daughter of Anu, was married to Enlil’s Foremost Son Ninurta. They had seven daughters of whom little is known except for Ninsun, spouse of the famed Lugalbanda; their famous son was Gilgamesh, so it had to be the mother, Ninsun, (rather than her smallish spouse) who bequeathed to Gilgamesh the physique of her father, Ninurta, and the heftiness of her mother, Bau/Gula.
     

  • If claims by ‘Ur-III’ kings that Ninsun was their mother are valid, Ninsun herself could not be ‘Puabi’ (who was entombed during the ‘Ur I’ period).
     

  • Going down the descendants’ lines we arrive at the next Earthborn generation - a step in accord with Puabi being "in her forties" (per Sir Arthur Keith) - if she were Earthborn. The second Earthborn generation of known goddesses were Nannar/Sin’s daughter Inanna, and a daughter of Ninsun + Lugalbanda named Nin.e.gula.
     

  • Inanna (for reasons already given) could not be ‘Puabi’. Yet Puabi’s jewelry, beaded cape, the choker and its symbols, the allsilver harp, her great "femininity" (per Sir Arthur), etc. - and her stature - bespeak "Inanna"; so if Nin.Puabi was not Inanna herself, she had to be otherwise linked to Inanna.
     

  • Inanna had a known son (the god Shara) but no daughter; but she could - and did - have a granddaughter: Since Inanna, according to Lugalbanda’s claim, was his mother, a daughter of Lugalbanda would have also been a granddaughter of Inanna, carrying her ‘femininity’ and love of jewelry traits.
     

  • But the daughter of Lugalbanda would also be a granddaughter of Bau/Gula, for Lugalbanda’s spouse, Ninsun, was a daughter of Bau + Ninurta!
     

  • Her name (according to the God Lists) Nin.e.gula ("Lady of the House/Temple of Gula") serves as a confirmation that in addition to the ‘femininity-jewelry gene’ of Grandma Inanna she was bearing the ‘Gula’ gene of her grandmother Bau/Gula - the extraordinarily large head!


We thus obtain two genealogical-heritage lines of detection that converge:

Anu > Enlil + Ninlil > Nannar > Inanna > Lugalbanda + Ninsun


and


Anu > Enlil + Ninmah > Ninurta + Bau > Ninsun + Lugalbanda

Thus converging, the two genealogical lines point to the same Lugalbanda + Ninsun couple as the progenitors of the goddess in PG-800: their daughter Nin.e.gula, also known as Nin.Puabi.


This conclusion offers a plausible explanation for the contradictory physique of ‘Puabi’ - smallish body (a granddaughter of Inanna!) and an extraordinarily large head (a granddaughter of Bau/Gula).


This conclusion also offers a plausible reason for Lugalbanda to be the one entombed in PG-261.


And it explains the neglected clue of the naming of both Mes .Anne.Pada and Nin.Banda-Nin on vessels found near the coffin of Meskalamdug in PG-755, as well as in the seal inscription Nin .banda Nin/Dam Mes.anne.pada (‘Ninbanda, goddess, spouse [of] Mesannepada’): Confirming, in our opinion, that they were the goddess + demigod couple who started the First Dynasty of Ur.


Does this solution of not only PG-800 but also of the other identifiable ‘Royal’ tombs make sense?

 

Let’s recall the intriguing fact that Ninsun has been involved in dynastic matchmaking - a glaring example having been her scheme to espouse one of her daughters to Enkidu. Was she beyond scheming, when the decision was made to transfer central Kingship to a new dynasty in Ur, to have her daughter marry the demigod selected for the task?

 

The other great matchmaking schemer, her mother, Bau/Gula - who might be the older matronly visitor shown on the cylinder seal having a cup of wine - would have given her blessing right away; and so would have the other grandmother, Inanna, for whom the choice represented a triumphant return to influence; was she the other visitor, sharing a beer?


Nin.banda, I suggest, was the daughter of Ninsun + Lugalbanda:

  • Linked to Inanna by the dynastic title Nin.banda

  • Given the epithet-name Nin.e.gula for her Bau heritage

  • Lovingly nicknamed Nin.Puabi for her constant partying

  • Laid to rest in the family’s burial compound in the sacred precinct of Ur

She was also, one realizes, a younger sister of Gilgamesh - both children of the unique couple: the deified demigod Lugalbanda and the mighty goddess Ninsun.

 

And that opens up a wider subject.

 


* * *

 


While arriving at this (probable or at least possible) identification of the person in PG-800 is a gratifying achievement, an attempt to recognize identities in the other fifteen Royal Tombs is needed for understanding the jarring co-burials in the tomb chambers and especially in the death pits.

 

The absence of any annals, hymns, lamentations, or other texts that would have explained the reasons is troubling in itself; the fact that the only textual corroboration is The Death of Gilgamesh text has only deepened the puzzle. But here is a thought outside-the-box: What if the Gilgamesh text described his actual burial - what if the great Gilgamesh was actually buried in one of Ur’s Royal Tombs?


The burial place of Gilgamesh has never been found, nor do the available texts indicate where it was.

 

All along it has been presumed that Gilgamesh was laid to rest where he had reigned - in Uruk; but nowhere in Uruk, a site that has been most extensively excavated, was such a tomb found. So why not consider the royal cemetery in Ur?


Transporting ourselves back to Sumer of almost 5,000 years ago, when central Kingship, having been in Kish and Uruk, was about to be transferred to Ur, we can imagine the chain of events that started in Kish. Beginning with the very first ruler, the kings were demigods: Mes.kiag.gasher was "a son of dUtu."

 

So were the next ones - sons of a male god.

 

To grasp the immensity of the change by the time of Lugalbanda, the father of Gilgamesh, it might be useful to reproduce a listing from an earlier chapter (to which one could add Gudea and his mother the goddess Nina):

Etana: Of same seed as Adapa (= Enki’s)

Meskiaggasher: The god Utu is the father

Enmerkar: The god Utu is the father

Eannatum: Seed of Ninurta, Inanna put him on the lap of Ninharsag for breastfeeding

Entemena: Raised on Ninharsag’s breastmilk

Mesalim: "Beloved son" of Ninharsag (by breastfeeding?)

Lugalbanda: Goddess Inanna is his mother

Gilgamesh: Goddess Ninsun is his mother

Lugalzagesi: Goddess Nisaba is his mother

Gudea: Goddess Nina is his mother.

At first the kings are demigods by dint of being fathered by a male god and mothered by Earthling females (Enki himself having set the example in pre-Diluvial times).

 

A transition, in which artificial insemination by a god but breastfeeding by a goddess, takes place. Then Lugalbanda enters the stage with a major change: From him on, the divinity comes from a female - the mother is a goddess.

 

What we know now about DNA and genetics clarifies the significance of the change: The new demigods carry not only the mixed god-Earthling regular DNA, but also the second set of mitochondrial DNA that comes only from the mother. For the first time, in Lugalbanda, the demi-god is more than ‘demi’... What is to be done with Lugalbanda when he dies?

 

He is more than a mere king, he is more than a usual demigod; but neither is he a real pure-blooded god, so he can’t be taken to be laid to rest on Nibiru - nor can he be buried in Uruk’s sacred precinct that has been sanctified by Anu himself. So the gods take him to Ur, the birthplace (and current residence) of his mother, Inanna.

 

They ‘deify’ him by burying him at the edge of Nannar’s sacred precinct in a specially built tomb - perhaps, as we have suggested, in PG-261 - clutching his favorite Lugal An.zu Mushen seal.


Next, Gilgamesh appears on the scene, and he is also special: Not only is it his mother, not his father, who is the god-parent, but the father too is not a common Earthling: Lugalbanda, his father, was himself a son of a goddess (Inanna). So Gilgamesh is "two-thirds of him divine," enough to make him believe that he is entitled to the ‘immortality’ of the gods.

 

Aided by his mother, the goddess Ninsun, and the god Utu in spite of their reservations, he goes on adventurous searches for eternal life that prove futile. Yet his conviction that he should not "peek over the wall as a mortal" continues even as he lies on his death bed - until Utu brings him the final verdict: Enlil said, No eternal life.

 

But he is consoled: Because you are special, because you are unique, you shall continue to have with you your wife (and concubine . . .), cupbearer, attendants, musicians, and the rest of your household, even in the Nether-World.


And so - in this imagined scenario - Gilgamesh is buried near his father, in the sacred precinct of Ur, with the otherwise incomprehensible accompaniment promised him in lieu of Eternal Life. In which PG? We don’t know, but there are several ones (emptied by ancient looters) to choose from. How about PG-1050 that held forty companion bodies -  about the right number of those listed in The Death of Gilgamesh text?


An example is set - a precedent has been created.


With the death of Gilgamesh - we are now calendarwise circa 2600 B.C. - Uruk’s heroic age peters out; all that remains of it are the epic texts and the depictions on cylinder seals, highlighting Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and heroic episodes. While the Anunnaki leadership contemplates where to site central Kingship, Nin.banda, the sister of Gilgamesh, and her spouse Mes.anne.pada mark time in Kish.

 

As the decision comes that Ur was chosen, the goddess + demigod couple transfer there to assume the role of founders of the First Dynasty of Ur.


They leave behind in Kish their eldest son Mes.kalam.dug -  reigning as King of Kish, though Kish is no longer the national capital. While the new rulers in Ur bring together Sumer’s rivaling cities and extend Sumer geographically and culturally, their eldest son, Mes.kalam.dug, dies in Kish.


A demigod, he is laid to rest not far from his grandfather Lugalbanda and uncle Gilgamesh, in what is becoming the ‘Ur I’ dynastic family plot. Woolley, who designated the tomb PG-755, described it as a "simple inhumation" in which he found the deceased king’s personal golden helmet and a magnificent golden dagger (found placed in the coffin beside the body).

 

The more than sixty artifacts found in the tomb include personal objects (his silver belt, a gold ring, gold jewelry with or without lapis lazuli decoration) and his royal utensils, many of gold or silver - everlasting evidence of his demigod + royal status.

 

But we really don’t know whether a death pit was once part of a more elaborate burial - the fact that his personal seal inscribed Mes.kalam.dugLugal (‘Meskalamdug, king’) was found discarded in the SIS soil does suggest that another, undiscovered part had existed and was entered and robbed in antiquity.

 

Metal vessels, lying near the coffin in PG-755, bear the names of his parents Mes.Anne.Pada and Nin.Banda Nin, further confirming the deceased’s identity.


The day then comes when Mes.anne.pada himself "peers over the wall." His wife and two remaining sons provide him with an elaborate burial befitting the dynastic founder: A proper coffin, a stone-built tomb chamber, a death pit reachable via a sloping ramp.

 

A great treasure of objects made of gold, silver, and gemstones was carried down along with the body on two wagons, each one drawn by three oxen and driven by two men and an oxen handler. Six soldiers wearing copper helmets and carrying spears acted as bodyguards.

 

Down in the pit, many more soldiers were arrayed, carrying decorated spears with electrum spearheads and holding shields. A contingent of female singers and musicians was gathered with exquisitely decorated wooden lyres and a musical ‘sound box’ with panels whose inlaid decorations depicted scenes of the tales of Gilgamesh.

 

Also brought down were varied sculptures decorated with images of bulls and lions; one particular sculpture, a favorite of the king, was that of a bull’s head made of gold with a lapis lazuli beard. In all, fifty-four retainers assembled in the pit to keep Mes.anne.pada company in the Nether World.


When Woolley discovered this grave, he numbered it PG-789 and called it the ‘King’s Tomb\ He did so because of its obvious link to the ‘Queen’s’ PG-800; and that, I suggest, in fact it was: The grave of Mes.anne.pada, the founder of the ‘Ur I’ dynasty.


Because the main body was missing, and due to the absence of gold, silver, and lapis lazuli objects, Woolley concluded that PG-789 was entered and robbed in antiquity - quite possibly, when the digging for PG-800 revealed the tomb chamber of PG-789.


And so we arrive in our imagined Journey to the Past at ‘Queen Puabi’s’ own death. How and when she died we do not know.

 

Assuming she also outlived her two other sons (A.anne.pada and Mes.kiag.nunna) who reigned after her spouse had died, Nin.banda/Nin.e.gula/Nin.Puabi found herself alone, with all who were dear to her - her father Lugalbanda, her brother Gilgamesh, her spouse Mes.anne.pada, her three sons - dead and buried in the cemetery plot that she could daily see.

 

Was it her wish to be buried on Earth alongside them - or could the Anunnaki not take her body back to Nibiru because, though a Nin, she did have some Earthly genes through her demigod father?


We don’t know the answer. But whatever the reason, Nin.Puabi was buried in Ur, in a grave adjoining that of her spouse, with all the treasures and attendants to which this dynasty had uniquely become accustomed - adorned with jewelry from Grandma Inanna and an oversize headdress from Grandma Bau/Gula . ..
 

And that brings us to a Human Origins Discovery of all time:

Because of all the Anunnaki and Igigi who had treaded planet Earth and were gone, Nin.Puabi - a NIN no matter who precisely she was -  was The Goddess Who Never Left.

 



NIN.PUABI’S DNA AND MTDNA LINEAGES


Here is how, if we are right, Nin.Puabi’s general and specifically female DNA lines connect her directly to Nibiru, via Anu’s children Enlil, Ninmah/Ninharsag, and Bau/Gula:

 

 

 

 

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