Of the same general character is the equation in another syllabary:[1]
Esigga-tuk and its equivalent Gish-tuk = “the one who is a hero.”
Furthermore, the name occurs frequently in “Temple” documents of the Ur dynasty in the form dGish-bil-ga-mesh[2] with dGish-bil-gi(n)-mesh as a variant.[3] In a list of deities (CT XXV, 28, K 7659) we likewise encounter dGish-gibil(or bíl)-ga-mesh, and lastly in a syllabary we have the equation[4]
dGish-gi-mas-[si?] = dGish-bil-[ga-mesh].
The variant Gish-gibil for Gish-bil may be disposed of readily, in view of the frequent confusion or interchange of the two signs Bil (Brünnow No. 4566) and Gibil or Bíl (Brünnow No. 4642) which has also the value Gi (Brünnow 4641), so that we might also read Gish-gi-ga-mesh. Both signs convey the idea of “fire,” “renew,” etc.; both revert to the picture of flames of fire, in the one case with a bowl (or some such obiect) above it, in the other the flames issuing apparently from a torch.[5] The meaning of the name is not affected whether we read dGish-bil-ga-mesh or dGish-gibil(or bíl)-ga-mesh, for the middle element in the latter case being identical with the fire-god, written dBil-gi and to be pronounced in the inverted form as Gibil with -ga (or ge) as the phonetic complement; it is equivalent, therefore, to the writing bil-ga in the former case. Now Gish-gibil or Gish-bíl conveys the idea of abu, “father” (Brünnow No. 5713), just as Bil (Brünnow No. 4579) has this meaning, while Pa-gibil-(ga) or Pa-bíl-ga is abu abi, “grandfather.”[6] This meaning may be derived from Gibil, as also from Bíl = išatu, “fire,” then eššu, “new,” then abu, “father,” as the renewer or creator. Gish with Bíl or Gibil would, therefore, be “the father-man” or “the father-hero,”
- ↑ Delitzsch, Assyrische Lesestücke, p. 88, VI, 2–3. Cf. also CT XXV, 28(K 7659) 3, where we must evidently supply [Esigga]-tuk, for which in the following line we have again Gish-bil-ga-mesh as an equivalent. See Meissner, OLZ 1910, 99.
- ↑ See, e.g., Barton, Haverford Collection II No. 27, Col. I, 14, etc.
- ↑ Deimel, Pantheon Babylonicum, p. 95.
- ↑ CT XII, 50 (K 4359) obv. 17.
- ↑ See Barton, Origin and Development of Babylonian Writing, II, p. 99 seq., for various explanations, though all centering around the same idea of the picture of fire in some form.
- ↑ See the passages quoted by Poebel, Historical and Grammatical Texts, p. 126.
