Introduction
Primary evidence such as cuneiform tablets, stone carvings, and glass and stone artifacts attest to the usage of aromatic materials throughout Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (ANE). Myer explains, “Aromatics were used as incense, perfume, medicine, and occasionally spice by a variety of people in Mesopotamia including exorcists, diviners, physicians, laundrymen, smiths, the women of Mesopotamia, perfume makers, cooks, and builders.” A contemporary Western audience might easily recognize such aromatic oils as precursors to modern day perfumery. However, utilizing a religious lens to examine Mesoptomian aromatics allows us to better understand that these products were not only intended for cosmetic use, but that they often had significant religious meaning and ritual purposes as well.
One of the most often-cited examples of an ancient Mesopotamian perfume recipe, the Assyrian KAR 220 cuneiform tablet (viewable via the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus hosted by University of Pennsylvania), received an updated English translation in 2023 by Assyriologist Eduardo Escobar, the first new translation since Levey’s 1960 English translation of Ebeling’s well-discussed German original of 1950. At the same time, because the KAR 220 tablet is a recipe for a king’s perfume attributed to Tappūtī-bēlet-ekallim the perfume-maker, a woman, much has been made of the KAR 220 tablet being not just the earliest evidence of a specific perfume recipe attributed to a named perfumer, but the earliest evidence that the world’s (currently) earliest-named chemist was a woman.
Enter the President of Turkey’s Smell Academy and Scent Culture Association, Bihter Türkan Ergül, who collaborated on a separate translation of the KAR 220 tablet in 2023 in order to bring ancient scents back to life for human use. Ergül and her team revealed that as a part of her methodology, “Tapputi would work under a full moon while seeking communion with the stars in the night sky. Tapputi’s mysterious rituals in her Mesopotamian perfume-making activities is one of many secrets uncovered during translations of the tablet.” But what is most interesting is that Escobar’s translation, the one currently presented by ORACC, makes no explicit mention of “mysterious rituals” nor does it hint at the importance of cosmology or celestial mechanics (astrometry) to the perfume-making process as identified by Ergül and her team other than prescriptions for actions at specific times of the day. This raises a question, “Are these specific times of day as translated by Escobar significant to religious belief or ritual or simply convenient ways of marking time for chemical processes…or both?”
As the Turkish group have not yet made their research findings available via public scholarship, this manuscript will respond to the question, “How might examining current scholarship on Mesoptamian perfumery through a religious lens offer deeper insight into the differing readings of cuneiform perfume recipes such as KAR 220?” This is significant as having a stronger understanding of the potential religious or ritual significance of the perfumes described in written cuneiform recipes can broaden our understanding of why, how, and by whom they were created, as well as why, how, and by whom they were used. At present, there is no existing public scholarship linking the creation or use of perfume with cosmology or astrometry.
Lenses of Study
A religious lens will be primarily used here to examine how beliefs, practices, and institutions of Mesopotamia and the ANE, particularly Assyria, have shaped perfume making, trade, or usage within an established religious system or associated physical space so that we may better answer the research questions posed above. Examining religion and ritual will illuminate how a fragrant product may be used in carrying out religious ideology via performance, and as such, we can also pay attention to perfumery as an example of material culture.
For example, we needn’t limit our search to specific lexical evidence on the KAR 220 tablet when we consider that the purpose, process, and product of creating a perfume for a king was in itself a practice that indexed religious beliefs, especially considering that the king was seen as being chosen by the Lord Assur himself as human representative. As such, creating a perfume for the King was akin to creating a perfume for a god. Escobar explains, “The highest quality Assyrian perfumes are named according to their level of refinement. After 20 filtrations one produces a grade of perfume suitable for trade (literally: ‘for the road’); the finest quality scented oil, however, is achieved after weeks of refinement and 40 filtrations, and was described as ‘fit for a king’. This is the product attributed to the expertise of Tappūtī-bēlet-ekallim more than three millennia ago.”
Historiography
For the purposes of this historiography, sources are grouped into the following five clusters that have offered meaningful insight: Religious/royal contexts; explorations in technology; perfume as material culture; cosmology and belief; and comparative studies.
Religious/Royal Contexts
There are numerous cuneiform and other material artifacts that reference either royal (the king, the palace, etc.) or religious (cultic temples, ritual practices, etc.) contexts in both the creation and usage of perfumed oils. Llop and Shibata focus on the presence of perfumers and ritual oil use during royal journeys of the Middle Assyrian Kings while two articles – Recht and Vigo – from the Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology examine the significance of perfumed oils in relation to ritual funereal contexts. Additionally, Hätinen examines the use of perfumed oils during a specific divintory ritual in the Neo-Assyrian context of the first millenium. Taken together, these articles – all written with a focus on translation and analysis of both texts and artifacts (material culture) with social, religious, gendered, and geographic lenses – reinforce that perfumed oils were created with multiple purposes and contexts in mind beyond cosmetic usage. They also raise a secondary question: “If these perfumed oils were used in such important ritual practices, how might such religious and ritual significance be mirrored during the processes of their creations?”
Llop and Shibata focus on specific cuneiform tablets that reference physical journeys of the Kings of the Middle Assyrian period, the period in which Tapputi would have worked and within the geographic context that she would have inhabited. Of note is the recording of the presence of perfume-makers: “The perfume makers possibly fulfilled multiple functions: they produced perfumed oils for use during the travel (both for personal hygiene and beauty) and may also have been associated with the performance of royal rituals.” The authors add, “the little that is known of the Tell Sabi Abyad sakultu shows that it involved a ritual act (the pouring of scented oil) and the king. Among the very few literary texts from the site two are centred on the king, confirming the local execution of royal rituals.” Llop and Shibata underscore the significance of the perfume makers and their creations to the King, such that not one but many would accompany him on his travels. The authors use multiple lenses – textual, geographic, material culture, religious, economic, social, and administrative, for example – in examining the textual evidence of rituals during royal travels and their overall significance. This evidence places Tapputi as not just a perfumer, but as someone who also would have facilitated king’s rituals, reinforcing the potential religious aspects of her work.
Recht explores the potential use of aromatic substances in late chalcolithic Urkesh, examining “perfume in the form of oil and ointments, especially in ritual contexts” – and in the process of doing so, she “delve[s] into certain associations with women and female aspects of the data.” As such, Recht employs a number of lenses such as material culture (she specifically explores ritual objects and their meanings) as well as social, religious, and gender lenses in terms of the usage of these items during specific ritual practices by specific members of the community. The time frame under examination is about 1000 years before Tapputi in the ancient Hurrian lands of northeastern Syria and as such supports comparative analysis across time periods and cultural contexts within the ANE. Of note is Recht’s observation that perfumed oils were “distributed to the royal family – including for religious ceremonies, to the women of the harem, for burials, for offerings to the deities, used in the temple for anointing statues and part of the temple itself.” She concludes: “The ancient texts make it clear that aromatic substances existed and were used in a variety of contexts beyond modern cosmetic usage…. The perfumes may have had not only cosmetic uses, but also have been appreciated for their medicinal properties and therefore part of healing rituals.”
Vigo examines 13th century BCE Hittite cuneiform artifacts that emphasize the significance of scented oils as part of funeral rituals and explains that scented oil was most commonly produced for anointment,
Kings, princes, worshippers, priests and sorceresses were anointed to perform rituals or to pass through particular physical conditions or social steps. Oil could also be used to anoint cultic objects, like (animal-shaped) vessels, to invoke protection from evil and insulate figurines, statues of deities, doors and windows during rituals. Moreover, oil was often used to attract and appease gods.”
Vigo’s work underscores the ritual significance of some perfumed oils thereby calling for further discussion of how these perfumes had been created. His focus is largely on translation and semantic analysis with an interdisciplinary approach.
Hätinen’s “Purification, Defilement, and Privilege” (2024) examines the uses of perfumes by a wealthy Assyrian and Babylonian upper class as part of a religious ritual aimed “to receive positive dream messages concerning either the divine or human peers…aimed at people who wish to maintain good standing with both the divine and the earthly authorities.” Hätinen explains that “Finishing a purification by rubbing oneself with a scented oil or ointment represents the process’s most elaborate and expensive form: not only does one become clean of any dirt and foul odours, but one’s body also becomes sweet smelling. This is achieved in most instructions in the Lying Down Menology.” Of note is the author’s explanation of the uses of perfumes during this ritual:
The preparation for the meal continues with the application of a scented oil.19 Most months have a specific perfume, for example, kanaktu in month I and murru in month III (see table 1). Unfortunately, it remains unclear why a particular perfume was associated with a specific month. The selection of the perfumes corresponds to the aromatics and perfumes known from other sources, and the same kinds of oils are very often found in ritual instructions from the first millennium BCE.20 The pattern in the use of scented and unscented oils indicates that apart from month IV, the anointment of the defiled body is either explicitly forbidden or it should be made with unscented oil. Thus, there is a connection between the purified body and a sweet smell and between the defiled body and no smell. Again, the sweet smell (attained by using a scented oil) can be defined as having positive qualities. In contrast, no smell (achieved by the anointment with an unscented oil or by the ban on anointment) has negative qualities.
Hätinen connects ritual acts of purification to scented oil and specific times of the year, underscoring the significance of this product and reemphasizing the possible occurrence of performances that index the significance of the stars during its creation.
Explorations in Technology
A significant body of scholarship has emerged from explorations in ancient technologies, particularly glass-making and chemistry. For example, in A Cultural History of Chemistry in Antiquity, Vol. 1, numerous scholars examine the exchange of chemical arts, recipes, and ideas across the Mediterranean and Ancient Near East. The authors establish that this exchange created an interconnected history of chemistry, and present their findings by thematic chapters, each with attention to and contrast among varying regions, employing a geographic lens as well as a technological one. Much focus is on translation and analysis of cuneiform texts as well chemical analysis of perfume bottles and vessels used in storage and production, as well as the raw materials of perfume creation.
Moreover, the work of Martin Levey during the 1950s and 1960s produced a number of foundational readings of cuneiform texts on perfumery and chemistry that serve much of the background for what we know about Tapputi and her KAR 220 perfume recipe. Escobar’s aforementioned 2023 update is also key to this inquiry. Levey was the first English language translator of the original Ebeling (German) readings of numerous tablets recording perfume recipes. His work focuses on translation along with identification/clarification of uncertain terms. His work serves as the foundation for the current Escobar translation of KAR 220. Levey’s study of ancient Babylonian chemistry in the 2nd millennium BCE also provides fruitful discussion of the uses and creation processes of Tapputi’s perfumery.
Escobar’s 2023 article published in the anthology Women in the History of Science provides an update to Levey’s earlier translation of the KAR 220 tablet by offering additional lexical and semantic information. The focus is on clarifying terms and concepts with the new knowledge produced since Levey’s original readings. Escobars translation further raises questions such as just how much can be read into a translation of a perfume recipe? But because specific times of day are mentioned as part of the recipe, further investigation is warranted.
In Beretta’s edited anthology, numerous scholars examine the exchange of chemical arts, recipes, and ideas across the Mediterranean and Ancient Near East. The authors establish that this exchange created an interconnected history of chemistry, and present their findings by thematic chapters, each with attention to and contrast among varying specific regions such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. This comparative approach uses geography as its main lens while also employing numerous other lenses such as social, political, religious, and economic to examine the processes and products of ancient chemistry. In a section on Mesoptamian raw materials used for perfumes, Johnson explains in Beretta, “The fact that these “perfumes” played a central role in religious practices and that the same aromatic ingredients reappear in many medical recipes shows that these substances were not only or even primarily aesthetic in function.”
Perfume as Material Culture
Perhaps the most common approach to an examination of ancient perfumes of the ANE is to examine fragrance as material culture. Scarpacci explains:
objects function as mirrors that reflect both individual and societal images. These
artifacts form the cornerstones of material culture that point out not only what we
like, dislike and desire, but are also portals to cultures and behaviors of the past.
In this way, the study of material culture is a useful venue to help us comprehend
cultures and societies.”
As such, many studies examine perfume as material culture, in which the use of perfume, by whom, and for what purpose takes centerstage of importance in revealing cultural insight. For example, Myer’s doctoral dissertation offers a thorough discussion of the uses of aromatic materials in the ANE, drawing from a comparative historical analysis of geographically close cultures and employing a largely technological lens into the production, and material culture lens into the uses of these aromatics.
McMahon recounts the numerous ways in which the ancient Mesoptamians experienced their world. Through an examination of sensory phenomenological experience with a focus on material culture, the author examines the significance of the human senses. For example, McMahon explains one of the rituals requiring aromatic oil and emphasizes the importance of smell: “Across the third to first millennia bce, Mesopotamian statues of humans or deities were treated to mouth-washing and mouth-opening rituals that rendered the statues ‘alive’, able to eat and to smell incense. These statues thus may suggest cultural preferences for sensory input: taste and smell were crucial, since these were most closely linked to enlivening the image.” Zadworny approaches his study of the aromatics industry in 3rd millennium BCE Girsu through a social lens, “with particular emphasis on the people’s social status, activities, and the way in which the documentary practices of Ancient Mesopotamia shape our knowledge about this period. The result is a description of diverse practices, with locally specific characteristics, nonetheless all being a part of a wider, shared tradition of production and use of aromatics.” As such, Zadworny helps us consider a context for Tapputi’s practices.
Middeke-Conlin’s research is significant because it provides one of the most thorough contemporary overviews of ancient Mesopotamian perfume production, weaving together many of the foundational scholars cited throughout this manuscript. His focus however is largely lexical in exploring “how the šim determinative was used in the kingdom of Larsa.” As such, his work is largely linguistic in examining how knowledge of language and context supports understanding of the ancient Larsan perfume industry.
Cousin’s research marries scholarship on perfumery of the ANE and Babylonian temples to understand “links between perfumes and worship.” In an attempt to “reconstruct the material environment that composed the atmosphere of the places of worship,” her work serves as a link to the next section on cosmology and religion and could have been grouped either way. Of Interest is her explanation: “According to the archives of the Ebabbar temple in Sippar dedicated to the Sun-god Šamaš, there are several types of oils used for specific days and particular gods. Two oils called kiṣru and siltu were obviously produced from a sesame oil base, to which fragrant substances were added.” Cousin’s discussion underscores the care taken by sanctuary/temple attendants at perfuming religious or cultic objects in order to please the gods.
Cosmology and Religion
A number of scholarly articles explore religious contexts and related individuals both in terms of aromatics as well as roles, rituals, and behaviors. Of interest here is the presence of women in cultic temples and the significance the Mesoptamians place on both cosmology and astrometry. Taken together, these sources suggest that it is entirely possible that Tapputi had been exposed to a number of religious and cultic ritual practices that could have influenced how she viewed the production of her perfumes.
This section helps to create a response to the question above in the Religious/Royal Contexts section, “If these perfumed oils were used in such important ritual practices, how would such religious and ritual significance be mirrored during the processes of their creations?” Beaulieu, Frahm, Horowitz, and Steele discuss the Assyrian concepts of the constellations, paying specific attention to both the lexical and semantic readings of cuneiform evidence. Their work highlights the importance of specific constellations to specific religious and cultic practices and rituals. As such, this lends support that Tapputi may have been paying attention to night sky when creating ritual-specific perfumes.
The Turkish team’s 2023 translation discussed at the start of this manuscript makes specific mention of Tapputi working under the moon. Beaulieu has found both pictorial and textual evidence for a “man in the moon” character and examines its origins and meanings, largely focusing on comparative translations of key texts. Of significance is that the character is related to the God Nabu (associated with wisdom, writing, and scribes) battling a cosmic monster and may suggest that the moon and its iconography held ritual/religious significance to Tapputi.
May’s research attests to the presence of women in cultic settings and their possible roles as attendants to important religious idols and rituals. May’s work focuses on textual evidence and takes a largely social and gendered approach to the scholarship. This supports the possibility that Tapputi could have worked at a temple at some point in her training and as such, the religious and ritual significances of specific materials and practices may have been known to her.
Comparative Study
This final group allows us to look beyond Assyria to other similar geographic cultures that were in direct trade and contact. This international trade also allowed for an exchange of ideas, beliefs, practices, and products. Moreover, these cultures were also in indirect conflict with each other and as such routinely colonized each other, reinforcing the exchange. Each offers deep insight suggesting a greater meaning to the process and products used in Tapouti’s Assyrian perfumery.
Hemmer Gudme’s work straddles both religious/ritual and comparative study as Natalie Naomi May’s does in the previous section, and her focus is to the west of Assyria and on the Hebrew Bible. However, her gendered and social approach to reading the evidence allows us to consider the types of perfumes mentioned in the Hebrew Bible – erotic vs. cultic – along with their compositions and uses. This suggests that Tapputi may have had an understanding of how her own products’ ultimate purposes may have necessitated a variety of materials. Likewise, Suzy Rees in her 2023 doctoral dissertation explains that “by contextualising the use of cosmetics against the whole processes of production, distribution and consumption that we can fully understand their significance. I draw on archaeobotanical, artefactual, iconographic and epigraphic evidence in order to attempt to identify these processes which imbue cosmetics with meaning.” Rees’ lens is largely one of cosmetics as material culture, and considering the trade and cultural contact Assyria had with the western Levant, it is possible that some of these traditions would have been shared.
Thanks to the dearth of textual evidence available, Price’s work keenly documents Egyptian practices and directly addresses views on utilizing a sensory phenomenological lens, Price addresses how “ancient Egyptians employed scent as an organizing feature in their society.” She continues, “Pleasant fragrances communicated one’s identity and presence, and also functioned as the manifestation of life itself. To smell was more than a physiological reaction to environmental stimuli but was a physical presence that exerted influence over individuals.” Price’s scholarship intersects with economic, political, social, and gendered discussions of the significance of smell and fragrant products in Egypt. Like the Hebrews, the Egyptians were strong trading partners with the Asyrians and it is possible that the empires shared similar ideas about scent.
Fappas examines a wide geography of perfumed traditions and as such utilizes a hybrid geographical, social, cultural, religious, and even technological lens. He underscores the significance of perfumed oil as a ritual item and asserts that “For every transition the ritual purity of the individual was necessary for achieving the separation from one situation and his/her incorporation into the other (Van Gennep 1960: 12-184; passim). This physical and mental purity was a safety measure against any danger or disturbance and was accessed symbolically through the action of anointment.6 Thus, the importance of purification, directly associated with anointment, made perfumed oil necessary in every kind of transition or change.”
Research and Defense
The purpose of the present manuscript is to explore how examination of Mesoptamian perfumery through a religious lens can offer deeper insight into the differing readings of Assyrian cuneiform perfume recipes such as KAR 220. More specifically, differing translations of the KAR 220 tablet suggest that Tapputi the perfume-maker might have paid attention to cosmology and astrometry during her perfume-making processes. When considering the significance of ritual and royal perfumes, the question arises, “If these perfumed oils were used in such important ritual practices, how might such religious and ritual significance be mirrored during the processes of their creations?”
This author argues that although there is no currently published explicit textual or visual evidence of Tapputi doing so herself, a comparative analysis of perfume-making practices and usage rituals from other cultures and time periods in the ANE – as well as application of a primarily religious lens with the employment of cultural, material culture, gender, and technological lenses as well – can yield a more detailed hypothetical picture of Tapputi the perfumer at work.
In this section, a further analysis will ensue of Ergül’s assertion that “Tapputi would work under a full moon while seeking communion with the stars in the night sky. Tapputi’s mysterious rituals in her Mesopotamian perfume-making activities is one of many secrets uncovered during translations of the tablet.” The italics emphasize the three different aspects to be explored herein utilizing a religious lens: the significance of the moon, the stars and night sky, and mysterious rituals.
First, Frappas emphasizes the value of perfumed oil, “ by being anointed, people were thought to be completely purified and, as a consequence, they were regarded as recipients of a positive quality interpreted as ‘life’, ‘health’, ‘welfare’, ‘power’, ‘authority’ and ‘honour’ (Kutsch 1963: 1-6, 33-70).” He continues, “All these characteristics were believed to appease and attract the gods.” Frappas concludes:
For every transition the ritual purity of the individual was necessary for achieving the separation from one situation and his/her incorporation into the other (Van Gennep 1960: 12-184; passim). This physical and mental purity was a safety measure against any danger or disturbance and was accessed symbolically through the action of anointment.6 Thus, the importance of purification, directly associated with anointment, made perfumed oil necessary in every kind of transition or change.
Vigo adds, “Oils are often used in rituals to attract or appease angry gods. Gods are thus attracted or ‘lured’ by special paths (palsa-/ Sum. KASKAL) sprinkled with oils and perfumes…. Gods are hence ‘called’ or ‘summoned’ by the fragrance and the good smell of the ‘fine oil’.” Hence, perfume was a conduit to the gods, signaling one’s readiness for blessings or openness to messages.
Why would the moon, the stars and the night sky, and mysterious rituals then be part of the perfume-maker’s process?
Potential Significance of Seeking Communion with the Stars in the Night Sky
Ergul’s team emphasizes the significance of performance that seeks communion with the stars in the night sky. There are numerous possible explanations for why Tapputi might have paid attention and even directly addressed stars and constellations. Beaulieu, Frahm, Horowitz, and Steele underscore the significance of constellations as reflections of the gods, their will, and their forces for the Assyrians while Fales explains that so important was the night sky that the Assyrian court astrologers were “expected to perform no more and no less than the collective duty of “vigilance” on behalf of the king–but with their eyes trained on the heavens, and in await for signs ultimately sent from the gods.” In short, the sky reflected a cultural history of heroes, gods, and evil spirits. Paying attention to what was happening in the sky could help harness the attributed power of such constellations and as such the Assyrians (along with various other trading cultures of the ANE) prescribed specific behaviors to help enact that power or prevent negative powers.
Hätinen’s discussions of the Lying Down Menology show that these “instructions about inducing auspicious dreams were an integral part of calendrical knowledge and that, according to Mesopotamian beliefs, adhering to them contributed to leading a successful life.” This connects specific perfume-using rituals with specific knowledge of the calendar, a time construct based on knowledge of cosmology and astrometry. And throughout the translations are prescriptions for either the use of specific perfumed oils, or the specific omission of such aromatic substances. Hätinen explains:
the generic need is purity that, in its most simple form, can be achieved by using only water. Finishing a purification by rubbing oneself with a scented oil or ointment represents the process’s most elaborate and expensive form: not only does one become clean of any dirt and foul odours, but one’s body also becomes sweet smelling. This is achieved in most instructions in the Lying Down Menology.
As such, it is entirely possible that Tapputi herself may have understood that specific aromas were auspicious at specific times of the year and so selected perfume ingredients in her Perfume for a King (KAR 220) accordingly.
Fales explains that the vigilance he discussed that was expected of astrologers also “denoted the requirement, on the part of all the subjects of the king of Assyria, to keep their eyes and ears open, so as to be able to report to the king if anything untoward was taking place, whether in the capital city or in the most remote military outpost of the empire.” Moreover, Tapputi may have understood the cultural expectations of paying attention to what was happening in the night sky as potentially meaningful to her own perfume-making process. The above scholarship then paints a picture of Tapputi as an artisan who understood the audience for her art and the powers it needed to convey. Likewise, she would have understood the relationship between ritual, cosmology, and fragrance.
Potential Significance of the Moon
Fales emphasizes the importance of the moon to the Assyrians and explains, “the Assyrian astrologers were expected to observe the Moon in various phases of the month, in order to determine dates of occurrence of new moons, the heliacal rising and setting of planets, and the position of the planets among the con- stellations.” Likewise, Beaulieu’s 1999 discussion, “The Babylonian Man in the Moon”, seeks to establish what types of symbolic power Assyria’s neighbors to the south might have associated with the moon and offers, “They saw on the moon the divine hero and king of the gods locked in combat with the lion/dragon symbolizing the forces of chaos, a mythologem of crucial importance in the culture and political ideology of the first millenium.” Could Tapputi also have seen significance in the moon or its cycles such that it played a part in her practices? When we consider that the KAR 220 tablet presents a recipe for a perfume for the king, might the moon’s symbolism and associated meaning of its stages been beneficial knowledge to the perfumer? For example, Hätinen presents a translation of the K.3269+ 1-8 tablet as follows:
[¶ In the month Araḫsamnu,] (the month) of the lord of underground waters, the sage of the gods, Marduk. 1st day is of Anu and [Enlil?]. [Wh]en the moon is observed at the beginning of the month, the shepherd of the gre[at] people ‹sets up› [h]is [bread offering] (and) a pure gazelle to the Fruit. The king should wash himself, he should anoint himself with myrtle oil, [he should purify himself].
Here we see the prescription for the use of myrtle oil, specifically, when the moon is in a specific stage. As such, Hätinen presents direct evidence that the observation of the heavenly bodies, and the moon more specifically in this example, could have a direct impact on what kind of perfumed oil an individual was to use, suggesting that Tapputi, too, may have chosen her ingredients for the KAR 220 recipe with the stars and the moon in mind.
Clarification of Mysterious Rituals
Suggestions of “mysterious rituals” during the perfume-making process could index a number of performative behaviours that might be better understood through a religious lens. Let us return to the earlier translation of the KAR 220 tablet, Escobar explains:
The highest quality Assyrian perfumes are named according to their level of refinement. After 20 filtrations one produces a grade of perfume suitable for trade (literally: ‘for the road’); the finest quality scented oil, however, is achieved after weeks of refinement and 40 filtrations, and was described as ‘fit for a king’. This is the product attributed to the expertise of Tappūtī-bēlet-ekallim more than three millennia ago.”
I believe that here we can see an allusion to a mysterious ritual: The act of refining perfumed oil for the king required much more work than was typically required of the average perfume. Again, if the king is selected by Ashur, his god, then we would expect a godly perfume to be created accordingly and imbued with specific meaning or blessings. As such, might the additional work required of a king’s perfume along with Tapputi’s consultation with the night sky and consideration of the lunar cycle as explained above be taken as the mysterious rituals noted by the Turkish group?
Conclusion
Utilizing a religious lens alongside examinations of gender, material culture, and technology support a comparative analysis of perfume-making and usage practices that offer deeper context and insight into Assyrian perfume recipes such as the KAR 220 tablet, a perfume for the King, attributed to Tapputi during the late 13th century BCE.
Firstly, a religious lens has helped us consider that perfume was utilized in a variety of ways in addition to cosmetic usage. Perfume and perfumed oils were used in meaningful rituals supporting and celebrating the King as well as deities, objects of meaning, and places of significance.
Next, a religious comparative approach helps us consider how Egyptian, Jewish, and other ancient cultures of the ANE viewed perfume as a ritual product with deep significance. Specific aromas have been associated with religious practices; constellations; important times of the day and times of the year for usage; and even specific deities themselves. As such, we may ponder how Tapputi also placed significance on specific practices related to cosmology and astrometry when creating her perfumes, lending support to the conclusions of Ergül and her team. Understanding the profound significance of perfume in relation to the King, the royal palace, and temples of worship suggests that the creation process could also have indexed the overall purposes for perfume usage, as well as the important cultural associations that perfume could carry. The Lying Down Menology presents one example of how a ritual act prescribed a specific aroma. But these are suppositions that at present, the actual cuneiform evidence, e.g. KAR 220, does not directly spell out. Future scholarship might more directly consult the cuneiform and visual evidence to further consider what connotations specific language or images might have offered about the significance of cosmology and astrometry to the Assyrian perfume-making processes. Moreover, there were many different types of perfumed oils for many different purposes. Additional research may illuminate the various methods and performative behaviors associated with different types of perfumed products.
Examining a broader history of the ANE cultures who relied on trade that provided an exchange of technological practices and important perfume-making materials, helps us appreciate how religious, technology, material culture, and gender lenses can provide deeper insight into the ritual significance of ancient Assyrian perfumery – how it was made, what significance the stars and the night sky held, and the potential significance of the moon during its creation.
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