Nagar and the Headless Acrobat
| Tel Brak | 36 40 02.98N 41 03 32.00E | The much eroded tel and the excavations on it can be clearly seen. |
It's amazing what you can learn from a bone or two.
Archaeologists in Syria made a macbre discovery recently. A team from Cambridge University has been excavating Tel Brak, the site of ancient Nagar, a city as important as Mari or Kish back in the third millenium BC. The 120' high tel was investigated by Max Mallowan in the 1930s and he identified a building which appeared to be a palace of Naram-Sin.
Nagar has another source of fame. It is mentioned repeatedly in the Ebla tablets as the source of the valuable kunga, which appear to have been a cross between wild onagers and ordinary donkeys. Larger and faster than donkeys, they were the preferred animals for pulling the four-wheeled chariots that feature on seals and the so-called Standard of Ur, and Nagar appears to have been one of the places where they were bred.
Near the north gate of the city the team discovered a large building which, when excavated, proved to be a temple to Samagan, the god of wild animals. However the sanctuary was only part of the building: the remainder, which included several large courtyards and a large cistern. On the floor of the courtyards were traces of herbivore dung and holes that once could have held stakes to which animals might be fastened. In other words, the rest of the building was stables in which large numbers of animals were kept. A cache of tablets found near the door of the temple recorded the details of trade in kunga.
The odd thing about the building was that the soil which filled all its rooms and courtyards was not the result of wind-blown deposition or of rubble from the collapse of subsequent buildings. It was a deliberate filling of the structure - strata, such as they were, clearly showed the marks where people had dumped basket loads of dirt and brick rubble and where it had been tamped down and levelled off.
Near the top of the fill was a heap of valuable items that had been piled up and then buried. These included silver and bronze objects, a saluki dog and its water bowl, and several donkeys. These had all been buried so rapidly that the imprint of the body was still visible - and in one case even the imprint of the animal's internal organs. They had not been killed and left to rot or be eaten by vultures and then buried. The archaeologists concluded that they had been deliberately burned as part of a sacrifice to appease an angry god.
It was when they came to clear one the of the rooms in the stable complex that they made their grisly discovery. The remains of a wagon, the skeletons of a couple of mules, and three human skeletons without heads. All had been buried rapidly but not in proper graves. One of the skeletons lay near the heads of the mules and the archaeologists suggest that he was the driver or groom.
The natural conclusion to finding bodies of men and animals together is that they had been caught up in some disaster such as a fire or an earthquake and that the building had collapsed on them just as they were about to lead the valuable beasts to safety. There is no evidence of damage to the building (or any others of the same period) and the careful filling of the building argues against accidental burial. The missing heads makes it certain that these men were killed deliberately, though why the heads were removed is less certain: were they trophies or was there some religious purpose, like the plastered skulls from Jericho?
Once upon a time, that would have been about all that could be said. Two of the skeletons were definitely male, the other could not be determined and was either a slightly build man or a woman. They were so many inches long, they were missing their heads, probably killed for some ritual reason. The bones would have been gathered up and put in a cardboard box in a museum and the dig would have carried on.
These days, however, a bone is much more than a bone: it is a record of an individual's life, as eloquent as a book to those who know how to read it. Joan Oates of Cambridge University called in the experts and was surprised to find that she had uncovered the remains of an acrobat!
The skeleton of particular interest was the possible female, whose arm and leg bones showed evidence of larger than normal tendons, which implies larger than normal muscles. Both knees were held in place by strong ligaments which resist twisting; they also sowed signs of wear associated with repeated rotation of the joint. The forearms in particular had bony anchors for large muscles; such developments are often seen in men who throw spears, but in such cases only in the throwing arm. This individual had strong muscles in both arms. The thigh bones bore the impression of large gluteus maximus muscles which are used when jumping. Dancers commonly have these muscles well developed.
As well as these "natural" signs the individual's right leg also showed evidence of a dislocated joint between the tibia and fibula, and of inflammation in the right ankle. In addition some of the toe bones had pits in them where ligaments had been pressed as the toes were flexed against a hard floor.
"These are the bones of someone who was physically active, using jumping and turning movements in a very disciplined way with feet pointed downwards during leaps," Oates declared in her excavation report.
In other words, this was the skeleton of an acrobat, buried around 2250-2300 BC.
The odd thing is that around this period there was some environmental catastrophe which led to the temporary abandonment of a number of towns and cities and may even have been responsible for the eventual collapse of Naram-Sin's empire. The most likely event was a drought of several years duration, with the attendant famine, but we simply do not know what it was. Could it be that we have here evidence of a massive sacrifice of important humans and valuable animals and objects in an attempt to appease the gods? It is possible, though filling in and abandoning the temple of the god responsible seems an odd form of appeasement.
Another possibility is the failure or cessation of some event on which the people and even the civilisation was dependent, and the choice of the temple of Samagan, the god of wild animals, may be significant. Increasing population meant increasing use of natural resources and whether it was excessive hunting or merely loss of habitat, it may be that an annual migration stopped. Like the Red Indians of America, who depended on the buffalo and were lost when the buffalo was slaughtered almost to extinction, so it may be that the loss of herds of wild onager (or something) had a similarly catastrophic effect on the culture and economy of Nagar.
So what was an acrobat doing without his or her head? It could be that he was an itinerant entertainer and as such was considered more than usually expendable, either as a source for a trophy head or as a human sacrifice. Joan Oates, however, points to evidence that acrobats formed part of the religious establishment in Nagar. In fact, cuneiform tablets from nearby Ebla refer to hub.ki from Nagar and scholars had already suggested "acrobat, juggler or horse rider" as the proper translation for this word. "Horse rider" was perhaps the most unlikely, as horses had not yet been tamed.
Cylinder seal impressions found at Tel Brak show what may be a procession of acrobats bending over backwards, so it may be that Nagar was famous for its acrobats or that they were accorded special status in the city. Oates, of course, suggests that this individual was selected for sacrifice just because he was an acrobat - and goes on to develop a theory about the religious significance of acrobats and why an acrobat would make a good sacrifice - but if her first suggestion is correct and acrobats were common in Nagar, then it is highly likely that one or more of those selected would be an acrobat - but his profession was incidental to his being chosen for sacrifice.
We must sincerely hope so, because otherwise we would have to conclude that being an acrobat in ancient Nagar was practically uninsurable. As well as the perils attendant on landing awkwardly, falling from the high wire and juggling with something sharp and burning, there was also the chance that the entertainment would conclude with a religious ceremony in which you had the starring role!
© Kendall K. Down 2009
