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| Tapputi Belet-ekallim in popular culture, it is a wild mix |
It is another example of an historical anecdote that appeals to a sensibility of "history as infotainment", regardless of actual veracity. But it is also another neat illustration of the pitfalls of sharing out of date information within academia, yet outside of the related discipline; in this case Assyriology.
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| What is wrong with this picture? |
The myth of Tapputi
A quick internet search of her name would supply you with my motives for writing this post, but to put it briefly, Tapputi is variously credited with being the first female chemist, scientist or perfumer, depending on the product one is selling.
And from the latter factoid a whole industry of perfume lines and boutiquey type products have been created to profit from this rather catchy and ostensibly feminist gimmick. Plus a children's cartoon.
A recent source of the current memes and blog posts appears to be a press release from 2022 in Daily Sabah of research done by scientists from the Scent Academy in Turkey. But this specific information may be traced much further back to publications by a chemist, Martin Levey.
In fact Levey's articles discussing Tapputi's recipe have gone on to be reinterpreted in telephone games in chemistry books since the 1970s until ending up as bullshit memes on the internet.... and in Wikipedia.
So lets unpick the factoids:
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| The Archaeologist 2022 demonstrating that they get their information at Wiki |
It is not the tablet shown in most memes
This is actually what drew my attention to the thing in the first place:
Because the clay tablet shown above is not the one naming Tapputi, it is a Sumerian tablet dated to about 2000 years earlier and it uses a much earlier form of cuneiform.
This tablet is a list of food rations that is in the Louvre Museum (ao29560, Uruk Period proto-Sumer, ca. 3500-3100 BCE).
To add insult to injury there are even memes with a picture of a modern fake of this same tablet. In fact, the scruffy copy is one of the earliest of the current batch of nonsense.
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| Modern fake, Daily Sabah 2022 |
The real tablet naming Tapputi looks like this:
It is in the Vorderasiatisches Museum of Berlin in Germany (Catalogue No. VAT 10165, Ass 4347c, KAR 220, online at the CDLI P282617, image CDLI, links in references).
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| Detail of VAT 10165 showing the text naming Tapputi (middle). |
What do we know about Tapputi?
The cuneiform tablet that names Tapputi was found in the archive of the temple of the god Assur at the capital of Assyria, Assur in northern Iraq by the archaeologist Walter André during excavations at the site in the early 20th century (Pedersén 1986, Ebeling 1920).
It is Middle Assyrian and one of 6 tablets with aromatic recipes from this ancient site.
It is dated approximately to the reign of Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I (ca. 1240-1230 BCE), who ruled most of northern Mesopotamia at the end of the Late Bronze Age. At this time Assyria was a wealthy interregional power and their kings were very active in international trade.
The recipe
It describes the distillation of a high quality reed oil (probably calamus/sweet flag oil) that is infused with other aromatics and water. This oil was heated and strained at sunset, with the various ingredients added over time and the mixture being left to steep overnight.
The whole process taking a couple of days.
There is no mention of needing the full moon or reading the stars, or in fact anything arcane and esoteric, contrary to Daily Sabah and all sites copycatting their article (link to recipe at end of article).
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| Sounds awesome, a pity it is total bollocks, but expect nothing more from AO |
The nature of the aromatics depends on whose translation you are using; the most recent (and reliable) being: myrtle, myrrh, mashed almonds and four unidentified ingredients (Escobar 2023 & ORACC website).
And I emphasise - four ingredients are currently unidentifed.
"Perfume-making recipe for ≈20 litres (2 seahs) of processed cane oil, fit for a king, according to the mouth of Tapputi-belet-ekallim, the perfume maker." Escobar 2023
If you are reading earlier sources the aromatics are usually flowers, cypress and myrrh (source Martin Levey). It is unclear to me where the Turkish study found some of the ingredients they cite above, such as lemongrass, rose and horseradish, as these are not in Tapputi's recipe (Daily Sabah 2022).
And because Tapputi is named at the end of the text with "according to the mouth of ..." it is assumed that she was in some way responsible for the production of this high quality fragrant oil. But it does not say how.
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| 'Tapputi-Belatikallim: Royal perfumer' at daltonabbey.com |
Issues of Translation 1: Her name
“As
a royal perfume-maker, Tapputi wasn’t just the head of her own household (which
is what “Belatekallim” means); she is spoken of as being an authority in her
field and the official overseer of perfumery in the royal palace.” Zing Tsjeng (2018) Forgotten Women
This is incorrect, the name Tapputi Belet-ekallim (salTAP.PU.TI dBELET.É.KAL.LIM) does not indicate her social position.
People in ancient Assyria did not get named after their (future) occupation. Instead they were commonly given theophoric names ("god bearing"), that is, names honouring a god or goddess, like "my trust is in Ninurta" (king Tukulti-Ninurta).
Tapputi is no exception, as Belet-ekallim was a goddess. Her name means "Lady of the Great House", she was a goddess associated with the palace and royal family. I know this because our cat is named after her, or rather her Sumerian equivalent: Ninegal (she even has her own temple).
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| Ninegal in her catturat, photo F. Merten |
Tapputu(m) on the other hand means "aid", "help", "assistance" or "partner". Therefore, Tapputi's name means something like "my partner is (the goddess) Belet-ekallim" or "my assistance is (the goddess) Belet-ekallim" (Janine Wende personal communication).
It does not translate as "Tapputi the overseer", or "Tapputi, head of her own household". In addition, it does not indicate her social position, nor does it tell us whether she was directly associated with the king and palace. This has simply been assumed from the phrase "fit for a king".
The source of the mistranslation of her name appears to be publications on female scientists from the late 20th century, citing Martin Levey, however the papers I have read from him do not say this. I can only assume no-one thought to actually ask an Assyriologist.
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| 1986, here you can see the error about Babylon slipping in |
Oh yes, us girls are naturally good at chemistry because we cook... of course...
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| 1990 |
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| 2005 |
Issues of translation 2: Her job
Tapputi Belet-ekallim is described on the tablet as muraqqitu, which is literally a mixer of oils or aromatic substances (female). This title does not have a direct translation into English, so translators may choose a variety of words, none of which is absolutely correct for the original culture.
Like
female perfumer, herbalist, chemist, apothecary, physician,
ointment mixer, or the most literal translation - female
oil mixer. But the problem with these terms is interpreting them at our level of experience and not theirs. There was no concept of "science" in 1240 BCE.
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| Ancient Origins 2022 |
Aromatic substances, particularly oils were an important part of culture and trade in the Late Bronze Age, they were very valuable and came in various grades of quality, "fit for a king" being the highest. And they were not just used for toiletries, like the name perfume infers to us today.
Perfumed oils were essential elements of state, used for purification and to please gods, they were used for libation rituals, for anointing divine statues in their daily cleansing rituals, for medicine, cooking, for exorcisms, burials, and to sweeten alliances with other kings.
Distilling aromatic oils would have been a major industry at this time, but it is worth remembering that various cultures of the ancient world had been distilling aromatics for at least 3000 years by the Middle Assyrian period. It was decidedly not a new industry.
The earliest attested stills come from the Chalcolithic (4200 BCE) in the Near East (Belgiorno 2018).
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| Women in STEM advent calendar 2018, findingada.com |
Was Tapputi special?
Female oil mixers are recorded in Early Dynastic Sumerian texts from Shuruppak (2600-2500 BCE), also aromatic oil production is recorded from Umma, and as under control of the queen’s household in Lagash (2600-2340 BCE). Later the aromatic oil industry is listed in texts from Old Babylonian Mari and Larsa (1900-1700 BCE).
But it is only later Middle Assyrian texts (ca 1200 BCE) that provide recipes and clear evidence of maceration and distillation, and where female oil mixers appear to be more common than male in this industry (Jursa 2004).
"according to the mouth of
Tapputi-belet-ekallim, the perfume-maker."
However, we
can't know Tapputi's role
except that she was responsible for this particular process in some way, perhaps it was her recipe, or she ordered it to be made, although on the tablet she is given no title indicating seniority, like overseer, or head oil maker. And this ought to be there because this role existed, a supervisor of female oil mixers is named in another tablet.
Nonetheless, it appears that at least in Assyria aromatic oil preparation was a highly regarded female career (Cousin 2016, Borelli 2022, Escobar 2023).
Three Middle Assyrian tablets name
female oil mixers (1240-1100 BCE). These women are Tapputi (1240-1230 BCE), Tukulti-ša-šame (1190-1160 BCE),
and [...]-ninu, whose name is incomplete, and who may have been contemporary with Tapputi, as the tablet is from the same temple archive. She could also be earlier.
So, Tapputi is probably the first female aromatic oil mixer we have evidence for.
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| I have no words for this atrocity ... a bone through her nose.. human skulls.. face paint.. sickles? |
Conclusion
What we do know about Tapputi and women like her in Late Bronze Age Assyria is a really interesting insight into ancient history that does not need to be propped up with hyperbole and outright bullshit based on sloppy scholarship, and in the case of dubious websites, on brazen clickbait marketing ploys.
Research harder, all of you, because most of the information I have used to research this post is available online for anyone to read.
Tapputi was not Sumerian, nor Babylonian, or the world's first "chemist". She is not the world's first female perfume mixer, nor is her tablet evidence of the earliest distilling.
And, I can't believe I need to say this, she was not an ugly hag dressed in animal skins and human skulls who prepared her concoctions by the light of a full moon using bunsen burners and arcane rituals...
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| This is why I do not take Wikipedia seriously, it effortlessly spreads common myths. |
This was not unlike the goal that I myself failed to achieve as a teen when I wanted to study archaeology due to similar strong opposition from teachers and family. I got there much later btw.
Therefore, I feel strongly about the social pressures on young women, and feel-good fuzzy-wuzzy misinformation does not get more women into science, supporting local and state policies that promote diversity and fund your education system does.
Representing female scientists as grotesque hags in popular culture, or as "good cooks" in ostensibly feminist science literature also does nothing to encourage women in the sciences.
So, from this you can assume that while I may be a cranky feminist, I absolutely do not support the promotion of misinformation in pursuit of same.
It misrepresents our past and it misrepresents our present...
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| *Facepalm* .. LinkedIn 2023 |
But don't trust me, read further:
Websites
Translation - Tapputi tablet (Escobar, E.A.): http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/glass/P282617
Translation - (...)-ninu tablet (Escobar, E.A.): http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/glass/P282519
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) - Tapputi tablet - No. P282617 - https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/search?layout=full&id=P282617
Assyriology and general
Chemistry (where it began)
Sources (who enhanced it and are still used to perpetuate the myth)
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| The 1st chemist was a Babylonian woman with an assistant called Ninu!! |
Misinformation on the Web (highlights)