Mesopotamian Storytelling Workshops

6 September 2008

Story Telling

There was a fascinating mix of people at this workshop. They included post-graduate students interested in storytelling as a psychotherapeutic tool, a science journalist writing for a Gulf newspaper, and Hungarians intrigued by similarities between their language and Sumerian.

New ZIPANG storytellers Laura Collins and Emily Elizabeth told the Etana story using storyboard images they prepared earlier and brought to the workshop. The Sumerian king list records that Etana was the first king of the city of Kish and the second king was Balih, probably his son. In the story, Etana is a good king but has no son to inherit his kingdom.

In answer to Etana’s prayers, the sun-god Shamash sends him into the mountains to rescue an eagle who is dying at the bottom of a very deep pit. The eagle has been punished for breaking his oath of friendship with a snake by eating the snake’s children.

This is the eagle’s chance to redeem himself by helping Etana find the herb of birth kept by the goddess Inana. Etana flies on the eagle’s back up towards heaven. Each time he looks down the world he knows is further away and smaller.

Close to the gates of heaven, Etana panics and asks the eagle to take him back to the city of Kish. The eagle twists his body, Etana falls off and tumbles down toward the ground only to be rescued when the eagle swoops and catches him on the tip of his wing. This happens three times.

Back in the city of Kish, Etana dreams he flies to heaven and sees the goddess Inana. A lion beneath her throne growls at him. When Etana approaches, the lion roars and leaps out at him. He wakes up.

Etana tells his dream to the eagle. The eagle again takes Etana up to heaven on his back. They reach the gates of heaven... This is where the text of the clay tablets breaks off. No fragment has been found that tells what happened at the end of the story. But we know from the Sumerian king lists that Etana probably had a son named Balih, so we can guess the story had a happy ending.

Fran Hazelton took people through the events in the Babylon creation myth, using storyboard images prepared earlier. The myth follows the progress of the god Marduk from favoured son of the gods to their champion, then their king and finally the first ever Supreme Being.

Badia Obaid told an episode of The Epic of Gilgamesh in Arabic. Badia is working on two storytelling versions of The Epic of Gilgamesh One is in literary Arabic for adults and one is in everyday Arabic for children. The children’s version has plenty of physical activity and interaction with the audience.

June Peters told an episode of The Epic of Gilgamesh in English. June will be missed at the ZIPANG workshops on 4 October and 1 November. She will be on tour in Mexico, South America, as an English-speaking storyteller telling traditional tales to pupils and students in English-language schools and colleges.

Tara Jaff soothed and delighted the workshop participants with improvised music on her harp. She also sang a Kurdish song about Kafiltchi, the man who was a guide for caravans travelling along ancient trade routes.

Photos by Kawa

5 July 2008

Storyboarding

Fran Hazelton talked about the Babylon creation myth known as Enuma elish... She is preparing this for a storytelling performance at the British Museum.

June Peters demonstrated the process of storyboarding. This is a technique for holding a story in your head so you can tell it as an oral storyteller. June told the Sumerian story known as The Marriage of Martu. Then workshop participants told her what happens in the story, the events. They pieced the story together in a group discussion.

On a large sheet of paper, divided into six segments, June then sketched the story’s opening and closing events. She drew simple, cartoon-like images of a city with ploughed fields and the faraway wild open country where people live in tents. She drew stick people for the city’s king and his beautiful daughter. The story ends with the princess telling her girlfriend she will marry Martu, the nomad who won her heart and her father’s consent when he became the champion wrestler at a festival in the city.

In twos and threes the workshop participants then discussed what happens in The Marriage of Martu between the first and last events. They discussed the sequence of events, what happens in each event and how one event leads to another. They drew their own sets of images for the second, third, fourth and fifth segments of the storyboard.

June then put these missing segments on the large sheet of paper and The Marriage of Martu appeared as six memorable sets of images from which the whole story could be told. As they say in the newspaper business – a picture is worth a thousand words!

June then sang the English folk ballad known as She’s gone with the raggle-taggle gypsies oh! This story, like The Marriage of Martu, is about the love between a high-born lady and a man outside the settled, rule-bound society she belongs to.

Photos by

7 June 2008

Zipang Big Day Out

The ZIPANG Big Day Out combined a morning visit to the British Museum with an afternoon workshop at the Poetry Cafe. The theme of the day was the origin of writing and the cuneiform or “wedge-shaped” script known in Arabic as “al-khett al-mismari”, meaning “naily line”.

We began the morning with a visit to the Assyrian gallery in Room 9 on the ground-floor of the British Museum for the Find-the-Signs tour guided by Fran Hazelton and Zoe Bratis. Looking closely at one of the Assyrian narrative friezes, we followed the story of a great guardian bull quarried in the rocky district named Balatay. We saw the bull dragged by Babylonian prisoners-of-war under the command of Assyrian soldiers to the nature reserve where it was inspected by King Sennacherib. We identified cuneiform signs for Balatay in the inscription on the frieze. The bull was part of a great building project in Nineveh in 700 BCE. At this time Nineveh was the cosmopolitan capital of the Middle East, beside the river Tigris.

Then people climbed the wide, white winding staircase and walked across the glass bridge to the Mesopotamian galleries in Rooms 55 and 56. Here they used their Mesopotamian Heritage Trail quiz-books to find items and answer questions about them.

In the afternoon workshop at the Poetry Cafe, Birkbeck College tutors Dr Mariana Giovino and Frans van Koppen answered questions about Mesopotamian history and literature. Together with their students, Simon Smith and Irmengard Baker, they then helped people to write on wet clay tablets the cuneiform signs for Balatay identified in the inscription seen at the British Museum. ZIPANG storyteller June Peters told a Sumerian story about the world’s first diplomatic letter and the origin of trade. This story is known as Enmerkar and Aratta after the king of Uruk and his rival, the lord of Aratta.

The day ended with Iraqi folk and classical music played by oud-player Khyam Allami with percussionist Elizabeth Nott.

To see a video-clip about the Assyrian narrative freize which tells the story of a lamassu's journey from the stone quarry in Balatay to a new palace built by King Sennacherib in Nineveh more than 2000 years ago, click here.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5GFt99RIGWo

Photos by Natasha Lemon

3 May 2008

Storytelling

Four new ZIPANG storytellers told their stories.

Badia Obaid told the opening episode of The Epic of Gilgamesh. She described the hero’s appearance, semi-divine status and significance as the most famous mythical king of Uruk.

Laura Collins told the story of Etana, the good man chosen by the gods to be the first king of Kish. Etana has no son. In his search for the herb of birth he flies to heaven on the back of an eagle.

Mohamad Tawfiq Ali told The Poor Citizen of Nippur. When Gimil Ninurta gives a goat to the Mayor of Nippur he is served only a bone with a bit of gristle at the Mayor’s feast. Gimil Ninurta gets even with the Mayor by tricking him not once but three times.

Magali Krakenberger talked about The Hulupu Tree. The young goddess Inana rescues a tree from the River Euphrates and plants it in her garden. The young Gilgamesh undertakes to make her a throne and bed from the tree.

June Peters, one of the original ZIPANG storytellers, told What happened when the Anzud Bird stole the Tablets of Destiny. Civilisation unravels as man-made items become again the natural resources they are made from. The hero god Ninurta defeats and kills the Anzud Bird by turning his misuse of power against him.

Oud-player Ehsan Emam played delightful music. It inspired workshop participants to join in with the lyrics of traditional songs and distinctive Iraqi finger-clicking.

Photos and Videos by Sara Bander, Haider Safa.

5 April 2008

Mythology

As June Peters explained, most societies and cultures have ancient myths to tell how the world began and humans came into being. The main characters in mythic stories are deities. Some deities are imagined personifications of natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, sky, storms, water or climate change. Other deities personify human phenomena, such as love, war, wisdom, writing or health-care.

Mesopotamian mythology was written in both Sumerian and Akkadian, so deities had both a Sumerian name and an Akkadian name, as did cities. A variety of mythic traditions co-existed and evolved over 3000 years of successive Mesopotamian civilisations.

An authoritative, easy-to-read and very helpful guide to Mesopotamian mythology is Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, an illustrated dictionary by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, published by the British Museum Press in 1992 and reprinted in 1998. Price: £12.99.

At the ZIPANG workshop on April 5th 2008, Badia Obiad told an episode of The Epic of Gilgamesh in Arabic. Gilgamesh, at the edge of the world in his wanderings after the death of his friend Enkidu, is advised to give up his quest for immortality by Shiduri, a divine ale-wife. “Care for the child who takes your hand,” she tells him. “And keep your wife forever happy in your embrace.”

Two other trainee ZIPANG storytellers talked about their chosen apprenticeship stories. Mohamad Tawfiq Ali talked about The Poor Citizen of Nippur. Laura Collins talked about Etana.

Fran Hazelton told the story Ereshkigal and Nergal. To conclude the workshop, harpist Tara Jaff played one of her own compositions.

Photos by Labwa Majad, Wafa Jawad. Videos by Labwa Majad.

1 March 2008

"Contest" Stories

Nearly 5000 years ago, Sumerian storytellers told "contest" stories with passion, wit and amazing detail to decide a "winner" of imaginary contests. Who is the best? Winter or Summer? Silver or Copper? Date Palm or Tamarisk Tree? Sheep or Grain?

The workshop played with this ancient story format. What is the best? The Car or the Train? The Shower or the Bath? The Word-Processor or the Pen and Paper? Ocean or Land? Man or Woman?

June Peters retold in English the Sumerian contest story called The Bird and the Fish. Tara Jaff sang a Sumerian poem of praise to the Mesopotamian goddess Inana accompanied by harp music. People supported the singing with a chant.

Photos by Natasha Lemon

16 February 2008

Gilgamesh Story

It is in the city of Uruk where King Gilgamesh terrorises the people. The people pray to the Mother Goddess and she creates the wild man Enkidu who they fight before becoming friends. They journey to the Cedar Forest where they kill the terrifying Humbaba. When Enkidu dies, Gilgarmesh grieves.

The workshop felt the excitement as they followed his adventures and learnt with Gilgamesh the lesson of the Flood Story.

Photos by Labwa Majad