‘Mayflies Are Drifting along the River–This Is a Symbol that Everything Goes By’

Arseniy Uspenskij (Litvin) initially studied Indology but ultimately focused on Assyriology. In an interview with the HSE Young Scientists project, he discussed the metrical structure of Akkadian poetry, the deciphering of the Behistun inscription, and King Sargon.

Why I Decided to Pursue Science

At high school, I was interested in various humanities subjects, ranging from Russian literature to Indian philosophy and Byzantine studies. Then, at university, I initially studied Indology but later switched to Assyriology at the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies. My mentors played a key role in shaping my academic career.

First and foremost, I would like to mention my academic supervisor, Rim Nurullin, who taught us courses on the history of Sumerian-Akkadian literature and Sumerian-Akkadian philology. These courses captivated me and shaped my current interests and academic goals. Another mentor, Ilya Arkhipov, invited me during my undergraduate studies to help him prepare Russian translations of two Akkadian literary works we analysed in seminars. Under his guidance, I encountered real academic work, which had a significant impact on me.

I would also like to mention Leonid Kogan, whose courses on comparative Semitology and readings of ancient Semitic texts left a strong impression on me.

The Subject of My Research

I am an Assyriologist, studying texts written exclusively before the Common Era, primarily in Sumerian and Akkadian. Both languages are dead. Akkadian is a Semitic language related to Arabic and ancient Hebrew, while the relationship of Sumerian to other known languages remains unproven.

We have a vast corpus of Sumerian and Akkadian texts, mostly written on clay tablets using a unique writing system called cuneiform. Most of these texts come from Mesopotamia, the region around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, encompassing modern-day Iraq and parts of neighbouring countries. The most famous Mesopotamian cities excavated by archaeologists are Babylon and Assur, capitals of ancient Babylonia and Assyria.

Cuneiform has been deciphered, and scholars today can read ancient texts, although cuneiform was initially a great mystery.

One of the first deciphered texts was the Behistun inscription, carved into a rock in western Iran. This area was once part of an important route connecting Babylon and Ecbatana, the residence of the Persian kings of the Achaemenid dynasty. King Darius I ordered an inscription there glorifying him and recounting the history of his reign.

Darius lived in the middle of the first millennium BCE, and his empire included Mesopotamian territories. Thus, the inscription was composed not only in his native Old Persian but also in Akkadian, the prestigious language of Mesopotamian culture, as well as Elamite. Comparing the versions of the inscription in different languages led to the first breakthrough in deciphering cuneiform and the Akkadian language.

What I Study

A vast number of texts in Sumerian and Akkadian have survived, covering a variety of genres: letters, royal inscriptions, historical writings, household and administrative documents. I focus on literary texts, particularly in Akkadian. Specifically, I study the formal structure of Akkadian poetic texts. My goal is to describe how poetic speech in the Akkadian tradition differed from ordinary speech and to propose a classification of the main principles of poetic text structure.

One of the central issues in this area of research is metrics.

It is believed that Akkadian poetry was tonic. In Russian verse, we are accustomed to syllabic-tonic metrics, where stressed and unstressed syllables alternate in a specific pattern. Our metric terminology originates from ancient Greek poetry, where long and short syllables alternated in a specific way. In Akkadian poetry, neither principle seems to apply. Instead, the primary determinant was the number of stresses in a line. Ideally, each line in a poetic text contained the same number of stresses, creating a sense of rhythm. While this description seems coherent, the reality of Akkadian poetic texts is much more complex. I aim to study and explain the discrepancy between theoretical expectations and the actual structure of the texts.

Another challenge is that, although generations of Assyriologists have reconstructed the phonemic and sound systems of Akkadian across different periods, we still have a poor understanding of the rules for stress placement in Akkadian words. Stress in a dead language is difficult to infer from written texts unless explicitly marked.

We can say with some confidence that rhyme existed in an ‘embryonic’ form in Akkadian poetry but never became mandatory. In European poetry of the modern era, rhyme is one of the primary compositional elements of a poetic work. In Akkadian poetry, however, rhyme is rare, although words with the same grammatical markers often rhyme.

On Akkadian Poetry

I undoubtedly like Akkadian poetry, although it is quite different from what a modern reader is accustomed to; much of it may seem boring. For instance, extensive repetitions organising the text are common in Akkadian works: the same thing is repeated several times, but each time with barely noticeable changes in detail.

On the other hand, Akkadian poetry is rich in remarkable plots and imagery. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the most important Akkadian literary texts, there is a striking image related to the theme of mortality: mayflies, having just lived out their single day of life, drift along the river—a symbol that everything passes.

Apart from epic texts like the Enūma Eliš, a poem about the creation of the world, there are smaller poetic genres such as songs, elegies, and hymns. There are also fascinating texts from the incantation tradition, which lie at the intersection of magic and literature.

On First Authors

Interestingly, the first recorded authorship in the history of literature is associated with the Sumerian-Akkadian tradition. In the third millennium BCE, a priestess named Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon the Great, wrote the so-called Temple Hymns in Sumerian. Her name has been preserved in the manuscripts of this work. However, many researchers now believe she was more of a compiler of existing texts rather than their original author.

The history of Akkadian literature is divided into two main periods, roughly corresponding to the second and first millennia BCE. Early texts are more archaic, diverse, and likely more closely tied to oral tradition. Texts from the later ‘canonical’ period are typically longer and more standardised.

In the later tradition, we occasionally know the names of the authors of poetic works. For example, the authorship of the Epic of Gilgamesh is attributed to a person named Sîn-lēqi-unninni. In another Akkadian work, The Babylonian Theodicy, the author's name and profession are encoded in an acrostic. As far as I know, this is one of the earliest examples of an acrostic in world literature.

What Makes Me Proud

As I mentioned earlier, together with Ilya Arkhipov, we published Russian translations of two Akkadian literary texts. One is called The Song of Zimri-Lim—a short epic praising the deeds of the king of the ancient city of Mari. The other is The Old Assyrian Sargon Legend, likely composed in the second millennium BCE, recounting the life of Sargon the Great, a king of the third millennium BCE significant to the Mesopotamian tradition. Both texts became known to global scholarship only in recent decades. We made the first Russian editions, accompanied by introductory essays and philological commentary.

In addition, under the academic supervision of Rim Nurullin, I wrote my undergraduate and thesis papers on how the ancient Akkadians themselves perceived complex questions of metrics and the formal organisation of poetry. I was able to show that, in some cases, they used special notation systems to emphasise the metrical structure of texts. For example, there are texts where stressed groups (words with one stress) are specifically marked with red dots, applied in ink on clay tablets.

My Future PhD Thesis

The topic is ‘The Poetics of Old Babylonian Literature: Metrics, Verse Principles, and Parallelism.’ I am going to study Akkadian texts from the first half of the second millennium BCE, which are some of the oldest and often most complex Akkadian poetic works. I hope to describe the principles and characteristics of their metrical and strophic structures.

What the Sources I Use Look Like

We strive to utilise all available sources. Typically, we read a text from what is known as a tracing or autography—essentially, a redrawn version of the cuneiform script from the tablet. If a sufficiently high-quality photograph of the tablet exists, it must also be used during the reading process. When working on a specific tablet, especially one that has not yet been published, you might travel to the museum where it is stored, request access to it, and examine it in person. As a primary source, we regard the tablet itself or its tracing.

My Dreams

I want to become a qualified specialist. Assyriology is an immense field, and to truly consider oneself an expert, there is an enormous amount to learn and accomplish.

My Hobbies

In my free time, I try to fill the numerous gaps in my education by reading books, mainly in humanities fields not directly related to my work. Lately, I have been reading about Renaissance art and painting.

Advice for Aspiring Scientists

Cultivate your interest. I believe that in any scholarly activity, interest should be the main reason for your pursuit. However, it is important to remember that while a subject or field might seem extraordinarily fascinating, fully understanding it often requires a great deal of ‘dry’ effort. Another piece of advice: do not be sad.