‘Firing Holes’ in Literary Tablets from Ashurbanipal’s Library: Punctuation and Performance

Abstract

This paper aims to shed light on the so-called ‘firing holes’ in cuneiform tablets by combining analysis of their position with poetics. The holes are found in almost every genre of Mesopotamian scholarship, from literature to rituals to omens to medical and lexical texts. They occur especially often in tablets that were part of ancient libraries, in particular the collection known as ‘Ashurbanipal's library’ assembled by the Assyrian king in the seventh century BC in Nineveh, northern Iraq. Yet despite the frequency of these holes, they are usually overlooked and their meaning remains a mystery. The paper analyses the placement of the holes in relation to the text and its meaning, applying the methodology of close reading to three poems: the Babylonian Theodicy, Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, and Ninurta's Exploits. It is argued that the holes represent a form of punctuation that can either indicate pauses in performance, act as commas on a page, or serve as visual markers to draw attention to sections like a form of highlighting. Different manuscripts employ the holes in different ways, which is consistent with other punctuating practices cross-culturally. This has implications for our understanding of the performance of Mesopotamian poetry and its metrical structure, the interpretations of individual scribes, questions of emphasis, and the history of punctuation.