The SAL-ZIKRUM 'Woman-Man' in Old-Babylonian Texts

Abstract

In Old-Babylonian texts and notably in the Code of Ḫammu-rabi there is frequent mention of priests and priestesses of various classes and also of eunuchs and other specially privileged persons; amongst them there occurs the mysterious SAL-ZIKRUM ‘woman-man’, who has hitherto defied identification. The term used to describe this person is obscure; for, while the first element in it is clearly Sumerian, the second element is prima facie a Babylonian word although it is treated as indeclinable, i.e. as a Sumerian rather than as a Babylonian term. In the Babylonian language only proper names are normally left undeclined. The only remaining possibility is that this second element is a pseudo-ideogram, i.e. a Babylonian term which has been treated after the analogy of the first element as a Sumerian word, though never incorporated into the Sumerian language; if this suggestion is correct, the component elements are the Sum. SAL ‘female’ and the Acc. zikaru m or zikru mI ‘male’. Even the sex of the SAL-ZIKRUM is in doubt; for, while the word as it stands (at any rate, if ZIKRUM is Babylonian) is masculine in form, the preceding SAL is commonly put as the determinative prefix before feminine nouns; moreover, the whole complex is regularly construed as of the feminine gender.