Talk:Mummu

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This analysis, relating Mummu to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics / entropy, is taken from the introduction to a printed edition of the Enuma Elish, an old edition of which I used to have, but it isn't referenced and should be. I'll find it and add reference. Rollo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.234.168 (talk) 17:19, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Sources?
Lots of claims, no references, citations or sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.15.255.228 (talk) 10:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

"Mummu" in the description of an arrow reversion seems like a misreading
That section has been bothering me for a while, so I finally tracked down exactly which tablet relates the story of Ninurta's arrows being returned to their component origins - it's CDLI P338336, see the references I added: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cams/gkab/P338336/ and http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cams/gkab/scribalapprenticeship/literaryworks/anzu/

However, having found it, some problems emerge. The description in the article is accurate as to what happens in the tablet's text, but the issues are that: 1) This is Neo-Assyrian, not Sumerian, and 2) The word "mummu", or rather mu-um-mu, here refers not to some abstract magic concept of entropic creation or whatever, but simply to the bow frame. Anzu says " mu-um-[mu] ⸢gišPAN⸣ a-⸢na qi₂⸣-ša₂-ti-⸢ki⸣ " translated as "frame of the bow [return] to your forests", with the term in question being given quite simply as "frame."

I checked the entry for this term in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, M volume 2, p. 197-198 and it has quite a few definitions for it:

Mummu can be an indefinite pronoun meaning "someone, something";

Mummu A is given as 1. craftsman, creator; 2. school for scribes, workshop;

1a) as an epithet of Ea and Marduk; 1b) as an epithet of Tiamat; 1c) as an epithet of Ishtar; 1d) name of the vizier of Apsu, equated with Papsukkal and Ilabrat; 1e) unclear meaning in a list of temple property;

finally we get to mummu B, "a curved stick or beam", appearing a) in inventories and b) in literature, where it cites this exact line in the Epic of Zu: "mu-um-mu qashti ana qisatiki (return) frame of the bow, to your forests (beside: arrow to the canebrake, bowstring to the sheep's back, feather to the birds) RA 46 36:42 also ibid. 34:26, dupl. STT 19:79 (Epic of Zu), also RA 46 32:12."

So "mummu" in this context just means "bow frame".

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how to put this info in the article without mangling it, unless we just erase that section completely and start over - which would be a shame I think, because it's just about the only interesting thing here, even though it's not nearly as relevant to Mummu the deity as it's been interpreted. I'll touch up the section with the minimum amount of awkwardness I can manage but I'll leave a full rewrite or deletion to someone more bold. Asdjk48 (talk) 04:15, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

more info
I found of a copy of N. K. Sandars' "Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia" and here's what it says on Mummu, p. 27: The third person of this primordial trinity is Mummu. The exact meaning of the name is unknown but it has been interpreted physically as mist or cloud, while the late Neo-Platonic philosopher Damascius knew of a Moymis or Mumis the 'only begotten son' of Apsu and Tiamat, whom he took to be 'the mental world', νοητος κοσμοσ or logos. In the early second-millennium Myth of Zu there is a hint of another meaning. [...] In the battle between [Ningirsu and Zu] an arrow speeding from the bow is ordered to return to its mummu, which means that the shaft becomes again part of the living cane from which it was cut, the gut returns to the animal's rump and the feathers to the bird's winds. In cosmic terms this is a return to the womb of chaos, and in twentieth-century language it could stand for the second law of thermodynamics, matter degenerating through loss of energy to its simplest common denominator, so leading in the end to 'a run-down universe'; we could therefore understand mummu as 'entropy'.

For the reasons above, it doesn't look like this is an entirely reliable interpretation, but at least now there's a clear source for this claim, almost verbatim as it appears in the article. I'll edit it to make the attribution and cross-referencing more clear. Asdjk48 (talk) 01:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)