Dilmun Boat shaped votive bowls for the Moon-god Nanna?

Abstract

The Early Dynastic sources make it clear that there existed a distinct Dilmun boat connected to foreign sea trade. The Babylonian Moon god (Nanna/Suen/Sîn) was symbolically associated with both a bowl and a boat that sailed across the night sky during stages in the monthly cycle before Nanna ultimately would “rise” from the bowl and boat at full moon. Sources from the Early Dynastic IIIa period mention actual votive bowls that are related to the “bowl” stage in the lunar cycle. Votive bowls shaped as boats are also mentioned in documentary sources associated with different deities. The boat shaped bowls for Nanna probably existed as a convergence of the cyclical concepts of the “Bowl” and the “Boat”. Importantly, from an Arabian Gulf perspective, these boat-shaped bowls are occasionally explicitly stated to have been fashioned in the shape of Dilmun boats. In this article the ideological concepts are outlined and discussed and a series of boat-shaped copper bowls from Babylonia are suggested as a possible match to the votive bowls shaped as Dilmun boats of the texts.