62 Seung Il Kang

A Comparison of Mircea Eliade’s and

Jonathan Z. Smith’s Views on Dur-an-ki
Sacred space has become an important category in the study of religion since
the mid-twentieth century, largely owing to the work of Mircea Eliade. 1 Eliade
defines sacred space as a space set apart, most significantly by a hierophany,
from ordinary, homogeneous spaces. The concept of sacred space encom-
passes natural elements that are usually associated with divine manifestations
and thus religiously interpreted, such as mountains, trees, stones, or rivers. In
addition, human constructions such as temples, where a deity or deities are
believed to dwell and communicate with humans, are regarded sacred as well.
Often found at the centre of the world, sacred space can function as an axis
mundi linking together different cosmic levels. People orient themselves around
this “centre of the world” in order to transcend their world of non-reality and
communicate with the real par excellence.
Eliade’s theories of sacred space were highly influential, though controver-
sial. Opposing his view of profane space as homogeneous, meaningless, and
without orientation, Larry Shiner argues that people of modern societies, like
the ancients, experience their world as a meaningful environment, not as some-
thing amorphous and chaotic as described by Eliade. The sacred/profane po-
larity cannot adequately explain the variegated dimensions of human spatiality.
He therefore proposes “lived space” as the primary human environment at both
extreme ends of which stand sacred and profane space. 2
Joining Eliade’s critics as early as 1971 in his lecture “The Wobbling Pivot,”
Jonathan Z. Smith questions the validity of Eliade’s theory of sacred space. 3
He points out that chaos can best be understood as “a sacred power … per-
ceived as being sacred in the wrong way” rather than as the equivalent of the
neutral, meaningless profane. He also contends that Eliade’s discussion on the
“Center” is one-sided and that this discussion does not consider the significance
of the periphery. However, one of the best-known criticisms by Smith against
Eliade revolves around Eliade’s interpretation of Dur-an-ki, or “bond between
heaven and earth,” as a term demonstrating the concept of the temple in
Mesopotamia as the “Center.” Essential to Eliade’s concept of sacred space is
its centrality functioning as the cosmic center where the heavens, earth, and
underworld intersect:
“Indeed, by the very fact of being placed at the center of the Cosmos, the temple or sacred city
is always a meeting place for the three cosmic regions. Dur-an-ki, ‘bond between Heaven and
Earth’, was the title of the sanctuaries of Nippur, Larsa and probably of Sippar too. Babylon
had a great many names, among them ‘house of the foundation of heaven and earth’, ‘bond
between heaven and earth’. But it was also in Babylon that the earth made connection with the
underworld, for the town was built upon bab-apsi, ‘gate of Apsu’ – apsu signifying the waters
of the chaos that preceded creation.”4
1
See Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, London 1958, S. 367-387; Idem, The
Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, London 1987, S. 8-65.
2
Cf. Larry E. Shiner, Sacred Space, Profane Space, Human Space, in: Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 40 (1972), S. 425-436.
3
Jonathan Z. Smith, The Wobbling Pivot, in: The Journal of Religion 52 (1972), S. 134-149.
The same article is also found in his Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions,
Leiden 1978, S. 88-103.
4
Eliade, Patterns (wie Anm. 1), S. 376-377. See also Idem, Sacred and the Profane (Fn. 1), S. 41.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden ZRGG 64, 1 (2012)

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 A Comparison of M. Eliade’s and J. Z. Smith’s Views on Dur-an-ki 63

Criticizing Eliade’s concept of this “Center,” Smith states:

“The majority of relevant texts do not explicitly employ the kind of ‘Center’ language Eliade
has collected, yet they are frequently more eloquent testimony to the underlying ideology.
Furthermore, this focus on the explicit presence of the term ‘Center’ leads Eliade at times to
employ questionable interpretations of his material (e.g., the term given to Babylonian sanc-
tuaries, Dur-an-ki [Bond of Heaven and Earth], probably does not mean, as Eliade often im-
plies, the place of intersection of the upper world with earth, but rather the scar, or navel, left
behind when heaven and earth were forcibly separated in creation – it is the disjunctive rather
than the conjunctive which is to the fore.”5
In his book “To Take Place”, Smith once again affirms his conviction that “Dur-
an-ki is a term that emphasizes disjunction rather than conjunction.”6 Smith’s
remark on Dur-an-ki is repeatedly quoted by Eliade’s critics as a convenient tool
for discrediting Eliade’s arguments.7 For example, Frank Korom says:
“Smith further notes that Dur-an-ki, the celebrated passage that has been traditionally trans-
lated as the ‘link of heaven and earth,’ actually suggests the scar left from the separation of
earth and sky. Hence, Dur-an-ki is permanently separated from, rather than connected to, the
heavens.”8
Bryan Rennie, citing Smith’s remark, even goes on to say that this is Smith’s
“most incisive criticism” against Eliade.9 Therefore, the question of the mean-
ing of Dur-an-ki merits careful examination.
Smith apparently depends on the eminent Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen
when defining Dur-an-ki as “the scar, or navel, left behind when heaven and
earth were forcibly separated in creation – it is the disjunctive rather than the
conjunctive which is to the fore.”10 In my opinion, however, Smith may have
misunderstood Jacobsen’s comments on Dur-an-ki:
“The place of this wound, and of the severed bond, was in Nippur, the sacred area Dur-an-ki,
for Dur-an-ki means ‘the bond of Heaven and Earth.’ In Dur-an-ki was located Uzu-mú-a,
which, after the wound had been closed, grew the first men.”11
Here, Jacobsen is referring to an interesting Sumerian myth titled “The Song of

5
Smith, Wobbling Pivot (Fn. 3), S. 144-145; Idem, Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History
of Religions (Fn. 3), S. 98-99.
6
Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual, Chicago 1992, S. 122 no. 3.
7
The following works cite Smith’s critique of Eliade’s concept of Dur-an-ki: Frank J. Korom,
Of Navels and Mountains: A Further Inquiry into the History of an Idea, in: Asian Folklore Studies
51 (1992), S. 121 no. 38; David Cave, Mircea Eliade’s Vision for a New Humanism, New York 1993,
S. 142-143; J. R. Branham, Vicarious Sacrality: Temple Space in Ancient Synagogues, in: Dan
Urman/Paul V. M. Flesher (Hg.), Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological
Discovery, Leiden 1995, S. 324 no. 14; Bryan S. Rennie, Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of
Religion, Albany, NY 1996, S. 189-90; Idem, The Meaning and End of Mircea Eliade, in: Changing
Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mircea Eliade, Albany, NY 2001, S. 277; Kevin Trainor,
Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada
Tradition, Cambridge 1997, S. 105-106.
8
Korom, Of Navels and Mountains (Fn. 7), S. 121 no. 38.
9
Rennie, Reconstructing Eliade (Fn. 7), 189.
10
In his Map Is Not Territory (Fn. 3), S. 98-99, Smith refers to Jacobsen’s Toward the Image of
Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture, Cambridge, MA 1970, S. 112.
The relevant chapter in the latter book was originally published as Sumerian Mythology: A Review
Article, in: Journal of Near Eastern Studies 5 (1946), S. 128-152.
11
Jacobsen, Sumerian Mythology, S.137.
64 Seung Il Kang

the Hoe.” In this composition, the hoe, an indispensible tool for ancient
Mesopotamian farmers and workers, is given cosmic significance and even
praise. The introduction to this song reads as follows:
“Not only did the lord make the world appear in its correct form – the lord who never changes
the destinies which he determines: Enlil, who will make the human seed of the Land come
forth from the earth – and not only did he hasten to separate heaven from earth, and hasten to
separate earth from heaven, but, in order to make it possible for humans to grow in Where
Flesh Came Forth, he first suspended the axis of the world at Dur-an-ki.”12
This section of the song describes how Enlil split heaven and earth in order to
create the human race. According to Sumerian mythic traditions, the cosmic
mountain consisting of the union between heaven and earth was formed out of
the primeval sea whose origin is unknown. Then, the air-god Enlil removed
heaven from earth in order to organize the universe and create humankind.13
The place where this event took place was named Uzu-mú-a “where the flesh
sprouts.” Moreover, it happened to be situated in Dur-an-ki because Dur-an-ki
was the place where heaven and earth were originally conjoined. Undoubtedly,
the term Dur-an-ki per se denotes the union between heaven and earth, and not
the separation.
Many Assyriologists confirm the concept of Dur-an-ki as the „bond be-
tween heaven and earth.” For example, Hermann Behrens believes that the
term expresses the idea of the city of Nippur being tied to heaven and earth.14
And Wilfred G. Lambert explains this term as
“referring either to the last point at which heaven and earth were joined, according to the myth
of their separation, or to the view of the universe known from lines 13 ff. of Atra-hasis and
their reflection in Enuma Elish V 125-128, by which the earth of Enlil (later Marduk) was
centrally placed between the heavens of Anu and the Apsû of Ea.”15
The Akkadian equivalent of the Sumerian Dur-an-ki is rikis šamê u er eti.
When the word riksu refers to a building, land, or people, it is always conjunc-
tive, and never disjunctive, for example, āl šar ilāni ri-kis mātāti “the city of the
king of the gods, the bond of all lands” and ri-ki-ìs awīlī šunūti attama “you are
the bond between these men.”16
The Sumerian dur can also be translated into another Akkadian word
markasu which expresses a similar notion of “bond, link, center (in the cosmic

12
Jeremy Black et al, Literature of Ancient Sumer, Oxford 2004, S. 312.
13
Samuel N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in
the Third Millennium B.C., Philadelphia 1972, S. 38-41.
14
„… nibruki ‚Nippur‘ … ist der eigentliche Name der Stadt, dur-an-ki‚ Band des Himmels (und)
der Erde‘ bindet diese Stadt an Himmel und Erde ein…“ Hermann Behrens, Enlil und Ninlil: Ein
sumerischer Mythos aus Nippur, Rome 1978, S. 59.
15
Wilfred G. Lambert, The Hymn to the Queen of Nippur, in: G. van Driel et al. (Hg.), Zikir
Šumim: Assyriological Studies Presented to F. R. Kraus on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday,
Leiden 1982, S. 212. Albright also understands the term Dur-an-ki as referring to the hyperbolic
notion of the temple-tower as the link between heaven and earth, „founded in the underworld and
reaching heaven.“ William F. Albright, The Babylonian Temple-Tower and the Altar of Burnt-
Offering, in: Journal of Biblical Literature 39 (1920), S. 140. For the sake of clarity, Dur-an-ki is not
a name of the temple, but refers to the holy quarter of Nippur. See Eugen Bergmann, Untersuchungen
zu syllabisch geschriebenen sumerischen Texten, in: Zeitschrift für Assyriologie n.f. 22 (1964), S.
9; J. Klein, Nippur. A. I, in: Reallexikon der Assyriologie 9:533.
16
CAD (The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago), R, S.
348-349 s.v. riksu.
 A Comparison of M. Eliade’s and J. Z. Smith’s Views on Dur-an-ki 65

sense)”: [mukīl] mar-kas šamê u er eti “(Nabû) who holds the link of heaven
and nether world” and MÚL.MAR.GÍD.DA mar-kas šamê “the Wagon-Star,
the center of the heavens.”17 Sometimes markasu parallels riksu: [nippu]ruki
mar-kás šamê e u er etim tim r[i-ki]s kib-ra-a-ti “Nippur, bond of heaven and
earth, junction of the world regions.”18 Finally, a bilingual text from Erech
preserving some lines of Innana epic defines Dur-an-ki as follows: dur.an.ki
ùz.sag.an.ki.a urú te.me.en.dù.a.bi: Duranki mar-kas4 šamê u er eti temen kal
dadme, “Dur-an-ki, ‘band’ of heaven and earth, foundation of all the inhabited
world.”19
These examples unequivocally show that Dur-an-ki conveys the sense of
the union of heaven and earth, and that Eliade’s interpretation of Dur-an-ki is
more accurate than that of Smith. Consequently, Eliade’s critics should no
longer rely on Smith in order to dispute Eliade’s concept of sacred space.
Hannam University, Daejeon, South Korea Seung Il Kang

17
CAD, M part 1, S. 283 s.v. markasu.
18
Lambert, Queen of Nippur (Fn. 15), S. 200-1.
19
S. Sangdon, A Bilingual Tablet from Erech of the First Century BC, in: Revue d’assyriologie
et d’archéologie orientale 12 (1915), S. 75, 83 lines 35-36. Transcription and translation are from
CAD, M part 1, S. 283 s.v. markasu.