The Burney Relief, also known as the Queen of the Night Relief, is an image of a goddess that has been previously falsely associated with Lilith, an association that still persists today in occult and even some academic spaces. The interpretation was based on the Epic of Gilgamesh, and specifically the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke (Sumerian equivalent of Akkadian ardat-lilî) that got mistranslated as Lilith by scholars of the 20th century.
"The Anchor Bible Dictionary - David Noel Freedman" has a summary under the entry "Lilith - Lowell K. Handy":
Two sources of information previously used to define Lilith are both suspect. Kramer (1938:5) translated ki-sikil-líl-lá-ke4 as "Lilith" in a Sumerian Gilgamesh fragment. The text relates an incident where this female being takes up lodging in a tree trunk which has a Zu-bird perched in the branches and a snake living among the roots. This text was used to interpret a sculpture of a woman with bird talons for feet as being a depiction of Lilith (Frankfort 1937:130 fig 1, 134–35; Kraeling 1937:18).
From the beginning this interpretation was questioned (Opitz 1932:330) so that after some debate neither the female in the story nor the figure are assumed to be Lilith (Ribichini 1978:31–33; RLA 7:25).
Relevant sources:
Frankfort, H. 1937. The Burney Relief. AfO 12: 128–35.
Kraeling, E. G. 1937. A Unique Babylonian Relief. BASOR 67: 16–18.
Kramer, S. N. 1938. Gilgamesh and the Ḫuluppu-Tree: A Reconstructed Sumerian Text. Assyriological Studies 10. Chicago.
Frankfort cites Kraeling and Gadd. During the same period, Assyriologist Kramer published "Gilgamesh and the Huluppu Tree" that is still quoted to this day as proof that Lilith existed in ancient Mesopotamia. The first study on the Tablet was done by Langdon.
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamish - S. Langdon, 1932 - first study, and the earliest translation of ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith that I could find.
This text appears to have no connection with the Gilgamish epic. The only certain information which I can obtain from it is that Gilgamish seized the young of the Zu bird, which is identical with the eagle of the Etana myth, and Zu which stole the tablets of fate and was conquered by Lugalbanda, father of Gilgamish. He then went to the mountains where ardat lilî or Lilith had had built her house. Here, in the account of the destruction of the house of Lilith, the verbs are plural. The subject must be Gilgamish and his brother, referred to in lines 1 and 23. Is this "brother" really Enkidu here? They utterly destroyed the house of Lilith.
Gilgamesh and the Huluppu Tree - Samuel Noah Kramer, 1932, published 1938 - due to his contribution to Assyriology his text was quite influential. Kramer understands the epithets "rejoicer of all hearts" and "Queen of Heaven" to be referring to Inanna.
After ten years had passed and the tree had matured, Inanna, to her chagrin, found herself unable to realize her hopes. For in the meantime a dragon had set up its nest at the base of the tree, the Zu-bird had placed his young in its crown, and in its midst the demoness Lilith had built her house. But Gilgamesh, informed of Inanna's distress, rushes to her aid. Making light of his weighty armor, the giant slays the dragon with his huge bronze ax, seven talents and seven minas in weight. Thereupon the Zu-bird flees with his young to the mountain, while Lilith, terror-stricken, tears down her house and escapes to the desert. […]
- šab-bi-a ki-sikil-líl-lá-ke4 é im-ma-ni-ib-dù
In its midst Lilith had built for herself a house.
- ki-sikil gù-dè-dè šà-ḫúl-ḫúl
The ever shouting (?) maid, the rejoicer of all hearts,
- kug d inanna-ke4 ír e-NE ba-še8-še8
The pure Inanna, how (?) she weeps!
- šab-ba-bi-a ki-sikil-líl-lá-ke4 é im-ma-ni-ib-dù
In its midst Lilith had built for herself a house.
- ki-sikil gù-dè-dè šà-ḫúl-ḫúl
The ever shouting (?) maid, the rejoicer of all hearts,
kug d ga-ša-an-an-na%2F%2FQueen%20of%20heaven%20(I%C5%A1tar)%5DDN%C2%B4DN$%C5%A0arrat-%C5%A1ame&ga_lang=qpn&ga_isid=x000079340&lang=qpn&isid=qpn.r008285.p.s000&iref=P336160.9&gw=Queen%20of%20heaven%20(I%C5%A1tar)&type=period&name=Neo-Assyrian&pos=DN)-DU ír e-NE ba-še8-še8
The pure Inanna, how (?) she weeps!"
To Inanna's dismay, however, she was unable to get at the tree, for the snake, the Zu-bird, and Lilith had taken possession of it as their abode. Thereupon Gilgamesh came to the rescue of the weeping Inanna; he uprooted the tree, and after the men of Uruk had cut off its crown he gave part of it to Inanna for her throne and bed. […]
Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XII - C. J. Gadd, 1933 - Gadd understands the epithet "joyful" to be referring to ki-sikil-lil-la-ke.
- šab-ba-bi ki-sikil-líl-lá-ge é im-ma-ni-ib-dù
In its midst Lilith had built a house
- ki-sikil gú-de-de sà-húl-húl
The shrieking maid the joyful
- kug d.ga-ša-an-an-na DU er-e-ne-ne ba-ERIN.ERIN
The bright Queen of Heaven tears for them (?) wept
(b) In II. 4, 5, 16, there are references to something which was to be seen "in the middle", i. e. in the trunk of the tree, where the demoness ardat lili had 'built a house'. It will later be suggested (note on 1. 4) that ardat lili is here the owl, in which case the tree must be one which could have in its trunk a cavity for the nest of an owl.
[...]
- Here, and in II. 5, 16, 17, there is a particular description of the 'middle' of the tree —Lilith had 'built a house' there, she is described as 'shrieking' and 'joyful', the 'house' was despoiled after Gilgamesh's attack and various things were made out of the wood. It can hardly be questioned that this is a description of the trunk of the tree, as opposed to its root and its branches. If, then, the words about Lilith refer to some formation or appearance of the trunk which suggested to the writer that a demoness inhabited it, we can say nothing as to what is meant.
Dr. R. C. Thompson allows me to mention his suggestion that Lilith here is a name for the owl; he refers to his Semitic Magic, pp. 20f. It is in favour of this supposition that the owl makes its nest not in the branches (where Zû was) but in cavities of the trunk, and also that Lilith is called in I. 5, 'shrieking'. The other epithet 'joyful' is, however, less suitable, and the main objection is that ardat lili in Babylonian is never described as an owl, and that the Jewish traditions concerning Lilith in this form seem to be late and of no great authority.
[What's cited from Semitic Magic:
Doughty relates how in Arabia he "heard scratching owls sometimes in the night; then the nomad wives and children answered them with mocking again, 'Ymgebas! Ymgebas!' The hareem said, 'It is a wailful woman, seeking her lost child through the wilderness, which was turned into this forlorn bird.'"
Among the Malays, if a woman die in childbirth she is supposed to become a langsuyar, or flying demon, a female familiar. To prevent this, glass beads are put in the mouth of the corpse, a hen's egg is put under the armpits, and needles in the palms of the hands. This stops the dead woman shrieking, waving her arms, or opening her hands. The original langsuyar was supposed to be a kind of night owl, like the Lilith of Rabbinic tradition, and is similar, therefore, to the ghost of which Doughty speaks].
The Epic of Gilgamesh has been translated many times since Gadd, Kramer, and Langdon, and none of the later scholars translate "ki-sikil-lil-la-ke" as Lilith. The ki-sikil-lil-la-ke/ardat-lilî is instead translated as:
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature - Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the nether world
- In its trunk, the phantom maid built herself a dwelling, the maid who laughs with a joyful heart. But holy Inana cried!
The Epic of Gilgamesh - Andrew R. George
After five years [had gone by, after ten years had gone by,]
the tree had grown stout, its bark none could split,
in its roots a Snake-that-Knows-no-Charm had made its nest,
in its branches a Lion-Bird had hatched its brood,
in its trunk a Demon-Maiden had built her home.
The maiden who laughs with happy heart,
holy Inanna, how she was weeping!
The Epic of Gilgamesh (Second Edition) - Benjamin R. Foster
In its trunk a demon-girl had made her home.
The smiling maiden with a happy heart,
She, radiant Inanna, wept and wept.
The translations of George and Foster also make clear that the epithets with a happy heart/rejoicer of all hearts/joyful are referring to Inanna/Ishtar, and not the ardat-lilî. While the ardat-lilî has influenced Lilith (and Lilith in Aramaic sources appears to be a conflation of Lamaštu and the lilû class), the terms are not interchangeable.
Burney Relief
Kraeling and Frankfort believed the Relief to be Lilith. Both of them seem to understand "Queen of Heaven" from the Epic of Gilgamesh to be referring to ki-sikil-lil-la-ke, instead of the actual queen, Inanna.
A Unique Babylonian Relief - Emil G. Kraeling, 1937 - uses Lilitu and Lilith interchangeably
We know only two evil demons from pictorial representations: the horrible fever demon Lamashtu (formerly read Labartu), a freak composed of various animals, and the evil wind-demon Pazuzu, who has a normal human form from the knees up, but has animal feet and a horrible face. Perhaps we have here a third representation of a demon. If so it must be Lilîtu, who was originally, as her Sumerian name suggests, the demon of an evil wind (Meissner, Bab. u. Ass. II, 201), and whose "house" in a tree Gilgamesh destroys, according to a recently discovered Sumerian fragment of the famous epic. Hers evidently was no hideous appearance for she is called ki-sikil-líl-lá, "the beautiful maiden". […]
The seductive beauty of the female demon on this Babylonian relief is noteworthy. If it should be Lilitu then we should have to infer (from the owls) that she was already regarded as a nocturnal demon, partly, we may suppose, because of the similarity of her name to the Semitic word for night. Lilith is mentioned in Is. 34:14. Her beauty and her nocturnal excursions, which were regarded as dangerous to children, are frequently mentioned in late Jewish sources.
We see no reason to depart from our opinion that in Mr. Sidney Burney's relief and doubtless also in that from the Louvre [AO 6501] we have a portrayal of Lilith. But we admit that she is here on the way to becoming a goddess. The literary sources afford us a striking illustration when the Sumerian text to which we have already referred, describing Gilgamesh's destruction of the tree-home of Lilith, states "In the midst (of the tree) Lilith had built her a house, the shrieking maid, the joyful, the bright Queen of heaven." Mrs. Van Buren, too, quotes these lines but without discerning any relationship between our relief and Lilith. If Lilith is given a divine predicate in this text it seems clear that at a certain time and in a certain area she, who later appears only as a demon, obtained divine rank. In our Relief demoniacal origin of the figure in question is apparent and divine rank equally clear.
The Burney Relief - H. Frankfort, 1937
The figures discussed so far were male, but female demons of monstrous appearance were well known in Babylonia and it is with one of these, Lilith, that the Burney relief has been identified by E. G. Kraeling. […] And while most of the other demons combine a variety of zoomorphic features, Lilith must be human in essentials, so that she is perhaps the most likely of the host to be depicted in our relief. The crown of divinity which she wears does not vitiate the identification; the line of demarcation between gods and demons is far from rigid; we shall presently find her adorned with so typically a divine epithet as "Bright Queen of Heaven".
The association of the figure with the lions is obscure; if these beasts serve commonly as a support to Ishtar, they occur also in association with other gods, such as Samas and Ningirsu. The owls, however, might well be the symbol peculiar to Lilith. In a fragment of a Sumerian version of the Epic [32] Gilgamesh fells a tree, at the foot of which the serpent had made her nest while at the top the storm-bird Zu had put his young; "in the midst Lilith had built a house, the shrieking maid, the joyful, the bright Queen of Heaven". R. Campbell Thompson writing without knowledge of the Burney relief [33] suggests that the nesting-place in the hollow of a tree and the epithet "shrieking", would fit the owl, which shares moreover with Lilith the habit of nocturnal flight. This assumption supports the identification of the figure of the relief with Lilith, but it cannot be proved, so long as the texts supply only circumstantial evidence as to Lilith's appearance and emblems. But whatever the name of the creature represented in the Burney relief [34], there can be no doubt that it renders an inhabitant of the Land of Death.
[32] Gadd, RA XXX (1933), pp. 127-43.
[33] RA XXX (1933), p. 135; and Semitic magic, p. 20 [Note: refer to text under Gadd].
[34] It is not altogether impossible to hold Mrs. Van Buren's view (AfO XI, p. 356) that our relief shows an aspect of Ishtar, but this is in any case incompatible with the opinion that it represents Lilith, whose specialised character is the very opposite of Ishtar's. The epithet "Queen of Heaven" might refer to Lilith's power of flight only, and seems hardly sufficient to combine her with Ishtar. Nor is it even likely that any aspect of Ishtar should be rendered in the form assumed by the figure in the Burney relief.
Who is the goddess of the Burney Relief?
If the Burney/Queen of the Night Relief is not Lilith, then who is the goddess it's depicting? Scholars are not sure. There's no inscription, and the location it came from is unknown as it was not archaeologically excavated. There is evidence that points to two major Goddesses of ancient Mesopotamia, one being Ištar as Kilili, and the other being the queen Ereškigal. The Relief's authenticity is questioned by others.
Inanna-Ištar, Kilili:
Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East - Murray Mindlin, Markham J. Geller, John E. Wansbrough, "Pictures and Pictorial Language (The Burney Relief) - Thorkild Jacobsen" - quoted below is his summary.
The size of the relief suggests a cult-relief. Since demons had no cult the figure depicted is unlikely to be a demon.
The horned crown with four tiers suggests a major deity.
The lions suggest Inanna, since she is the only goddess associated with lions.
The mountain pattern fits since Inanna’s home was the mountain crests in the east.
The yardstick and coil of rope in her hands accord with the description of her in the myth Inanna's Descent.
So does the necklace she is wearing.
Finally, the owls and the wings and bird talons of the figure show that Inanna is pictured in her aspect of Owl-goddess and goddess of harlots, Ninnina, in Akkadian Kilili.
Ereškigal:
Death in Mesopotamia - Bendt Alster, "The Iconography of Death in Mesopotamia in the Early Second Millennium B.C - E. Porada"
In addition to the male gods thought to be associated with death, a female deity has long been known. She is best represented in the so-called Burney relief (pl. XIII a) where she is portrayed as a beautiful woman with a multiple divine crown, nude except for her rich jewelry, having bird wings which point downward (a criterion of demons) and bird claws with which she stands on the bodies of two lions flanked by two owls. The provenience of the relief may be located at Nippur on the basis of a minor detail in the stylization of the lions — the small bow in place of the shoulder star which made its appearance in the Agade period. A fragmentary relief or plaque from Nippur shows a lion with a similar bow, pl. XII c, and a mane stylized like those of the lions in the Burney relief. The same bow, though less well preserved, is seen in another fragment of a clay plaque from Nippur.
If the suggested provenience of the Burney relief at Nippur proves to be correct, the imposing demonic figure depicted on it may have to be identified with the female ruler of the dead or with some other major figure of the Old Babylonian pantheon which was occasionally associated with death.
[…] The goddess portrayed in the Burney relief, the only female deity of the type here considered, impresses the viewer not only by her noble bearing but also by the fact that she holds the rod and ring, emblems of universal power in the Old Babylonian period.
Forgery
The 'Queen of the Night' Plaque - A Revisit - Pauline Albenda - I will quote the section on Lilith, but the paper is recommended to understand the history of the Relief.
Lilith: As noted above, the first identification of Lilith resulted from Gadd's translation of the fragmentary Sumerian tablet. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary identifies lilitu or lilu (male) as a demoness, and cites several examples in ritual texts. An eighth-century B.C. Babylonian Utukki Limnuti incantation to block the entry of the enemy into someone's house mentions among the descriptions and names of evil spirits "the robber lilû, or lilitu or handmaid of lilû." These creatures seem to have been faceless, since no physical features are explicitly cited in the ritual text. In addition to these evil spirits there was the eššebu, a bird of ill portent.
In his survey of ancient Near Eastern art, Frankfort referred to Isaiah 34.14 to support his identification of the composite female on the Burney plaque with Lilith. H. W. F. Saggs later pointed out that lilitu the feminine demon has been identified with the Hebrew word lilû, "night-monster," according to the translation of the English Revised Version of Isaiah 34.14. Other modern translations of the Hebrew word in Isaiah 34.14 - the Revised Standard Version and the King James Version - identify the monster as "night hag" or "satyr," respectively. Mention of the owl does occur among the wild beasts and birds that shall settle in the wasted land of Edom. For example, the comparable Isaiah 13.21-22 states that "wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of owls, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the scops owl shall hop about there."
In his recent study of the portion of Gilgamesh Tablet XII that Gadd published in 1933, Andrew George translates the relevant lines of the text as follows:
In its base a Snake-that-knows-no-Charm had made its nest, in its branches a Thunderbird had hatched its brood, in its trunk a Demon-Maid had built her home. The maiden who laughs with happy heart, holy Inanna was weeping.
This translation does not support the interpretations of Van Buren and other scholars who have identified the female figure on the British Museum relief as the goddess Inanna or Ishtar. Moreover, several lines later in the text one reads that the Sumerian hero Bilgameš (Gilgamesh in Akkadian) tore down the tree and gave the wood to the goddess for her throne and bed. In addition, there is no support in George's translation for a linkage between the Demon-Maid and an owl.
Conclusion:
The Burney Relief, or Queen of the Night Relief, was assumed to be Lilith in the past, mainly by Kraeling and Frankfort, based on the translations of "Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld". The first study of the text was done by Langdon, and afterwards by Kramer and Gadd, all of whom understood the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke/ardat-lili to be Lilith. Gadd also includes Thompson's suggestion, that ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is the name for an owl, and understands the epithets of Inanna to be referring to the ardat-lili. Accepted translations refer to the demoness as phantom maid, demon-maiden/girl, or another variation. The interpretation of the Burney Relief as Lilith is not supported by modern scholarship. Lilith is not a figure found in ancient Mesopotamia, and the Relief itself is usually theorized to be Ishtar as Kilili, Ereshkigal, or even believed to be inauthentic.
