Vessel-Askos
Teishebaini (Karmir Blur-Yerevan)
8th-7th century BC
glazed pottery
Geometric vessels figure into Armenia’s history at least to the 5th millennium BC, and reached a height of artistic achievement at Shengavit around 4000-3500 BC. The patterns are reminiscent of later works discovered at Mycanaean and Minoan excavations in the Mediterranean.
Erebuni was founded by King Argishti I in 782 BCE. It was built on top of a hill called Arin Berd overlooking the Arax River Valley to serve as a strategic military center and royal residence.
Bullman from Urartu (Armenia) 800 century Uttrykksikonet smile
BULL-MAN – In Sumerian mythology, a demon who works closely with human beings and the gods to hold at bay the forces of chaos. He is depicted as a man above the waist and a bull below. While the Greek bull-man Minotaur has a man’s body and a bull’s head the Asian bull-man lamassu has a man’s head and a bull’s body.
TIAMAT’S CREATURES – Eleven terrifying monsters created by Tiamat to avenge the death of Apsu and destroy the younger gods.
There were three fearsome horned snakes: Musmahhu, Usumgallu and Basmu; the snake-dragon Mushhushshu; Lahmu the hairy super man; Ugallu, the lion-demon; Uridimmu, the lion-man; Girtablullu, the scorpion-man; Umu-Debrutu, terrifying storms; Kulullu, the fish-man (mermen and mermaids) and Kusarikku, the bull-man.
All eleven of Tiamat’s creatures were defeated by Marduk who preserved images of them in the watery remains of Abzu to commemorate his victory.
They were made ample use of by the people of Mesopotamia in magical incantations and to ward off evil and the forces of chaos. Many of their images are well known today through statues outside of palaces and temples, most notably the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.
LAMASSU – The famous Assyrian winged bull-man who adorned palaces and temples to frighten off the forces of chaos were protective spirits who were sometimes depicted as the Bull-Man (human above the waist and bull below) but, more often as a human-headed bull or lion with wings.
The name lamassu is not without problems. The Sumerian word lama, which is rendered in Akkadian as lamassu, refers to a protective deity, who is usually female. She is often represented as a standing figure that introduces guests to another, superior god. So she is actually a servant. Her male counterpart is called alad or, in Akkadian, šêdu.
During the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c.883-612), large monumental bulls, often with wings and always with human heads, were placed as gateway guardians at the entrances of royal palaces like Khorsabad and Nineveh. The general idea behind them was that they warded off evil. (In jargon: they were apotropaic figures.) Usually, they have five legs. Lion-bodied protective deities are also known, and are usually called “sphinxes”.
These monumental statues were called aladlammû (“protective spirit”) or lamassu, which means that the original female word was now applied for a rather macho demon. In one modern interpretation, they combine the strength of a bull, the freedom of an eagle, and the intelligence of a human being. Female lamassu’s are called apsasû.
Lammasu’s are also known from the palaces of the Achaemenid kings. Those in Pasargadae have now disappeared, but in Persepolis, we can still see them in the Gate of All Nations. The hoofs are visible in the Unfinished Gate; in the building that is identified as either a Council Hall or a Tripylon (“triple gate”), lamassu’s served as the capitals of columns.
Alalu or Alalus is god in Hurrian (Armenian) mythology. He is considered to have housed “the Hosts of Sky”, the divine family, because he was a progenitor of the gods, and possibly the father of Earth.
Alalu was a primeval deity of the Hurrian mythology. After nine years of reign, Alalu was defeated by his son Anu. Anuʻs son Kumarbi also defeated his father, and his son Teshub defeated him, too. Alalu fled to the underworld. Scholars have pointed out the similarities between the Hurrian creation myth and the story from Greek mythology of Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus.
Teshub (also written Teshup or Tešup; cuneiform IM) was the Hurrian god of sky and storm. Taru is the Hattian form derived from Teshub. His Hittite and Luwian name was Tarhun (with variant stem forms Tarhunt, Tarhuwant, Tarhunta), although this name is from the Hittite root *tarh- “to defeat, conquer”.
Teshub is depicted holding a triple thunderbolt and a weapon, usually an axe (often double-headed) or mace. The sacred bull common throughout Anatolia was his signature animal, represented by his horned crown or by his steeds Seri and Hurri, who drew his chariot or carried him on their backs.
The Hurrian myth of Teshub’s origin—he was conceived when the god Kumarbi bit off and swallowed his father Anu’s genitals, similarly to the Greek story of Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus, which is recounted in Hesiod’s Theogony. Teshub’s brothers are Aranzah (personification of the river Tigris), Ullikummi (stone giant) and Tashmishu.
In the Hurrian schema, Teshub was paired with Hebat the mother goddess; in the Hittite, with the sun goddess Arinniti of Arinna—a cultus of great antiquity which has similarities with the venerated bulls and mothers at Çatalhöyük in the Neolithic era. His son was called Sarruma, the mountain god.
According to Hittite myths, one of Teshub’s greatest acts was the slaying of the dragon Illuyanka. Myths also exist of his conflict with the sea creature (possibly a snake or serpent) Hedammu.
The name “Alalu” was borrowed from Semitic mythology and is a compound word made up of the Semitic definite article al and the Semitic supreme deity Alu. The -u at the end of the word is an inflectional ending; thus, Alalu may also occur as Alali or Alala depending on the position of the word in the sentence.
He was identified by the Greeks as Hypsistos (Greek: “Most High” God), a term appearing in documents dated about 200 BC to about AD 400, referring to various groups mostly in Asia Minor (Cappadocia, Bithynia and Pontus) and on the South Russian coasts of what is today known as the Black Sea.
In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was originally the home of Enki, later known by the Akkadians as Ea, who was considered to have founded the city. His temple was called E-Abzu, as Enki was believed to live in Abzu, an aquifer from which all life was believed to stem.
Eridu appears to be the earliest settlement in the region, founded ca. 5400 BC, close to the Persian Gulf near the mouth of the Euphrates River. Because of accumulation of silt at the shoreline over the millennia, the remains of Eridu are now some distance from the gulf at Abu Shahrain in Iraq. Excavation has shown that the city was originally founded on a virgin sand-dune site with no previous occupation.
The Egyptologist David Rohl has conjectured that Eridu, to the south of Ur, was the original Babel and site of the Tower of Babel, rather than the later city of Babylon, for several reasons: The ziggurat ruins of Eridu are far larger and older than any others, and seem to best match the Biblical description of the unfinished Tower of Babel.
In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the god Enki, the Sumerian counterpart of the Akkadian water-god Ea. Like all the Sumerian and Babylonian gods, Enki/Ea began as a local god, who came to share, according to the later cosmology, with Anu and Enlil, the rule of the cosmos. His kingdom was the sweet waters that lay below earth (Sumerian ab=water; zu=far).
In the city of Eridu, Enki’s temple was known as E-abzu (house of the cosmic waters) and was located at the edge of a swamp, an abzu. Certain tanks of holy water in Babylonian and Assyrian temple courtyards were also called abzu (apsû). Typical in religious washing, these tanks were similar to the washing pools of Islamic mosques, or the baptismal font in Christian churches.
Considered the master shaper of the world, god of wisdom and of all magic, Enki was characterized as the lord of the Abzu (Apsu in Akkadian), the freshwater sea or groundwater located within the earth. The pool of the Abzu at the front of his temple was adopted also at the temple to Nanna (Akkadian Sin) the Moon, at Ur, and spread from there throughout the Middle East. It is believed to remain today as the sacred pool at Mosques, or as the holy water font in Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches.
The urban nucleus of Eridu was Enki’s temple, called House of the Aquifer (Cuneiform: E.ZU.AB; Sumerian: e-abzu; Akkadian: bītu apsû), which in later history was called House of the Waters (Cuneiform: E.LAGAB×HAL; Sumerian: e-engur; Akkadian: bītu engurru). The name refers to Enki’s realm. The Temple of Enki, variously called the E-Abzu or the E-gur, was the first known to have been built in Southern Iraq.
In Sumerian mythology, Nammu (also Namma, spelled ideographically NAMMA = ENGUR) was a primeval goddess, corresponding to Tiamat, the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation, depicted as a woman, representing both the beauty of the feminine, depicted as the glistening one, in Babylonian mythology.
Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû (the god of fresh water) to produce younger gods. Tiamat also has been claimed to be cognate with Northwest Semitic tehom (the deeps, abyss), in the Book of Genesis 1:2.
It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a “Sacred marriage” between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second “Chaoskampf” Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos.
In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, she gives birth to the first generation of deities; her husband, Apsu, later makes war upon them and is killed. When she, too, wars upon her husband’s murderers, she is then slain by Enki’s son, the storm-god Marduk. The heavens and the earth are formed from her divided body.
It is thought that female deities are older than male ones in Mesopotamia and Tiamat may have begun as part of the cult of Nammu, a female principle of a watery creative force, with equally strong connections to the underworld, which predates the appearance of Ea-Enki.
Abzu (or Apsû) fathered upon Tiamat the elder deities Lahmu and Lahamu (masc. the “hairy”), a title given to the gatekeepers at Enki’s Abzu/E’engurra-temple in Eridu. Lahmu and Lahamu, in turn, were the parents of the ‘ends’ of the heavens (Anshar, from an = heaven, shár = horizon, end) and the earth (Kishar); Anshar and Kishar were considered to meet at the horizon, becoming, thereby, the parents of Anu (Heaven) and Ki (Earth).
Nammu was the Goddess sea (Engur) that gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first gods, representing the Apsu, the fresh water ocean that the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall.
Nammu is not well attested in Sumerian mythology. She may have been of greater importance prehistorically, before Enki took over most of her functions. An indication of her continued relevance may be found in the theophoric name of Ur-Nammu, the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
According to the Neo-Sumerian mythological text Enki and Ninmah, Enki is the son of An and Nammu. Nammu is the goddess who “has given birth to the great gods”. It is she who has the idea of creating mankind, and she goes to wake up Enki, who is asleep in the Apsu, so that he may set the process going.
The Atrahasis-Epos has it that Enlil requested from Nammu the creation of humans. And Nammu told him that with the help of Enki (her son) she can create humans in the image of gods.
Reay Tannahill in Sex in History (1980) singled out Nammu as the “only female prime mover” in the cosmogonic myths of antiquity.
It is, however, as the third figure in the triad (the two other members of which were Anu and Enlil) that Ea acquires his permanent place in the pantheon. To him was assigned the control of the watery element, and in this capacity he becomes the shar apsi; i.e. king of the Apsu or “the deep”. The Apsu was figured as the abyss of water beneath the earth, and since the gathering place of the dead, known as Aralu, was situated near the confines of the Apsu, he was also designated as En-Ki; i.e. “lord of that which is below”, in contrast to Anu, who was the lord of the “above” or the heavens.
The consort of Ea, known as Ninhursag, Ki, Uriash Damkina, “lady of that which is below”, or Damgalnunna, “big lady of the waters”, originally was fully equal with Ea, but in more patriarchal Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times plays a part merely in association with her lord. Generally, however, Enki seems to be a reflection of pre-patriarchal times, in which relations between the sexes were characterised by a situation of greater gender equality. In his character, he prefers persuasion to conflict, which he seeks to avoid if possible.
His consort Ninhursag had a nearby temple at Ubaid. The temple of Ninhursag at the summit was on a cleared oval similar to that at Khafajah. Khafajah lies on the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris. The site consists of four mounds, labeled A through D. The main one, Mound A, extends back as far as the Uruk period and contained an oval temple, a temple of the god Sin, not surely and a temple of Nintu.
The Abzu (Cuneiform: ZU.AB; Sumerian: abzu; Akkadian: apsû) also called engur, (Cuneiform: LAGAB×HAL; Sumerian: engur; Akkadian: engurru) literally, ab=’ocean’ zu=’deep’ was the name for the primeval sea below the void space of the underworld (Kur) and the earth (Ma) above.
It may also refer to fresh water from underground aquifers that was given a religious fertilizing quality. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu.
Abzu is depicted as a deity only in the Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Elish, taken from the library of Assurbanipal (c 630 BCE) but which is about 500 years older. In this story, he was a primal being made of fresh water and a lover to another primal deity, Tiamat, who was a creature of salt water.
The Enuma Elish begins: When above the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter, and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all; they were still mixing their waters, and no pasture land had yet been formed, nor even a reed marsh…
Enki was considered a god of life and replenishment, and was often depicted with two streams of water flowing into his shoulders, one the Tigris, the other the Euphrates. Alongside him were trees symbolising the female and male aspects of nature, each holding the female and male aspects of the ‘Life Essence’, which he, as apparent alchemist of the gods, would masterfully mix to create several beings that would live upon the face of the earth.
His image is a double-helix snake, or the Caduceus, sometimes confused with the Rod of Asclepius used to symbolize medicine. He is often shown with the horned crown of divinity dressed in the skin of a carp. His symbols included a goat and a fish, which later combined into a single beast, the goat Capricorn, recognised as the Zodiacal constellation Capricornus. He was accompanied by an attendant Isimud. He was also associated with the planet Mercury, later associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk), in the Sumerian astrological system.
In the later Babylonian epic Enûma Eliš, Abzu, the “begetter of the gods”, is inert and sleepy but finds his peace disturbed by the younger gods, so sets out to destroy them. His grandson Enki, chosen to represent the younger gods, puts a spell on Abzu “casting him into a deep sleep”, thereby confining him deep underground. Enki subsequently sets up his home “in the depths of the Abzu.” Enki thus takes on all of the functions of the Abzu, including his fertilising powers as lord of the waters and lord of semen.
Enki and later Ea were apparently depicted, sometimes, as a man covered with the skin of a fish, and this representation, as likewise the name of his temple E-apsu, “house of the watery deep”, points decidedly to his original character as a god of the waters. Around the excavation of the 18 shrines found on the spot, thousands of carp bones were found, consumed possibly in feasts to the god.
The main temple to Enki is called E-abzu, meaning “abzu temple” (also E-en-gur-a, meaning “house of the subterranean waters”), a ziggurat temple surrounded by Euphratean marshlands near the ancient Persian Gulf coastline at Eridu. He was the keeper of the divine powers called Me, the gifts of civilization.
Early royal inscriptions from the third millennium BCE mention “the reeds of Enki”. Reeds were an important local building material, used for baskets and containers, and collected outside the city walls, where the dead or sick were often carried. This links Enki to the Kur or underworld of Sumerian mythology.
In another even older tradition, Nammu, the goddess of the primeval creative matter and the mother-goddess portrayed as having “given birth to the great gods,” was the mother of Enki, and as the watery creative force, was said to preexist Ea-Enki.
Benito states “With Enki it is an interesting change of gender symbolism, the fertilising agent is also water, Sumerian “a” or “Ab” which also means “semen”. In one evocative passage in a Sumerian hymn, Enki stands at the empty riverbeds and fills them with his ‘water'”. This may be a reference to Enki’s hieros gamos or sacred marriage with Ki/Ninhursag.
In 1964, a team of Italian archaeologists under the direction of Paolo Matthiae of the University of Rome La Sapienza performed a series of excavations of material from the third-millennium BCE city of Ebla. Much of the written material found in these digs was later translated by Giovanni Pettinato.
Among other conclusions, he found a tendency among the inhabitants of Ebla to replace the name of El, king of the gods of the Canaanite pantheon (found in names such as Mikael), with Ia.
Jean Bottero (1952) and others suggested that Ia in this case is a West Semitic (Canaanite) way of saying Ea, Enki’s Akkadian name, associating the Canaanite theonym Yahu, and ultimately Hebrew YHWH.
Some scholars remain skeptical of the theory while explaining how it might have been misinterpreted. Ia has also been compared by William Hallo with the Ugaritic Yamm (sea), (also called Judge Nahar, or Judge River) whose earlier name in at least one ancient source was Yaw, or Ya’a.
In Sumerian mythology, Anu (also An; from Sumerian An, “sky, heaven”) was a sky-god, the god of heaven, lord of constellations, king of gods, spirits and demons, and dwelt in the highest heavenly regions. It was believed that he had the power to judge those who had committed crimes, and that he had created the stars as soldiers to destroy the wicked. His attribute was the royal tiara. His attendant and minister of state was the god Ilabrat.
Anu existed in Sumerian cosmogony as a dome that covered the flat earth; Outside of this dome was the primordial body of water known as Tiamat (not to be confused with the subterranean Abzu).
In Sumerian, the designation “An” was used interchangeably with “the heavens” so that in some cases it is doubtful whether, under the term, the god An or the heavens is being denoted. The Akkadians inherited An as the god of heavens from the Sumerian as Anu-, and in Akkadian cuneiform, the DINGIR character may refer either to Anum or to the Akkadian word for god, ilu-, and consequently had two phonetic values an and il. Hittite cuneiform as adapted from the Old Assyrian kept the an value but abandoned il.
Dingir (usually transliterated diĝir, pronounced /diŋir/) is a cuneiform sign, most commonly the determinative for “deity” although it has related meanings as well. As a determinative, it is not pronounced, and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript “D” as in e.g. DInanna. Generically, dingir can be translated as “god” or “goddess”.
The sign in Sumerian cuneiform (DIĜIR) by itself represents the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”), the ideogram for An or the word diĝir (“god”), the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon. In Assyrian cuneiform, it (AN, DIĜIR) could be either an ideogram for “deity” (ilum) or a syllabogram for an, or ìl-. In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again an.
The concept of “divinity” in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for “sky”, and that its original shape is the picture of a star. The original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.
The doctrine once established remained an inherent part of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion and led to the more or less complete disassociation of the three gods constituting the triad from their original local limitations. In the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria, Anu, Enlil, and Ea became the three zones of the ecliptic, the northern, middle and southern zone respectively.
An intermediate step between Anu viewed as the local deity of Uruk, Enlil as the god of Nippur, and Ea as the god of Eridu is represented by the prominence which each one of the centres associated with the three deities in question must have acquired, and which led to each one absorbing the qualities of other gods so as to give them a controlling position in an organized pantheon.
For Nippur we have the direct evidence that its chief deity, En-lil, was once regarded as the head of the Sumerian pantheon. The sanctity and, therefore, the importance of Eridu remained a fixed tradition in the minds of the people to the latest days, and analogy therefore justifies the conclusion that Anu was likewise worshipped in a centre which had acquired great prominence.
The purely theoretical character of Anu is thus still further emphasized, and in the annals and votive inscriptions as well as in the incantations and hymns, he is rarely introduced as an active force to whom a personal appeal can be made. His name becomes little more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as king or father of the gods has little of the personal element in it.
A consort Antum (or as some scholars prefer to read, Anatum) is assigned to him, on the theory that every deity must have a female associate. But Anu spent so much time on the ground protecting the Sumerians he left her in Heaven and then met Innin, whom he renamed Innan, or, “Queen of Heaven”. She was later known as Ishtar. Anu resided in her temple the most, and rarely went back up to Heaven. He is also included in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and is a major character in the clay tablets.
Ap (áp-) is the Vedic Sanskrit term for “water”, which in Classical Sanskrit only occurs in the plural, āpas (sometimes re-analysed as a thematic singular, āpa-), whence Hindi āp. The term is from PIE hxap “water”. The Indo-Iranian word also survives as the Persian word for water, āb, e.g. in Punjab (from panj-āb “five waters”).
Here, a similarity can be seen between the concept of ap (waters/river) and the Sumerian ab (ocean), which is a language that is widely believed to be a language isolate. In archaic ablauting contractions, the laryngeal of the PIE root remains visible in Vedic Sanskrit, e.g. pratīpa- “against the current”, from *proti-hxp-o-.
In the Rigveda, several hymns are dedicated to “the waters” (āpas). In the oldest of these the waters are connected with the drought of Indra. Agni, the god of fire, has a close association with water and is often referred to as Apām Napāt “offspring of the waters”. The female deity Apah is the presiding deity of Purva Ashadha (The former invincible one) asterism in Vedic astrology.
Apas is the Avestan language term for “the waters”, which—in its innumerable aggregate states—is represented by the Apas, the hypostases of the waters.Avestan apas (from singular āpō) is grammatically feminine, and the Apas are female. The Middle Persian equivalents are ābān/Ābān (alt: āvān/Āvān), from which Parsi Gujarati āvā/Āvā (in religious usage only) derive.
The Avestan common noun āpas corresponds exactly to Vedic Sanskrit āpas, and both derive from the same proto-Indo-Iranian word, stem *ap- “water”. According to the Bundahishn, (‘Original Creation’, an 11th- or 12th-century text), aban was the second of the seven creations of the material universe, the lower half of everything.
The Sumerian god Enki (Ea in the Akkadian language) was believed to have lived in the abzu since before human beings were created. His wife Damgalnuna, his mother Nammu, his advisor Isimud and a variety of subservient creatures, such as the gatekeeper Lahmu, also lived in the abzu.
Mesopotamian myth tells of seven antediluvian sages or sages or Apkallū. (Apkallu, “sage”, comes from Sumerian AB.GAL.LU (Ab=water, Gal=Great Lu=Man), who were sent by Ea, the wise god of Eridu (Cuneiform: NUN.KI), to bring the arts of civilisation to humankind. In Sumerian mythology, it was said to be one of the five cities built before the Deluge occurred.
The first of these, Adapa, also known as Uan, the name given as Oannes by the Babylonian writer Berossus in the 3rd century BC, introduced the practice of the correct rites of religious observance as priest of the E’Apsu temple, at Eridu. Oannes was the name given to a mythical being who taught mankind wisdom.
Berossus describes Oannes as having the body of a fish but underneath the figure of a man. He is described as dwelling in the Persian Gulf, and rising out of the waters in the daytime and furnishing mankind instruction in writing, the arts and the various sciences. Oannes and the Semitic god Dagon were considered identical.
The sages are described in Mesopotamian literature as ‘pure parādu-fish, probably carp, whose bones are found associated with the earliest shrine, and still kept as a holy duty in the precincts of Near Eastern mosques and monasteries.
Adapa as a fisherman was iconographically portrayed as a fish-man composite. The word Abgallu, sage (Ab = water, Gal = great, Lu = man, Sumerian) survived into Nabatean times, around the 1st century, as apkallum, used to describe the profession of a certain kind of priest.
Adapa is often identified as advisor to the mythical first (antediluvian) king of Eridu, Alulim. In addition to his advisory duties, he served as a priest and exorcist, and upon his death took his place among the Seven sages or Apkallū.
Adapa was a mythical figure who unknowingly refused the gift of immortality, was a mortal man from a godly lineage, a son of Ea (Enki in Sumerian), the god of wisdom and of the ancient city of Eridu, who brought the arts of civilization to that city.
Vague parallels can be drawn to the story of Genesis, where Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden by Yahweh, after they ate from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thus gaining death. Parallels are also apparent (to an even greater degree) with the story of Persephone visiting Hades, who was warned to take nothing from that kingdom.
Eridu, also transliterated as Eridug, could mean “mighty place” or “guidance place”. In the Sumerian king list, Eridu is named as the city of the first kings. The king list continues: In Eridu, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alalngar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Then Eridu fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira.
The stories of Inanna, goddess of Uruk, describe how she had to go to Eridu in order to receive the gifts of civilization. At first Enki, the god of Eridu attempted to retrieve these sources of his power, but later willingly accepted that Uruk now was the centre of the land. This seems to be a mythical reference to the transfer of power northward.
In the court of Assyria, special physicians trained in the ancient lore of Eridu, far to the south, foretold the course of sickness from signs and portents on the patient’s body, and offered the appropriate incantations and magical resources as cures.
The king list gave particularly long rules to the kings who ruled before a great flood occurred, and shows how the center of power progressively moved from the south to the north of the country.
Ninti is the Sumerian goddess of life. Enki had eaten forbidden flowers and was then cursed by Ninhursaga, who was later persuaded by the other gods to heal him. Ninti is one of the eight goddesses of healing who was created by Ninhursag to heal Enki’s body. Her specific healing area was the rib. Some scholars suggest that this served as the basis for the story of Eve created from Adam’s rib in the Book of Genesis.
Ninti, the title of Ninhursag, also means “the mother of all living”, and was a title given to the later Hurrian (Armenian) goddess Kheba, the mother goddess of the Hurrians, known as “the mother of all living”. She is also a Queen of the deities.
This is also the title given in the Bible to Eve, the Hebrew and Aramaic Ḥawwah (חוה), who was made from the rib of Adam, in a strange reflection of the Sumerian myth, in which Adam — not Enki — walks in the Garden of Paradise.
The mother goddess is likely to have had a later counterpart in the Phrygian goddess Cybele, an originally Anatolian mother goddess; she has a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük (in the Konya region) where the statue of a pregnant goddess seated on a lion throne was found in a granary.
Cybele is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and was probably its state deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread from there to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies from around the 6th century BCE.
Kummanni (Hittite: Kummiya) was the name of the main center in the Anatolian kingdom of Kizzuwatna, believed to be near the classical settlement of Comana in Cappadocia. The city persisted into the Early Iron Age, and appears as Kumme in Assyrian records. It was located on the edge of Assyrian influence in the far northeastern corner of Mesopotamia, separating Assyria from Urartu and the highlands of southeastern Anatolia.
Kummanni was the major cult center of the Hurrian chief deity, Tešup. Its Hurrian name Kummeni simply translates as “The Shrine.” The word cube comes directly from Latin cubus, from Greek kybos “a cube, a six-sided die, vertebra,” perhaps from PIE root *keu(b)- “to bend, turn.”
The Kaaba or Ka’aba (“The Cube”) is a cuboid building at the center of Islam’s most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam. It is considered the ‘House of God’ and has a similar role as the Tabernacle, Ark of the Covenant and Temple in Judaism and Christianity.
Ibn Kathir the famous commentator on the Quran mentions two interpretations among the Muslims on the origin of the Kaaba. One is that the shrine was a place of worship for Angels before the creation of man, later a temple was built on the location by Adam and Eve which was lost during the flood in Noah’s time and was finally rebuilt by Abraham and Ishmael as mentioned later in the Quran.
Ibn Kathir regarded this tradition as weak and preferred instead the narration by Ali ibn Abi Talib that although several other temples might have preceded the Kaabah, it was the first “House of God”, dedicated solely to Him, built by His instruction and sanctified and blessed by Him as stated in Quran 22:26-29. A Hadith in Sahih Bukhari states that the Kaaba was the First Mosque on earth, and the Second Mosque was the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Black Stone (Arabic: al-Ḥajar al-Aswad) is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba, the ancient stone building, located in the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is revered by Muslims as an Islamic relic which, according to Muslim tradition, dates back to the time of Adam and Eve.
Some writers remark on the apparent similarity of the Black Stone and its frame to the external female genitalia, and ascribe this to its earlier association with fertility rites of Arabia. The Kaaba marked the location where the sacred world intersected with the profane, and the embedded Black Stone was a further symbol of this as an object as a link between heaven and earth.
The earliest reference we have to a goddess worshipped as a cube-shaped stone is from neolithic Anatolia. The ideograms for Kubaba in the Hittite alphabet are a lozenge or cube, a double-headed axe, a dove, a vase and a door or gate – all images of the goddess in neolithic Europe.
The origin of Kubaba may have been kube or kuba meaning ‘cube’. Alternatively, ‘Kubaba’ may mean a hollow vessel or cave – which would still be a supreme image of the goddess.
Deities of other cultures known to have been associated with black stones include Aphrodite at Paphos, Cybele at Pessinus and later Rome, Astarte at Byblos and the famous Artemis/Diana of Ephesus. The latter’s most ancient sculpture was, it is said, carved from a black meteorite.
The home of Aphrodite was at Paphos on Cyprus. Various Classical writers describe the rituals which went on her in her honor – in which a tapering black stone, the object of verneration at her temple, was used.
The earliest form of Cybele’s name may have been Kubaba or Kumbaba which suggests Humbaba, who was the guardian of the forest in the Epic of Gilgamesh – the world’s oldest recorded myth from Assyria of circa 2,500 BCE and, as scholars reveal more of the text as the source of most of the major mythological themes of later civilizations.
Khumban is the Elamite god of the sky. His sumerian equivalent is Anu. Several Elamite kings, mostly from the Neo-Elamite period, were named in honour of Khumban. In Ancient Mesopotamian religion, Humbaba (Assyrian spelling), also spelled Huwawa and surnamed the Terrible, was a monstrous giant of immemorial age raised by Utu, the Sun. Humbaba was the guardian of the Cedar Forest, where the gods lived, by the will of the god Enlil, who “assigned [Humbaba] as a terror to human beings.” He is the brother of Pazuzu and son of Hanbi.
The stone associated with Cybele’s worship was, originally, probably at Pessinus but perhaps at Pergamum or on Mount Ida. What is certain is that in 204 BCE it was taken to Rome, where Cybele became ‘Mother’ to the Romans. The ecstatic rites of her worship were alien to the Roman temperament, but nevertheless animated the streets of their city during the annual procession of the goddess’s statue.
Alongside Isis, Cybele retained prominence in the heart of the Empire until the fifth century BCE – when the stone was then lost. Her cult prospered throughout the Empire and it is said that every town or village remained true to the worship of Cybele.
Dushara (“Lord of the Mountain”), also transliterated as Dusares, a deity in the ancient Middle East worshipped by the Nabataeans at Petra and Madain Saleh (of which city he was the patron). He was mothered by Manat, the goddess of fate. In Greek times, he was associated with Zeus because he was the chief of the Nabataean pantheon as well as with Dionysus. His sanctuary at Petra contained a great temple in which a large cubical stone was the centrepiece.
A shrine to Dushara has been discovered in the harbour of ancient Puteoli in Italy. The city was an important nexus for trade to the Near East, and it is known to have had a Nabataean presence during the mid 1st century BCE. The cult continued in some capacity well into the Roman period and possibly as late as the Islamic period.
This deity was mentioned by the 9th century CE Muslim historian Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi, who wrote in The Book of Idols (Kitab al-Asnām) that: “The Banū al-Hārith ibn-Yashkur ibn-Mubashshir of the ʻAzd had an idol called Dū Sharā.”
According to the early Christian bishop Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315–403), Chaabou or Kaabu was a goddess in the Nabataean pantheon—a virgin who gave birth to the god Dusares. However, Epiphanus likely mistook the word ka’abu (“cube”, etymologically related to the name of the Kaaba), referring to the stone blocks used by the Nabateans to represent Dusares and possibly other deities, for the proper name of a goddess. His report that Chaabou was a virgin was likely influenced by his desire to find a parallel to the Christian belief in the virgin birth of Jesus, and by the similarity of the words ka’bah and ka’ibah (“virgin”) in Arabic, a language closely related to that spoken by the Nabateans.
Uranus
On the origins and continuity of the term AN/diĝir – god
Sumer was the Land of so many Firsts for us, and certainly, a civilization like that must have had very clear Philosophical concepts too. One of the most important group of terms in the human culture, are those representing the concept of God.
The God in our religious monotheistic philosophy is the heavenly, highest, all-knowing, omnipotent, limitless, omnipresent, the creator and head of the universe. The fundamental qualities of God would be: He is: 1- the Heavenly or Stellar; 2- the Creator; 3- the All-knowing.
In a primeval (or primitive if you want) language like Sumerian, the concept of God, seems to be clearly related with the first quality – heavenly or stellar because the sign for God AN, is also equated with sky, heaven, star, all of the idea be high. At first view, it doesn’t seem to reflect any meaning connected to the other two qualities, so it would be of interest a further analysis.
The present study is an effort to analyze etymologically, how the terms for God may express such fundamental qualities, which might also reflect the high level of Sumerian civilization.
We might think that, in Sumerian, the above three qualities of God are not a concept expressed through one cuneiform sign only. But, Sumerians had fulfilled that difficult task, through assigning different phonetic values to the same sign, as we all know about. However, the Beginners, creators of the cuneiform script, did not simply add arbitrary values to the sign for god. They did it in a godly manner, by assigning such values as a coherent, integrated structure of high abstraction, just as their godly language deserved.
The three qualities may be shown through etymological analysis of the Sumerian terms for God, including AN, diĝir/dingir, dim-me-er, šar/šaru, il/ilu, where most of them are expressed by the AN sign only.
Regarding the possible presence and continuity of such terms and symbols in later cultures, there are also studied the respective terms in IE languages such as in Sanskrit Vedas, Pelasgian term for god, Greek and Latin terms for god. Traces of Sumerian symbol for God in Illyria and Epirus (even in Arber) are evident, also their mythology with the divine brothers Polidiak and Kastor shows possible parallelism in the names, their associations with zodiac signs, etc. These facts have been a further inducement and support to this study cause, in the same time, they bespeak the possible relationship with Albanian language, which has also given its help in analysing the Sumerian terms for god, and especially to understand the coherent, clearly related structure of terms behind.
Etymological division derivation, which is semantically correct. Division of agglutinated terms within Sumerian and by the help of Albanian.
AN sign value origin is an-na (a-na). It means sky, star, heaven, god, all of the idea be high (Prince,32). In lexical lists, it is equated with Akk. ŝamu, and through it, with me = divine powers (Horowitz,229; Halloran,171). The me might express the idea be high, also because its graphic etymology is “sth. upon sth.” if seen in its original position rotated for 90°. So, AN sign is clearly related to the first quality of God, heavenly or stellar, because of its adverbial meanings high, above, over, upon. Such meanings may be derived with etymological division a-na = a+na = is+high/above. The value a=is might be derived from the nominalizing function of a understood as “the noun that verbs”= “is verbing”(Halloran,1), also supported from the same meaning of a=is, and the same nominalizing function of the verb a/aš=is in Albanian. The equation a-na = me(mi) = over, upon cognate with high, above, is again corroborated through Albanian, where mi = over, upon and na/nalt/la/lart = above, high. The other value AN = il/ilu is present in Albanian with the meaning il/ilu> ill/yll = star.
The highest objects we can see are the stars, and so, il/ilu=star can better express the idea high. It is so in Albanian, where the adverb above/high = la/lat/lart (na/nalt) and the noun star, may derive from each other: il = i+l = high (adj.), we might consider the amisable -a in la as a=is and the indefinite pronoun i=ni=one/it/any as in the equation: ni+l+a > i+l+a > il. Thus, values an, ilu, me of the AN sign may express the first quality of God through adverbial meanings high, above, over, upon.
This poster depicts 34 of Europe’s most sacred sites. It includes ancient temples, megalithic structures, bronze age tombs and prehistoric artifacts. If you’re planning to visit the most hallowed grounds of Europe, this poster is an essential tool for planning your unforgettable journey.
The early Europeans sought to secure the presence of these divine beings by erecting shrines, temples and megalithic structures in their honour. These sacred sites were believed to be as a link to the spirit world, and were chosen for several different reasons: 1. It was a place of great beauty, conceived by a divine creator. 2. It was touched by a god or hero, giving it a legendary status. 3. A holy-person sensed its divine energy radiating from the land. 4. A miracle took place at the site, bestowing it with divine energy.
The earliest sites known to convey a ritualised activity were caves. There are hundreds of grotto’s in prehistoric Europe which are full of art depicting beasts, hunting parties, strange glyphs and even therianthropes (part man, part animal). La Pasieha, Chauvet, Coliboiai and Magura caves are abundant in such imagery, which is indicative of shamanism. It appears these caves were used as a canvas for their cultural beliefs, depicting images of worship, shape shifting, and perhaps fertility rites.
Later, during the Neolithic, many of these sites were used to worship a god or goddess, such as the Odin in Gamla Uppsala, or Athena in the Parthenon. These temples acted as a direct link to a particular deity, and by leaving them offerings, it was believed you could procure their favour. Perhaps they would call upon the Svetovid in Jaromarsburg to protect them from raids, or the Tailtiu at the Hill of Tara, for a bountiful harvest.
As well as a link to the heavens, certain landmarks were also believed to act as gateways to the nether world. The Gordium and Mount Nemrut were both tombs, housing legendary kings. These crypts were designed to ensure their safe passage into the underworld, along with all their favorite possessions.
The sacred sites of Europe remain spiritually meaningful to millions of people today, who often travel to the temples of Greece or the stone circles of Britain for a direct experience with the divine. With the re-emergence of pagan traditions, many of these sites are being used once again, summoning the spirits of our past, and reconnecting modern humans with their deep, spiritual roots.
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Explore the cultural wonders of world mythology; discover a rich heritage of epic legends, powerful artifacts, divine beings & supernatural abilities.
Welcome to the Human Odyssey, a page where history meets mythology. Follow my articles, and retrace the journey of mankind using mythology as your main vantage point. Discover the secrets of shamanic cave art, the characters behind world mythology and the legendary events that shaped early civilisation.
By joining my page, I hope to show you the the historical truths behind world mythology. Using a mixture of archaeology, genography, philology, linguistics and comparative religion, I’ll to rebuild a timeline of the distant past.
Witness the rise of angels, battles with sea dragons, the theft of sacred knowledge and the fall of the gods, all within a historical context.
Prehistoric circle dated to same summer as Seahenge neighbour
Seahenge, which is also known as Holme I, was a prehistoric monument located in the village of Holme-next-the-Sea, near Old Hunstanton in the English county of Norfolk. A timber circle with an upturned tree root in the centre, Seahenge was apparently built in the 21st century BCE, during the early Bronze Age in Britain, most likely for ritual purposes.
Seahenge was a prehistoric monument located by the village of Holme-next-to-the-Sea in East Anglia. The circular enclosure was constructed during the early Bronze Age (2050 BCE), a period that saw an increasing adoption of agriculture and domesticity in Britain.
The posts surrounding the enclosure were made of oak, a wood which was sacred to the Indo-Europeans. However, its most noticeable feature was the great trunk that sat at its centre. Encoded within the structure of this ancient monument was a the theme of inversion; the large tree stump had been turned upside down, most likely for ritualistic purposes.
The Indo-European believed the roots of the world tree acted as a gateway to the underworld, a realm where souls departed too after they left their corporeal form. Is it possible that the wooden alter was used by the druids to help guide tribal souls to their resting place in the underworld?
It is likely this enclosure was used as a mortuary for excarnation (the removing of flesh from dead bodies to produce a skeleton). Druids and shaman used such sites following the death of an important person, where their body would have been laid out on the upturned stump so birds and animals could pick the bones clean. These bones would then have been removed for burial elsewhere.
This suggests that Seahenge may have been used to prepare the dead for their journey to the underworld, just as the Egyptian priests practiced mummification to ensure the immortality of their pharaohs. If this were the case, it would imply the ancient people of Britain was far more advanced with their rituals and customs than has previously been believed.
There was one tree in particular which achieved mythical status throughout all world cultures. It is known today as the ‘World Tree’ and according to our ancestors, it was truly epic in scale. Its branches were said to reach as high as the heavens, while its roots plunged deep into the abyss of the underworld. Because of their association with celestial realms, these trees were regarded by many priests as gateways to other dimensions.
• Yggdrasil was said to connect middle earth (Midgard) to eight other realms (some made of fire and ice, others of darkness and light)
• The World Tree of Mesoamerica was seen as a gateway (aka axis mundi) connecting the planes of the Underworld and the sky with the terrestrial world
• The ‘Sky Tree’ from Hungarian mythology had a series of branches which reached out to seven worlds. Each branch was said to touch the sun, the moon, the clouds and other celestial spheres.
• The Dawn Tree from Baltic mythology was depicted with a golden trunk, copper roots and silver leaves. The trunk represented life in the present, while the past was embodied in its roots (life that has passed). The branches, however, represented future choices yet to be made
It should be noted that in nearly all depictions of the ‘World Tree’, a great serpent is said to reside at its base. These serpents typically guard a forbidden knowledge which only a select number of mortals have ascertained:
• It was Adam and Eve who attained wisdom by eating fruit from the tree of Knowledge (Judaism/Christianity)
• It was under the Bodhi tree that the Buddha was said to have gained enlightenment (Buddhist mythology)
• The Kabbalah represents the tree of life (the other legendary tree of Christian mythology). Legend says that to learn the secrets of this mystic tree is to know the secrets of life itself
• The Druids were priests of the natural world whose name was said to mean ‘knower’s of the oak’ (Celtic mythology)
• The Cosmic Tree of Latvia was a highly symbolic image. It was said to hold birds in its branches (enlightenment), mammals at its base (instinct) and serpents in its roots (wisdom)
The most common theme found in world mythology is the ‘Tree of Life’ which is said to both create and prolong life. In many cases, our ancestors believed that these great trees gave birth to the Gods and even to to humanity itself. Many pilgrims have searched for this mythical tree throughout the ages, but only the most worthy have been able to find it:
• In Tengrinism, it is said that humans were descended from Trees, as well as other spirit entities and lesser gods who lived for hundreds of years.
• A tree of life belonged to the Goddess Iusaaset who was said to have conceived the lineage of Egyptian Gods through the trees life giving properties
• The Kalpavriksha tree from Vedic mythology was said to produce an abundance of life giving fruit for those who wished for it
In the beginning of the Norse cosmos, there existed an eternal Void, known as Ginnungagap. Out of this nothingness sprang Yggdrasil, a huge Ash tree. Its newly emerging branches held two primordial worlds; Niflheim, a world of ice & frost, and Muspellheim, a realm of molten fire.
When a spring erupted from Nifelheim (known as Hvergelmir), it created a river which crossed the void into Muspellheim. Here, the hot air scorched the freezing river creating a new world, known as Jotunheim, land of the giants.
From this bloodline of primordial beings came Odin, Vili and Ve, who despised the father of giants who ruled his people with malice and brutality. When the chance came, the brothers slew the frost giant, and from his body they created Midgard, a world of mortals. Surrounding this realm they placed a great ocean which nourished the roots of the great tree.
Yggdrasil grew ever higher, forming a new realm called Asgard, which is located on the highest branch of the world tree. This was where Odin, king of the Aesir would take his people to settle a new civilisation. It was said this race of gods brought culture and technology to the world of mortals via a great causeway called Bifrost.
Bifrost was a burning rainbow bridge, connecting Midgard (the world of mortals) with Asgard. This colourful overpass emerged from Himinbjörg, a mountain hall guarded over by the ever-vigilant Heimdall. This watchmen of the gods kept an eye on the mortals below, making sure no giants breached their homeland.
As Yggdrasil continued to grow, a new land emerged on one of its branches called Vanaheim. It was a land full of luscious forests and wild meadows. From this primal wilderness emerged a race of gods known as the Vanir. This tribal people lived near the coast, ruled by Njörðr, a seafaring god who loved wealth and magic, a trait common among his people.
A great tension broke out between the Vanir and the Aesir resulting in a long winded war. It eventually ended in a stalemate, so many of the gods sent their families as hostages to the opposing tribe to help bring them closer together. Njörðr’s son, Freyr, was placed in charge of Alfheim, homeland of the Elves. This class of god-like beings were said to be “more beautiful than the sun.”
These elves were also linked to another realm far below the Earth. Legend says a tribe from Alfheim were exiled from their homeland many eons ago, and eventually sought refuge with the dwarves of the underworld. These subterranean beings had build their homes around the roots of Yggdrasil, carving a network of labyrinths, mines and forges for their empire. They called it Niðavellir, and the elves, who skin eventually became black as night, called it Svartalfar.
All the beings of Yggdrasil, mortals, gods, dwarves and elves would eventually die, and their souls were destined for several realms. If the Aesir died valiantly in battle, they would find rest in Valhalla, for all others, Helheim was their inevitable destination. This dark and gloomy abode resided at the tip of Yggdrasil’s deepest root. This afterlife was ruled over by Loki’s daughter Hel, a strange being who was half black and half flesh-coloured, characterised by a gloomy, downcast appearance.
There are a number of sacred creatures which live within Yggdrasil. this includes the monstrous wyrm Níðhöggr who gnaws at the roots of Nifelheim, weakening the great tree of Yggdrasil. This frost dragon was also known for eating the corpses of the Nifelheim when found guilty of murder, adultery and oath-breaking.
Atop the highest branches of the world tree is perched a great eagle and his hawk companion Vedrfolnir, who sits between his eyes. The two stare deep into the Norse cosmos, perhaps representing insight and awareness.
Ratatosk is a squirrel who runs up and down the world tree to carry messages between the unnamed eagle and Níðhöggr the wyrm. This mischievous critter is said to stir trouble between the all knowing eagle and the world hungry dragon.
Among the branches of the Great Ash tree live four stags known as Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór. These ravenous beasts eat the branches of the World Tree, perhaps representing the four seasons. When they eat too much, winter ensues, when they are full, the leaves grow thick and lush in the midst of summer.
Perhaps the most important guardians of Yggdrasil are the three Norns (witches) who lives at the well Urd (below Midgard). Their names are Urd “past”, Verdani “present” and Skuld “future”. These three hags are the goddesses of fate, who spend most their time spinning the threads of life, deciding the fate of every human, animal and god. Every day the Norns will also carry water from Urd’s well, and pour it over Yggdrasil. The water from the well is of vital importance to keep the tree green and healthy.
It is the Norns who foretold Ragnarok, the twilight of the Gods and the fall of Yggdrasil. It is said that Ragnarok will begin when the wolf, Fenrir, son of Loki, breaks free of his imprisonment. This will lead to a chain reaction of events including the Midgard snake Jormungandr rising from the sea and a wolf (known as Skoll) devouring the sun, and his brother Hati, eating the moon, plunging the earth into darkness. The stars will vanish from the sky.
Everything will come to a head in a huge battle that draws in all the races of the nine worlds. It will conclude with Surter, king of the fire giants, setting fire to the great Yggdrasil. The nine worlds will burn, and friends and foes alike will perish, culminating with the earth sinking deep into the abyss of the sea.
Danu was a mother goddess to the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the most ancient of goddesses, associated with wisdom, knowledge and the learning. She is often associated with wind and rivers and the Earth. It is said she possessed the divine knowledge of shape shifting and shamanic travel.
Boann was a water goddess associated with fertility and abundance. According to legend, she owned a sacred well which contained the divine secrets of her tribe (it was also said to be a link to the other worlds of Irish mythology). All were forbidden to approach this well, with the exception of her husband Nuada (first king of the Tuatha Dé Danann).
Banbha was a warrior goddess who protected the land of the Irish. She was a Queen of the Tuatha de Danaan and possessed powerful magic which she used to battle invaders with (most notably the Milesian tribe). Legend says that it Banbha who found Ireland after a great flood, which she vowed to protect with her life.
Brigid was a goddess of fire, associating her with great magical power. Those with a mastery over fire could mould metal, infuse potions and bring light to the dark. This made her a benefactor of light, healing, smithing and sorcery.
Ernmas was a mother goddess who sired six girls and five boys, making her a figure of fertility and abundance. It was her strength and vitality that was said to have endowed her children with great battle prowess and magical power. Very little is mentioned about the father of her children, for it was she alone who was regarded the divine power behind her lineage.
Áine was a sun goddess, associated with love, midsummer and fertility. She had command over crops and animals and was also associated with healing and magic. Aine, beautiful, bright and glowing, was a muse to every poet. She could inspire great works of creativity or drive the artist to madness.
Morrigan was a goddess of war and fertility. Her name means the “Queen of Demons” or the “Phantom Queen”. It was said she possessed the powers of divination and prophecy and was one of the strangest deities in Irish mythology. She was a tripartite goddess of war: associated with Badb and Macha.
Badb was a war goddess who took the form of a crow, and was thus sometimes known as Badb Catha (“battle crow”). She often caused fear and confusion among soldiers in order to move the tide of battle to her favoured side. Badb would also appear prior to a battle to foreshadow the extent of the upcoming carnage. She would sometimes do this through wailing cries, leading to comparisons with the banshee.
Macha, a war goddess, was associated with the fate of the Irish. It was claimed she was a prophetess who appeared to those about to die. She is commonly shown washing bloody clothes at a river ford; when approached, She tells the enquirer the clothes are theirs. Like the bean sidhe (banshee), Whom She is believed related to, She is an omen of death.
Bé Chuille was a sorceress whose magic was used to conjure a host of warriors from the grass and leaves. Bé Chuille was also gifted with divination, and she foretold the number of Danann who would die in the battle against the Milesians.
Clíodhna was a Queen of the Banshees. Due to the betrayal of her husband Manannan, her soul was shattered. In the daytime she was known as goddess of love and beauty, but come nightfall she became the Banshee Queen, a goddess of vanity, jealousy and obsession.
Fand was a Celtic sea goddess also known as Queen of the Fairies and wife of Manannán. She made her home both in the Otherworld and on the Islands of Man. She was also a patron of health and earthly pleasures, known to the people of Ireland as “Pearl of Beauty”.
In Celtic mythology, the Tuatha De Danann (children of the goddess Danu) were the last race of gods to occupy and conquer the British Isles before men came and took the land away from them. The Tuatha De Danann were gifted warriors and learned in magic.
Dagda was one of the most powerful deities to set foot on Ireland. He was known as father of the Gods, the master of Druids and the keeper of arcane lore. He was also a formidable warrior who acted as both guide and father to the Tuatha De Danann.
One of his most first protégé was king Nuada (God of war and weaponry), It was said he possessed an invincible sword which he used to cleave his enemies in half. However, after Nuada lost his hand in battle, he was deemed ineligable to be king and was replaced by Bres.
Bres was a Celtic fertility god who took over the role of Nuada after his injury. He was a tyrannical ruler, which proved his undoing. In exchange for his life, Bres taught agriculture and turned Ireland into a fertile haven.
Aoi was the poet of the Tuatha de Danann. A druid foretold at his birth that he would grow up to become a master poet who was gifted with special powers. It was said he had he possessed sensational musical talent with an eloquent voice to match.
Lugh was a hero and High King of the Tuatha Dé Danann, associated with the sun. He was a highly skilled God, proficient in multiple arts such as the smithing, carpentry, poetry, music and combat.
Ogma was a hardened battle God who had mellowed with age. From this aged warrior came the gift of poetry and writing. An ancient Celtic script known as Ogham was named after him, reminding us how eloquent the Celts really were.
Bile was associated with the sacred tree (a prehistoric symbol associated with the heavens and the underworld). This made him a god of both light and darkness, life and death. However, he was mostly associated with summer and fertility, where it was said bring life and vitality to the world.
Aengus was a dark and mysterious God associated with love, poetry and romance. It was said that no woman could set eyes upon him without falling madly in love at the sound of his magical harp. He is sometimes called Angus the Young for he was conceived and born the same day.
Dian Cécht was the God of healing and physician to the Tuatha Dé Danann. One of his greatest feats was to construct a silver mechanical hand for the god of war, Nuada (after it was cut off in a bloody battle). It was said this prosthetic could move as well as a real hand.
Goibniu was the smith and brewmaster of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He was described as a master smelter whose weapons were always lethal, but he was more renowned for his brews which were said to give the drinker invulnerability. As a brewmaster he was unsurpassed and his beer gave the drinker divine immortality.
Luchtaine, Goibniu and Creidhne were known as the Trí Dée Dána, the three gods of art, who forged the weapons which the Tuatha Dé used to battle the Fomorians. It is said that Creidhne fashioned King Nuada’s silver hand, together with Dian Cecht.
These ancient deities were found in the Gaulish region of Europe (i.e. France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Austria). Their mythical roles were preserved by Romans scholars between 400 BCE and 200 CE. These authors, impressed by their god-like talents, wrote about the their prowess in battle, their legendary healing abilities and their creative skills in music and forging.
Rosmerta was a goddess of fertility and abundance. After Rome conquered her region, Rosmerta was adopted into the local Roman pantheon where she became a consort of the God Mercury. In Roman depictions of her she carries a caduceus wand, an indication that she was adept in the healing arts. Her name means “great provider”.
Andraste was a goddess of battle and victory. Legend says that Boudica invoked her when resisting the Roman occupation of Britain (60 CE). It was said Boudica raised her hands toward the heavens and said: “I thank you, Andraste, and call upon you as woman to woman… I beg you for victory and preservation of liberty.”
Epona was a goddess of domestication, focused on the protection of horses, donkeys, and mules. It has been suggested that she and her horses were spirit guides, carrying souls to their resting place in the afterlife. Epona occupied an important place in the Gallic religion, because the horse itself was important in the life of the Gauls.
Belisama means “Summer Bright”. She was associated with all forms of light, (firelight, sunlight and moonlight). She was also connected to the forge, which endowed her with a creative role in Gaulish traditions. Her prime element was fire, which connected her to light, medicine, smithing, arts and crafts.
Abnoba was a Gaulish goddess of hunting. Her name is linked to the rivers, forests and nudity. She was worshipped in the Black Forest area, revered as a goddess of childbirth as well as the Patroness of Waterways. She was the protector of woods, springs, rivers and wild animals.
Damona was a goddess of health, especially in the context of domestic animals such as dogs, sheep and cows. She was linked to hot srpings and healing waters, alluding to their healthful, warm quality. She was often called upon to heal pets and livestock, maintaining their health so that they would provide nourishment to the tribe.
Aveta was a mother goddess, associated with birth, fertility and fresh-water springs. She was the patron of midwifery, often portrayed as a woman with infants at the breast, a small lap dog and a basket of fruit.
Nehalennia was the goddess of seafarers. She was mostly worshipped at the point where travellers crossed the North Sea. Artistic representations of her depict a woman standing on a boat, holding an oar with a dog by her side. She was often seen carrying a basket of fish, suggesting she was also a goddess of abundance.
Catubodua was a warrior goddess known as the “Battle Crow”. It is believed she may have been the warrior aspect of a now lost triple goddess (much like the Morrigan from Irish mythology). Roman soldiers who fought the Gaul’s sometimes spoke a crows attacking them in the battlefield, who terrified by this divine intervention, were easily defeated.
Arduinna was a goddess of the wild, associated with forest regions. She was often represented as a huntress riding a boar side-saddle and holding a knife. She protected the animals of the forest, only allowing mortals a successful hunt if they made a decent offering to her first. She was also associated with the highlands, a sacred land that was said to be her homeland.
Sirona was a healing deity, associated with warm springs and healing pools. Her totem animal was the snake, a creature from the underworld (also linked to healing) Many of her temples and shrines were constructed around thermal springs or wells. Her name means star which also links her to the domain of astrology and divination.
Artio was a goddess associated with abundance and providence. She was known as a bear goddess, who awakens in the spring to announce the season and share fruit from Her storehouse. Similar to Arduinnam she lived in the wilderness, and was likely called on during hunting rituals.
The Gaulish gods were formidable figures in Celtic mythology. They refused to acknowledge Roman rule, inspiring tens of thousands of warriors to fight back using any means necessary. Their warrior culture managed to survive the Roman invasion, but it was the Christian movement that struck a powerful blow to their pagan ways.
Monotheism began to convert the Celtic people, replacing their many gods with figures of saints, and building over their sacred lands with chapels and monasteries.
Some mythologists believe the Christians cut down the sacred trees of the gods which were used as places of worship. Without these life giving shrines, legend says that the Celtic gods began to wither and age (reducing them to the status of fairies and trolls). They didn’t die however, for many European folk tales speak of ancient spirits who hid away in sacred grottos and hallowed grounds, waiting for their pagan followers to awaken them once again.
With current trends toward the resurrection of the Celtic pantheon, here is a list of twelve Gaulish gods that played a huge part in the Celtic world:
Taranis: God of thunder storms, known for his dual nature as a good humoured drinker of mead, and a ferocious warrior when called to battle.
Belenus: A solar deity who was invoked during war to insure that the fiercest, bravest battles fought were also won.
Toutatis: A warrior god who was summoned to protect his people from harm. The enemies of the Celts feared him, but his pagan followers adored this battle hardened hero.
Camalus: A champion god of combat, associated with battle prowess in the arena. It is possible he was a patron of Celtic gladiators.
Ogmios: A god of eloquence who had great charm and charisma. It was said he understood the secrets of the runes and was responsible for guiding souls to the afterlife.
Cerannous: This Celtic god wore antlers upon his head and was often invoked to assure plentiful crops and to bestow fortune upon his followers.
Borvo: A god of hot springs whose waters were said to possess great healing properties. Warriors would frequent his sacred spas for healing and relaxation.
Dispater: God of the underworld, associated with ancestral worship. He was called upon to mediate between the world of the living and the realm of the dead.
Esus: Known as the lord of magic, he was linked to druidism and the other worlds of Celtic mythology. His sacred shrine was the oak tree.
Lugus: A master artisan who was skilled in many crafts. He was associated with trade, commerce and trickery. He was invoked by travellers to grant them protection on the road.
Smetrios: God of endurance and martial combat. Smetrios has been likened to the great Herakles from Greek mythology, a tragic hero of unspeakable strength.
Succuless: A forest guardian who was invoked by farmers for plentiful crops. He was a festive spirit associated with heavy drinking and the coming of Spring.
Many cultures from around the world speak of mythical lands, sunken cities and lost kingdoms that have defied all attempts in being discovered. It’s possible these mysterious civilizations have come and gone, reaching back further in time than history will ever know. There forgotten lands, if discovered today, could shed light on our ancient culture via their ancient structures, cryptic hieroglyphics and forgotten artwork.
Another sunken city was Ys, which legends claims reached back as far as the prehistoric era where a settlement was built off the coast of Douarnenez, France. The myth states that Gradlon, a King of Cornouaille, built a city within these walls on the request of his daughter Dahut who loved the sea. However, one day a wave as high as a mountain collapsed on Ys, dragging the city to the depths of the ocean.
Lemuria is the name of a lost land located somewhere in the Indian or Pacific Ocean. The island was not based upon legend but rather scientific conjecture. Though Lemuria is no longer considered a valid scientific hypothesis, it has been adopted by occult practitioners who believe a mysterious continent once existed in the ancient world that has now sank beneath the ocean as a result of a cataclysmic event.
Mu is the name of a hypothetical lost continent proposed by 19th-century traveller Augustus Le Plongeon. He claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Mesoamerica, were created by refugees from Mu, which he located in the Atlantic Ocean (others suggest the Pacific). Today scientists dismiss the concept of Mu as physically impossible, arguing that a continent can neither sink nor be destroyed in the short period of time required by this premise.
Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legends. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 1136 ce “historical” account British history. Within his book he claimed that a mysterious island to the west of England had forged Arthur’s sword Excalibur, and later acted as a place of refuge after Arthur was wounded in the Battle of Camlann. Avalon was has always been associated with mystical practices and supernatural beings.
Agartha is a legendary city that is said to reside under the earth’s surface. It was first mentioned in the west by Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre who proposed that this hidden civilisation protected of secret knowledge and incredible wealth. Theosophists regard Agartha as a vast complex of caves underneath Tibet, inhabited by supernatural creatures called asuras.
In Tibetan and Buddhist traditions, Shambhala is an ancient kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia. It is mentioned in various ancient texts, the oldest being the Bön scriptures (which vastly predates Buddhism). They all see Shambhala as a pure realm that lies on the edge of physical reality, connecting this world to the next (a gateway between the physical and spiritual realms). Only the most enlightened of beings can enter this paradise, (indeed, Tibetan lamas spend a great deal of their lives in spiritual development before attempting the journey to this mythical realm).
In Greek mythology, Hyperborea was a mythical land situated “beyond the North Wind”. The Greeks believed it was a fertile paradise that lay far to the north of Thrace, ‘where the sun shone twenty-four hours a day’ (which to modern ears suggests the Arctic region). However, it is also possible that Hyperborea was not a physical location at all, for according to the Greek poet Pindar, neither by ship nor on foot would you find the marvellous road to Hyperborea.
Thule was first mentioned in classical European geography as a region that lay far to the north of Britain. Prior to the 19th century, many thought of this northern mystery as hell, surrounded by raging volcanoes in the midst of a frozen wilderness. Conversely, after the 18th century, it came to be known as a land of plenty; where fish were caught abundantly and there was plenty of grazing for the production of meat and butter. The legend of Thule has therefore been appraised as being both heaven and hell. The term ‘Ultima Thule’ denotes any distant place that is located beyond the “borders of the known world”.
When Spanish explorers arrived in South America in the early 16th century they heard rumours of a lost city called El Dorado which was filled with gold. Local folklore said that every time a new ruler was appointed in this city, gold and precious jewels were thrown into a lake called Guativita. This lake was found it 1545, by explorers who managed to lower its level enough to find hundred of pieces of gold along the lake’s edge. However, attempts to drain the lake further have remained unsuccessful, and the city of gold remains lost.
Paititi is a legendary Inca lost city which was the equivalent of a western utopia. It was said to be abundant with food and mineral wealth. Folklore places this forgotten city somewhere within the remote rain forests of Peru, northern Bolivia or southwest Brazil. The Paititi legend revolves around the story of the culture-hero Inkarri, who, after he had founded Q’ero and Cusco, retreated toward the jungles of Pantiacolla to live out the rest of his days in his refuge city of Paititi.
Brasil is a phantom island which is said to lie west of Ireland in the Atlantic Ocean. It is described as being cloaked in a perpetual mist, except for one day every seven years, where its incredible beauty became visible to the naked eye. Expeditions left Bristol in 1480 and 1481 to search for the island; but nothing was found.
The distinct culture of Polynesians has created some of the most interesting monuments in the world. A true wonder of the world are the Moai sculptures in Easter Island but not less intriguing are the mysterious Tikis statues of Hiva Oa.
The temple of Taputapuatea Marae is an ancient pyramid built on the Leeward Islands, French Polynesia. It is considered as one of the most important sacred complexes in Polynesia. Established around 1000 AD, the marae was a place of learning where priests and navigators from all over the Pacific would gather to offer sacrifices to the gods and share their knowledge of the genealogical origins of the universe, and of deep-ocean navigation.
During the 15th century ce, the Maori of New Zealand constructed a hill fort known as Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) in Auckland. It is the largest Maori fort ever built. These Earth workers literally carved a fortified complex out of the hill, considered to be the most impressive systems in world. Many of the Maori can also trace their ancestry back to this hill, which is said to possess the spirits of their elders.
The island of Hiva Oa is home to a ceremonial site with houses some of the largest prehistoric statues in French Polynesia, up to 2.6 m high. They are positioned on an ancient monument known as the me’ae, a sacred site arranged for ceremonies and gatherings. The old stone figures were based on gods and legendary figures from the islander’s history.
One of the most interesting fortifications of Polynesia can be found on the small island of Rapa Iti. These pyramid shaped towers were built along the highest peaks of the island, a realm where the island gods were said to reside. It is believed that the depletion of natural resources on the island resulted in warfare, and the inhabitants lived along side these fortified settlements for protection.
One of the most significant petroglyph sites in the world can be found in Rapa Nui (with more than 1,20 valuable carvings). The ‘Orongo’ glyphs were based on the birdman cult, which hosted an annual race to bring the first bird egg from the islet of Motu Nui to ‘Orongo’. The site has numerous petroglyphs, mainly of the birdmen, carved out of large volcanic blocks.
One of the most unusual megalithic monuments in the Pacific is the Ha’amonga ‘a Maui in Tonga. Each stone weighs some 20 tons and is some 6 m high. This massive trilithon was composed of three giant stones – two upright and a lintel uniting them. It was built in the beginning of 13th century, possibly as a royal gateway. Nearby is large upright stone slab – Maka Fa’akinanga – a legendary throne of the king. The local legends of Tonga suggest that this monument was made by a god, because no mortals would be able to handle such giant slabs of stone.
Hale O Pi’ilani Heiau is an ancient temple complex built on the Hawaiian Island of Maui. This huge shrine was used to treat the sick, make offerings to the gods, start rain, stop rain, increase the population, ensure health of the nation, achieve success in distant voyaging, reach peace, and achieve success in war.
12 months of the year, 12 hours of daytime, 12 hours of night time…..
The number 12 plays a significant role in the Human Odyssey. Many of the myths and ancient philosophies revolve around this mysterious cipher; for example, there were:
12 Apostles of Christ
12 Constellations of the Zodiac
12 Pillars of light in Hinduism
12 Ordeals of Gilgamesh
12 Argonauts who followed Jason
12 Tribes of Israel
12 Knights of the round Table
12 Halls of Valhalla
12 Gates of Egyptian Heaven
12 Labors of Hercules
12 Olympians
12 Titans
In my short stories I’ll reveal the secrets behind this sacred code. You’ll learn why our ancestors associated it so closely with myth, divinity and the destiny of mankind.
12 in Hinduism:
12 is important after 108 in Hindu Dharma.
1) Important of twelve by Ashtavakra:
(i) Mahabharata, Vana Parva (Book 3), Chapter 134, Verse 18:
Ashtavakra said, Twelve months compose the year; twelve letters go to the composition of a foot of the metre called Jagati; twelve are the minor sacrifices; and twelve, according to the learned, is the number of the Adityas.’
Twelve Adityas from Vishnu Purana are:
Amsa, Aryaman, Bhaga, Dhuti, Mitra, Pusan, Sakra, Savitr, Tvastr, Varuna, Visnu and Vivasvat
(ii) Other features of 12 in Hinduism:
Twelve Rasis based on Solar Months
There are twenty-four hours in a day in all, with twelve hours for a half a day.
Furthermore, the basic units of time (60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours) can all perfectly divide by twelve. Tamil years are numbered 60, a multiple of 12.
Twelve Jyotirlingas are mentioned in Shiva Purana, Satarudra Samhita, Chapter 42, Verses 2 to 4.
Twelve most important deities (Brahma, Vishna, Shiva, Krishna, Rama, Hanuman, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh, Skanda and Surya
Guru (jupiter) takes 12 years time to go around sun. So it takes 12 years to complete 12 twelve zodiac signs.
Maha (great) Kumbha Mela is celebrated at Prayag once in 12 years.
When Jupiter transits in Simha and Makha star occurring in the month when Sun is in Kumbha as per Nirayana System, “Mamangam” is celebrated. This comes once in 12 years. (Kumbakonam and Thirukoshtiyur etc.).
Dwadasa Nama of Lord Vishnu are Keshava, Narayana, Madhava, Govinda, Vishnu, Madhusudhana, Trivikrama, Vamana, Sridhara, Hrishikesha, Padmanabha and Damodhara),
Dwadasa Nama of Goddess Lakshmi are Sriyee, Amruthotbhavaye, Kamalaye, Chandra sodharye, Vishnu patniye, Vaishnavye, Vararohaye, Hari vallabhaye, Saranghaye, Deva devikaye, Sura sundarye, Sri MahaLakshmiye
Vaisnavite wear 12 pundam. After putting Dvadasa Oordhva pundram (Thiruaman) one should chant 12 names of Perumal (Maha Vishnu) and 12 names of Thayar (Maha Lakshmi)
There are 12 Alwars (Vaisnavite saints) who sang Divya Prabandham.
Pandavas had exile for 12 years and unrecognised exile for 12 months!
Both Hindustani and Carnatic music use 12 Swarasthanas in an octave. (sa, ri, Ri, ga, Ga, ma, Ma, pa, dha, Dha, ni and Ni)
2) 12 in other religions:
The number 12 is very important in many religions, mainly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and also found in some older religions and belief systems.
Ancient Greek religion, the Twelve Olympians were the principal gods of the pantheon. The chief Norse god, Odin, had 12 sons. Several sets of twelve cities are identified in history as a dodecapolis, the most familiar being the Etruscan League. In the King Arthur Legend, Arthur is said to have subdued 12 rebel princes and to have won 12 great battles against Saxon invaders.
The importance of 12 in Judaism and Christianity can be found in the Bible. The biblical Jacob had 12 sons, who were the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, while the New Testament describes twelve apostles of Jesus; when Judas Iscariot was disgraced, a meeting was held (Acts) to add Matthias to complete the number twelve once more. (Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.)
The Book of Revelation contains much numerical symbolism, and a lot of the numbers mentioned have 12 as a divisor. 12:1 mentions a woman — interpreted as the people of Israel, the Church or the Virgin Mary — wearing a crown of twelve stars (representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel). Furthermore, there are 12,000 people sealed from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, making a total of 144,000 (which is the square of 12 multiplied by a thousand).
There are 12 days of Christmas. The song Twelve Days of Christmas came from the traditional practice of extending Yuletide celebrations over the twelve days from Christmas day to the eve of Epiphany; the period of thirteen days including Epiphany is sometimes known as Christmastide. Thus Twelfth Night is another name for the twelfth day of Christmas or January 5 (the eve of Epiphany). Similarly, Eastern Orthodoxy observes 12 Great Feasts.
In Shiah Islam, there are twelve Imams, legitimate successors of the prophet Muhammad. These twelve early leaders of Islam are—Ali, Hasan, Husayn, and nine of Husayn’s descendants.
In ancient Mesopotamia, many of the divine goddesses were equal in strength, power and wit to their masculine counterparts. These primordial beings ruled with an equal status for many centuries, but towards the end of the Bronze Age, their positions were slowly eclipsed by new and emerging religions such as Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
These Iron Age faiths elevated the sky god to a monotheistic status, branding all other deities as false idols, unworthy of worship. Sadly, during this patriarchal revolution, the great goddesses were expelled from this male-defined ideology. Many were vilified as monsters and demons as a part of a propaganda campaign to smear the Gods of the old world.
Thankfully their original roles as oracles, soothsayers and politicians can still be ascertained from their depictions on stone tablets and pottery art (all gleaned from the archaeological research). These feminine idols include:
Nammu (Goddess of the Sea) an alpha female who gave birth to the first generation of gods. She was a self-procreating entity who created all matter in the universe. She represented the creative force of feminine energy and was responsible for producing the human race.
Aya (Goddess of Light) associated with the dawn, youth and sexual love. She was often called the ‘bride of the sun’. Many of the Mesopotamian people believed that Aya’s mystical union with the sun god Utu caused all vegetation to grow and flourish.
Ningal (Goddess of the Reeds) was a marsh goddess connected with imagination and divination. Through her mystical interpretations she could unlock the secret language of dreams, omens and ancient mythology.
Ereshkigal (Goddess of the Underworld) ruled over the afterlife, passing judgment on the dead. Along with her sister Ishtar, these two deities represented the changing seasons. Where as Ishtar represented birth and life, Ereshkigal represented the dying of Autumn and the scarcity of winter.
Ishtar (Goddess of love) was patron of sexual devotion and warfare. This paradox could be witnessed by her tempestuous relationships, where she could honour her lovers one day, and devour them the next. Her cult involved sacred prostitution, whereby her courtesans would tend to the desires of human sexuality.
Ninkarrak (Goddess of Healing) was associated with herbalism and regeneration. She was known to possess a volatile side, hailed by some as the “queen of tempests who rages like a storm, making the earth tremble”. It was said that after the great flood deluge, she helped breath life back into mankind.
Ninhursag (Fertility Goddess) was known to many as “lady of the sacred mountain”. It was she who created the wildlife of the earth. She was associated with birth making her a mother-goddess figure. Her powers allowed her to unlock the secrets of reality, create life and transform sacred materials.
Ninlil (Goddess of the Wind), was associated with fate and destiny. After being seduced by her lover Enlil, she travelled with him to the underworld as part of his punishment for corrupting the sacred goddess.
Nanshe (Goddess of Justice) was patron of social order and protection. She nurtured orphans, provided for widows, gave advice to those in debt, and took in refugees from war torn areas. People came from all over the land to seek her wisdom and aid. She often settled disputes and handled court cases amongst mortals.
Nidaba (Goddess of writing) was said to have developed the cultural identity of Mesopotamia. Inspired by her literary skills and teaching abilities, her father (Enki) built her a school so that she could better serve those in need. She kept records, chronicled important events and marked cultural borders.
Ninsun (Goddess of the Herd) was known to many as “lady wild cow”. She was originally represented in bovine form, embodying the qualities of health, vigor and strength. Later she was expressed in human form, giving birth to one of the greatest heroes in Mesopotamia, the legendary Gilgamesh.
Ninkasi (Goddess of alcohol) was made to satiate desire and warm the heart. She knew the secrets brewing alcohol which in the early bronze age was typically managed by women. This was an important role in cultural festivities and ritualistic traditions.
Sumer, known as the “land of the kings”, was founded in southern Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) between 4500 and 4000 BCE. It became one of the first civilisations ever established in history, where its people drained the marshes for agriculture, developed trade, and established industries such as weaving, metallurgy and pottery.
Each city was protected by a particular god or goddess, with large temples built in the city centre for them to reside in. The Gods of Mesopotamia still possessed the vestigial remnants of their earlier, elemental roles, such as air, fire and thunder.
• Anu (God of heaven) was the original ruler of the Mesopotamian pantheon. He was a ethereal-god, known as the lord of constellations and master of spirits, who dwelt in the highest region of heaven and had the power to judge those who committed crimes.
• Enlil (God of the air) was patron to the city of Nippur, associated with the wind and open spaces. He was the only god who could reach out to Anu in heaven, because he ruled over the sky. It was Enlil who helped create humans, but he soon grew irritated of their commotion and tried to kill them by engulfing them in a great flood.
• Enki (God of freshwater) was the patron of the city of Eridu. He was known as the lord of knowledge, crafts and creation, who resided over all who dwelt on the earth plane. He was the keeper of a divine power known as ‘Me’ which were inscribed on stone tablets (said to hold the secrets of civilization). He is often depicted with a horned crown, dressed in the skin of a carp.
• Enbilulu (God of Rivers) was in charge of the river Tigris and Euphrates, both of which were considered to be very sacred. He ruled over the domain of agriculture, teaching men the craft of irrigation and farming. It is said he knew the secrets of water above and below the earth, granting him the power to make all things flourish.
• Nergal (God of Death) was a chthonic deity whose seat of power resided in Cuthah. He is often presented as half man half lion, known by all as the “raging king,” or “furious one.” He represented the sun of noon-time that brings darkness and chaos, thereby associating him with war, famine and pestilence. He also presided over the netherworld, where he governed the dead souls of the afterlife.
• Nanna (God of the Moon) was commonly known as the “lord of wisdom” who presided over the city of Ur. He personified the sacred knowledge of science, astronomy and astrology. Nanna was often presented as a great, winged bull flying across the crescent moon. In the astral system he is represented by the number 30 (which refers to the average number of days in a lunar month).
• Ninurta (God of War) was lord of Lagash, often depicted with a magical mace called Sharur. Not only a master of war, he was also associated with healing and surgery, helping to release humans from injury, illness and demonic possession. It was Enki, the fresh-water God, who mentored Ninurta’s in the ways of warfare and arcane knowledge (probably based upon the sacred teachings of the Me).
• Utu (God of the Sun) was in charge of truth, justice and law. He is usually portrayed as a man wearing a helmet, holding a sun disk and carrying a serrated sword. Every day Utu emerges from a mountain in the east, travelling across the Earth in a chariot, before returning to a cave in a west (creating dawn, midday and sunset respectively). Every night he descends into the underworld to decide the fate of the dead.
• Gerra (God of Fire) was said to possess a wisdom and skill so vast “that all the gods could not fathom it”. He was known to his followers as “lord of the fire and the forge”, capable of refining potent metals, purifying people of evil spirits and mastering any weapon known to man. It was claimed that he was undefeatable in battle.
• Tammuz (God of Vegetation) was a patrol deity associated with food and sustenance. He represented abundance in the spring, and the waning of life in the Autumn. The passing of summer came to represent death to Mesopotamian’s, and many rituals were practiced in Tammuz’s name, grieving for his passing and calling for his return in the coming year.
• Marduk (God of Storms) was the patron deity of Babylon, who slowly rose to power as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. He is a complex God associated with prophecy, resurrection and thunder. He rose to power during a civil war between the gods and their prodigy (known as the Igigi). It was Marduk who conquered Tiamat (a primeval goddess), elevating him to the status of God-king, ruling over the Heaven and the Earth. All nature, including man, owed its existence to him.
• Nabu (God of Scribes) was master of wisdom and writing. He was the son of Marduk, acting as his scribe and minister, and eventually became the keeper of the Tablets of Destiny, in which the fate of humankind was recorded. Nabu wears a horned cap, and stands with hands clasped, in the ancient gesture of priesthood. He rides on a winged dragon that is initially belonged to his father Marduk.
Sagburru was a witch from ancient Sumeria who saved her kingdom from ruin, yet very little is known about this mythical figure. She was the first witch ever to be mentioned in recorded history, possessing a magical talent that could easily match her with the likes of Circe, Morgana and Hecate.
Her tale took place nearly six thousand years ago, in the fertile lands of Mesopotamia. It was in this newly emerging world that two warlords quarrelled with one another, trying to gain favour with the goddess Inana.
En-suhgir-ana (lord of Aratta) boasted that he alone was the rightful king, for he had the pleasure of sleeping with the divine Goddess. Yet Emmerkar (ruler of Uruk) declared he was the best match for Inana, for they shared an intimacy in their dreams, unrivalled by any other man.
In order to protect their reputations, each warlord appointed a sorcerer to champion their kingdom, facing one another in magical combat. Whomever could outmatch their opponent would win the favour of the love goddess and secure the legitimacy of their realm.
En-suhgir-ana commissioned Urgirnuna, a powerful wizard who was feared throughout Sumeria. He had single-handedly destroyed the city of Hamazu, raising it to the ground with his dark sorcery. The citizens of Uruk shuddered, for it was said none could match his mastery of the arcane.
However, Emmerkar did not appoint a man to represent his kingdom. Instead he chose a woman whose history was less than obscure. The two spellbinders met on the banks of the Euphrates, Urgirnuna full of mock and contempt for the woman who he feared was less than worthy of his skill and prowess.
Yet when the battle commenced, Urgirnuna disdain soon turned to horror. For every round the mages fought, Sagburru’s magic proved to be mightier. Her mind was sharp, outwitting his deceptions at every turn. Her illusions were so real that he began to confuse her fantasy with reality. Her energy was so profound that the air around her literally crackled with electricity.
In the end, Urgirnuna, dazed and confused, collapsed with exhaustion and begged for mercy. But none was shown by the witch of Hamazu, just as the wizard had shown none to her people. In an incredible display of light the witch blasted the wizard into the Euphrates. It was undeniable, Sagburru was the supreme champion, and her lord and master the rightful hand of Inana.
En-suhgir-ana, lord of Aratta fell to his knees and immediately hailed Emmerkar as the king of Sumeria.
Enmerkar and Aratta
Enmerkar, according to the Sumerian king list, was a Sumerian hero and king of Erech, a city-state in southern Mesopotamia, who is thought to have lived at the end of the 4th or beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. He was the builder of Uruk in Sumer, and was said to have reigned for “420 years” (some copies read “900 years”).
The king list adds that Enmerkar became king after his father Mesh-ki-ang-gasher, son of Utu, had “entered the sea and disappeared.” Along with Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh, Enmerkar is one of the three most significant figures in the surviving Sumerian epics.
Although scholars once assumed that there was only one epic relating Enmerkar’s subjugation of a rival city, Aratta, it is now believed that two separate epics tell this tale. Enmerkar is also known from a few other Sumerian legends, most notably Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, a collection of preserved, early post-Sumerian copies, composed in the Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 21st century BC). It is the longest Sumerian epic yet discovered, it is the source of important information about the history and culture of the Sumero-Iranian border area.
In Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, Enmerkar is seen leading a campaign against Aratta. It is one of a series of accounts describing the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug-Kulaba (Uruk), and the unnamed king of Aratta, a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.
According to this legend, Enmerkar, son of the sun god Utu, was envious of Aratta’s wealth of metal and stones, which he needed in order to build various shrines, especially a temple for the god Enki in Eridu. Enmerkar therefore requested his sister, the goddess Inanna, to aid him in acquiring material and manpower from Aratta; she agreed and advised him to send a threatening message to the lord of Aratta.
The lord of Aratta, however, demanded that Enmerkar first deliver large amounts of grain to him. Though Enmerkar complied, the lord of Aratta refused to complete his part of the agreement; threatening messages were again sent out by both men, each claiming the aid and sanction of the goddess Inanna. The text becomes fragmented at that point in the narrative, but in the end Enmerkar was apparently victorious.
In Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta a previous confusion of the languages of mankind is mentioned. Enmerkar furthermore seeks to restore the disrupted linguistic unity of the inhabited regions around Uruk, listed as Shubur, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (the region around Akkad), and the Martu land.
Aratta is described as follows in Sumerian literature. It is a fabulously wealthy place full of gold, silver, lapis lazuli and other precious materials, as well as the artisans to craft them. It is remote and difficult to reach. It is home to the goddess Inanna, who transfers her allegiance from Aratta to Uruk. It is conquered by Enmerkar of Uruk.
Inanna is the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility, and warfare, and goddess of the E-Anna temple at the city of Uruk, her main centre. Inanna was the most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia. As early as the Uruk period (ca. 4000–3100 BC), Inanna was associated with the city of Uruk.
Inanna’s name derives from Lady of Heaven (Sumerian: nin-an-ak). The cuneiform sign of Inanna; however, is not a ligature of the signs lady (Sumerian: nin; Cuneiform: SAL.TUG) and sky (Sumerian: an; Cuneiform: AN).
These difficulties have led some early Assyriologists to suggest that originally Inanna may have been a Proto-Euphratean goddess, possibly related to the Hurrian mother goddess Hannahannah, accepted only latterly into the Sumerian pantheon, an idea supported by her youthfulness, and that, unlike the other Sumerian divinities, at first she had no sphere of responsibilities. The view that there was a Proto-Euphratean substrate language in Southern Iraq before Sumerian is not widely accepted by modern Assyriologists.
Inara, in Hittite–Hurrian mythology, was the goddess of the wild animals of the steppe and daughter of the Storm-god Teshub/Tarhunt. She corresponds to the “potnia theron” of Greek mythology, better known as Artemis. Inara’s mother is probably Hebat and her brother is Sarruma.
The mother goddess Hannahannah promises Inara land and a man during a consultation by Inara. Inara then disappears. Her father looks for her, joined by Hannahannah with a bee. The story resembles that of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, in Greek myth.
Hannahannah (from Hittite hanna- “grandmother”) is a Hurrian Mother Goddess related to or influenced by the pre-Sumerian goddess Inanna. Hannahannah was also identified with the Hurrian goddess Hebat. Christopher Siren reports that Hannahannah is associated with the Gulses.
In this account, it is Enmerkar himself who is called ‘the son of Utu’ (the Sumerian sun god). Aside from founding Uruk, Enmerkar is said here to have had a temple built at Eridu, and is even credited with the invention of writing on clay tablets, for the purpose of threatening Aratta into submission.
The land of Subartu (Akkadian Šubartum/Subartum/ina Šú-ba-ri, Assyrian mât Šubarri) or Subar (Sumerian Su-bir/Subar/Šubur) is mentioned in Bronze Age literature. The name also appears as Subari in the Amarna letters, and, in the form Šbr, in Ugarit. Subartu may have been in the general sphere of influence of the Hurrians (Armenians).
The Sumerian mythological epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta lists the countries where the “languages are confused” as Subartu, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (Akkad), and the Martu land (the Amorites). Similarly, the earliest references to the “four quarters” by the kings of Akkad name Subartu as one of these quarters around Akkad, along with Martu, Elam, and Sumer.
Subartu was apparently a polity in Northern Mesopotamia, at the upper Tigris. Some scholars suggest that Subartu is an early name for Assyria proper on the Tigris and westward, although there are various other theories placing it sometimes a little farther to the east and/or north. Its precise location has not been identified.
Eannatum of Lagash was said to have smitten Subartu or Shubur, and it was listed as a province of the empire of Lugal-Anne-Mundu; in a later era Sargon of Akkad campaigned against Subar, and his grandson Naram-Sin listed Subar along with Armani among the lands under his control. Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Hammurabi also claimed victories over Subar.
Shupria (Shubria) or Arme-Shupria was a Proto-Armenian Hurrian-speaking kingdom, known from Assyrian sources beginning in the 13th century BC, located in the Armenian Highland, to the southwest of Lake Van, bordering on Ararat proper. The capital was called Ubbumu. Scholars have linked the district in the area called Arme or Armani, to the name Armenia.
Weidner interpreted textual evidence to indicate that after the Hurrian king Shattuara of Mitanni was defeated by Adad-nirari I of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the early 13th century BC, he then became ruler of a reduced vassal state known as Shubria or Subartu. The name Subartu (Sumerian: Shubur) for the region is attested much earlier, from the time of the earliest Mesopotamian records (mid 3rd millennium BC).
Together with Armani-Subartu (Hurri-Mitanni), Hayasa-Azzi and other populations of the region such as the Nairi fell under Urartian (Kingdom of Ararat) rule in the 9th century BC, and their descendants, according to most scholars, later contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Armenians.
The name Syria is a derivation from Subartu (a term which most modern scholars in fact accept is itself an early name for Assyria, and which was located in northern Mesopotamia), the Hurrian toponym Śu-ri, or Ṣūr (the Phoenician name of Tyre). Syria is known as Ḫrw (Ḫuru, referring to the Hurrian occupants prior to the Aramaean invasion) in the Amarna Period Egypt, and as Aram in Biblical Hebrew.
The other epic relating the defeat of Aratta is known as Enmerkar and Ensuhkeshdanna. In this tale the ruler of Aratta, Ensuhkeshdanna (or Ensukushsiranna), demanded that Enmerkar become his vassal. Enmerkar refused and, declaring himself the favourite of the gods, commanded Ensuhkeshdanna to submit to him.
Three other texts in the same series describe Enmerkar’s reign. In Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, while describing Enmerkar’s continued diplomatic rivalries with Aratta, there are an allusion to Hamazi having been vanquished.
The text mentions that the sorcerer of Hamazi, Urgirinuna, went to Aratta after Hamazi “had been destroyed”; he is later sent by the Lord of Aratta on a failed mission attempting to bring Enmerkar into submission. According to the Sumerian king list, king Hadanish of Hamazi held hegemony over Sumer after defeating Kish, but was in turn defeated by Enshakushanna of Uruk.
A clay tablet found in the archives at Ebla in Syria bears a copy of a diplomatic message sent from king Irkab-Damu of Ebla to king Zizi of Hamazi, along with a large quantity of wood, hailing him as a brother, and requesting him to send mercenaries in exchange.
Hamazi was one of the provinces of Ur under the reign of Amar-Sin during the “Sumerian renaissance”; two governors or ensis during this reign were named Lu-nanna son of Namhani, and Ur-Ishkur. In ca. 2010 BC, the province was occupied and plundered by Ishbi-Erra of Isin as the Ur-III empire was collapsing.
Although the members of Ensuhkeshdanna’s council advised him to comply with Enmerkar, he listened instead to a local priest, who promised to make Erech subject to Aratta. When the priest arrived in Erech, however, he was outwitted and killed by a wise old woman, Sagburru, and the two sons of the goddess Nidaba. After he learned the fate of his priest, Ensuhkeshdanna’s will was broken and he yielded to Enmerkar’s demands.
A third epic, Lugalbanda and Enmerkar, tells of the heroic journey to Aratta made by Lugalbanda in the service of Enmerkar. According to the epic, Erech was under attack by Semitic nomads. In order to save his domain, Enmerkar required the aid of Inanna, who was in Aratta.
Enmerkar requested volunteers to go to Inanna, but only Lugalbanda would agree to undertake the dangerous mission. The epic concerns the events of Lugalbanda’s journey and the message given him from Inanna for Enmerkar. Although obscure, Inanna’s reply seems to indicate that Enmerkar was to make special water vessels and was also to catch strange fish from a certain river.
The fourth and last tablet, Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird, describes Enmerkar’s year-long siege of Aratta. It also mentions that fifty years into Enmerkar’s reign, the Martu people had arisen in all of Sumer and Akkad, necessitating the building of a wall in the desert to protect Uruk.
In the earliest Sumerian texts, all western lands beyond the Euphrates, including modern Syria and Canaan, were known as “the land of the MAR.TU (Amorites)”. This term appears in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, which describes it in the time of Enmerkar as one of the regions inhabited by speakers of a different language.
Another text known as Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird describes how, fifty years into Enmerkar’s reign, the Martu people arose in Sumer and Akkad, (southern Mesopotamia) necessitating the building of a wall to protect Uruk.
The Amorites (Sumerian MAR.TU; Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm; Egyptian Amar; Hebrew Emori) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people from ancient Syria who also occupied large parts of southern Mesopotamia from the 21st century BC to the end of the 17th century BC, where they established several prominent city states in existing locations, notably Babylon which was raised from a small administrative town to an independent state and major city. The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity.
In the earliest Sumerian sources concerning the Amorites, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites (“the Mar.tu land”) is associated not with Mesopotamia but with the lands to the west of the Euphrates, including Canaan and what was to become Syria.
They appear as an uncivilized and nomadic people in early Mesopotamian writings from Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, especially connected with the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri in northern Syria called the “mountain of the Amorites”. The ethnic terms Amurru and Amar were used for them in Sumerian, Akkadian and Ancient Egyptian respectively.
From the 21st century BC, possibly triggered by a long major drought starting about 2200 BC, a large-scale migration of Amorite tribes infiltrated southern Mesopotamia. They were one of the instruments of the downfall of the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur, and Amorite dynasties both usurped native Sumero-Akkadian rulers of long extant south Mesopotamian city states (such as Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna and Kish), and also established new city-states, the most famous of which was to become Babylon, although it was initially a minor and insignificant state.
Known Amorites wrote in a dialect of Akkadian found on tablets at Mari dating from 1800–1750 BC. Since the language shows northwest Semitic forms, words and constructions, the Amorite language is believed to be a northwest branch of the Canaanite languages, whose other members were; Hebrew, Phoenician, Edomite, Moabite, Ammonite, Sutean, Punic/Carthaginian and Amalekite.
The main sources for the extremely limited knowledge about Amorite are the proper names, not Akkadian in style, that are preserved in such texts. The Akkadian language of the native Semites of Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, Ur etc.), was from the east Semitic, as was Eblaite.
In these last two tablets, the character of Lugalbanda is introduced as one of Enmerkar’s war chiefs. According to the Sumerian king list, it was this Lugalbanda “the shepherd” who eventually succeeded Enmerkar to the throne of Uruk. Lugalbanda is also named as the father of Gilgamesh, a later king of Uruk, in both Sumerian and Akkadian versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
David Rohl has claimed parallels between Enmerkar, builder of Uruk, and Nimrod, ruler of biblical Erech (Uruk) and architect of the Tower of Babel in extra-biblical legends. One parallel Rohl noted is the description “Nimrod the Hunter”, and the -kar in Enmerkar also meaning “hunter”. Rohl has also suggested that Eridu near Ur is the original site of Babel, and that the incomplete ziggurat found there – by far the oldest and largest of its kind – is none other than the remnants of the Biblical tower.
In a legend related by Aelian (ca. AD 200), the king of Babylon, Euechoros or Seuechoros (also appearing in many variants as Sevekhoros, earlier Sacchoras, etc.), is said to be the grandfather of Gilgamos, who later becomes king of Babylon (i.e., Gilgamesh of Uruk).
Several recent scholars have suggested that this “Seuechoros” or “Euechoros” is moreover to be identified with Enmerkar of Uruk, as well as the Euechous named by Berossus as being the first king of Chaldea and Assyria. This last name Euechous (also appearing as Evechius and in many other variants) has long been identified with Nimrod.
Many scholars have tried to decode these prehistoric ciphers, but so far, no one has cracked their arcane secrets. The knowledge they possess could be mind blowing, perhaps offering a glimpse into the rituals and myths of the ancient world – or they may be as mundane as a list of directions to local village.
The Vinča symbols originated in S.E. Europe at around 5,500 BCE. This mysterious script was etched into a series of clay amulets and is considered to be one of the oldest examples of “proto-writing” in the world. Some have linked these symbols to the Indo-Europeans, an ancient culture whose cultural heroics went onto inspire many of the mythical systems we know today (e.g. the Greek epics and Norse Sagas etc). The nature and purpose of the symbols remain a mystery to this day.
The Dispilio tablet (5260 BCE), is a wooden birch block which bears strange, symbolic markings. An old European folktale speaks of a primordial birch goddess who taught her people the craft of writing. Could it be that this tablet is in some way associated with the myth of Gods imparting knowledge to humans? Unlike other ideograms found in the Neolithic (picture based symbols) the Dispilio tablet seems to represent signs alluding to early phonetics, indicating advanced speech.
The Cretan Hieroglyphs were found on artifacts from Bronze Age Crete (1900 BCE). It predates Linear A texts by a century, and was used in parallel for most of Minoan history. The Cretan symbols bear a naturalistic style of characters, typically resembling objects like plants, animals, weapons, ships and amorphous shapes. It is suggested they were based on ornamental and ritualistic functions whereas Linear A was employed in more mundane, administration ways.
The Phaistos Disc is a strange text written on a ceramic plate from the Minoan era (1600 BCE). Its strange layout and meaning remains a mystery to archaeology. Perhaps it is in the realm of mythology that a glimpse of its original purpose can be found. According to legend, Phaistos was the city that gave birth to one of the seven sages of the old world, Epimenidis. Legend tells us that he slept in Zeus’s cave and acquired the powers of prophecy. His skin was said to be be covered with tattooed symbols similar to that of the Phaistos Disc. Is it possible the disk contains the secrets of Cretan wisdom and divination?
Finally there is the Cascajal Block (900 BCE), a stone tablet from the Olmec civilisation. this tablet was scored with strange symbols which many believe represent the earliest writing system in the New World. The block holds a total of 62 glyphs, some of which resemble plants, animals and vegetables. Many of the symbols are abstract, and unlike any other writing system found in Mesoamerica before or after. Some suggest that it was used as a sign post directing travelers to a local market, others that they represent clan names for merchants and royalty. It has even been hinted that it is a map that leads to a lost Olmec city, laden with treasure.
Australian Aboriginal mythology: Rainbow Serpent
Professor Simon Davies – Professor Emeritus of Enlightenment Studies
Origins and dispersal of our first mythologies
Origins of the World’s Mythologies
How did our legends really begin?
JFR Review for The Origins of the World’s Mythologies
The Rainbow Serpent is often portrayed as creator deity, producing the human race and sustaining them with rain, waterways and fertile lands. This deity can mostly be found in the regions of Africa, Asia, and Australia. It is always identified with the shape of a rainbow, making it one of the earliest depictions of sky deity.
This Rainbow Serpent is traditionally associated with ceremonies to do with fertility and abundance, as well as the organisation of the community and the keeping of peace. It is depicted as both male and female, and many meandering rivers are said to have been carved out by its body as it slithered across the Earth. Piles of rocks are also said to be the deity’s droppings, and as such, have been designated as sacred places by many tribes.
What makes the Rainbow Serpent so remarkable is that it is likely one of the oldest beings to emerge in world mythology. It continues to be a figure of worship in many surviving tribes today, and images of the great snake can be found in the rock art of Australia, dating back as far as 8000 BCE to 40,000 BCE.
The rainbow serpent has been associated with the Milky Way, which the Egyptian Nut or Neuth (also spelled Nuit or Newet), the goddess of the sky in the Ennead of ancient Egyptian religion, is also associated with. Nut was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the earth, or as a cow. However, it is likely the origins of the rainbow snake go back a lot further than this.
The similarities between the Australian and Sub-Saharan rainbow serpent are striking, but nothing in recent history connects these two continents. Australia was discovered by westerners in the 1600’s. Prior to this, the aborigine had lived undisturbed in Australia for nearly 45,000 years, with no connection to the African people.
So how did two, identical beings, originate at opposite ends of the globe, separated by thousands of miles, and tens of thousands of years? The answer lies in prehistory.
The aboriginal people of Australia are directly linked with humanities first migration out of Africa. This great exodus took place 100,000 years ago, and there are a few surviving tribes today whose customs and traditions are directly linked to the ancestors of this pioneering race.
They have been several waves of migrations since, but none of their descendants tell the story of the rainbow snake. The few remaining tribes that remember this legendary deity are the indigenous people of Australia, the Papuan people (New Guinea), the Sentinelese people (Andaman Islands, India) and most sub-Saharan tribes (Africa). It can also be found in Chinese mythology, and Scandinavian folklore.
It is believed the geographical isolation of these people has helped to preserve their mythology, which dates back far into the Stone Age. By studying the myths and traditions of all these people, it becomes clear they are all connected by the same roots. Based on the people who have maintained the legends about this ancient serpent, it seems likely the Rainbow Snake originated in Africa, at least 1000,000 years ago, and could well date back even further than that.
Today this deity is known by many names: Oshumare (Yoruba, W.Africa), Aido Hwedo (Dahomey, W. Africa), Da (Fon People, W. Africa), Hong (Zhou Dynasty, China), Ngalyod (N. Australia), Borlung (N.W. Australia), Wagyl (S.W. Australia), and Degei (Fiji).
In Mesopotamian Religion (Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian), Tiamat is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation, depicted as a woman, she represents both the beauty of the feminine, depicted as the glistening one. She is a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû (the god of fresh water) to produce younger gods.
It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a “Sacred marriage” between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second “Chaoskampf” Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.
The Tiamat myth is one of the earliest recorded versions of the Chaoskampf, the battle between a culture hero and a chthonic or aquatic monster, serpent or dragon. Chaoskampf motifs in other mythologies linked directly or indirectly to the Tiamat myth include the Hittite Illuyanka myth, and in Greek tradition Apollo’s killing of the Python as a necessary action to take over the Delphic Oracle.
According to some analyses there are two parts to the Tiamat myth, the first in which Tiamat is creator goddess, through a “sacred marriage” between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second “Chaoskampf” Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos.
In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, she gives birth to the first generation of deities; her husband, Apsu, later makes war upon them and is killed. When she, too, wars upon her husband’s murderers, she is then slain by Enki’s son, the storm-god Marduk. The heavens and the earth are formed from her divided body.
In the Enûma Elish her physical description includes a tail, a thigh, “lower parts” (which shake together), a belly, an udder, ribs, a neck, a head, a skull, eyes, nostrils, a mouth, and lips. She has insides (possibly “entrails”), a heart, arteries, and blood.
Tiamat is usually described as a sea serpent or dragon, however assyriologist Alexander Heidel disagreed with this identification and argued that “dragon form can not be imputed to Tiamat with certainty”.
Other scholars have disregarded Heidel’s argument Joseph Fontenrose in particular found it “not convincing” and concluded that “there is reason to believe that Tiamat was sometimes, not necessarily always, conceived as a dragoness”.
While the Enûma Elish does not specifically state that Tiamat is a dragon, only that she gave birth to dragons and serpents among a more general list of monsters including scorpion men and merpeople, other sources containing the same myth do refer to her as a dragon.
Tiamat was the “shining” personification of salt water who roared and smote in the chaos of original creation. She and Apsu filled the cosmic abyss with the primeval waters. She is “Ummu-Hubur who formed all things”.
In the myth recorded on cuneiform tablets, the deity Enki (later Ea) believed correctly that Apsu, upset with the chaos they created, was planning to murder the younger deities; and so captured him, holding him prisoner beneath his temple the E-Abzu. This angered Kingu, their son, who reported the event to Tiamat, whereupon she fashioned eleven monsters to battle the deities in order to avenge Apsu’s death.
Tiamat possessed the Tablets of Destiny and in the primordial battle she gave them to Kingu, the deity she had chosen as her lover and the leader of her host, and who was also one of her children. The deities gathered in terror, but Anu, (replaced later, first by Enlil and, in the late version that has survived after the First Dynasty of Babylon, by Marduk, the son of Ea), first extracting a promise that he would be revered as “king of the gods”, overcame her, armed with the arrows of the winds, a net, a club, and an invincible spear.
Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates, her tail became the Milky Way. With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablets of Destiny, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Kingu was captured and later was slain: his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth would make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger Igigi deities.
Abzu (or Apsû) fathered upon Tiamat the elder deities Lahmu and Lahamu (masc. the “hairy”), a title given to the gatekeepers at Enki’s Abzu/E’engurra-temple in Eridu. Laḫmu, Lakhmu, Lache, Lumasi, or Assyro-Akkadian Lammasu is a deity from Akkadian mythology that represents the zodiac, parent stars, or constellations.
Lahamu is sometimes seen as a serpent, and sometimes as a woman with a red sash and six curls on her head. It is suggested that the pair were represented by the silt of the sea-bed, but more accurately are known to be the representations of the zodiac, parent-stars, or constellations.
Lahmu, meaning parent star or constellation, is the name of a protective and beneficent deity, the first-born son of Abzu and Tiamat. Laḫmu is depicted as a bearded man with a red sash-usually with three strands- and four to six curls on his head and they are also depicted as monsters, which each encompasses a specific constellation. He is often associated with the Kusarikku or “Bull-Man.”
In Sumerian times Laḫmu may have meant “the muddy one”. Lahmu guarded the gates of the Abzu temple of Enki at Eridu. He and his sister Laḫamu are primordial deities in the Babylonian Epic of Creation Enuma Elis and Lahmu may be related to or identical with “Lahamu”, one of Tiamat’s creatures in that epic.
Lahmu and his sister Laḫamu are the parents of the ‘ends’ of the heavens (Anshar, from an = heaven, shár = horizon, end) and the earth (Kishar); Kishar is the female principle, sister and wife of Anshar, the male principle. Kishar may represent the earth as a counterpart to Anshar, the sky, and can be seen as an earth mother goddess. Her name also means “Whole Earth”, while Anshur means “whole heaven”.
Anshar and Kishar were considered to meet at the horizon, becoming, thereby, the parents of Anu (Heaven), the god of heaven, lord of constellations, king of gods, spirits and demons, and Ki, who birthed the gods of the Mesopotamian Pantheon.
If this name /Anšar/ is derived from */Anśar/, then it may be related to the Egyptian hieroglyphic /NṬR/ (“god”), since hieroglyphic Egyptian /Ṭ/ may be etymological */Ś/.
Ki is the sign for “earth”, also read as GI, GUNNI (=KI.NE) “hearth”, KARAŠ (=KI.KAL.BAD) “encampment, army”, KISLAḪ (=KI.UD) “threshing floor” or steath, and SUR7 (=KI.GAG), in Akkadian orthography, it functions as a determiner for toponyms and has the syllabic values gi, ge, qi, and qe.
Anu existed in Sumerian cosmogony as a dome that covered the flat earth; Outside of this dome was the primordial body of water known as Tiamat (not to be confused with the subterranean Abzu).
Kishar appears only once in Enuma Elish, in the opening lines of the epic, and then disappears from the remainder of the story. She appears only occasionally in other first millennium BCE texts, where she can be equated with the goddess Antu.
In Akkadian mythology, Antu or Antum (add the name in cuneiform please an=𒀭 shar=?) is a Babylonian goddess. She was the first consort of Anu, and the pair was the parents of the Anunnaki, the most prominent of these deities being Enlil, god of the air, and the Utukki.
According to legends, heaven and earth were once inseparable until Enlil was born; Enlil cleaved heaven and earth in two. An carried away heaven. Ki, in company with Enlil, took the earth.
Some authorities question whether Ki was regarded as a deity since there is no evidence of a cult and the name appears only in a limited number of Sumerian creation texts. Samuel Noah Kramer identifies Ki with the Sumerian mother goddess Ninhursag and claims that they were originally the same figure.
She later developed into the Babylonian and Akkadian goddess Antu, consort of the god Anu (from Sumerian An). Antu was a dominant feature of the Babylonian akit festival until as recently as 200 BC, her later pre-eminence possibly attributable to identification with the Greek goddess Hera. Antu was replaced as consort by Ishtar or Inanna, who may also be a daughter of Anu and Antu. She is similar to Anat.
Uraš or Urash, in Sumerian mythology is a goddess of earth, and one of the consorts of the sky god Anu. She is the mother of the goddess Ninsun and a grandmother of the hero Gilgamesh. However, Uras may only have been another name for Antu, Anu’s wife. The name Uras even became applied to Anu himself, and acquired the meaning “heaven”. Ninurta also was apparently called Uras in later time.
Ninurta was a Sumerian and the Akkadian god of hunting and war. He was worshipped in Babylonia and Assyria and in Lagash he was identified with the city god Ningirsu. In older transliteration the name is rendered Ninib and Ninip, and in early commentary he was sometimes portrayed as a solar deity.
A number of scholars have suggested that either the god Ninurta or the Assyrian king bearing his name (Tukulti-Ninurta I) was the inspiration for the Biblical character Nimrod.
In Nippur, Ninurta was worshiped as part of a triad of deities including his father, Enlil and his mother, Ninlil. In variant mythology, his mother is said to be the harvest goddess Ninhursag. The consort of Ninurta was Ugallu in Nippur and Bau when he was called Ningirsu.
Ninurta often appears holding a bow and arrow, a sickle sword, or a mace named Sharur: Sharur is capable of speech in the Sumerian legend “Deeds and Exploits of Ninurta” and can take the form of a winged lion and may represent an archetype for the later Shedu.
In another legend, Ninurta battles a birdlike monster called Imdugud (Akkadian: Anzû); a Babylonian version relates how the monster Anzû steals the Tablets of Destiny from Enlil. The Tablets of Destiny were believed to contain the details of fate and the future.
Ninurta slays each of the monsters later known as the “Slain Heroes” (the Warrior Dragon, the Palm Tree King, Lord Saman-ana, the Bison-beast, the Mermaid, the Seven-headed Snake, the Six-headed Wild Ram), and despoils them of valuable items such as Gypsum, Strong Copper, and the Magilum boat. Eventually, Anzû is killed by Ninurta who delivers the Tablet of Destiny to his father, Enlil.
There are a lot of parallels with both and the story of Marduk (son of Enki) who slew Abzu (or Apsu), and delivered the Tablets of Destiny from Kingu to his father, Enki.
The cult of Ninurta can be traced back to the oldest period of Sumerian history. In the inscriptions found at Lagash he appears under his name Ningirsu, “the lord of Girsu”, Girsu being the name of a city where he was considered the patron deity.
Ninurta appears in a double capacity in the epithets bestowed on him, and in the hymns and incantations addressed to him. On the one hand he is a farmer and a healing god who releases humans from sickness and the power of demons; on the other he is the god of the South Wind as the son of Enlil, displacing his mother Ninlil who was earlier held to be the goddess of the South Wind. Enlil’s brother, Enki, was portrayed as Ninurta’s mentor from whom Ninurta was entrusted several powerful Mes, including the Deluge.
He remained popular under the Assyrians: two kings of Assyria bore the name Tukulti-Ninurta. Ashurnasirpal II (883—859 BCE) built him a temple in the then capital city of Kalhu (the Biblical Calah, now Nimrud). In Assyria, Ninurta was worshipped alongside the gods Aššur and Mulissu.
In the late neo-Babylonian and early Persian period, syncretism seems to have fused Ninurta’s character with that of Nergal, the plague god. The two gods were often invoked together, and spoken of as if they were one divinity.
Once, the gods held a banquet that Ereshkigal, the goddess of Irkalla, the land of the dead or underworld, as queen of the Netherworld cannot come up to attend. They invite her to send a messenger and she sends Namtar (or Namtaru, or Namtara; meaning destiny or fate), a hellish minor deity in Mesopotamian mythology, god of death, and minister and messenger of An, Ereshkigal, and Nerga.
Namtar was the son of Enlil anid Ereshkigal; he was born before his father raped the goddess Ninlil. Namtar was considered responsible for diseases and pests. Namtar was regarded as the beloved son of Bêl/Enlil, and was married to the underworld goddess Hušbišag.
Namtar is treated well by all but disrespected by Nergal. As a result of this, Nergal is banished to the kingdom controlled by the goddess. Versions vary at this point, but all of them result in him becoming her husband. In later tradition, Nergal is said to have been the victor, taking her as wife and ruling the land himself.
It is theorized that the story of Inanna’s descent is told to illustrate the possibility of an escape from the netherworld, while the Nergal myth is intended to reconcile the existence of two rulers of the netherworld: a goddess and a god. The addition of Nergal represents the harmonizing tendency to unite Ereshkigal as the queen of the netherworld with the god who, as god of war and of pestilence, brings death to the living and thus becomes the one who presides over the dead.
In the astral-theological system Ninurta was associated with the planet Saturn, or perhaps as offspring or an aspect of Saturn. In his capacity as a farmer-god, there are similarities between Ninurta and the Greek Titan Kronos, whom the Romans in turn identified with their Titan Saturn.
In Sumerian mythology, Nammu (also Namma, spelled ideographically NAMMA = ENGUR) was a primeval goddess, corresponding to Tiamat in Babylonian mythology.
Nammu was the Goddess Sea (Engur) that gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first gods, representing the Apsu, the fresh water ocean that the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall.
Nammu is not well attested in Sumerian mythology. She may have been of greater importance prehistorically, before Enki took over most of her functions. An indication of her continued relevance may be found in the theophoric name of Ur-Nammu, the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
According to the Neo-Sumerian mythological text Enki and Ninmah, Enki is the son of An and Nammu. Nammu is the goddess who “has given birth to the great gods”. It is she who has the idea of creating mankind, and she goes to wake up Enki, who is asleep in the Apsu, so that he may set the process going.
The Atrahasis-Epos has it that Enlil requested from Nammu the creation of humans. And Nammu told him that with the help of Enki (her son) she can create humans in the image of gods. Reay Tannahill in Sex in History (1980) singled out Nammu as the “only female prime mover” in the cosmogonic myths of antiquity.
Egyptian
Iusaset (“the great one who comes forth”) or Iusaas is the name of a primal goddess in Ancient Egyptian religion. Many alternative spellings of her name include Iusaaset, Juesaes, Ausaas, and Jusas, as well as in Greek Saosis.
She also is described as “the grandmother of all of the deities”. This allusion is without any reference to a grandfather, so there might have been a very early, but now lost, myth with parthenogenesis as the means of the birth of the deities from the region where her cult arose near the delta of the Nile.
In Ancient Egyptian art, Iusaaset appears as a woman wearing the horned vulture crown with the uraeus and the solar disk in it, and she carries an ankh, the symbol of life, in one hand and a scepter in the other.
The Egyptian vulture, most sacred to the ancient Egyptians and symbolizing Nekhbet, one of the Two Ladies protecting Egypt, was thought to reproduce though parthenogenesis also. This association might be the basis for the similar view about the motherhood of Iusaaset. The vultures also were considered extremely good mothers. The horns, the uraeus, and the solar disk make a religious connection to Bat and Hathor.
Because of Iusaaset’s link to the vulture and uraeus, it can be assumed that she links together both upper and lower Egypt, much like the goddess Mut who she is also associated with.
Although her origins are unclear, Iusaaset seems to be attested quite early in the Egyptian pantheon, being associated with creation and the creation of the deities. Many myths relate that she was seen as the mother of the first deities and the grandmother of the following deities, having watched over the birth of the ones that were her grandchildren. She remains as a primary deity in the pantheon throughout all eras of the culture, even through the Persian, Hyksos, Greek, and Roman occupations, and regardless of changes in the specific myths.
Iusaaset was associated with the acacia tree, considered the tree of life, and thus with the oldest one known being situated just north of Heliopolis and, thereby, which became identified as the birthplace of the deities. Iusaaset was said to own this tree. The acacia tree was renowned for its strength, hardiness, medical properties, and edibility. Many useful applications gave it a central importance in the culture.
One belief held that Iusaaset and Atum (Ra) were the parents of Shu and Tefnut, the first deities. In this myth she often was described as his shadow, sister, or wife. Later other goddesses also became associated with Atum and one variant even relates that he gave birth to the deities, although that variant seems to have been rejected by many cultural and religious centers.
During the Old Kingdom the Egyptians believed that Atum lifted the dead pharaoh’s soul from the tomb to the starry heavens. By the time of the New Kingdom, the Atum myth had merged in the Egyptian pantheon with that of Ra, who later was described as a creator and a solar deity as his cult arose. Their two identities were joined into Atum-Ra.
After they were combined, Ra was seen as the whole sun and Atum came to be seen as the sun when it sets in the west (depicted as an old man leaning on his staff), while Khepri was seen as the sun when it was rising. At these later times Iusaaset sometimes is described as the eye of Ra.
Atum, sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology. Atum’s cult centered on the city of Heliopolis (Egyptian: Annu).
He is usually depicted as a man wearing either the royal head-cloth or the dual white and red crown of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, reinforcing his connection with kingship. Sometimes he also is shown as a serpent, the form he returns to at the end of the creative cycle, and also occasionally as a mongoose, lion, bull, lizard, or ape.
Atum’s name is thought to be derived from the word tem which means to complete or finish. Thus he has been interpreted as being the ‘complete one’ and also the finisher of the world, which he returns to watery chaos at the end of the creative cycle. As creator he was seen as the underlying substance of the world, the deities and all things being made of his flesh or alternatively being his ka.
Atum is one of the most important and frequently mentioned deities from earliest times, as evidenced by his prominence in the Pyramid Texts, where he is portrayed as both a creator and father to the king.
Atum was a self-created deity, the first being to emerge from the darkness and endless watery abyss that existed before creation. A product of the energy and matter contained in this chaos, he created his children—the first deities, out of loneliness.
He produced from his own sneeze, or in some accounts, semen, Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture. The brother and sister, curious about the primeval waters that surrounded them, went to explore the waters and disappeared into the darkness. Unable to bear his loss, Atum sent a fiery messenger, the Eye of Ra, to find his children. The tears of joy he shed on their return were the first human beings.
In the Heliopolitan creation myth, Atum was considered to be the first god, having created himself, sitting on a mound (benben) (or identified with the mound itself), from the primordial waters (Nu). Early myths state that Atum created the god Shu and goddess Tefnut by spitting them out of his mouth.
To explain how Atum did this, the myth uses the metaphor of masturbation, with the hand he used in this act representing the female principle inherent within him. Other interpretations state that he has made union with his shadow.
In the Old Kingdom the Egyptians believed that Atum lifted the dead king’s soul from his pyramid to the starry heavens. He was also a solar deity, associated with the primary sun god Ra. Atum was linked specifically with the evening sun, while Ra or the closely linked god Khepri were connected with the sun at morning and midday.
In the Book of the Dead, which was still current in the Graeco-Roman period, the sun god Atum is said to have ascended from chaos-waters with the appearance of a snake, the animal renewing itself every morning.
Atum is the god of pre-existence and post-existence. In the binary solar cycle, the serpentine Atum is contrasted with the ram-headed scarab Khepri—the young sun god, whose name is derived from the Egyptian hpr “to come into existence”. Khepri-Atum encompassed sunrise and sunset, thus reflecting the entire solar cycle.
Shu (meaning “emptiness” and “he who rises up”) was one of the primordial Egyptian gods, a personification of air, one of the Ennead of Heliopolis. The Greeks associated Shu with Atlas, the primordial Titan who held up the celestial spheres, as they are both depicted holding the sky. He carries an ankh, the symbol of life.
He was created by Atum, his father and Iusaaset, his mother in the city of Heliopolis. With his twin sister Tefnut (moisture), he was the father of Nut and Geb. His daughter, Nut, was the sky goddess whom he held over the Earth (Geb), separating the two. The Egyptians believed that if Shu didn’t hold his son and daughter (the god of the earth and the goddess of the sky) apart there would be no way life could be created.
As the air, Shu was considered to be cooling, and thus calming, influence, and pacifier. Due to the association with air, calm, and thus Ma’at (truth, justice and order), Shu was portrayed in art as wearing an ostrich feather.
Shu was seen with between one and four feathers. The ostrich feather was symbolic of light and emptiness. Fog and clouds were also Shu’s elements and they were often called his bones. Because of his position between the sky and earth, he was also known as the wind.
In a much later myth, representing the terrible weather disaster at the end of the Old Kingdom, it was said that Tefnut and Shu once argued, and Tefnut left Egypt for Nubia (which was always more temperate). It was said that Shu quickly decided that he missed her, but she changed into a cat that destroyed any man or god that approached. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeded in convincing her to return.
The air god Shu separated the sky goddess Nut from the earth god, Geb. This treatment symbolized duality, the separation of the world into opposites: above and below, light and dark, good and evil. Shu is mostly represented by a man. Only in his function as a fighter and defender as the sun god does he sometimes receive a lion’s head.
In Egyptian mythology, Shu arrived as breath from the nose of the original god, Atum-Ra, together with his sister and wife, Tefnut, the moist air. The first pair of cosmic elements then created the sky goddess, Nut, and the earth god, Geb, who in turn created the deities Isis, Osiris, Nephthys and Set. Shu’s grandchildren are Osiris, Horus, Isis, Set and Nephthys. His great-grandson is Anubis.
Tefnut (Egyptian: Tefenet) is a goddess of moisture, moist air, dew and rain in Ancient Egyptian religion. She is the sister and consort of the air god Shu and the mother of Geb and Nut.
Literally translating as “That Water”, the name Tefnut has been linked to the verb ‘tfn’ meaning ‘to spit’ and versions of the creation myth say that Ra (or Atum) spat her out and her name was written as a mouth spitting in late texts.
like most Egyptian deities, including her brother, Tefnut has no single ideograph or symbol. Her name in hieroglyphics consists of four single phonogram symbols t-f-n-t. Although the n phonogram is a representation of waves on the surface of water, it was never used as an ideogram or determinative for the word water (mw), or for anything associated with water.
Tefnut is a daughter of the solar god Ra-Atum. Married to her brother, Shu, she is mother of Nut, the sky and Geb, the earth. Tefnut’s grandchildren were Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and in some versions, Horus the Elder (Heru Wer). She was also a great grandmother of Horus the Younger. Alongside her father, brother, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild, she is a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis.
There are a number of variants to the myth of the creation of Tefnut and her twin brother Shu. In all versions, Tefnut is the product of parthenogenesis, and all involve some variety of bodily fluid.
In the Heliopolitan creation myth, the solar god Atum masturbates to produce Tefnut and Shu. In some versions of this myth, Atum also swallows his semen, and spits it out to form the twins, or else the spitting of his saliva forms the act of procreation. Both of these versions contain a play on words, the tef sound which forms the first syllable of the name Tefnut also constitutes a word meaning “to spit” or “to expectorate”.
The Coffin Texts contain references to Shu being sneezed out by Atum from his nose, and Tefnut being spat out like saliva. The Bremner-Rind Papyrus and the Memphite Theology describe Atum masturbating into his mouth, before spitting out his semen to form the twins.
Tefnut is a leonine deity, and appears as human with a lioness head when depicted as part of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis. The other frequent depiction is as a lioness, but Tefnut can also be depicted as fully human. In her fully or semi anthropomorphic form, she is depicted wearing a wig, topped either with a uraeus serpent, or a uraeus and solar disk, and she is sometimes depicted as a lion headed serpent. Her face is sometimes used in a double headed form with that of her brother Shu on collar counterpoises.
When depicted as a woman with a lion´s head, she can be distinguished from Sekhmet as Sekhmet’s ears are rounded while Tefnut´s are pointed. Tefnut was connected with other leonine goddesses as the Eye of Ra. As a lioness she could display a wrathful aspect and is said to escape to Nubia in a rage from where she is brought back by Thoth. In the earlier Pyramid Texts she is said to produce pure waters from her vagina.
Nut or Neuth (also spelled Nuit or Newet) is the goddess of the sky in the Ennead of ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the earth, or as a cow.
Nut is a daughter of Shu and Tefnut. Her husband and brother is Geb. She has five children: Osiris, Set, Isis, Nephthys and Horus. Her name is translated to mean ‘sky’ and she is considered one of the oldest deities among the Egyptian pantheon, with her origin being found on the creation story of Heliopolis.
She was originally the goddess of the nighttime sky, but eventually became referred to as simply the sky goddess. Her headdress was the hieroglyphic of part of her name, a pot, which may also symbolize the uterus. Mostly depicted in nude human form, Nut was also sometimes depicted in the form of a cow whose great body formed the sky and heavens, a sycamore tree, or as a giant sow, suckling many piglets (representing the stars).
A sacred symbol of Nut was the ladder, used by Osiris to enter her heavenly skies. This ladder-symbol was called maqet and was placed in tombs to protect the deceased, and to invoke the aid of the deity of the dead. Nut and her brother, Geb, may be considered enigmas in the world of mythology. In direct contrast to most other mythologies which usually develop a sky father associated with an Earth mother (or Mother Nature), she personified the sky and he the Earth.
Nut appears in the creation myth of Heliopolis which involves several goddesses who play important roles: Tefnut (Tefenet) is a personification of moisture, who mated with Shu (Air) and then gave birth to Sky as the goddess Nut, who mated with her brother Earth, as Geb.
From the union of Geb and Nut came, among others, the most popular of Egyptian goddesses, Isis, the mother of Horus, whose story is central to that of her brother-husband, the resurrection god Osiris.
Osiris is killed by his brother Seth and scattered over the Earth in 14 pieces which Isis gathers up and puts back together. Osiris then climbs a ladder into his mother Nut for safety and eventually becomes king of the dead.
A huge cult developed about Osiris that lasted well into Roman times. Isis was her husband’s queen in the underworld and the theological basis for the role of the queen on earth. It can be said that she was a version of the great goddess Hathor. Like Hathor she not only had death and rebirth associations, but was the protector of children and the goddess of childbirth.
Ra, the sun god, was the second to rule the world, according to the reign of the gods. Ra was a strong ruler but he feared anyone taking his throne. When he discovered that Nut was to have children, he was furious. He decreed, “Nut shall not give birth any day of the year.” At that time, the year was only 360 days.
Nut spoke to Thoth, god of wisdom, and he had a plan. Thoth gambled with Khonsu, god of the moon, whose light rivalled that of Ra’s. Every time Khonsu lost, he had to give Thoth some of his moonlight. Khonsu lost so many times that Thoth had enough moonlight to make five extra days.
Since these days were not part of the year, Nut could have her children. She had five children: Osiris, later ruler of the gods and then god of the dead, Horus the Elder, god of war, Set, god of evil and wastelands, Isis, goddess of magic, and Nephthys, goddess of water. When Ra found out, he was furious. He separated Nut from her husband Geb for eternity. Her father, Shu, was to keep them apart. Nevertheless, Nut did not regret her decision.
Some of the titles of Nut were: Coverer of the Sky (Nut was said to be covered in stars touching the different points of her body), She Who Protects (Among her jobs was to envelop and protect Ra, the sun god), Mistress of All or “She who Bore the Gods” (Originally, Nut was said to be lying on top of Geb (Earth) and continually having intercourse.
During this time she birthed four children: Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. A fifth child named Arueris is mentioned by Plutarch. He was the Egyptian counterpart to the Greek god Apollo, who was made syncretic with Horus in the Hellenistic era as ‘Horus the Elder’. The Ptolemaic temple of Edfu is dedicated to Horus the Elder and there he is called the son of Nut and Geb, brother of Osiris, and the eldest son of Geb), and She Who Holds a Thousand Souls (Because of her role in the re-birthing of Ra every morning and in her son Osiris’s resurrection, Nut became a key god in many of the myths about the afterlife).
Nut was the goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, a symbol of protecting the dead when they enter the afterlife. According to the Egyptians, during the day, the heavenly bodies—such as the sun and moon—would make their way across her body. Then, at dusk, they would be swallowed, pass through her belly during the night, and be reborn at dawn.
Nut is also the barrier separating the forces of chaos from the ordered cosmos in the world. She was pictured as a woman arched on her toes and fingertips over the earth; her body portrayed as a star-filled sky. Nut’s fingers and toes were believed to touch the four cardinal points or directions of north, south, east, and west.
Because of her role in saving Osiris, Nut was seen as a friend and protector of the dead, who appealed to her as a child appeals to its mother: “O my Mother Nut, stretch Yourself over me, that I may be placed among the imperishable stars which are in You, and that I may not die.” Nut was thought to draw the dead into her star-filled sky, and refresh them with food and wine: “I am Nut, and I have come so that I may enfold and protect you from all things evil.”
She was often painted on the inside lid of the sarcophagus, protecting the deceased. The vaults of tombs were often painted dark blue with many stars as a representation of Nut. The Book of the Dead says, “Hail, thou Sycamore Tree of the Goddess Nut! Give me of the water and of the air which is in thee. I embrace that throne which is in Unu, and I keep guard over the Egg of Nekek-ur. It flourisheth, and I flourish; it liveth, and I live; it snuffeth the air, and I snuff the air, I the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, in peace.”
The Book of Nut is a modern title of what was known in ancient times as The Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars. This is an important collection of ancient Egyptian astronomical texts, perhaps the earliest of several other such texts, going back at least to 2,000 BC.
Nut, being the sky goddess, plays the big role in the Book of Nut. The text also tells about various other sky and earth deities, such as the star deities and the decans deities. The cycles of the stars and the planets, and the time keeping are covered in the book.
Geb was the Egyptian god of the Earth and a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. It was believed in ancient Egypt that Geb’s laughter was earthquakes and that he allowed crops to grow.
The name was pronounced as such from the Greek period onward and was formerly erroneously read as Seb or as Keb. The original Egyptian was perhaps “Gebeb”/”Kebeb”. It was spelled with either initial -g- (all periods), or with -k-point (gj).
The latter initial root consonant occurs once in the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts, more often in 21st Dynasty mythological papyri as well as in a text from the Ptolemaic tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel or was written with initial hard -k-, as e.g. in a 30th Dynasty papyrus text in the Brooklyn Museum dealing with descriptions of and remedies against snakes.
The oldest representation in a fragmentary relief of the god, was as an anthropomorphic bearded being accompanied by his name, and dating from king Djoser’s reign, 3rd Dynasty, and was found in Heliopolis. In later times he could also be depicted as a ram, a bull or a crocodile (the latter in a vignette of the Book of the Dead of the lady Heryweben in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo).
Geb was frequently described mythologically as father of snakes (one of the names for snake was s3-t3 – “son of the earth”). In a Coffin Texts spell Geb was described as father of the snake Nehebkau. In mythology, Geb also often occurs as a primeval divine king of Egypt from whom his son Osiris and his grandson Horus inherited the land after many contendings with the disruptive god Set, brother and killer of Osiris.
Geb could also be regarded as personified fertile earth and barren desert, the latter containing the dead or setting them free from their tombs, metaphorically described as “Geb opening his jaws”, or imprisoning those there not worthy to go to the fertile North-Eastern heavenly Field of Reeds. In the latter case, one of his otherworldly attributes was an ominous jackal-headed stave (called wsr.t) rising from the ground onto which enemies could be bound.
In the Heliopolitan Ennead (a group of nine gods created in the beginning by the one god Atum or Ra), Geb is the husband of Nut, the sky or visible daytime and nightly firmament, the son of the earlier primordial elements Tefnut (moisture) and Shu (’emptiness’), and the father to the four lesser gods of the system – Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys.
In this context, Geb was believed to have originally been engaged with Nut and had to be separated from her by Shu, god of the air. Consequently, in mythological depictions, Geb was shown as a man reclining, sometimes with his phallus still pointed towards Nut.
As time progressed, the deity became more associated with the habitable land of Egypt and also as one of its early rulers. As a chthonic deity he (like Min) became naturally associated with the underworld and with vegetation – barley being said to grow upon his ribs – and was depicted with plants and other green patches on his body.
His association with vegetation, and sometimes with the underworld and royalty brought Geb the occasional interpretation that he was the husband of Renenutet, a minor goddess of the harvest and also mythological caretaker (the meaning of her name is “nursing snake”) of the young king in the shape of a cobra, who herself could also be regarded as the mother of Nehebkau, a primeval snake god associated with the underworld. He is also equated by classical authors as the Greek Titan Cronus.
Some Egyptologists, (specifically Jan Bergman, Terence Duquesne or Richard H. Wilkinson) have stated that Geb was associated with a mythological divine creator goose who had laid a world egg from which the sun and/or the world had sprung. This theory is assumed to be incorrect and to be a result of confusing the divine name “Geb” with that of a Whitefronted Goose (Anser albifrons), also called originally gb(b): “lame one, stumbler”.
This bird-sign is used only as a phonogram in order to spell the name of the god (H.te Velde, in: Lexikon der Aegyptologie II, lemma: Geb). An alternative ancient name for this goose species was trp meaning similarly walk like a drunk, stumbler. The Whitefronted Goose is never found as a cultic symbol or holy bird of Geb.
The mythological creator goose referred to above, was called Ngg wr “Great Honker” and always depicted as a Nilegoose/Foxgoose (Alopochen aegyptiacus) who ornitologically belongs to a separate genus and whose Egyptian name was smn, Coptic smon. A coloured vignet irrefutably depicts a Nile Goose with an opened beak (Ngg wr!) in a context of solar creation on a mythological papyrus dating from the 21st Dynasty.
Similar images of this divine bird are to be found on temple walls (Karnak, Deir el-Bahari), showing a scene of the king standing on a papyrus raft and ritually plucking papyrus for the Theban god Amun-Re-Kamutef. The latter Theban creator god could be embodied in a Nilegoose, but never in a Whitefronted Goose.
In Underworld Books a diacritic goose-sign (most probably denoting then an Anser albifrons) was sometimes depicted on top of the head of a standing anonymous male anthropomorphic deity, pointing to Geb’s identity. Geb himself was never depicted as a Nile Goose, as later was Amun, called on some New Kingdom stelae explicitly:’Amun, the beautiful smn-goose (Nile Goose).
The only clear pictorial confusion between the hieroglyphs of a Whitefronted Goose (in the normal hieroglyphic spelling of the name Geb, often followed by the additional -b-sign) and a Nile Goose in the spelling of the name Geb occurs in the rock cut tomb of the provincial governor Sarenput II (12th Dynasty, Middle Kingdom) on the Qubba el-Hawa desert-ridge (opposite Aswan), namely on the left (southern) wall near the open doorway, in the first line of the brightly painted funerary offering formula.
This confusion is to be compared with the frequent hacking out by Ekhnaton’s agents of the sign of the Pintail Duck (meaning ‘son’) in the royal title ‘Son of Re’, especially in Theban temples, where they confused the duck sign with that of a Nilegoose regarded as a form of the then forbidden god Amon.
Maat or Ma’at was the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, law, morality, and justice. Maat was also personified as a goddess regulating the stars, seasons, and the actions of both mortals and the deities, who set the order of the universe from chaos at the moment of creation. Her ideological counterpart was Isfet.
In Sumerian mythology, a me or ñe or parşu is one of the decrees of the gods foundational to those social institutions, religious practices, technologies, behaviors, mores, and human conditions that make civilization, as the Sumerians understood it, possible. They are fundamental to the Sumerian understanding of the relationship between humanity and the gods.
Ma is a Sumerian word meaning “land” that in Sumerian mythology was also used to regard Primordial Land. The underworld Kur is the void space between the primeval sea (Abzu) and the earth (Ma). Which seem a likely pairing for parentage, in a fuzzy set of records.
Kummanni was the name of the main center the Anatolian kingdom of Kizzuwatna. Its location is uncertain, but is believed to be near the classical settlement of Comana in Cappadocia. It was the major cult center of the Hurrian chief deity, Tešup. Its Hurrian name Kummeni simply translates as “The Shrine.” Ma was a local goddess at Ma and a Phrygian alternative name for Cybele.
Asha is the Avestan language term (corresponding to Vedic language ṛta) for a concept of cardinal importance to Zoroastrian theology and doctrine. Its Old Persian equivalent is arta-. In Middle Iranian languages the term appears as ard-.
In the moral sphere, aša/arta represents what has been called “the decisive confessional concept of Zoroastrianism.” The significance of the term is complex, with a highly nuanced range of meaning. It is commonly summarized in accord with its contextual implications of ‘truth’ and ‘right(eousness)’, ‘order’ and ‘right working’. The opposite of Avestan aša is druj, “lie”.
Aratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list. Aratta is described in Sumerian literature as a fabulously wealthy place full of gold, silver, lapis lazuli and other precious materials, as well as the artisans to craft them. It is remote and difficult to reach. It is home to the goddess Inana, who transfers her allegiance from Aratta to Uruk. It is conquered by Enmerkar of Uruk.
Urartu, corresponding to the biblical Kingdom of Ararat or Kingdom of Van, was an Iron Age kingdom centred on Lake Van in the Armenian Highlands. In the early 6th century BC, the Urartian Kingdom was replaced by the Armenian Orontid dynasty. In the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 521 or 520 BC by the order of Darius the Great of Persia, the country referred to as Urartu in Assyrian is called Arminiya in Old Persian and Harminuia in Elamite.
Scholars such as Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt (1910) believed that the people of Urartu called themselves Khaldini after their god Khaldi (Ḫaldi, also known as Khaldi or Hayk), one of the three chief deities of Ararat (Urartu). His shrine was at Ardini (the present form of the name is Artin, meaning “sun rising” or to “awake”, and it persists in Armenian names to this day). The other two chief deities were Theispas of Kumenu, and Shivini of Tushpa.
Hayk or Hayg, also known as Haik Nahapet (Hayk the Tribal Chief) is the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation. His story is told in the History of Armenia attributed to the Armenian historian Moses of Chorene (410 to 490). Hayk and Haig are connected to hay and hayer (the nominative plural in Modern Armenian), the self-designation of the Armenians.
The name Armenia is connected to the Indo-European root Ar- meaning “assemble/create” which is vastly used in names of or regarding the Sun, light, or fire, found in Ararat, Aryan, Arta etc.
A Yamnaya skull from the Samara region coloured with red ochre
The birth of modern Eurasia began 5,000 years ago
Haplogroup J
Distribution map of haplogroup R1b in the Old World
Kurgan
The beginning
Was it mass migration, or rather a circulation of ideas that laid the foundation for the demographic map of Europe and Central Asia that we see today? The Bronze Age (about 5,000 – 3,000 years ago) was a period with large cultural upheavals. But just how these upheavals came to be have remained a mystery.
Assistant Professor Morten Allentoft from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen is a geneticist and is first author on the paper in Nature, expains:
“Both archaeologists and linguists have had theories about how cultures and languages have spread in our part of the world. We geneticists have now collaborated with them to publish an explanation based on a record amount of DNA-analyses of skeletons from the Bronze Age.”
Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family
Here’s where our modern languages came from
There are different hypotheses regarding the Indo-European family of languages. This fascinating animated map provides one demonstration of how modern Indo-European languages evolved over the past 8,000 years. The Indo-European languages are a group of more than 400 languages that contains everything from Polish and French to Icelandic and Hindi, and scientists have worked out that they all originally came from one single language spoken in the region of Anatolia, in present-day Turkey.
The animation, which was created by Business Insider’s science team, shows how the languages spread from Anatolia through farming to various parts of Europe and Asia, changing as they went until they eventually became the languages we recognise today. And it’s pretty crazy to think that such varied dialects all came from the same starting point.
The map is based on a seminal study led by evolutionary biologist Quentin Atkinson from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, which was published in Science back in 2012. In his research, Atkinson used the same computational methods that geneticists use to trace flu virus outbreaks to map the spread of language evolution around the globe.
To do this, Atkinson and his team looked at common words – such as hand, foot, mother, father, fire, water – from more than 100 ancient and modern languages, and then compared how similar these words were across different languages. They then used these similarities and differences in the same way that geneticists use DNA, to create a family tree of language. This allowed them to trace all the way back along the tree to find the root of modern Indo-European languages.
Watch the animation above, and get inspired by the fact that most of our ancestors started out speaking the same language.
